#racism mention for ts

[aropride]

i NEED her to disappear for 5 years and then write another reputationcore album . stop churning out albums every 5 months for the love of god

[inimikal-archive]

No  rping,  just  neurodivergent  info  dumps.  This  is  from  a  response  I  made  explaining  my  thoughts  on  Wesker  &  motivations  he  has  +  why  that  I  am  sharing  publicly  as  I  think  its  very  important  to  my  blog  &  portrayal.  Going  WARN  upfront  that the  N*zi  party  is  mentioned.  Just  briefly  touching  on  something  Capcom  said.  I  also  want  to  make  it  very  clear  that  I  DO  NOT  support  Wesker’s  views,  I  don’t  think  its  cool  to  kill  a  vast  majority  of  the  population  because  things  suck  or  anything  like  that,  lmao   &  I  don’t  believe  in  the  eco-fascistic  ways  or  the  eco/bio  terrorism  he  employs  to  achieve  & enforce  his  goals  against  all  human  kind  ━  I  do  not  condone  it,  like  OBVIOUSLY,  however  I  don’t  believe  Wesker  believes  in  what  Spencer  did  in  the  exact  way  he  did  &  so  this  post  is  merely  an  explanation  of  Why  Wesker’s  Like  That  Deluxe  Edition. Do  not  take  this  post  as  excusing  his  actions,  sympathising  with  him  or  whatever,  its  only  an  explanation  for  WHY  &  a  reference  for  how  that  works  on  this  blog  /  my  portrayal. ONCE  AGAIN  please  continue  reading   with  caution  because  as  mentioned  this  post  may  briefly  touch  on  some  sensitive  stuff  &  also  touches  on  some  popular  discourse  within  the  fandom. 

So,  anyway  Wesker's  Uroboros  bullshit  is  “interesting”  for  a  lack  of  a  better  term  in  the  sense  that  I'm  not  sure  he  was  doing  it  for  the  same  reason  someone  like  Spencer  was.  I  think  something  to  note  was  how  Spencer  was  just  ... Extremely  classist  &  racist.  He  hated  most  people  because  he  viewed  them  as  inferior  to  himself,  due  to  being  raised  with  extreme  wealth  &  privilege.  He  had  access  to  education   & comfort  that  others  did  not,  especially  in  his  time,  but  instead  of  viewing  this  as  a  privilege  granted  to  him  by  money  he  decided  to  view  this  as  himself  being  inherently  superior  to  everyone  else  because  why  take  accountability  for  your  privilege  if  it  means  acknowledging  you’re  not  better  than  everyone  else,  you  just  have  money.  He  was  in  an  age  where  this  kind  of  backward,  hateful  thinking  was  the  norm. Because  racists  &  rich  people  have  been  like  that  always,  basically.  

In  a  similar  way  to  Excella,  he  thought  himself  to  be  superior  to  others  out  of  pure  arrogance  &  with  Spencer  particularly  some  very  uncomfortably  real  world  prejudice.  Capcom  tried  to  sort  of  “hide”  a  lot  for  the  sake  of  game  sales  but  initially,  people  like  Spencer  were  supposed  to  represent  real  life  backward  ass  eugenic  ideals.  Spencer’s  own  shit  draws  from  the  same  places  as  the  kind  of  shit  Hitl*r  & the  N*zi  party  were  on.  It's  admittedly  a  direct  reference  according  to  Capcom;  the  nonsense  of  the  Ary*n  race  &   "the  superior  men”  is  all  there  particularly  emphasised  from  Spencer’s  ideals.  Capcom  have  said  this  is  what  they  were  going  for;  they’ve  even  gone  on  to  say  that  Albert  himself  looks  the  way  he  does  because  of  this  concept  of  the  “superior  man”  being  a  tall,  blond  hair,  blue  eyed,  pale  skinned  individual  that  Spencer  adhered  to.  Though  Capcom  did  dial  these  things  back  a  bit  references  &  allegories  for  these  things  are  still  clear  within  the  canon.

So  yes.  This  is  exactly  what  Spencer  was  going  for.  Wesker’s  appearance  is  supposed  to  allude  to  what  Spencer  actually  represents  &  what  his  intentions / goals  really  were.  So  while  Spencer  may  have  fully  planned  &  intended  for  Wesker  to  look  like  that  (& possibly  for  all  the  Wesker  children  to  look  like  that)  Wesker’s  looks  weren't  Capcom  condoning  Spencer’s  beliefs,  just  trying  to  clue  us  into  the  inspo  behind  his  bullshit.  This  is  also  shown  in  Alex  Wesker.  It's  not  a  coincidence  that  the  only  Wesker  children  we  know  of  &  get  to  see  are  two  tall,  white,  blond  people  with  blue  eyes.  Its  also  not  a  coincidence  that  the  “straight”  cis  man  was  the  apex  of  the  whole  fucked  up  project  via  capcom’s  attempt  to  clue  us  into  what  Spencer  represented.  You  can  find  implications  of  this  same  thing  in  characters  like  Alfred  &  Alexia  Ashford,  & again  it  is  not  a  coincidence  that  ALL  FOUR  of  these  characters  were  literally  created  by  Umbrella  heads.  Alfred  &  Alexia  are  literal  test  tube  babies  &  Albert  &  Alex  were  the  fruits  of  some  supremely  fucked  up  selective  breeding  programme.

As  a  result  Umbrella,  Spencer  & anyone  associated  with  that  circle  fetishized  Wesker  to  an  extreme  because  of  what  he  represented  to  them---  but  another  thing  to  keep  in  mind  is  Wesker  isn’t  Spencer  &  the  way  in  which  Spencer  actually  failed  is  that  he  didn’t  really  make  a  copy  of  himself  who,  despite  his  best  efforts,  believed  all  the  same  messed  up  shit  he  did, or  at  least  not  in  the  same  way.

This  is  how  I  personally  come  at  things  in  my  own  take  of  Wesker,  anyway,  so  though  it  is  almost  impossible  for  Wesker  to  not  share  some  of  Spencer’s  ideas  since  they  were  literally  programmed  into  him  from  birth  &  Wesker  didn’t  reject  Spencer’s  “New  world”  entirely,  he  tried  to  make  it  make  sense  BECAUSE,  IN  HIS  MIND,  stupid  shit  like  being  white  or  rich,  for  example,  does  not  make  you  superior  to  any  other  human  being.  Wesker  understands  that.  He  does  not  champion  for  genocide  toward  a  select  group  of  humans  because  of  some  shallow  prejudice.  Nor  did  he  intend  to  specifically,  personally  tailor  people  to  look,  think   &  act  any  certain  way  that  he  deemed  “superior.”  So  no,  Wesker   himself  does  not  hold  the  same  views  as  Spencer  in  the  racist,  classist,  messed  up  way,  per  se.

I  think  it's  interesting  how  he  talks  about  Alexia  in  his  report   &  his  own  anger  & annoyance  he  felt  toward  the  higher  ups  of  Umbrella  &   the  other  researchers  for  putting  her  on  a  pedestal  just  because  of  her  family  name  +  wealth.  She  hadn’t  done  jack  shit  for  Umbrella  to  be  applauded  the  way  she  was  (Unlike  William  Birkin)  but  the  researchers  couldn’t  get  over  her  because  she  was  from  a  well  known,  aristocratic  family  that  had  founded  the  company.  You  could  even  argue  from  things  in  Wesker’s  report  2  that  Wesker’s  disillusionment  with  Umbrella  &  his  ever  growing  contempt  for  it  & its  shit  started  as  far  back  as  his  time  in  the  training  school  which  is something  I  personally  believe,  particularly  due  to  his  friendship  with  William  Birkin,  who  is  implied  to  not  really  fit  the  “Umbrella  Mold”  outside  of  his  pure  genius  intellect.  Further,  Wesker  is  noted  as  one  of  the  few  among  the  Umbrella  staff  who  found  Spencer’s  desire  for  a  virus  to  infect  all  organic  matter  &  the  location  of  the  Akrley  lab  as  somewhere  that  could  rapidly  spread  infection  due  to  the  high  volume  of  organic  matter  the  virus  would  infect,  insane  &  dangerous.  

This  is  literally  where  Wesker’s  discomfort  &  suspicions  toward  Spencer  personally  began.  He  also  talks  in  his  little  note  about  Uroboros  being  beautiful  because  it  doesn’t  discriminate  based  on  shallow  human  prejudice. (  although  we  could  say  this  is  true  of  all  viruses,  which  is  a  thing  he  romanticizes  about  them  because  he  was  born  from  some  really  backwards  believes  that  he,  himself,  does  not  follow  &  as  a  biologist  he  finds  to  be  quite  stupid  & shallow.  But  do  keep  in  mind  RE  world  science  & real  world  science is  not  the  same. )

Which  we  see  with  Excella.  Excella  believed  she  was  worthy  because  she  was  beautiful,  rich  & powerful.  But  none  of  those  things  stopped  her  from  mutating  into  a  horrible  monster.  Urobous  wouldn’t  choose  people  based  on  how  pretty,  how  rich  they  were.     how  white, or  what  their  sexuality,  gender  or  religious  faith  was  ━  it  would  simply  choose  people  it  deemed  right  by  unique / random  genetic  make  up  &  this  could  be  anyone  of  any  gender,  any  faith,  any  sexuality,  any  race.  In  fact  it  is  noted  in  canon  that  the  only  other  humans  who  had  achieved  “god hood”  in  the  “same”  way  Wesker  had  were  black  Africans.  Thats  a  pretty  sexy  fuck  you  to  a  white  s*premacist like  Spencer.

Which  is  the  major  difference  between  Wesker  & Spencer.  Wesker's  hatred  of  humanity  doesn’t  come  from  a  sense  of  twisted  privilege  &  prejudice,  &  its  not  directed  specifically  toward  select  individuals,  even  though  he  was  basically  born  from  this,  due  to  being  one  of  Spencer’s  designer  babies.  Wesker  didn’t  grow  up  to  believe  skin  colour  or  wealth  made  you  inherently  better  or  smarter.  He  doesn’t  think  there  are  people  in  the  world  that  are  superior  to  others  because  of  shallow  bias  such  as  those.  With  Wesker  It  comes  from  a  really  weird  sense  of  altruism  cobbled  together  with  extreme,  contradictory  pessimism  from  everything  he’s  experienced.  Again  not  to  excuse  him  or  say  he's  a  good  person  bc  ultimately  he’s  very  twisted,  selfish  &  delusional  & hes  not  coming  back  from  that.  If  Wesker  ever  had  a  SLIM  chance  of  being  considered  even  “morally  ambiguous”  like  someone  like  Ada  it  was  lost  when  he  betrayed  S.T.A.R.S  &  lost  his  humanity. 

However,  Wesker  has  seen  up  close  &  personal  the  absolute  horror  humans  are  capable  of  inflicting  on  themselves  &  others  &  for  the  fucking  stupidest  reasons.  He  was  essentially  forced  to  participate  in  human  experimentation  as  a  child  (16-17)  to  the  ends  of  creating  horrific  B.O.W’s  that  would  presumably  be  used  by  the  world's  militaries  to  wipe  each  other  out.  In  the  name  of  human  pride,  greed  &  prejudice.  He  believes  that  this  is  pretty  much  all  humans  have  really  done  for  hundreds  of  years.  Kill  each  other,  steal  from  each  other,  &  fuck  things  up  for  the  planet  itself  &  every  other  creature  that  lives  on  it.  He’s  come  to  view  humans  as  flawed,  dangerous  creatures  that  if  left  unchecked  will  destroy  the  world.  However  again,  he's  not  trying  to  cull  or  cultivate  any  certain  group  of  people  because  of  a  fucked  up,  racist  sense  of  aesthetic,  unlike  Spencer  &  I  cannot  stress   this  enough  because  this  is  where  the  fandom  fucks  up  for  me. 

Furthermore !  Of  course,  Wesker  has  been  given  power  beyond  comprehension.  He  calls  himself  a  god  to  great  mockery  but  if  we’re  being  honest,  what  else  does  he  have  to  compare  himself  to ?  There  is  nothing  like  Wesker  out  there,  particularly  not   anything  known  about  at  height  of  his  activity  &  the  time  of  his  death.  Moreover,  I  should  mention   again  that  the  only  “beings”  like  Wesker  who  ever  existed  where  the  “evolved”  African  “god  Kings”  of  Ndipaya  mythology.   AGAIN  This  to  me  further  illustrates  the  fact  that  Wesker  himself  doesn’t  exactly  adhere  to  White  S*premist  ideals  &  his  entire  existence  is  more  a  dunk  on  people  like  Spencer  who  did,  as  Wesker,  a  white  man  obtaining  this  status  through  the  Stairway  of  the  Sun,  was  so  far  an  anomaly.  Meanwhile  we’re  aware  it  wasn’t  undocumented  that  black  Africans  were  able  to  achieve  god  status  through  progenitor  infection  as  per  Ndipaya  mythos,  Wesker  is  the  only  white  person  who  did  “”naturally”,  despite  Spencer  having  lined  up  HUNDREDS  of  specially  bred  &  selected  candidates  who  carried  his  racist  ass  aesthetic.  

 I  think  this  goes  to  show  Wesker’s  intentions  with  Uroborus   ( A  virus  engineered  directly  from  the  progenitor )  was  not  to  cleanse  the  world  of  any  select  race  or  races,  but  to  instead  wipe  out  the  vast  majority  &   leave  only  the  “Most  choice  humans”  ( his  quote )  to  evolve  &  inherit  the  earth.  These  humans  would  not  just  be  white  or  share  his  “”personal  DNA””  ( idk  what  ppl  are  talking  about  when  they  say  Urobous  was  somehow  only  safe  for  Wesker’s  DNA .... Its literally  got  nothing  to  do  with  Wesker’s  DNA.  It  was  JILL’s  antibodies  from  her  infection  with  T  that  was  used  to  engineer  it,  but  its  not  connected  to  her  DNA  specifically  either.  Thats  not  how  viruses  work. )  Anyway,  Urobous  was  about  individuals,  not  races. But  I  digress,  Weskers  powers  are  truly  extraordinary. There's  no  way  anyone  gets  power  like  what  Wesker  got  &  doesn’t  crack  in  some  way.   If  anything  he  was  holding  it  together  pretty  well  until  his  confrontation  with  Spencer  &  his  discovery  of  the  Wesker  project  which  is  what  really  sent  him  “over  the  edge”  in  my  opinion. 

None  the  less  Wesker  doesn’t  believe  he's  doing  something  evil.

"Every  day,  humans  come  one  step  closer  to  self-destruction.  I'm  not  destroying  the  world, I'm  saving  it!"  "War  and  pestilence  wherever  you  go!  Nothing  but  loathsome  humans!"

Some  of  the  stuff  he  says  in  re5  when  you  fight  him  shows  that  Wesker  thinks  he's  ultimately  doing  the  right  thing  here.  Again,  he's  given  an  insane  power,  him  alone,  of  course  he  feels  as  if  he  SHOULD  play  god  with  it  because  everything  up  till  now  has  shown  him  Humans  Are  A  Danger  To  Themselves  & Everything  Else,  plus  he  was  groomed  by  Spencer  &  umbrella  to  believe  in  things  like  Might  Makes  Right  &  Survival  Of  The  Fittest.  He  further  doesn’t  think  of  himself  as  god  as  a  ruler,  but  as  a  creator.

In  Wesker’s  head  he  was  chosen  to  be  the  Messiah,  he  is  the  hand  of  god  who  judges  the  corrupt  humans  &  sorts  the  good  from  the  bad  or  rather  “the  worthless  from  the  worthy”;  only  he  has  the  power  to  accomplish  this  &   this  is  how  he  makes  sense  of  that  power &  why  he  alone  has  it,  &  with  Uroborus  he  has  the  tool  to  strip  everything  back  to  its  basics  &  begin  anew;   "The  human  race  requires  judgment!"  “The  din  of  six  billion  screams  will  close  the  book  on  humanity's  ignoble  past.”  The  only  humans  that  would   be  left  alive  by  Uroborus  would  be  those  randoms  who  were  genetically  compatible  with  Uroborus  &  therefore  “better”  &  again  Uroborus  wouldn’t  discriminate  on  race,  gender,  sexuality,  class  or  faith  which  is  what  we’re  told  via  canon.

SO  yeah,  that  is  why  the  mass  human  extinction  event  lived  in  Wesker’s  head  &  why  he  went  that  way.  &  while  he's  WRONG  in  his  intentions,  his  motivations  don’t  exactly  come  from  the  same  place  as  someone  like  Spencer's  apparently  did,  HOWEVER,  its  not  wrong  to  acknowledge  &  criticise  Wesker’s  character  as  a  type  of  allegory  for  white  s*premacy  even  if  the  character  himself  may  not  have  believed  in  this  in  that  particular  way  &  thats  not  literally  what  the  text  of  the  story  is  displaying.  Keeping  in  mind  Wesker  believed  the  human  race   as  a  whole  was  unworthy &  he  planned  to  allow  the  virus  to  choose  which  individuals  had  the  correct  genetic  makeup  to  ‘evolve’  leaving  the  humanity  he  grew  to  hate  behind.

My  biggest  criticism  for  the  RE  series  is  that  in  the  RE  universe  it  has  been  established  there  is  humans  who  are  “”superior””  to  others,  or  at  least  its  very  easy  to  view  it  this  way,  which  is  what  muddies  the  water  when  it  comes  to  discourse  about  this.  While  the  story  with  Wesker  serves  to  show  that  these  “superior”  humans  are  not  necessarily  “Ary*n”  &  this  doesn’t  seem  to  have  been  Wesker’s  belief,  the  science  in  the  resident  evil  world  is  not  real  &  doesn’t  reflect  real  biology. HOWEVER,  that  also  being  said  the  RE  universe  has  already  demonstrated  with  Wesker  &  other  characters  who  were  able  to  “”evolve””  beyond  humanity,  that  having  genes  compatible  with  the  virus  or  parasite  or  what  have  you  was  pure  luck  &  isn’t  all  its  cracked  up  to  be.  There  is  almost  no  B.O.W  characters,  for  all  their  gifted  “”biological  superiority””  who  survive  to  live  normal  lives. Their  minds  &  bodies  are  eventually  destroyed  by  the  virus/parasite/whatever.  Even  though  Wesker  was  the  closest  thing  the  RE  series  ever  had  to  reaching  “”god hood””  aside  from  Mother  Marinda,  who  was  infected  with  a  whole  different  thing,  the  virus  was  STILL  destroying  him.  I  intended  to  write  a  post  about  why  I  believed  this  was  the  case ,  outside  of  y’know,  the  innate  horror  in  ones  body  being  hijacked  &  co-opted  by  an  invading  force  even  if  that  force  just  happened  to  give  you  neat  super  powers  for  a  short  time,  I  just  haven't  got  to  it  just  yet.  ( Update:  I  finally  did  it,  here  it  is )

Wesker  is  an  unhinged  bioterrorist  &  shameless  misanthrope  to  an  extreme,  but  NO   he’s  actually  not  a  white  s*premacist,  racist,  or  neo  n*zi   in  my  opinion  or  portrayal  BUT  yeah  he  is  a delusional  misanthrope,  he  is  NOT  a  good  person,  &  its  perfectly  fine  for  people  to  point  out  HIS  CREATION  BY  SPENCER  alludes  to  white  s*premacist  ideals  because  it  truly  does.  Its  not  wrong  for  people  to  be  uncomfortable  with  this  either,  imo.

He  was  designed   &  groomed  by  someone  who  had  an  underlying  racist  aesthetic  &  vision.  While  Wesker  seemed  to  not  believe  in  this  vision  in  quite  the  same  way  I  think  it  makes  sense,  from  his  POV,  why  he  tried  to  co-opt  the  idea  of  lower  humans  & better  humans,  into  “wicked  primitive  humans”  vs  an  enlightened,  evolved  race  of  godlike  beings  who  would  rise  from  humanities  ignorant  &  evil  ashes  to  claim  the  earth  &  make  it  a  better  place.  I  also  have  to  say  that  while  Wesker  seems  to  have  good  intentions,  or  at  the  very  least  he  likes  to  think  he  does,  the  reality  is  he’s  very  selfish  so  I’m  not  saying  this  isn’t  insane,  out  of  touch  &  delusional,  can’t  stress  this  enough  bc  another  thing  I  have  written  about  &  touched  on  briefly  is  the  fact  he  basically  never  saw  the  good  in  humanity  &  was  instead  lead  to  view  humans  in  a  very  negative  light.  Even  when  he  was  human,  Wesker  was  deprived  of  much  of  the  ability  to  actually  associate  with,  relate  to,  &  really  BE  a  human.  By  the  time  Wesker  was  free  of  Umbrella,  the  damage  had  already  been  done  &  there  are  VAROUS  events  through  canon  that  solidified   Wesker’s  views  on  humanity  as  opposed  to  allowing  him  to  see  more  than  what  he  had  experienced  &  beyond  the  insidious  idea  that  had  been  implanted  in  him  during  his  time  with  Umbrella   that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  “good”  people.  

SO  that  being  said  I  will  never  be  sympathising  for  him  or  trying  to  portray  him  as  someone  who  is  “”worthy””  of  “”redemption””,  &  I  do  not  hope  to  portray  him  as  someone  good. 

 I  study  why  he  is  what  he  is,  why  he  thinks  what  he  thinks,  how  its  wrong   &  maybe  “tragically”  misinformed  &  thats  kinda  the  purpose  of  this  portrayal  of  him.  Like  I’m  not  gonna  police  people  if  Albert  Wesker  is  their  blorbo  or  whatever  but  don’t  think  I  don’t  know  exactly  what  Wesker  is. 

 I  know  the  games.  I  know  the  canon.  I  understand  the  allegories,  etc.  Its  fine  if  you  take  away  anything  different  or  feel  uncomfortable  with  this  character  but  I’m  not  in  support  of,  excusing,  or  trying  to  support  anything  heinous  or  malicious.  I’m  just  an  rper  &  RE  is  one  of  my  hyper-fixations  &  I  am  playing  Wesker  because  he  was  a  huge  part  of  the  series  &  I  am  good  at  playing  shitty  evil  little  men.

[ Repost  from  here. ]

[flyatahighergame-arch]

   Apparently red heads are now oppressed because POC are always playing “canon red heads” in movies and television. What are y’all are fucking smoking? Genuinely. Talk to your dealer cause I think y’all were given a bad bout of herbs there. And I say that as a redhead for the record.

[lizzybeth1986]

A Brief History of Alternative Romances in Choices

Series - TRR's Alternative LIs: The "Romances" that Didn't Happen

TW: Mentions of OH2's handling of Rafael (though not in detail), racism.

To be clear, this introductory essay isn't directly related to the rest of this series. TRR operated very differently to the other Choices series' when it came to alternative LIs, so a lot of what I'll discuss here won't actually apply to its specific romance mechanics.

Still, it is important to explore what it means to give an LI an alternative romance in PB, and for that we need to look at what the approach to such romances were. Both in the past, and after TRR became popular. Looking into this gives us a general idea of which specific LIs got an alternative romance, why just them and not others, and what such developments said about the way the writing team viewed a particular character.

The Choices App was introduced in 2016, with three stories that were likely meant to cater to different audiences. Out of the three, the crime drama Most Wanted was the only series that focused on a single romantic pairing.

The other two - The Freshman and The Crown and the Flame - presented players with multiple romance options for their main character(s). TCaTF split its narrative between two main characters - Kenna Rys and Dominic Hunter - exploring both Kenna's fight to gain back and then expand her kingdom, and Dom's discovery of his heritage as a member of the Fire Tribes. Even though Kenna and Dom could be paired romantically, they had other potential LIs. Notably, Kenna had 6 (Dom, Tevan, Raydan, Annelyse, Val and Diavolos) and Dom only 2 serious contenders (Kenna, Rose, Sei, Will Jackson all had romances with him. Of these four, Rose was eliminated early on in the series, and Will was a last-minute addition at the end of TCaTF3). TCaTF didn't seem to focus much on the love lives of these LIs outside of Kenna and Dom, until Book 3 in 2017 - and of the cast only Raydan and Tevan seemed to get hints at other potential romances (with Aurynn and Zenobia, respectively).

Unlike MW and TCaTF, The Freshman's focus zeroed in on just one character. It was the first series to feature a customizable MC, whose experiences and choices alone would move the story forward. The original three-book series featured romances with three LIs - Chris Powell, James Ashton and Kaitlyn Liao. By the third book, two more were added to the roster - Zig Ortega and Becca Davenport.

You could choose a boy/girlfriend by the end of Book 1, and change partners in Book 3 if you weren't happy with your first LI and/or wanted one of the newer ones. The first three books didn't really have any alternative romances for the LIs themselves, but all that was about to change (for two LIs) in The Sophomore (released in 2017).

(Screenshots from the UnruleLee Gaming Youtube Channel)

In TS, the MC had the opportunity to pair James and Kaitlyn up with other side characters if she wasn't dating them. Kaitlyn begins to show an interest in Annisa, the new keyboardist in her punk band. Similarly for James and Reyna, a member of the editorial staff of Hartfeld's student-run newspaper. Both pairings only resulted in long-term relationships if the MC encouraged them enough, and she had both free and paywalled opportunities to do so.

What is noticeable at this point is that there are three LIs that are not given romantic alternatives - Chris, Zig and Becca. Though members of the fandom did headcanon certain pairings that had some potential in canon (such as Zig with his roommate Aaron and Becca with Madison), the narrative itself never indicated any romances for these characters, preferring perhaps to focus on their romance with the MC.

A possible reason for this could have been popularity. At the time, some in the fandom theorized that Chris was the most popular of the OG LIs, and that Zig and Becca garnered popularity quite quickly when they emerged as options in TF3. So there would be a lot more investment from the teams in charge of the book to focus their writing on their MC-centric routes.

James and Kaitlyn received criticism and sometimes outright hate from fans - some of whom complained ad nauseum whenever options to help them with their professional lives or personal development came up, while being largely accepting of the more popular LIs' conflicts. So it is possible that the writing focused on giving these two LIs other romantic options, in a way they didn't need to for the other three.

However, giving James and Kaitlyn other love interests didn't affect their overall writing. The Freshman series handled the balance between all five LIs with a deft hand, ensuring that every LI had adequate growth, development and attention within the narrative. Whether they were single or paired with the MC, all of them had unique stories that allowed the characters to make mistakes and learn from them, to confront their fears and conquer them, to deal with their problems in a realistic way.

James' story wasn't simply stuck on Reyna - he spent most of TS honing his writing skills and developing a novel, and later co-writing a play with the MC. Kaitlyn's story wasn't simply about romancing Annisa - it was about dealing with her insecurities, building her band from scratch, getting over her fears of Natasha sabotaging her again, being comfortable in her own identity. Their romances with Reyna and Annisa felt like bonus side stories that we could get if we were interested enough...not the be-all and end-all of their stories.

Alternative romances for LIs didn't happen in all books. Many didn't bother with one, especially those that wound up being one-book stories. Some books that ended with an elaborate wedding for an MC and their LI also seemed to do away with this too, mostly by eliminating other love interests or making their presence scarce (for instance, in RoE, the other two LIs for "Katie" virtually disappear when she make her choice, only featuring in brief cameos and mentions). Alternative LIs often featured in series' that were successful enough to get three books, so more often than not, two-book series' like #LoveHacks would barely even have the time to develop new characters to date any LI.

The books that did end up following this route often lasted long enough for at least three books (with PM and ATV standing as exceptions), and likely had more than 3 LIs. In certain books the pairing was paywalled, and in others you could choose a number of free options to encourage the romance.

After a while a pattern seemed to emerge in who got such romances. Sometimes the alternative LI was given only to the "forgotten fourth/fifth" of a series (the extra LI who would get the least attention) - sometimes the "lucky" LI would be a character that was NOT a late addition to the roster of LIs, but an OG LI that just got so little attention and buildup it became obvious that they were given an alternative because the writers couldn't be bothered to imagine what their romance with the MC would look like. One can confidently say this because very often the "alternative romance" was written with more thought than the romance with the LI or any of that character's individual problems, and it started becoming very obvious that the writers felt more comfortable imagining the playthroughs where such LIs could only be friends with the MC.

Once the Choices app found its "core demographic" and started churning out more books, there were more and more cases of the writers indicating who their favourites were, early on (through providing a higher frequency and quality of diamond scenes for certain LIs, and through their interviews before the book releases). Which resulted in those characters getting more popular and others less so. And it was this "popularity" that often impacted writing choices and treatment.

Such a system of storytelling results in a vicious cycle, where a team will either assume already that one particular character will rake in more money, and give them a head start over others...or where a writer - through intentional or unintentional bias - could push forward a "favourite" front-and-center to the detriment of other LIs.

Here's a list of books that wrote alternative romances for certain LIs (except for OH, but I will get to that one in a minute). See if you can figure a pattern in at least most of these books:

High School Story 3 (2018) - Caleb Mitchell (Jade Ali), Emma Hawkins (Luis Marino), Aiden Zhou (Cameron Levy)

High School Story: Class Act 3 (2019-20) - Skye Crandall (Lilith Vidal)

Desire and Decorum 3 (2018-19) - Luke Harper (Cordelia Parsons)

Perfect Match 2 (2018) - Sloane Washington (Khaan Mousavi)

Across the Void (2018-19) - Zekei Sentry becomes a love interest both to the MC as well as their sibling Eos Elara.

Endless Summer 3 (2017-18) - Quinn Kelly (Kele), Sean Gayle (Michelle Nguyen). (Technically, almost every LI does get some potential in terms of alternative romance...but Estela and Jake's pairings feature mostly in the AUs shown by The Endless (Sean x Michelle, Estela x Zahra, Jake × Yvonne are all shown - among other AU romances). Quinn and Sean's romances, however, are solidified in the MC's handfasting ceremony with their LI, where the couples could share a romantic look and Michelle even leans on Sean's shoulder.)

In theory, the alternative romance could sound tempting. It allows the MC to demonstrate care and concern for an LI regardless of their romantic interest, or lack thereof. It may potentially give the reader the surface comfort of seeing an LI they rejected lead a happy life with someone they can love. It seems like a win-win situation for everyone.

But it becomes apparent when you comb through both the romantic and friendly versions of these characters' stories, that something is not quite right. I will take two LIs here as an example.

(Screenshots from Abhirio's YouTube Channel (D&D3) and Danni Stone's YouTube Channel (PM1))

Sloane Washington's major character points in Book 1 involve her love for coding and astronomy, as well as her strong bond with her mother. Book 2 (2018) does very minimal work on either of these; once Khaan enters the picture, almost every diamond scene she gets focuses solely on the possibility of a romance with him. The narrative doesn't even focus the reunion with her mother Kim on her!

Likewise, many, many complaints emerged during D&D3 (2019) about the way Luke's wedding was handled. His mother - who is supposedly very close to him - only features in letters and one memory about his brother Ezra's gambling addiction, doesn't have a name, is given a used sprite that isn't even dressed in period-appropriate clothing, and never even attends his wedding. On the other hand, his alternative romance with Cordelia was explored in excruciating detail, to the point where the two are given a wedding and the promise of a future child. It is almost as if the writers couldn't bear to envision him marrying their precious MC.

There are two major things that become apparent the more you observe the above list of LIs who got alternative romances.

One, the LIs that don't get "alternative LIs" are often white and male (Chris in TF, Micheal in HSS, Ernest in D&D, Meridien in AtV) with a couple exceptions. The writing takes care to weave their issues and conflicts into the MC's larger narrative and try their best to ensure that we become invested in whatever they have going on in their stories. A good example of this are Ernest's larger storylines about his stepson Percival and his destroyed house in Book 3. On certain rare occasions (especially when there is no default white man in the LI cast), an ambiguously brown man who can be easily exoticized fits into this role of "Creator's Pet" just as well. The writers spend enough time on perfecting their romances with the MC that there is literally no time for anything (or anyone) else.

Two, in all but two of these books, the LI that gets their 'alternative romance' most often...is a black love interest. On the rare occasion a white character is included in such a list, it is often a canonically queer white woman (only if she is an LI tho, because white female side characters have attention and love practically showered upon them) who ends up in such a position (Emma and Skye from the HSS series'). But besides that, it is usually the black LI - who btw is often one of the first people we interact with and written as the most approachable - that bears the brunt of a narrative that makes it clear that it isn't interested in exploring their story on their terms.

That is why Luke's mother never gets a name or his younger brother is hardly seen. That is why Sloane is sidelined in her own reunion scene with her mother. That is why most of the romantic playthroughs featuring these characters feel so scarce on the details or the nuances, while their white male (or ambiguous brown male) counterparts chew scenery in their own and everyone else's playthroughs.

In narratives like these, the "alternative LI" is no longer the sweet, sensitive, "they deserve happiness" route that it pretends to be...but more a sign that the writers are uncomfortable with writing said LI in a romance with the main character, and the audience they most want to cater to is uncomfortable reading it.

When the intent behind such a supposedly-nice gesture becomes so rife with bad faith, what is the end result? What happens when an 'alternative LI' - a route that seemed to promise happier futures for certain LIs - becomes more of a tool to punish them for lack of popularity? What happens when the company that created this system stops pretending to value the diversity they claimed to pride themselves in??

What happens - is that you get a story like Open Heart 2.

A lot of the stories I mentioned above were written within the space of 2017-2019. In fact, most of the books in the list came out in 2018. During these years Choices was gaining popularity in the choice-based storytelling business, and romance stories were on the rise. Many Choices Books at this point had at least 3 LIs - 2 male and 1 female - and some had more. And most of the writing teams managed to get away with treating their LIs of colour (specifically their black male and female LIs) badly without significant backlash.

At the time of OH2's release (2020), the book had four LIs in its lineup. Ethan Ramsey - like most white male LIs - was meant from the start to chew scenery. Comparatively the other LIs: Jackie Varma, Bryce Lahela and Rafael Aveiro were at a disadvantage and often it felt like the team seemed to work more on writing them out rather than incorporating their stories organically into the narrative. Rafael particularly seemed to suffer from this in the first book, and by this time making one LI the "forgotten fourth" became accepted as the norm. So when OH2's cover showed every single LI except for Rafael, there was a sense of mild alarm.

It soon became clearer, however, that something more insidious was afoot. The book itself began with a funeral, and Rafael was missing in the first chapter. When Rafael stans finally did get to see him, in Ch 2, they would be hit with a nasty surprise - the LI who was utterly devoted to their MC and introduced them to his beloved Vovó, would be shown dating a childhood sweetheart without any explanation or warning.

(Screenshots from Gabbieschoices YouTube Channel)

When asked about the sudden shift, PB's response was cryptic...but also ominous to a fandom who had already seen all kinds of unfair, horrible treatment meted out to a wide range of black characters by then:

For all intents and purposes, the relationship between the MC and Rafael appeared to be over, with very little by way of closure. Even the few diamond scenes they would get later would show friends-only options. As the book went on, it became frighteningly clear that the narrative was planning to do away with Rafael. At one point, Rafael even spoke of leaving the city altogether, and there were hints towards a far, far worse manner of departure in later chapters.

(Most people who were playing at the time remember PB's plans for OH2 Ch11-12, and the backlash, response and hiatus that followed. If you weren't there at the time, PB's Statement following the backlash - "Representation at Pixelberry" - briefly alludes to the issues that people in the fandom had with the writing decisions OH2 took at the time)

As most of us know by now, this ended with significant changes in the existing story - ensuring that Rafael lived, reinstating him as an LI and having Sora break up with him so they could disappear from the book altogether. Post 2020, no further attempts have been made the "alternative LI" route for LIs.

Part of this could be attributed to the change in format. With the introduction of VIP-access and single-LI books, the need to prepare an alternative romance for an LI has reduced greatly. Other factors too could have contributed: the extra romances becoming too much work, possible fatigue among fandom towards such pairings leading to less revenue from diamond options featuring them, certain books having only one or at most two LIs.

No one in PB has spoken of Rafael's treatment or the inclusion of Sora in OH directly...but since OH2 featured the last ever alternative romance till date, it would be safe to say that perhaps even PB recognised that the Sora story crossed a significant line. In any case, this practice hasn't been adopted in recent books in a while.

At the outset, one could argue that the Rafael and Sora situation is extremely different from the "alternative romances" I have listed so far. Unlike all the others, the intent behind introducing Sora was to deny the player a Rafael romance altogether, rather than present Rafael himself with an option. Whatever the problems with the other LIs, at least they got a romance with the MC!

However, I do think the Sora story was rooted in what the alternative LI route had become over time. It may have started with good intentions - with the idea that perhaps if the numbers showed certain LIs being ignored, it may be kinder to give them happy futures with other people who would love them. As long as the alternative romance was just a part of the character's larger story (as is the case with James and Kaitlyn), it felt less harmful and more sweet.

But when the ability to rake in finances becomes a marker of a character's worth, when the writing itself rigs the game from the start of a series, when both PB and fandom find themselves incapable of examining their own biases with regards to said characters...the purpose of such romances becomes warped.

At such points, it becomes more about establishing that this character's romance with the MC is not worth exploring. About delivering the message that it's okay to drop this LI - that as a player, you had more chance of getting your money's worth if you did drop them.

To be more clear, the Sora story is a culmination of what happens when a certain type of LI is set up to fail from the start. There are less opportunities for them to win the reader over, less time, less options to bring in money. In such an environment, the "alternative romance" becomes about considering certain types of LIs "less worthy", and spending far less time developing their MC-route - because as far as the "data", "money" and "finances" are concerned, they hardly have one!

The culmination of such a system, is that the worth of an LI can be brought down so much that the writers become comfortable with killing a non-main and non-white LI. Sora, as an alternative LI, was a way to write Rafael himself out as a romantic option, not a route meant to move his own story ahead. Sora is what happens when PB pushes forward favouritism and racism to the point where the writing is emboldened to take such steps for LIs of colour (particularly black LIs) they deem unpopular.

Which is why - in the present climate - the elimination of such a system is a marginally better prospect. If we cannot trust such a seemingly "nice" process, what's the use of having it around?

This essay series isn't about all of PB's stories, however. It is about TRR. Still - it is essential to explore and understand the original intent behind using these romance routes, and the history of how such storylines developed over time. Considering that TRR released from 2017-2018, analysing the significant patterns of that time places the writing of TRR's alternate romances into context.

TRR's approach to the alternative LI route has been different from other books, in very specific ways. One of the most prominent ways was that the narrative featured romantic options for the three OG LIs, and briefly attempted one for a fourth (the closest parallel to this in another book would be Endless Summer). Even popular love interests were presented with romantic routes, in case the MC wasn't going to marry them.

Does this mean that TRR managed to avoid falling into the same rabbit hole of bias and favouritism, that the other books did? Not by a long shot. The same problems just manifested in very different ways - and in this essay series, I will discuss those problems, romance route by romance route.

Next - Liam and Olivia: When You Prefer the Side Character to the Main

[samsno1]

Liberty or Life

Billy Butcher x Gn!POC!Reader

hello i fucking suck at titles? anyway, i wrote this at the beach while i was getting tanned because i never found a butcher fic with this exact vibe so i said "yk what, imma write ts"

ill maybe do a part 2 if i feel like it

Sumary: The reader finds something about Liberty and wants to check it out. Butcher thinks it's just too easy to be true.

Warnings: SPOILERS THE BOYS S2, english isn't my first language, kinda mean butcher but he means it well, poc!reader (wrote it with latinos in mind but i didn't mention us especifically so dig in), use of y/n, HURT/COMFORT, blood, violence, gore (?), cursing (i mean its the boys), hom*lander mentioned (yes he gets a fucking warning), i didn't make the reader speak neither spanish nor portuguese, up to ya, i had no idea how to transcribe his british accent but i did my best. NOT PROOF READ

WC: 3.3k

You can learn how to change the "Y/N" for your actual name here

if you enjoy it please lmk!

Of course it was a trap. A fucking trap.

While confined in your apartment, searching more and more about Stormfront - AKA Liberty - after the encounter with the poor woman that ended up losing her brother to her hands right in front of her eyes you found a clue, something that could help take her down.

According to the document you spent the whole night reading with several cups of coffee and a killing migraine, there was a file hidden in a building close to Vought's that gave away all the racist behavior of Liberty's past (and present). It would be more than enough to make the people mad.

Hell, it made you mad. An immigrant trying to bring down an incredibly popular Supe, who would definetly get rid of any of your people out of North American territory? Definitely a perfect situation for your ass, not dangerous at all.

But still, if not you and The Boys, who? Even if Butcher's focus wasn't her it was for you, as a personal offense.

You knew racism wasn't foreign in the Superhero industry (or in the United States as a whole, you lived it constantly) but executing people of color is borderline a genocide and it was happening right under the peoples noses. God, praised even.

You scoffed at the screen of your computer and picked up your phone to call either Butcher or MM about what you found, to see if they could back you up on the mission.

You dialed Butcher first, putting your cell to your ear as you got up from the chair, your legs needing a stretch, as you walked to the kitchen and opened the fridge to get a beer. It is 6pm somewhere you thought.

As you popped open the can the familiar british accent hit your ears and you subconsciously smiled to yourself.

“Wha’ d'ya want, luv?” He asked, voice gruff, clearly woken up by your call. You imagined his tousled hair. Maybe he was shirtless.

“Did I wake you?” You asked, taking a sip of the bitter drink on your hand, the alcohol much appreciated in your stomach.

“Maybe” He said and you could hear the teasing smile on his face.

“I'm sorry, I just called to say I found something on Liberty…Stormfront…whatever her fucking name is” You clarified as you mindlessly play with the seal of the beer can with your index finger “There's a building nearby that hides some documents about her, y'know, the shady stuff. I wanted to go there tonight, see if I find it”

You hear shuffling in the other line with a grunt, assuming he was getting up from the bed – or wherever he was sleeping.

He didn't speak for some moments letting you hear his bare feet walking around his apartment.

“I don’ know abou’ it Y/N, how'd ya even find those?” He asked, his voice hesitant.

“Butcher, I'm a hacker and Vought's system sucks ass compared to what I've already done” You explained “I just got in, easy”

You can't see it but he bites his bottom lip on the other line. He was still skeptical, would it really be that easy to find stuff on a Supe like Liberty? He knew your abilities, hell, he admired it but he was always extra careful when it came to you.

“Really?” He asked and you could feel the way his eyebrow raised and you scoffed “Okay, I'm jus’ doubtful, Liberty hasn’ been talked abou’ in ages an’ ya find stuff…easy?”

“What, lost faith in my abilities?” You teased. You finished your beer and threw the can in the thrash, it hitting the bottom of the thrash with a loud thud “C'mon, it will be easy. In and out”

“I'm not sure it's a good idea, luv” He said and you frowned, sitting on your island in the kitchen, your feet dangling off the edge.

“Y'know I called to warn you I was going, not to ask permission, you ain't my father” You mumbled with the intention to let him hear it, the tone in your voice serious “Just wanted to know if you wanted to come with”

“Nah” He replied, his voice loud and clear over the phone and you make a shocked confused face to yourself. Did he not want to keep you company? “Ya ain't going, it's risky. It looks too easy. Nothin’ with these cunts’ easy” He said firmly and you scoffed in disbelief.

“Uh, yeah, I am, alone or with you, I'm busting into that building” You said just as firmly as he did “You know how I feel about that racist cunt” You cursed. The more time you spent with Butcher, the more you started using his British vocabulary. Cunt was the most common but Bullocks also came with from time to time.

“Of course I know but still, we have to be smart abou’ it” A tip of anger laced his voice. He often got pissed at how stubborn you could be and this was one of those times.

“I'll be in there tonight. Goodbye Butcher” You said and turned off the call, not wanting to hear him going on and on about your ‘recklessness’ as he called it, scoffing and smashing your phone down on the island beside you, running a hand through your head.

You liked when Butcher was caring towards you, it was what made you start catching feelings for the man in the first place, but sometimes he just treated you like a kid, as if you could do nothing without him lecturing you beforehand.

On the other side, Butcher groans angrily as he notices you turned the call off and he throws his phone on the bed. “Fucking ‘ell” He curses to himself as he rubs his temples with his thumb and index fingers.

He knew you wouldn't drop it. You were a force of nature, but impulsive. Sometimes he loved it, sometimes he hated it.

This was time he wished you just listened.

The feeling in his gut that something wasn't right remained for the whole day, his head barely able to focus on anything else as he was too worried. Worried about you.

At about 8pm he was nervously biting on the side of his thumbnail trying to ignore his phone besides him as he told himself over and over he should call you to see if you were fine. The other (minor) side of him telling himself he should drop it. You were strong, you could pull it off and he didn't want to bruise his ego giving in to your stupid idea.

Fuck it.

He checked his phone to see a message from you. The address to said building. He smiled to himself and shook his head. Maybe you weren't so stupid after all.

He grabbed his keys and put on his black trench coat and a gun in the waistband of his jeans.

As he closed the door behind him he rushed to his car, wondering if you were okay or if something happened.

At the thought of you hurt he hurried his feet on the pavement to get faster to his car. To get faster to you.

He drove above the speed limit after he tried calling you 3 times, all going to voicemail. He cursed to himself as he arrived at the building and took in the sight in front of him.

The windows were busted and, as he got in, he could clearly see bullet holes on the walls and his heart started beating faster in his chest. Please be okay, please be alive, I can't lose you too.

He moves through crumbles and remains of the walls, taking his gun in his hand and moving slowly, aware of any danger.

The more he walked without any sight of you, the more worried he got.

As he went down the stairs to the basement he heard a low groan and his eyes widened and his whole body turned towards the noise.

The basement was a complete wreck. Shelves down on the ground, glass and books everywhere.

Then he saw you and his heart sank to his stomach. You were sitting down against the wall, a huge stab wound in your side where your hand was trying to keep pressure, which clearly wasn't enough as he took sight of the amount of blood beneath you and in your hands.

He took a quick look around and rushed to you, kneeling in front of you. He took notice of how pale you looked but still, at least, half conscious.

He held your shoulder with one hand and pressed the other over your wound making you wince in pain. His face was serious, angry. He didn't know if it was at you or at whoever did this to you but he was livid.

“What the fuck did ya do?” He asked through gritted teeth, not expecting an answer but you put your hand over his forearm, the blood staining his coat and smiled. You fucking smiled, that beatiful smile that could make Butcher melt from miles away.

“You came” You said, your voice low and hoarse and then you went into a coughing fit and Butcher held you to his chest.

“Easy, easy Kid” He said as he took a deep breath so as to not get emotional. He took your hand and pressed it over the bloody wound “I'm gonna need ya to keep pressure in this while I get ya out, c'mon”

You nodded weakly and pressed it as hard as you could while his other arm wrapped below your knees and lifted you up, the movement making you hiss.

He carried you out as quickly as possible as he placed you in the backseat of his car as he went to the driver's, turning the vehicle on and sprinting back to his place.

At the feeling of being safe, the adrenaline started wearing down and you were suddenly very tired. Your eyes closed as you felt your consciousness slip away and then you didn't feel anything anymore.

When you woke up again you were laying on a bed that wasn't yours, in a room that wasn't yours. Your head was pounding and breathing hurt and you let out a groan.

As your vision focused, you looked around and took in the place until your eyes caught a glimpse at someone on a chair besides you. Sleeping, with his arms crossed over his chest, was Butcher and you started remembering what happened.

You mindlessly put your hand over the neatly done bandaging in your stomach and looked at Butcher again.

“Butcher” You said, your voice low and weak. The man besides you stirs awake, his eyes opening slowly.

As he notices you're awake he gets up and places a hand on your forehead hurriedly, breathing deeply as if it was a relief seeing your eyes staring back at him.

“You're awake” He said, looking between your eyes.

As you looked back up at him guilt started pooling in your heart and you looked away, you smiled sadly.

“You were right” You mumbled and he pulled his hand away from your face and sighed angrily. He brushed a hand trough his face, his nostrils flaring up.

He didn't say anything, just stared at your bandaged wound, lost in thought, so you continued talking.

“They jumped me, some people that worked for Vought. I knocked some down but one of them caught me. Thay ran away after that, leaving me to die, apparently” You explained, still refusing to look at him “I'm sorry.”

At that, he looked at you again and you looked at him. He was angry and sad, his face gave it all away and you felt small under his stare. Maybe because you were laying down but still, you felt helpless.

“Why didn't ya fuckin’ listen to me” He said, his voice low, apparently calm and that was the most scary of it all. You preferred that he yelled at you, screamed in anger and never looked at you again then to act like this.

“You– I fuckin’ told ya” He said squinting his eyes as a hand goes to nudge at the wound and you grunt as he aplies pressure to it “Look at where your stupidity gotcha”

Tears prickle at the corner of your closed eyes as you grab at his wrist to pull it away from your skin, your own hand covering the bandage protectively as you glare at him. You knew you fucked up but what was going on with him?

“What the fuck Butcher!” You exclaim through your teeth as the pain eases away “I know I should've listened to you, I already said I'm sorry!”

“Sorry don’ cut it!” He finally yells at you, making you shrink as he points a finger at your face. “When I arrived the color on your face was gone! You were basically dead as I carried ya out! There was blood everywhere, Y/N”

He turned his back to you, and sighed loudly. If it was possible, smoke would be coming out of his ears.

You felt your eyes water. He seemed more than angry and you hated that you were the reason that he felt like this.

“How long was I out?” You asked lowly as you forced yourself to sit with your back against the headboard, making a face at the sting in your belly.

“About 52 hours” He replies, his back still turned to you and your eyes widen in shock and look at his back.

His head was down and his hands were both on his own waist.

You nodded even if he couldn't see you, more so to acknowledge it to yourself. As you let the information sink in, Butcher leaves the room, slamming the door behind him.

He couldn't let you see the tears forming in his eyes as all his thoughts went back to your limp body on his arms and the hours he spent beside the bed, holding your hand and talking to you while you were in your coma. He wanted to hug you, hold you and he couldn't bear the idea of losing you. Not when he hadn't told you anything about what he wanted from you.

How everytime you looked at him with those bright eyes he felt like he could drown in them, how your smile was the reason he got out of bed every morning, how your voice was like a beautiful tune that was hypnotizing. How your lips always provoked his deepest desires to emerge.

Seeing you bleeding broke him apart further then it should've and that scared him. He had sworn to never care for someone this much since the last time he felt this his heart got torn to pieces by Becca.

He shouldn't. He couldn't.

But he also couldn't help that every time you touched him he felt his skin warm up and his heart accelerate.

He pressed his forehead to the shut door and mentally cursed himself over and over again, he didn't know what to do until he saw the handle turn and the door slowly open.

You opened the door, a hand on your waist to ease the pain as you looked at him teary eyed.

He made a confused face with slight worry but then you choked out a sob and threw both of your arms around his neck and started to cry against his shoulder.

Butcher was shocked until his arms eased themselves around your lower back. One hand rubbed up and down as he felt your tears wet his shirt.

“I was– so scared” You admitted, shaking with your sobs and gripping his shirt tightly under your fingers to make sure he wasn't going anywhere. “It was so cold. The only thing that kept me breathing was when…when I looked at my phone and you– you were calling” You sobbed harder after each word, your body trembling.

“When you left voicemails…I was happy because if I…” You swallowed “If I died I would at least hear your voice one last time”

His grip around you tightened and one of his hands went into your hair as he adjusted your head into his chest, his jaw above you as he closed his eyes. He felt a tingle in his heart at your words, a spark of love lighting itself up in bad weather.

“Shh, you're fine now, you're ‘ere, alive, I'm 'ere” He whispered comfortably as you kept crying and he thought of all the things he wanted to tell you.

“And I know I was stupid. That I– That I should've listened but I want her dead, I want Homelander dead and I just–” You choked “I just wanted to have control over something, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry”

He gently swayed both your bodies side to side, a comforting hand rubbing at your scalp. Butcher didn't say anything, just letting you get it all out until your breathing calmed down.

The tears had stopped flowing and now you were just sniffing, your cheeks puffy and your eyes red. He grabbed both sides of your face and pulled you back to look into your eyes, a hint of a smile on his face.

“Feel betta’?” He asked and you nodded slightly and he sighed, closing his eyes for a moment before looking into your beautiful orbs again. “I'm sorry too, luv, I really am”

You opened your mouth to protest but he silenced you before you could speak.

“I shouldn’ have said those things t'ya, I was just– Angry, but not at you” He gently brushed his thumb over your cheek, drying a stubborn tear rolling down your face. “I was angry at myself”

Apparently you made a face at him because he gave you a thin-lipped smile.

“I was angry because I knew you were going anyway an’ I let'ya go alone. If I was there, this wouldn’ have happened”

He took a deep breath before continuing.

“I was scared that I'd neva see ya smile again, see your beautiful eyes look into mine, hear your stunnin' voice” He hugged you again, his hands wrapping you in a warm embrace. He didn't want to let you go in fear this was a dream and he buried his face in the crook of your neck before finishing.

“I was scared I would neva be able to tell ya tha’ I love ya” He mumbles in your neck as his arms tighten around you and a shiver runs through you.

William Butcher loved you.

Your hands grabbed at his shoulders and pushed him back lightly as you looked into his eyes.

Your expression doesn’t give anything away and Butcher starts to feel sick as he thinks he's going to be rejected. He prepares for impact.

Then you smile.

Your smile wide because you feel warm. Warmed by his love. Diferently then the cold night at the building.

Your hands travel up to both sides of his face as you pull him in. You go slowly, waiting to see if he'd pull back but he surprises you with a strong, passionate kiss, making you gasp in surprise.

The world feels small around you as his hands grab at your waist, careful not to hurt you as you pour out every feeling you bottled up through the years in that kiss.

And Butcher was consumed by you, by every single inch of you, by every part of your being. Your voice was a melodic chorus to his ears, your lips a river to which he was drowning in, your body the perfect fit for his.

When you pull away from each other with rushed breaths you're still smiling, your hand caressing his beard covered cheek.

“I love you too” You whisper and Butcher smashes his lips against yours again, making you giggle in surprise.

Now that they had each other it was them against the world. Nothing could tear them apart because they were made for one another, the flames of their souls dancing together in a single rhythm.

They didn't know or didn't feel it but ever since the first time they had locked eyes the destiny made their paths merge into a single one at one point in both their lives. And this was it. Two souls bound, forever.

☆

☆

☆

A/N: Notes and reblogs encourage me to keep writing. Feedback makes those writings better. Thank you very much for reading. Xoxo

[crumblinggothicarchitecture]

tbh it's not just insinuation of you doing some class discrimination that is gross, other things listed by them as accusations towards you are at least equaly as disgusting, if not more. "ableism, classism, racism" i'm sorry, i didn't know swift is disabled, poor or non-white, oh wait, she is neither of these. yes, grammar policing can be used to discriminate, but when it's used to punch down people, who actually belong to these categories.

also there are literal college courses focused solely on swift's writing, but you as someone with english lit degree can't do some grammar analysis on your private blog? is other anon as offended about these courses and sending them emails about how discriminatory it is to pick apart someone's writing? of course not, because the only people, who would spend money an that type of a course are rich ts fandom cultists, who wouldn't say anything, that might be actually critical about swift. also anon doesn't actually care about picking apart someone's writing, they only care about swift's writing being put under some criticism, because otherwise they would be sending offended emails to every school or critic for the crime of literary analysis.

it's almost as if swift trained these people with her never ending victimhood and copying, to look in her name for any struggle to steal whenever she is being criticized. not an ounce of critical thinking or just common sense to look at it for a second and realize that these don't apply to swift. "so yeah not a good look" yeah, but not on crumblinggothicarchitecture

Sorry, this took a minute for me to get to <3. I appreciate this perspective. I didn't even mention that in the ask, but it's so weird to accuse someone of being racist, ableist, classicist just because I analyzed Taylor Swift’s poor grammar. Swift is the one who calls herself a writer and claims she one of the best writers on the planet right now. So, it stands to reason that I would use my English Degree to analyze her grammar if, for any reason, I felt she actually wasn't a good writer.

If I say that someone isn't a good writer. I'm not going to just state that and leave it there. Obviously, it's on me to effectively argue my point. I do, however, have ways to argue my point. So, naturally, I will get into some linguistic or literary criticism of Swift.

I'm not sure that Grammar-Anon really understands what I am trying to do here. Besides, I think you're right about them not knowing that linguistics is an actual academic discipline. Are the people who dedicate their whole lives to studying and teaching grammar also being racist, ableist, and classicist? LOL.

The English language is such a beautiful medium for expression. It's one of my favorite languages, among many, to read poetry in because it has such an amazing breadth of vocabulary words with which to express emotion. In most linguistic study, it is the mechanism of language itself that scholars pull into study. Fascinating stuff- and people study it all. There are scholars whose life's work revolves around understanding AAVE dialects, or understanding Louisiana Cajun dialects, or understanding mid-Atlantic dialects, or Jewish-New York regionalisms. This is just a short list of regionalist dialects I've personally read about in the last few months- however, the list is expansive and covers much more than just the American continent. For instance, there is a whole subset of academic study centered on the post-colonialist use of English Language in India. Scholarship in this field often takes into account feminist theory, Marxist theory, or Post Colonialist theory. (Again, I just listed my favorites, but there are many more theoretical lenses through which people study the impact of grammatical praxis).

This is something people make into their whole life's work- it's not somehow offensive to participate in low-stakes grammatical analysis of Taylor Swift.

You're right, some people just can't handle the idea of putting her work under the microscope because it would impact their narrow-world view if someone said actually Swift is a bad, unoriginal writer. Imagine the meltdown if twitter Swifties found me :O

I've been giving Swift a pass for years, mostly because I would dismiss her music as simple pop-music. It's meant to be fun. I would listen to it, because it was an easy break from the dense, challenging stuff I would read for classes. However, now I'm going to tear apart Swifts work. It's the principle of the matter now because she seems to think she's the greatest American poet to ever live. I am both bored, as summer approaches and I have nothing else to work on, and frustrated that she's pretending to be a poet.

She's not a tortured genius. She's a trust fund baby who got as far as she did on mediocrity because of her parents' money. We "wouldn't last an hour in the asylum" where they raised her- Ha. She wouldn't last a second working a part-time job after school to pay rent. I get upset when people accuse me of some type of classist's attitude purely because I use my education when they know nothing about my story. I got a lucky break.

Education is my road out of abject poverty. Nothing else was going to save me. I did it all on my own, with the help of a bunch of scholarships, lucky breaks, and really wonderful teachers. Now, in my real life, I am the teacher now. I want to root for people. I critique for the sake of wanting people to improve their skills.

Taylor Swift's arrogant attitude and unwillingness to face criticism just gets under my skin. So, what do I do? I'm not fond of ad hominem attacks. Instead, I will make some good arguments about her bad writing and have some fun in the process. :)

So yeah- I guess it's not a good look.

[unbotheredalwyn]

All Kayla Nicole has done is live her life and the swifties have done nothing but attack her. There’s even a “snark” subreddit about her which is nothing but obsessed TS fans who follow her every move to hate on her. It’s really ridiculous. Between that, the racism toward the Ginny & Georgia actress and how quickly her friendship with Zendaya (her one token black woman friend of note pre-Ice Spice) ended I just TS and her fans to stay far away from black women! Their behavior when it comes to us is weird and disgusting.

Isn't it also worth mentioning that todrick hall (a black gay man) has not been seen with Taylor in a longggggg while.

They were besties as far as I can remember and he helped her during you need to calm down and etc etc.

Ice spice needs to carefully and quietly exit the friendship just like zendaya did because they will become brutal to her. They will probably say Matty was right about ice and shit ☠️

Also Kayla nicole is hot and she deserves better than that gremlin man

Can they also leave Beyonce alone too?

I hope ice gets out of this unscratched highly doubtful but yeah

[randomnameless]

Well, looks like even a broken clock's right at least twice a day; an edelstan on twitter was pissed a few days ago when they saw that Cyril's Meet the Heroes description described his time “working” for House Goneril as “some odd twists and turns”, pointing out that such vague wording was most likely used due to a combination of 3H not caring about Cyril's backstory and IS needing to sanitize Hilda's image so she can sell better in Heroes.

Hahaha,

It's funny because on SPE some people made memes, and you have angry people in the comments, being angry and basically lying or making up facts to either diminish Cyril's uh, "working conditions" in House Goneril, or try to sweep it under the rug to give some "Rhea BaD" takes again

Like :

(meme where Claude doesn't criticise his allies for keeping slaves, but blame racism on the lady who saved the child slave)

"Faerghus is the most violent country because they killed the emperor and enacted a coup while being backed up by mole people" to talk about that time when Loog got his independance

"Rhea BaD bcs Cyril can't learn how to read if you don't support him with Lysithea" even if he writes in the Post TS regardless of recruiting Lysithea or not

"Claude tries to talk to Cyril out of fighting but Cyril drives to a suicide charge with Rhea's blessing so Rhea BaD" in GW, with the source being, idk, since the person who came with that take never sourced it

"Rhea BaD she used the regicide in Faerghus to get rid of her political enemies" you mean the dude who tried to kill her?

"Supreme Leader wouldn't be able to continue warring if Rhea DeD bcs else she would be invading people and would lose public support" like the Supreme Leader? From the land of MAGA? Lose public support?? If she invades nations to restore Adrestia to its glorious past???

"Cyril never said he wasn't eating well in house Goneril" but the JP line says he was always hungry in PAlmyra and Fodlan before coming to the Monastery...

Anyways, as expected, even if FEH tries to sanitise some of Fe Fodlan's most, uh, contentious points, we will always have discourse because some people just prefer their fanon to canon, and while I can understand them to a degree (look Willy is basically fanon at this point) it's always hilarious to see people refuse to engage or even consider that the game they "love" says X when they prefer Y.

When it comes to, in general, Church related characters or Kingdom related characters, we see a lot of discourse like this popping up because while FE Fodlan shat on them (to an extent, for the Church related characters) FEH has to give them the minimum spotlight they give to other characters of the franchise, so yes, Hilda's popularity most likely is the reason why Cyril in MYH just had some "odd twists and turns" (tfw Begnion Senators aren't as popular :( so Muarim was mentionned to have been a slave) but his voiced lines has him mention he was captured as a "war prisoner"...

Putting everything it adds up and we have : Cyril was captured as a war prisoner when he was 11-12 by the Gonerils, was hungry there, complained about "work being hard" there (when Cyril doesn't complain at all in GM despite the huge workload he has!), and implies to Mercedes to have been mistreated in House Goneril because he was Almyran (which matches Hilda's prejudices in her C support about Almyrans).

Why is Cyril's backstory so "discourse rising" then?

Is it because Rhea BaD cannot rescue a child from slavery from a popular character's family/household? Or because Hilda's laziness and preference to let other people do her chores looks especially wrong if we take into consideration that those "other people doing her chores" at home might be children "kept as prisoner of wars and fed twice per week"? Or because it reflects badly on Claude (in both games) who wants to end discriminations and prejudices by getting rid of the institution that rescued an abused child, while working hand in hand with the family that abused said child based on his origins?

(lol@the "but Faerghus BaD" bonus point in the earlier SPE thread I mention, I don't even understand why it was brought up lol)

Back to your post, it's hilarious how this edelstand was pissed becayse FEH whitewashed Cyril's backstory to maybe sell more Hilda alts, when Pat'n'pals try their hardest (in FE16, Nopes and even FEH!) to "alter the script" to shit on Rhea, Dimitri to make Supreme Leader alt'able.

Maybe there's hope for this twitter/X stan?

[wind-on-the-panes]

TL;DR: A 23 year old woman died on Taylor Swift's concert and Taylor has done exactly NOTHING about it. That's right, NOTHING.

If you Swifties aren't going after Taylor Swift for not doing ANYTHING for her fan who passed away during her first concert in Brazil, 23-year-old Ana Clara Benevides, you need to be better informed about the gravity of the situation.

Taylor Swift made some shallow instagram posts on how SHE was feeling about Ana's death, without even mentioning her name. And then she stopped talking about it. Neither she or her team offered anything for Ana's family, who had to get a loan to transport her body back to her town. ANYTHING. Not even her name on a stupid instagram post.

People are noticing how caring and attentive she is with USA fans who have gone through strife in her concerts and even that sick fan she wrote a song to. And people are, correctly, increasingly suspecting Taylor Swift isn't doing the same for Ana Clara due to pure racism against a "nonwhite" country. (between quotes because that's a 100% USian way of seeing the world)

If you are a TS enjoyer I'd invite you to learn about this very preventable tragedy and make a point on criticizing Taylor Swift for her attitude so far. What she's been doing since Ana Clara's death is becoming unforgivable by the minute. It's one thing to write a sloppy note focusing on your own feelings in the heat of the moment; it's another to not do anything at all for your fan who died at your megaconcert days later.

Whether Taylor Swift is civilly or criminally liable for Ana Clara's death remains to be seen by the Brazilian Justice system. What is happening is completely beside this, and her silence and inaction will only pile on the thesis against TS in the future.

But this is about demanding your idols to be responsible for the things they ultimately provoked. Taylor Swift ultimately hired everything that made the concert that killed Ana Clara. Even if she hadn't, it would've been the bare minimum to show compassion and respect for her. Which didn't happen.

Is that your idol who talks about "empathy"?

[ashsostrange]

lemme say this. y'all if you're cool, then we're cool. if you're not weird then there's never gna be an issue LMFAO i promise you.. this is probably the funniest shit ever bro. this wasn't a "follow the leader" situation. ts was a group project and we got an A mf + thanks.

it's really so very simple. me n my friends finally peeped the truth and that's that. lia planted bait (a general statement) and here come miss averagegirlie to save the day when nb even mentioned bree! that "girl" is inactive and only lifts a finger when sb "tries" her "friend."

i can't believe i didn't see earlier that these hoes are the same damn person. 🫢

to anyone with common sense: a few quick scrolls on miss average's account n you'll see what we do. making a whole other acc to defend yourself every time smthn happens is insane. that's literally the same mfkn person like no way 😭 she can keep denying it on both accounts, it doesn’t make it any less true. y'all don't see her sending herself them self support anons too? they don't even try to hide it these days like.. that's pathetic. at least change up the way you type. 🙃 you can't preach unbothered then be bothered on a burner. you can't call other people insecure when this screams insecurity. let's say this ain't her, right?? it's still very embarrassing to have an entire blog dedicated to fighting for sb who said y'all aren't even friends. this isn't normal behavior either, bro was bothering the gwiles mfs in the tag for DAYS! we're preaching "unbothered" n "idgaf" though right? unbothered when they almost ran you off? i thought she was finally learning to ignore the bs but nah, she's gna go let off some steam on her burner for days at a time 😬 A HOBBY IS DUE!!!

applying this knowledge, i've peeped other things lol. messy anon inboxes, showing support to people who royally fucked up (literal racism), then watering it down to "drama." you got caught tf up. we see you faker n i'm so sorry you're upset about it. the truth always comes out. womp womp frl.

anyway, i had multiple laughs last night nd so did the rest of my gc. she can keep lyin' if she wants to. it's between her and the good lord up above, amen.

idk what's in this tumblr air bc i've never seen the typa behavior i've seen on here on any other app/platform. don't be weird and there will never be an problem! 💗

[jewishbarbies]

I know it’s stupid to be upset Beyoncé went to ts movie premiere but I am like gurl ts goes against everything you stand for she literally doesn’t care about her fans calling you racist slurs she dated a racist man like I know it’s for pr but damn it kinda makes me feel crazy for not liking ts

“it makes me feel crazy for not liking ts” that’s the point. it’s meant to gaslight you into thinking she’s done no wrong and that it’s okay to be a fan of hers because beyonce “approves”. all that it is is another loud and obnoxious pr move. like why wait all these years to mention her if she’s so influential to taylor? “she’s been a guiding light throughout my career” *has never mentioned her or been seen with her once in her entire career* this bitch really made a statement as if beyonce is “breaking rules” and “defying industry norms” to be cool or creative when it’s literally bc she’s black. everything she does breaks rules bc she’s black. she’s a black woman in the music industry, second only to michael jackson, and the racism swifties spew at both black artists explains my point very well. this whole thing is so tacky and gross.

[thezfc]

"I’ve always had a feeling Tom doesn’t actually take criticism very well in general. He’s probably one of those people who really just excelled at a lot of things all his life and throughout his career and then he got OVER THE TOP criticism for TS and especially the GG speech....

I think anon's right. He can't really deal with criticism and rejection. And when that happened for the first time in his career he curled in on himself and never recovered. He's been a different person ever since 🐍. Sometimes when I watch old stuff with the still confident Tom, it is almost painful to see how distanced he has become and how he now always looks a little afraid in public. I guess he has started to take himself and his brand too seriously at some point."

Everyone stop and give the crazy Zawe hero-worshippers the attention they're demanding, because someone screenshotted this and sent it to everyone's favorite Tumblr troll: drwhohiddles, and now those crazy fake fans are losing their minds over a couple of opinions they don't agree with, because apparently they never matured beyond middle school and thus never learned how to get along with those who disagree with them. And somehow they've taken the above and linked it to the "Tom is depressed" theory and ... racism against Zawe. Their ability to drag racism and Zawe into every internet conversation is truly impressive and I would admire this ability if I didn't feel so sorry for these people because they must truly lead sad, uneventful, and depressed lives to keep doing this constantly to complete strangers on the 'net. It's funny how they point fingers at us all the time for exchanging a bit of gossip about a few celebs, when here they are acting far worse then anything we've said on here. And can someone please explain what the hell Zawe has to do with the above mentioned because I'm still struggling to understand that leap. Also, I see nothing racist or derogatory towards Zawe in the above mentioned so again, I need an explanation here because I don't speak crazy. Zawe is a grown-ass woman who does not need you and your little gaggle to defend her especially if you're going to continue trying to defend her from something that is barely an issue because 99% of the fandom loves her, and the constant false racism accusations are immature and makes you look like the boy who cried wolf. Yes there are a few actual racists out there, but they are on Twitter and I'm pretty sure Miss ZFC has them blocked on here, so kindly crawl back into the hole from whence you came and leave us to our gossiping and theorizing. You should know what those things look like since you people do EXACTLY the same things on your own blogs.

I was going to delete this but then I decided to point out that you’re basically doing the same thing that they do and then yelling at them for five paragraphs about it. Just ignore it. I don’t care. I never look. Let them get all up in arms and their panties in a twist about every single thing that is said on this blog but you don’t need to go over that blog and then get your panties in a twist and come back over to mine and report it. So I’m posting this as an ask to all of you to not do this anymore.

Let’s pretend they don’t exist. Everything is better that way.

[thicc-grian]

@b0b3rt0s1mp you were asking for the Grian discourse so... (These aren't really related to the CC, well one of them, as Niki's discourse also wasn't)

Doing this on a side-blog because I don't really wanna just ramble about this on main.

So, we have Watcher Grian and ATUS discourse. Should we draw Watcher Grian in the most common fanon designs if it's based off of ATUS knowing what the author did? Some people say it's boring too and people only care about Watcher Grian and not anything else (There was a fase some months back where people just complained about Watcher Grian. It did not win and the fandom kept with it but there was) (I am not arguing for this just telling what type of discourse exists)

Then we have YHS/TS and well, it's existence. Although this one is less on Grian he still was in it. Yandere High School was a series that had a lot of young viwers but the themes were definitely not younger viwer appropriate and there were no trigger warnings considering how much suicide / manipulation / torture / a lot of other shit it had. The lack of awareness for the kind of audience makes things a lot icky now. There are some other things to consider of course. Grian was a main character but the videos weren't on his channel and it was not him who edited them. Most problems are due to Samgladiator who not only was harassing young fans but also fucked over CC!Grian, CC!Taurtis and all his crew but that... Is a long story. You don't hear a lot of this discourse because Grian fans don't speak too much about it besides "Grian canonically has sex on Thursdays", "Grian had a non-binary partner at some point" and "Grian went to highschool in Japan" comments. People who watched YHS and TS will tell you not to watch it and specially don't watch on YouTube because Sam makes money out if it.

Posts about this situation (warnings for mentions of rape, suicide, homophobia and racism):

Also a very minor discourse but I have seen it so I will talk about it. Some people argue Ariana Griande shouldn't be popular because she is "a trans woman caricature". I've seen trans people say they don't agree with this stance however.

[thecaffeinebookwarrior]

Monster of the Week: The Undead!

From spooky scary skeletons to the original zombies, let’s have a look at the undead who have risen around the globe! This will not include vampires (which I have already compiled a post on) or ghosts (which I plan to compile a post on.)

Note that many of these can best be understood -- or only understood -- in their original cultural context, and I encourage you to continue your research if the lore interests you.

Skeletons/Skeletal Creatures

I am, for whatever reason, enthusiastic about skeletons. There’s a drama to them. They look like they’re perpetually grinning, or grimacing, which makes them oddly relatable. As an artist, I’m always thinking about them as the framework for poses. 

More importantly, there’s one in all of us -- sorry if that made you uncomfortable -- which makes them a universally recurring being in global folklore. Let’s take a look at just a few.

Gashadokuro

Literally translating to “rattling skull,” the Gashadokuro is also called Odokoru (giant skull) or simply “the hungry skeleton.” That basically tells you all you need to know. 

These big boys (and I mean REALLY big) wander around the countryside at night. Their name derives from the eerie rattling noise produced by their giant skulls. As chill as this may sound, the Gashadokuro is not actually chill at all, and if you come across them they will not hesitate bite your head off. This may seem like a jerk move, since they don’t even have a stomach, but they need the energy of the living in order to sustain themselves.

Like most undead fellas on this list, the Gashadokuro has its origins in the real world. They are thought to originate from the mass-graves, usually of those who died under violent or inhumane circumstances, the supernatural byproduct of countless skeletons. 

The first Gashadokuro was thought to have originated after a specific bloody rebellion, in which the bereaved, sorceress daughter of a samurai summoned a giant skeleton from the mass grave of the rebelling soldiers and used it to attack the city. Queen behavior, if you ask me.

Santa Muerte

Image Source

Let’s conclude this portion with my favorite skeleton (excluding Baron Samedi, who doesn’t count, as he is often depicted as a man, or a man with a skull-like face), the goddess/folk saint Santa Muerte.  

I still have a lot to learn about the rich folklore surrounding Santa Muerte, but to my understanding, she was born of a combination of pre-Columbian Indigenous religions and Mexican-American folk Catholicism. 

Depicted as a skeleton in beautiful, feminine attire and considered to be embodiment of death, Santa Muerte is a healing and protective figure. She is beloved by legions of worshippers, despite condemnations from the Catholic church, and symbolizes a culturally positive relationship with death. 

Despite appearances, she is a life-affirming figure.

Zombies and Reanimated Corpses:

The Draugr

When we hear “zombie,” we don’t traditionally think of “Norse mythology.” And yet, the Nordics had their very own zombie mythos, boasting some truly terrifying undead.

It is said that they first emerge from their graves as little more than wisps of smoke and a stench of decay, before adopting a humanoid form that boasts superhuman strength, the ability to change size at will, and the ability to shape-shift. 

They aren’t mindless -- far from it. They boast an anthropomorphic intelligence, which makes them all the more dangerous.  

As to what drives them from their graves? Jealousy and bitterness towards the living. Relatable, honestly. 

The Jiangshi

(Note: I wish they were all as adorable as the one in this gif.)

This Chinese hopping corpse may have evolved into more of a vampire by Western influences, but it was originally far more zombie-like. And a unique zombie at that. 

Due to rigor mortis, the Jiangshi hops stiffly from place to place, holding its arms straight out. What’s even more singular is their origin. Try to guess. Go ahead, try. You won’t be able to.

The Jiangshi is what occurs when a bereaved family, lacking the proper funds to send their loved one’s body back to their ancestral land for burial, hires a necromancing corpse driver to reanimate the cadaver and guide it as it hops back to its resting place. They’d travel at night to avoid or minimize decay, either prodded by a stick or to the beat of a drum.

Other ways to create a Jiangshi include improper burial, suicide, or possession.

Looking upon a Jiangshi is said to be bad luck, and presumably very unpleasant. However, the real problem is their insatiable appetite. 

But fear not: if you see an unhealthy looking fellow hopping towards you with pasty, possibly decaying skin, you can protect yourself with mirrors, the hooves of a black donkey, or the wood of a peach tree. They can also be scared off by the sound of a crowing rooster, though that would require a bit of planning, and the cooperation of the rooster in question. Which, knowing roosters, is unlikely. 

Haitian Zombies

All legends of the undead have roots in real tragedies, but this one is particularly upsetting -- and the source of the zombie legend in the Western world today.

The enslaved people of Haiti believed that death would set them free, sending them back to an idyllic version of their homeland unburdened by colonialism. But only if death came naturally. Suicide would turn them into mindless husks, carrying out the drudgery of their captors. A haunting parallel to the practice of slavery itself. 

The concept was introduced to a contemporary audience by the 1932 film White Zombie, which sees a white “voodoo master” (who clearly didn’t know anything about the actual Voodoo religion) using witchcraft to create obedient slaves. He eventually uses this (ahem) “”voodoo”” on a white woman to try and force her to fall in love with him. 

With the term “zombie” in public consciousness, it became an applicable allegory for all of society’s ills, and can now be used to refer to anything from mob mentality to consumerism. But few are as haunting and as disturbing as its origins.

Videos on zombies: 

The Origin of the Zombie, from Haiti to the US

Where Zombies Come From

100 Hundred Years of Zombie Evolution in Pop Culture

Best Contemporary Zombie Movies*

*That I know of. Will update with more.

Night of the Living Dead - Though White Zombie introduced the term, it was arguably this film that popularized zombies as we know them today, particularly as an allegory for herd mentality and consumerism. Its successors, including Day of the Dead and Dawn of the Dead, prove similarly influential. 

The Evil Dead Trilogy - Established that zombies can be fun, while also serving as an allegory for various societal problems. Also features undead that are refreshingly ravenous and evil without necessarily being mindless.

The Re-Animator - These days, the average zombie movie pushes the bounds of creativity is “make ‘em faster!” The Re-Animator’s take on the genre, however, would make Mary Shelley proud. Based loosely on the Lovecraft story, “Herbert West - Reanimator,” the films greatest triumph is its ability to have fun with its grisly premise, and compel the audience to have fun, too. It’s also a cautionary tale about why it’s important to be careful while getting a roommate. 

Shaun of the Dead - I’m not kidding. This film is great, and shows that you don’t need a serious tone to be heartfelt, scary, or provide a thought-provoking social commentary. Way back when I was a sixteen-year-old college freshman, I turned up to class as a zombie cheerleader, and my psychology professor recommended Shaun of the Dead to me. She’s a woman of impeccable taste, and it did not disappoint. 

28 Days Later - Before Cillian Murphy gave us Tommy Shelby, a gangster so pretty he could give Al Capone a sexual identity crisis, he was proving his mettle in the zombie-addled UK. For 2020 reasons, watching him wander the abandoned streets of London with a questionable haircut feels very topical. Add a stellar performance from Naomie Harris, and there’s a reason it sent me into a bisexual panic it’s considered a modern classic of the genre. 

Little Monsters - An egregiously underrated flick, featuring a kindergarten teacher (who happens to be, you know, Lupita Nyong’o) protecting her class during a zombie outbreak. A must watch if you want a zombie movie with a powerhouse lead, a happy ending, and perhaps the most badass kindergarten teacher in cinematic history. 

[zagubionywilk]

feels great to be told by an old professor that he confused me and another person of color student of his because    “    we all look the same    “

[thelegendofclarke]

bitter-badfem-harpy reblogged your chat and added: 

This is literally the same argument as “you can’t stop me from being a racist scumbag because it’s not technically illegal” like no but it is socially unacceptable and as a member of a decent society I will not accept it.

“I am going to ship which ever fictional characters I want to” and “I am going to be a racist because I can” are not the same argument.

I mean, you do you. I’m not your mom and I’m not gonna tell you how to live... But they’re really, really not.