#the only person who is ever allowed to write footnotes

[blackbird-brewster]

Meta: Jemily Queerbaiting

With the huge influx of posts saying 'Jemily is gonna be canon', I really appreciated seeing this post because OP was completely correct. I didn't want to write an entire dissertation as a reply, so I'm making my own post with my personal opinion on this. (All sources are noted in footnotes)

Before I began this rant, for anyone who thinks this is anti-Jemily. It is not. I have shipped Jemily for 18 friggin years and that's never going to change. This post is specifically my thoughts about queer baiting.

First off, I need to note that the showrunners (and the cast members who use social media) KNOW what a huge queer following this show has and that's why we got pansexual Tara Lewis in S16 [1]. Which, in itself, was SOOOOOOO important!!! Our first canonically queer main in SIXTEEN seasons was a middle-aged Black woman!!! That's phenomenal. (The fact it was horrible rep, because they instantly ruined her relationships once her queerness served it's plot point is a whole other post entirely)

In my opinion, the 'big Jemily moment' Paget posted about on Twitter [2] (and AJ hinted at during a recent IG live) is simply queerbaiting to get people to watch S17. I know a lot of you are newer to the fandom and I love your enthusiasm, I really do, ship and let ship, but listen, let's be real, Jemily is not going to be made canon. The showrunners aren't going to suddenly say (after 17 seasons) 'Surprise, Jemily is endgame'. This show has never cared about queer rep and now that CBS/Paramount have already ticked their queer rep box with Tara, they won't be in any rush to add any other characters to it.

Please buckle in, I've got a lot of thoughts on this matter --

What is Queerbaiting?

If you aren't aware of what queerbaiting is, here's a good definition:

Historically, queerbaiting has carried two meanings: the first is an act of aggressive heterosexuality to shut down queer subtext on screen while still teasing and catering to the queer audience in advertising, public relations, and fan engagement strategies; the second is an existing homoerotic tension between two characters played up on screen while met with derision by the professionals behind the scenes. [3]

The Medium article quoted here is from 2017, a time when parasocial relationships were really starting to take over social media. In 2024, actors are now only a mention or tag away online, they have direct conversations with fans, and this process has allowed for an even deeper form of queerbaiting.

Oftentimes online, actors are asked directly about certain ships and while some ignore these questions (usually to avoid breaking their contracts or other repercussions), others (looking at you, Paget) choose to instead tease fans about queer ships. She's done this for years upon years and if I've learned anything in the past twenty-years of existing in fandom spaces it's this -- don't hold your breath. In it's original meaning, for something to be deemed as queerbaiting there had to be malicious, or at least, purposeful intent to string queer fans along by teasing them with suggestive content about the ship in question, while knowing this ship will never come to fruition in canon.

The thing to remember is, Paget and AJ aren't the only ones who know about Jemily shippers -- the network and showrunners are well aware of this ship too. When networks/showrunners figure out they have a strong sapphic fanbase, they love to use that to their advantage to get more viewers and higher ratings. Queerbaiting is a goldmine to keep fans watching long running shows, look at Rizzoli and Isles, Supergirl, and OUAT for examples of this.

Jemily and Queerbaiting:

Ever since Emily joined the BAU in S2 (2006), there have always been fans who ship JJ/Emily (shoutout to the old LJ forums!). Way before celebs were just a tweet away from fans, back when all our fics began with disclaimers so we wouldn't get sued by networks, we went to great lengths to keep our fanworks far removed from actors/showrunners attention.

As far as Jemily goes, this reply from Paget in a 2009 interview with TVGuide.com [4] (which has now been deleted from their site unfortunately, but there are quotes on Tumblr still [4.a]) confirmed some fans' worst fear -- the actors had found our fanworks online.

TVGuide.com: Of course, a band of fans want her to hook up with Hotch.

Brewster: I know! I didn't realize that fans make these videos on YouTube? A.J. Cook sent me a hilarious one that made it look like Prentiss and J.J. were having a secret lesbian affair. You know, when Hotch was blown up in the SUV, we shot this scene where he's in the hospital and I'm standing next to him, looking at his bleeding ear. Our director came in and said, "Paget, you're looking at Hotch like you're in love with him. It looks really weird." So now, every day, Thomas [Gibson] and I flutter our eyelids at each other.

This was the first time I recall anyone acknowledging Jemily shippers publicly and at the time (Jan 2009), the show was still in Season Four (just before CBS fired both AJ and Paget [5]). Paget genuinely said it's 'hilarious' that fans shipped JJ/Emily. Even now, I'll see people say 'We know Paget and AJ have seen Jemily fanvids, so they obviously ship it too' -- but those same people rarely acknowledge the full context of the original answer. Paget not only thought JJ/Emily were 'hilarious', but then she doubled down and turned her reply back to how she and Thomas liked to play up the chemistry between Emily/Hotch.

While no one can say for sure which video it was that AJ sent Paget, just knowing they were watching JJ/Emily fanvids sent a bit of a shockwave through the femslash side of the fandom. To some it felt like an invasion of privacy, fanworks are by fans for fans -- knowing the cast were poking around in fandom spaces added an extra layer of worry around what we fans were posting online. Fifteen years ago, it used to be quite taboo for actors to outwardly discuss shipping or other fanon for whatever show they were in, and we fans were usually comfortably removed from the actors altogether.

Of course, now it's the norm for fans and actors/showrunners to co-exist online and interact with one another. This connection has opened new ways for shows to queerbait their fans. Pretty much every show has some form of social media account now and there is no doubt that the people running those accounts keep up with the most popular ships and hashtags. Not to mention that actors are constantly barraged with questions about whether they ship their character with x,y,z, or whether they think a ship should be made canon, etc. These interactions only serve to benefit the shows themselves, because whether the conversation is for or against a certain ship, it's all just free publicity (Why do you think CM now has a TikTok account?)

Every time AJ or Paget say anything about Jemily, the queer side of the fandom loses their minds. But this has been going on for YEARS now and every single time, it turns out to be nothing but social media hype and queerbaiting. Remember this AJ post? [6] Or what about the notorious reply by Paget to a fan, where she talks about how she and AJ held hands under the table 'for the shippers' [7] I've seen this cycle over and over again, so perhaps I am cynical, but I'm not getting my hopes up that Jemily will ever seriously be canon.

It's widely known now, after both Kirsten [8] and Paget [9] have talked about it, that there was an early idea where Prentiss was supposed to be queer, but that was ultimately scraped before it ever made it on screen. For context, please remember, this show has been airing for nearly twenty years. It began in 2005, during the highly conservative Bush administration. Queer people didn't have rights in the US, we couldn't get married, we were rarely protected under discrimination laws, and we could even be fired for simply being queer (in some states). Diverse queer representation on screen was extremely limited to things like 'The L Word' and 'Queer as Folk' (both aired on Showtime, so they were behind a paywall. And as far as tLw goes, that show was extremely male-gaze focused and is horrible in nearly all regards if you try to rewatch it now). As far as prime time shows went, queer rep was even more rare. Which is why Emily wasn't queer from the get-go.

Yes, things have changed since 2006 in terms of queer rep on TV. We have a myriad of queer identities represented in TV and film nowadays, which is why I think it's so easy for newer fans to say 'lf she was supposed to be gay anyway, they should just make Emily queer in canon!' I know this is what fuels most fans' demands for Emily being confirmed queer, and I get it, I DO. I would be all for it! However, I do not, in one hundred years, actually believe that is going to happen after they already canonically queer confirmed Tara in S16. The fact we even got ONE queer character is ground-breaking for this show.

It's also worth noting, that in the time between Paget's departure in 2012 and her return in 2016, she became very active on Twitter. This was when more and more fans began asking her about Jemily and after Kirsten's AfterEllen interview, fans also pushed for Paget to address the possibility of Emily being gay. 'Pushed' is actually an understatement for some of the outright harassment she would receive. (AJ received some of this harassment too, but less so because she doesn't use social media ass often) Back then, neither of them replied to these things directly. Yet, no matter what either woman posted, the replies were full of Jemily stans begging for her acknowledgement. (Did you know 'stan' is literally a term coined for stalker fans?) I remember one time AJ's friend was missing and she posted info on her IG about it, you know what the replies were? People asking her about Jemily. It was genuinely sickening.

Within this context, it was no surprise to fans when Emily came back in S12 , she and JJ's friendship was seemingly erased. The two women were rarely on screen together in the late seasons, plus the writers saw fit to even give Emily not only one (Mark in London, but two, on-screen boyfriends for the first time in the entire series. I personally do not think these changes to Emily's character were coincidence, I saw the hellscape of what people would say to AJ and Paget online and I fully believe that upon Paget's return to the show, the showrunners purposely tried to distance JJ and Emily to dissuade the more abusive side of the fanbase.

Can I prove that, no. But it is the only reason I can think of as to why Emily S12+ seemingly didn't care about JJ anymore, despite their deep and meaningful friendship. I mean, they both CROSSED THE WORLD to go rescue each other in prior canon -- but when Emily comes back, they acted like they barely knew each other. This was even more prevalent in S16, when JJ's main storylines all revolved around Will, and Emily barely looked at JJ in the entirety of ten episodes. (Remember how Prentiss didn't even hug JJ after bomb, but she did go hug Luke?)

So, do Paget and AJ earnestly ship Jemily, or are they continuing the long tradition of queerbaiting us? Who fucking knows, not me. But based on the history of this fandom, I think I can make a safe bet. (Interestingly, if you search all of Paget's twitter for the word 'Jemily' [10] she only has 3 direct tweets mentioning the ship. I don't think it's a coincidence that two are within the past few months since they started filming S17 (the other one was a RT of Kirsten (who tagged something Jemily)

This is all to say --

Just because Paget and AJ have publicly talked about Jemily,, this doesn't mean it's ever going to happen on screen. And you know what, THAT'S OKAY!! There has been this constant outcry (after Tara became queer confirmed) of 'Do Emily next' or 'Why wasn't it Emily with a girlfriend!?' and 'Jemily needs to be canon in S17!' -- as if people believe their ships aren't worth anything unless they are canon.

That couldn't be further from the truth! Fandom is built on headcanons and fan interpretations and rare pairs and all types of shippers. Your ship does NOT need to be canon for you to enjoy it. I will ship Jemily forever, no matter what. I don't think there will be some magical queer plot in S17, at best, we might actually get to see Emily/JJ on screen together again and after the train wreck that was S16 -- I'll take whatever I can get.

And hey -- if I am completely wrong, if Erica Messer pulls a Korrasami out of her hat, I will be ecstatic. I will be happy to be proved wrong, but at the same time, I'm not going to lose sleep over it and I'm DEFINITELY not going to go hound the actors about it on social media.

Sources:

[1] 2022 Digital Spy article about the importance of Tara's coming out

[2] 04/18/24 Paget Tweet

[3] 2017 Queerbaiting article from medium.com

[4] 2009 Broken TVGuide link

[4.a] Tumblr quote from the above TVGuide Interview

[5] 2010 Kirsten interview screenrant.com

[6] 2019 AJ Instagram Post

[7] 2020 Paget video on Twitter (via @karasluthqr)

[8] 2015 Kirsten interview AfterEllen.com

[9] 2016 Paget Interview CriminalMindsFans.com

[10] @PagetPaget search 'Jemily'

[serendipityandbenevolence]

I gotta say, when I passed out last night after writing this post, I didn't expect to wake up to people actually liking it. but hey! thanks for the support. As per my little footnote (if you didn't read it then sucks to be you ig) the people who commented got first choice of which characters im going to write. love y'all by the way <3 which means that first up is... Dottore! (as requested by @amber-sekio and @gallantys)

(I am not playing rn when I say that I spent a large amount of time reading Dottore x reader fanfic so I could figure out how the hell to write him and this is probably still ooc but i did my best)

Contains - Yandere behavior (kept to a minimum though) dottore being a charming ray of a human (he mentions enslaving other countries), discussions of blood and injuries

"Dottore?"

The silence from the hallway was almost deafening. The sudden intense quiet was broken only by the gentle crackle of the fire, a welcome reprieve as your words hung in the air. Perhaps it was stupid, to call for a person who may not be there and who, of all the Harbingers, might be the most likely to still attempt to kill you. A foolish whim, but nearly dying does funny things to a person's rational.

Your door slid open silently, revealing the Doctor himself peering in at you. He did not appear to be wearing his mask, but with the low light and strands of blue hair covering his face, you couldn't make out his features well.

"Yes? Can I help you?"

Something was wrong. His voice was too soft, his words too gentle, the whole demeanor was wrong. You knew he had segments that acted differently, but you couldn't imagine Dottore ever being that kind sounding. But you were in too deep.

"Can you come in here, please? I need to ask you a question."

A few murmurs struck up behind him, but Dottore simply nodded and stepped into the room, turning his back to you as shut the door.

"You know..." he mused as he clicked the lock shut.

Ah, there it was. With the door closed, his voice changed, with that hint of cruelty and mania that you had come to associate with him lacing his words. His blood red eyes bored into you, a sly smile creeping across his face.

"Oh, what's with the expression? You seem a little scared of me, Divine One. Am I not as nice as you assumed?"

He didn't allow you to answer, pacing closer to where you lay, buried beneath the pile of blankets.

"There's really no need to be scared of me. After all, I was the one who nursed you so lovingly back to health when you were brought here out of the cold. Aren't I so generous?"

"You healed me?"

You didn't bother hiding your concern. You kicked off your pile of blankets and assessed your body, trying to see if any of your organs were missing.

"My my, do you have such little faith in me? I am a doctor after all. One of the best I'll have you know."

He leaned against the wall by your bedside, giving you a rather unnerving grin.

"Well, you have my undivided attention. What was it that you wanted to ask me?"

You were starting to think that it was a very bad idea to ask for Dottore, but you also suspected that saying you wanted to talk to someone else would go over even worse.

"Yes, I just...wanted to know what I missed while I was asleep. You know, with the other nations."

"Ahh, of course! Well, upon some reflection they seem to have come to the conclusion that you are the actual creator and not a 'fake' as they so cruelly labelled you. Needless to say, quite a few letters of apology have been sent begging for your forgiveness for their dreadful ignorance. Including-"

He reached over to you, laying a shockingly gentle hand upon your bandaged side.

"-the one who nearly killed you."

"You know who it is?" you asked in surprise.

"But of course! Simply assessing your wound, I could tell the weapon and the particular style of it, which made it rather easy to cross-referencing that with the time and location that you were attacked and deduce your attacker with little difficulty. "

"Really?"

He scoffed. "No, of course not. They mentioned in their letter that they were the one who harmed you."

Dottore stepped away from you, pacing towards the door as he pulled a crumpled note from his pocket and tossed it onto the end of your bed.

"You should read it sometime, it is truly a delightfully pathetic read. They only made one mistake."

"Mistake?"

He turned to look at you and you saw that all of the cruel humor that had covered his face was gone, replaced with an infinitely scarier coldness.

"They signed their name. So now, I know exactly who will be my next experiment, when we invade the other nations."

There was silence for a moment, before his features softened and he let out a soft laugh.

"You should sleep. It's the best medicine after all. We can discuss this more in the morning."

Dottore went to turn from you once more, but paused as you opened your mouth.

"Dottore, burn the letter. I don't want to read what they have to say."

A wicked grin flashed across his face as he snatched the letter back up and strode towards the fire.

"You know, I think-"

He tossed the letter into the embers and watched as it instantly caught alight.

"-that you and I will get along very, very well."

Dottore pulled the door open and gave you one last comment before leaving, not even turning his head.

"Sweet dreams, Your Grace."

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

That took me so long to write guys 😭 but anyway i hope you liked it! like i said earlier, i struggle a bit with dottore because he has all his different segments with different personalities but i think this turned out okay.

Also, the order for the next few harbingers will go as such

Tartaglia- requested by @gallantys and @followingyou247

Pierro - requested by @mistresssasori

Capitano - requested by @moonlite-drabbles @megsthings and @legendarysacrificer-blog (yall really love him clearly)

If you guys want to help me pick the order after that, go ahead in the comments!

also tagging @heizoubeloved in this because you mentioned wanting to see more!

[bemusedlybespectacled]

Hi! I'm in law school rn and having a lot feelings and thoughts about it. Would ou share some thoughts and positivity? Am I in the right path? Cries and panics in finals are coming and I don't know if this is for me

IMO there are two potential reasons for these kinds of feelings:

You don't feel like this is the right path for you because you feel incapable/incompetent and lawyers are supposed to be Very Very Smart And Capable And Good At Shit All The Time.

You don't feel this is the right path for you because you just genuinely don't like law: you don't like compiling big piles of data into neat bins that match the elements of a particular statute or a specific holding or a coherent argument.

(The third potential reason is for later in your career, in which case it might be that you don't like certain elements of the practice of law: dealing with needy clients, meeting a billable hours requirement, working long hours, etc. In that case, you can always try changing the type of law you're doing - like, if you hate litigating in courtrooms, you might prefer going in-house, or becoming a law librarian, or being a clerk.)

If it's that you don't like law, you do not have to keep doing it. You are allowed to find something else that you like better. A couple of people in my law school class dropped out to be teachers; my clinic partner has a law degree and a PhD and has only ever taught as a professor; you do not have to throw good money after bad on a career that you don't like.

If it's that you feel incompetent and stupid and not like A Lawyer™ because lawyers are geniuses: first of all, I bet you are perfectly fine and can totally do this, because you got all the way here and that's pretty fucking hard already. But let's pretend that fear is actually true and you really are that bad (I doubt it): I promise you, I promise you that there are people practicing law right now who have no idea what the fuck they are doing. Not even in a cutesy "we all get imposter syndrome sometimes" way, I mean "holy fuck how are you still practicing" way.

The CPS attorney I worked across from in my old job did not know any of the rules of evidence, had no legal writing skills whatsoever, and couldn't handle making or defending objections to save her fucking life. She was the attorney for the entire fucking county.

I once got a response to a multi-page motion (like four pages of argument and another 25 or so of exhibits) that was two pages with enormous fucking margins and paragraph spacing, spelling errors, and no actual argument from a guy who had been practicing longer than I've been alive. I actually saved his reply (and the judgement with the footnote that says "as Attorney Bespectacled correctly notes in her brief") as a pick-me-up for when I'm feeling like a fucking idiot.

There are lawyers with a shitload of experience, who make millions of dollars taking on high profile cases, who fucking suck at it. Seriously, watch either of the Sandy Hook trials on the Law and Crime Youtube channel (or listen to any of the depositions that get covered on the Knowledge Fight podcast - they're all titled "Formulaic Objections") if you want to see just how bad a person has to be at being a lawyer in order to get sanctioned.

At one point when I was studying for the bar exam and panicking over it, my partner said, "Michael Cohen passed the bar exam, and I know you're smarter than him, so if he can pass it, so can you." I'm certain you're both smarter and a better person than, like, any of Trump's lawyers, or even a good chunk of my law school classmates (like the entirety of FedSoc cough cough).

But even if you're not, remember: there's only ever one CALI winner per class, so most people aren't going to ever get one. Most people who graduate law school and pass the bar and practice law are just incredibly fucking average. Like, that's just math. You're not a failure if you aren't the best, because most people aren't the best. You can still do very well in life as a lawyer even if you're just Some Person, because that's what most lawyers are.

(Also, sidenote: law school and actual law are very different environments. How you do in one has very little bearing on how you do in the other.)

tl;dr: You're going to be fine no matter what you end up deciding.

[stars-and-darkness]

20 questions for fic writers!

many many thanks to @garglyswoof for tagging m

How many works do you have on ao3? 63. i need to calm down.

What's your total ao3 word count? 747 502. i need to calm down.

What fandoms do you write for? the vampire diaries, shadow & bone, avatar: the last airbender, star wars, marvel. also, that one suez canal x ever given fic, and that one goncharov fic.

Top five fics by kudos: A Queen's Gamble (you know it's an old one if the title is capitalised lmao), make them bow., the fate makes for a lousy poet., where the heart moves the stones, nyctophilia.

Do you respond to comments? i try. i am not very good at it, but every now and then i sit down, crack my knuckles, and go about emptying my poor inbox.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? the end. is like ... the only fic i ever wrote that ended unhappily.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? see above, lol, literally everything else. i'm a wuss.

Do you get hate on fics? i mean ... not really? i would mostly classify the rude things i got as entitlement rather than hate. the impression i usually got was that those people liked my writing style, or the plot, or characterisation, or whatever--there was just one thing or several that they wanted to happen differently, and they felt the need to tell me that.

Do you write smut? looooooo, no, my ace ass would probably spontaneously combust.

Craziest crossover: i don't suppose i've ever written an actual crossover, but today i put dracula-the-historical-figure into the vampire diaries universe, so ....

Have you ever had a fic stolen? ... maybe? okay, strap yourselves: a few years ago someone asked if they could translate a fic of mine into spanish and post it on wattpad, and i said yes. (THIS is one of the reasons why i don't allow translations anywhere but ao3 anymore). they did, and they sent me the link. i linked the translation to my fic, the usual. then, a lot later, i actually went to check their post, and i realised that i wasn't credited though the person said they would. yaaaaay.

Have you ever had a fic translated? well, other than the fiasco up there, the incredible @winterandmistletoe, who made the edit that graces the beginning of make them bow., has two chapters of the russian translation of that fic up on ao3. there's also been an offer to translate The Manifesto of a Last Love into russian, but that one hasn't been posted yet.

Have you ever co-written a fic before? i have not! and honestly, i don't think i'd be very good at it. i'm a bit of a tyrant, so in an effort NOT to be perceived as such i'd probably be super lenient of whatever the other people came up with even if i didn't necessarily like it. i'm pretty particular in my tastes, and one of the things i love about writing fic is that i have nobody but myself to answer to.

All time favorite ship? ehhhhh, nooo, i can't choose between my children!

What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will? considering that tvd has had me in its claws for two years now, it feels unlikely i'll ever go back to my wips in other fandoms. you never know of course, but it feels that way. i mean. those unfinished wips don't exactly haunt me, but sometimes i remember them and feel awful about it, lmao.

What are your writing strengths? i'm told i do dialogue and humour well!

What are your writing weaknesses? ughhhhh probably action? it's so hard. oh! and my tendency to describe how a character's eyes look in every other sentence.

Thoughts on dialogue in another language? SO fun fact that dracula fic that i posted today? the one where half the dialogue is in french? i had originally written it all IN FRENCH, and then decided to take mercy on my readers and just put the english translation into italics. yeah. anyway, rule of thumb, ig: if the pov character understands what's being said, then english in italics (or if it's just a sentence or two the spoken language with a footnote). if they can hear individual words, then the language that's being spoken, without translation. if they hear only gibberish--maybe they're super unfamiliar with the language, maybe it's being spoken very fast or with an accent--then just 'character x says something in z'.

First fandom you wrote in? marvel, for my own peace of mind. star wars is the first one i actually posted for.

Favorite fic you've written? again, you can't ask me to pick between my children.

tagging: @morningstargirl666 @kirythestitchwitch @helpless-in-sleep @marxandangels @purplesigebert @darkestgrays @averseunhinged

[exosupport]

I hate having nightmares about my exo trauma cuz whenever I try 2 tell my frens about it ppl always make jokes about me reading too much fanfics about my source and thats why I’m having the nightmares as if I’m not a fucking fictive who literally lived through it. Nobody gets what I’m going through it’s terrible. I was literally fucking experimented on for YEARS. i wasn’t allowed to have a fucking NAME. like. DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW TERRIBLE THAT WAS? HOW FUCKING DEHUMANIZED I WAS? I was an object. For years. It’s not fucking easy to be a person after that. And nobody will just fucking understand. It was real. It was real for me.

- subject A

Sounds like you need more supportive friends to talk to tbh, other fictives who know what it's like.

In any case, you're not alone in the slightest. Most of the people in our system most affected by their exotrauma have been dehumanized and objectified (some cases being literally referred to as an object, some cases being an experiment only given a number)

You're absolutely right, it's insanely difficult to just. Be a person suddenly when you've never been treated like one before. Nightmares are one awful part of that but it really is the worst when people expect it to be a footnote of your past, think you can just move on.

When your trauma is all wrapped up in your identity, with your very sense of self like that the least accepting and understanding thing someone can do is expect change immediately or at a pace that isn't your own. It's entirely up to you what and who you want to be and your trauma is a part of that, it doesn't define you, but you're perfectly valid for acknowledging its influence and if you'd like to you're allowed to embrace it.

You're right, you're the authority on your experiences, and you deserve to be treated with respect. Please don't hesitate to reach out if you ever need to vent or talk to someone who understands.

[ID: A banner with a Sanrio theme. It says, "Please get some rest" in a plain font. The background is colored with a subtle purple gradient with the texture of cartoon plants and flowers over it. There's two images, one at the either side of the banner.

The image on the left has Kuromi, a white imp-like rabbit who wears a black hood over her horns. Her hood has a simplified pink skull on it and her eyes are slanted downward, to express playfull deviousness. She is lying on her stomach, kicking her legs up and down, and writing in a pink and purple journal. There are two musical notes drawn next to her, one blue and one pink.

The one on the right has Kuromi lying on her stomach, with a black and purple handheld gaming system in her hands. She's smiling and playing her games. End ID]

[heartmindandsnow]

Even when one of us is feeling pretty empty, the other one is near by...

Because writing is cathartic for me, it's a long story... so read it only if you really want to.

[And it was a pretty good story... don'cha think]

We all struggle with something, and in those times, the kind of partner you want in it, is the one that can recognize it for what it is. As an overload of our weakness... whatever that may be for us individually. [Footnote:] And might I add to said to weakness circuit breaker... not one that walks away and leaves you dejectedly alone for you to deal with your grief by yourself because your parent rather unexpectedly died. That's horrible, what we need is a compassionate teammate.

My struggle is it's hard for me to discern the difference between when someone wants to end a relationship vs just put it on pause while they themselves have a moment of weakness... because they don't think they want to burden their partner with said moment. It's not until they realize it's a growth process they can just be... in a relationship, without judgement and without fear. Because both her and I, with our respective former spouses, it's all we really ever knew. Walking on egg shells, was a common occurrence for us both, as was the ridicule.

[Side quest]: It's an odd place I know, because the entire world around you wants to judge you for who you are, what's important to you and what you believe in, what kind of job you do, how much money you have, what kind of car you drive, who you associate with, how you dress or look (I struggle with that one), and whatever other metric flavor of the day... but Master Oogway answer's to this is: You just have to believe... (and also who gives a fuck because we'll all be dead so soon).

The real metric to judge any relationship by is to just be at peace with each other, no fighting, no bitter or condescending comments, just wholesome, loving, positive moments that you constantly find yourself thinking about how extraordinarily lucky you are to be with the person who you find insanely attractive because of it, even if it does come with a side serving of "I don't particularly like this [x] thing".

But it's also ironic how said moment, can cause me to reflect and concentrate the moment, because I'm an engineer, turn it into a lens. Fear of abandonment is a real bitch and what it does to the mind. Especially when you've learned early on to be 'extra' for your partner, because you believe they deserve it, but it's also because I am over compensating in not wanting that partner to leave. [Hint: they totally do deserve extra, but sometimes they need to prove that back too via emotional equity].

[Main story line]: We 'share' coffee mugs, because she asked for one of mine. So I gave her two instead. It's in these moments, realizing that I'm also dating an extraordinarily sensitive person, sometimes I think she just needs to rest and sit in my shade for a bit. Because hers is empty metaphorically in the above mug, and it's a way for me to show her while my coffee cup is completely full, I'm here... near by to save a space for you, waiting for the 'the universal great coffee maker' to fill you back up, before picking up where we left off in life's journey.

[Contextual back story]: In Colorado, we were on a rather difficult trail given the altitude, and she stopped so many times, especially on the way back. Apologizing profusely for "holding me up", I gave up telling her not to worry about it after the first handful of times. It was a reaction to her ex spouse, he was perpetually annoyed with her and her shortcomings. I just waited for her... saving the exact same space for her, but physically. Don't get me wrong, despite my three weeks spent at altitude for ski weeks, my heart was pounding too, so it's not like I was going to mind the brief respite. But her coffee cup here, was less full than mine. I can't magically give her oxygen in this case, but I can allow her to just rest.

We attended a concert at Red Rocks, that blew the both of us away. She never tailgated before... lol. Trevor Hall and the Colorado Symphony, sang of one lyric that particularly poetic, Between the moon and sun, I won't give up on you.

I imagine myself to be more spiritually mature than she is, I am after all 3 years older and 7 years ahead of the life altering bookmark of time: divorce. So, while I wait physically as in a difficult trail, or emotionally with a metaphoric empty coffee cup, I am here to give her space, but also not so subtly remind her, such a space isn't necessary when you are with the correct person for you - one who recognizes your short-comings, and hugs you for it anyway.

[Main story line]: If she's in my shade, then I am her tree. Do I always want her to be in my shade? No... I am here for her to recognize that while she needs regain strength within my protective domain, I encourage her to join me in the full brightness that is the sun, and absorb its energy... to ultimately give back to our partnership and her extended social circle.

It's ultimately about growth. Growth as individuals, and growth as a partnership between two people.

I want to grow with her... regardless of where that happens because also attributable to Trevor, I just want to be connected to her soul.

She reads this, and for that I'm glad - because currently this is my only lifeline to show her just how craz I a.. wait, how wonderful I am and how wonderful we would be... together.

As a team. Team Hungarian...

[silentmeteorite93]

The Leaping Gazelles 19/34

Black cloud

The self-proclaimed intellectual sex man has no right to call himself that after several years of running, not only did he take all kinds of homoerotic or saber-rattling moves at face value. Even his own performance is not related to kind and decisive or sensible and intelligent, he was angry and made a good job of minimizing contact with the opposite sex in the rest of his life, completely giving his energy to hobbies in addition to his studies and career. It was thought that this would be of longer-term benefit to him as well as to other women who were poor people watchers.

Now this female doctor who had appeared out of nowhere had ignited his confidence, the nebulous sense of calling and familiarity that made even the most metaphysically hating of men think of lame calls called past lives. The two met each other on the internet, the least favored method in the circle, and there were no more fellow travelers in the two cities separated by a 3 hour train ride, the man decided to set off in search of the woman when he heard she was about to leave the country to attend the Education Forum PhD Summit. Neither of them had ever seen such passionate and courageous behavior, not even the man himself. Of course, the two of them did not regret his impulse, and even regarded that inexplicable impulse as one of the few divine accolades for his great capacity for action.

The two men met in a hotel they would later frequent, and with a textbook start they established what would become a very healthy and unhealthy relationship. The short-haired woman who had just asked for directions in the lobby with her authentic British accent had no idea that the man inside had just walked through the door of the room and was already wailing inwardly . After completing the agreed process as planned, the man sent the woman away. Thinking about the long green dress and smooth grinding just now. He found a pizzeria near the hotel. Gathering enough courage to send out an enquiry, the pizza that had been hanging in the air was stuffed into his mouth until he saw a message on his mobile phone that the woman had agreed.

The woman he met in the most annoying way a man can meet was the sincerest he had ever known, and the man found more matches and surprises when he communicated with her later, and couldn't even think of how to give the right footnote to his impulsiveness at the time, except for luck. Luckily for both of them, the process and the result were perfect, the inevitability and unrepeatability of the ending was the hardest thing to achieve in a work of art, and the man was sure that even the woman agreed with that one hundred per cent.

The glass-fronted hotel that stood at the end of the campus still pops up in man’s imagination today. The sweltering summer heat, the air conditioning in the room, the clothes the two had worn that day were all fresh in his mind. Even their first soft hum and the touch of bare feet on the carpet and the smell of the couch, the sunshine the next day and the pineapple looming on the bedside table.

She'd always been a woman of few words, not that she was clumsy when she became a teacher later in life, but she preferred the ritualistic form of writing a diary for a man to access. Wanting to offer her permanent loyalty she also began by pleading out her weaknesses when she had sworn to be owned and had them all broken by herself personally later in life. The bottom line of repeated pleas to be broken through was once too much for even the man to bear, he could sense the woman's obsession and somewhat extreme faith. Until now the man was secretly grateful for how passive and gentlemanly, he had been at that time, almost all the progress was slowly pushed by the woman's trust and curiosity, which allowed the man to not completely categories himself as a demon deep down.

[hollowwhisperings]

that awkward moment where you re-read a crack post only to find that you accidentally edited out the "crack" part.

i'm sorry hugo weaving: it's not your fault they used the character you played to make drama for "character growth". > _ <

additionally must i apologise to:

Fans of the Live-Action Adaptions, old and new, whose introductions to the Legendarium through said works has undoubtedly gifted us all with new friends to nerd out with.

Fans of the above who met the books first & nonetheless enjoyed the motion picture: adaptions allow us all to better analyze our own, personal readings of "canon" through new perspectives. The Legendarium's uses Adaption (in the form of "Translation" to ENG) as its Framing Device: contesting canonicity is Encouraged within the text itself (which paints itself as "unreliable").

Hugo Weaving, for acting the role as it was written for him (no matter my Opinions on Said Writing): apparently Aragorn & Arwen needed a Direct Antagonist to "grow" from.

the employees of Weta Workshop, who did incredibly meticulous work for Tolkien's Legendarium (& continue to do so).

Sir Christopher Lee, who fully conveyed the Might & Majesty of the Wizard Saruman and wielded fully his Greater Experience (with Tolkien's works, stabbing people & just ~generally~) for the bettterment of LOTR's production. The good Sir rests now in Valinor but is ever One Of Us.

Sir Ian McKellan, for his fearsome & canny portrayal of Middle-Earth's Most Persistent Busybody. He has ever been "Mellon" to Fans & Fandom.

Cate Blanchette, who embodied "Galadriel" in all her beautiful glory: she ascertained the power of the character, subtle and fearsome and ancient. Her Graceful Swooshing of The Big Swishy Sleeves prompted my younger self into gaining an interest in the films at all (& thus Those Books I Forgot I Had). If I ever successfully sit through all three films, I'd gladly argue for her place as an Honary "Great" of Chinese Fantasy Dramas (LOTR isn't xianxia but it certainly resembles it in some parts, at least with its Immortals).

Viggo Mortensen, whose castmates found in him a "Strider" worth following, and who has everafter provided the Tolkien Fandom with its very own Cryptid.

Kiran Shah, for whom we can thank wonders untold in the cinematic Legendarium, in his roles as Frodo and Stunt Actor for all four hobbits. Rightfully was he named "Lord of the Scale Doubles" by his castmates: his laurels are well deserved!

Shah's Fellow Doubles in the LOTR films¹, who have long shared in his obscurity: I have added Footnotes that name The IRL Fellowship in its entirety, as best I could ascertain (corrections welcomed!).

Sophia Nomvete, who suffered first and worst in the Racist Backlash against TROP (her image amongst the very first released in Amazon's Promotions): she is beautiful in the role, even in her beardlessness.

the remaining POC cast of TROP, in its first season & those upcoming: they trailblaze against everything set against them² and I collate them in hope that "Tokenism" become a thing of fable... but mostly because TROP has enough of Us in its cast them to make "namedropping" the work of a paragraph (to which i say: took you long enough, Hollywood).

Alex Tarrant & Kali Kopae: they, amongst others cast as "Numenoreans" in TROP, are the first Polynesian actors to star in Tolkien works with their own faces³. They carry with them the Weight of Legacies, fictional and truthful: may the writing do they & their characters justice.

every & anyone who sets the Legendarium to Song, its "truest" incarnation by a Watsonian's metric. yes, even those responsible for the whole "they're taking the hobbits to Isengard!" meme.

Footnotes below the cut: there I touch on Prejudice & Politick, as found throughout Tolkien works: Racism is the primary focus (Anti-Semitism is tied-therein, made "implicit" because This Is Tolkien afterall) though I make reference also to Ableism.

¹The IRL Fellowship of the Ring: Doubles & All

Frodo Baggins was played not only by Elijah Wood but by Kiran Shah, who doubly served as "Size" & "Stunt" Double for Wood.

Sam was played by Sean Astin (principal), Bhoja ‘BK’ Kannada (size) & Kiran Shah (stunts).

Merry by Dominic Monaghan (principal), Martin Lenisson Gray (size) & Kiran Shah (stunts).

Pippin by Billy Boyd (principal), Praphaphorn ‘Fon’ Chansantor (size) & Kiran Shah (stunts).

(Yes, Kiran Shah was apparently the stuntsman for all of the hobbits: finding this out required my reading of More Recent Journalism, as Wikis only credit their principal actors & size doubles in the roles, with Shah's stuntwork credited only generically in-film & in wikis)

Gimli was primarily played by Brett Beattie but, despite Some Effort from his colleagues to confer co-crediting, only John Rhys-Davies was named in main billing ("movie politics", apparently). Beattie was initially cast for stunt & scaling work, but soon became a full-time "stand-in" for much of principal photography (Davies was Infamously Allergic to the Gimli Prosthetics, which restricted how long he could work).

An Aside: I remain personally ??? at why the production bothered to cast anyone, only to give them a full-face of prosthetics. The prosthetic wig & facial hair? Yes: modern beauty standards made it unlikely that a "fully haired" actor would be found for the role. The prosthetic nose, forehead & [whatever else] too? Those served no narrative purpose save, perhaps, an idea that "dwarves should look Old and [conventionally] Unattractive". This is my conclusion upon recalling the general "effect" of Gimli's changed characterization in the films & PJ's Pointed Rejection of casting "little people" in principal roles to begin with.

Legolas was played by Orlando Bloom (principal), Paul Randall (size) & Morgan Evans (stunts). Though Evans was only credited as Legolas in Fellowship, given that the entire trilogy was shot together, it can be Assumed that Evans retained the role as theirs is the only name that came up.

Aragorn was played by Viggo Mortensen (principal), Paul Randall (size) & Kirk Maxwell (stunts).

Gandalf was played by Sir Ian McKellen (principal), Paul Randall (size) & Basil Chapham (stunts). Chapham was credited as a "riding double" (or otherwise under "stunts"). A photo exists of all three Gandalfs in costume together: it's adorable.

Boromir was played by Sean Bean (principal), Paul Randall (size) & Lance Louez (stunts).

Paul Randall did indeed play as Legolas, Aragorn, Gandalf AND Boromir. Though I could only found him specifically credited as Legolas, interviews & cast photos do indeed name him as a "Stand-In" for all four roles. At 7"1, Randall could be used to scale "Big Folk" into scenes with the principal hobbit actors.

²Hollywood Racism in Fantasy Film Casting: Watch This Space?

We all Cringed at the blatant yellow & brownface of the Live-Action "Avatar the Last Airbender" film. The author of the Wizard of Earthsea series has long battled for its primary protagonist, Ged, to look like himself on book covers: he came to adaptions "pre-whitewashed" (to the great frustration of his creator, writer Ursula K. Leguin).

While there is no Public Ado About TROP from its BIPOC cast, save their grace in the face of Racist Backlash, Amazon's making the series at all was inspired by the success of HBO's Game of Thrones. The nature of Streamed Media is something currently protested: actors & writers own nothing they make, can say nothing of their work nor on its reception, and this has yet to Change for the begger.

Those Aware of how GoT handled its canonically POC characters (the Dornish, the peoples of Essos & the Summer Islands) are likely Aware of its Incredulous Killing-Off of the only black woman in its primary cast (Missandei, adapted to screen as an adult woman). Missandei's actor, Nathalie Emmanuelle, has been Very Diplomatic in interviews on her experiences while filming & later watching the show.

Additional instances of how racism has affected more recent Big Budget Fantasy Productions, "internally" (through casting & writing choices) and "externally" (racist backlash against adaptions & actors) can be found in the Star Wars sequel trilogy (Disney) and the televisation of Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" (Freemantle). Kelly Marie Tran (Rose Tico, SW) & John Boyega (Finn, SW) have spoken on their respective experiences with both (both went on to work on other Disney projects but Disney is its own Balrog) , while Orlando Jones has spoken of the racial discrimination within the production of American Gods.

The ongoing Writer's Strike is Informative on the limits of speech imposed on those working on Streamed Media such as TROP, writers & actors both. While TROP's 2nd season had already "wrapped" prior to the Strike, its production team & cast are still very much affected it: their speech is policed, by contractual obligations & self-preservation. Many of TROP's cast is "fresh": they do not have the clout to break convention, especially those acting as "trailblazing minorities" & whose continued employment is more vulnerable for it.

³The (Accidental) Diversity of the LOTR film trilogy & its (Deliberate) Othering of its BIPOC

PJ's films are sometimes joked as being (very long) tourism ads for New Zealand: the islands had been "cast" as Middle-Earth, something retained in pop culture ever since.

To fill out the wide landscapes of Middle-Earth required more cast than Hollywood could affordably export: thusly was casting opened to the local populace. This is how PJ's LOTR films' were made Accidentally Diverse.

Much of the Cavalry in the LOTR films (all those extras on horseback) were IRL Eowyns: the majority of the locals with the horsemanship the production required turned our to be female. Given that entirety of Eowyn's Plotline requires gender-exclusion in Rohan's armies? All those female riders in the background were "disguised" with beards.

Lesser known (certainly less publicised) is the quickness of the LOTR production in deciding which local New Zealanders would be cast & in what roles: a myth of whiteness in "New Zealand as Middle-Earth" was actively chosen at every opportunity.

Tolkien's Imperialist Guilt kicked in, eventually, for his depicting the Enthralled Armies of Sauron as... IRL peoples traditionally colonized (in many cases enslaved) by European Powers. He'd accidentally-on-purpose written "reverse racisn" into Middle-Earth. He'd also depicted & decribed orcs with much of the dehumanizing rhetoric used against peoples of African. This prompted both White & Catholic Guilt in his personal writings (...that never made it into printings of the Legendarium).

Decades later, when filming a big budget live-action adaption to Tolkien's Legendarium, the Production (Peter Jackson definitely included) decided that all their visually BIPOC extras should be cast exclusively as... Orcs and Foreign Invaders of Middle-Earth. Y'know: the very same Enthralled Armies of Sauron that had so troubled the Professor (very belatedly) for the Blatant Racism of it all.

Amongst those Visually BIPOC persons cast as Foreign Invaders? Just about everyone who was Maōri: Maōri, the very people native to "Middle-Earth", and a country that was very much colonized by European Powers (there were also some Attempted Conquest, though "there were no New Zealand Wars" was still the "historical canon" taught during LOTR's filming: mayhaps that explains how the Irony went unrealised).

I will note that it's been twenty-ish years & several more films yet we're still waiting on PJ to have his Belated "Crisis Of Conscience" RE: Racism. TROP, at least, cast its Maōri actors as Proper Numenorean Conquerors so... progress?

[myyeehawacademia]

ACCEPTED! Dabi / Touya Todoroki

Character Name: Dabi (Touya Todoroki)

Why do I want to play them? From the time I started watching (and then reading) MHA I had always been drawn towards the villains. Their stories tugged at my heart and, while I didn’t agree with their goals, I found them sympathetic. Out of all the villains Dabi has always been my favorite! His story is something that I found compelling and the differences between him and Shouto fascinate me. On top of that I just generally enjoy writing him and delving into his mental state and how he came to be who he is. (Especially with the chapter 387!)

What is their quirk? Hellfire/Cremation (And if you guys read the newest chapter spoilers- But I wont spoil anything!)

What powers and limitations do they have? In general his flames can burn up to 3000 degrees Fahrenheit but most of his moves are replicas of his father or his brother. The drawbacks of his quirk are rather intense, as his body takes after his mother rather than his father, he is unable to withstand the heat of his own flames and it burns away his body. Hence his many scars.

Describe the characters personality? Dabi is rather critical of those around him, the type to make snide comments and talk down to others rather than open up. Though he does show some care towards the members of the league, primarily Toga, later on in the series it is not overt or ever really stated. He is a dark person who does not mind driving himself to the end of the road so long as he completes his goal and if others get hurt in the way he is unlikely to care. Even if that person is himself.

What has your character been doing since canon? At first he had simply given up, mourning Shigaraki and allowing himself to be taken in. His emotions were buried and, for the most part, still are. He does not hold any love for his father still, wanting nothing more than to see the man suffer but he feels as though he will never obtain that goal and so he feels as though there is little reason left to live. So he fell into a state of disassociation and simply goes with whatever those watching over him in the rehabilitation program tell him to do.

Preferred relationships? I don’t have any preferred romantic interactions for Dabi, if he happens to develop some chemistry with someone or someone wants a ship with him I am open minded! But I would love to develop a good or semi-good relationship with his siblings.

My goals for Dabi: I do not think Dabi would ever be willing to become a hero nor could he ever truly forgive them and the society they built. He will forever hate, not only Endeavor, but All Might as well. But I would love for him to build a sort of relationship with Shouto to the point where he wants to do what he can to atone for what he made his youngest brother go through as well as his other siblings. As he never had a chance to be himself I would love for him to try to truly understand who Touya Todoroki is when he is not being forced to train to be a hero or trying to destroy his family.

--

For my Character:

What do you think about UA University’s Rehabilitation program? I refuse to believe that this is done for the villains. How could it be? If the heroes or any of their little pawns had really cared then many of those forced into the program would never have become villains in the first place. It is their way of patting themselves on the back and assuring themselves that they’re better in some way as they refused to kill us off. For some it may be good and some villains do deserve a chance at another life but for those like me? Being stuck in this program is hell. I would rather die than be a footnote in someone else’s story.

Prompts

“A friend is going through a difficult time, how do you comfort them?” (Note for this that I am using Toga as his friend as I chose to believe that he sees her as a sister of sorts.)

A low sigh escaped him as he stood outside the door to Toga’s temporary room, shifting his weight from foot to foot idly, hearing the leather of his boots protest as they wrinkled. New boots were always like that. Comforting people had never been his strong suit, he was not like Fuyumi who had a natural light within her or like Natsuo who seemed born to reach out to those in need. No, he was the monster of the family and he was made to hurt, to destroy and burn all in the world to ash. Still, he couldn’t sit aside and do nothing when he knew that his friend needed him, right? And Toga was a friend. She was precious to him. As precious as anything could be for someone like him anyway. So he raised his hand and knocked twice, pausing to give her proper time to react before pushing the door open, clicking his tongue when he noted that it wasn’t locked. “You should be a bit more careful with stuff like that,” he drawled, tone sounding no more than tired and bored as he sauntered over to the one chair in the room, gaze only briefly flickering to the girl that was sitting on her bed. “I mean,some terrible villain could just walk into your room whenever they pleased,” the sarcasm dripped from his words, thick with no attempt at subtlety as he turned the chair around, straddling it and dropping his folded arms over the back rest.

This was the part where he’d fail. Where his words wouldn’t be enough. He didn’t know why he was upset. Hell, he hardly knew how to interact with girls her age as it was. But he wanted to do what was right for the one person he felt warmth for in his heart that had frozen over years ago. He cleared his throat, electric blue gaze darting to the side, “I was thinking that we could… do that stupid spa night shit you always wanted us to do, or whatever the fuck you like,” he muttered, gaze wandering as it felt too wired to stay anywhere for too long. Fingers picking as the piercings that lay on his opposite palm. A nasty habit of his. “You just seem off lately so- this is my attempt to help, don’t start thinking that I enjoy bullshit like that.”

“You overhear someone talking bad about you from across the room, how do you react?” (I had such a hard time picking a second prompt they were all so tempting—)

Since signing over his life, yes, that was what he called joining the rehab program, Dabi hardly left his room. He didn’t believe in their false claims of caring or wanting to do what was best for the villains. Not really. All heroes knew how to do was self serve which was just what the rehab program was. Still, it beat rotting in Tartarus so he grit his teeth and acted like he gave a fuck about getting better when he didn’t. Not in the least. He would still love to watch the world burn and the hero society with it, the fucked up manner in which they pumped out little celebrities who were more concerned with their own appearance rather then those suffering around them. Yet there were still times when confining himself to the white walls of the room given to him began to drive him mad, forcing him to leave and search for somewhere in which his mind could unwind. Where he could breathe freely and simply be for a moment, to feel the blood pump through his veins and the air fill his lungs. A reminder that, despite everything, he was still alive. A fact that may be a curse or a blessing. He had yet to decide.

And he had found a nice spot after a while of searching, a bench underneath a tree, it was damp as morning dew had seeped into the wood and seemed reluctant to leave but he settled on it anyway, arms draped over the length of it as his eyes slid closed. All was peaceful then. For a moment. Just a moment, no more, then he heard voices and groaned, especially when he heard his own name. Mutterings about how he was one of the villains that should have been left to rot, how he was a monster, all of the possible lines in the book.

Yes, Dabi knew he was a monster, there was no doubt about that but it was almost fun to hear it from someone else. So he turned to get a good look at those speaking, catching the eye of one of the little fuckers who went pale at the sight of him. “What?” He questioned with a smirk, watching as his friend turned to stare as well, their expressions stuck somewhere between horrified and shocked. “Go on, this monster wants to hear some more,” he tilted his head and slapped a smile onto his face, one that was sure to look unnatural. “You were so talkative before!” He laughed then, shocked by how his mere appearance drained their bravery.

[todaviia]

Very long thots about the Netanyahu book under the cut

Oh man the Netanyahu book is soooo interesting from a political viewpoint tho bc on the one hand I feel Bibi is almost a blueprint for the New Right politician (in fact he also talks a lot about his experiences with ppl like Reagan and how he convinced him to care about terrorism as a threat, tho obviously he's an Israeli man talking about himself, so I assume his personal contributions are probably at decently exaggerated) and he explains really well how so many patterns of modern politics came to be. Especially the media game...

He also explains very clearly how they systematically ground down the Israeli left, between security concerns, immigration struggles and relative economic safety - which really makes me afraid of the future for other liberal democracies, because I DONT think that we are living in the new Weimar years or whatever. I don't think there's going to be a big flashing fascist takeover, I think it's much more likely that democracy just erodes into a farce of itself (that we will be able to tell ourselves it has always been), propped up by a relatively good living standards and security concerns.

Just like the Israel/Palestine conflict won't end and won't get worse, it will just continue, with neither side having an achievable goal beyond extending the conflict for the conflict's sake - Palestinians sending over rockets that the Iron Dome intercepts, Israelis violently tearing down houses that the Palestians rebuild the next day.

Like Bibi quotes Jabotinsky's Iron Wall SO often (he literally calls his vision for Trump's dumb Abraham Accords the "Jabotinsky Doctrine") - for the record the last sentence of that essay is "In other words, the only way to reach an agreement in the future is to abandon all idea of seeking an agreement at present." EXCEPT HE DOES NOT AT ALL ACKNOWLEDGE THAT WAS WRITTEN IN FUCKING 1923 AKA 99 YEARS AGO UNDER VASTLY DIFFERENT CIRCUMSTANCES. For Bibi, the future Jabotinsky writes about will never ever come. That is the essence of his Jabotinsky Doctrine.

But on the other hand... the book make me sympathize with him sooooo much more than I want to, when he talks about his childhood as the first generation of children born after the Holocaust, surrounded by all these deeply traumatized adults with numbers on their arms, how on the one hand they were this lucky, free generation that got to be the first to grow up in their own country - but on the other hand, that childhood included endless war, sitting in shelters, blacked out windows, watching missiles explode in the streets, until they were old enough to be soldiers, how often name after name of that generation ends in a footnote like (he later died in the Six Day War), (he later died in the Yom Kippur war), (he later died in the Savoy Hotel bombing) etc. Obviously all centered about Yoni (the book literally opens with Bibi telling the story of how he helped free the hijacked Sabena hostages and how Yoni tried to replace him on this mission and wasn't allowed, so he spent the whole time pacing nervously outside the airport... like he's telling the very movie-like story of a hostage rescue WHERE HE GOT SHOT and his main point that he spends like half the text on is "my big brother was so, so worried about me and did not want to let me go")

And like... obviously he's milking the Yoni Netanyahu War Hero Cult and obviously that account has been challenged by a lot of people who point out that Yoni was not just a perfect 30 year old martyr, but a severely traumatized soldier who might or might not have had an active death wish... but in the end, it doesn't matter, because so much of what happened was just senselessly awful and Israel as a country is so incredibly deeply traumatized, no matter how much they brag about their IT startup sector, agriculture or fancy desalination plants

and that's like the thing that sets Bibi apart from the rest of the Trump/AfD/Johnson/FN whatever right, he IS a man of deep convictions (and these convictions hold Israeli safety above all else, including Palestinian human rights) but he also IS a man who had to genuinely risk his life for the existence of the state, long before he ever had a choice. And so what he does, he does from that perspective... which imo I think is much more dangerous, especially since he's also... actually smart.

[conceiteddemon]

Fuck it, cringe is dead and I’m writing down my thoughts about my Grimwalker OC.

They’re named Gideon, (which is a biblical warrior) and were the GG in Belo’s “conquest” era, about sixty years before canon takes place.

Have you ever met one of those kids whose favorite book is American sniper and cries at a football game during the national anthem? Have you ever met a youth pastor who was weirdly horny about dying a martyr and super emotionally manipulative? That’s Belo’s Golden Guard (and if the rumor passed around in the barracks is to be believed, his bastard kid from a failed relationship)

Gideon ABSOLUTELY, Fundamentally, is Not A Good Person. Like Belos did way too good a job child abusing this bitch, and created, like, a younger version of his current self. But that’s great for him, that’s the perfect Golden Guard, especially when they take perverse joy in murdering wild witches and are ruthless and efficient in the battlefield! Gideon never shows any pity or remorse for people who are damned, and is the picture of a stoic soldier on and off duty. Belos finally, finally has a better version of Caleb. Sure, they don’t look too much like him or act like him, but that’s what the mask is for!

And then a quarter of Belo’s army turns against him, with Gideon leading the charge.

See, Gideon full heartedly believes in the eradication of Wild Magic, As The Titan Intended. According to them anything touched by it rots from the inside out, destroying the soul of a person and leading them into Evil. Turns out that teaching people what is basically fundamentalist evangelicalism with more steps can be bad! Especially if Belos is seen as the one destroying his soul with that sinful palisman juice he’s addicted to. Gideon overhears some stuff and comes to the wrong conclusions, in that Belo’s message from the Titan was True and Just, but Belos himself is corrupted by wild magic. Look at him! Does he even have a ‘curse,’ or is that just his excuse to Gideon about why he snorts palismen? Belos isn’t fit to lead the Isles to a glorious new age if he thinks the rules don’t apply to him! So Gideon takes it upon themselves to carry out the Titan’s ‘true’ will, without being led by someone clearly so weak to the forces of wild magic. Maybe, maybe, they justify to themself, by killing Belos and freeing him from the obviously corruptive influence before it is too late, the Titan will cleanse his soul and allow him to still have the Glory of the afterlife with Him. But if Belos is too wicked and corrupted already, then Of Course it’s Gideon’s duty to rid the land of him before the rot spreads, as they were taught to do. Ultimately only the Titan can judge Belos, Gideon’s just sending him to trial! Honestly! It has nothing to do with all the power and influence they will gain from true followers, and once Belos is gone the crusade to spread the Titan’s Will will be their sacred burden! So Gideon tells the soldiers loyal to them, spreads some rumors, and faces Belos in a coup de’tat that culminates in a dramatic battle where Belos kills them for their betrayal, massacres their followers and spins the whole thing like they were actually an imposter, an evil wild witch who killed Gideon and took their place in order to try and ruin his Great Mission. The people who fought for Belos believe him (to varying degrees), and the whole thing is scrubbed out of the record, nothing more than a footnote in history if it gets talked about at all.

[mobagehelllocal]

“lucky ending” extra notes i & iii

Hi, I said I would do it but then I released ver i so long ago that I felt I shouldn't do this unless I had another version out at least so yay! finally! ... I'll add ver ii here when I get around to writing it... *shifty eyes* So as usual, this is just my thought process and ideas while writing lol.

*please do not read if you haven’t read “lucky ending” ver i (dorm leaders) & ver iii (rook & lilia).

It was inspired by an anon ask and the button tradition from Japanese schools.

The anon ask went like this: First at all, I like do much your writing and I hope you are doing well. Second, I was wondering what would happen if the MC (Fem!s/o I guess) decided to not go back to her world, like she decide stay with her villain? Can you do make headcanons of this for the dorm leaders? Thank you very much. – from Anonymous

The button tradition, as narrated by the first years, is done when one person confesses and the other responds by giving them the button closest to their heart. In most Japanese uniforms it’s the second uniform, but in Twisted Wonderland--I looked at the ceremonial robes and the closest button should be the fifth. Maybe. I could be wrong. 

The songs I listened to while writing this! 

The original dorm leaders (and Rook) was written while listening to “Lucky Ending”, the ending theme of Fruits Basket. The English lyrics (translated by otenkiame!) are: 

“Change is important. I want to do it well,/ but I wanna cry. It's still bad. I wanna cry” 

“The word "goodbye" has disappeared completely from this world/ All that remains is me fooling around next to you/A day you don't laugh won't come anymore”

“I've understood it since being here/ These feelings of wanting to protect you aren't a misunderstanding/ If we can call what connects us bonds,/ everything changes/ everybody changes/ Even if in a different world, it'll never be different/ everything changes/ everybody changes/ Don't change, ever/ Stay here, stay here”

I think it’s obvious why I chose to use this as the title of the series. It’s a story about change but it’s also a story about the things you don’t want to change... And I think it’s not wrong to want to hold onto things. 

I also listened to the same playlist that I listened to while writing “wendy?” “hello peter pan”:

“Can’t help falling in love” cover by Annapantsu, “If you’re not the one” by David Beddingfield, “Who Knew” by P!nk and “All Too Well” by Taylor Swift. 

For Lilia in particular, I was listening to three Beauty and the Beast songs on loop. “Evermore” by Josh Groban, “Days in the Sun” by the live action cast and, of course--”How does a moment last forever” by Celine Dion.

“How does a moment last forever?/ How can a story never die?/ It is love we must hold onto/ Never easy, but we try/ Sometimes our happiness is captured/ Somehow, our time and place stand still/ Love lives on inside our hearts and always will”

Also for Lilia, Tolerate It by Taylor Swift.

“You're so much older and wiser and I/ I wait by the door like I'm just a kid”

“I made you my temple, my mural, my sky/Now I'm begging for footnotes in the story of your life”

Malleus was definitely the first piece finished. Closely followed by Vil’s. I believe there was a gap inbetween them before I did the others? I wrote bits and pieces of Leona, Idia, Kalim and Azul’s. I think I finished Leona, Idia, Kalim then Riddle because I distinctly remember saving Azul for last. 

One of the most important things for me, is that each story stands distinct of each other. So I gave myself a really hard time trying to figure out how each one uniquely belonged to each of the characters.

For the Prologue... I think because it’s set at the graduation of certain characters, I used that to my advantage and implied the stronger bonds between the Yuu!Reader and the entirety of the cast. Because a lot of time has passed and I feel like--regardless of what other people believe, bonds will be made and relationships will have strengthened enough for it to happen. 

Riddle is honestly another really difficult character for me to write. I generally do love him and I enjoy his story, but something about him is difficult and I’m not sure why. 

I think a part of me is also really miffed because from Heartslabyul-Savanaclaw, you could feel that Riddle really cared for Yuu on some level but then he just straight up disappears come Octavinelle chapter. I feel like there was potential to develop their relationship even more. 

He WENT UP AND TIED YOUR RIBBON I REMEMBER I WENT DOKI DOKI OVER THAT. 

I feel like because I’ve established that it’s a Yuu!Reader, it’s impossible for this story to not include both Ace and Deuce. So of course they featured in really big roles for this one, being responsible for telling Riddle the story.

I have to thank my friend, Mes, for bouncing ideas with me. They were the one who suggested what I could do with Riddle’s story by having ADeuce play such a big part!

I also tried my hardest to include Trey and Cater, and I’m pretty happy with their cameo. In a way, they definitely helped Riddle figure out his own feelings for you. 

My favourite lines are: “I think you earned that much. I don’t believe anyone’s ever been in your situation before so—there’s no right or wrong about what you’re doing. It’s all about what you want to do.”

I wish someone would tell this to Yuu in general though. They’re the only one who has ever been in their situation (to our knowledge at least) and like... they’re definitely allowed to be even more selfish. 

Leona is someone who I used to dislike a lot. I never hid that. It’s primarily because of how disappointed I am in the story of Savanaclaw probably. But like, I was always concerned about writing him properly because I thought that it was only right that I did right by him, because there would be people reading these stories who loved him. And I felt like I had to do right by that love. 

I think... it’s wrong to believe that characters... villains... cannot fall in love or “won’t fall in love.” I think it’s wrong also to think that “people don’t change for love.” 

In fact, people do change. You definitely shouldn’t change yourself to be loved, but... people change all the time to be their “better” selves. So whose to say that a good person, who you love, will not make you want to improve yourself? Isn’t that what we want when we meet people? To fall in love with someone who will ultimately make you better and never worse. 

Or so that’s how I try to write the Twisted characters when they fall in love... With an understanding that “morally” the person they are falling for is “kind” and “good” and how a part of them might just want to be better just for that person. (Especially Leona and Azul). They don’t necessarily have to be nice to everyone, but if they can be better for one person... We stan healthy character growth.  

But yeah, Leona is driven by understanding that he’s a very selfish person. But that he’s also very unfortunate and he doesn’t want tie you with someone who, he thinks, is actually worthless. He probably, deeply, thinks you deserve more.

Though his selfishness eventually wins out and well... Won’t you forgive him for it? :) For tying you down to this worthless second prince? 

I think his own self-awareness does make him try harder. Not for everyone or everything... but for you. Just for you. I think that would be Leona’s love language--spending time with you, trying for you.

He’d appreciate if you didn’t call him out on it though, that would be very embarrassing. 

Looking back, I’m surprised that it was the only version where none of the other boys from his dorm showed up lol. Which means Ruggie is the sole character who has yet to appear in the “lucky ending” series, huh.

My favourite lines from his story that still leaves me breathless and patting my past self in the back: ““I’m home—” you said—even if a part of you felt that home should have been two green eyes, a cocky smirk, and a warm patch of sunlight on the grassy ground.”

Like honestly, what was I on? Who was she?

Azul is, like Leona, someone who is so keenly aware of the things he’s lacking. In fact, he’s someone who thinks he’s lacking when he’s probably perfect in some aspects. He might act proud but a part of him--I think--thinks its not enough. It’s never enough. He can certainly do better still.

In that light, it’s why he thinks he’s undeserving of a partner. Especially one who is “kind” and “understanding.” While ultimately, Azul deserves people in his life who are that and “accepting” of him--I think he still thinks he doesn’t. 

And thats why he lets go of the Yuu!Reader. It’s why he doesn’t “chase” after her like Leona did.

It’s because he’s selfish, because he wants her--that he forces himself to let go. 

Azul needs someone who’ll tell him that he is worth something and that he’s definitely worth the effort. So please praise him a lot until he’s crying in happiness. I’m sure it’s the one thing he’s always wanted to hear from people around him.

Also my Poly!Octavinelle Agenda has never died and I am pleased Past!Ai got away with so much Poly!Octa hints in this story lol. But honestly, regardless of wht Octavinelle says... god, you can tell they genuinely care about each other.

I recently rewatched Octavinelle’s chapter and... by god, the amount of things I missed out on first watch. Jade’s concern when he realized Azul wanted to get rid of that photo... The fact Floyd was so willing to drop the fight to return to Azul too... Anyways, Poly!Octa Agenda for life.

Favourite lines: “Azul’s pathetic whimpers turned into guttural sobs. His fingers spread to cover his eyes—and his glasses slid off his face, down to his lap and then to the ground—at his actions. His whole body shook as he cried his heart out.”

It’s not as poetic as a lot of my other favourites, but for some reason these lines always get me when I reread them. There’s something so visceral about it. 

Azul’s piece is probably the least visually stimulating out of all these stories? His was so emotionally driven compared to the others and I worried a lot about that.

I think I remember I was crying so badly as I was writing this. 

Kalim is really hard for me because I feel like I struggle a lot with finding conflict in his character? He’s such a genuinely nice person, I find it hard to believe that the Yuu!Reader would feel alienated from him or something. So I brought in “environment” to get in the way. 

My use of celestial imagery for Kalim is because of the Scarabia trailer! I really loved how it put Kalim as the sun and Jamil as the moon. I definitely will take advantage of that when I get around to writing for Jamil.

So because I wanted to use the sun, I chose to use the idea of comets for Kalim? I think I remember something about how meteors are drawn to the gravitation pull of the sun and can “escape” it or “be destroyed” by it. Haha, hot. 

Jamil is someone who ultimately cares about Kalim too and I had fun writing his banter with the Yuu!Reader. I think I wanted to decribe the shadows licking his face reminscent to the marks from his Overblot but... I felt like doing that would give Jamil too much focus so I ultimately decided against it.

It would’ve been hot though. 

Oh yes, one thing I wanted to talk about is Kalim’s rushed proposal. I remember people talking about it in the tags, comments... even in asks at that time. The reason he does it is because he’s someone who didn’t realize his feelings until you spelled out your own. It was a sort of: “Oh. Right. That is the word I’d use to describe my feelings.” 

My favourite lines from his story is: “How does one bid goodbye to the sun?” and “No one ever willingly bids goodbye to the sun.They spend the rest of their lives trying to find the right way back to it.”

My god, who was this genius.

Vil is probably the most visually stunning out of all these stories. I feel like my stories go from super vivid imagery and setting to just complete emotional disasters lol. (Vil being the former and Azul’s being the latter... not that it’s bad, it actually suits the characters). 

Oh man, I remember thinking that Vil is such a hard character to write because we don’t know what his motivation for perfection is. All we knows is that he wants to be the best but, why? 

It’s like, for example, Idia. His motivations could be otaku-related. He doesn’t want to go to class because he’d rather go play or something. That sounds in character--but Vil was so hard because he wanted perfection.

But we already see him as such a perfect character, so what else did he need to be even more perfect? In that light, Chapter 5 did a really good job on presenting Vil’s motivations. 

But honestly, I think I can comfortably say that the Vil I’ve written so far is pretty accurate? To his character. I’m really grateful I read his chat lines because his comment about intelligence really got me thinking about his possible motivations. It made it really easy to understand that Vil wasn’t like majority of the real world’s influencers. 

One other thing that I was really happy about with his story is the use of the flower language. It’s something I hope I can use more because it’s so beautiful. 

Oh! And the roses the Yuu!Reader talks about are double delight roses. They are specifically bred to have two colors--yellow in the center and pink on the outside. I thought it fitting that the Yuu!Reader breed special roses for Vil.

They can be called... err... Vil Roses?

My favourite lines from his story is:  ““My happiness will not be dictated by others—no, Vil Schoenheit is a person who will grasp happiness with his own hands.” [...] “I’m giving you this button because I’ve already found happiness by your side.”” 

This line was actually inspired by Zelda C.W.’s MYth series. Specifically Hera’s story, Will. 

Idia ...for him, I somehow had a very hard time imagining him trying to tell the reader to stay. Like that didn’t compute for me? I felt like his version was better approached in a more comedic light somehow. 

I also felt that it would be cuter if the Yuu!Reader had already chosen to stay and Idia would need to hastily retrack his confession... Unfortunately, Yuu!Reader won’t let him. 

Honestly looking back on it, I wonder how much of Chapter 6 is going to make me scream and want to rewrite Idia’s part? 

My favourite lines from his story is: “He was never particularly good at lying—nor was he good at keeping secrets from you. You were a person he considered a dear friend—and he was always the type of person who ended up spilling everything to you. He liked being able to talk about the things he enjoyed—he liked that he had found someone who wanted to hear him out.”

A lot of my interpretation for Idia is closely linked to personal experience as an anime, manga and gaming fan. It was just a couple of years ago where people would actually be bullied for liking these things--but nowadays its become a norm. It’s... stunning actually but it makes me happy to know that maybe nobody will be judged for loving anime.

That being said, Idia’s longing to find someone he can talk to is something I really relate too--back then, it was so difficult to find someone to talk to about my interests... So I interpreted Idia as much the same. That what he enjoys about the Yuu!Reader is their ability to simply sit and listen to him talk. 

Malleus... man, recently I’ve been starting to fall in love with him all over again. He was my first oshi ever... Anyways, moving on. You think I’ve talked enough about immortal x mortal but nope, we are not done. I love this theme in general, romantic or platonic. 

I will never shut up about it you can’t make me. 

Sebek having a good enough friendship with Yuu!Reader is such a delicious concept. Like mutual respect and Sebek understanding that Yuu!Reader gives Malleus a different type of companionship that Sebek, Silver or Lilia couldn’t... 

And also, ultimately, Sebek and Yuu!Reader do love Malleus. In different ways, but I like the thought of Sebek respecting that and respecting the Yuu!Reader.

Me realizing just now that Silver joins Ruggie in the: “has never appeared in a lucky ending fic club.”... Sorry Silver, I swear soon. Once we get more content on you.

Celestial themes for Malleus are primarily, again, because he only ever seemed to meet you at night. And I thought it would be wonderful, if you were a bright spark to him. 

Favourite lines are definitely:  “Oh, bright light… I would prefer to live the rest of your life by your side… rather than spend centuries contemplating what it could have felt… to hold you in my arms.”

I am, always, going to be such a big sucker for the idea of immortals constantly remembering and loving mortals. Always holding them close in their memories, because in that way--their lovers have become immortal with them. 

I also like to imagine that he eventually figures out a way to connect your worlds together so you can still talk to your friends and family from that world. He is one of the most powerful magicians around, I’m sure its possible.

Rook was honestly the most difficult piece for me to write because he’s so hard(?) for me to understand. He’s a mess of contradictions honestly and I... guess I’m excited to see what he’ll do come Chapter 6. 

I actually rewrote his story so much. I got about 500 words with a different idea/plot in mind before deleting that completely and restarting from scratch. 

I feel like Rook is someone who talks big and talks about love without actually knowing what it truly might feel like. He’s someone who doesn’t understand it and ends up mistaking it for his fascination. 

Aside from me enjoying inserting other characters from the same dorm as much as possible, I felt that Vil was the perfect person to snap some sense into Rook.

Epel’s appearance there is basically to reflect how much I really hope the first year kids get really close to one another. 

Rook is also someone who I think, doesn’t try to explain himself too much. He’s someone who I think talks a lot, but if people don’t understand him then he doesn’t need to be understood? That’s my impression. Lol, when “lucky ending” became a character study. 

I also really loved the idea that Rook was fine with people running from him--to him that makes it all the more thrilling. But then you start running away from him and that just ends up making dread pool in his stomach. 

My favourite lines from his story: “‘When something ends, it must be sad. So, tell me then, how an ending could be so beautiful?’ [...] .‘But there was one ending that was beautiful, non?’ [...] ‘That’s right. ‘They lived happily ever after’—are those not the words that define a beautiful ending?’”

I used the dusk metaphor for Rook. My idea is that he starts seeing dusk as an ending and how he can’t fathom how any “ending” is beautiful. When a story ends, it’s not beautiful to him, humu. But when that ending is the happily ever after then... That makes all the difference. 

Lilia was actually easier than Rook’s but also fairly difficult. I had written the middle of Lilia’s piece while stumped on Rook’s actually. Lilia’s was probably easier because I love the idea of immortals and mortals.

I don’t really like the idea of mortals becoming immortals. Like, yes, it’s certainly sweet and spending eternity with a one true love is definitely the best possible ending but... I think there’s so much weight in an immortal choosing to love a mortal while knowing that they will ultimately lose them.

The biggest theme for Lilia is definitely time.

Thinking about it now... There’s been a lot of things in real life that’s just... Made me think about how we have less time than we actually think we have. And I think I ended up channeling that through Lilia... Though I feel like it is ultimately things Lilia would think about though. 

The most important imagery would probably be the stars.

I honestly wanted to avoid it because I used celestial imagery for both Kalim and Malleus but the words just flowed out in a way that I felt that I couldn’t replace. So I went with it. 

Lilia is no stranger to loneliness. One of the reasons he feels less alone is because he has family now and he doesn’t want to rob you of that. Family is so important to him because they are people who are meant to be with you--they are people who will make you less lonely--or so thats how I think? he thinks. 

My favourite lines from his story: “He would relish in the way—You made the world pause. You made a moment extend into an eternity. You made an immortal crave just a little more time.”

I’m so immensely proud of this one? I don’t really have much else to say. There’s something so raw about it that I love. Also the part where it continues on to say that  “Because there is never enough time.”

Me realizing my extra notes is just half me simping over these characters, half sharing headcanons, have actually giving good advice? perspective?, half song lyrics, half character study/analysis?

“lucky ending” is about change. Whether we want them to happen or not it’s... the human condition to change. For better or worse, we change--day by day. I think we all operate under a small panic about how everyday things are changing...

But “lucky ending” is also about the things that don’t change. Won’t change. Will never change. The things worth holding onto, the thing worth fighting for... or so I’d like to think.

[khaleesiofalicante]

DANI HELLO!!!!!!! How you doing babes!!! 🌻🍓

First of all, now I get why you kept on writing 70 more parts to lbaf cause finishing fics is so sad. I keep getting the urge to add more chapters to the ATW fic even though its finished and I currently have 10 WIPS lol.

Anyways, I had my day off today, so I decided to catch up on the last 3 chapters of TLND, which was a horrible decision like always. I have the big sad now I won't be able to get shit done today.

TLND Magnus is becoming my fav. There is something so soft and vulnerable about him. He feels so real and not idealised. And sure, I would like him to communicate better, but that’s easier said than done. Age doesn’t make people wiser or smarter, and stuff like communication issues aren’t something that is resolved easily. I love it when people in their 30’s and 40’s are shown with real problems and issues. He reminds me of Magnus in Peru chapter in TBC.

I read the mansion chapter and then the last one where Clary mentions that thing about being married to a Lightwood. And it’s such a hard-hitting statement. It’s such a common sentiment where people expect partners/spouses to put up with whatever shit life throws at them. Which usually comes from the idea of ‘sacrificing’ in the name of love. Like Magnus clearly went to horrible shit throughout their marriage (I’m specifically talking about outside pressure rn and not their personal issues). Magnus probably got so much shit from the media, and now that he is putting himself first, he is getting more shit. Because people just expect you to sacrifice your whole life, mental health, and every shred of sanity because you love the other person, which is absolutely crazy. It’s not realistic and is always used as an argument against the person with less power for being selfish. It’s very common in military spouses, families where one partner has to reallocate frequently. And any other relationship with power dynamics and is a very harmful idea. So I am glad that Magnus got the divorce (*sobs while typing this*).

Someone needs to protecc Rafael that boy shouldn’t have to deal with all of this. He seems like the kind of person who calls everyone out not because he wants to but because he has to. Peak eldest child syndrome identified. Also, I have a 10 step skincare routine, and I deeply respect Rafael for it. Skincare is actually a very calming experience. 10/10 recommend.

I love Magnus. He’s baby. And he clearly doesn’t know what he wants in this fic which is fine because who even knows what they want lmao. But him taking Rafael to another continent seems unfair to me- specially considering how that would impact Max. Max already feels abandoned as it is; imagine Magnus leaving the country. And I’m thinking how he must be feeling knowing Magnus didn’t go only because of Rafael (idk if Max knew about the London thing or not)- also Magnus saying “oh but Max is allowed to join me if he wants” is also a stupid statement imo like babes, your child thinks you are leaving him. He can’t be a footnote in your London plan, even if it’s temporary. (+ I feel like Alec and Rafael made some stupid deal with each other when they went to talk in the room, they are both sacrifical idiots when it comes to Magnus)

I give more flying fucks about the wet food that people leave in the sink than Shinyun.

The raisin thing made me fucking sob. I fucking hate raisins man and if I ever find someone who eats raisins for me RIP to Magnus Babe but I would simply not divorce them.

P.S. I once again repeat- I am fine with Malec divorce but MAVID ANGST is where I draw the line!!!!!

Alec after seeing Herondale-Fairchilds being happy and normal-

okaybye 💚

EESHU! HELLO!

I hope your week is kind to you. *holds up knife* It better be kind to you.

About the writing. Absolutely! It's so hard to let go once you've immersed yourself. Now you feel me :(

Someone once asked me which version of my fic magnus I like the most. At this time, I haven't even begun to write TLND or have the plot sorted. But I remember replying that it's TLND.

Because you are right. He is different.

He is very much the Magnus we see in TBC. The Magnus we see in TID. The Magnus who is still learning how to be an immortal. The Magnus who is better at hiding and hurting than he is at laughing and loving.

I've always thought what it would be like if Alec met that version of Magnus. Magnus who is like 20. Not 400. Their dynamics would be so different. I do think they will end up together and figure out their shit because come on it's malec.

But yeah. I love this magnus so much too. He is very close to my heart.

And about the mavid angst. Apologies in advance, I guess? 💚

[blubberquark]

Excel, Word, Access, Outlook

Previously on computer literacy: A Test For Computer Literacy

If you’re a computer programmer, you sometimes hear other programmers complain about Excel, because it mixes data and code, or about Word, because it mixes text and formatting, and nobody ever uses Word and Excel properly.

If you’re a computer programmer, you frequently hear UX experts praise the way Excel allows non-programmers to write whole applications without help from the IT department. Excel is a great tool for normal people and power users, I often hear.

I have never seen anybody who wasn’t already versed in a real programming language write a complex application in an Excel spreadsheet. I have never seen anybody who was not a programmer or trained in Excel fill in a spreadsheet and send it back correctly.

Computer programmers complain about the inaccessibility of Excel, the lack of discoverability, the mixing of code and data in documents that makes versioning applications a proper nightmare, the influence of the cell structure on code structure, and the destructive automatic casting of cell data into datatypes.

UX experts praise Excel for giving power to non-programmers, but I never met a non-programmer who used Excel “properly”, never mind developed an application in it. I met non-programmers who used SPSS, Mathematica, or Matlab properly a handful of times, but even these people are getting rarer and rarer in the age of Julia, NumPy, SymPy, Octave, and R. Myself, I have actually had to learn how to use Excel in school, in seventh grade. I suspect that half of the “basic computer usage” curriculum was the result of a lobbying campaign by Microsoft’s German branch, because we had to learn about certain features in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on Windows 95, and non-Microsoft applications were conspicuously absent.

Visual Basic and VBS seemed like a natural choice to give power to end users in the 90s. People who had already used a home computer during the 8-bit/16-bit era (or even an IBM-compatible PC) were familiar with BASIC because that was how end-users were originally supposed to interact with their computers. BASIC was for end users, and machine code/compiled languages were for “real programmers” - BASIC was documented in the manual that came with your home computer, machine code was documented in MOS data sheets. From today’s point of view, programming in BASIC is real programming. Calling Visual Basic or .Net scripting in Excel “not programming“ misrepresents what modern programmers do, and what GUI users have come to expect after the year 2000.

Excel is not very intuitive or beginner-friendly. The “basic computer usage” curriculum was scrapped shortly after I took it, so I had many opportunities to observe people who were two years younger than me try to use Excel by experimenting with the GUI alone.

The same goes fro Microsoft Word. A friend of mine insists that nobody ever uses Word properly, because Word can do ligatures and good typesetting now, as well as footnotes, chapters, outline note taking, and so on. You just need to configure it right. If people used Word properly, they wouldn’t need LaTeX or Markdown. That friend is already a programmer. All the people I know who use Word use WYSIWYG text styling, fonts, alignment, tables, that sort of thing. In order to use Word “properly“, you’d have to use footnotes, chapter marks, and style sheets. The most “power user” thing I have ever seen an end user do was when my father bought a CD in 1995 with 300 Word templates for all sorts of occasions - birthday party invitation, employee of the month certificate, marathon completion certificate, time table, cooking recipe, invoice, cover letter - to fill in and print out.

Unlike Excel, nobody even claims that non-programmer end users do great things in Word. Word is almost never the right program when you have email, calendars, wikis, to-do lists/Kanban/note taking, DTP, vector graphics, mind mapping/outline editors, programmer’s plain text editors, dedicated novelist/screenwriting software, and typesetting/document preparation systems like LaTeX. Nobody disputes that plain text, a wiki, or a virtual Kanban board is often preferable to a .doc or .docx file in a shared folder. Word is still ubiquitous, but so are browsers.

Word is not seen as a liberating tool that enables end-user computing, but as a program you need to have but rarely use, except when you write a letter you have to print out, or when you need to collaborate with people who insist on e-mailing documents back and forth.

I never met an end user who actually liked Outlook enough to use it for personal correspondence. It was always mandated by an institution or an employer, maintained by an IT department, and they either provided training or assumed you already had had training. Outlook has all these features, but neither IT departments nor end users seemed to like them. Outlook is top-down mandated legibility and uniformity.

Lastly, there is Microsoft Access. Sometimes people confused Excel and Access because both have tables, so at some point Microsoft caved in and made Excel understand SQL queries, but Excel is still not a database. Access is a database product, designed to compete with products like dBase, Cornerstone, and FileMaker. It has an integrated editor for the database schema and a GUI builder to create forms and reports. It is not a networked database, but it can be used to run SQL queries on a local database, and multiple users can open the same database file if it is on a shared SMB folder. It is not something you can pick up on one afternoon to code your company’s billing and invoicing system. You could probably use it to catalogue your Funko-Pop collection, or to keep track of the inventory, lending and book returns of a municipal library, as long as the database is only kept on one computer. As soon as you want to manage a mobile library or multiple branches, you would have to ditch Access for a real SQL RDBMS.

Microsoft Access was marketed as a tool for end-user computing, but nobody really believed it. To me, Access was SQL with training wheels in computer science class, before we graduated to MySQL and then later to Postgres and DB2. UX experts never tout Access as a big success story in end-user computing - yet they do so for Excel.

The narrative around Excel is quite different from the narrative around Yahoo Pipes, IFTTT, AppleScript, HyperCard, Processing, or LabView. The narrative goes like this: “Excel empowers users in big, bureaucratic organisations, and allows them to write limited applications to solve business problems, and share them with co-workers.”

Excel is not a good tool for finance, simulations, genetics, or psychology research, but it is most likely installed on every PC in your organisation already. You’re not allowed to share .exe files, but you are allowed to share spreadsheets. Excel is an exchange format for applications. Excel files are not centrally controlled, like Outlook servers or ERP systems, and they are not legible to management. Excel is ubiquitous. Excel is a ubiquitous runtime and development environment that allows end-users to create small applications to perform simple calculations for their jobs.

Excel is a tool for office workers to write applications to calculate things, but not without programming, but without involving the IT department. The IT department would like all forms to be running on some central platform, all data to be in the data warehouse/OLAP platform/ERP system - not because they want to make the data legible and accessible, but because they want to minimise the number of business-critical machines and points of failure, because important applications should either run on servers in a server rack, or be distributed to workstations by IT.

Management wants all knowledge to be formalised so the next guy can pick up where you left off when you quit. For this reason, wikis, slack, tickets and kanban boards are preferable to Word documents in shared folders. The IT department calls end-user computing “rogue servers“ or “shadow IT“. They want all IT to have version control, unit tests, backups, monitoring, and a handbook. Accounting/controlling thinks end-user computing is a compliance nightmare. They want all software to be documented, secured, and budgeted for. Upper management wants all IT to be run by the IT department, and all information integrated into their reporting solution that generates these colourful graphs. Middle management wants their people to get some work done.

Somebody somewhere in the C-suite is always viewing IT as a cost centre, trying to fire IT people and to scale down the server room. This looks great on paper, because the savings in servers, admins, and tech support are externalised to other departments in the form of increased paperwork, time wasted on help hotlines, and

Excel is dominating end-user computing because of social reasons and workplace politics. Excel is not dominating end-user computing because it is actually easy to pick up for end-users.

Excel is dominating end-user computing neither because it is actually easy to pick up for non-programmers nor easy to use for end-users.

This is rather obvious to all the people who teach human-computer interaction at universities, to the people who write books about usability, and the people who work in IT departments. Maybe it is not quite as obvious to people who use Excel. Excel is not easy to use. It’s not obvious when you read a book on human-computer interaction (HCI), industrial design, or user experience (UX). Excel is always used as the go-to example of end-user computing, an example of a tool that “empowers users”. If you read between the lines, you know that the experts know that Excel is not actually a good role model you should try to emulate.

Excel is often called a “no code“ tool to make “small applications“, but that is also not true. “No Code” tools usually require users to write code, but they use point-and-click, drag-and-drop, natural language programming, or connecting boxes by drawing lines to avoid the syntax of programming languages. Excel avoids complex syntax by breaking everything up into small cells. Excel avoids iteration or recursion by letting users copy-paste formulas into cells and filling formulas in adjacent cells automatically. Excel does not have a debugger, but shows you intermediate results by showing the numbers/values in the cells by default, and the code in the cells only if you click.

All this makes Excel more like GameMaker or ClickTeam Fusion than like Twine. Excel is a tool that doesn’t scare users away with text editors, but that’s not why people use it. It that were the reason, we would be writing business tools and productivity software in GameMaker.

The next time you read or hear about the amazing usability of Excel, take it with a grain of salt! It’s just barely usable enough.

[proud-to-be-a-stoner]

My favorite KrimsonRogue moments from his reviews of Onision’s books. 

I’m gonna be perfectly honest. New Moon was the worst book I had ever read until about a week ago. Now it’s just the worst professionally edited book I have ever read.

But I’m not here to just shit on Onision entirely, as much fun as that would be.

The best plot synopsis I can give you for this is ‘It’s about a loser in high school who was written by a guy who was probably a loser in high school and never got over being a loser in high school; so he rewrote his high school days in this deranged fantasy in order to make himself seem both downtrodden and cool, which makes everyone involved come off as a big loser.’ And I would know because I was also a loser in high school. The difference was I got over it!

James, at least, is a person. He’s just not a likable one.

Hello, Jaden Smith’s Twitter account!

Got some next-level cringe going on here.

I’m really awesome! Also pity me!

James describes himself in such a way that he could only be the greatest lover of all time. 

That is…that’s not even a joke. That’s not even a thought.

I enjoy making fun of stupid books. I’m a masochist. The people on the internet like it when I hurt myself with bad reading.

Second verse, worse than the first.

I jumped the gun. I called the last one nihilistic cringe. I was too presumptuous. I acted too quickly. Because this is nihilistic cringe!

‘Humans are horribly sensitive creatures.’ As the protagonist of this book will demonstrate.

Of course, it doesn’t help that every single thing that Arthur types I can hear How Could This Happen to Me playing in the background.

I wish you would step back from that [bass boosted] EDGE, MY FRIEND-

'I said 'John, are you ready to hurt?’' That is the least intimidating start to a fight I have ever heard. 'John no doubt felt somewhat uncomfortable seeing these words come from the lips of someone who looked like me.' I would be too! You look weird!

Pot meet kettle!

So basically, he’s Dwight from The Office but with none of the charm.

I can believe that humans at least say some of these words??

I called it a footnote in the first book. No, this is a footnote!

Apparently Arthur really had to make sure that he killed the guy. ‘I continued bashing his head into the vent till I could be absolutely sure he was completely and irreversibly dead.’ As opposed to reversibly dead. Because, you know, God damn those zombies!

HOW DO YOU DO IT, GREG!? HOW DID YOU GET THIS MUCH WORSE WITH YOUR NEW BOOK!?

I think he did it either because he turned his autocorrect off or because his ego is so fragile he couldn’t stand to be corrected by a machine.

And, comically enough, there are more typos than pages in this thing. My God, man.

I do hope that everyone has enjoyed my undertaking of the Onision literature challenge. I’ve managed to complete all three books and I have not gone completely insane. Maybe a touch mad, but I think that’s what allowed me to pull through. Take the challenge yourself and see if you can actually survive all three books! Just make sure you hide all the sharp implements before you do, because you will want to commit harakiri.

You know, it’s really sad when your writing style can be summed up as ‘an overuse of comma splices’.

Ok, that’s enough jerking myself off.

Why did Daniel smirk? Why is his sister such a bitch?

Three, two, one, you’re wrong, it was aliens.

Eleven-year-old boys are kinda dumb. It’s ok, I’m allowed to say that, I was one.

So he’s by himself in bed when all of a sudden he hears a ‘non-audible noise’, which was no doubt accompanied by invisible scenery.

To prove that he is always the best at everything and always will be, Daniel says this. 'In dreams, I can hear things most can't hear. I can see things most can't see.' Hear that, everyone? Daniel's better at dreaming than you are!

Oh yeah, you think you’re so impressive? I can grow fingernails better than you can. Quick, watch me huff this paint better than you.

I’m smarter than you! Now watch me throw syntax out the window!

I wanna watch you get laughed out of the building.

People don’t just die suddenly, they rapidly cease existing. I want that to become a thing.

He no longer has skin!

God is rapidly ceasing to exist.

So now Daniel has become Seymour from Final Fantasy X.

There we go. Now it’s good and wrong.

#ThanosDidNothingWrong

Philip Pullman you are not, buddy.

Shit gets really vague here.

‘Hey, how come God doesn’t make any sense in your book?’ ‘Shut up.’

There are a number of ways you can kill a child, God, it’s not that difficult!

What kind of Al Gore bullshit math is this?

Oh but it gets dumber!

This is not inconsistent writing, this is a blatant fuck up!

[elyvorg]

So… I was talking about aspec V3 headcanons? Well then, let me lay down the facts.

Maki Harukawa is on the aromantic spectrum. Yes, even though she explicitly develops a crush on Kaito, and no, I’m not trying to dispute that part.

This is basically canon. Let me tell you why.

Maki is aro

For this, we need to consider the conversation Maki has with Shuichi in the first training session in chapter 4, while Kaito has temporarily disappeared to the bathroom. On one level, this conversation exists to be the only actual meaningful indication* that Maki has romantic feelings for Kaito until she goes and confesses them. Someone like Maki wouldn’t care about asking Shuichi if he “liked” Kaede (in that annoying loaded meaning of the word “like” that specifically refers to romantic attraction) unless she was trying to come to terms with the idea that she also “likes” someone else in the same way, and the only plausible candidate for that is Kaito.

But even more striking about this conversation, far more so than the general implication that Maki would only bother asking this if she happened to be crushing on a certain spiky-haired space dork, is the way Maki approaches and thinks about this whole topic in general. Take a look:

Maki:  “Well… I assumed you didn’t, because that would be weird. […] Liking someone you just met… especially in a situation like this…”

Shuichi:  “… Then tell me… under what circumstances is liking someone *not* weird?”

Maki:  “…Huh? I… don’t know. I don’t… really understand what that is.”

I, as an aromantic person myself, fully agree with Maki that it just seems weird to start romantically liking someone you’ve only just met, especially in a life-or-death situation where surely there’s way more important things to be focusing on. But apparently, most people do not find this thought weird at all – love at first sight is supposedly a real thing that can happen, and something something dangerous situations can bring out more hormones and passion???? sounds fake but okay – and so opinions like mine and Maki’s here are very much outliers.

And not only that, not only does the thought of crushing on near-strangers bewilder Maki to the point of disbelief, but she also can’t even come up with an answer to when crushing on someone would ever not be strange and bizarre. Like the whole concept is just alien to her. She can barely even wrap her head around how “liking” someone in that way even works. The very reason she’s even asking Shuichi about this is because she doesn’t understand why she’s feeling this way about Kaito.

This is how an aromantic person would view this kind of thing. It doesn’t sound even slightly like something an alloromantic person would say in this situation. That’s not up for interpretation – that’s just the truth about these views that Maki is expressing. Again: I’m aromantic. I would know.

Even from a character who then does turn out to nonetheless have a crush on someone, these statements are pretty much as canonically confirmed arospec as you can get short of them straight up using the word "aromantic" or a variant.** And, well, obviously Maki isn't about to go calling herself that. From the way she’s questioning this, she clearly doesn’t realise that her perspective is the outlier, so she’s probably never even heard of the term. Besides, she most definitely has way bigger hurdles to be getting over first in terms of her self-acceptance before she's ever going to particularly care about figuring out labels for her orientation of all things.

Aros with trauma are still aros

Now, granted, I severely doubt that Maki being arospec is what the writers intended to convey. Haha, deliberate aro representation in mainstream Japanese media, especially something more complex than vanilla aro, that's a funny joke. What the writers probably meant by writing this conversation I just discussed is to suggest that Maki is viewing things this way a result of her trauma.

But hey, guess what? Even if it is because of her trauma - and I'm not denying that it probably is - that doesn't make Maki any less aro. Some people are arospec because of trauma, and that's equally as valid a reason to be arospec as without. Maybe Maki would have grown up alloromantic if she hadn't been scouted as an assassin, but that's irrelevant, because that's not the Maki who exists now.

In writing this conversation, the writers were presumably attempting to communicate that Maki is so messed up by having been manipulated and abused and moulded into a soulless killing machine that she can no longer comprehend the idea of how or why anybody (especially not herself) would fall in love with someone when they'd only just met, or even really in any circumstances at all. …And in doing that, the writers unintentionally wrote a character who, as a result of her trauma, is aro(-spec). This is an objective fact about the canon story that does not change just because the writers probably weren’t aware enough about aromanticism to actually realise this.

Aros who feel romantic attraction are still aros

So, of course, Maki does in fact come to romantically love Kaito despite this. That fact becomes very important to her, and me lengthily explaining here that she’s actually arospec is not remotely trying to diminish that. But it’s also very important to me that people realise that Maki’s romantic love for Kaito comes from an aromantic perspective. She eventually chooses to embrace those feelings not remotely because it just feels to her like the natural way things should go, but despite every single conscious part of her insisting that this is weird and illogical and doesn’t make any goddamn sense to even be happening at all. She is not going to suddenly fall into all the boring romantic cliches and stereotypical alloromantic approaches to love just because she does in fact happen to be experiencing romantic attraction. There’s nothing alloromantic about Maki’s crush on Kaito.***

As for the specific flavour of arospec that allowed Maki to fall in love with Kaito anyway? This part is somewhat more up for interpretation because there’s no real explicit indication of this in particular, but I personally like to go with the idea that Maki is demiromantic. It feels appropriate for Maki’s character and trauma to imagine that she can only begin to potentially feel romantic things towards a person when she has an emotional connection with them – when she trusts them and knows that they trust her. It doesn’t necessarily have to take very long – she’d only been friends with Kaito for a handful of days before that telling conversation with Shuichi – and she may not even have to have consciously admitted to herself that she trusts them, but she needs to have that bond. She’s normally so guarded and has such strong automatic barriers up during her interpersonal interactions that seeing most people in a romantic light literally isn’t even an option in her brain.

Maki’s confession of her feelings for Kaito does read as rather strongly demiromantic, I think. She makes a point that this is about who Kaito is and what he’s done for her, before even getting to the part where she admits to having fallen for him. And she says she “fell for” him, not that she was always in love with him or anything to that effect. This happened somewhere along the way during their friendship, because of their friendship, and because of Kaito being his incredible trusting supportive self towards her when she needed it most.

Maki Harukawa is demiromantic, and she’s wonderful.

  ---

[some grumpy Amatonormativity and Aro Erasure 101 footnotes, can you tell I am bitter about this kind of thing]

(* When I say “actual meaningful indication” of romantic feelings, I mean something that isn't just the narrative infuriatingly pointing at things that are actually perfectly platonic in nature and going “ooh look how romantic~!”. Newsflash: worrying about somebody and wanting to rescue them when they're sick and injured and have been kidnapped by someone you think is an evil sadistic mastermind is not somehow proof of romantic feelings. That is a thing that friends do. And on the same note, teaching somebody how to build a crossbow is not some kind of deep metaphor for romance; it is literally just a lesson in how to build a goddamn crossbow. Maki would have done both of these things in exactly the same way if her crush on Kaito didn’t exist.)

(** It's exactly like how characters can be considered canonically confirmed same-gender-attracted when all they've done is show attraction to the same gender****, without them actually needing to explicitly refer to themselves with the word “gay”, or “lesbian”, or “bi” or whatever else. Anyone who tried to insist that was necessary in order for it to “count” would instantly be written off as homophobic. So if that’s the case, then a character explicitly saying something such as “I don’t understand what it means to like someone that way” equally constitutes them being confirmed aro, and trying to argue that it doesn’t “count” without outright hearing the word itself is, guess what…?)

(*** This also inherently means that there’s nothing straight about Maki’s crush on Kaito either, since societally-expected “straight” attraction is allo as well as hetero. I gather that some people in this fandom like to devalue and erase Maki’s crush (and potentially also Maki herself) because they feel that it’s an Obligatory Forced Straight Romance and don’t like that, or something along those lines. Well, good news! It’s literally not that, actually, because Maki isn’t straight.)

(**** …This only applies so long as it actually is very clearly romantic or sexual attraction and not just people deciding platonic affection is totally romantic thanks to the disease that is amatonormativity. Because, you know. That happens. Literally all the time. (Even from V3’s narrative itself; see footnote 1.))