#theres a lot of them that i just…. don’t understand why they exist

[ocarinaofpride]

sometimes the popular interpretations of a character can be very wrong/kinda boring. maybe referring to sephiroth here….

[bioethicists]

beer killed my father . he had a disease which destroyed his body and strained his relationships with his wife, his friends, and his children. Alcohol destroys everything it touches, theres a reason you see so many liquor stores in poor neighborhoods. don’t be fucking obtuse. Prohibition obviously doesn’t work, but I wish alcohol was taxed higher. And i want the CEO of Heineken on the guillotine right after Jeff Bezos.

before anything, i want to let you know that i am incredibly sorry about your father. alcohol has decimated entire generations of my family, played a crucial role in the neglectful family structure i spent the first 19 years of my life suffering under, + played a minor but not insignificant role in my brother's death. i would never undermine or dismiss that in anyone.

i used to feel very similarly to you, in large part because my mother is a recovering alcoholic who raised me to believe that alcohol is a magic poison which turns people into monsters + i, being her child, probably inherited a disease which would also turn me into a monster if i chose to drink. it's a deeply painful + understandable response to the pain that alcohol can cause.

my first question is, does alcohol really "destroy everything it touches"? are there not millions of people who engage with alcohol, in varying degrees of recreational use, who experience minimal or no negative impacts? or do you believe that everyone who drinks alcohol in any capacity is experiencing severe destruction in their lives as a result? does the existence of people for whom alcohol enriches their lives (or is a neutral presence) at all invalidate your experience, or your father's?

my second question is, you've identified that there are 'so many liquor stores in poor neighborhoods' (i would add there is a lot of alcohol in rich neighborhoods, just distributed in less stigmatized ways, like boutique wineries + fancy bars), do you think that companies are strategically attempting to create alcohol dependencies among poor people, or do you think that poverty creates the pain, hopelessness, + desperation which can fuel an alcohol habit (which is then exacerbated by intergenerational trauma + community alcohol culture).

i feel no allegiance to liquor companies- they absolutely do make the bulk of their profits off of people who are drinking in a way that is destroying their lives (unsure if i trust the exact scope of the research in that link but i trust the gist). however, liquor companies love the disease model, because it exempts them from responsibility. if alcoholism is truly a genetic disease, then liquor companies, bars, package stores hold no fault in the development of destructive drinking habits + community norms (natasha Schüll discusses this in her book about gambling addiction)- the people were already sick + would be getting it somewhere else, anyway, right? but as you have correctly identified, liquor companies help create the structures which turn alcohol use into an accessible + normalized mode of self-destruction.

my third question is, will taxing liquor help the real problem? yes, it reduces alcohol consumption, but does it reduce addiction? or does it make cheapskates like me say "i'm not fucking paying for that" while individuals who consume alcohol compulsively either eat the cost or turn to more illicit ways of obtaining alcohol. or, rephrased, is the problem that alcohol is too accessible? is alcohol a magical poison which turns 'normal' people into 'alcoholics'? alternatively, is alcoholism a genetic condition, unrelated to any outside circumstances, which is triggered by drinking?

or: is alcoholism one of many ways in which people who are experiencing hopelessness, pain, grief, poverty, trauma, etc use to numb themselves, harm themselves, + make life feel more bearable? at this point, i do believe there is at least a temperament factor which makes people more likely to use substances over other forms of escape (hence why my brother used substances while i turned to anorexia + do not struggle with substance use). are we actually addressing the problem if we make it more expensive (thus, mind you, further impoverishing people with alcohol addictions!)? or are we shifting the pain these people are experiencing to either other avenues (opioids, other drugs, totally different ways of coping which are often just as destructive) or an unregulated, underground alcohol market.

the way you are viewing alcohol, alcohol is a unique substance which is manufacturing or feeding illness in people in order to make them behave in ways which destroy their lives + the lives of others. the way i am viewing it, alcohol is a presence which can fill a void that is being created in people's lives as a response to structural, communal, or social suffering. when alcohol is painted as the cause of this pain, we are able to look the other way from a which world is structured to cause an immense amount of people to suffer needlessly. at the same time, the common sense observation that many of us engage with alcohol in ways which do not destroy our lives, as well as the knowledge that prohibition does not work, prevents the erasure of alcohol from public or private life.

who benefits from the belief that alcohol is a uniquely corrupting substance? what lessons did we actually learn from prohibition- is trying to do it to a lesser degree (make alcohol less accessible) actually going to do anything? when the price of opioids went up due to dea crackdowns, did people stop buying opioids or did the market flood with cheap + deadly fentanyl? is the problem that people are drinking or that they are suffering?

[toournextadventure]

Could I request a story thats Wednesday with a reader who drinks a lot of coffee and barely ever sleeps, and so she tries to convince them to sleep but they dont so reader ends up fainting in front of her and enid and Wednesday is really worried and at the end reader finally sleeps and theres fluff

Hell yeah, bestie, I feel this on a spiritual level. Coffee is the devil's drink, yet I indulge shamelessly ✌🏻😙

too much coffee

Midterms were going to kill you. There was no possible way you were going to survive. You had done the one thing you had sworn you wouldn’t do (pretend you didn’t need to study) and Wednesday had offered to help (you said no) and now you were on day three of no sleep. Times were tough enough, but Wednesday couldn’t introduce her parents to her highschool failure girlfriend! The Addams family was beyond accepting, but this? It would be unacceptable.

On the other side of the library, Wednesday watched you sit back down with another cup of coffee. It had to have been your fifth one of the night, if her counting was correct. Which it was. If you had just accepted her rare offer of help, you wouldn’t be stuck with more coffee than your body could handle.

She watched you as you finished your cup. Watched the way your hands were unusually shaky, causing your handwriting to come out looking worse than Pugsly’s. The way you should shake your head after staring at a page for too long; were you trying to clear the haze of caffeine from your mind?

She waited until you had emptied your cup before walking over to you.

“You need sleep,” Wednesday said. You jumped; it was a good thing your mug was empty.

“Jesus christ, Wednesday,” you huffed. “A warning would’ve been nice.”

“Go home,” she said, leaving absolutely no room for argument.

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” you said with a shake of your head.

“Please.”

You looked up at her with furrowed brows, and Wednesday had to bite her tongue to stop herself from taking it back. She knew how you worked; you were a snarky asshole until she asked nicely. If she took it back now, you would go back to being snarky. It was humiliating to have to resort to such niceties, but when you looked like you were on death’s doorstep, she would swallow her pride.

“I’ll sleep after my exam tomorrow morning,” you said with a soft smile. “I promise.”

“Not a moment later.” Wednesday didn’t tell you goodbye as she left the library. She didn’t want you to know that she was concerned for you.

Now she just needed to make sure Enid wasn’t losing her mind about her own midterms.

—---

The exam had been a cakewalk. Not only had you known nearly all of the answers, but you knew the bonus questions too. You were so going to ace it. Okay, maybe you would get a B, but it was still passing! There was a new swagger in your step as you walked out of class and started heading to the cafeteria.

You were going to treat yourself to a nice hot cup of coffee.

“Your dorm is in the other direction.”

Aw man.

You turned around slowly, praying to whatever gods existed that you were just hearing things. But then you saw Wednesday standing behind you, arms crossed over her chest and a look that you had definitely seen far too many times.

“Hello, dearest,” you said with a small smile.

She did not smile back, even though her face was a little twisty. Was she moving around?

“Go get some sleep,” Wednesday demanded. How can someone so short be so bossy?

“I’m just getting myself a little treat,” you said as you gestured your thumb behind you. At least you thought you did. Were things spinning?

“Hey guys!” Enid called, running up to where you were both standing. “How did your exam go?”

“Don’t encourage her.” Wednesday turned her body to face Enid.

They started talking, saying things that you really couldn’t understand. Surely they were still speaking English, right? That was your common language, was it not? So why did they sound so funny? And why was everything spinning? And why was everything going dark? And why-

-you were out cold before you hit the ground.

—---

Whatever you were laying on was extremely comfortable. It was soft and fluffy and warm. Was it heaven? Were you in heaven? Oh god, your mother was right, too much coffee would kill you. You had wasted your last few days on earth studying for a stupid exam that didn’t even matter!

“Don’t even think of moving.”

Oh no. No, you weren’t in heaven, you were in hell and Wednesday Addams was your grim reaper.

The struggle to open your eyes was more intense than Prometheus stealing the fire from Zeus. It was like your eyes were sealed shut and would rather kill you than open. But when they opened and the migraine hit you like a ton of bricks, you understood; they weren’t trying to fight you, they were trying to protect you.

“What happened?” You asked; god, you sounded like you smoked two packs of cigarettes a day.

“You fainted,” Wednesday said. Everything was hazy, but her voice came from your right. “Enid helped me carry you to your room.”

You opened your mouth to argue, but the look you could finally see on Wednesday’s face was enough to shut you up. In the privacy of your room, with no one to see, she looked concerned. It was in the furrow of her brows, the tightly pressed lips, the slightest twitch of her fingers.

Wednesday Addams was concerned.

Without hesitation, you moved over on the bed to make room. She stared at you for a moment until you patted the now-empty spot. There was a hesitancy in her movements, but she finally came and laid down beside you. Her back was to you, but that was okay; you pulled her closer and wrapped an arm around her waist.

“Please sleep,” Wednesday said softly. She would only ever talk this softly to you when she wasn’t looking at your face.

“Only if you sleep with me,” you answered even though you could already feel yourself falling back asleep. “My roommate won’t be back for a few more hours.”

“If she sees us, I’ll kill her,” Wednesday threatened even as she backed up closer to you.

“I would expect nothing less,” you said. You leaned forward and left a small kiss on the back of her neck, and you felt her interlock your fingers before you both fell asleep. You should faint more often if it meant Wednesday would cuddle and sleep with you.

[pixiecaps]

no bc im not usually involved w stuff like this and believe everyone should be held accountable for their actions no matter what. but seeing the way quackity has been seen as non human, any emotion or misstep he has being seen as manipulative or fake is like crazy. i don’t understand how people don’t see like wait, your actually just being racist you are not capable of seeing him as a person, why? it feels like he really could’ve handled this perfectly and there still would be this large crowd regarding him as a heartless fraud??

truly. i have closely observed this situation and listened to both sides and theres a lot of different opinions that can co exist and theres a lot of complexity to them.

one particular thing that has bothered me and made me uncomfortable is the projection of quackity as this scheming conniving figure. its gross. him having to explain that hes had previous experiences like this where he keeps any sort of bad situation with another creator private and that in turn has made him perceived as more manipulative is so sad. and this isnt surprising obviously since this is something ive witnessed. but overall i think with the internet nowadays theres a large mindset that everything needs to be public information and shared with the audience while they preach to solve things in the dms. people only care for a show and to watch creators destroy themselves. thats what twitter is and what a lot of people actively strive to do on that platform. specifically in regards to leak communities.

everyone should be aware enough that theyre allowed to criticize quackity and the decisions he’s made that people may not agree with. he acknowledges that himself. but to paint him as anything other then human and someone who has deeply fucked up reaches that level where it is racism. i dont think many people quite realize micro aggressions when they see them. so theres that. and then theres obviously the extremes of the situation when it came to the doxxing and death threats. people actively celebrating and saying it surely is an okay thing to spread because well he fucked up right? hypocrisy. this goes the same way for any admin or worker involved the situation that has been sent and told the same.

this entire situation has proved to me that nobody knows how to properly handle anything or how to properly react to anything and choosing instead to immediately jump to those extremes mentioned in the name of activism and moral superiority.

anyways support the admins. listen to their stories. criticize media you consume in a constructive manner. call out xenophobia and racism when you see it. and treat people like the humans they are. they will all make mistakes each side has made a mistake. yes this also applies to the people in the community. think for more than a second before you post anything for fucks sake.

[soukokvn]

Theres one thing that I love about one relationship in one piece but I think it’s too unclear and like between the lines for everybody to understand it so imma explain it to y’all 🫵

This is all about the Law/Cora/Dofy situation and I swear you won’t regret knowing that.

We know Dofy is a literal demon spawn he was born to be a menace to society and don’t give two fucks about how what he does affects others.

During the Dressrosa arc you get to meet with the Donquixote family with its three main units named after the four symbols in card games so « heart, clubs, diamonds and spades ».

It’s easy to make the link between Corazon and the heart unit obv since it’s a code name to represent that he is the head of this unit, and before him it was Vergo.

Now back to the Dressrosa arc 13 years after Cora’s death, the heart unit doesn’t exist anymore. Or I should say doesn’t have anybody officially in it. Since Cora’s death Dofy didn’t give this name to anybody again.

I have three reasons that could explain why :

For when Vergo comes back eventually

Because he didn’t want anybody to take the place of his brother (either out of love, even if it sounds quite unreal, either because he didn’t want anybody to remind him of him)

Because he kept this place for Law if he ever came back

BUT Law still wears the heart. His tattoos, his jacket in this arc and even his crew (called Heart Pirates), and THIS is something that Dofy doesn’t like at all.

Dofy never looses his cool, he has a lot of temper and is very cold headed but we saw him giving in to his emotions two major times. The first time being Cora’s death.

If you watch true crime or things like criminal minds you know that when someone is killed by being shot or stabbed repeatedly it, pretty much every time, mean the victim and killer had a strong bound and the crime was due to something happening in their relationship that created hatred or frustration for exemple. Now look at Cora’s death.

It’s clearer in the anime but Dofy shots Cora repeatedly. And the same thing happened a second time 13 years later with who ? Law obv 👍

It’s the scene where Dofy sees the name Corazon on Law’s back, he absolutely loses his shit.

He hates seeing Law wear the heart because it must remind him of his failure with him and Cora, how he wasn’t able to get the two of them to stay with him.

We know that Dofy still associates Law with the Heart tho no matter how much it seems to affect him, when Law was captured he was attached to the Heart throne, out of the four empty ones.

So when Dofy wanted to kill Law after losing his shit over how Law will forever be associated with the Heart no matter what he has to say about it he ONCE AGAIN shoot repeatedly.

Im not pointing this so say that Dofy is attached to him in any way but in a way that Law, more than anyone else, affects him so deeply he makes him lose his cool even for a second. Even when he lost to Luffy Dofy was not much affected by the situation, but as soon as Law shows him how linked he still is to the Heart and Cora it’s the end of the world for him.

You can even see how he will forever associate the name Corazon to Law, because of their relationship of course, but also because Dofy probably wanted Law to become the new Corazon, as he said 16 years ago that in ten years Law would be his right hand.

I think I’m pretty much done, their trio is one of my favorite in the whole series, it’s so interesting to try to understand how Dody feels about them and the other way around, their relationship is so complex and well written I just love them all three sm 🙏

Hope this didn’t bore you and you liked it 😁

[weirdmageddon]

OK OK SO!!

First off!!! Hello fellow davejade enjoyer i see you. Second off—what sort of things do you wish you could’ve seen with these two in canon :0. Could be expansion on canon scene, arc direction, or just a new scene entirely. for me personally I would’ve loved to see some genuine fighting collaboration going on. I felt VERY teased with all the magic combo’s in collide.

Third! I know they do a lot of music collaboration in canon, and I’ve seen some things with them making a band together post canon. What sort of sound do you think they’d have/what artist do you think they’d sound like?

Thank you :))

okay god theres so much i wish was expanded on in canon with regard to dave and jade

this post is swan dive into homestuck meta and took me over a day to write. so i would appreciate feedback or discussion on this if you'd like, reblogs appreciated!

despite this question being posed as davejade related, my answers here are actually relevant for anyone interested in homestuck meta as well.

it’s just recently come to my attention that there are a a handful of people on twitter who are vocal davejade dislikers. i didnt know it was actually disliked until i looked it up on twitter, i honestly thought it was a joke blown out of proportion but no they exist! it surprised me a lot to see people think they "lack chemistry". not only because knowing what i know about them thats a ridiculous insinuation, but also i haven't seen the vitriol on tumblr. probably because we can actually poast about it on here in an unabridged manner which thus enables better, deeper critical analysis and engagement with the media. i think also people forget that dave strider is canonically bisexual and are too yaoipilled + facing the consequences of the epilogues to even give davejade a serious look/analysis. (dave dates terezi and karkat in separate timelines, thinks jane is hot, thinks roxy is a babe but shoves it down when he discovers she’s his ectomom lmfao. davesprite—an extension of dave himself—dated jade! but i'm going to cover that in more depth in this post since theres a lot of misunderstandings about the nature of that relationship in fanon.)

(as a side note according to what some people have told me in inbox and what ive seen lol i think that ive been inadvertently been getting people into davejade. it's all in my davejade tag here in chronological order if you'd like to get a Whiff. be sure to read the tags on posts in there too!)

even though theres a lot in this post as it is, it doesn't cover everything ive talked about wrt davejade, and i think it would benefit readers to have complementary posts alongside this for the full picture with stuff it doesn't cover. there's a ton about why theyre cute and why i think they work well together in that tag.

here's some highlight analysis posts, but be sure to check the tag because there's a more in there:

post a / post b / post c / post d / post e / post f (← one of my favorite ask responses ive ever gotten)

i think a huge chunk of the issue has to do with how the narrative handles dave and jade. one of the most damning things to me is how glossed over their canon interactions were in act 5 despite them collaborating on one of the most important things in the story. i haven't talked about this yet but i'm going to do so here. because they’re put on the backburner by the focus of the narrative during act 5, people who don’t read carefully will miss the implications that are there all along in canon but easily passed over.

under the cut ive separated it into multiple parts

1. Jade’s Quest: What Frog Breeding Entails

this is an analysis examining apart exactly what jade and dave did while frog breeding. i wrote it while high which was extremely enlightening and it allowed me to comprehend it and hopefully explain it in an understandable way. i also discuss how shitty the lack of on-screen communication between jade and dave was for this part and the next.

2. Jade & Dave vs. Jack Noir

ive discussed this one before on my blog so it's not as dense (see davejade tag). but i still sewed the gifs together and discuss how unfortunate this was to be be delegated to a banner at the top of mspa and the neglect of that whole arc despite the outcomes of it being reissued by characters thousands of pages later

3. Davesprite and Grimbark Jade

i get into davesprite's head here and try to make his motivations about the breakup clear to the extent that i can infer because jesus fuck i love these characters way too much ive known them for a decade i understand their core personality structures and why they think what they do and what is most likely to happen when extrapolating? i also talk about how grimbark jade changed the way the fandom perceives their relationship, leaving davejade on a low note instead of a high note. and then hs epilogues had even worse consequences for davejade but i wont get into it because it was character assassination all around and doesnt deserve my time or yours. but if you wanna know what i think, here

4. The music question

where actually answer this ask like it's an ask and not an essay

1. Jade’s Quest: What Frog Breeding Entails

i wish we could have seen what collecting frogs entailed for the two of them. what exactly were they doing? jade’s quest is one of the most interesting.

before i start i want to take a tangent and say the frog breeding reminds me of back in 2020-2021 when i would breed hybrid flowers in animal crossing new horizons to get a very specific gene sequence for these flowers to not only use to breed for hybrids, but to get known gene sequences that i could use to “check” the genes of other flowers. the goal is to get two parent flowers whose sequences when bred would make a specific phenotype 100% of the time.

this sounds complicated but here’s what i did for the lilies:

(“rare island” refers to one of the first acnh patches that removed a nook miles island from the pool that had hybrid versions of your native flower of very specific phenotypes for each color. i wrote out the breeding chains to get parents that would always breed that exact flower found on the rare hybrid nmt island that is no longer available.)

the cleanup ALL TO GET the white 2-2-2 lily looked like this. and after i got white 2-2-2 lily it was smooth sailing

after all that i could use the orange 2-2-0 lilies and white 2-2-2 lilies made in the black lily process and get rare island orange 2-2-1 lilies 100% of the time. in mendelian genetics these numbers (2-2-1) are quite literally RR-YY-Ww.

RR-YY-ww (orange) x RR-YY-WW (white) = RR-YY-Ww (orange: heterozygous Ww gene)

and all that effort into getting white 2-2-2 lilies enables me to get it over and over again now. i don’t have to repeat that process to get rare island pink lilies. all i need to do for the pink 2-0-2 lilies is breed two default bag red lilies (2-0-1) together. 50% will be red (2-0-1) lilies, 25% will be black 2-0-0 lilies, and the last 25% will be pink (2-0-2) lilies.

anyway sorry back to the main point. FROG BREEDING. it just reminded me of it. now that i think of it the frog breeding process also reminds me a lot of artbreeder back from when AI was only a fun little toy 4-5 years ago

ok so have a look at what kanaya says about what jade must do. this is the coolest quest imo because of how it progresses and how long it actually is

here’s how it works. remember back in act 2, when the wayward vagabond needed to tie a longer cable to descend down the ship (and refused to give up the ones that made up his mayoral sash)? he used the appearifier in the ship to appearify the extra cable across the gap to his location? that’s how the appearifier normally works when when it’s locked to the present. it’s very straightforward.

when jade appearifies a frozen frog, it shows us this exact thing. she appearified the actual frog itself (the same way WV appearified the actual cable across the gap) to her exact location. it can get the frog out of the ice in the way WV could untrap serenity from the amber. if something’s destiny wouldn’t otherwise be changed, it will not be paradoxified, it will just simply itself be warped to that location, with precise carving if it is somehow trapped inside of something else.

if you could appearify it to your location right now, you wouldnt be able to take it out the appearifier’s crosshairs in person later to alter its destiny because the object won’t be there at that time. it wouldve been with you the entire time. unless you decide to take the appearified item back to that location so that you could appearify it in the past, but that’s the most pointless time loop ever and doesn’t change its destiny.

for this icicle frog jade and dave weren’t capable of changing its destiny anyway, because it was completely encased in ice, and just didn’t bother to go after it. partially because it was with jade at the appearifier the entire time anyway and she can’t exactly put it back in there in the future. the point is, besides jade appearifying it to her location, the frog had no other possible routes of destiny. in that part of lofaf where she appearified the frozen frog from, the ice is too deep to get anything out of it (other than appearifying it) and i’m not sure the forge would have melted it in time before their reckoning ended anyway.

the goal of jade and dave is to target frogs on the appearifier screen and trust that their future selves follow through in altering the frog’s destiny. if so, then the frog’s paradox slime will appear instead and its genes would be collected in addition to creating offspring between multiple paradox clone frog genes. then, dave and jade would necessarily have to go out adventuring and find the frog so that they end up following through for their past selves.

if i understand correctly, jade is creating all the frogs on her planet that grow up with manually modified genes. these frogs must be genetically altered from their parents so that the frogs she creates don’t grow up to become one of their parents (as they’d be identical). the mutant offspring frogs “generation A” she ectobiologizes will eventually mature from tadpoles to frogs, assisted by dave’s time travel. then she will eventually target “generation A” with the appearifier to get their paradox slime to fuse with some other frogs’ paradox slime and create new slightly altered frogs “generation B” (and then follow through on altering the “generation A” frogs’ destiny so their slime and genes can be paradoxified by jade and dave’s past selves). repeat until the genes are fine tuned for the genesis frog.

this is why i compared it to my breeding in animal crossing. getting the genesis frog reminds me of the blue rose paths. i worked with the garden council back in the day and i used backwardsN’s “cesspool” method, except i honestly gotta say my white 2-2-2 lily thing was much more involved and carefully maneuvered in a way that i imagine frog breeding is more like. backwardsN’s “genepool method” was basically making a red-orange-black rose primordial soup and waiting for a blue rose to emerge out of it, just increasing the chances seeing a blue rose sprout the next day after watering with each generation of offspring. you KNOW my ass was using time travel, even if i happened to get lucky and got a blue rose without even finishing the big turtle plot. without time travel, most players (95%) will get their first blue rose before these # of days. (open up advanced tag)

there must be so many daves running around to help her going back in time all within the span of a few hours while still having their own linear, older timelines that are much longer than the “time stage” they’re actually functioning in. this sounds complicated but it’s not. think of this “time stage” as analogous to the 3 days until the moon falls in majoras mask. it’s the “time window” all the time travel takes place within, but link doesn’t become a day younger when he travels to a day ago. the timeline of his “self” is older but is kept within the confines of the 3-day timeframe. similarly, in tears of the kingdom, two master swords exist simultaneously for most of history, but the one on the light dragon’s head (who was above the cloud barrier before the upheaval btw) is further ahead on its own linear timeline: it starts as the other, pre-gloomed master sword → broken by gloom → sent to the past to be repaired → renewed over time, existing at the same time on the “time stage” as its own pre-gloomed past self but ahead on its own linear timeline

now imagine this but within the “time stage” of just a few hours within the same 24-hour period. kanaya says frog breeding ordinarily takes weeks. multiple daves can exist simultaneously because they’re operating in the same few-hour-timeframe but one can linearly be days ahead of another. it’s the exact same thing as breeding flowers in animal crossing for irl days but to your game it’s whatever date you have it set to. your irl progress isn’t lost if you go back a few days in settings. i’d often find a week in june to use as a “time stage” to loop through when it would rain at least one hour on each day of that week which would save me the hassle of watering my flowers every day before time traveling to the next.

it must’ve sucked for dave to hear jade say the same things over and over again. the novelty probably wore off pretty fast lol…… dave says he saw his future self fighting and dying to jack and knew that’s what he’d eventually have to do as well. every single dave at all points of his linear timeline understood that and it probably settled something horrible into his heart.

im imagining during the original run dave was thinking to himself: “im bored but cant alter anything about this without creating a doomed timeline. if i dont see my future self hugging jade then i cant hug her even though i really fuckin want to. note to future self: hug jade. aww shit look at me go guess i remembered. hell fucking yes cant wait for that to be me in a few hours” and gives a thumbs up

future dave pov, hugging jade and watching his past self give him a thumbs up from afar thinking to himself: “ahaha i remember exactly what i was thinking there” and gives a thumbs up

but anyway. goddamn. JADE AND DAVE. what did hussie do to you.

this is a goddamn atrocity.. what the hell man. i wish we could have at LEAST seen the text file jade sent to kanaya. we got to see ConversationWithAVeryStupidGirl.Txt but not daveisafunnyguy.txt?

i mean i GUESS the humor is delivered through this

and like, yeah that is pretty funny? but i feel like the single laugh this gives me is nothing compared to the joy i wouldve gotten out of seeing what dave has to say about the cloning apparatus for ants here and talking himself into circles about frog procreation enough to make not just gigglehouse jade laugh, but kanaya too

we spent so much time learning about the mechanics of the punch designix and hardly anything about creating the seed of the actual new universe. we learn about it through kanaya and karkat messaging jade, instead of dave and jade working that out through SHENANIGANS. even though this is JADE AND DAVE'S session. it’s fine that kanaya is helping them, as she should, but we’ve seen parallel pesterlog conversations before so i dont get why we didn’t get that here! jade and dave frog breeding is one of the most important events in homestuck, and yet it was terribly glossed over. everything in the story, their futures, are predicated on their success. not just in their unwinnable session, but the one they split up for 3 years and escape to.

at first i thought, maybe their lack of shown interaction has to do with hussie working out the intricacies of pesterlog/dialogue thing? as he once stated on tumblr:

shoshaumbay asked: In the intermission of act 6, it says that they get to talk. Does this mean that their guardians couldn’t talk to them before and that is why they left them notes all around their houses?  The achievement badge only upgraded their ability to speak to each other as presented through the comic. I.e. it permitted them to speak to each other… WHILE WE WATCH! Do you think all the trolls were hanging out together, not talking at all? Or Dave and Jade were doing all that frog hunting without a single peep?? That’s ridiculous. On the other hand, abstraction weaves itself through the Homestuck reality, and it can be hard to pin down where abstraction is to be taken literally. The truth is, there is not much distinction between the layers of abstraction and the reality they are meant to stand for. John was both literally named on his 13th birthday, and not quite, because that’s silly. The guardians are both literally silent automatons, and not really, as there is indication through allusion they function as normal people too. And the kids went through a huge adventure, achieved immortal god status, and even then had to gain a few more levels just to gain the achievement of simple dialogue as a literal upgrade, as well as not literally, because that makes no sense. The reality is inseparable from the way the story is presented and the way the “game” is played. But those abstractions are also a facade for a more life-like reality beneath it as well.

then i realized, this is not only an arbitrary cop out that affects my enjoyment of the comic in retrospect because they wind up being able to talk later anyway and that makes me feel cheated in these moments, but also still actually awful within these parameters because hussie breaks his own rule here, proving he could have shown us dave and jade talking in person at any time regardless of needing the gift of gab achievement for us to watch them as readers. recall this is also the first time john and rose met in person (at least when rose wasn't asleep):

2. Jade & Dave vs. Jack Noir

this is where i take out my frustration over this being delegated to a banner at the top to the point where readers forgot it occurred.

(also i want yall to take a moment to acknowledge this ^)

i wish their time on lofaf frog breeding and fighting with jack was front and center and wasnt just in the banner at the top of the page. it makes it seem not as important when it completely was, considering that characters brought up what had happened in that scene multiple times.

it is significant because it is at that point that jack noir has killed all of the kids at least once. the only one left being jade who he refuses to kill due to bec’s loyalty

THIS IS WHAT THE REFRANCE (foreshadowing)

jack noir killed john on his quest bed which allowed him to ascend to god tier. then he killed john AGAIN but it wasn’t a heroic or just death so john was revived

jack killed grimdark rose. john smooched rose’s corpse, allowing her to take over on derse.

jack killed dave by redirecting jade’s bullets into dave’s body instead. jade smooched dave’s corpse, allowing him to take over on derse.

after jade shoots him through jack, he’s down for the count. she kisses him and he wakes up on derse; all he and rose have left of “themselves” in an existential sense are their dreamselves. they didnt know they were going to ascend to god tier delivering the tumor. they assumed they were just going to die like for real and not come back which is why dave went with rose since he didnt want her to die alone.

it was also an important point since her time spent with dave on lofaf is the first in-person contact jade has had with another living human since she was probably 4 years old with her grandpa.

for jack noir, we got [s] seer: desend and [S] ==> (3696) which were hella impactful. seeing jade and dave essentially go through the same thing but with an extended battle sequence honestly kinda warrants a flash in my mind. (the sad thing is that unite synchronization was originally written with those pages in mind (the track was originally called redshift) but of course malcolm brown couldnt have known what was going to happen unless hussie commissioned him for a specific track for a specific story beat, probably like whatever he did to coordinate cascade’s music with toby ahead of the 10/25/11 release of the flash and publication of volume 8 on bandcamp)

i think one of the worst parts is that entire conversations were referenced, but cut or never written.

this is a real forgotten homestuck fact: jade was completely freaking out after filling dave with bullets until karkat had talked her through it. very easily forgotten since even though it being referenced twice we never actually saw the conversation. (i overrode the black scratch background so it's easier to read)

wow thats so crazy i as a member of the audience dont in fact remember! would it have killed to write it my guy

and we find out thousands of pages later dave was thinking more about how it wouldve made jade feel to watch him die than knowing he was about to fucking die. if you even care btw

i wrote more about this here

3. Davesprite and Grimbark Jade

davesprite—an extension of dave himself—dates jade but breaks up because he feels inadequate at being the dave that he thinks jade deserves. NOT because they fought or anything. they were still on good terms. davesprite just felt inherently unlovable. john seemed more upset about the breakup frankly.

what davesprite did was because he thought it was in jade's best interest. there is nothing to suggest it was a fight / clash break up. they still seemed to be on good terms, davesprite asking where she went and all. jade says the breakup “is complicated” and “hes going through a lot of stuff”. given the context i think it's reasonable to assume that davesprite's thought process was: “we're coming up to the new session soon and youre going to meet up with dave again and i dont want to make shit awkward with you dating knockoff dave. you deserve to be with real dave instead so im gonna cut what we have going here in advance and distance myself from your life”

jade probably protested about saying how he's just as real as “real dave”, but davesprite made his decision already. im sure it wasnt easy for davesprite to break up either. with emotions running high (sadness, not anger) he probably just left to be alone and distance himself from jade, and seems to harbor guilt about it as we see in the log. that's probably why he wasn't at john's movie party. this is just speculation on my part but it doesnt seem in character for the breakup to be explosive because jade seemed more understanding than john. sad, but understanding.

i feel like a lot of people forget this. grimbark jade made it seem like davesprite did it to hurt her, or for this to mean that dave and jade are not actually good for each other, which is a wild mischaracterization of what happened but the one that stuck with the fandom nonetheless.

not only that, but davesprite's existence tragic and he's understandably depressed. after spending about a year in sburb (accounting for time travel) without john or jade, only to go back and give up your personhood to advance the alpha timeline and become forgotten is fucking crushing, and i think the breakup is also about davesprite coming to terms with that trauma, being okay with his existence as a sprite instead of being a bootleg stand-in for the dave that jade knew.

basically what vintagegamebro says,

it was such a tragic way for them to part for 3 years with no communication, and it was only proceeded by more tragedy because jade then had no one but davesprite to turn to, and davesprite needed anything but romance at that point

grimbark jade isn’t a good reflection of jade’s actual self. she pushed the mayor into lava for fucks sake which normal jade would never dream of doing, grimbark jade is straight up unhinged. i’m sure jade was hurt because all breakups hurt, but it was blown out of proportion (see how calm she was above a few days after the breakup?) because of Evilness. but also as @vintagegamebro mentioned it also felt somewhat … “off”? or out of left field? especially seeing what the nature of the breakup was from both sides in the above screenshots.

when dave says “theres no way i would have done that to you” i genuinely believe him. i have no reason not to believe him. look at him above asking for questions and clarification. thinking about how what davesprite did, a version of himself beyond his control and how it reflects on himself, i think it's obvious dave cares a lot about how jade feels about him

even after this confrontation in the game over timeline, dave laid down his fucking life to defend her corpse from the becs in he hope she could be revived by jane

and to think that after all this he still chose to save her, like always, probably knowing he had little to no chance, just because he cares for her, her life and who she is beyond this moment, really meant a lot for them. i really, really was mad that this would be the last time they would truly ever be together in a way that to me mattered

4. The music question

i wrote this post regarding instruments with this song in the back of my head if its anything. takes about 12 seconds to start after you press play for some reason

this too, closer to the “style”. i like imagining dave going apeshit on drums

[bthump]

I’m not coming from a place of hate at all, I enjoy your takes on Berserk homoeroticism and appreciate your refreshing ability to make well informed, intellectual analysis so accessible for other fans. It is an important resource to have when dudebros try to make their homophobic bias sound like good arguments. However, when it comes to your analysis of Casca, I find myself disagreeing with almost everything you say. I’m usually only reading your blog quietly because I enjoy the discourse, but I feel like I need to add my two cents. I agree that Cascas writing falls flat to a degree, but I can’t help but think that you’re downplaying her character and arc because you don’t enjoy the parts of Berserk that aren’t about homoerotic tension between Guts and Griffith. Their homoerotic tension is also what is most interesting to me, but it’s not what Berserk is inherently about. We could dismiss Casca by saying ˋMiura can’t write women´, but then again characters like Farnese exist who have an entire complex thematic arc tied to religious extremism, authoritarian character and freeing herself from dogmatism and Berserk as a story is not punishing her or asking for redemption and is instead inherently ridding itself from moralizing judgements of characters. She’s allowed to evolve by herself. As a queer person, I see myself in her. Theres so much queerness and comphet in her story, I’m sad that there’s not many meta posts about her on here. Does Berserk have ideological streaks of conservatism and misunderstands women because Miura has a misogynistic bias? Yeah, unfortunately. But the story and many of the main characters are too complex and ambiguous for me to write them all off based on how some of their arcs are not feminist enough and could need improving. Imagine writing such a complicated and long story with so many characters as just one simple Japanese dude who never leaves his house and who was born in the 70s or whatever. Like, I get separating the story from the author and impact versus intent, but dismissing Casca because of her flaws in writing is dismissing all of Berserk because of some thematic flaws. It sounds like you’re expecting the perfect story for her to be a valid female character and that’s just not possible. I for once made peace with her flaws and am not rejecting her. I think Cascas story works for what it is and I empathize with her as someone who has experienced misogyny and SA. Farny and Schierke working through her trauma magically was a nice metaphor for solidarity between women and it’s rare to see that coming from a male author, I don’t think it’s less valid just because Miura has some gender bias. Casca still experiencing PTSD afterwards is also realistic and shows that Miura is willing to give Casca enough agency to work through that by herself without magic some time in the future of the story. Her story is uncomfortable and her character arc is long and flawed, but that’s what makes it impossible for me to dismiss her. I’m a bit disappointed that so many fans on the tumblr side are willing to basically rid Griffith from all his wrongdoings but then empathize the flaws in Casca and don’t understand that maybe they also have some internalized misogyny that doesn’t make them understand that bias. Especially with the argument that I often see with She Should Have Died. Why? Because she’s uncomfortable? Maybe explore that within yourself. Other than that I am happy to have this queer part of the fandom where we don’t judge each other for liking Griffith and enjoying GriffGuts as a ship. And I hope that you don’t think too harshly of my criticism, for it is only to improve our fandom discourse culture and not to throw stones. Thank you for existing!

Okay look, while I do appreciate the appreciation for my non-casca blog content, I can't look past this coming hand in hand with a lot of pretty insulting, and frankly baseless assumptions about my motives. I'm glad you're not coming from a place of hate, but from the sounds of it you're coming from a place of presumptive judgement, and I want to address that.

I've always been very direct and clear about how I don't think someone's tastes or opinions about a story reflect on them personally. I don't judge someone's character by their fictional interests, I judge it by their words and actions.

If you're going to be interacting with my blog, I'd appreciate being extended the same benefit of the doubt.

You seem to see someone who doesn't enjoy Casca's storyline and make assumptions about why, rather than taking the reasons I provide at face value. I have explained why, very thoroughly, quite often, and quite recently, while constantly referring back to the text and to Miura's comments to justify my conclusions. I literally don't know how I can possibly be more direct about how I am discussing the narrative of a story on its own terms without going full dry academic language lol, come on.

I like to think I'm also very clear about when I'm expressing my subjective opinion (eg i dislike het romance; I'm super into romantic betrayal as a trope, etc) vs when I'm analysing the story based on direct textual evidence (eg casca has no active involvement in the narrative post-eclipse; casca's sexual abuse is eroticized; etc). I certainly try to be. And frankly it is genuinely pretty insulting that you think I'm incapable of judging Casca's story on its own merits or lackthereof, and must be over-emphasizing the flaws of her narrative because I only care about griffguts.

The truth is I genuinely believe that Griffith and Guts' relationship is the thematic core of Berserk, based on the text of the story, and I also genuinely believe Casca's storyline sucks ass in most ways. And it's okay to disagree with one or both of those takes, but yeah I'm gonna take a little bit of offense at the insinuation that I'm too biased by shipping or misogyny or both to analyse the story.

If you love Casca's story despite its flaws, good for you. I'm happy for you. I have no desire to argue with you to make you change your mind. And I don't think it makes you misogynist or ableist or racist, even though I think Casca's storyline contains all of the above to some degree - but if I was going to respond to you in the same vein that you've responded to me, that would be fair game as an assumption. It would also be fair game to assume that you only like Casca and are dismissive of or blind to many of the story's faults because you're projecting or you ship gtsca or you think good feminism is all about stanning certain designated fictional characters regardless of their actual depiction. And I think that is something wrong with fandom culture. I think those are all shitty assumptions to make about someone based on which fictional characters they enjoy reading about most. So like, straight up, you're the only one throwing stones here.

So I want to ask you: why is it that someone discussing offensive fictional tropes makes you assume they are the real misogynist? Why are you equating criticism of writing with criticism of real women, as though media trends and narrative framing don't exist? Why do you think it even matters if I "reject" a fictional character because I don't like how she's written lol?

This strikes me as the same line of thinking that leads to shutting down all criticism of misogyny in media - how dare you say this outfit is unrealistic for a martial artist, some women like to wear high heels! How dare you criticize the average husband/model-esque wife trope, some beautiful women love their average husbands! How dare you criticize comics for fridging the girlfriends of superheroes, women sometimes suffer horrible fates in real life! How dare you criticize the born sexy yesterday trope, some women are naive! etc etc etc.

And this is why it's important to have at least some understanding of narrative framing and greater media trends when discussing media on any level beyond headcanon and projection. Casca isn't real, and as a construct she is not a sensitive or realistic depiction of a traumatized woman, regardless of whether someone identifies with her. She's not a sensitive or realistic depiction of a disabled women either. There are literally "funny" cartoonish background gags involving her shoving random things into her mouth. She gets sexy fanservice while regressed to the mentality of a toddler. She is sexually assaulted by and then shipteased with the protagonist. I could go on all day lol, lbr here. I should not be obligated to brush all that aside and pretend it doesn't irritate me and sometimes offend me in order to valorize a woman who doesn't like, yk, exist.

You and anyone else are free to project on her and relate to her and sympathize with her and love her, and I think that's great and what fandom is all about, but that still doesn't make her writing strong. And I think it's worth discussing how and why her writing fails, the same way it's worth discussing any other flaw of Berserk, like Guts' character flattening with the Eclipse, or Farnese's sudden personality 180, or the awkward pacing, or the prominent scary black man trope, etc, all of which I've also discussed plenty. If you feel like I've disproportionately focused on Casca criticism, then there are 2 reasons for that: 1. I respond to asks 99% of the time, so it's what the people are asking about. 2. Casca's storyline is the most prominent bad and offensive writing in the story, like it's the number one thing that's likely to drive new potential fans away, so of course people are going to want to talk about it.

Also I've written like, a lot of meta and speculation and headcanons etc about Casca beyond criticism of her narrative lol, so if you're sad about the lack of discussion and meta about her it's ironic that you're coming to me with that complaint. Be the change you want to see in the world, start your own Casca centric blog if you want more meta about her to exist, or read more of what already exists. I'd say I'm doing my part as far as I'm concerned lol, but I don't like the way that phrasing implies that anyone has an obligation to focus their interest on any particular fictional character.

I'm glad you enjoy other aspects of my blog, and if you stick around after this admittedly irritable response I hope you continue enjoying them. But if you feel the need to engage with me to defend a fictional character from my criticism again in the future, I'd appreciate it if you engaged with that criticism directly and analytically, rather than speculating about my character and motives.

[towards-toramunda]

I feel like it’s worthwhile to point out that nobody is saying Ludinus is a good or morally grey guy. Nobody is saying the ruby vanguard is a good group. When people (or at least me idk I can’t talk for others) are saying that seeing the humanity of the people drawn into the other side is important it’s because Matt keeps making a point to bring it up. Matt showing us Tuldus being forced to pray for hours as a child and being punished for lack of piety, showing us a locket with a child on a cultist they’d just killed, showing us Lilliana’s pain, and now with Bor’Dor’s backstory with the gods.

Being a DM myself I think that its important not to discount the constant mentions of the trauma from the masses in this cult because Matt, the dungeon master, the story weaver, the one calling the shots, keeps making a point to highlight the backstories of the people who join the vanguard. I’m guessing (based on the fact that Utkarsh doesn’t watch the show and had no context for what the vanguard was) that Utkarsh came to Matt and said “give me a character idea” and Matt decided that the story needed a PC on the other side.

It really feels like he keeps saying “Look at how these people have been hurt. See them as people with trauma and love and family who easily fell for Ludinus’ lie.”

And that lie is another reason I think its valid to question the gods. Because questioning the gods doesn’t make you want what Ludinus wants. Questioning power, why it acts the way it acts, does the things it does, and doesn’t do the things it doesn’t do, is important in any society! Even one where there are gods (and I’d say especially one where there are gods with questionable morals and backstories). Because while Ludinus is evil and has vile intentions, he is drawing people into his power grab by hiding it in a nugget of truth: many feel slighted by the gods. Many have seen the good things the gods can do and are left to wonder why they’re left to suffer. Why the gods choose to help some and not them. Why their families forced them to worship those they didn’t believe.

And seeing this story NOW when we’ve seen so many stories in real life of people who are traumatized and hurt and confused going to the internet with their grief and being led to hate groups and radicalization feels VERY intentional on Matt’s part. It feels (to me) like he’s begging us to see the ruby vanguard members as people who were drawn in by a charismatic leader who pretended to understand their pain and used them.

Matt keeps telling us its important to see the humanity and the trauma faced by the other side. He could be doing this to flavor the story or to create tension or push the characters to make hard choices or some other reason. I just feel that empathizing with the trauma of those on the other side doesn’t make you akin to a terrorist sympathizer despite what some seem to take from that, and its wild given how clearly (to me) Matt wants us to empathize with them.

(Because this is the internet and people love to misread things:

I don’t agree with the things the people in the ruby vanguard do, I don’t think Matt agrees with it, but I think Matt wants us to feel conflicted with them. I think Matt wants us to believe they’ve been misdirected and could be deradicalized, but its up to Bell’s Hells to decide if they’re willing to forgive the harm they’ve been put through or attempt the effort to deradicalize.

I don’t think it makes any sense to say that questioning the gods makes one akin to Ludinus. Theres a lot to question about the gods. Where did they come from? What even is divinity? How much of their exandrian creation story can we actually believe if they’ve supposedly been hiding the existence of predathos from us? How do we actually know what predathos is? If a mortal can become a god then what the hell even is a god? Etc.

I hope this goes without saying, but just in case: If you don’t want to empathize with real life hate groups please don’t. This is a fictional cult based in the idea that they can release a predator that will get rid of the gods. I don’t see the ruby vanguard as a hate group, a horrible cult that has done vile things and led to the deaths of innocents absolutely, but I hate groups are hateful towards one or many marginalized groups, and thats not this. (I suppose one could argue they’re a hate group for the gods and… sure. I disagree but sure). To me, empathy for the members in the vanguard makes sense in the context of the story Matt is telling, but in real life it is very hard to have empathy for hate groups even if they are formed of traumatized and hurt people who could be deradicalized. I believe deradicalization is necessary for many but fucking hard/impossible for all, and I especially believe that members of marginalized groups shouldn’t feel the need or pressure to help in the deradicalization of those who harm them.

Similarly I believe Orym is valid in his decision to be at war with members of the group that killed his family. Yes I think he is unable to be objective (Liam O’Brien said so himself), but, as a person with ptsd myself, sometimes you need to screw objectivity in the face of trauma. I think we as the audience should be aware that he has lost objectivity so we can better understand his actions, but I don’t think that lack of objectivity makes his choices “wrong”, and its strange to see people claiming that anyone pointing out Orym’s lack of objectivity doesn’t have empathy or morals.)

Anyway this was too long and I should never get involved in discourse again.

[tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors]

Proud

May and June, through the years.

Pairing: platonic familial May & Everybody basically

Word count: 3108

Warnings: Hey Look At Me. Theres some pretty serious homophobia at the beginning of this, and references to homphobia throughout

Notes: part of my Love and Other Fairytales verse, spanning from Abby, Dot, and Larry being teenagers to a little less than a year after Linda’s birth.

for @creativity-no-renewal

thank you to @airiervessel for beta-reading!

---

There was a lot May could say about Lazarus Sanders.

None of it was kind.

She hadn’t been angry when she’d found Abigail hiding Laurence in her closet – she’d mostly just been confused. She wasn’t entirely sure she knew what the three of them had going on, and if Abigail was going to give up her disdain for dating for anyone (which May found entirely unlikely) she would have guessed Dorothy before Laurence, who was obviously infatuated with Dorothy himself.

When Larry tumbled out of the closet looking like he’d been crying for hours, she shuffled through the possibilities and came up empty.

“C’mon, up ya get,” she said gruffly, helping him to his feet, “Abigail, did you kidnap the poor boy? The hell is going on?”

Larry, in a rather uncharacteristic move, shrugged off her hands harshly, darted across the room, and- hid.

Hid, behind Abby, like he was- like he was afraid of May.

“Hey, baby,” she said, raising her hands non-threateningly, “What’s wrong? Are ya alright?”

Abby turned and whispered something to Larry, pressing her forehead almost to his temple. Larry looked on the verge of a fresh round of tears, and Drusilla climbed out of Abby’s shirt pocket to clamor up the fabric and onto Larry’s shoulder.

“Promise?” she made out Larry whispering.

“I swear,” said Abby fiercely, “And I can take ‘er if not.”

May recoiled a little. There was a very, very short list of things that Larry could do that she might get genuinely angry at him for, and fewer still that would make him this terrified to tell her. She flipped through them frantically, her heart rate picking up.

“Larry, baby, I need you to tell me straight right now,” she said cautiously, “Do I need to deal with a body?”

Larry actually barked a wet, startled laugh.

“Uh. No,” he choked, “You know, uh. Unless Poppop makes good on the threat to shoot me if he sees me again.”

“Excuse me?”

“Yeah, well, you might want to wait until I tell ya why, in case you agree with him.”

“Laurence Sanders,” she said, some part of her heart crumpling like wadded up trash, “There is not a goddamn thing on this earth you could do that would make me hurt you.”

Larry swallowed hard, and Abby squeezed his hand; he curled into her in spite of having a good six inches advantage, and May wanted to wrap him in knitted things.

“He… found some stuff,” he said, wincing, “You know, like… embarrassing teen boy stuff, please don’t make me say it.”

“He threatened to kill you over smut rags?” she said incredulously.

“No,” said Larry, laughing bitterly, “He threatened to kill me over gay smut rags.”

“… Oh.”

May was ashamed to admit it, but she did blank out a bit. She’d never met a gay – she didn’t really think they even existed this far out of the city. She had a better understanding of the mechanics than most – she was very thorough when giving sexual education to idiot teenagers who were liable to stick their bits damn near anywhere they’d fit – but that was about it. “How to Talk to a Gay Kid” had never been something she’d gone about making a script up for. She was also scrambling to figure out what exactly was going on with Larry and Dot if Larry was gay - she’d been pretty sure, but maybe not-?

“I’ll leave with him,” blurted Abby furiously, shoving Larry further behind her, “If you make him leave I’ll go with him and you’ll never see me again and I’ll make yer life hell from three states away, Momma, I swear I will-”

“Calm down, ya hot-headed little shit,” said May, back on surer footing in the face of Abby jumping the gun like a fool, “No one is leaving. I’m taking a minute to process but let’s make that damn clear.”

“I- No one-?” said Larry, and god, what an awful expression; hope buried under layer after layer of misery, a baby bird too afraid to break the rest of the shell and face the snake.

“No one,” she said, firmer, settling in herself, “I don’t really know what ya need from me right now, baby, I’ll be honest. But you can stay long as you need, and if your granddad comes around I’ll put a bullet in ‘im. Sound doable?”

May had an armful of teenage boy then, and that settled that.

---

Abby had set up this little… picnic. There was only the four of them (Larry, with Abigail and and Dorothy there for moral support and May there for security), the little picnic table covered in knick knacks (crocheted miniature flags, a tub of pins, stacks of hand-drawn pamphlets that they’d had to buy their own printer to copy because no copyshop would let them in) and Jax, circling above and behind. The pamphlets weren’t anything special; black and white, L-G-B-T and a page to explain each that May had had to surreptitiously swipe one of and read rather than put Larry through the misery of explaining what exactly his… situation was when he clearly found the topic very embarrassing. She was pretty sure he was the B, but she wouldn’t say anything until she at least overheard something to that effect.

May sat a bit away from the kids. They were excited – flush and adrenalined with the excitement of doing something they shouldn’t, high on their defiance. May could give them the space for that.

They were just kids. They were old enough to know they were rebelling, to know Lazarus had meant what he said about killing Larry, to know that they were in danger.

And yet still young enough that Abby’s Momma and a twelve-gauge were enough to set them dizzy with victory, make them feel untouchable even in broad daylight, in full view of a road that was gathering increasingly gawking traffic. Some folks drove past four or five times, gaping or glaring or flipping them off. Jax circled the treeline, looking out for anyone sneaking up from the back, and May kept a white-knuckled grip on the shotgun and her eyes glued to the road.

No one stopped. Nobody had the balls or the stupid to face May Gage at her worst, and May was just fine with that. If they could get through this with just the threat alone, she’d be well pleased.

When someone finally crossed that line, she knew it was definitely stupid and not balls.

She stood from her chair, hefting the shotgun, and turned to the kids.

“You hear a shot fire, you run,” she said, “No heroics. You follow Jax back to the house and you lock up and you do not open the door for even god himself, you understand me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Abby, steel in her eyes. Larry was looking over May’s shoulder, his face ashen.

“Larry,” she said, “If there’s one thing your granddad is, it's a grand ol’ coward. I can take him.”

“Yes ma’am,” he said tremulously.

May turned, stalking across the field toward the incoming column of fury that was Lazarus Sanders.

“What the hell is this?” he demanded, “May fucking Gage and her degeneracy again, your feminism turning my boy into a damn sissy-”

“Let me make this quick,” said May, “You’re gonna leave. You’re gonna let my babies have their picnic. You’re gonna never speak to any of ‘em, ever again. And if you don’t, I am gonna kill you, Laz, and I ain’t even gonna feel bad about it.”

“You threatening me, Gage?”

“I damn well am,” said May, “On my life, on God, on Eve and all her daughters, if you raise a single hand to my kids for the rest of your life, I will put you in the fuckin’ ground, Lazarus Sanders.”

Jax finished his third circuit around them, high over their heads, and even Laz wasn’t stupid enough to not notice the June warm climbing to August blood-hot. Jax swooped down to land behind her, wings spread wide, and Lazarus paled like the cowering dog he was.

“You,” he hissed, furious and terrified, “You did this. Possessed him with your- your devil worship!”

“Larry is the sweetest boy who ever lived in this town, no thanks to you,” said May, “If he’s possessed, may we all be so lucky.”

Lazarus’s eyes bugged out of his head, and apparently that was just too much for him. He turned tail and booked it for his car, and May waited until it was full out of sight before she turned to walk back to the kids.

Dorothy was looking at her with wide, astonished eyes, like May had summoned lightning or something, and Abby looked as smug as a Gage ought to.

May turned to Larry, only to find him already half in her arms, bullying under a damn shotgun like an idiot and hiding his face in her neck, shoulders shaking under her hands.

Well. She’d give him the gun safety lecture after the hug then.

---

Dot and Larry had been running the pride picnic long before their falling out, and May had to admit that she’d missed it. It hadn’t gotten much bigger by then, but it had fairly exploded in the past five or so years. Sure, there were still grousing folks, even a few protesters a handful of times, but even that had died down once May came back with the shotgun in tow once more.

She’d sat a bit further away this time, not without ulterior motive. She was glad she did – Roman, Patton, and Logan ran their own little mini-booths apiece, and Virgil would have been alone if not for the spot saved just for him next to her.

“Seems odd.” he muttered.

“How so?”

“To celebrate something like that,” said Virgil, “I mean... is it like the difference between Seelie and Unseelie, for humans? Or more like springs and summers?”

“Is what?” said May, furrowing her brow, “Sexuality?”

“Yes.”

He was looking up at her with those big, wide-set purple eyes. He was tall and gaunt, no baby fat left on him, but he still had the knobby-limbed gangliness of a teenager, looking a bit like he’d been stretched like taffy too quickly. She didn’t know if he’d fill out over the next few years, if he’d age with her boys. His head was tilted so like Logan’s, his fingertips gripping the hem of her skirt as if to ground himself. The Lord of the Forest, clinging to a grandma’s skirt, nervous around a bunch of strangers.

He was just a kid. And May ought to tell him the truth.

But it was a happy day. And something cold and miserable curled up in her belly at the thought of the way his face would crumple if she told him that some – a lot – of the world hated his boyfriends, for no good reason at all.

“Everybody loves a good party,” said May, shrugging.

Virgil nodded, accepting her explanation easily, and May swallowed the guilt like she did everything else.

“Mamaw!”

May looked up at Roman, who was out of breath and flushed pink, beaming and holding out a pamphlet.

“Okay, so- I know this is weird,” said Roman, “But- Dot said- Dot said she thought Mom would have used it if she'd heard it and I know it's not really cool to speculate on people's identities but I thought- I thought maybe it's a bit different? Because you knew her, and I was wondering, if- what you thought. Maybe.”

“Hm,” said May, nodding, “I have no goddamn idea what ya just asked me.”

Roman laughed nervously, and held out a little green, purple, and black pamphlet. May vaguely recognized the colors from a couple of the flags up, though she’d never bothered to keep track of them. She remembered that first little picnic with Dot and Larry and Abby arguing over which of the rainbows they ought to be using, eight or seven or six stripes, and she’d thought it was silly then and she thought it was silly now.

“Do you think Mom- do you think Mom would have identified as aroace, if she’d known the terms?” said Roman, his voice small, “Do you... do you think she would have been queer, too?”

May skimmed the pamphlet... and a lead ball dropped right into her belly.

Aromantic...asexual... lack of attraction... sex repulsion...

May was old. Old enough she’d thought she was just about unflappable – that she’d seen too much of the world to get caught off guard.

Her baby. Always managing to surprise her, even beyond the grave.

“Yeah, baby,” said May, handing it back to him and for once thanking the shake in her hands that never left, giving her an excuse if either of them noticed, “That sounds like my girl.”

Roman beamed, swooping in to kiss her cheek and pressing the pamphlet to his chest.

May decided she was gonna tell him more stories. It hurt, it hurt more than almost anything, to talk about Abigail, to talk about the baby she’d loved with every cell in her body and betrayed and lost without ever the chance to apologize. To make it right. Abigail died angry at her and she deserved it.

But Roman deserved this. To know her, as best he could. To know how alike they were, how much she saw pieces of Abby embedded in him like crystals on a fresco. May’s pain would have to take second fiddle to that.

Virgil set his head on May’s thigh, and she rested her hand on his head as Roman trotted back to his booth with a spring in his step.

Anything. Anything, for her kids.

---

“What’s that one?”

“That’s the demisexual flag,” said Roman, “Your Papa is demisexual. It means not feeling attracted to someone until you already love them.”

“And that one?”

“That’s the genderqueer flag! Avaun Ellie is genderqueer, and so is Vati, a little bit.”

“That doesn’t sound like Vati’s gender,” said Linda, wrinkling her nose at the flag.

“That’s why I said only a little bit,” said Roman, bouncing her a bit on his knee. May listened with half her attention, the other half on Brian in the bassinet next to her as she jingled his little teething keys.

“Vati’s gender doesn’t really fit any of the ones humans have named,” Roman continued, “Because he grew up among the fae, and not among humans.”

“That makes sense.”

“So he says that agender and genderqueer are closest to his gender, and he likes just ‘queer’ for his sexuality. They aren’t perfect words for him, but they don’t bother him, so he uses them for conversations with humans.”

“What about you?”

“I’m a queer gay man,” said Roman, “That means I’m a man who likes other men.”

“But Vati’s not a man?”

“Ah but that’s where the queer comes in!” said Roman, tickling her stomach and making her giggle, “We aren’t supposed to fit into the words; the words are supposed to fit us! I know Vati’s not a man, but the word ‘gay’ is important to me, and Vati doesn’t mind. I use it because it feels good to me and makes me happy, not because I fit the dictionary definition perfectly.”

“That makes sense,” said Linda, “Like how you’re not really a prince cuz you're a consort but Papa and Daddy and Vati call you Princey anyway cuz it makes you smiley.”

Roman laughed aloud, and May cracked a smile too.

“Yes, exactly.”

“What about the green and black and white one over there?”

“That’s aromantic,” said Roman, “Like... well, like my mom.”

“You have a mom?”

The pause lasted just a touch too long, and May ached.

“I did,” said Roman softly, “She passed away when I was very little.”

“And she was aro-mat-ic?”

“Aromantic, yes,” said Roman, “It means someone who doesn't experience romantic attraction.”

“How’d she have a baby if she didn’t have a husband?”

“Stubbornness,” muttered May, and Roman laughed.

“I wish I could tell you more,” said Roman, “But I don’t actually know much about aromanticism, it’s never come up. The only aromantic person I ever knew was my mom, and I don’t remember her.”

May was old. Older everyday. More forgetful too – there were some things even the fae couldn’t delay, the slow creeping away of her memory being one of them.

She might not have many more chances to say it.

“Roman,” she said, shifting in her wheelchair, “Gimme.”

Roman blinked, startled, and turned to Linda.

“Do you want to sit with Mamaw?”

“Yes!”

“Okay, be gentle.”

Linda was, ginger and feather-light as down as she crawled over the armrest to sit in May’s lap. May breathed her fruit-and-earth smell, and steeled herself.

“... Mamaw?” said Roman softly.

“Actually, baby,” she croaked, “I’m aromantic.”

Roman stiffened, but Linda perked up curiously.

“How’d you get a baby without a husband?”

“I did have a husband,” said May, “I got my baby the usual way.”

“Why’d you have a husband, if you didn’t love him?”

May breathed around the lump, in through the nose, out through the mouth.

“You see this festival, all around ya?” she said gently, gesturing around, “How it’s a big party, and most everyone in town comes, and we’re all happy?”

“Yeah?”

“It wasn’t always like this,” said May, “It used to be scary, to be different this way. People might hurt ya. And so nobody talked about it if they could help it. When I got married, it was because I was lonely, and I thought that if he loved me, and I had company, well, that would be enough. I didn’t know there was a word for what I was, I thought... I just thought there was something wrong with me.”

“Mamaw,” choked Roman, clutching her hand hard.

“But... that’s sad,” said Linda, furrowing her brow in confusion.

“It is a bit, ain’t it?” said May, “But now things are better, and we have a grand ol’ party, don’t we? And I’m happy. Happy enough that I can admit it and not feel like I’m doin’ somethin wrong. I’m so, so happy, baby.”

Roman jumped from his chair to kneel beside hers and wrap his arms around both of them. May slipped a gnarled hand into the peppered white at his temple. Her boy, all grown. Maybe grown enough that May could put a little bit down, and trust he’d help her out.

“I’m so proud of you,” said Roman wetly.

And there was no better feeling in the world.

---

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[rockybloo]

Hi, feel free to ignore this ask, or point me wearily to the FAQ if i missed it, but can I asked what inspired the world of Lore? Specifically the holistic nature of it, where different tales live side by side. I am a…hopeful, one-day fairy and folk tale scholar, and in my studies I’ve seen this concept pop up in a lot of more modern retellings/reimaginings, and one of my projects has been to see if i could find a source. When i say inspiration/source, I don’t mean singular piece(s) of media that gave you the idea (if you have one id love to know it though!) i more mean sorta your own internal source, the emotional trigger that led you to grouping separate fairy tales into one larger world. I know theres a lot to be said for the simple concept of “because it fucks, thats why” (some of my favorite interpretations of tales spawn from similar concepts) but if you have the time or energy, id love it if you’d be willing to ponder deeper motivations.

Sorry for the long ask, im absolutely obsessed with your characters and the worlds you create by taking archetypical settings and twisting them into something new and intriguing. Thank you for sharing your art (in all senses of the word) with us!

Thank you! And I very much love overthinking fairy tales and their existence SO I SHALL DO EXACTLY THAT!

For me, the reason I just plopped down every fairy tale into the same world, aside from a simple "Because everyone else does it and it's my favorite type of fantasy world" is because it makes so much sense to me.

There's a ton of repeated themes and characters in fairy tales to the point they have a classification system to make folklorist's lives easier when categorizing them. There are so many different Cinderellas, and I don't mean just the European one, as it's a fable that has been found all around the world. There are very much big differences in each story but the literal age old tale is still noticeable.

I took a mythology and fairy tale class in high school where we talked about "The Hero's Journey" which is like a template nearly every story falls into regardless of where a story is from. And for me, it was wild seeing just how many shared tropes humanity has as a whole in our storytelling.

A character that pops multiple times, aside from Prince Charming, is the Big Bad Wolf. OF COURSE it's because wolves were (and still are somewhat) dangerous animals and so that is how they are characterized in fables such as Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs. But it's still noticeable that these stories overlap with each other so fitting them into a single world just makes a lot of sense.

Another gigantic reason is that we all live in reality. There's a general understanding of what can and cannot occur on Earth. We know we can't fly without some machine to aid us or talk to animals and have them speak our language back to us. And many mythical beings can potentially be traced back to specific interactions early humans had with rare instances in nature and a need to have a reason "why?".

In fairy tales, reality is fantastical. Numerous tales have talking animals, super natural beings, shapeshifting, characters defying death and recovering from "should have been" fatal injuries, and being able to live happily ever after with never ending love.

We humans don't really get that. Especially that last part with happy endings and love. Sure, we can live a peaceful life or try to but there's this level of joy in some tales that only exists in fairy tales. And love so so much more complicated than the typical "love at first sight that lasts forever without problems".

With all these elements that land fairy tales in a different realm of reality than us, I thought it made sense to actually make a realm (or rather a planet) that explains why things in the world of fairy tales are so much more different than us and even somewhat explain why our reality doesn't have magic in it.

It basically traces back to that age old human urge to explain the unexplainable with some story.

[entomolog-t]

Hey! I’ve been a fan of G/T content for quite a while, but I’ve mostly stuck to Deviantart&Wattpad. Pretty recently I decided to create a Tumblr account in an attempt to find more content, and I’ve been amazed by how interactive the community is here! However, I noticed something that I find pretty weird, and just wanted to get an opinion from someone who seems to be a pretty active member of the community, at least from what I’ve seen.

In all the posts I’ve seen, I’ve never seen VR mentioned even once. I might just not be looking in the right place, but I just found it weird. I’ve been an avid VRChat player for a while, and having spent a large amount of time there I noticed the potential it holds for genres like G/T. I was expecting to find at least a single mention of it somewhere here, but I never have. I see lots of posts from both sides of G/T that mention something like, “I really wish I could just hold/be held by someone, etc.” and, well, I’ve had experiences like that. I’ve fallen asleep and woken up in a friend’s hands before. I’ve had friends sitting/standing on my shoulder. They don’t even know this community exists, these interactions just happen naturally. 

I just want to share some of the experiences I’ve had, and when I went looking, nobody here seemed to know it was even possible. So yeah, that’s what finally motivated me to interact directly with the community. To at least let someone know that it is possible, and far more accessible than most seem to realize.

I’ll also make a standard post, but considering the fact that I’m a very new account I don’t expect many to see it. Thus why I messaged directly. I know this was a bit of a ramble, I'm still a little nervous about finally interacting with something I've only passively watched for quite a long time. So thanks for taking the time to read through, and I’d love to hear your opinion on why it isn’t mentioned, or anything else you wanna say! Take care out there!

OH! This is quite the interesting ask!! I may not be the best person to answer as I am far from techie.

First off, that sounds incredibly fun! I've only ever tried VR with an escape room - which oddly enough had a silly sizey experience; There was an issue with the calibration or something on one of the headsets and a friend who's just a little over 5ft had their in game avatar show up ballpark around 7ft tall.

I love that g/t seems to happen naturally with your interactions too! I'd love to hear more!

Now for the meat of the question- why isn't this mentioned? Again, keep in mind, I'm no techie or avid gamer so this is really biased towards myself. In no particular order,

Age

Price point

Tech Difficulty

Privacy

Missing sensations

My first guest would be age. I myself am in my mid/late twenties, and just never really grew up with that kind of tech, so theres just a lack of knowledge and not more than a passing interest in it. I think with age there also comes issues with free time, though I'll speak on that more with privacy. I think in general there tends to be a perception that VR chat rooms have a lot of minors (whether this is true or not, I have no clue, but as an adult that is a concern).

My second guess would be price point. Now, again, I am not a tech wiz, so I really don't know too well what would be a good headset (if any ol' cheap one would work, or if the oculus is the way to go), but I know the well known headsets are not at all cheap, and do also require a something to run them on (from my understanding thats just a good enough gaming pc? I have no clue.) Basically, there is a monetary component at play.

Thirdly would be tech difficulty. Some people are just bad at technology, and don't want to learn a new form of it.

Now privacy is what I would think is a big factor- and not online privacy. Roommates, siblings, spouses, family- if someone lives with another person they may not be comfortable being seen interacting on VRchat (especially with how paranoid some of us get with g/t), and then finding alone time is just an absolute pain with work, school, clubs, responsibilities etc.

Lastly, I think some people are hesitant about the missing sensations. Essentially, "who cares if all I can do is see it, I want to feel it." I think for some people it may have the opposite effect, and the degree of realism mixed with the very obviously "not real" cues could be more upsetting- being so close to having something you fantasize about but being reminded its not actually real.

Those are just my thoughts- and I hope others will add some of their own! This is quite the interesting topic and I'd love to hear more about it! As I mentioned earlier, I have very limited experience with VR, but from what little experience I did have it was a ton of fun! I feel like VRchat could be something a lot of people in the community could enjoy if they knew more/had access to it.

[sooniebby]

FOR REAL LIKE . for example, i get having a teeny pain kink or liking being degraded or whatever, or even having a blood fetish even tho that confuses me personally but i mean i like being degraded UNDER MODERATION!! certain kinks that branch off of degradation, um. slut shaming, just to name names i guess... its um.

very...

easy.

to take that too far.

and then when its taken too far it gets into some of the stuff booktok girls like to read and i mean some of those books are pretty drool worthy but some of them are just traumatizing and/or making existing trauma worse than it already was. esp with me, bc i was heavily slut shamed in middle school by a guy that i really liked, and it really truly did traumatize me very heavily. i mean i can write it if someone requests it but if one does then bud ur fic is gonna take a few days to write, because i am a writer, and writers tend to be human beings. and human beings tend to have fragile feelings and fall onto a widely expanding spectrum of needs and methods for dealing with trauma.

and that leads me back to my point about the gojo stans. one: yes, poor normal gojo stans (even tho that species really never prospered much and theres not a lot of them left).

and for the other gojo stans-

i personally was being a little extreme, i might write for gojo, but gojo fics will be few and far between because one, physical attractiveness-wise, he just doesnt do it for me besides the eyes and white hair. and hes tall but thats it bc personality and mindset heavily affect physical attractiveness in my eyes.

and i personally cannot stand him because of that and a variety of other reasons, including that

hes annoying, cocky, and i agree with akutami in that he has absolutely no personality aside from his trauma, which yes is valid literally he lost his best friend to the dark side, but he doesnt deal with it well.

or at all honestly.

thank you for coming to my ted talk and im solly it was so long.

Lolol, I love Ted talks

Anyway, I understand what you’re saying. A lot of requests I get really makes me uncomfortable lmao.

Like, I actually kinda hate degradation as a kink, but I still write it cuz it’s nothing terrible. I can handle it

There has only been once that I got a kink that I just had to refuse, it was baby trapping (apparently that’s a kink 😒) I just can’t do that, I feel like there’s stuff that needs to have limits

I don’t call for people who write weird shit to be in jail or something… but in my opinion, you gotta be able to handle the judgement you get from people if you tell them. Cuz somethings are weird and gross and it’s really a wonder why you like that even if it’s just “fiction” lol

Also yeah.. gojo doesnt doesn’t do much for me tbh. I prefer reading him getting his cheeks clapped by Geto. My main man is Choso 🫶🏼😼 he beautiful or whatever

[rise-my-angel]

I’m such a big Targ fan but I can not stand most Targ fans because they don’t get it. The valyrians are interesting and cool because they are fucked up. I love the Targaryens because I am a horror and sci-fi fan. Like yeah dragons are cool too but they wouldn’t be nearly as cool if everything surrounding them weren’t horrifying and twisted. I love Dany because she is a flawed and complex character and it is so easy to draw lines through her narrative to understand why she is the way she is and what led her to make different mistakes and how she got to her self delusions. But most Dany fans will call me a Dany hater for being like hey let’s analyze why Dany has never second guessed her decision to kill Mirri even though every other act of violence she’s been directly or indirectly responsible for (ie the crucifixions or Viserys’s death) has weighed on her conscience to some extent despite the fact that Mirri was a slave who was punished for rising up against her master, Drogo. The cognitive dissonance is so interesting and ripe for analysis but I have been accused of only pretending to be a Dany fan for recognizing this. A lot of actual Dany haters churn out way more meaningful Dany metas because most Dany fans are just oh she’s an unambiguous good hero who will be queen and I think that’s so boring

(note I got off my couch in the middle of writing a new chapter to go to my main computer to answer this that's how much you caught my attention)

The thing is, I totally get what you mean. Theres a Targaryean I am sort of like this for in a way. The character himself has been soured by such a deluded and hostile fan base about what is allowed to be said or thought about him, but if it weren't for the way most targ stans are, I would be 1000% more into Rhaegar as a character.

It would never change I think he's a bad person who did monstrous things for questionable if not quite selfish means who I would never support, but I also love Euron Greyjoy who is 100% an irredeemable monster. Rhaegar's entire existence is fasnicating. From the Ghost of High Hart being the reason his parents were married, to his life defining birth right in the middle of the fiery tragedy of Summerhall which effected his life. How such a terrible place was the only place he was every described as being happy in, likely because his existence is tied with great tragedy. How that likely deeply influenced him into buying into the Ghost of High Harts words of the prince that was promised being born from his father and mothers blood line which led to his delusions which ended up negatively impacting every person in his life leading to their deaths including his own. He should be a fascinating character study for me, but the way targ stans talk about him has ruined any chance of discussion because any nuance I could provide is going to be taken as pro Rhaegar talking points.

Same with Valyria in general. The Valyrian people were delusional and terrifying and the world is better off without them, but I love exploring why. I don't hate Targaryeans to hate them, I hate them because they are interesting to hate. They are facsinating because of what makes them horrible. And liking them as characters isn't at all wrong.

Its the lack of willingness to engage with their favourite charatcers greatest flaws and realistic motivations. It's a disconnect. They will push back against every single argument that Dany is a horrible, selfish tyrant possible, and then cite her atrocities as why I'm wrong and it's like..they have bought so much into the propoganda that they have created a false image of this character they supposedly love. Why love a version of a character that you need to bend over backwards to justify is the real version against the facts of the actual story?

They are desperate to look as if their favourite characters make them morally righteous. When liking a morally honourable character does not say anything about you other then what particular character you enjoy more then another. I am not claiming to be better then Rhaegar stans because I love Ned Stark, but they will slander Ned Stark as much as they can to justify why they prefer Rhaegar instead of just admitting they have a preference.

I get accused of being a Sansa hater, because I am both very against jonsa (ship and shippers) and I am very critical of her post season 4 character. But in the books and the first 4 seasons, shes not my favourite but I love her. But because I go against the popular ship and I am critical of her various actions over the course of the different versions of her character, I am seen as a hater. Its the same with Dany and many Targaryeans.

Its either toe the public opinion, or keep them out of your mouth which is insane for a fandom of a story literally built upon the varying complexities of a characters grey areas.

They want asoiaf/got to be way more black and white then it ever has been. Which is such a poor way of interacting with a story you are passionate about.

Dany can be a tyrant and an interesting character. She can be a cruel and selfishly bloodthristy woman and your favourite character. But these stans are allergic to those ideas not being mutually exclusive.

I dont hate targ stans because they are targ stans, I hate targ stans because they will attack any dissenting opinons that do not fall into their perfect protagonist hero image they've conjured up.

But they got nothing on me. I love Euron Greyjoy. The most disgusting monster in the whole series who I also would rather slingshot him into the sun then let him walk around alive in the world. I will never defend his bad choices, and never condemn someone for calling him an immoral monster. His lack of humanity is what makes his choices so interesting.

These targ stans though, could not possibly be strong enough to be the same for even a minute for their favourite Targaryean.

[cloud-navi]

So I finally finished Transformers EarthSpark, lowkey love it. (Maltobots/Terrans)

⚠️ SPOILERS AHEAD ⚠️

Maltos (cont.) (Maltobots)

- Twitch Malto

I love how dedicated she is to her family and cares for them. Her strive to work hard to keep them safe like her determination to find a way out of the bunker when they get locked in for the first time is crazy. I think Hashtag getting taken into GHOST HQ really kickstarted her need to protect her siblings and family as she was so worried for Hashtags safety. Ngl the way she uses her wing blades (?) dual handed and her instincts in leading her family in the finale really reminds me Leo from TMNT, perhaps not all Leo’s but a few like 2012 and 2018-2020 (movie) Leo. I really think she took to Bee’s training a bit better then Thrash did and definitely used every little bit she did and inferred in that final battle. 

- Thrash Malto

I like Thrash, he’s a silly dude, I just find the whole episode with Swindles very difficult to understand. Okay so they played a mock battle (AvD) and that somehow lead to being insecure about how much Dot and Alex like you? My guy you just destroyed part of the house from game, its reasonable to not want giant robots inside the very much not robot-sized house. I don’t see the point in having that tent in the yard when theres a whole ass barn that the Malto’s decided to make more home-y and like an actual room for you. Its not a giant deal if you can’t go in Mo’s room but you can still talk to her from the window if she hasn’t come down yet.

I kinda think he might have some separation anxiety and that might be why he doesn’t like being separated from Mo that much but it was completely reasonable to not want them inside the house.

- HashTag Malto

Honestly watching her get easily distracted by the tablet while searching for an alt-mode really makes me think she could have ADHD (not just because of that but definitely feels like one indicator). I like the idea that she’s able to hack through the wifi which makes a lot of sense for bots to be able to do, like BV Soundwave on the satellite.

I love all the allegories in this show, really puts things into a perspective thats not technically real-life so its easier to see the problem, emotions and understanding of things when its not connected to you. When it’s connected to you then it feels more personal, thats why people don’t like to watch shows that could talk about topics that they deal with sometimes. I love the allegory they used the Transformers to show even some little ways that racism still exists even if its not the systemic side of the problem. The way the portray HashTag and the other bots when they find the ‘Transformers Go Home’ graffiti really shows how it doesn’t matter if you’re born there, if people view you as different they’re going to deem you not worthy of being there, as well as masking it like with things like ‘oh it’s directed towards Decepticons’ but everyone really knows that it isn’t and that’s blatantly a terrible thing to say regardless if it was “supposed” to directed towards one group of people (Decepticons) in a certain demographic (Cybertronians/Terrans).

I also love the allegory of found family the use in the same episode. Like how Robby stands up to Steven for making rude comments about the Terrans and how they aren’t “actually his family.” Robby stood up for the Terrans because they’re his siblings regardless of age or species, which ties back to the racial undertones of the episode as its so common for others to make comments about interracial families if its found family or just a mixed family that may or may not look more like one side then the other.

Making HashTag the one to get hacked by Mandriod makes a lot of sense as her need to protect her family (like Twitch) is strong and it shows that even in the pursuit of protecting the people you care about you can end up hurting them. Granted she was being hacked and controlled but it was her drive to protect that made her decide to get on the plat form and confront Mandriod. In the pursuit of protection, unexpected revelations and plan changes from outside factors can lead to hurting the people you love the most even if that wasn’t your intention or by your doing.

I love the understanding she has with Starscream, just in the few minutes if not hours of being controlled and forced to feel alone she was able to connect it to how the majority of victims feel while being abused, hurt and alone. She, unlike a good amount of bots throughout the franchise had high enough empathy levels to understand and connect to Star. I love that she listened to him and validated his feelings. Its one thing to hear someone tell you how they feel or what they’re thinking but its a completely different thing to listen, and Hashtag listened. (Literally almost cried at that scene Star deserves so much).

- JawBreaker Malto

He’s a real sweet heart and using him to make another allegory is perfect. The entire episode “Outtakes” is about him asking the other bots how they picked their alt-modes “because he wants it to pick the perfect one for him the first time.” While that sentence sounds just like he might be lazy and doesn’t wanna keep changing to find one that works best or is a perfectionist trying to get it just right, it actually is a better allegory for Gender Identity and finding what title you think fits you best. Through the episode he asks everyone how they ‘knew it was for them’ or how they picked it. The big thing Elita said was “listen to your spark, it will tell you when you find it.” Which is basically an elder gay telling a younger generation they’ll know in their heart when they find it.

All jokes aside, in the allegory the search for a “perfect alt-mode” is the same as the search for the perfect gender identity/pronouns and gender understanding in one’s self. JawBreakers search for an alt mode is like a queer persons search for a title or definition to understand who they are. Like a searching for sub-identities under main umbrellas. A Flier isn’t always a Seeker but a Seeker is always a Flier, its like trying to find which model plane you are compared to others, trying to find advice on how to pick which one best fits you.

I honestly didn’t think the dino-alt would stick with JawBreaker, it just didn’t seem like him to me but with little amount of episodes they could make I understand the need to give him one before the finale.

To me, giving JawaBreaker an alt-mode is kind of a double edged blade. The concept of using alt-modes as a form of gender identity is really interesting and using JawBreaker as a way to explore that 1) giving him an alt can represent the people that did end up finding an identity that fit them and how they feel but also 2) it takes away any possible rep for queer people that don’t have an ‘identity’ suitable to them. Let me explain: I use the term identity as a substitute for the whole explanation’al mess that is finding ‘gender terms’ that have a definition (transwoman, someone who identifies as a woman without necessarily being AFAB) that feels like them and similar to how they experience life in their vessel.

My “2)” point is that giving JawBreaker an Alt mode is giving rep to queer people that were able to find an ‘identity’ while also taking that away from queer people that struggle to find what fits them. Of course representation is still representation and its nice to see it even if it can’t exactly go both ways, which is fine.

⚠️ This is an allegorical theory, in no way shape or form does this apply to the entirety of the queer experience for everyone ⚠️

- NightShade Malto

Love them, very silly. They’re very smart and I love how they were a direct allegory for a different aspect of some queer experiences. While there’s people that know how they identify and what to call their feeling, and there are others that struggle with finding that, theres some that don’t think about it (like me) and some that don’t actively search for a term even if they want a title for it. NightShade didn’t know they’re identity fell under Nonbinary until they met Sam (love sam).

Not only that but how the creators continued the queer identity alt-mode theme with NightShade and how they picked theirs. At first NightShade felt already complete with how they were and didn’t feel like they needed an alt-mode (which is valid, and with the allegory its still valid because some people might not want/like ‘identity terms/labels’) but the creators also added the layer of self expression and how an ‘alt-mode’ can be another way to express yourself through their conversation with Truantulas.

I like NightShade’s pick I just don’t care for how they designed it. For any bird alt-mode honestly AirRazor’s feels like the best kinda bird design (not including the cassetticons).

⚠️ again this is not the queer experience for everyone, just an allegorical theory ⚠️

[coexistentialism]

idk which cdd I have but I’ve just been saying did bc I’ve read things abt how certain presentations of alters/my system that I relate to r apparently more common/known in did (according to the haunted self). and the fact that even if I don’t have amnesia in daily life I may have it in the past. oh shit wait. can amnesia count as like of your other alters n not knowing them like having heavy barriers? n like denial and forgetting about it? is that a type of amnesia? does it matter if I say it’s did over osdd? honestly on that topic,, do u think theres any other reason to specifically suspect did instead of osdd1? maybe that’s a silly question bc everyone is different I’m just thinking about how did is apparently more complex than osdd? so maybe there are some differences other than “well did has amnesia and diffrendiayrd eleboratrd parts while osdd may not” I’m sorry if this sounds messy I’m tired but thinking out loud lol

can amnesia count as like of your other alters n not knowing them like having heavy barriers? n like denial and forgetting about it? is that a type of amnesia?

I think you'll have to be more specific about what you're trying to ask here, cause I'm not sure I understand what you mean unfortunately

does it matter if I say it’s did over osdd?

I'm not sure what you mean, why would it? I ended up rambling a lot in this post, oops.

At the end of the day, an OSDD diagnosis depends on the person who is diagnosing you; OSDD isn't its own separate, unique disorder with specific, unique criteria to meet, separate from DID.

Plenty of people get diagnosed with OSDD when they actually fit the criteria for DID better; or diagnosed with OSDD only to then be later diagnosed with DID. I personally haven't seen or heard about people experiencing the opposite way around (first diagnosed with DID, then changed to OSDD), but I'm sure it probably has happened at some point, but the fact I haven't heard about it is probably saying something.

You don't get diagnosed with OSDD because you meet specific criteria for OSDD - you get diagnosed with OSDD because you DON'T meet the specific criteria for any of the other pre-existing dissociative disorders. It's "BECAUSE you don't meet the criteria for THESE other dissociative disorders that you get diagnosed with OSDD" not "you meet the criteria for OSDD, so you have OSDD." There isn't criteria to meet in the first place! Do you meet the full criteria to be diagnosed with another dissociative disorder? If not, then you get diagnosed with OSDD, and there can be many reasons for this.

This is literally all of the "criteria" you have to meet to be diagnosed with OSDD in the DSM-5, followed by EXAMPLES of reasons why the person was diagnosed with OSDD over any other dissociative disorder. The key word is EXAMPLES - this isn't criteria for a diagnosis of OSDD! Just examples.

Sometimes it's because the system doesn't experience amnesia and they truly don't experience amnesia, but "not experiencing amnesia" is not a specific OSDD criteria that you have to meet, it's just a specific reason why a clinician would give as to why the person doesn't meet the criteria for any other dissociative disorder.

OSDD IS:

A diagnosis that means that you do not meet the full criteria for any of the pre-existing dissociative disorder, such as DID, depersonalization/derealization disorder, etc.

A diagnosis that is often unique to each individual who gets diagnosed with this condition (because there are many reasons why someone might be diagnosed with OSDD and sometimes those reasons are highly specific)

OSDD is NOT:

A specific, unique, separate disorder

A disorder that is "less severe" or "less complex" than DID

A "less severe" "version" of DID

"DID with missing criteria"

"DID, but not quite DID"

A disorder that gets diagnosed when your amnesia "isn't bad/severe enough"

A disorder that gets diagnosed when your amnesia is minimal

A disorder that gets diagnosed when your alters aren't distinct enough

A disorder that gets diagnosed when you don't have it that bad

A disorder that gets diagnosed if you don't struggle "bad enough" or if you're "not that affected" by your symptoms

A disorder that gets diagnosed if you experience your alters as "moods/mood states/brain states/etc." or if you experience that "same stream of consciousness" no matter what alter is fronting, etc. etc.

I feel like people forget as well that OSDD is not just "DID but with missing criteria" it means that you don't meet the criteria for ANY OTHER DISSOCIATIVE DISORDER. It doesn't mean that you're "basically a DID system, but with criteria missing." So when it comes to OSDD, it's important to remember that it specific includes all other dissociative disorders, not just DID. It's specifically saying that you don't meet the diagnostic criteria of ANY OTHER dissociative disorder, not just DID.

All of this is why it's confusing to me when people (not @ the anon) try to put hard distinctions between DID and OSDD-1, or when people try to lay out some kind of key distinctions between the two?

I also have a lot of other problems when it comes to the way people try to differentiate OSDD from DID.

"OSDD means no amnesia":

How are you certain you don't experience amnesia? If you definitely know for a fact that you don't experience amnesia, I'm so curious how people know, how they figure it out. 'Cause amnesia is so fucking tricky and you can be so unaware of amnesia, it genuinely hides itself in.. A genuinely horrifying way.

What does it mean to truly not experience any kind of amnesia to meet the criteria for DID? I've always wondered this, mostly because my amnesia is quite severe (I'm very unaware of it, but I know it's quite severe, much more severe than I think) and I have no idea what it would be like, feel like, or look like to be a system without any amnesia at all whatsoever, and how you know you don't experience it and to then confirm in some way that you really don't experience amnesia. So I wonder what a system with OSDD without amnesia looks like/feels like. And how they know for sure they don't experience amnesia.

Because dissociative amnesia from DID includes a wide, wide, wide variety of experiences that are oftentimes really difficult to be aware of, in order for a diagnosis of OSDD-1 to depend on how much amnesia you experience or whether or not the person experiences amnesia, we would need to have a clearly outlined explanation of what amnesia is for BOTH disorders, what experiences "count" as amnesia/how "much" amnesia "counts for BOTH disorder, and I just don't think that kind of thing is really.. Possible. In order to claim that OSDD means that you don't meet the amnesia criteria for DID, we would need to understand what that amnesia criteria even IS for DID. And unfortunately amnesia is incredibly difficult to even notice sometimes and sometimes people will go years not knowing they have amnesia until an alter comes forward with traumatic memories that other alters don't remember. We'd need to know what really Counts as amnesia when it comes to DID, and if certain experiences count and others don't, why and why not?

"OSDD means minimal amnesia" is also included under this and it's something that really annoys me and is just not true. OSDD does not mean you experience "minimal" amnesia. How much amnesia you experience, how often your amnesia affects you, whether or not your amnesia feels like teleportation or not, whether or not your amnesia is something that largely affects your life or only affects it sometimes - these things have nothing to do with whether or not you have OSDD over DID. I want this idea to die already.

"OSDD means your alters aren't elaborated enough to be fully individual people":

I have so much to say about this.

I hate this! I hate this so much! It's spreading misinformation about OSDD AND DID and this belief has been used CONSTANTLY to discredit people's experiences. This belief has made people doubt that I have DID; it has made people try to push OSDD as a label for me over DID even though it has never felt fitting for me, and it has been used to discredit so many other people I've known too.

Repeat after me: your alters not being separate individuals with their own names, ages, distinct personalities, etc. DOESN'T MEAN YOU HAVE OSDD. THIS IS A NORMAL EXPERIENCE FOR DID SYSTEMS AND IT DOESN'T MEAN YOU HAVE OSDD INSTEAD OF DID. IT DOESN'T MEAN YOU AREN'T A SYSTEM AT ALL. IT DOESN'T MEAN THAT YOU HAVE IT "LESS BAD" THAN OTHER SYSTEMS. IT DOESN'T MEAN THAT YOUR ALTERS ARE NOT AND CANNOT BE THEIR OWN PEOPLE.

And on that note. This kind of thing has also always greatly confused me because the concept/idea of alter elaboration is a muddy way and well who is the one measuring this? Alter elaboration, I think, is not a linear spectrum where one end is "not elaborated at all" and the opposite end is "totally separate person." If OSDD means "less elaborated alters", I question what that means and who is measuring it - how will we measure alter elaboration in an accurate way in order to properly assess whether or not someone's alters are "elaborated enough" for a DID diagnosis?

Do you see why this is confusing and makes no sense to me?

If we are to say that OSDD is diagnosed PURELY based off of the fact that the person's alters are not elaborated enough for a DID diagnosis, we need to ask:

WHAT is alter elaboration? We need to define alter elaboration and know and understand what it is.

HOW do we measure alter elaboration? After we know what it is, we need to be able to "measure" it. How do you measure such a vague and fuzzy concept as "alter elaboration"?

HOW MUCH elaboration is 'required' to meet a DID diagnosis over an OSDD diagnosis?

And finally:

WHY?

WHY do we consider (xyz) experiences to be more elaborated than other experiences?

WHY are we measuring alter elaboration in this way - are there other ways to measure alter elaboration, and if so, is there any specific reason why we went this one way to measure it, rather than any other ways? Is that a good reason? A valid reason? Why? How do we know? Is it accurate and helpful and useful for differentiating DID from OSDD?

WHY are these things considered to be more elaboration over these things?

Because alter elaboration is a confusing, jumbled, muddy mess.

Some alters will have distinct body language, but they don't know they're an alter or anything like that, so they have no name or specific, unique personality, it might just seem like the individual person just has different body language when that alter fronts. Is that elaborated enough? Why, or why not?

What about a system with alters who have their own unique names and personalities, but otherwise have minimal differences - mostly share the same beliefs, feelings, opinions, likes, dislikes, etc. Are they elaborated enough to meet DID criteria? Why or why not?

If we are to assume that "OSDD means alters who aren't elaborated enough for a DID diagnosis" where the most elaborated alters means that two or more alters have unique and distinctly different voices, body language, names, personalities, etc. - the most overt system you can think of - then millions upon millions of people would have their diagnosis completely changed.

It would also mean many OSDD systems would get diagnosed with DID instead. A lot of the OSDD systems I've met fall on the more "overt" end of the spectrum where their alters are quite distinct with their own unique senses of self, names, personalities, etc. I've met more OSDD systems who match the stereotypes than I have DID systems - both diagnosed and self-diagnosed.

Everything I explained in this post is why when people try to ask me about the difference between DID and OSDD, I don't know what to tell you other than "it just means you don't meet the criteria for any other dissociative disorder."

I think about all of these things a lot because the way people treat DID and OSDD as if they're distinct, separate, unique disorders greatly confuses me and I myself don't understand the huge differences between OSDD-1 and DID, other than what I've read in the DSM-5 and other knowledge I've picked up. I would love to read more about OSDD, but it's near impossible to ever come across anything about OSDD specifically.

I think a lot about the concept of "alter elaboration" and how such a thing would be measured; why some experiences might be considered more elaborated than others; how the entire concept of it is greatly subjective and greatly dependent on your environment and how others perceive you - sometimes a highly elaborated alter might not be considered highly elaborated to one person, but be considered highly elaborated to another person.

I would like to make a few things clear as well:

I'm not saying that OSDD systems don't have their own unique, separate, and distinct experiences that other systems may not relate to.

OSDD as a diagnosis includes more than just OSDD systems, OSDD-1.

I'm not saying that OSDD is a pointless, useless diagnosis, or that people with OSDD are just "DID systems who don't realize" or "DID systems who think they have OSDD" or any other combination of similar phrasing. It's incredibly frustrating when people try to assert OSDD as a label onto me and I'd never want to do the same for OSDD systems the other way around (try to assert the DID label onto them when they don't feel it fits, try to convince them that they have DID and not OSDD, etc.).

[disenchantedif]

may i ask for more information about the magical society and human society?? im confused by it, sorry. mainly in how the magical community is so tight-knit and huddles its people into magical spaces (like you said theres only one magical college in this area?). like id like to hear more about that, especially since i assume through chekov's gun that humans/hiding from them is going to be important later? i apologize if i am nearing spoilers. i ask because it's part of why i decided to play a banshee, because they look so human, that i assume having more human-passing characters would be advantagous to the team haha

(i guess i could just be confused in the sense that i am misreading, in which case i apologize. i hope i am not missing the mark totally in what ive processed about this world's lore and relationship with humans)

id also like to hear about why the characters are designed like they are in the sense of "why not more monstrous, why are they so human-looking naturally?" at first I assumed it was because of glamors but then i realized then that Vik would have no horns and Theo no wings and so on with glamors activated. and im asking out of genuine curiosity, not judgement or entitlement; i love character design so im curious why you decided on this relatively high percentage of humanness over a lower (really monster them up basically) or even higher (like Harry Potter and the like where everyone's human, even nonhumans really) percentage. because it seems like theyd still need glamors to interact with humans outside of their secret-society to cover up several traits, but also they wouldn't need much. in most stories i read or urban fantasy, it's either Harry Potter No Glamors Needed We All Pass As Humans™️ or its something where characters have a really monstrous true design that looks very little like their human-glamor-disguise form. what you decided is neither of those things, so im really curious what made you decide that because i dont see it often! (/tone indicactor: i swear to god i dont mean for this to sound critical, im just curious and i think i worded this well enough to convey that im only feeling curiosity but i SUPER apologize if my tone implies judgement)

admittingly, i am more of a monster-fucker than most so i am more used to Katee Robert's The Dragon Bride, if not a full-on dragon love-interest, than i am a dragon like Viktor haha but, again, i do like your designs! im just curious on why that percentage of humanness, basically, in addition to my aforementioned question about this magical society's relationship with humans. your desired percentage reminds me a lot of X-Men's typical idea of mutants (like more Wolverines and Cyclopses over Beasts and Nightcrawlers, if that makes sense) which is oddly nostalgic for me, it makes me miss the X-Men cartoons i used to watch hahaha

So, when it comes to the different supernaturals, you have to understand that there are far more humans in the world. That means a lot of intermixing and typically a lot more human genes as a result.

As I’ve said before, there are totally cambion that are literally half demon (typically they have horns and their eyes are fully black, etc.) and draca with more dragon blood (Vik’s mom is fully human so he and his siblings don’t have wings and the more prominent draca traits aside from horns and slitted pupils).

Sirens are probably the most “supernatural” looking, because of the eyes that glow in the dark, the gills, the claws, the sharp teeth. That’s also because siren pods are more secluded groups that really only interacts with other pods.

As for the magical society’s relationship with humans, the obviously supernatural looking individuals do require glamour as humans at large are not aware of the supernatural.

For example; if an assault or murder were to happen on college grounds, supernatural police officers would be contacted over human police officers due to pre-existing placements on police forces across the world.

The Council, which is the supernatural governing body in each country, has their own officers within the police force that use magic to ensure the continued safety of other supernaturals (though keep in mind the police can still be just as corrupt as the institutions they serve, magical or not).

They use things like mind manipulation and the like to ensure they can detain supernaturals safely to reduce human casualties while maintaining the secrecy of their world.

However, human standards and morals have long since infiltrated the supernatural community. It’s why nephilim are so trusted despite the majority of the old families being corrupt politicians. It’s an interesting relationship to be certain.