#they all challenged gender roles but one of them lost bad

[inkskinned]

what is with men being mad any time a woman raises her voice where did that even come from. someone posted a video of a small electrical explosion, and the top comment was of course the woman screams. the second comment is women try not to scream challenge, level impossible. i had to go back and watch the video again. there is, somewhat fainty, a little gasp emitted off-camera, more of a yelp than a scream. it is mostly lost in the crack of the explosion. afterwards, you hear her voice, shaken, say, are you okay?

i am helping one of my friends train her voice pitch lower, because she wants to be taken seriously at work. she and i do each other's nails and talk about gender roles; and how - due to our appearance - neither of us have ever been able to be "hysterical" in public. we both appear young and sweet and feminine. she is cisgender, and cannot use her natural voice in her profession because people keep saying she appears to be "vapid". we both try to figure out if our purposeful voice lowering is technically sexist. is it promoting something when you are a victim to it?

a storm almost sends a pole through a car window. in the dashcam, you can hear the woman passenger say her partner's name twice, crying out in alarm. she sounds terrified. in the comments, she is lambasted for her lack of calm. how is that even fucking helping?

in high school, i taught myself to have a lower voice. i had been recorded when i was genuinely (and righteously) upset; and i hated how my voice sounded on the phone speakers when it was played back. i was defending my mom, and my voice cracked with emotion. it meant i was no longer winning the argument: i was just shrieking about it.

girls meet each other after a long summer and let out a little joyful scream. this usually stops around 12-14, because people will not tolerate this display of affection (as it has the effect of being passingly annoying). something about the fact that little girls can't ever even be annoying. we are trained to examine each part of our lives (even joy) for anything that could make us upsetting and disgusting. they act like teenage girls are breaking into houses and shrieking you awake at 3 in the morning. speaking as a public school educator: trust me, it's not that bad, you can just roll your eyes and move on. it does not compare to the ways boys end up being annoying: slurs in graffiti, purposefully mocking your body, following you after you said no. you know, just boy things.

there's another video of a man who is not allowed to yell in the house, so he snaps his fingers when he's excited about soccer. the comments are full of angry men, talking about how their brother is unfairly caged. let him express himself and this is terrible to do to someone. eventually the couple has to address it in a second video: they are married with a newborn baby. he was trying not to wake the infant up. there is no comment on the fact women are not allowed to yell indoors. or the fact that it could have been really alarming or triggering for his wife. sometimes i wonder if straight men even like women, if they even enjoy being in relationships with them.

for the longest time, i hated roller coasters because it always felt inappropriate and uncomfortable for me to scream. one of my friends called me on it, said it was unusual i'm so unwilling. i had to go to my therapist about it. i don't like to scream because i was not raised in a safe situation, and raising my voice would have brought unsafe attention towards me. even when i am supposed to scream, it feels shameful, guilty. i was not treated kindly, so i lack a basic form of self-protection. this is not a natural response. it is not good that in a situation of high adrenaline - i shut up about it.

something very bad is happening, i think. in between all the beauty standards and the stuff i've already discussed - this one feels new and cruel in a way i can't quite express. yes, it's scary and silencing. but there's something about how direct it is - that so many men agree with the sentiment that women should never yell, even in an emergency - it feels different.

is the word shriek gendered automatically? how about shrill or screech? in self defense class, one of the first things they tell you is to yell, as loud and as shrilly as you can. they say it will feel rude. most women will not do this. you need to practice overcoming the social pressure and just scream.

most women do not cry out, even when it's bad. we do not report it. we walk faster. we do not make a scene. what would be the point of doing anything else? no matter what we do, we don't get taken seriously. it is a joke to them. an instagram caption punchline. we have to present ourselves as silent, beautiful, captivating - "valuable."

a woman is outside watching her kids when someone throws a firecracker at them. she screams and runs towards her children. in the comments, grown men flock together in the thousands: god. women are so annoying.

[sydneyofalltrades]

okay bc @toooliix can’t let me have peace, y’all get the complete comprehensive dream roles list

(yes this was an old draft FUCK OFF)

trust me this is very long so if you don’t wanna see it just skip it 😭

1. jane doe/penny lamb from ride the cyclone

reasons why i want to play this character:

she’s ghostly and silly and deep

her song is fucking AMAZING

i wanna be a scary baby girliepop doll head

could i play her?: i can sing tbojd effortlessly and i’m a pretty decent actor. i may be poc but what’s that to a doll’s head

what’s stopping me?: i’m a teenager with absolutely no community theater doing this show

2. ricky potts from ride the cyclone

reasons why i want to play this character:

HE IS LITERALLY GENDER?? LOOK AT HIM

singing space age bachelor man every night would definitely heal some gender dysphoria i have

he’s a scrunkly goober who wears a super sparkly costume

i am genuinely an irl ricky (without the disability)

could i play him?: i can sing space age bachelor man and i’m masculine enough?

what’s stopping me?: afab and not physically disabled (i’m neurodivergent but no physical disability and i would never want to mischaracterize him)

3. noel gruber from ride the cyclone:

reasons why i want to play this character:

he is. my favorite.

he and i are lost souls

gender?? like hello??

could i play him?: i can sing his song and act his part. but i have very little confidence in my gender fluidity

what’s stopping me?: lack of confidence. and also afab

4. veronica sawyer from heathers the musical:

reasons why i want to play this character:

my dream role since i first got into musicals

she makes me feel confident in my own horrible love life and bad decisions

she’s a badass. point blank

could i play her?: DEFINITELY! gimme a day to learn the script and two hours for choreo and i will be ronnie sawyer

what’s stopping me?: lack of practice, money, and genuine resources

5. jason dean from heathers the musical

OKAY HEAR ME OUT

reasons why i want to play this character:

gay gay homosexual gay

genderbent jd means toxic yuri which is always appreciated

a sapphic meant to be yours would genuinely break me so why not be the one to do it?

could i play him?: even with being genderbent, i think i could give it a shot! his insane spiral might be challenging to play out but i love challenges!

what’s stopping me?: afab, lack of genderblind productions, broke as a bitch

6. whizzer brown from falsettos (specifically the 2016 revival)

reasons why i want to play this character:

HIS CONFIDENCE?? makes me skyrocket honestly

andrew rannells. that’s it

honestly would be interested in taking a gender blind take on him

could i play him?: with a binder, proper choreo, and a decent haircut sure! i surprisingly fit in the range and he’s been a dream role forever! i would do the show in the original script because his story is best told the way he is

what’s stopping me?: afab. also not jewish and couldn’t think of mischaracterizing

7. super swing from six the musical

reasons why i want to play this character:

any role in six has been a dream since i was 13! so why not dream bigger and want to cover ALL SIX!

since every queen is so diverse, i wanna have the chance to express myself in them all because honestly that would be phenomenal

in case i must reassure you, i actually can sing. and six the musical is my favorite to sing on occasion so i’m prepared

could i play this role?: in a couple years with a little experience under my belt maybe! super swings are becoming less and less of a need in theater so i’m not sure but one can hope

what’s stopping me?: too young, no super swings in the US

8. christine canigula from be more chill

reasons why i want to play this character:

christine is just like me! a neurodivergent theater lover!

she’s a ball of energy and a ray of sunshine, who wouldn’t want to play her?

i actually see myself in christine, and she’s an independent and kind and funny character i’d like to reshape

could i play her?: um? YES! no script needed, i can just jump right into it without delay, it would be fun and i have her memorized to a t

what’s stopping me?: no experience or opportunities

9. the s.q.u.i.p. from be more chill

another hear me out, y’all

reasons why i want to play this character:

gender. that’s it. it’s so gender

the pitiful children has been my favorite song from bmc the moment i first listened to it, if i could perform it once, it would be a dream

i’m an oldest sibling, i can boss people around without remorse

could i play it?: ALSO YES? lemme learn the five sentences of japanese and i will jump right in without fail. i actually have several of my own thoughts about performing as the s.q.u.i.p.

what’s stopping me?: afab (it looks like keanu reeves and i.. don’t), no experience, probably would be too excited

10. eurydice from hadestown

reasons why i want to play this character:

she’s my comfort character and her songs are so solemn and beautiful

always a pleasure being a leading lady, and having a mainly poc take on a character is always amazing

eurydice is such a complex character and i’d love to portray that

could i play her?: i’m really confident in my abilities! i sang a cover of flowers you can check out here, and it’s always fun getting to sing her lines in my room.

what’s stopping me?: well. money. and lack of experience

and that’s pretty much all of them! so there you have it!

[demonofyork]

hiiii anon from b4 it was a genuine question I was thinking abt Requiem of the Rose King at 3AM

Ohh my bad. I also. Often think about ROTRK at 3 am I understand (pensive emoji)

I think more seriously Rose King is just trying to be a story about accepting who you are and not allowing others to dictate your life for you, accepting every side of yourself, even the ones that you hate or that conflict entirely with other parts of you.

(This got longer than I intended so putting it under a cut )

I think the writing can be clumsy, and for some people the message gets really lost behind "what the fuck was that." but I do think Kanno was Trying To Say Something with it all. I think she's said before on Twitter that she did want to explore the struggles of people who don't easily fit inside of the gender binary, and while I haven't read them I know her previous works address gender nonconformity too. So the reoccuring themes of duality, light vs darkness, good vs evil, desire vs duty, Lancaster vs York even, are all centered around the "male vs female" conflict that Richard finds himself plagued with (which... grimaces. But I get what she was trying to do.) It's a classic "you can't have one without the other but you must accept that the divides are not always so clear and definineable" sort of story.

And despite having my criticisms of how she handles an intersex protagonist specifically, I do like that gender ambiguity has a major focus in these themes. In stories about "balance" so to speak, gender isn't usually focused on or considered at all, and having the narrative directly challenge the subject is really cool. Neatly slicing society into male and female is bad not only because of what it does to people who fail to categorize themself into one or the other, it's also bad because the expectations put upon people within those boxes are destructive and horrible. Richard is shoved into a narrow role of spearheading conflict, ignoring and repressing his emotions and desires, and holding up the heavy legacy of those before him when perceived as a man, and he's preyed upon and dismissed and treated as an object when perceived as a woman, but trying to escape that binary or falling short of what people want from him gets him treated like a demon. Even some of the people who accept him being intersex on a personal level still see him as corrupt or demonic (like Buckingham, projecting his own stifled self-loathing onto Richard) or invade his autonomy and privacy for the sake of their own curiousity (like Jane, much as I love her character).

I hope that all made sense... I'm not really sure how to conclude, but I think the series is an interesting, if not always accurate, study in ambiguity. Appropriate that my feelings about it would be so complicated too I guess, lol.

[storm-of-silver]

Character Card - Polarbear

[Image ID: A headshot of Polarbear, a large white tom with tan spots. His left eye is light green, and his right eye is light blue. Art by Trazodont on TH. End ID]

Name(s): Polarbear

Born: Pre-Final Light

Gender / Pronouns: Male, He/Him

Faction / Role: Followers of the Lynx, Leader

One of the oldest members of the Followers of the Lynx, Polarbear was gentle and kind, with the charisma only a compassionate soul had. He had grown old by the time Slate rose to leadership, and when the Followers rejected him as their leader, they turned to Polarbear instead. Polarbear respected Slate though, and came to him with a compromise to lead together instead, which Slate agreed to. The two balanced each other out, their flaws complimenting the other's strengths.

However, after the Final Light, Polarbear faltered. Stories reached him of how they turned on the cat who had warned them all, and how they tore her apart with words and insults. Doubt plagued him- were these the commanders he had helped to power? When he shared his doubts with Slate, the two agreed to tilt the votes in their favour, nudging members to vote against challengers. Pointing out flaws, speaking critically, and putting them in a bad light. Their plan worked, stopping almost every challenger from winning the vote.

Polarbear's conviction was tested when Voice of Snow visited- needing only one fragment to finish his trials. Maia, one of the Followers, saw the good in Snow. She was vocal, encouraging others that he was worthy, ruining Polarbear's attempts to do the opposite. So, as the Followers slept, Polarbear silently planted a piece of prey outside her lodging. By dusk, the Followers found her dead, the smell of meat luring the broken ones to her. Lost in grief, Polarbear convinced the others to change their vote, and kept the artifact safe- but at what cost?

Relationships:

Slate [ Dual leaders and partners, somewhere between platonic and romantic ]

Pumpkin [ Parental figure, found her under a bush and took her under her wing. Loves her like a child ]

Heart of Ember [ Looks out for her, friends with her mom ]

Call of Dreams [ Friends, often visits with food and supplies. Constantly tries to get her to join the Followers but she keeps refusing. Feels horrible for her ]

Background:

Grew up as an outsider, but doesn't remember much about it. He was found on Follower territory having been attacked by a fox, and was brought back to health by the Followers.

Polarbear felt like he owed them, so he stayed, vowing to return the kindness. He grew to enjoy meeting new faces as cats passed by their settlement, listening to their stories.

When Slate's parents passed and leadership was passed to him, the Followers realized he was cold and unforgiving. The heart of the Followers was kindness, and so they turned their heads away from Slate to look to Polarbear.

Polarbear didn't want to lead, and originally went to Slate to ask for him to tell everyone to knock it off. He realized though that the Followers would grow unhappy if he outright rejected it, and instead asked to lead together. Slate agreed.

The two worked well together, and Polarbear grew to love Slate, becoming close partners. When questioned about their relationship, Polarbear simply smiles, goes 'oh, that reminds me of a story...' and promptly talks about something else.

During the festival of rulings, Polarbear was present when Call of Dreams spoke out. As soon as he heard her warn the colonies, he left, fully believing the warning. Him and Slate prepared, hiding within their settlement. This proved to have saved their lives, as the broken ones missed them entirely.

Afterwards, stories of what happened after he left reached him. He became disgusted at the colonies hearing how they turned on Call of Dreams, especially when she was the one who saved the Followers, especially knowing he had allowed their commanders into leadership. Sharing his feelings with Slate, Slate voiced his concerns over how any cat would be able to take the challenges now. Both decided they would encourage others to vote harshly, and Polarbear quietly began to convince the Followers that challengers weren't worthy- that they were too brash, too strict, too ambitious, or too close-minded. It worked, every challenger failing to claim the fragment.

Things changed when Voice of Snow arrived, almost done his trial. As an advisor, rule would have naturally gone to him, and he was already able to prove his capabilities as commander of the Colony of Clickers. The Followers were enthusiastic, especially one named Maia, who vocally supported Snow.

Polarbear felt threatened, knowing the Followers were going to vote for Snow. During dawn, while everyone slept, Polarbear placed fresh meat outside of Maia's lodgings. The broken ones, attracted to the scent, found her while she slept. The Followers awoke at dusk to find her mangled corpse, and weighed down by grief, Polarbear gently pushed them to vote against Snow.

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Emotions that bind – differences between Europe, the US and Japan / Emotions inside us or between us?

Emotions exist within us, but also in the dynamics and actions between individuals. And also importantly emotions exist, in both directions, between an individual and any group they find themselves in.

When deconstructing an experience in the FFWPU/Unification Church, it can be helpful to reflect on the emotional culture, and the emotional dynamics, that existed in the organization.

Korean/Japanese emotional culture and western emotional culture are different. Did Sun Myung Moon’s culture, with patriarchal, gender-biased and racial elements, demand subservience? How was this conveyed in terms of group emotions which then dominated the internal emotions of members? Humans have a tendency (bias) to conform.

What were the emotions going on inside each person, and how were they changed and manipulated by group dynamics during recruitment (eg., group singing and group sports) – and during absorption into the group (shame for being selfish)? Was the mantra “living for the sake of others” a means of control?

Did the Moon family “live for the sake of others”?

Moon promoted himself as the “good” parent, and in his theology members were positioned as his children. But the reality was that Moon was a bad, abusive parent who demanded obedient, compliant children (eg., excessive donations from Japan).

Members were given the message Jesus was abandoned by his followers, and now members should not abandon Moon, the new messiah. Members were being pushed into a nurturing parental role toward the new messiah – a subtle reversal of roles compared to the earlier expectation of Moon as a loving parental messiah. Sun Myung Moon manipulated core emotions.

Members were often more trapped by manipulated emotions than the "logic” of the Divine Principle.

Moving from the “emotional culture” of the Unification Church, with all the implanted fears and the group ties, to the culture of the “outside world” is challenging. An understanding of the “language” of emotions and cultural dynamics can help.

The work of Batja Mesquita does not directly address cultic emotions and dynamics. She presents a new model and expands the available vocabulary to describe emotions.

_________________________________

Hidden Brain podcast:

https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/decoding-emotions/

Hidden Brain podcast is hosted by Shankar Vedantam

We like to think that all humans are born with the same core emotions: anger, fear, joy, sadness and disgust. But what if that’s not true? This week, psychologist Batja Mesquita offers a different model of emotions — one that can help us to better understand our own feelings and those of the people around us.

Books: Between Us: How Cultures Create Emotions, by Batja Mesquita, 2022.

Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language, by Eva Hoffman, 1989.

_________________________________

VIDEO: Batja Mesquita in conversation about her new book focused on the relationship between culture, community, and our understanding of emotion.

_________________________________

Batja Mesquita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batja_Mesquita

_________________________________

See also the work of Alexandra Stein who explores attachment theory:

How Cult Relationships Work with Dr. Alexandra Stein


Sensibly Speaking Podcast #348
 with Chris Shelton July 16, 2022


This week I am joined by Dr. Alexandra Stein, author of the book Terror, Love and Brainwashing and a fantastic expert on the subject of attachment theory as it relates to cultic/abusive relationships and connected with complex PTSD. If that all sounds like psychobabble, no worries because we take these academic concepts and translate them into English for you in this week’s show so you can understand why cultic relationships are really bad for everyone concerned. We hope this one helps!

comment:
 Excellent interview with Dr. Stein! I’ve heard her before, but there was a lot more information here than in other interviews. Thanks Chris and Alexandra!

[unveiledkinarchive]

skylar. • bodyclaim. • headcanons. • isms. 

BASIC INFO

full name — Skylar Reyes age — twenty-four gender — cis male, (he/ him/ his pronouns) orientation — homosexual occupation — student, part time tba species — dragonkin (hydrokinesis) clothing style — some days cute and pretty, others he looks like a mini jock but generally he wears whatever tf he likes

PHYSICAL INFO

face claim — Froy Gutierrez hair — brown / eyes — blue height — five foot & nine inches build — lean and fit, little too slender maybe scars — impeccable skin so, nop tattoos — his parents would have his head piercings — same as above, though he really wants a ring in his bottom lip and nose special characteristics — big ray of sunshine vibes, maybe a little lost in thought sometimes, but he does that thing where ..when he looks at you, you can't help but smile sexual preference— bottom sub

PERSONALITY

alignment — neutral good / true neutral... it shifts positive traits — ray of sunshine, excitable, joyful negative traits — insecure, cowardly, lil jealous hobbies — computers and it, gaming, swimming

MEDICAL INFO

mental — n/a physical — impeccable lil dragonbaby phobias — n/a eyesight — 18/20 dominant hand — right hand drug use — nop alcohol use — nop diet — he ...eats what he sees. and what he likes, so like almost everything

BACKGROUND

birthplace — alexandria parents — marin & hector reyes siblings — patrick, perseus, paul, peter & phillip reyes (yes) education — high school graduate -> currently student notable skills — he is a hacker, not that it ever really was of use in alexandria, but he enjoys the challenge and practices anyway

BIO

Born the youngest of six sons, Skylar grew up with a plethora of male role-models in his family, all of whom he - without a doubt, looked up to. He was close to both his brothers, but the one he felt closest to was definitely his oldest brother. Patrick. Ever since he could remember, Patrick was there for him while their father rarely was - not the way Patrick looked out for him, so the connection between them was strong. Skylar grew up wanting for nothing, especially because he was the youngest of the bunch - by far, so his father was pleased to know that if anything ever happened to his older sons, the Reyes family would still have another heir waiting in line. There was ..some pressure on him to perform well, in school and at home, but he knew that it was only for his own good, so he never quite found himself wanting to rebel. At least not in the way a typical teenager would. 

Skylar looked up to his oldest brother - almost like one would to a parent, but it was a deeper bond than the one Skylar had with his father. Patrick was the man he strived to be. Hector often sang praise in Skylar's presence and - while he felt the very subtle sting of jealousy towards his brother, he mostly just was determined to be like him one day. 

When he didn't make it into law school, he felt his world somewhat skyrocket into nirvana for a good few months. Patrick went, he became a laywer (outside of Alexandria, but still!). He’d never be the son their father hoped to have found in him, he’d never be able to be like his brother. 

So Skylar decided to be himself.

Who is Skylar Reyes? That’d be the million dollar question, but the young man was determined to find out.

Well, he was a dragon. That much he could tell, although everybody could tell as much by just ..looking at him, so he was still ..clueless. He spent all his life trying to be someone he wasn't that he lost himself somewhere along the way. It wasn't all bad, because his older brothers performing so incredibly well in life, Skylar .. had grown up with minimal pressure on him. Minimal expectations - at least from his father's side. From his own? Not quite the case. Being the youngest with his brothers all already working and living successful lives had left him in this .. place where he wanted to be done and successful himself right away, but he also didn't know what he even wanted to do with his life.

His personality could best be described as a happy, slightly reckless bundle of joy. All thanks to his oldest brother, no less. While Skylar surely was a decent back-up heir, he knew that Patrick would be the one to take over sooner or later, so Skylar pretty much got to enjoy life as it was. He went to school, he made friends, he hung out with his brothers, he crushed on an guy and felt rejection for the first time in his life and he came out stronger. His life was pretty normal despite what he was - and he liked it this way. Well, if one was to ignore his little side hobby. It wasn't like he wasn't allowed to go out, he was... but Skylar very much enjoyed the peace and quiet of his home most of the time. He found a passion for games and everything technology early on and given that he had practically endless resources at his disposal, that hobby he had .. found plenty of ammunition to keep going for a long, long time.

But he also knew the Reyes men weren’t just ..dragons, they were hunters. He remembered the time his brother came home his first hunt and ..Skylar would never forget that first night after he returned. The brother that came home after that was … changed. There was a deep sadness to him that Skylar could never quite find an explanation for, so he could only assume that it had to do with what he saw. Or did, but Patrick refused to tell him. Safe to say he was worried for the day when it was his turn. He liked himself the way he was, but he also didn’t want to disappoint their father, or let him think Skylar was weak. He might be the youngest, with quite a big age difference to his older brothers, so he’d always somewhat been coddled, but he could also look after himself and protect himself. Thanks to Patrick. 

He has no interest in taking over the family, or its businesses - nor did he want their father to tell him who he should be. He wants to fall in love, find the love of his life in a supermarket or something like that. He … wants to experience true love. And love, relationships and the like were only some of the things he wants to experience himself. The first step after graduation had been to move to out of his home, even if the Chateau still kept him pretty much in his family's vicinity, but Skylar wanted to know what it was like to live away from home - with nobody to coddle him and nobody to go easy on him when he struggled. 

Not that he’d ever not invite himself into his brother’s home for dinner, or demand attention while he was at work - or invite him and his betrothed over to the Ruthledge house for dinner… no, that wouldn’t change.

But college would grant him self-reliability among other things. Education was part of the Reyes ideology, so his father agreed without much protest and Skylar moved into one of the rooms at the Chateau... like oh so many others. He was a normal boy, see?

What he wants to do with his life? He’s got no clue, but he’ll find out eventually.

[sokos]

Anti-feminists always have bad takes but one of the worst arguments i've been given as a "gotcha" is men who have told me feminism was invented by men so I owe every advance in female's liberation to them.

They say this because Plato was supposedly the first person who "argued for the total political and sexual equality of women, advocating that they be members of his highest class, ... those who rule and fight" But they all forget he also said some incredibly misogynistic things. If anyone is interested here's a pretty good text that explains why Plato didn't invent Feminism and actually held sexist views (what a surprise!) . Let's not forget that there were probably a lot of female philosophers during Plato's time who were silenced because women weren't allowed to think differently. Misogyny has existed since the beginning of time and i'm sure women have always rebelled against that opression in some way and have been silenced by men for not conforming.

I was also told Poulain de la Barre invented feminism because he said "that the traditional domestic education reserved for women served neither sex well. Woman's education kept her in a state of complete dependence on her husband and perpetuated an unjust status quo that allowed half of the population literally to dominate the other. Poulain recognized the profound wrong in continuing the present state of female dependency. He lived in a society that intentionally stifled any desires a woman had to develop her mind within the realm of male scholarship." And although it's great that he spoke up for women's education, I wonder how many women before him fought for this right and weren't listened but he was actually recognized for being a man. It doesn't make sense to say he invented feminism because his work was done through the 17th century in France and Feminist ideas have existed since before this time.

There is no certainty of who truly was the first feminist but it sure as hell wasn't a man. Some people the Sumerian priestess Enheduanna, who lived in around the twenty-third century BC wrote poems that have been interpreted as feminist. / Others say Christine de Pizan was the first woman to write about feminism, surprisingly enough she existed 240 years before Poulain and "Her own writing, in its various forms, discusses many feminist topics, including the source of women’s oppression, the lack of education for women, different societal behaviors, combating a misogynistic society, women’s rights and accomplishments, and visions of a more equal world". In the year 1405 She wrote a book called "The book of the city of Ladies" in which she talks about how the world with be without the chaos and wars that men create and she says the history of women would be different if they weren't educated by men. hah, perhaps she's one of the first women who talked about female separatism? / Another early feminist was Moderata Fonte from the 16th century, who wrote "The Merits of Women" in which she says "Men and women are of the same species, the same flesh and blood, and they were created by God as companions for one another; yet men have so convinced themselves of their superiority to women that they have lost sight of this fundamental truth. Women are “otherized”; considered as lesser beings; deprived of the resources and education that might allow them to maintain themselves; forced into a position of humiliating dependence in which they must accept whatever harsh treatment their husbands or fathers choose to inflict. They are victims of “tyranny,” of illegitimate rule—an accusation of special potency in Venice" / Other early feminist writers were Juana Inés de la Cruz, considered Latin America's first feminist, who started writing around the year 1689 "she devoted much of her life to publishing artistic works that challenged the patriarchal gender role that she, and many other women, were experiencing. By publishing works such as plays, poems, letters, and musical works, she was able to challenge radical feminist views. One of her significant works, The Trials of a Household, is a play in which she voices her views against the injustices that women face." / Marie de Gournay - Anne Bradstreet - and Margaret Cavendish among many women were other pioneers in feminism who prove

that obviously men didn't invent it.

I know men are not capable of critical thinking and getting informed beyond what they're thaught but these accusations surprised me. Women have always been ereased from history but there's nothing worse than thinking women are so uncapable that even the fight for our own rights was invented by a man. Men can't be our opressors and our liberators too.

[floralbuckleys]

Control | Buck

♡ Pairing: Buck/Gender Neutral!Reader

♡ Genre: Smut

♡ Word Count: 1.5k

♡ Warnings: Dom/Sub, Riding, Rough sex, Hand Ties, Daddy Kink, Brat Reader

♡ Summary: Some attempted role reversal fun with Buck.

♡ Note: Dom/Sub drabble for the sthb square!! Having fun working through the bingo, prob my last one for a bit until insp strikes again tho

The first time you tried to dom Buck in the bedroom doesn’t go quite as you envisioned in your head. Rather than a domineering prescience able to make your boyfriend submit in pleasure, you were a stuttering mess of fumbling hands and heated cheeks.

Here you were, straddling this handsome, colossus of a man whose hands were currently tied above him to the bed. Ready and willing to follow your every command, completely at your mercy and it was all you could do to tell him to wipe the cheeky grin off his face.

“Stop that, Buck!” You whined, lightly slapping your hands to his bare chest and leveling him with your best glare. Which really was more of a soft puppy dog pout, rather than intimidating.

“I’m sorry, sweets. Won’t happen again,” he chuckled lightly, winking at you teasingly.

Buck couldn't help it really, he just found you so absolutely adorable, and had been interested to see how you would handle this since you suggested switching the roles up.

He loved dominating you, giving it to you just the way you liked it, and had never been in the opposite position nor wanted to. But, it was you, and he would give you whatever you wanted.

Even if you weren’t sure just how to take it.

“So, tell me baby, now that I’m at your mercy, what do you plan to do to me?” Buck prompted.

“I’m going to ride you, of course,” you huffed.

“Oh?” Buck challenged, cocking his head to the side, “are you sure about that my love? With my hands tied up like this, I can’t pound you up and down my cock like I usually do.”

You blinked a few times, gnawing on your lips subconsciously at the memory as the high of a past pleasure shot through you.

“S..So what? I’m perfectly able to ride you by myself, I don’t need you to guide me,” you stammered.

“Of course you don’t, you’re in charge here, aren’t you baby? Look at you, doing it so well.”

Buck’s cooed words of praise caused you to preen, a smile spreading across your lips. 

Part of you wanted to vie for more praise, for him to tell you to be good in whatever he wanted so you could receive it. 

Pushing that way, you let your hands slowly trial down the expanse of his chiseled chest, until you reached the white band of his dark gray boxers. 

The evidence of his arousal was clear, as you could see the shadowed imprint of his thick bulge.

“Seems like you want me pretty bad, baby.” 

“Desperately. I’d have you already if it weren’t for these damn ties.”

“Hey now, watch it,” you giggled at that as you swiftly moved off him for a moment and positioned yourself to his side so you could easily pull down his boxers.

Gripping the sides, you pulled the fabric down slowly, letting out a low whimper at the erotic sight of his fully erect cock popping out in its full glory. 

Quickly tossing them to the side, your lustful eyes glued to it as you fought the urge to have a taste.

Usually, before riding Buck, he’d have you suck him off, telling you to show him with your tight little mouth how much you wanted it. Praising you, pulling on your hair and telling you to keep being so good for him.

How intoxicating.

So lost in your thoughts for a moment, you did not notice the growing impatience of your lover, who was not used to having to wait for what he wanted. He shifted under you, a slight grumble coming from him.

Your eyes flickered to his baby blues as you realized, a knowing look on your face.

“A little impatient are we?” You questioned coyly, crawling back on top of him and positioning yourself just in front of his dick. Tracing your hand on the sensitive skin surrounding the area rather than stroking him off like you know would please him.

Something flashed in his expression at that, the little nerve you’d worked up clicking on a switch for him. 

“Am I, now? Because I’m pretty sure you were just fantasizing about my cock stuffed in your mouth, baby?” He rasped, letting out a dark chuckle, and suddenly, despite being on top of him and in control, a surge of submission rushed through you.

“I.. I wasn’t,” you mumbled, shaking your head as your mind jumbled. Damn him for throwing you off.

“You were. What have I told you about denying what you want?” He questioned, raising a thick blonde eyebrow.

“Not to, daddy.” Came your immediate response.

“Mhm, that’s right. Now, tell me, why am I fully naked, but you’re still wearing my shirt?”

“Oh,” you breathed, looking down at yourself in surprise. Honestly, you'd forgotten that you stripped off everything else before tying his wrists to the bed, but kept it on just to tease him.

“Take it off, now. I need to see you.”

You didn’t even hesitate to follow through with the order, hands flying to the bottom of your shirt and slipping it off, and throwing it to the side.

Buck swore, humming low in appreciation at the sight of your exposed chest. All of you so perfect, so smooth, and inviting. He wanted to touch every slope and curve of your body, mark you and remind you that you were his.

Bristling under the weight of his heated gaze, you awaited his next words, knowing that he was running this scene now. You didn’t mind in the slightest. The two of you could try reversing roles another time, you just wanted him to take control now and melt away.

“You’re so beautiful to me—so fucking sexy. Want you to ride me, now baby. Wanna feel your hot, tightness wrapped around my cock.”

Not needing to be told twice, you swiftly raised yourself up, gripping his cock with your left hand and languidly guiding it to meet your already sopping core. The anticipation too much for both of you.

A sharp gasp left you as the bulging head brushed against you, whimpering from the sensitivity as you sunk onto his cock, enveloping him inch by inch.

“Shit,” your boyfriend swore, the ties on his wrist straining as he tried to raise him up, wanting to sit up and wrap his hands around your ass. Make you slam down on his cock just the way you deserved.

Within seconds, his cock had fully disappeared into you, your breath slipping out of you in pants as you gave yourself a second to adjust to his size and the pleasurable sensations. 

Buck didn’t seem to agree with your slow movements however.

“What do you think you’re doing brat? Start fucking yourself on me now,” He hissed, impatience laced in his voice.

‘Mmm,” you quivered, splaying your hands on his chest for support as you started slowly rolling your hips, building up your momentum.

“Y/N,” Buck warned lowly, and just with that you were moving, slowly raising yourself up on his thick length with a shudder before slamming back down. The lewd sounds of you sliding up and down his cock filled the air as you did so, the pleasure already intense as you found your rhythm and repeated the motion.

“That’s right baby, just like that,” He groaned out, his eyes glued to the sensual sight of you moving up and down his cock, pumping him like a velvet vise. 

“Oh god, Buck, it’s too much.”

Everything about this situation drove you crazy. The feeling of Buck’s heated gaze drinking in your every move whilst restrained, but so clearly dying to touch you. The way he was desperately using his lower bottom strength to buck himself into you. 

Instinctively, leaning back, your hands moved to your chest, fingers running over your own pert nipples in a bid to increase your pleasure. 

You squeezed your eyes shut, allowing yourself to give it to the pure ecstasy of the moment. A wanton moan leaving your mouth as Buck’s cock hit you at just the right angle.

More, you wanted more, and it wasn’t until Buck suddenly shifted under you, that you realized he did too. Eyes tearing open, you gasped as Buck sat up, having freed himself from the cloth bindings without warning.

“Buck!” You called in surprise, as he wrapped his strong arms around you, placing them at your waist.

“I’m sorry baby, but I can’t resist touching you, fuck.” He whined, pulling you closer to him, with his back now against the bed board.

“Hmm,” you hummed, as you wrapped your arms around his neck, “you might just be in trouble for that.”

He chuckled at that, a sly grin on his face. “I think it’s you whose in trouble now, sweetheart.”

Before you could give another cheeky reply, his hands moved down to your ass, and with a swift motion he gripped you tight, raising you up on his shaft and slamming you down like a rag doll.

Moan after moan split from you as Buck begun fucking into you relentlessly, whispering how good you were being for him and how he was so proud of you. The two of you losing yourself in the passion until there was just you and him, and nothing else mattered.

My Masterlist || My AO3 || Please leave feedback, helps motivate! :) Thank you for reading~

[bonesbuckleup]

Lord, this answer got long. I’m a little embarrassed about it, but I wrote it, so it’s getting posted. It’s a literal essay. Sorry but also not?

TLDR: Yes, the show is arguably unfair to Sokka about Kya, but it also follows a pattern where Sokka stays quiet about Bad Feelings and plays by the rules established for his character. Katara, meanwhile, grieves loudly and often, and appears to be under the impression that because Sokka’s grief is silent it doesn’t exist, which also fits her character/interactions completely. Neither of them are right or wrong, but it sets them up on inevitable collisions.

Now. If you want to join me on a cactus-juice fueled descent into madness, proceed below the cut.

Number one. We’re referring to this exchange in “The Southern Raiders,” where the Gaang is talking about Zuko and Katara going after the man who killed Kya, which is vicious and brutal and never reflected on:

Aang: You sound like Jet. Katara: It's not the same! Jet attacked the innocent. This man, he's a monster. Sokka: Katara, she was my mother, too, but I think Aang might be right. Katara (angry, yelling): Then you didn't love her the way I did! Sokka (visibly hurt, softly): Katara.

And that’s it. Upon returning, Katara apologizes to Aang and not, as Anon is absolutely correct in pointing out, to Sokka, who is 100% the more injured party. Now. Is it possible this is one of the rare missteps from the atla writers? Yes. Absolutely. Is that the answer I’m about to write a literal fucking essay about? No. Because it’s more painful fun to take it as face value and talk subtext.

First, a reminder that this show is fucking good at what it does. It teaches you how each character grieves as we go: Aang explodes, often triggering the Avatar state, usually crying or angry, and when he does try to repress his Bad Feelings it rarely lasts longer than a day; Toph either shuts down or gets mad, but either way she doesn’t like people seeing her having Bad Feelings and often storms away, knowing that she can’t control it no matter how much she might want to; Zuko yells at the sky in a rainstorm or yells at his dad in an underground tunnel or challenges Zhao to an Agni Kai or yells at his uncle in a jail cell and generally is an emotive nuclear bomb because the boy has feelings and if he keeps them inside for more than three seconds he might explode okay.

Then we have Katara and Sokka.

Let’s start with Katara, since she has the most textual and straightforward displays of grief. She’s really the only one to talk about Kya’s death in Book 1. If Sokka mentions it, it’s barely in passing. I don’t think we hear Hakoda address her death at all (which I’ll return to in a moment.) Katara’s grief is loud. It’s angry. It’s still very much a living thing for her. She thinks she sees Kya in the swamp and breaks down crying, and tells Aang and Sokka about it with no hesitation. When she’s angry and sad at Hakoda for leaving, she acts out and is visibly upset with him, yells at him, cries at him. She out-loud hates Zuko when she comes to the conclusion that he told her about Ursa and got her to talk about Kya to manipulate her. It isn’t that her grief is performative, because it’s a very real and terrible thing, but it’s a grief that’s to be witnessed.

Then, Sokka. Sokka’s grief is more complicated because it exists almost entirely in subtext, especially in regard to Kya. We really only hear him talk about Kya twice, both in Book 3. First, to Toph, when he tells her that he can’t remember what Kya looks like. Worth noting, however, that even though it is Sokka talking, this is still centered on Katara and Katara’s grief. The next time is when Zuko asks what happened to Kya, and Sokka tells the story that leads into the initial flashback. Sokka doesn’t talk about his mom. This is a fact of the show. It’s such a fact of the show that, in “Southern Raiders,” after the exchange at the start of this post, while Katara and Zuko are on the hunt, Sokka doesn’t bring up Kya again and is messing around with Aang. Like nothing has happened or is currently happening--which I’ll come back to in a moment.

So while we can use Kya as a perfect example of how Katara grieves, we can’t really use her for Sokka. So let’s use Yue instead. Moments we see (or don’t see) Sokka grieving Yue:

In the opening to Book 2, we briefly have a shot of Sokka with the moon imposed behind him.

“The Swamp,” where Sokka’s vision is of Yue accusing him of not protecting her. This one is one of the more textual moments of grief--”I think about Yue all the time”--but what’s awful great about it is how Sokka tells Aang and Katara. Aang, obviously, has no qualms about sharing his vision. Katara openly talks about seeing Kya. Sokka only tells them about Yue when explicitly asked. Even then, he doesn’t mention what she said to him. From this, we can assume that Sokka is still holding onto a lot of guilt over her death--guilt that he won’t let Aang and Katara see. Anyway. Moving on.

“The Serpent’s Pass.” After spending all day panic protecting Suki, he tells her that he lost someone, but doesn’t go much further into detail, just saying that he can’t when she tries to kiss him. Of course, this is all happening in front of the moon. Again, though, Sokka stays vague. He doesn’t tell her any details.

“The Puppetmaster,” Toph posits that maybe the moon spirit has gone mean and is kidnapping people. Sokka snaps at her, in a moment definitely meant for laughs, saying, “The Moon Spirit is a gentle, loving lady. She rules the sky with compassion and ... lunar goodness!” It is a funny moment, but here’s what we can take from it: Toph doesn’t know about Yue. Toph is a Feral Bastard a lot of the time, but she also knows where the line is, and I don’t think she’d’ve said that if she’d known.

“Boiling Rock,” in arguably the most quoted (and well deservedly so!) line in the entire show. “My first girlfriend turned into the moon.” “...that’s rough, buddy.” COMEDIC GOLD. Also, weirdly, the literal only time that Sokka explicitly tells someone about Yue in the course of the show.

“Ember Island Players” which I haven’t hit in my rewatch yet, but I definitely remember a moment where Suki asks Sokka when he was gonna tell her he made out with the moon, and he tearfully shushes her. Again, played for laughs, but the implication is that he still hasn’t told Suki about what happened.

This plays perfectly into the same way that Sokka (doesn’t) talks about his mom. When the Bad Feelings come, Sokka either avoids them and finds a distraction (Goofs with Aang--see, told ya we’d come back to that) or stays silent. When someone explicitly asks him about the Bad Feelings--what he saw in the swamp, what’s eating at him in “Sokka’s Master,” why he’s panic-protecting Suki--he’ll answer, but often talks around the actual issue. (Interestingly, it’s in regard to Suki we see the most explicit manifestation of Sokka grieving as Azula taunts him during the invasion: he cries, he attacks Azula, he yells and questions her despite the fact he knows she’s wasting their time. I think this one hits him because, as this beautiful post points out, Suki’s the protector in the relationship, and Sokka can actually chill out for 2 seconds. But he let his guard down, and Azula got Suki. Anyway. That’s probably a different essay: back to the matter at hand.) We even see this in “Boiling Rock.” There’s a moment where they think Hakoda is not with the other political prisoners. Sokka’s tense, drawn tight, but the only thing he says is, “No.”

Basically, we’ve got Katara, who grieves loudly and rages and is kinda like white-water rapids that churn and churn and churn. And we’ve got Sokka, who, to quote John Mulaney, looks at his grief and says, “I’ll just keep all my emotions right here and then one day I’ll die.” Iceberg grief, to keep the water metaphor going.

And where did these come from? Yup! Water Tribe gender roles! What we know from the show is that, while the South is typically more progressive (women can train as benders and marry who they want, at least) than the North, it’s still very rigid: the men are warriors/hunters/protectors, the women stay home to cook/clean/child-rear.

Now: subtext! And why I think they are this way!

We’ll start with Katara. The last waterbender in the South Pole. She no doubt grew up doted on. If I say she’s most likely a little spoiled, I don’t mean it in a bad way--I mean it in a she’s the last living remnant of this aspect of their culture kind of way. When raiders come, she’s probably the first priority to protect. Kya dies to keep her safe. Her needs are generally put before the community as a whole. (This isn’t to say that Katara doesn’t contribute or care about her community, because she 100% does). But! Especially in Book 1, we see Katara often considering her opinions as facts (trusting Jet, the waterbending scroll) and doesn’t always pause to consider the larger impact that her actions will have (scroll and Jet again, challenging Pakku, dressing up as the Painted Lady despite the fact the factory will hold the village responsible). And many of these actions are good! But we see a lot of Katara being pretty self-centered--what can I do, how does this impact me, how do I feel about this? And this isn’t a bad thing! This aspect of her character makes her complicated and complex! Katara loves her family and protecting people and caring for them! She’s extremely empathetic! But she also struggles to meet people where they’re at when they emote in a different way than she does (see: her clashes with Toph, her initial problems with Zuko joining the group, the above interaction with Sokka). It’s also worth talking about how Katara witnessed her mother’s death, which no doubt makes her grief about it a sharper thing.

Then, again, Sokka. Also loved in his community! But a normal kind of love, I’d assume. He probably was raised on stories of the Fire Nation dragging waterbenders away. No one exemplifies the Water Tribe ride-or-die mentality quite as well as Sokka, or the gender roles of the man as the warrior/protector, so you gotta believe Hakoda raised that kid to look after his sister at all costs, which we see throughout the show (already preparing to go after Aang in the South Pole because he know Katara’s going anyway, “You burned my sister!”) And he isn’t there when his mom dies. He finds out later. He goes from feeling like a victor who helped chased the raiders away to the worst realization of his life. I have to imagine he’s ashamed by the fact that he thought everything was going to be okay, which leads into his worldview of assuming that nothing is okay ever in any circumstance.

Finally, Hakoda. Who never, unless I’ve forgotten something, talks about Kya. All we know is that their family fell apart after her death (per Sokka in “The Runaway,” learning how Katara stepped up to hold everything together) and sometime after he took the warriors and straight up left. He apologizes for leaving but doesn’t address the fact that he left Katara and Sokka with no parents at all, only the war. This is, uh, not exactly echoing a healthy coping mechanism?

My theory: Kya dies. Since the Water Tribe is so embedded in gender roles, Hakoda probably shut down and/or checked out emotionally for a while. This leaves his kids on their own to deal with their shit, and we learn Katara does everything she can to keep her family going. As the most protected individual in the South, Katara’s probably been taught that emotions equal attention, and uses her temper/caring/sadness to help bring her community closer. Meanwhile, Sokka, who hero worships his dad, watches Hakoda go stoic and learns that “real men” shove their shit down. Additionally, Katara’s grief is deafeningly loud, and Sokka’s number 1 role is to keep Katara safe. He’s taught that the Bad Feelings only get in the way and make things worse, and so he learns to be fine no matter what kind of terrible is going down around him.  Basically, Katara learns to use grief as a needle and thread, and Sokka learns to bury it as deep as he can and avoid it at all costs. Opposite reactions to the same trauma. Katara gets mad and demands to be heard and listened to and seen, and Sokka gets sarcastic and prepares himself for the day the Fire Nation ships come back for his sister.

So. Back to those above lines from “Southern Raiders.”

From a writing standpoint, I do wish the final moment was between Katara and Sokka versus Katara and Aang. They could’ve had an almost identical interaction, but it would’ve been more nuanced. I don’t think that Katara needed to apologize, but I think we needed some acknowledgement from both of them: Katara continuing the lesson she’s learned about how her pain doesn’t entitle her to hurt other people (including Sokka, who is there no matter what she says or does), and Sokka that Katara’s process of grieving had to involve this catharsis.

Or. Maybe not. Because again--subtext. Their grief works in such different ways that I have to imagine this isn’t a new fight. It was probably brutal and vicious for a very long time. Maybe that’s part of what made Sokka try and go with the warriors. Maybe that’s part of why Katara gets mad so quickly in the first episode of the show. But eventually, unable to find an answer, they just...stop talking about it. Because the two of them don’t talk about it. Katara only talks about her mom with people who aren’t Sokka, and Sokka does exclusively to Toph and Zuko.

The only time I can think of Katara and Sokka talking about it together is the exchange at the top of this post, and it gets ugly fast, and it isn’t brought up again. It’s a fight that will never be resolved, because they fundamentally can’t react to one another in a way that can be universally understood.

“You didn’t love her the way I did!” Katara yells, loudly, because if Sokka loved her then why isn’t he raging? Why isn’t he getting his sword and coming to help her? Why doesn’t Sokka want to burn this firebender to the ground and make him see and hear and look at what he’s done to the world? To their family? He must not understand. He must not care as much or he’d be screaming with her.

“Katara,” Sokka says, much quieter, and adds nothing else. Not because there isn’t anything else to say, but because Sokka can’t talk about this kind of thing. Not doesn’t want to, but can’t, because it’s his job to protect people, protect Katara, and if he lets all those old hurts come boiling up he can’t do that, because that ends with losing focus and losing control and people getting hurt or going away. Why can’t she understand that?

And then they do what they always do. They don’t bring it up again.

[sadoeuphemist]

Stories I thought about writing, but didn’t:

my voice is poisonous, a gift from a strange god my parents once befriended. I’m careful not to speak, but I know they’re afraid.

A poison-voiced girl is born to deaf parents, but falls in love with a hearing boy. Their courtship is marked on her end by a thrilling restraint, biting her lip, knowing she could kill him with an indiscretion; he, on the other hand, longs to see her act without inhibition. He manages to make her laugh, sigh, gasp out in wonder - each time he falls ill from the poison of her voice, but is undeterred even in his convalescence, returning renewed in his goal to tease another sound out of her.

Her parents tell her to break it off; she’ll kill him. She reluctantly agrees. He refuses, pleads with her, grasps her hands so she can’t sign. In anguish she cries out his name — but lo! he does not sicken, does not die. It turns out his repeated exposures to her voice have mithridatized him against it. She can speak around him freely! They both agree that this development has taken a lot of the excitement out of the relationship, but it has been replaced with a greater casualness and intimacy that balances it out.

I can see the angels in their true form, a thousand splendid eyes and all. They think it’s funny, and have taken to hanging around my apartment 

The angels start making excuses to keep showing up at my apartment, in the manner of the annunciation, but for increasingly trivial reasons. They come bearing tidings about how I should definitely get the turkey wrap for lunch, which brand of fabric softener I should buy, how that quarter I’ll find on the sidewalk is a sign that I am favored by God. They come bearing bad tidings too: The Lord has heard of all the evil in your printer, and has sent us here to jam it. Their presence becomes completely overbearing, but they are insistent. There’s a reason you see us in our true forms, they say, all their splendid eyes shining. Is it so hard to believe that the God that formed every atom of you in the womb should watch over you always, that every mundane moment of your existence in this world is shot through with the divine?

There was a body in the river, ice cold and snow white. Sometimes it was all the way dead. Sometimes it sat up and talked to me.

A king has declared that whoever can complete the following tasks shall marry his daughter: 1) to recover a lost treasure stolen from his family hundreds of years ago; 2)  to name the start of the pact between men and horses; and 3) to find a cure to the plague ravaging the land.

Our plucky folk hero helps an old lady who sits by the river; she tells him of the snow white body within, who has sat up and spoken to her at odd times throughout her life. It is the spirit of the glacier: the glacier melts, and forms the river; layer by layer the past frozen in it is uncovered, parts of it living and parts of it dead. Our hero builds many bonfires and melts the glacier faster; the body lives and dies and lives many times over and tells him the three answers. 1) The thief fell into a crevasse and was frozen over; the ice is melted now, and the treasure can be recovered. 2) Iron horseshoes frozen in the glacier reveal the pact is many thousands of years old. 3) The plague is an old one, frozen and released anew with the glacier’s melting; it is carried in the livestock, and they must be slaughtered.

The hero solves the king’s tasks and marries his daughter. Presumably the new king is then faced with the challenge of the rising sea levels; no idea how that plays out.

“We’re all nice to each other here,” they told us, “we’ve got angels in the hills. They like it when we’re nice. And they see everything.”

This one’s tough to summarize adequately. Two men are going door to door, seemingly taking a survey of the religious beliefs in a small town. They finish, sit together in their car. People have been very cooperative. One of the men remarks that the local religious beliefs are disappointingly unremarkable: yes, they believe in angels watching from the hills, but most people believe in an omniscient God watching over them, and whether it is God or his intercessors, does it make a significant difference?

They sit in the car. Perhaps they smoke in the lazy sunlight. They have finished their survey ahead of time. One of them proposes: Suppose we have a picnic lunch up in the hills?

They park at the base of the hill and walk up. Lovely day. They spread out a blanket from the car, stretch their legs out on the grass, take off their coats, loosen their ties. They’ve brought their packed lunch, sandwiches, a thermos of lemonade. They talk about how pleasant all the people were. Their kind of religion seems so ... brittle, one of the men remarks. If I thought there was someone waiting to punish me the moment I stepped out of line, I’d want to do something horrible just to get it over with.

You think so? says his partner. I think just the opposite. The grand problem with religion is that there aren’t enough consequences for wickedness. I know if I saw the wicked being smote down on a regular basis, I would very satisfied in my religion indeed.

Well, of course you would; you’re a sadist.

Me? A sadist? Hardly.

You’re a sadist, his partner says teasingly. A sadist and brute.

They smile at each other. Idle conversation. There is a suggestion that they have visited many such towns and cities, asking the same question, but have yet to receive a satisfactory answer. At one point one of them notes that there’s something in the trees, but this remark is ignored and nothing is ever made of it. The conversation turns back to whether the angels in the hills are real or not. The ‘sadist’ stands up, declares his intent to do something wicked to test them. He marches around, swinging his arms, then looks around at the trees and puts his hands on his hips and laughs.

You know, up here away from society, he declares, I can’t think of a single wicked thing to do!

(Maybe a conversation here about how he could tear branches from trees, despoil the scenery, find an animal to kill; but then again animals in nature strip bark from trees, kill each other bloodily all the time, tear each other to bits, so how wicked could that be, really?)

He looks down at his partner still lying back on the blanket. Unless, of course, I were to do something wicked to you.

Whatever happens next, it is very leisurely. The scene is easy, very relaxed. Lovely day. Calm. Bright blue sky. Clouds float across it, white like feathered wings, and then pass, leaving not a trace behind.

None of us can imagine what life was like before the Clocks came, before clockwork cities, and all their technology. They rebuilt our crumbling society, in perfect, mechanical order. 

Brief musings on a hypothetical pre-Clock society. A society built around the sun, all buildings roofless, everyone’s necks craned upward. Cities built running north to south so as not to block anyone’s view of the rise and set. A society built around hourglasses, everyone judging the passage of time by the sand puddling around their feet, knees, waists, clambering up onto growing dunes, waiting for the flip, for the sand to slowly drain away and the furnishings of their homes to be uncovered. Perhaps this was our unimaginable life before the Clocks came: sands stretching far away and bare, the hypothetical counterpart bulb of an hourglass reflected invisible above us, empty and vast with unrealized possibility, waiting to be reset.

When I was very young, I met a bear at the edge of the woods. Before I could play dead, it bowed to me.

Jokey little fic where a child is instructed on the etiquette of bears: when to bow, when to curtsy, when to raise your hands and make yourself as large as possible, when to climb a tree, when to play dead. (Note that grizzlies are territorial, so if they attack you and play dead they’ll leave you alone because the threat is neutralized; whereas black bears are not territorial, so playing dead will do no good because a black bear will only attack if it deliberately wants to fuck you up.)

I was given very specific instructions. Go to the rosebush on a clear night. As the moonlight turns the roses silver, feed them three drops of blood.

After years of trying for a child, a couple turns to an old witch to help. The woman is instructed to eat a rose from a magical rosebush. If she first pricks her finger and stains the rose red with her blood, then she will have a son, ruddy and robust and bold in battle; if she visits the bush on a clear night and eats a rose painted silver by moonlight, then she will have a daughter, as pale and graceful and elegant as the moon.

The woman is uneasy with the implications of this binary, and says so. The witch smiles and gives her a new set of instructions. So she pricks her finger at night, her blood painted black by the moonlight, and nine months later gives birth to a child as black as a rose, who is neither boy nor girl.

Never manged to come up with a plot for this one. The kid grows up to have a career fulfilling all those “Neither man nor woman” prophecies? Eh. Kinda corny. There’s something about gender roles in fairy tales here, but I couldn’t put it together.

Not for the first time, the company time loop drill had gone very, very wrong.

I did actually write a response for this one, but it got too long and I gave up on it. Summary of the rest of the idea I had:

Time resets. Nagle confirms that it is both an actual time loop and a drill; the company is doing a controlled time loop to prepare them for the real thing. People complain. What’s the point of a drill when an actual time loop would let you keep doing things over and over until you get it right? Nagle points out that could take years, subjectively, and that this is a controlled experience where he has a code to abort the exercise if anything seriously goes wrong. He insists they try to make it work.

They go through a bunch of loops. Don’t succeed. It’s highly technical stuff that none of them are trained for. Morale drops. People start complaining, they’ve spent hours at this, they should be off duty by now. Nagle points out there’s a ruling, established with VR training, that companies don’t need to pay their employees according to their subjective experience of time, and officially they’ve only spent 34 minutes at this.

More loops. Morale drops further. People start demanding Nagle use the abort code, threatening to quit. Nagle points out that while they’re in this time loop, their actions are consequence-free, but once he ends the loop they’ll have to live with their decisions for the rest of their lives. Are they sure they really want to quit?

At that point someone loses it and kills Nagle. Shock. Panic. Some satisfaction. He’s reborn the next loop, starts screaming about it - someone kills him again. Complete social breakdown. Eventually some people decide, fuck it, let’s just live in this loop forever. Killing Nagle becomes a standard thing they do at the start of every loop, so that he can’t input the abort code. They go through various reconfigurations of their social group - orgies, riots, open paranoia where everyone colonizes a different part of the building, regressing to primitivism, open warfare between various sects, rebuilding of society along different axes of thought. Everyone starts thinking of themselves as immortal, they start calling themselves things like ‘Chronobog of the Infinite Plane of Despair’ or whatever; the narration gets increasingly surreal.

After god knows how many cycles of this, everyone finally achieves an equilibrium of perfect enlightenment. They know what must be done. They leave Nagle alive, he watches as they move in perfect unison to unlock the server room and overcome all the obstacles and repair the tachyon servers, loop is finally terminated, normal flow of time resumes.

Nagle stands up, gives a speech, starts congratulating them on completing the drill. As he talks, everyone can feel the rapport they’ve built start to slip away - they no longer understand each other perfectly outside of the context of those 34 minutes. Time is moving forward again, and with it introducing unfamiliarity, uncertainty, an impossible onslaught of variables that they cannot predict or prepare for, and they are all moving inescapably further from each other even as they glance around and try to catch each other’s eyes and keep holding on to that feeling of perfect unity - but it’s too late now, they are strangers behind familiar faces, all of them heading in their own directions, going to be returning to their own separate lives; that moment of solidarity they had is past.

And then Nagle claps his hands at them and says, “OK, drill’s over, everyone back to work!”

[nomoregoldfish]

I Promised You The Moon rant

Just binged it and this was from the episode by episode reaction/discussion with my partner in crime @glossyboy.

First of all, Oab stole the show, singlehandedly, which he's not supposed to. I don't think anyone expected it including himself. In the very top post when I searched his name on tumblr, he said this lol

But the truth is he played one hell of "villain" that required a very nuanced performance and he delivered it in a believable and graceful manner. Jai became the catalyst of the entire season and his rather complicated relationship with Teh was the highlight of part 2.

EP 1

From the very beginning it's clear that part 2 is very much a Teh's story rather than a balanced story about two young people's journey as a couple in the next chapter of their lives. It makes me uncomfortable they made Oh-aew clingy and pessimistic without giving him any character development.

The best part is probably the opening scene where they went paper-rock-scissors to decide who's gonna buy condoms. It felt authentic, the expectation, the hesitation, the mischievous act, all fits their characters well. Other times ep 1 was more like two adult kids playing house, literally in an empty giant ass upper middle class apartment.

EP 2

It's great that they poked the femininity vs. masculinity issue through Oh-aew, but stopped right there at the surface. Missed a perfect opportunity to go head-to-head with the controversial topic, start a debate, crush the stigma of femininity, bring something new, be a real game changer of the BL genre, and most importantly give Oh-aew some concrete character development. Part 1 showed us a gay character that's very comfortable with his sexuality and femininity, that's almost revolutionary in Asia, not as a comic relief but a leading role. Oh-aew questioned his own sexual identity once in that bra wearing scene, it's straight out of comfort zone, BOLD, and transgressive. So I expected more from part 2.

That's it? And they're already sophomores? Can't believe Oh-aew's character has been marginalized like this. It's pathetic.

But I love the brutally honest conversation at the end where Teh vented his rage and despair regarding his frustration of acting. He was acting like a dick because he's disappointed, and scared. Teh again was not afraid of showing vulnerability, making the reconciliation very realistic and touching.

EP 3

Dare I say I freaking love ep 3! The unresolved (partially sexual, but not entirely) tension between Teh and Jai was over the roof! And the built-up to their kiss was very authentic, which paled Teh and Oh-aew's much sidelined storyline, including the long anticipated sex scene (still can't believe it happened right after Jai explicitly instructed Teh to do it after the two spent a whole night bonding, like wow! Totally TRANSGRESSIVE and to some extent, kinky.) Teh looked up to the senior, idolized him, wanted to be good for him and make him proud, thirsted for the validation from him, which was mixed with affections. The workshop diary was a brilliant idea to let them open up to each other and eventually bring them close. This was what a meaningful arc of a story looked like. By contrast, there isn't a single moment between Oh-aew and Teh in part 2 that made me go "Damn it's soooooo hot!"

I know Jai/Teh wasn't the endgame but I appreciate the storyline so much. It's a very bold move considering it broke the over-glorified "one true love in one's life" fantasy of its target audience, mostly young cis women. The popular narrative of "you can only love one person through your life/one true love" in romance fictions/chick flicks was totally smashed. And it wasn't written just to stir up things between Teh and Oh-aew, it wasn't a silly fling. Instead, it's meaningful, complicated, natural, and realistic, delivered by nuanced and excellent acting from two young actors. It's hilarious that fans hate Jai with a passion and call him names.

And big news, Jai is bi?! Bravo! He's radiating bi vibes since his first appearance.

I kind of gave up at this point, the season wouldn't do Oh-aew any justice. Like my partner in crime pointed out, the costume design literally threw some "incongruous female fashion pieces" on Oh-aew, made him dye his hair red, without...making any actual point of his personality or his character development. Wardrobe was supposed to make a point in storytelling. Yes, PP wearing pink is cute, and? There's nothing else for Oh-aew. Unfortunately he's reduced to this sulky, crying, and wronged partner in a failing relationship.

EP 4

Oab again was killing it. The tension between Jai and Teh...from the rehearsal in front of Oh-aew to the dressing room pep talk, was incredibly intense and hot AF.

Was it a manipulative relationship after all? Oab was so good at conveying a character with many faces. Jai's a mentor to Teh, also a good friend, their relationship was genuine. He's also ambitious with his own goals, he used, challenged, provoked Teh in a way that benefited them both. It made sense the title of part 2, I Promised You The Moon, was from Jai's script. He promised Teh what the junior wanted the most, a bright future in acting. Teh's unconventional and unspoken feelings for Jai was the best part of the entire season in terms of creative writing, it's complicated, fragile, delicate and completely heartbreaking.

The after talk in the hallway was so well-written. It's funny (Teh joking about playwrights always write about their EXs is gold), intimate yet meticulously controlled, no one lashed out or wept. Both knew what they signed up for and Jai particularly made it clear about his motive and the purpose of the "special workshop" beforehand (or right away.) Yet it's no one's fault that Teh got carried away. He's younger, he's immature, he's more into it, it's totally natural. It's so romantic when Teh's singing karaoke in the bar with Oh-aew, yet he couldn't help but desperately staring at Jai on the floor, knowing he and the man who just turned him down were never gonna happen, they were done, but he's still madly attracted to him and his talent. He fancied Jai, at least the idea of Jai, a playwright, a director, someone knew him better than himself. That hurt beautifully.

EP 5

Teh/Oh-aew endgame at this point was pretty meaningless. Oh-aew as a leading character never got any solid character development over a span of four years. What happened between Jai and Teh wasn't just "cheating", though they surely made it look that way, like Teh's empty promise of "I won't see him again after the show ends". No matter how Oh-aew and Teh eventually reconciled, there's no emotional connection, no sparkle anymore between the couple.

But I knew for a fact they had to. Otherwise it's too much of a risk financially for the series. The creators had to take the easy way out like most traditional romances—one of the most contrived and formulaic trope where the male leading character made a mistake (usually cheating) and realized he's wrong, he deeply hurt the female leading character (Oh-aew was merely a girl substitute in part 2), then he completely changed for hell knew what reasons, started doing every nicest thing in the world to try to "win" the female character back. It has been feeding the emotionally-deprived cis female readers/audience who are frustrated with heterosexual relationship irl for decades. The formula that made romance outsell other genres of fictions combined in the 60s and 70s still sells today, under the name of boys' love. It's pathetic to see Oh-aew confess to Bas that he always "lost" to Teh. Love shouldn't be some kind of game or competition, there isn't winner or loser in love. Love is spontaneous. Oh-aew didn't lose because Teh developed feelings for someone else, and he didn't win when Teh begged him for reconciliation. People change, people move on.

And as predicted, they went for it. The ending was so absurd and tedious.

Overall, Jai's probably the hardest villain to play, he needed to be REALLY GOOD to be "the bad guy", to make his role conceivable. Oab absolutely nailed it with his talent and experience. He's not even my type or extremely good looking yet I'm 100% SOLD. I immediately re-watched the scene of him kissing Teh back hungrily at the end of ep 3 like I used to re-watch Teh/Oh-aew's steamy make out session at the end of episode 3 part 1. Coincidence?

I like some parts of both seasons for the same reason, each challenged and tried to break some outdated/contrived narratives in the BL genre. Part 1 took on the sexuality taboo by showing two same sex characters sexually attracted to each other, no more "I'm not into boys, I just happened to fall for someone of the same gender" or "pure love" bullshit. By staying true to the characters' sexuality and actually showing it with explicit, intense (and beautifully shot) scenes, the gay characters were normalized. They weren't just pure and innocent, no one was. And it created two of most unconventional gay characters in Asian pop culture, Oh-aew, a beautiful boy who's very comfortable with his own sexuality and femininity, not passive at all, taking initiative to pursue what he wanted; and Teh, a sensitive, caring and vulnerable boy who cried a lot, he's confused but also sweet and brave.

Part 2 tackled the "You can only love one person through your life" trope with a very nuanced story of "cheating". Yet neither carried out what they started. Part 1 fell short of a revolutionary piece that stayed true to "adolescent sexual turmoil", dismissing bisexuality and becoming a typical unrealistic BL fantasy in the end. And Part 2, ugh, forced a "happy ending" that almost no one digs. I understand it's extremely difficult and risky to disrupt the established norms of a genre. But sometimes being transgressive and progressive could be the same thing. A story, an artwork, has to challenge something in order to create something new and compelling.

[gofancyninjaworld]

watching ONE write women

One of the joys of following a writer for a while is that you get to follow how their ideas develop.   One of the things that ONE brought up in an interview (annoyingly I’ve lost the link) was that he didn’t think that he wrote women particularly well. 

I was thinking about that.  When ONE says that, what comes across to me is that he has no problem writing a female character as an individual rather than a role.  All the girls and women he’s written so far have their own voices, own their problems, and have something to do within the story that would be noticeable if they weren’t there.  Quite frankly, that alone is over and above what various tests of representation (such as the Bechdel test) ask for.  

What he’s not so good at is appreciating what being female brings to a character’s experiences and outlook.  But he’s not just left it at that.  More on what he’s been doing in a bit (and under the cut).

“...the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges...” -- Anatole France

With his sharp eye and talent for exploring the implications of whatever he posits, ONE has brought up some issues are not inherently gendered, but usually are. 

A: Childcare

Metal Bat appears to be the main, if not sole, carer for Zenko.  How it affects him is fascinating.  He’s one of the longest-serving heroes in the Hero Association, being there before Class S was formed, literally within the first six months of its establishment.  He’s been extremely loyal and is highly trusted by the HA -- they put Narinki’s life into his hands without fear.  His battle strength is literally praised to the heavens.

Metal Bat makes Zenko a priority, structuring his availability around her school schedule and being present in her life. He gets very angry if these times are threatened without overwhelmingly good cause.  His reward is to be perceived by the Hero Association as less committed and so they under-recognise him in terms of ranking, and since rank and pay are linked, under-pay him as well.  It’s a story all too many women can relate to.  But that’s not all.

Because ONE writes so simply yet conscientiously, something else comes up and has a peek: intersectionality. It’s the concept that we often have multiple social disadvantages that interact and compound our problems.  The first is sexism.  Regardless of whatever childcare policy the HA has, the sexist assumption that only women care (for the record: this is bullshit) makes it unlikely for them to ask Metal Bat.  Second, social capital. The fact that he’s Zenko’s sole carer means that he has low social capital, that informal network of people around you who can help out -- or tell you where to find help and what things to say in order to get that help. [Aside: this is why programmes to help people, unless they reach out aggressively, tend to disproportionately attract those who need it least.]  Metal Bat doesn’t have the knowledge.  The third is the challenge brought by his being a 17-year old boy.  He’s quick to perceive challenge as threat, and threat as something to be met by anger.  Witness him threatening to smash the HA headquarters if it turns out that he’s missed Zenko’s piano recital for nothing -- completely not useful to anything. [Another aside: the importance of learning to disambiguate emotions and do useful things with them even if it means being vulnerable as a part of growing up as a man is the whole point of Mob Psycho 100.]

What do the Neo Heroes do?  They ask Metal Bat if he wants help with childcare AND HE JUMPS SHIP PRONTO.  If that’s not an indictment of the Hero Association, I don’t know what is.

B: Emotional Labour

Saitama has been delegating more and more of the day-to-day work to Genos.  What started as an act of service to express his gratitude, respect and love for Saitama is increasingly turning into a second job for Genos.  It’s not just the cooking and cleaning and the shopping and the bailing Saitama out if he’s forgotten his wallet again, it’s also the worrying about Saitama, sometimes at inappropriate times.  Has he drunk enough water?  Has he clean clothes in good repair? What sales is he looking forward to? Have they been marked on the calendar?  It’s honestly not doing Genos any good, and it’s one of those things all too many frustrated wives and girlfriends can relate to.  This doing the practical and emotional work for another is not intrinsically gendered, but funny how often it breaks that way.

It’s not doing Saitama any good either.  He’s using this freed up time to fritter his life ever more aggressively away, playing games with King and finding pointless competitions to enter, all while complaining about feeling less and less connected to anything (if you don’t address the problem, it doesn’t get better, duh!).  Worse, he’s started to take that gift of service for granted, witness him airily telling King how he’ll just have Genos go clear up the mess of monsters he’s left outside the flat.  I was heartened to see what happened when Saitama went a little too far and asked Genos to go cook and instead of jumping up, Genos gave him the the evil eye and let the awkwardness hang there.  That was good -- there’s hope for this guy yet.

Speaking of Genos, he also over-functions for something else Saitama struggles with: advocating for himself.  He tends to have Genos be the ugly one so he doesn’t have to be.   You can see just how bad he is at self-advocacy when Forte and friends could invite themselves into Saitama’s house at will despite his protests -- and it stopped the instant Genos showed up.

In a sense, it’s not surprising that Genos can do that. When you’re differently-abled (and for once, this is not a euphemism) as he is, being able to clearly ask for what you want and need is life-and-death necessary. If Genos was shy about it, he’s long since had to discard that.  But!  Let me point to a nuance the story touches on.  How pushy you can be without being punished for it depends a lot on who you are, intersecting strongly with race, gender, social status, etc (remember my mentioning intersectionality before). What’s called assertive in a man is called bitchy or sharp-elbowed in a woman.  Even taking gender and race out of the equation, there’s still a noticeable difference in the way the world treats Saitama and Genos.  You don’t need to be Sigmund Freud to understand the way the short, ugly Dr. Kuseno sweats making sure that Genos positively radiates youth, beauty, wealth and power. That’s part of his right to ask and be taken seriously.  You can see how drastically different it is for Saitama, even from his middle school days.  Genos notices, and makes sure to leverage his social power for Saitama. 

What I love about these examples are that by not automatically heaving a woman into these characters’ roles, ONE’s brought a less frequently seen angle that illustrates the problems they deal with are not ‘womens’ issues per se but are rather inequities that disproportionately affect women -- which is at the heart of what feminists keep saying.  When you read Makai no Ossan, you can appreciate that ONE could have gone with female characters and done a great job, but his choosing not to has brought a very welcome dimension to the story.

Women proper

“I’m not like other girls”

Still, bit by bit, ONE has been working more women into his stories.  After his interview, the next thing he worked on was the single-volume sequel to Mob Psycho 100,  Reigen.  He took his challenge head-on by making the POV character Tome and putting her in an all-girls’ high school.

Throughout the story, we see Tome thinking of herself as special, better than her fellow classmates, whom she sees as vapid and shallow.  The denouement comes with Tome being humbled as she gets to know her classmates better and realises that  they pursue interests just as varied and weird as hers -- only they’re also practicing being socially adept on top of that.

It’s a gentle story, but it’s still a great side-swipe at self-internalised misogyny, the idea that it’s shameful to be like a ‘girl’ and it’s something to distance oneself from.   Fortunately, Tome can laugh at herself and grow up.

“Ha ha ha”

For a long time, the only (named) women we had in OPM were Tatsumaki and her younger sister Fubuki.   We’ve gotten more women both good and bad: in particular, it’s been very gratifying to find that one of the most dangerous, story-shaping villains in the story is Psykos.

In the webcomic, ONE’s pushed even further.  A recent Tweet featured him talking about how hard he finds it to draw women. And he’s added several.   No same-face for him!    I’ll talk about the new heroines he’s added, but first, let me draw your attentions to something most artists don’t realize they do: massively skew the gender distribution of crowds, even when it is incredibly illogical to do so.   With ONE, even drawing the crowds at the fair who gaggle at Amai Mask, he’s got a far more even balance of women and they’re not all young and pretty -- which is much more true-to-life.  He’s in the business of drawing people.

ONE has featured microaggressions before, particularly in the way Fubuki can have perfectly sound things to say and be totally ignored,  but he brings it properly to the fore with Suiko.  No one calls her incompetent, but the little put downs she gets when she puts herself forward for the hero test in lieu of her brother, oh they’re well-observed The look on her face just makes it.  I love the way she shut the recruiters up subsequently. 

  Let’s conclude this tour with a look at Webigaza’s lonely figure.  We have another mono-manically focused cyborg in the story.  Genos has been called a lot of things -- determined, obsessive even, but crazy? Never. Notice who it’s been reserved for instead.  It’s no slip of the tongue.

Wrapping Up

I’m of the impression that ONE really wants to try to capture as much of the human experience as he can in his stories, however whimsical or fantastical the stories themselves are.  I’m disarmed by his humility in accepting that he’ll never have the lived experience of half the world’s population but he sure as hell can put some effort into learning how to to writing well-realised, believable, female characters.  

I watch ONE’s continued development as a writer with interest.    

[sm-pantheon]

SMPantheon AU Information

Greetings, Tumblrer. Can I interest you in my Dream SMP God AU? Yes? Great. Hope you like reading.

I should clarify, before we begin, that there is one rule in the Pantheon: and that is not to date those in other classes. This rule is often broken due to the enforcer's blatant biases, so some people get off scott-free. This rule doesn't apply to dating humans, however, because of the need for classic zeus-style, demigod-bearing hijinks.

THE TRINITY

The creators of the universe, the dreamons. Gods of Chaos. Two have been replaced so far.

Dream XD The creator, the father, the man...god...thing Himself. Yes, that H is capitalized. He was the first god to exist, and every heavenly being stems from Him in some way. He enjoys seeing people suffer. He loves George in secret, even if He hasn't yet reciprocated. He stripped Captain Puffy of some of her power because He deemed the God of Order to be getting in the way of His chaos. His mask has the XD emoticon on it, fittingly enough.

Dream The 'son' of the Trinity, and the enforcer of the love law. His position was once filled by Mexican Dream, before he was demoted for being a dumbass. He later demoted Mamacita for falling in love with Mexican Dream, because they weren't in the same God class anymore. He is notoriously biased and nepotistic with his enforcing. He's also an asshole. His mask has the :) emoticon on it.

Drista The 'holy spirit' of the Trinity. A child. She causes chaos wherever she goes, whether intentionally or not, which makes DXD very proud. Her position was once filled by Mamacita, before she was demoted. She often hangs out with the demigods, most often Tommy. Wherever she goes, hijinks ensue. He mask has the >;P emoticon on it.

GREATER GODS

The most powerful gods, besides the Trinity.

Philza The God of Freedom. A ruthless killer, but a pretty good father figure. He was the first non-Trinity god, and appropriately he matches up with their chaos. He is most notably the god who invented angels, and personally made the first one, Clara. A long time ago he fought with Awesamdude because of their conflicting symbols and won, demoting Sam to the rank of a regular God. His wife is Kristin, a (dead) human, but one time he had a fling with a refridgerator. Confusing times. His sons are Tommy, Tubbo, and Wilbur, and his grandson is Fundy.

Technoblade The God of Violence, often regarded as the 'Blood God'. He is a force to be reckoned with, and you can probably trace him back to every world war in some way. He has a more stoic and calm side, which only Philza and his family can bring out. He acts as sort of an uncle and brother to them, sometimes caring for the kids. He would rather die than have his own, though. He feels an attachment to his friend Ranboo's son, Michael, because they are both pigmen. He plans to train him when he grows hold enough. His pride and joy is the section of the underworld he invented, which is the section where sinners burn eternally.

Antfrost The God of Love. Currently he is taking refuge on earth with his boyfriend Velvet, who is the third archangel. He's never been very friendly with Dream, so it would be inevitable that he would be punished for loving Velvet. To avoid this, he fleed to a small town on earth. He has had a long-time rivalry with Ponk because of his innate hatred of cats.

Foolish Gamers The God of Creation. He is a master builder, and has built the temples of all the Gods. One day, Sapnap, the God of Destruction, challenged him to a fight, and whoever lost would be demoted. He accepted and won, which is why his equal is now lower on the totem pole than he is. He created the earth with Hannah at the command of the Trinity. His best friend is Eret. He often enlists the help of the rock nymph HBomb for help with terraforming and foundation building.

Karl Jacobs The God of Time. He can control time by slowing it down, speeding it up, pausing it, rewinding, etc. However, he is only allowed to use it when the Trinity gives permission. Usually, he just sits around and helps his "not fiancés", Quackity and Sapnap, with their work. He was born soon after Philza.

GODS

Averagely powerful gods.

Sapnap The God of Destruction. He was originally a greater god, but lost a fight to Foolish and gave some power up as a result. He is responsible in part for all the natural disasters of the world.

Awesamdude He was stripped of some of his power by Philza (with assistance from Techno, although he'd never admit it). He acts as a father figure to some of the younger heavenly beings. He created Sam Nook, an altered clone of himself, to be a Nanny for Philza's children. He now takes care of young Fundy and Michael. Loves Ponk in secret.

Badboyhalo The God of Purity. Cannot do wrong, after all he is the only person who actually is dating someone and is following the rule. Has a public record stating he has never sworn. He's highly devoted to his pursuit of holiness... and also Skeppy.

Skeppy The God of Fortune. After all, he's made of diamond. He's a goofball, especially around Bad. He's Bad's best friend/boy friend, B.B.F., as he would say!

Captain Puffy The God of Order. She has always had a rivalry with the Trinity for directly contradicting them with her existence. Because of this, her dates with Niki have to remain a secret, or else she'll be demoted again. Currently she's filling the paws of Antfrost as God of Love until he comes back, or a new heir is born.

Hannahxxrose The God of Nature. She mostly hangs out on Earth, tending to gardens worldwide, but she stays in heaven an ample amount too. She was literally born from Foolish's idea to create nature for earth, which she then assisted in plans for.

JSchlatt The God of Sin. He was originally a Greater God, but he had to be demoted so that the human race wouldn't be absolutely fucked. He's technically in charge of the Underworld, but he doesn't do jack shit down there. He's a raging alcoholic, and is always complaining about heart problems. His best friend is Minx.

Eret The God of Power. He isn't part nymph or anything, but the nymphs respect him and have crowned him as their king. He gladly accepts this role. His best friend is Foolish.

MINIGODS

Less powerful gods.

GeorgeNotFound The God of Beauty. He is fully aware that DXD is in love with him, but he doesn't want to reciprocate for fear of the rule. Still, he hasn't ratted him out... yet. He often hangs out with Sapnap, and he used to hang out with Dream, but he has become more distant as of late.

Mamacita The God of Justice. Also known as Girl Dream. She was removed from the Trinity for loving Mexican Dream after he was demoted. Since she and him still have a lot of power, they've been tasked with running the Underworld. Her mask has the :/ emoticon on it.

Mexican Dream The God of Death. Was removed from the Trinity for generally being a dumbass. He co-runs the Underworld with his Mamacita. He has also adopted Quackity as a twin. His mask has the ;] emoticon on it.

Quackity The God of Humor. He doesn't do a whole lot, just hangs out with his fiancés and his unofficial twin. An absolute jokester.

Slimecicle The God of Joy. A lovable goof who has never done a thing wrong in his life. He has a human wife, Grace, and his son is Connor. He skips around heaven a lot, and often hangs out with the angels.

Ranboo The God of Identity. He is *platonically* married to Tubbo (so Dream can't technically punish him!) He has a son, Michael, and he often hangs out with the demigods. He is considered the least powerful full god. He has a habit of forgetting things and also a habit of stealing all the gender from the other members of the Pantheon.

Niki Nihachu The God of Grace. She mainly takes care of the children along with Sam Nook, and hangs around the water nymphs. Her best friend is Sally.

Jack Manifold The God of Spirit. Previously nicknamed 'Thunder', he is an epic gamer lad. He famously invented 3D glasses and also Britain.

Ponk The God of Bravery. Has had an age-old rivalry with Antfrost because of his fear of cats for eons, and he is quite happy that he's gone. He has a strained love for Sam, which they have to keep secret. Only Sam has seen the rest of his face, under the mask.

DEMIGODS

Half gods, half humans. They are free to travel between earth and heaven.

Tommyinnit The youngest son of Philza and Kristin. A rambunctious teenager who is quite popular among the gods, especially Drista. Often flirts with the goddesses, and always says he has a crush on the Queen of England.

Tubbo The middle son of Philza and Kristin. A chaotic man-child and also goat boy. He is absouletly adored by the Trinity. He has a "platonic" husband, Ranboo, and a son, Michael.

Wilbur The eldest son of Philza and Kristin. A musical prodigy, who is an adult but doesn't quite act like one. He has a wife, Sally the water nymph, and a son, Fundy.

ConnorEatsPants The only son of Slimecicle and Grace. He is a massive sonic fan. If you asked life advice from him, he would tell you that the only problem with being faster than light is that you can only live in darkness.

SEMIGODS

Demigods, except it's not a 50/50 split between God and human. Other races can also be added.

Fundy The son of Wilbur and Sally. He is 25% God, 25% Human, and 50% water nymph, but most importantly, 100% furry.

Michael The son of Ranboo and Tubbo. 75% God and 25% human. He's good friends with Technoblade because of their shared pigman-ness.

NYMPHS

Mythical and elemental creatures.

Sally A water nymph. Married to Wilbur and the mother of Fundy.

HBomb A rock nymph. Often helps Foolish with his builds.

Alyssa An air nymph. She's been wandering around the outskirts of heaven for an eon with Callahan.

Callahan An air nymph. Wandering with Alyssa.

Minx A fire nymph. Best friends with Schlatt and Niki.

ANGELS

Heavenly servants.

Punz First archangel. He's currently the Trinity's bitch, but if you offered him enough money he would absolutely betray them.

Purpled Second archangel. He just follows Punz around and helps him with his tasks. He isn't very devoted to his job. He was the one who came up with the idea of space.

Red Velvet Third archangel. He has fleed heaven with his boyfriend Antfrost. He's working as a baker on earth.

Michael McChill Replacement third archangel. He was created out of a necessity for three archangels, and he isn't very well adjusted. He has no motivation and has only talked to Philza.

Vikkstar The guardian angel of all the demi/semigods. When he's not watching over them, he is hanging out with Lazar.

Lazarbeam The general of the heavenly guard. He slacks off very much, and often hangs out with Vikkstar. Aggravated easily.

Clara The first angel, and the most wise. She is seen as an oracle and is prayed to as frequently as the gods. She often hangs out in Tommy's dreams.

Sam Nook An altered copy of Sam, made to be a nanny to Tommy, Tubbo, and Wilbur. Now he takes care of young Fundy and Michael.

HUMANS

Just like you and me. Except some are dead.

Kristin Married to Philza and mother of Tommy, Tubbo, and Wilbur. When she died, Mamacita offered her a job as the Grim Reaper so that she could hang out with Phil more often.

Grace Married to Slimecicle and mother to Connor. Is the second Grim Reaper, alongside Kristin.

Ghostbur Human clone of Wilbur that Foolish accidentally made when fooling around with the demigods. Has since died and chills out in the animal sector with his sheep, Friend.

Lani Tubbo's sister from his old foster family on earth, who he lives near. Knows everything about everyone in the Pantheon, somehow.

Corpse Husband The janitor of the Underworld. Was a massive sinner when he was alive, but managed to convince Mamacita to let him work for her instead of suffering for eternity.

Mr Beast A generous billionare who runs a private church for the rich in his town. He communes with Karl on the condition that he won't try to gain things for himself using him.

5up A turnip farmer who died and now hangs around Fundy.

.....

Alright. That's it. So. Much. Typing. My fingers hurt. I accidentally deleted all my progress around the halfway point but I persevered. Also, this blog will be used for designs of the AU characters I'll be making. Thanks for reading this far!

Bye. Thanks again.

Oh wait now I have to add a shit ton of tags ughhhh

[terramythos]

TerraMythos 2021 Reading Challenge - Book 12 of 26

Title: A Wizard of Earthsea (Earthsea Cycle #1) (1968)

Author: Ursula K. Le Guin

Genre/Tags: Fantasy, Young Adult, Third-Person

Rating: 8/10

Date Began: 5/6/2021

Date Finished: 5/12/2021

Ged is a talented young magician with incredible potential-- possibly greater than any before him. He sets off to join the wizarding School of Roke, and quickly surpasses all of his peers. But in an act of arrogance, Ged tries to bring back the dead to impress a rival student. He unleashes a malevolent shadow upon the world, leaving him traumatized and permanently scarred. 

Soon Ged finds himself hunted by the shadow wherever he goes. None of his magic seems to work on it. Worse, he lives in fear that if the dark creature overtakes him, it will use his body as a weapon to harm others. Ged journeys from island to island in an attempt to find the solution and banish the shadow once and for all. 

Only in silence the word, only in dark the light,  only in dying life:  bright the hawk’s flight  on the empty sky. 

Content warnings and some spoilers below the cut. 

Content warnings for the book: Violence and death, including child death and animal death. Traumatic injury. 

As a fiction writer, Ursula K. Le Guin is best known for her Earthsea series, but I haven’t read them until now. She had a big impact on my childhood via a series of picture books called Catwings (they're... about a family of cats who can fly). As an adult, I’ve grown more intrigued as I've learned about Le Guin’s philosophies, especially anticapitalism. I read her famous horror story The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas last year and found it unsettling and thought-provoking. So I decided to read some of her longer works! And, of course, speculative fiction is always the way to my heart. My wonderful sister gave me the first four books of Earthsea for the holidays last year, and I’m finally getting the chance to read them. 

Overall I had a good time with A Wizard of Earthsea. It’s structured differently than a lot of fantasy novels I’ve read. While there is a big overarching plot, the individual chapters usually have their own complete story arc. It’s the type of book where you can read one chapter before bed and feel like you got a whole story; each part advances the main narrative while also providing a complete side adventure. 

There’s a lot of travel in A Wizard of Earthsea due to the setting. Earthsea is a giant, possibly world-spanning archipelago, meaning there’s a ton of islands, each of which has its own way of life. The conflict naturally has Ged travel from island to island and interact with various peoples and creatures. The closest comparison I can think of is The Odyssey, and I’d be shocked if Le Guin didn’t draw inspiration from that. Both stories involve the protagonist traveling by sea and meeting a variety of characters and mythological creatures through smaller, discrete conflicts and interactions. Usually I find long travel sequences boring, but in this case they were one of my favorite parts of the book. There’s always a sense of anticipation on where Ged’s journey will take him next. 

The magic system is also is pretty cool. The idea is that all parts of nature, from humans to goats to oceans, have hidden “true” names. Knowing something (or someone’s) true name gives one power over it (or them). Thus wizards use true names to manipulate nature; giving another person your true name is an act of absolute trust and devotion. However, a big theme of the book is equilibrium. One must always be aware of potential consequences when using magic. Changing the wind in one part of the world could cause a devastating storm one island over. Sort of a butterfly effect type thing. 

Even though violence is one of my content warnings, I’m impressed that Le Guin largely circumvents it in the story. In many fantasy stories, a wizard/mage character uses their magic to fight and crush their foes. Not so much in this novel. While Ged clashes with various entities through the story, he usually just outsmarts them. Thus his showdown with a big, fuck-off dragon boils down to Ged guessing its true name and telling it to leave. Antagonists are usually the ones instigating violence. 

One thing I found odd about the pacing of the book is it slowed down a lot in the last few chapters. There’s a big action sequence with serious consequences around the novel’s midpoint, but everything after that is slower and more reflective. On a surface reading level, I’m not sure I liked this. I’m used to stories ramping up the tension more and more until the end. However, I did like the climax itself, when Ged reveals the shadow’s true name. The central moral of the novel is that one needs to accept everything about themselves, including their past mistakes. Everyone has a dark side, which ties into the central theme of balance, and even the opening poem of the novel (which I used as the excerpt for this review). It’s a pretty universal idea, but Le Guin presents it in a thematically satisfying way. 

I tagged this as a Young Adult novel because Le Guin wrote it for a teenage audience. YA didn’t exist as its own genre at the time, but A Wizard of Earthsea is a coming of age story (a staple of YA), and even has a moral message of sorts at the end. However, sometimes it’s really obvious that it’s intended for a younger audience. As I get older, I’ve noticed that YA tends to be pretty blunt about its meaning and symbolism in a way adult novels aren’t. For example, while pursuing the shadow, Ged gets lost in a mysterious fogbank. To me this was a clear callback to the first chapter, where Ged outsmarts a band of barbarians by trapping them in a fog. But Le Guin also made sure to tell me several pages later, in case I missed the parallel. I’m torn on this when reading YA. While I’m not the intended audience, I feel this approach underestimates teenagers’ ability to critically examine a text. But YA teaches many how to view things that way, so I see why authors do it. Teens aren’t a monolith, but it is interesting to see this tendency to over-explain in a novel from 50+ years ago. 

A Wizard of Earthsea is surprisingly progressive in many respects. Perhaps the most obvious is race. Ged and most of the main cast are explicitly nonwhite and described as such in the text. This isn’t a huge revelation in 2021, but it’s amazing to see something like that in a mainstream fantasy novel from 1968. Apparently Le Guin struggled with publishers for a long time, as many early covers whitewashed Ged for the sake of “sales” until she gained more creative control. And the (shitty) film/TV adaptations of Earthsea are just as guilty. I went through a LOT of covers while researching this book, and even newer editions often opt for heavily stylized art, nonhuman subjects, etc. The cover I chose is from 1984, when Le Guin presumably had more influence on Ged’s portrayal. I’m interested to see how past book covers stack up when I deep dive on the other books. 

However, I found the book to be not so progressive when it came to gender roles (I know, I wasn’t expecting that either). Le Guin makes it very clear that all the famous and powerful wizards/mages in Earthsea are dudes. The wizard school toward the beginning is all dudes. All the adventurers and sailors in the story are dudes. Ged himself makes some pretty sexist comments (though to be fair, that was pre-character development). There are relatively few female characters in the story, and many are either bit parts or (in one case) a seductive, power-hungry villain. Portraying sexism in a fantasy setting isn’t an inherently bad thing. Jemisin’s Dreamblood duology, which I read earlier this year, introduced stringent gender roles in order to explore the insidious nature of misogyny. But A Wizard of Earthsea doesn’t really go beneath the surface level. Yarrow is probably the most well-written female character in the story, and she only shows up in the last few chapters. Again, I’m interested to see how Le Guin handles this in later entries; the next book stars a female protagonist and Ged’s the deuteragonist. 

I liked A Wizard of Earthsea overall, and I think it serves as a good introduction to both the series and a central recurring character. While I have some criticisms of the first book, I do realize it’s a relatively early work of Le Guin’s. The last novel in this series was published in 2001, so I’m interested to see how the characters and writing changed over 30+ years. 

[lesbianfeminists]

How Women Suffering from Endometriosis Disclose about their Disorder at Work

“Feminist approaches to organizational communication theorizing enabled investigation of issues impacting women and minority groups (Buzzanell, 1994). Across domains, research has examined the relationship between labor participation and women’s health, including childbearing, mental and physical health (Glynn et al., 2009; Grice et al., 2007; Repetti et al., 1989). However, minimal attention has been paid to the relationship between employment and women’s reproductive health (Chau et al., 2014), especially as it pertains to stigmatized topics, such as endometriosis.

Disclosure of endometriosis

Extant research examining women’s disclosure of endometriosis has mainly focused on family, friends, and healthcare providers, finding that women suffering from endometriosis downplay their symptoms and are reluctant to share. First, women tend to downplay the severity of their symptoms due to fear of negative appraisal. For example, Grogan et al. (2018) found women hid or downplayed their symptoms out of fear of being labeled a “hypochondriac.” Furthermore, Young et al. (2014) identified that women’s reluctance to disclose and discuss their symptoms resulted from dismissive responses from friends, family, and healthcare providers (Young et al., 2014). Second, women are also hesitant to disclose due to “menstruation etiquette” (Laws, 1991) – or the practice of strategically concealing menstruation from others. For instance, Seear (2009) found disclosure of symptoms was characterized as a “discrediting attribute,” one whose presence contributes to stigmatization of an individual (Goffman, 1963).

While limited, some research has examined disclosure of endometriosis in the workplace specifically. As with friends, family, and healthcare providers, women are hesitant to disclose their endometriosis symptoms to their employers and colleagues due to (a) the gender-specific nature of the disorder, (b) fear of being pressured into discontinuing work, and (c) fear of being seen as using their symptoms as an excuse to “get out of things.” For one, women find it difficult to discuss their symptoms with males due to preconceived notions about the taboo of discussing reproductive matters around men (Young et al., 2014). Yet additionally, although many of these women view their disorder as inherently private, gastrointestinal maladies make functioning at work difficult and mark conversation topics that generally seem difficult to discuss (Grogan et al., 2018). Indeed, Soliman et al. (2018) found women coping with endometriosis symptoms lost between one and five hours of weekly productivity due to either presenteeism (i.e., working without productivity) or absenteeism (i.e., missing work). In an attempt to address productivity loss, oftentimes, women spend their leisure time recovering from endometriosis symptoms in order to perform functionally during working hours (Grogan et al., 2018). Furthermore, many organizations do not provide accommodations for employees, and as a result these women are forced to exit the labor market (Gilmour et al., 2008).

...

While gender did not always necessitate differing approaches to disclosure, the majority of participants expressed feeling more comfortable discussing the disorder with female conversational partners. Yet, participants considered their female conversational partners as either relatable or dismissive. Some female conversational partners were viewed as relatable because they had some “basic understanding” of menstruation-related struggles. As Vicky (30-year-old who is currently in-between employment positions) put it, “I am obviously going to feel more comfortable being open and honest with a female as she can relate more to what we go through.” Whereas other female colleagues were perceived to be dismissive of the severity of endometriosis symptoms due to “survivorship bias,” or the logical error in which people tend to focus on things that passed some selection process and overlook those things that didn’t (Jorion & Goetzmann, 1999), in this case overlooking the severity of endometriosis symptoms because their own experience with menstruation had not been as severe. For instance, Star (a 32-year-old with a master’s degree and currently employed in a managerial role) stated, “I feel like females think they know what you’re talking about because they think that their pain is the same as endo pain. They also tend to think you’re being dramatic about the pain and issues caused by it.”

In contrast, participants considered most of their male conversational partners as either familiar or avoidant, which created great discomfort in disclosing endometriosis to them. Sunrain (a 32-year-old currently working full time as a manager) explained, “My boss is male, and I feel mortified. Like it would tar his view of me.” Other participants tried to talk about endometriosis at work but perceived their male colleagues and supervisors to be avoidant toward the conversations. As Bee (a 28-year-old working in a non-managerial role) put it, “… the male colleagues tend to know less about it and exhibit discomfort when I disclose it, so I avoid talking about it with them.” In these cases, participants reported disclosing vaguely and less frequently. At the same time, there were a few participants who reported that some male colleagues and supervisors were sympathetic and understanding, but that this was due to their being already familiar with endometriosis as a disorder. Liz (a 31-year-old manager) explained, “[Disclosing] was hard because my manager is a male, but his wife had similar issues, so he is understanding.”

Hierarchy

In addition to gender, the position in the corporate hierarchy of the conversational partner impacted women’s disclosure. First, participants reported that disclosing endometriosis to supervisors was more difficult than disclosing to colleagues. Anxiety due to fears of losing opportunities to advance, being seen as incompetent and in some cases, being terminated led employees with endometriosis to approach disclosing to supervisors with more trepidation. For many respondents, disclosure was undesirable but necessary. For example, Mississippi (a 31-year-old working in a non-managerial role) said, “I am extremely uncomfortable discussing it with my supervisors. I don’t want to be seen as a hypochondriac or appear to be trying to get out of duties or get sympathy.” They continued, “My supervisors are also male, and I worry about how sympathetic they would be to women’s health issues.” While choosing to disclose to supervisors resulted from need, disclosing to colleagues was guided by relationship closeness. As one participant put it, “If it’s a close colleague that’s more like a friend, I talk about it more freely. With supervisors, I generally try to explain why I will be needing to miss work in a more professional manner.

...

Participants who worked in male-dominated industries (e.g., construction, finance, engineering) felt it was a significant risk to disclose. They feared that their male employers and colleagues would not understand or care to hear about “female issues” and ultimately view them as weak or incompetent. Grace (a 25-year-old PhD working in a non-managerial role) explained, “Men take this less seriously, and I feel I’m more likely to be perceived as overdramatic and weak by a male than a female.”

Moreover, some participants expressed having difficulty remaining competitive with male colleagues due to the disorder. For instance, one participant, Ariel (a 25-year-old employed in a non-managerial role) shared,

As a female in an already male-dominated field (IT analytics), endometriosis causes a strain on my relationships with coworkers daily. Because they already do not see me as an equal to the males in my field, when I am missing work or leaving meetings early because I am having period pain, I am then having to work even harder to prove my knowledge and worth in the workplace.

Finally, the culture of a workplace, particularly workplaces with negative cultural attributes, also impacted women’s disclosure. Participants explained how their workplaces looked down on taking personal time off, sick leave, and even working from home, which made it even more challenging to disclose their disorder. As one participant, Mississippi (a 31-year-old employed in a non-managerial role), put it, “the expectation to be superwoman” made it difficult to open up about the way this chronic illness hampers her experiences at work. Another participant, Aholla (a 35-year-old who is currently self-employed) explained a situation in which her supervisor did not take her situation seriously. “My producer brushed it off by saying women of color have fibroids all the time and work through it. My fibroids were just one part of my issues,” she explained. Yet another participant, Alexa (a 21-year-old employed in a non-managerial capacity) listed “bad attitude(s) toward employees who take time off or leave early” as an added impediment to disclosing. Another impediment was lack of privacy for disclosing endometriosis in the workplace. Participants shared that many of their workplaces had open-floor offices, which made it difficult to discuss a private matter. When asked what things made disclosing endometriosis at work challenging, a participant named Syd (a 32-year-old employed in a non-managerial role) said, “An open office plan. If I’m talking about a sensitive symptom there’s really nowhere I can discuss it privately.” Last, in some cases, participants reported a lack of HR policies for dealing with the disorder. Kris (a 43-year-old participant who herself works in a managerial role) explained that “Male coworkers and an HR director who feels no one should ever share about themselves,” made disclosing her endometriosis challenging. Liz, 2 (a 32-year-old manager) echoed these sentiments by explaining her workplace had “no clear policy to request accommodations (such as work from home or flexible schedule). No privacy – HR staff regularly gossip about what they’re told.”

[project-ohagi]

Dabi x Reader

Buy me a coffee!! <3

Greyromantic: Can experience romantic attraction, but weakly or infrequently; feeling alienated from romance; only feeling attraction in specific circumstances.

Asexual: Having little/no sexual attraction or interest in sexual activities.

Questioning: Process of exploration regarding gender, sexual orientation, sexual identity.

----

The phenomenon of love is a complex, chemical concoction that has long been weaved into the fabric of our society. It is presented as a requirement, with those who find the concept either too challenging to thoroughly comprehend, or lacking in appeal, branded as anomalies. In its pursuit of normality, it quickly alienated those whose hearts just couldn't conform. In a different society, one not quite so dominated by this 'normality' of romantic and sexual interests...you might be forgiven for your limited knowledge. But this one...it seems to blanch at the very idea that happiness can be attained in the absence of romantic attraction.

As such, those identifying along the Aromantic or Asexual spectrums are often overlooked - even shunned. But, the greatest truth of it all is a lot simpler than you may expect: an emotion as profound as joy cannot be induced solely by succumbing to carnal desires, or tasting the lips of another. No...it is through self-acceptance, and the acceptance from those for whom your heart beats - parents, siblings, friends...and perhaps in this manner, the meaning is amplified.

But...what happens when you are forced into complacency, into setting aside your own interests, to 'further evolution', or to 'finally be normal'?

You were still trying to figure this out.

Who were you...really? Why couldn't you summon an emotion as free and universal as love?...Romantic love? Why did it seem so incomprehensible, so...intangible? These were the thoughts you battled with, every waking moment. They burrowed deep into your mind, so that you could never pull them out. They were elusive, yet...constant, nagging.

Why am I so different? Everyone else has crushes...even Toga likes that one UA boy! Ah, yeah...she asked me if I have someone I love. I just said "No". Saying: "I don't even know what 'love' is" seems a bit...she'd definitely call me weird. Then the others would probably laugh at me...

You felt...incomplete, like a jigsaw puzzle with only half the pieces. You felt the isolation, suffocating you. It hadn't been a conscious decision. You didn't awaken one morning and think 'You know what? This whole 'love' thing? It just isn't for me! ' You craved a connection, a bond of some kind - holding hands...a hug at most. Anything more was frightening to imagine. What if someone...pressured you? Or stole a kiss, as an offhanded action? You couldn't bear it...not even the mere thought. It was likely the main contributor to your chronic anxiety and paranoia. Your treatment at the hands of society, the ridicule and the fear of phrases such as "It's just a phase!" or, "You need to find the right person!"...they fuelled the flickering spark of villainy in your eyes.

After all, outcasts and monsters are interchangeable to most common folk.

But you didn't want those labels. You were a lost lamb, wandering aimlessly - what you really needed was guidance...someone who would listen and advise, someone who would accept you and every burden you carried, without question or quandary. But you said nothing...so you got nothing in return. Dabi was the closest to a...a source of strength? Motivation?...Potential love interest? But...how would you ever truly know? How could you discern the romantic from the platonic? It seemed impossible - simply a waste of time. Still, you never fully resigned to this fate of...loneliness.

You wanted to cherish, and to be cherished.

You wanted to love, and to be loved.

Perhaps it was the unyielding voice of fear, of desperation and pain, but...you just didn't know! You didn't know...and, it was difficult. You studied Dabi's face, and while nothing immediately heated your cheeks, he wasn't...unattractive. Aha! Maybe that was love? Alas, you discovered it to be more aesthetic attraction. It was a little disappointing, but perseverance should've been the key, right...?

Why? Why do I feel so little? Dabi is there for me, right? So surely if anyone, I should love him!...Do I love him? How can I tell? Is there some sort of test? How would a test even be administered? What kind of questions would I have to answer? I don't think I could answer them, even with study. If I'm struggling so much now...

And anyway...Dabi was a dominant male, whose sexuality was unclear. Even if you managed to settle on a definition of 'love', and figure out what role it played in your life...there was no guarantee that Dabi would want you. The jury was still out, on your gender - 'questioning' was your placeholder for the moment. But, you usually dressed masculine...would he be okay with someone so indecisive? Someone who might be neither male nor female? And, what if...what if he wasn't the one?

Say I can find love, and I start to understand it...who's to say that the person I love will be Dabi? It could be anyone! Maybe they were right, and I just haven't met the right person...but, I kind of want it to be Dabi? Is that...bad? Oh god, it sounds so selfish! He'll just be tied down, and if we find out that I don't actually love him...what would he do? At the very least, he'd be angry...

Dabi...the more you recalled his honey-laced voice, all the flirting you failed to notice until it was pointed out (clearly, he was doing that in jest), and those blue eyes (steely from years on the run, that probably depleted the pools of guilt and regret often accompanying mass killings, thievery and other criminal acts), the more confusion festered. You just didn't understand! Was it love? Or was it conversion? Were you trying to become 'normal'? Well, as normal as a villain could be...? Or did Dabi really mean something...something greater than you believed? Something...beyond what you currently knew?

This journey of self-discovery had approached a torturous junction.

Why were relationships so sought after, so expected? Even you desired one. How else could you ever hope to form a deep bond, or receive that fabled 'feeling of ecstasy' from holding hands or hugging? If there was no romance, mainstream media would lead you to the conclusion that there isn't a 'proper' or 'deep enough' connection - there can't be. You wanted to experience these things with Dabi. No-one else. You couldn't explain why. He was...an unusual character, mysterious and with perhaps a similar level of complexity as the daunting questions you were asking yourself. But mentioning your plight to him simply wasn't an option. Villains were responsible for themselves; the League was nothing more than a safety net.

Besides, Dabi was heartless.

...Or so he liked to be portrayed.

Urghhh...why is this so complicated? How am I supposed to know if I love him? The signs are...increased heart rate and blood to the face, right...? That seems unhealthy...is that actually supposed to be a good thing??

"Hey, you stopped spacing out yet, (V/n)?"

Shit! No, no, no! I haven't finished spacing out!

Sheepishly, you turned in the direction of the voice. Why did Dabi always seem to materialise out of thin air, whenever you thought about him? Did you magic him here, by accident? Subconsciously? However you managed that...you hated it. Your existential crisis really didn't need a spectator. Break out the popcorn, why don't you?

Can't I have a break down in peace? Wait...am I even in my room?...Did I seriously question my entire existence right here in the bar? It's a good thing there's no-one else here...I don't need more people telling me that I'm crazy...

You sighed. "...Yeah."

His brows furrowed - this was unfamiliar territory. Helping people had never been his speciality, especially given his own trauma . But for you...it was certainly worth a shot. "What's up? You on your man-period or something?"

Off to a spectacularly dreadful start. "I - I don't know if I'm a man, though...how could I-"

"Relax, it was a joke. Your pronouns are they/them, right? I'm not gonna call you a man just for the sake of argument. Nah...Hey, scoot over." A for effort.

"You could sit literally anywhere else."

He smirked. "You gonna stop me, sweet-cheeks?"

Sweet...?

"Thought not. Anyway, what's going on? You've been all doom-and-gloom for the past...two hours." He motioned over to the clock.

Had you honestly spent so long in contemplation? Gods, you could've unlocked the secrets of the universe, but no. "I've...kinda been asking myself that."

"Oh?" It was obviously a prompt, but talk of your romantic inclination (or lack thereof) would likely be regarded in the realm of 'stupid' and 'childish', so...could really you trust him?

I've always been too nervous to take risks...Guess now's as good a time as any to change that.

You swallowed down the uncertainties, the anxiety and everything in-between. They didn't help - they only hindered. And...you did need to release this burden, that weighed you down so heavily.

"Um...it's - it's...confusing. Really...confusing. I guess, I simple terms: I don't know what 'love' is. I know it probably sounds really dumb to you, and I feel stupid for even saying it, but...I've never...never had a crush, never been in love. I don't...I don't feel anything romantic towards, well...anyone!"

"Not even a bit?" He asked, blank-faced.

"I - I don't know. I really want to, though. I'm just...I'm scared. There's always this underlying fear of...what if - what if someone forces me? Y'know? What if...I date someone, and they can't accept that I'm different...that I might never feel anything for them? I don't want to be lonely forever, Dabi! I want someone, I really do! I say I've never been in love, but...the truth is, I just don't know! I know that I don't need to kiss someone. That's what I...what I don't want, but...I - I still want to hold hands with someone! I'd still like a hug, every once in a while...I don't know what I'm doing, or really...who I am."

For a few moments, he was silent beside you, just drinking in the flood of information. He refrained from reaching out, or gazing too intently. It took time to settle on an appropriate response. "You're looking at it as an issue, though - something you've gotta resolve, before you can move on. I'm not the best with advice, trust me...but I can tell you that it's a journey. It'll continue and evolve, as long as it needs to. You'll...probably know when you're ready, or...something. All that sappy crap. You don't have to force yourself to understand it all now."

I'll know...?

"When I'm...ready?" You repeated, eyes tracing the lines on your palm.

"Yeah...probably."

Just before you lost all coherency, a single thought fluttered to the forefront of your mind: My heart...just...skipped a beat?!

[Word Count: 1775]