#to anything is just kind of Exemplified here

[abyssalpriest]

Me: I am steadfast on the issue that cultural appropriation is an issue, but being drawn to research and talk to people of a spiritual culture and find out what you need to convert and/or appropriately interact with the culture is OK and that doesn't change when youre directed to start it by a spirit. If you're going to go through the proper means, the reason you started going through those proper means whether it's mundane or spiritual shouldn't matter. Many of the cultures in question are perfectly OK with people who think they are reincarnations of people involved with the group (for example monks taking on - taking BACK on - people who have memories of being in their monastery in a past life and who are now returning to said monastery to continue their work), or are OK with being drawn there by spirits of the group like hindu gods calling to people who aren't hindu because many Hindus see them as avatars of a universal God, and it's a rather uniquely western (for lack of a better term) idea that the only appropriate way to approach being drawn to another spiritual path is by completely mundane things, as if spirits and those groups have no autonomy nor ability to reach out unless it's through mundane means. Many of these cultures do not have the distinction of mundane therefore normal vs religion therefore not entirely real or able to be leaned upon as factual, it's disrespectful to tell cultures that believe in, say, reincarnation memories and autonomous/far reaching gods that you're Protecting them from.... things they believe are possible and ok... and not letting each individual culture make their own decisions on whether someone is respectful or not when they come knocking and give their reasons as to why they knocked is just in my mind much more harmful and intolerant of these cultures than the odd person genuinely appropriating

Spirits: OK, so here's where I want you to go research-wise and what name of mine I want you to learn about, it's directly connected to these people who you are not a part of, but I deserve to be able to not have my families and work on Earth ignored just because you aren't a part of them. If you want to be intimately close with me you need to meet my families, I will send you to learn about me from the people who know better than you and who are more experienced than you, and obviously I want you to do that in the way that's respectful to them, because they are my family, their importance and autonomy and the sacredness of their religion is exactly why I'm telling you who I am in their pantheons - it is about me honouring the work they have done with me over millennia. If you claim to love me then you should understand who I work with and why

Me: hmm....... Sounds like cultural appropriation tho....

[serene-destruction]

(Platonic) Reactions To Finding Out You're In Hell For Killing Your Abuser [Angel, Lucifer, Alastor, Vox]

TW: Mentions of childhood sexual abuse | Cannon typical violence | Mentions of suicide

A/n: this one is really dark so reader discretion is greatly advised. Read at your own risk.

Word Count: 4.5k

Angel Dust

You and Angel Dust likely met at the hotel. You were a newer resident of hell that just so happened to be spotted by Charlie and taken in after wondering the streets.

He didn't take to you right away, considering he had his own issues to deal with. Not to mention that you were such a goody two shoes that it kinda made him feel even worse about himself. Despite his name he knew he was far from any angel and your presence only exemplified that.

By all accounts you seemed to save your shit together. A drug free, pure and kind person, through and through. You never faltered. So it takes a while for him to even stand being in your presence, longer to actually try and talk with you. He hates that he doesn't find something to hate about you. Just so damn perfect.

He should have known better, truthfully. No one gets sent to hell off a whim, there were reasons. He was just so blinded by your purity at first that he doesn't see it. He isn't the only one, either. Charlie would be the first to use you as an example of purity.

But all the same the two of you do end up getting close to each other. You may be a bit straight-laced for his taste, but he can't help but grow attached. You're a good kid, you really don't deserve to be here.

It only takes one night for his perceptions of you to shatter

It started with one of Charlie's trust games. You were all meant to share what sins brought you down here. In a place like hell that wasn't usually a very taboo subject. Murder, drugs, sex, Angel's heard it all. But despite that assurance you wanted absolutely nothing to do with the exercise. You had locked yourself in your room, refusing to participate. So while the others went on ahead Angel decided he'd talk to you.

“Kid! C’mon, it can't be that bad!”

“I don't want to!” You were adamant. He should have known it right then

“Kid…look, can ya at least let me in? I'm tired of yelling through the door!” He pleaded and, to his surprise, you did. Your eyes avoided him completely as you allowed him to step in the room. Even when the two of you sat down on your bed you didn't budge. You looked almost as terrified as the first day you came here.

“Look, I get that admittin’ what you done can be a bit…embarrassin’ sometimes,” he's tries to calm you.

“But none of us are perfect and you ain't any different. Hell, it might even be good for you” his attempt at comfort didn't seem to be working. In fact he might have made it worse, given how you turned further away from him.

“It’s not just because it's embarrassing! I- I just don't want to tell everyone!” you answer through a tightening voice. There's a pause as Angel considers your words before he speaks again.

“Then you don't gotta tell everyone. You can just tell me” He was surprised when the offer had you turning back to him, though your discomfort was still evident. You didn't say anything at first but eventually you found the words.

“...Promise you won't tell anybody?” he fought the urge to roll his eyes. He was sure you were being overdramatic. You probably told a little lie that got out of control or accidentally kicked a puppy or-

“Promise” he answered anyway.

And so you told him

“I…I was tired of him touching me” Angel’s stomach immediately drops at just those few words. All of his previous downplaying caused an explosion of guilt within him.

“He was always touching. Every day since I was little. Every time he was over, every time I was alone. I couldn't- I…I just wanted it to be over”

He knew where this was going.

“I-I snapped. I just couldn't take it anymore. Eighteen fucking years” your voice is a mix of rage and pain, a sound he didn't think you capable of until now.

“I'd never been so angry. I didn't- I didn't know what I was doing until it was over. There was blood everywhere- I killed him and…and I couldn't live with myself. I'd never done something like that before! I'd never hurt anyone! I couldn't live with that- I couldn't-”

Before you can spiral any further you feel Angels hand land on yours. With slow, purposeful movements he pulled you into his arms. You freeze for a moment, caught entirely off guard by the sudden comfort. He was careful not to hold you too tight and keep his breaths steady. Keep himself predictable.

“S’okay kid…You didn't do a damn thing wrong” his whispered words break through your shock, melting you into a pile of sobs in his arms, gripping onto him like your very soul depended on it.

After that night the two of you quickly become known for your fierce protectiveness over each other. Angel swears that if he ever sees the bastard he'll rip him a new asshole before shoving a spike in it.

Lucifer Morningstar

You were one of many assistants to Lucifer, helping him with the many tasks he doesn't ever keep up with as the king of hell. You are most likely ignored and/or forgotten about for a while. He is far too, uh…busy for remembering much of anything, let alone names and job titles.

However you do manage to catch his eyes when he finally notices your apparent lack of any sort of social life in hell. Unlike the others he has working for him who seem all too happy to indulge in hells many depraved luxuries, you aren't one of them.

It triggers his curiosity, so he starts to remember your name and even manages to strike up conversations with you that don't sound like he's desperately trying to remember who he's even talking to.

You begin to be the first person he goes to when he needs something done and in turn you go to him when you need something as well. It's never anything too much, he notices. Always just small tasks that take him almost no effort at all. But you seem to beam at even the smallest kindness.

But then there is that ill-fated night…

It was late and you were still hard at work in your office.

Or at least you would have been, if you didn't feel like the weight of everything was weighing down on you as you stared down the two items Lucifer had left for you. A small note and a tiny rubber duck. You kept re-reading the note over and over again.

‘You're a good kid, Y/n. Keep it up’

The small gesture had formed a sickening guilt in you. You were the farthest thing from good. What you had done rightfully landed you in the shithole you belonged in. You didn't deserve his kindness, let alone his care. You felt so guilty for ever allowing him to think that you-

A knock at your door has you quickly wiping away your tears. Before you can say anything he opens it, his wide smile falling immediately.

“Oh no, what-” he pauses when he sees the death grip you have on the rubber duck he'd gifted, your eyes unable to even glance at him. He gives a nervous laugh at that. It sounds more worried than anything.

“You uh- don't like the gift, I take it?” At that your head whips to look at him, an attempt to calm your nerves written all over your face.

“No! No that's not-…no” your frantic words die down quickly as you quickly turn away again, unable to look the man in the eyes. There is a long silence that feels almost like an eternity passing. Then, to your complete surprise, he slowly pulls up a chair next to you, his eyes not turning from you for even a moment.

“Do you…maybe wanna talk about what it is then?” His voice is disarming, a mix of poorly feigned calm and genuine concern. It frightens you how quickly he makes you want to spill your guts.

“It's- I’m not-” You pause, trying to collect your words. You know then that you can't bear to tell him anything but the truth.

“I don't deserve this” you gesture to the toy and his letter. He doesn't seem to understand.

“You? Y/n, you're practically the only reason I get any work done around here! The least I can do is this, truly. Why wouldn't you deserve it?” His tone is full of disbelief, almost entirely sure that you must be avoiding telling him the entire truth.

“Because it isn't true” the bluntness of your words catches him off guard.

“I killed him and…and it felt good when I did it. It felt good to hurt him like he hurt me, it felt good being in control. It didn't feel bad when I put that knife through his throat, It didn't feel bad when I finally got him to stop touching me. It didn't…until it was over” the tears that had brimmed at your eyes fell like rivers, your attempts to wipe them away fruitless. You didn't dare look him in the eye, even as you continued.

“There was so much blood. I…I didn't know what to do. I- I didn't mean- no, no I did. But I just couldn't live with it. I couldn't live knowing that I killed him and that all I could think about was that he'd never touch me again! I couldn't-!” your words are cut off by the feeling of arms wrapping around you. For a moment you freeze, confused and horrified by the action, that is until the comfort of it seeps into you, knowing that the hands that held you now meant no harm. After that you sobbed into him.

Only once you'd calmed your sobs to hiccups and your grip loosened did he finally pull away. But he didn't go far and his eyes looked at you with nothing but pure concern.

“You listen to me, okay? I would never hold that against you. I couldn't if I tried. You did what you had to and I trust that you did it for the right reasons” his words of forgiveness strike through you, hitting you directly in your wounded heart. Never before had you believed anyone could look so kindly upon you knowing what you'd done.

After that day Lucifer had become quite father-like to you, treating you just like he would his own kid. You practically become an honorary Morningstar.

Alastor

You and Alastor have an…interesting relationship. the two of you very likely met at the hotel, considering he wouldn't have given you a second glance otherwise. You were, after all, just one of the many other souls, and not an impressive one at that. Meek, young and weak.

It takes a long while for Alastor to warm up to you, most likely because you avoid him at all cost. You learn quickly that Alastor doesn't like being avoided like that when he begins to follow you around.

It's through conversation that he grows interested in you. When you aren't blinded by your fear he's actually a great conversationalist, especially when he's alone with you. It seems almost like he drops a bit of his guard as well, something you explain away as you being of zero threat to him. The two of you often talk of your plans for the day and whatever latest idea Charlie has conjured. Small talk, for the most part. Never anything personal

Which is why you are so caught off guard when he asks the truthfully inevitable question.

It was a usual calm morning in the hotel kitchen. A bit of smooth jazz played from an old radio, the coffee machine churned, the constant static from Alastor flowed through the room and the sound of idle chit-chat passed between the two of you. Besides the fact that no one else joined the two of you, it all seemed relatively normal.

“I must say, for someone in Hell you have quite the kind heart, my dear. One might even ask how you managed to get yourself down here” Alastors words cause your heart to sink almost immediately. Your body tenses, your breathing catching for just a moment. You make sure to keep your eyes on the coffee pot and manage to give him a halfhearted laugh. But you know the moment he goes quiet for just that second too long that he noticed.

“How did you end up down here, if you don't mind telling me?” You feel your tongue go dry, your jaw clench, your entire being beg to leave this conversation. But you knew there wasn't a chance in all of Hell that you'd get out of this. If he didn't get an answer now he'd be sure to get one later.

“I uh…” you start, nausea threatening to crawl in.

“I don't know” you try to answer, hoping beyond hope that it would satisfy him.

It did not.

“Now now, one mustn't feel the need to lie to friends. I assure you I've seen worse than whatever it is you managed to do!” You pause at his words, finally turning over your shoulder to look at him.

“We’re…friends?” You ask, surprised to see him look almost just as confused by your words.

“Why of course! The both of us have quite nice talks with one another, why wouldn't we be?” He seems so confident as he speaks. Despite how skeptical you've been ever since meeting him, you can't help but feel that he might genuinely be growing on you. Fuck, you might even trust the guy. Not with your soul, mind you, but you were sure at least your words would be safe with him.

“Out with it then, what got you sent down to this lovely pit of fire and brimstone?” his tone is jovial and light, not taking this nearly as seriously as you felt he should be. You were weirded out when it actually helped you calm down a little.

“Well…” should you tell him? Would he even care? Would he blink an eye at your suffering? Would he laugh at you? All the possibilities ran through your head at once.

When you finally turned to face him he gave you an expectant look, fully anticipating an answer from you. So you took a deep breath and turned your head to gaze at a nearby wall before beginning.

“My uncle, he um…well he didn't really know how to keep his hands to himself. Ever since I first met the man he wouldn't keep his damn hands off me. Then mom died and I had to live with him and…” you pause a moment, trying to keep yourself together. With a deep breath you continued.

“He never stopped touching me. No one believed me, no one did anything. Not when I was eight, or ten, or fifteen. Not after either. I was just alone with him. Every day of every month of every year…until I couldn't take it anymore” your voice was quiet now, just above a whisper to keep it from shaking.

“I was cooking dinner when he came behind me and-…I snapped and…well I'm not really sure. I just remember being covered in blood and knowing that no one would believe me. So I did what I thought was the only thing I could do. Next thing I knew I found out I had been damned for all eternity” you hugged yourself in an attempt at comfort that wasn't working. You managed, by the smallest effort, to keep your tears in and your breath steady, but you knew you'd break at any moment. When you turned to him, his smile still plastered and staring blankly at you, you thought you just might have done so then. So you quickly turned back around to save yourself the embarrassment.

“But yeah. Pretty sure that's why I'm here-”

“That was quite brave of you” his words shock you still enough that you might have even felt your heart stop. Your head snaps back to him in an instant, unsure if you'd heard him right. He's standing now, smile just a little less wide and leaning on his cane. If you didn't know any better you might have mistaken it for a look of uncanny care.

“What?” You whisper the word. He stands a little taller at that.

“When the world stops caring then one must simply make it. Very few do so, and so I applaud your effort in taking fate into your own hands” he is serious, almost deathly so. His words aren’t what you expected, but they are actually some of the most comforting you'd ever heard. Not only because he believed you, but because he truly believed you'd done the right thing.

“...Thank you” his smile widens again and you catch how ever so slightly bigger his antlers have gotten and the small flicks of green that seem to only show in your peripheral. You choose not to say anything about it.

“Of course! Now I simply must be on my way! There is much to do and so little time. Have a pleasant rest of your morning!” he was out the door before you even realized he was leaving. You would have said goodbye yourself if you didn't know he was already gone. And without his coffee too!

After this little incident Alastor seems almost tied at your hip. You are warned time and time again not to get too close to him but after the way he took the news of your sin you honestly don't think you could push him away. He was the first person you'd ever told in Hell, the first person to ever believe you. And given how keen he is on keeping you safe both in and out of the hotel you are quite happy to call him a friend.

Vox

The only way you'd be able to get even a second glance from Vox is if you worked for him and, let's be real, he couldn't have given less of a shit about you when he first met you. You were one out of thousands that worked on his many, many projects. You were lucky if he ever even read your name, let alone remembered it.

It takes quite the circumstance for him to notice you and it's likely only because of very selfish reasons. Maybe he picks you out of the crowd as a gag at first. The big CEO talking to this meek little low life, giving them a glance at something they'll never achieve.

But Vox has a way of getting attached to the strangest things sometimes and you end up being among them. Maybe it's the way you go along with whatever he's saying, playing to his ego. Maybe it's the way he knows you don't mean a single word and he feels he has to prove himself. Or maybe he just liked having a bit of a babyface around to impress. Either way, he ends up kind of taking you in.

You become a sort of protege to Vox as he teaches you all about his company and how to run it; mostly so he can hand you the tasks of the day that he doesn't feel like handling. You're a secretary of sorts. He does, however, try to keep a distance between you and the other V’s. Mostly because he knows they can be a bit much and he doesn't want to scare you off just yet.

But it's inevitable that you would meet them someday. And, as he expected, the first meeting didn't go very well.

You and Vox were on your way down the hall in the middle of idle conversation that was mostly work related. You liked having these conversations with him, mostly because he always seemed so pleased when you'd give him an idea he liked or a change he'd consider. You felt useful in a way you hadn't really ever felt before-

“My my, if it isn't Vox and his new little pet” the voice speaks behind you and both you and Vox turn to see who it is. You are set on edge when Vox gets suddenly nervous.

“Val! I thought you had work down in the studio today?” Vox’s voice booms in the way you know he only does when he's trying to keep his cool. You make sure to stand a little closer to him when Val walks up to the two of you.

“You've been hiding from me, love. So I figured I'd pay a visit. Good thing too” the moth man leans down to you so close you feel your entire being beg to disappear.

“I wouldn’t have met the darling that's been keeping Voxy so occupied. Cosita bonita” he looks down at you, his smile alone sending a cold shiver up your spine. He grabs your hand and instead of doing anything normal like shaking or kissing it, he instead begins to lick up your arm.

“Rumor has it your little fall from grace betrays how sweet as you look” Horrified and feeling very familiar fear consume your being, you freeze up. Luckily, and rather surprisingly, Vox very quickly pulls him away from you.

“Alright, alright that's enough of that!” his tone is that of a light reprimand, though the swirls in his eyes betray him. He effortlessly spins the moth man around in something similar to a dance, ending with the two of them facing away from you. Whispered words are exchanged, Val glancing back at you for only a moment afterwards before walking off with no complaint.

Vox straightens his suit, his performative smile falling for a moment before turning back to you.

“Let's get back on our way” he beckons you as he continues to walk. You follow along, compliant as ever. He leads you to an elevator where the two of you get in and he clicks whatever floor he'd decided he had work on. You think everything is relatively normal until, with a wave of his hand, the elevator stops.

“What did he mean?” The question confuses you.

“...about what?” You ask, unsure what he was getting at. He turns to you.

“About your ‘fall from grace', what was he getting at?” the realization dawns on you the same way acid would drip into an old wound. There was really only one thing that could mean and the fact that a man you'd never met knew enough to mention it made you sick to your stomach.

“Kid?” He calls to you and it's only then you notice tears build in your eyes. You quickly blink them away before making sure to avoid looking in his general direction.

“I…don't know” you tried, very unconvincingly, to feign ignorance. Unfortunately that didn't go over well with him.

“I don't think I've met a worse liar in the entirety of Hell than you” he states plainly and you can't help but agree. You hadn't really ever had practice in the field. Yet even with his call on your bullshit you chose to stay silent.

“Look, If Val knows then chances are I'm finding out anyway. He's not exactly great at keeping his mouth shut” he tries to convince an answer out of you but his words only make it worse. You didn't want that creep to know in the first place! But, being ever so horrible at keeping such a cold front up, you break under his gaze.

“It’s why I'm in Hell” you start off vague and you notice how he leans in just a bit closer.

“Seriously? That's what's got you upset? What, was it embarrassing? Because believe me, I'm sure I've heard worse” he was really trying to sell you that notion, what with the wide smile and undivided attention, but you couldn't help the nagging voice that told you he wouldn't believe you.

But still, you assumed it better he heard it from you than Val. After all, you and Vox were pretty close at this point. If there was anyone that you'd tell, it would be him.

“No it's- well it is embarrassing, but-” you stammer a moment, trying to find the right way to say it. Soon enough you fix your eyes on the metal doors and just spill.

“I had an uncle. I lived with him for a while, most of my human life really. And he uh…I was just a kid at the time and he- he couldn't keep his hands to himself. Just kept…touching me. For years” the way the information pours out of you is forced. Like you have to pry it from your own mind and shove it out your throat. But there was no point stopping now.

“And then I just couldn't take it anymore. I don't even really know what happened. One second I was cooking dinner and the next he came behind me and…and then everything was bloody and…” you trail for a moment, your mind brought back to that horrific memory. Without a thought you finally turn to Vox.

He looks completely deflated, stripped of that egocentric smile of his and leaving nothing but a shocked still expression in its place. His mouth hangs slightly open as if to say something, but no words come. You feel your tears sting your eyes at the sight.

“No one believed me when I told them what he was doing, no one believed me when I told them for how long. So I knew when I killed him it would just be the same. That they'd make him a martyr and I'd be the villain and- and I couldn't deal with that! I- I didn't want to live through that again!” your voice raises at the end, voice pleading to be listened to, to be believed. Fuck, even just heard.

You get what you ask for with his stunned silence and tense posture. After a moment though you can't help but feel like you want to take your words back, his silence disturbing you greatly.

Just as you're about to ask him to forget what he'd heard, to pretend like you hadn't ever said anything and move on like normal, his hands reach slowly for you. The movement confuses you so greatly that you don't even think to stop him when he silently pulls you into him. You stand rigid for a long moment before, bit by bit, melting into sobs. He holds you tighter in the silence of the elevator and you can't help but grip onto him like your afterlife depended on it.

It's after this that Vox becomes fiercely protective of you. It's incredibly strange for everyone, including yourself. He is adamant that it's just because you know so much about his company, that it's all purely business. But when you think back to that day in the elevator you can't help but believe that he might just actually care about you.

[itsnothingofinterest]

Hey hope you're doing ok with the recent bnha discourse?

Still holding out hope for shigaraki/tenko and good writing 👍👍

Can I ask you, if you ever find it kind of off-putting (like I do) when some bnha fans commit to the idea that Deku and the other younger heroes will be the ones to change their society for the better, after the villains are killed?

As if purely heroic methods were really capable of changing hero society, when the very best that the innocent people in bnha have done from their constant protectors, the heroes, is toss the hero kids a shirt and some dollar store med. Items??

(To say nothing of the government corruption that came to be under All-might's nose, that Deku and the other heroes haven't thought about once.)

And they honestly believe that's the best outcome...

It feels either very optimistic or unknowing at best, and completely ignorant at worst.

Do you think so or differently?

Oh yeah, no I totally get what you mean; it kinda looks like we’re on course for a lot to get worse actually. And it all comes back to how poorly they handled the villains; both their talking points, and their failure to save them.

We just have not been given any indication that the next gen are going to do anything better than their predecessors; they're ending their arcs side by side with them as equals and partners after all.

Rather than improving things, they're basically a carbon copy of the last generation; which I feel is exemplified in how the final battle of this war ending in a retread of Kamino. Except like I said, in some areas it feels like it'll just get worse. This retread of Kamino ending not in an arrest, but in a murder; something I find very worrying given Deku's status as the next symbol (which, despite all criticism of All Might in the same roll, Deku has become anyway) because of the impact that'd have on treatment of villains by the heroes Deku inspires. Add in their treatment of Machia & their support of Hawks' handling of Twice and it just doesn't look good. Oh and if that same crowd gets wind of his status as 'The Greatest Hero Who Saves By Putting You Out Of Your Misery' that'll be even more catastrophic. (Especially once the Singularity doomsday starts up for real.)

Meanwhile, what little progress has been made on a societal level is either purely for the heroes benefits, like the civilians acting more grateful to the heroes (and as you say, the results of that are pretty middling, amounting to first aid & a shirt); or else maybe baby steps in the right direction like Shoji's answer to the heteromorph plot. Baby steps they do not have time for, mind you. And even then, that's still a 'maybe' because Shoji's not actually planning anything different from normal hero activity: just be inspiring and hope people follow your example. Meanwhile everything else societal that brought us here, corruption in the system, poor treatment or handing of quirks, general prejudice; it's all just gone unaddressed.

Probably because the points with which they used to be addressed, the League, instead got their plot points changed to revolve around motives more personal, less serious, less justifiable, and more easily addressable by the kids. Y'know; Toga's plot used to be about society's treatment of the other but then was about her wanting love, Dabi's was about people in power abusing their power but then was about him wanting attention, and Shigaraki's was about the lie of hero society and the complacency of the people it inspired, but Deku couldn't do anything about that so instead it because about Tenko's hatred towards his house. But then Deku still couldn't do anything about that so instead it became about Tenko's self-hated. And then Deku still couldn't address that either all too well, really, so we instead got 'It was AFO All Along'; and that Deku could handle with trivial ease. What self-respecting All Might clone couldn't punch AFO?

To use a metaphor I think Tomura would appreciate; it's like they all turned on easy mode, and Deku especially turned on baby mode, and it feels like we're all going to get the bad ending as a result of them skipping so many side-quests, dialogue trees, or special objectives. Personally speaking, any hope I had in things turning around was based in how the villains would be handled, both a) because I expected how they were handled would reflect how their societal motives would be handled(i.e. how Deku saved Tenko would inform us of how he'd save other Tenkos), and b) because I expected they'd need the help and perspective.

Needless to say, I've not been left with much hope that things will turn around.

So yeah, right there with you hoping Tomura could somehow come back, partially because that's the only part of this ending that feels salvageable even by his long-shot odds. But boy is the rest a mess of unfortunate implications beneath the veneer of how "The Day is Saved"...Man, Deku really is an All Might clone.

[ohmycale]

I guess I am alive again...

I have not been in the fandom for quite some time due to life and many things happening in real life. Somebody in real life asked to read and comment on a post defending Deruth. It's a good read and I agree on most of it. Which even surprising that I'm writing this. I hope I would not offend anyone if I would just highlight some of the things I read that make me think. A bit of a long post incoming

I agree that he's an okay parent...for any other child and any other time except during Jour's death. But since ogCale was a neglected child by most adults around him (during and after this time), especially his parents, I would beg to differ. And here I am thinking that parents try their best even at their worst times. Tbh, the post feels like an excuse Deruth's neglect like many posts that I have read. Just another one who handwave neglect and worse, treat it as something so trivial. Neglect is treated as something so minor that should be waived by time or force. Assuming that we're not holding Deruth on a pedestal, why is an apology for his failings such a bad thing to do, fathom or even ask for?

Father and child were both grieving but it seems that it was only Deruth's grief that mattered. Nobody gave a shit for the child who had his life upside down from losing his mother, ignored by his father, and got a new family that he was (for intents and purposes at that time) didn't even ask for. Because Deruth moved on, everyone, especially Cale, has to. Because of a new family, og!cale never said anything coz he'd probably be answered by 'Don't you want your father (Deruth) to be happy?' (classic line for stepkids) If that's the feedback, why bother opening up and saying something? Og!Cale will be the bad guy for expressing such thoughts and feelings. In real life blended families, it's the parents who facilitate everything including communication. It's the adults who should be guiding the children and have control of the situation. Also, let's not forget that it was Deruth who distanced himself from og!Cale first and never bothered to patch their relationship and issues even to the point that og!cale changed a lot aka Roksu appeared.

I understand that people are not at their best selves when grieving. I was the same. But I am not an adult nor a parent. I didn't have a child that I had to care for or be responsible for. It might have been hard, but it would not sit on my conscience to burden a kid with my messy emotions or pull away. Because pulling away from a person who thought they were loved by you leads them to think that they are at fault. At the very least, og!cale deserved a conversation about his mother's passing and his father's actions at that time.

I don't care about the worst father list. As mentioned before, Deruth only gets the benefit of the doubt already because he is kind and trying. Trying but didn’t succeed. For me, his trying is not for readers to judge, His effort should only matter to og!cale and whether it is enough to absolve Deruth for his failings.

I agree that both Deruth and og!cale are bad at communicating. Deruth did set the precedent of not communicating and pulling away.

The first few chapters show that he cares for his son in his way. Yeah, but he's not reaching his son, does he? They barely had a functioning relationship and we're supposed to congratulate him? As a reader, we get it that he cares for his son. But if we ask Deruth, should he be happier that he’s winning over strangers rather than the person he's trying to care for? And if Deruth is on speaking terms with og!Cale to his son, it’s not gonna be that hard to bring out a topic or issues.

Not touching the Violan bit because she is his stepmother (and stepfamilies are so complex and hard) and to be honest, a better adult than her husband,

8. You can also argue that Deruth didn't try hard enough. He does try. He's not just good efficient as exemplified by the post. He doesn't speak about the things that matter to them both but does the indirect and inefficient ways. He shouldn't be surprised if keeps trying bad ways to reconcile and act surprised when it fails.

9. So for parents to try harder doesn't usually end up with a heart-to-heart talk unless the other wants to talk. It's a risk that a parent has to take - either grab them by the horns or be miserable trying to communicate via the mind. And suffer the odds for the risk.

Re Basen and Lily. I am ambivalent about them. It’s not because they were kids or they did something bad to og!cale. For some people, especially the people who were left by their parents to have a do-over family, they are a symbol. I mean, sans og!Cale, Deruth is winning. He has a new family – a wife that shares his burden, a (spare) son for the county, a daughter that he might have wished for. There are real fathers and mothers who abandon their original families/children because THEY CAN. Is it projecting? Absolutely effing lutely. Is it reasonable enough to expect? Yes. Because Deruth is a flawed human being who already showed that he CAN abandon og!Cale if he so wished. And nobody can stop or even disapprove of him because of his status and position. It is good that Deruth in the story defies this but he’s still doing the BARE MINIMUM.

Overall, whether Deruth is a bad father will be a recurring conversation topic for the fandom. There are many viewpoints but I always always side with the views most relevant and applicable to og!Cale even it might be biased. If og!Cale is here with us, I am sure he will be more than happy to tell us what he thinks.

But we don’t. Any opinion, even the scathing and unpopular ones, deserves merit. It’s good that fandom is not a monolith especially in this because this topic and og!cale’s experiences are so relatable.

Here’s a summary of my stand

Being a good parent to Basen and Lily doesn’t mean he was a good father to og!Cale even if og!Cale does love him

Og!Cale doesn’t need to forgive or forget what Deruth did in the worst time of their lives because he loves him

Deruth is afraid, I get that. But if he remains afraid, his hope for reconciliation isn’t gonna pan out as he hopes to.

Deruth needs to accept that there is a chance it is too late.

Deruth needs to accept consequences for the negative things he gave to og!cale, unintentional or not. Even if og!Cale understands why he did what he did.

Did I just log into my dormant account to post this? Yes.

Is this longer than I intended? Also, yes.

Are my fanfic bunnies dead yet? Maybe.

Hope somebody enjoys this one.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Referring to how Leona is an actually good leader, it's still very funny to think about how annoyed Vil must be when Epel idolized Leona while fighting for his life struggling under Vil's tutelage. Like "how could you prefer that good-for-nothing-except-his-face over ME?" kinda thing. (Yes I love all of them but I love to see them suffer more <3)

[Referencing this post!]

Leona definitely projects very different images depending on the circumstances! His club and dorm members all look up to him because, to them, he come off as a role model. He's strong, cunning, and exudes confidence. To everyone else (people he doesn't actively lead, or people he stands on par with in terms of power and influence), he's seen as lazy and rude because Leona does not care for putting on airs and finds social grace tiring to deal with.

Nowhere is this dichotomy better exemplified than in Epel's Birthday Jacket vignettes. In them, Epel, a first year and a Magift Club member, describes Leona as someone who is good at looking out for others like him. This confuses his interviewer, Floyd, who responds that it "doesn't sound like" the Sea Lion-senpai he's familiar with. Epel then confesses to not really seeing Leona much outside of club, so he doesn't actually know about what Leona is like most of the time. This just goes to show that Leona naturally shines and is at his best when he's in a scenario where he has to lead others.

Now, regarding Vil and his feelings on Leona... 🤔 It's true that Vil dislikes Leona (and, more specifically, his attitude) and may be disapproving of Epel idolizing the guy, but I get the sense that those feelings stem in part from disappointment, not just blind hatred or not liking how Leona dresses/speaks. Vil's someone who has exceedingly high standards for himself and for the people he surrounds himself with. He despises it when people don't give a task their all, or don't live up to their full potential. That is exactly the case with Leona. Vil has a VERY keen and discerning eye; I suspect that he noticed a long time ago that Leona's not putting forth all of his effort and just doing the bare minimum to scrape by, and that's what further stokes Vil's frustrations with him. An example of this is the very superficial aspect of Leona's looks. Vil admits that Leona has a handsome face, but doesn't dress the part at all. The same goes for his other traits and abilities, and even his grades (which are low due to poor attendance even though Leona himself is insanely smart). That's the thing: Leona could be great, but instead he's wasting it all and choosing to not be "his best" at all times--an ideology which exists in blatant opposition to Vil. Here we have two powerful, intelligent, talented individuals who worked hard to get to where they are now (even though they were already born into affluent families). They didn't choose to just coast by life on their family's names alone. One of them literally makes a living off of showing the world how perfect he is, and all the effort he puts in to achieving that perfection. But the other has gone the other route, not willing to put forth that effort to anything that he doesn't find useful or interesting. They've both become disillusioned with the world, which has provided them nothing in spite of all the times they tried to prove themselves. They weren't rewarded with a heroic role, nor the coveted crown., but they've got the charisma that inspires others to follow them and to show them respect. They can recognize others' strengths and are in positions where they can guide others towards those strengths. They're so alike, and I think that only feeds their dislike of one another. To Leona, Vil's a try-hard that always changes his personality to look good for the public. To Vil, Leona's callous and carelessly tossing away his own potential. It makes them a worthy rival of the other.

DBKHILdsbiDIvqfosd1436g17b Okay, I kind of strayed a bit from the initial ask, but yeah!! Vil would probably be annoyed with Epel looking up to Leona because Leona isn't at 100% all of the time (whereas Vil tries to be). The two have very different ideas of how their energy is best spent, and with Vil being Epel's dorm leader and all, he feels like it's his responsibility to lead Epel the "Pomefiore" way, not Leona's way.

[dreamcaught]

There have been so many of these posts, and what looks like an entire website pretty much dedicated to this topic, but nevertheless here I am adding to the mix.

Thoughts on Buffy Season 6, Sex and Seeing Red

This is long and only kind of edited. Content warning below.

CW: Discussions of abuse, addiction, and rape.

Let me just start out by saying: Spike is my favourite character in Buffy. I love him completely. He is contrary and interesting and if there is anything I would do to improve the show it would be to add more scenes with Spike. But, unlike a lot of Spike girlies – and especially many of my favourite fanon creators – I don’t think Spike is out-of-character in Seeing Red. There are some serious problems with it, but I think it’s an important scene.

My reason for saying this comes from the claim that Buffy and Willow are the main villains this season. Well, no, to be fair: in season 6, the main villains of the show are the internal villains within the characters, specifically Buffy and Willow, expressed through their actions of addiction and abuse. The Trio is a red herring Big Bad; they’re pretty much just there to provide laughs and move plot. They’re not like the Master, or Angelus, or Adam, or Glory – there isn’t ever a “gather the troops, we’ve got an apocalypse on our hands” attitude toward defeating them… because they’re just human people, making human mistakes and causing human havoc. (Much like how Buffy and Willow would be if they weren’t already saturated in the supernatural.)

Buffy and Willow’s stories run parallel in this season. They are both dealing with the aftermath of Buffy’s resurrection: Buffy is majorly depressed to the point that she feels essentially soulless, whereas Willow is guilty to such degree that the only way she knows how to cope with herself is through control and the overuse of magic.

Tangent about Sex Because That’s How I Roll:

Before we go further to discuss this, just, briefly, let’s take note that this show does not do justice to sex. In both cases, Buffy and Willow’s “addiction” is to, essentially, use sex like a drug to (sort of) feel, but more accurately numb themselves. Buffy’s use of Spike is blatant, but we must remember that Willow and Tara’s first prominent romantic/sexual connections were initially all linked to their use of magic.

It’s made clear that this idea of magic = sex between the two is continued even in season 6, as exemplified in the Once More with Feeling song Under Your Spell lines: “You make me complete,” which are cut off at the most deliciously appropriate time – and if you haven’t noticed that until I’ve pointed it out here, then well done, you!

Here there is a bit of a problem I have with the show’s messaging because it’s essentially saying that sex is bad. Tara asks Willow to stop using magic (yikes, imagine asking your lover to please stop sexing so much, babe, it’s bad for you) – and at the same time, in the parallel story, Buffy feels the need to hide her sexual tryst with Spike because it’s wrong to want to feel good.

I think it’s important to note that Buffy isn’t really upset about it being Spike, specifically. She makes a big deal of saying that he’s “everything she’s supposed to hate” and “soulless” and “evil,” but Buffy had every opportunity to have this affair with literally anyone else – in fact, she could have very easily gotten her rocks off with a different, random person every night, but chooses to use Spike. And here we can move back to the main points –

Miscommunication

Buffy and Spike’s relationship is abusive, but hardly for the reasons they make it appear on the show. At this point, Spike is a soulless demon. That he doesn’t just kill her as soon as he realizes that he can hurt her is a testament to how much he loves her, despite this. But, because he is a soulless demon, he does try to take advantage of Buffy’s attention to him by trying to convince her that she should be with him. He plays on her fears of being soulless/evil/demonic. Other than trying to persuade her to stay with him, this is the full extent of Spike’s abuse of Buffy.

At no point in their physical relationship does Spike ever abuse Buffy’s consent.

Between Spike and Buffy is a travesty of miscommunication. Need I say again: Spike is a soulless demon. From the moment he realizes his feelings toward Buffy, he is constantly trying to figure out what she needs from him, because he simply does not understand. (“What’s it take?”) He actively tries to learn what Buffy wants and how to respond to her desires. From their passionate kiss in Once More with Feeling: “The day you suss out what you do want, there'll probably be a parade,” to literally his last lines of the show, “No, you don’t,” Buffy and Spike’s communication is the worst!

And this is all Buffy’s fault, by the way! She absolutely, stubbornly, resolutely refuses to talk – to most people! It’s practically a miracle that Spike understands Buffy at all – and to that end, I truly, fully, completely believe that Spike is the best partner for Buffy, simply because he’s the only one who does.

Their first time together, Buffy is verbally telling him it’s never going to happen while at the same time ripping off his clothes. At nearly every encounter between them during their affair, Buffy says it will never happen again, it will be the last time, it was the worst thing ever. These are outright lies, and Spike learns through conditioning to see right through them. When she says “Stop,” he doesn’t have to stop – because that is not what she means. He learns through the complicated, complex, contrary Buffy Talk what she actually wants and then proceeds to give it to her.

Up to Seeing Red, Buffy’s consent has always sounded like: “No.”

Buffy the Villain

Buffy has chosen Spike as her lover because he already loves her. He is emotionally invested in their relationship. He takes care of her. (“I can get money.”) She can be herself with him. (“I can be alone with you here.”) She is safe with him. (“Dawn is safe with Spike, so I can stay as long as you need.”)

During their affair, Buffy takes everything that she’s feeling about herself out on Spike. She calls him soulless, she calls him nothing, she says he’s empty; she beats him up, she kicks him out, she refuses his affection and forces him to hide his own. Spike takes it because he is loyal and in love with her, and this is the extent that Buffy abuses him. She conditions him to think that she can’t love him, she conditions him to think that saying “No” means “Yes,” she conditions him to think that her abuse of him is kinky and will lead to sex.

Buffy’s goal is only to feel something. She wants Spike to take advantage because it makes things a lot easier for her to deal with. If she says “No,” that means that she’s tried to stop him, despite it not being what she really wants or expects of him.

Because of this abuse, in a very real way, Buffy is the one who destroys the safety that Spike represented. Her abuse of him corrodes their trust, but she doesn’t know that. Buffy, despite denying it or acknowledging it, still believes in Spike’s loyalty. And not only that – by this point, Buffy has fallen in love with him. The bathroom scene in Seeing Red happens, in part, because she’s pushed Spike too far – and she’s not ready to admit to anything, because she refuses to acknowledge that she was an abuser.

The events of Seeing Red are the culmination of Buffy’s actions with the complete absence of honest communication. It is because she tells Spike to move on that he sleeps with Anya. It is because she expected his loyalty that Dawn talks to Spike. It’s because she trained Spike to do the opposite of what she says that he tries to connect with her physically to make her happy.

It is because she refuses to acknowledge not only her abuse of him, but also her love for him, that he chooses to show her instead. Because Buffy doesn’t talk – she only acts, and that’s what Spike tries to do, in the way that she taught him – from the start of their affair to the explicit events in Gone, all the way to this scene, Buffy has told Spike that sex is how to get close to her.

The Bathroom Scene

A lot of people have been traumatized by this scene. It is very difficult to watch, since we’ve got these two beautifully complicated people trying so hard to communicate and failing so badly at it. Buffy, finally, is saying what she means, but Spike can’t hear it. Spike is, as he’s been taught to do, servicing her to show her his devotion. These two people are in love with each other but are deeply hurt. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Buffy is hurt by Spike’s actions while he’s hurt by her words, since these are the languages they understand.

If done well, this scene could have been healing. They could have finally come together in grief of their broken relationship and tried to fix it to something healthier. But instead, they were using the scene to push Spike into getting a soul, so he had to go too far, and she had to say too much.

I don’t think that Spike is out of character. I think that both Spike and Buffy act exactly within their character consistencies. Spike would totally seek Buffy out if he thought she was hurting – especially if he had any hope at all that he was the cause of her hurt. Buffy would completely deny, deny, deny any emotional attachment to Spike and take no responsibility for having hurt him. She’s still stuck, here, projecting her own numbness onto Spike with the false idea that he can’t love because he’s soulless.

Because of the constant, completely screwed up ideologies within this show about sex (that sex is bad, that too much sex is bad, that kinky sex is wrong, etc.) and because of the cumulative events that arise from their abusive sex=closeness relationship, the only way they could think of to make it even worse was to escalate to rape.

I know why they did it, because it makes sense within the story of their physical affair. It’s The Worst Thing you can do to someone else. We have to remember that Buffy doesn’t care about being killed, because she sort of wants to die. Also, Spike would never want to kill her. The only other thing he might want to do is turn her, but, to Buffy, that’s the same thing as being killed. Since her belief is that a demon takes over the human host, she might even welcome being turned as much as she would welcome death.

But importantly: there is the significant and completely intentional reverse of their villainousness actions here. In this scene, Buffy can’t be the villain anymore. It doesn’t matter how much she’s abused Spike, it doesn’t matter that their relationship was murky and confusing. Because it is rape, the only villain is the person committing the act of rape.

Spike must be made the villain here because anything else is victim blaming. It was the only action the writers could take to give the title of villain back to Spike away from Buffy. Spike has to end this season being the Big Bad because he must absorb all the hurt, the pain and the soullessness that was entangled with Buffy and incorporate it into himself (“You think I like having you in here? Destroying everything that was me, until all that's left is you, in a dead shell. You say you hate it, but you won't leave.”)

He takes Buffy’s pain and heals them both by – after these events – getting his soul.

The Problem

The writing staff knew their characters (for the most part). They knew that Spike was soulless and needed something drastic to instigate his search of a soul. Hurting Buffy this way did make the most sense in the framework of their affair and in the framework of making sex akin to drugs. But attempted rape was too, too far for the viewers. Talking about sex is already difficult for society, especially at the time this show was made. Talking about and explicitly showing attempted rape caused trauma to viewers and made a lot of people turn away from the otherwise very beautifully complicated relationship between Buffy and Spike.

People against Spuffy use this scene as the ultimate fodder against Spike, but doing so is disrespectful to the story, the lore and the characters. Spike loved Buffy enough soulless, but she was only strong enough to accept that once he went out and got one. In addition to that – Buffy forgives Spike for what he did that day. She admits to her side of the abuse, acknowledges that what they had was real, and doesn’t blame Spike for his actions. This conversation exists in bits-and-pieces in the Buffy comics – it would have been incredible to see it on screen in season 7, but I guess by that point the writers didn’t want to bring it up again and had way too many other things to deal with (which is another topic altogether).

I like the bathroom scene in Seeing Red. I think it’s horrible, and raw, and terribly authentic. The portrayal of hurt and betrayal by both actors is one of the strongest scenes in the show. I do wish, though, that they hadn’t taken it quite so far.

My Problem

Season 6 of Buffy is my favourite season. It is powerful and painful. But, if I could change it, I would have changed the messaging that sex is bad, because it isn’t, and both Spike/Buffy and Willow/Tara deserved something better.

[shoobiie]

Cinderella's Castle Has ONE MAJOR FLAW

Very very spoiler-filled stream of consciousness below the cut:

Obviously, I sing my praises for 99% percent of the elements of this show. The cast, the costumes, the music, and so on. Starkid really knows how to make a banger musical. 

However, there was one glaring flaw that I just can’t overlook. The main character does not do ANYTHING. Okay, so that’s a hyperbole, but it’s closer to the truth than I would like. Throughout the narrative of Cinderella’s Castle, Ella is a passive onlooker in her own story, only moved by the whims of other characters. She lacks agency and a definable personality. 

Let’s review: Ella spends most of the first act at the beck and call of the Stepmother and Stepsisters while pleading repeatedly with other townsfolk and nobles to take her away from this life. She doesn’t dare to run away on her own; instead, she relies on the kindness of others to get her out of her situation. She asks an old friend to save her, and he refuses; she asks the prince to save her, but he doesn’t, and when someone finally does give her an opportunity to escape, they are killed. What does Ella do after that? After losing two of her only friends and her best shot at freedom? Nothing. She just goes back to obeying the Stepmother. The only time I can recall that Ella makes a decision for herself is when she spares Sir Hop-A-Lot. It is decisive inaction, which isn’t much, but I’ll count it. 

She accidentally summons the Fairy Queen, and when asked what she wants most, she says, “Revenge”. I was starting to get hopeful at this point that maybe this is where we’d see a turn in the narrative where Ella begins to stand up for herself and stop relying on others. However, when she attends the ball, it’s clear that she doesn’t have an actual plan and is just kind of going along with it as the prince tries to woo her. When asked if she wants to be queen, she says she doesn’t know. Then, she has a whole song about realizing that she will accept leadership if it means defeating the stepmother. I’m not sure why she couldn’t just want to be Queen. I’ve found that often women characters are punished for being ambitious and for desiring power. But if she has no intention of abusing her power and instead wants to use it to protect the people from harm and bring evil to justice, why can’t that be something she aspires to? Does a reluctance to be powerful mean that someone is a better leader? I think it’s worth pondering. 

Of course, her plans to marry the prince are foiled by the stepmother, and Ella is attacked! What does she do? She stands there and watches! No attempt to fight back or diffuse the situation. When she loses the slipper and her magical protection, she returns home. I’ll ignore how stupid that decision is because I do think it is necessary for the plot, but it does exemplify exactly how passive Ella is. (Passive here is being used as a literary term, not just a character trait.) Moving right along, The Stepmother discovers Ella’s deceit and cuts off her feet. What does Ella do? Fight back? Nope. Try to persuade or trick the stepmother? No. Maybe try to appeal to her stepsisters to help her? No. She just wails, bleeds out, and dies.

I didn’t even realize she’d died when I watched it; I just thought she’d passed out. It was such a pathetic ending for the character. She didn’t DO anything. Of course, she comes back later, thanks to the Fairy Queen’s magic. She doesn’t save herself or take any actions that lead to her ultimate revival; it all happens because of luck and other characters. She does kill the Stepmother. Returning to life wearing armor and practical boots instead of slippers, she looks like a warrior. So again, I was disappointed as her coup de grace was literally just standing there as the Fairy Queen’s magic ultimately kills the Stepmother. The problem here is that in her own story, Ella is completely replaceable. There is nothing about Ella on which the story hinges. Any other woman could have done what Ella did and be the Fairy Queen's vessel of starlight. 

This stands in stark contrast to a character like Grace Chastity, who, while flawed and misguided, was an incredibly active force in her own narrative. Grace repeatedly makes strong decisions that move the story forward, like trying to kill Max, trying to cover up his death, going on the run from the police, and making the ultimate sacrifice. It’s easy to list Grace’s character traits: pious, stubborn, self-assured, annoying, etc. The list goes on and on. She’s terrible, and I love her so much. If I were to try to list Ella’s character traits, I’d say she’s hopeful, just, kind, and naive. This interpretation doesn’t add anything new or exciting to Ella. As someone who has seen at least five different versions of Cinderella, I was expecting this version of her character to be more interesting than Selena Gomez or Hilary Duff, but I can't say that she was.

In Cinderella (2015), Ella is a very passive character, but it works with the themes and motivations of the character. Her motto is ‘have courage and be kind,’ highlighting the fact that it takes strength not to stoop to the level of your tormentors. She doesn’t want revenge; she simply wants to live a life surrounded by the same kindness that she shares with others. And that’s valid! Not every woman needs to be a warrior. Sometimes, unrelenting gentleness can be a heroic enough trait to make a character memorable. 

But in Cinderella’s Castle, she is a muddled mix of motivations. She wants revenge, but she doesn’t take action to get it. She dresses like a warrior and talks like a warrior but never fights. She was raised to be a noble and ends up as a queen, yet we never see her use diplomacy to get what she wants. And she doesn’t use cunning or creativity either. 

I will credit Jeff Blim for using the songs to add some life to Ella’s character. “Step on Your Grave” shows us just how passionate Ella is about getting revenge. “Last For Ever” talks about painting and dreaming of a better life. I don’t know if the painting aspect of the song should be taken literally since there are no other mentions of Ella being interested in art as far as I know. But it does give us an indication that Ella is someone who spends her time thinking about the future and what she thinks it should look like. 

Of course, all of this needs to be taken with a grain of salt. I only saw this show once, nearly a month ago. The rush of seeing it live meant that I probably forgot some key moments, and I could not hear most of the lyrics for the songs since the band was rather loud. However, I have been listening to the demos to get a better idea. I am hoping that on the rewatch, I’ll find more moments of agency from Ella or lines that give me a better indication of her character.

I’m really sad that Bryce wasn’t given a character as memorable and badass as she deserves. That being said, Bryce’s performance did breathe so much life and likeability into Ella. I just hope that in the future, especially if Starkid does more fairytale retellings, they don’t shy away from making strong decisions that change the main character from the original fairytale. If the stepmother can be a literal troll, then Cinderella can be a clever, manipulative, revenge-driven diplomat born and raised to assume power with grace and poise.

[daistea]

am i the only one who gets confused by why people characterize mithrun as being super masculine. i know the most feminine dwarf vs most masculine elf thing is funny but i don't think mithrun being ripped as a tallman is necessarily a *masculine* thing, he's just ripped

like this is mithrun we're talking about. he's not feminine or masculine. he's just dgaf. if anything it's canon that he doesn't really care for masculinity/femininity since he wore cithis's frilly dress. and that's because he lost his desires but it's not as though he's very masculine before he becomes dungeon lord either. he's literally regina george before he loses his desires so

idk i know it's not an insult but it is just so strange to me that he gets characterized as being masculine in personality just because he has muscles as a tallman? the man isn't canonically masc or fem he's just canonically dgaf. he wears anything you put him in (canaries uniform, basic ass puffer jacket, falin's ribbon coat, cithis's dress, camp tshirt, literally anything under the sun) because he dgafs that hard. what am i missing here

Hmm I think his tall man form mostly exemplifies his body in elf terms. In his normal body, he’s lean and prob considered pretty muscular, and it’s canon he’s surprisingly strong for an elf. I think elves just rly can’t physically get as ripped as tall men, so we see his tall man form which shows just how strong he is and it’s easy to equate that visual to masculinity. But even a super muscly man can be feminine.

I think of Mithrun as more masc no matter his form because of Vibes. I honestly cant explain it. Like even the fact that he dgaf about wearing a frilly dress just gives me those vibes. Maybe it’s the lack of fucks itself? But thats not inherently gendered sooo idk. Just his backstory and the personality that shines through the lack of desires seem masc to me. His whole thing with his brother is very Male coded. Honestly I can’t put this into words very well… He just has that aura. Not gross masculinity-ness but the classy, written by a woman kind. Even pre-dungeon Mithrun gives me Verbatim by mother mother vibes. (Not in a sex god way JUST IDK there’s a balance there!!!!! Read my mind here.)

Then agaaaaiin its all just social construct in the end

You’re right tho like he doesn’t think about those things, he does not care how people perceive him. So none of that would be anything that occurs to him. But hey that just opens a new can of headcanon worms 👍

[fandomfluffandfuck]

TELL ME ABOUT THE SHOES!!!

related to this

Okay, okay, okay, first, I have to mention that every day I drive home from college, I drive past two different sex shops and one strip club and one of these sex shops has an LED sign that advertises a bunch of different spicy stuff, and the other day they had one word up--

Shoes

And upon reading that, I was hit over the back of the head with the first shoe-related thought I have that relates to fandom:

You always want what you can't have

Bucky mentioning in Captain America: Civil War how Steve used to wear newspapers in his shoes speaks to me about the depression, how he must've had beat up, worn out, hand-me-down shoes with newspapers stuffed in them to make them fit better, to make them warmer in the winter, to try and at least make them feel like there weren't holes in the bottoms of them. Steve drawing here and there throughout the Captain America movies--drawing himself as a dancing monkey, sketching buildings--makes me think of his artistic eye. An artistic eye that we see beyond drawing, with his comments about Stark Tower being big and ugly, plus, similarly with, according to Steve, the ugly brown van they use to save the world. Both Bucky's comment of the way things used to be and Steve's appreciation for aesthetic makes me imagine that Steve could gravitate toward shoes. Pretty, slim "women's shoes," as well as generally shiny, bulky "men's shoes."

The first time he notices shoes is early, when he watches his Ma slip into her Sunday best heels. Her stockings might be laddered and torn because she doesn't have enough pairs to have a special Sunday pair--she needs to use all the ones she has when she's nursing, dealing with all sorts of untold grossities at work, often throwing them out--but this pair of shoes look brand new. She takes good care of them, so much so that Steve's not allowed to touch them. Her Sunday best heels are hardly scuffed or creased because she never wears them to work or anything, just to church. They're pretty and special, and on the way, she's always careful, not stepping in puddles, on cracks, or anything.

The way his Ma treats her Sunday best shoes makes Steve investigate during church, more interested in eyeing all the other special shoes than listening to the preaching that Sunday, peering over the open Bible his Ma holds out in front of him. He's cataloging all the differences between the men's and women's shoes. Both kinds are shiny, but women's shoes are especially so. Angular and polished and bright, often with tiny details that men's shoes don't get the luxury of having--tiny buckles, little bows, patterns pressed into or cut out of the leather, etc. Women's shoes are so delicate, clicking across the floor while men's land much heavier, more of a clunk. A thunk even.

As soon as he's drawing, his interest translates there, too. It's the shine, reflective and glinting, every crease exemplified; the angles, shapely and precise; the colors, usually more muted but occasionally very bright and attention grabbing, either way, they're always saturated. It's fascinating to draw shoes. The lines are so clean that it's easy to make a mistake. And it's so challenging to capture the way the positioning of the shoes changes the shape of the whole thing! But that's what makes it interesting. Every angle holds new details. Steve discovers quickly that he can tell stories through shoes, too... where the creases are and how many there are, scuffs, rough leather, loose threads, color bright and bold or not, the angle he draws the shoes from, too--looking down at them from where he stands, lying on his belly and sketching straight on, detailing the bottoms--there are endless possibilities.

But, as Steve gets older and the more it sits in his head, the more it becomes something deeper until it's something beyond a passive, special interest. Beyond somewhere where his eyes always go when he meets someone new--glancing at their footwear just to see. It becomes something of desire.

Desired because of how forbidden it is. Women's shoes are for girls. Steve isn't a girl. He can't have them. He wasn't allowed to touch them. He's still not allowed to touch them.

There is a desire for men's shoes, too, but he knows men's shoes. He appreciates the sound of a big, tall man walking down an alleyway by the hidden bars around their run-down cold water walk-up with the swaggering thunk thunk thunk of their boots on the street. He does like that. Something about it makes shivers crawl up his crooked spine. But, he knows them. Bucky wears work boots. They live in a heap next to their front door. Plus, Steve has his own shoes. Men's shoes are familiar.

Steve buries his desire for men's shoes deeper, for whatever reason. It has nothing to do with internalized homophobia, no, why do you ask?

Women's shoes, though...

They're forbidden and unknown. The closest Steve's gotten to fancy, truly bright, and angular ladies' shoes (outside of staring at them through shop windows) was when Bucky brought home a blonde dame--Steve never got her name, she just came and left once--with a rich Daddy. Her shoes were kicked off by the door when Steve got home, sitting fallen over next to Bucky's heavy boots. Steve's heart pounded unevenly in his thin chest, just seeing them together. Darting between the shoes. The contrast.

(That dame must've been short, too, like Steve. Her shoes were so little, especially next to Bucky's. By the looks of it, they might even fit Steve. Maybe. He wouldn't dare touch them, though, not even to straight them in the way he grumbles but organizes Bucky's footwear.)

The second time Steve really comes close to the off-limit territory of women's shoes is after the serum, dragging through the USO Tour with all the chorus girls. Their glittery, flashy, short, and bright uniforms. Meant to attract, so can Steve be blamed? Because suddenly, it seems like Steve can't go ten feet without tripping over one of the girls' pairs of shiny, bright, tall heels.

Once, just once, one of the gals leaves her heels behind. She's going back home, her service done with, so...

With his heart pounding strongly in his broad chest, practically echoing through it, he swears, Steve grabs them. Hastily stuffing them under his trench coat and wisking them back to his private tent--the luxury of being a technical captain.

Alone and in private, Steve knows just looking at them, understanding space strangely well these days, that they're too small for his feet. Even if they weren't too small, Steve is sure he couldn't bear to try them on. Not here. What would he do anyway? He's never thought past getting his hands on ladies' shoes. He couldn't walk with them on. Could he? No. He would be scared of someone hearing the click click click. And he couldn't... he doesn't have anyone to... show?

So, what would be the point?

There isn't one. And Steve doesn't even try to put them on. Instead, he sets one of the pair of the heels in his lap. Cradling it, the shoe is a lot lighter than he expected it to be. The material is much thinner than he thought even though he's drawn shoes a ton. He's studied them. And he studies them again now, up-close and personal, just... looking.

He just holds it.

Without realizing it, he starts to subconsciously stroke the shiny, patriotic-colored leather. It's so smooth. It's cold to start, but quickly, it isn't anymore, warming up to him. The heel isn't as sharp on the edges as he would've thought, but it's not too soft, either.

He's more familiar, having it in his hold, but they're still exciting. Fascinating. Interesting. No matter how often he sneaks away to hold one or both of the stolen shoes in his hands, they're still so different.

They're special.

Steve loses the pair when he walks to Austria. He's not sure what happened to them, and he's afraid to ask. Did someone find them? If they did, what did they think? At worst, they probably just thought Steve spent the night with one of the chorus gals, right? They wouldn't know about... about what Steve did? (And what did he do? He just held them!?) He can't stop thinking about them, though. His hands are so calloused these days, and all his shirts are grimy and coming apart at the seams, holes everywhere, and wouldn't it just be nice to touch something smooth?

Bucky sees through him and asks him what he's missing, but he falls before Steve can say it out loud. So, the secret dies with him.

Steve doesn't let himself think about something so soft and delicate when he wakes up. He can't stomach it.

Eventually

Bucky is back.

Steve has Bucky back.

And they're both trying to heal.

Healing takes many shapes... including, apparently, the shape of a sleek, biege box with a looping, white font delivered to their front door, which contains rich, red, and shimmering tissue paper, fragile and weightless, and a pair of matching, shiny black heels with blood red bottoms.

Steve doesn't even want to know what they cost Bucky. He vaguely grasps the pop culture knowledge to understand how infamous heels like these are, how expensive they are, and he's not dumb enough to miss all the details, thoughtfulness, and exorbitant materials. Shockingly, they have money now, existing somewhere, acrewing in a bank account that feels like it belongs to someone else entirely, and between the two of them, Steve is the one who doesn't know what to do with it. Bucky knows.

Bucky knows.

Bucky bought him a pair of heels, not so bright, save for the bottoms, but still delicate and shiny and alluring. The shoes feel more like Bucky's style than Steve's and... Steve likes that. He likes that Bucky chose them, he likes that he wants to see him in them, and he likes that they're here.

Steve's almost afraid to put the shoes on, his thumbs rubbing back and forth across the smooth, perfect surface. He's not even sure if he wants to put them on or not. He's only ever drawn or held shoes like these. He's not put them on. Does he want to cross that line? Is that even a line? After all the things he's done, is this even daring?

What if it's not special? What if it's not as good as he wants it to be? Does he want it to be good? What's good?

Should he put them on?

Steve's head is so full of questions that he can't do anything but stand there, a contemplative statue; Steve's supposed to be brave and daring, but there are moments where even he's allowed to hesitate.

Right?

Bucky isn't so hesitant. He knows his best guy is going to look killer in those heels, and he knows whatever Steve has built this up to be in his head... it'll be fine. He just has to let go and do it.

With some convincing and a few charming grins, Steve puts the red bottomed heels on and...

It's good.

It's better than he imagined.

While he's wearing them--falling apart at the seams and succumbing weakly to the fever raging through him--Bucky fucks him hard. Deep and good. Leaving Steve unable to hold back the ah, ah, ahs that pour out from inside him and causing him to put bruises, dents really, in Bucky's back with how tight his legs are wrapped around his stocky waist. He can't. Bucky's dick hits his prostate again and again. Oh, god. It's making him so weak--his dick always does. It forces Steve's brains to melt out of his ears, struck stupid with his lips falling open, bright red and wet.

With another hammering, ah, ah, ah, dick carving so deep in him, sparking and hot, desire courses through Steve so strongly that his toes curl until the soles of his feet cramp. As his toes curl, it forces the shiny heels to slip off of his feet just as he crashes through his orgasm. His moans pitching higher--shattering suddenly, shaking apart with the pleasure coursing through him.

Bucky is merciful enough to fuck him through his orgasm, leaving him a whimpering, shaking mess, all too docile and sweet, but he doesn't say merciful. He's awful. Terrible. Evil because he's slowing his hips to a filthy, deep grind. It's slow enough to have Steve's gasping, his body electric and white-hot, making him go haywire and stay achingly hard. He doesn't do anything about it, though. He doesn't reach to jack him off or touch him or do anything but--

Bucky spares one hand to grab the shoe from where it landed haphazardly on their ruffled bed before sliding it back onto Steve's foot after using his strength to uncurl his leg from around his waist, straightening his leg so the back of his knee is at Bucky's shoulder, all so he can put the stray heel back onto him.

He's so flexible.

The position makes Bucky's cock get in deeper.

AH!

Fuck, Bucky is treating him like he's delicate and cute, kissing the thick curves of his muscles and making sure nothing is out of place as he worships him, fucking him like he isn't soft or delicate or nothing. It's like he's being fucking out to make sure Steve's heated draw to heels is even worse after this!

Also, secondly, I keep thinking about:

You wear your devotion on your sleeve

By the time Steve gets to the front and gets to Bucky, pulling him from the jaws of Hell, dangling above its throat, on the cusp of being swallowed, Steve is fucking sick of...

Everything?

He's sick of being in a body that doesn't fit. Chronic illnesses first. A lifetime of rasping lungs and fatigue that follows him like a shadow, always growing taller and longer with the ever slowing dip of the sun in the sky. Then. This. Whatever this is. A body that attracts attention, eyes always dragging over his form, never leaving him alone when before no one would ever even glance his way. He was invisible and agonized; now, he's in the spotlight and burning up.

Something in him yearns to be small again.

The only refuge he finds for that is at Bucky's feet.

He finds the feeling of being small yet respected, taking up no space at all but still being seen and heard, at Bucky's feet while he's shining his boots. He knows how much appearance matters to Bucky. His hair is always done just so, even in the middle of the rain and wind and wilderness. He's always freshly shaven, no matter if there's running water nearby or not. And his boots are always shining, never mud caked like all the others.

So, when Bucky ended up with bruises shading his ribs, barely able to sit up, let alone bend over or breathe as good as he should be able to...

It's only natural that Steve offers to shine his boots for inspection for him.

At first, honestly, it's terrible. He's holding Bucky's leg as delicately as he possibly can, scared to even slightly squeeze him too hard and leave more bruises or, god forbid, break his bones, but Bucky won't have it. Bucky tugs on his hair, shaking his head to get the point across, making sure he's looking up at him before he assures him he won't hurt him. He can't. He needn't hold him so delicately, and, c'mon, if his boots are gonna be clean, he needs to put some more muscle behind it. A smile cracks across his face, and, suddenly, it's all good.

It's great.

It's so fucking nice to be staring up at his familiar face and be small and--

How does Bucky convince him to wrap himself around his leg and grind against his newly polished boots until he's messing them up, so he has to lick them clean again? 😮‍💨😮‍💨

(I wanted this to be longer, but I don't have the time right now, ughh)

[that-ari-blogger]

A Special Kind of Hypocrisy (Stayed Gone)

If you have been following my blog for a while, the fact that I take issue with the rules of writing will probably not be a surprise. I think that there are generally accepted guidelines, but these are tools and the best stories use them in unexpected ways.

“Put your readers in the action,” Darksouls is phenomenal and most of the stuff in that story has already happened. “Make your writing flow,” Turtles All The Way Down goes out of its way to feel jagged in order to portray the discomfort of its protagonist’s mind, and that is a book that shattered me for a solid week and a half.

“Show don’t tell”. That one is tricky. If an audience sees something, they are more likely to believe it, so it isn’t a tool for good writing, it’s a tool for making writing feel real. If it’s played straight, it can evoke a feeling of safety and trust, or can evoke emotions in a reader that are difficult to achieve otherwise. If subverted, this idea can present unease, deceit, or even hypocrisy.

Let me explain.

CONTENT WARNING: Not much in this one, but a standard warning because of the show I’m analysing. Gore, foul language, etc. Read at your own peril.

SPOILERS AHEAD: (Hazbin Hotel, The Family Plan)

I feel like clarifying everything I am about to say with the fact that tropes aren’t bad, and that subverting everything doesn’t make for good writing. Stories are about using what you have to build something, and if that something is just a box you can put things in, it doesn’t need to be complicated.

For example, The Family Plan is a perfectly fun movie that I really enjoyed, and it doesn’t push any boundaries at all. It’s just got Mark Wahlberg playing a cooler version of himself and some road trip shenanigans crossed with a spy thriller. It doesn’t invent at all, but its tightly written, well shot, and genuinely quite funny.

I think we look at art these days from an overly critical fashion, evaluating how it contradicts tradition or makes a point that will be remembered for generations, and some stories are aiming for that, but some just want to be a fun ride, and that’s ok.

Some stories, however, want to be controversial, and want to ask questions. Most notably in this context, Hazbin Hotel.

Hazbin Hotel’s selling point is that it dissects morality on an intrinsic level, and part of this is done by the character of Alastor, whom is objectively a villainous character, but who serves as a protagonist for the majority of the season.

Alastor has a song in the pilot, but because I’m not covering that for my own reasons, let’s talk about his musical introduction to the actual series, Stayed Gone.

This song introduces Alastor as a villain, but not an especially powerful one, and I feel like that’s kind of the point. Alastor certainly has an ego, but he’s a parasite. He works by twisting people’s intentions into benefiting him. He’s a schemer, a talker, a forger of Faustian bargains. This song sets up what kind of evil Alastor works with, and it isn’t brute force.

This is exemplified by the music choice, in that Alastor doesn’t add anything at all to it. This is Vox’s song; Alastor just changes the direction a little.

From that perspective, this song depicts Vox more than Alastor, and explores how he causes his own downfall with the barest of inputs from his ex. Remember what I said in the start about show don’t tell? Let’s observe it in action.

Starting with the runup, because this feels heavy, right? It feels like someone is marching with that Mortal Combat style of walk that lets you know they mean to mess someone up. This sound is implicitly threatening.

Part of that is that it is so calm. There is nothing going on here, no fancy movements or anything of the sorts. The base line is the same two notes played an octave apart on repeat. It’s an A then an E played twice, then a few lower notes that rise higher before resolving back to that E. It's like the creature is taking a breath as it moves. A big, lumbering breath for a massive creature. It feels steady and adds variation.

Meanwhile, the higher chords are exactly the same as each other. A Major repeated four times, then the bottom two notes shift down by a semitone each, to throw the listener off balance.

But its more than that, right? These notes make you feel unsafe, there is intrinsic malice to the steadiness. I sent a friend of mine who knows music better than I do a message to try and work this out, and they mentioned that the higher notes give add suspense, which I think serves to make the bass part feel even heavier by comparison. They give you a moment to weight for that strike, like pulling back a bow string, and they give you something higher to contrast that low tone.

Then we get Vox’s singing voice. He’s been talking and vaguely rhyming up to this point, but now we get a song.

Also, there's a drum now. You would think this creates cohesion, but its offset, adding to that feeling of unease. It matches the second note of each bar to further accent the force of that first step by giving it some backwards force, then the same drum plays twice, once off the beat, once back on. Again, we’re lurching.

But notice how Vox’s sentences interact with the bars. Vox is the only thing that messes with the standard rhythm established by the backing music. Where everything is the same beat repeated each bar, Vox talks quickly for a bar then regains composure.

This is enjambment, linking ideas between thoughts and giving vox momentum. Now that weight has direction behind it, and judging by his word choice, that being the repeated use of the pronoun “you”, that direction is towards you.

Skipping ahead for a moment, I’ve found a ton of disagreement in the online sheet music for this song as to whether there is a tempo change for when the TV goes live.

If there is, you could analyse it and point out how it portrays the superficiality of Vox as a person and how he presents as someone less in control of himself when on camera. Maybe there is a question of which the real Vox is, the composed version or the manic newscaster. Maybe.

On the other hand, maybe there is nothing there, and I am going to wield executive privileges gained from this being my blog and go with my favourite one, this one. (I also used this one, for the record, I just prefer the first)

The score I followed gets so much more complicated once the television starts going, and so do the visuals, honestly. Everything about Vox gets so much more complicated, every joke is earning your attention like a TikTok, terrified you’ll look away. This is how advertising works on YouTube by the way, at least the adds that have to contend with the skip button. They compress everything into five second chunks because they need your full focus.

There are a few jokes in here of note. I would be foolish to not mention the venison pun, but none of them are of particular importance, which paradoxically makes them extremely important.

Notice here, he presents two versions of himself. The purpose of a conversation is to have two different perspectives come together, even if they are similar. But this is the same guy pretending to be varied.

Nothing that Vox says means anything at all. It is all one liners and insults, there is nothing going on behind those eyes, and that is exactly the point. He is all talk, no show.

Vox says he’s powerful, he says he will mess up Alastor’s day, his music makes you feel scared, and yet he is empty.

There is a disconnect between what he tells you and he shows you, which is made even more obvious by his obsession with Alastor. Everything he is saying is “Alastor doesn’t matter, he’s insignificant, meaningless, that’s why I wrote this song to tell him as such.” It’s like an ex who is insisting the breakup hasn’t affected him.

Which, side note, sets Vox up as the type of villain who doesn’t respect boundaries. He’s a stalker obsessed with someone who will not reciprocate his affection.

Vox is the personification of those “I can fix him” twitter incels that view sexuality as a challenge to be overcome. He’s one of a triumvirate of chronically online villains, and trust me, there are people out there in real life who are worse than him.

In his watch through and analysis of Hazbin Hotel, @ohnoitstbskyen posited the idea that, since Alastor doesn’t sing his own song at any point in the actual series, we don’t get any moments of interiority. I would like to politely disagree.

Alastor’s entire deal, as presented in this show, is being a Machiavellian schemer. Like I said earlier, he’s a parasite. What we learn about his interiority here is that he doesn’t ever bother to create, he just steals and repurposes.

It’s that thing about Alastor where the show doesn’t tell you what he wants, it just shows you how he works as a person and how he moves towards his goals.

Case and point, here Alastor just takes Vox’s song and makes it his own, offering questions about Vox’s strengths and pointing out the hypocrisy. Although it's interesting what Alastor choses to highlight, because that does shed some interiority.

“Is Vox as strong as he proports? Or is it based off his support? He’d be powerless without the other Vees”

In other words: look at this guy, he has friends that he relies on.

Now, the Vees are awful human beings, Valentino especially but Vox isn’t too great either. But by far their least bad trait is the fact that they support each other. Again, they are cruel, vile entities, but they are cruel vile entities together.

To my knowledge, Vox doesn’t ever deny that he is working with others, or even obfuscate that knowledge.

It would seem that Alastor, in his attempt to criticize his opponent, has revealed something about himself. That sounds a bit hypocritical to me.

Speaking of which, Alastor is entirely hypocrisy. He spends the entirety of the series talking a big game about how strong and powerful he is, but he never actually demonstrates that. He turns off the electricity in the city, but that’s not strength, that’s flicking a switch. He makes threats, and yet doesn’t back any of them up.

“You still pissed he almost beat you that time?”

“Almost” is a key word in that question, it would seem Alastor has a bit of an ego problem.

Which leads me back to the concept of tell don’t show, because if you don’t show your audience something, they don’t trust it. Alastor and Vox are paired up because they both keep talking and proclaiming their intimidation factor, and yet neither of them actually demonstrate any power beyond that which is normal.

Yes, they mow down mooks, but so do Angel Dust, and Husk, and Sir Pentious.

Before I finish up, I want to talk a bit about how performance can affect personality, and with that I want to contrast a cover with the original.

This is a cover by Annapantsu, Cami-cat, and Chloe Breez. I highly recommend checking it out.

But I want to note how different the acting choices are to the original. I’m not saying one is better, I’m saying they are different.

First, Anna’s version of Vox is so much wilder than the original. Like, the version in the actual series rockets between emotions like a greyhound on skates, but when he is in control, he usually has that malevolent smile that tells you he enjoys messing with your perceptions. I don’t think Anna’s version of the character would ever smile except in that forced, news presenter way. This character seems permanently unbalanced and making only the barest effort to present as otherwise.

She also seems like a more active character than the original, who can only react to Alastor’s advances. This version of the character might make an appearance in a later episode beyond the gratuitous dad-watching-the-big-game commentary of the final fight. Maybe she rocks up to the hotel while Charlie, Vaggie and Alastor are on their quests for allegiances in order to just menace the characters in a way they are completely unprepared for.

Meanwhile, all that posturing has been put onto Alastor. Who has one main difference in performance, but one that shakes up the rest of the song. This version of Alastor is put together, just like the show. She’s casual and almost disinterested, just like the show. She’s detached and hands off, just like the show. Until that final verse.

Then she growls, and that little break in character implies that this version is concealing a much more physical menace. The best way I can put the difference is this: For the original version, it seems like transforming is an effort and something that he becomes. For this version, I think the transformation is Alastor’s natural state, and it is taking every fibre of her being to hold together the façade of civility.

Final Thoughts

I despise the concept of genre, and this is actually a good example of why, because… what is this song? Is it pop? Is it rock? Is it jazz? You could argue it is anything, but I would argue it doesn’t matter.

This song is fun, that’s all that matters. It sets up two villains, one of whom I think could have used more screen time in the series, but ho hum, and the other who got so much screen time and yet remains so mysterious.

Next week, I’ll be covering It Starts With Sorry, and I am genuinely shocked by how many people don’t like that number. I think it’s great. Stick around if seeing me argue that point interests you.

Previous - Next

[gffa]

The thing I really miss about Star Wars novels is exemplified by being two-thirds of the way through Inquisitor: Rise of the Red Blade and how I think I'm legitimately enjoying it, but in a very specific way, and I think there's actually a ton you could dig into the structure and bias of the narrator that I think is done on purpose and that I can find sympathy for a character actively falling to the dark side and what she's going through without validating the people she's demonizing in her head because I've been there, I have had my brain lying to me all my life, telling me things I know aren't true, making me believe them despite all evidence otherwise, and do you guys KNOW how much I love hot messes of a disaster lady? I fucking love a woman who is just an awful mess and doesn't have to actually be perfect or nice and maybe just once or twice says a kind of catty thing, NO, SHE IS A WHOLE ASS MESS and I LOVE HER!! But also I'm kind of in the position of how I'm tired of getting stories of characters falling to the dark side being the vast majority of what stories explore with the Jedi, I enjoy them, but not when that's all there is, and I have spent YEARS AND YEARS going back and forth with the discussions about the Jedi and I am so tired of it, I DON'T WANT TO ANYMORE. I just want to write my commentary and thoughts down in the vein that I have them and have that be it. I want to say, "This is a really glorious unreliable narrator here, because everything she says is contradicted by what the Jedi actually say/do, and she is explicitly a character designed with neurodivergent/mental health issues aspects in mind and you can't divorce that from her character." and like I don't even want to discuss with other Jedi fans about what the author may or may not have said (I read one interview from her at the beginning, enjoyed it fine, and AM NOT INTERESTED in knowing or hearing anything further) or how annoying it is to have a book like this, I JUST WANT TO DIG INTO A STORY and not have to worry about bracing myself for combat. (And also the thorny issue of how this isn't precisely a recommendation because I'm not sure others would enjoy it, like even if you agreed with me, I'm not sure it'd be something in your wheelhouse, but I don't want to even get into that, it feels exhausting, like, just I want to talk about how I'm enjoying it, but not have to articulate why I think others possibly wouldn't, just leave it at "nah, I don't think you'd enjoy it".) I know this is some IRL stuff spilling over onto my reading of this book and I'm aware of the state of a lot of creators in SW right now hold opinions that have made me stop reading their works because I am no longer interested in anything they have to contribute, but also like. Sometimes I just want to enjoy a book on my own terms and not have to feel like I'm arguing a case, but instead reveling in the glorious hot mess of a central female character that maybe I relate to and have sympathy for even while recognizing that she is painting a very unreliable portrait within the book, because I Have Been There. Idk, I'm not saying this very well, and a lot of it is outside factors, but I have this giant tangled ball of "I just want to enjoy something for once, not examine why it might actually be doing my Blorbos all wrong", like aren't we supposed to be in fandom for the enjoyment of things, not to constantly argue with people? /tired and hasn't been sleeping well and has been thinking about this instead of wrenching irl stuff

[coeluvr]

I actually love that Lancelot is the way he is regarding Luceris, on account of it being good narratively-speaking.

You've shown clearly through Luceris that love, sometimes, makes people capable of doing terrible things. Love, sometimes, makes people worse. It doesn't matter if they originally had a decent moral compass— once feelings are involved, people stop viewing everything concerning a loved one objectively. I'm sure that if Luceris wasn't involved, Lancelot would take action for MC without hesitation. But the tragedy is that Luceris did all of that. He hurt people, he killed people, yet... Lancelot has been with him since they were children. He probably understands him the most out of everyone currently alive in the CoAaF universe. He has loved him for so long. How can he cast those feelings away just like that?

Is it unfair to MC, especially with Lancelot trying to be kind to them while still loving Luceris? Of course, but he (Lance) can't change anything now, the harm's done.

Tangent, but there's a reason the 'tell me every terrible thing you ever did and let me love you anyways' pin is popular in Pinterest boards. People eat that shit up lol.

“The things we do in the name of love.”

That is one of the themes I want to explore in this story so I want the good and the bad and everything in here. 🤭

Love can uplift you, brighten your days, and bring out the best in you, making everything seem better. But it also possesses the power to shatter you completely — eroding your morals, identity, and everything in between.

Lancelot and Luceris exemplify what love can do to a person and what they're willing to do because of it. We already know that Luceris destroyed a lot in the name of love but he is also getting better emotionally and mentally because of it. And Lancelot continues to stand by him, capable of overlooking so much because of his profound affection.

A quote that pops up often with Lancelot in the side stuff I write, and will come up in the main story soon enough, is “When you truly love someone you never falter no matter what.” It really sums him up well if I say so myself. 💀

I also wanted to show that even the worst people can be loved through their relationship, so yeah, it's kind of like “tell me every terrible thing you ever did and let me love you anyway” LOL

I also like to think that even if MC turns out just as bad as Luceris, someone will still love them.

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

I know this may sound crazy but remember how in No Way Out, Sonic told Nine that he still considered him to be a friend while getting down on one knee and Nine calmed down? Later in Nine’s Lives, Nine says “Typical” when seeing Sonic run to the others and accused Sonic of betraying him when Sonic called the others his friends.

Nine was sort of acting like Sonic proposed to him and then cheated on him by being friends with the others.

Okay so first of all, I don't think you're crazy. During S3 there's actually plenty of evidence that Nine is jealous, both of the Tails variants and Sonic considering everyone else his friends.

One example that presents his specific kind of jealousy is during Episode 2 of Season 3, when Nine first appears to Sonic in New Yoke.

"Everything is collapsing... This is terrible!"

"Is it? That seems odd coming from you. As far as I can tell you only care about your own home."

Essentially what I'm getting at is this. I do believe that pre betrayal, Nine admittedly considered Sonic to be the most important person to him, and thought Sonic may have felt the same way. And the "betrayal" at the end of S2 hurt Nine very deeply. He had this image of Sonic in his head that was shattered by the finale, so he sort of instinctively switches to thinking the worst about Sonic because he can't trust that anything he thought before wasn't a lie. This is one of the reasons that he can't fathom Sonic caring about shatterspaces other than his own home.

But it's not just that he can't fathom it, it's that due to this deep hurt, Nine cannot allow himself to believe it.

Because if Sonic genuinely cares about the shatterverse as a whole, if he genuinely cares about saving all of these people, then to Nine, what made him the exception?

Sure, we the audience can see Sonic’s journey in Prime. We can see that by the end of S2, Sonic wanted to keep the shatterverse safe just as much as he wanted to bring back Green Hill. He wanted everyone to be alive and happy. But from Nine's pov here, he's just learned that Sonic lied to him, spoke honeyed words and manipulated him just to get to the prism. None of that is true, but he doesn't feel like Sonic actually cares for him or wants him. So at this point, for Sonic to put saving all of these people over saving his own home or genuinely worrying about their home makes Nine feel like the exception or that his feelings about Sonic must be wrong. Either one of those ideas he'd understandably like to avoid (because one means that Sonic is genuine with everyone except for him, and the other would mean to him that his feeling of betrayal and hurt feelings post S2 finale are misplaced and not allowed to be had, though he feels justified feeling hurt)

And that scene in S3 E3 No Escape is actually another big exemplifier of Nine's brand of jealousy and just how hurt he is.

"Don't worry. Beneath the surface, my new friends are far simpler than the flawed creatures you knew and loved. And all the more loyal for it."

Starting out strong, Nine takes a not so subtle shot at Sonic's friends while taking subtler shot at Sonic's loyalty, since Sonic had been his first and only friend.

"Ever wonder where we'd be if things had gone differently between us?"

"...Not anymore."

"I do. All the time."

"Not anymore." Implying that post the S2 finale he really had dwelled (at least for a time) on thoughts of how things could have been different. How he wished things could have gone differently.

And Nine gets visibly angry/frustrated when Sonic confesses he's always thinking about how things could have been different. Perhaps because it feels like a slap to the face, or feels hard to believe.

"Tch. You had your chance."

"...Right back at ya, bud."

And then, despite his anger, despite how he's been trying to get Sonic all along so he can drain his energy and save his home, Nine ignores Sonic's "should we get this over with". He puts on another one of those faces, similar to earlier when Sonic arrived and Nine talked about his "new friends". Perhaps to cover up exactly the way he's feeling in this moment with a veneer of superiority (he always did something similar when talking up Sonic to the Chaos Council).

"You know...after all this time...I think I finally understand you, Sonic."

...

"You wanna save everyone. Friends. Foes. Total strangers! You say it's because you're a hero and that's what heroes do, but deep down... After what you did—destroying your own home—it's the only way you can ever live with yourself. Even if that means you won't live at all."

And while I think Nine isn't incorrect—that there is a part of Prime!Sonic who's been acting out of selfishness, caring more about feeling like a good person than actually being one—these are still words from someone who feels betrayed by Sonic. I think there's a level to which Nine is seeing a part of Sonic no one else did, and also to a level which Nine is trying to recontextualize Sonic's more heroic/selfless seeming actions so he can reconcile them with how he feels about Sonic and sees him at this moment. In other words, while he's seeing a facet of Sonic he didn't see before, this is not all encompassing of who Prime Sonic is. It's just that perhaps by believing that Sonic's every seemingly selfless action is disingenuine, that all those nice words and intent to save people is just so Sonic can feel good rather that actually caring about anyone, then Nine doesn’t have to feel like the exception. Then he can see Sonic as someone who is pretending to care about all of this, and Sonic's other friends as fools who don't see what he (Nine) has seen.

But as I said, it's more complicated than that. Perhaps Nine is seeing a facet of Sonic that other people don't see or don't want to see, but Prime!Sonic is multifaceted. Perhaps he does want to hurry up and sacrifice himself in this scene because then he can finally feel like he's atoned for what he's done and he's absolved of/paid for his crimes, but that also doesn't mean he doesn't genuinely care about the lives of people in the shatterverse.

"If I don't make it, and you do, how do I know you'll keep your promise."

"Don't worry. Your 'friends' are safe. Once I have your energy, I can restore everything. They can have their silly lives in their silly spaces, as long as they leave me alone."

"Fair enough."

...

"And for what it's worth...I wouldda done the same for you."

"Don't lie to me..."

"I'm not–"

"DON'T!"

"Think whatever you want, but it's true. Even after everything you've done, everything we've been through. Together. Against each other. You're still my friend, Nine."

I really couldn't express more just how hurt Nine feels. That he doesn't believe Sonic would give anything up for him, even if he were to accept that Sonic would do that for everyone else. When he tells Sonic not to lie to him, frustrated, angry, voice wavering, I think it's because he can't take this again. If Sonic is lying just to manipulate him, if this isn't genuine, if he's just using him again, he can't take it again.

This is an incredibly intimate scene. With Sonic, standing face to face to Nine, inside Nine's safe space, his home that no one else has been into, behind the physical representation of the walls surrounding Nine's heart post betrayal, this is his first time all season really being allowed to speak to Nine directly. Here there's no one to perform to aside from each other.

But you can see that despite everything, Sonic still reaches Nine in this scene. It's not easy, but he reaches Nine's heart, leading Nine to start to believe in him again.

And that's why it's a pity the other variants show up when they do, using Sonic to breach Nine's walls. With the way Nine reacts after this happens, Sonic may as well have made Nine believe in that image of him again. Sonic may as well have made Nine believe that Sonic does care about him, that he'd do anything for him (or, at least, would give his life for him like he would for the others if it meant they could live), only to be the trojan horse that allowed the enemy™ to breach his safe space. The pretty lie.

At the beginning of S3 E4 Nine's Lives, Nine says "Predictable" when Sonic runs over to his friends. And, as anon mentioned, Nine says that Sonic has betrayed him for the last time, calling the deal off.

I wouldn't necessarily say here that Nine feels as if Sonic had cheated on him so to speak, but I would say that even if Nine doesn't see Sonic as a willing "trojan horse" here, Nine still feels like a fool for "falling for it again", for believing in Sonic. I think it's enough betrayal to Nine that Sonic would convince him that he cares about him and wants him to have a future too, only to then side with a bunch of people who want to beat Nine down and who would not let Nine be happy if Nine surrendered to them (from Nine's pov at least).

So in short, anon, I think you are seeing Nine's jealousy here. Even if he also has to believe Sonic is secretly fooling the others, to him this is a scene where Sonic is not only choosing them over him, but another example of Sonic (from Nine's pov) proving that he's a liar who doesn't care for Nine or his future/safety at all.

[t00thpasteface]

I forgot if I've already asked you this question, but who is your number one favorite Fictional Antagonist from Media? Rules are as follows; feel free to ignore:

If you want to choose a recurring villain like Bowser or The Joker, you have to choose a particular incarnation of this character. Like Alan Moore's Joker or Paper Mario 64's Bowser.

Specific Characters/Entities Only. You can't say, "Haunted Houses that aren't haunted by, like, a single ghost or anything in particular" like my mom wanted to. She settled firmly on "The Overlook Hotel" and she's a stronger person for it.

Villainous Duos like Boris & Natasha are accepted.

People have a hard time picking a #1, so you're allowed to list as many runner-ups as you like. Listen to your heart.

Protagonists who are their own worst enemies don't count!

Villainous characters who are protagonists in their story are very begrudgingly accepted. Whether or not George Costanza (A Villainous Protagonist) or Detective Columbo (A Heroic Antagonist) count is beyond the scope of this paper.

Thank you for your time!

hmmmm!! that's a really interesting question to chew on actually.

i'm not usually drawn to villains or villain-driven stories, outside of games that necessitate it as a gameplay mechanic or genre staple a la mario games or your standard JRPGs. and i wouldn't call a glorified game mechanic a character if they really don't do much besides throw barrels at the player to jump over. porky and giygas are exceptions but honestly not much; they aren't very complicated characters, even though they're snappily written, and most of where they shine is just the fact that they're one well-placed load-bearing piece in a larger cohesive narrative. they don't really capture my attention outside of their gameplay role.

i'm overall much more compelled by Romantic with a capital R stories about internal, oftentimes more abstracted struggles. i mean, i don't have to tell you that my favorite books EVER are "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" and "The Great Gatsby," both of which play with deuteragonists as foils to the narrator that inevitably spiral and leave the reader with something of a thought exercise regarding the intersection of nature versus nurture, intent versus action, past versus future, et cetera. the characters themselves are symbolic of sociological concepts so much larger than themselves, and because of that, they can't truly be classified into "hero" or "villian", because the topics those books grapple with are so incredibly messy and morally-fuzzy that the characters who exemplify them must reflect that same complexity and nuance.

as soon as a story starts to veer towards "all our problems are caused by One Guy who we can remove from the equation forever," it usually loses me, or if nothing else it just makes me zone out when the villain and his evil army of doom is on screen until we're back to introspective character-building moments between the protags, deuterags, etc. i'm the boring guy who likes slow, dialogue-driven things more than flashy show tunes.

ALL THAT BEING SAID......

villains really only shine (for me) if they're funny as fuck. that's the one way they can really get my attention as a character that has, by definition, been written into a unilaterally negative role that must be booed. they get to be FUNNY! and they get to be my favorite kind of funny: insane slapstick funny. i like seeing cartoony villains get absolutely pulverized, thrown around like wet dishrags, set on fire, flung off cliffs, you name it. the zanier the better. so here's my own elite 4 in ascending order:

fourth is 2012 avengers movie Loki. very hammy, very showy, extremely puncheable face, and he takes SO much physical punishment and writhes like a worm the whole time. super fun.

third is pokemon's Archie. emerald is my favorite game but archie SHINES in alpha sapphire. he's such a huge personality and he takes hits with a smile. and then he gets a big fuzzy redemption at the end because this is a game for kids, but even that is so over-the-top cornball that i just laugh and smile the whole time instead of rolling my eyes. a good wholesome time was had by all.

second is Mr. Burns in the simpsons. let me preface this by saying i really don't watch anything after, ehhhh, i'd say season 8 or 9, because that's about where my box sets ended growing up. any episode where Mr. Burns gets some slapstick gags about his incredibly frail body that runs on pure evil is a good episode. i especially love "the springfield files," "homer the smithers," "homer at the bat," and "who shot mr burns" parts 1 and 2.

and my favorite is undoubtedly Sheldon J. Plankton. similar situation as simpsons; i don't watch anything after seasons 1-3 and the first movie. he commands every single scene he's in, which is especially impressive given that he's literally just a single tiny copepod. he's got the best villain laugh EVER. he's even a delight in the game "battle for bikini bottom"... you GOTTA check out BFBB Rehydrated if you like the spirit and snark of the early seasons. i love him in "walking small," "F.U.N.," "the algae's always greener," and of course, the movie. he's evil! he's diabolical!! he's LEMON SCENTED!!!!

[elkian]

I've probably said this before, but I absolutely love the Body Improvement Club in Mob Psycho 100, both in general and in what they bring to the story.

Early in the series, we're introduced to the Telepathy Club, essentially a hang-out gang for three disaffected tweens (their fourth member having just quit), only one of whom cares at all about telepathy for real. Lacking appropriate numbers, they're at immediate risk of losing their club room space. Enter Shigeo (Mob) who has actual psychic powers.

Ultimately the story closes with the Body Improvement Club taking the clubroom, but since they're constantly jogging, lifting, etc., they graciously allow the remaining Telepathy Club members to use the space.

Sidenote: I've seen a very interesting point about how Tome's motivations and inner monologue are given way more space than all of the BIC's combined, because she's trying to scam Shigeo while the BIC is just chillin', and Shigeo volunteers to join them unasked. Anyways, the focus here is on the buff bois.

The Body Improvement Club is full of unfeasibly jacked middle-schoolers, and one would be forgiven for assuming it's chock-full of stereotypical jocks. However, the BIC is actually full of nascent himbos. Every member of the club is constantly decent (if a little skewed in perceptions due to the Gainz being their core focus). This is really refreshing, especially with how they interact with Shigeo.

Shigeo starts the series as, well, a boilerplate bonafide wimp. He has no muscle mass, faints after a couple meters of sprinting (whether he actually has anemia or if that was a catch-all that didn't translate is uncler to me), can barely lift one of the smallest weights, etc. He starts out as the standard psychic minmaxer - absurdly powerful PSI, wet tissue body.

In fact, we only encounter a handful of psychics who have any physical prowess, and at least two of them (Teru, and the muscle dude from the mid-Claw arc) are implied or explicitly using their psychic powers to bolster their phsyical body.

(Sidenote, this is why Serizawa fanart of him being jacked is so damn funny to me - he went from stagnant shut-in to VIP in the Psychic Power Is The Only Thing That Matters Gang. When, exactly, was he hitting the gym?)

Shigeo doesn't, according to a significant chunk of the cast, need anything except his ESP. It's ridiculous for him to start weight training and jogging when he could just use his brain boost to do it!

And I think that's a big part of why I like the Body Improvement Club and their involvement in the series so much. Because MP100 is a story about becoming more than the lottery of birth, pushing yourself and improving yourself and learning to connect with other people.

And Shigeo not only improves his physical body by participating in the club, but constantly exemplifies this core theme by doing so.

(And in the epilogue he is 200% beef with his normal head on top, it's hilarious.)

But the real kicker here is how the other tweens in the club treat him. Because the "Improvement" part of "Body Improvement Club" is not tacked on for show. Every time Shigeo makes any kind of milestone, the entire club celebrates him. They are completely genuine in this, celebrating his accomplishments just as much as he is. It's not only endearing, but extremely encouraging, and not just to Shigeo. Watching a kid who struggled to pick up a gallon of milk become super buff in the end is funny, yes, but it's also a great way to end the seres. Not only did his effort matter, but his effort was recognized by the people around him.

Hell, in essence, I've just predicted the Separation Arc (spoilers) - because while there's multiple elements involved, what I remember really kicking this off is Reigen dismissing Shigeo's social life - something he has absolutely struggled to achieve at all. Something that, in the beginning, Reigen was supposed to be teaching Shigeo to improve at.

That isn't this post, though. My point is the Body Improvement Club.

ONE could have written the BIC as standard jocks whose encouragement was sarcastic or outright cruel, but he refused to take that easy route and instead made them a major element in Shigeo's growth. The message of the Body Improvement Club is the message of the series as a whole, in a way - that the effort one puts in (with the help of a good friend of five) matters much more than whatever you were born with. That striving to improve is essential to life, and worthwhile friends will celebrate your accomplishments. The Body Improvement Club is full of boys who are already tough and strong, but every single one of them praises Shigeo for his progress, no matter how it might compare to their own.

And I mentioned that Shigeo is buff in the epilogue, but I think it's worthwhile to note that this isn't just a visual gag. His buffness is revealed as he's discussing the trajectory of the club with one of the other members, in the next school year - and the other member acknowledges that the presence of the then-small, skinny, weak Shigeo had a useful effect on the image of the club. Because there was more than just a wall of beef already there, tentative newcomers could feel more secure in joining and improving theirselves, as was the club's goal. It's difficult to join a group of people you perceive as way more talented than you already - Shigeo's noted obliviousness to unspoken trends is actually a huge boon here, as it helped him volunteer without thinking this. But it wouldn't have been possible for him to improve without the goodwill of his peers.

Anyways, I love the Body Improvement Club and will never shut up about it, goodnight.

[telomeke]

15 people, 15 questions

I got tagged by @colourme-feral (at this link here), @pandasmagorica (at this link here), @wen-kexing-apologist (at this link here), @dribs-and-drabbles (at this link here), @belladonna-and-the-sweetpeas (at this link here) and @airenyah (at this link here). Thanks for tagging me guys! 🥰 Hope you're all having a wonderful holiday season. 💖🎄

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1. Are you named after anyone?

Not anyone in particular; Mom's dad set out the names for the children of his sons but not his daughters. So Mom gave me a name that incorporates the concepts bright and strong. I sometimes like to think I was named after a laundry detergent. 🤣

2. When was the last time you cried?

I can't remember exactly… I never used to cry, not at stories or movies, unless they involved dogs dying (because that was my first exposure to grief, when my little furry boy died on me during my teen years). After more family members passed away though, I felt my core shift and now know what it is like to be moved to tears by a more human-centric grief and loss (I think I wasn't allowing myself to feel that before, as part of that armor you put on when out in the world as an adult).

And ever since I learnt my lessons I've cried a lot more often, sharing heartfelt moments with characters on the page or on the screen because I'm less afraid of showing emotion (as in, I no longer think of it as some kind of weakness). I think the last time I cried may have been watching Last Twilight? When I watched tough guy Mhok shedding his hard protective shell to love Day unconditionally, with the motivations behind his acts of love going mostly unnoticed and unseen by the object of his affections – e.g., the sunflower just before August turns up late, setting up Day's surprise birthday party and basically giving him away to others when you know his heart is telling him to keep Day for himself. 😢 (I've not watched Ep.7 yet, so I don't know if the meaning of any of this will change moving forward, or if there are more tears in store though.) And yes, I think the last tear I shed was when Mhok grabbed Day to kiss him at the end of Ep.6, to prove that he was loving him truly for his own sake, not plying him with secondhand emotion out of pity as Day had been led to expect from the world.

I may write more about Last Twilight in the future… It's easy to think of romantic love as a gift to be received, but Mhok really does exemplify that the human nature of love is rather more tied to wanting to give of oneself, and (for romantic love at least) that experience only achieves its fullest completion when it is met with the recipient giving you their love in return (or crushing your heart with rejection or indifference instead). And I do see the parallels between love rejected and grief; "grief is just love with no place to go" rings so very true.

3. Do you have kids?

No I don't, and it is maybe the one regret in life I will allow myself. "No regrets" is a great motto to live by, but if I could do things over again I might choose to have kids (whether my own biological kids or my own adopted ones; I'm a little too far gone and set in my ways to consider this now though). Never wanted kids before (noisy, troublesome, a dampener holding you back I told my younger self) – but when my nephew came along it was like somebody flicked a switch and I realized it was OK to feel that kind of unconditional love for another human being, for no other reason than the privilege of loving them. And I think being a parent (unlike a romantic partner) allows you to love truly unconditionally, without expecting anything in return.

4. What sports do you play/have you played?

Used to like playing soccer/basketball/badminton as a kid, but only unseriously and very badly. Nowadays I swim a lot and the gym is my second home (but I'm not at all some bulked-up gorilla; I don't have the genetics nor the inclination to abuse my body with steroids, which is the only way to look like the bodybuilders and fitness models IMO). But exercise does wonders for your mental health in addition to your physical fitness; it's been my refuge whenever things got horrifyingly stressful in life by providing an outlet for stress, plus endorphins to make you feel better. It just doesn't feel like it would be any good when you're going through it, but you can sense it after. Which is also part of why it's so hard to get yourself up and exercising when you're down; the hardest part is overcoming the inertia that is doubly weighted whenever life is stressing you out. I always have to remind myself that the more I don't want to go to the gym, the more it is I probably need to go.

5. Do you use sarcasm?

Sarcasm? What, ✨MOI✨? (Yes I'm being sarcastic here. I can be a bit too barbed with people I know, so I've learnt to pare it back, but my propensity for sarcasm has done me no favors in the workplace. It's also why I understand people putting up hard-shell defenses – shoutout to Pran in Bad Buddy and Mhok in Last Twilight.)

6. What’s the first thing you notice about people?

I think their general demeanour and what their overall body language is conveying.

7. What’s your eye color?

Darkest, darkest brown; so dark it looks black in all but the brightest light. You can't see where my pupils end and my irises begin.

8. Scary movies or happy endings?

Happy endings all the way. Don't like horror movies and I won't pay to watch them.

9. Any talents?

I have a number of interests, but whether or not I have any talent in them is for others to judge because – even though I'm proud of some of the things I've done – my ever-critical perfectionist's eye can never fail to see flaws and things I could've done better. Everything is always falling short in some way. So my interests are: languages and linguistics (I can handle a few languages, but only a couple have acceptable fluency while the rest are still in pretty rough shape, IMO). Love to write (in English only, more focused on fact than fiction, but even then the inspiration doesn't always flow). I have an ear (but not an abiding love) for music, so I will often be singing if I'm alone and need more than silence around me. I'm interested in biological sciences (wanted to be a palaentologist as a little boy; isn’t that every kid's dream at some point?) – animals, plants, and nature fascinate me. I used to like dabbling in visual arts, but that's been deadened a bit by having to work with some of that in my job (maybe that's why the visual aspects of BL will always fascinate me though). And I think I do have a knack for research, looking things up and putting facts together so that they can convey some kind of message or bigger truth.

10. Where were you born?

In the delivery room of a maternity ward. My roots are in Asia though, if that's what this question is getting at. 😆

11. What are your hobbies?

Scrolling through Tumblr takes up way too much of my time, but yes that is one of my hobbies. I watch BLs now and then, and from that I go on to do the odd write-up about aspects that interest me (especially culture, linguistics and BL visuals). Another current obsession is baking up fruitcake variations (part of the culinary landscape of the season) and this will continue as a hobby until I've baked it out of my system. I love to watch cooking shows, but I do this more to pick up tips on how to make my meals quicker, easier and tasty enough for me (I don't love cooking, but I cook a lot, to get around dietary intolerances more than anything else). Also – gym and swimming a few times a week.

12. Do you have any pets?

None at the moment. We had dogs growing up and I am an avowed dog lover. But when you're a working adult it wouldn't be fair to leave a dog alone for most of the day while you're out at the office, so I never got one after I began working. Plus dogs don't last long (15 years is already geriatric for a pooch) and I'm not ready to face the shattering grief when they have to leave you. But never say never... Maybe I'll get a kitty for a change? 🤔💖

13. How tall are you?

I'm tallish; tall in some countries, average in others. Taller than Singto, shorter than Ohm. 😆

14. Favorite subject in school?

Art and art history? We had a dream lecturer who made the subject come alive. Also a psychology elective that I took, for all its insights into the human mind. In school school it was a mix depending on my mood and the topic of the day: English, geography, biology, chemistry, mathematics, or art. Didn't like physics or economics at all.

15. Dream job

Something in research and analysis backing up the boys in The Sign. 😆 Or maybe volunteering at a charity to help with food/housing (but I can probably only think about doing this after securing my own retirement).

Onward tagging (I can't count so don't expect this to be 15): @7nessasaryevils, @crzshaly437, @faillen, @dimplesandfierceeyes, @neuroticbookworm, @greenreflections, @recentadultburnout, @thecleopatrawannabe, @nihilisticcondensedmilk, @allthegoodusernamesaretakenhuh, @lamonnaie, @non-binarypal7, @twig-tea, @williamrikers, @gillianthecat, @hughungrybear, @solitaryandwandering, @starryalpacasstuff, @rane-ab, @serafyne, @silvercrystal1, @tsukitsuki077, @5raccoonsinatrenchcoat, @vegasandhishedgehog, @reformedcharacter, @writerwithoutsound, @bengiyo, @gelofhellyeah, @shortpplfedup, @dc-alves, @zhaagdewin, @chickenstrangers, @ranchthoughts and anybody else who wants to play! As always no pressure if you don't wish to play either.

If you've already played do tag me with a link so I can read your 15 answers too! 🥰 (And I left out some mutuals because I see you've already been tagged; let me know too if you've already played so I can head on out to read your post as well! 😍)

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