#to be more precise... I hate being imprecise

[variousqueerthings]

Coming back to this laaaate, but @brilliantfantasticgeronimo hope it's okay I pull this onto a post, because it's easier for me to focus on than in replies!

this idea that the Doctor lands someplace and ruins everyone's day by being so Badass and Awestriking isn't really a Thing in Nu!Who "is also contrasted with the theme of the doctor inspiring *others* to do things (v Explicit theme in s1 but it's present in all those other CoDs you mention)... re:2, i think the one exception would be 7 but i think with 7 the chess-god-manipulator thing works bc we see the consequences of it thru ace. we also see it w/ amy and river but (cont) but i feel we never quite grapple w/ it emotionally (they adore the doctor anyway in the end) (except for a handful legit, hard-hitting eps like the girl who waited or town called mercy). .. and altho in both classic who and rtd who the companions function as a very important role *in the text*, u can still find fandom completely ignoring that and treating doc's 1-10 as power fantasies as well. so it's smth always there but that moffat rlly made literal also i've really liked your posts on asexuality on dw and idk if you've written this but just in case, i think it's also relevant to the very specific way some het guys are so protective of the doc's asexuality/aromancy(+the show's): "asexuality" as it functions in dw is celebrated by those guys ( i suspect) bc it gives the fantasy power over the "womanly wiles" - it's a proof of how the doc is so "enlightened" and "above" the temptress or seduction trope. (cont) (csdkjf sorry for going ott on replies rip) and it's also why i think in moffat's who the doc's sexuality is kind of tied to the idea of it like... """humbling"" or ""humanizing"" the character (as problematic as those ideas are,,, i think there's a basis to deduct that they come from before in canon)

OKAY SOOOO HI!

I just watched The God Complex right after The Girl Woman Who Waited so I'm riding that high of Consequences! Emotional Follow-through! Mmmm good plots!

I have not actually seen 7 yet outside of cute clips with Ace and ofc when he died due to the American healthcare system + gang warfare if I'm remembering correctly? and became our beautiful bouncing boy Eight, so iiiinteresting that this is a Thing, I didn't know that 👀👀👀👀👀

again, God Complex + Girl Who Waited feel like the most this era has explored Eleven's kinda... vibes around in terms of being some big Machinator who ruins peoples lives by dragging them into his shit, because he cannot Not: "I stole your childhood and now I’ve led you by your hand to your death. But the worst thing is I knew. I knew this would happen, this is what always happens. Forget your faith in me. I took you with me because I was vain. Because I wanted to be adored. Look at you. You’re glorious, Pond, the girl who waited for me. I’m not a hero. I really am just a mad man in a box. And it’s time we saw each other as we really are." Mmmm good stuff

we'll see how the next episodes do/season 7, but I've heard good things about Town Called Mercy which is an episode that I was not taking in at allll last time, because I was kind of... annoyed... by then.... and not really taking in good stuff (unlike this time)

ASEXUALITY ON DW IS LIKE! LOOK I'M WRITING OUT A SCRIPT FOR A YOUTUBE VIDEO BECAUSE IT'S SO FASCINATING RIGHT??? BOTH IN TERMS OF HOW THE CHARACTER EMBODIES AN AROACE IDENTITY AS ALIEN AND AS OTHERED WITHIN THEIR OWN SOCIETY AND AS A PERSON WHO JUST HAPPENS TO BE THESE THINGS --- AND IN HOW FANDOM THINKS ABOUT THE WORD "ASEXUALITY"

(will I ever actually put together a youtube video, who knows, but I could, I edit professionally for parts of my job, and I have the Receipts!) (but the energy of it all youknow)

I am so pleased you spelled out the "womanly wiles" trope, because yes, I hadn't quite seen that, but had been circling around like... the Enlightened Asexual (or the Celibate Monk as I believe M*ffat once called it with reference to Sherlock) (and then someone like Irene Adler is the epitome of that Temptress in his version of the story...)

and what you're saying about "humbling" and "humanising" is so fascinating, because ofc to a bunch of us aces and aros and aroaces the part where the Doctor struggles to form normative relationships is one of the the most humanising factors, and ofc M*ffat especially likes the "Godlike" Doctor quite a bit but it comes back to these ideas of allosexuality and alloromanticism

but then also rejects a lot of those ideas, from memory, for being too simplistic after all, because people struggle to write the Doctor as simply alloromantic and allosexual (I've heard because the Doctor is alien, because the Doctor is more compelling when lonely, because the narrative couldn't sustain it, etcetcetc, but in the end it all comes back to "the Doctor as Character cannot get into these relationships for... reasons...." and that becomes compelling character)

(also Gomez!Master is like "we're so beyond this, we're the best thing ever, we're nemeses, we're besties, my homeboy, my rotten soldier, my silly rabbit," etcetcetc... paraphrased. but that's in M*ffat era)

(the more the show flirts with allosexuality and alloromanticism the more nuanced the Doctor becomes to me as an aroace character! because no longer is it an Enlightened Mightier Than Thou Cannot Be Touched Celibacy type Concept, it's someone who's being affected by deep relationships and very often unable to equate them using simple terms!!!! arghhh it's sooooo!!!! SOOOOOO!!!!!!!)

[luckyladylily]

So like, transandrophobia.

To start this out, I am a trans woman, been around in the queer community for a while. I'm also bisexuality, polyamorous, disabled, and aromantic, and I think these other parts of my identity and the crap I've caught over the years for them heavily informs how I analyze something like transandrophobia. My wife is also asexual, so that plays a part in it too.

So every group of marginalized people has their own unique experiences and problems. It's more of a rule than something we've mathematically demonstrated, but as far as these things go it's ridiculously well established, and personally every time I've done even a basic dive into the issues faced by a marginalized group it's been self evident. I could easily list a dozen groups ranging from racial minorities to different kinds of disabled people to different queer identities and analyze their social issues but let's be real, this is pretty well established theory, anyone who needs me to do that is not really interacting with good faith. This is one of the big reasons we talk to people about their own experiences and groups, we cannot reasonably extrapolate the experiences of others from our own.

So like trans men and trans mascs and anyone else that falls under that umbrella has their unique experiences. The idea that we would even question this is weird to me? Like I can't even imagine the kind of evidence someone would need to present to me to change my mind, and given the pattern of the queer community to be shitty in exactly this way to people in our community, yeah that is not happening.

Therefore, we are taking it for granted that the trans men/masc/related umbrella has their own things going on like everyone else ever, and I don't understand how someone acting in good faith can try to claim otherwise unless they are young or otherwise very inexperienced with such things.

The next point of contention seems to be the name, and I gotta be real I don't care and I don't understand why other people do. I've read all sorts of arguments against the word transandrophobia and the majority of them seem to be rooted in a misunderstanding of intersectionality, and even then it's like there is such a thing where people get so mired in theory that they miss the forest for the trees.

Perhaps more important to me, getting overly worked up about something as unimportant as the precise term is... weird. Like exclusionists hating on bi and ace people weird. I remember what it was like a decade ago when exclusionists were trying to police the words of bi women, and five years ago when ace and aro people were under constant attack under the pretense that our language was harmful for some reason or other. You are going to have to work very, very, very hard to convince me that any bickering over language as it relates to transandrophobia is not just more of the same.

Next, "transandrobros hate trans femmes" and similar stuff. I've seen the callout posts and found them completely unconvincing. Again, they read a lot like the old "ace people hate lesbians!" posts I used to see. I'm not convinced that the individuals involved were a problem, I am certainly not able to extrapolate a problem to the rest of the group.

Finally, there is this idea that "maleness is not a vector for oppression" and this invalidates something about the whole transandrophobia thing, ranging from the entire concept of trans men experiencing prejudice to something about language being imprecise all the way to "This is fascist shit, omg these people are basically nazis" depending on who says it. I'm not going to touch any of that and just look at the underlying logic.

This is based off a misunderstanding of intersectionality theory. Many people think of intersectionality as defining intersecting prejudice, like a ven diagram, such that transmisogyny is the intersection of transphobia and misogyny. This is incorrect. Intersectionality defines unique prejudice experienced by people with intersecting identities. Instead of a transmisogyny as the overlap of transphobia and misogyny, imagine adding a third circle that overlaps both but also has its own areas covered by neither.

Applied to transandrophobia, even if we assume maleness is not a vector for oppression, there is no reason to assume that the intersection of maleness with a marginalized identity doesn't result in new issues. Imagine that 3 circle venn diagram that represents misogyny, transphobia, and transmisogyny. Even if you remove the misogyny circle there is still plenty of ground covered by the transmisogyny circle.

This just isn't a valid criticism. It is a pure theory approach based on a flawed reading of theory.

So in summary:

Everyone has their unique shit going on and I've seen no convincing evidence that trans men, mascs, etc. Are the exception.

I not seen any convincing argument that the word itself is bad.

I've not seen any convincing evidence that there is some epidemic of transandrophobia truthers hating and harassing trans femmes on scales higher than normal background queer infighting.

The most coherent objection to transandrophobia I've seen is categorically incorrect and based on a fundamental misunderstanding of intersectionality theory.

I would like to remind everyone at this point I am a trans woman, part of the group that is supposedly a problem for and I've just not see it at all, to the point where it is kind of weird how intensely some people are pushing this.

I'm not trying to be mean or whatever, I'm sure the distress on display here comes from a real place and real trauma, but I've yet to see anything that makes me think there is substance to the objections to transandrophobia as a concept. It feels and reads like the latest round of queer intracommunity exclusionism, and the fact that this time around I'm not one of the target identities doesn't change that for me.

[ballet-symphonie]

Strength vs. Elegance vs. Tempo vs. Technique vs. Precision

These seem to be elements that can’t always go together in ballet. I’ve noticed this recently because of a hateful comment under my favorite variation, which I watch over and over again. The comment said that the orchestra was playing way too slowly, and that if one wanted to enjoy the “original�� variation, they had to set the speed to 1.25x. To indulge this person, I tried it, and oh my! Beautiful. The hater, while rude, was somewhat right. With the faster speed, the dancer also seemed much better (they were already good at the normal tempo, of course).

This got me thinking about Tsiskaridze’s exam. It was so unbelievably fast—the girls had no time to raise their legs, close their fifths, and be elegant.

But this also got me thinking about old ballet videos, like the black-and-white films we have. Of course, we are only watching the best performances, so we should be careful about this selective retrospection, but the dancers do seem exuberant, even though their technique is less than perfect compared to today's standards. But there's artistry, passion, and joy in their dancing. Today, I watched an old Kitri video, and oh my, was it fast! The comments were saying things like, “Oh, back when it wasn’t all about technique, blah, blah, blah...” So why do we criticize Tsiskaridze’s class? That too was exuberant and fast—the girls looked happy and healthy, though, of course, really tired, because it’s insane to maintain that level of speed and absurd choreography for an hour under pressure--but that's Russia for you.

But, are we being hypocrites by criticizing his class? Is Tsiskaridze trying to bridge the gap between modern, flat, technique dancing and the old, imprecise, exuberant dancing?

I really hope so. It could mean a new generation of artists, different from the past, different from the current ones. I think it could also mean lower standards which would lead to less injuries and healthier dancers, both in body and mind.

It's hard because the dance industry and the demands on dancers are totally different in the modern area. While the videos of dancers like Plitsetskaya are so enthusiastic and captivating, many of those dancers would struggle to find jobs today. It's just a whole different ball game in terms of physical demands, higher technical standards, shorter rehearsal periods, wider variety of repertoire etc. The skills needed to be a solid professional dancer have changed too much to go back in my opinion.

I also disagree that to be exuberant or moving artistically, one has to sacrifice technical quality. Marianela Nunez is the perfect example of this, with the joy and the suspension and perfect moments of tension yet carefree expression. Or look at Osipova or Krysanova, two dancers who in some ways, have quite a bit in common with dancers of old. Neither of them are considered especially polished dancers, but they have strong technique, powerful in all forms of expression and the guts to dance on the edge on stage. To have that level of freedom, individuality and abandon, your technique has to be rock solid.

I'm not against dancing at great speed, in fact, I think that tends to be much more exciting for the audience. But it's much easier to dance slowly than quickly, and in my opinion, the clarity, precision, and overall correctness of movement often suffer at quick tempos. If you can't do something well at a slow tempo, trying to speed up the movement and your coordination usually makes it worse, not better.

I don't think the girls look joyful or exuberant in the exam video, I think they're trying to manage the speed and technical content as best they can- they're trying to make it through. I don't see a good technique or much sense of individuality. I don't think this is 'vintage' ballet because I don't see good foundations, correct lines or placement. In my opinion, this is more likely to lead to injury and does not develop their skills to give them the freedom to blossom artistically.

I'm inclined to say that dancers of the past were less healthy, given the number of dancers that we know were heavy smokers or addicts. While health in ballet is very much a work in progress, there is more emphasis than ever on healthy eating habits, drug education, cross training and preventative medical care.

None of this is meant as a criticism of the VBA students who are simply trying to do their best every day. I simply feel that Tsiskaridze is not doing a good job in structuring their dance education to allow them to be their best.

[youcouldmakealife]

wait, sorry, more questions! thinking about jared "my perspective is soooo objective and not at all biased or limited ever why are you guys laughing?" matheson has me wondering about unreliable narrators in the ycmal-verse in general (mostly because it's a particular favourite literary device of mine and i think you use it so well in basically all of your writing)

i'm curious how you would rank your protags in terms of like, least to most unreliable in their own narration; are there sub-categories of 'unreliable' you would apply to different characters? also wondering who you would say is the most subtle in their unreliability/if you've noticed readers accepting certain perspectives more readily or without question?

They're all fucking liars. Every last one of 'em. Even if they're only lying to themselves.

Except Gabe. Gabe has blind spots, but he continues to be my most reliable son. (Dan also tries to be honest, but he misses more than Gabe does, and knows himself less.)

I don't have a scale, per se, but there's definitely an interesting thing where some characters are believed more than others when they're all blinkered narratives in their way. Everyone knows say, Mike and David are not being honest -- they'll both straight up lie in their narratives -- but others get taken at face value more, even though they're no more reliable.

Jared gets believed a lot, actually, far more than someone who basically goes 'unless this matters to me personally I'm throwing it right out of my narrative'. What are your teammates' names, Jared Matheson. Would you even remember the name of your sister's boyfriend if he wasn't one of your best friends.

Roman got believed more than Harry but I think people trusted Harry more, oddly. (Maybe not oddly: Harry acknowledges his own faults up front so you don't have to! But this is a dude who not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES got smacked in the face with 'I find this person really annoying I guess I hate them? ...aw fuck wait I wanna kiss them'). Joey straight up doesn't use quotation marks at points because he hasn't acknowledged that his internal monologue's left his head. He's so untrustworthy even the punctuation is a lie. Georgie, like Jared, is very precise in what he includes, but unlike Jared, that's less 'I noticed nothing else' and more 'I am omitting this'. It's not any more or less reliable, really -- the difference is that with Georgie, there's a narrative being crafted in his own head. (Robbie does the same thing, though I'd say he's a less reliable narrator than Georgie is, particularly pre-Saul, due to him shoving everything into a drawer to compartmentalize and then slamming it shut.)

And it's fun writing James and Holden because every time Holden talks people waver, and then every time James talks they waver right back. Both of them are honest in their way! Neither of them would give you a proper narrative on their own, though -- cards on the table is intimately tied up in how imprecise and flawed communication can be, and the way their perspectives bounce off one another as much as they connect is a big part of that.

[mormorproposal]

I probably won't ever finish the shards of my aphasia au mormor fic, HOWEVER I still feel like posting it, soooo have at it under the cut, if you wanna read it :)

apha·​sia

(n.) loss or impairment of the power to use or comprehend words usually resulting from brain damage

Your teeth tear up my skin without a single hint of remorse. You simply latch onto me as is your given right. Hands dig into my hips, I relax against the fridge. It isn’t ideal but who am I to negate anything from you ever?

It’s going to bruise. Your palms etched onto my skin like ghosts. We’ve done worse to each other, I know – still, it’s the imprecision behind it all that keeps me up at night.

You used to map my body with delicate rivers plastered on me. Precise. Fine lines, sharp edges, the most complicated brush strokes. I was there to ride out your artistic urges. The new art style needs adjustment to. I’m not used to you being out of control, it sets me on edge slightly.

But it is still you after all, even after everything, so I relax and let you do your personal kind of therapy. Pain and blood is what we always communicated best in, anyways.

You set upon sucking my skin in between your teeth, keeping a rhythm of releasing my flesh and trapping it again. My eyes flutter shut, the hand that is on your back pressing you more tightly against me. Responsively, your nails are scratching at my skin through my shirt. It doesn’t hurt as much as it used to and something in me feels like breaking.

“Jim,” I croak. Your eyes wander upwards, meet my gaze, hold it. I want to pick you up, cradle you, keep you safe from harm, bash anyone’s head in who makes you feel small. There’s a quick jab in my upper torso. What?

I exhale a ragged breath I was unaware of ever holding and shake my head slightly. Your teeth sink deeper, drawing blood. I groan. Boss didn’t like that.

Still, you resume your work, searching for another place to bear pain. I do not think about the implications. Do not think about what it means. I certainly don’t think about your eyes. Haunting me, pleading me to take it all away. I stiffen; your left hand clumsily pushing against my side in discontent. I wince. Look up to the ceiling and blink. Do not cry, Moran!

***

The doctor eventually leaves us to it. One last look of sympathy and she’s out of the door. I hate her already.

“You look awful, sir” I say for lack of better words. It feels hollow. You hate small talk and here I am talking away. You simply grunt, disapproval encapsulated in it. I don’t blame you. It’s not every day that you wake up in a hospital room after blowing your brains out. I hate you for that, you know? The thought of what could’ve been if I hadn’t been quick enough gnaws at my insides; I have to watch your chest raising and lowering to keep my own breathing in check.

You could’ve died and that just wouldn’t do. Holmes is dead, after all – I saw him jump myself. I had orders to watch Watson, I know, I know, I know but then there was the gunshot ringing and how could I not look. Surely you know me better than that. You are always my first priority. Always have been, always will be.

“You won, in case no one told you yet.” How could they possibly have? Last time they saw you, you were still unconscious, staining the concrete. I swallow and you watch my Adam's apple bob, something like triumph glinting in your eyes. You open your mouth at that, exhale shakily, and knit your eyebrows together in confusion. Maybe the glint was just a trick of the light. Your mouth closes and opens again; fish on dry land.

I have crossed the room in an instance, press down on your shoulder lightly. “What’s wrong?” The metal of the hospital bed is cool against my triceps and I can’t shake the thought of Everything. “Great” You mutter eventually, nodding to yourself, before shaking your head a small fraction. “Great” You repeat again, facing me this time and smiling. It doesn’t reach your eyes and something in my heart goes terribly cold. Sure, you aren’t in the bestest of conditions but your looming win shouldn’t feel this gloomy. You should be ecstatic, if anything. Bordering on manic. I’ve planned it all out for us, honestly. The restaurant we’d celebrate at. The camera in our room, only waiting for us to shag, a sympathy card for the upcoming funeral.

This doesn’t feel like anything celebratory at all. Hasn’t felt that way when all the doctor had for me was a sympathetic look and a referral to another doc, and certainly doesn’t feel that way now with you actually staying in bed instead of yanking me to you, insisting you shall be out here at once!

“Phon” You manage to mumble near the direction of my hand on your shoulder, then again. “Phon, phon, phon!” It grows more frantic each time, stumbles out of your mouth, tickles the skin on my hand. You laugh. Bubbles out of you, bounces off the walls, rings in my ears. You choke on it, possibly as surprised by the sound as I am. My brows knit together in confusion. The next giggle has panic vibrating through it. “Ligert” You sigh when the shaking of your shoulders subsides.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Phon, in this context, is supposed to be the word "won" & Ligert is supposed to be the word "Tiger" - both of which faced a common symptom of fluent aphasia (namely: phonemic paraphasia during which incorrect phonemes are substituted or, as for the t in ligert, added)

[controlledchaosetc]

I work in IT part-time and am a CS major going into software engineering. I consider myself an incredibly patient person that's pretty slow to anger, and am down to sit down and figure out a problem for hours.

Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, makes me angrier than tech issues.

If you don't have a love-hate relationship with computers in that position, idk how you cope. There's something about literally banging your head again your keyboard trying to figure out what the fuck is going wrong that humbles a woman, and nothing as utterly infuriating as this box of wires and binary sits unmoving, uncaring in front of you, but yet still taunting you.

The worst is when it was your fault. You installed something wrong, the logic of your code was off, or maybe you simply mistyped. No matter. It laughs at you all the same. Laughing at you from the intangible network of code and microprocessors that comprises its being. Even though its body and brain have been charted out, true understanding takes decades, almost as a doctor to the human form. Even then, the human body stays relatively the same. Diagnosis is difficult for both, yes, and gaps of knowledge remaining for each, but the being of a computer will remain alien. Compact forms that are neat and tidy. Boxes the size of dogs and heavy as one too. Server farms with sprawling tentacles. I work with the wifi and ethernet for my job, and the data closets that hold the switches look less like machines, and more like a plant that has rooted and infested the entire building with its vines.

Each machine is different, and they don't stop multiplying and evolving, forever changing, faster than we are able to comprehend. The body and brain evolve at speeds unheard of, blueprints and documentation unable to keep up. Linguistics shift, forms morph, it ingrains itself so deeply into our lives and yet we still struggle to understand it and the problems they bring us.

I'm working on a project now. Refurbishing an old Android app so that it can be used once more. The old developer isn't with the company anymore, and he neglected to write any documentation. It seemed simple enough: just fix it up. It just took in forms, and allowed the user to fill out the info. Simple enough. The thing to remember is complexity to you and to a machine are two different things. Your interaction may be simple, but that's because the support structure you have is already there, your brain hardwired to learn. The computer requires more, something more akin to neurosurgery, if you will, to add the necessary abilities to its routine. And so much must be added.

Folders in folders. Files thousands of lines long. Errors and warnings popping up in the interpreter. Depreciated. Unsupported. Code hopeless out of date yet ingratiated so deeply as if a tumor. This was all written less than a decade ago. Evolution, as I said. Routines pointing to methods pointing to classes as the logic wove and intertwined, and I remain helpless to untangle it. I spend hours reading through, trying to understand, and researching how to bring this back to life, and for every file I open, the deeper the program runs and deeper the pit in my stomach drops.

The one problem with the neurosurgery comparison is there is an implication of precision. Measured, delicate cuts with the steadiest of hands. That's not what coding is. No, coding is more like a lobotomy. An unethical experiment. You can plan. You can try to plan meticulously, but breaking shit and flinging mud at the wall to see what sticks is and will remain a fundamental part of the process. You will poke and prod, delete and add, test and retest as the program screams exceptions and crashes, and you will do it all over again until it obeys. Trial and error.

So yes, I relate to Colin. Pulling wires out, cursing at the errors, and wishing that the system had better documentation comes with the territory. But for all your tinkering, your insults, your intrusions, your imprecise cuts that are more like stabs leaving large gaping wounds, what happens when a computer, with wires more akin to nerves, that can truly feel your experimentation suffers through that indignity? All I can say is you should be very, very afraid.

I'm fine, btw.

I'm loving all the IT people going "No, no, Colin's behavior is perfectly normal."

It's like the opposite of all the archivists yelling at Jon

[hospitalterrorizer]

diary517

2/27-28/25

thursday - friday

friend read the story i sent him recently...

he says he liked it quite a bit, good feeling!! he also said some things about wanting to do a small press at some point. i wonder if that will occur. it'd be a lot of stuff to get that going i think. but him saying he likes the story makes me think it's a go on compiling all these little stories i've got, see what it shakes out to. i should go back to some stuff i wrote in college. i think the first thing i ever wrote for workshop... that story is about weird things, it would be interesting to gut it and rework it, now that i'm here, rather than there. it was inspired by seeing an ex on campus, us both quietly passing, making eye contact, mutual fear and awkwardness over some mess of feelings or whatever. that might be worth exploring more.

the 2nd day of being headphoneless is okay. sort of annoying still, i don't like how short this cord is... minor complaint, but whatever.

i just saw this, it made me think of heidegger, the way he talks about 'being;'

today i was talking to a friend about parenthetical girls, i decided to send her a thing that sounded kind of like them that i made, she liked it but she said something funny, when i told her i used a vst that was samples of a stylophone, each note sampled separately, probably a couple times for variance on each note, she said 'aw! you could probably do that with fm' or something to that effect, i recall the 'aw!' rather precisely. which felt strange but i decided i would try to synthesize the thing, i suppose to see if it'd really be that easy. it is not so easy i think. for one, a stylophone is a pretty particular thing, it's a kind of shitty oscillator, run through a shitty speaker, in a cheaply made bit of plastic and metal, all rattling and resonating with the frequencies produced by the thing, there's probably saturation in the speakers, it's a nasty imprecise thing, the speaker stuff especially is why it's a sound anyone would either love or hate (i love it deeply), but this shitty oscillator isn't a simple saw wave or anything, if i were going by easiest oscillator to pull up in any synth, i always felt like it sounded like a pwm oscillator. though, in trying to do it today, that didn't work out so well. it worked okay, but not perfectly. the speaker puts a weird eq curve on the whole thing, and there's some stuff it seems to do that's very natural sounding through the speaker but with eq adjustments (in general i don't ever want to be making something sound like something else with the eq curves), it sounds kind of weird. so there's particulars to the sound already, and i don't think fm would be the way because... idk, fm never feels like the way, to me. it does useful things at times certainly but i just am never so compelled by it and frequently there is a quality of limpness to it. the stylophone is hardly anything more than an oscillator run without any subtractive stuff done on it, besides the eq curve of the speakers which peaks at 3k in a weird way, almost like a guitar amp, but also lets every other high frequency through too. there is like no low end. so all of this, i gave it a couple shots, to create a synthesized stylophone, on one, the process was that i was trying to match the eq curve of the sound precisely, which included some stuff i've noticed digital synths seem to really fumble with, which are 2nd harmonics... certain harmonics are strangely emphasized in the sound of the stylophone that something like a saw wave won't do...

this is someone's oscilloscope read of the relaxation oscillator in the stylophone, this is a strange shape:

also i love how it looks, it's a sick looking oscilloscope... reminds me of the ds.

here is the eq of the stylophone as sampled, you can see its weird dropoff after 3k but that it keeps all that information, which is something that is hard to come across in most impulse responses! it's probably from a lot of the resonances in the plastic creating weird sympathetic buzzing bits:

here is what the closest i can do ends up looking like:

a lot of that sort of smeariness between peaks isn't doing too much to the sound, i think. but you can see a weird and uneven climb up to 3k. but it doesn't sound so bad, it's honestly a good sound here and i feel like this is usable on certain things (i'm not sure where exactly i'd need it though, but maybe as something like a second stylophone in call and response to the other one, two weirdly different tones on a similar thing, maybe panning them, too). here is this sound in comparison to the stylophone, the first sound here is the fake synth:

and here is the first try at this, just like before the first here is the synthesized version:

i think the thing that frustrates me with either of these, that makes me think there's something not fully accurate about them, is there's a bit more of a roundness to the sound, the cutoff on the high end is super flat, it doesn't get rolled off at all really, it shelves down but it's not really disappearing, however on the ones i made, there's a rolloff moreso, and that's where the feeling of like, smoothness and some distance comes from. but there's some stuff i like about the first here, the 2nd (file not attempt, 2nd attempt is the one i am currently preferring) sounds maybe a touch closer, that's where i tried to just match the eq curve roughly and it gives it this sort of limp feeling, to me? idk, i think the first has some really weird movement in the high end, like some scattering distortion, it feels live in that way. but there's idk, something a little frustrating about it too, maybe something to do with the saturation or the amp simulator on it? that's the way that made sense to me to try this, though the amp sim will frequently add characteristics of 'space' to the sound that make it feel a tad... idk, in this, i like how closely mic'd the stylophone has been for the sample. maybe just cut more mids? that's probably the thing to do. this is sort of like when i am trying to make synth sounds that work like guitars except i am generally less precise and not looking at reference oscilloscopes from people reverse engineering the thing... although i actually used to do that, for the last album i was trying to get into more precise stuff. ultimately i think my point is proven though, at least a bit, i can make buzzy synth sounds i like, i always like more buzzy synth sounds, and i can elect to modulate these a bit more. i can play in higher ranges too. but i already had things that do that. now i suppose i have more. i guess maybe i'll try to mess with them, in songs. i guess i just wanted to prove to myself i can basically get close, there's no getting it perfect though i think. maybe my friend is some kind of genius, and she could figure it out. i guess i could try referencing that oscilloscope and try to get precisely close to the by drawing in the waveform in fm. i guess i'll give that a go. i wonder how it will turn out.

spoiler, it turned out also usable:

this one's got no cab sim on it, it does have some extra heft in the lower frequencies which is okay but still not ideal so i think it could still be cut out, ultimately. it's nice to have 3 synths now that i can use to make ugly buzzing sounds. drawing the oscillators was fun, also. i think any of these i can stick an lfo onto and modulate the pitch a touch and also have something nice there, like the vibrato on the original. this is basically fun to do, rather than working on more important stuff i can make some little weird sounds. maybe i should make some presets to occupy myself, musically, with some synths. just ugly weird things. and actually save them as presets so i can get them whenever i like. then if i need synths for songs i can just put something in, but i also like improvising sounds while listening to the song. who knows. i might just aimlessly create stupid presets, that never get used. the horror...

i just read these two one shot manga up on this old blog about ''''weird'''' stuff from japan (in general it seems more respectful than that but you know... it's kind of from that whole bit in the 2010s, and a touch prior, like late 00s to early 10s, where everyone would talk about how strange and wacky japan was):

they're untranslated but easy enough to get through and the japanese that is there is pretty simple, you can get the gist of some things, especially the second here, there's very little spoken, desert eyeball feels like it has a bit more. here are some of the pages:

desert eyeball:

a dream to have in heaven:

both feel pretty focused on similar things, it seems like meditations of failure of counterculture, the nightmare of culture at that time, desert eyeball feels especially focused on fascism in the west and the particulars of japanese fascism as fed by western fascism/capitalism. a dream to have in heaven feels like it's pointed at flower power type stuff, not in hate but in this sorrow over it likely not accomplishing much, it's also very pointedly about american racism i think, the prison system and incarceration, both tend towards a despair that i think people pick at in art like this as an expression of why these people failed, but i don't think so. both are extremely playful and empathetic, they have a lot of energy and care deeply about their surroundings, it's not quite at the point of feeling like the world is full of useless idiots, some fantasy of individual excellence and rightness destroyed by a world that's super stupid, instead it's pointing at ongoing horror, or things in the immediate past, that things feel like they're in a rut because of things far more powerful than you, there's all these scattered people doing little things (in a dream to have in heaven, a little girl seems to free an alligator, keep it as a pet, and then mourn it after it is killed), to improve the world or making some kind of effort, but they're all met with some sort of tragedy. the protagonist seems aimless and crushed, thinking about songs, wandering through the whole ordeal. also they're rather satirical but idk, it feels more venomous than funny, it reminds me suehiro maruo in that particular way, and maybe the fascist japanese boy, too. that's a clear image that connects the two. i also really like in a dream to have in heaven, the particular use of the text bubbles that have images in them, i think that's really clever and special. the one, especially, where the protagonist appears to be speaking himself, or the empty egg speaking the nationalist crest.

listening to orchid and reading that paired rather well.

someone just said something about not liking coil, in a server i'm in, which made me want to revisit coil, briefly. this record's such a classic... i don't get hating it really, it's like so in its own lane, and is enjoyed by such a particular range of people, maybe it's just cuz i like it, i guess there's a way to see them as annoying, if you're bothered by people trying to say they're trying to get at something abnormal or different in art, but idk, stuff like this was always rather nourishing for me, i found them in highschool, and it was like, a wow moment, to me.

though i suppose it was stuff like this off horse rotorvator that really excited me then:

it took a little more time for me to get the prettier stuff, though i was enchanted at the time a bit, but back then it was stuff that was like this in / around industrial music that would get me interested.

here's another strange one:

this one's just awesome, love that weird little synth, sounds like malaria. the bass synth is so nauseating too, it's just that warbling drone, crazy how dizzy it can make you feel, probably cuz it's in stereo and generally that's not considered ideal, especially if you were to play this in a club, but you could mono the bass frequencies in a pinch for that purpose, but because of that you generally don't get a lot of stuff where you get music messing with what low frequencies can do to you in stereo. also something i don't really ever do, but it might be worth fooling around with.

it's too late/early now... whoops... time flies when you're spacing out on the internet...

here's something strange, i am watching someone play this game, and heard this song in it:

sounds very angelo badalamenti to me. it's strange how one of the few things that can capture anything like what the first seasons of twin peaks caught were weird 3d adventure games like this, i think in the visuals too, a lot of the warm tones they end up using, emphasis on weird characters. at least the ones from japan.

i should go now,

so,

byebye!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[zachsgamejournal]

PLAYING: Oddworld: Soulstorm

Why does this game make it so hard to love it? While I might be frustrated with dated mechanics, poor level design and imprecise gameplay, I think what really bugs me most is the disappointing story.

Firstly to cover a topic I missed out my last post: I hate crafting. I understand that crafting is a beloved genre of video games, but anytime I see crafting advertised on a game, I am immediately annoyed. I don't want to figure out a billion different recipes. I don't want to go hunting for different materials. I don't want to get frustrated when I get to a place and I can't progress because I'm missing that one stupid item that's hidden under a rock or some bull crap.

So yeah when I found out that Soulstorm had crafting I was pretty pissed off. It's not even really meaningful crafting because they mostly give you all the supplies you need to achieve your crafting goals for the level. Instead of giving me different materials to put together, why not just give me the items themselves and so that if I go around searching all the trash bins and lockers I will find all the necessary grenades and what not in order to find all the secrets. To me it just adds nothing to this game and instead makes it overly complicated and less fun.

Moving on for a brief moment. I thought I loved this game. I was playing the level where you try to steal the train. I was about 80% done and I was facing a really hard challenge that was pissing me off and killing lots of my friends. But at some point I figured out the trick to doing it very easily and I saw that I was very close to collecting every mudokon on the level which inspired me. So I restarted the level from scratch and I found that playing through it a second time I felt much more comfortable with the mechanics and I was actually enjoying myself. I figured out a few ways to play the game more correctly and have a good time with it. Then after about 45 minutes, I'd finally reached the same place I'd reached before and I had my mudokons with me ready to beat the level.

But then when I was trying to get a few of my mudokon, I've been collecting to come to the top of a platform and I did everybody call. I accidentally attracted mudokon that I couldn't even see on screen and they ran right into a hazard and died just as I crossed into a checkpoint. So now whenever I loaded the checkpoint that mudokon died. I was so pissed. I wanted to give up the game right then and there. I didn't want to have to replay a 45-minute level to save one mudokon that shouldn't have died in the first place and it really just made me think this game lacked the precision to be great.

That experience really soured the mood for me. As I play through the next few levels, there were moments where I felt like the game was good and other times where I thought the game was poorly designed. I wouldn't say it was ever terrible. There was just a low threshold for failure and mistakes and sometimes the levels were designed in such a way that without the conditions being perfect success was impossible. That's just not how the original game worked. Each puzzle was very precise in particular and there was a way to play it so that you could perfectly accomplish your mission. Honestly, this is the problem with Munch's Odyssey as well. The game wants you to do much like the original, but it doesn't have the precision of the original. It's too organic. It's too chaotic which allows too many opportunities for errors. I think what would help is if the mudokons themselves were a little bit smarter and therefore you wouldn't have to babysit them so closely.

But honestly, sometimes as bland as the game can be the graphics aren't that bad. The design is interesting. The lighting works for a Unity game. It actually looks pretty good. The gameplay itself is pretty responsive and smooth for the most part, even if I'm not as happy about the precision. I do enjoy running around and playing as the different sligs and trying to solve puzzles.

But what really ruins the game for me is the levels are too long. The story's too scarce and the story itself sucks. The original game wasn't exactly Shakespeare but it was pretty good for what it was and I enjoyed the rhyming. And I think what worked best for it was the timing. It was very succinct and on point it gave you just as much information as you needed in the moment to entertain you and to communicate the plot and then move forward. It never overstayed. Its welcome and always kind of left. You wanting just a little bit more but never left you starved.

Soulstorm is starved for story. You go whole levels which can take 45 minutes to hour and a half with almost no story development whatsoever and then when you finally do get story, you get overly long cinematic videos that are very redundant and give almost no information. At one point about halfway through the game, Abe discovers that the Brew being made is to enslave the mudakans and if they don't drink it, they die almost immediately. After that, we get a similar scene from the bad guy's perspective that gives us almost the same information. If not a little bit less, there's no point to the scene. It just shows us that the bad guy is mad that he's not succeeding. Who cares? Now that I'm closing in on the end of the game, there are tons of really long cinematics by really long. I mean about 60 seconds. One about 10 seconds would have done it and they go on and on giving us no real plot. No real character development. Not only that, but there's tons of radio stations giving out propaganda that we all know is false. But why do we care that it's false? We know this is a corrupt world and we know that people listen to the radio station are evil. So why do we care what the radio station is saying it just doesn't make sense.

Each level is made up of about 5 to 10 subsections in my opinion and in truth, each one of these sections is almost about a good enough level in its own right. Also, given that there's a lot of failure in messing up and trying to save all the mudokins, you can get stuck in a single area for a long period of time, so adding more length to the level just adds more frustration that we're that much further away from victory. What could save this is filling it with good, meaningful story. Instead of having these really long dumbass cup scenes that aren't worth anything. Why not sprinkle details out as you play the game?. It would be wonderful if the mudokons you rescued gave you information gave you insights about the area. Or maybe as you wonder the levels you overhear the gluckons talking to sligs and gain more information and their plans to take out aid and their plans to make profit off the enslavement of the Dawkins. I don't know, just split it up.

This is something that naughty dog does a great job with and Uncharted and The Last of Us. There's a little bit of gameplay and then just a touch of story to inch you forward over the entirety of an hour or so. You've gotten about 10 minutes worth of story split up throughout the game. That way no gameplay moment takes too long without story and no story moment. Overstays us welcome. I mean their story development moments and then and The Last of Us s that probably could have been summed up in a 5 to 10 minute scene, but they're spread out over a 60-minute level. I think that's a good balance and that's something that soulstorm really could have used instead. It's just filled with long levels that are scarce for story and then when we get story it's not only over long. It just isn't very interesting. I hate to say it who wrote this shit?

Ultimately, I'm kind of torn. I enjoy this game. I enjoy the vibe. I enjoy the design but I just don't like the story and it doesn't make me love the game and that's always going to be a sore disappointment. So I'm glad that I finally got to play it after all these years. But I'll be forever disappointed and likely never touch it again.

[goingrampant]

Autistic and Jewish Intersection of Oppression

Autistic people and Jewish people often think in similar ways that are different from mainstream society as informed by neurotypical and gentile sensibilities. In pathologizing these traits as seen in autistic people, neurotypicals unwittingly perform antisemitism in dismissing the traits as valid modes of operation in human cultures besides their own. Likewise, when singling out Jewish people for these traits that appear at odds with mainstream society, gentiles perform ableism in dismissing autistic traits as valid. It represents an intersection where autistic and Jewish people are subject to the same oppression and are natural allies in opposition of such. These traits include referencing one's own experiences to show empathy with a friend's troubles, a strong value placed on exactness and precision of language, and appreciation for dialectical discussion (arguing) as the means by which the truth can be determined. Notably, the baseline established for pathologizing autistic people was established by Hans Asperger, a Lutheran physician who collaborated with the Nazi government in singling out autistic people to be killed. The intersecting oppressions are thereby established by a Christian medical establishment congruent with Nazi ideology.

A while back there was an aggressive meme form bit of pop psychology describing people who respond to their friends telling them about their troubles by relating them to their own bad experiences and telling similar stories as the absolute scum of the earth, horrible friends, zero empathy psychopaths, who see the whole world as about "Me, me, me!" and need to SHUT UP AND TREAT THEIR FRIENDS DECENTLY like NORMAL HUMAN BEINGS. This went viral, tons of people enthusiastically agreeing that the people who think like this are evil, that this was what's wrong with the world today, people having no empathy, etc. And then there was a small bit of dissent with people saying, "No, autistic people relate to their friends this way, and it's fine." There was a bit of a backlash on the order of "How dare you say autistic people are evil?!" Around this time, I brought up the corollary: "Jewish people relate to their friends this way. It's normal outside of Christian culture," and I was hit with a "You must be a fucking Nazi who hates Jews and wants to slander them as evil! Jews are not like that! I love my Jewish friends!" by some overly enthusiastic wannabe antifa member with an appreciation of the general idea of defending Jews from antisemitism but not the understanding that Jews have a different culture with different modes of operation. The truth is that it's normal for both autistic people and Jews to relate to their friends' stories of woe by sharing their own stories of woe, implicitly saying, "I'm like you. I understand you. We're in this together." It's a perfectly fine way to relate to your friends and is only characterized as evil through the intersecting oppressions of ableism and antisemitism, perceiving Christian neurotypical culture as a neutral baseline with any deviation from its standards and mores definitionally problematic if not full-blown evil.

Appreciation for the exactness and precision of language tends to be characterized as "taking everything literally" for autistic people (and pathologized as such) and as "being sneaky and duplicitous" for Jews, perceiving the use of language as quirky for the former and malicious for the latter. To clarify, "exactness" in this context refers to each word and phrase having a specific meaning and "precision" means that the usage of these terms remains the same over time, that they won't be misused to mean something similar but different. An analogy could be that shooting a target dead-center shows exactness of aim, while hitting it consistently shows precision. Neurotypicals and gentiles tend to operate more on "vibes" of words more than exact meaning and let the meanings drift to be imprecise. "Let's hang out sometime" when said by a neurotypical will likely not indicate a literal desire to hang out but a general appreciation for seeing their friend right then in the moment, while an autistic person will be thinking they need to free up their schedule to hang out with their friend at an unspecified time and might ask for a specific time to hang out, unwittingly causing the neurotypical friend to read them as obsessively clingy and far too literal.

Similarly, Jews place a high value on exactness and precision to aid in arguments and know that they're always talking about the same things, while vibes-based gentiles verbally gesture at the general ideas they're trying to convey. This leads to hurt feelings in high-tension arguments, such as over the Israel/Palestine conflict and if Israel's aggression constitutes "genocide" under the strictest international legal definition or if the food shortages Israel induced in Palestine constitute a "famine" as defined by international law, when Jews are trying to indicate Israel's exact responses as appropriate or inappropriate for Hamas' exact actions, and gentiles arguing for Palestine are trying to convey the general idea of "very bad actions" requiring "very strong actions" to stop "very bad conditions". The ignorance of each others' modes of thinking and speaking in a high-tension discussion leads to panicked characterization of the other as evil. Nazis and other antisemites then characterize Jewish focus on exactness and precision as indicative of Jewish duplicitous behavior, using wording to trick people instead of operating in vibes-based communication like everyone else is presumed to naturally do.

Dialectical discourse (what Jews call "arguing") is simultaneously pathologized and honored by mainstream culture. When children naturally argue instead of accepting didactic instruction, it is seen as bad manners and "talking back", so that kind of behavior is discouraged early on, only to be retaught back to them when they grow up and go to college. Dialectics is seen as a powerful adult skill that makes them very academic. When autistic children are told not to argue, they don't take that lying down and argue against that suggestion along with everything else that doesn't make sense to them, and this trait is pathologized as bad mannered overly analytical behavior resembling the behavior of college professors, as in Asperger's characterization of his patients as "young professors". It's also something that Jews value at every stage of life and teach children to do, raising them to argue very efficiently. The appreciation for linguistic exactness and precision plays into that, enabling effective arguments when definitions can be pinned down. It is a value so core to Jewish culture that the Hebrew word "Israel" ("wrestling with God", used figuratively to mean "arguing with the world") is used as the name of the Jewish people, land, and modern country.

The culturally Christian and neurotypical opposition to traits outside of that demographic represents an agreement of ableist and antisemitic aggression. An autistic child who naturally argues, cares about linguistic exactness and precision, and relates to their friends' troubles through their own experiences would be pathologized as displaying bizarre and antisocial behavior in mainstream society but would fit in perfectly in Jewish culture. Other traits would make them stand out as autistic, but the traits described above would be normal and thereby should not be seen as definitionally wrong, only more in common with traditional Jewish culture instead of Christian culture. Likewise, neurotypical Jews who display these traits are singled out by antisemites for displaying antisocial behavior based on the Christian baseline but should be understood as having a legitimate culture with different values that are not distinctly different from autistic people from Christian culture. Autistic and Jewish fights against oppression are in agreement, and autistic and Jewish people should consider each other potential allies.

[ayuranslounge]

hang, this is actually a good question. Not because how does it do this is a good question, but rather how does is collect the content to check.

Much like Reddit Twitter etc, Tumblr has their own API. A way to access the platform through simple requests. This allows you to search, like, post, do everything without needing to be 'on' Tumblr.com or load the content on a browser. You just get text and links to images.

But... How does it get the content?

Unlike Reddit this platform does not have topical forums in which you can access and find new posts or replies in. It's a bunch of random individual blogs.

Side note as I'm looking through the documentation. Shuffle is a thing?!

/posts/queue/shuffle

From what I can tell there are only a few methods to find new posts.

find individual blogs and look at their posts.

search for specific tags.

There doesn't seem to be a way to look at the trending section. Nor is there a way to look at the most recent posts on the platform.

So the only other way is if they're scraping the website pages for data, much like google and other companies.

Then come data parsing. Something I love to see the results of but hate figuring out. There can be the bruteforce method of looking up every word in a dictionary to figure out what the syllable count is, or it might check for common syllable structure. Essentially, do you want to spend time searching for values and being more precise, or can you be a bit imprecise and have a list of rules and exceptions to count syllables.

The whole project requires figuring out several very useful workflows, and was probably a fun project to work through and get setup. Coming out with more knowledge than at the start.

Where does the haiku bot find all the posts? I am SO fucking confused

[a-real-ghost]

nobody cares about your racism sob story tbh. just leave black people alone we dont want or need you. if its SOOO hard for you to stop being racist then just leave. like are you expecting us to feel sorry for you or something? what possibly could you offer us thats any of use, really. If you're struggling to do the bare minimum why do you expect black ppl to pat you on the back? cracker.

Okay so -

I didn't say that people made me "go back to being racist" - what was meant by my words was:

When I was starting to work towards becoming better and just beginning to realize that being a racist is a shitty thing, people being hyper-literal with what I said and assuming malice instantly made that process harder. You can't learn if you can't make mistakes.

I am not going to "become a racist again" no more than I am going to become a baby again. It was a part of my life, I outgrew it. I'm not going to start shitting my pants again just because somebody was unkind on the internet.

(The metaphor is obviously imperfect, because I am actively still unlearning harmful behaviors and patterns in my life - not going to try and pretend otherwise)

Now, I could have phrased that better initially. And given that my post was in response to a person acting in bad faith, I should have. I don't particularly care if people like me or find me agreeable but I won't have people misrepresenting me or my beliefs. If you're going to hate me, hate me for who I am - don't take the easy way out and make shit up.

I appreciate your comment, and will do my best to be more clear about my stances in the future.

That being said, to be as blunt as possible about things:

Racism is bad. Racists are bad.

Cops are bad.

Cops uphold the white supremacist standard in this country and serve at the whims of the wealthy and powerful to silence dissension.

Nazis are bad. Fascists are bad.

Racism is Violence.

Destruction of property during protests is not violence.

Assaulting protestors is violence.

Nazis, Facists, and white supremacists committ violence by existing - any violence against them is self defense and justified.

All humans are capable of change and growth if they choose to do so.

If someone chooses to harm others, they deserve to be harmed in return.

Encouraging suicide is bad and cowardly - if you want to send a death threat just send a death threat

Assuming people's intentions is bad.

Reading in between the lines to make yourself a victim is bad.

Intentionally misinterpreting someone is bad.

Ignorance is not inherently malicious.

Just because somebody is mean, rude, stupid, or impolite does not inherently mean they are being racist.

If people have to be perfect and address every aspect of a topic completely and without flaw in order to be an ally to whichever cause/group/creed - nobody is ever going to fit that definition.

If you criticize people who try to answer things with nuance and precision for writing too much, and at the same time you criticize them for being occasionally imprecise or not mentioning things - you are a hypocrite.

If you define anybody who is not a perfect ally as an enemy, you are wasting your energy that could be spent helping people or going after the folks actually responsible.

Not all of the things I have listed are bad to the same extent - the world is not as simple as "this is all good" and "that is all bad". Nothing exists on a binary, it's more complicated than that.

Not all of the things I have listed are a response to anything you have said.

Do not assume anything about me that I have not explictly stated.

If I make a mistake, I am happy to do the work to learn, grow, and do better in the future - but I cannot learn from a mistake I am not aware of.

If I ask a question about a mistake that I made, I am not attempting to justify what I did. I am trying to learn what I did wrong, how it was wrong, and how to do better.

Nobody is obligated to tell anyone that what they did wrong, how it was wrong, or how to do better.

People of all races, nationalities, sexualities, political orientations, etc, are capable of being wrong, making mistakes, and hurting people.

[itsclydebitches]

The Bad Batch: A Crosshair Analysis

Hello, Star Wars fandom! I have just completed watching—and loving—The Bad Batch, which you know means I now need to dump all my thoughts about the first season into the tumblr void. Specifically, thoughts on the complicated drama that is Crosshair. I have no doubt that the majority of what I’m about to say will be old news to anyone who watched the show when it came out (I’m slow...), but I’m writing it all out anyway. Largely for my own sanity enjoyment :D

I want to preface all of this by saying that the above is not an exaggeration. I love the show and I love the entire cast. My enjoyment in each of the characters is directly connected to my enjoyment of the season as a whole, which I say because I’m about to get pretty critical towards some of the characters’ choices and, to a lesser extent, the writing choices that surround those. Does this mean I secretly hate The Bad Batch? Quite the opposite. I’m invested, which is presumably just what Filoni wants. I’m just hoping that investment pays off. 

But enough of the disclaimers. Let’s start with the matter of the inhibitor chip. I’ve seen fans take some pretty hard stances on both sides: Crosshair is completely innocent because he’s definitely been under the chip’s control this whole time, no matter what he might say. Crosshair is completely guilty because he said the chip was removed a long time ago and he chose to do all this, no moral wiggle room allowed. However, the reality is that we don’t know enough to make a clear call either way. The audience, simply put, does not have all the necessary information. What we have instead is a couple of facts combined with claims that may or may not be reliable. Let’s lay them out:

Crosshair was definitely under the chip’s control at the start of the series.

He was able to resist it to a certain extent, resulting in a pressure to obey orders coupled with a primary loyalty to his squad. See: telling Hunter to follow the Empire’s commands—which includes killing kid Padawans—but not turning his team in as traitors when they did not. It’s an in-between space.

Crosshair’s chip was then amplified to an unknown extent. I’m never going to claim I’m a Star Wars aficionado—I’m a casual fan, friends. Please don’t yell at me over obscure lore lol—but within TBB’s canon, no one else is undergoing that experimentation. The effects of this are entirely unknown, which includes Crosshair’s free will, or lack thereof.

Crosshair then becomes a clear tool of the Empire, hunting down innocents, killing on a whim, the whole, evil shebang.

In “Reunion” he’s caught by the engine and suffers severe burns to his face. One leaves a scar that covers precisely the place where the chip would have been extracted.

Removing the chip leaves its own scar behind. If Crosshair’s was removed, we can’t see that scar due to the burn.

After these events Crosshair seems to mellow a bit. He does horrible things under the Empire’s orders—like shooting the senator—but is still loyal to his squad—killing his non-clone teammates to give TBB a chance, saving AZ and Omega, etc.

Crosshair claims that his chip has already been removed. However, Crosshair is arguably an unreliable source if he’s been lied to or if the chip is still there, encouraging him to manipulate the team.

Crosshair claims it was removed a long time ago, which is incredibly imprecise. As we can see from just some of the events listed above, precisely when the chip came out—if it came out—makes a huge difference.

Hunter realizes this and presses for clarification, but Crosshair dodges giving it. Again, a legitimate belief that it doesn’t matter, or evidence that he can’t say because something else is going on? We don’t know.

Hunter checks Crosshair’s head and finds the burn scar which proves… nothing. As stated above, they wouldn’t be able to see the surgery scar one way or another: its existence or its absence. It’s useless data, as Tech might say. I’ve seen a few fans claim that Hunter was also feeling for the chip with his enhanced senses, but 1. I didn’t catch any evidence of that in the scene and 2. Even if we assume Hunter did that anyway, the chips are notoriously hard to spot. Fives and AZ couldn’t find the chip at first when examining Tup. Ahsoka had to use the force to find it in Rex. TBB themselves couldn’t find it at first in Wrecker. If machinery consistently fails to find the chip on the first couple of tries—it’s meant to be a hidden implant, after all—why would we believe Hunter’s senses could pick it up instantly? Maybe he missed it, or maybe it wasn’t there at all. 

Crosshair appears to be struggling with a headache in the finale, just as he was at the beginning of the season and just like Wrecker was for the first half.

The point of listing all this out is to emphasize how ambiguous this whole situation is. I don’t want to use this post to argue one way or another about whether Crosshair’s chip is really out. I have my preferred theory (the chip’s still in, but only partially functional), but at the end of the day none of this is conclusive. The writing takes us in what I hope is deliberate circles. Crosshair says the chip is out? Crosshair is not a reliable source of information until we know if the chip is out. What other evidence is there that the chip is gone? A scar? We can’t see if there’s a scar. Hunter’s abilities? He only checked once for a canonically hard to find implant—if he actually checked at all. And why would the Empire want the chip out? Well, maybe it has to do with that push towards willing soldiers, but if that were the case, why leave Crosshair behind and have the “clones die together”? By that point he was one of the most willing, chip or not. Did they have to take it out because of the engine accident? Pure speculation. We just don’t know and THAT is the point I want to make.

Because it means the rest of the Bad Batch didn’t know either.

The core issue I have here is not whether the chip is in or out, or even how long it may have been in if it is out now. The issue is that TBB spent 99% of the first season believing that Crosshair was under the chip’s influence… and they didn’t try to do anything about that. They abandoned him. They left a man behind. Does this make them all horrible monsters? Of course not! This shit is complicated as hell, but I do think they made a very large mistake and that Crosshair has every right to be furious about it.

“But, Clyde, they couldn’t have gone back. It was too dangerous! Hunter had a duty to his whole team, not just Crosshair.” True enough and I’d buy this argument 100% if Hunter hadn’t spent the entire season throwing his team into dangerous, seemingly impossible situations to save other people. Crosshair became the exception, not a hard rule of something they had to avoid. They went back to Kamino for Omega, a kid they’d only had one lunch with, despite knowing how dangerous the Empire was. They went into the heart of an occupied planet to rescue not just a stranger, but one belonging to the Separatist government. They helped Sid when she asked and there was plenty of compassion for the criminal trying to take her place. Most significantly, there wasn’t the slightest hesitation to go rescue Hunter when he was under the Empire’s control, in precisely the same place. Every explanation I’ve seen fans come up with—Kamino is too fortified, they don’t know where Crosshair is, they can’t risk Omega being captured, etc.—also holds true for Hunter, yet there wasn’t a second of doubt about needing to at least try to help him. And his rescue was arguably far more dangerous given that TBB knew they were walking into a trap. Going after Crosshair would have at least had some element of surprise.

I think the problem with these justifications is most easily seen in “Rescue on Ryloth” and, later, “War-Mantle.” In the former, we do watch Hunter decide that going on a rescue mission is too much of a risk, only for Omega to talk him into considering it.

Hunter: “It’s a big galaxy. We can’t put ourselves on the line every time someone’s in trouble.”

Omega: “Why not? Isn’t that what soldiers do?”

Hunter: “It’s not worth the risk.”

Omega: “She’s trying to save her family, Hunter. I’d do the same for you.”

The arguments that sway him are ‘Soldiers should help people’ and ‘Soldiers should specifically help their family.’ So… what does that say about their feelings for Crosshair? They’re willing to put themselves on the line for the parents of a girl they met once at a drop site, but not their own brother? That’s the message the writing sends. “But, Clyde, the difference is that they had an advantage here. Hera’s knowledge of her home planet tipped the odds in their favor.” Yeah… and Crosshair is stationed on TBB’s home planet. Even more than them collectively having the same knowledge that Hera does, “Return to Kamino” reveals that Omega always had additional, insider knowledge of the base: she has access to a secret landing pad and the tunnels leading up into the city. That knowledge was given and used the second Hunter’s freedom was on the line, but it never once came up to use for Crosshair’s benefit. 

“War-Mantle’s” mission puts this problem in even sharper relief. Another claim I’ve seen a lot is that TBB only took risky rescue missions because they needed to be paid. The guys have got to eat after all. Yet Tech makes it clear that going after Gregor will lose them money. They’re meant to be on a mission for Sid and deviating for that won’t result in a payment. He explicitly says that if they decide to do this, they won’t eat. They do it anyway. No money, no intel, a huge risk “on a clone we don’t even know.” But that’s not what’s important, the show says. All that matters is that a brother is in trouble. This time it’s Echo pushing that message instead of Omega. When Hunter realizes that they’re about to try and infiltrate an entire facility and they don’t even know if this clone is still alive, Echo points out that they took that risk once before: for him. “If there’s a chance that trooper is being held against his will, we have to try and get him out.”

Yes! Exactly right! So why doesn’t that apply to Crosshair?

“Because he tried to kill them, Clyde!” No, that’s the easy, dismissive answer. A chipped Crosshair tried to kill them. AKA, a Crosshair entirely under the Empire’s control. The only difference between his enslavement and Gregor’s is that Gregor’s chains were physical while Crosshair’s were mental. And again, the point of everything at the start of this post is to show that no one knows when or even if that chip was removed. TBB definitely didn’t have any reason to suspect that Crosshair was working under his own power until Crosshair himself said as much. We might have been able to make that case at the start of the season, but “Battle Scars” removes any possible confusion. The entire team watched Rex reach for his blaster when he learned their chips were still in. The entire team watched Wrecker become a totally different person and attack them, just like Crosshair did. The entire team forgave him instantly and had their own chips removed. So why in the world didn’t anyone go, “Wow, Crosshair has a chip too. He was no more responsible for attacking us than Wrecker was. We need to try to get him out, no matter how hard that might be, just like we had to try for all these other people we’ve helped.”

But they didn’t. No one even considered rescuing Crosshair. They only went back for Hunter and, when they realized Crosshair was there too, they didn’t change their plans to try and rescue him as well. He’s treated as a particularly threatening inconvenience, not another team member in need of their help.

The problem I have with how this all went down is that the team treated Crosshair like an enemy despite all evidence to the contrary. Despite Omega outright saying that this isn’t his fault, it’s the chip, the group seems to decide that he’s gone crazy or something and that there’s nothing they can do. “It’s fine,” I thought. “They don’t really get what the chip is like yet. They don’t understand how thoroughly it controls someone.” But then “Battle Scars” arrives and Wrecker is treated with such compassion (which he deserves!) only for the group to continue acting like Crosshair is somehow different. It’s easy to say, “But Crosshair shot Wrecker” and ignore the easy pushback of, “and Wrecker nearly shot Omega.” Up until Crosshair’s own accusations and Omega’s ignored comments, TBB’s understanding of the chip’s influence and the lack of responsibility that accompanies mysteriously disappears when the show’s antagonist becomes the subject of conversation. This is seen most clearly in how Hunter tries to frame things during his talk with Crosshair:

“You tried to kill us. We didn’t have a choice.”

“Can’t you see that they’re using you? It’s that inhibitor chip in your head.”

“You really don’t get who we are, do you?”

Hunter mentions the chip, but he acts as if it’s Crosshair’s responsibility to overcome it: “Can’t you see…” Of course he can’t see, that’s the entire point of the chip, the thing he currently believes Crosshair still has stuck in his head. But Hunter and the others—with Omega as a wonderful exception—never seem to have accepted this like they did for Wrecker. When Crosshair “tried to kill us” it’s seen as a deliberate act that he chose, not something forced on him like with Wrecker. When Hunter talks about their ethics, he subconsciously separates the team from Crosshair: “You really don’t get who we are, do you?”, revealing a pretty ingrained divide between them. Even Wrecker gets in on the action, the one brother who truly understands how much the chip controls someone: “All that time, you didn’t even try to come back.” What part of he couldn’t try is not hitting home here? Again, for the purposes of this conversation it doesn’t matter whether Crosshair was chipped this whole time or not. The point is that TBB believed he was chipped… and yet still expected him to somehow, magically overcome that programming, writing him off when he failed to do that. He’s consistently held responsible for actions that they were told (and, through Wrecker, saw) were completely outside of his control. Even when we factor in his claim that the chip was removed, TBB has ignored all the evidence I listed at the start. No one, not even Omega, challenges this super vague and strange claim, or seeks out proof because they don’t want to believe that their brother could willingly do this. There’s just this... acceptance that of course Crosshair went bad. Why? Because he was an asshole sometimes? Taking it all as written, it doesn’t feel like the batch considered him a true part of the team. Certainly not like Wrecker or Hunter. As shown, the batch will go out of their way, risk anything, forgive anything, for them. They have a level of faith that was never shown to Crosshair. 

“Severe and unyielding,” Tech says and he’s absolutely right, but I’d seriously challenge this idea that any of the others would have automatically done better if the situations were reversed. It stood out to me that each batch member has a moment of doubt throughout the series, a brief glimpse into how they think the Empire isn’t that bad, at least when it comes to this particular thing. Basically, a moment that could lead to a very dangerous line of thinking without others to stomp it down. Wrecker announces that he’s happy working for whoever, provided they give him food and let him blow things up. Tech finds the chain codes to be an ingenious strategy and is clearly fascinated with their development. Hunter initially wants Omega to stay on Kamino, despite knowing that this Empire has already, systematically killed an entire group of people: the Jedi. Doesn’t matter. She’s still (supposedly) safer there than she would be running with the likes of them.

There’s absolutely no doubt that those three made the correct choice in defying the Empire, but I believe that their ability to make that choice is largely dependent on them having each other. They survive together, not apart, and it’s their unity that allows them to make the really hard calls, like setting out on their own and opposing such a formidable force. But if Tech’s chip had activated and he’d been left behind, would he have muscled through to escape somehow...or would he have gotten caught up in all the new technology the Empire offered him, succumbing to both his chip and the inevitability that if his squad no longer wanted him, why not stay? Would Wrecker have escaped, or been easily manipulated into a new life of exploding things? Would Hunter have been able to push through without his brothers, or would he have become devoted to a new team to lead? Obviously there’s no way to ever know, but it’s always easier to make the right decisions when you have support in doing so. Crosshair had no support. His team left him and yes, they had to in that specific moment, but the point is that they never came back. As far as we saw throughout the season, they never planned to come back. They all talk about loving the Crosshair who existed when life was easier, but they weren’t willing to fight for the Crosshair that most needed their help. When he says “You weren’t loyal to me,” he’s absolutely right. The same episode, “Return to Kamino,” gives Omega two powerful lines that the group rallies behind:

Omega: “[The danger] doesn’t matter. Saving Hunter is what matters.”

AZ: “You must leave.”

Omega: “Not without Hunter.”

The key word there is “Hunter.” Danger, stakes, risk, probability… none of that matters when Hunter needs help. Crosshair did not receive that same level of devotion.

Which creates a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. The group is upset that Crosshair isn’t rejoining them, but they fail to realize that he has no reason to trust them anymore. He’s not joining the Empire because he’s inherently evil and that’s that, end of discussion. He’s joining it because above all Crosshair wants a place to belong… and TBB has made it clear—unintentionally—that he does not belong with them. The horrible actions that Crosshair took under his own free will (theoretically) came after he realized that doing bad things while under the Empire’s control was, apparently, unforgivable. If it wasn’t, his team would have come back to rescue him. They could have at least tried. But they didn’t, so Crosshair is left with the conclusion that either what he did under the Empire’s control is something the group can’t forgive him for, or they can forgive that (like with Wrecker) and he’s the problem here. He’s the one not worth that effort.

“The Empire will be fazing out clones next,” Hunter says. To which Crosshair responds, “Not the ones that matter.”

He wants to matter to someone and events show he no longer matters to his brothers. So why not stay with the Empire? I mean, we as the audience ABSOLUTELY know why not. Self-doubt and feelings of isolation aren’t excuses for joining the Super Evil Organization. Crosshair, if he is under his own control, is still 100% in the wrong for supporting them, no matter his reasons. So it’s not an excuse, but rather an explanation of that very human, flawed, fallible thinking. He needs to be useful. He needs to be wanted. Crosshair is an absolute dick to the regs and I have no doubt that a lot of that stems from the harassment TBB has experienced from them (with a side of his inflated ego), but I’d bet it’s also due to Crosshair’s intense desire to be valuable to someone. He keeps pointing out the regs’ supposed deficiencies because it highlights his own usefulness. When Crosshair fails to find Hera, the Admiral says that soon he’ll get someone who can, looking straight at Howzer at the door. It makes Crosshair seethe because his entire identity is based on being useful, yet no one seems to need him anymore. TBB seems to no longer want him. The Empire no longer wants clones. Now even regs are considered a better option than him, the “superior” soldier. Everywhere Crosshair turns he’s getting the message that he’s not wanted, but he’ll keep fighting to at least be needed in some capacity, no matter how small. Even if that means overlooking all the horrors the Empire commits.

“All you’ll ever be to [the Empire] is a number,” Hunter says and he’s absolutely right. But to TBB recently, Crosshair hasn’t even been that. He’s been nothing. Nobody worth coming back for. To his mind, at least being a number is something.

I hope that all of this resolves itself into a conclusion that is kind to each side (preferably without a Vader-style death redemption), especially given the still ambiguous state of the chip, but from a writing standpoint I’m admittedly a bit wary. We’re obviously meant to believe that the batch all love each other, but as established throughout this entirely too long post, this season did a terrible job imo of proving that they love Crosshair. Or, at least, proving that they love him as much as the others. If this was really meant to be just a matter of miscommunication, with Crosshair making terrible life choices because he only thinks he was abandoned, then we as the audience would have seen the batch trying and failing to get him out. Or at least establishing a very good reason why they couldn’t take that risk, hopefully with entirely different side-missions so the audience isn’t constantly going, “So you can risk everything for Gregor... but not Crosshair?” I’m VERY glad that Crosshair was allowed to air his grievances to the extent he did, but the end result of that—Hunter continually denying this, Omega walking away from him in their rooms, neither Tech nor Wrecker actually sticking up for him and acknowledging the chip’s influence during at least some of all this—is making things feel rather one-sided. It’s like we’re meant to take Crosshair at his word and accept that he’s this garden-variety antagonist who joins the Empire because yay being on the winning side… despite all these complications that clearly have a huge impact on how we read the situation. It doesn’t help that the show has already embraced an inconsistent manner of portraying chipped-clones. We know every clone has one, we know only a couple clones are aware of the chip’s existence (and can thus try to get it out), we know they enter a “Good soldiers follow orders” mindlessness once activated… yet towards the end we see a lot of side character clones thinking for themselves. Howzer decides that he’s no longer loyal to the Empire, giving a speech where a couple other clones throw down their weapons too. Gregor was arrested because he likewise realized how wrong this all was. But how is that possible? Do the chips completely control the clones, or not? Are these clones somehow exceptions? Are the chips beginning to fail? All of that has a bearing on how we read Crosshair—what were his own decisions, how much he was capable of overcoming the chip, whether that changed at all during certain points—but right now that remains really unclear.

It’s details like that which make me wonder if all these other questions will be answered. Will the story resolve all those ambiguous moments surrounding the chip, or brush them off with the belief that we should have just taken Crosshair at his equally ambiguous word? Will the story acknowledge Crosshair’s points through someone other than Crosshair, allowing it to exist as a legitimate criticism, rather than the presumed excuses of an antagonist? I’m… not sure. On the whole I’m very happy with TBB’s writing—despite what all this might imply lol. Until my brain picks over the season and discovers something else, my only other gripe is not allowing Omega to form a solid bond with Tech and Echo, instead putting all the focus on big brother!Wrecker and dad!Hunter. I think it’s a solid show that does a lot right, but I’m worried that, unless there’s a brilliant answer to all these questions and an intent to unpack both sides of the Hunter vs. Crosshair debate with respect—not just falling back on, “Well, Crosshair is with the Empire so everything he says is automatically bad and wrong” take—we’ve just gotten the setup for a somewhat messy, ethical story. For anyone here who also reads my RWBY metas, I’m pretty sure you’re not at all surprised that I’m invested in going, “Hey, you had one of the heroes suddenly become/join a dictatorship and do a lot of horrific things, but within a pretty complicated context. Can we please work through that carefully and with an acknowledgement of the nuance here, rather than throwing the ‘evil’ character to the proverbial wolves?”  

God knows TBB is leagues ahead of RWBY, but I hope things continue on in not just a good direction, but one that tackles the aspects of this situation that many fans—and Crosshair—have already pointed out. As much as I adore the cast—and I really, really do—it was discomforting to watch a found family show where 4/5th of that family so completely wrote off one of the members and crucially have, at least so far, refused to acknowledge that. I want complicated, flawed characters, but that’s only compelling when the storytelling admits to and grapples with those flaws. We have quite firmly established Crosshair’s flaws in Season One. I hope Season Two delves into the rest of the team’s too.

Aaaand with that meta-dump out of my system, I’m off to write TBB fic. Thanks for reading! :D

[momota-kaiharem]

Thoughts on Oumota? Rivals to lovers taken to the extreme

well! i used to hate oumota, everything about it, from the way that it was portrayed to the way they interacted ingame, i thought they were terrible for each other and the amount of vitriol they showed each other during the game just made me REALLY not like them romantically.

and then i made friends with a bunch of oumoters and read a bunch of think pieces and postgame fics and wrote a couple hangar fics and in essence i have been completely converted, it’s one of my favourite momota pairings right now. i just think they have such a neat dynamic, the way they’re both really... huge liars (if you do kaito’s ftes you find that he actually!!! tells a whole lot of fucking lies almost as preposterous as kokichi’s, both of these men really just be making shit up) but that they like, contrast it, with the whole hero vs villain dynamic. and they do embody it quite strongly. kaito and kokichi are as similar as they are different if that makes sense? they both believe that you should face things, even if kaito is more a “save everyone or no one” type and kokichi is a “ends justify the means” type.

i also find the way that kaito’s belief in people juxtaposes ouma’s general distrustfulness to be EXTREMELY sexy. kaito chooses people on instinct, going off of feelings, what his heart tells him. he’s messy and imprecise and he follows his gut, and more often than not he’s even RIGHT about whether or not he should believe in a person. kokichi, to contrast, is extremely calculated, very careful and precise, he plots out every single detail and goes so far as to write an entire BOOK of potential responses kaito could have to people during the trial. i think they would challenge each other’s beliefs-- on kaito’s end, because he sees himself in ouma, the fear of vulnerability, the refusal to open up, and on kokichi’s end, because kaito’s unwavering belief in people (and eventually him) is so frustrating yet endearing yet inspiring, and kokichi CAN’T but he WANTS to be more like that, to love so completely and fully as kaito does, because even though it could and has lead him wrong, kaito still does it, he keeps taking the risks, making the leap.

i’m also a fan of how they look together. i think it was chemicataclysm who got an ask once being like “why do you like oumota” and he was like “kaito is six feet and kokichi is 5′1″, need i say more” which, FKSDJFLJDSLKFJ YEAH!!! it’s about the height difference. it’s about kaito and kokichi throwing hands and kaito scooping kokichi up to end it and kokichi biting him. the energies. the energies.

i also think that kokichi is the most perceptive to kaito’s weaknesses/flaws, and in a context where he’s not deliberately using them against him (as he does in chapter four when he’s trying to seem like the Big Bad Wolf Guy) he could honestly... take more steps to accommodate them? as i’ve said before i think kaito is extremely sensitive about his intelligence, and after first impressions and all i think kokichi would start to realise just how absolutely brilliant kaito is, and like. i dunno, encourage him a little, in that backwards way he does. kokichi is so good at picking at people too, provoking them, and so i could see him using that to help kaito stop repressing.

and of course kaito would believe in/trust/take care of/encourage ouma (ONCE THEY GET CLOSE) in a way that nobody else has before really, even with gonta it’s more of this blind faith/belief thing, but kaito actually gets MAD at ouma, he holds him ACCOUNTABLE, there’s a back and forth, kaito is constantly urging ouma to grow as a person and take responsibility for his actions. something i like to think about when i try to judge whether two people would be good for each other or not is to think about,

1. who they are when they’re apart 2. who they are when they’re together 3. what they would do for one another 4. how they encourage each other to grow 5. does the relationship flow both ways

and for all of these, it’s like... i think apart kaito and kokichi sort of go unchallenged, everyone in kaito’s life sees him as this hero with no weaknesses/need for comfort and everyone in kokichi’s sees him as a villain without a heart, but they have the ability to connect with each other in a deeper way and see past all of that? and as for reciprocity, i think oumota’s got it in spades, if for no other reason than the fact that kokichi hates it when people lie to themselves, and would probably feel stifled by all the attention going towards him... and of course kaito’s love language is acts of service/words of affirmation/physical touch so there’s no way he wouldn’t be taking care of kokichi while they’re friends. even when they’re not friends, i think kaito would and has shown him compassion when he’s needed it.

short answer: yes i like them. long answer: i like them so much that if myself from a year ago met me now, she would beat me to death. and i would deserve it

[myothertardisisonthemun]

Shit like this is exactly why I hate imprecise language. It makes ideas far too easy to misunderstand, and far too easy for actors will bad intentions to fool people. This article is a prefect example.

For example -

"Men can get pregnant".

Fine if you are already in the know, and understand this actually means:

"Those men who were born with a uterus and ovaries but now live or aim to live and present male, but still have the parts can get pregnant."

But think about what happens when the first phrase reaches someone who isn't in the know, or someone who is looking to make Allies and LGBTQ people look stupid.

The sentence in the mind of someone who never thinks about "that transgender stuff" becomes

"Men (as in cis male) can get pregnant"

And then, the uninformed go: "huh, that's not right" and the malicious go: "See, the LGBTQ don't understand biology", "The transgenders can't tell the difference between men and women".

Don't give them that opportunity. Just say precisely what you mean.

If, in a circumstance when the point needs to be made, just say: "Some transgender men can have babies".

This makes it much more likely the real meaning will be understood, perhaps even expanding someone's understanding, and making it much harder for attackers to find an in.

Addendum: A counterpoint might be that in this example I am reinforcing cisnormativity by suggesting people do this. But TBH, I can't think of an example where such a phrase would be used where being more precise would not be better. And I really really believe in the importance of using defensible language when it comes to points sections of society still find contentious.

More to the point, which is worse? Articles like this going around? Stuff with real life consequences? I think this stuff is worse?

[lovelytsumu]

‧₊˚✧ ཻུ۪۪ ᵕ̈ ART

chapter 1 — “drawings„ 

sakusa kiyoomi x reader | mlist

is having a soulmate necessary? — a bunch of connected stories.

Soulmate AU; if you write something on your skin it will appear on your soulmate skin too.

wc: 1,5k | no trigger warning.

Everyone has a soulmate, everyone deserves love, also if they don’t believe it. Sooner or later, in your sixteenth year of life, if you wrote something on your skin, it would show on your soulmate’s skin, same writing, same place.

Sakusa had never cared about soulmates, probably because a relationship wasn’t one of his priorities. He also thought no one could love him, mainly for his strange, cold and blunt personality, for his germaphobic attitude, and he thought girls liked to go out in crowded places with their boyfriends. He just didn’t care, and he hoped to have a soulmate who didn’t care either.

It happened all of a sudden, while he was writing on his notebook, he saw something appearing on his left wrist: “;”, a semicolon. At first, he thought his pen was bleeding a little ink, but when he tried to rub on it, nothing changed. It was like tattooed, and he couldn’t do anything. A couple of minutes after he realised he had a soulmate. Well, another problem added to his germophobia and mysophobia. Instead of panicking for the small amount of black colour on his wrist, he just pulled on his sleeve to cover it.

He wanted to keep it a secret, at least for now.

Some days have passed since the semicolon, and everytime it got erased, maybe from a shower or a bath, his soulmate was quick to draw it again. For him, if it was just that small symbol, it was okay. “Sakusa, what’s that flower on your arm?” Komori, during the whole practice his eyes were glued to his friend’s forearm, noticing that something was appearing out of the blue. “What?” he was focused on spiking the balls, that he didn’t saw the outline of a flower which started to mark his skin. “Guys! Our ace as a soulmate! And she’s also pretty talented!” the libero said to all his teammates, who got near Sakusa to admire the beautiful drawing on his arm. “Stop, I don’t like having you squished around me like this” he said, trying to move away from the small crowd composed of his teammates.

When Itachiyama’s ace got back to the locker room, he noticed that the drawing on his arm was a sunflower, and now there were also some leaves around it. The outline was perfect, without any kind of mistake or imprecision. But why? Why draw something so big and beautiful which can be easily erased with water and soap? Maybe, his soulmate did it just to annoy him, or because she didn’t care about him. He hoped it was the second.

Practice ended, and he was free to go back home, but something on his way caught his interest. A faint light coming from the art room. Minding other people’s businesses wasn’t his favourite activity, and he didn’t want to annoy who was inside. He stood near the door, and with surprise, a [h/c] hair coloured girl was standing near a canvas, and she was looking for more paint. Then, he looked at the unfinished drawing, representing a sunflower, very very similar to the one on his arm.

He was just watching her looking for some spare paint around the class. Carefully, without wasting a single drop, the girl put the colours on her palette, now looking for an appropriate brush to start her piece. The [h/c] student began painting with a yellow brush stroke, the firm hold of the brush was in contrast with the delicate move. He couldn’t see her face, but he bet it was plain, paying attention to all the small details, careful of what she was doing.

To almost everyone, that movement may seem normal, but there was something more. Her precision, her gentle brush stroke, her concentration. It was almost unnatural. She was in her personal world, a free, peaceful, imaginary space. When you do something you deeply love, it’s like this, reading, playing an instrument, playing your favourite sport... also if you don’t notice it.

While Sakusa was thinking if she really was his soulmate, he didn’t pay attention to the painting, where the petals of the sunflower were almost finished. Yellow, mixed with a bit of orange. Then, she moved on, and picked a dark brown bottle of paint. The girl started placing some dots in the center of the sunflower.

The artist felt eyes on her, but she didn’t care. Art is made to be seen and appreciated, is made to feeling part of it, is made to reveal your own feelings. Writing a story, composing a poem, singing a song, painting a drawing... are just a few of the ways art can express itself. It’s something magical, or at least, she would describe it like that.

“You know, drawing is a really good activity to reduce anxiety and sadness” she said without turning, knowing someone was leaning on the doorframe. Sakusa stayed still and didn’t answer back. “It also helps your concentration and creativity. Someone thought about how our psychic state reverses itself on the paper which we are drawing on. It sounds impossible, but it’s true.”

— 🌻 — some time after

Sakusa was staring to the ceiling of his room, laying on the bed. He was still thinking about the words he had heard before, also if he didn’t know that girl, the one in the art room, he couldn’t do anything besides being impressed. Her technique, her delicate touch, her thoughts.

Maybe it was just a coincidence, but the drawings, the sunflowers... was her his soulmate? Was it that easy find the person who the fate decided to pair you with? Strange. It was common to hear people who had to do kilometres and kilometres before finding their half. Maybe he got lucky.

He didn’t want a relationship, he didn’t define himself as someone who desperately needed a girlfriend, but, for the first time, he had to think again about that idea. Sakusa has always liked who put a lot of effort in what they were doing, as for the girl at school, or him when he was playing volleyball.

He rolled up his sleeves, to see if the flowers were still there. Luckily, everything was like that afternoon: the big sunflower on his arm and the small semicolon on his wrist. He didn’t scream of joy when he thought about his first “move”, because it meant ruin his skin with a pen or marker.

A little arrow pointing at the flower, and “I like this. You’re good at it.” without mentioning who he was. Also his soulmate started drawing on his skin out of the blue, so why couldn’t he write on his own arm? Then, he was just staring at the small comment, waiting for an answer, that could never be written.

Meanwhile, ___ was taking off her clothes to have a shower. The hot water was already running, but before opening the shower glass door, she paused in front of the mirror, looking at her arm. Her soulmate had left a comment near her drawing.

“I like this. You’re good at it”. She couldn’t do anything than smile. She had just received a positive opinion on her sunflower. For someone who doesn’t care about art, or just draw because they have nothing to do, that may sound as nothing special, but for her it was different.

It hasn’t been a lot of time since she had started painting again, and receiving a compliment on one of her favourite subjects made her heart flutter, especially because that comment was from who the fate tied her together with. Also if she didn’t want to be in a relationship, or at least, at the moment she couldn’t be the best girlfriend ever, as she said.

It was the starting of a new era of her life, after a lot of sadness and tears, she was finally standing up again, and maybe, this time she wasn’t alone. She got under the shower, and watched silently how the ink on her arm was already smudging down her arm. “I want to draw it again”.

After she came out of the bathroom, she quickly drew the semicolon on her wrist, and then, a smaller sunflower on her forearm. This time she added a phrase under it. “Thanks for the compliment, I’ve read it just before showering. I hope you won’t hate me for this, but at the moment I don’t feel like meeting you or having a relationship” she cursed at herself for the last sentence, but some words were already appearing again on her skin.

“Don’t worry. I am not the type of guy who wants a relationship for now.” somehow, both Kiyoomi and ___ felt relieved when they read each other’s words.

Maybe their story wasn’t meant to be as one of the thousands clichè love movies.

[to be continued]

🌻 Taglist: @itsmattsunshinehere

[erekiosuncreativeideas]

Being Human - Chapter 02

<= Chapter 01

Summary : Snatcher is not having a good time. Also available on AO3 : https://archiveofourown.org/works/24826561/chapters/60233137

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Hey hey heeeey, new chapter ! Hope you'll like it !

Also, I never expected so many good reactions, on the first chapter ! Thank you so much everyone, it means a lot to me ! I really hope you'll enjoy this fanfic !

Thank you again for all your likes and reblogs !! I'm so happy if you like this fanfic !

Don’t forget to check out the audio files for this chapter ! - Bow Kid’s Apologies - Hat Kid’s Apologies

The “Oh The Humanity” AU belongs to @doodledrawsthings​ !

Happy reading !

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Chapter 2 - “How can any of this be okay? Are you blind?”

Snatcher didn’t really know how long he had been crying. Maybe it was mere minutes, maybe it was hours… The shade wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure of anything anymore. The world had just collapsed beneath him, taking him down to a pit of pure despair. He couldn’t help but hope this was just an immense joke, that the kids were just playing with him, but the more time passed… The more unlikely it became.

It was just -oh- so very real. No matter how much he wished to go back to his spectral form, it was just not going to happen.

The ghost’s face was red and his eyes were puffy from all of his cryings. They stung and the feeling of his cold tears on his cheeks was unpleasant. His nose was stuffed and he was forced to breathe through his mouth when he wasn’t even able to swallow his own saliva yet. The overstimulation was killing him: even the littlest thing felt extremely intense for him, making him unable to focus. He could barely hear his own thoughts, buried under all of those terrible and awful sensations. This was just a pure nightmare.

He could feel the kids’ hands rubbing his back gently and carefully as he kept sobbing, unable to stop. Breathing was difficult and he couldn’t hold back some coughs as tears left his eyes. He probably looked so stupid, so pitiful, so… Pathetic. The same reasons he hated his past self which, ironically, had never been so true before, now that he was back in his old body. Why did it have to happen to him, of all people?

The spirit sniffed loudly and, after a while, he didn’t have any more tears to cry. His eyes just stung and he felt a lump in his throat. He slowly lifted his head again, meeting the children’s eyes once more. They were still watching him with worry, with pity.

Snatcher hated those expressions.

-“It’s going to be okay,” said the bow-wearing kid, tilting her head on the side as she tried to reassure him. The ghost, however, was very much not reassured and let a scoff leave his lips. He opened his own mouth to answer, still with difficulty. Moving a tongue he didn’t have earlier the same day was particularly hard.

-“Are you joking, kiddo?” he retorted, with a mix of sarcasm and bitterness in his voice: “How can any of this be okay? Are you blind?”

The older kid punched him lightly in his left shoulder, making him wince at the wave of unwanted sensations hitting him hard:

-“Hey, don’t talk to her like that!” she reprimanded him with a frown: “She’s trying to be helpful!”

In hindsight, the younger child was trying to be helpful, yes. At his remark, the latter had knitted her brow, probably not knowing what to do or what to say after the way he had replied to her. Her older best friend, however, was not happy with that. And, if Snatcher had been in a better state of mind, maybe he would have understood his lack of tact.

Yet, the ghost was not feeling well at all. Nothing mattered to him anymore, not if he had to stay like this.

-“Helpful?” he repeated, furious: “Unless you can make me a ghost again, I’m sorry, but you are not being helpful,” he spat, glaring at the hatted child.

The two kids stared at him, astonished by his attitude. In a way, he had always been mean and hurtful, yet… There was something else, something new, that was much more malicious and cruel in his words. It was not his usual sarcasm, his normal bitterness, no, on the contrary.

His sentences were full of hatred, a point that the kids definitely didn’t miss.

The hatted brat’s face contorted in anger, surely not believing how spiteful he was being to them after the way they tried to comfort him:

-“Are you serious?” she argued, absolutely mad: “You threw the Time Piece! You’re the reason you’re a pecking human again!” she fumed, gesturing to him as she kept going: “You’ve been crying for half an hour and now you’re being like this? Seriously?”

The spirit squinted, not liking her tone at all. She dared raise her voice at him, the powerful soul-stealing ghost? Well, in a way, he wasn’t that powerful anymore, but still. He had killed many people for much less.

-“I don’t want your pity, kid,” he warned, trying to mimic his old threatening voice, though it wasn’t as successful as he hoped: “And I certainly don’t need someone to comfort me.”

Silence fell between the trio. He and the hatted child were looking daggers at each other, waiting for one to glance away or to blink. The younger brat was watching them, not knowing what to do. Eventually, her best friend looked away and crossed her arms:

-“You know what?” she challenged: “Fine. Since you’re doing so well on your own, well, we’ll leave you be!” she declared, very irritated, before turning to the bow-wearing child: “Come on, Bow, let’s go.”

The latter seemed hesitant and glanced between him and her friend, clear remorse showing on her face. But her friend was much too angry to care and insisted: “You heard him very well, he doesn’t need us.”

She then took the younger’s hand, pulling her away from the spirit, and added, darkly: “So let’s go.”

The bow-wearing kid gave him one last look before turning around, following her best friend silently. The ghost watched them go away, clenching his teeth as he was trying his best to straighten up. He heard several of his joints crack from the movement and he grimaced as he did everything he could to ignore how much it disgusted him. God, human bodies were so gross.

Soon, the little girls disappeared from his sight and he was alone again. The shade stared into space as he sighed, exasperated: he didn’t need them. They weren’t going to help him anyway, he might as well try to find a solution to his problem by himself! Yeah, after all, that’s what he had done for all those years, fighting Vanessa all on his own! How hard would it be to occupy a human body for a while? He had to fix this whole situation, the contrary wasn’t an option. No matter how much time it would take him, he was determined to try anything if it meant he would be back to his old self. Well, he didn’t have much of a choice anyway. After all, if he didn’t…

Subcon would freeze again with Vanessa’s magic spreading ice everywhere. Snatcher and his powers were the only reason the forest and the village were safe from her. He had no idea how many days or months he had left until the situation went from bad to catastrophic… It probably depended on Vanessa’s mood and whether she learnt about what had just happened to him or not.

Oh, God, if she ever learnt about this…

The ghost forced this thought out of his mind and shook his head. He regretted the gesture immediately, as it made him nauseous almost instantly. He had the impression someone had just hit him violently on the head with a bat and he couldn’t help but bring his hands to his temples. His fingers massaged the skin, pressing against it as he shut his eyes hard. He shouldn’t have cried earlier, it made the pain so much worse.

Little by little, the shade pulled himself together and attempted to sit up once more. The movement was hard and awkward, since it meant he had to use a lot of muscles and articulations at the same time. Snatcher had possessed many people in the past and had shapeshifted into humanoid forms a lot as well… But controlling an actual body, a living one, one that used to be his own? This was entirely new or, well, something he hadn’t done for centuries. When he tried to move his legs, he realized with horror that they weren’t moving the way he wanted them to. It was just so hard, so confusing, so… Imprecise. His legs were heavy, they were long, and he just knew he wouldn’t be able to stand up. Balance was something very precise and extremely easy to disturb. Snatcher would just be like a baby trying to walk by himself. He groaned at the thought, feeling even more pathetic. Just like he used to be when he was alive… How ironic.

The shade put his hands on the ground and tried to push himself up, clenching his jaw hard as he used all his strength. The movement made him whine in pain and displeasure as he felt the clothes rubbing against his skin, much more than before. He quickly lost his balance and fell back on the grass, feeling even weaker than he already was. He was so miserable.

Rage started to build up inside him again and, with more determination, he attempted to stand up once more. He had to get up, he had to go back to his home: maybe there would be something in his books helping him to go back to normal… Yet, he couldn’t help but feel quite pessimistic at the idea: after all, his problem had been caused by a Time Piece and he had never heard of those before… So the probability of finding anything related to it was quite low. Still, this was his only chance, since the brats had claimed they couldn’t help him. The shade let out a bitter scoff: ha, they didn’t even try! Yeah, they were some time and space experts, so what? Those were just words!

The spirit tried to get up again, in vain. He fell on his side and a silent cry left his lips at the shock. It hadn’t been particularly painful, so to speak, but the intensity of all the sensations engulfing him at the same time hit him very hard. He missed not being able to feel anything… Especially when feeling things led him to fall down multiple times.

He remained motionless for a while, trying to find the strength to straighten up once more, ignoring how exhausted he was starting to become. This wasn’t working. Maybe he needed something to help him? A branch or anything else? Snatcher examined his surroundings, looking for something he could use. His eyes fell on a nearby tree, which was large enough for him to hold. Putting most of his pride aside, the shade looked around him to make sure no one would see him, and he started to crawl. As soon as his body began to slide on the ground, Snatcher shut his eyes, loathing how intense his sense of touch was. He could feel the skin of his stomach rubbing against his clothes, he could feel the pressure of his own body to the ground, the feeling of gravity pulling him down… This was pure torture. He dug his fingers into the dirt, trying to pull himself forward. Some dirt stuck itself under his nails and he let another cry out at the sensation. It was awful, so awful, he just wanted it to be over… Why couldn’t this be easier? Why did he have to feel such horrible things? Everything hurt, everything was just so intense, he hated all of this!

The ghost had to stop midway, unable to do it in one go. He took advantage of this little break to breathe, trying his best to calm his heartbeat down. He could sense its pounding in his chest, quick and loud in his ears. When he felt comfortable enough, he kept going, hoping this would soon be over.

When the spirit managed to get to the tree, he approached his hands from it and wrapped his arms around it. His face was stuck on the bark and the contact made him grimace. He tried to get away from it, but he knew he wouldn’t be as stable otherwise. With a lot of unwillingness, the shade forced himself to get closer again and he took a deep breath.

This was now or never.

Digging his nails into the bark, Snatcher pulled himself higher, having trouble moving his legs as he did so. No matter how much he was trying to use them as a way to push himself up, they just slipped under him. Soon, all he could do to stay somewhat stable was to cling on the tree, his nails hurting from how much he was putting pressure on them. For a few seconds, he remained perfectly immobile, not daring to move, stuck in a very embarrassing position. His bottom was turned up, while his upper body was stuck to the bark, his arms around the tree.

This couldn’t be happening. This just couldn’t be happening.

Tentatively, the shade attempted to move his feet again, in order to straighten himself. For a brief moment, he thought it was working, because he did manage to push himself higher against the tree. However, before he was able to do anything more, his feet slipped under him, and he fell down. His chin hit one of the roots of the tree, making him scream from the sudden pain. Snatcher instantly brought his hands to his bruised skin and hold back another scream, only letting out a high and long hum of pain. New tears appeared in the corner of his eyes and, feeling his resolve crumple little by little, he curled up just like before.

He was so pathetic, so miserable… Maybe even more than how he used to be back when he was alive. Somehow, the thought hurt him even more than the previous bump on his chin, much more. Slowly, he started to sob, curling up more and more as his cries became louder. Why was this happening to him? Why? Why, why, why? This wasn’t fair! He didn’t deserve any of this!

Everything was just so painful. Moving, breathing, crying… Everything was. He had trouble to breathe, having his nose clogging up again because of his second meltdown. His body began to shake. It was unnoticeable at first, but it quickly evolved in something much more worrying. Who cared? Maybe if he just died again, he would go back at his previous ghostly form!

A sad and bitter smile appeared on his lips: yes, maybe it was the solution. To be back as a ghost, one had to die… Why wouldn’t this time be any different? Maybe if he just let himself to die, everything would go back to normal. At this point, he had no other options… The kids couldn’t help him, he wasn’t able to move by himself, and no one was nearby to help him… His pride absolutely loathed the idea of asking for help, especially with the way he probably looked at the moment, but… This was a very peculiar situation, one that needed exceptions.

It still made him sick just to imagine it.

His sobs increased, echoing all around him in a heavy silence. He was alone, so alone. For a few minutes, he really thought that his plan would work as intended: he would wait for death and come back as a ghost, just like he had planned… But then, he heard quick footsteps approaching him, as if someone was running in his direction. He barely had time to lift his head that a panicked and crying voice rang in his ears, making him wince once more:

-“Sorry, we’re so sorry!” The shade recognized the voice of the bow-wearing kid and, soon enough he felt her hands touching him, as if she was holding him. He jumped at the contact, definitely not used to it. Not long after that, he felt another set of arms hugging him close and tight:

-“Are you okay?” it was the hatted brat. She wasn’t exactly crying but, when Snatcher moved a bit to look at her, guilt was all over her face. She was very close to join her best friend’s cries, her voice trembling when she spoke again: “I’m sorry, I was mad! Bow told me to go back, but I didn’t want to listen! I’m so sorry!”

Snatcher’s surprise and astonishment stopped his sobs, and his eyes glanced between the two kids. He was about to try and push them away, wanting to keep some dignity, but then another voice made him freeze completely.

-“Hey, kids? What are you doing?” it asked, with a confused tone: “Who’s that guy?”

It was a subconite, a few feet away from them. The minion hadn’t caught a good sight of Snatcher’s face yet and thus hadn’t recognized him. The ghost felt the kids freeze just like him, staring at the little being as it was walking closer and closer.

This was going to be so awful.

Snatcher was not ready. He was not ready for this at all. As he heard the subconite getting closer and closer, he pushed his head on the side, shutting his eyes. How was he going to explain any of this? How would his minions react at how pathetic he was right now? He didn’t want to be laughed at, he didn’t want to be pitied at… He wanted to be feared. And, as of now, the ghost would certainly not intimidate anyone, especially with how miserable he was being.

He heard the footsteps stopping next to him and the minion’s voice forced him to come back to reality and to deal with this whole situation.

-“… Boss?” they asked, clear confusion and astonishment audible in their intonation. The ghost felt the kids letting go of him and, if the context was better, he would have felt grateful for that. But at the moment, he was just very nervous and very anxious at the imminent conversation with his minion. Snatcher didn’t want to do that right now, he was already suffering so much because of this stupid body… And now he had to deal with this too?

He didn’t even want to imagine what it would be like, showing himself like this to Moonjumper… He instantly tried to push that thought away, really not wanting to deal with that right now. It was enough at it was currently.

Eventually, the spirit turned his head towards his minion, slowly, very slowly. His body was shaking again, but whether it was out of fear or out of pain, he couldn’t tell. Everything was just so mixed up and his mind wasn’t able to tell what was what anymore. His eyes met the “face” of the little being. The latter made a few steps backwards as his suspicions had been confirmed by seeing the spirit’s face, red and full of tears.

-“It’s… It’s really you,” they murmured, not believing what they were seeing: “What happened?”

Their tone and gestures were full of concern and they got closer again. Any person new to Subcon and its dark atmosphere would have trouble deciphering the emotions showed by the minions, since they had no face to show them directly, but… For Snatcher, it was all very clear. He knew much more about them than what he liked to show. In that particular case, the way the little being was acting, the way they moved, the way they spoke, the way they were fidgeting… Those were all perfectly clear signs for the ghost.

Snatcher frowned, quickly drying his tears on his sleeves. Not that he had much dignity left, anyway.

-“Please don’t tell anyone for now,” he asked, looking at them gravely. He wasn’t presentable and if the other minions saw him like this… They would most likely panic, considering he was their only way of keeping Subcon safe and warm.

The subconite remained motionless, visibly hesitant and perplexed, and a brief silence settled between them. The hatted child was the one to break it, in order to explain what had happened to the clueless servant:

-“He… He broke a Time Piece,” she added, glancing between Snatcher and his minions. Her best friend started to pat his back again, making him wince and move away from the touch. She still put her hand back on him, trying to comfort him. The subconite didn’t miss his refusal for contact and approached the ghost, clearly more worried than before:

-“Are you okay, Boss? Are you hurt?” they questioned, examining the shade’s body, looking for any possible injuries. Well, his chin was bruised, just like his body probably was because of his earlier falls… But pain was just one of the many, many unwanted sensations Snatcher was currently feeling.

-“Of course I am!” he assured, still determined not to look more miserable than he already was. He straightened up, trying very hard not to grimace for the tenth time as he did so. It would be lying to say that he was fine. He definitely was not. Thus, he added, with a low voice: “Well, it’s just… Kind of oversensitive.”

The subconite fell silent for a few seconds, watching the kids still trying to rub his shoulders in order to comfort him. A “look” of realization appeared on their inexistent features and they ran to the kids, snapping their hands away sharply.

-“Stop that!” they scolded, clearly angry, then gestured to the ghost, who was surprised by the sudden movement next to him: “He just said he didn’t like to be touched!”

The kids stepped away, glancing at each other then to the minion, confused.

-“He… He didn’t-” started the bow-wearing kid, not understanding what it was all about. Her older friend looked just the same, not getting what the subconite was trying to say to them. The latter seemed to grow even more irritated at their oblivious attitude. They tilted their head on the side, as if they were rolling their eyes.

-“Can’t you see?!” they rose the tone of their voice, absolutely livid: “The Boss has been dead for years! Dead people can’t feel anything at all! How would you feel if you had to experience sensing things all of a sudden?!”

The kids’ expression crumpled as they seemed to understand what the other was trying to explain. Soon, new tears appeared in their eyes and they started to sob, silently at first, but louder and louder as seconds passed. Snatcher’s eyes widened at the sight and he froze, not knowing what to do or what to say. The sound of their cries rang in the spirit’s head, as if someone was hitting his brain with a bat, repeatedly. He closed his eyes and extended a trembling hand in their direction, ready to do anything so it would just stop:

-“It’s fine, it’s fine! Stop crying, for the love of God!” he pleaded, clenching his teeth and holding his head with his free hand. But apparently, it was the wrong thing to do, as the little girls began to cry louder, apologizing:

-“We’re sorry, Snatcher!” stuttered the hatted brat, sniffing loudly. Her younger friend was sobbing even louder, covering her face with her hands. The ghost could hear the latter’s voice through her fingers, with an intonation full of guilt:

-“I’m sorry for touching you!” she sputtered, her shoulders moving up and down as she continued crying: “I didn’t think it would hurt you!”

The shade couldn’t keep his eyes open anymore, as the voice of the little girls were killing him. He felt like he was about to faint if it continued any longer. However, he heard the minion shushing them and a wave of relief engulfed him.

-“Shhh, shhh!” they reprimanded the kids, putting his finger in front of his cloak, as if he had a mouth: “You’re making it worse!”

This seemed to be enough to calm the children down and the spirit heard them trying to hold back their sobs. Snatcher’s head felt much better, not hearing the high-pitched voice of the two brats crying so loudly. Little by little, the shade reopened his eyes and gave a weak nod to his minion, thanking him for his intervention. The little being gave him a thumb up with his mitten-like hand:

-“Anytime, Boss.”

The shade took a deep breath and looked at their surroundings. No one had seemed to notice them yet, which was a good thing. It would only bring even more trouble… Next to the subconite, the little girls stood silently, drying up their tears on their sleeves. Just like him, their faces were red and puffy, their nose clogged up as well. At least, they were being calm, now… It was still something.

-“Okay… Okay,” he said to himself, trying to pull himself together. Then, he turned to the trio in front of him: “I might find a cure to this if I manage to go to my tree,” he explained, voice full of determination.

The bow-wearing kid frowned and interjected with visible worry on her face:

-“But are you…” she was hesitant to continue and gestured to his legs, wincing. The hatted brat finished her sentence for her, less afraid of hurting his feelings, apparently:

-“Can you even walk?”

Snatcher couldn’t say he hadn’t expected that question. He knew very well that walking on his own would be completely impossible, considering how he wasn’t even able to move his legs correctly. Each time he tried to use them, they just moved differently than what he was trying to do. Standing up with those wouldn’t work.

He had quite a few proofs of that earlier.

He knitted his brow, absolutely loathing the very idea of pronouncing his next words:

-“Not on my own,” he admitted, fighting his pride as much as possible as he kept going, still very much decided: “But you’re going to help me to walk.”

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Welp, things are going to get quite complicated, hehehehe. Hope you've liked this chapter and that you'll enjoy the next ones as well !

Take care, everyone !

=> Chapter 03