#i debated whether or not to put this on my main blog or rant one and i decided fuck it im goin for it
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People that say Taka was the best team/friends for him is like saying a drug addicts friends who are also drug addicts are whats best for them simply because they went along with and encouraged their habit rather than trying to get them help and off a toxic lifestyle
Just because you have friends that support your bad habits doesnt mean their good friends and whats best for you
Friends who try to get you out of that toxic lifestyle to a better place where your clear-headed and healthy THOSE are real friends who want the best for you
I know this is a weird topic to touch on after the previous episode which I'm not downplaying because I thought it was wholesome, but the fact that people blatantly ignore how toxic and unhealthy Taka was for Sasuke AT THE TIME really just rubs me the wrong way
Do I think his relationship with Team 7 perfect? course not, but you can definitely see the difference between how TRUE friends behave and how enablers behave
Whenever Sasuke talked or thought about Team 7 he viewed them like family and precious bonds he had to cut in order to focus on and pursue revenge
Whenever Sasuke talked or thought about Taka he treated them as strictly subordinates, we never see him bothering to interact with them other than pursuing his goals and once they were no longer needed? he discarded and abandoned them without a second thought, he didnt even know Karin was an Uzumaki or that he even met her in the past which shows how little he cared about any of them on a personal level, the only one I can say Sasuke even remotely cared about to that degree is Jugo
None of them tried to empathize with Sasuke, none of them tried to talk to him about his struggles or problems and let him suffer alone, none of them cared for Sasuke to that point and if they did then they had one hell of a way of showing it
So my point? yes I think Sasuke cared somewhat about Taka in his own way and yes I think Taka cared for Sasuke as well I'm not saying they didnt, I'm just saying they didnt care enough
And it seems crazy to me that the same people who complain about the injustices done to Sasuke and his clan are the same one who support Taka and them supporting Sasuke and his crimes against pretty much everyone
Yes killing Danzo was a good thing but it was still a crime, Sasuke and Taka joined Akatsuki and tried to kidnap the 8 tails which was a crime against the Cloud village, Sasuke attacked the 5 kage summit and every single kage there making him an international criminal regardless if his goal was just Danzo it was still a risk of them getting involved, Sasuke just being a rogue ninja joining another rogue ninja is a crime, Sasuke attempting to kill all the 5 kage after the war would have been a crime
Yes some injustices can be resolved through violence but that is not the one and ONLY solution, Sasuke going rogue unfortunately even from a narrative standpoint yea it needed to happen for him to train with a Sanin etc but the only way to resolve Konoha’s injustice was to go through the right channels and expose to corruption that was in it, once Sasuke left and started committing crimes he lost the moral high ground and anything he said or did would easily be ignored and just thought of as another crazed Uchiha who deserved to die
You can argue yes but then Naruto and Kakashi could have said something once they found out but by that point it was like Temari said, it was FAR too late for Sasuke and even with the truth revealed how does that excuse his actions at the summit? against Bee? joining Akatsuki? killing Itachi and Danzo MIGHT have been able to be excused but the rest? there's no way that was getting overlooked even with the corruption exposed Sasuke was still just as much in the wrong now
I'm a huge Sasuke fan but even I can acknowledge that not every single one of his actions was 100% right and just, his actions towards the people who actually wronged him WERE in the right, but his actions in everything that didnt? yes he was in the wrong no ifs ands or buts about it
So for those who think Taka is so much better for Sasuke because they supported his criminal actions [except Jugo I believe he’d be fine either way] but not Team 7 who wanted Sasuke to stop his criminal actions and return to his senses and be in a healthy condition again, truly make me wonder if they actually care about Sasuke’s well being or just think everyone who isnt a yes man to everything Sasuke did somehow dont care about his feelings or the injustices done to him and just wanna change him
Yeah, change him for the BETTER not worse, if anything Taka tried to do the opposite of that but hey I guess being a bad influence is better than being a good one
And listen we can go back and forth all day about Sasuke's situation after the war because I agree wholeheartedly that thats bullshit, but realistically speaking the fact that some things about the Uchiha massacre are unresolved like those two elders even being allowed to breathe, realistically speaking what CAN you really do? the Uchihas are dead and the main man responsible is dead and Hiruzen who failed to stop it is also dead so what would exposing everything do at that point? everyone directly involved is DEAD so exposing it really is pointless even if only to clear Itachi’s name which I'm gonna say something alot of you wont like
But the Uchiha’s were not all innocent victims, atleast not the ones involved and planning the coup, yes they were treated unfairly but does that mean the best approach to fixing this is to overthrow the government? how does that make you look? your proving their suspicions of you right by attempting to be the threat they all think you are, that is NOT how you get your point across and demand justice for your clan by planning a coup that would result in many lives lost including your own
Does that mean do nothing? course not, but if you want their trust then you have to EARN it and if you want justice and equality then go on strike and refuse to serve them until their willing to talk and compromise, seriously the Uchiha was a HUGE asset to Konoha so them refusing to obey and offer their services definitely would have gotten their attention and force them to listen and find a compromise, if that didnt work they could have tried spreading the word to fellow citizens and gain their support as I'm pretty sure not EVERYONE in Konoha felt the same way towards them and would have joined their cause for equality
But no, they chose the path of violence and it resulted in their entire clan's downfall and they end up with NOTHING but a bad name, so what did they gain? absolutely nothing, so was it worth it? NO
So lets stop acting like Konoha’s the big bad villain that did nothing but wrong and the Uchiha’s were pure innocent souls that did nothing wrong to deserve what happened to them because Ima say it THEY DID and their downfall was entirely their own fault for their approach, was it right? of course not genocides never ok and just as the Uchihas could have found another method Konoha could have as well so they were both in the wrong not just one or the other
Itachi also isnt a saint for the same reason the Uchiha’s and Konoha isnt and thats choosing the wrong approach to resolving the problems, there were many other paths he could have chosen but he chose the worst ones every time so just clearing Itachi’s name because of his good intentions wouldnt be right because his methods were beyond fucked up on so many levels
So my point is Sasuke was a victim of both sides wrongdoings, Taka didnt help with that at all, Team 7 tried to empathize and tried to understand and console him and save him from himself, its just that Sasuke didnt let them and pushed them away and thats of no fault of theirs since they did try but mainly Sasuke and them being mostly in the dark about everything
Yet Taka knowing almost everything didnt even try to reach out to him or help him cope in any way, Karin you’d think would understand and get through to Sasuke the most, cared more about her lust for him and seeing his ‘smile’ than actually empathizing with him and helping him through the turmoil he was in, Suigetsu made it clear he was out for himself from the start and Jugo is just wholeheartedly loyal to Sasuke no matter what
The fact that in the end, Sasuke makes no attempt to visit them until he needs them for something speaks volumes of his attachment to them, I think Taka thinks more of Sasuke than Sasuke does of them
He didnt even say goodbye to them before he left for his redemption journey nor did he bring them along on his years-long mission which again speaks volumes
So all Im saying is, Taka being the best team for Sasuke and his true friends is complete bull because I have yet to see any argument or reasoning for this be anything other than he chose them and that they went along with everything he did without question
If you have a better reason for why you think this then please share with me I welcome it maybe you can change my mind, but as of right now all the arguments I see is bullshit or occasionally shipping based which isnt a legitimate reason btw, so if you can be civil then I'm all ears
Note: I didnt mention the other Kages because it should be obvious their ways were screwed up as well and ruined a lot of lives, however what does Sasuke’s idea of basically ruling as a dictator resolve? how does that fix and reform the system? Sasuke wont live forever so what happens when he dies? he cant be the enemy that unites everyone once he’s dead and gone it’ll return back to how things were and thus mission failed another Uchiha dies for nothing, Sasuke’s approach to the situation was just a temporary solution not a permanent one and one that wouldnt last long anyway so lets not pretend Sasuke had the best solution to the problem when in all honesty both his and Naruto’s solutions were flawed and it makes sense that they’d work together using both methods rather than one and compromise, again we can argue about Sasuke’s situation after the war all day but fact of the matter is just gotta accept this is what it is and move on, at least Sasuke achieved partially what he wanted which was a bright future for the next generation and the villages to be at peace with one another without the need of a common enemy anymore, are things completely resolved? no, but its progress, and 15 years is nowhere near enough time to fix decades worth of damage so its still a work in progress and will be for a long time
#naruto fandom#anti-taka#pro team 7#this isnt really anti taka cuz i love suigetsu and jugo#i just dont think their the best team for him#or even the best friends#but their good comrades and im glad their all cool now and not under house arrest like orochimaru lol#i debated whether or not to put this on my main blog or rant one and i decided fuck it im goin for it#this isnt really a rant to begin with but more of me venting about how stupid this is#but hey im open to changing my mind if the arguments made are actually good I'll have no problem admitting i was wrong#but as of now well im confident that wont be happening
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Very New to your blog and the posts are probably way old but I saw you do Witcher Biology (??) rants sometimes and Id love to hear your take, if you have one, on what monsters (namely "naturally occurring" ones like draconids and insectoids) contribute to the ecosystem if anything and whether or not they should be hunted into extinction. I was discussing it w/ a friend last night after dealing with Iocaste, the last silver basilisk, and now its smthn I'm Invested in
re monster ecosystems: I just figure theyve probably found a niche in the world by now and can eat anything smaller incl. humans but because theyve got no natural predators aside from eachother and arent hunted by anything but witchers , monsters are just breeding and eating and wldnt that damage the land? or have they made their own like, circle of life or whatever ? Ive little knowledge on the subject as a whole but the whole thing intrigues me
hi & extremely belated welcome, anon! my apologies for the length of time you’ve been waiting for this answer; I had to think carefully about how I wanted to respond to this ask, because: there’s a lot going on here. also, because I am a disaster, I ended up posting it to ao3 first while I was avoiding tumblr for a spell and then completely forgot to come back. oops. i’m sorry!! This one’s about 5000 words long, which is a lot for tumblr, so reading on AO3 may be preferable.
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The two main thrusts of your first ask (how do monsters interact with the ecosystem and should they be eradicated from the Continent) are questions of invasion ecology, the study of non-native/invasive species and their effects on the environment. Monsters, having arrived on the Continent about 1200 years ago during the Conjunction of Spheres from entirely alien dimensions, are indeed technically non-native species!
However, invasion ecology is…somewhat controversial, to say the least—there are a lot of invasive species, who have a lot of different & complex impacts, and a lot of different ideas about what we might do about any of this, and it’s basically all arguing all the time, so I wasn’t really sure how I wanted to approach the topic. Not to mention that for reasons I couldn’t initially put my finger on, it seemed wrong to apply theories of invasion ecology to the Witcher monsters. We’ll get into it! There are also a couple of common misconceptions/oversimplifications of how ecology works in your second ask which I want to unpack. Hopefully I pulled this together into something that makes sense, and feel free to ask me for clarification!
Some important background facts:
Species have always been moving to and “invading” new places on their own; humans and globalization have accelerated this process into a Big Problem, as the sheer number of invasive species being introduced all over the globe strains ecosystems already under pressure, but “native ranges” are always shifting, sometimes more dramatically than you might expect. If you go far enough back in time, all species are “non-native”.
Because of this, the very definition of “invasive species” is hotly contested. This is why you’ll hear dozens of terms like introduced species, injurious species, naturalized species, non-native species, etc.; these all have slightly different connotations, but all refer to a species that did not originate in a particular location.
An introduced species is usually classified as “invasive” as opposed to “non-native” or “naturalized” if its presence significantly alters the ecosystem it invades; some people define this more narrowly as a species that causes harm to an ecosystem. “Harm” can take a lot of different forms, as every non-native species interacts differently with the ecosystem they were introduced to.
Aside from various potential impacts to human economic activity, most forms of ecological harm by introduced species involve the decline of native species, by a variety of mechanisms; invaders might eat natives, outcompete them for food, interbreed with them, carry novel pathogens, etc. Invasive species are primarily a threat to biodiversity.
Now, here’s my Hot Take:
The Conjunction of Spheres is analogous to real-life ecological cataclysms such as the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event, and thus monsters are not invasive species.
The Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event saw the extinction of 75% of all species on Earth after the Chicxulub asteroid hit, including the non-avian dinosaurs. The Earth has had several disasters like this, of varying severity—the Great Oxidation Event killed almost literally everything on Earth except for the cyanobacteria who caused it. These cataclysmic extinction events completely upended existing ecosystems, altering habitats beyond recognition and leaving swathes of niches emptied of life that the survivors could evolve to exploit.
The most recent Conjunction of Spheres on the Continent is supposed to have thrown everyone living on the planet at the time into chaos and darkness; it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that the interpenetration of multiple spheres caused mass extinction of species living in the pre-Conjunction environment, similar to Chicxulub or the GOE!
But Socks, you might say, evolution works on a massive timescale! It took millions of years to fill the niches left open by Chicxulub, but it’s only been 1200 years since the Conjunction of Spheres! And you are absolutely right*, but the Conjunction of Spheres canonically came pre-loaded with new species. We actually have no proof that any of the animals we see originated on the Continent: if humans are a post-Conjunction phenomenon, why not also dogs? Why not bears? Who’s to say any of those were actually there before-hand? (The elves, I guess, but as they have not, actually, said so, there’s no proof!!)
* FTR, 1200 years is a shockingly short period of time to go from cataclysm that plunged the world into darkness and chaos to functioning medieval-era society considering how long it actually took humanity to build 13 century Europe (horses had been domesticated for at least 3000 years by that time), even if we’re not assuming that most of the ecosystem was destroyed, so, my timeline concerns here are minimal, lmfao. TIMELINE WHAT TIMELINE.
…and actually now that I think about it the three options for the origin of dogs are a) elves or dwarves domesticated them, b) humans brought dogs with them during the Conjunction, or c) dogs have existed for less than 1200 years, and I refuse to accept that dogs are practically a new invention in the witcherverse, wtf.
Anyways: we really have no idea which species are truly “native” to the Continent, or what the physical environment was like prior to the Conjunction. While monsters are not native to the Continent, monsters are also not invasive—there cannot be decline of pre-Conjunction biodiversity or harm to the pre-Conjunction ecosystem because there is no pre-Conjunction ecosystem anymore.
should monsters be hunted to extinction?
So, the thing is, I think we should try to eradicate invasive species from non-native ranges if we can; the biggest problem with that is feasibility, not morality. It’s much more difficult than one might think to eradicate an invasive species once it’s established, and we have to be very careful that the methods we choose don’t have other impacts, but invasive species are a huge threat to the biodiversity of Earth! If monsters are invasive species, then the answer is yes, they should be eradicated from the places they are not native to.
(Notably, on Earth this kind of eradication is not the same thing as extinction; it would be a local extinction, or extirpation, where the species is totally wiped out in the places it invaded but still exists in its native range. This does get way more complicated if the invasive is already extinct in its native range.)
However, I have just outlined a possibility that would make it plausible for monsters not to be invasive species. Let me also outline why I prefer this interpretation. Here is a book conversation between the sorcerer Dorregaray of Vole and Geralt:
“Our world is in equilibrium. The annihilation, the killing, of any creatures that inhabit this world upsets that equilibrium. And a lack of equilibrium brings closer extinction; extinction and the end of the world as we know it. … Every species has its own natural enemies, every one is the natural enemy of other species. That also includes humans. The extermination of the natural enemies of humans, which you dedicate yourself to, and which one can begin to observe, threatens the degeneration of the race.”
“Do you know what, sorcerer?” Geralt said, annoyed. “One day, take yourself to a mother whose child has been devoured by a basilisk, and tell her she ought to be glad, because thanks to that the human race has escaped degeneration. See what she says to you.”
–The Bounds of Reason, ch. 6
This is a, uh, incredibly unsubtle reference to a debate that has been ongoing for decades; Geralt’s stance here is one of the key arguments in opposition to wolf and bear reintroduction. What do we do about large predators that may pose a threat to humans? How do we balance preservation of the ecosystem with the safety of people who have to coexist with these predators?
I can’t fully agree with Geralt, because large predators are integral to the ecosystem, which I value for its own sake and because humans depend on healthy ecosystems. But I can’t fully agree with Dorregaray either, because Geralt is right: human life is valuable and worthy of protecting. This is an issue that India has been running into in the past ten years; as their tiger conservation efforts yield fruit, people become more likely to encounter tigers, and thus more likely to have a bad encounter with a tiger. It’s become a political struggle as rural people who have to actually live with the possibility of a tiger attack come into conflict with urban conservationists who just really want to preserve tigers (& in some incidents, some of those conservationists have been Western, which is a whole additional level of fuckery). The fact is, there isn’t a good answer to this yet! We certainly should not drive tigers, wolves, or any other large predator to extinction, but we also have to figure out a way to keep people safe. It’s something humanity still has to wrestle with.
Under this framing, which CDPR reinforced when they chose to have the Count di Salvaress defend Iocaste as an endangered species while making significant provisions to minimize the damage she could do to human life, there’s far too much baggage attached for me to say yes, monsters should be hunted into extinction. If you’re going to make monsters analogous to wolves, of course I do not think we should get rid of monsters entirely!
And frankly, Geralt doesn’t think so either, despite his hardline stance about monsters that eat humans. Sapkowski isn’t exactly an anti-conservationist; though Dorregaray is shown as out of touch in this passage, at another point the narrative sides with him calling Philippa out on exterminating a species of ermine for her fur collar, and it’s consistently put forth that Geralt’s best quality is that he doesn’t want to perform violence for the sake of it or destroy things without cause, and one of the representations of that is that he refuses to kill endangered species even at cost to himself:
“What should I say about you, who rejects a lucrative proposition every other day? You won’t kill hirikkas, because they’re an endangered species, or mecopterans, because they’re harmless, or night spirits, because they’re sweet, or dragons, because your code forbids it.”
–Eternal Flame, ch. 2
If monsters and other post-Conjunction creatures are invasive species, the nuance in this conversation is flattened, and Geralt’s refusal to kill mecopterans and hirikkas becomes a flaw rather than a virtue. Boring! I also think that one of the strongest themes in the witcherverse is the idea of all monsters being human ills; wraiths are manifestations of hatred, necrophages multiply because of human bloodshed, cursed ones are created out of malice, mages like Alzur and Idarran of Ulivo go out of their way to straight-up create monsters from scratch*, etc. Iocaste attacks humans and takes livestock because the traditional prey of the silver basilisk, roe deer, has been extirpated by human destruction of their habitat. The aeschna in Blood of Elves attacks humans because humans have altered and polluted the flow of the Pontar, hunting the aeschna’s previous food (seals) to extinction. The true monster is the actions of humans. Monsters that appeared unbidden from another dimension into a previously functional ecosystem to invade and cause problems undermines this theme; monsters that are integrated into the ecosystem and subject to the same social and ecological forces as other animals supports it.
* Idarran’s “idr” monsters from Season of Storms absolutely should be eradicated. Did the world not have enough man-eating arthropods, Idarran? Did you really have to mutate horrible new ones and release them in populated areas?? Mages are a scourge, lmfao
Additionally, one of the biggest reasons I felt like I couldn’t actually apply invasion ecology to monsters was that, whether you accept my Conjunction theory as sufficient biological justification for this or not, monsters just don’t really behave like invasive species. It’s hard to explain this because the setting is pretty brief about its ecological details, but aside from the fact that the narrative frames them like just part of the ecosystem of the world, there are never any details like “that type of flower doesn’t exist anymore because giant centipede tunneling destroyed the soil they needed to grow in.” When monsters are the aggressors, their victims are always humans, not the environment or other animals, and again monsters are themselves often treated as victims of human actions.
So I say monsters aren’t invasive species!
Which means that monsters are, regardless of their strange origins, now a part of the Continent’s ecosystem just as much as bears and wolves.
So let’s talk monster ecology.
what do monsters contribute to the ecosystem, if anything?
So, the phrase “contributing to the ecosystem” is actually super loaded, and I want to unpack that before we go anywhere else. Ecosystems are made up of organisms, and organisms interact with and impact ecosystems, but they don’t necessarily contribute to ecosystems! The implication of “contribute” is that it is possible for an organism to not contribute, and it follows from there that some organisms are not useful. This is functionally nonsensical, and also dangerous.
Conservationists talk a lot about “intrinsic value,” which in this context is the idea that we should want to keep species around just because their existence is valuable! Biodiversity is intrinsically valuable. This is important, firstly because I do believe that all species are intrinsically valuable, but also: ecosystems are so enormously complicated that we do not know the full extent of any species or individual organism’s impact, and we can’t predict what the consequences of removing any given species might be. Treating all species as intrinsically valuable is hedging our bets. All organisms affect the ecosystem, because it’s impossible for them not to, and while some species definitely have outsize impact, none of them are “not contributing,” and frankly even if some of them weren’t, it would be the absolute height of human arrogance for us to decide we could tell which ones were useless when we barely even know what most species eat. Mosquitoes are the base of the entire goddamn food chain, and you still get assholes claiming they don’t “contribute anything.” Of course, most people don’t really mean all of these implications when they use the phrase, but I don’t find it useful to talk about what species “contribute,” and avoid using that language if I can!
What I assume you mean by “what do monsters contribute” is a combination of “what roles might monsters play in the ecosystem” and “are monsters actively harmful to the ecosystem, i.e. do they cause loss of biodiversity?”
And this is difficult to answer! As I’ve said, I don’t think monsters are invasive species, and thus don’t harm the ecosystem, though we know that monsters can be harmful to humans. However, when it comes to the role they do play in the ecosystem, there isn’t enough in canon for me to do more than wildly speculate! Also, there are so so many of them, and the role of a hirikka is going to be wildly different from that of a draconid.
Just offhandedly, most of the big predatory monsters can be assumed to fill the same roles as Earth’s big predators, one of the big ones being overpopulation of prey species, which has ramifications throughout the ecosystem. Some of them are canonically ecosystem engineers, or animals that physically alter their environment (think beavers); for instance, shaelmaar and nekker tunneling. Additionally, the big insectoid colonies can’t be relying solely on naturally-occurring caves for their homes; they’ve gotta be constructing some stuff themselves. These tunnels can be repurposed as habitat for other organisms, from giant centipedes to sewant mushrooms. Necrophages, like corpse-eaters in our world, likely limit the spread of diseases from decomposing flesh (and really wouldn’t be as much of an issue if everyone would stop, you know, doing war and mass murder, lmfao). Arachasae use tree trunks and organic plant material to conceal themselves, which is likely contributing to plant reproduction in a few different ways—but the arachasae decorating essay is a different topic that I swear I will finish one day oh my god—
…anyways, feel free to ask about any specific monsters or niches if you’re curious, but if I tried to go into detail with every single potential niche/ecosystem service all of the monsters we know of might fill, we would be here all day!
Let’s talk about a couple specific things you brought up in your second ask.
> theyve probably found a niche in the world by now and can eat anything smaller incl. humans
I mean…maybe! That is, yeah, they’ve definitely settled into niches by now, but feeding is way more complicated and interesting than that.
For instance: orcas can eat basically whatever the fuck they want—orcas are fully capable of bringing down everything from fish to seals to gray whales to great white sharks. But they don’t. In the Pacific Northwest, the resident orca pods almost exclusively eat salmon, while the transient pods largely feed on seals. Orcas are kind of an extreme example, but this is something called resource partitioning and it’s a big part of how animals limit competition with one another and what enables lots of predators to coexist in one place!
We see a big fuck-off dragon thing and we assume that it’ll eat anything it can fit in its mouth, and definitely some predators work like that. But just because an animal is technically capable of eating something and deriving nutrition from it doesn’t mean that it will. Silver basilisks made roe deer the staple of their diet before the destruction of beech forests meant they had to turn to humans—which is a pretty specific dietary restriction when there should be multiple species of deer running around, not to mention everything else a draconid could be killing! And given how many types of draconid there are…I have to assume there’s some kind of resource partitioning going on to prevent them all from conflicting with each other! For instance, if basilisks prefer roe deer, maybe forktails prefer wild goats, while wyverns are mostly kleptoparasitic (stealing other predators’ kills).
And of course, not all monsters eat humans at all; harpies steal from and attack humans, so they’re a dangerous nuisance, but they don’t seem to eat them. And in the books Geralt mentions plenty of monsters which are totally harmless.
So yes, there are lots of things monsters could be eating, but it would strongly depend, and there’s a lot of interesting places one can take monster diets! Netflix decided their strigas only eat specific organs, leaving the rest of the body untouche, & I love that for her. More monsters that need a particular kind of nutrition that leads them to take only specific body parts from some kills!
> because theyve got no natural predators aside from each other and arent hunted by anything but witchers, monsters are just breeding and eating and wldnt that damage the land? or have they made their own like, circle of life or whatever ?
Absolutely—invasive species whose populations rapidly increase once they’re away from their natural predators cause the decline of native species, often by eating natives directly or competing with natives for resources. And in fact, even native species who become overpopulated can seriously damage the ecosystem (see: white-tailed deer in the United States, whose overpopulation has such negative ecological effects that some people argue we should classify them as invasive, even though they have definitely been here this whole time).
However, even if we grant that monsters are invasive, it’s a little more complicated than that for a few reasons!
Despite the apparent preponderance of them in the witcher games, most monsters are supposed to be strongly on the decline, like witchers themselves. Geralt’s profession is falling out of necessity; human development of the Continent is going to be the biggest suppressing factor in monster populations in the future. Monster overpopulation is just canonically not a problem in this universe! But even in the scenario where the Inevitable March Of Civilization isn’t threatening monster populations, there are a lot of factors that could and would limit monster populations.
(TL;DR for this next part: yeah I definitely think they’ve figured out their own little circle of life—the term you’re looking for is ecosystem equilibrium, btw!—& I’m going to take the next 1.2k to talk about how.)
For starters, predation is only one among many limiting factors that affect populations & prevent them from ballooning out of control:
food availability: If there’s not enough food, there’s not enough food! It also matters how adaptable the animal’s diet is—silver basilisks moved from deer to humans, but if the eucalyptus went extinct koalas would not switch to eating cycads.
illness and parasites: Some people argue these are more important than direct predation for limiting populations, and I am often inclined to agree. Basically, if a population becomes very dense, illness and parasites spread more quickly, creating a natural limiter on how many animals can live in any one place. The greater susceptibility of some individuals to illness or parasites also winnows down populations. Non-native species often escape a good portion of their native diseases by moving to a new range—however, given how fast bacteria and viruses evolve, 1,200 years is a pretty decent amount of time for new diseases to arise. Also, just going to drop a link to my treatise on monster parasites here. It’s gross, mind the warning at the start of the post.
mate availability: If only a certain percentage of the population is actually able to reproduce, that’ll eventually bring the total number down. RIP Iocaste’s boyfriend 😔
territory/shelter availability: Animals need a certain amount of space and certain types of spaces to survive, and space isn’t infinite! It again depends on how adaptable an animal is; rats find ways to thrive nearly everywhere, but pandas can only live where there’s bamboo. If there’s not enough space to hide from predators, reproduce safely, store food, and avoid adverse weather, the population again limits itself naturally.
natural disasters: Wildfires, drought, flooding, tsunamis, storms, etc. pick off significant portions of wildlife populations. Disasters are sporadic rather than directly linked to population like most of the other factors but these periodic blows to population and the other impacts of fire or flooding are often integral to the ecosystem (see especially: fire regimes and fire ecology.)
Now let’s talk predation & monsters! (Genuinely, I think predation is one of the most interesting things in ecology; people tend to simplify it down to things eat other things, which—yeah, but there’s so much more going on there!)
First, I wouldn’t underestimate the effects of monsters eating other monsters! Even if it’s rare for a draconid to snatch up a nekker and carry it off, the threat of a draconid doing so can have dramatic impacts; researchers found that just playing the sound of dog barks on a beach stopped raccoons from foraging for crabs for over a month after the barking stopped, leading to an increase in crab populations, even though no raccoons ever encountered a dog. This is called the ecosystem of fear (which as a term is metal as hell) and it theorizes that just the fear of predators can lead to chronic stress for prey animals, decreasing reproduction and making them more susceptible to disease. Maybe draconids in Toussaint eat only a few dozen nekkers a year, but that might cause thousands of nekkers to have fewer offspring or fall to disease. When it comes to ecosystems the direct effect is usually only a small part of the story!
Second, when we talk about a species not having natural predators, we’re usually talking about an animal that would have a predator back in its home range—lionfish, for instance, have plenty of predators in their natural range (the Indo-Pacific), but no natural predators in their invasive range (the Caribbean), so invasive lionfish, suddenly freed of a limiting factor, can run amok. However, a great white shark has, aside from orcas (who do not actually eat white sharks, they’re just assholes sometimes) and occasionally other white sharks, more or less no natural predators anywhere once it reaches maturity, and that’s fine! Lack of predation of great white sharks did not cause their populations to explode and consume the ocean. White sharks are limited by other factors.
So: it is possible that wherever draconids originated (and it’s entirely possible that “draconids” came from multiple different places, tbh) there was something bigger that preyed on them, but it’s not unreasonable to assume they were also apex predators in their previous dimension (I mean…look at them), and that adult draconids were never really preyed on by anything else! It isn’t necessarily an issue for there not to be predators of certain monsters on the Continent.
(Though, of course, we also shouldn’t forget that most apex predators are prey when they’re young—baby white sharks are snack-sized for a lot of fishes, and bear cubs and wolf pups are similarly vulnerable. Based on the size of the eggs you see in TW3 draconid nests, a basilisk is hatched around the size of a little dog, which is the perfect size for small, ballsy predators such as wolverines to sneak into a nest and snap them up—predators such as more wolverines or raptors like eagles and hawks might also come directly for the eggs.)
When it comes to smaller monsters such as nekkers, who likely weren’t apex predators in their original dimensions and would thus be subject to that lack of natural predators—there are usually specific reasons why prey species manage to avoid predation in their introduced range. Lionfish confound Caribbean predators because lionfish are covered with huge poisonous spines that Caribbean predators don’t know how to deal with.
Drowners, on the other hand, are basically just man-shaped fish; they don’t have any adaptations or defenses that would really stump a bear or a wolf. Again, bigger monsters are still probably checking the populations of smaller monsters no matter what, but there’s really no reason a bear couldn’t figure out how to eat a drowner! Unless a monster has a unique defense (e.g. scurver spines), is actively distasteful to eat (rotfiends, probably), or is just difficult to take down (nekkers in packs), most of the non-monster predators* on the Continent will have incorporated various monsters into their diet by now, or suppressed monster populations indirectly with the threat of predation or by competing with them for food. It has been over a thousand years, which is nothing evolutionarily but is still a decent period of time for mammals, who pass hunting techniques down to their babies, to figure out how to eat ghouls—especially if we’re considering that the Continent’s mammals may also be a result of the Conjunction and would thus have to have been just as adaptable as the monsters to establish themselves. And I’ve also actually talked before about how wolves specifically might be preying on necrophages!
* For reference, the non-monster predators are, considering the Continent is more or less Europe, most likely lynxes, brown bears/polar bears (in Skellige), wolverines, foxes, badgers, and a variety of large birds of prey.
So—yes, if monsters were truly overpopulating, then that would damage the ecosystem. However, canon tells us they are definitely not doing that, and there are also many factors that would prevent that from happening!
(Though I will say that some of the reasons white-tailed deer are overpopulated are that we got rid of cougars and wolves and human development creates a lot of extra habitat of the type that deer like. Given that we know many of draconids are for sure in significant danger of going extinct, and the trajectory that Europe’s wolf and bear populations followed in real life, it is possible that the Continent will have to contend with an overpopulation of some of the smaller monsters at some point as they continue to try to eradicate the larger predators, both monster and non-monsters—you think the drowner problem is bad now, wait until the bears are gone and city development has tripled the number of sewers. Yet another of those humans-make-monster-problems-worse things I am fond of in the Witcherverse!)
…whew. that was a lot of words. In conclusion: ecology is really cool & there’s a bunch of ways monsters can fit into it!!
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i dont think i will ever argue with someone about whether or not wolfstar is canon. idk how to put it but if you don’t think it’s canon, fine whatever i’m not going to force you to think it is or even debate with you about it. but that just means you probably not queer/can’t read queer-coding which again, is fine, but is incredibly straight of you and at this point i just don’t know if we’ll have similar opinions for the rest of series and i’m not interested in arguing about things. you don’t have to explicitly ship wolfstar to acknowledge sirius and remus’s queercoding but by not acknowledging the way they were written, it’s kind of like ignoring key aspects of their characters.
i have a friend irl who is very Straight and is a ‘gryffindor’ (she’s a ravenclaw who wants her main character moment and i dont blame her but please, you can be the main character and not be gryffindor (this is not important to this small rant)). but i brought up wolfstar to her and she said ‘haha yeah! ive seen theories about that but i just love remus and tonks. but it’s interesting!’
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okay goodbye. we can be friends but ur on thin ice and now you make me nervous. remus lupin is so obviously written as gay/bi and tonks so obviously as queer in some type of way that anyone who doesn’t see how forced remodora is makes me nervous. not saying you can’t or shouldn’t ship it but the author saw she wrote one obviously gay character and another who was definitely queer, probably non-binary and almost certainly a lesbian and tried to pair them together and in doing so took a very interesting and different character and made her.....plain? it just doesn’t make sense in a lot of ways and literally just feels Not Right. yes, there was a war happening at the time and everything and wartime marriages and not knowing if you’ll live to the next day and what have you but i personally don’t feel like that applies to this specific case.
bc remodora is so heteronormative in a way and forced and it doesn’t make sense. there are a lot of ways it can be written to make sense, i’m sure but even harry was shocked in the books at tonks and remus’s relationship. and i don’t chalk that up to his obviliousness. he was right in being confused because there was little to no chemistry.
anyway, straights just need to, in the words of kakashi hatake from naruto, see underneath the underneath. because there is no way that remus lupin wasn’t gay and that wolfstar wasn’t a thing at the very least during their time at and immediately after hogwarts.
this was just a little personal rant about straight people ✨ not aimed at anyone specifically here at all i just see a lot of hp tiktok and people who take remus to be straight.
and any baby gay/queer who just discover wolfstar, this isn’t about you either. this is specifically about straight people who can’t read queercoding and take canon at face value without criticizing it at all (which is obviously a much larger conversation).
THIS IS NOT A REMODORA HATE POST!!!! i have said it once on this blog i will say it a thousand more times: i do not care who you ship. i will not bother you about who you ship (with the obvious exceptions of pedophilia but that’s a whole other conversation). but in this case, remodora stans continue on strong i love you for shipping this ship, it’s just not my personal boat.
#sirius black#remus lupin#harry potter#wolfstar#tiktok#the marauders#i just really needed to get this out there#like you dont have to ship wolfstar explicitly honestly#you just have to be able to read a story critically and see that the author did write queer characters even on accident#that’s showbiz baby!!!#tw queer#also i know there are people who don’t like the word queer and that’s totally valid but that is literally how i describe both my gender#and sexuality#and it’s becoming sort of a reclaimed word and an umbrella term#very valid if it makes you uncomfy but people who are in the lgbt community#will use it regardless probably but i will tag any post from now on with queer in it as a tw
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I know its a big debate but I am not a dudebro for thinking killua and gon are platonic. I have no problem with people who do at all, but I honestly just think they have a strong friendship, and I am for encouraging boys to have these types of bonds with each other ~screw toxic masculinity~ I like following your blog btw
Hi ! First of all, thank you for liking my blog! I’m glad you’re enjoying my content even though I’m killugon trash HAHAH
Oh lord, it really is a big debate. I’m not calling everyone who doesnt like a romantic reading of killugon a dudebro, only the people who are vehemently against it because they say people are projecting and that there is no basis to our claims that hxh is queer work.
This is gonna be me ranting for a bit because it’s a subject that’s very dear to me so i’m very sorry in advance, it’s not against you, just a general statement !
I totally agree that fuck toxic masculinity. It’s so fucking toxic and men should be allowed to show emotions, affection and care openly without fearing for repercussions. And having portrayals of friendships where the characters are not afraid of sharing their love with the other in a totally platonic way is amazing.
However.
There’s been countless representations of this type of relationship in media over the years. In every media, not only anime. I always cite the same example, but take Naruto who is the example that speaks to me the most. (ive never seen it so dont flame me if i say dumb shit). But from my understanding, Naruto and Sasuke’s relationship was a full on middle finger in the face of toxic masculinity. They shared a deep bond, pretty much like Killua and Gon’s. I know a lot of people shipped them because their relationship was borderline homoerotic, but in the end it was just a beautiful representation of a very deep platonic friendship.
And when you’re queer, it’s heartbreaking. Because you’ve been projecting this entire time, for the work to tease you, to literally bait you into showing you inherent queer behavior only for it to say “haha lol jk” at the end is fucking rough. Especially when you’re young and questioning your sexuality, looking at relationships between two best friends and thinking “oh, this feels like I feel when I’m with my best friend, is this romantic love?” and then the work saying nope haha its purely platonic ! its rough. trust me.
The community doesn’t have a lot of positive, healthy queer relationships to identify with. Especially in anime. Most queer relationships are labeled under the special genres “shounen ai” and “yuri” (both of these categories painting queer relationships in the worst possible ways ever btw, but thats a whole other subject). But it’s fucking sad. Because we deserve to see queer representation in works that are not classified as those genre. We shouldn’t have to dig into a particular genre to identify with characters : there should be queer representation no matter the genre, whether it be a shoujo, a seinen, or for example, a shounen battle manga.
And that’s why HxH is so important to the queer community. Because it displays just that. That you can have good queer representation in non shounen-ai genres. That queer relationships are normal and should not have to be classified under a certain category.
A lot of queer people identify and recognize HxH as queer work, because of a few reasons. Togashi has always been interested in queer representation, having put queer characters in every single one of his works. There was a trans girl in YYH, a trans man in Level E, Alluka in HxH. Togashi also wrote several gay characters in both of these works. I always repeat myself on this, but Togashi also wanted to write a gay sports manga, but was turned down. His favorite manga when he was younger was a shounen-ai. So yes, Togashi has deep history and is very involved in queer representation.
Togashi is also very fucking smart. Just look at all the metas people are producing every day about hxh and understand how much effort togashi has put into his work : he’s a smart man, who makes conscious choices about everything he puts in his manga. So when you see the way he portrayed Killua and Gon’s relationship, and for now most importantly Killua, you know it’s not accidental. Togashi has put SO much subtext in his work about Killua in general, from his birthday being Tanabata to him wanting to commit a lovers’ suicide with Gon, and Togashi KNOWS how it comes across, he’s not dumb. He knows what those things mean, he knows that a shinjuu is a heavily connotated word, and that people, ESPECIALLY JAPANESE PEOPLE who have the cultural context, are gonna think “oh, maybe Killua is gay”. Because that subtext is intentional. And there’s a lot of it. If you haven’t read my post on the subtext of HxH, I invite you to do so because there’s a LOT of it.
In short, HxH has the subtext, has the potential and has the one author that is not afraid of putting queer stuff in his work. That’s why Killugon is so important to the community, and that’s why a lot of people, especially queer folks, insist on the romantic reading of their relationship.
Because it’s extremely important to queer people. Positive representation of queer relationships in anime is hard to come by, ESPECIALLY in the shounen genre. And sadly, because our society is drowning in deep internalized homophobia, people easily dismiss queer behavior in media as platonic actions.
How many times have I seen people assess that two people of opposite genders in an anime are in love only because they looked at each other once (take Ponzu and Pokkle for example). Or because they held hands. Our society is so quick to romanticize interactions between two people of different genders, but fail to do the same when it’s same-gender pairings.
Straight people hand holding, kissing, blushing around each other, admitting their love out loud, looking at each other’s eyes deeply are immediately categorized as in love. But when it’s people of the same gender, people immediately say “it can be platonic”. And whether you’re aware of it or not, that’s internalized homophobia.
That’s why it’s infuriating to see people dismiss the subtext that Togashi has tried SO HARD to plant throughout his story. Because it’s there, and if Killua was a girl, there’d be way less people opposed to a romantic reading of their relationship. Because it’d be widely accepted that Togashi is writing them as a developing couple, no questions asked.
Which brings me to my final point (promise, I’ll stop ranting after this). Sadly, the voices of the people who assert a platonic reading of a relationship are often louder than the voices of queer people who identify with the work. When confronted with an ambiguous relationship between a same-gender pairing, people unconsciously tend to choose a platonic reading of the relationship. Which is harmful to the queer community, because the voices of the queer people who identify with the work are silenced.
In conclusion, yes, representations of deep platonic friendships without toxic masculinity are good, and very much encouraged. We’ve just had a shitton of those over the years, and queer people are craving for proper representation. Togashi is deeply invested in positive queer representation, has planted a lot of conscious subtext in HxH, and he’s the one author that would NOT queerbait. So people being insistent that Killua is pretty much canonically gay, and that it’s likely that Killugon will be a romantic pairing is not for the sake of mindless shipping. It’s because there are a lot of reasons to believe that this is Togashi’s intention.
And like I said, sadly, people insisting on a platonic reading of their relationship is unintentionally harmful to the queer community, because people are so quick to dismiss elements that make queer people identify with the work as platonic behavior, dismissing queer people as “wishful shippers”.
There are plenty of reasons to believe that HxH is queer work, and while platonic readings of killugon’s relationship are valid, it sucks that it’s become overbearing in the anime community, to the point where outside of tumblr, people literally bully you for thinking that there’s a possibility Killua might be gay and in love with Gon. (trust me, i’ve faced a lot of people saying that it’s disgusting to label killua as gay)
So yes ! Killugon can be read as platonic. The queer community is just very adamant about people not dismissing Togashi’s subtext because HxH is the healthy, positive representation we need. It’s a beautiful piece of work that has the full potential (and who is most likely headed this way) to display a healthy, loving, positive canon gay relationship between two of its main characters.
Showing that a shounen battle manga can feature a canon gay relationship, showing that you can be young and gay and what you thought was best friend behavior was maybe romantic and that it’s okay because feelings change and are hard to figure out especially when you’re young and queer !!
And most importantly showing that unlike every portrayal of deep male best friends relationships in shounen anime that turn out to be painted as purely platonic, sometimes behaviors that queer people identify with ARE queer behavior, and not just platonic love, but romantic, homosexual love.
#ask#killugon#meta#my meta#sorry this was literally me rambling HAHAHAA#this isnt against u specifically just a general statement#bc im very passionate about people not dismissing togashis subtext#and very passionate about queer rep
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I was tagged by @letsgobethegoodguys for this adorable ask meme (thanks babe!)
what do you prefer to be called name wise?
Online, Kyler. I’ve used that pseudonym since I was 13? 14? just getting started online and it would be weird answering to anything else. I’m not stingy with my real name tho, I’ve told people in DMs before!
where do you live?
United States, straddling the line between the south and the Midwest
three things you are doing right now?
Listening to a video game soundtrack, trying to hype myself into writing, and debating whether or not I should go outside and bake in the sun.
four fandoms that have piqued your interest right now?
This sounds like I’m supposed to talk about new fandoms I’m just getting into, but nah. Right now I’m deep into The Originals (but when am I not?), I’m rewatching Avatar: The Last Airbender with a good friend of mine, I’ve gotten deeper into the Star Wars/Clone Wars fandom ever since the new episodes dropped, and I’m back into Legends of Tomorrow ever since Steph and I have been watching it through.
how’s the pandemic treating you?
Okay, for now. Teaching online was fairly simple last year when they sent us home; I was already familiar with the technology and the main goal was surviving the year. But as the new school year gets closer, it’s becoming clear that we are way underprepared to go back to onsite teaching, but we’re going to do it anyway. That makes me v anxious. My siblings and I (all teachers) had a good rant session about that just last night—we’re all skeptical.
a song you can’t stop listening to right now?
I can never stop listening to Wait for It.
recommend a movie?
I can’t even remember the last movie I watched. The last one I remember watching was 1917, but that was months ago. I’ll recommend 1917! It was excellent.
how old are you?
24!
school, university, occupation, other?
Teacher, middle school science (emphasis on physics 😏) currently on summer break, desperately trying to preserve the freedom as long as I can.
do you prefer hot or cold?
Both? Both. Both is good.
name one fact others might not know about you?
I’ve broken my right arm and my left wrist (not at the same time!) and I never got full mobility back in either wrist. Both my arms have slightly wonky configurations, which is v apparent when I try to exercise my arms in any capacity.
are you shy?
Painfully so. I spent so much time as a kid being quiet, living in my own head, and I never really got out of it. I still have to be invited into conversations and prompted to speak in work meetings.
what are your pronouns?
she/her
any pet peeves?
This is a really generalized one, but people who are rude/annoying on purpose, just to get a reaction.
Or when you want to correct something/someone but no one will listen to or believe you.
what’s your favorite “dere” type?
I don’t know what this means and I have no desire to look it up.
rate your life 1-10.
8 so far? Good. Bit stressful.
what’s your main blog?
This is my only blog. I only have enough energy for one persona. You get all of me here 😁
list your side blogs and what they are used for:
Did you not hear my last answer?
is there anything you think people need to know about you before being friends with you?
I’ll be quiet around you whether or not we’ve been friends for a week or five years. If I do talk, be prepared for random subject changes, or a half-baked deep dive into something I’ve put a lot of thought into beforehand. (This goes for online friends too, btw)
I’ll tag: @join-the-club-weve-got-jackets, @evanescentrainbow, @aeruthien, @edmundsmercy, @whitedahlia13, @thelegendofwinchester, and anyone else who feels like doing this! (Seriously, tag me. I’d love to see what you have to say!)
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Puzzleshipping: My Most Hated Shipping
Now before anyone tries to flag me or send me hate mail or both, look and read before you get mad. Also, if you do love this shipping, that’s perfectly fine. I have nothing against you. I’m not saying people who enjoy this shipping are bad people or stupid nor do I wish any ill fated action on them. None of that. This is just my personal gripe with this shipping. I am ranting it here, on my page, on my blog. Not attacking anyone personally about it. I know how loved this shipping is, I may not get it but okay I‘m just sharing my views, to share a different perspective.
All I ask anyone is to read this with an open mind. Everyone is gonna have a different opinion. This is more so my reasons why I hate this ship for reasons of both sharing opinions and also as away to get off my chest.
To start off there are many reasons why I absolutely despise Puzzleshipping and some reasons are ones that fans probably heard a lot. If you dunno what Puzzleshipping is for followers new to my blog or this subject, it’s the shipping or pairing of YugiXYami/Atem in Yugioh Duel Monsters.
First is the whole Yami/Atem and Yugi look alike and are possibly related, thus getting into um inappropriate (family romance) levels. (I’m honestly trying not to get this censored by tumblr). True, it’s never stated whether or not Yami/Atem and Yugi are related, except in one video game which is not canon to the series.
Honestly, you can’t blame people for feeling like this shipping goes into that territory. They look exactly alike. If you had a stranger who knew nothing of Yugioh and they saw some questionable fan art of the two, it’s only natural that they would think fans are into inter-family relationships and think “What the actual hell?”
When I was first really into the internet at a high school age, that was my main shock of the relationship because I’m like “Aren’t they related?”. I know this is still debatable but even then I’m like “Kinda creepy”.
Another obvious one is that Yugi blushes or gets more flustered around women. He is never this way around men. He’s never shy around men and especially Yami. Shoot, the moment a woman hands out sample ad brochures for Duke’s shop, Yugi blushes at her. Obviously, he doesn’t know her but still flusters around her since she’s pretty, indicating a more well obvious attraction to the opposite sex. Not to mention when Yugi is kissed by Rebecca and when Tea gets obviously jealous.
Yami on the other hand, I would argue he’s even asexual or even aromantic because he doesn’t seem that remotely interested in anyone. Maybe, Mana but even that is still debatable. He cares for people sure, but never shows that much of an interest in that kind of way. He protects Yugi and of course, cares for him but the way he’s does so is more of a brother or father figure looking after their brother/son. It’s protective love but not romantic. He doesn’t want to kiss Yugi or show anything that would indicate a romantic relationship. In fact, he even encourages Yugi to go after Anzu in the Japanese version. Most of this over protective attitude stems for the fact Yami feels guilty for dragging Yugi and his friends in his personal endeavors that can be dangerous, which often Yami states through out the series.
Now, I’m not going to go on with superficial and typical reasons that are often heard of when hating on this ship. I’ll just get to my main gripe about it and it’s a very deep reason for hating it. It’s my inner core of why I hate this ship. This shipping is the top, number one shipping of any series I can’t stand and here is why.
I honestly believe Puzzleshipping goes against what the story of Yugi Mutou is about and even who Yugi is as a character. The story of Yugioh Duel Monsters and generally Yugi’s personal story is about growing up. Yugi becoming an independent, strong, individual that can hold up his own in personal fights. Yami helps Yugi along, first as an entity that Yugi isn’t aware of yet but feels the presence of. As time goes on and he realizes who Yami is, at first he’s afraid because of what Yami does to Kaiba. He goes against Yugi’s wishes to not hurt Kaiba, but thanks to Anzu/Tea, Yugi stops Yami. After he vows to not go against Yugi’s wishes ever again, Yugi begins to trust Yami and become good friends, realizing that he is the confident entity that’s been protecting Yugi and helping him stand against tough foes, as well as gain the confidence to make friends.
Yami of course, goes against Yugi’s wishes again when he decides to use the Seal of Orichalcos against Rafael, though ultimately regrets this after Yugi pushes Yami and gets sealed away instead. Though this leads to Yugi and Yami in a heated duel, that results in Yugi explaining that it was for Yami to finally defeat the darkness within his heart, thus allowing Yugi to help Yami grow this time. Yugi continues to lend in the strength that Yami needs as Yami did for Yugi during his times of needs.
Now after explaining all that, it does seem like Puzzleshipping is legit, right? Not really. See, my gripe and why I say Puzzleshipping goes against it is how the fandom depicts Yugi in Puzzleshipping. When the time came and Yami had to be sent to the past, this was basically Yugi growing up and moving forward to continue on with being his own person, while Yami learns to be a strong, individual leader that his people need.
The way Puzzleshipping often depicts Yugi is the exact opposite to that. PS often depicts Yugi as a helpless damsel or someone that can’t live without Yami. The shipping seems to throw away all the development that Yugi gained, making Yugi look more helpless and more needing a man than Snow White and Sleeping Beauty! I know Yugi isn’t always strong and always confident but my goodness, he’s definitely come along way and I just feel that most PS works just throw this development way like it was nothing but garbage.
Same with Yami. Puzzleshipping often displays Yami as the hero that rescues Yugi or seductive flirty person, which he is not. While there are some that depict Yugi and Yami similar to the series, that’s also a problem too. It depicts Yugi and Yami before they grew and learn the lessons they learned.
Also why I am not showing puzzleshipping artwork in this post is because that would probably be considered art theft and I don’t want this blog flagged! Google it yourself!
Yugi is a character that in my youth, I looked up to a lot. When I was in middle school, I was bullied a lot and wish I had a large group of friends to stand by me. I probably wouldn’t have survived school without seeing Yugi during his struggles, showing he can be strong but also kind and accepting, thus giving me hope to find someone equally as kind and accepting.
Put it short, Yugi, his story and his friends helped me out during the toughest times as a kid. So seeing Yugi depicted as this prissy, helpless princess that needs his Egyptian Prince is just down right insulting to the character, I highly respect. Yeah, he’s fictional but again, he’s a character I grew up, highly respecting and looking up to as an example of a person I wished to be and a person that I wanted to be with. (Though I’m happy for Tea/Anzu, since she’s also really awesome.) Yami is too though he got a bit emo for my tastes down the road, he’s still a character that certainly deserves some respect as well.
It’s sorta like how people can’t stand remakes and reboots, despite this is just pure fandom fluff. Yeah, nothing is gonna stop it but that doesn’t stop people from feeling the way they feel about it and wanting to rant about it now and then and I’m not saying that all Puzzleshipping works are like what I described, but a majority of them are, especially in artworks.
Puzzleshipping just ruins the long, struggling, development of our two main leads and what are a great, strong and reliable individual characters. The whole point of the Dark Side of Dimensions movie was for Yugi to settle with his conflict he had when Yami left him and finally move on and I just feel like Puzzleshipping throws this type of development out the window, for a more “Kawaii-ish feels” or often from my perspective, to just add more gay to Yugioh.
I get there are AUs and people are allowed to have their fun and if I insulted fans well, sorry but call it even because I can’t search Yugi Muto without Puzzleshipping work being in my face and there’s only so much soft blocking I can do. I’m not at all saying that people can’t ship these two because yeah, like I’m the queen of the world! Hell no! It’s also not like I don’t have a few questionable ships and shippings a lot of people may not agree with myself.
(Drawing and Violet, child in the middle by me. Angel Dust and Vaggie belong to VivziePop)
Like I said, I’m just giving my reasons for why I personally hate it, why it ticks me off and why I think it’s one of the worst shippings in terms of pairings that are otherwise not that morally bad. There are far worse shippings that are more obvious on why they’re bad, but this one just gets under my skin for personal reasons, as I stated.
Think of this post as a dive into a different perspective, if you will. The goal isn’t to change the minds of puzzleshippers but to give a different point of view, especially to those that may not fathom why someone would hate this shipping. As I said, on the surface, Puzzleshipping seems legit but on the deeper levels, it’s not as wonderful as it may seem, at least to people like me and at least the majority of works that show case it.
I hope this rant though long, is at least informative and shares light on personal feelings that I certainly have and some who hate this shipping as much as I do also have. As stated, ship who you want. I mean, I obviously can’t tell you what to ship and to not ship. If it makes you happy, go for it. As said, just wanted to share my thoughts and my reasons. Obviously there’s worst things out there but everyone has a pet peeve or something that maybe mundane but is annoying or even infuriating to them.
So, creative question to anyone who reads this, what is a shipping you really can’t stand and why? Is there a shipping you hate? Also, what’s a shipping you like? My personal favorites are SpiderMoth (Angel Dust and Vaggie from Hazbin Hotel), Peachshipping (though I see it as canon), TomaXChiffon from Futago Hime and CloseXHaruka/Cure Flora and ShutXTowa/Cure Scarlet from Go Princess Precure.
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I understand the legal problems of money being involved in fanworks, but I still think that it's pretty damn hypocritical of people to only apply that to writers and criticise them for doing commissions or something, while it's alllll fine if it's artwork. Writers can't exactly make merch to sell; what merch can you do with writing? No one would buy it. Not to say artists shouldn't do comms, but if they can... then writers can too. You either support both, or none.
To clarify things: i don’t criticise anyone for doing commissions, artists or writers, or look down upon them. All legal considerations aside, if people are willing to pay you for your skill, then why not earn money, right?
But even if i might toy with the idea of buying merch, physical copies of what fans already created, which, as you rightfully said, writing as a medium can’t really offer; i wouldn’t ever personally commission fanworks.
Here’s some thoughts on why that is.
My enjoyment of a fanwork is based on the central assumption that someone produced this content for the sheer sake of it. That at the core, whether I’m the one consuming a content or creating it, we’re the same: two people who deeply love the source material.
That the content producer is more gifted than me and put time and effort in creating something, while I didn’t, doesn’t invalidate that we’re, at the core, on an equal footing: just two fans. The roles could, and can, be reversed.
When it comes down to it, I’ll far more enjoy an ugly picture, or a boring story, created by someone who shares my love of the source material than a beautiful, entertaining content created by someone who is indifferent to it. Because i’m a fan, looking for fanworks.
And this entire debate makes me uneasy because it shakes this central assumption, this lens through which i see fanworks. Did this author really care about the characters and the story in the same way as I do? Can I gush and rant at them about the original material, or is it just a source of profit for them? That’s all considerations i don’t want to have to ask myself. I want to be able to assume that everyone’s in it just for fun, without ulterior motives, like me.
It’s probably one of the reasons why i like obscure fandoms and rarepairs so much: there i know for sure the creators write or draw merely out of love, out of the desire to tell particular stories, not because they want to reach a broad audience with fandom as a gateway - they scarcely have an audience at all.
And sure, in a society where leisure time is scarce, where financial insecurity is rampant, it’s possibly too much to ask out of fans.
But to me, and probably to a lot of others, it’s also fandom’s main appeal: a space where questions of profitability, of efficiency, don’t come into play.
I guess i’ll cling to that illusionary assumption and stay clear of that debate. I’m not really willing to discuss this topic much further on this blog.
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Debating whether or not I think it’s worth it to offer commissions for September. I’ve actually gotten a fair few new followers recently, but my activity hasn’t changed much, and, at the risk of sounding like a Pissy Content Creator on Main, the ratio of likes to reblogs on my stuff has literally been something like...4/1. Which is INSANE. My most popular post on this site ever (which ended up being art and not a shitpost, surprising everyone, but especially me) has nearly 800 likes and less than 200 reblogs. And I’m?????
Look, I will be the first one to admit (loudly and with a great deal of bitterness) that the tiddy ban had a lot of creators jumping ship. But this kind of thing?? This is on the user base, and it’s killing off what few content creators we have left. Tumblr isn’t an art gallery or a library, it is a social media website (in theory). What’s the point of even having a blog on here if you don’t want to interact with anyone else? And I don’t mean jumping into someone’s inbox to rant at them, bc I’m too shy for that shit 95% of the time myself, but like... If I read something I like? I’m gonna share it. If I see a pretty piece of art? I’M GONNA SHARE IT. This site is a platform for SHARING MEDIA. *throws hands up*
*cough* Sorry, got a little off track there. My initial point was actually that, the last time I bothered putting up my commission post, it got less than 20 notes, and most of them were (you guessed it) likes. Which means that almost no one saw it. And, for me personally, it’s not the biggest deal because I do have a 9-5 job, but it is emotionally draining and disheartening to put yourself out there and be answered with...silence. I mean, if I thought I could actually make a living off commissions, I would be ALL OVER THAT. But that’s not feasible. I’d like to be able to keep my freelance stuff as a hobby, but it’s looking more and more like that’s not going to happen either. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
#rambles#long post is long#look#i'm not saying i deserve to be tumblr famous or whatever#my head's not that far up my butt#but it is pretty frustrating#i hate twitter#and pillowfort is a ghost town#and tumblr is like going to a house party where everyone tells you the cupcakes you brought look delicious#and then nobody eats them#or talks to you the rest of the night#so i'm kinda running out of options here#ugh
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Part 3- Designing Characters
For those of you starting here a brief recap of what this blog is. I am somebody who creates stories whenever I’m bored. I do tend to write quite a few of them out, and subsequently put them up on this platform if I feel like they are worth it, or not going to get me shouted at for being overly graphic. However, I have decided that with the creation of the next short I will create a short series of posts to try, and explain my though process on different aspects of the story. So, without further ado let’s continue.
What’s changed since last time?
Okay I have written the first draft as of this point, but I am not going to publish it yet because that is the draft where I am simply getting the idea out of my head. The story needs some refinement before it is ready to be criticized for its own good. The one you will be seeing will be a more refined draft although it still won’t be that good because it is just me at this point, and another perspective is necessary for it to become better.
Back on track the story has turned out quite well, but it didn’t exactly click for me until I used a metaphor that worked weirdly well given the story subject matter. I won’t go into it next week simply because the next blog will be me talking about that sort of thing. For this blog I will be talking about designing characters.
How I design characters
When designing a character, I start by thinking about what are some of the traits that I want this character to have. This falls under the traits the character will possess, and the flaws in they have. For example, a character might be very confident and not afraid to speak their mind, but they can be so stubborn at times that they frequently anger some people. The reason for me starting with this is it gives a good base to start with, and allows for a straightforward answer to question what would (insert character name here) do in this scenario?
Only once that is done do I decide on the secondary elements like gender, and ethnicity. This is because with most of my stories the secondary elements don’t really matter. For you this might be different. Certain stories tackle different subjects, and some do require a protagonist to be a specific race or gender. That is the key for me. If the secondary elements are important then it has to be for a reason that the story backs up. If not then it should be random with these elements getting attention during the establishing scenes.
There are, however, some things that when I never ever want to do when it comes to character creation. This is because I find that if I do then all sorts of problems happen.
Binary Good vs. Binary Evil
One of the main things that I don’t like when it comes to some stories is binary good, and evil. By that I mean I don’t like a story where a character is given the label of good or evil simply because they have been given the role of protagonist or antagonist. My reason for not liking this is because I think it is very restricting, and severely limits the type of story that can be told. It encourages some bad behaviours like protagonists being doll-like models who are one step away from being Mr./ Mrs. Perfect. Then there are the antagonists who get the side-lined as evil in a cartoonish, and simple way. For me a better story than binary good vs. binary evil would be one where the protagonist has to fight an antagonist who is in fact a puppet to a person the protagonist looks up to, and is also being used so this puppet master can cling to their throne of power. The only way the protagonist can save the day is by doing something that would vilify them in the eyes of society. The key lies in motivation. The only thing that should define a protagonist and antagonist is conflicting motivations, and who we are following.
I guess an example you could look to off something starting out interesting, and becoming binary good vs. evil, and suffering as a result is The Terminator Films. These films started out with the antagonist, Skynet, being created as a by product of human hubris that was yet to happen. As such it did carry some weight to the proceedings as we watched the characters, especially in the second movie, debate whether or not they should try to stop this. After that film though it turned into humans, yay, machines, boo. Shut up and watch the pretty spectacle, and don’t ask for anything more especially out of character motivation.
How do I avoid this? It’s a little difficult in my situation because the protagonist, Verity Randalls, has amnesia, and the story is one that is more focused on the setting. A counter to this though is that she is more of an audience surrogate character who is learning things at the same speed as the reader. As such her motivation closely mirrors the reader, and when the antagonist is revealed her response is a very human response when weighing up the difference between being alive and devoured by a carnivore.
The antagonist, Mother, is more straight forwards, but it isn’t outright evil despite having the goal of global conquest. It wants to turn humans into husks so it can feed, and grow bigger. This is similar to most carnivorous plants like the venus flytrap, or the pitcher plant. It’s killing because that is what it has genetically engineered to do in order to get food.
The Characters vs. The Writers Ego
One of the biggest things a writer has to fight against is their ego. It is very easy for a writer get carried away and put something into the story that is only there to appease the ego. With characters this usually comes in the form of self-insertion characters. The characters that only exist to be awesome, and give the writer a chance to show the world how they view themselves. This is not recommended because the audience can see it, and subsequently laughs at it. Remember After Earth. Remember how in that film how one of the main characters had the name Cypher Rage (if that’s how its spelt), and both protagonists were obviously written with the intent of being ego-stroking to the actors playing them. It made the film subsequently laughable in places that weren’t boring.
This isn’t specific to self-insert characters. We live in an age where certain groups like to praise certain elements of a film as progressive which gives the film a popularity boost. Nothing is wrong with this by itself until a writer’s ego tries to prematurely ride this wave of positivity, and designs a character specifically to appeal to these people and nothing else. As such this runs into the same problems as the self-insert. Both are in extreme danger of being given a specific label.
The Dreaded Mary Sue
Now we come to the subject that is a hot button for some people, but I’m talking about characters so it’s relevant. The Mary Sue. For me this is a character who (gender regardless) has certain traits that cause this. One, the character can say whatever and not offend anyone to a significant degree. Two, they can do anything without any repercussions while the other characters just stand their marveling at them. This is usually achieved by these characters ignoring a law of Newton’s that does apply here. “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction”.
My key rule for avoiding making a character like this is simple. The character has to have some kind of negative effect constantly there, and weighing on their mind. For example, the hero could save the day, but could destroy the planet in the process.
That covers this particular rant. The next blog will focus on what stories tell us, and why a writer shouldn’t avoid having them.
All images used are not owned by me. I obtained them from Google Images.
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DISCLAIMER; THIS HAS BEEN IN THE MAKING SINCE DEC 2017, I was just too shy to post it. Keep in mind that I'm not in any way, shape, or form trying to put my headcanons or interpretation of lore over anyone else's and this is pretty much just a general long-form run down for my roleplay blog to help people who aren't familiar with RS, so for my non-RS friends it's more of an explanation of how this 'tall ancient magic alien man' is and works. Physiology and some other cultural blurbs with the occasional emphasis on Sliske, because, well, that's what my roleplay blog is for. This is also mostly a passion project since I'm pretty fixated on this, if you read this at all, kudos to you and ily, ty for coming to my Ted Talk about this. Special thanks to people/friends who put up with me ranting abt this obscure fandom and helped me flesh out headcanons, and @theresiidentdevil the artwork that i commissioned that i use way too much bc devil really... really did my version of snek man nice. Other imgs used are scrounged from ja.gex’s concept arts and etc. ONCE AGAIN THIS IS NOT CANON, AND JUST MY PERSONAL HYPOTHESIS, feel free to reblog but please don’t like... edit or try to give me heavy crit or come @ me with some lore bit from so-and-sos tweet that I am wrong and am a doodoo head or something. This was just a spot o’ fun and please don’t try to drag my interpretation or expunge this for laughs on the official lore discord. I’ve seen it done before and it’s not cool. individual creative interpretation is beautiful, mob bullying is not.
To kick things off, the Mahjarrat are one of a few ancient tribes that live on the ash, lava, and stone wasteland that makes up the dead planet of Freneskae. They are highly skilled in magic and intellect by nature, as well as living by a firm form of kratocracy; a government by those who are strong enough to seize power through coercive power, social persuasion, or deceptive cunning. Along with this, their survival revolves around two rituals, one of death and sacrifice, the other of life and breeding. That right there should tell you a LOT about them, socially.
HEIGHT.
Height varies from Mahjarrat to Mahjarrat, they are always going to be towering over most species, and most humans, as lore states that they generally are 1.5x the average human height. Sans that one wild ass gene of hyper height that makes gargantuan Mahjarrat like Lucien and Zemoregal, who tower over even Azzanadra's spike pope hat. Sliske himself stands at an 8′4 height, but that's just my headcanon for this blog's sake.
SKULLS / BONES.
The Mahjarrat have thick skulls, if this wasn't pretty obvious with the additions of dual lines of bony ridges running parallel from the brow to back of the skull, and lower. Some, but not all individuals have rather, short horns as their 'first ridge' before normal ridges. They also seem to have a subtle browbone ridge above each eye. Sliske, as well as some of the canon Mahjarrat we know, have these short horns and I like to exaggerate them a bit as sharp and more obvious, because who doesn't love horns? I'd imagine there are also ridges across other parts of their bodies such as the shoulders, elbows, knees, smaller ones on the knuckles, and perhaps down the back and along the hips. Go wild. Anyways, their skulls are thick and heavy, as in if it comes down to having to head-butt someone at the sacrificial ritual as a last resort physical conflict when magic is exhausted, someone is going to be using every exploit they can to survive. Anything counts when your life is on the line.
*above concept art is of their lich-like forms. good for seeing skull shapes.
Most also have rather large jawbones and powerful jaw muscles, and have a decent bite force to clamp down; like above, can and will use the force of their jaws if they have to with a good 1,069 psi (pounds per square inch), a little less than a hyena, meaning they can break bones with enough force. The main reasoning for this is their powerful mandible adductor muscles and the leverage needed to keep their jaw closed in their lich-like forms with the loss of skin and some atrophy, when they begin to run low on energy before every 500 years ( more on this later ), otherwise their toothy jaws would be hanging open and they'd look quite silly. It's quite rare for a Mahjarrat to bite unless as a last resort attack, out of spite when healthy ( almost as if saying 'you are weak and aren't worth the waste of magical energy' ), or for other minute reasons. Males tend to have very pronounced 'spikes' on their chins and larger skull ridges, but it's not completely unheard of a female having a 'spiked' chin and larger ridges. Sexual dimorphism isn’t too well explained or solidified by Jagex, we haven’t really seen much due to the few living Mahjarrat we see.
TEETH / CONSUMPTION.
personal interpretation of sliske’s teeth here.
Speaking of teeth, Mahjarrat have exceedingly sharp teeth for being part of a race that is not carnivorous or needing any sustenance at all. They have more teeth than humans (not really canon, just my personal interpretation, I prefer them being very Alien over ‘grey human reskin’); while almost every tooth has a sharpness to it, be it incisors or tines in the molars. Their front teeth seem to be ridged with smaller points, you probably don't want to get nipped by them, even if it's just playful or affectionate (uh, whatever they deem as affection). It's a real shame that Sliske seems to enjoy this, in the few moments he puts on a faux air of affection to scratch an itch or when deciding to use seduction as a ploy to further his manipulation or intel gathering, among other rare, convoluted feelings towards someone he's 'affectionate' with. Teeth shape and sizes can vary due to the Mahjarrat way of breeding and eugenics to create survivability through offspring on what traits work. Basic Darwinism, tbh. Following my ever favorite serpent motif for Sliske, you can expect his teeth to be pretty ophidian/snake-like. Due to my headcanon to their dark blood color, Mahjarrats may have dark or black gums. Small addition: babs do have sharp defensive baby teeth that fall out into hellish adult ones. Nice.
Mahjarrat do not need to eat or drink, as they are fueled fully by an arcane energy that they receive from rituals, and slowly deplete this over several centuries. Their power can last even longer if an individual is stingy with their power, or unaware of their power like Kharshai, who spent several centuries in a human guise hardly using any energy while unaware he was even a Mahjarrat. Despite not needing sustenance, it's not unheard of for Mahjarrat to attempt eating or drinking for whatever reason, be it pleasure or to emulate others. Hazeel's memories almost adorably describe some Mahjarrat attempting to sit and politely eat with humans to 'bond with them', despite them later having to regurgitate what they had eaten and Hazeel's repulsion at any creature eating at all. Several lore snippets include Zamorak enjoying wine and in Kindred Spirits, Sliske making the comment he may be drunk after downing the contents of a bottle. Whether or not they actually can become inebriated or have any sort of digestive system to even mildly uptake anything is debatable. For headcanon's sake, I like to think Sliske has no issue with pleasure eating and for taste, especially chocolate, fully knowing he'll have to bring it back up later. Most Mahjarrat have tongues that can be dark in color to only slightly brighter due to their dark blood color. Like horns, some end up with a slightly bifurcated tongue tip, some do not and have a single, sharp tip. Sliske is an extreme mutated case and has a very obvious black, snake-like, forked tongue. Just don’t ask him to do the thip thip because he won’t.
(WHERE’D YA GET THOSE) EYES / SENSES.
Usually, A Mahjarrat's eyes correspond to the color of the jewel embedded in their crown, but not always. They have very, keen eyes and their eyesight is exceptional to suit the darkness of Freneskae due to the constant ashfall and cloud cover. They can see short distances, but farther into heavy smoke and ash than most species, and can indeed see in the dark with excellent night vision and have a structure similar to an animal's tapetum lucidem, which is what reflects light and makes that eerie glare you see from animals in the dark. Due to spending a lot of time on Freneskae and being well adapted to that environment, it was quite a jolt for them to get accustomed to sunlight on Gielinor when brought during the Menaphite War, as they were used to heavy 'cloudy' weather due to ash blocking out what light they did get, and being used to the constant lightning strikes and the glow of volcanic rifts and lava pools. But they adapt quite well and while they still prefer muted lights, they have no problem in the sunlight after adjusting a bit. Think of when it’s a sunny summer day and you leave your dark house and how for a few minutes you have to acclimate. Sliske has the most trouble with this, seeing as he still spends quite some time in the darkness of the Shadow Realm which is hazy and muted in light. He's quite prone to straining and headaches/migraines from bright lights on Gielinor ( and Earth since a lot of my writing takes place on Modern Earth ).
Mahjarrat have fairly acute senses and sharp ears, and while most concept art shows them similar to human ears, why not lorge, sharp, and pointy ( as not to be so human )? Plus, imagine a few with larger, pointed ones that flick when irritated. That's cute, but deadly. They can hear fairly well and can hear you talking shit. Not exactly up to par with a bat or a moth, but quite up there with horses or cats. I'd imagine the rest of their senses are pretty keen despite not using taste or smell as much as a human, but most senses are still fairly above a human’s.
I'm not exactly sure how they'd fare in the aspect of touch, but it is known that they are very, very strong and can break bones with their bare hands. They have exceptional strength in their bodies and despite teleporting some ways, I'll bet most of them are decently muscular or lean under those robes due to their solidity and a bad example perhaps, but, uh, have you seen Zamorak's exposed chest? I'm sure 'godhood' didn't change that much, albeit some. Who wouldn't love a decently built Enahkra who will hand your ass to you? A babe. Sliske himself, while being one of the leanest of the Mahjarrat, probably has core strength and broad shoulders under those pauldrons. I'd like to imagine he'd also ( as some other of his kin) would be pretty flexible and train his Praetorians to be similar and absolutely strong in the event of having to resort to physical combat or maneuvering out of capture. Most of them were born on Freneskae, a planet made of plenty of solid rock/crystal cliffs and caves, they made pilgrimages pretty often to the ritual site, so some rock climbing was probably involved as they grew. Plus, image small, child Mahjarrat, not able to teleport or be proficient in magic, just out on a day with less lightning, climbing around, chucking rocks into lava for fun. I'm getting off-topic and we'll talk about babbies some other post.
SKIN / STRIPES / SCARRATIONS.
personal interpretation body/stripe of sliske here. (mildly nsfw)
Skin colorations are usually running the gamut of dark grey, pale grey, and dull color such as a grey-green, grey yellow and more. It's also notable that Mahjarrat are shapeshifters and are known to slowly take on the appearances of the conditions they are in for extended amounts of time; Kharshai becoming more 'viking-esque' like the Fremennik people who took him in when he was unaware he was human, and also Bilrach's warped appearance from spending god knows how long in Daemonheim with larger ridges, scarring, and some more demonic-looking features. Sliske himself has a very deep, dark slate grey skin tone from the amount of time he spends in the dark of the Shadow Realm, beginning to mimic its dusk.
Mahjarrat have thick skin, built initially to withstand the heat and abrasion of their home world’s rocky and dangerous climate and environment, but also notably protective against icy and snow-fraught climates, as they have little to no issue or complaint at heading far North of the Fremennik Providence, near the icy fortress of Ghorrock where their ritual stone lays on Gielinor ( it's also notable that Jhallan asks the adventurer to re-seal him within a fuggin’ block of ice to rest again, proving they do not mind the cold at all ). Their skin can scar if proper regeneration is not taken to heal wounds, as Mahjarrat are known for almost instantaneously healing themselves of most wounds on the battlefield to their own volition, but this is quite rarely seen on them, sans Bilrach. For all we know, they could be quite scarred from lack of regeneration fueled by magical energy or quite severe wounds under those robes that cover most of their body, I personally headcanon that some may have some scarring on their hands and forearms due to the might of some of the spells they use. I also personally headcanon Sliske having a pretty nasty burn across his shoulder and ribs trailing to the hip on the left side from Tumeken's explosive self-sacrifice detonation that wiped out the entirety of his army and at least 3/4ths of the Mahjarrat present, sans the ones spared by Azzanadra's quick shielding. I would think that some of them also may have suffered from similar scars due to Kharshai admitting they were tired and wounded after the event.
Striping and markings can litter their forms in sparse or rather heavy. Most Mahjarrat have at least some facial striping that can be a monochrome pale grey or darker, or a bright color such as Wahisietel's bright red trailing across his ridges to his chin spikes, Enakhra's vivid pink colorations, and Khazard's orange striping. While stripes may look similar from individual to individual you are hard-pressed to find two Mahjarrat with identical markings, and we have never heard of any twins being born from their tribe in canon ( Not saying it's not possible! But that would be a lot of strain seeing as once child is hard enough for a pair to conceive ). It's unknown if the stripes are across the rest of their bodies, but I say to hell with it. Why the hell not? Let the stripes go as angular or curvy as they please across their skin. Why limit the imagination. They are aliens. For the sake of me writing Sliske; he's a very pale silvery, parallel stripy thing under those robes with handsome slate skin. Go figure, that's jus' me though. ( Whatddya mean I made a personal ref of that?? s w e a t s?? slight warning for some not safies. )
CLAWS / FEET.
personal interpretation of sliske’s rock climbin’ sharp feets here.
Mahjarrat probably do have clawed hands and feet, and they are thick and sharp, along with strong ( most likely calloused for some ) palms and heels for climbing ( possibly before they were so proficient with teleporting ) They are also prime last resort weapons if need be and constantly need filing down on Gielinor and other terrains since they aren't around the rocky outcrops of Freneskae and using them there as much, most Mahjarrat seem to opt to wear gloves anyway. Their legs and arms are also pretty sturdy for climbing despite not needing to do so as much. I’d imagine they might just have longer toe and finger bones for mild gripping abilities when it comes to climbing. I’ve also kinda headcanoned often that they probably might have wrapped parts of their feet in bindings, just to keep things like soft arches or tendon areas save when climbing or walking. Ancient hellplanet fashion, baby.
GEMS.
Just about all Mahjarrat ( and Dreams of Mah in general ) have at least one 'crystal' or 'gemstone' in their brows or crowns ( whoever in the wiki said Sliske doesn't have one is a fraud, just because we don't see it due his V tapered hood doesn't mean it's not there, as it has been shown in several concept arts that he does have two yellow-green or 'peridotite' colored diamonds, like his half-brother’s four of the same color ). When asked about it in the Children of Mah quest, Wahisietel states that even they are not sure as to why they have them but believe it to be a direct connection to Mah. It's also implied that a dead Mahjarrat's 'crystal' often records their last thoughts or actions. Most Mahjarrat have the exact same bright iris color as their stones ( the concept art with Sliske having gold eyes throws me off, but I'd imagine there could be some minor color differences ). It seems that gemstones look-alike from siblings and offspring, as Sliske and his half-brother Wahisietel have almost the same colored crystal and shape despite Wahisietel having four diamonds to Sliske's two.
ORGANS? OR LACK THEREOF?
personal interpretation of nasty snake man blood here.
It's truly unknown as to just how many organs Mahjarrat have and if there is any comparison to be made to humans. It can be hypothesized they do have at least a heart ( With more chambers than a humans? Or two! Who knows! ) and lungs. If they do have lungs, it could be stated that they are very strong and made to filter out the heavy ash and debris of Freneskae's poor air quality, our adventurer had enough trouble breathing on Freneskae if you didn't take face gear. They do not seem to have a digestive tract as they do not need sustenance or hydration and perhaps have a makeshift stomach that leads nowhere as if they do eat anything, they just have to regurgitate it. Onto blood, they possibly do have a circulatory system and blood, as Lucien states he didn't 'want to spill any more Mahjarrat blood'. Normal human blood would be a bit boring so I like to imagine they have thick, dark-colored blood that has some iridescent properties to it ( not glittery, but if you have ever seen what the ink in a ballpoint pen looks like when dumped out, it has a particular shine to it. ) and never seems to be just one color, like an oil slick. Probably because it's so rich in arcane properties which would also make it pretty toxic, bitter, or awfully sickly sweet. This also means that they would blush pretty dark in color and have dark-colored tongues and etc. rather than red like humans, that's.... kinda cute. Also, if we are talking about organs and parts, a small blurb, no, female Mahjarrat do not have boobs. There's no need since they probably do not feed their young at all. So breaking canon for the sake of biology, hi, Mahjarrat probably don't have boobs or nips. Kinda doesn’t make sense. SHRUG. But they do have belly buttons, so maybe they are gestated with umbilical cords.
THE BANE OF THE JMOD’S EXISTENCE: MAHJARRAT REPRODUCTION
Y'all wanted it Jmods yell when we ask for it, here it is: my reproduction hypothesis. We have little to no real canon lore for Mahjarrat other than that they do(?) reproduce sexually, it takes a lot of energy to do so (abt 50% physical effort, 50% the pair pooling their life energy into the event, kinda dangerous), and that they are culturally fond of breeding during earthquakes ( this was just a cultural tradition and it's probably possible to breed outside of this tradition, the jokes say it’s almost Pavlovian ). They have a specific ritual for breeding, The Ritual of Enervation. The Enervation is the foil of a Ritual of Rejuvenation where one of their kind is sacrificed to provide all others with energy and return them from their lich-like states to fleshy filled out ones, the Enervation is a pilgrimage to select a mate and breed to create a new Mahjarrat between a pair. It's slightly hinted that the pair chooses their mate based upon battle prowess or cunningness ( Zemouregal Senior chose his mate based on her skills in battle ) . Much like real animals today, they want only the strongest genetics and mutations to continue on. All of them fight each other for their pick of a mate. Very rarely do the pairs have any emotional attachment, this is rare. And the ritual still isn't pretty; I'll say it, they are rough lovers. Expect biting, scratching, bruising, and more. Kinky. Let me tell you, human genitalia are boring as hell when you are describing aliens. Phallic genitalia differs a lot from individual to individual, it's a slight 'grab bag to see what part works best for future genetics'. Mahjarrat bits are pretty internal until aroused since it makes no sense for them to be external seeing as all Mahjarrat lose a lot of skin and muscle to atrophy as they age and lose energy, so they'd do better internally and tucked away. Vaginal genitalia differs heavily as well, anything goes. Barbs? Sure. Flowery looking bits? Sure. It's aliens, guys. Go wild. Same thing with sexualities and genders, other than what they want to present themselves as, we don't know shit, so go for it. I'm fairly sure Mahjarrat really don't mind gender identity and anything goes, they see power, survival, and fighting over everything else. Sliske, of course, is male presenting and yes, has his own unique bits. Uh, ridges, bifurcated tip, fan-like appendage for preventing backflow. I'd describe more but I'm already pRETTY FUCKING SHY RIGHT NOW BC I DON'T KNOW HOW TO talk much abt this. I'm a beginner alien fucker. Give me a break.
UPDATE: I went there, I no longer have shame. bc I roughly drew it.
I’m not sure what the good estimate would be when it comes to how long a Mahjarrat gestates, is it longer than a human? Quicker due to magic? We just don’t know. The birth rate is exceedingly low due to the dangers and strain of Freneskae, it's not unheard of for miscarriages or mothers to pass away from lack of energy or during the fray of the constant other tribes attacking each other. Generally, it's a duty to protect a gravid mother of the sake of population, mate or not. Putting aside your disdain for your nemesis was hard but needed if you wanted to keep your tribe thriving. Fathers don't tend to stick around after the ritual other than to check in to protect their child and future genetics as insurance. Mothers rear children and if they could get along and not spat at one another, often looked after each other's children. Maternal groups were pretty common and one could leave another to watch their kids while they went off on their duties of making lightning rods, scouting, and more.
MISC?
Mahjarrats don't exactly have the same bonds as humans and familial life was harsh, mainly due to the stress of knowing your own blood one day might betray you and vote you off to be the sacrifice at a ritual. They are not affectionate as much as humans and care in their own backwards way about each other if they are family, but it's an arm's length approach. Sliske and Wahisietel seem to get along and still probably have their ferocious verbal quarrels and have possibly even physically scuffled a bit over things, but managed to have concern for one another, as do Mahjarrat who are as best a definition of 'friends' can be to them. Remember that they are very paranoid of one another and usually only see eye to eye if in the same political faction or having to make a deal or coerce one another to stand up for you if you are challenged at a ritual ( later on this became a huge political agenda between the two main sides; Zamorakian or Zarosian and fighting intensified at dislike for each other ). As they evolved from their creation, they just generally became more and more mistrustful of each other to point of paranoia. So affection is incredibly weird to them and the first thought that comes from it is 'what do you want and why?' and it's expected to be a deceitful notion. Hence, Sliske is incredibly good at persuading others and using deceitful action to lure people but the moment it's done to him, he'll play along but consider it warily as false notions. Sorry not sorry, that's pretty habitual to him and will stay with him, as well as his kin. You're never going to have a 'stable relationship' with any Mahjarrat. Well, not 100% at least. You can try, they might even appreciate it if they aren’t offended.
That’s about all I wanted to say and anything left out of this word spew can be covered in other posts. Like culture.... or babbies. I have a lot to say about Babjarrats but no place right now to keep up this long shit.
UPDATE: i talked abt my thoughts on babjarrats. it was the best of my life.
#✦ │ 𝙾𝙾𝙲 ––– that's a lot of fuckin' tea.#✦ │ 𝙷𝙴𝙰𝙳𝙲𝙰𝙽𝙾𝙽𝚂 & 𝚃𝙷𝙴𝙾𝚁𝙸𝙴𝚂 ––– i do hate parting with information.
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I realized something
Im currently in a debate with someone on twitter about SasuSaku/SasuKarin I wont go into details but it basically revolves around Karin as a character vs Sakura as a character and Sasuke’s relationship with team 7/Taka etc
During this debate, I had to do a ton of research on certain things to refresh my memory and argue my points which yes, unfortunately, involved going onto SK blogs
But in doing so, visiting several SK blogs, seeing different SasuKarin posts and their arguments for it, not just on Tumblr but in plenty other places like youtube Instagram other sites on google etc and I noticed a pattern
Majority or I should say ALL the SK fans arguments that I SEEN [of course Im not speaking of the entire fandom only the part I SEEN]
Everything regarding SK although they ‘claim’ to care about Sasuke and his feelings, I noticed a pattern in every single post and argument made by them
NONE OF THEM actually talk about Sasuke’s feelings
Lemme elaborate, the pattern that I saw constantly when speaking of SK and why they should be together etc it all comes down to one thing, or I should say, one person
Karin
Everything I saw was about KARINS feelings, about KARINS backstory, about KARINS horrible childhood and trauma
Basically, the main argument for the pairing is all about Karin, nothing to do with Sasuke at all
Let me elaborate further, to put it in simple terms the arguments and reasoning basically boils down to pity
Thats right, the very thing they accuse Sasuke of getting together with Sakura for is the EXACT THING they use to argue for KARIN
I’ll go even more in depth so you get the full grasp of the BS and the hypocrisy
They think Sasuke should be with Karin because she loved him, she was selfless and only wanted him to be happy, she stood by him even in his darkest moments, Karin and Sasuke have similar pasts so she can understand him better, Karin grew up being used and abused and Sasuke was the first one to show her kindness, Karin loved him unconditionally, Karin deserved love, Karin deserved to be happy, if together they would make really OP kids, the Uzumaki and Uchiha need to reunite again, Sasuke wasnt aware of Karin's feelings to the full extent they actually were so he couldnt properly respond
Do you see the pattern? none of this directly talks about Sasuke, it all revolves around Karin
Let me ask you, which part of those arguments actually mentions Sasuke’s feelings for Karin? in which point do they mention Sasuke’s pov at all? I had yet to encounter one
The most I found was that he respects her, he chose her, he saved her from Bee, thats literally it
Everything else is just all about Karin's feelings for HIM not the other way around which is all based around pity
Sasuke should get with Karin because of how hard her life was, how tragic her life was, how selfless her love was, how much shes done for him, how much shes suffered, Karins been used and abused since she was a child she should be happy with Sasuke who also had a traumatic childhood, Karins Uzumaki genes mixed with Sasuke’s Uchiha ones would create a really op kid, its so sad how Karin never moved on she truly loved Sasuke she should have got a happy ending with him instead of Sakura who was just out of pity and fanservice
The irony is astonishing, it all boils down to Sasuke should get with Karin because of what SHES been through and how SHE feels for him and how bad THEY feel for her because ‘her life was so terrible, she deserved a happy ending’ which is just utter bullshit and quite frankly disgusting
So its ok for Sasuke to be with Karin out of pity for her horrible life just to give her a happy ending they think she ‘deserved’
But not get with Sakura out of pity for her feelings for him and hurting her how he did
I see pitys only ok when it involves the character/pairing you prefer, I see all that talk about SS not caring about Sasuke’s feelings was all bullcrap
Its funny to me how SKs arguments revolve solely around Karin's feelings for him yet SS argues both sides and the feelings and relationship and development of Sakura AND Sasuke together
But when it comes to SK its all about Karin and what she deserves, when it comes to SS its about what THEY deserve and how Sakura AND Sasuke feel for eachother, its not a one-sided argument
I also find it partially sickening that one of the main arguments for SK is Karins genes, keep in mind these people supposedly care about Karin and feel sorry for her messed up upbringing being used and abused for her power, yet you condone using her in this pairing just for her Uzumaki genes mixing with Sasuke’s to create an OP kid, that is beyond disgusting
This messed up argument actually reminds me of the storyline of Maburaho which I’ll post here for those who have never seen it
Kazuki learns that he is a descendant of most of the world's greatest magicians from both the eastern and western worlds. Even though he has a feeble spell count, his offspring has the potential of becoming a powerful magician.
The male protagonist, Kazuki, is a second-year student from an elite magic school, Aoi Academy, with serious social problems, and because he has a low spell count of only eight spells, most of the other students, especially the girls, would not notice him. At the beginning of his second year, it is revealed that he is descended from not only the most powerful of eastern mages but the most powerful of western mages. Having both powerful bloodlines fused into one body means that despite his low spell count, he is capable of wielding nearly omnipotent power. He is, therefore, the most powerful character in the series.
Basically, the MC Kazuki is seen as a loser because he can only use his magic 8 times and obviously isnt very popular with the ladies, however once its revealed that his genes are super powerful and that his child would be one of the most powerful mages in the world, all the girls suddenly want the D and are constantly pursuing him trying to get his genes
It’s the same for the SK fandom, they look down on Sakura because of her average status and glorify Karin as superior because of her superior genes thus making for a much stronger offspring when combined with Sasuke’s
So, bottom line, when it comes to SK its all about pity, Karin's feelings, Karin's genes, her deserving happiness and Sasuke should just reciprocate just to make Karin happy since she had a crappy life
Sasuke getting with Sakura out of pity is something I never wanna see again from SK, they have no room to talk about pity hooking up nor falling for someone's looks, nor do they have the right to claim they're more of Sasuke fans than SS
Of course they can still say this and feel how they wanna feel Im not trying to control anyone, Im just saying that from now on when I see those arguments Im gonna view them in a whole new perspective and see it for the hypocritical bullshit it actually is, especially when they claim to care about Sasuke yeah thats a riot lol
Anyway thats the end of this mini-rant I guess, should be obvious Im not directing this at the entire fandom just the portion of it that I’ve seen, its honestly pathetic and makes them look like not real Karin or Sasuke fans
It’s similar to the NS argument that Naruto should have gotten with Sakura because hes the MC and he deserved her etc, but genes are never a part of it so SK is arguably worse in this regard, its just a disgusting way of shipping two characters you claim to like
Pity, what one character deserves, who has better genes, how bad someone's life is so they deserve to have what they want in the end whether that person likes them back or not just give them the happy ending you think they deserve
Yeah, thats terrible
#Anti-karin#anti-sasukarin#mini rant#all this back and forth on twitter has gotten me involved with a whole lota SK bullshit again and i just had to vent#after all this back and forth and research im practically a pro with sk which is not something i like being#but i pretty much know all i need to know about the pairing#all the tiny details etc#so excuse me if i see a little peeved recently with all the anti karin posts lately#now you know why#the discussion is still going on on twitter as i write this#so the anti posts are basically me venting my frustrations and findings here that I cant do on twitter#limited characters etc you know#so sorry for the spam but if you dont like it then just block the tags
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ALRIGHT!
Time for questions! I’m going to put 1-9 here plain and simple, and then the rest will be under the break just so that you don’t have to scroll to oblivion if you don’t want to see this! Let’s go!
1: Name
My name is Jude, or Coreta if you wanna use my pen name! A few of you might also know me as Virchude since that’s my main blog!
2: Age
I won’t tell you plainly, but I am still in high school.
3: City that you live in
I’m just gonna tell you which state! I live in the lower peninsula of Michigan!
4: What do most people not know about you?
I’m almost certain that none of you know this, but I am the youngest of my dad’s (kinda) six kids.
5: What do most people know you for?
If we’re talking just here, I hope to all get out it’s my headcanons, but in real life it’s the fact that I get offended rather easily...
6: Hobbies!
I do a lot of pointless writing (meaning I never finish anything)... I also draw a lot of random junk, I rad a shit ton of fanfiction, I sing/write songs a lot... uuhh and do nothing.
7: What are your passions?
I have a very large passion for helping those around me who have suffered like I have mentally and emotionally. I also really like debating (more like arguing) with people about politics!
8: When was the last time you had a significant conversation with someone you love?
Just yesterday my mom, older sister, and I ended up accidentally sitting down in the living room and ranting about how shitty out lives are... so.......... yeah
9: have you collected anything? What is it?
I have a small hat collection (that I hardly ever wear), and I’m beginning a plant collection! There is also a ever fluctuating collection of cups and bottles in my room T-T
10: List ten things off your bucket list (I may not remember half of these TvT)
*Take a trip back to Colorado with my friends
*Start a business
*Travel to at least 8 countries
*Go to Andorra
*Be known for some great feat
*Have one of my works (whether art or writing, etc) become famous or greatly known
*Meet one of my favorite actors/band members (doesn’t matter who)
*Learn to swim...............
*Make drastic strides towards saving the planet
*Meet more people from my dad’s side of the family
11: What was the last thing you learned?
Seeing as I got out of world history an hour and a half ago, we learned about the Cold War and how the USSR fell apart because of silly putty
12: How many relationships have you been in?
Counting the ones that didn’t mean shit, 4. Only counting the ones that actually meant something, 2.
13 + 14 I am not answering.
15: Favorite food
Menudo. Fuckin love it
16: Favorite drink
hm... either tea or ginger ale, but out of a shot glass TvT A TWO LETER OUT OF A SHOT GLASS
17: What is the best birthday gift you have ever received?
I went to NYC over my birthday weekend this year with my school’s choir, and our tour leader on my bus got me a pastry in Little Italy! It meant so much because I didn’t even know her!
18: Are you optimistic or pessimistic?
I’m usually pessimistic unless my friends are also being pessimistic, cuz then I’m frigin sunshine and rainbows!
19: Do you sleep during class?
Not very often, and only if what I’m doing isn’t actually important.
20: What is the most expensive thing you own?
If not my actual bed, my laptop, which is $200.
21: What is the cheapest yet most useful thing you own?
..... I... Don’t know... uh I got a huge fukin thing of cocoa butter lotion at the dollar tree... and it’s kind of multi use?!?
22: How many time a day on average to you check your phone?
.........don’t look at me like that.
23: Text or call?
Text. I wanna call people, but what if they don’t pick up? Or it’s really awkward? or I can’t hear them? or vise versa? or-
24: Opinion on long distance?
Sounds like torture. I honestly couldn’t do it.
25: What is your definition of success?
Feeling satisfied or content with what you’ve done.
26: Favorite song?
um. At the moment, Killer Queen by Queen.
27: Favorite artist?
Music wise, Patrick Stump. Art wise, Van Gogh.
28: Celebrity crush/crushes?
That’s a long list. But my main two recently have been Sebastian Stan and Tom Holland...
29: When was the last time you read for fun?
Aside from fanfiction? Last Wednesday night I stayed up reading Shakespeare’s sonnets to myself...
30: Favorite flower?
chrysanthemums!
31: What is the best gift you could receive right now?
A confidence boost that lasted at least the rest of high school...
32: Any guilty pleasures?
Day dreaming about random shit.... random weird shit about people I know...
33: What is one thing you’d like to change about yourself?
Hm... I think I’d change my mental health. I just wanna be perfectly okay for once.
34: What do you search for in a friend?
being able to understand me, relate to me, and be weird with me. Also mutual interests. And reasonable barriers.
35: How many times have I said “I love you” in the past month?
You expect me you count???? A shit ton! Do you know how many times a day I have a family member leave the goddamn house????
36: Where dd you last go other than your room/home?
School.
37: Why do good things happen to good people?
Because that’s not how life works. Our society constantly has people suffering, no matter who they are or what they’ve done.
38: In your opinion, what hurts more? Being left out, or being stabbed in the eye?
Seeing as I’m just about used to the pain of being left out, I’d say being stabbed in the eye. I am such a wuss T-T
39: How many green shirts do you own?
1. It’s a St. Patty’s day shirt.
40: Do you like anime?
noooooooooooo.......... not at allllll.... TvT I’m tired!
41: What do you invest the most time in?
Either videogames or fanfiction.
42: What is the name of the last book you read?
The Hobbit (even though I haven’t finished yet)
43: What’s the difference between loving and liking someone?
No clue... Still trying to figure that out.
44: Where are you most productive?
My art classroom
45: List three things you enjoy doing with friends:
*Complaining about life
*being gay
*Pretend to kidnap one of them my dragging them around the floor during lunch
46: List three things you like to do alone:
*Listen to music
*Think
*Read
47: Do you think that world peace will ever exist?
As long as there are living things on it? Never.
48: Do you have any allergies?
Absolutely none! I knew this kid in the third grade who was allergic to nuts, milk, AND gluten!
49: When was the last time you cussed at someone?
My friend and I got into an argument about who the best actors are during english....
50: What was the last promise you made?
.......Is it bad that I don’t remember?
51: What was your last dream about?
I had a hedgehog (which I really frikin want), and I was taking care of them, and hen this asshole in my grade was in my living room and I had to be nice to him.
52: If you won a trip to Hawaii and could take 5 people with you, who would they be?
*My best friend Kiara
*My friend Raph
*My other friend Molly
*My other other friend Faith
*My dog
53: How many countries have you visited?
1, if you count the fact that I live in one!
54: What is your favorite medium of art?
Music. It moves me so easily.
55: When was the last time someone complimented you?
My friend Laura jokingly complimented my hair during english (we were looking at old english compliments) and she winked at me TyT
56: If you switched bodies with someone, how would you recognize yourself?
uh... hol up, wha?
57: Do you consider yourself mature?
At times, yes.
58: How many days in your life do you think you’ve wasted on tumblr?
so frigin many, but there’s more to come!!!!
59: What is your favorite quote?
“I was so good at sports when I was in high school, that I started a band.”
-Patrick Stump
60: If you started a new religion and you had to create 3 rules or commandments for your new followers to live by, what would those 3 rules be?
*Be kind to all (see how that’s turned out???)
*Spend life learning. Try to find the lesson in your experiences.
*Mental growth is more important than anything
61: What is your greatest accomplishment?
Being alive today.
62: Do you believe in the death penalty?
No, not really.
63: What are your goals in life?
To be a better person than my mother is, and to help others on a mental level.
64: What do you think your soulmate is doing right now?
I honestly have no clue... maybe something weird?
65: If you could live anywhere, where would you live? The place can be in an imaginary, fantasy, or the real world.
I would have to go with.......... oo that’s hard................... the bnha universe T-T I want powers!
66: What were you like in 2013?
I was an awkward, abusive, shitty little child.
67: Do you have a job?
Nope! I’m planning on possibly finding a part-time one soon, though!
68: Tell us a story about your childhood best friend.
His name was Parker, and he was a year older than me. He was my first friend other than my older sister, and I loved him so much. I don’t remember much, seeing as the last time I saw him I was five... It was early fall, just when the leaves start to fall. We had one of those trees in my front year that dropped the seed thingies that twirled around. Parker and I would always toss so many of those in the air until out hands got cold... I really miss him.
69: If you could change one thing in society, what would it be?
I would get rid of corrupt governments and people in positions of power.
70: How many all-nighters have you pulled before?
Never have I pulled one for school, but I find myself staying up til the crack of dawn the day before school starts, usually. Or on nights when I can’t but help contemplate everything to the point of not being able to sleep at all.
71: Is tumblr your favorite website? If not, then what is it?
Tumblr is one of my favorites, but Ao3 has my ass.
72: What is the craziest thing you would do for a million dollars?
Nothing. I tend to be very hard to bribe. But if I reaaallly needed the money, I wouldn’t be able to kill someone, I’ll tell you that.
73: Does money equal happiness?
It can for some people, but not for all.
74: How many times have you experienced true happiness in your lifetime?
I don’t know, a few? I’m never truly happy until my thoughts leave me alone.
75: How many times have you experienced true sadness in your lifetime?
More than happy, I can tell you that.
76: What’s the funniest joke you have ever been told?
My generation is going to save the planet.
77: When was the last time you looked at the news?
We actually watched a news clip during history today!
78: If you could say one thing to the world, what would you say?
Stop being a dick!
79: What is your favorite animal?
A hedgehog!!
80: If you could earn a million dollars for pretending to be dead for three years, would you do it?
NO! I have people who would miss my sorry ass, then murder me for coming back!
81: What is one thing everyone is bad at?
Having a lot of friends. A lot of the time (in my personal experience), the more friends you have, the less time you can spend with them, and the less close you are, until eventually you can’t keep dividing your time!
82: What time do you normally sleep? How many hours do you usually get?
uuuhh... yes, and not enough!
83: Does age necessarily equal maturity?
No, but that does not excuse digusting things like p*****ilia.
84: What is your favorite clothing store?
....The Hot Topical.
85: In the winter- beanies or gloves?
why not both?!?!?!?
86: Would you rather have wings or a fish tail?
Wings. I can’t swim, and I panic underwater.
87: If you had the power to erase someone from the world so that nobody remembered them but you, would you do it?
That depends, does it fuck up history? Cuz in that case, no!
88: What do you fear the most?
Being abandoned by everyone.
89: How many digits of pi can you recite?
3...
90: If you could travel back to one year and relive it again, what year would it be?
2015, so I could leave a better version of my for my friends that I leave at the end of the year,
91: Describe yourself in one word.
Invasive
92: Describe your last victory.
I had a conversation with that asshole from my dream without arguing with him.
93: What is the weirdest thing you have ever seen?
SO! This one time towards the end of the school day in the seventh grade. This one kid (let’s call him V) was sitting next to his friend (C). I look over as I go to shoulder my bag, and V is running his hand down C’s thigh. V catches me looking, and goes “WHAT?! he did it first!” like that made it better! (and it kinda did because that’s still one of my best stories!)
94: What is something you will never forget?
Something traumatic
95: Would you rather forget all of the past, or remember everything in vivid detail?
Vivid detail. Then maybe I could win arguments with my sister!
96: Have you ever broken a bone before?
yeah... I fractured the growth plate in my foot in the sixth grade... by walking.....
97: Is it harder love someone, or hate someone?
love is so hard....
98: Coffee or tea?
I drink both, but tea ftw!
99: What are some little things you do that have changed your life in a positive way?
I have become more friendly with my dog, and he actually likes me now!
100: How many hours do spend on tumblr a day?
quite a fukin few....
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An Update+A Rant
An Update
Hi! I know I haven’t made an actual post in a while and I’m sorry they’ve been extremely inconsistent. I would also like to say thank you for 50 followers! I’m so happy you found my blog and like it enough to follow me!
This post will be more of an organizational post for my wips and other projects I am working on, so I apologize if it is a little all over the place and informal.
I finally finished a wip… kinda… sorta…
This is my wip Charlotte, a short story gore series.
I wrote four parts even though it could have been six. The four parts in order are ‘Him’, ‘Her’, ‘He’, and ‘She’. He was the first part it’s the shortest at 1,000 words and I wrote it about a year ago. (which is crazy to me) At the time I thought it was really good but I reread it now and it’s poop. However, I refuse to edit it because it really shows growth, and how I've improved as a writer. Of course, I could edit it or rewrite it but I love having that... Like evidence that I am getting better and I can definitely continue to get better. Along with that ‘He’ the third part of the series, I hated after I wrote it. I thought it was atrocious and wanted to throw the whole thing away. A little while later I wanted to prove to myself that I could write something substantial that I did like. So I wrote “” it’s literally titled “” because I have no name for it. It came out as 5,000 words which is the longest ‘chapter’ or ‘short story’ I’ve ever written. (don’t judge lol) I was actually happy with it, I thought the word choice was good, the pacing was good, it seemed pretty great. However, it had absolutely no purpose. It could have been the start of a new wip but the main character was a blank sheet of paper and could have played a more side character role in the overall plot. During this time all of my other wips that had a “plot” I had absolutely no idea what to do with. I couldn’t continue anything and starting something new would just make everything more complicated.
So I took a break from writing altogether for almost three weeks, I tried to work a few things out and ended up dropping a few wips completely. The first thing I decided to work on when coming back was actually a one-shot for two of my OC's that were introduced in “”. That is Cozzy, Connor and Ozzy(or Oswyn which is his full name) but I actually liked it a lot and it reminded me of how much I enjoyed writing after being so unsatisfied with it. I finished up the Charlotte series with ‘She’ which I liked a lot actually, now before I get into other wips here are a few things I learned during and after my writing break:
Don’t compare your work to others- I know this can seem generic and simple but it’s very important to learn if you want to be remotely satisfied with your writing. You need to understand that it's YOUR writing and it won’t look like anyone else’s whether that’s based on word choice or word count. It’s good to be able to learn from others without pulling yourself down by comparison.
Understand not everyone will like your writing- I would be childish and get upset if I felt someone didn’t like my work even if they had only hinted at it. I craved validation and yes I still do but I realized that if you let that one person or few people who don’t like your writing make you upset then you aren’t writing for yourself. Which brings me to...
Write for yourself- Write what makes you happy, write when you need a release, write whenever you want to. Don’t write for someone to say it’s good, don’t write just because you want praise, write for yourself!
These things helped me become more satisfied with my work, these are the things that work for me and it might not work for everyone but you should at least try it. Back to explaining my wips:
Charlotte- I finished the four parts and it hit over 11,000 words which I am proud of. (Be proud of your work!) I am actually posting three of the parts (Not the first part because the last three parts work more cohesively together) on my wattpad account.
I have a wattpad account!
It is @CinnabonOreo
But yes I published Charlotte on there so you can go check it out, there is one extremely old wip on there that I do not like talking about but refuse to delete. If you can please go read and maybe vote, and also possibly follow me if you're feeling really generous.
I have done one full one shot for Cozzy, my Oc ship, and I’m trying to finish the second one. I’ve been putting off the ending for like a week and a half and it’s kind of sad I haven’t finished. The first (we will call them chapters for now) chapter was “Chocolate Covered Strawberries” and it’s how my Oc’s met, also it’s a college au. The first chapter is super soft and all uwu first date. The second chapter is more angsty (oof I cringed too) and a lot longer, it will probably reach 5,000 words it’s called Strawberry Scented Shampoo. There is supposed to be a fruit theme but I’m not sure what the overall name will be other than Cozzy one-shots. Anyways I have a third chapter in mind but I’m not completely sure of it yet. I want to do OC intros for Connor and Ozzy on here so watch out for that and I will probably post the first two chapters on wattpad once I figure out a name.
I have another wip idea (just a really quick short story) called Bethanne. Bethanne will be similar to Charlotte, if you haven’t seen my wip intro, Charlotte is a gore short story series. If we compare the two them, in both I’m just taking one person and applying their dynamic to certain situations. Charlotte murders in a ritualistic way, she wants to make sure beauty can only exist in a world that is not this world. Bethanne has a completely different dynamic and in short, she is a yandere… sorry. But Bethanne will probably be only one maybe two “chapters” and that’s it, just to go ahead and finish the idea since I’ve been thinking about it a lot.
Lastly, there is my poem it doesn’t have an official name yet but its theme is uneasiness in beauty, a topic I’ve been thinking about for a while. I won’t say much about it but I am auditioning to perform it at a school talent show type thing. I’m doing it as slam poetry which is very hard to do correctly so if anyone has any tips please dm me. I am very anxious since auditions are soon and it’s not completely done and I need to start rehearsing lol.
Those are all my current wips, I’m upset that I don’t have a full, plot worthy novel idea. I dropped one during my break and the other one I’m very unsure about. This was my first ever huge wip idea and I’ve had it sort of planned out for four years. I wrote the first eight chapters but that was about two years ago. (it’s not the best) I want to write and solely work on that one thing but I’m so afraid of wasting my time on something that won’t be good enough. (sorry I got all serious and shit) I like the wip idea but it needs a lot of reconstructing and I’ve tried to reconstruct it multiple times and it never really works out. I know I should write for myself (lol like I said earlier) but I’m soooooooooo afraid of wasting my time. I don’t want to give up on it because I’ve fallen in love with the idea again and again but I don’t want it to weigh me down so I’m still debating it.
Anyways if you read to the end thank you for reading my rant, I appreciate you for taking time out of your day. If you want to you can follow my wattpad and read Charlotte. Thank you!
-j.
Wattpad: https://my.w.tt/iR6DxkYnKU
Charlotte: https://my.w.tt/vnQ3se2pKU
#writeblr#writers#rant#my ocs#wip#wattpad#writing community#creative wrting#charlotte#uwu#original#writing advice
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So, I saw The List was getting a few notes again and I wanted to talk about some stuff related to it because there’s a lot to unpack and I wanted to vent. I haven’t actually vented about this outside talking about it to friends and that one story, so I thought this was a good time to write out my feelings, mainly because I feel like it relates to some of the things I talked about in personal posts.
At the beginning of February, I went through what could possibly be described as the worst break-up I have ever experienced. I say “possibly” only out of habit. The truth is everything about the break-up sucked from the time I knew that it was a possibility until, well, now.
Let me explain.
When I had a blog on here before under a different username, I met a girl. This girl and I hit it off when she started talking to me. You know, as it happens when two people like similar things. But this girl liked me, a lot. She would send anon messages to me about how much she loved me and I, eventually, started to like her back when we started talking more. Eventually, I asked her out and she said yes! Score!
The relationship only lasted five months. The first two of those months were great, mainly because it was long distance. The last three months, she moved in with some family near my place, and suddenly the relationship became a mess for so many reasons. Some of that was my fault, in particular in the last month when I was emotionally focused on problems in my life to an obsessive degree. There were other issues that happened due to things I said or did. We’ll get back to this. But I was not entirely at fault. That wouldn’t be fair to say given that there are always two people in a relationship. And, let’s be honest, this isn’t the kind of story that ends well.
So, all of January was, in no uncertain terms, awful. Family dog died, I got injured at work, was forced to leave my job because they refused to provide accommodations for said injury (I will rant about this too if given the chance I am still heated even though I’ve gotten another much better job since then), and I ended up being an emotional, depressed, anxious mess. Again, emotionally checked out. By the end of the month, I realized “oh shit, I’ve been a fucking terrible girlfriend”, and messaged my girlfriend, apologized, told her I’d make it up to her, and started looking for full-time jobs that would provide me health insurance so I could get all this mental health crap figured out. I wanted this relationship to work, after all, so I needed to work on me so I could be there for her.
She responds with, “Yeah, we need to talk.”
Now, admittedly, I could have handled this better. But it was a Tuesday when she sent this and she absolutely refused to talk to me until we could speak in person. She said she couldn’t do that until Saturday because of work. I begged her to talk to me before that, even online, because I wanted to have the conversation, but she kept saying that she wanted to have it in person even though it was causing me massive anxiety. She already knew I had, and still have, depression and anxiety. We have talked about this before. But she still refused. She wanted to have the conversation on her terms no matter what mental pain that caused me.
Wednesday to Friday was basically torture for me. I barely ate, I didn’t sleep a lot, I didn’t talk to people, I just existed in this nauseated stream of anxiety until, finally, Saturday came along and I went to meet her for breakfast.
We agreed to meet at a place that ended up being really busy. She didn’t want to have the conversation there. So we ate, she paid for my breakfast, and we went next door to a Dillion’s that had a dining area which, thankfully, was empty. We sat at a corner table - I across from her - and then she decides to start.
She reaches into her bag and pulls out a list.
I want to explain that she has a terrible memory, so there is a chance she believed that she wouldn’t get to say what she wanted if she didn’t have this list in front of her. But, like the story I wrote, that list was printed, bullet pointed, and four fucking pages long. She didn’t have a printer at her house, so what did she do? She went to the library and printed it. And when I say “the library”, I don’t mean a library close to her house. She went out of the way to go to the library close to where we were meeting for breakfast, a library she had to get directions for, to do this.
Anyway, so asked me to sit there in silence while she read it so she could get through it. I sat there and listened to her read off this list and provide examples for an hour and a half. I just sat there. I thought if I took it, the relationship could work out and I could be a better girlfriend.
Now, I want to say that some of the things on the list weren’t about me. Some of them were about her. She didn’t tell me when I did things that made her feel bad, was the main thing. She wasn’t honest with me in the five months we were together. I never did anything to make her super uncomfortable, but there were times I pissed her off and she never told me. That little “here’s what she did” part of the list was maybe fifteen minutes of that hour and a half. The rest of it was her picking apart everything I’d done wrong, what personality things she didn’t care for, what interests got in the way, certain quirks that she felt “got in the way”, and, worst of all, my relationship with my parents.
And I sat there and took all of it. I listened. I was so patient. I said nothing.
She gets to the last page, the final five minutes, and goes, “We have different end goals and I’m asexual so I want to break up.” Then she puts the list face down, looks at me, and says, “I need to make sure you’re okay before I leave so I want you to talk about your feelings.”
By the time she finished, there were people in the diner. I didn’t want her to cause a scene if I got up and left because I’m too nice and didn’t want the attention. So what did I do? I fucking sat there and talk to her about some semblance of my feelings.
For. Four. Hours.
In truth, I didn’t know what I was feeling. I was so stunned my emotions couldn’t be processed. So I just tried to come up with something to talk about. Eventually I was able to convince her I was fine. In truth, I have no idea what I told her. I don’t remember any of the conversation. I just remember being absolutely crushed and assumed it was just the break-up.
When I did finally leave and get a chance to talk to someone about it, I talked to my mother, and she was furious. This was the first time I realized that what I went through wasn’t okay. Every single person I talked to after that was also pissed for me. Some of them even wanted her contact information so they could go off. I refused, of course. I wouldn’t do that.
Now, months later, I realize it’s a lot more than that.
As I mentioned before, I got a new job. I am now terrified of really connecting to my coworkers. And I have a new blog, here, and I am terrified of talking to anyone on here too, even though I have been. It wouldn’t be fair to expect another list like this, especially since a lot of the reblogs that story has gotten have been “wow that list is shitty” or something to that effect. But my mind refuses to believe this won’t happen again. Now I’m waiting for it. It’s like an inevitability.
In addition, this girl still wanted to be friends. She messaged me a few times early on. I messaged her twice and told her I wasn’t ready. The last message she sent me was on my birthday, February 22nd, and I haven’t responded. Her birthday just passed. I debated on whether or not I should message her all day, and then decided not to.
I don’t know if I can trust her again. And because of what she did, I’m having a hard time trusting all the new people I’m interacting with, online and offline. I just want to be friendly and loving and give my all to these new communities I’m a part of, this fandom included, but the amount of fear associated with that break-up, that list, is absolutely insane. I got into this fandom in the first place because I needed an escape from the emotional turmoil I was in and found Thomas Sanders’s YouTube channel via his Instagram. Now I’m afraid to interact in the fandom because of the very break-up that brought me here in the first place.
It’s a goddamn mess.
And now I feel like I should apologize and I’m on the verge of tears and I just... I don’t know, I need something? Words? Assurances? A hug? I’m not sure. But I have a need.
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Can you find me anywhere in the Quran that says women should be executed if they’re not virgins or if they were raped? Where are honor killings allowed?
I mean… I don’t really wanna encourage any sort of religious legitimacy of killing women for exploring their sexuality, which is evil bullshit, but it’s from the ahadith. The Quran itself suggests that women who engage in “zina” or sexual indecency should be confined to house arrest indefinitely and be made to give back their mahr/dower (4:15-19) as well as lashed a hundred times (24:2). Or some combination thereof. The death penalty is not mentioned… in the version of the Quran we have. Yes, you have accidentally stumbled upon a very dumb topic. Let me try to explain.
This is one of those unresolved issues of Islam that’s probably more complicated than a tumblr post allows but I’ll give it a shot. This is a sahih hadith from our bud Umar.
Verily Allah sent Muhammad (ﷺ) with the truth, and he revealed the Book to him. Among what was revealed to him was the Ayah of stoning. So the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) stoned, and we stoned after him. I fear that time will pass over the people such that someone will say ‘We do not see stoning in the Book of Allah.’ They will be misguided by leaving an obligation which Allah revealed. Indeed stoning is the retribution for the adulterer if he was married and the evidence has been established, or due to pregnancy, or confession.
Now what in the name of fuck does that mean? Stoning isn’t mentioned in the Quran… it’s referenced (Mohammed’s rant against the Jews in 5:41-45 is about the Jews refusing to practice stoning and him getting mad about it) but there is no “ayah (verse) of stoning”. There’s another narration in one of the ahadith books that says it was in Al-Ahzab (surah 33). So what is he even talking about? Was it one of those verses that Mohammed said just don’t count anymore? Or is there a missing verse here that… someone… took out?
Well that brings us to this, which is one of the most controversial hasan ahadith in existence. I present it to you without commentary.
Aishah said: “The Verse of stoning and of breastfeeding an adult ten times was revealed, and the paper was with me under my pillow. When the Messenger of Allah died, we were preoccupied with his death, and a tame sheep came in and ate it.”
Uh huh. Well, let’s take a look at this subject.
We know for a fact that Mohammed himself proscribed stoning for those found guilty of zina (sexual indecency in general, not limited to intercourse–a sahih hadith says even arranging your own marriage without permission falls under this category) on several occasions from the strongest possible sources–both men and women. In this one he orders a woman stoned to death for having an affair while her male lover gets exiled and a hundred lashes. Here he has a man stoned to death for zina. In this one two Jewish lovers are stoned to death together. Ali stoned a woman to death “according to the tradition of” Mohammed. (Whether people were killed or “just” lashed/imprisoned/whatever seems to have largely depended on their marital status.) There are various other sahih ahadith on the subject, and the fact that those who were found to engage in zina were sometimes stoned as punishment is not something that’s debated.
Since there’s no question that this was an accepted punishment used both in and after Mohammed’s time, the four main schools of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence (and the main Shia ones as well as far as I know) consider death, by stoning or another method, a valid punishment for zina provided the proper conditions are met in terms of guilt, witnesses, etc.
Yet as I said, the Quranic punishment for zina is corporal+financial punishment and imprisonment, not death. Not every legal precedent in fiqh comes directly from the Quran itself–there are many important things that “Allah” forgot to put in the Quran, you see, he just got too excited talking about Moses 5,000 times–but here we have a sahih hadith stating that this was from the Quran. Could that absurd hasan hadith about a dog goat eating my homework embarrassing Quranic verses (the adult breastfeeding one was less violent but also weird and dumb, don’t ask, let us go along with the early Muslims and forget this ever happened) as Mohammed lay dying possibly be true? I tend to not put much stock in anything other than sahih ahadith, but take it as you will…
But let me mention the more acceptable interpretation of what Umar said. In Islam there is a deeply stupid concept called abrogation or naskh, which is mentioned in the Quran itself (2:106 etc). There are multiple forms of it. The first and most common means that whenever you see a contradiction in the Quran, an early verse is replaced by a later one. This was necessary because Mohammed often changed his mind, ordering his followers to do one thing and then telling them to do a different thing, and the evildoing disbelievers made fun of him and this made him sad. So “Allah” said that he wasn’t contradicting anything, he was abrogating it. They still laughed at him tho :(
In addition to two verses contradicting each other, there is also a form of naskh in which a verse that was originally deemed part of the Quran was “abrogated” and removed from it (on Mohammed’s orders), as in this verse. None of these verses are in any Qurans we have, obviously, as they all date from after Mohammed’s death and after it was all put into its standard order; the only evidence we have for their existence is found in other verses that reference them or in the ahadith (like the original qiblah being Jerusalem).
So what does this mean for the apparent stoning verse, which was once part of the Quran and then declared to be… not part of it? Was the punishment itself nullified, and if so, 1) why and 2) why was it still followed even though non-lethal alternatives were available?
This brings us to second and third forms of naskh. The second form involves both the verse being removed and the ruling/law within it (if any) being cancelled. The third and more questionable form involves the verse itself being removed but the ruling remains in effect. Since Umar says that the stoning verse was originally part of the Quran, yet it was followed even after it was removed, this is would be the third form.
This is obviously torturous logic and it drove many early Muslim scholars crazy but there was no other way to reconcile all of the above without saying “Mohammed didn’t know wtf he was doin lol”. Some just ignored this whole debacle and said that stoning was acceptable because it followed the sunnah/the example of Mohammed and his followers, regardless of whether it was abrogated in any form or not. And in a modern-day context, obviously the majority of Muslims are not savages, so this whole thing has fortunately been left in the past in most countries despite its acceptance by all the major schools.
………….you know I wrote that whole damn thing as straight-faced as possible but shit I can’t even hide how dumb this is. I blame Umar as per usual, none of us would even be talking about this if he just kept his mouth shut. If no one takes anything else from this blog I hope I’ve convinced y’all to hate his dumb ass.
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So
here’s the deal. After debating for months now, whether if my suspicions were true or not (because tbh I am very paranoid), I have come to the conclusion that there is another catfish (and me and @happyroyalist have receipts)
For the past couple of hours, I’ve struggled with the appropriate way to deal with this, because just asking a few people, I come to realise it’s someone we all know. It’s not something we ignore, it’s someone we have talked to and shared things for years now. Some of us have suspected but chose to not do nor say anything. Personally? because she hasn’t done anything to me, but it’s been really uncomfortable in the last six months for me, seeing her liking my posts and just rambling out. Because I know. I’m not saying this to cause harm or upsetting her, but i just wonder why does she do this. As you know, until now I don’t understand the need to lie in the way you present yourself on the internet.
As a security reason, I get, but there are people who have befriended this person and then you feed your lies to those people and then you hurt them when they realise those things you said about you are not true. That’s my main motivation here, not the fact that she is lying, whether it is to protect herself or whatever but the fact that people that actually believe her and talk to her are being lied to. That’s not right, because people put trust in you and you betray that trust.
It’s really difficult for me to come forward with this after a few months because there are some behaviours that are escalating quickly, especially with the whole Meghan and Catherine thing and how she champions one more than the other. We cannot still feed that hatred. This person manages two blogs and rants about the same things in those two blogs but claims to be two different people that agree with the views of the other and... you know I’m all for voicing your opinions and speak your mind and fight the bullies but do it with your own voice, man. Don’t be embarrased. Here we have a place that thank god is not as bad as the twitter fandom or the royal forums fandom, we’re more accepting of our differences. Personally, I have befriended people here who I adore and would do anything for them but those people are real. I am real. Don’t make up stories to be accepted. Say your truth and we’ll embrace it the best way we can. Just, stop lying to the people who kindly gave you their friendship.
I’m not naming names out of risk of upsetting her but i guess at this point she knows I’m talking about her (she is a female in both those blogs) and I’m pretty sure y’all know who she is because she’s not very discreet about it, but I’m not doing this in an attempt to exhibit herself and make her a target to anon hate and shit, but for her to encourage her to share her truth. Do it, mate. I think it wil really give you peace of mind.
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