I think you should go off about the autistic transmascness of raz, sasha, and otto. Right now. Forever if you are so inclined

.....maybe I will....... (i gathered my thoughts on ye olde psychonauts fic ideas google doc lol)

I tried to make some of it make a little bit of sense with the vaguely established time periods they have lol. In terms of awareness of trans identities and stuff....but I'm not playing the self-hatred stuff, just the lack of understanding of how that works based on general public social understanding of what I imagine the Psychonauts universe to be like....plus I imagine that like Psychics can sort of tell when people are related (in canon) a lot of them just also sort of have this understanding (even if highly vague) of gender difference from the very start when they are trans.... at least a lot of them do, specifically these three I'm headcanoning. And final warning. This is VERY VERY long. Like so very long. But I will share it since you egged me on :]

I will put it under the cut for length reasons. In case Tumblr glitches and tries to show the whole thang ding to people.

Otto: afab, questionable relationship with his parents. Outright always refused femininity boldly and outwardly. Pretended to be a boy all the time, strangers sometimes believed it when he was a kid. His parents tried to make him be more feminine on many occasions, and he always fought against it. After a while, they got busier and became less involved parents. At this point they gave up on making their daughter look presentable. They had written him off as past fixing as far as a female reputation went. They just told him sort of that he was up to his own devices if he was going to act like that forever. They’d be there if he wanted some help getting his act together, but otherwise he had to fend for himself. Got older and assumed he was some sort of lesbian or something. Just vaguely identified as some sort of butch lesbian identity, but a lot of people called him ‘he’ all the time and he wasn’t sure if he connected with womanhood or lesbian identities at all really. He eventually read as so masc that a lot of people assumed he was a guy anyways. And he liked that but never put a name to it because he didn’t really know about trans people. Had some sort of shroom(psitanium? dunno. something. they did psychic hippie drugs together.)-induced gender awakening with Ford one day when they were younger, before all the Psychonauts stuff. His eyes were finally randomly opened and he changed his whole outlook on his psychic abilities and gender. Decided to actually socially and medically transition after this.

Sasha: afab, gender presentation change brought on when he had to be raised by his father. Lars Nein was so disconnected from femininity that he had no clue what to do with a daughter. So he made Sasha work with him in the shop and gave him the same haircut that he gave himself for utilitarian reasons. Sasha accepted this, long hair bothered him for sensory reasons. After a few instances of Sasha having psychic encounters with reading the minds of strangers, Lars was accepting of the psychic identity but immediately knew that it would set Sasha apart from his peers even more than he already was. Sasha started wearing tinted glasses when he was around this age. It was good for his light sensitivity and also good for Lars’ store customers, many of whom claimed to be disturbed by his tendency to stare right into people's souls. Lars felt feelings of guilt over not being able to be a good father to a daughter quite often. He would not talk to Sasha about this, though, and it was another thing that Sasha had to feel guilty about when he read Lars’ mind.

When he left home, he kind of didn’t know what to do with his presentation. He was no longer under his father’s care, so he could do whatever he wanted, technically. But being so very Sasha Nein, he just kept the same look. He didn’t have to think about it if he just kept it all the same. He never let his hair get long, he never wore feminine fashion. He ditched the androgynous childlike overalls and just moved on to men’s clothes. He probably kept a few pairs of womens clothes just in case. But probably could never get himself to wear them for some reason. He’d sooner skip out on whatever event would require them anyways and convince himself that he had better things to be doing than something frivolous. Besides, men’s clothes were just more practical for the type of odd job work he was doing. He just assumed that there was something really wrong with him because of what his childhood had been like, like the absence of a mother had messed him up somehow. [This man had a heavy Freud fan phase, sorry. It definitively shaped him and it is obvious lol.] I can see him just not understanding this aspect of himself at all for a long time. Spending a long period of his life “correcting” people to let them know that he was in fact a woman by birth. He just felt some sort of obligation to always “eliminate social falsehoods to avoid later conflict” and figured that was the right thing to do. He didn’t allow himself to engage in gender euphoria at the expense of others’ “mistakes” the same way that had been so formative for Otto. By doing this, he unknowingly held back his own confidence and self-understanding for years. As he shadowed all sorts of assorted jobs, he eventually found himself pursuing something regarding his burgeoning psychic powers, working under Otto. Otto was quick to question exactly what Sasha “was”, because he felt that there were some obvious connections to his own childhood. I mean, you don’t just find trans people often back then. (Except you do when you are psychic. This is part of the deal. More psychics are LGBTQ+ and they tend to find one another easier. This almost feels canon to me...dunno) Sasha had always been the master of repressing his feelings, and Otto was basically like “Hmm okay. Smoke this weed or something. Think about your gender. I implore you. I am going into your little square head and we are going to figure this out, alright?” And Sasha was nervous working under him at first because he had no clue the job was going to become about himself. Sasha preferred not to think about himself at this point in his life, only to think about the work and research he was doing. At least the research was really interesting at Psychonauts HQ. But Otto easily made him feel on edge. All this introspective stuff was difficult for him. But Otto sharing his stories and feelings about transgenderism and aromanticism helped him significantly.

Otto was able to describe things like this in such a fundamental way that made them seem like irrefutable scientific fact. And Sasha started to understand and believe it. And he started to internalize it. And this internalization led to acceptance. And for the first time ever, Sasha loved himself. Otto offered him his home-grown hormones he had been taking and gave him a lot of general guidance. Sasha started to feel a real sense of brotherhood, of guidance and understanding. He had never worked under someone and not felt lesser than them before. This was different, this was personal and special. Sasha finally had a real friend. Also he was totally a man. Wow.

Raz: afab, but given a gender nonconforming name due to Aquato traditions. Grew up feeling fine "being a girl" for a while. It was more like he was fine with being a sister, because his relationship with his siblings was good, especially with Frazie. He was okay with having a label like sister or daughter because it was defining his life through his loving connections with other people and that was very real and accurate to him, he didn't even think about the female part (this is me projecting. cough). Raz's experiences with gender are very much tied to his psychic powers. He was never as close to Dion as he was to Frazie. Frazie also had a "boy's name" and Raz always figured that the whole name thing was why he felt the way he did about boy stuff. After Frazie reached a certain age, though, it became clear that their feelings were not the same. She didn't want to share psychic things with him anymore, and she didn't want to be called a boy name anymore. Raz could not understand this at all. Frazie felt like these were things that for her own identity to evolve properly, she would have to drop, and deep down she had always known that. But Raz doesn't feel that way at all, in fact he has always known that the boy name and the psychic business was more him than anything else possibly could be... Raz takes great joy in “pretending” he is a boy, pretending he is a famous psychic...he gets his first cases of gender envy and gender euphoria from magazines of Sasha Nein. Shapes his whole new identity on him because of it.

He comes out to Frazie. Frazie is understanding because she is a psychic and she can sort of secondhand feel what he is feeling and believe it despite social influence that would lead her to not understand what being trans is like. After coming out to Frazie, they decide to start acting like they're playing a game again, just not psychic stuff this time. Frazie makes it clear that they can’t do that anymore. Raz takes on a silly persona oftentimes, and the two act like they're playing a game where Raz is an action hero man. So she gets to keep treating him like a boy all the time. Augustus and Donatella become suspicious when the so-called "game" seems to be taken too seriously, in that everything Raz does seems to be to the end of not being seen as a girl anymore.

Now this is the 80s, but Dona is also from a long history of showbiz. I like to think that Dona had a brother who was exceedingly fruity and on occasions other than performance, gender nonconforming. Meaning that she had been forced to think of the idea of gender fluidity before. Which is part of the reason for her gender nonspecific naming of her children in the first place. Augustus cares very deeply about Raz here and wants to make sure he is faring well with the others. So I think Raz is confronted by Augustus and reluctantly comes out to him when asked if the whole "pretending to be a boy thing" had grown more serious than just some sort of game. Gus was extremely welcoming to the idea, even if he couldn't completely understand it, he was hit with this sudden pang of intense empathy [it's the psychic thing again]. Donatella finds out the result of the conversation thru Gus afterwards. Dona encourages Dion to give Raz his old circus clothes and a few other old things they were holding onto just in case. Dion does not get what is happening. Over time the whole family gets it and they decide it is for the best. Raz has been performing better and has been so much more happy since this development. The only concerning part at this point was his increasing interest in psychics...

Yada Yada the events of PN1 happen. Lili is his first real crush. He never thought a girl would like him back and is honestly thrilled at the development of getting to have a girlfriend like a real boy would. He decides to keep his transness to himself when it comes to Lili. He doesn’t want to feel like an imposter. When Raz gets to meet Sasha, he does everything in his power to make Sasha think that he is the number one coolest boy in the world. Sasha really sees himself in Raz for reasons he can't quite put his finger on...I mean it's not like he acted anything like that at his age. [It's the transness and the 'tism] When Sasha finds out that Raz is trans, he suddenly realizes what it felt like to be Otto all those years ago when he began his mentorship. Raz is scared and embarrassed that Sasha will tell on him but instead receives a cool and collected "It's okay, I used to be [a girl] as well." And Raz is absolutely mind-blown. He can't believe it. The two have a talk about their experiences that is like a much more dry version of he and Otto's past discussion. He doesn't mention that Otto is too, or Milla. The general standard in this universe is that people just don't talk much about being trans publicly. You just have to learn to accept it and adjust. Some of the 80s taboo has to creep in there and make people at least not used to talking about it openly, even if not out of shame.

When Raz finds out about the hormones situation and how it is in fact not illegal drugs fueling an addiction (lol) he goes to Otto like "hang on who all here is like that!! Like me and Sasha?" And Otto is like "oo-hoo doctor-patient confidentiality!" And Raz is like "Please, I just don't want to feel alone!" And now Otto knows that Raz is trans too and he is very happy about this information because to him,  Raz is like the perfect blend between a young version of himself and a young Sasha. And Otto knows he isn't going to use this information for bad so he tells him that it is himself, Sasha, Milla, Norma, and now Raz.

GIANT THUMBS UP. I broke Tumblr a couple times trying to post this.🏳️‍⚧️

Ok so a conversation @littlx-songbxrd and I were having made me remember something I was ranting about to a friend of mine once.

Brace yourselves this is going to be long. I'm sorry.

The sexism, homophobia and racism of the shadoworld straight up doesn't make sense and here's why. So if we start chronologically with the infernal devices. There is sexism towards Charlotte right? People don't want her running the institute and they don't want her becoming the consul because she is a woman. But the Clave has no problem letting women train and fight. This doesn't really make sense in my opinion.

Now you could argue that it's because they believe woman can be string capable fighters just not rational thinkers. Which is weird because in my experience you don't meet a lot of people who are "partially sexist" in that way. Like if a man believes a woman can't do high profile, high paying jobs then they usually also don't want them in the military. Anyways moving on, there aren't any mentions of homophobia in TID, mostly because they're arent any queer characters except Magnus and Woolsey.

But something interesting to point out is that none of the characters who know about Magnus and Woolsey ever comment on it really. And following this point, none of the mains display any signs of misogyny either really. (Except for what Will says to Tessa at the end of CA but that was because of the "curse.") You could argue that this is because they're the protagonists so they are supposed to be better then that. But accidental microaggressions are pretty common especially during that time period. More on that later.

Moving onto racism, this is the interesting part. Jem says to Tessa that shadowhunters believe that you are a shadowhunter first and your nationality or eace second. Actually Jem doesnt mention race but he says this while talking about being half Chinese so it's kinda relevant. Shadowhunters rarely tall about race throughout the books in general except for a few instances. When Jessamine criticizes Jem to Tessa, she calls him a foreigner and says some other racist shit that I can't really remember. Something about the yin fin and calling him lazy. That directly contradicts Jem's statement about them all being shadowhunters first. Also Will and Jem actually constantly talk about being Welsh and Chinese in the books so that statement is kinda bogus in general.

And if CC didn't want her mains being sexist or homophobic to show them as good people then why was it ok for both Jesse and Gabriel to say questionable shit about Jem? Anyways moving on to TLH. Sexism is still running rampid with their cultural customs and people being shitty about Charlotte being consul. Bots have to ask the girls to dance, girls cannot have sex before marriage or else they will be ruined or whatever you know the drill. But again, they let the girls fight. Cordelia is allowed to carry around a giant ass sword but she can't get some????

IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE CASSANDRA!!!!!

Sorry I'm losing it. Anyways. Regarding racism. Alastair and Cordelia have experienced micro aggressions from the mains (Matthew and Anna) but it's never addressed. I'm pretty sure if memory serves, the inquisitor makes a nasty comment under his breath about persians when the Carstairs family sans Elias arrive. And then we have the whitewashing of Ariadne/Kamala by her parents.

But none of this stuff ever gets brought up really. Exceot for Kamala talking about her past and who she was before and sharing her original name, but she still doesn't talk about how it effects her potential coming out. Alastair doesnt mention race when he talks about the bullying he went through at the academy and none of the white characters ever stop to think about how Kamala and Alastsir's races play a part in their crappy situations.

There's probably more I could discuss with this but I'm moving on to homophobia. It's a thing in terms of the heteronormativity and people's judgement of Anna but it's not illegal like in mundane societies at this time. But all of the mains are totally cool with it which brings me to, I'm sorry but fucking bullshit! There is no way every single adult would be totally fine with it in this time period. Like I'm not saying outright homophobia but maybe some questionable comments you know? (CC is perpetuating this idea that good people never commit microaggressions which is untrue and harmful.)

I don't think there's any mention of whether or not gay marriage is allowed in the shadowhunter world at this point. Because the issues surrounding Magnus and Alec getting married were about Magnus being a warlock right? Because Helen and Aline got married before them in TFTSA because she was only half fae. So that brings me to when was gay marriage legalized in the shadow world?????

Is there any mention of this because I don't think there is? Anyways moving onto TMI. This is where everything goes to absolute shit in terms of world building with the standards for these things. Misogyny isn't really a problem in tmi anymore from what I remember. Nobody has issues with Jia as consul (from what I remember,) and that's that. But homophobia is still rambid throughout shadowhunter society so much so that Alec is terrified to come out because he believes that he can't be gay and be a shadowhunter in peoples eyes. Also there is pressure to "carry on the family name" which doesn't make sense because if the sexism has died out then women can have babies with whoever and not even be married and carry on their family line. And not everyone needs to have children, ergo there is less pressure on the sons to carry on the family name or whatever. This also doesn't make sense because homophobia literally cannot exist without sexism!!!!

This is because of colonial gender roles being forced on society. And men being with men and women being with woman totally smashes the whole gender roles, "woman do this and men do that" idea. There's more that I could say on that but this is already so freaking long so please just look it up. And speaking of gender roles it's literally mentioned that Maryse didn't teach Izzy to cook because she didn't want her to be forced into a housewife role like she was (although there's no evidence to suggest she was?) But then Maryse is lowkey homophobic?

It doesn't make sense Cassandra!!!!!

CC doesn't get that you literally don't have homophobia or transphobia without sexism. Indigenous societies pre-colonization didn't care about any of that stuff. Literally two spirit people were revered and respected and no one gave a fuck about gender until my ancestors literally came along and ruined everything. (I'm so sorry.)

But anyways there's no mentions of racism amongst the shadowhunters in tmi. Just Maia talking about her experiences with mundane society as a black girl. When Clary confronts Valentine and basically calls him a n*zi, he laughs at her and basically says that shadowhunters don't see race the way mundanes do which yikes @ CC. Granted this was 2007. This kind of sounds like what Jem said in TID. Only it clearly wasnt true.

Anyways I'm just super confused at this point. In TDA there was basically nothing in terms of all the isms and phobias. (Oh we arent even discussing ableism because my fucking head will explode!) But we do discuss transphobia a bit with Diana. But again it doesn't make fucking sense because transphobia exists because of sexism and clear gender roles (and homophobia.)

Society is still shown to be pretty heteronormative though which I guess makes sense but the Blackthorns have multiple queers in their family! You would think that they would be less so. When Livvy mentions all the reasons that Annabel could have a forbidden love she doesnt even think to mention that it could be a lesbian relationship. When Mark finds out that Jaime was in Dru's room he freaks out but I guarentee you, he wouldn't have if Jaime was a girl. I mean you could argue that it's an age thing and not a gender thing but idk. That scene always bothered the fuck out of me. Because Mark is literally half fae like why is he caught up on bullshit "boys and girls can't just be friends" hetero bullshit.

In QOAAD we see Dane Larksoear being sexist so randomly for no reason. Like it's so strange because CC literally created a caricature of a sexist villian with him. And it makes no sense because no one else seems to feel the way he does. Like Zara is basically the leader of the cohort right? And nobody gives a fuck. It makes no damn sense Cassandra!

And finally, why is the faerie world sexist with gender roles WHEN EVERYONE IS LITERALLY BISEXUAL AND THEY'RE FAERIES CASSANDRA!!!???? THEY'RE LITERALLY FAERIES WHY IS THERE A CONCEPT OF GENDER AT ALL CASSANDRA????!!!!

Ok lol now I'm done. Sorry this is so long. But yeah I'm so confused.

Tldr: CC's world building in regards to sexism, homophobia, racism and transphobia is very inconsistent and contradictory and it makes no damn sense.

LOKI Ep 2 Review and Speculation (spoilers)

Ok I thought I had a lot of things figured out after ep 1, but now that I've seen ep 2 I'm puzzled. I'm not sure what Loki's game is or how much of his annoying chatterbox persona is just a performance to make the TVA underestimate him, or if he really is this hyper and goofy. But I guess I believe that he automatically puts on whatever guise will gain him trust and disarm others.

I was so sure Sophia Di Martino was playing a female Loki, but now I'm a bit less sure about that. Loki's conversation with her definitely made it sound like they were the same person until she started saying things like she didn't want to be referred to by his name and that this wasn't about him. Whatever's going on here, Loki definitely seemed to understand something the moment he saw her face.

Now I'm thinking, "What if Loki's male and female sides are at odds with each other?" What if Loki treats his female side like an alternate personality as a means of separating "Loki" from..."Enchantress" for instance, quite possibly? In the particular case of this "evil" variant, the female side gained dominance.

Not that I think that Loki literally has a "split personality" like the ones we know from cheesy pop culture shows/movies, but it could be that he intentionally chose to separate himself from his female side in this dramatic fashion. He's very creative and the shapeshifting and duplicate projection could be used to make Loki's female identity into a sort of imaginary friend made flesh.

In ep 1 we see him go on a few little rants against the folly of freedom and choice. He needs to rule the universe because he needs to have control over everything, including himself obviously. He said that when one has freedom, one always chooses the wrong path. It sounds as if something happened to Loki to make him shut himself off from his female side, then put her in a box and hide her in the attic.

That would certainly explain a LOT about MCU Loki. I think Loki's struggle with gender identity will be a main focus of ep 3 (which will probably take place at the purple apocalypse with the shattered moon) but it might not be as major a plot point as we expect.

Ep 2 is deceptively light and expository, but it drops a lot of clues and hints that appear to be part of the overall mystery of S1. Little things like the pen that Mobius borrowed from Renslayer, the suspicious face on the Kablooie packaging, Loki looking for information about the TVA and then being visibly upset by the report on Ragnarok and making an attempt to convince Mobius to take him there. And probably most intriguing of all, Commander C-20 muttering, "It's real, it's real. I want to go home." There's definitely some secrets goin down at the TVA.

The show is reportedly going to take a dramatic turn after the halfway mark, so we're still barely scratching the surface here. I don't think the hunt for "evil Loki" is actually going to be part of the main story at all. That could be resolved by the end of ep 3 only to have the main antagonist suddenly appear (yeah I'm lookin at you, Miss Minutes. Lol jk. Or am I?) 🤨

Btw I see what they did there in those holographic projections of the very varied Loki variants.

Does R&J Play With Gender Stereotypes?

So I came across this piece of meta by @hamliet that rather intrigued me:

There’s also another layer here: the imagery Romeo uses for Juliet (the sun) and that Juliet uses for Romeo (the moon) is the inverse of how imagery was typically presented in those days. The moon was feminine; the sun, masculine. Even if we look at Romeo and Juliet’s respective character traits, Romeo is the flighty, impulsive, love-struck one who cries all the time, while Juliet is the decisive, bold, and loyal one. That’s the first thing Juliet declares to Romeo in the balcony scene: that she will always be loyal, and she shows this in every choice she makes in the story.

Let’s break this down.

“the imagery Romeo uses for Juliet (the sun) and that Juliet uses for Romeo (the moon) is the inverse of how imagery was typically presented in those days. The moon was feminine; the sun, masculine.”

Romeo does indeed call Juliet the sun, but Juliet never calls Romeo the moon—or likens him with anything symbolically feminine, come to think of it. The closest she or the play gets is a small but clear association with night: Romeo has “night’s cloak to hide me from their eyes” and Juliet implores “loving, black-browed” night to give her her Romeo. Even then it is so that he can “make the face of heaven so fine / That all the world will be in love with night / And pay no worship to the garish sun.”

Instead, Juliet consistently uses the same love language of authority as Romeo does with her, calling him her lord, husband, knight, “day-in-night,” “mansion of a love,” “god of my idolatry,” and, (my particular favorite), “tassel-gentle” or “falcon.” “Pilgrim” is the lowest social rank she uses, but of course she is following Romeo’s pilgrim-and-saints flirtation and its wink-wink bilingual allusion to his name. Romeo’s use of “sun,” then, could be viewed in the context of both lovers conferring cosmic/earthly authority, beauty, ownership, and sovereignty to each other—the Elizabethan equivalent of calling each other wife/husband. And of course they begin doing that immediately after they marry.

Even if we look at Romeo and Juliet’s respective character traits, Romeo is the flighty, impulsive, love-struck one who cries all the time, while Juliet is the decisive, bold, and loyal one.

Definitely not. Romeo is plenty decisive and bold—making the first move in wooing Juliet, climbing the orchard wall, showing himself to Juliet, immediately agreeing to marry her, nearly killing himself when he thinks Juliet might not take him back and, er, actually killing himself for her. I wouldn’t say he is impulsive, either—though he makes decisions fairly quickly, it is almost always with some deliberation beforehand (“Can I go forward when my heart is here?” “Shall I hear more or shall I speak at this?” and his monologue after Mercutio’s exit) and of course there are instances in which he restrains himself (“I am too bold” and his monologue after Mercutio’s death). The most accurate description of Romeo is that he is a risk taker—at least when he is well and truly motivated. And even then it does not rob his deliberation or even his wits.

He is also not flighty. In fact, he proves just as loyal as Juliet—as soon as he meets her, he forgets about Rosaline and leaves her clear behind. He doesn’t once waver in his conviction that Juliet is for him and makes plans to die with her (and does!). His love for Rosaline is clearly framed by the narrative as shallow, performative, and passive, and the verse bears this out. He was never in any kind of relationship with Rosaline—his love was an unrequited crush that he was at perfectly liberty to have ditched, frankly. After that, it’s Juliet, Juliet, Juliet until he dies.

Also, once more, Romeo is no crybaby. He explicitly cries a total of two times—one even before the events of the play, when he pines over Rosaline under a grove of sycamore, and another when he’s 1) seen Mercutio get mortally wounded, 2) killed Tybalt, 3) learned that he is banished from the city, and 4) mistakenly believed that Juliet no longer wants him (the Nurse’s reply is vague enough to be misinterpreted); at the very least he is devastated to have been the cause of her pain. Anyone would break down in those circumstances. Juliet herself breaks down on hearing the news and arguably is more verbally vehement than Romeo—namely, that even the words “Romeo is banishèd” are worse than if herself, Romeo, her parents, and Tybalt were dead. She ends that monologue with a passive suicide threat: “And Death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!” How anyone can argue Juliet isn’t as lovestruck as Romeo is beyond me.

What Shakespeare was most likely aiming for was showing the mutuality of R&J’s love with parallel scenes and even language. Both have chances to act strong, decisive, and bold, both show vulnerability and great emotion and passion, both are lovestruck. Both demonstrate so-called “masculine” and “feminine” traits, which is almost always culturally-and time-based, anyway. There are only a few key differences between the two—almost all of the above traits, however, they both share. It’s almost as if…Shakespeare understood that no man or woman had all masculine or all feminine traits.

Moving on to the conclusion:

In other words, Shakespeare was deliberately playing with gender and its stereotypes in the play, which gains an even more interesting layer to it when you consider that Shakespeare was himself almost certainly bisexual (his sonnets are preeeetty explicit). It’s not a patriarchal narrative; it can well be seen as a queer narrative in a patriarchal society. And it shouldn’t take two kids having to kill themselves to get society to realize how effed up it is. It isn’t an out-of-touch play, but instead one extremely relevant to our society 500+ years later. 

In other words, Shakespeare was deliberately playing with gender and its stereotypes in the play, which gains an even more interesting layer to it when you consider that Shakespeare was himself almost certainly bisexual (his sonnets are preeeetty explicit).

You just opened up 200+ years of fandom wank, OP. I’ll just do a quick sum-up.

The Sonnets are a complete mess. They are contradictory as hell, there is clearly more than one persona speaking, there is evidence that Shakespeare edited and revised them, evidence they were published with his permission, quite a few sonnets are based on pre-existing sources, and, most damnably of all, none of the most likely candidates for the so-called Fair Youth and Dark Lady fit the narrative of the Sonnets perfectly or even satisfactorily—if there is even a clear narrative to these things to begin with. Sonnets were artificial works whose clichés and conventions were heavily satirized in Shakespeare’s own works—Berowne’s own rant-y sonnet swearing he would never believe in love sonnets comes most readily to mind. They were usually not meant to denote an actual real-life relationship, although there was a kind of “game” in trying to figure out which parts are true and which ones fiction. At least one sonnet sequence had a completely fictional addressee (Fulke Greville, I think).

Shakespeare’s sonnets do break a lot of these rules and conventions, and radically, and as they seem to have been compiled over many years, they lend themselves to autobiographical speculation. But, as a bit of a poet myself, I feel this: No one writes 154 sonnets—plus a whole narrative poem!—to one lover or even multiple lovers. Poetry is much less personal than laypeople think. Outside the sonnets, Shakespeare is not linked to any man romantically, and, besides his wife, only to two women (unnamed citizen’s wife and Jane Devanant).

Even if we assume Shakespeare’s bi, though, that doesn’t mean R&J is a queer narrative, which brings us to…

It’s not a patriarchal narrative; it can well be seen as a queer narrative in a patriarchal society.

A queer narrative that has its lovers express their love through the language of heterosexual marriage (husband, lord, wife, lady, pilgrim/saint), and commit suicide by a chalice-and-blade symbolism that mimics heterosexual sex (Romeo drinking a “cup” of poison and Juliet stabbing herself with Romeo’s dagger. Freud couldn’t have done it better). If Shakespeare was thinking “gay allegory!!!” he would have had to at least change or erase the symbolism (straight coding?) of the double suicide, or have Juliet attribute to Romeo explicitly feminine imagery. He would have to have done some major plot rejiggering. He would have had to, in short, change the whole story.

(Unless by “queer narrative” you mean “anything that has an emotionally constipated male lead who doesn’t growl sexily and a female lead who doesn’t cry/faint at the drop of a hat.” That’d be most every narrative, lol.)

Also, I’m hard-pressed to think of love romances that are 100% patriarchal narratives, and those that do (Casablanca, maybe?) are not really true ones, anyway. Patriarchy inherently opposes all romances of love and sex, including heterosexual. It demands that men be raised as soldiers to kill enemies, slaughtered, and discarded, and women as chattel and land to be bought and sold. Marriage was that transferral of property. Having children is necessary, not out of love and care for them, but to propagate the species and create even more future warriors and womb incubators. It grudgingly accepts only (mostly straight and like maybe 1 or 2 gay) love narratives that can be subsumed into this narrow paradigm, but the tension of interpretation is always present. Ideally, it prefers to ignore, diminish, scorn and mock, or even suppress them. I suspect most people’s problems and discomfort with R&J stem from this pathology, this deep-seated unease over anything that touches on human experience patriarchy can’t quite control or subsume.

Shakespeare was obviously no lover of patriarchy (in his personal life, though…well, it’s debatable). His plays resist it greatly to various degrees, and R&J is no exception. R&J hews much closer to the reality of heterosexual love and love in general, which are informed by, though are not inherently tied to, patriarchy (as are gay relationships, sadly). Shakespeare is just being a good writer in throwing most of that rotten apple away; it doesn’t apply to what he was trying to do, anyway. R&J’s challenge to patriarchy, though, is heterosexual in nature.

And it shouldn’t take two kids having to kill themselves to get society to realize how effed up it is. It isn’t an out-of-touch play, but instead one extremely relevant to our society 500+ years later. 

True dat.

Latest compilation - Wholesome angbang: the story’s all off + heir of angband + 3rd age canon divergence

This is what I’ve got so far. I’ve compiled existing ideas together and added/expanded some new ones. You might also notice I changed my mind on a few things from before (and I’ll probably do it again in the future too lol).

What covers the re-writing of the silmarillion will parallel canon, and it will be in the fashion of Melron writing down the tales never told in efforts to get the story straight. What happens afterwards during the third age will be in the manner of actuality and completely diverges from canon.

Melkor is actually a rather gentle person, albeit a chaotic disaster. He cares quite a lot, and it pains him that despite giving it his all, he ruins everything he touches and can only create corruption. Eru illuvatar gave him the self awareness of the role he was forced to play - the antagonist, and this causes him great sorrow, anger, and bitterness. For the type of character I’m imagining, it’s a blend of 10th & 11th doctor (doctor who), Jimmy McGill (better call Saul), and Delores (westworld). We only ever see melkor (and this is true with Mairon as well) as he is to his enemies. It is not known what he is like behind closed doors. the person he shows to his enemies is much different than who he really is. I was thinking about the 10th doctor (doctor who), and how terrible he must be in the eyes of his enemies and how frightening he becomes when he gets angry. I mean, do you remember him at the end of waters of Mars? But we know that he is a loving, gentle, compassionate person who cares an awful lot and carries much grief and guilt. I was also thinking how the 10th doctor would give his enemies a chance first to walk away, and then when they refused that’s when he would destroy them. That made me think about what happened with hurin and maedhros (and every other instance as well). melkor was actually honest in all his offers but the other side just didn’t believe him.

The dynamic between Melkor and Mairon is like that of Jimmy McGill and Kim Wexler (better call Saul). Jimmy is the more emotional and chaotic one, doomed to his fate of slipping down the lawless path of becoming who he will be in Breaking Bad. Kim, a strong and independent character of her own standing, is the practical, logical one who has a strong work ethic, and in the end has fallen to the dark side to join Jimmy on his slippery slope [as of season 5]. They are lovers and partners in crime.

In the beginning, eru illuvator created the ainur and gave them singing lessons. Mairon often ditched his lessons and hid in the void. Melkor also hung out in the void and saw this beautiful unflickering flame: mairon. But mairon was always just out of melkor’s reach.

The reason melkor was hiding out in the void was because he was searching for something to fill the vacuum of darkness inside him — a fire greater than him that couldn’t ever be put out. And when he saw mairon, Melkor knew he had finally found what he was searching for.

Mairon is a mighty spirit of fire, twin to Arien. The balrogs are of the same kin, lesser in rank but greater warriors. Mairon at first served vana alongside arien before transferring to aule. Mairon quickly became aule’s highest journeyman, like what eonwe is to manwe.

Melkor adored Mairon from the start. And for a time it was unrequited. Imagine melkor on his knees gazing in reverence at Mairon, and mairon is like, okay yeah cool cool I got to get back to work now (Mairon was called the admirable because he had a very strong work ethic). But it grew into a friendship, which blossomed into deep romantic love. When mairon left the ainur and openly declared allegiance to him, that was them eloping.

This was when they produced an offspring. Though mairon often presents as male, mairon is gender fluid and bigender. Mairon is the mother and melkor is the father. It is known the valar cannot beget, so it came as a surprise when a child was given to them. I shall refer to the kid as melron for a lack of a better name to give them. Melron is very powerful, perhaps as powerful as his father in his prime, but that power is untapped because they are rather unambitious. They enjoy the simple things in life, very much like a hobbit. They were very close with their parents and were raised with much love and care. As a child they were kept secret from the ainur and as they grew up they enjoyed the anonymity, so you would not have learned of them from the lore of the eldar.

Melkor always regarded mairon as his equal, and in fact considered mairon to have a greater value than himself. Mairon was the one who held him down, and melkor knew he needed mairon more than mairon needed him. Mairon brought the order within melkor’s chaos. everthing melkor did, mairon had a part in. While mairon could (and did) stand quite well on his own without melkor, Melkor functionally could not. And in the end, when his bleeding wounds couldn’t heal, his damaged foot made it hard for him to walk, and his fear became debilitating, he was incredibly indebted to mairon for picking him up each time he fell.

After his chaining in the halls of mandos, Melkor sued for pardon and to go back home to angband. Parden manwe allowed, though he was refused to leave Valinor. And so in bitterness melkor stayed. He never forgave the valar for the sundering of him from Melron, as melron was a very young child when he was taken away and when he returned they were nearly full grown. When feanor first saw him walking among the elves in valinor, there was an allure to the way it was clear the fallen vala longed to be somewhere else. There was something in the way he scowled at the noldor in contempt that made feanor want to impress him, to have melkor glance his way. He made the silmarils partly in mind to show off to melkor. And melkor did see them and him, but it was a look of distaste. This in turn made feanor furious, and fueled his own obsession with the jewels he made. Feanor convinced himself that melkor wanted the silmarils for the vala’s own personal gain, because that’s what he wanted to see. And when melkor indeed stole the silmarils and killed finwe, feanor flipped his shit. Feanor’s loathing for melkor was grown from the seed of once being infatuated with him.

Melkor stole the simarils mainly as a gift for mairon, but also because he was pissed off feanor got the credit for the concept of the silmarils when mairon had thought it up ages before. Derived from his short time serving vana, Mairon was well adept at agriculture and developed these great underground greenhouses in angband. The grow lights he used were magnificent stones imbued with light he nicked from the two lamps. And as the light from the trees are derived from the light of the lamps, the greenhouse grow lights are the same as the silmarils in essence. All the pretty stars shine for you my love, Melkor told mairon. (From the simarillion I directly quote, “the silmarils of their own radiance shown like the stars.”) After seeing what efforts it took melkor to get the jewels for him, mairon put them in a crown he forged for melkor to wear. Melkor promised he would always wear the crown, and he never did take it off.

When Beren and Luthien arrived at angband in their quest for a silmaril, melkor actually offered a deal where he would let them have one in exchange for a song for sleep. Melkor calculated that splitting the silmarils up would make it more complicated for feanor’s side, and also melkor is an insomniac and hadn’t had a good nap in ages. And so beren & luthien agreed upon the deal. But Beren broke the deal, as he tried to take all three.

The treatment of melkor after the war of wrath was cruel on the valar’s side. He groveled and surrendered, begging for peace and pardon. But they cut off his feet lest he attempt to flee, bound him up once again with the chain of angainor, beat the beautiful crown mairon made for him into a collar, dragged him as a mere criminal to aman where he was judged and his body executed, and then as an unhoused spirit was thrust out into the void. The events of the two sons of feanor taking the remaining silmarils from eonwe, Sauron seeking eonwe & doing obeisance, and Melkor made captive to be taken to aman all happened at around the same place and time and indeed overlapped.

It was only after melkor was sent into the void that mairon realized he never told melkor, never explicitly said the words, that he loved him. And with him gone, he discovered that though he could cope without him, but he didn’t want to.

melkor willingly became weaker in order give away his power to strengthen the world and others. So naturally he transferred much into mairon. And mairon tranferred that into his ring, so as to have a piece of melkor still with him. The ring corrupts people beacuse melkor can only create corruption. Like in elven culture, mairon wears the ring on the index finger of his right hand to indicate marriage. The engravings are actually wedding vows and whoever translated it to the common speech had it wrong. I haven’t figured out what precisely happened with the whole rings of power business - I’m thinking there were aspects that were actually genuine as opposed to deception, but there was a con involved as well. All in all, it was very complex but I think celebrimbor was largely at fault.

Also, I haven’t finalized what actually went down in akallabeth, but it was complicated as well. It’s not clear cut who exactly was in the right and who in the wrong, as both sides had a fair share in the mess. But I do know tar-mairon was not in his temple laughing evilly when numenor fell, he was amongst all the citizens who were left behind, most begging him to save them. But all he could do was helplessly drown with them as the great waves ate the island, feeling that it was all his fault.

Mairon’s appearance was always beautiful, not some false guise he put on to deceive. Whether he was annatar, tar-mairon, alone where no one else could see him, it was the same appearance. He shape shifted into other things, but this was his default appearance he wore on arda. The name sauron the abhorred was one of those ironic titles. Melkor was also stunning in his own right as well. In their private life both still looked the same as before, and it was only to their foes that they decided to permanently put on frightening hues once they decided it had more advantage. Melron can attest that both Melkor after the darkening of valinor and Mairon after the fall of numenor could still look beautiful if they wished to.

For both the fair forms of Melkor and Mairon they look very similar to elves: tall, long hair, slender in frame, and androgynous in appearance. But with a more supernatural element. Melkor has straight, darker than jet black hair that spills to the floor. It has no shine; it absorbs all light. Think of vantablack. His skin is neon white, like spectralon. And his eyes burn like blue hyper giant stars. His face has very sharp features. He’s strikingly beautiful, but also absolutely frightening to look at straight on. Mairon’s hair is the multidimensional white, yellow, orange, red of fire and molten metal. It flickers about him like flames, defying gravity. His skin is pale gold and his eyes glow like filaments in an Edison bulb. His facial features are delicate, intricate, ornate. He’s entrancingly beautiful; you are the moth and he is the flame. You’d look at him forever, even though you’re burning your retinas out. Melron resembles both of their parents in equal measure, such as having the beginning half of their hair pour down like ink in the manner of Melkor’s while the ending half is fiery like Mairon’s.

During his fight with elendil and gilgalad, mairon expected to lose. He’d never been much of a warrior. He forged swords, didn’t fight with them. He was much better behind the scenes, making plans and using words as his weapon. Also, he wasn’t even wearing armor. (In the books, there wasn’t any mention at all that he wore frightening armor. Only that he was tall, gave off deadly heat, and his hands were charred and uncovered). It was a last minute oh shit my side is being slaughtered, I need to help them. Armor takes awhile to put on, and he didn’t have time. He grabbed the closest sword he could find and gave it his best shot. Gilgalad and elendil only died because of getting fatal burns.

And so Sauron is defeated by elendil & gilgalad and then isildur cuts the ring off. And shortly after isildur looses the ring in the river. And now this is where melron comes into play and canon diverges. They’ve been there, hiding away from the spotlight either on the sidelines, behind the scenes, or hidden in plain sight. They fetch the ring from the river and has since been wearing it for safe keeping until Sauron is ready to come back. Those who have the 3 eleven rings can’t detect Melron’s presence, and with the one ring “lost” they put theirs on, unknowingly keeping melron in the know. So how does this change things? Gollum, bilbo, and Frodo never become ringbearers for starters. And there’s no fellowship to destroy the one ring. I also think it would be cool if Melron crosses paths with Aragorn, and they actually become close friends.

I have a ton of insomnia writing in the drafts, so time to start unloading some of it. The usual “as is” rules apply, and I’ll try to keep most of it under the cut,

It just occured to me that I actually have one piece of good advice to give:

If you challenge someone to a duel, ALWAYS have a witness for the fight!

I learned this the hard way when I was a little girl. But to understand why I felt the need to even duel someone, you need to understand the background.

When I was a little girl my family lived in our house in town, which meant until I was 9 I was running around with a gang of kids. I say “kids”, but I pretty much mean boys. There were a couple of years during that time when a girl was inthe neighborhood, one being one of the best friends I had in my life and the other....not, but almost the entire time I was the only girl in the neighborhood.

Now some folks think being the only girl would be terrible, but in a lot of ways it was fine. Kids are kids, rampaging around the neighborhood, and thanks to my family I never felt things should be “girl stuff” and “boy stuff”. I just played.

 In fact, at times being the only girl even gave me a curious power position. I knew “girl things” they didn’t. I can still remember the shock on the face of one of the boys when I tried to explain that I didn’t just piss outside like them because of anatomical differences. He just assumed girls had dicks too. 

BTW, groups of very little boys can get awfully competitive about their dicks. Not that they called them that. They honest to god called them “ding-a-lings”! LOL  In fact, a few times they even had a contest where they would line up with their pants dropped wanting me (the only one that was exempt)  to decide which looked “best”. Remember, at the time we were very little kids, so the concept of “best” was exceptionally vague.** I hope I didn’t give any of those boys a lifelong complex because of something I said in all innocence! But geez, they were obsessed with the idea that whatever hung between their legs was very, very important.

Anyway, running around playing being a girl among boys wasn’t bad all the time. Heck, while the boys could fight over who got to play Han and Luke when we played “Star Wars” or Mark and Jason when we played “Battle of the Planets”, I always knew I wouldn’t have to compete for my part in the games. Though I’m still a little irked to the way their only solution to Gargantuas in War of the Gargantuas being both male was I’d play “the green Gargantua’s wife, at least we always found a way even if what we were playing didn’t have a token girl.

All that being said, there were real disadvantages too, especially as the bots came to learn the rules around gender. I was a girl. They knew it and at times they would think it meant I was supposed to defer to them. This led to many a fight and tears.

For instance, once one of the boys got a BB gun. 

Naturally we all wanted to take turns using it in a makeshift backyard shooting gallery. Trouble was, as far as they were concerned girls weren’t supposed to shoot. Now considering all the toy cap guns they borrowed from me when we played, and the gun I had that shot cork balls had been the envy of all the kids*** until this BB gun, it seems crazy they would think girls weren’t allowed “real” guns. I begged a turn, outshot them all, and never was allowed to touch the gun again. ****Having a girl be the best shot kinda stung for them! LOL

The boys would do this now and then, throw me for a loop with “you are a girl” as a reason I should or shouldn’t do a thing. Being a “sissy” was a common insult used among the kids. A kid should be tough and brave, try never to get crying or show weakness, or sometimes they would even use “like a girl” as an insult. 

I learned that my “girly” side was more of a target, so I got so in the toy chest in the living room I kept the guns, cars, blocks, etc for the boys to use, but kept hidden away in my bedroom the girly stuff like dolls. In fact I kept things like play makeup buried in drawer where no one could find them...

Yes, I was a girl, both in my personal identification and as the whole world saw me, and yet I hid my “girl stuff” like a teenager hiding drugs or dirty magazines. It was the big drawback of usually being the only girl. The girly side of being a girl was something to be quiet about.

So grew up thinking that the way to impress a guy was to be strong, tough,  smart, brave, and not at all squeamish. If boys admire each other for not being a sissy, then certainly they would admire a girl for being that way.  

Oddly enough, never once did a boy reciprocate my crushes because I wasn’t a sissy. Oh, they would like me for it, but it was seeing me as one of the guys and never as romantic potential. Or maybe not oddly. I may be hetero CIS female, but the world sees me as not girly enough in my presentation to quite believe me.

TBH, I still have a problem with that. I never learned the rules of being girly. I never was taught how to put on makeup, do hair, know about fashion, move in that swaying hips and crossed ankles when you sit kind of way... 

And down deep I don’t want to have to put on that act. I want to be me. I want someone to love me without makeup or styling, not because of the clothes I wear or because of skills with flirting games. I want to be loved for me, and girly is only part of me. Part of me is walks in the woods where I photograph snakes and spiders. Part of me is climbing in the roof to repair a leak or taking apart the hot water heater to figure out how to fix it....

I have always been a combination of things. Things like how I like romantic comedies and horror films, I picked out my antique sword because it felt like it would swing in my hand well and it had little flowers on the hand guard, or how I love classical and punk.I never wear dresses during the day, because they aren’t practical for my rough and dirty life, plus  they can make you very vulnerable. And yet at night I always wear the prettiest nightgown I can find. I had a unique “Captain’s Canopy Bed” as a child, because I loved both the captain’s bed (a bunk woth drawers under it billed as a “boy bed” by people that gender everything) and longed for a canopy bed. My father sensibly combined the two for me. To me it has never been about a contradiction or conflict, but just that different aspects manifest under different circumstances. 

I really can’t understand why people are expected to fit into catagories neatly, label themselves, force themselves to deny parts if themselves just to belong. Still,  I expect I would be happier if I could have at least forced myself to fake it.

Anyway, the boys were learning girls were “supposed” to be a certain way, and I was constantly insisting this wasn’t true. They would pick on me amd we would fight. Oddly, this “girls can’t” attitude never applied to fighting. They never went easier on me because I was a girl. 

Once they got me treed and the henchman boy was told to go get something to hit me with. I warned him not to, but he didn’t listen. As he went to get the weapon I lept out of the tree in a tackle, and began punching him. My grandmother ran out shouting for me to stop. “It’s not ladylike!!” she cried, while  I shouted back in frustration “They were going to hit me!!” 

Don’t worry, I wasn’t punished. Grandma..well, it’s complicated with her...and my parents would never punish me for something like that. Years later Mom would admit she and Pop were proud if me after that fight. “The boys picked on you so much I was glad you hit them”...

Hmmm, now that I think about it, Mom’s most common response to sexist attitudes in movies and tv shows is to grumble “Oh hit him!” Folks have no idea about Mom’s violent side, the part that watched Xena: Warrior Princess and sighed “I always wanted to be able to leap around and fight like that!” People think she is “sweet”, when Pop was always the family softie! LOL

As we got older, the sexism of the boys got worse and so did our conflict. One boy, a year older than me and the oldest of the usual gang, was the worst. His own mother was a rather strong and independent person, so it was almost confusing how he could be that way. As far as he was concerned the social structure was thatthe older the boy the higher the rank, and girls were at the bottom. It was inevitable that one day their would be an explosion.

The final straw came over, of all things, me wanting to make our gang of friends into a club. It was all the fault if a kids magazine called Dynamite, that put out a book on making your own club, complete with membership cards printed in a fold out of the cover you could cut out. It sounded like a great idea. It wasn’t.

To be honest, I shouldn’t have been at all surprised. By this point the oldest boy had gotten to be a complete pain about gender roles, but also about me in particular. My first day of kindergarten he’d been the only person I knew all day, so when I passed him in the hall I’d said “Hello”. The boy next to him asked who I was and he said “I don’t know!” right in front of me. I had started to consider our “friendship” differently after that, and his now increased insistence that boys were superior increased the rift.

To make matters worse, the boys had developed some sort of age based ranking. When I invited the oldest boy’s little brother to come to the club meeting too, the guy had been outraged. It had seemed natural to me, I mean I invited my little brother. I always wanted to include everyone. To the boys, the younger boys didn’t count and the older you were the more power you were “supposed” to have.

Now for the club I’d fixed up a corner of the shed out back. I put up posters, made a candle (I just loved making candles and melting wax when I was little...us GenXers lived dangerous lives!LOL), set up chairs and a table, had refreshments and, of course, the membership cards. I couldn’t wait for them to show up.

Once the boys arrived I said it was time to elect officers. Immediately the oldest boy announced there was no need and started to pass out the cards. He said he would be president because he was oldest, my favorite boy would be vice president, the thieving henchman would be treasurer because he was next oldest, the other boys would be just members, and I would be...secretary. 

Oh he was glad to explain. Girls are always secretaries. Only girls can be secretaries. Girls can never be president. The other boys accepted this.

Naturally I was outraged. This was NOT right! We were supposed to vote! And we were supposed to vote for who would be best for the job, not who was oldest or a boy. Girls CAN be president! And besides, the club was my idea and the clubhouse in my yard so I shouldn’t be stuck being the stupid secretary without even voting!!!!

There was a lot of shouting after that. The boys stormed off, taking the cards with them. I went in the house to take the refreshments, and the boys snuck back to trash the place. They tore the posters, smashed my candle, and turned over the furniture. 

I cried.

I was also furious.

I was beyond fed up with the oldest boy and his assumption of leadership. Now my favorite boy did apologize, but he was always the nice one. The others were unrepentant. The oldest boy insisted he was right that girls could never lead. 

There was only one thing left to do: Challenge the oldest boy to a duel.

I went right up to him and said I’d had enough. I was challenging him to a fight. One on one, just him and me. No weapons, just our strength. The winner would be the leader of the kids.

I know it’s absurd, but since physical fighting is what they valued I figured I had to go with it. Actually, if anything, a fight would be skewed in my favor. While the boy was a year older, I was a head taller. Where he was lanky, I’d gotten to be a sort of muscular and agile fat.***** Physically the avantage was mine, an since refusing to fight me would be so embarrassing to him I knew I’d get the fight. 

He agreed, and then I made a very stupid mistake. I decided to show him a bit of mercy. Since losing to a girl would be so humilating, I set the time and place where we would meet alone for our fight. I wanted to win, to make my point, but  I wasn’t trying to shame him.

And so the time came. We met in a back yard, in clear area  hidden from windows in case an adult was looking by trees. I wish I could tell you some dramatic blow by blow, but honestly I remember it as very quick. He fancied he knew fighting moves, got into a pose, and I flattened him. Almost admittedly I had him pinned to the ground where I sat on top of him until he admitted I had won. 

I went home overjoyed. This lasted until the kids got together. I, oh so foolishly, assumed I was now leader. The boy, however, was not about to give up power...or tell the truth. 

As an adult I realize my naivety, but at the time I was 7 or 8. I honestly had believed the boy would have been honest. I always told the truth, so why wouldn’t he? And since we had made a sort of “official” deal, he would be obliged to tell the truth. 

He lied. Right there, right in front of me, he lied. 

The boy announced he had won. I said he was lying, that I had won, and he laughed. Of course he had won. He was a boy. Did the boys really think  a girl could beat him?

 I offered to fight him again right there, but he refused saying he’d already won. I couldn’t get him to feel pressured to fight me again because now the boys wouldn’t really want him to. On some level I think they believed me and knew I would win if we fought again. As long as they didn’t see me clobber him they could pretend the boys “deserved” to be in charge. They needed the lie as much as he did.

And so I learned a lesson: witneses matter. People will almost always lie if the truth threatens them. 

You know, I think this is why I have always been obsessed with watching when something horrible is happening. I always had this feeling that even when I can’t help, I can be there for the person in some way. I’d listen, watch, and remember. When I was 9 I stood in the snow, no coat and no socks, waiting until a man was removed from a crashed car because I didn’t want to “abandon” him. I would report teachers that did something incredibly wrong, even though I knew the teacher would deny it and I knew my classmates were too afraid to back me up, because the truth had to be known. I wanted to be the witness I needed for that fight, someone to back me up when no one wants to hear the truth.

As a footnote, after the duel failed I tried one more way to defeat the oldest boy: Voodoo!

Well, voodoo by way of a book I’d been reading. It wasn’t real voodoo, or probably like any realistic magical practices. In the book someone had carved a skull into a tree, written someone’s name under it, and the  hammered a nail into the center of the skull with devastating consequences to the victim. I had a pocket knife and a nail, so I gave it a go.

Sadly voodoo didn’t work. 

Even more sadly the boy grew up to move away from this hick town, get a good job, get married and have kids. In other words, he got a far better life than I’ve had. Oh well, the universe never cares about fairness.

** Actually one boy always won, because TBH I liked everything about him best.

***Hilariously, one of the boys tried to steal my cork gun, claiming it was his. Pop had engraved my name in the gun sight, and when my father pointed at to ask what it said, the boy claimed it was his name! That boy was never very bright, always dishonest, and a born henchman! LOL You know, I bet that toy gun would have been illegal to make just a few years later, just because it literally fired things. Heck, maybe it already was and had been sitting on the store shelf for years before I got it. We couldn’t find one like it a coulle years later for my little brother.... 

****I want to point out being a good shot runs in the family. Back in the 1960s when my family had to shoot for self defense (long story) Mom was apparently a crack shot. On one side of her family she has had relatives that were at times the official best shot for their branch of the military. One, even as an old man in poor health, liked to show off how he could selectively shoot off small tree top branches a long diatance uphill from him. Plus, Mom likes to mention she is distantly related to Annie Oakley, which is apparenty true.

*****Traumatic stuff happened when I started school, triggering a bunch of sudden changes with me. One was weight gain, but I had stayed strong as ever. 

Thinkin about how the NOES 2010 movie is so good. Listen…listen. It has really unusual structure. Most of the time, a horror film follows either a single unit (one person, one family) through a whole plot (The Witch, The Babadook, Saw, Halloween) or a group of victims with one pretty obvious final girl in the mix (Friday the 13th, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I Know What You Did Last Summer), but NOES 2010 doesn’t do that. It takes you through several protagonists, one at a time, moving on from one teen to another when your initial protagonist is killed, starting with Dean, moving on to Kris, then Jesse, and then Nancy and Quentin when they’re the last two standing. It’s a fresh take, which makes everything so much less sure, and gives narrative weight to the characters who die instead of just making them bodycount. Everybody gets treated like the final girl, not canon fodder, which is extremely important to the story the film is telling. Nancy and Quentin don’t even become the film’s focus until almost halfway through the story.

Probably someone who is unfamiliar with the original film would assume Kris is the protagonist until she is killed thirty minutes in a little ala Psycho. It makes everything seem less certain, and makes the characters who you lose as important as the ones who make it, which is a really responsible way to tell something. A lot of the time, the characters in horror are kind of assholes (which is great and another rant for another day, because since the stakes are so low [literally you just have to care enough to not want the character to be brutally murdered], you can get an audience invested in an willing to explore the complexity of even a shitty  person—but like I said, that’s a wholeass other rant), but in NOES2010, they’re not, which I think is important. Never does the film want you to feel like the characters either suck and deserve something happening to them, or are stupid (look, when the publicist in Scream 4 got out of her car in an unlit parking garage in the middle of a Ghostface chase, I saw the wholeass theater stop cheering for her to live because she was so stupid we just couldn’t root for her anymore—it happens) and to care less about their outcome that way. Everyone fights hard and tries hard and it’s just not enough.

Obviously it’s a slasher, but NOES 2010 is really like a thesis work film on CSA and how it affects people, and the commentary is both responsible, and really, really well done. As someone who has had to write a character who has committed that kind of crime, and walk the fucking razor’s edge between making them duly awful, and not crossing the line into anything exploitative or gratuitous, I can say with certainty that is not an easy thing to do. Because you want to give weight to the suffering that has been inflicted and realistic portray of the depravity of your villain, but again, you really don’t want to show anything more than you have to. That’s not what it’s about, and honestly, you can talk about that kind of a serious issue without actually showing things on screen. A film about CSA would be kind of defeating its own purpose if anyone who had ever experienced that shit went to watch the movie and went away more traumatized. The film does a really responsible job of walking that line. Freddy is awful, and there’s a constant threat with him—especially in the film’s climax—but he never actually assaults anyone onscreen (or off, except in the referenced past. The worst thing he does onscreen is lick someone, which is still incredibly disgusting), and the film still manages to keep how awful he is very, very real.

CSA is a really shitty thing to go through, obvious, it feels incredibly of dumb to type that—any assault is. Obviously. One of the big things in dealing with it after is a lot of the time, victims can feel broken, or damaged, and even worse, be talked about like they’re some kind of ‘damaged goods’ by incredibly shitty people in their life, but the film doesn’t even give that enough weight to bring it up. There have always been two big ways in film to combat ideas, one of which is direct confrontation (IE a film specifically about something being wrong—Do The Right Thing talking very openly about racism for instance) and by just straight up not doing the thing (Star Trek dropping a woman of color in as both a major cast member, romantic interest for people of other races, and someone working in a position of power, and just being like Yup. This is just normal). Both of which are very necessary and useful approaches. In NOES 2010, all four of the protagonists are in romantic relationships at some point (and so is Dean, the mini-lead protag). It’s not played out voyeuristically, and you don’t get any hot makeout seshes, but they’re definitely in comfortable, functional, physical relationships. In a silent but fucking hardcore stance, while Kris and Jesse spend the night together early in the film, there is not a single on-screen kiss until Quentin and Nancy have found out the truth about what happened to them as kids, and a few minutes later, right before their final confrontation, they kiss. Not even a second thought about anything, except how much they really need and want to kill this piece of shit coming after them, as it should be. It’s a rockhard solidification that not only do the characters not see each other differently because of what happened, but it has done nothing to change who they are or what they can be.

The movie is only an hour and a half, which isn’t that long, but still manages to pack in not only multiple different realistic reactions, (Quentin goes through some hardcore withdrawl/denial after finding stuff out initially, Nancy gets fucking mad), but to cover some of what this is like for their parents. In one conversation with Alan, Quentin’s dad, he tries to explain the mob enacted justice on Krueger years ago by telling him that he hopes someday when he’s a parent, he never has to experience how it feels having utterly failed to protect your child. Even though they only have like thirty seconds of flashback to work with, the script gets in one of the parents in dismay asking what other choice they have about hunting Krueger down, because the alternative is making their three-four year olds get on a stand and tell a room full of strangers what happened to them. It’s a horrible, awful situation to be in. Although it would be really easy to make some drama between characters and their families, even the characters who die have good relationships with their families, and neither the dead teens or their parents are ever narratively ‘punished’ for anything that happens. Kris’ last words to her mom before she leaves on a flight, about eight hours before Kris is murdered, are, realistically, “Love you.” The last thing Nancy says to her own mother is, “I know you were just trying to protect us. Thank you,” and her mother’s last words to her are, “I’m just glad you’re safe.” Characters still die, but they at least get the peace of deserved last words to each other. The film also not only definitely does not vilify the parents for burning Freddy to death for assaulting their preschool aged kids, but comes down in its finale openly supporting that vigilante justice decision, with Nancy’s last words in the film being thanking her mother for protecting them.

Even the whole nightmare theme fits in well with the story being told, because nightmares are a very common side-effect of past trauma, symbolically, there’s a lot people have to fight through in their lives when that kind of shit happens to them, even years later, and it genuinely isn’t given enough weight by most people. As kind of icing on the cake in the film, not only does Nancy get to kill Freddy, he dies in a very ugly, undignified way, with a slit throat and gross expression on his face, after getting his ass handed to him in a like a thirty second fight in reality with two very motivated teenagers.

Plus, Quentin Smith is canonically ADHD, and Nancy Holbrook is a really underrated protagonist who reads autistic and I love her.

Anyway. This movie does a great job about using horror as a medium to talk about a topic usually only people already interested in that specific topic would check out, plays out its narrative very responsibly, comes down hard with a big two thumbs up to murdering your local pedophile in a bonfire, and says fuck you to assault victim stigma. My only real beef with this film is that they were so dead set sure they would have a sequel that instead of ending with real resolution, it’s got a stinger at the end (on rewatches I always skip the last scene lol).

Not that it’s a flawless film—it’s got budget parents, which I think is both hilarious and fantastic (meaning everyone except I think Dean has only one parent, the same gender as them, and it’s hilarious and I adore it). They had rushed filming for some of the end. Etc. But it’s really solid, and doesn’t get enough credit as a film. It’s very different from the original—less campy, less funny. But it’s supposed to be. It’s telling a different story. And it’s telling a really good one.

So in anthem of a teenage prophet Cameron Monaghan had long hair and I would like to propose the idea of Jerome eventually having long hair. Which I suppose is in line with the more recent movie iterations of the Joker, but this is rooted more in mental image of both Five and Jerome having long hair lol.

Hey, @phantomcomet!  I’ve never actually seen Anthem of a Teenage Prophet (the only works I’ve seen from Cameron are Gotham, Shameless, and Jamie Marks Is Dead), so I had to run an image search to see.  It looks like they dyed it to more of a dark auburn there, even, than his actual ginger.  That’s a fascinating visual choice on him, in that I find it jarring if I try to transfer it onto either of the Valeska twins.  However, regarding Jerome, Five, and the topic of long hair: this gives me a neat opportunity to explain some of my thought processes behind the visuals and aesthetic choices I’ve made for them in my stories.  It applies more to Five in that he’s the one that actually has long hair, but Jerome’s perpetual fascination with/fondness for Five’s hair actually has some explanation in its own right.

Obviously, Five has long hair the first few times we see him in canon, but he ends up with it short in order to impersonate Bruce.  He seems uncomfortable from the moment it’s gone, and David’s starkly different body language and movement choices for Five have really influenced the way I’ve molded him into, well, nearly an OC at this point.  In any one of my series/fic ’verses where he appears, anywhere between two to three years have passed since the hair cutting/impersonating Bruce debacle.  I’ve decided he would let it grow in again, and attached to that notion is my assertion that it grows unusually fast.  There’s a lot going on with him biologically that’s unusual otherwise, so why not that (and I have ideas on this that show up in all of my stories about him, too, but that’s a whole other discussion post).  The number of things he’s able to do with it when it’s just past his shoulders is pretty neat, which is more or less where I see it length-wise, anywhere between just past his shoulders to just hitting the middle of his back.  Most often, I mention him keeping it in a kind of careless braid, but sometimes he’ll leave it loose or sweep it up in a messy bun.  There are a few instances where it ends up braided around his head to hold flowers or a tiara or something in place; I’m convinced Jerome would have done his mother’s hair before shows, so he actually has some proficiency on that front.  Jerome’s circus background just keeps on giving.  So much of that is negative, so I’ve constructed the positive.

That brings me to Jerome and his almost immediate fascination with/fondess for Five’s hair.  No matter which version of their first meeting I’ve written that you look at, Jerome has this instant teasing reaction of, Wow, you have Disney Princess hair, and that’s why he starts calling Five princess.  It starts out as something glib, even something that makes Five scowl or want to punch him the first couple times.  It obviously becomes deeply affectionate (not to mention the other few pet-names I have Jerome call him throughout; I loved the idea of having a Joker-figure who calls his partner by cutesy endearments, like...what a neat inversion of the archetypal Harley-figure calling Joker puddin’ all the time).

So, from there, we have Jerome really loving to touch/play with/even do up Five’s hair.  Before I started writing Jerome in-depth for the first time, which was in the story called “Challengers” late in my Delicate, Dangerous, Obsessed series, I tracked down as many screencaps of his diary pages as possible.  I really need to do a full transcription one of these days, because I’ve only ever seen partial ones out there.  I can read all of it.  Part of my grad school training is in paleography; reading really difficult handwriting, past and present, is a skillset I’ve never regretted having.  Somewhere in those pages, there’s mention of his hair getting pulled.  That was kind of a flashpoint for me, as far as what kind of bullying I’m convinced he underwent at the hands of peers (above and beyond the abuse at home from Lila, Cicero, and Uncle Zach).  If his hair was pulled a great deal when he was young, it might have been very easy to grab, by which I mean, he might have had longer hair as a kid.

If you cut your hair off when you hit your mid to late teens because you’re sick of being mocked for it, part of you may still miss it.  And even if you’ve outgrown it and come to prefer something shorter, spikier, a little edgier (which is what we see in Jerome by the time of his second canonical death at age 24-25), you may remain fond of long hair as an aesthetic concept.  And then you meet somebody who just shatters every notion of needing to be self-conscious about it, and who defies gender conventions to boot.  This person ends up being your partner, and, hey, you can mess with their lovely hair whenever you want, because both of you are into that (and the rest of what you’re into is fun, too).  Win-win!

⌜ •°  ✦  °• — HEY!! is that AVAN JOGIA? no, that’s KIRAN MEHTA, hanging out in BROOKLYN. they’re TWENTY-EIGHT years old and use HE/HIM pronouns. what do they do here? they’re A MUSICIAN and they’ve lived here FOUR YEARS. their favourite thing about the city is THE FEELING OF INVINCIBILITY, but they hate THE COLD. they pride themselves on being CAREFREE.

Kiran was born and raised in a small, suburban town in North Carolina. His father was an immigrant from India, but his mother had grown up in that same town. His parents met in college, at Duke University, and settled down in his mother’s hometown because at the time of their marriage, her mother had been sick and they needed to be nearby. 

His father is a lawyer and his mother a pediatrician. There wasn’t much room for creativity in their household, as Kiran was very much expected to follow the path of the straight and narrow. Kiran was always arguing for the sake of arguing, and his father would simple ruffle his hair and say he was born to be a lawyer. At 7, he’d never seen his father so proud as when he proclaimed, “I want to study at Duke and become a lawyer like Dad!” 

Of course, goals change. Kids who once dreamed of becoming a doctor, a lawyer, an astronaut, start to find their real passions — or, in Kiran’s instance, discover their short comings. School was not something he enjoyed and he tended to get distracted by doodling in his notebook or drumming his fingers against the edge of his desk. He learned guitar in secret  — it’s not that his parents were against music, they liked it just fine, but rock ‘n roll was not allowed in the house, and spending his free-time playing the instrument as opposed to studying was certainly not acceptable 

He discovered weed at 16, which was the first time he felt as though he escaped from the pressure. It was on a particularly enlightening trip that he decided: Fuck. This. I wanna be a Rockstar. 

So when his senior year rolled around, he didn’t actually apply to any colleges (though of course he’d told his parents he had). And when acceptance letters started, he teamed up with his best friend to forge a UCLA letter, where he told his parents he’d be attending for pre-law.

So August after he graduated, he took his car (an Audi that his parents had given him for his 16th birthday due to perfect grades, a report of which he had forged as well), and drove out to Los Angeles with his best friend, who was actually going to UCLA for computer science. His thought process was: I’ll get there, I’ll go to Capitol Records, I’ll play for them, and boom. Record deal. Obviously, that wasn’t so much the case. 

In December of that year, his parents discovered he wasn’t actually attending UCLA. Angry and disappointed, they cut him off, which left Kiran with an apartment he couldn’t afford (and was forced to vacate) and a suitcase full of his belongings. And his precious car, which he’d end up living out of on top of couch surfing for the next six months. 

And then, good news finally struck. A UCLA student, a friend of a friend of a friend, who was studying to be in the entertainment industry, had decided to take on Kiran as his project. He wanted to manage him — and, with the little luck he’d had in succeeding so far, Kiran agreed. Next thing he knew, he was being signed to a small, independent record label and was booking shows at small venues around Los Angeles, and then San Diego, and then Portland and Seattle, and he just kept on spreading. 

It had been two year after he graduated high school that he returned to the east coast, but he hadn’t gone back to North Carolina. This time, he was in New York City, and he absolutely fell in love. He played a small show in Brooklyn with not even a hundred people, but it was still perfect. He met a girl, who’d complimented his set, and who he briefly fell in love with for just the night, just for the hours that he took her back to his hotel room. In the morning that feeling had vanished, and he’d sent her on her way, promising to call. He’d since forgotten that promise. 

After a few shows in NYC, Boston, Philly, etc, he returned to LA. But there was always something missing out there, and he never felt quite right about it. At twenty-four, he decided he wanted to live in New York full time. By then, he’d gained a sort of cult following. He wasn’t famous, by any means, but he was playing to rooms of about 300 people, and his shows tended to sell out amongst the underground crowd. He moved to Brooklyn, renting out an apartment in Williamsburg, where he has remained ever since. 

Personality wise, Kiran can be a bit of a snob at times. His stage name is KIRAN. He’s super passionate about music but can come across as a bit pretentious about it. He’s a big lover, but he falls in love with everyone and everything. He can write a love song about someone one night, and write another love song about someone else the next. Has a very carefree, go with the flow attitude. Literally always playing guitar or humming a tune. 

Wanted Connections

Band Mates: Every frontman needs his band!  If there’s any musicians, a guitarist, bassist, drummer, and mayhaps keyboardist would be cool. I’m still deciding on the voiceclaim, but I’m thinking something like The Growlers 

That One Girl: This is mentioned in the bio in slightly more detail, but when he was twenty and came to New York on a mini tour, he met a girl after his show and they went back to his hotel. Of course he’d promised he’d keep in touch, of course he didn’t. NYC is a huge place, he never thought he’d see her again. Well...I thought it’d be a fun connection if he did see her again. All these years later ( nearly 8 years ! ), they randomly bump into each other in some thrift shop in Brooklyn, or some diner in Manhattan, or a brewery in Queens. Anything works ! 

Manager/Best Friend: This is kind of a specific request so I may have to put in a wanted connection for this, but Kiran’s manager was a UCLA student that decided to make Kiran his project. Kiran was the first artist he ever managed, and it’s been a whole decade, so the two are thick as thieves, even if they don’t always see eye to eye on everything. 

All I Need: This is a connection inspired by a song, lol. Kiran is bisexual, So this is open to any gender ! In the song All I Need by The Frights, the lead singer sings about their baby!! The Love of their life!! In a song later released, Whatever, he sings: “and i’m still messed up from when you said you didn’t love me thirty minutes before we played ten songs about your name. and this crowd is screaming back, as i had a heart attack, as i tried to play the lead as i yelled you’re all i need” Basically gimme an ex who broke his heart, an ex who he wrote a lot of love songs about and now they’re hard to play live ! He’s been living in NYC for the past 4 years, so any time within then works. 

Honestly everything ! Neighbors, enemies, frenemies, give me a ton of friendship plots because i seriously can’t get enough of friendships

sanjivani 12.08.19 lb

gratuitous mumbai shots. cut to idyllic camping scene somewhere in the hills.

dr. sid instantly established as fuckboi. can't remember what current female company's name is and is trying out all the First World Yoga Names (h/t @theincorrigiblemagpie)

there's something about namit's face that bothers me. it's a veryyyyy fuckboy type face. i just cannot trust it. hopefully the character will grow on me and i'll be able to get over it.

cute shenanigans turning to tragedy. sigh, already? we are literally only 1 minute and 7 seconds in.

LMAO WHAT???????? he didn't hear all the screaming, but saw the reflection of the kid drowning in her aviators instead????? HOW'S THAT EVEN POSSIBLE WHEN THEY'RE HIGH UP AND THE KID IS AT LEAST A 100 - 200 M LOWER???

"sorry babes. duty calls."

ofc. a true spiritual successor to armaan, this one.

oh ho ab bacha bhi lo. ainvayi suspense ke chakkar mein footage khaana.

standard uparwaale ka disdain by neechewaala doctor.

why won't he bloody identify himself as a doctor before taking out a swiss knife to slice into the kid?????

handy bottle of booze lying around for sterilization.

HE HAS HAD A SOLIDDDDDD FEW MINUTES DURING THESE SHENANIGANS TO TELL THESE PPL HE'S A DOCTOR AND NOT JUST A PSYCHOPATH HACKING INTO THE KIDS NECK AND SHOVING HIS GIRLFRIEND'S NECKLACE INTO IT, BUT NOPE.......

don't like his dialogue delivery. very stilted.

swelling music and slo-mo as he states his credo: JUGAAD!

"saab kahan le jaa rahe ho mere bachche ko?"

"jahaan logon ki jaan uparwaala nahi, neechewaala bachaata hai; jahaan har ek jaan keemti hai; SANJIVANI!!!"

lmaooooooooo i can't.

also lol, niceeeely got out of having to remember side-piece's name this way.

hey girl.

let's see how long this bright-eyed, bushy-tailed enthusiasm of yours lasts.......

ok the mom won't stop screaming and it's Too Much.

ok this guy's every other dialogue is like right out of those cheesyass motivational insta posts. i don't think i'll be able to watch this show if this is how it's written.

funky hanuman sculpture.

ok kuch zyaada ho raha hai.

ouffffffffff. first instance of contact itself a goddamn confrontation.

ladki chalti phirti diagnostic lab hai. and apparently carries around bars of chocolate in case of emergencies, like professor lupin.

haryanvi girl is talking too fast and i cannot catch 70% of what she's saying.

they seem to be strangers but are toooooo familiar with each other? who talks to someone they just met like this???

yeah, i don't think i can watch this show regularly. veryyyyy annoying writing. it’s really getting to me.

henloooooooooooo dr. shashank.

ohhhhhhh boy. looks like mohnish bahl has already written in his exit clause.

ominous music, Those Glasses, and the passive aggressiveness towards a man who's clearly not feeling well, tell us ki yeh insaan kaafi kameena hai.

"post chod raha hoon. sanjivani nahi. yahin rahoonga, aapke saath."

yeah let's see for how long........

oversmart jugaadu is reciting dr. shashank's speech from memory, while ishani toh looks like she might pass out from giddiness and admiration.

helllllllllllllo anjali! (the only character i'm really interested in tbh.)

"aaj toh koi operation scheduled nahi tha."

uhhhhhhh.... kinda hard to believe there'd be NO SURGERIES WHATSOEVER in a hugeass multi-speciality hospital like this on any given day? also, emergency cases like this can come up?

ouff overly emotional scene.

god, fuck this guy. i already hate him to bits. as an mba myself, i swear to god that mba types should never be put in charge of a hospital (or anything that’s a venture that values something else over bottom line.) 

meanwhile dr. shashank is lecturing over here that they’ve kept sanjivani from being a commercialized business. lmao ok sir, pls look around this hospital of yours and tell me you actually believe this tripe you're spouting.

haan i was waiting for the chopper fees to come up. coz that shit was notttttttttt about to slide, as dr. fuckboy had hoped. woh toh kuch zyaada hi tha.

LMAO WHAT, THIS HOSPITAL IS RUN THANKS TO GOVT FUNDING AND DONATIONS?????????????? THIS HOSPITAL, THE SWANKIEST EVER??????? SURE.

also vardhan said this was a private hospital? oprahwhatisthetruth.gif

oh ho, sid has some well-known scam running, through which he funds these surgeries, but vardhan just can't seem to prove it. the slightest of respect for rebellious fuckboy.

this overwrought maaii is grating on my nerves. someone tell her to dial it down.

this one is just a little toooooooo confident with her intrusive questions.

ohhhhhhhhhhh boy. anjali had hoped to be chief of surgery. and is most likely not going to get it.

this creep needs to stay away from my girl.

not a fan of these gendered stethoscopes.

sure. how ALL of us gals hang out in hospital meeting rooms.

oh, happy birthday ishani.

mamaji has called to remind about not eating non-veg on poornima instead of wishing birthday though. and to remind to tell no one about her surname.

what's the whole deal with her surname though? so are we to take the arora as fake?

asha's the sapna of this show. very specific regional identity, bubbly, friendly supporting role. i already like her more than the leads (as was the case with sapna too. @ me but sapna and atul were most lovable!)

ok ishani is QUITE unlikable. itnaaaaaaa bhi hyper hone ki zaroorat nahi hai sis.

why was she just sauntering around, and just swooping into whatever case is in front of her? doesn't she have some kinda orientation or something to attend? aise hi khula chod diya hai in naye doctors ko?

also why did this first year resident have to come and take things over? why's that other doctor standing around clueless about the existence of hypothermia and how to treat it?????

lo ji. dr. awesome ne bacha hi liya. to the point the nurses are like waah waah, aap kitniiiiii sahi thi!

and this doctor who's her senior too.

oh god, wohi insta post waala gyaan yeh bhi pel rahi hai. ouff.

what this dude's name, anyway??? he’s more my type than dr. fuckboy. 

oh so this is (part of??) his scam. selling unnecessary elective plastic surgery to women, playing on their insecurities. not misogynist atttttttttt all.

ouffffffff.

yeh kyaaaaaa faltoo aurat hai??????? she's super fucking annoying. it's literally your first hour in the place and you're already being such a damn pain in the ass to your SENIORS????? TO THE POINT WHERE YOU’RE PHYSICALLY ACCOSTING THEM???????

yeah i hate both of them.

———————————————————————

kal aur bhi ainvayi ka unpleasant khit-pit. i don't care.

oh shit dr. shashank has brain tumour. dr. juhi being called into service.

My lessons learned of being 22 and dating people

God. Don’t you just love being 22? I’ve had a few sorta serious relationships, and some of them ended because of their shortcomings (always). Nonetheless, after the last one, I realised that I might in a stage of my life where I honestly can’t rely on myself for judgments when it comes to men. It’s pathetic really because I go for the wrong ones, but at least I can admit it. So, I’ve been doing this new thing where I just openly date a heap of dudes, and am going to remain actively and wilfully single for at least a year. I’ve been doing it for six months now.. how many guys? A lot. I lost count honestly. But I’ll share stories about the most interesting ones.

Here’s a couple of things that I’ve learned so far from these men:

1. Never focus on just one guy until he says he wants to be with you exclusively

Listen. I am young. When is the best time to explore myself? Now is the time. Explore what I like, what I don’t like, what kind of person I want to be with, my sexuality. There’s nothing wrong with seeing multiple people at the same time because I never know who, when, where, or how I am gonna meet the right one for me. I just have to go out there.

2. Never ever feel guilty about it

There’s definitely a difference between confessing my love for someone and going out to watch a movie, get dinner, or get drinks. So I don’t feel guilty about exploring my options. I know for sure I am not the only one in the boat.

3. Get to know those people, please

Dating multiple people is one thing, having sex with multiple people is another. Both sides are great, so no judgments okay. But I have been making a sincere attempt at getting to know those I choose to go out with. I don’t go for small talks. I go for the deep talks and find out who they are. After all, I am figuring out what kind of people I am really into. So, I listen to them and be present when they share their stories.

4. Here is it: Do not, I say this with a heavy heart, develop feelings over them

I need to clarify here; having feelings is not a bad thing at all! But only, if the other person is feeling the same thing as I am one day. But I have established that I am “keeping it casual”, so I really am keeping it casual. Idc what they say about it. I won’t say that I feel nothing when I actually feel everything, but if this happens I usually stop seeing the guy. This point is one I am still working on myself, I can’t be cool as a cucumber 24/7. 

5. Be mysterious; make them curious and leave them wanting more

To be honest, men are men -- no matter if they say “I don’t like the mind games. I’m not here to play the games. I like an honest girl.” I am telling you guys that is... bullcrap. Yes, of course, they like it when I open up myself. But you know why? Because they like the chase, the mystery, the fun of trying-to-figure-out-who-this-girl-is. So sure, I open up, I tell them who I am -- what I like, I don’t like. But I always make sure that I am clear, direct, firm and have a voice. After all, I am a woman who knows myself more than anyone else, so I don’t let them take control over me. But I make sure I do it in a very polite and cute way because it will leave them curious and wanting more. I give them my best smile, laugh at every joke they say to me, wear sexy clothes that doesn’t reveal too much skin, and simply be easy going like I am one of his mates because real men don’t like complications (but they would still take care of me).

6. Do not kiss and tell to any of them, if you want to continue the fun

This one should be obvious. Never ever let them know that I am dating multiple people at the same time because men’s ego couldn’t handle it. They would just treat me coldly after they find out about it. So I boost their ego by thinking they are the only one that I am “closest” with, but every now and then I make sure they know that they have competitions out there -- simply by “accidentally” showing him that I’ve got many texts and it can be seen on my phone screen. It’s funny how they would secretly try to take a peek, but do not say anything about it, and I would just smile at them  like I have no idea what they are doing (unless it’s urgent like work, I am gonna open my phone for sure). I feel pretty confident in assuming that no matter the gender, we as humans don’t like sharing. Or at least, knowing that we are sharing.

7. Try to not get overbooked

This one is important. I have recently been overbooked myself with two dates. Not fun I am telling ya. Even though it was only dinner with A, and fun night with B, but I had to meet up with A again in the morning for jogging so I had to rush out from B. See how much of a liar I had to be and definitely had to manage my time really well? I hate being a liar to their faces. I would prefer not giving them details instead. Besides, the consequences of overlapping are just far too great. And I make sure they hang out in different areas when I am with them. I definitely do not want that embarrassment.

8. Well, honesty is what you can give after things get too serious

Well, if someone wants to know if I am seeing other people, I will be as honest as I can. Especially if they are starting to develop feelings over me. Now, unless I want to be with them, I would just be honest with them that I am not looking for anything serious and just focusing on myself at the moment. I am still a decent human being, I wouldn’t want to hurt their feelings anyway. On the plus side, if they get so pissed off they won’t hang out with me anymore, I have a couple other to fall back on. And if they want me enough, they would ask me to stop seeing other people, not hate me for it. But I would still say no to them hehe.

9. Never ever assume you are the only one they are seeing

For me, the ideal casual relationship is one in which I am free to be my naturally flirty/bitchy self, and the man I am seeing is so tormented by my beauty, intelligence, and sexual prowess that he couldn’t imagine being with anyone else but me. Sad to say, this ideal relationship is totally un-fucking realistic. If I ever met a guy like that, I would think he was the biggest loser ever for falling head over heels for me. Yeah, because I like the challenges and mystery too. If I ever find out that they are also seeing other people, I get a grip of myself and remind myself that they are allowed to do that as well because technically, they are as single as I am. I know it is a good thing that they are also exploring their options out there and later figure out whether they want to be with me because i hold the same values as they do (plus being beauty, intelligent, and sexy lol). 

10. Ignore the limitations that society told you

I have stopped freaking myself out with the limitations that society told me. Sometimes it gets scary to try the unfamiliar things.. For instance, what if the man is waaay waaaay older? Been there, done that. Well, I am exploring my options and wanting to know what I like.  So, I never let anyone tell me who I should be dating. If I like younger guys, same age guys, or older guys that is completely my choice. What matters is how they treat me and how I treat them. I have explored my options from 21, 22, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 35, 36, 40, 45 yo men because I thought I had daddy issues, lmao. But now I know that I don’t after I explored it. Was it scary? Eh, not really, they were humans. But yeah, I found out what I like and what I don’t like because I have been keeping an open mind. My friend asked me, “aren’t you worried that one day when you wanna settle down with a guy and he can’t accept this from you?” Well then, I know for sure that person is not the one for me because the person I should be with is someone who can accept my past, present, and future. 

There is nothing wrong with being monogamous. At some point, I would want that too after exploring the market. We just gotta figure out which one fits us so we don’t end up getting hurt. After all, this journey should be about me. I am allowed to make my own choices for happiness and I am not obligated to do anything other than look out for myself. 

So now it’s your turn to go out there and have the fun you deserve.

Survey #245

“i fell asleep at the wheel again, crashed my car just to feel again.”

What is your favorite condiment to go with french fries? Ketchup. What do you have a habit of doing when engaging in a conversation with someone? Obsess over the appropriate amount of eye contact I make. What color is your mp3? Hot pink. Have you ever laid in a hammock? Yeup. Is there a song or lyrics currently super-glued in your head? "Popular Monster" by Falling In Reverse FUCK What can you go a day without doing? Uhhh a lot? I dunno... oh, drink water because I suck at that gah. I've gotten a lot better than I used to be tho. What can’t you go a day without doing? Touching some form of technology. Who do you spend most of your time with? Myself. Do you have a favorite classical composer? No. What type of quality is a must-have in a friend? Treat others with kindness. Are you any good at reading someone's body language? I definitely think so. What type of art would you hang up in your room? Lol I have some of my own... but let's say it was a clean slate again. I'd put some macabre/gothic art of some sort up, probably. Of COURSE with meerkats making an appearance. What fruit is too sweet to you? Hm, I'm blanking. What was the last contest you have ever won: Uhhhh... I think the giveaway of two Silent Hill: Revelation things? That was forever ago. What was the worst hair cut you have ever had in your entire life: Looking back, the haircut I had before this one (short on the left, faded into still rather long on the right) I don't really like anymore. Looks fine in some pictures, but not most. What was the worst thing you have ever worn in your life: Oh I don't know. Probably some dance costume. Do you like any sort of animes: Yeah, a handful. I'd honestly like to watch more. Have you ever used someone for your own benefits: I don't think so. What is the worst cartoon you have ever seen: Oh boy, idk. There's some dumb ones, a lot that I've only seen peeks of. Do you like to type or write more: TYPE. Writing physically can easily make my carpal tunnel act up. I hated having to hand-write a few essays last semester... I had to stop frequently to roll my wrists and cringe and stuff. What color would you have your skin if you could change it: I'd like pale skin like I have, but I wish it was more flawless/porcelain-ish. SOOOOOO pretty ahahhhhhhhhahhhhhh Do you usually cook your own meals, or does someone cook for you: I usually have to throw something together in the microwave because Mom's barely home, but when she is home, she cooks. If someone cooks for you, do you always thank them for it: YES. YES. NOT SAYING ANYTHING IS SO FUCKING DISRESPECTFUL. What do you do during the day: Almost without question, SOMEthing on technology/usually computer. As for what I do on technology, boy, a lot a lot. I don't even feel like listing it all. When you are online what do you normally find yourself doing: ... Oh, lmao. Uhhh binging YouTube, writing on or just checking up on KM, dA browsing/cleaning my drowning inbox, Facebook, "working" at the SH and SotC wikis, playing games, roaming Tumblr, check my emails, uhhhhhhh,,,, What is the most hated item you own: I wouldn't... keep it if I hated it? Uhhhh yeah, I honestly don't know. What is your favorite item you own out of all the items you have: My iPod, really. I have over 1k songs on this old-ass nano that I've had since middle school. I guess my laptop is kinda tied, but idk. Like, I don't love this laptop itself, just that it allows me to go online at a decent speed lmao. I guess they're my favorites in different ways. So, do you think that you will get where you want in life currently: Not stopping pushing for it 'til I get it. Why is that so. May I ask: I'm "too" determined. It's been a struggle getting to even where I am, but FUCK, I'm getting there. Do you like Halloween: I can't fwu if you don't. Has a teacher ever flirted with you? Not to my recollection. Is it okay for friends to kiss each other, as friends? Personally, I think a simple peck is fine IF that's your thing and it's mutually understood that it's platonic. Ex., I know greeting kisses are normal in some cultures, and I see no reason to shame it so long you're not like making out. Is it okay for girls to hit boys? Fuck no. Unless you're like fighting off an assailant/defending yourself, NO gender hits ANYONE. Do you know a lot of attractive boys personally? I've never thought about it? I'm not gonna dig through all the people I know rn... What happens if you realized you had a crush on somebody? More than anything, I'd be scared of being hurt again, particularly if it's a guy. So I definitely wouldn't make the first move. Do you think you are attractive? No. Which two of your friends would have the cutest baby together? I don't know. How do you feel about your naked body? DON'T COME AT ME WITH THIS QUESTION GO AWAY Have you ever been called obnoxious? No. At least, not to my memory. Do you wish you had a bigger family? No, but a more close-knit one. Which friend would you kiss full on the mouth, no questions asked? Sara. If somebody smacks your butt, you automatically say: I wouldn't say shit, I'd turn around and smack them across the face. How often does your family life conflict with your social life? Pretty much never. Have you ever been emotionally abused? No, thankfully. Do small children like you? They seem to, I guess. If karma is really true, should you be worried? Not very. What makeup do you wear on a daily basis? None. Do you have anything hidden in your room? Yeah, some saved money. What do you wish you were doing right now instead of this? It'd be great to talk to Sara. If you had a baby, would you want to have it at home or in a hospital? Oh I'm going to the fucking hospital for that epidural fren. If I even wanted kids. What was the last thing you ordered online? Uhhh good question. Have you ever had a bad experience with anti-depressants? If so, what? Well, actually the entire time I was ON anti-depressants. Because I'm bipolar, anti-depressants actually ramp up the aggression of bipolarity symptoms. How, I don't recall the science of, but I trust every word that comes out of my psychiatrist's mouth for many reasons. That definitely happened. One also made me gain weight, and the worst instance was in middle school when I was briefly on one that made me SO fucking hyper and happy in the morning but I crashed into an absolute bitchy monster by mid-afternoon. Now a combination of mood stabilizers helps both my bipolarity and depression immensely and are the main reason I'm alive. Are you allergic to any plants? I mean, I'm allergic to pollen. Are you an outdoors person? If the weather is cool, I love it. Does your past bother you? Some parts of it. Do you take risks or play it safe? I tend to play it safe. What forms of art do you like the best? This is an absolutely impossible question. "Art" has such an incredible range of forms, and I enjoy like... all. I guess the one thing I don't particularly care for is abstract art. What forms of art do you want to try? HYPERREALISM IN DRAWING. I REALLY wanna be able to draw/paint/whatever and make it look so true to life, BUT I'd like to add fantasy aspects to what I'm making (for example, my characters). I'd love to do portraits, too. This isn't really a "type" of art, but one thing I desperately want in art is to actually develop my own recognizable style that isn't just a wobbly attempt at realism with shitty proportions. What’s your favorite planet? Saturn's dope. Has a medication ever made you itch? No. What’s your favorite rainy day activity? Cuddle with snacks and like binge a good TV show/YT videos, etc. BUT considering I'm single I'ma just take a nap if I'm actually tired and you can hear the rain on the window. Do you put creamer in your tea? I wonder how many times I'll tell surveys I hate tea lmao by the end of my life lmao. What do you think are some good names for twins? I don't care enough to think about this. What are three things that fascinate you? Animal behavior (particularly social), the paranormal, and genetics. Would you say you live more in the past, present, or future? Present, I think. Have you ever been a victim of a crime? Not me personally, no, but my family. We had our basketball hoop stolen from our front yard and I was mega tilted yo. Does injustice make you angry? More like it infuriates me. Do you have the bad habit of procrastinating? Very badly. Are you afraid of running into a certain person in public? I both am and am not afraid of running into Jason. I have a very strong feeling I'd start having a PTSD episode (by that I mean hyperventilating, crying a bit, and shaking at the very least), but simultaneously I just want him to know I'm sorry. Do you have anyone you avoid? No. Do you have the same dreams now that you did as a kid? No. Who’s your crush? I don't really know if I have one right now. My old friend Ian and I started talking, and he's a fucking hilarious dude with similar ethics to mine with great compassion, but I still don't know him well enough to say I like-like him. I'm honestly just happy to have an irl friend again that actually talks to me regularly. Do you trust the government? I believe in WAY too many conspiracy theories to even try to convince anyone I trust the government lmao. Who do you want to meet in Heaven? I don't know exactly what sort of afterlife I believe in (it's not the traditional Heaven though), but I do believe that souls can reunite. The first thing I want to see again is Teddy. Does your school take sports too seriously? Considering we're well-respected in the sports field to the degree we draw in a huge number of foreign athletes, guess you could say yes lmao. Most of the people I even slightly know here came for sports. If there are bruises on your body, how did you get them? There aren’t. Would you ever go back in time to do something over again, but differently? Yes. Where did you kiss the last person you kissed? The airport. Have you thought about your wedding in detail? Not great detail, no. Do you think you could ever really kill someone? In self-defense, I know I could. Do you like Papa John’s pizza? I couldn't even guess the last time I had it. I don't remember. Do you attend school? Yeah. Do you call it a crush, or do you just say you like someone? The latter. Where were you when the ball dropped? In my bed asleep lmao. Where are your siblings? Probably all at work. Waffles, pancakes, or french toast? French toast. Do you ever judge people based on if they believe in God or not? Not really, but I WILL wonder to myself if you believe in some of the bullshit just about every religion has somewhere. Are you sometimes scared to express your opinions in fear of what others might think? YUP YUP YUP! Mainly irl tho. Have you ever painted your nails on only one hand, forgetting about the other one or getting side-tracked? No. Have you ever gone to one of those parties where everyone is falling around drunk everywhere? No. Been to one where everyone was high, though. Are you “the good guy”, or “the bad guy”, or somewhere in between? I'd hope the good guy. Do you ever erase the numbers off of surveys just because they annoy you? Ha ha yeah. Do you think you will have the same best friend a year from now? Yes. Do you have siblings over the age of twenty-one? Yes, all but one. What do you hear right now? "Another Life" by Motionless In White. Proud as fuck because this song was a MASSIVE PTSD trigger at first and even made me cry, but despite it still making me kinda uncomfortable, I can listen to and enjoy it now. If an ex said they hated you, what would you say? The only three people whose opinions would matter there would be Sara, Girt, and Jason. Sara and Jason would fucking break me, while I think Girt would of course make me cry, but I just. Wouldn't be surprised to lose another irl friend. I'd be so fucking hurt by any. OH YEAH, what would I say? I think Sara would have me speechless. I'd probably just choke out, "I don't blame you," to Jason. Girt, my first instinct pondering this was "are you serious?" because he's such a joker while my stomach dropped. What would you do if you found out your most recent ex was in a relationship? I'd be happy for her, but still feel kinda sad that it wasn't me. What do you think when someone kisses you on your forehead? If I like the person, I feel very comforted. It like... makes me feel small, safe, and permitted to just let my emotions loose, ex. be "allowed" to cry. What do you usually do right when you wake up? Check my phone to see the time. Truthfully, is there someone you used to date that you miss? I don't want to answer this. Do the math. Have you ever gotten burnt by a cigarette? No. Do you brush your teeth right away when you wake up? No. Have you ever made someone laugh when they were crying? Yeah. Would you date someone three years older than you? Yeah. Do you prefer to shower at night or in the morning? Actually as of recently, the morning. It's a nice way to start the day clean and energized. Could you handle living with the last person you texted? I'd love to live with her. Was the last book you read for fun, or was it for some type of assignment? It was assigned, but I loved it. Have you accomplished any goals you set for yourself this year so far? Not really? Well no, I think I'm being a less procrastinating student and also not fleeing so quickly from situations that invoke my anxiety. Are there still movie rental stores where you live or have they all gone out of business? SOBS Blockbuster come BACK we NEED u. What was the last thing to annoy you or make you upset? Eh, it was stupid and something that realistically isn't worth being annoyed by. I was SUPER bored and tired yesterday waiting for Mom to finish her field work while I waited in the library after classes, and I was so ready to go home, but she stayed longer than she thought she would. Do you think you would be a good match for your celebrity crush/es assuming you have one? Why? If you don’t have one, who was the last person you saw that you found attractive? Actually, not really. He's way too motivated and drawn to people who push forward and get shit done, and just in general at least from how I "know" him as a fan I could only realistically see us as friends. But a fangirl can dream ok just let me dream. When looking for something to watch on TV do you tend to pick shows you know you like, or try new shows that look interesting even though you’ve never heard of them before? I'll answer hypothetically if I watched TV: probably something I know I like. Might get adventurous every now and again and try something new, though, especially if it's on a channel I like. How old were you when you had your wisdom teeth removed? I haven't had to. I juuuuust slightly have enough room where I DID have them grow in. Where was the last job application you filled out sent to? Uhhh probably the deli, which I got and lasted for two hours my first work day lmao. Have you ever been fired from a job? No. What do people tell you your voice sounds like? I dunno, kinda deep for a girl and lacking an accent most of the time. What financial class are you? Lower. What poster is hanging closest to you? A huge Nightmare Before Christmas one. Are you more comfortable with men or women? Women. Would you go on a date with someone right now if they asked? Maybe if Ian did? Idk. It'd be a nice way to get to know more about each other, but I'd only agree to it after we talked a bit longer. Does your family keep tons of leftovers in the fridge? Not "a ton." Things we'll eat again though, yes. Favorite FRIENDS character? That is, if you like it. I haven't watched it. Are you thinking of getting another piercing? Where? Hell yes. Pretty sure next is collarbones if I could just lose a little bit more weight so they're more visible. Do you love when people remember little things about you? YES OMG!!!!!!!!!! Do you ‘bless’ strangers when they sneeze? Yes, I just think it's common good manner. Even though the reasoning behind it is whatever, it's a societal thing that I just go along with. How many phones have you gone through? Idk, not too many. Have you always lived in the house you currently reside in? No.

Culture and Translation - S01 E07 and SKAM+ Clip 3

I hope I get these done before season 2 starts dropping, that’s all I’ll say. 😂

CLIP 1: Foreshadowing

Es un poco rancio, ¿no? (“It’s not hip, no?”): Fucking Jorge and his untranslatable slang. Okay, so “rancio” literally means “rancid” — and a bunch of other things besides, but this is the meaning closest to the way Jorge uses it. Jorge means that the power of invisibility is overused, boring, the kind of thing someone totally out of touch would pick. Simply put, it’s not cool, and may not have ever been cool.

Es como el superpoder de los cotillas (“It’s like the gossips’ superpower”): “Cotilla” is both a busybody and someone who gossips a lot. Either way, they like being all up on your business.

I think it’s notable that this is all that remains from the og storyline where Jonas wants to meet Eva’s mom, but ultimately bails because he’s smoking weed at Ingrid’s. Eva simply puts Jorge’s request off and it’s never spoken of again.

Personally, I have to say that Eva sharing basically none of her life with her mom rang true to me. I spoke with one of the people who attended the research groups, who told me they were asked about how much or how little they share with their parents. She said most people agreed that teens spend time with their families, but they don’t talk to their parents about their lives all that much. As a teen, my parents were on a need-to-know basis when it came to who my friends were or who I was dating, much less at what point sex, booze and other drugs came into my life.

CLIP 2:  Diseased Pomeranian

Ay, que me mato (“Ah, I’m gonna die”): There’s a bit of a nuance to what Eva says. To die, in Spanish, is “morir”. “Matar” means to kill. Eva means she’s going to hurt herself getting off Jorge’s back and then die, so not quite the same as passing peacefully, lol.

Que me pica un huevo la nariz (“My nose is itching something terrible”): Indeed, Viri says that her nose is itching, but she uses “un huevo” as an intensifier. “Un huevo” would usually mean an egg, but in this register it means a testicle, heh. So her nose is itching in a testicley way.

Viri says in episode 8 that the girl that runs into Eva is a second year. At any rate, Alicia and Inés hung out over the summer with her.

We get a medium close-up of Alicia as the nameless second year passes by her. Alicia has noticed that the second year has herpes, as well. It’s a brief moment, but we can tell that Alicia puts two and two together, as well.

CLIP 3: In which ALEJANDRO tries to get a passing grade in Maths

This is an underrated moment, but I find it hilarious that Eva invokes the “not all men” defense. Especially since Inés preys  on Eva’s insecurity at the end of the clip.

No me jodas (“don´t fuck me over”): This is just one of those Spanish things that we’ll say over and over. I tried different translations through the course of the season, but I still haven’t settled on one that I think really hits the spot. “Don’t fuck me over” works, but it might come across as Eva’s feelings being hurt, rather than something we say… over and over, heh.

Please don’t miss Alejandro adjusting his junk. Lol he’s so douchey.

There’s a school desk in the bathroom. This is not an uncommon sight in Spanish high schools, but I don’t really have a good explanation for it. Like, it’s just a thing. I guess people will drag a desk over at recess, so they can more comfortably hang out in the bathrooms, and then nobody ever bothers dragging them back?

And, of course, this has been noted, but the graffiti on the wall is a pun. If you read it without the R in parenthesis, it says, “Woman, love yourself.” If you read it adding the R, it says, “Woman, arm yourself.”

Pues a la de mates le está saliendo uno (“the Maths hardass is developing a cold sore too”): What Cris actually says is, “So, the Maths [female pronoun] is developing one,” but for the sake of clarity, I rephrased it to remind the people watching that the girls see the Maths teacher as a toughie, and also, so what Cris is implying about Alejandro and the Maths teacher is more obvious.

I really love that Inés actually smells Jorge’s sweatshirt/hoodie (it’s not clear from dialogue which is it). That’s a power move in any culture.

CLIP 4: Corviches are so hot right now

Encaja todo, claro (“It makes sense, of course”): The closer translation is, “It all fits, of course.” I just wasn’t sure the meaning would be clear, especially when they’re all talking so fast.

Tío, ¿y si nos acoplamos a tus hermanos? (“Dude, and if we crash your brothers’ plans?”): First off, Amira is addressing Cris, but she uses “tío” and not “tía.” This is common and there’s nothing noteworthy about it, but I wanted to mention it in case people had noticed characters of any gender addressing female characters as “tío.” Second, Amira is using slang that would be literally translated to, “what if we dock up with your brothers?” The visual is adorable (to me anyway), but I went with a less literal phrasing that makes more sense in English. I also love that this is apparently something Cris and Amira have done enough that it’s what comes to Amira’s mind first as an alternate weekend idea.

Lol easy there with the age foreshadowing, show. Looking at Cris, Jorge and Lucas specifically.

Jorge says he wants to spin tecno (or techno, in English ). In Spain, tecno has become something of a catch-all term for all EDM genres, rather than the specific mid-80s genre. In hindsight, I’d use EDM instead of electronica.

In case you hadn’t looked corviches up yet, here is a recipe + pic in English.  They’re similar to hot pockets, but the dough is made with peanuts and plantains. Also, apparently, very successful with girls! I have not had them (yet!)

Cris notes that daylight savings time ends that weekend. She and the script writers are correct! She remembers because that gives them an extra hour of partying, but the social media updates stopped before 2 am. Who knows when Cris got back home, though!

At some point in this clip, Jorge and Lucas talk to each other among the general chatter. For once, Lucas’ voice doesn’t carry over the others like a powerful siren, so I was never able to make out what they said. Missed opportunities.

CLIP 5: As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in joy and were suddenly silenced

Debuti (“G shit”): This is one of the translations that I’m happiest about. Debuti sounds very Madrid-specific to me, and so I wanted something really specific and that would stick out. “Debuti” comes up a few times over the season, but it is always said by Eva. It’s Eva’s catchphrase.

I hope it came through in the subs, but while Eva is reading Jorge’s texts, the gang is having a ridiculously hard time trying to pronounce corviches, in the background. To be fair I’m biased because I’ve studied linguistics, but it doesn’t seem like a word a native Spanish speaker would have trouble with.

We first hear Alejandro’s voice as he comes in Nora’s house! Unless you watched the Aitana extra clip, of course. On that note, there’s no animosity whatsoever between the boy squad and Alejandro’s crew. They give each other friendly high fives, it’s all chill.

This party only came to be the day before. Imagine what Cris would’ve done with a few days heads up.

I wonder if Cris was looking to hook up with Lucas at this party, and, since he didn’t feel like being social, she hooked up with Hugo, instead. Seeing how hard a time she’s had shaking Hugo off, I think it would’ve gone better for her if Lucas had agreed to a dance.

And speaking of Lucas, you can kind of see the order in which some scenes were shot, by tracking Lucas’ actor’s cold sore. And yes, it is an actual cold sore and not make up for the show, lol. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that. What amazing timing on the cold sore’s part to be at the scab stage during ALEJANDRO FERNANDO ROBERTO’s herpes week.

Pues muy bien (“Good for her”):  It’s not exactly what Alejandro says. What he says would be closer to, “Okay, very good.” But I think “Good for her” really gets across how little Alejandro cares about what Nora is saying, at this point of the confrontation.

¿Es que no te salían pelos en los huevos? (“You didn’t grow hair in your balls?”): Omg. It’s ON. ON. I am cringing so hard at this mistake in the subs.

CLIP 6: 🙃🙃🙃

I saw someone asking on twitter, so yes, those giant plastic cups are a thing here. They have different names depending on what part of Spain you’re from. In Madrid, they’re called “mini,” and they have a volume of 750 ml (or a little over three cups). They’re most often used for street drinking.

Eva drinks KNEBEP Vodka, which is sold at (you guessed it) Mercadona, for 4 euro per bottle. My liver is crying just thinking about it.

The first song that plays over this clip is Aitana’s Teléfono (Telephone). We remember Aitana from Cristian’s party!

CLIP 7: 🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃

Te he oído que estabas con Inés (“I could hear you were with Inés”): Literally, “I have heard you, that you were with Inés.”

Por eso he coincidido con Inés (“That’s why Inés was around”): Collins dictionary says that “coincidir” in the sense Jorge is using it would be translated as, “to happen to meet.” I.e. “That’s why I’ve happened to meet Inés.” But I didn’t like it, because Jorge was at Inés’ house. Of course Inés was around. He didn’t just happen to run into her somewhere random. Hope the translation worked!

Tranquila (“It’s okay”): We had something of a debate over the way to translate this. Jorge says “tranquila,” which is the female form of the adjective “calm.” TAJTA wanted to translate it as “calm down.” I didn’t agree, because in Spanish, that would be “tranquilízate.” Jorge is simply repeating “tranquila” to Eva as a means to soothe her, like you do with a crying person. So, rather than “calm down,” I suggested that Jorge repeat “It’s okay.”

Jorge does say “tranquilízate” over the credits, and in that instance we did translate it as “calm down.”

EXTRA CLIP 3: Hugo psyches himself out

This clip takes place between clip 4 and 5! It happens on Friday evening.

At the 00:21 mark, the camera focuses on a graffiti of a blue-skinned woman, with yellow text next to her. It says, “We are the witches you couldn’t kill.”

Pero si estoy más sudado que el rabo de Nadal (“I’m sweatier than Nadal’s wang though”): This is the exact translation, word for word. I just wanted to make clear I did not make anything up in that sentence. By the way, it took a bit to settle on wang among all the many words for a penis.

Nos alegramos porque un colega nuestro está a punto de mojar (“We’re happy because a buddy is gonna get his dick wet”): Dilan is not quite so explicit, he just says Hugo is going to “mojar,” literally, “to wet.” But, it just made me realize that “get his dick wet” is pretty much what “mojar” has meant all this time, and I just hadn’t really thought about it until I had to translate it for a teen show.

Concha de tu madre (“hurry up”): This is Latin American slang. I actually had to read up on usage, because it is most often used as an insult having to do with someone’s mother’s vagina. But I’m pretty sure that, in this context, Dilan only intends to hurry Hugo up. 😂

Social media:

I just want to have a minor breakdown about Eva actually referring to Lucas as her and Jorge’s son, lol.

Jorge has the Théophile Steinlen’s Le Chat Noir poster up in his room. As I mentioned in a previous post, Tomás Aguilera seems to be both a fan of cats and of French. The three videos of Jorge messing with his DJ system are among my very favorite Skam España social media content, because for once, they’re not a selfie.

It looks as though the shipname for Hugo/Cris is Crugo, to answer a question I posed when I posted the social media updates.

“Olé” finally makes an appearance on Skam España. I’ve decided to keep it as is, because some things would be a crime to translate. In case you’re not aware, “olé” is used to express approval and it’s commonly associated with flamenco music and bullfighting. However, it’s not just used in those two contexts. It can be used in any context. I often use it sarcastically, when someone has fucked up. 😋

The Ironborn are rapists in canon. What are Asha's opinions on consent. Does it bother her, does she take no issue with it, has she ever engaged in it? Also we see in the show that Yara/Asha makes port and her entire crew is in a whore house. Do you think they actually paid the people there or did they pay the iron price or were the people so scared they were just like "yo this one is on us."

Hey! Thanks for this question @wxldchxld! It’s a great one and I feel like it is not really explored too much.  TW: RAPE, TW: RAPE MENTION, TW: VICTIM BLAMING, TW: VICTIM SHAMING

TLDR: Asha is anti rape with some problematic elements

Asha at her core is actually very anti-rape I believe, though she does have some internalized misogynistic views about consent because of her culture and because of the family dynamic in which she was raised. This is manifested differently in the book vs. the show. When I roleplay, I take from both the show and the books so I’ll talk a little bit about her outlook in both.

From what we are told in the books about Asha as a child- she says she played with dolls AND axes and that her mother “raised her to be bold,” I think she was a child similar to Arya- but luckily born into a family that allowed her to be who she was. However, they only allowed this because it is only traditionally masculine traits that are valued in the Ironborn culture. The Ironborn culture is incredibly misogynistic, but not in the way the Greenlanders are. Women are allowed to break the gender mold as long as they are behaving as men would. As Theon says in ACOK, “There were women on the Iron Islands—not many, but a few—who crewed the longships along with their men, and it was said that salt and sea changed them, gave them a man’s appetites.” Such women are still considered beneath men, but they are considered better than other women it seems. So, in a way, the Ironborn culture is better than Westeros when it comes to gender nonconformity- but it is a very narrow definition of gender nonconformity. The Ironborn seem to be okay with gender nonconformity ONLY when the nonconformity is a woman exhibiting what they consider to be masculine traits. If a man exhibits feminine traits, the Ironborn shun them. This is shown by the way they treat Theon as less even before his abuse and mutilation. So because of her culture, Asha would have learned to accentuate her “masculine” traits and downplay her “feminine” ones in order to be successful.

IN THE BOOKS, Asha is a child of war who witnesses her two elder brothers killed and her younger brother essentially kidnapped. The defeat was a crushing blow for both of her parents- Balon and Alannys. Alannys had a breakdown after losing her sons and Balon raised Asha as his heir. So suddenly her father was encouraging her to be like a son to him as her mother’s sanity slowly deteriorated because of the loss of her sons. What Asha learned from that is that the only way she could gain love from her parents was through becoming a son to them. I also think that witnessing the deterioration of her mother made her terrified of being put into a traditionally feminine role. Her mother was this strong, Ironborn woman who raised her to be bold- but the grief at losing her children broke her. I think Asha internalized that as “traditional roles for women such as motherhood will break your spirit and that loving people too much will make you weak.” I think that she then carries those ideas over to her view of rape.

I think that Asha has internalized the Ironborn view of rape in that she feels that if you are raped, it means you are weak or allowed yourself to be vulnerable. An internalized victim blaming view. So she uses her privilege as Balon’s daughter to make herself as strong and untouchable as she can. She turns down marriage, she captains her own ship. Instead of being a victim of rape, she leads the rapers herself. It’s kind of fucked up in a way. But even with all of this, she is seen to understand that she herself- a great Ironborn warrior- was lucky not to be raped by Stannis’ men in A Dance with Dragons.

And at the same time, she is constantly expressing concern for other woman in spite of her internalized victim blaming. There are a number of instances where she brings up the feelings of other women to the misogynistic men around her as if they should be given equal consideration to theirs. When Theon says he won’t visit Alannys until there is peace, she counters that his visit would bring Alannys peace. And then during her negotiation with Victarion she calls him out on the “honor killing” of his wife after Euron raped her. As Victarion is going on about how he had to murder her for honor and how grieved he is over it, Asha responds saying, “I am sorry for you. And more sorry for her.”

Through Asha’s POV chapters we get the feeling that even though she is is completely accepted as Ironborn and exemplifies their best aspects, she is nonetheless very different from the typical Ironborn. Her relationship with Alys the She-Bear shows this well. Whereas the other Ironborn characters take pride in their raiding and raping, Asha seems to realize how much damage that has actually caused when Alys tells her, “every child on Bear Island learns to fear krakens rising from the sea.” Then there is also the fact that she is the only one at the Queensmoot Kingsmoot that is offering peace instead of more war and who wants to make alliances with the Northmen in order to acquire the land they need. So even though she is not standing up to the rape culture of her people directly, Asha plays the long game and her plans would cut down on raping and pillaging considerably.  

As for whether or not she has actually engaged in rape herself, I would say definitely not in the book. However, she does allow it to happen when leading raids. I think that can be assumed since there is no mention of her preventing or punishing her men for rape, the way Theon did at Winterfell. So while she doesn’t condone it, she allows it to happen in order to keep her men loyal to her and as a war strategy. Which is problematic as fuck but also somewhat understandable in her situation.

IN THE SHOW, Asha seems to have internalized her culture even more. Or it may only seem that way because we don’t have her POV chapters to know her inner thoughts and her role in the series is seen mostly through the POV of Theon. But this could also be because their mother is mentioned only once, and is otherwise completely absent from the show. Asha also does not come into contact with Alys Mormont in the show or her Uncle who advised her that “It’s LAND we need not crowns.” Those key elements are missing and so Asha comes off as much more Ironborn in every way. Yet at the same time, she defies her father to attempt to rescue Theon who has been tortured, mutilated, and raped. She also quickly agrees with Daenerys that there will be no more raping or reaving, after like a second of hesitation. (Personally, I think she should have secured some land from Daenerys in exchange for joining forces with her but that’s just me lol- then again, I am also baffled that the show didn’t include Asha’s call for peace, trade, and alliance with the North in the Kingsmoot scene because to me that was the most revealing thing in the book about both the Greyjoy siblings- Even though Asha had a good relationship with Balon as opposed to Theon, both of them went against their own ideas to please him. Once he died, she could act on her ideas for strategy to make the Ironborn stronger- which actually went really well with Theon’s own original alliance with Robb Stark.)

All that being said, in the show, Asha may have engaged in rape. I say may because I’m not sure if that was D&D’s intention. But in the show the woman Asha is with in the brothel in Braavos has a tattooed tear on her face along with all the other women which may mean that she is actually a slave to that brothel- something that this article explored. Personally, though, I don’t think D&D meant it to be rape- they are really clumsy when it comes to this kind of thing- remember when they made a consensual act between Cersei and Jaimie look exactly like a rape haha. Ughhhh. But I could be totally wrong. I prefer to look at it as they are at a regular brothel where the women are not sex slaves but I also choose to ignore the show canon of Asha’s speech for the Kingsmoot because it was so opposite to the progressive, strategic character in the book- none of this is on Gemma though- she was amazing in both scenes.

As to your question about them playing the Iron price I think that it was either they paid for them like regular clients or the brothels themselves did say “This is on us,” because of their reputation. I think the Ironborn do actually pay for a lot more things than they say they do as long as they are not actively pillaging or reaving. I think to some of the Ironborn, the Old Way of paying the Iron Price for everything is absolutely true- like with Balon and Euron. But I think that Asha’s generation (like Tris, Qarl etc) have a lot more nuance and are more open to things changing.

When was the last time you cleaned out a bath tub? saturday. it’s the last time i got to take a shower. but i’m giving wyatt a bath today, and i might try to take a shower too. Have you ever had an encounter with the paranormal? i don’t really believe in all that, so no. Does being in love make you nervous? i’ve been in love for a lot of years now. i am definitely no longer nervous. Would you do your own surgery so keep yourself alive? (Ex. stitches) i mean, i’d give it a shot.

Would you rather read poetry or write poetry? i used to enjoy trying to write it when i was in middle school. now, i’d probably rather read it.

Have you ever had any really infected injuries? not really infected. but a little infected. Is racism for losers? well, yeah. Have you ever gotten so discouraged with something that you gave up? oh for sure. i give up too often probably. Is there any band out there that you like every song by them? not every single song, no.

Do you prefer long surveys or short surveys? i prefer longer ones usually, unless i don’t have a lot of time. Would you ever work for Google? i mean. sure. Do people that are ungrateful for everything bother you? of course they do.. Have you ever related yourself to a ‘fallen angel’? no.. not that i ever recall.. Do you text people from a cell phone or from the internet? from a cell phone mostly. Are you popular on any websites? lol. no. i am not meant to be a popular person. Have you ever cussed/swore in front of younger children? yeah.. it doesn’t happen often though. i try to watch it. If so, did they eventually imitate what you said? no.. well.. maybe. they hear it more from my mom than me though... If you ruled the world, what is the first law that you would make? make healthcare better and more accessible for everyone. Do you think politics are evil? politics themselves maybe not... there are a lot of bad people in politics though.

Do you have any friends that you almost always joke around with? not really.. Will you go to your high school reunion? honestly, probably not. unless jacob and kayla want to go. but i don’t see that happening. Have you ever beat up someone because they had different beliefs than you? no. and i wouldn’t do that. Have you learned any new words today? not today. If you hair never got greasy again, would you still wash it? oh man, i would LOVE that. but yeah. i’d still wash it. i like when it smells good. What was the last song you listened to? i don’t remember. Are you currently texting anyone right now? nope. i honestly rarely do anymore. not many people like talking to me. lol. If you could meet one famous person, who would it be? misha collins. no question asked. When was the last time you played jump rope? probably elementary school. maybe middle school. If you have ever jump roped, did you ever trip over the rope? well, yeah. i’m not very coordinated. Do you hate it when people look over your shoulder? depends. if i’m on the computer or my phone, it’s a little more annoying. Do you give good advice? not always but i do my best. Would you rather help people or hurt people? help people, of course. anyone who would rather hurt people are not the kind of people i want to associate with. If your enemy lost almost everything, would you be willing to help them? it depends. for instance, i wouldn’t probably help christian or jason since they sexually assaulted me and changed my life so drastically. however, i’d probably help kendall even though she probably still runs her mouth about me. Have you ever prayed for your enemies? i don’t pray. i don’t remember if i have when i used to pray. i was significantly younger back then. Do you lie in order to tell people what they want to hear? not really. i’d rather be honest. Or are you honest and tell the truth, good or bad? i’m honest probably 98% of the time, maybe more. Would you consider yourself hypocritical? not generally but it does happen. i’m not perfect. What would you do if you found a suitcase with a million dollars in it? turn it in if i just found it. Are you addicted to any energy drinks? not anymore. it’s been years since i’ve had one. Do you know anyone who had had a heart attack under 30 years of age? not that i can think of. Have you ever wondered what it would be like if you were never born? sure. Something tragic just happened, does your facial expression show it? probably, yes. Currently are you relieved about something? i’m hoping to be relieved about being able to get out of this trailer in a few weeks. Are you angry about something? How about sad? not really. Are you considered popular at school? no. i was never popular. i was pretty invisible really. Who was the last person you offended? i don’t know. Do you feel sorry for kids who have celebrity parents? no.. unless their parents are crap, why feel sorry? If you could invite ANYONE to your house, who would it be? kayla. because she wouldn’t judge our situation. Is there something that you absolutely can’t wait for? getting out of this trailer. getting an early gender scan on may 5th! If you could host your own talk show, would you do it? i would suck at it. so probably not. haha. Do you have a phone right next to you? i do. If you were starving would you eat food out of a garbage can? if i was starving and desperate, sure. Have you ever told anyone ‘get back, jack!’? (My Mom says that) i think i have when i was younger. Have you ever seen something you wanted in a store but didn’t have money? well, yeah. i’m poor. haha. If so, did you want to steal it or did you actually steal it? no. i wouldn’t even consider doing that.

About me!

Okay! Let's do is thing! I was tagged by the wonderful and amazing and hilarious @atarostarling for this beautiful questionaire! So, let's get started, shall we?

Name/Nickname: my given name is Kara and there two nicknames that have stuck Karabear (I was obsessed with the Care Bears as a kid) and Riceball (due to my obsession with Fruits Basket and my apparently stellar Tohru rp abilities)

Gender: Female

Star sign: Virgo

Height: 5 foot nothin' I am quite smol.

Hogwarts house: Slytherin and proud of it~ ;3

Favorite animal: Um...the one that is cute and cuddly? Lol this is tough because I love animals. Though I REEEEEEEAAAAAAALLY like foxes! So I guess we can go with Foxes as my final answer, Alex. (Don't cross the streams, loser.)

Hours of sleep: In my fantasies or in reality? In my fantasies its like...ALWAYS sleeping...iiiiiin reality I get like 2-5 hours per night until the lack of sleep catches up with me and then I crash for like 14 hours. Lol

Dogs or cats: YES! Lol, again, I love animals. I currently have a dog. My beautiful baby Loqi. (For those of you who read my mini fic. Zeus was modeled after my furbaby Loqi.)

Number of blankets: Depends...like where am I sleeping? When I lived in Indiana it was 2 or 3 now that I'm here in South Carolina it's usually 1...and barely that, as in just covering my arms and shoulders.

Dream trip: Oh wow. I would love to just...travel the world! Though the top of my list are the places where Shakespeare grew up, got married, etc. And Japan.

Dream job: Author/Novelist. I LOVE to write. I love books. I love to read. I was the kid who got in trouble in her English/Literature class for reading in class.

Time: 10:56 pm (I think that's EST?)

Birthday: September 17th~

Favorite bands: Panic! At The Disco, Paramore, Black Veil Brides, Evanescense, Baby Metal, Super Junior, SHINee, Boyz II Men, Journey (and a few more but we could be here all night if I listed them all, lol)

Favorite solo artist: Halsey, Adele, Matsushita Yuya, Taeyang, Jay Park, Luke Bryan, Shakira, Selena (Quintanilla), Diego Bonita

Song stuck in my head: Ummmm...I couldn't tell you the name cause it's slipping my mind but it's the opening theme from Black Butler II by GAZETTe

Last movie I watched: Um...I think it was The Dark Tower? With my hubby?

Last show I watched: Black Butler: Book of Circus (it's the third season which I've owned for well over a year and yet has still not seen anything past the 1st disk. Lol)

When did I create my blog: Um...August or September 2017...? I don't remember exactly. Just a few months ago. A good friend of mine sent me a post through fb messenger and I really liked all the content I saw on @inconsistencys page so I made an account to follow and continue reading their posts!

What do I post/reblog: Lol, anything that catches my eye. A lot to do with the FFXV universe...mainly the chocobros. All the ships. A lot of cats. Cute critters. Written a few posts nobody needs. XD

Last thing I googled: Ummm..."song that goes when we touch i can feel we've got a chemistry and when we rock feels just like the devil is riding me" lol I had a song stuck in my head and couldn't remember the artist's name in order to YouTube it so it would evacuate my brain. (It was Under My Skin by Sarah Connor, just in case anyone was wondering. Lol)

Other blogs: Yeah, I apparently have another Tumblr from a few years back but I don't remember the tagg or anything sooooo...xD does that still count? Other than that I have none. ****EDIT**** http://roserozahathaway.tumblr.com IS MY OTHER TUMBLR

Do I get Asks: I have gotten 2. XD I wasn't aware that they were disabled until recently when @atarostarling mentioned it, so now that they are open, please, send me some! Get me involved, please! Lol

Why did I choose my URL: Lol, Jade Bellatricus is actually the name of an original character of mine for an rp I have going with the loverly @silverdriftdragon in Discord. She's a reeeeeeeaaaaal piece of work. Lol, but I love my smol brainchild.

Following: 392 as of now. Lol I'm sure that number with grow to astronomical numbers.

Followers: 22 a significanlt smaller number and, honestly, I was SHOCKED to see it was that large! Thank you to ALLLLL of my followers! You all are amazing, wonderful, LOVELY people and you rock my socks right off!

Lucky number: 4...or 8...or 16...yeah...that one...

Favorite instrument: Wow, um, I really love piano and violin...god help me if they're being played together cause...I'd probably die of blissful peace...I also happen to like flutes, I used to play flute back in the day (lol, you're not old enough to say that, weirdo, stop it! Back in the day is like...10 or 11 years ago) I also love ocarinas, which are technically just ceramic flutes. I'm a total nerd and have a replica of the Ocarina of Time (from The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time in case anyone is unfamiliar.) that I do know how to play, albeit not very well. XD

What am I wearing: lol, that could get extra risqué extra quick. However, I'm wearing an oversized t-shirt (a.k.a. my husband's t-shirt) as my jammies.

Favorite food: xD I'm a foodie, dude, all the food is my favorite. No, seriously though, um, probably my little taco meat and rice concoction. It's literally just taco seasoned meat mixed with rice...sometimes I'll mix in some bacon bits, crushed doritos, and of course shredded cheesies. (It's like the only thing I can cook. Lol)

Nationality: Mutt? No, like, American? But the family has Native American (Cherokee I believe), French, German and Irish in our blood sooo...Yeah, I'm a mutt~ x3 *woof*

Favorite song: Oh, geez, I always hate this question...mainly because I don't have an absolute favorite song? Like, my favorite song changes so many times, based off of how bad or good I'm handling my depression and anxiety...for instance, on my really good days I'd probably say I'm Alive! By BECCA but on not so good days (like today) I'd probably say My Immortal by Evanescense or Broken by Seether feat. Amy Lee.

Last book I read: Oh! It was this lovely autobiography called Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick! I absolutely love it! It's so down to earth and real and my god is it funny! She has a rather dry and somewhat twisted sense of humour, much like my husband and I, so I find it to be pretty funny! It's a great read, seriously, you guys should check it out!

Top three fictional universes I'd like to join: Hmmmm...Definitely FFXV, I would LOVE to chill with the bros. Probably Black Butler, Sebastian Michaelis is a beautiful specimen and I would love to be of use to him in some way, shape, or form *wink, wink* and finally...um...Pretty Little Liars! The Liars are such a close knit group of girls and I really missed out on having close friends like that, so I'd love to hang out with them and just be a normal high school girl for once (lol they don't live normal h.s. lives, goobernuts)

Wow! That was so much fun! Thanks for the tag, @atarostarling, its been a blast! So, now, onto my tags!

@silverdriftdragon @moonraccoon-exe @ardyns-jabberwocky @asuuna @chocoblondie @chocobard @ebony-and-chocobos @flourish-of-steel @icallshotgunn @kaciart and anyone else who wants to join in feel free to tag me as though I tagged you!