#or to define me based on how i was supposedly once a girl or a woman
Note
Hi, as an intersex trans masc person I was just wondering if I could ask/clarify a couple things about your posts about being referred to as "afabs"
This is entirely out of a desire to better understand other perspectives so I'm sorry if its a bother, it isn't intended that way
Is it that you generally dislike being referred to as afab because it references a gender that is not your identity, or is it specifically it being used as a noun that causes the issue?
If it is the noun issue, could I ask if you can elaborate on why?
I was under the impression that afab/amab were useful and accepted ways to refer to someone's physical sex at birth, which is what is relevant in discussion about pregnancy etc. Have I misinterpreted something here?
(I'm also autistic so idk if I've missed some tone issue or sarcasm or implication here, I'm just trying to understand better so I don't offend others)
I hope you're doing well and thanks for your time x
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS "PHYSICAL SEX".
And even if there were, right?
Calling me an "AFAB", the implication is meant to be that BECAUSE I was assigned female at birth and had ~female parts~, that means I must have ~female parts~ now, as if these things don't change with time and hormones and surgery, as if because I was erroneously described as female, I am the same physically as I was as an infant, and therefore I share in common everything with anyone else who was also described as female at birth, erroneously or otherwise.
Of course anything to do with being "female" isn't my fucking identity, as a man.
AFAB and AMAB stand for Assigned Female at Birth and Assigned Male at Birth.
Being assigned male or female was an event that happened in the past. I was also a fucking baby at birth. I'm not a baby now, am I? Just because I was an infant then doesn't mean you would prefer to me as an ex-infant or previously an infant. That has 0 bearing on my identity as an adult. It's bizarre to bring it up.
AMAB and AFAB are perfectly useful terms to describe that specific event - the event at birth when you were assigned a sex, incorrect or otherwise.
What relevance or frankly, business, is it of anyone's what sex a ten-year-old was assigned at birth? A twenty-year-old? A forty-year-old? A seventy-year-old?
There are loads of trans people who never went through the wrong puberty, and have had various surgeries. There are plenty of trans people who have been stealth since they were kids, where many of the people around them never had any idea they were trans and/or intersex, and they just went through the puberties they were most comfortable with.
There is no "AFAB" or "AMAB" experience that is universal to everyone based on what sex they were assigned at birth. That is a lie, it is a fiction, and it's not even a convincing once if you actually talk to a variety of other trans and intersex people. Words to the contrary are generally just based in gender essentialist ideology.
What does it have to do with anything, except that some freaks basically still think of assigned sex at birth as what you "really" are, or having a big impact on your current identity in perpetuity?
In a few years, the abilities of surgeons around uterine transplants will have improved. Within twenty years, I expect we'll see more trans women having pregnancies, and in general more people carrying pregnancies after having womb transplants and other organ transplants.
Just say "people who can get pregnant". Just say "people carrying pregnancies" and "pregnant people".
Stop trying to imagine that someone's ~femaleness~ or ~maleness~ is what the crux of the matter is here. Stop trying to project the male and female """"""biological""""" bullshit onto people when it doesn't apply to them.
There is no such thing as universal biological or physical sex under male and female categories, let alone shared experiences based on those categories.
Just eliminate that shit from your mind. It's a fucking cancer.
#musings#anonymous#i'm not angry at you anon#but i am so tired of this bullshit and i hate when it feel slike people are jumping through hoops to keep calling me female#or to define me based on how i was supposedly once a girl or a woman#when i never was
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hamefura fanfic ideas
I'd like to write these someday, but I don't know for sure that I will. People liked my tpn fanfic ideas so I'm posting these too because why not. Please @ me if you make anything based on these! These are all based primarily on the anime, and much more based on the world set up by season 1 than any of the kidnapping arcs.
Give Me Your Answer, Do - Eventual Katarina/Everyone. Everyone develops Hanahaki for Katarina. Hanahaki is not a known phenomenon in Sorcier, so nobody knows what's happening except for Katarina, who read a doujin about Hanahaki in her past life. She decides she must help her friends come to terms with and confess their feelings to whoever it is they love. Hilarity, interspersed with angst, ensues. (I have very specific ideas in mind for what types of flowers all the feelings manifest as.)
My Next Life as... Five Villainesses? - Gen (With minor one-sided Everyone/Katarina, of course). This one was inspired by an idea someone else posted on AO3, but I can't find it now. Anyway, Katarina accidentally double-books an afternoon; she promised to go to Alan's concert at the same time that she would be Maria's assistant in a baking competition. She wishes for a way to be in multiple places at once, and seems to find a spell that can do just that in a book, but when she casts the spell she is instead split into the five Mini-Katarinas brought from her mind to real life! They all are in different places and run into their other friends. Hilarity, interspersed with angst, ensues. (noticing a pattern?) Specifically, Timidrina meets Keith, who becomes fiercely protective of this shy version of his big sister. Happyrina meets Geordo and gives him a bit of a wake-up call about just how chaotic it would be to have a kid with Katarina (not that it discourages him). The other match-ups are much less defined in my mind tbh.
Rose in a Fisted Glove - Geordo/Keith, possibly Maria/Katarina on the side. Geordo gets the bright idea to pretend to date someone to make Katarina jealous, but none of the girls want to help him with this plan. (Maria because tricking Katarina like that would be immoral. Mary because the idea of pretending to date Geordo is too repulsive to go through with. Sophia because she is genre savvy enough to recognize the fake dating trope when she sees it.) Mostly on a lark, he asks Keith, who accepts in hope that it will backfire and instead make Katarina jealous that he's dating somebody. Naturally, Katarina is nothing but supportive when they tell her, and especially thanks Keith for trusting her with this information. Once it's clear the plan is a bust, Geordo wants to just admit to Katarina that it was a ruse, but Keith feels bad for lying and convinces him to keep it up for a month before staging a breakup so Katarina will think the relationship was real. Hilarity, angst, you get it.
Be More Noble - Gen or maybe Sophia/Katarina. Inspired by the musical version of Be More Chill but not dependent on familiarity with it. Katarina commits an especially egregious social faux pas, and Millidiana is at her wit's end. She hears tell of a sorcerer with a potion called "Squip" that has supposedly fixed behavior problems in noble children. She sneaks it into Katarina's tea. The Squip, (which manifests as a person only Katarina can see), quickly realizes that appealing to Katarina's non-existent social insecurities will not change her behavior, and instead transforms into A-chan, and tells her that she is in fact in a Katarina-centric DLC to Fortune Lover where there are all new doom flags that she must avoid to keep herself and her friends happy, and those doom flags happen to coincide with social faux pas, such as tree-climbing, eating sweets, farming, and otherwise being Katarina-like. The squip falls in love with Katarina, naturally, but this manifests as it becoming protective of her and wanting her to become noble beyond reproach. Her friends quickly become concerned. This one is actually more angst interspersed with hilarity than the other way around.
No Title Yet! - Sophia/Katarina. What if Sophia was the one who remembered her past life instead of Katarina? As a more genre-savvy protagonist, she becomes a master of Sorcier's magic system. She eventually tells Nicol the truth because he can read her well enough to know something's different about her. She becomes the center of the world for the original "harem" who become fiercely protective of and inspired by her, though not romantically interested (except for the tsundere semi-OG!Katarina). She also fixes a lot of their game canon problems, but she does so deliberately, and in much less drastic ways. (i.e., Katarina and Keith become friendly rivals instead of abusive, Katarina and Geordo come to an understanding that their engagement is in name only, etc.)
#hamefura#bakarina#my next life as a villianess all routes lead to doom#my next life as a villainess#not content
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…the ugly. SYAC: The Master Review 4
Last post I covered much of what I consider the good or passable strips of SYAC of the pre-Dobbear era. What I have admittedly not covered yet, were three certain characters of the strip that exist beside Dobson.
Persistent Pam
Curmudgeonly Carl
And… this guy I am not even sure has a name.
No, seriously. He shows up in like the 61th strip of the series for the first time and yet I never see his name mentioned once
All I know is that he is an accountant, who pities Dobson (for good reason)
And despite Dobson not liking alcohol, they regularly meet up in a bar as if they are some late 80s comedy duo
Funnily enough, he shows up way before Pam, who would have her premiere in these strips
And despite only showing up in a few strips after her premiere (mostly to make “fun” of overbearing and snarky commissioners I suppose…)
She actually managed something no other character or series by Dobson managed to get: A fanclub
Not that she would really be of any major importance afterwards.
As for Carl, he is supposed to be something like an antagonistic embodiment of Dobson’s “old” art teachers and people being stuck in old ways, who shows up for the following strips forming a sort of arc.
In addition, it is very obvious, that Carl is supposed to be a mockery of people flaming Dobson. Not helped by the fact that THIS character sheet of him made by Dobson assures us, that there were quite a few even less “endorsing” things he wanted to name the character.
Yet funnily enough, Carl turned into such a popular character with readers, Dobson was essentially “forced” to make him reappear in other strips. Not of the “classical” SYAC strips, but he showed up as the “antagonist” to Tenku in the storydriven multi pagers. Though even antagonist is a strong word, as he is essentially more of a jerkish art teacher and college advisor who is harsh on Tenku, but actually has his best interests in mind. To the point he even offers him to be his “harsher” art critic in the years till he enters college, because he wants to see him grow artistically.
However, Carl was also more of an “accident”. Cause when it came otherwise to tackling criticism or things that irked Dobson (and were not anime related) he would end up more or less creating strips that painted him in a manner where he would supposedly always look like “the better” compared to his opposition or mock it. Which is where a lot of the irk Dobson would earn over the years eventually comes from.
Now to be fair, I do not want to call every comic in that regard “strawmanning”, nor do I want to say that Dobson doesn’t have the right to also mock to a certain extend the mentality of certain “snobs” and so on. For example…
On one hand, I know there are people out there who think they are “special” by having the best tools at their disposal. When in reality you can achieve good results also with less expensive stuff. So mocking that sort of attitude is fine to me to some extend
BUT, when you also make down the line a comic like this…
… essentially making yourself come off as a “better” artist or person than others because you have “chosen” the better mass produced crap (btw, that is coming from someone who types this review on a Mac that runs Windows) , then the hypocrisy ends up to be rather strong with you.
Which is also essentially the biggest issue with the strips I am about to show. The hypocrisy of Andrew Dobson. And no, I do not mean the tumblr blog by that. I mean the simple fact, that the content of some of the soon to follow strips gets kinda muddled when you take into consideration some of the things real life Dobson had said and done either at the time or in the years to come. Well that and the way how he tries to mock issues people have with his work, not realizing how he is essentially just reassuring those “silly critics” in their opinions while making his flaws more obvious to people that may have been previously unaware of them.
But enough talk, let me just show you in quick succession examples to confirm said point.
Considering Dobson’s longterm disdain for DnD you have to wonder what the joke really is outside of him portraying DnD players as ugly nerds, supposedly too geeky even for him. Which is hilarious in hindsight as he would years later become a fan of TAZ among other things.
Less hypocritical but the set up is kinda flawed. Like, you are obviously at a convention trying to sell stuff. Why would some old dude not interested in “kids crap” be at the convention anyway? Is he just bringing someone there and just wants to go, but first needs time to belittle your life choices?
Rather hilarious in hindsight to me. Cause for someone claiming he has ideas that last for a life time and who seems rather distraught on the idea of others giving their input, he turned out to be so in need of ideas. Alex ze Pirate e.g. became from 2015 onward only defined by Dobson talking about the sexualities of his characters (and not even in comic as by that point it was discontinued, but rather in tweets and so on). Formera, which ran heavily on cheap shonen anime tropes ended up cancelled after two volumes, Cabin Rest was a failure after 20 strips, 2019 he relied primarily on cheap comics about Miraculous Ladybug and his understanding of certain genres is so bad, he can’t even think up the most basic ideas for a magical girl story.
Weirdly enough, that pitch of a garbage truck driver who fights crime? I think that could make for an enjoyable short story about a vigilante a la the Punisher or Sin-City.
The way Dobson perceives criticism, while also essentially giving a quick rundown how he appreciated criticism in his childhood way better than in adulthood. Yeah, because criticism by your parents as a kid was always VERY constructive. (looks back at certain drawings from own childhood) brrr. And sorry Dobson, but sometimes criticism by strangers is better than criticism from friends. Cause friends may mince their words. Plus people have over time given you quite some insightful criticism aside “U SUX” when it comes to comics. You were just never willing to listen
Hey Dobson, you hear that? That is the sound of your career, dying and no one caring.
Yeah, I think someone who made such “brilliant” comedy as in these comics, totally has the right not to listen to what seems to be solid theoretical advice.
BTW, that Talus comic… I swear to god the worst “joke” Dobson ever told.
Wow. You essentially make a point why you suck at drawing. While still not trying to change.
And as someone else once said: Don’t play with fire if you can’t deal with the heat, BLOCK-son!
This is not how I perceived your shit over the years. See, on one hand it is true that Alex ze Pirate e.g. has its own webpage to read the comic for free. HOWEVER most of his comics Dobson would hide from the start behind a paywall. The idea being that he would e.g. put a small reading sample of 10-15 pages up somewhere and then expect people to buy his comic for full price to get the rest. And you know, if you are e.g. a professionally published writer, that is fine. But when your average art output looks like THIS
And you expect people to pay more than 10 dollars for something that is only around 70 pages long while most people can get 200+ pages for the same amount of money that look like this…
You can frankly go and screw yourself.
On one hand I get that the joke is meant to be, that as an independent content creator you may find yourself in a weird spot where your “child friendly” work may be put in a palace between edgier stuff other creators sell at conventions. On the other hand, I find it rather insulting in hindsight, that self declared feminist Andrew Dobson portrays such competition as either psychopathic murderers or stereotypical cartoon bimbos. If modern day Dobson saw the same strip by any other person, he would be insulted on behalf of the female that she is portrayed as a bimbo, when she could also be a very smart and attractive woman who knows how to tell brave and sexy stories.
Also, I have read your “child friendly” stuff, Dobson. I would call Atea or Alex abusive bitches who like to bully orphans but child friendly? Not to forget that your work is so basic and shallow in depth, it’s like the someone tried to create a chimera out of some of the worst traits associated with Dora the Explorer, 80s toodler cartoons and the Fairly Oddparents.
I frankly hate this theory on comedy. It is true, a lot of comedy can be deprived from conflict, misunderstandings etc. Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry and other cartoons as well as screwball comedies such as Rat Race can depend on it. Heck, one of my favorite comedians of all time is Christopher Titus, who based his entire career on the misery and absurdity of his life.
But comedy is not just defined by misery and conflict.
There are for example also the following theories when it comes to comedy…
And to get back e.g. to Titus, yes, he has build a lot of his comedy on the bad stuff that happened in his life. But he is also someone who in his comedy has build a lot of punchlines on the absurdity of certain situations he has been in life but which in a way have enriched his life positively.
What I am trying to say is, comedy (and entertainment in that regard) does not just have to be defined by misery. And all things considered Dobson, you could have really tried to also just make comics wherein either you or your characters are just happy with their situation in life.
For example, this page from an Owl House fancomic?
I think it holds more entertainment value than your “joke” right here, despite not even telling a joke.
Simply because as a page overall, it tries to convey a positive emotion. Which is more than I can say about the strip.
Because of a lack of different level of thickness regarding your lines, which would trick people into perceiving depth, the fact that the fill bucket and shade layers can only do so much to cover for the rather monochromatic dull nature of your comic, the fact that your characters are not really all that complex and look rather simplicstic even compared to stuff from a comic like this…
And that is just coming from the top of my head as someone who never studied art. If any reader has something to add, I am willing to listen
And considering you could in later years never keep up to any release schedule, which among other things resulted in only three SYAC strips in total being released in 2016, I say go fuck yourself. Not to forget that even some of the worst newspaper comic strips out there tend to actually find a decent following and good jokes eventually, otherwise they would not manage to stay popular for years, if not even decades.
As someone who has worked internships a lot in life, I just want to say fuck you in all our names. Glad to see you having just as much respect for interns than any other scumbag on the planet. Probably even less respect, cause you know, in some places interns tend to get paid.
Also, there is supposedly an entire real world story going on about Dobson having worked at his former university at the time the comic came out and Chaz is based on a fellow intern.
Things are unfortunately rather vague in that regard and only hold up by demonstrative evidence such as the name of Chaz showing up in certain pages of the university and Dobson’s internship being mentioned somewhere.
Well, would you look at that: People have different opinions on your stuff.
There are ways to draw memes funny and then there are ways to fail at them
You failed.
Funnily enough, that comic rings a lot truer to text than you expect. Considering how Dobson would often emulate certain aesthetics in his comics of shows that were rather passee by the time he published his stuff, plus how he will obsess over certain trends and games for years to come (like Skyrim or his Quiet Hate Boner) while also being unaware about current trends (how do you e.g. not have heard of My Hero Academia by 2018 at least once by accident?) Dobson has always been kinda late to the party. Missing the “zeitgeist” of nerd culture and as such never quite finding an audience.
Yeah, what Pam says. Not helped by the fact that yes, the floating eyebrows are real. Look at some earlier sketches or “professionally published” comics by his and you will see that each time characters get excited, their eyebrows will suddenly split into sets of three and float higher than Pennywise’s victims.
Ironically, that fits real life Dobson at the time and later on even more so than this comic version did. Sorry, but what am I supposed to call a person who has an hate boner on anime for years for superfluous reasons, made Danny and Spot a “gaming webcomic” deliberately to piss on non Nintendo fans and has admitted in some by now deleted youtube video, that he kept a list of usernames from an old forum just to remember even years later the people that were mean to him online?
Fuck both of you. I do not expect the Sixtin Chapel in the background, but something to filll up the empty space behind you is at times needed.
The comic here is actually called politics.
… ironic how things changed once a certain reality show host turned president.
Jesus Christ. I am not even that much of a Transformers fan (Prime fan for life however) but even I know that this is not supposed to be what you design the head of a Transformer like. Not even if they ever produce the Transformers equivalent of Teen Titans Go.
Too bad you still can’t stand the heat, otherwise you wouldn’t have completely disappeared last year.
When you know you are in a no win situation, and still manage to choose an even dumber option to escape. I really don’t get it. I just think the Portal reference makes the comic dated and Dobsn’s attempt at a smug face looks so stupid. Like his cheeks are falling in and his mouth is about ready to get raped by a garden hose or something.
Yeah, considering Dobson’s later constant need for safe spaces and to be in control of a situation and the narrative, which led to so many blocks over the years… if you know anything about Dobson, how this comic becomes harsher in hindsight is rather self explanatory. I just want to say one thing: There is a difference between genuine agoraphobia and just wanting to be by yourself. And I think Dobson just prefers the later on average. Which is okay, but humans still need to interact with other human beings in one form or another, even just for the sake of keeping their mental health stable. Why do you think are so many people getting depressed in times of covid lockdowns, despite many having all sorts of technical gimmicks at their disposal to at least keep boredom at bay?
And by putting himself into a bubble like that, I think Dobson has deprived himself of some of the most basic human interaction, which was likely a severe factor in his mental degeneration over the last years.
It is still a valid suggestion! Just draw some cartoon characters or a nice fantasy scenario on a mural and earn yourself some bucks. Just be sure they are not by Disney or the Mouse will tear down the school!
… Just google up the words Andrew Dobson and Samus Aran commission by ED and you will see how this comic just further shows how much Dobson seems to actually be proud of being an unproductive asshole.
And by the way, I know that any form of artistic work takes time. Just writing these review posts takes a lot of time for me. But that doesn’t change the fact that people should post and create stuff in a timely fashion, especially when there are e.g. deadlines to hold up too. And by the way, Sloth’s don’t have fingers, they have claws!
And that is it.
Sorry if I missed anything folks, but I just saw how many pages in word this is already filling up, so I call quits for this part here right now. I think I made my point about how Dobson trying to badly deflect arguments people may make against his art and work ethics via jokes clear enough, while also showing some posts that are either harsher or hilarious in hindsight.
Next time we will however address one certain issue about our main character, that has been not directly addressed here. In the meantime, have a little fun video that shows hopefully how entertainment and a certain amount of comedy can be gained NOT via misery.
youtube
#adobsoncomic#Andrew Dobson#Tom Preston#comic#webcomics#syac#so...you are a cartoonist#review#master review
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Sometimes when I'm having a particularly hard day excepting my lot I go back and read this little thing I wrote a few months after leaving my family to remind me that I made the right decision. Idk why I am choosing to post this today but I've never posted it anywhere before. I've never been quiet about who I am and what I came from and sometimes it's nice to just get the feelings put there.
My whole life I had never been allowed to make decisions for myself, so why now, was it up to me to make the biggest decision of my life?
What school I could attend, what major I could study, what clothes I could wear, what teachers I could take, what jobs I could have, who I could speak to, who I could be friends with, what bank I used, what hair style I had, what nickname I could go by, what music I could listen to...all these things were policed since I was born, and the first decision I got to make solo was the most world defining decision I'll ever make.
Since then I've made a lot of decisions about myself, some little and some huge, but each one comes with a hill to climb. Through this series of decisions I've come to discover a little more about myself and who I am, a long painful process of deciding for myself.
The first decision.
It was a Sunday. I was expected to attend three morning protests and church at 11:30am, my father would be giving the weekly sermon. This Sunday, however, was different. For the first time in my life, I had a separate obligation. I chose, or tried to choose, to skip church that week.
This was not my first decision as it was reviewed by my parents and shut down.
It was 7am that Sunday morning, and I jumped out of bed, got dressed, and headed to work. I had discussed the days events with my parents two nights prior, today we had a fundraiser. A local family had just lost their daughter to brain cancer, and for once in my life I felt I had the power to do good, instead of spread hate. This was a huge deal to everyone there, and the community surrounding us. I was excited. As a new business, this would be great for us. We'd learn how to handle big crowds of people, we'd all bond over the stress of the situation, we'd have a great time, and we'd be doing good. I got to the restaurant around 7:45, and jumped into work. We had a LOT to do. I was anxious, I knew I was doing something I shouldn't...or at least something my parents don't approve of. It wasn't until 9:21 I heard from them
"Are you planning to miss church today?" My father text me.
"I'm planning to make it back, but if we get people in at 11, I probably won't be able to." I replied
"OK this doesn't really work for me. You aren't at a spot in life where this should be getting asked of you and this was supposedly made clear when you joined. If they cannot respect your need to be in the Lords house you need to find other employment. We need to talk about this"
Fear. Fear was all I could feel. I cried. Knowing exactly what "We need to talk about this meant" it wouldn't be a conversation with just me and him. Or me him and my mother, it would be everyone. Every adult member of our church would sit me down, accuse me of all manner of wrong doing, scream, yell, and refuse to acknowledge anything I said and brush it off as if I was a liar. A decision they had made for me when I was not even a teenager yet. At 11 years old I had been pegged as a liar and forced into seclusion by the church all because my mother, forgetful as ever, had forgotten a conversation I had with her a few weeks prior to it all coming to light. "If they're too scared to talk to me(referring to my older brother as I) then they can't speak to anyone" an aunt of mine had said, and her word was regarded as law at that point. Months of silence on my part followed. I became solemn and bitter after that. My social skills had been destroyed and I would never get over what they'd done to me. The happy little girl was gone, and in their eyes, she never existed. I was ridiculed for years because of this change in demeanor.
I received several phone calls from my parents that morning. I answered none of them. So my mother chimed in...it was 9:57:
"It is not ok for you to miss Church today. We need to have a serious discussion today about what's going on with you."
Again the threat of intervention.
I had to go home. My boss rolled his eyes, dispite his knowledge of my situation he couldn't help but be annoyed that his second hand was leaving, right before open, on what would be our busiest day ever. When I left, there was already a line at the door. I later learned they filled the restaurant within seven minutes of opening the doors. It didn't stop until we closed that night.
My dad gave the sermon that day. It was long. Nearly double the normal length of our weekly meeting. I couldn't tell you if it was purposefully, knowing him it probably wasn't, but that didn't help my view of the situation. Once church was over, I spead down the highway back to work, it was nearly 2pm by the time I got back. It was chaos. People everywhere, we were running out of things, and the dishwashers they'd pulled to prep just couldn't keep up. I was put in charge of running prep and we prepped and prepped and prepped. Ticket times were awful and I don't think we ever got out of the weeds, even now I feel the effects of that day on our staff. I remember at one point I was apologizing to one of our cooks, who we affectionately refer to as "Mom".
"I don't know if I can stay there any more" I'd said. For the first time in my life, I'd admitted to someone that I didn't see a future for me in the church. I'd been toiling with the feeling for years, but it wasn't until early February that I'd realized that I couldn't stay. "Get through school" I'd tell myself. With two years of school left, and my whole life crumbling, I knew I wouldn't last.
"If you need a place to go, I have a spare bedroom. You're welcome there" she replied.
I was floored. Being told your whole like that the world is against you, you learn to accept that, but this woman, this mother of three, had just offered to open her door to me, no questions asked.
We closed at 8.
Once it died down I sat at the bar with my chef. The foh manager behind the bar, pouring them both drinks. I can't tell you the exact words that were spoken, what, if any, words of encouragement were given to me, but while sitting there, I made my first decision. It was time to go. I remember thinking that I needed permission from someone, anyone, to do this, but it never came. My chef never told me I should, our foh manager never told me I should, no one told me to do it. I had to decide, and decide I did.
Once I got home late that night I told my sister. I didn't tell her I would leave immediately. I just told her I couldn't stay and she was always welcome to join me when she got older. I remember telling her there are other ways and places that we can serve the Lord without being subjected to the cruel glares and sneers of those around us. We had discussed often the wrong doings of the "Elders" of our church. I thought she'd understand and maybe she did, but she was hesitant. She was only a child after all, 13 years old, but had already been through hell and back with these people.
The next day I packed. I used the pretence that I was cleaning out my room and giving a bunch of my clothes to Goodwill, an instruction my father had given me a few days prior. This came only months after my mom had my siblings strip my room of much of my belongings and furniture while I was in class one evening. Many garbage bags full of clothes with other items hidden within made their way to the car. It was hard. Making the decision on what to keep and what to leave behind. I had collected many things from many different fan bases I considered myself a part of, while much had been taken from me I still had decisions to make. A lot got left behind. It was now Monday. I didn't work Mondays so I had all day to work. At 8pm we all sat down for our evening reading. I remember choking back tears realizing this would be the last time I sat in a room along side all six of my siblings and my parents in an amicable manner, still, the looming threat of these "talks" overtook me with fear. Once we were done and we'd said our evening prayer I went up to my room. I cried. I cried for the hurt I would do my dad, it was a common joke in the house that I was his favorite. His first little girl. The years I'd miss watching my baby brother grow up. The betrayal my sister would feel when she woke up the next morning. Knowing that in the following weeks every inkling of my existence would be stripped from the house, I still wonder what became of my old bedroom. Did my sister take it like she'd joked about when I would tell her I was dying from a migraine or dealing with a particularly hard day at work? Would my mom take it and use it as an office or spare bedroom for when my dad snored too loud as she often did when I would sleep over at my cousin Vicky's house?
My mom left the house at 4:30am. I was awake before she left. Silently selecting the last few items I would take with me. I wrote two notes. One of apology to my sister for leaving her here in a cave full of wolves. One to my dad, asking to be left alone and explaining that there had been irreparable damage done by other members of the church and that I did not believe their doctrine. I wrap my house key, pink and bedazzled with fake diamonds because my dad picked it out and never really got who I was back then, and copy of their credit card in it and stuck it in his cubby before walking out the door, tears still wet on the paper from when I wrote it. I only had one chance, as all windows and doors on our house sent chimes throughout the 10 bedroom, 6 bathroom, three kitchen home when opened. I got in my car, contemplated my decision one last time, and I left.
I sat at my job for hours alone, drinking ginger ale and eating sourdough bread. Wishing the nausea would go away. Not long after getting there I received a message from my dad. He would not ask me to come home, but extended the invitation to talk if I thought it would solve the problem and I could continue living under their rule. Reiterating the fact that they would not be changing for me. If I left I was going to be on my own. I spent the morning crying as I went about directing prep work for the week, we had a lot to recover from and my personal turmoil couldn't distract me from my work. Hours later my mom showed up. It was on the way home from the early morning yoga class she had taught, which is why she left the house so early. I couldn't recount the exact words said because I was to distracted by the way she was speaking to me. I was a stranger now. She's a lawyer and treated me like a client, taking notes as we spoke with no regard to my emotions or well being. She'd always counted the days to my 18th birthday, the only hope she'd rid me from her life forever. This was her chance.
The months following were hard. I had a lot of decisions to make and no one to guide me. The people who swore to make it easier only made it harder, but I bonded with the least expected people, some of which continue to be my greatest friends even to today. It was a decision that I don't regret, not even on the hardest days, the days I mourn the time lost with my loved ones and the very real possibility they'll never come back to me. The nights I sit up scrounging the internet for any glimpse into their current lives, or when I read people's"hot takes" about who they think they are, often getting it wrong and seeing my family as a one dimensional group of haters. I've made the decision to me myself and it's a decision I'll stand by until the day I die, eternity be damned.
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On Eren’s choices and Ymir’s curse
Ah, yes, I am back from Attack on Titan hell and I have thoughts. Major spoilers, do not read until you finished the manga.
This essay will be about Eren’s “choices” or the lack thereof when it comes to attacking/defining/reshaping/destroying humanity and how much of this could be read as Ymir’s curses.
First, let’s talk about what undergirds his course of action:
the injustice of historical trauma being justified for modern time apartheid:
Eren traveled long and far to realize how much the Eldian outside of Paradis was being discriminated against and held as noncitizens in multiple lands and nations, so much that they have to renounce their “belonging” to their identity and claim their personhood only “accidental” Eldian and not “truly” one like those from the Paradis island (as seen in
I take that the non-Paradis Eldian resemble the Jewish diaspora in the ways they are persecuted and subjects of ethnic cleansing, and a recent example would be Muslim people, in how they were put into camps all over the world, forced to live in ghettos, hated for the fear of their religion and their gods.
The hatred for Eldians supposedly started because Eldian leaders become power hungry and warmongers who colonized, massacred, and dominated Marleyans for 1,700 years. This is a debt that Eren, unlike Zeke, was NOT ready to pay, given that he is also only an Ymir subject in name like the vast majority of the Eldian population and was not in anyway responsible for the greeds of old, powerful royals. Unlike descendants of King Frizt, whose genealogy comes from passed down memories of literally cannibalism and war crimes for generations that destabilize all the inheritors in fear, shame, and disgust that they would not dare to do anything but die with the memory, Eren is a regular boy with so much indignation, feels so unjust for his loved ones and people who had to bear the cross they didn’t yield. As such, he refuses to see the current treatment of Eldians as just, and this marks the goal (not the solution) of his plan: to not let Paradis Eldians suffer any longer. So he does what he thinks he needs to do in order to advance that goal, all the while NOT KNOWING the outcome, only WISH for it.
Now this is not a metaphor for why Nazis or white settler colonialism and slave owners in North America shouldn’t pay reparations for what their government has done, because their descendants still uphold power over their historically subordinated subjects and perpetuate a system that does so. AND, the main character squads or people we think as ”good guys” here do defy the monarchy and old power toward new future for Eldians, so their refusal to align with old Eldians is nothing sort of revolutionary.
Now let’s talk about Ymir’s will and her curse.
Ymir’s will and the timeloop aka self-fulfilling prophecy and Watchmenian godly time:
If you watch HBO Watchmen (2019) you will know what I mean by godly time. Dr. Manhattan in the show experience all times and all dimensions AT ONCE, so thing happens simultaneously for him in all the worlds he occupies, and he is in every world talking to everyone. Also, he is a god, so he doesn’t follow human emotions, reasons, values, things are just actions set in motions toward outcomes. Nothing matters, because Gods as beings are not a set of ideologies, but circumstances that are willed by people. And humans are trully uncontrollable, ungovernable, down to the last one of them and their human interests.
What does it mean to say that Eren bears the will of god and Ymir?
So Eren went ahead and woke up the Wall Titans to have them rumble the earth. Did he do that because he wants to kill people? He doesn’t will it, but accepts that as a side effect. Did he want to scare other nations? He knows that if he sets this in motion, uncontrollable things would happen, disregards of what he wants or plans. It’s not like he can just reroute the Titans then park them back up in the wall, because there’s no going back, even if time is looping, the future is always in the process of being written. Inevitable, he said, was the course of action that he took and yet he goes through with it because he doesn’t believe in the inevitability of human bowing down to fate. Zeke’s plan was to make all Ymir subject sterile just so they couldn’t reproduce-and Eren thought of Historia and her bloodline that had already defied their fate (of becoming host for the founding Titan thus ends the family affair of eating their family members), and he thought of his parents, and all the comrades whose bloodline ends with them in their quest to freedom. Zeke’s self-imposed role of god of nothing does not interests Eren. He wanted more. And he saw the difficulty of achieving freedom in the last couple years he had when the deep rooted racism against Eldians by the Marleyans were also equipped by state militarism and the overall brainwashing machine in all aspects of life that literally turned children into loyal warriors who want to die violent death and adults who pushed their children there so they can live a sorry ass life. He saw the problem in all, and had no solutions, no moral judgements, only power to rupture this world anew.
At one point, it is the godly power of Ymir that affects Eren, her will that determines what Eren can do based on the memories he could see through her, and she CHOSE destruction. A lot of folks I saw was bewildered by the biggest revealing that Ymir was just an enslaved girl with her tongue cut off and think all was caused by her blind loyalty to her abuser. They also read the Ymir’s curse (die after 13 years) as nonexistent because she’s not a goddess who struck a deal with the earth devil but the first human to be blessed by the gift of life, to regenerate and to change life forms. This is where my reading, I think, will differ from a lot of people.
I dont think Ymir loves the king. I think Ymir’s curse exists. I think she cursed the Eldian king with the thing she knows will destroy all the future generations to come: a monstrous power, a literal man-eating power that will only be used for destruction that so long as anyone has it they become the enemy of humanity. Ymir did not know peace in her entire life, not a single person was nice to her even the slaves, every single one sought out to live a sorry ass life and sacrificed children to avoid violence unleashed onto them. You see that times and times again, from the original story of Ymir being singled out by grown men and women as releasing the pigs, to the men hunting her for sport, to the king using her bodies to the last bone, committing unforgivable violence forcing his daughters to consume her raw flesh, and they grew up to become adults who would make their children eat their raw flesh to generate power. You see that in the story of Eren, Mikasa, and Armin, who became orphaned child soldiers and adults who have seen death around them keep pushing them to be solutions for an ancient crisis even they know nothing about. You see that in the Marleyan Eldians who wish their kids would become warriors so they can become some model minorities and leaving the interment camps. Over, and over again, the cycle of violence is willed and carried out by people, no matter the shapes and forms. Of course, this is a nihilistic view that does not take into account critical perspectives that could work out, realistically, what types of oppressions and injustice that each group deals with (i imagine in real life there would be groups of critical Marleyans who resists their government and other types of social movements in order to end apartheid against the Eldian diaspora, and that Marleyan as a military state does have to rule their subjects with democratic laws and whatnot, but vengeance cannot be a guiding principle for modern society), but to engage in the right and wrong discourse is to literally disregard the entire theme of Attack on Titan.
So for 2000 years Ymir, in the form of an unloved child, consumed by greed and apathy, set into motion that the fate of the Eldian tribe will grow so big, so expansive, so powerful that their enemies will rise somewhere along history. And they will never know peace. Not until she meets another person who rages on her behalf, who understands the pain shes going through, to come and beg her to let go. When Eren comes to tell her she is free, it is not from the bondage of a ruler, a master, but from her bind to what he had done unto her, thats when she can rest. Let me make it clear, Ymir is not a slave to Frizt and the royal family, she is a slave to more than 2000 years of unforgivable injustice and silent scream, when all the people who have been trampled on bear the bloodline that was forcibly taken from her only ask her to help them, and not a single person speaks the truth on her behalf. She rages, and rages, and rages, and the humans created out of her legacy against her will, suffer. And she, the good child that wants freedom for the pigs, at one point believes that for her rage and curse she can no longer be loved. Not until she sees another girl coming to kill the monster who had carried out her will, with love. Eren can be loved, privately, quietly, for all the monstrosity he had unleashed onto humanity. And so can Ymir, be free, be loved, be at peace after all of eternity. She can leave this realm.
I wish Ymir’s perspective could have been shown more through the manga, but I don’t think it is not there. It is also a meta thing for AoT to let readers come up with their own reading of “freedom” and “justice” and ways to repair ancient hate. The events in the book, in a large scale, are not justifications for the actions taken, but rather a set of events that are connected, willed, and carried out against thousands of other possibilities, to the point of inevitable. Choices are always taken with or without true understanding of the context that would define such choices as right or wrong. And if you dig a little deeper, all the contexts that have the power to define decisions as right or wrong end up being created out of ambivalent decisions, as well. So much that the only thing you learn out of this story is this simple truth: attack on titan is the attack on humanity.
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Do you think Hordak abused Catra, or was it a two-way exchange? I had this tussle with a Catra stan trying to claim she was innocent and it was Hordak doing everything wrong in the situation and wanted to hear what one of Hordak's biggest fans thinks.
Ah, anon, this is such an interesting question! And it’s definitely one I see people fight over time and again. I’ll give you my opinion, though I warn you and everyone who reads this: the nature of Catra and Hordak’s relationship seems to me to be a subjective one. How abusive, how reciprocal, and ultimately how distressing one finds it is often dependent upon one’s own views. That said, I shall give you mine.
Official disclaimer: this is all based upon how I interpret these characters and how their interactions make me feel. Your mileage may greatly vary.
First and foremost, let me answer this question: does Hordak hurt Catra? Yes. Yes, he does. He uses a machine to suffocate her. It is bad. He also plans to send her to Beast Island. He should not have done it. He is a bad man with bad leadership methods.
Now, with that established: did he abuse her?
Ah. Hm. Hmm.
To me, this is not “abuse” in the way that what Shadow Weaver does to Catra is “abuse.” And I emphasize “to me” because, again, your mileage may vary. I have a certain sense of what I interpret to be “abuse.” And my sense may not be your sense. Heck, it may not even be the showrunners’ sense! But it’s mine, and that’s what I’m going with when discussing this.
and yes, I am bringing Shadow Weaver into this, so prepare yourselves
Hordak’s treatment of Catra is wrong, of course, but it’s not the same thing as what Shadow Weaver does to her. And it’s not something that makes me uncomfortable in the way that Shadow Weaver’s actions make me uncomfortable.
Part of the reason for this is the motivation behind it. Why does Hordak do this to Catra? Why does he physically harm her? Why is he so harsh?
Well, short of asking him, we’ll never truly know, but in my opinion, he is harsh and draconic and violent partially because of his “upbringing,” and partially because he is afraid. He spies and attempts to control everyone because he is afraid. And he is afraid because, once someone learns his secrets and figures out how to turn off his life support, he can be smacked around and broken over one’s knee like the grumpy toothpick that he is.
And cruel as his methods are, evil as he is, he’s pretty much right, isn’t he? As we all know, Catra achieves this. She figures out the secret to Hordak’s armor and essentially usurps him. In all of twenty seconds. Violently. Painfully. With plenty of humiliation involved.
Add to this physical vulnerability Hordak’s tendency to be easily manipulated due to his own emotional issues, and it’s not difficult to see why he might feel the need to rule with an iron fist. Hordak has precious little room for error, not just in terms of keeping on top of the Fright Zone hierarchy, but in terms of keeping his life. He’s killable. He’s really, disconcertingly killable. And beyond being killable, he is manipulable and easily influenced.
Even exile to Beast Island can be viewed as an extension of this: if someone is a legitimate, untrustworthy danger to him, then they must be eliminated. And Catra, due to her lies and her personal motives, ends up being an untrustworthy danger.
So that’s one reason I don’t view this as traditional abuse: Hordak’s motivations appear less “abuse the child for a power trip” and more “I need to keep everyone in line because if I don’t, there’s a pretty legit chance that I’m going to die.” There’s a self-defense aspect to it. It’s a weird, fucked up form of self-defense, but it’s there.
Shadow Weaver, on the other hand… well, I’m not entirely certain of her motivations. She doesn’t hurt a military-trained, dangerous teenage cat person that could kill her; she starts off very plainly hurting a frightened little girl. I have my own sort of pet theory why, but this isn’t really the place for it, and it’s entirely speculative. I feel like we-the-viewers don’t really get much of a reason for why she treats Catra the way she does. Oh, she claims that it’s to make Catra stronger, but that’s… kind of a weak reason, to me. Again, I have my thoughts, but this isn’t that post.
The point is, whatever Shadow Weaver’s motives, I don’t read them as “messed up self-defense” the way I do Hordak’s. Which is why her torment of Catra reads as true abuse to me, while Hordak’s punishments read more as overzealous, maladjusted discipline.
Now, one could definitely argue that the only reason Hordak needed to defend himself from Catra is because he wronged her in the first place, and this is a legitimate argument. However, I would counter that Catra ended up being dangerous not only to her enemies, but to her friends as well. She tazed Entrapta and all but killed her. She used Scorpia whenever it was convenient and otherwise threatened/neglected her. She pretty much made a game of one-upping and trying to kill Adora. Being kind to Catra wasn’t some sort of guarantee of safety, and really, I don’t think Hordak was in the sort of place to take that kind of gamble, physically or mentally. So to me, this is a bit of a moot point.
The other big factor in why Hordak’s treatment of Catra doesn’t read as traditional abuse to me is how it affects Catra. In short: it doesn’t seem to. Not really. Not beyond keeping her in line and ensuring that she is afraid of him enough so that she doesn’t try anything. It’s not like Shadow Weaver’s lifelong abuse, which causes severe, traumatic damage to Catra and is essentially responsible for her being the way she is.
Catra is able to break off from Hordak with no emotional repercussions even before she physically bests him. What he’s done to her, while painful and morally wrong, doesn’t appear to have lasting effects. It doesn’t affect her view of herself. It doesn’t add to her pathology. She doesn’t feel the need to continue chasing his approval.
Compare this to how Catra responds to Shadow Weaver even after having “defeated her” and supposedly moved on: she’s still deeply hurt by her, still bound to seek her approval and esteem, still driven to tears when Shadow Weaver rejects her yet again. Nothing like this happens with Hordak; he hurts Catra, yes, but he doesn’t damage her, if that makes sense.
The reason for this is rooted, I think, in the roles these characters play for one another. Catra isn’t much affected by Hordak’s physical punishment because he doesn’t really mean anything to her. He’s her boss, not a father figure or anything like that. More importantly, he’s a means to an end: a source of respect and authority that will provide her with the ability to get what she actually wants: Shadow Weaver and Adora’s respect and approval. Shadow Weaver, on the other hand, is Catra’s mother. She’s supposed to be her source of affection, security, and emotional support. And so when she hurts Catra, it leaves legitimate emotional scars. Which is what marks it as abusive. Again: to me.
Now, briefly: did Catra abuse Hordak?
My assessment of that is a bit more difficult. It’s a little rougher, I think, because despite being a traumatized child, Catra was able to perform some heavy emotional manipulation on him, and I suppose one could argue that she causes more lasting damage by using his emotional insecurities and connection to Entrapta against him. I guess her motivations also seem to leave “self-defense” territory and wander into “using you for personal gain.”
And in the end, he does end up forming an emotional attachment to her that leaves him distraught upon learning of her betrayal, so… hm. Hmm. I guess one could argue that she “abuses” Hordak the same way she “abuses” Scorpia and Entrapta. Perhaps. Her actions do give me a certain emotional discomfort that Hordak’s do not. So… maybe yes? I would personally classify it as some sort of abuse? Even though it distresses me to do so, because I know Catra is in pain. And it’s not the same as what Shadow Weaver does to Catra. And it’s definitely no where near the level of abuse Horde Prime visits upon Hordak. Like, not even close.
So… yeah. It’s probably odd to read, but the way Catra harms Hordak feels stranger and more distressing than how he harms her. She’s certainly not innocent. To me. I cannot stress “to me” enough.
I suppose, to close this off, what I think of Hordak’s actions toward Catra is less “abuse” and more “assault.” He physically hurts her, because he is a bad man with leadership skills steeped in brutality, but it never goes beyond that. It doesn’t cross that line for me. That line is hard to define, of course, but I’ve tried to compare the Hordak/Catra situation to the Shadow Weaver/Catra situation to give you a better idea of where it lies for me. Catra’s actions toward Hordak are a little more difficult because of course she’s so young and so hurt, but they do feel different to me, enough so that I think they cross that odd line into abusive. But only just, I think.
My verdict: Hordak doesn’t abuse Catra so much as he assaults her, and Catra does some sort of weird emotional-manipulation-pseudo-abuse thing to Hordak that disturbs me, but it’s weird because he’s evil-man Hordak, and she’s a damaged child, so I get how odd that sounds. *sigh*
actually I have a masterpost on that if you’re interested
So: that’s my answer, take it as you will. I accept all comments and angry screeching, so feel free!
#catra#hordak#shadow weaver#she ra#aw yeah i'm putting it in the main tag antis come out and play#Anonymous
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The Wrath And The Dawn
Synopsis:
One Life to One Dawn.
In a land ruled by a murderous boy-king, each dawn brings heartache to a new family. Khalid, the eighteen-year-old Caliph of Khorasan, is a monster. Each night he takes a new bride only to have a silk cord wrapped around her throat come morning. When sixteen-year-old Shahrzad's dearest friend falls victim to Khalid, Shahrzad vows vengeance and volunteers to be his next bride. Shahrzad is determined not only to stay alive, but to end the caliph's reign of terror once and for all.
Night after night, Shahrzad beguiles Khalid, weaving stories that enchant, ensuring her survival, though she knows each dawn could be her last. But something she never expected begins to happen: Khalid is nothing like what she'd imagined him to be. This monster is a boy with a tormented heart. Incredibly, Shahrzad finds herself falling in love. How is this possible? It's an unforgivable betrayal. Still, Shahrzad has come to understand all is not as it seems in this palace of marble and stone. She resolves to uncover whatever secrets lurk and, despite her love, be ready to take Khalid's life as retribution for the many lives he's stolen. Can their love survive this world of stories and secrets?
Title: The Wrath and The Dawn
Series: The Wrath and The Dawn
Author: Renee Ahdieh
Pages: 432 pages (Paperback)
Published: April 5th 2016 by Penguin Young Readers Group (first published May 12th 2015)
Characters: Shahrzad al-Khayzuran, Khalid Ibn al-Rashid, Tariq Imran al-Ziyad, Jahandar al-Khayzuran
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult, Romance, Adventure, Retellings
I have one thing to say. Khalid. Khalid was everything. This whole book was everything. I honestly have no words for it right now, other than brilliant, mind blowing and breathtaking, of course. Never in my life have I read a story more captivating than this one. All it took was the first three pages and I was completely hooked. It was a truly mesmerizing tale of love and sacrifice, an exquisite piece of fantasy literature based on one of the most intriguing stories of all time. A Thousand and One Nights has always been one of my favorite fairytales and Renee Ahdieh managed to capture its theme exceptionally well. I’m having a really hard time finding a book that will satisfy me after this one, and combined with the fact that I’m currently going through college exams and don’t have a lot of time to read in the first place, I think I’m heading for the worse book hangover of all times.
But let’s focus on the brilliance of this book and its amazing plot, which I would characterize with one word enthralling. That’s such an awesome word, isn’t it? Fitting because this book was awesome too. This book was a wild ride of conflicting emotions. Every single page and paragraph compels you to read further and I was dying to know the reason behind Khalid’s murderous sprint by the end of the first chapter! Granted, the plot might be a bit slow at times but Renee’s writing totally makes up for it and the intrigue and suspense is enough to keep you going until you’ve finally reached the end. I also have to talk a bit about the themes the book explores and the depth of the story and its characters. I found myself in a constant struggle to differentiate between the heroes and villains. The book teaches a wonderful lesson that nothing is black and white and that all is not always what it seems. Khalid, who is supposedly the villain, turns out to be the biggest victim of them all, while Jahandar, who is just a man looking for a way to save his daughter in the beginning of the book, ends up turning into the worst villain, even if his actions are somewhat justified. Even Tariq, who fights for his love, makes you question whether he’s right or wrong to do so and I was constantly conflicted about how to feel about him throughout the whole book. And that’s what I love about this book, the fact that it was real and honest and played with some important lessons in life without sugar coating situations.
And then the characters. Every single one of them had an impressive depth of personality that only added more brilliance to the story. Honestly, the characters are what really made this book for me and I was impressed by how much I connected with them in a very short time. Shahrzad has become one of my favorite female protagonists ever. She’s brave, strong and smart and managed to annoy me only once in the entire book which is a huge accomplishment. She uses her intelligence to survive when so many others have died, enchanting the caliph by weaving tales so mesmerizing that the king could not bear to kill her. And I have to add that I found those stories extremely interesting as well, even though they weren’t part of the main plot.
And then there is Khalid. Khalid is such a conflicted character. You know you have to hate him because he has killed so many girls for seemingly no reason, but at the same time you know there is more behind his seemingly cold and cruel personality and you want to get to know him and understand what defines his actions. And once you do, you can’t help but fall in love, just like Shahrzad fell in love.
Shahrzad’s relationship with Khalid is truly one of the most complex ones I’ve encountered in books and they weren’t even truly together for the most part of the book but I loved how she managed to love him even through hating him for what he’d done and how that love changed him and brought out his softer his softer side. And I also loved how Shahrzad became Khalid’s entire world and how he was willing to sacrifice everything for her. Shahrzad was determined to hate Khalid from the beginning and even though she never stopped holding him accountable for his actions, she recognized that what happened wasn’t entirely his fault and managed to forgive him and even love him once she got to know him better. But even though she did forgive him she still held him accountable for his actions and he held himself accountable as well. Excuses were never made and that’s what I loved about these two the most. That their relationship was so real and honest and that they managed to love each other despite the circumstances that defined them both.
Also, Tariq. I couldn’t help but love him even though I had decided pretty much from the beginning of the book that I wanted Shahrzad to be with Khalid. I found his character extremely interesting and the fact that he was so determined to fight for his love against all odds truly won me over, even though I kinda hated him for considering Khalid a monster. I’m really curious to see how his character and his relationship with Shahrzad will evolve over the second book and I do hope Renee will give him a happy ending. The side characters were also very well developed but I believe Renee could have worked more with them and give us more information about their past. I loved Jalal but unfortunately Despina left me completely indifferent. Rahim was also great and I though his humor added a nice light touch to the seriousness of the story.
Isn’t that just beautiful? Renee’s writing truly captivated me. The whole story and especially those last few chapters were mind blowing. My heart was literally racing while I was reading them. The writing was exquisite and the dialogue – especially between Khalid and Shahrzad was simply beautiful. I died a hundred times over while reading this. Especially towards the end. And that last chapter only left me wanting more. I wish May was here already.
The world building was also excellent. I loved the Persian setting and found myself transported into a fascinating world of Middle Eastern origins, rich with plenty of cultural references that I found extremely interesting to read about. And I also loved the fact Renee wasn’t afraid to use non-English terms in this and thought it added a lot to the setting and the reality of the story.
Final rating: What else is there to say? This was simply brilliant. A total page turner and a book that deserves to be called a masterpiece in my opinion. One of the most beautiful stories I’ve read in a while. This was easily a five star rating for me, although I wish I could give it a lot more than just five stars. I can’t wait for May to be here already, so I can finally get my hands on The Rose and the Dagger and continue with this amazing story. And if you haven’t read this book yet, waste no time in doing so. You won’t regret it.
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dust can’t settle: Commentary
I thought you were done with credits and notes and commentaries, I hear you say. You had an entire chapter dedicated to credits and notes. Why do you have more notes?
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, @stellarfoam and I wrote a thing for @pod-together, got a whole ton of talented people to help us read it, and created the first ao3 relationship for the tag “Original Fear Entity Avatar Characters & Original Fear Entity Avatar Characters (The Magnus Archives)” except the tag was too long so the “the” got dropped.
You can find that here.
If, however, you have already read/listened to/somehow otherwise experienced our oc/self-insert-heavy original statement fic, welcome! I assume you’re here because you wanted to listen to me ramble on for yet another thousand words. If you’re not looking for that, well, here it is.
Under the cut, anyways
The World of DCS:
This is, very technically, the Magnus Archives fanfic.
I say technically, because nowhere in this does canon appear. It appears in the inspiration and base worldbuilding, but other than that... yeah no.
So this started when Kai and I looked at the worldbuilding TMA has for the U.S. and went “yeah there’s got to be more than one institute.” Thus the San Francisco Institute for the Unusual and Paranormal was born, along with its satellite offices in Denver and Chicago. Those same satellite offices also serve The Usher Foundation in DC.
The branch offices collect statement, both written and recorded, and other research on the paranormal. Every five years, SFIUP sends along a couple of archival assistants to go and transfer those files to long-term storage in San Francisco or DC.
The relationship between the branch offices and SFIUP can be best summed up as follows:
Chicago & Denver: Bigger archives are always bossing us around :(
San Fran & DC: Alright but can you like, actually store your statements
Chicago & Denver: No....
San Fran & DC: Okay, so...?
Chicago & Denver: DON’T TELL US WHAT TO DO
Also, we said screw you to Smirke’s 14. There’s every chance that by defining and putting boundaries on the 14 he actually helped shape them into those roles, and we figured that different places would have different mergers and interpretations of those 14. Most of our statements merge or ignore the defined fears- Something There is Dark/Hunt/Eye, Hung is Vast/Buried, Beauty is Eye/Vast, Shasta Lake is just a weirdly big fish, Dragon’s Cauldron might be Hunt? It’s more just a “alright but wouldn’t it be COOL if...”
We also have another giant document about how the fears might manifest in different parts of America.
Because there is never an end to the worldbuilding.
The Car:
Some random facts about the car for your enjoyment:
- It woke up because something something knowledge = power and Lee and Dusk (LD) kept reading it statements
- So now the equation knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass applies, which is to say that the trunk is a transdimensional space that LD primarily use for storage of random things.
- Also a flesh monster.
- It’s just back there.
- It tried to kill them at one point while crossing through Minnesota. They shoved it in the trunk. It just sort of. Remains there. For awhile.
- The car did not approve.
- In case your wondering, the car is more or less a traveling archive, and LD are its archivists.
- However LD did not sign up for this, and so their road trip culminates eventually with them killing the car. It is a long and terrible battle, and the two of them nearly die.
- I have, somewhere on this computer, right now, a recording of the Car’s lovely voice actor Lynx doing a variety of absolutely terrible voices, including petulant teenager and valley girl.
Statements:
We have two pages worth of statement ideas still that we’ll get around to writing someday. If we stop adding to them. Here’s the stories behind some of the ones that made it into the fic, and some other general things I wanted to talk about.
Chapter 1: Archivist’s Note, San Francisco, Shasta Lake:
The recording classification system does not have much thought put into it, but follows the following format
[Media type];[Supernatural Classification].[Year].[Month]:[Employee(s) responsible for the case]
So in the case of [S;F15.2015.06-09:LD)], it’s: Statement(s);Multiple fears.2015.June-September:Lee & Dusk
Is this a perfect system? Hell no. Did this get as deep into archive classification systems as I wanted to go for a 15k fic? Yes.
The Shasta Lake statement pulled heavily from several sources, including the Shasta Lake fishing website, Wikipedia, and an actual news story about a couple of guys who saved a sturgeon from choking on a catfish. It’s kinda an amazing story, especially since the fish was actually about 8 feet long.
Things I don’t want to run into, thank you.
Chapter 4: Empty City, Gas
Empty city was, as mentioned in the fic, inspired by a statement @laurenbrightwing gave to us. And yes, LD absolutely have gone and explored graveyards and abandoned buildings for the Aesthetic of it.
Gas, however, came from The Car, an absolutely beautiful TAU fic by Feneris. Don’t ask what it runs on. You don’t want to know.
Chapter 6: Greenway
Fic-Dusk used to work for the Denver Branch Office before going to San Fran. The branch office never forgave them for their treachery.
Chapter 7: Hung
Eastman Chemical Company is an actual company stationed in Tennessee, and this statement was very heavily modeled after Mag 124: Left Hanging, except with more buried vibes.
Needs more buried should be a motto.
Chapter 9: The Dragon’s Cauldron
Guess who went down a research hole? It me.
Research notes for this statement can be found here.
Sources:
Debunking the Myth, Fear of Yellowstone (U.S. National Park Service)
Native Americans and Yellowstone National Park: Hot Springs, Legends and Sacred Places
Explore the Fort Yellowstone Historic District (U.S. National Park Service) Whittesly Yellowstone Myths.pdf
Timeline of Human History in Yellowstone - Yellowstone National Park (U.S. National Park Service)
Legend of the Sheepeater Indian Tribe in Yellowstone - My Yellowstone Park
The History of our Local Tribe: The Sheep Eater Indians - Bitterroot Ranch Dragons in Yellowstone - Yellowstone National Park (U.S. National Park Service)
Chapter 10: Something There, Archivist’s Note 2
RIGHT. This is a fun chain of events that have taken about three years to mature into this story.
Something There started off with a nightmare about something stalking me through my house. I was thoroughly creeped out, and then promptly forgot about it for the next day until I went to walk through my house at night and thought I heard something moving behind me.
About a year later, my composition teacher told us to write a speech. I think the prompt was truth?
So I went off about the thing supposedly living in my house, how no one would believe me if I told them, and implying that I absolutely was lying about the entire thing. My teacher loved it, and I got the highest grade I’d gotten that year for that assignment. (“They lauded me for that, did you know?”)
If that sort of vaguely existential crisis sounds like something you’d have fun reading, the full speech can be found here.
A bit later, I read the same speech for an open mic. One of my friends there yelled out that she believed me- something that did make it into the final version. (“One of my friends told me she believed me, once. I… I just shrugged and told her that there wasn’t actually anything there.”)
It eventually made its way into this project via me trying to figure out what the hell to use for a more spooky statement and stumbling across the speech sitting in my google drive.
I managed to scare myself to the point of not being able to go upstairs in the dark for about a week with the updated version.
I wrote it.
This seems counterintuitive.
Does this make this a self insert story? No. Statement giver here does not in any way respond like I would have in this situation, and they’ve since drifted even farther into full OC territory.
The “they can’t hurt you if you’re watching/if you see them comes from the lovely tma time travel fic “Strangers in the Dark” by Mayarene Rose.
MouseK also gave us the closing line for the fic! It wraps it up so nicely, and I’ve already squeed about this in the fic itself, but they deserve more because the line’s amazing and I love it.
Conclusion:
Thanks to everyone who gave us statements, inspired us, and helped us with the project. It’s been an excellent time, and there have already been discussions of either statements collected on this journey or short stories set in the same universe being written.
Thanks for reading!
- Dusk
#podtogether 2020#the magnus archives#statement fic#twisting roads#duskwrites#too many thoughts head full
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I'm asking as a confused trans and gay person regarding some of your recent posts saying aphobia doesn't exist, etc. Do you consider asexual people to be inherently LGBT even if they are cisgender and straight (heteroromantic)? I don't want to discriminate at all, I'm just confused because I see people fighting on here all the time about whether aces are part of the LGBT community or not. Do you have some insight for me as an ace nonbinary person? Thanks in advance!
no it’s fine lol dw!
i’m not sure how to explain this w/o being too extensive in what i say bc i’ve talked about this before but more in private conversations (and maybe some rants in tumblr posts) nd i tend to ramble abt it.
first of all i do not actually like the common conception that there is one way to define LGBT or the idea that everyone should fall within that category term or not, for example because the English language is colonial and rigid and does not reflect on experiences of all cultures, bc being gay or trans are not distinctly different experiences everywhere while they would be divided into different categories. so whereas i was more insistent on saying ‘you must be gay / bi / lesbian / trans to be LGBT / suffer from homophobia or transphobia’ i’ve come to realize now that this argument is rather exclusive of many gender diverse identities that do not correspond to all experiences or cultures. so i will stay away from using that argument.
however, i am speaking from my experience with online LGBT and asexual communities and have seen how the latter has tried to force itself into the other. i think a large issue with the asexual and aromantic communities is that they are partially based upon the creation of AVEN, an online forum founded by a homophobic and antisemitic man, and partially (though related to the former) by just blatantly made up statistics and history. not once have i seen a good argument or research or even personal accounts that illustrate very well why aphobia is a thing. i am asexual myself but do not want to take the lack of discrimination i faced for it as proof. there have been accounts of ‘aphobic’ discrimination that are either 1. much more a general concern with the OP facing misogyny and girls being sexualized, 2. someone making a remark based on a misconception of OP’s experiences or 3. misappropriation of terms and applying them to asexuality, e.g. ‘corrective rape’ was coined to refer to (African) lesbians who were assaulted under the presumption that it would turn them straight. asexuals have appropriated this term years ago to claim asexual people face rape on a large scale because perpetrators try to force them into liking sex. some people don’t even know the original meaning of the term because of this. i’m also not a big fan of this new interpretation of the term anyway, because legit sexual attraction is not the main reasons people commit rape; it is to seek power. this kind of mindset of asexual people being inherently vulnerable to sexual violence due to lack of feeling sexual attraction is seriously harmful; in the crime show Law and Order SVU, a suspect was let off because some main character said the suspect was asexual and this couldn’t have done it. people can be and sometimes are raped by an asexual person, because it is about taking advantage of someone and not attraction. the sole fact that so many authors of overly fetishistic fanfiction are asexual should prove this much, but instead the lack of attraction is used to distance oneself from the harm one can still cause.
and yes, asexual people can face discrimination, especially if you’re a girl you’re expected to be sexually submissive, which is pretty horrifying on its own. but this is not the same as targeted discrimination on a mass scale or institutional whatsoever. we are not thaught as we grow old that asexuals are disgusting, are a joke, or need to be violently murdered. my biggest issue with the asexual and aromantic community that we (as i have removed myself from it years ago) keep telling it that anecdontal accounts of being mildly discriminated is nowhere near the same as risking being kicked out of your house, being violently attacked due to the way you appear or having a partner of the same gender, being systematically discriminated by all sorts of institutions in society and being thaught that what you are is bad from an early age on. and then the counterargument is that LGBT is more recognized but asexual and aromantic isn’t, so ‘ace / aro’ people deserve to be included because they are underrepresented in media. but that is not the case at all. the speed at which asexuality has suddenly been incorporated and included into LGBT spaces, also offline, has been ridiculously fast. nowadays when you see a bunch of LGBT flags you see the asexual one being included a lot, sometimes in 3 different versions, while the lesbian flag is nowhere to be seen. lesbians are consistently excluded from their supposedly own community and they are not included in LGBT due to a need to change underrepresentation or lack of awareness, but because they face their own version of homophobia. the most mind-boggling thing about cis / cishet asexual and aromantic people being told that they are not oppressed, is that the response is not relief (’oh i’m glad i don’t face systematic oppression for this thing’) but anger (’how dare you not let us into your group!’). LGBT is seen as a fun party that is unnecessarily mean to anyone it gatekeeps, as if it is not actually necessary to keep out cishet people who benefit from their privilege and can use that against the rest in the group if they join.
my largest issue with the asexual community however, and i’ve touched upon this a bit before in the post, is that it victimizes itself, to such a degree where it puts itself oppositional to ‘allosexuals’. the whole idea that people who experience sexual attraction to another person are inherently privileged over abd hold power over asexual people is just not true (and the same goes for this rethoric for aromantic people). this idea is so wrong and the whole concept of the ‘allosexual’ as oppressor collapses once you consider that people who are attracted to the same gender are actually in danger and oppressed for their very attraction. not only are those who experience attraction (that isnt platonic) to other people portrayed as oppressors, but also as perverted freaks. once i decided to stop associating myself with acearo people and instead interact with LGBT people with other experiences, i realized just how much stigmatizing abd frankly, homophobic and transphobic bullshit i’ve adopted within the spaces i used to be in and that i still see gather a lot of traction (now their harmful points are also used on twitter and IRL in the public domain). the community has a huge issue where it teaches you to be puzzled and grossed out by people who want to date / kiss / have sex with other people, and this results in GSAs that now include asexuals to prohibit kissing your partner per request of asexual / aromantic members, asexual people showing up at pride with ‘can we just hug?’ signs, the common serophobic jokes (’at least we dont get hiv!!’ blergh), and for me it led to a great discomfort with kissing and sex imagery and it wasn’t until i left the community that this was in fact subtle homophobia because so much content on here is lgbt themed and to combine that with the increasing aversion to romance or sex without critically looking at that is... very toxic to say the least.
so where it’s standing right now, i don’t think including asexual or aromatic people in LGBT spaces on the basis of those identities is a good idea. one community advocates for the acceptance of sex, whereas the other is stigmatizing it and painting off those who are in fact oppressed for their transness or homosexuality, as the oppressors. it clashes and it doesn’t work. the ‘ace / aro’ community (quote unquote bc i see ‘ace’ being used a lot to imply superiority over ‘allosexuals’ like, theyre being the ace at something) has too many issues, which it is largely based on, to figure out. it can be a community on its own and i do not think you need to join LGBT to have a valid identity that has something to do with sexuality or gender and deals with a form of stigma.
it woukd be a rant, i warned you lol
#asks#anon#the asexual comm#homophobia //#transphobia //#lesbophobia //#rape mention //#serophobia //
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Simple Racism? Maybe it’s more complex than that
Looking at the abuse Caitriona Balfe receives on a daily basis from supposedly ‘feminist’ women (′sisters’!? don’t make me larf ) because she has apparently married the ‘wrong’ man, a man who doesn’t fit in with the kind of man they wank over: outrageously handsome, six-pack, boyish charm, outward personality, lots of PDA, financially successful......someone like Sam (aaaaaah.....), it puts me in mind of the great Meghan/Kate debate.
I know a lot of people, particularly Americans and Persons-of-Colour, had an understandable knee-jerk reaction to the way Meghan, an American citizen AND a woman-of-colour, has been treated by the British Press and some of the public. However the way in which she was (unfairly) compared to Kate has more to it than simple racism. Here’s an interesting article from The Atlantic Magazine, 16th January 2020 that explores the issues:
Meghan, Kate, and the Architecture of Misogyny
Policing correct female behavior keeps all women in their place.
HELEN LEWIS
Are you Team Kate or Team Meghan? If you’re anything like me, you don’t want to pick a side—and you don’t think there should be “sides” at all. Yet ever since Meghan Markle married Prince Harry, parts of the media have pitted the former actor against her sister-in-law.
Where Kate Middleton was once depicted as a dull social climber, she is now presented as the epitome of female virtue: a respectable, silent, discreet, and selfless mother. Meghan must therefore be her opposite—a political, manipulative, “woke” careerist.
Essentially, the two duchesses have been assigned to opposite sides of the culture war. All kinds of seemingly unrelated items have become symbols of one side or the other—quinoa, avocados, the English flag, attitudes toward the death penalty—and now Kate and Meghan have been conscripted too.
Kate is held up as an icon for traditionalists, metaphorically baking cookies (as Hillary Clinton once said stay-at-home mothers do), while Meghan has become the emblem of modern womanhood, outspoken and socially progressive. Never mind that they might just be following their own personalities and interests; they have become representatives of two distinct political positions. By carving up the messiness of female lives into a stark binary, the choices open to all women—not just Meghan and Kate—are limited.Women’s lives provide a particularly vivid arena for the clash between traditionalism and modernity because we love to interpret women’s choices as commentary on other women’s choices. The Meghan-versus-Kate clash has echoes of the “Mommy Wars,” the feminist shorthand for how every decision made by a mother is interpreted as a rebuke to other mothers who choose differently—breast- versus bottle-feeding, C-section versus “natural birth,” stay-at-home mother versus “supermom.” (It is notable that Prince William and Prince Harry, despite their own different temperaments and approaches, are not being turned into cultural avatars in the same way.)
There is a long tradition of regulating female behavior by defining women in opposition to one another. It is a familiar pattern in the coverage of American first ladies too: Think Laura Bush versus Clinton or Melania Trump versus Michelle Obama. While researching my history of feminism, Difficult Women, I was struck by a pattern in which “good girls” are promised an escape from misogyny, as long as they are docile and conformist—a pattern that has race- and class-based overtones. When Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney staged the first suffragette protest, in Manchester in 1905, a newspaper article about the ensuing court case condemned their behavior—they shouted and spat at policemen—saying it resembled that of women “from the slums.” The report added: “It was regrettable that such a charge should be brought against persons who ought, at least, to be able to control themselves.” The aristocrat Lady Constance Bulwer-Lytton, another suffragette, wrote in her memoir that upper-class women were inculcated with “a maiming subserviency … so conditional to their very existence that it becomes an aim in itself, an ideal.”
Kate has now been anointed as the standard-bearer of that ideal. Tabloid headlines about her have become noticeably kinder since Prince Harry’s relationship with Meghan was announced. She was once deemed vulgar and hopelessly bourgeois, a schemer who chose to study at the University of St Andrews in Scotland precisely to ensnare Prince William. She and her younger sibling Pippa were the “wisteria sisters”—“highly decorative, terribly fragrant and with a ferocious ability to climb.”
How times change. Kate is now the woman against whom Meghan is judged and found wanting. “Of all the pictures published in this tumultuous week for the Royal Family, one stood out for me,” the Daily Mail’s Amanda Platell wrote on January 10. “It was of a smiling mother-of-three in jeans and a jumper … No tears or tantrums here, just a woman happy with her lot and who understands how to behave as a royal.” (Platell, like many other columnists in British right-wing newspapers, is a recent convert to Katemania, having previously condemned her “wardrobe malfunctions,” long hair, approach to parenting, and flight-attendant mother.)
This new valorization of Kate is racially inflected, because Britain’s most durable template of respectable womanhood—the “English rose”—is much less accessible to anyone foreign or dark-skinned. The language used to indicate Meghan’s blackness has been noted by some writers, even as it fails to register with many white Britons: She is “exotic,” “urban,” “straight outta Compton.” The author Afua Hirsch told NPR that mixed-race people see in the coverage of Meghan “very colonial narratives about how we should be so grateful that we were allowed in.” But this “English rose” framing is not an unalloyed benefit for those anointed as the “right” kind of women, either. If minority and working-class women are attacked for being unruly and ungrateful—for not knowing their place—their wealthier white sisters are, in the feminist theorist Catharine MacKinnon’s description, dismissed as “effete, pampered, privileged, protected, flighty, and self-indulgent.”
The pro-Meghan side has also embraced the culture war. She has been presented as a symbol of change—the first person of color in the royal family, an avowed feminist, a divorcée, and a woman with a successful career of her own. But as Nesrine Malik, the author of We Need New Stories, has argued, the radicalism of an actor marrying an aristocrat has often been overstated as a marker of progress. “When black and brown voices heralded the Meghan-Harry wedding as some sort of watershed moment on race it was, to use a problematic word, problematic,” she wrote. Inevitably, there are those who argue that any criticism of Meghan must be driven by racism. Although some of it undoubtedly is, Britain also has a long tradition of deeming royal women unsuitable— yet pointing this out is taken as denialism and white obliviousness.
As a result, much current commentary reads less like scrutiny of the specific situation at hand and more like artillery barrages in a proxy war. The real subject is anxiety over female emancipation and women’s roles in public life. In this framing, any praise for one duchess must be a negative commentary on the other. To be pro-Meghan is to be anti-Kate, and vice versa. Everyone is invited to pick a side, as if choosing a sports team. It is part of a broader trend where political discussions morph into something closer to battles between fandoms.
The trouble with a culture war—the reason there’s never a cease-fire—is that everyone gets what they want from it. One side prides itself on “defending traditional values,” speaking the plain truth about snowflake-Millennial duchesses and sticking up for the Queen (What did she do to deserve this?). The other sees itself as championing diversity and progressive values, standing up to racism and calling out the excesses of the media. Television and radio programs get inflammatory debates; participants burnish their in-group membership; big political arguments are thrashed out on-screen alongside pictures of attractive celebrities in lovely clothes.
But all women lose when women’s lives are boiled down to these simple binaries: selfless mother against ruthless careerist. Meghan is a mother too. Kate has political interests, such as mental health and early-childhood education. Both have nannies and live in homes worth millions. Not everything they do is “sending a signal” or “making a statement”; some of their personal choices are just that: personal choices. By focusing only on the differences between them, we lose sight of the institutions—the royal family and the architecture of misogyny—that constrain them both.
HELEN LEWIS
is a London-based staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights
[For the record, like most people here, I was delighted when Prince Harry married Meghan, not least because she was a woman-of-colour, thus making the monarchy at a stroke more inclusive for people-of-colour who might otherwise feel excluded. Which is why I am so disappointed - indeed, pissed off- at them for apparently cutting and running. Britain has made huge strides in the last 60 years to being a more inclusive country, to the point where the second and third most important government ministers (Treasury and Home (Interior)) are people of colour. In a f*cking Conservative government, mind you! A point conveniently overlooked by certain NYT/Guardian journalists who have made a career out of ‘proving’ how racist -and sexist - we Brits are. And yes, I know, much, much remains to be done. We’ve only had two women Prime Ministers, for example...so far.]
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I'm a good writer, seriously!! lol - #1, 4, 5 and 10 ^_^
Thank you for the ask, @darknightfrombeyond! I’m gonna do a little (lie, a lot) of shameless self-promoting to build up my answers here.
1. of the fic you’ve written, which are you most proud of?
My longest and most updated work has been my HP series, The Barton Saga. I divide the years by stories, and of the three I’ve republished so far, I’m the proudest of second year (or Book Two as I labelled it), which is called “The Phantom Behind Me.”
The ‘republished’ part wasn’t a misspelling. When I began writing fanfics, it was with this series but the first round of drafts were, like, shameless self-insert and awful writing. Back then, I’d started only because I wanted to develop my writing skills in English (it’s my second language) and I wanted to have fun while doing so. When I was accepted into an university, there was a considerable development in my writing and I, attached to the story, I decided to give it an honest try and develop the characters more.
What I did? I gave my OCs completly different personalities from their original ones. Anya Barton (my main muse) went from a timid girl to a girl with anger issues and once-mentioned OCs became supporting characters; they gained personalities while also becoming Anya’s moral compases (as in, they were gray characters who showed her there were more than just two paths to take). And instead of coming up with ideas on a whim, I had my defining plot twists/points written on a document.
Then my computer crashed and I lost all my work (I had up to sixth year). I was devasted and lost motivation. The story remained on hiatus for a while because my homework load increased and I was doing practice on the field. It was under this pressure that I decided to give it one final try—and rewrote the complete thing for a second time (and it is my current work).
This time I have the finest details down on a notebook. The major plot points are still the same, but some were moved or added to further develop the background characters. Since this second rewrite, I’ve updating two chapters (of at least 6,000 words) every four-to-six months and I’m currently in the beginning of third year.
Now, why is “The Phantom Behind Me” my favorite fic? It’s because I, who’d started this project as a learning experience, reached a new level of dept. Yes, I’m bragging a little because I reached it (or better said, fell into it) but I can’t seem to get out of it as much as I try.
You know what happens in Chamber of Secrets—the chamber is opened and Voldemort’s younger self is the culprit. But here, I shifted the other major plot point towards Anya—and somehow, the story went from a magical/suspenseful adventure to a psychological fight between a girl with trust/anger issues (and who has recently discovered a grim fact) and a sadistic teenager who, in his own way, believes has acted on account of Anya’s well-being (all while secretly plotting his evil plan). A lot is left unsaid in the writing, but what is implied it’s chilling and heartbreaking.
That story is completed but I’ve left the characters at a standstill. Friendships at the moment are fraught and Anya’s mind is balancing the thin line between reluctant acceptance and despair. Like I said before, I can’t seem to get her out of that funk. And funnily enough, I know this is realistic—who has ever gone through a painful experience and gotten over it in two months? No one, at least that I know.
So yes, this spiel is the reason why I both love and hate “The Phantom Behind Me” —I love it because it is my best work so far, but hate it because it hinders me from moving to what is supposed to be a fast-paced plot (in my case) with Prisoner of Azkaban.
4. what are some themes you love writing about?
I started out with romance (let’s be honest, who doesn’t with fandom?) but eventually chuked it (slightly) in favor of friendship and sisterhood.
Both are current themes in all my works—for example, with “To Be Human” (a Flash fic), I flat out start with the OC and her love interest at odds and focus on contrasting their developing relationship with the OC’s defining relationships, in particular her best friend and her surrogate father. With the Barton Saga, the endgame is Harry Potter/OC, but they obviously forge their bond through all the life-threatening adventures they face (not to mention they are still growing and learning to be their own persons) and Anya also navigates the waters with tentative friendships (like Marie Harlaown, her smart-yet-romantic-at-heart Raveclaw friend, or Theodore Nott, the Slytherin who reaches out to Anya in the hopes of escaping his father’s shadow).
The same happens with my other plot bunnies: my Doctor Who OC? She starts traveling with the Doctor because her best friend was kidnapped by an alien. My MCU OC? She’s Tony’s half-sister and the whole point of the series is how they bring out the best and worst out of each other while they learn to accept it and eventually grow to care deeply for the other.
5. what inspires you to write?
It depends on what I’m doing or what I’m watching. Generally, I work best under pressure because it matches the hint of urgency underlying my stories. But it usually takes for some good sources (like, maybe a fanfic I’m reading of the same fandom or watching the source itself) to motivate me and I’m back to my little notebook of ideas.
10. what are your strengths wrt writing?
I know how to develop an idea. No matter what I’m writing (it can be an essay or fiction), I always know where I start and where I end. Well, I don’t outright know, but before I write, I decide these two aspects. Personally, knowing where I’m going gives me a lot of leeway in developing the main idea/plot.
Another strength that I’ve noticed (one that I decided to take from my favorite HP author on wattpad, K.M. Bell) is taking an overused plot/plot twist and give it its own plot twist.
Examples in my stories (SPOILERS) (also shamelessly self-promoting):
1. Anya is an orphan because of Voldemort (shocking, I know), but she is actually comfortable with her life. She is not mistreated and has had, in fact, a very good education and relationship with the employees of her orphanage.
2. It’s Albus Dumbledore who gives Anya her Hogwarts letter (even more shocking, I hope) and convinces Anya from leaving her comfortable life with a tantalizing offer of knowledge about her parents. Like in true canon fashion, he witholds the important bits, but this is because he knows too much about her family and has been judging Anya in base of that. (This eventually will result with Anya no longer trusting him and taking matters into her hands.)
3. Hermione is Anya’s best friend. At first. Because they have a falling out at the end of their second year (read question 1 above) and while they remain friendly, they don’t trust each other with personal matters anymore.
4. SPOILER OF SPOILERS (but already revealed): Anya is Voldemort’s granddaughter. Her father, Alec Barton, who supposedly spent all of his adulthood fighting against Voldemort, is in fact his son.
Angelique Barton (Anya’s grandmother) hated Riddle throughout her childhood and gave a very twisted meaning to the quote “have your enemies closer” when she decided to enter a relationship with him. Angelique eventually realized how wrong her obssessive quest was and decided to take off with her son. Alec always knew his father’s identity, but it wasn’t until Voldemort made his first public appearance that he realized how deep both Riddle and Angelique had fallen and he, ashamed, decided to make a public stand against him under the belief that his good deeds would eventually outweight his parents’ mistakes.
(slight spoiler) It didn’t work out as expected—evidence number 1 being Anya.
•••
So sorry for the long answers but I was inspired!
#anya barton#oc: anya barton#thebartonsaga#series: the barton saga#fd: harry potter#ask me some stuff#ask me about my ocs#me answering some stuff
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Hello, I thoroughly enjoy your in depth analysis on 19 days and wanted your opinion. If you had to classify each character as a personality trait what would it be? It doesn't have to be their best or worse. Thank you!
‘Lo! Anon-san, I’m sorry, I know you asked this question yesterday, but I didn’t have time, so I’m kinda late with replying. Ofc it’s always a pleasure to know that people find shorts bits I write entertaining/interesting.
Concerning your question, it’s very thought-provoking (somehow it made me think of Tarot cards hmm) even though I doubt I’ll tell you anything ground-breaking.
Momo
To me, one of the most notable qualities that define him as a character is his ability to persevere. Let’s face it: life hasn’t been kind to him. He’d faced prejudices based on people’s ignorance regarding his father, he’d faced having everything taken away from him — people theorize that the restaurant where everything went south belonged to the Mo’s, meaning that they were relatively well-off and thus had lost both their status and money. We can also gather that Mo had been ostracised and isolated by his peers, which supposedly led him to fall in with the wrong gang — that one of She Li — where he had been treated like shit and ostensibly made to participate in questionable things. Even now he has to deal with his family debts and debts collectors that go hand in hand with that. Despite all that nasty stuff he doesn’t break down, doesn’t become a completely embittered ball of hatred. Doesn’t stoop to debasing himself either — that’s something commendable. The thing is that his perseverance often takes a form of withdrawing into his own shell. While it’s a perfectly understandable defence mechanism, it’s also a double-edged sword: Mo doesn’t trust easily, doesn’t see the need to let anyone into his life. His views of others are skewed and tinted by his often tragic experiences. Moreover, he’s obstinate in doing so. Once his views are set in stone, he’s reluctant to change them. With that said, I do believe that he represents tenacity mixed with obstinacy.
He Tian / He Cheng
With He Tian, I’m a bit on a fence, ahaha. I’d say that one of the key traits that define him for me is his self-will, his streak to do things as he sees fit. Given his history of acting haughty (bossing Mo around), it’s both a flaw and a boon. Nevertheless, I do consider it to be his strong suit. He had a spine to see that his family (father presumably) is up to no good. He had a spine to break away from them, to realize he’s his own person. He had a spine to start living on his own — again presumably at a very young age. While some may say that he’s always had everything handed to him on a silver platter, it still takes a LOT of balls to start living on your own when you are fifteen or younger, and it takes much more to rebel when your family dabbles in criminal activities. I should also point out that despite being headstrong and willful He Tian’s also selfless and kind, even though it may take on twisted forms. There’s also something else that defines He Tian for me, and that is his ability to put on a facade, to grin and bear it. OX has shown several times that he’s lonely and suffering deeply from his past traumas, yet when he’s out there, he never shows the world his pain. Nobody knows how much hurt is hidden behind those eyes. Again, it’s neither good or bad; still, it takes a strong character to keep on smiling despite feeling dead inside. This stoicism is a trait he shares with He Cheng, though HC takes it up to eleven.
Zhan Zheng Xi
We see so little of his inner world which is definitely a shame. For me ZZX embodies moderation. He always seems to be reserved in things he says, things he does, in things he wears — and he’s completely fine with that. Also, he gives me an impression of someone committed to being organized and punctual. He’s the one to keep his head cool whenever the duo encountered Mo, to the point when he de facto refused to twist Momo’s balls. In general, he seems to think a bit before acting — but that is not to say that he’s always the mature one. However more often than not it was ZZX who prevented (or tried to prevent) Jian Yi from doing foolish stuff. So I think that moderation suits him well, as banal as it may sound.
Jian Yi
He’s the one that is most amiable and open among the other boys. I believe it stems from him having a lonely childhood — we saw that other children often bullied him too, and unlike Momo, he didn’t have his mom there for him most of the time. We also know that Jian Yi longed to have a company — to have physical proof that he’s not alone. And this is partly what drives him to ultimately forgive his wrongdoers and to hold no grudges against them to the point of becoming buddies. We see it happen with Momo and that girl who had a crush on ZZX. So he could definitely embody amicability. However, there’s another trait that he seems to represent, at least to my mind. And that is giddiness. He’s effervescent, very lively, always in motion, nearly always acting on his whims. His mood is very protean too — you could argue that his ability to change his attitude towards those who wronged him is also a part of his mutability. Again, this is neither a good nor a bad trait, yet it makes Jian Yi very flexible when needed. In that regard, he’s the opposite of Momo, who’s slow/reluctant to change. So yeah, for me Jian Yi represents the ability to change and adapt.
Regarding other characters, like She Li or brother Qiu, I think I’d like to have more input data before assessing them. I’m sure that both of them are fascinating and simply didn’t get the chance to steal the spotlight yet. Again all of it is just my opinion. It goes without saying that OX has put an incredible effort into creating multifaceted characters that are so much more than they appear to be at a glance, and they simply cannot be described with just one trait.
#19 days#thank you for the fascinating ask~#it had me thinking about deeper stuff#long post#mo guan shan#he tian#zhan zheng xi#jian yi#he cheng#ask#anonymous
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BECAUSE I’M NOT POPULAR, I’LL READ WATAMOTE: CHAPTER #164
Hey, not dropping the ball actually worked!
We’re just a hair’s length away from summer vacation, but unlike last year when Tomoko approached summer with not much consideration, she’s now taking a proactive role in deciding how to spend her last summer in high school. At first glance, Tomoko appears to have become a responsible, young lady. But as we soon will see, that can-do attitude may not be as refined as it looks on the surface.
Chapter 164: Because I’m Not Popular, I’ll Do My Best Starting From Summer Break
There’s that time period during the day when most students have already left but school hasn't quite closed up. It’s pretty creepy, even more so before summer break when you’re expected not to stick around.
Have I mentioned Itou is a cute? ‘Cause she is.
It’s usually her looking after Komiyama, so it’s really sweet to see the dynamic flipped around like this. Despite, well, everything, Komiyama is a good friend.
Assuming that cheering for the baseball teams is optional, it’s endearing to see Itou go through with it. Even though baseball isn’t her thing, she’s likely doing it to support her bestie, which I can 110% get behind.
Ah, right. Dude’s in the manga club. That said, I wonder if their plans are for just being attendees, or if they’ll actually be manning a booth and selling their work. With his skills and, er, preferences, I think Hatsushiba could do the latter.
Don’t be so modest, Tomoko. There’s no slouching either when you’re a three-year veteran of the Going-Home Club.
Studying during summer break? Outrageous!!
It’s intriguing to see just how Tomoko’s study habits have evolved throughout the series. The early days would see her spend summer goofing off on her hobbies, with bare minimum concern for academics. But now, Tomoko is actually considering studying on her own accord. Sure, it’s more-or-less a fallback when she has nothing else planned, but the thought itself is still worth mentioning.
Is that one of those mini-fans that you can carry around in your bag? I love those things.
Study camp, huh? Any other day, Tomoko would be apathetic to the idea, leaning more on the side of brushing it off. But having Katou bring it up makes all the difference, ‘cause let’s be real. Katou could ask her to sign up for a hostess bar at the Red Light District and Tomoko would still seriously consider it.
Miss you, Yuu-chan.
I second that, Komi. Fourteen hours of studying a day is brutal, even if that’s to be expected in what is essentially a boot camp. I’ve always questioned the efficiency of cram schools and the like, mostly because they seem to prepare more for short-term memorization than long-term understanding. But even it actually works in principle...
...I’m not sure Tomoko will be able to handle it.
Perhaps it’s just me, but it feels like Tomoko is overestimating her discipline for studying. She already struggled with Katou’s flashcards and study sessions that a whole training camp feels like it would have a more detrimental effect on Tomoko than a positive one. “Work hard, play hard” was never meant to be that extreme, Tomoko.
That’s...genuinely uplighting. Tomoko has missed out on several of the key “memorable” high school moments, and she usually lets it go with only mild regrets. But here, Tomoko’s actively trying to gain what she once lost. Sure, she’s trying to “game the social system” a little, but what did you expect? She’s a person, not a saint.
This was Yuu’s only line in this entire chapter. My girl deserves more than this.
Will the 2% of Tomoko’s personality that is tsundere ever realize that if you really “didn’t care either way”, then you wouldn’t have asked the question to begin with? Doubt it.
That romaji tho.
It comes to the surprise of absolutely no one that Komiyama has some pretty...vivid fantasies about Tomoki. But what stands out to me is how deep into the relationship her thoughts go. Most people fantasize about their crush first in their sexual attractiveness, but only a few ever dream beyond that. Ironically, you know your crushing has gone off the deep end if you start thinking about them in domestic, SFW ways. Least Komi’s committed, yeah?
Gee, I wonder what’s that “and stuff” Tomoko’s talking about?masturbating
Nothing like a fresh bowl of Grossi-Os and Gross Juice to start the day!
If what Yuri says is true, then that would mean that she and Ucchi have probably walked to school together several times before–more than the couple of times we’ve seen, at least. And even so, it doesn’t look like they haven’t gotten much closer as friends, if at all. Some people just don’t click, I suppose.
Not sure how blind Ucchi is because anybody with a pair of eyes (beady or not) would see that Yuri has friends, even if you only count Mako. Poor girl just can’t accept the truth even when it's right in front of her face.
Ah, Yuri. Why can’t you just drop the “savior” act and just admit you want to spend time with her?
I’m inclined to agree about Yoshida, but who knows? She’s surprised us before. Mako's a safe bet, though. Especially if the former’s going. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Boy, does that take me back. It still blows my mind that all of Ucchi’s problems originated from one night of misunderstandings. The art nerd in me really appreciates the subtle improvement in Niko’s art style. The character models feel “weightier” and more consistent without compromising the stylization.
You don’t see it in the previous panel, but Ucchi was totally blushing at the prospect of reliving her trauma/dream. Perhaps she was also looking to live out that ping pong match she never got.
I’m not sure if there was some kind of wordplay in the original text. Either way, it kind of sucks for Yuu-chan that she got such a “flattering” nickname when she wasn’t involved in that scenario whatsoever. Though it sure is a tad classier than Miss Akari “Dick Sister Jr.’ Iguchi.
It’s kind of (read: absolutely) frightening how Katou’s envy towards Yuu feels a lot more intense than Yuri’s. Perhaps it’s because Yuri’s so transparent that you know how to deal with her. But with Katou, that air of secrecy feels like a nuclear bomb about to go off.
I always wondered where girls picked up that thing where they intertwine their fingers as a sign of affection. It’s precious.
Praise modern technology for convenient storytelling.
Wow, Fuuka’s already made her mark on Tomoko’s “bitch” list. Though exactly why she’s on that list now is kind of odd. I mean, yeah, she asked Tomoko about the whole fondling thing, and she unintentionally presented herself as a pervert for the whole “hair” thing, but Fuuka hasn’t really done anything all that terrible. If anything, Tomoko is probably expressing a rare bit of jealousy towards someone else supposedly perving on Katou besides her.
The most striking part about Fuuka’s inevitably failed plan is that she describes Tomoko’s appearance as “sudden”. It was touched on before, but it further emphasizes that Tomoko’s friendship with Katou was just as unexpectedly quick in-universe as it was for the readers. And in doing so, it brings us one step closer to the real mystery over why Katou is so enamored with Tomoko in the first place.
Ya’ll know Sayaka’s got her homegirl’s back on this one. Let’s see (hopefully) how Akari screws it up.
Chapter 58, mothereffers!
I don’t know whether I’d say Nico Tanigawa has been playing the long game, or if they just found a convenient throwaway to capitalize on. But the acknowledgment itself is very much appreciated. Tomoko may have forgotten, naturally, but us overzealous fans certainly never did!
The chills, man. Chill’s right up the spine.
It’s certainly true that Tomoko’s words can be interpreted in a good or bad way, so it’s pretty telling that Katou’s gut reaction went for the latter. It suggests that Katou may actually have some insecurities that can easily set her off. Then again, a defining part of Katou’s personality is that she takes everything Tomoko says at completely face value, so maybe she’s starting to see Tomoko’s negativity even if it’s not there. Just more of the enigma that is Asuka Katou.
Not a bad save, Tomoko. Countless battles with shame have made her quick on the fly. Unfortunately, while she’s improved at starting a save...
...she still doesn’t know how to end it.
It would’ve been a clean getaway if Tomoko had just ended about half-way in the above panel. But because Tomoko’s anxiety causes her to try and cover all the bases, she ends up rambling suspiciously. The part about Nemo isn’t even that relevant, but in her burst of defensiveness, Tomoko ends up saying things that could just exacerbate the problem even further.
Fucking shit, Katou is damn scary.
The one fortunate thing about Tomoko’s defensive rambles is that once she starts to cool down, her honesty starts coming out more organically. Self-deprecation becomes self-reflection, and brings to the forefront Tomoko’s endearing side.
Only Tomoko could spout such a cliché moe line and sound so pure of heart. Must be the irony.
Aha. Ahaha. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
–that totally didn’t happen.
Tomoko, girl, you’re in the CLEAR! Stop trying to fan flames that have already been put out.
But on that note, it does affirm that while Tomoko is honest with Katou about certain things (perversion, laziness), she isn’t quite ready to be honest on anything that would paint Katou in a bad light. I’d say tha’st about 85% due to fear.
Death Flags raised all around.
I had a feeling that Nemo would take the plunge this time and invite Tomoko out somewhere during the summer. It seems like such an insignificant gesture, but considering that this is the very first time a classmate has asked to hang out with her during the summer, it warms my heart.
Hey now, Tomoko. Don’t get cocky when you’re maximizing your own goof-off time by taking a study camp.
The easy guess is that Nemo wants to go to Comiket. But really, it could be anything that Tomoko would have an interest in. And because it’s implied that Nemo is going for research purposes, it could be anything from a seiyuu panel (the last one went so well) to a hot spring to a hentai game company. Hope they bring Okada along...
Mama senses her daughter’s giving in to peer pressure.
Not gonna lie. This hand gesturing from Rena made me think that she was thinking about doing...something else.
Damn mind-in-the-gutter.
Even though Anna doesn’t appear to be the studious type, it’s pretty cool to see that she can respect people who are. Also, I dig the way she wears her tie (or is that a ribbon?).
Emoji II really has become an honorary delinquent and it fits her perfectly.
I guess no matter how much more grounded Tomoko becomes, she still thinks reading manga is legitimate practice for playing in real-life (though tabletop games may actually allow for some truth).
Sub!Tomoko confirmed.
What a way to end a chapter. For the longest, Katou had always viewed Tomoko through a pair of rose-tinted glasses, always seeing the girl’s faults as endearing “quirks”. But as her soul-piercing gaze seems to indicate, Katou has reached a revelation about Tomoko that she can actually disapprove of. Whether or not it’ll shatter her illusion of Tomoko is still unclear, but how she treats Tomoko from here on out may finally give us a deeper look into Katou’s psyche.
160+ chapters we’ve followed Tomoko, and we’re still learning new things about her. The very extent of Tomoko’s agency has always been a tad murky. She’s good at (poorly) executing short-term ideas, but hardly does she plan out and follow up on her long-term goals. Even her greatest milestone of making friends involved a lot of pushing from outsiders (Ogino, the most obvious case). That said, having to take charge of herself for once is inescapable with college on the horizon. How she goes about it amongst her various mom-friends may end up being Tomoko’s biggest personal challenge yet.
#watamote#watamote review#chapter 164#no matter how i look at it it's you guys' fault i'm not popular!#tomoko kuroki#kotomi komiyama#hikari itou#hatsushiba#asuka katou#yuu naruse#yuri tamura#emiri uchi#sasaki fuuka#hina nemoto#rena#anna haruna#review
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Scars (Draco Malfoy x Reader)
Warnings: none
Requested
You turned to look at yourself in the mirror from a different angle and sighed sadly at your reflection. As always, this was as good as it was going to get.
Before rushing out the door, you grabbed your robes from your bed and put them on, careful to pull the sleeves down far enough to cover the scar on your left arm.
You hated that scar. You hated a lot of things about yourself, but that scar was hands down your least favorite feature.
Hurriedly you speed-walked to class, praying that you wouldn’t be late again to charms.
You managed to rush in just as professor Flitwick began the lesson.
The only seat open was next to Draco Malfoy. You didn’t really know him, but you certainly knew OF him. He had quite the reputation among your house and honestly among the whole school. You probably would have rather sat by anyone else, but this is what you get for walking in late.
As quietly as possible, you slipped into the seat next to Draco and pulled out your wand. You searched through your bag for your textbook, but couldn’t find it.
Dang it. You must’ve left it in the dormitory.
“Forgot your book?” Draco asked quietly.
You felt your face grow hot with embarrassment. First walking in late, then forgetting your textbook. What was next?
“I must have.” You tried to sound nonchalant.
“We can share,” he pushed his book toward you and flashed a small smile, “if you want to.”
Your eyes narrowed in confusion. This couldn’t be the Draco that everyone talked about. That Draco would have laughed at you, or said something like “running late Y/L/N?” Very loudly just so the whole class would look at you. This Draco seemed... nice.
“Thank you.” You said giving a little half smile in return.
Flitwick carried on with the lesson, which was just a review of charms you had learned your first and second year, but were now reviewing for the upcoming O.W.L.s (turns out you didn’t even need your textbook.) and eventually turned the time over to you and the rest of the class to practice.
“I don’t know why we need to review these.” Draco said, conjuring a small flame from the tip of his wand, “I’m sure none of us have forgotten the classic flitwick ‘swish and flick’.”
You laughed a little at his Flitwick impression and continued your own review practice, mildly aware of the boy behind you who seemed to be struggling with Incendio.
“Finnigan.” Flitwick said to the boy, “You learned this spell in your first year! Remember your wand movement. And for heaven’s sake, point your wand somewhere else!”
“Incendio!” The boy aggressively shook his wand and a massive flame erupted from it. Immediately, people started screaming and jumped from their seats to avoid the flame.
You jumped up to, but you weren’t quick enough and your sleeve caught fire.
Your eyes widened and you shook your arm, desperate to put out the flames climbing further and further up your arm.
“Your sleeve is on fire!” A girl pointed out.
“I can see that!” you snapped back at her.
Draco scrambled for his wand and pointed it at your robes.
“Aguamenti!”
Water gushed out of the wand and drenched the whole left side of your body.
The flame was out, but now you stood in front of your peers not only late and without a textbook, but now sopping wet, with one sleeve of your robes almost completely disintegrated.
“Uh… sorry about that.” The boy that had started the fire said sheepishly.
“It’s fine.” You said. Anxious for class to be over so you could change.
“Oh my gosh!” The same observant girl from earlier said, “Your arm! Is that from the fire??”
Everyone, including you, looked down at your sleeveless arm. The scar you tried every day so desperately to hide was now in plain sight for everyone to see.
“It can’t have scarred that badly already you dimwit.” Seamus told the girl, his voice laced with annoyance.
Quiet gasps and whispers rumbled through the classroom as they all began to notice your arm. You felt your face growing hotter and hotter and the voices around you mixed together in your ears until it sounded like you were under water. You needed to get out.
You pushed past several of your classmates in an effort to get out the door. Once in the hallway you ran. Down staircases, through corridors, and finally out to a secluded courtyard where you let yourself slump against a cool stone wall.
You were so embarrassed. Not only because of scar at this point, but because you had actually run from the classroom. You ran away. You’re so dramatic. Why couldn’t you have just been okay with it? Why couldn’t you have just laughed it off like a normal, secure person would have done? Why did you always hide that stupid scar anyway? Someone was bound to see it eventually. Hiding it for the past four years had just been delaying the inevitable. It was a part of you and you couldn’t get rid of it. You just needed to accept that.
Hot tears rolled down your cheeks as you silently loathed yourself.
“Hey.”
A quiet voice startled you and you looked up to see Draco, standing with his hands in his pockets, bouncing awkwardly on his heels.
“Can I sit?” He gestured to the ground next to you.
You couldn’t believe that this was Draco Malfoy. This boy who everyone was afraid of. Who supposedly hated Gryffindor. Who people said could have been the son of Voldemort himself. Who bragged about his money and his family and his blood status. The boy that cared about nobody and nobody seemed to care for.
And yet, standing in front of you now, he was none of those things. He was Draco malfoy. The boy who smiled at you when you walked in late. Who shared his textbook with you when you forgot yours, who put out the fire that had nearly engulfed you, who had followed you out of the classroom after your ridiculous exit and was now asking to sit next to you on the cold and uncomfortable ground.
“Sure.” You said softly, avoiding eye contact.
For a moment the two of you just sat there silently staring at the opposing stone wall. You weren’t about to be the first one to speak up, especially given the fact that you were still crying and probably couldn’t speak if you wanted to. Luckily, Draco finally gave into the silence and said something.
“So,” He started awkwardly, “Cool scar.”
Of course that would be the first thing he mentioned. He said “cool” almost like he meant it. But you knew he couldn’t. It was horrible. It made your arm look like a carcass and you knew it.
“Look. You don’t have to lie to me.” You mumbled, “I know it’s terrible.”
“What?” Draco asked, sounding genuinely surprised, “It’s not terrible! I really think it’s cool.”
You raised an eyebrow.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing,” You said, “ I just don’t believe you. That’s all.”
“Will you just take a compliment?” Draco raised his voice slightly, “I think it’s cool. That’s all. If you don’t believe me that’s your problem.”
You weren’t sure how to react to his little outburst, so instead you just didn’t say anything.
“I’m sorry.” Draco said softly, “I just think it’s kind of dumb that you hide it.”
You still stayed silent. You knew it was dumb to hide it. But you weren’t going to stop.
“I mean, it’s fine that you do,” Draco continued, “But is it really that big of a deal if people see it? Maybe you hate it. Maybe it’s your least favorite part of yourself. But that doesn’t matter. That scar is just a scar. It doesn’t define you.”
“And what does define me then?” You finally spoke up.
Draco thought for a minute.
“I guess that’s up to you. You can let that scar define you or you can define yourself based on your fun personality, or your wicked sense of humor. When it comes down to it, you’re the one that gets to decide who you are.” He explained, “People will label you based on a million different things, but if you know who you are, their opinions shouldn’t matter.”
You stayed silent for a minute, thinking about everything Draco had just said. Of course he was right, and it did put a new perspective on your insecurities, but you couldn’t help wondering if he had really been saying all of that to convince you of it, or to convince himself.
“How do you define yourself?” You asked curiously.
Draco looked into your eyes with an unreadable expression for a minute before answering.
“I’m not really sure yet.” He finally decided.
“Me too.” You said softly.
“Well, I guess that’s something we have in common.” Draco flashed a little smile.
“I guess so.” You echoed, mirroring his grin.
“Soo…” Draco started after a minute, “What do you say we don’t go back to class and take a rebellious walk down to Hogsmeade’s for some ice cream instead?”
Your smile widened.
“I’d be okay with that.” You said.
“Good!” Draco stood and put out his hand to help you up, and then gestured to your charred robes, “You may want to change first.”
“Are you kidding?” You asked, “I’m not going to let my ruined robes define me.”
“Oh...” Draco said uncomfortably, “I mean… If that’s what you want…”
You tried to hide the smile tugging at the corners of your mouth, but a laugh burst from your lips.
“I’m kidding!” You giggled.
Draco visibly relaxed and playfully hit your arm.
“Geez. I thought you were serious!” He laughed, “I wanted you to take my words to heart, but I didn’t think you’d take them that far. You’re practically wearing rags right now”
“On second thought, I might start a trend.” You pointed out.
“You might.” Draco nodded, “Or you could just change already so we can get going!”
He pushed you forward lightly and you laughed.
“Okay, okay!” You said, “I’ll meet you back here in ten minutes.”
You smiled as you practically ran back to your dormitory. You were ready to embrace your scar and you were glad that Draco was around to help you do it.
#Draco Malfoy#draco malfoy x reader#draco x reader#draco fanfic#harry potter fanfiction#harry potter x reader#Harry Potter#x reader#fluff#hogwarts
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Ghosts Caught on Audio: The 7 Recordings and EVPs You Have to Listen To
It was only a week ago that I got a question from fellow tumblr user, @madphantom.
@madphantom told me that they picked up some paranormal activity whilst recording audio for a creative project.
The story goes that when they recorded audio for an actor who had died, things started to get weird.
When they replayed the audio, they realised that they had picked up a lot of static, and compared it to the iconic soundtrack from Slenderman’s notorious horror games.
Yikes.
And it was this story that reminded me of one my favourite horror film scenes, basically, ever from one of my favourite horror films, basically, ever.
There’s this scene from the film The Conjuring (which is based on the true case of the haunting of the Perron family) where they record the story of the haunting from one of the victims – the mother of the family.
And upon replaying the audio, they realised it didn’t actually record her voice.
After discussion of some key plot points, the recorder turned itself on and produced some seriously terrifying haunted noises.
Now, this didn’t actually happen as far as I can tell.
But it got me thinking: has paranormal activity ever been caught on audio?
There’s enough faked videos clogging up the youtube trending page to tell you we all love a bit of the supernatural making its online debut, and the same goes for audio recordings.
Go ahead, try ‘creepy audio recordings of the paranormal’ into youtube.
And so I was convinced that essentially, I had come to a dead end.
(Pun unintended.)
But then I remembered something:
Audio recordings are actually really fucking important when it comes to recording and investigating paranormal activity.
Methods like EVP and the use of Spirit Boxes have ruled the domain of ghost hunting since the late 20th century, and represent our desperate search for evidence of life after death.
And so, in today’s edition of The Paranormal Periodical we are going to be discussing the theories and histories behind EVP and Spirit boxes, and the 7 audio recordings of paranormal activity that you have to listen to.
So, what is EVP?
EVP – or electronic voice phenomena – are recorded sounds that have been identified as coming from spirits.
It was popularised by some bloke called Konstantins Raudive, and he himself recorded some seriously amazing EVPs.
He even claimed that he recorded political figures including Hitler and Churchill. Fancy a listen? Find a link to this recording is later in this post.
Now EVP is defined by Raudive as a short word or phrase from beyond the grave.
So no, you won’t be able to squeeze a 3000 word opinion piece from a historical figure of your choosing, I’m afraid.
But the conversation about paranormal audio recordings has been present ever since digital goods hit the shops. Just think of all those blurry photos supposedly evident of the undead!
In fact, it was actually a photographer who tried to capture the first audio recordings.
Attila von Szalay’s first recordings in 1956 apparently caught spirits saying some seriously scary stuff:
“Hot dog, art!...Merry Christmas and happy new year to you all”.
3 years later a swedish guy was recording some bird song.
Each to their own, I guess.
Anyway, he replayed the bird song, and he realised that he had captured evidence of the supernatural.
He made out his dead father’s voice, and even heard the voice of his dead wife. And she was calling his name!
A few recordings later and he picked up a message from another deceased relative, his mother.
Now according to theory, there are 3 types of EVP.
Basically, classification A is a clear voice, B is distinct but requires close listening, and C is a faint whispering.
EVP training is even required for ghost hunting in order to develop the ability to hear messages from the dead. Clearly this is serious business for fellow paranormal believers.
What’s a spirit box?
EVP’s require a digital audio recording.
Spirit boxes on the other hand allow spirits to use radio frequencies to talk to people that are actually alive.
Supposedly the ghosts can manipulate the energy of audio fragments to form words and phrases not unlike those heard in EVPs.
And the great thing about spirit or ghost boxes is that you don’t just listen to the dead – you can actually talk to them!
Normal practice involves asking questions and listening out for rather abstract responses. But the fact is this is one of the most famous and trusted methods of communicating with those beyond the grave.
The first official ghost box was created in the 1990s, and the inventor – Frank Sumpton – created it based off of EVP and an article he read on spirit communication.
But if you aren’t convinced by the ghost box, what about the Spiricom?
Invented in 1980, William O Neil created a device that could actually hold a conversation between a dead and a not so dead person.
Unfortunately – and to no surprise – no one actually reproduced the results O’Neil claimed he had.
Did you know that in 1979 parapyschologist Dr. Rogo claimed that you could get phonecalls from those that had passed away? People frequently report receiving a short one-way call from deceased relatives, and it has even been considered a phenomenon.
So, you’ve heard the theories.
But are you ready for the evidence?
Here are the 7 spookiest audio recordings of spirits:
#1 - The exorcism of Anneliese Michel
This is a recording from possibly the most famous case of possession of modern times.
Heck, it was even given it’s own film to document the case, The Exorcism of Emily Rose.
But if you haven’t heard the tale yourself, the story basically goes like this:
A devout catholic girl starts exhibiting strange behaviour.
From unexplained seizures to claims of hearing multiple ‘evil’ voices, she was eventually deemed possessed.
And whilst the many recordings of her exorcisms aren’t EVP or recordings from a Spirit Box session, this is firm evidence of how important recordings were to investigating evidence of the paranormal.
Check out this video to make your own mind up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3aI8kpHxDM
And below is accurate footage of me noping the fuck outta here:
#2 - Next up is the Enfield Haunting
Now this case is interesting because it was largely considered a hoax evoked by 2 young girls.
Investigators used tape recorders and some EVP to assess the potential nature of the haunting.
What’s interesting here is that the debate largely centres around the supposedly possessed voice of Janet – the main girl involved – caught on tape.
Sceptics claimed it was produced by false vocal chords, and that we can all put on a creepy and different voice when we want.
But it was by analysing the actual vocabulary used, they could claim it was similar to that of a child and not a potential ghost or demon, and often evoked mannerisms similar to that of Janet.
Even on national TV, Janet waved her hand to get attention, put it in front of her mouth, and a strange voice was produced supposedly from nowhere.
Hmm.
What do you think?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OWgImgIRic
#3 - The Haunting of an Unnamed New York Hotel
In early 2007, the Central New York Ghost Hunters were asked to investigate a hotel in New York.
Why was it unnamed? The hotel in question asked for the name to be withheld from public discussions for the obvious reasons that their living visitor numbers would fall.
The investigator’s claim this investigation was one of their most active, which is not a surprise considering its long history.
(Unfortunately, this is hard to trace for this post as I do not have the name of the hotel…)
Anyway, the main activity they picked up was an EVP carried out by someone sitting on a staircase.
You can clearly hear a scuffle between two people as a woman asks someone to get off her, a rather sleazy ‘hello baby’, and even the ring of an old fashioned cuckoo clock.
Fancy a listen? Click the link: https://youtu.be/dXa0QrS-WV8
#4 - The Raudive Recordings
I’ve already mentioned Raudive and his innovatory practice, and thanks to his interest in EVP, he has created an incredible collection of evidence of the paranormal.
In total, he has 72,000 recordings of the paranormal talking.
Holy shit.
And this collection even contains the supposed voices of Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini and Churchill!
He claims Hitler spoke to him in Raudive’s mother tongue of Latvian which Hitler barely learnt while he was alive.
And what did Hitler say?
‘you are a girl here, or else you are thrown out’.
Yeah, I don’t know what that means either…
And what did Churchill say? Well, interpreters don’t really care much for what was said, but how he said it.
It apparently was a convincing EVP as it sounded like him, and was thus supported by many as evidence of the paranormal.
Some of these recordings were even conducted in laboratories to ensure accuracy, and Raudive invited members of the public to listen and interpret the recordings he collected.
So why not try your hand at it too?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dz1PzPrOXPE
#5 - The Glen Tavern Inn
This tavern stretches back to the prohibition era, and its speakeasy history – which included being a brothel and gambling parlour – have fuelled its rumours of supernatural activity.
Whether its murdered prostitutes, or fights between budding gamblers, it does have some basis to the claims.
And these stories were confirmed by an EVP taken.
If you listen closely, you can hear a woman singing as an investigator enters a haunted room.
Check out the EVP here: https://youtu.be/iRtJLPWByFg?list=UU1VrWEFyQYIDKuWWfRjyj7A
#6 - The Eerie Mansion Basement
Now I’ve never heard of this mansion and its murderous past, and I’m kinda glad I hadn’t.
Rumour has it that this was once home to Bill Ely.
And it was here that he killed countless women.
But it was when the American Ghost Hunters took an EVP, they heard some paranormal activity more chilling than the stories that haunt this home.
The investigator’s recorded what sounded like the whimpers of a small girl.
And when they got close to what they believed what the source of the sounds?
A man in a gruff voice told them to ‘Leave that girl alone’.
Yikes.
Want to get seriously spooked? Check out the recording: https://youtu.be/JqQ6dx_w4qs
#7 - The Queen Mary (the boat, not the person)
The Queen Mary is deemed one of the most haunted ships in the world.
And it was all quite a recent discovery.
Only in 2008 did Time magazine claim it was once of the most haunted places, but many other people have made similar claims.
For example, suite room B-340 is one such spot which is considered ‘notoriously haunted’, and a stateroom is haunted by a murder victim.
But the location we are most concerned with here is the first class area.
And an EVP taken here recorded a woman calling for help in an area frequented by many ghost women and children.
Listen to that EVP here: https://youtu.be/re5-OGabpHk
So, we’ve heard what the ghosts have to say.
And now it’s over to you.
Do you think madphantom actually captured evidence of the paranormal?
What about the other audio recordings here?
Let me know by leaving me a comment!
Oh, and when you get out from under your quilt, make sure you hit ‘follow’ so you can always be updated with more stuff to traumatise you.
#the conjuring#the conjuring 2#Ed and Lorraine Warren#paranormal activity#paranormal evidence#ghost evp#electronic voice phenomenon#spirit boxes#how to use#how to#app#evp online#evp meter#evp detector#creepy audio#scary audio#video evidence of paranormal#supernatural#ghosts#possessed#the perron family#exorcism of Emily rose#anneliese michel#evp youtube#youtube
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You know, I’m a Lois Lane fan. Or used to be. I was the kind of dude that used to defend her shitty behavior as “bad writers” (Chuck Austen was a favorite target for that), “Lois haters mistaking Lois speaking her mind as her being a bitch to Clark” or “Superman fans wanting Clark to be a player and hating him being a traditional one-woman guy” or any of the myriad of other excuses that we Lois fans had for her, uhh, less than glamorous actions in various media.
The thing is, I can’t anymore. I think it started somewhere around the inception of Rebirth when I noticed how even under the pen of writers that supposedly loved Clois, she still seemed over-the-top but now they even had to throw in various stupid shenanigans like her piloting Batman’s super-mecha, the Hellbat, into battle or her outta nowhere fighting proficiency on par with the Female Furies or how they even had her intellectually one-up Clark at times to a degree that seemed almost petty. Superman always seemed to get a raw deal.
Then Rebirth started getting worse with the arrival of Bendis and now Clark and Lois are kind of together but not anymore and their son Jon is off in the future somewhere and other awful crap happening in Superman comics and so on and so forth and I kind of started noticing a pattern. Maybe the reason that Clark/Lois seems to come off so toxic isn’t because of other circumstances but because of something inherent to their dynamic, something inherent to the characters of Lois and Clark.
I know there’s a whole mountain of tradition behind them, how Lois is a strong character who wasn’t just a damsel in distress, how it appeals to so many feminists that an alpha guy like Superman goes for a plain career woman with an attitude like Lois, how Jerry Siegel based Lois on his wife, etc, etc, which makes me feel kinda guilty for souring on the pairing and her character but dang it, what’s done is done. Where once I would’ve read your blog and been frothing at the mouth, now I silently nod in agreement.
It’s been said that Jerry Siegel’s mother was a very harsh, domineering woman, and that it spilled over into Lois’ character. I don’t know how true that is, but Lois, in most incarnations, has definitely had a massive mean streak from the very beginning. And it does seem to be her defining trait; on the rare occasions where Lois is portrayed as a normal, regular person, her characterization pivots far more toward that of Dale Arden from Flash Gordon, or even Brenda Starr. She pretty much becomes another character entirely when the mean girl persona is clipped off, which is probably why hardcore Lois fans protest so much when she’s depicted as anything but what Superman fans came to call “Superbitch” in the early 2000s. (I’m not kidding; that was the nickname Lois got on the DC message forums of the time because of how far the comics kept pushing her worst behavior.)
I don’t think Superman fans ever wanted Superman to be a pimp or a player, and I don’t believe anyone ever wanted him to have a total doormat or wimp for a girlfriend. There’s a huge difference between a strong woman and a contemptible woman, and DC made a point of conflating the two in the Iron Age. You look at Hildy Johnson in His Girl Friday, and she has none of the hostile qualities that define Lois. You look at Mary Richards on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and she has none of the mean girl traits that are inherent to Lois. That’s what’s put so many people off Lois as a character. It’s not that they don’t want Superman to be in love with a strong, self-sufficient woman. They don’t want him with someone who’s a bad person, who can’t be trusted, and who’ll step all over everyone else to benefit herself. If we’re being totally honest, Lois isn’t a strong woman at all. To be as petty, selfish, and abusive as she so often is betrays a fundamental weakness of character. She only comes off as strong if someone sees her worst qualities as something admirable...or worse, shares those qualities.
I think had Superman been romantically paired with a woman similar in characterization to Hildy Johnson, Dale Arden, Mary Richards, or Brenda Starr, this never would have been an issue. It’s the mean girl aspect of Lois that turns people off, and it’s that very quality that DC thinks is a selling point. Which is why the character is such a huge problem for the franchise. She’s there because of tradition, but more often than not she hasn’t been a beneficial part thereof. And to fix what’s wrong with her would transform her into a totally different character that her existing fandom would never accept.
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