imo it's not so hard to accept that SWM takes place after the prank. I mean it is canon so too bad but it makes complete sense to me. there's no evidence the prank was some big life-altering character development moment for any of the characters involved and that they all learnt their various lessons. in fact we see that they don't. in SWM the marauders are clearly still tormenting Sev. In Sev's conversation with Lily post-prank he's still just as obsessed with the marauders and exposing their secrets as ever, if not more. he doesn't consider what lily's saying at all because he's too focused on his hatred towards them.

my hc is that sirius (rather masterfully) used reverse psychology on sev to get him to go down the willow. Sev isn't stupid, he wouldn't have let himself willingly be led into a trap by his worst enemies. I think Sirius probably "let it slip" and then "backtracked" and acted like Snape wouldn't be brave enough to go down there anyway and that he should just forget it. I doubt Sirius directly told him to go down the willow, I think cleverly he told him not to, knowing that Sev would do so anyway (not that this makes a difference ethically bc his intent is still clear, but anyway. this isn't about who is morally better because idgaf honestly lol, I'm just trying to work through their mindsets)

the marauders received no real consequences for the prank, so why would they learn their lesson? Objectively you can't really punish someone for telling someone not to do something if they do it anyway. Not particularly fair, but still. Which brings me to Sev's responsibility in the matter (which yes, does exist imo) we're shown that he was obsessed with finding out what the marauders were up to and particularly obsessed with Remus's secret. Yes, this is understandable given how they treated him, but absolutely not healthy and he still chose to go down there, whether out of pride, greed, curiousity, vindictiveness. He obv was manipulated but there's a reason he was so easily manipulated. As I said previously, his obsession with revenge is what causes him to be blind to lily's feelings.

James rescuing him wasn't some moment of epiphany about how bullying is bad actually. It was just a fundamental part of James's character already. He would never have let him die regardless of how he felt about him.

All of this makes SWM the PEAK moment of hatred between Sev and the Marauders, which explains a lot of their responses. Sirius and James hate Sev more than ever for trying to expose Remus. Sev, justifiably, hates them more than ever for trying to kill him (and he ropes James into this, which is incorrect but understandable in his position)

James "deflating his head" probably wasn't just based on one event in particular. He just grew up and learned what was more important- being a good person, fighting against voldemort. But Sev also had growing up to do of his own during this time. As I talked about in in this post yesterday I think post-swm Sev was beginning to realise that his lack of control over his emotional responses (calling lily a mudblood out of humiliation, for example) was dangerous both to lily and to himself.

Yeah they still hated each other and attacked each other in seventh year. There's too much bad blood there to do anything else. I've talked about the dynamic between Sev and James here and how that might have developed as they grew older. I honestly find it extremely interesting, I could go on about these two for hours rip. My point is that the development of these characters into adults wasn't instant or linear, it was messy and rough. people don't usually change overnight, it happens slowly over time because they have to.

I am loving your recent flood of AFTG posts, I have never been the same since I read that series and Captive Prince a few years back

Anyways I saw the one compiled with quotes about rage and Andrew and I almost cried

I really really love Nora for being like, fck it and she just wrote the characters she wanted and the story she wanted and nothing comes close to that experience

I really appreciate how Andrew fully is an unhinged and violent person and there’s no ‘redemption arc or forgiveness’ nonsense that most writers (I’m looking at the recent YA sickness and booktok monstrosities) —- would intent to write in or be forced to do so by their editors or whatnot.

He is unapologetically himself and even though in reality I would probably avoid someone like that (I am smol. I have all the rage of the world but I would snap like a twig in 2 seconds if he decided to just end me—-ala Allison and Aaron situation WHICH I HAVE SOME BEEF WITH IF YOU’LL HEAR ME OUT) —-I just appreciate his character so much I can’t explain

Neil is myyyy boyyy though I definitely experienced the series the way he also develops across the books. When he’s shookt I’m shookt, when he’s snarky I’m also feeling snarky, and when he’s driving into a conversation like knives I’m also with him (the scene after the assault in book 2, at the hospital where Neil confronts him about ‘doing nothing’ still sends chills down my spine)

I just love AFTG it’s tattooed into my brain

ahhhhh you have noooo idea how much joy this ask brought me. even after all these years i still get excited when people come talk to me about these books and the characters in it. i am all with you in the opinion that this series is made special by nora just writing what she wanted to write. it’s so unapologetic in that approach as well, which is why the story and the characters and the dynamics work for me. and omg don’t even get me started on andrew or neil, they are my sons. i have soooo many feelings about them it’s awful. i actually appreciate how messed up they both are and how they both don’t really lose that by the end of the story. they do get better in their own ways without fundamentally changing as people and that just feels so right for them (to me at least). for me, this story has always been about the after of trauma. it’s about the coping mechanism to deal with it and the adjustment you have to make to survive it and also that even when you’re never gonna be what society considers “normal” again you can have a life that’s worth living and full of love and accomplishments and success. a life that lets you be okay most of the time. in my opinion, none of the characters needed a redemption anyway. ((but you’re right, popular sensibilities often push editors to demand that from their writers. which is so stupid to me but another discussion entirely lol.)) like, with these characters, it’s all about perspective. you simply cannot meet them on a level that insists on “healthy” notions of ethics and morals because they operate on such other principles. principles that make sense for the characters based on their psychology and circumstances. and that’s where you have to meet them and the point from where you have to judge them, in my opinion. ((that’s also why i think aftg is not for most people because i get not wanting to stray from one’s own set of sensibilities when it comes to the stuff in this series.)) personally, these characters (and especially andrew and neil) are so interesting exactly because their brains are so different from mine. i find that fascinating. and nora characterises them well enough to give it all a coherent internal logic that works out for the story. so YES OMG i appreciate these characters so much as well. they’re truly so different in a way that i eat up. and PLS full-on shit-stirrer, people-dragging, truth-spitting neil is my FAVOURITE!!! love it when he lets lose and verbally attacks people like there is no tomorrow. makes me so proud in the weirdest way.

also. what’s your beef with the allison and aaron situation? 👀 i am so curious and i’ll gladly hear you out

Valeria probably has some shit with her parents, but I really liked the idea of her mother joining special forces to find her. (Only to be betrayed) So.... this is Val's mother 🥰

Ok so, I kinda have a (back)story set for one of my cod fan-characters for once.. Before I get into the whole lore stuff I'll just ramble on rq; So I saw this one fanart on Pinterest where it was just Valeria in military gear (guessing during her time in Special Forces), and I was like "Like mother, like daughter!!" so that's where Chelo's bottom portrait came from. Now for the semi-lore! (Using some headcanons I saw for Val as inspo, tried finding them but no luck) ______

Basic info/lore:

Chelo "Mariposa" Garza lieutenant within the YHF 5'4, 140 lb, early 50's Spanish Personality: An amiable yet mousy person. Often her motherly instincts kick in, whether it would be a small mishap of a spill, or something big as work drama; she's there and prepared. Past restrictive experience makes her childish and gullible to a more refined eye, though she has a good hand in her work ethic.

Backstory:

Summarizing her childhood: Chelo was held under quite some expectations in her household, forced to be "normal" in their eyes. She'd always found culture beyond Mexico interesting, yet she could never really touch up on it. Her parents set her up with another guy at the young age of 18. It was a loveless marriage, but Chelo at least wanted the man to be alright. They had a kid (or maybe a few?), and the pair rose Valeria under her grandparent's expectations. This includes going to church. Her family was really heavy on religion, maybe to the point where it might have driven Chelo insane. She certainly didn't lash out at anyone, but she was extremely preachy. Murmuring sermons from the bible to correcting Valeria's behavior if she chose to do something that would "defy god." This made her daughter (/kids?) bitter about it, resulting in luring her out with treats, or just letting her hide completely. Later on when Valeria was in high school (this is me only guessing lol), she had some kind of partner (maybe Alejandro??) that wanted to make her join the Special Forces. A brainwashed Chelo certainly didn't approve of this, punishing her daughter by restricting her further. This had only caused the girl to slip out of her grasp, joining the special forces anyways. This left both parents pretty solum about their daughter, and Chelo had let her be.. Years later, she found out about the disappearance of Valeria. Out of sheer motherly will, she joined the Special Forces to find her. (Her family was apprehensive, and ended up disowning her.) Mission after mission; nothing came to fruition. It was just endless despair. But just because she didn't find her daughter, didn't mean she discovered new friends in the meanwhile. She did get herself acquainted with Alejandro.. He was alright, but Rudy was better. Later on in her training, she received the callsign "Mariposa" for her extreme growth in her training over the years. The news of her daughter being El Sin Nombre stunned her. She found out during an off-duty break and was severely heartbroken. Her previous hobbies of piano and dance were left in the dust. This caused some extreme arguments with her spouse, soon ending in a divorce. Now free from her family's expectations, she gets to see the world as it really is. Her true self is quite the clutz, and bashful. Motherly when the situation needs it. She invests herself in new waters, like fashion and exploring beyond the walls of her past home. But the trauma her family instilled in her had left her unable to remain on the field. Instead of being in battle, she dived into intel work. The first few cases proved herself worthy, getting a swing of things. A year or two later, she was scouted by Laswell for an assignment to take down the Las Alamas Cartel. Being affiliated with those within Special Forces, she used firsthand accounts and info accumulated by them to form together exceptional notes. Chelo heard the rumors of the Station Chief and was careful when treading waters. Laswell was surprisingly not so bad. They now work together in order to delve into the mishaps of the Cartel, eventually for the ultimate takedown.

__________ Thank you for reading!!

edit: added in a small basic info chart, and some reformatting.

(Bonus content below 😘)

also another random thought i had about tnr while i was watching the finale episode. i wondered how different it would be if the humans and the dragons actually decided to keep living together instead of it basically having the same outcome as in the 3rd movie, where they separated and took on their own separate lives? ( this post became long asf so im just gonna put it under a cut oop, & it also contains spoilers for tnr s8!! )

lemme explain — when httyd 3 came out, i remember that there were (and still are) a lot of disagreements with its ending since the whole message of the franchise seemed to be about two different species living in harmony and working together especially after their centuries-long history of being enemies, and a lot of fans voiced that the ending of the 3rd movie kind of betrayed that message. of course, the franchise's argument was that it wasn't safe for the dragons and the humans to be together because there will always be greedy humans out there to harm the dragons — in the context of the show, sledkin's and buzzsaw's "arcs" (if you can even call them that) were sort of modern reflections of that danger that could come to the dragons with their existence being public knowledge. of course, we can see this throughout the original franchise as well, from viggo and ryker to drago and grimmel and their respective allies and armies.

basically what i'm trying to get at here is if this series decided to take an alternate route and have the dragons and the humans live in harmony together instead of separating (again), would that have been a chance to "undo" the 3rd movie's "mistakes"? or was it better for the series to go the more "traditional" route and take after the 3rd movie, expressing that even after over 1000 years of humans and dragons living apart, it's simply not safe for the humans and dragons to live together because of the loss of the secrets of the dragons, for the world not knowing about them and in turn not knowing how to take care of them and protect them from the evil of some humans? (of course, i'm putting everything in quotes here because i am attempting to describe everything from a non-objective standpoint, including opinions about the 3rd movie in particular which i am still grappling to come to any conclusions with for myself.)

my views retain a considerable separation between the original franchise and this show, mostly because, in this series in particular, we have. ahem. capitalism. particularly the really nasty late stage "i'm gonna control every aspect of your life" capitalism. as many of us may know, many capitalists will stop at nothing to procure their earnings, even if it means exploiting living beings for their profits and developments. sledkin's whole "arc" was a demonstration of this, her desire for fame and money and profit leading to an eventual disregard for the well-being of the subjects she was studying — and eventually using — to get her fame and her profit. her lack of ethics in her practice shows just how much she was influenced by this system, and in turn caused her to develop a disregard for the well-being of the dragons, the subjects of her study (besides the dragonsite ofc). to me, it kind of demonstrated how these systems make the ethics within scientific research very difficult. like sledkin, if you only care about the money, it's likely that you probably don't care about the safety and well-being of the subjects you're studying. which in a sense, is also a reflection of the villains of the original franchise — they wanted something so badly that they didn't care who they hurt in order to get it.

anyways i didn't mean for this to turn into a whole fucking essay, just a post for me to explore my thoughts about this show now that it's finally ended. and idk to those who bothered to watch this last season what are y'all's thoughts??? lol

Got me thinking since they pulled this last minute Kwon Minwoo redemption plot. Think they might do the same with Tae Sumi?

See again,I'm not opposed to Attorney Kwon's redemption arc or his perspective. Looking back, as much he was a MAJOR ableist asshole towards Young woo,he seemed to be a kinda go-okay-ish friend to Junho. He seems to be passionate about his job. Does he have the same ethics that Young woo has? Probably not. He works for money (which generally speaking imho isn't a bad thing) from the looks of it but then again I really do not know. I like my characters grey but his redemption arc should've been written a lot better and definitely not from a romantic POV which in my humble opinion was also sloppily written. Could've paired them up at the end ,show some blossoming feelings. Hints of a romance after he had FALLEN DOWN ON HIS KNEES AND BEGGED YOUNG WOO FOR FORGIVENESS.

Lol I sound like a broken recorder. I'm just so dissatisfied haha.

Anyways going back to Tae Sumi, correct me if I'm wrong but she is a daughter of some bigshot lawyer? and she inherited Taesan law firm from her dad and was the CEO and then stepped down and went back to the field and now is on her way to becoming the Minister of Justice? My ADHD brain glosses over these facts so I hope I got that right lol

So what I'm assuming is she probably had lots of expectations and I guess her family were big names. A baby out of wedlock would've been a huge scandal and caused lots of issues. So,then I could understand a scared young girl with lots of expectations on her. After that scene when she finds out that Woo Young Woo is her daughter,I thought I saw hurt and regret. Even when she pulled the whole Boston thing. I was mad mad at her but then I also thought of that being the possibility of her protecting them. I would've considered that possiblity until that interaction with Kwon Minwoo where it seemed it was never about her regret or protecting them or her daughter or making amends. It was the fear of losing everything but then again I don't know.

Then we have CEO Han too. Can't say I'm totally surprised but damn I didn't think she would do it like this.

Again I don't know how it's all going to play out.

Young woo can leave that stinking Hanbada and go work with Attorney Ryu or the firm Attorney Jung opens up when he is better. He better be 👀.

All I want for her is that she continues doing what she loves and she has the people she loves and who love her by her side. Her dad,her friends,her mentor (s) and her boyfriend ,Junho (they communicate and work through their issues like the healthy couple that they are)

In the end, I just want my darling to be happy.

And she better see them dolphins or whales..

I was the one who requested the Senior post and THANK YOU SM. It's exactly how I imagined it and I love it. I'm glad someone else sees the vision because it's a really beloved trope of mine. Strong and capable readers are one of my favorites and I wish it was a bit more common.

Your Dan Heng and Blade sections were my favorite lol. I can picture Dan Heng being the type to that wherever the reader goes, he follows unintentionally. If they are out exploring and reader wanders off to go observe something, he isn't too far behind them both out curiosity himself and the need to make sure they are safe just like how reader watches out for him. If they have to pair up for missions or requests, reader would probably be his immediate go to partner. I imagine their work ethics and fighting abilities compliment each other so well that they can guess the other's move or intentions without having to communicate it verbally.

With Blade, he truly his a stubborn kitten and I laughed at that part. In the recent web event, he sort of gave off that vibes. Stubborn cat who participated anyways despite seeming like he would rather be elsewhere haha. It's a really endearing dynamic.

HI ANONNIE !!!! (=^･ｪ･^=))ﾉ彡☆(=^･ｪ･^=))ﾉ彡☆

I'm so glad to hear you enjoyed your request!! I put a lotta thought into that one and I think it came out great so to see that it matched your vision!!! <3

HONESTLY YEAH dan heng is like.... also catboy but also kind of puppyboy. I lean towards catboy bc dan heng, like blade, very much has the black cat-type guy aesthetic where he's quiet and will follow you around and be curious about you but he's also like avoidant sometimes LMAO he just wants to be next to reader as much as possible. esp after getting used to them he's like. yeah you're not going anywhere without me.

BLADE YEASSSSSS I love him so much more after seeing more of him in game! he's totally the grumpy and (for lack of a better term) tsundere type cat guy. "hey bladie I'm heading off on a mission!" "I don't care" (follows u anyways) SHGFHJDHFJFD he's so adorable.

thank you for sending this omg it just made me smile <3

thinking about that steampunk/victorian/edwardian AU superbat vibes post again. tbqh i have read very little steampunk, so if i were to actually write anything in this setting it’d immediately turn into thinly-veiled modern labor critique

anyway. some Thoughts, please chime in if any of this seems interesting.

- the reason for so many scientific advancements: lex luthor. on his surface the brilliant inventor responsible for everything from airships (you’ll believe a man can fly!) to the complete infrastructure overhaul of metro-gotham, The City of Tomorrow. the public persona of the ultimate renaissance man; more money than ford, more inventions than edison, and twice as subtle about his bigotry and thieving nature than either of those two.

- (metro-gotham, the sprawling megapolis of three states, roughly encompassing northeast NJ [gotham], NYC, long island, and southwest connecticut [metropolis]. travel times are a lot easier to manage with privatized Lex-Transit elevated magtrains.)

- and at what cost does the future come? the people in his factories? well. if you catch him in a good mood in his gentleman’s club he’ll be happy to expound on  social darwinism and the gospel of wealth. would a side of phrenology be too on the nose?

- basically 60% pre-crisis the world’s maddest and most brilliant scientist, 30% post-crisis ruthless exploitative businessman, 10% [redacted for the Villain Scheme plot point of the fic that i’m trying to convince myself not to write]

- it’d be more interesting to have him work his way up from being a nobody born in suicide slum, however it would be far more on the nose for him to inherit ‘a small sum’ from the sale of his father’s plantation estate. probably split the difference; the propaganda/public persona is the first. carnegie eat your heart out, lex did it better

- bruce: lots of uncomfortable implications with being an industrialist especially if bruce needs to be one too. probably he is. the question of if ethical industrialism is possible in this world, what does it look like. this could turn out SO badly if I don’t do so much research lol. like batman 2022, inheriting his position and wealth but failing to understand at first what his responsibility is. did thomas wayne himself build the conditions under which so much of gotham labors, or was he attempting to triage the situation left by his father/bruce’s grandfather/ancestors? how old is the wayne money? from where did it come from, considering the history of wealth in this country? are there actual canon answers to any of these questions and/or stories in which they are addressed? sure he gets to punch people and glide from his bat-gyrocoptor onto the top of aforementioned elevated magtrains, but also give him problems he can’t solve with his fists, because the idea of dragging battinson-adjacent bruce into corporate maneuvering is very funny to me (especially since lex has probably succeeded in repealing or blocking the sherman antitrust act! monopolies ahoy!)

- clark: obvious play to fully take him to golden age Champion of the Oppressed/grant morrison t-shirt and jeans superman, just explicitly including the people left out of the original golden age stories (aka, there are Black people in metro-gotham now). starts out as a cryptid a la the radio show’s first series (radio clark my beloved), evolves into unifying solidarity, direct action, compassion as more than a platitude; figure out some way to not directly steal the emotional arc from superman smashes the klan. which is so goddamn good. explicitly raised in the great plains socialist tradition, his first job delivering copies of Appeal to Reason, maybe interning under Eugene Debs? what actual year is this set. who knows. this fic would be as fine an excuse as any to finally read The Jungle since i already hc that’s an influence on modern!clark. muckraking journalism is already immensely cool and sexy therefore the daily planet gang and lois are mostly unchanged.

- the irons family ought to play a significant part but right now i only have: john henry high up in the experimental R&D division of lexcorp, deciding how best to stop [redacted evil lex plan], even though it will cost him a social standing that is probably going to be nigh impossible to regain, considering the amount of companies that would hire a Black man in R&D in this time period. again. lots of research to do here

- literally 0 changes needed to dick’s backstory lol

- literally 0 changes needed to jay’s either lol

- the drakes... probably well meaning also-ran second tier industrialists pretending they aren’t lex hangers-on. maybe they can get socially ruined by something along the lines of the teapot dome scandal. as a treat. 95+% of the metro-gotham gilded industrialist robber baron social circle is full of hollow hearted complicit scumbags, and the only thing preventing tim from this fate is 1. his parents’ fall from grace 2. that he has enough braincells to look around.

- there would be SO much pollution in metro-gotham YIKES. easy fodder for any number of villain backstories. cool and understandable motive, ivy, still ecoterrorism

@ the laloward “I love you” anon, i’m so sorry, I had your ask in my drafts, but it’s not letting me post it anymore!! Anyways here is a screenshot of the ask to reply to instead:

first off, THANK YOU SO MUCH! Also I feel like this ask is very well-timed, because I think the new SYS bonus scene maybe answers one and a half of those questions!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/41782554

I think a post-SYS “I love you” is definitely on the table...I never planned on including it in SYS because it just wasn’t the Vibe. a) too much too soon, and b) unfortunately the whole “I love you” exchange can be so big that it ends up diminishing things, and it swallows up all the little moments you’ve tried to build. Everything becomes more about ‘saying it’ than ‘feeling it’. Why have Howard say "I love you" when he can hand Lalo one of his own shirts that he stole, thinking he'd never see him again, and tell him "it matches your shoes"???? cry emoji

THAT BEING SAID, I don't think it's unrealistic for them post-SYS at all. And while I’m not sure when/why/where/how yet, I think it could absolutely happen, although knowing them, probably in a very unconventional way lol. 

As for whether Lalo would try to stay away from Howard or not (SPOILERS FOR THE FICLET ABOVE - 

- I think had his mission to kill Gus gone according to plan, I do think he would have stayed away for Howard’s safety. I think he does have this streak of nobility, albeit in a decided way. So when he thinks this...

He’d leave Wardo alone, leave him exactly like this. Unblemished, and perfect. Whole. Lalo wouldn’t even hint at bringing Howard with him. Hell, even if Howard offered, Lalo would turn him down. It would be Lalo’s final gift to him. He might never fully belong to Lalo, might never give himself over to Lalo completely, but he’d still given Lalo a lot, more than most: understanding, affection, and above almost all, a good time. Don’t let anyone say Lalo Salamanca didn’t know how to show his appreciation.

...it IS sincere, but he’s probably patting himself on the back for this decision too lol. Like ‘look at me making an upstanding choice, this is novel but kinda fun’. But then again also it DOES come from a genuine place, just one he doesn’t recognize?? Idek what I’m saying anymore lol the lines between his real feelings and studied ones are so finely drawn for Lalo in this universe, but all that to say YES, I do believe he would have gone away, leaving Howard behind, compartmentalizing everything very well, but missing Howard much more than he’d have thought. He can ignore it but it’s a constant itch in his side, and he tells himself he did a good thing, and gives himself kudos for it, the first thing to a sense of ‘ethics’ he’s experienced in a while. BUT. Clearly he can drop those ethics when he wants lmao, because as soon as it becomes clear how much he means to Howard, and how much Howard wants to come with him, he’s basically like ‘your car or mine’ lmao. He does give him one more out to not join him (whatta guy), but on the inside he’s definitely like ‘JOIN ME JOIN ME JOIN M...YESSSSSS’.

Anyways, I feel like this above fic captures this idea much better than this reply haha, but I’m glad those were two aspects you were thinking of, they’re definitely important ones!! Thank you again:)))))

I’m sorry I’m telling you, a stranger on the internet but I feel like my head will explode if I don’t so here you go:

So I’ve had covid for over a week, but my tests keep being positive (pale, but definitely positive). I still live with my mum and I just told her sorry mum I can’t go to work today, I’m still positive. She wanted to see the test and immediately made it seem like I’m trying to stay at home for my own benefit and because I’m lazy. It’s true, technically I would be allowed to go outside with a positive test after 5 days, but I think that’d be extremely irresponsible, because I work with small children and a lot of them aren’t vaccinated.

I know this technically isn’t a big deal but I hate that inherent shame that goes with being sick. My mums work ethics are very toxic, she would probably work until she collapses rather than take a sick day off. Every time I’m sick I have to justify myself and it messes with my head. The other day I went to work feeling a little sick because my mum said it’s not that bad and I returned with a 40 degree fever and had to stay in bed for literally three weeks.

I’m sorry for just dumping this on you when you don’t even know me, I just had to get my thoughts out somehow. Hope you’re having a lovely day!!!

hi im sorry ur going through that, i'd be crawling the walls with frustration. it's a big deal if you feel like it is, no worries there. respectfully your mam sounds like a capitalist weirdo with no common sense or empathetic thought present in her mindset LOL you should rest easy knowing you are absolutely doing the right thing. of course it's totally understandable to be hurt by her lack of support and emotional intelligence, but trying to understand ppl who think that way is honestly like talking to a brick wall.

better to try and seek that assurance in yourself, honestly, even if that's a skill you have to keep practicing over and over in order to achieve. anyway, about your mam, it just seems like conditioning. her self worth has always been tied to her productivity, and now she's projecting that onto you, but her perspective only ever reflects her at the end of the day. you could kill someone going out the house covid positive, or make yourself seriously ill, and to her it'd still be worth it because that'd make you a good little worker or whatever the fuck. it makes no sense, so no wonder you don't get it. thank god you don't LOL thank god you have a semblance of compassion for yourself and others. rest up and get well soon!! i won't say don't internalise her words because i know after a lifetime of hearing it it's not that easy, but i hope you can at least consider other narratives that don't involve self shaming, because you have quite literally done nothing wrong here. thank u <3 sending u a hug, soup, warm blankets etc. x

rant (generic), and poem (ecstatic)

this post is about two things.

the first is a vaguely-alluded-to (that can probably be guessed lol) personal circumstance, ostensibly good, but which fucked up my peace of mind. the second is a teary-hopeful poem i found today. (finding it reinforces the gambler’s addiction of opening twitter: the other 99% of the time, it just destroys my peace of mind.)

anyway. a thing happened at work that would otherwise be a cause of cautious celebration. instead it made my stupid internet-leftist brain literally cry. i appreciate my parents a lot, not only for the world knowledge they share with me, but also for putting up with this stupid creature (me)’s completely irrational behaviour.

aside from the guilt induced by said good news, i am feeling very naive at how disappointed i feel. i am so tired of being wrong and unknowing about the world. (the gradual reduction of this feeling is one of the good things about growing, but it’s not present nearly enough.) really, how am i going to make it if this is the way i react to what is conventionally good news.

it is a tightrope walk between, on the one hand, un-internalising the stupid neoliberal approach that makes systemic problems the “fault” of the individual, and on the other hand, not using this as an excuse to forgo any personal action whatsoever.

i just wanted to record what parents said about finding out and sharing industry details of salaries, and how to support coworkers without engaging in pointless and antagonising gestures towards bosses. this basically boils down to “take no action at the moment”. which sounds hypocritical (and probably is); but i trust parents, so i am going to play the safe option. (goddamnit—this is the first time i actively wish my industry was unionised, instead of passively longing for the Cool Thing).

also: i understand slightly more of (i.e. i don’t understand at all) how corporate industry works. you can’t demand equitable pay because your colleagues get a particular figure? but you can argue that you should get higher pay because of some abstract notion called the “industry standard”? why does the place of education—not the degree, the place—matter while deciding salary? why does previously-earned salary matter? isn’t it more honest to just set up pay scales depending on hours spent and previous work experience??! and apparently asking a colleague their salary isn’t “professional ethics”? which goes against my common-sense understanding and the discourse of left-liberal white-collar twitter—i mean this self-disparagingly and affectionately; see internet leftist above. (insert joke about how humanities students at uni don’t have the Professional Ethics course, because the faculty know we’ll never be in a professional wage-earning job.)

last personal thing: i am trying to climb out of the idpol/“oppression as virtue” trap and stop beating myself up for my bosses seemingly treating me better. it is objectively true that i found things quite shitty when i was a freshie. it is also true that i think they’re treating me better now. it is also true that i have been here for almost two years. it is also true that my starting salary was higher than my colleagues’ current salary. i still find this profoundly unfair and i don’t think that will change. that being said—i would like to stop making this my fault in my head. i can’t be an activist (absolutely no disparagement intended), because i’m too cowardly, or too precarious, or some combination of both. this is not ideal. however—this is much less my fault and much more a Structural™️ fault. i don’t know how to stop blaming myself for this (especially when bosses speak very very rudely to colleagues—they do this to me, but i feel they’re much meaner to them—and when they make passive-aggressive comments to me about Setting An Example by coming on time, implying that i’m the exploitative or lazy one. when of course they have the liberty of coming whenever, leaving whenever, working remotely whenever. sure, they have small kids, but it’s still funny when they expect some kind of moral performativity that they don’t commit to themselves.)

i am 92% sure i will read this in three years (if this blog is still around) and cringe at myself for being so naive and navel-gazing. but this brings me some kind of peace now and i am desperately snatching at it with both hands.

anyway. on to the teary-hopeful thing i wanted to write about.

TIL of Julian Gough and the Minecraft End Poem. (i am not going to make excuses for not knowing pop culture; instead i am going to be grateful that i came across this today, arguably a day when i really needed it.) Gough is releasing this evisceratingly beautiful poem into the public domain, for reasons which will become clear in his very very long (i mean it, he said it’s 10k words) blog post. if you don’t have the time and headspace to read the whole thing, and also if you don’t have a compulsive need to find out what the latest twitter main character drama is about, please just read the poem.

(the fact that it touched probably millions of people around the world before i knew about it is not cause for FOMO or mainstream apathy or whatever cool edgelordy thing is popular now. not to unironically quote the writer’s concept (joke), but i think it has an innate truth of the universe that simply speaks to people, or is what we desperately long to hear.)

the poem is obviously the thing you should read, but here are a couple of things i want to mention:

firstly: this passage from his 10k prologue, which squarely attacked my self-dishonest mindset of “i don’t actually deserve love but of course i want all the love”:

And that night, with the stars blazing above, the universe told me that it wasn’t acceptable for me to give love, but then refuse to receive it. That was just fake humility; another form of arrogance, of ego. I had to allow people to say thank you; I had to accept whatever gifts people might wish to offer in return, because too much charge was building up along that blocked circuit. 

and secondly, the honesty with which Gough wrote this. you might finish the piece feeling that he’s not the most responsible human being, or the most capable (outside of his art, which he is probably very skilled at). this is, firstly, a degree of honesty difficult to achieve when writing about oneself; and secondly, oddly reassuring to me that there is someone else (successful, popular even) who seems to have the same absolute lack of understanding How Society Works that i do.

that’s all we have for this show. thank you and good night.

bro if either of my irls see this i will look crazy pahtetic idk maybe ill delete iti should probably just leaves this ini the drafts

im pretty pathetic irl anyway i think lol wo who carse

im thinking ab my middle school best friend and i miss her so much it isnt even funny

idk if i was her best friend but i always loved her so much and i think about her almost every day even 2 years later

ik she wasnt doing well and she didnt come from a good home and was awful at managing her emotions and didnt talk to anyone and she would sh (i only know ab bc of some complicated secret poetry thing but she never knew i had seen that but i think she meant me to) and i think she cared about me? i kinda hope not bc i want her to be happy

but i would genuinely give anything to go back in time and talk to her again for just a few hours

i want to text her and tell her everything but idk its too weird after 2 years

i think she deserves to know how much i care about her,, right?

i had to pause twice writing this bc i was crying too hard i worry about her so much

its good im godo at crying silently lol no one can even tell so sneaky

i saw a girl with the same hair as her last week and i teared up in the middle of the hallway because it hit me how much i dont know what shes doing or if shes even alive bc i KNOW hse wasnt fucknig donig well

my cat was trying to comfort me but i think he got bored and left he's so cute lmfoa my brain made it into a very angsty analogy b4 i had the chance to stop it 💀

im this close to cracking and spam texting her

i googled her just now and found her linkedin profile of fucking course shes on linkedin thats so inc harecetr where she says she wants to go to medical school and she uses fucking stupid old words like candor and idk i hope she gets into her dream college

im sure she can she was always so smart i thknk shell do rly well and maybe one day shell perform open heart surgery on me lol that would be baller

"I believe in honesty because it creates an environment that permits integrity. Allowing for candor leads to an honorable work space. Integrity is an essential value to have as it holds all to a high ethical standard. Integrity adds trust, which is necessary for professionalism. I plan to enroll in a four-year college for a master's degree to study biochemistry. I then intend to go to medical school and earn a doctorate."

she fucking talked like that even at 13 yeah and she liked running and read all the time and she loved gamed of thrones and i still own one of her shitty books and we met when she was challenging classmates to race and she was so tall and had pretty hair

sophia im sorry for crying i think it would make her uncomfortable haha

i have fucking snot on my face now shed forsure be uncomfortable lmfaoo

ill go watch some tv show and try not to burst into tears again in 10 minutes ugh maybe it would be better if i had stayed depressed having this many feelings is driving me crazy why r u here bro : /

i should make a secret vent account LMFAO my followers r here for ohshc and mq not sob stories sorry sorry

Projects i don't have talent or work ethics to make #1 ttrpg

So... here's the deal i have zero experience with pretty much everything creative and -100 exp with ttrpgs in general but i have the curse of being a silly human and having this disease called ideas and so i'll put these ideas out there maybe it will come force me to do something with it probably not though.

Now as stated i'm not knowledgeable on ttrpg, game creation, or anything really but maybe i have cool ideas? who knows?

First idea: Video game crunchy yum style

i think D&D 3/3.5e were like that although i don't know how deep it is or how much of match it is to my idea. Maybe i should've made some research on ttrpgs so if you know any ttrpgs that match my ideas feel free and please do tell!

But anyways what am i thinking of this is by fusing a load of video game style build and combat systems to make ttrpgs have that crunchy combat that i love but also if it's at all possible for it to have more videogame esque puzzles though i have no idea how to do that at all lol. I do fear that if a ttrpg ignores social/role play aspects it would be pretty shit and i don't have many ideas on how it could be better than what D&D offers but i do think that giving a large amount of character build options would at least make playing a character fun even if the game rules don't offer anything special

list of things i'd like:

Make all classes fun in combat: no more giving spell slots just for magic users. Not allowing martial classes to have a list of special cool yet limited things to do makes them feel stunted and dumb i understand the idea they are meant to be more beginner friendly but that's dumb you can give them a small amount of things they can do with their action that won't muddle the combat since beginners will always have the easy option to just hit something but if the barbarian has the option to taunt a few enemies around them will give a great reward to the veteran that is paying attention to the board

More variety for attacks: having your weapons just change how much damage they do and only having to choose which ones out of the one your character knows how to use do the most damage is boring, sure a few weapons have a special thing like spears having reach but come on you call that super fun and different? spells are better but not by much more individual damage, smaller aoe damage, a few spells that have a somewhat useful secondary effect but many of these just get out classed by shear damage, few buffs and debuffs that are so strong they are limited by concentration and stunt your possibilities for combat not much more fun but do you think it's the best it could? (although to be fair i can't think of a better way to do buffs and debuffs since ttrpgs are limited by human hardware) how do i propose to fix this? stealing of course now i really have no idea if this would be legal and if it isn't this would be much harder (would only really be solved by making more monsters vulnerable/resistant to damage types) but the idea is to steal octopath's break and boost system which Wikipedia explains like so "Break: Every foe comes with a set number of "Shield Points" and a series of weaknesses, which are unrevealed when the party first encounters that foe. Weaknesses correspond to one of the six different kinds of weapons, or six elemental attacks, in the game. If an enemy is struck, using something it is vulnerable to, an equal or greater number of times than it has Shield Points, the enemy is "Broken;" it loses its next turn and takes increased damage. However, once it gets a turn, it is guaranteed to act before the player does, preventing the player from locking it Boost: Each party member receives a Boost Point at the end of every turn, and may store up to five at a time. During their turn, a player can use up to three Boost Points to either strike with their weapons multiple times or increase the potency of an ability. A Boost Point is not gained the turn after using them.". Honestly i think adding this to D&D is enough to make it's combat a lot more fun this way even if weapons don't do much diferent from each other you at least get a incentive to try different types of weapons and to get things different from your other players and giving something more to martial classes (having more attacks to break not needing to spend magic), you also give the opportunity to make spells that might not do as much damage but will hit more times giving the ability for players playing magic classes to chose to be main dps' (focus of preparing and holding for big attacks once enemy is broken) or support dps' (focusing on breaking a foe to allow others to hit big damage) in addition to the other ways magic classes can fight. The only problem might be that creating such defined roles would make combat way too predictable but i think careful game design would make this problem much lesser or even non existent (said the person with 0 design experience lol)

Lower stakes but prolonged ones: this one might need to be a choice but i think when the only bad thing mechanically that can happen to your character is death combat smack in the middle of a weird paradox where the stakes are too high to actually happen but if you didn't die but also didn't recover as much health between combats or had other debuffs applied when taking heavy damage it could make combat both more impactful on role play and more intense maybe?

figure a way to make healing a character so they never hit zero hp: i just think that the desperate rush to heal the knocked out character by 1 d4 a bit weird and annoying but not too sure how to accomplish this although i think number 3 would help in some ways

A whole lot of character customization: i don't know too much about 3/3.5e but i think i understand how prestige classes work and something like that sounds very fun but again i'm not sure how it worked but a way i was thinking of it would be to make multi classing something more easy like giving characters a main class and a secondary class that would level at half the speed so you'd be level 4 in total but a level 4 fighter and a level 2 cleric with the prestige class like system of a paladin (which can be accessed by any martial class x cleric permutation or something like that) i was also thinking of having a system i called "source of power" where basically you'd have where you're character got their powers they would have some small bonuses and maybe a few would lock prestige classes e. g. Source of power: psionic mind, your character would have small amounts of telekinesis some mage hand type deal and some push and pull force powers. yet you can just say that it's your character psionic power that allowed them to be such a great battle master fighter but another character might've explored their powers and became a psionic warrior. In essence source of power would work as a feats at level zero concept but one that would add a lot of flavor potential (and work that might make the game a nightmare to balance but i am not a game designer)

Modular design: i mean this isn't revolutionary or anything but i do think having pre made rule sets to slightly move the game into different paths is a very good quality of life addition, make rules for base building that give a real advantage to the players depending on which npcs they can convince to join, more developed and complex vehicle combat, more survival rulings, etc

so yeah these are my not organized or concise rambling ideas for a ttrpg i have no way of polishing what do you think of them? is this a diamond in the rough, complete piece of shit, generic as fuck, or something else entirely? i think i had other ideas but i took so long to make this (i know sad) and didn't write them down so i do not remember them, oh well

It's also in the anticipation of sharing in the love and the laughter with those around us.  

You get to live in today, but you also get to plan for tomorrow.                            12-17-22

 "Grant that the same light enkindled in our hearts may shine forth in our lives." - An Evening Prayer

 Listen, I'm going to keep this one short(ish). Lolol

I'll start with a Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas or even Happy Christmas, yeah??!!!

I have a few things on my mind, that weigh on my heart a little. Like, one of our "end of the year" jobs for Pride Fence fell through. Actually, it's postponed, so we're still going to be doing the work, but not before the end of the year.  

I know I'll be ok, even if it means sucking it up and doing some other things for work to get us through the next month or so.

I feel for my crew and my sales guys though. Such a tough time of the year, especially for us to try and jump start this thing. I have faith in us, in this company, and how we aren't going to compromise certain ethical practices or principles for a dollar, and we’ll still succeed. Watch!

Also, our onsite meeting yesterday morning, the one that determined we push back this job, was also the spot where my friend, and colleague had a small accident. Hurt a few of his ribs in a fall. So please keep him in your thoughts, hearts, and/or prayers.

I had a few other things I could probably talk about, but they literally are just “real responsible living-life” things that aren't as bad as our heads sometimes make them out to be.

I have yet to feel like anything, especially things as of late aren't going to be ok.

I know they will.

Everything is going to happen exactly as it's supposed to. It's funny how things just have a way of working out, whether it's what we think we want or not.

Plus, my energy is better spent on things like being grateful for everything and everyone I have and telling you guys all about it. And of course, being pretty excited for Christmas, and family, and the kids and grandkids is pretty high on my list of priority feelers!

Still, I have moments of . . .struggle, and of stress. Being an adult can be a little more than frustrating at times. Luckily for me, I've tricked my mind into thinking more real, and putting mostly positive spends on, and about the things in my life. Took me long enough to learn that I control more of the speed in which my thoughts flee or get entertained.

The big Raines Family Christmas Party is today, and we are really looking forward to every part and people that'll be there.

Laughs, love, food, Santa, the excitement in the eyes and hearts of all the little people.  What's not to enjoy? More smiles per area than anything else.

I don't care what or why you celebrate, but I bet the personification of joy, light, love, and Christmas follow your heart around the whole time when you surround yourself with the same. Right?!?!

Anyways, I'm ramblin' now, so I'm going to cut outta here.  

Have a wonderful weekend, and an even better week, share your love and your laughter with the world as a whole.  

Happy Holidays, or Merry Christmas. . .or Happy Christmas. Did I say that already?

Merry Christmas guys!!

If you pray, pray for peace, and above all else walk in such a way that no one can see anything but . . .

That only happens in one of a few ways, just so you know.  Lol no lol

Until next week;

“A good laugh overcomes more difficulties and dissipates more dark clouds than any other one thing.” - Laura Ingalls Wilder

Class 3, Week 1 - New adventures in work and school!

Alrighty, it’s been awhile. I’ll catch up on blogging about the O course at some point. But... things have been brewin for me. 1. I started a new job!!!  2. I started a new class - buckle up as you join me through Applied Data Analytics.

August 1 I started a new job as the Director of Developer Experience and Advocacy at tackle.io. I get to focus on making the best experience possible in engineering. Even better? So much of how I do that relies on what I am learning in my I/O psychology program. I get to be a scientist-practitioner! So, I took July off to rest up (I highly recommend taking at least a month between jobs - I honestly wish I had taken more to give myself more of a sabbatical). I started my new job and then... grad school started back up last week after taking the summer off lol.  Do I recommend starting a new job AND grad school? Absolutely not. But do I love what I’m learning? YES (in school AND my new role)! 

What is applied data analytics? 

Think about taking statistics and analytics, applied in the context of psychology in the workplace. I don’t have a background in stat. Or psychology. Nor do I know how to use SPSS. But, I love math. I love to learn. And this is going to seriously help me in my job. Honestly, everyone should probably learn this. Whether you are dealing with engineering/team data, bugs, employee satisfaction data - this is SO useful. Even if all you learn is mean, median, and mode, you are already ahead of what I typically see presented in meetings (just the mean, or average). 

Week 1 - Research methods, ethics in data collection, and descriptive statistics

This week was pretty great as far as first weeks of a new course go. We touched on some topics we already dove into in previous courses, reinforcing our learning, especially in research methods, participant rights, and ethics in data collection. 

This is SUPER critical in my role as head of DevX. I’ll constantly be thinking of ways to do research within our teams - semi-structured interviews? surveys / forms? observation? It might changed depending on what I am trying to learn (and on the teams I work with - what method is most likely to get me the information I need?). 

Since I approach what I do as research, the people I work with are my research participants! My promise to each person I talk with is that they have rights, too! They have the right to anonymity! And to opt out! And the right to know how I plan on using (and how I will not use!) the data I am collecting (also, what I found in that data!). By being super transparent, and focusing on psychological safety first - it is easier to come from a place of trust (though that takes time to build too!). 

I also must approach the data I collect from an ethical point of view - how could anything I do be used for harm? In a recent talk I gave at Agile Testing Days, I talked about instances where seemingly innocuous data was asked for something it was not intended for - team story points. This is a TEAM data point, yet was asked to break it down per person (red flag number one)... As we dug in, we learned this goal was to evaluate people (RUN AWAY!). Big, resounding “NOPE” on that one. 

Anyway, all that to say, week 1 went well. I shouldn’t have been scared of this class. I continue to hate writing discussion threads, SPSS is interface is like the 90s but definitely useful, and hey - I’m not so bad at describing things.

Definitely learn the basics and why we want something other than the average, or mean. Learn about variance and standard deviation, and why those are important. 

Stay tuned for week 2 - data visualization (histograms and boxplots and scatterplots oh my!)

Hello, children!! How are you on this blessed day?

MONTY: Praying to our lord and savior Jesus Christ, amen.

So I'm currently unemployed because I got fired for taking too much sick leave (it was legally sketchy blah blah blah but in the end I just can't work and take care of myself and investigate my mystery health problems at the same time). So I've been spending more time writing!

I really admire your writing and loved Hunger Pangs. I'm looking forward to the poly elements developing and I'm wondering if you have any advice for writing about poly. I've made one of my projects a snarky take on "write what you know" ... Apparently what I know is southern gothic meets Pacific northwest gothic, chronic illness pandemic surrealism, and falling back-asswards into threesomes.

I know this is a very open-ended question and I don't expect an answer, I'm just curious about it if you have the energy. As a writer, trying to write honestly / realistically about polyamory/enm, I'm curious if you have any thoughts on what's different about portraying monogamy or nonmonogamy in books, romance or erotica or otherwise.

I'm trying to read examples but it's hard to find examples that fit the niche I'm looking at. Excuse me if this question is nonsense, it's the cluster headaches.

I'm sorry to hear you've been dealing with all that and solidarity on the cluster headaches. But I'm glad you're finding an outlet through writing! And I hope you're happy with an open-ended ramble in response because oh boy, there's a lot I could talk about and I could probably do a better job of answering this sort of thing with more specific questions, but let's see where we end up.

There's definitely a big difference between writing polyamory/ENM (ethical non-monogamy) and what people often expect from monogamous love stories.

Just even from a purely sales and marketing standpoint, the moment you write anything polyamorous (or even just straight up LGBTQIA+ without the ENM) you're going to get considered closer to being erotica/obscene than hetero romances. It's an unfair bias, but it's one that exists in our society. But also the Amazon algorithm and their shitty, shitty human censors. Especially the ones that work the weekends. (Talking to you, Carlos 🖕.)

So not only do you start out hyper-aware that you're writing something that is highly stigmatized or fetishized (at least I'm hyper-aware) but that you are also writing for a niche market that is starving for positive content because the content that exists is either limited, not what they want, or is problematic in some fashion i.e. highly stigmatized or fetishy. And even then, the wants, desires, and expectations of the community you're writing for are complex and wildly varied and hard to fit into an easy formula.

When writing monogamous love stories, there is a set expectation that’s really hard to fuck up once you know it. X person meets Y. Attraction happens, followed by some sort of minor conflict/resolution. Other plot may happen. A greater catalyst involving personal growth for both parties (hopefully) happens. Follow the equation to its ultimate resolution and achieve Happily Ever After. 

But writing ENM is... a lot more difficult, if only because of the pure scope of possibilities. You could try to follow the same equation and shove three (or more) people into it, but it rarely works well. Usually because if you’re doing it right, you won’t have enough room in a single character arc to allow for enough growth, and if ENM requires anything in abundance, it’s room to grow.

And this post is huge so I’m going to put the rest under a cut :)

There's also a common refrain in certain online polyam/ENM circles that triads and throuples are overrepresented in media and they may be right to some extent. Personally, I believe the issue isn't that triads and throuples are overrepresented, but that there is such minuscule positive rep of ethical non-monogamy in general, that the few tiny instances we have of triads in media make it seem like it's "everywhere" when in actuality, it's still quite rare and the media we do have often veers into Unicorn Hunter fetish porn. Which is its own problematic thing. And just to be clear, I’m not including this part to dissuade you from writing "falling back-asswards into threesomes." If anything, I need more of it and would hook it directly into my brain if I could. I'm just throwing it out there into the void in the hope that someone will take the thought and run with it, lol.

I’d love to see more polyfidelitous rep in fiction, just as much as I’d like to see more relationship anarchy too. More diversity in fiction is always good.

Another thing that differs in writing ENM romance vs conventional monogamy is the feeling like you need to justify yourself. There's a lot of pressure to be as healthy and non-problematic as possible because you are being held to a higher standard of criticism. Both from people from without the ENM communities, and from the people within. Granted, some people don't give a shit and just want to read some fantastic porn (valid) but there are those who will cheerfully read Fifty Shades of Bullshit and call it "spicy" and "romantic," then turn around and call the most tooth-rottingly-sweet-fluff about a queer platonic polycule heresy. That's just the way the world works.

(Pro-tip for author life in general: never read your own reviews; that way madness lies. I glimpsed one the other day that tagged Hunger Pangs as “ethical cheating” and just about had an aneurism.)

And while that feeling of needing to justify yourself comes from a valid place of being excluded from the table of socially accepted norms, it can also be to the detriment of both the story and the subject matter at hand. I've seen some authors bend so far over backward to avoid being problematic in their portrayal of ENM, they end up being problematic for entirely different reasons. Usually because they give such a skewed, rose-tinted perspective of how things work, it ends up coming off as well... a bit culty and obnoxious tbh.

“Look how enlightened we are, freed from the trappings of monogamy and jealousy! We’re all so honest and perfect and happy!”

Yeah, uhu, sure Jan. Except here’s the thing, not all jealousy is bad. How you act on it can be, but jealousy itself is an important tool in the junk drawer that is the range of human emotion. It can clue us in to when we’re feeling sad or neglected, which in turn means we should figure out why we’re feeling those things. Sometimes it’s because brains are just like that and anxiety is a thing. Other times it’s because our needs are actually being neglected and we are in an unhealthy situation we need to remedy. You gotta put the work in to figure it out. Which is the same as any style of relationship, whether it’s mono, polyam or whatever flavor of ENM you subscribe to* And sometimes you just gotta be messy, because that’s how humans are. Being afraid to show that mess makes it a dishonest portrayal, and it also robs you of some great cannon fodder for character development.

Which brings me in a roundabout way to my current pet peeve in how certain writers take monogamous ideals and apply them to ENM, sometimes without even realizing it. The “Find the Right Person and Settle Down” trope.

Often, in this case, ENM or polyamory is treated as a phase. Something you mature out of with age or until you meet “The One(tm).” This is, of course, an attempt to follow the mono style formula expected in most romances. And while it might appeal to many readers, it’s uh, actually quite insulting. 

To give an example, I am currently seeing this a lot in the Witcher fandom. 

Fanon Netflix!Jaskier is everyone's favorite ethical slut until he meets Geralt then woops, wouldn’t you know, he just needed to find The One(tm). Suddenly, all his other sexual and romantic exploits or attractions mean nothing to him. Let's watch as he throws away a core aspect of his personality in favor of a man. 

Yeah... that sure showed those societal norms... 

If I were being generous, I’d say it’s a poor attempt at showing New Relationship Euphoria and how wrapped up people can become in new relationships. But honestly, it’s monogamous bias eking its way in to validate how special and unique the relationship is. Because sometimes people really can’t think of any other way to show how important and valid a relationship is without defining it in terms of exclusivity. Which is a fundamental misunderstanding of how ENM works for a lot of people and invalidates a lot of loving, serious and long-term relationships.

This is not to say that some polyam/poly-leaning people can't be happy in monogamous relationships! I am! (I consider myself ambiamorous. I'm happy with either monogamy or polyamory, it really just depends on the relationship(s) I’m in.) But I also don't regard my relationship with a mono partner as "settling down" or "growing up." It's just a choice I made to be with a person I love, and it's a valid one. Just like choosing to never close yourself off to multiple relationships is valid. And I wish more people realized that, or rather, I wish the people writing these things knew that :P

Anyway, I think I’ve rambled enough. I hope this collection of incoherent thoughts actually makes some sense and might be useful. 

----

*A good resource book that doesn't pull any punches in this regard is Polysecure by Jessica Fern. It's a wonderfully insightful read that explores the messier side of consensual non-monogamy, especially with how it can be affected by trauma or inter-relationship conflicts. But it also shows how to take better steps toward healthy, ethical non-monogamy (a far better job than More Than Two**) and conflict resolution, making it a valuable resource both for someone who is a part of this relationship style***, but also for writers on the outside looking in who might have a very simple or misguided idea of what conflict within polyam/ENM relationships might look like, vs traditional monogamous ones.

** The author of More Than Two has been accused of multiple accounts of abuse within the polyamorous community, with many of his coauthors having spoken out about the gaslighting and emotional and psychological damage they experienced while in a relationship with him. A lot of their stories are documented here: https://www.itrippedonthepolystair.com/ (warning: it is not light material and deals with issues of abuse, gaslighting, and a whole other plethora of Yikes.) While some people still find More Than Two helpful reading, there are now, thankfully, much, much better resources out there.

*** Some people consider polyam/ENM to be part of their identity or orientation, while others view it as a relationship style.It largely depends on the individual.