#what if I want to be a part of something? what if I want society to know and understand me?
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“Do you like girls?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you like boys?”
“I don’t know. I think I like TV shows.”
I remember when I was in middle school all the other girls were talking about the guys they liked and I said I didn’t like anyone. I just wanted to do my own thing.
I didn’t really get why I would want to date anyone. I understood friendship, companionship— having someone to share my interests and mutually info dump to sounded cool— but I struggled to understand the appeal of spending every day and every night with someone else. Of holding hands and going on dates.
This led to a lot of homophobic bullying and a few of them would act disgusted that I might be into them. Constantly acting like I was looking at their boobs and sexualizing them (I never made eye contact with anyone and would frequently look at the wall or space out while looking in their general direction). Or make a big show of not being interested and many other things.
I didn’t get this either. I didn’t know why I would be interested in any of them. They treated me poorly and I thought attraction was something people made up and simply just claimed to feel towards other people.
Just like I never understood celebrity crushes. You don’t know the person so how could you possibly know you liked them? And I never understood how people “chose” who they dated. Did they just choose whoever they liked hanging out with the most?
But any time I voiced this it was always met with worse and worse reactions. It led to isolation among peers and my family. My parents made it pretty clear I wasn’t who they wanted me to be. That I wasn’t normal.
I soon learned to fake it. Pretend I understood it.
The idea of not being attracted to anyone seemed like a foreign idea to most people I met. Even when I branched out and moved away, I met a few people in the lgbt community who couldn’t grasp it either and reacted poorly and it made me feel stupid. Like maybe I wasn’t just screwed up to people who fit in the neat little box society wants you to fit in, but to everyone else as well.
Maybe I was wrong. If it’s an impossibility even in this community that champions diversity and acceptance then can that really be my reality?
I kept trying to force it. To date, but every time I did I always felt that same skin crawling discomfort and it always petered out. It didn’t matter who it was or what gender. It always felt wrong. It was suffocating.
I don’t think there’s a movie that better portrays that all consuming, suffocating stagnation of feeling so out of place– knowing you’re out of place compared to those around you– and in response forcing yourself to fit what other people expect of you than I Saw the TV Glow.
Whenever I think back to growing up or whenever I return home that same feeling this movie is centered around always drenches my experiences.
And even now it’s hard to put into words when I talk to other people what I’ve felt when it comes to this aspect of my life.
That comment from Owen about knowing there’s nothing there when talking about romance and attraction, but being too afraid to look and knowing that his parents know something is wrong with him hit harder than any other scene from a movie I’ve watched this year.
It’s that absence of something that is at the heart of asexuality that makes me always question what I choose to identify as when I have to explain it to someone. Because for the most part my explanation boils down to (in broad oversimplified terms): I’ve never felt attraction, I’m more interested in watching a Spider-Man movie than I’ve ever been into even just the idea of dating, every time I’ve attempted to date it’s been uncomfortable and I’ve actively dodged anything beyond friendship while in the “relationship”.
And when I try to voice that to another person it always feels like those experiences don’t hold water. That’s describing the absence of something. There’s no real proof of the identity.
With being bi or gay or lesbian there’s something you can I don’t know—point to?— that can help you know your identity.
And that’s the fact that you’ve experienced attraction towards one or more people of one or more genders.
It’s defined not by the lack of something but the presence of an experience.
And so every time I try and explain it I end up feeling stupid. Like I just haven’t tried hard enough to find someone compatible. That I need to get back into the proverbial saddle and try again. I always in some way feel ashamed and backtrack as a result.
This is in no way to say that it’s harder or easier to be one identity or the another. Everyone’s experiences are different and everyone experiences are valid. This is just a struggle I’ve found that’s unique to asexuality that many people I’ve talked to have also experienced.
I haven’t felt that part of my experience be seen in media until I saw this movie. Maybe I’m latching onto what I can get or maybe that was an intrinsic part of the movie. That’s not important. What’s important is that it’s something I felt seen in even if it was literally just one scene.
This is my really long winded and roundabout way of saying that I really think this movie is going to stick with me much longer than any other thing I’ve seen this year.
Things can be hard to put into words and as a result I tend to keep things inside. I’m fairly certain I’m ace but it might turn out I’m on a different romantic spectrum then I thought or I fall somewhere different than I thought on the ace spectrum. I don’t know what I’ll discover in the future.
I’m likely not going to express my label out loud to anyone but a select few. I still can’t express this particular label out loud to many people. My family is definitely never going to hear it. A friend or two might.
It’s something I struggle with on a regular basis. I’m fine with identifying with the label in my head—in a lot of ways it makes me feel comfortable and happy— but any time I try to voice it the words die in my throat and I can’t help but feel ashamed. It’s easier to just tell people I don’t want to date right now. That there are all these factors in the way (finances, time, jobs, etc) than it is to try and explain what I’ve just rambled about above.
I know many people have felt and understood that experience and I hope people know they’re valid. You can express your identity with your full chest, shout it from the rooftops and let people know, or you can keep it to yourself, identifying as your label solely in your head. Both experiences are valid. And if your label changes at some point in your life that doesn’t make what you chose to identify as at this point any less valid too. People are always learning and growing. You can gain a new understanding of yourself as time move forward.
Sorry for the way too long ramble. This movie made me feel things.
#i saw the tv glow#a24#aroace#asexuality#asexual#ace experience#this is my overly long#thoughts on my own experiences#and how labels can shift#and that your experiences#aren’t more or less valid#if you choose to say it out loud#or identify as it solely in your head#life’s complicated
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three — have to be
mess it up — gojo x reader & sukuna x reader
⁀➴ when i told you i’m fine, you were lied to.
when the love of your life falls for someone else, you decide to move on—by pretending to date your best friend, the campus fuckboy.
previous — masterlist — next
word count. 2.5k
content. profanity, college kids being stupid, some angsty feels
Contrary to popular belief, college isn’t that different from high school. No one magically matures overnight and goes from being a snot-nosed brat to a sophisticated adult. Try as you might, it just isn’t the way things go.
College is essentially just high school on steroids. The cliques are more exclusive, padded with unwritten rules and covert acts of initiation. Bullies are more subtle, if not more vicious. And the gossip? Well, the gossip is just as venomous, and news spreads just as fast.
Today’s item of interest is one for the books: The big breakup between the campus crush and the golden boy who bagged her. How they ended things rather abruptly. And how they’re both already dating different people only three weeks later.
“Apparently, you cheated on him,” Nobara tells you, pulling out the lollipop she has in her mouth. “Or you cheated on him. It depends on who you ask.”
“I heard that you were sleeping with a professor,” Maki says.
You frown at her, adjusting your bag on your shoulders. “Yaga?”
“No.” She grins. “Gakuganji.”
You gag at the thought. Which sicko came up with that? Probably Kento, you think. The prick.
The three of you are on your way to a meeting for a pre-law society you joined back in your first year. You’re not quite sure you want to be a lawyer and Maki’s made it clear that she’s just in it for the parties, but as Nobara says, it’s for the connections.
A lot of college has felt like a complete scam to you, if you’re being honest. The classes are fine enough and you occasionally meet interesting people, but for the most part, you’re well-aware that everyone here’s either just coasting or trying to one-up one another. You can’t complain though. In the end, you’re a part of it all.
“I heard something interesting though,” Nobara says, and there’s a dangerous tone in her voice that has you crawling out of your skin. “More than a few people are saying that you’re dating someone new.”
Maki nods, looking at you with a raised brow. “I heard that too.”
“Someone from the business department apparently,” Nobara adds. “Someone you’re incredibly close with.”
You swallow as your two friends turn to you for an answer to their accusations. You and Sukuna made your sham relationship “official” just a few days ago and you haven’t had the time to tell either of them about it. If you’re being honest, you’ve been avoiding the topic for as long as humanly possible because you already know what they’re going to say about the whole thing.
It’s one thing for you to be friends with him despite their clear dislike of him, it’s an entirely different thing to be dating him. To the public’s knowledge at least.
“I was going to tell you guys about that,” you say quietly.
Nobara gapes, dropping her lollipop on the ground. “You’re fucking with us.”
“Before you say anything—”
“Holy shit!” Maki exclaims. She stops in her tracks and grabs your shoulders, shaking you as if to shock some sense into your system. “No. You’re not doing this.”
“I know Satoru fucked you up, but this is not the way to deal,” Nobara tells you. Her arms are flailing around as she tries to get her point across. She probably thinks you’re in too deep, madly in love with the asshole she’s done nothing but warn you about. “Where’s your phone? You’re breaking up with him right now.”
You can’t help but laugh at your friends’ hysterics. Much to their horror.
Maki’s grip on your tightens. “This is serious, babe. It’s not happening.”
“Will you just let me speak?” you say, the laughter shaking your voice. “I’m not dating Sukuna.”
They both let out a sigh of relief.
“But I am pretending to.”
“What kind of fucked up game are you playing?” Maki demands. She’s let go of you now at least. That’s something. “Explain, bitch.”
You roll your eyes and continue walking straight ahead, forcing the two of them to hurry along after you. “It’s just a thing we’re doing,” you say. “It’s basically a joke.”
Nobara groans. “Well, it’s not funny,” she says. “Why are you doing this?”
“I dunno,” you tell her. “I’m petty, I guess.”
They’re clearly displeased with your non-answer. You realize that it was more than ridiculous trying to hide it from them in the first place. There’s really nothing to hide.
“We went to a party over the weekend,” you say. “And Satoru was there… with Kimi.”
Maki purses her lips, but you can tell that she understands. She understands you more than she wants to. She was there with you before the breakup, she saw how much the whole thing had been weighing on you, and she was there immediately after it happened. She saw just how badly the whole thing wrecked you. She knows that you’re being stupid, but she also knows you.
It’s Nobara who scowls and shakes her head. It’ll take more than that to convince her.
“So?” she says. “Then date one of the many guys who throw themselves at your feet. Or get a girl! You’re due for a girl. Pick literally anyone else but him.”
You chuckle at her insistence, draping your arm over her shoulder and squeezing her against you. “I don’t want anything real right now,” you tell her. “All those people want a real relationship that I’m just not ready for, and they don’t deserve to be led on. Besides, Sukuna’s the only one I trust to do something this stupid with.”
“See, that’s how I know you’re fucked in the head,” she says. “You cannot trust a guy like Sukuna. He’s an ass.”
“He’s also my best friend.”
Nobara hangs her head at that. “You know, I wish I’d met you sooner,” she tells you. “Then, I would’ve gotten you away from that asshole before he got his fangs in.”
“I know him,” you say, leaning your head against her. “You gotta trust me on this.”
She wraps her arm around your waist and holds you tight for a moment, then sighs. “If he tries anything stupid though, I will kill him.”
“I’ll help,” Maki says. She goes in front of you, walking backwards so she can keep her eyes on yours. “You’re sure about this?”
You nod, reaching your hand out to grab hers. “I’m sure,” you say. “And it’s only for a month. I’ll probably be ready to move onto something real by then.”
The meeting has been going on for hours. They’re not usually this bad when all you have to talk about is a fundraiser or a seminar or a statement against the school administration or something menial like that. But the agenda today is loaded.
The trip.
The big trip that everyone in the society always gets worked up over. It’s the big event of the year, a weekend where the whole group goes somewhere new and gets completely wasted.
It isn’t enough that you do charity work or contribute to the campus life like any other club would. It isn’t enough that you all see each other on a weekly basis to party at someone’s house or head to a bar together. To truly make the “connections” that Nobara speaks of, you have to relocate everyone to a beach or camp in the mountains or get locked together in a cabin in the woods.
It’s for bonding, they say. But with how everyone’s arguing right now, you’re almost worried that the whole group is just going to end up hating each other. Just another part of the college experience as they say.
“We are not going to an active volcano for our trip,” Utahime says. “It’s stupid and, honestly, not fun at all.”
Mahito huffs at that. “What’s more fun than knowing that we could die at any moment?” he asks like it’s a completely normal thing to say. “You guys just want to go to the beach again and that’s boring.”
“Where would we even sleep?” Aoi points out.
Utahime nods and looks at Mahito with venom in her eyes. “Exactly.”
“As if anyone sleeps on these trips anyway.”
You raise your hand. “I vote against the volcano.”
“So where would you have us go?” Mahito asks. “Kento’s house?”
The man in question scoffs. “As if I would ever let you in my house.”
“I think the beach is fine,” Nobara says. “We always have fun there anyway.”
“We went there last year though,” you say against your better judgment. When Nobara looks at you like, How are you not siding with me on this? You mouth a quick “sorry.” Then, “Camping’s fun.”
“Bugs,” Mahito.
“Oh, and you think there isn’t anything gross on a volcano?” Utahime.
“What about Aoi’s cabin?” Kento.
“My dad just sold it.” Aoi.
“I vote beach.” Maki.
“Thank you!” Nobara.
The conversation goes round and round. Everyone has an opinion, everyone has something to say, everyone has something they don’t like or don’t want to do. It seems like the whole thing will never end.
“Ski trip,” you say suddenly. The room goes silent. “We’ve never been before, and it’s doable. The budget’s pretty good this year. I think we could swing it.”
Everyone looks at Kento, the keeper of the books, as he turns to his laptop to crunch the numbers. After a moment of typing, he looks up and nods.
“It’ll have to be after the children’s rights fundraiser though,” he says. “We have to make sure we can make the downpayment on the hall for the kids, but after that…”
Everyone looks at Utahime now, the club president who has the final word on everything. “Fine,” she says eventually. “Ski trip it is.”
There’s a round of “finally”s and “fuck yeah”s and patting each other on the back for a job well-done.
“Now, about the children’s rights fundraiser,” Utahime says. “We should really start planning that.”
Everyone groans and there’s eventually a call for a five-minute break.
“We should really kick Mahito out at this point,” Nobara whispers to you as she rests her head on the table. “He doesn’t even do his job half of the time.”
You pat her head and laugh. “He’s harmless,” you tell her, getting up from your seat. “I’m gonna go pee.”
“I’ll come,” Maki says, following you out the door.
The two of you link your hands together and swing them wildly as you make your way to the restroom, a habit you two formed in freshman year when you refused to be suffocated by the crowds of people going from classroom to classroom. Despite seeming like two completely different kinds of people on the surface, the two of you are just menaces at heart. It’s why you’re such good friends.
As you approach the restroom, you can hear a group of girls talking loudly inside.
“Locker room talk,” Maki says, wiggling her eyebrows at you with a smirk on her lips.
You snort, the voices becoming clearer now.
“You’re so lucky.”
“Is he good in bed?”
“He’s lucky to have you.”
“You guys are so embarrassing.”
You stop in your tracks. The last voice is so familiar, terrifyingly so. It’s a voice you’ve heard from a few feet away. In front of you in a line. In the back of a classroom. On the court, counting out the timing for the next steps of the cheerdance.
“He’s really sweet though,” the voice says. “Just this morning, he showed up at my dorm with a bunch of flowers. He said he got them ‘just because.’”
Maki is watching you with concern, confused by why you’ve suddenly stopped moving, why your breath has seemed to hitch in your throat.
Just because.
A bouquet of now-wilted flowers on your kitchen counter. A teddy bear from a carnival tucked beneath your bed. A tennis racket you made him swear not to buy that showed up in your locker one morning before practice. Just because.
The restroom door swings open and four girls walk out. One of them—
“Kimi.”
The name slips from your mouth before you even realize it. You want the earth to swallow you whole at this moment. For the current to drag you under. For the heavens to crack open.
The girl looks at you with wide eyes. Guilt, you can tell. Pity.
She says your name this time. “Hi,” she says a little nervously. “How are you?”
Just like Maki, her friends watch the situation unfold from a careful distance. Will one of you lunge at the other? Will you pretend to be the best of friends? Should they come closer? Should they stay back?
“I’m doing well,” you tell her. The voice that comes out of you doesn’t feel like your own. You only realize now that you’re smiling. There’s a hint of smugness to it, a hint of callousness, cruelty. “I take it you and Satoru are going strong.”
She seems to catch your tone. Unintentional of course, but she doesn’t know that. All trepidation seems to leave her body, replaced by a similar coldness. “Yeah, we are,” she says. “I hear you and Sukuna are an item now.”
You try not to cringe at the implication. You’ve traded Satoru, the golden boy, for Sukuna, the bad idea. No point regretting it now.
“Yeah,” you say. End this now, you think. “Well, Maki and I have a meeting to get back to.”
“Oh, sure,” she says sweetly, stepping out of your way. Her friends follow suit. “See you around.”
You take Maki’s hand and wave at the girl as she passes by. “See you.”
The two of you walk into the restroom and let the door close behind you. You’re looking at each other now, breathing deeply as you hear the girls outside walk away.
“That was fucking insane,” Maki finally says.
“Tell me about it.”
You both burst out laughing at the absurdity of the whole situation. It’s not a big deal, if you’re thinking logically, seeing your ex’s new girlfriend in a restroom. You all go to the same school, it’s not like you can avoid each other. Still, the whole thing brings out a viciousness in you that you can’t quite control, one that’s always ridiculous in hindsight.
You go into the bathroom stalls, still laughing.
“You were so cold,” Maki tells you from the stall beside you. “I was so proud, you wouldn’t believe it.”
“I was mean!” you exclaim. You groan as you reach for the toilet paper. “She’s so telling him about that.”
“No way. It’d be embarrassing.”
You pull your pants up and head out to wash your hands in the sink, waiting for Maki to finish. “She knows about Sukuna.”
“Yeah,” she says. “How do you feel about that?”
“Humiliated.”
She steps out of the stall and washes her hands in the sink beside yours. “You still think the whole pretend-dating thing is worth it?”
You shrug, crossing your arms over your chest. “What’s done is done,” you tell her. “Sunk cost, baby.”
Maki dries her hand and looks at you seriously now. “Are you okay?”
Just because.
The words echo in your head. Words that have only ever been spoken to you now tainted by her voice.
“No,” you tell her. When she looks at you with furrowed brows, all you can do is shrug. “But I’ll have to be.”
notes. a little insight into reader's student life and bit of her bitchy side 👀 these chapters are getting longer than i'm used to lmao i fear the plot is getting away from me and just dragging me along for the ride at this point
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Outlaws = bad guys? No, the only problem is that their time has passed
Something I think rdr fandom has overlooked is that - Arthur’s line ‘the whole world has changed. They don’t want folks like us no more.’ It implies that in the past, the society wanted ppl like them. I think ‘wanted’ here doesn’t mean ‘legal’, but they’re needed by the society or, as an organic part of the temporary lawless land of the west. Being an outlaw is not as notorious and evil as it might seem in 1899. I think this explains why it’s so easy for almost everyone in gang fell into the outlaw lifestyle. Especially gangs like VDL gang in its original robinhood form, they can even be seen partially as the ‘vigilantes’ in modern day language. There are two lines I can use to support my point. Local marshal (people) prefers bandits to the ‘federal law’, and John defends his past:
1. In the mission in rdr1 in which John met the Armadillo Marshal for the first time, the Marshal said something like ‘Bandits like Bill Williamson’s gang are trouble, but they’re trouble we can handle. What annoys me more are the federal agents. Why should a bunch of college students in the east coast decide ppl in New Austin how to live?’
2. In the ‘And the Truth will Set You Free’ mission in rdr1 in which John rode with Agent Ross to get to Dutch, Agent Ross laughed at John’s past saying I wonder how much money you’ve taken from the ppl. To this John replied, ‘we did more for the people with the money we took than your damn government ever did!’
In short, being an outlaw back then was an easy choice to make, and didn’t always entail doing bad things, just following different standards of justice, even if ppl may see things differently later after the law/the world has changed. Yes I’m defending John, Arthur, Hosea and Dutch and many other vdl gang members’ choice to be an outlaw in the very first place. It was more about the society and their identities as minorities or ostracized ppl than ‘oh Dutch’s famous charisma and his silver tongue’!
The gang life in chapter 1-4 was deliberately portrayed as something good, harmonious, rememberable, a stark contrast with the brutal outside world, the last vestiges of the lost Wild West. Despite its imperfection, the game mourned the loss of this kind of lifestyle to GTA-ish modernity, and did not judge ppl for being an outlaw in the first place. We can easily name tons of good ppl in vdl gang, but none of the lawman in both games are good people (Milton, Ross, etc) .
If anything’s more telling, the marketing slogan of rdr2 is ‘Outlaws for life’, and not ‘let’s be a law abiding citizen or you’re dead’.
Ps. The official description of vdl gang by rockstar:
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In camp we have three irish people and I think their approach to their heitage is so interesting. We have Sean whos father was really proud of being Irish but who had to flee to USA when Sean around 11 or so, maybe even younger. We have Molly who grew up in Ireland, who lived in high society and found it boring so she went to USA as an adult and then we have Kieran whos father wanted to go to California and never really, as far as we know, had any connection to Ireland at all, doesn't even know the "correct" pronoucation of Colm.
Sean was young when he came to the US, most likely he remembered very little about Ireland itself, he might be able to remember a feeling or a few places, but yet he clings onto it, holds his nationally up and proud. I am more inclined to believe that rather than loving Ireland for being Ireland, he loves Ireland because his father loved Ireland, Sean always loved his father, worshipped him almost, even wears his hat. I don't think it would be a long shot to say that he likes Ireland because his father liked Ireland. His main source of information on his heritage was his father who was busy keeping them both alive and probably didn't have a lot of time to teach Sean about the Irish culture.
Sean clings onto the fact that he is Irish even though his knowledge of Ireland is limited because of his father.
Molly grew up with everything. She is Irish through and through, not just blood but also culture, she grew up around it, she was molded into it. She had her whole life to learn about the Irish culture and yet she didn't find it that interesting, she found it rather boring, so she fled for something more interesting, exotic, cowboys and outlaws.
Kieran did not have a long time to learn about Irish culture as his Irish father died when he was very young, completely cutting him off from his culture, however he got somewhat back in touch with it again when he was forced to join the O'Driscolls who are majority Irish, giving him a look into the culture and traditions that he had missed.
You can see Sean often times mocking Molly for not being "Irish enough" around camp even though she most likely knows more about Ireland and the culture than him, something he might feel threatened by as he was used to being the only Irishman around camp and now he might have to face the reality of his lack of knowledge about the very thing he prides himself on. He might also be angry at Molly because she threw away the very culture Sean tries to keep whereas Molly might find him stupid for so desperately trying to keep in touch with something she finds boring.
Kieran on the other hand never tells anyone he is Irish, he doesn't find it of much importance as his family didn't either, however he might carry more "casual" irish knowledge than what he might lead on. Being with the O'Driscolls would have in some way reintroduced him to his culture and he would have been taught at least some mannerisms that he might not even realize are Irish because he recognizes them from his childhood, a childhood where there was no focus on the fact they were Irish. For him slang, special dishes or mannerisms would feel natural as he also saw them as a kid, he wouldn't realize they are special. At the same time he wouldn't realize what parts of his culture are missing such as his pronunciation of "Colm" which Sean angrily points out is actually pronounced "Col-om", Kieran doesn't see that he is saying it "wrong."
Sean who clings onto the culture ripped away from him.
Molly who is so used to the culture she finds it boring.
Kieran who doesn't even know he is carrying a culture with him.
#rdr2#rdr2 community#red dead redemption 2#red dead redemption community#rdr2 sean#sean macguire#rdr2 kieran#kieran duffy#rdr2 molly o'shea#molly o'shea
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Eunuchs, Value, and Appearance– Brief Thoughts on Beauty and Gender in The Apothecary Diaries Manga Volume 1
This is an offshoot of my thoughts from Ch. 4 of the manga, but it also connects greatly to Ch. 1, so a brief recap of where these thoughts sprung from:
As Maomao and Gaoshun go to investigate the "ghost" dancing on the palace wall, Maomao again reflects that Gaoshun doesn't look like a typical eunuch. Her first instinct upon meeting him was the classify him as a "military man" but because he was in the rear palace, he had to be a eunuch.
Meeting again, she thinks he looks "very masculine" and not "like a typical eunuch at all." In this moment, we get another example of Maomao's understanding of and perspective on eunuchs and gender being challenged. Or do we?
A product of her time and background, Maomao has a very specific and somewhat rigid way of thinking about gender. I think that perspective ebbs and flows, but it is very much informed by the outline provided to her by the society she exists within.
Sometimes, what first appears to challenge the constraints of that outline actually works to reaffirm it.
Gaoshun appearing more masculine and like a military man is not presented in the story to challenge a bias but it is Maomao's first clue that something else is going on with Gaoshun, that there's more to the story. It is not a purposeful reflection on gender by the author but a purposeful piece of a puzzle Maomao is solving within the story.
The same thing happens later when Maomao inspects Jinshi's body and sees it is more muscular than a eunuch's would be. Without further investigation, the presentation of eunuchs that don't fit the stereotype challenges that stereotype, but the truth of the matter actually kind of relies on and reaffirms those stereotypes. Gaoshun isn't just a eunuch and wasn't always a eunuch. Jinshi isn't a eunuch at all. If they didn't seem like regular eunuchs, it's because they are not.
[And if we flash forward to how another character is addressed–Maomao observes that Ah-Duo appears more masculine than feminine, which reminds her of Jinshi. Seems like a great challenge to gender norms, but then Maomao's bias/the binary is reinforced by the fact that Ah-Duo's womb was removed. Jinshi is castrated, thus more feminine and Ah-Duo had her womb removed, thus more masculine. Or so it seems to Maomao...]
And yet, just because these moments weren't included to say something about gender, it doesn't mean that nothing on that topic is being said. And the fact remains that Jinshi isn't actually castrated/a eunuch! So he works to both reinforce Maomao's views on gender and challenge them. Though he isn't actually a eunuch, he still appears very feminine. That is, arguably in part due to the drugs/forms of suppression he uses to assume his eunuch persona and operate in the rear palace, but even without those measures, Jinshi still possesses a great "feminine" beauty. He is sort of a contradictory figure in that sense.
With that, I wanted to circle back to something I noted in chapter 1. I noted that Maomao is "disappointed" when she realizes Jinshi is a man and that his beauty is not possessed by a woman. I thought of this point as contributing to the conversation around gender and around beauty within the story.
I also put a pin in the idea of how Maomao values beauty and recognizes how beauty gives someone value and specifically how Maomao views beauty as it relates to Jinshi–a waste on a man, disastrously powerful on a woman, extra wasteful on a man sans frog (aka castrated).
These fuzzy reflections got some great extra translation-related context from @amiriirish (thank you for that!), specifically regarding the line "A man? That's too bad," Maomao's thought when she realizes Jinshi isn't a woman. A more accurate translation would be "A man? What a waste" or as it is written in the GX version: “'タマナシだけどな…もったいない' which roughly translates to '(He) doesn’t have balls, though. What a waste.'"
I love how @amiriirish describes Maomao's perspective in this moment as one of "a scientist, not wanting to see good genes go to waste" as within the historical context of the setting, a person's purpose is to get married and have kids/keep the family line going/pass on their genes. Jinshi being castrated means he won't be able to produce any beautiful children and so his beauty is going to waste by not being passed down.
I was pretty vague in my initial thoughts, but I meant to sort of hand-wave at these ideas (albeit in a much less articulate way) and though I do think Maomao's sexuality is another interesting conversation (and I personally favor the interpretation of her as on the asexual + bisexual spectrums), I didn't mean to highlight Maomao's attraction to Jinshi during their first meeting but rather her recognizing his general attractiveness and beauty. Love bi Maomao, but I don't actually think she was attracted to Jinshi at that moment. Like with her view of the "wastefulness" of his beauty, she is looking at him like a scientist/as more of an observer than participant.
Maomao's introduction to Jinshi is the beginning of her generalizations about his beauty and how she positions herself as an outsider in those generalizations. Anyone would be attracted to him but that anyone does not refer to her. At least not yet.
Instead, I was thinking of Maomao's disappointment at Jinshi being a man rather than a woman as a reflection of her upbringing in the pleasure district and her familiarity with female beauty specifically.
We don't get a lot from Maomao about beauty or handsomeness in men. Or when we do, she seems even more removed from it. Like it isn't really worth noting. I think this is because she has learned how beauty can function as a sort of currency or tool for women.
Even in the very beginning of chapter 1, Maomao reflects on how a "pretty face" (and a voluptuous body) can lead to a woman rising through the ranks.
@teaflowsthroughthesesims discussed this further in some awesome expanded thoughts:
"In the circles [Maomao] runs in beauty is power, or a means of obtaining it, mostly but not exclusively for women. In her view, it's fitting that the powerful be beautiful, and expected that it be used as a weapon or tactic of controlling others.
Beauty is also tied up in desire towards others. The desire of a customer for a courtesan is due to beauty, the desire of an emperor for a concubine naturally falls on the lovely ones -- and [Maomao's] own undesirability is tied up in her lack of beauty (i.e chicken bones vs. abalone)."
"This is why she immediately sees Jinshi's flirting as a tactic - beauty is a tool to be used. Also, she chooses ways to describe Jinshi's beauty in terms of how it would control other people - 'a nation-toppling beauty' or 'a sex appeal that would drive both men and women mad' (paraphrased)."
"Aside from her upbringing in brothels, this is also probably why it doesn't 'work' on her - she is always expecting beauty to be used as a weapon or tool."
With that being said, I think Maomao views Jinshi's beauty as a waste on a eunuch and on a man both because it means that beauty will not be genetically passed on and because it means that beauty cannot be strategically used as a tool by a woman. But after this moment of meeting, Maomao will soon see how Jinshi, despite being a eunuch and a man, can use his beauty as a tool too. Something she probably knew was a thing already (men using their looks), just something she's not as familiar with.
I think there also remains a curiosity in Maomao regarding the concept of Jinshi as a woman, which we see again later when Maomao can't resist trying out lipstick on him to try and see what he might look like if he were a woman. There's perhaps something self-indulgent in that, as well as something that brings together the world Maomao knew before and the one she is coming to know. Thinking of Maomao as a scientist, it is a little experiment, but though Maomao is practical and her view of beauty is influenced by that, I think she is more than her practicality and pragmatism too.
More thoughts in this vein will surely come once we get to Maomao's reasons for using makeup to add freckles to her face!
#Maomao#kusuriya no hitorigoto#the apothecary diaries#character analysis#beauty and power#Jinshi#maomao and jinshi#beauty and value#additional analysis#gender#analysis#gaoshun#ah duo#tad manga#knh manga#gender stereotypes
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Cats
“Okay, that’s just ridiculous,” Tony argued as he threw the book down on the table between him and Stephen. He pointed at the passage he’d just read. “There is no way you can really do that.”
Stephen looked at the passage, then smirked at him, that supercilious expression that he used purely to taunt Tony. “Are you really doubting what I’m capable of, Tony? You know better than that.”
“Yeah, I’m calling bullshit. No way can you shapeshift.” He looked down at the picture that was showing a detailed series of images of a human turning into a cat. “Especially not into a cat. You’re a sorcerer, not a witch!”
“Admittedly, I never have,” Stephen said. “But I could. And the relation between witches and cats is almost entirely a fictional gimmick, just so you know.”
“Do it, then,” Tony told him, ignoring the last part.. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m watching.”
Stephen copied him, leaning back in his own chair. “I have nothing to prove to you, Tony.”
Tony smirked. “Meaning you can’t.”
Stephen didn’t look impressed. “You’re not going to bait me into turning into a cat, Tony.”
Tony narrowed his eyes. “You know what, I bet Loki can. Isn’t shapeshifting one of his major skills? Thor told me a story of Loki turning into a snake.”
In order to stab Thor, but Tony didn’t mention that. Stephen already thought that Loki was a menace to society, no need to give him further proof that he was, just maybe, right.
“You’re not going to bait me into turning into a cat, Tony,” Stephen repeated, but there was a specific glint in his eyes that meant Tony’s poke had successfully riled Stephen. “I don’t care whether Loki can or can’t do a specific piece of magic.”
Tony shifted tactics. He placed his elbows on the table and leaned his chin on his fists. “Uh huh.”
Stephen glared at him. “You. Are. Not. Baiting. Me.”
“I agreed with you,” Tony pointed out. “That’s what ‘uh huh’ means. It’s in the dictionary and everything. I’m not doing any baiting. Obviously you don’t need to prove anything when it comes to Loki.”
Stephen leaned forward and flipped the page of the book, shoving it at Tony. “You should maybe be a little less eager,” he said. “Because a sorcerer’s transformation abilities extend beyond personal shapeshifting.”
Tony examined the page. There was another image of a human transforming into a cat, but this time it wasn’t the sorcerer. Huh. “So you’re saying that you could turn me into a cat?” he asked. “Wait, are you threatening to turn me into a cat? Rude. But also, I’d be an excellent cat." He paused as an idea occurred to him. "You know... we could be cats together.” He grinned at Stephen. “We could cuddle in patches of sunlight.”
Stephen sighed. “You really are not to be deterred, are you?”
Tony shrugged. “I don’t see why I would be. Plus, if something went wrong, either Wong or Loki could save us, right?”
“First of all, nothing would go wrong. Second, under no circumstances would I ever let Loki save me. And third, nothing would go wrong.”
Tony hummed in agreement—to be fair, he didn’t want Loki to save them, either; Loki would never let it go—as he read the passage on other-human transformations. And really, sometimes the things Stephen was capable of were a little scary. At the same time, Tony trusted Stephen completely.
Also, Tony was pretty sure they’d both make great cats. Plus, if they were cats, no one would judge them for taking a naps.
That’d be nice.
And Stephen desperately needed more sleep, so the naps would be good for him.
“You are absolutely hopeless,” Stephen muttered. “Fine. Let me study the spell.”
Tony looked up and beamed at Stephen. “We’re going to be cats?”
Stephen sighed. “Yes, we can be cats.”
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To clear something up, when trans people say that transphobic systems (often) treat trans people as our agab, this doesn't mean we're treated the same as cis people of our agab. This doesn't mean trans women/trans people who were assigned male get treated as cis men and receive the privilege that comes with that, or that trans men/trans people who were assigned female get treated as cis women and therefore experience "just misogyny" instead of transphobia.
What it does mean is that transphobic systems often treat trans people as messed up, freakish versions of our assigned genders, when that treatment can be used to hurt us. For example, trans women being perceived as or called "predatory males invading women's spaces," or trans men being perceived as or called "stupid little girls who don't deserve bodily autonomy."
On the other hand, transphobic systems also treat trans people as messed up, freakish versions of their actual genders when that can be used to hurt us. For example, trans women being affirmed as women only to be catcalled or degraded by misogyny, or trans men being affirmed as men only to be denied medically necessary gynecological care. (This is a phenomenon that has been referred to as "malgendering.")
Malgendering very much is an aspect of transphobia that hurts a lot of people, but by no means is it the only aspect. A very significant aspect is also being seen as "men"/"women" except Wrong when doing so can be used to hurt us.
And even when it's not done maliciously, trans people can be assumed to be our assigned genders because we live in a society that assumes gender based on appearance. People generally aren't going to stop and ask pronouns before they catcall someone they perceive as a woman, or regard someone they see as a man to be a threat, so trans people very much can be treated negatively when they are incorrectly perceived as their assigned gender.
Not all trans people have the resources they need to be able to pass. Not all trans people want to pass. A lot of trans people are closeted, or are intentionally trying to be perceived as their assigned gender for safety. Not all trans people even realize they're trans yet! Believing that trans people are never seen by society as their assigned genders erases people who don't conform to a narrow idea of transness, or assumes everyone who sees a trans person can always tell.
I think a lot of people misunderstand "trans people are seen by transphobes/transphobic systems as their agab" to mean trans people are seen as "normal men/women" based on what we were assigned. This is understandably upsetting, as a lot of trans women/trans people who were assigned male are told they receive male privilege because society sees them as men, and trans men/trans people who were assigned female have their experiences with transphobia invalidated by being told it's "just misogyny," both of which are transphobic statements that people absolutely have every right to be upset by. But trans people aren't seen as cis or "normal" men/women based on what we were assigned; we're often seen as a kind of "men/women" that need to be removed from society, and that's a part of transphobia that does need to be acknowledged.
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Dionysos Loves His Mom(s), a very long essay
Going to just preface this by saying that I may/may not have gone a bit overboard, but I hope everyone enjoys reading my rambles on how amazing it is that we still have this message even through to day, how important this is for our understanding of Dionysos, and also just a little bit of (what I hope will come across as) Semele appreciation :) Also, I did write this during finals week, so if it seems rambly, please bear with me ;-;
And for clarification, I'll be referring to Semele with capitalized pronouns because even though She was human, mythologically, while carrying Dionysos, She was also deified by Him after He brought Her up from the Underworld.
The first interesting thing is that we get our description of Dionysos, as well as the love he shows for His Mother, in Greek mythology. While myths are usually pretty good resources for understanding the Gods, they are also usually written by the people who are in power at the time - which would be specifically older men who were not slaves. Because of this, a lot of myths tend to trend towards the "male" perspective of the Athenians. Also because of this, women are frequently represented in a very negative light, or at least as being relatively unimportant.
There are no Gods who have quite a relationship with Their Mothers like Dionysos has of His. Some of the Gods technically have no mother, like Aphrodite and Athena, and others just... don't seem to have much of a relationship at all. And this isn't necessarily to say that the Gods that we worship don't love Their Mothers, but more that the popular attitude of Greek society was simply to push women off to the side, and let the men take the glory.
And then, strangely, we have Dionysos, He Who Takes No Shit When It Comes to Women, as well as Him Who Has Two Moms. He's already something of an anti-Athena in Greek mythology, for while She was born of Zeus's head, and Metis was a sort of mother-base, Dionysos was born of two mothers, and from Zeus, in a way that echoes an intimate, "maternal" sort of birth, instead of the detached birth of Athena. And we know full well that Dionysos did not forget about either of His first two mothers. Persephone and Him famously get along well enough that they shared a rite in the form of the Eleusinian Mysteries, and it is to Persephone that initiates go, telling Her that the Bakkhic One Himself has freed us!
And we haven't even touched on Semele! It's one thing to have a divine Mother to welcome us to the afterlife. It's another thing to have a once-human-become-Goddess Mother in the form of Semele-Thyone. And Dionysos loves Her as well, very much so as well! Even though He never met Her as a child, He still very clearly has a lot of love for Her. At the start of the Bacchae, when Dionysos first arrives in Thebes, you will notice that one of the very first things He mentions in His monologue is that His mother is being disrespected by King Pentheus, and that this disrespect is part of the reason why He has driven the women of the city mad, as well as the sisters of Semele, who also were disrespecting Her.
This loyalty is only further emphasized by the fact that even though Semele is dead at the time of the Bacchae (and obviously after it as well, as the myth of Dionysos traveling to the underworld is an entirely separate story). And yet we must once again emphasize that this was written in a time where mothers were so often thrown under the bus (or horse-drawn chariot), and all of these myths were notably written by men, as far as we know. It seems that there is an inherent thread which ties Dionysos to the world of women, or at least has Him incredibly sympathetic to it, and one which could not be broken with all of the hyper-patriarchal nonsense that was woven deep into the cultural fabric of ancient Greece, especially Athens.
And to finish this fun little rant off, I want to offer two significantly longer ideas than the initial thing that I wrote! One for reflection on how we relate to Dionysos (and how He relates to us), and another as a reflection on Semele-Thyone and how She relates to us, and how we should relate to Her.
To start, this sympathy that Dionysos shows with women does, in some ways, hits culturally closer to a sisterhood than to the way that a man would have been encouraged to act towards women in ancient Greece. Dionysos as God understands His band of madwomen's own self-worth, and does not question their autonomy. Instead, he seems to encourage it, especially with all of the sassing he gives Pentheus while being grilled by him. This is such a good thing for all of us. Not only is Dionysos a friend of humanity, but He is specifically a friend for the marginalized. Whoever finds themselves marginalized in society will be His "favorites", so to speak, because that is where He truly finds His followers. It's almost as if He naturally finds where there is a power imbalance, and jumps on the other side to even things out, even if it is a little bit. I also think that this same "purposeful marginalization" is something which adds further theological credence to Dionysos being also validly a trans woman and nonbinary, as He does not sit within a patriarchal "Him"-ness, but rather within a "Him"-ness that refers to a more equal world.
Moving on to Semele-Thyone, we have a wonderful ally in a divine woman, sympathetic to humans, who knows full well not only the sufferings of humanity, and the pain in disrespect, but also the importance of kindness and respect towards others. In Greek mythological and religious canon, Semele-Thyone became the Goddess of the Bacchic revel, which, if you really think about it, isn't just about the Bacchic revel (it's never "just about the Bacchic revels"). This also tells us that Thyone, like Her Son, is also a God of the marginalized. Like Dionysos, She oversees the safety and wellbeing of the community which Her Son has founded. In some way, Thyone has become a Mom to all of us, through Her assistance with the divine inspiration that strikes frenzied devotees. It's a caring thing, too!
Anyways, the long and short of this is - Dionysos loves His Mom, Semele-Thyone is an incredibly underrated Goddess, and Mother's Day was yesterday. So hug your mom if you've got a good relationship with her, and if not, we can all borrow Dionysos' Mom :)
#finally graduated and i can start thinking about Other Things again#for the most part though it's just the Horrors#if anyone is particularly close to Hestia or Hermes#some prayers for me would be very much appreciated ;-;#dionysian#dionysos#dionysus#hellenic polytheism#hellenic polytheist#dionysos deity#dionysus deity#hellenic pagan#hellenic gods#hellenism#helpol#semele#thyone
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Dungeon Meshi Anime Review, Season 2, Episode 19 review
Izutsumi arrives! And Marcille has a nightmare.
This is an interesting episode but I know my spouse and I had desperately hoped that they would re-organize things somehow. Marcille's plot in this feels painfully tacked on and unrelated to Izutsumi's introduction, and the concept of the nightmare is so good, it could have easily been expanded to be an entire episode on its own. I wish they'd done that. They could have paired Izu's intro with the ice golem story to have one all-Izutsumi episode and then one all-Marcille episode... alas.
Those are changes I would have LIKED to see, but here's some changes I didn't like:
(MAJOR MANGA AND ANIME SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT!!!)
Trigger removed Laios' mother's only speaking line in the manga. It would have taken SO LITTLE to have someone read this single sentence, and removing it, in my opinion, has a negative impact on the story as a whole.
It SOUNDS like a generic thing when she asks Laios "When will you give us grandchildren?" But this is actually really important. Laios is afraid of being forced to make a family and participate in society. This is unusual because he's a man, most men in a historic time period of this don't really care about such things, but Laios is so afraid of it, it's a recurring nightmare!
This is also why he acted so weird seeing a loving father/baby scene in the magic paintings chapter. He hated seeing a father talk about how much they love their baby.
Laios is named after a story about murdering your children before they can hurt you. Like an Oedipus Complex supposedly means that a son wants to have sex with his mother, a Laios Complex means a man wants to kill his sons. Kui did not pick this name and then have Laios repeatedly be uncomfortable with children, marriage and fatherhood for no reason.
Obviously Trigger didn't make any of these connections and so they didn't think it was necessary for Laios' mom to speak this line out loud, but I vehemently disagree.
This is similar to my beef with them removing Yarn Floke's only dialog in the story and removing her from the scene with the Island Governor. That moment told us that Mr. and Mrs. Floke were equal partners, and now anime watchers assume she's just his wife who doesn't do anything. That sucks.
The addition of paintings of Marcille's father in the nightmare. Woof. I really don't care for this, if they wanted to do it i would have preferred it if they'd obscured the paintings somehow so it wasn't obvious that Marcille's father wasn't an elf.
I think this makes the later reveal of her half-elf status WAY less surprising.
Also, in the manga, the complete silence around her father created a strong subtext that Marcille's mother was her only parent that mattered. They could still accomplish this but I think it won't be as shocking.
People reading the manga probably thought "her dad was an elf and he died young and that traumatized her" (this is what Laios assumes I'm sure)
People watching the anime will think "her dad was a tall-man and his natural death of old age is what traumatized her" which is true, but they aren't supposed to actually know that yet...
Overall the episode was good aside from these issues. I liked that the nightmare sequence was in black and white, and the transition to color at the end was spectacular and very impactful... But part of me wishes they had done something else to differentiate the nightmare state from the normal animation. The black and white was good, but almost too subtle because the DM palette is already so desaturated.
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Dear readers, writers, and simply friends alike,
Below are some thoughts I’ve been cooking up since I started writing/posting. I believe it to be the holy grail of my blog — what I stand for, and essentially the morals of what my writing is built off of. I wanted to have this here and ingrained into my blog/navigation for purposes of making my positionality known from the start, so people know what kind of open and inclusive space they are entering when being on my blog and interacting with me.
back to navigation ->
As someone who is on the curvier side, physically disabled, Asian, and queer, I strive to make every story I write as neutral as possible in order to give everyone the chance at being able to experience seeing themselves in written word. I know what it’s like to be underrepresented (if any representation at all), and if I have any control over it, I don’t want another human to have to experience it either — so at the very least, I don’t want anyone to experience that on my blog.
At the same time, these stories are as much for me as it is for you. With that being said, I’m also going to dabble into certain physical descriptors. Why, some may ask? Well, that’s simple. Representation. (I do want to note that my creative representation cannot go beyond the marginalized groups I am a part of — I do not, cannot, and should not create on behalf of experiences I do not have. I also want to note that creative writing and advocating are not the same! I will always advocate for every human in every sense of wrongdoing, justice, etc.).
It’s one thing to be able to fit into the neutral “one-size-fits-all” window, but it’s another thing to actively see someone like you within a work of art (whether it be a literal painting or a book or a film).
These creations are often associated with idyllics and the notion of “perfect,” but because there’s been a lack of diverse representation early on in these creations, society decided that anything not fitting under the skinny, white/eurocentric, able-bodied, cis-heterosexual normative was wrong. And I’m here to tell you that it’s simply not true. And with my words and my creations, I will show you how that’s not true.
Additionally, because of society’s standards that were forcibly instilled into us, we sometimes forget the capability of humans. Often we see characters (and especially within the PPCU and even Joel) carry his counterpart (whether it be an OC or a reader-insert). Now, there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with whatever you write as long as it’s original, you give credit where needed, and you give content warnings/tags accordingly. However, whenever the idea of “carrying” comes around, often the automatic assumption is that the person being carried is smaller or of a more “fit” body. And that’s entirely okay! For my stories, though, I want to clarify. This is not the case unless I specify.
To my thicker body individuals, you are seen and you are capable and worthy of all the freak nasty shit my brain shares with the internet world. As someone who relies on other humans to carry me — you don’t have to be skinny or petite or “fit” in order for this to happen. You simply need a person who is capable, and in my stories, with any PPCU character I write, they will always be capable.
To my people with disabilities, you are seen and you are capable and worthy of all the freak nasty shit my brain shares with the internet world. I know I don’t have disabled!reader-inserts yet (this statement is subject to change! I’ve got some stuff cooking🩶), I hope you can understand — this is something that is especially close to my heart, and disability is also something that is the most subjective human experience any of us will face. I will try my best to represent this lifestyle in the way that I know best, and I hope somehow, someway, there’s details in there that we can all relate to and see ourselves in.
I love you. All of you. No matter what you look like, or what lifestyle the universe has given you. You are human, and with me, you are seen. I can promise you that.
My ask box is always open, and if there are any questions or things you’d like to address with me — I’m always open for the conversation, and I’m always open for more ways to grow personally and mentally. I’m also always open if you ever just need another human to talk to or even to listen. I’m here.
If any of these beliefs and morals don’t sit right with you, then this isn’t the blog for you, and I hope we can simply scroll along. And I also hope you can find a blog that aligns with what you’re looking for.
Endless love,
L <3
#navigation#blog disclaimer#about my blog#18+ account#ppcu fanfiction#pedro pascal character fanfiction
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Hi so my aunt is Deaf and I wanted to add that another big part of Cochlear Implant drama is that many parts of Deaf society believe that being born Deaf is preferable and a really good thing, and doing things like adding cochlear implants is almost seen as fixing something that wasn’t wrong to begin with. My aunt was born Deaf and married a Deaf man, and both of them are very adamant that they want Deaf children and will not be giving them cochlear implants unless their child chooses to do so later on in life. It’s part of the culture to celebrate their Deafness, which is also why they capitalize the letter D in the word. So take from that what you will, just thoughts I’d add some context to the conversation! I do love hearing aid bakugo tho, it’s such a good concept :)
thank youuuuuu, if I should ever do sth more detailed regarding bakugo being HoH, I would do my research on Deaf culture, I only know some basic traditions/customs
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Writing Female Fighters
The Heroine Must. Fight.
Today's female protagonists cannot sit on the side crying and breaking down or whimpering as the battle ensues.
Readers want to see autonomous female fighters who can at least defense themselves with courage and adequate skill.
Not all women are the same, but the heroine should get her butt moving.
Less Muscle, but More Flexibilty
The average woman is shorter than the average man, which makes it more difficult to wield a long sword or slam something down on the opponent's head.
A woman who works out can plausibly be stronger than a male couch potato, but if her male counterpart works out as much as her, the man is going to be much stronger.
On the other hand, the center of gravity in a woman's body is lower than a man's which makes it harder to knock her off her feet.
She is also more flexible, which gives her advantage in grappling fights, making use of complex landscapes, or deflecting blows.
A woman's small size can also be an advantage if her opponent has only ever trained with male opponents. His big hands might not get a good grip on her slender limbs.
In historical fiction, giving your heroine good muscule build can be tricky as exercise was generally considered harmful for women, with some exceptions for horseriding any maybe archery at best.
In such cases, make your heroine an accomplished dancer or an eager horsewoman, or the only girl whose father considered to be son replacement and thus, gave her a boy's education.
Women of lower classes who couldn't afford to be fashionably weak will be plausibly stronger, perhaps even more than an idle gentleman.
More Room for Negotiation, but Prolonged Ruthlessness
In the Suspense part of your fight scene, females are more likely to negotiate and talk more, strategically trying to descalate the situation rather than attacking on a momentary impulse.
Generally, women are less aggressive than men and remain level-headed longer than her male counterparts, opting for non-violent methods first before using force.
Exceptions apply if she is trying to protect her children (or someone who she cares for as a child). Mothers can be tigresses.
A female pre-fight conversation may be:
"If you had not done so-and-so and betrayed me with so-and-so, we could have been good friends as I thought we would be."
"What do you mean? It was in fact you who brought bad blood between us. I can still hear you laughing with so-and-so, taunting me, purposefully making me look bad -"
"But that was so long ago! If you want me to say sorry about something so insignificant, you should have just said so: I'm sorry. There. Satisfied?"
"Ha! I can't believe you say that so easily. You still don't get it, do you?"
"Who's being petty and unreasonable now?"
A male pre-fight conversation will be shorter:
"Who's the coward now?"
"You're wrong."
"Prove it."
"Bastard."
Compared to men, it will take more time for a woman's fight hormones (adrenaline, neurotransmitters and such) to kick in.
She would be slower to engage initially, throwing reluctant punches and thinking, but she'll grow more and more violent and lose all rational thought and compassion, and once she's in full flow, may not stop even when her opponent begs for mercy.
When writing a male-female duo, you can show him going for the first blow while she observes and strategizes first. When he's past his peak and panting, she is flying about left and right. Later when the tension wears off and she becomes wobbly and teary, she can rely on him to have recovered faster and distract other teammates so that they won't see her cry.
Plausible Skills and Backstory
In many cultures and time periods, the general attitude of society towards girls is that they have no place in fist fights or martial arts, unlike how it is encouraged for boys of the same age. So if your heroine has physical prowess that surpasses typical 'fitness' or is hidden, build a backstory of how she's obtained it.
For modern heroines, it can be as simple as signing her up for martial arts classes or yearly membership at the local gym. For historical fiction or girls with strict 'feminine' upbringing, it can be trickier.
It can be related to profession: maybe she was an erotic wrestler, catfighter, or an assasin who thought killing was more honorable than prostitution. They may have dabbles with it for a short time and is now trying to hide their past from their respectable employer or fiance.
It can be family backstory: Perhaps her mother was an accomplished martial artist or she had to fend for younger siblings on the streets from an early age. Maybe she was the only girl in a family of many boys who refused to be the punching bag.
Inexperienced Female Fighters
A woman with no fighting experience or training is likely to resort to one of these on instinct:
Try to talk herself out of the situation, attempting to persuade or negotiate for her life.
Grab something to use as a weapon. This instinct seems to be stronger for women than it is in men.
Use her hands to try and break free, or kick (often wth little success)
Pull hair
Scratch.
In a serious fight, pulling hair and scratching won't be helpful, except when the police come to find her body, they would find the opponent's DNA under her fingernails.
Plausible Weapons and Clothing
All of the above applies to scenes where both parties have no weapons, or has the bare minimum (like one dagger each).
Weapons are equalizers, and if your heroine is pointing a gun at her opponent she will definitely NOT hesitate to be the one to shoot first.
When giving your female character a weapon, choose one she can plausibly use. It would take an unusually brawny woman to wield a great medieval longsword.
For historical fiction, give your heroine something she'll plausibly own. Swords and firearm were a no-go for women, but archery was borderline acceptable.
For clothing starters, you definitely CAN NOT dress her in a tight miniskirt and chainmail bra with long, flowy hair and multiple silver chockers. Unless she's trying to seduce her way into her opponent's bedroom, and he has a chainmail bra fetish.
A practical heroine will have her thighs covered, preferably with leather but at least with fabric, since a lot of blood flows through the thighs and a slash would be critical.
She'll keep her hair tied, tucked under a helmet, braided back, etc. so that it won't impede her vision.
She'll support her breasts with a strong sport bra. In a historical eprioid, she'll either tie her breasts tight with a fabric bandage or support them with some kind of leather corset.
Invent a female version of male fighter clothing of the time you are writing about if it doesn't exist.
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hi i hope you're having a good day! this may be quite silly but i'm curious, what are some typical dances for the peoples of blest?
Hi there! This was actually sent in for the Patreon Q&A in April, but something horrible has happened to Patreon's site in the last several months, where after a certain amount of text, the text editor becomes horrifically laggy and crashes constantly, meaning I did all the work (i.e. watching so many medieval and ancient dancing videos and reading all about various cultures and their dances) to answer this question, but the website stubbornly would not let me type up my answer in the existing Q&A post... 🥹 So I kept losing all my progress on this one and ultimately ended up giving up, but I still wanted to answer it, so I hope it's okay that I answer here!
The short answer: the typical dances for the people of Blest obviously are going to vary widely between cultures as well as classes within those cultures. People from the southern isles dance quite differently from people in the Eastern Continent, who in turn dance differently from people in Jalis. I'm not going to cover too much of the kinds of dancing that we don't see much of in the game, though I will note that Ket and Hunter cultures tend to favor dancing more as a form of story-telling or individual expression (often seen in plays or festival rituals where specialized dancers are playing specific roles or parts), with elaborate costumes and dance techniques being employed in each culture (some traditional Ket dancers use fans and masks, Hunter dancers often dress in swirling costumes with rattling beads and employ hand-drums), rather than the communal dancing we might envision in, like, ballrooms or barnyard line-dancing. The Elves have a mix of both, with dance as "performance" as well as dance as "socializing" utilized in equal measure, and performative dancing is seen as a high art form that deeply utilizes perfectly synchronized music, color coordination, and movement to create mesmerizing group displays, almost like synchronized swimming or Cirque de Soleil type experiences. Mage culture, in general, doesn't put a lot of emphasis on dancing, as many Mages tend to trend introverted, solitary, or unathletic, so as a society it's not viewed as a really vital skill or even a part of their larger culture outside of the usual school/festival dancing, which isn't so much taught as it is just stumbled into.
Anyway, the two primary forms of dancing we seen in the game are what the nobles do and what the commonfolk do. I imagine dancing among aristocrats (formal balls, the Trade Minister's gala, parties at the Sun Court) to be pretty similar to what you'd see in Regency-Era dancing, with waltzes, quadrilles, and cotillons being the most common style.
However, it should be noted that the "English country dance" that was typical of the Regency era (where men and women form two lines, facing across from their partner, and are not permitted to dance alone as a couple, but side-by-side alongside others) is not something that is present in Blest. If you've seen any Austenian movies like P&P 2005, you know what I mean.
^ So not this!
It may factor into a dance a noble has to do once or twice in their lifetime, but it's pretty unusual, and a guest without a noble background (like Riel or the Shepherds at the Trade Minister's gala) wouldn't be expected to know it.
Among the commonfolk, dancing typically takes place during festivals and holidays, in the streets or on the village green or town square, not within a formal venue such as a ball. As such, there are really no formal moves or styles ascribed to this kind of dancing--it's primarily dictated by what kind of music is playing, and you basically just jam out to it however you want, in a group, couple, or as an individual--but the closest real-world equivalents I could liken it to would be the medieval carole or free-style polka. But there are no formalized rules other than basic proprietary/decency, and even then that can be pretty lax once the drink is flowing.
youtube
However, while I don't have any formal name for it, mostly I just imagine the dance scene from A Knight's Tale. :)
youtube
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Hi! I’m new to tumblr and the radfem ideology and so coming across your page I’m rly curious about certain part of the “gender abolition” movement. If there was society where people base each other off of sex, but don’t attribute the stereotypes of gender onto it, then would everyone just be a collective “them?” (Without pronouns like she/him) How would pronouns work and would everyone be considered “non binary?” Also does that mean being trans and identifying as a woman is inherently against this idea? Genuinely curious because I want to know more in depth about this from your perspective:)
Hiii thanks for your question & welcome :) feel free to ask me anything else!
I’ll answer each part of your ask in bullet points.
- Pronouns
No it would not necessarily mean there’s no gendered pronouns. Every language is different and english just happens to have a female, male, collective, unspecified pronouns (he, she, they) some languages have one gender neutral pronoun, some have even more! Someone’s preferred pronouns are irrelevant tbh. If someone wants to be called he/they and they’re female it doesn’t matter - just as long as we dont redefine what woman or man means (biology)
- Would everyone be considered non-binary?
The term non-binary only exists in a world where there is social gender, it basically implies someone has ‘opted out’ of social gender and identifies with neither. In a way, yes, people in a non gendered society would technically be non binary because social gender wouldn’t exist, but a term for it wouldn’t be necessary.
- Is being trans against this idea?
Yes, because trans ideology states that socialised gender is a thing. They believe biological sex and gender are different. In my opinion, socialised gender is oppressive and also makes no logical sense, it puts men and women into social boxes which is essentially the same thing as stereotypes. It’s insensitive to claim that being a woman is a feeling or an identity when this is something biological women are oppressed for, face difficulties for since birth. Why would a male ‘identify’ as an oppressed class? It’s often rooted in fetishisation and implies that if they like feminine things, or like to present feminine - that means they’re a woman. Which is just misogynistic and implies gender non conforming women are not actually women.
Hope this made sense! If you need any of this explained more just let me know ����
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EARTHSPARK MESSAGES AND SUBTEXT THATS NOT EVEN SUBTEXT
It's been a while since I have posted as I've been busy with finals, but I saw a post that absolutely made me spur a headache with just how utterly fatuous of a take I saw on Transformers Earthspark and the messages it sends.
DISCLAIMER: DO NOT USE THIS POST TO ATTACK OR HARASS ANYONE, THIS IS ONLINE DISCUSSION OF A WORK OF MEDIA.
THIS ALSO COVERS SPOILERS FOR SEASON 1 OF EARTHSPARK, IF YOU WISH TO AVOID SUCH A TOPIC PLEASE REDIRECT YOURSELF.
@monocle-teacup Won't repost your post as the way tumblr reposts works would have everything funnel onto your account, but I'll be pinging you and I did screenshot your post for viewer's context:
I have ALOT to talk about here, while also being completely in shock and disbelief how you end up BELEIVING THE SIDE THAT IS A GENOCIDAL LUNATIC WHO SEES THE TRANSFORMERS AS SUBHUMAN AND A DISEASE ON THE EARTH??? AND IS WILLING TO FULL ASS MURDER AND MUTILATE PEOPLE?
From here any * you may see is likely a footnote mark to check details I put at the end for clarity. If I miss something, let me know and I will clarify.
Before I get into the meat of dissecting your clearly ill-informed and definitely not thoroughly thought out post, I need to get something out of the way because I believe you'll use this as a means of shielding yourself from incoming critique: It's okay to like and enjoy characters who are clearly bad people.
There is a CLEAR difference between enjoying a fictional character and agreeing with whatever they might do or say. I enjoy many bad and morally reprehensible characters, including Mandroid/Doctor Meridian, but that doesn't mean I agree with them or don't find their actions and ideas deplorable. If you find yourself agreeing with someone who sees another group of people* as being subhuman or a danger to society you need to reconsider your ideologies and thought processes. Like ASAP.
Okay onto the actual deconstruction of your statements, why they are blatantly lacking a thorough reading of the messages in Earthspark, or even lead into uncomfortably ignorant territories both with Transformers and very real-life, human related things.
As a first point, you state that you hope this show re-examines the fact that hatred towards another group of people (even if they are fictional) automatically makes them a terrible person, and bring up the statement that the show makes GHOST's detainment of transformers look "cartoonishly evil" but does absolutely nothing to address Dr.Meridian's statements of transformers being dangerous.
Yes. Yes it ABSOLUTELY DOES address that throughout the entire show. In fact, the whole season is literally about deconstructing the notion that BOTH Dr.Meridian's and GHOST's ideals and methods are harmful if not downright discriminatory towards transformers as a whole.
GHOST's method of control is a guise under the US government by detaining any transformer they deem as "a threat", this can even mean autobots or non-aligned transformers who don't want to join their organization or are just doing their own thing. They will willingly classify them all as "Decepticons" to justify their inhumane treatment of them. This is paralleling how humans will stereotype and conflate other groups of people, as being all associated with one singular event or organization of people that is seen as bad or a danger to society* and use that stereotyped ideal to weaponize it against them and justify harming them in multiple ways; which is what Dr.Meridian ALSO DOES THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE SHOW.
Dr.Meridian is a scientist that literally works with and is a huge provider of technology to GHOST, he literally works with them and experiments on the detained transformers. You can't say "oh GHOST bad Dr.Mer not so bad" when he's LITERALLY PART OF GHOST AND YOU CANNOT SEPARATE THEM. HE IS EXTREME AND OUTSPOKEN ABOUT HIS HATRED THROUGHOUT THE SHOW AND ACTIVELY IS SHOWN TO BE ENTIRLEY IN THE WRONG BOTH IDEOLOGICALLY AND ACTION WISE. You clearly have not watched with a critical eye if you think they never address his points or somehow he is right about something. He never is and it shows just how harmful his mentality is. You don't even need words spoken out loud to know he's ALREADY HEINOUSLY WRONG AND BIGOTED.
Why should the show, one that shows transformers having to battle against racist and xenophobic hatred towards them from humans, re-examine that relationship? People are being discriminatory to people they don't like, and to them it doesn't matter if they are decepticon or not; they're all the same and dangerous in their eyes.
Yes, there was a war brought onto earth's soil from pure happenstance of where the Ark and members of the two named groups had landed, and yes it was bloody and many lives were lost like any war is. Should the war, as well as atrocious acts of violence by a few and the circumstance that which the birth and type of being transformers are deem all transformers as dangerous? OBVIOUSLY FUCKING NOT. That's literally stereotyping. That's what Dr.Meridian is doing. He's literally grouped them all into one conglomerate in his head and sees them all as pests to be exterminated.
The transformers are both immigrants and refugees of war that had lasted thousands of millions of years and a desperate attempt to find any source of energon because they would STARVE TO DEATH IF THEY DIDN'T AND RESOURCES WERE DANGEROUSLY SCARCE ON CYBERTRON. They are thousands of lightyears away from home in a place that doesn't have the cultures they are familiar with and structures built for them which accommodates their needs. And to add onto it, most were never originally outfitted with guns and shit. They had to ARM THEMSELVES TO PROTECT AGAINST ATTACKS. JUST BECAUSE YOU SEE A GUN POP OUT OF THEIR BODY DOESN'T MEAN THEY ARE BUILT LIKE THAT NOR DOES IT MEAN THEY ARE AUTOMATICALLY ALL DANGEROUS. The only ones who are theoretically "built for war/violence" are war-frames like seekers, but they didn't even CHOOSE THAT LIFE OR WANT IT! THEY ARE COLD CONSTRUCTED* AND LITERALLY ENSLAVED INTO BEING CANON FODDER FOR WHATEVER SKERMISH THEY ARE DEEMED NEEDED FOR. Starscream wasn't even a warrior before this, he was just some nerd ass scientist. Cold constructed bots and War-frames are already deemed subhuman by other transformers. The entire war that you see is a continual millions of years struggle which the origins are in a fight against their own horrible systematic oppressions to try and bring freedom and put an end to the horrible reign back on Cybertron.
How does them being robot organisms displaced by ongoing war, a continual brutal and bloody struggle for freedom back at home, and dangerous resource scarcity make them any more dangerous than your average person? And the "they are robots/walking death machines" argument doesn't count because you're only seeing them from a nonhuman lense in that case. Take off those nuts and bolts covered glasses and think of how this would be if they were all humans instead. The visuals of only seeing them for their robotics are blocking your ability to view this group as simply a mirroring of humans in nonhuman bodies.
Humans are just as dangerous and ostracizing as them. Literally humans slaughter other humans frequently; bring upon hatred and obscene actions onto one another with or without robotic attachments and aid of machines. Just because the transformers are robotic extraterrestrials who are "different biologically/mechanically" makes it no different from the dehumanization and other forms of racism and xenophobia. Transformers are literally just... humans in a robot shell. You can't argue against this at all because most if not all have human forms, ALL of them have human minds, and just happen to come from a planet they need to be insanely large sized on, as well as already pre-armed due to conflict that they have escaped from.
The whole story of Earthspark is LITERALLY about the experiences of the Terrans; first generation descendants of immigrant refugees navigating the struggles that come with being just that. They make whole episodes surrounding their feelings of alienation and their struggle to have a place in the world, their culture and history and who they are. They want to feel they belong and feel they have a place in this world and be seen just as human and belonging as their human family. Their government and the world around them alienates them and treats them sub-humanly despite them being just as human, flaws and all, as us.
Since I'm praddling on about this topic, did you even ABSORB ANY OF THE EPISODES HOME PART 1 AND 2???? IT'S ABOUT THIS TOPIC AND TEACHES HOW THIS MENTALITY OF TREATING THE TRANSFORMERS AS SUBHUMAN ALIENS THAT NEED TO GO AWAY OR NEED TO BE CLASSIFIED AS DANGEROUS/A INVASIVE "SPECIES" THAT NEEDS TO BE REMOVED IS BAD. IT SHOWS THE RACISM AND XENOPHOBIA THAT ESPECIALLY COMES WITH BEING CHILDREN OF IMMIGRANTS AND THE ISOLATION THEY FACE.
Please, I heavily implore you to go back and watch them. You somehow miss the entire point of the show and ESPECIALLY this episode. Many episodes cover different points of their existence as first gen children and the reality that the transformers have to face in general while being refugees on a planet with others being hostile and degrading to them but this particular episode is the one that tackles the points I make in this post the most. It may not go super deep into it due to forced time constraints and other executive nonsense that makes it harder to go into more detail but it still covers the topic very well.
Humans getting nipped at the heels for being bigoted towards transformers isn't some "ouugh you can't think the decepticons did bad things" type of nonsense and I absolutely hate the "oh because you can't be bigoted towards a group of people it means you suddenly can't criticize the actions of someone who happens to be someone of that group" mentality you seem to be concocting out of thin air. It's them associating the entire race of transformers as all bad, unbelonging or worthy of being seen as dangerous and to be wary around them or like they need to not be on earth and "go back where they came from". You go between "decepticons" and "transformers" interchangeably and seem to do exactly as the show heeds against heavily; conglomerating the actions of a FEW to encompass the overall worthiness of a WHOLE POPULATION OF PEOPLE.
Doctor Meridian is wrong and genuinely evil and disturbing with how he treats them and him seeing them as dangerous and a pest needing to be eradicated nor should any of his views be agreed upon, no matter how much you may try to defend him. There's more I could add but for simplicity's sake but that's what I mainly will state. The rest of clarity can be discussed in the comments.
I'm not sure whether your lack of understanding of the show and its messaging you are discussing or your love for one of the major villains is clouding your judgement, but please read EVERYTHING here to its fullest extent. Nothing here is intended as an attack on your character (if you're somehow seeing it that way) but as a heavy critique of your views on this show and how you are analyzing things.
I might sound like I'm yapping to yap or "it's not that deep", but it literally is. The show and it's writing make it a big point and I will refuse to accept any iteration of "you're making a mountain out of a molehill" type statements. If you have any questions or comments you're free to bring them up.
-With confusion and annoyance, Wizard.
-Footnotes-
*By group of people, I refer to sapient (human minded) beings who are grouped by either race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, sexuality, disability, etc. By this classification, Transformers are considered a group of people; even if they are "nonhuman"
*If you are somehow seriously confused or appalled by me pointing out real world racism and xenophobia as parallels to what is being done by GHOST, Dr. Meridian, and your average run of the mill civilian, you need to reread absolutely everything. Racism and xenophobia are a huge talking point in the show and I refuse to retract this statement.
*Cold Constructed means the transformer was made in a factory, more often than not to be a worker slave for whoever is demanding they be produced. Two characters off the top of my head who are cold constructed is Starscream and Megatron.
#transformers#transformers earthspark#ultimatefartwizard#maccadams#tf earthspark#discussion#terrans#transformers hashtag#transformers twitch#transformers nightshade#transformers thrash#transformers jawbreaker#transformers starscream#transformers megatron#genuinely how the hell did you end up at the conclusion you did#I had to discuss this the second I saw your post while scrolling#wizardyaps#ignore the tags#i will defend these robot aliens with my whole soul#I'm sorry I hate it when people miss the entire plot of a show#wizardrants#tired of the lack of critical thinking#transformers GHOST#dr meridian#mandroid#tf GHOST#Why are you defending a man's ideals that end up with him almost wiping out the population of transformers in like an evil genocide ray?#if they were human you'd definitely not be saying this.... I hope? Like I really hope you don't think this about irl people
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The Widowmaker (Part III)
[Part 2]
18+, slurs, Billy has a daddy kink
Billy settled in Hawkins for a month, laying the Widowmaker to rest for awhile. The last man he killed was an important member of society, blah blah, whatever...the world was better off without him.
But it was a good time for Billy to lay low, to spend more time with Steve, which he really enjoyed.
“There’s something I wanna tell you.” Steve told Billy, fingers scraping the coffee table.
Billy noticed how uneasy Steve was, and this made him uneasy in turn. “What is it?”
“Billy, I—I really like you. I’ve never met anyone like you.”
Billy could hear his father calling him a fag. He knew he’d have to kill again just to quiet that voice.
“Billy?”
“Yeah, I—um…listen, I’m not gay or anything—“
“I’m not either. I’ve never had feelings like this before. Tell me you feel it too.”
Billy eventually nodded, albeit reluctantly. “I feel it. I like you too.”
Not even another word was exchanged before they were in Steve’s bedroom, tossing their clothes about, kissing and touching on his bed.
He threw on a condom and slid inside Billy’s ass. Steve was no stranger to anal, but he’d never even romantically touched a man’s hand before this. He was taken aback by how much pleasure Billy found in his thrusts.
“Feels that good?”
“Mmh, yeah. Steve, oh, god, Steve!”
As Steve caressed his cheek, Billy pulled his hand down to his neck.
Steve indulged him, enjoying the way Billy moaned and writhed beneath his hands as he thrusted in and out of him, but eventually moved his hand and planted kisses instead.
Steve was the gentle type, and Billy wasn’t used to gentleness. It felt so nice and so damn sweet.
He softly shushed Billy as he whimpered.
“I know it feels good. I just want to take care of you.”
Billy nodded. “You…like to be called daddy?”
“Yeah. You can call me daddy if you want.” Steve noticed a shift in Billy once he said that. His eyes softened and his chest expanded.
“Mm, daddy.” He whined.
“Yeah? You like that?” He thrusted even faster.
“Fuck me, daddy. Hurt me as much as you want.”
“Not too much. You’re too precious, baby.”
“Y-you mean that?”
“Of course.” He gently thrusted, kissing him between strokes.
“Ooh, daddy! You feel so good.”
“You feel even better, baby.” He sputtered precum inside Billy. “I’m not gonna last long. You’re too good.”
“I’m close. Just a little longer, daddy.” He plead. “Don’t stop, daddy! Don’t stop! Don’t you fucking stop!”
Steve fought back the urge to cum for as long as he could, but Billy’s tight ass really sucked his cock in.
Billy came with a loud moan, squeezing his hole on Steve’s cock, making him cum with a groan and a mouth full of breathless curse words.
“Fuck. I’ve never had sex like that before.”
“Me neither.”
Billy was afraid to get attached, but it was too late. He simply told himself if things went wrong, he’d kill Steve—but only if he had to.
—
When Steve woke up the next morning, Billy was gone.
He left breakfast and a note on the table.
“Didn’t wanna wake you. I’ll be back in a few days. I’ll miss you.”
Steve clutched the note to his chest and smiled. He couldn’t wait to see him again.
—
Billy wasn’t sure if going back to Hawkins was a good idea. Sure, having a normal, stable life in a small town made him seem less suspicious if things ever started closing in on him, but it felt safer being a nobody.
In Hawkins? He was somebody. Somebody special, somebody that meant a lot to Steve. He couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not. Everything about Billy was a lie in every aspect of his life. He lied about his name, his occupation, he even lied about his sexuality. He always knew he was gay.
He wanted to be Billy. Gay Billy who woke up early, turned in late, swam in a pool whenever he wanted, and kissed a lonely, rich guy every single day.
But Billy needed to stop Neil’s voice. The only way to stop him was to keep killing. He needed keep Neil quiet so he could be happy. Maybe killing every few weeks, and living in Hawkins full time wasn’t a bad idea. Hopefully that was enough to keep Neil’s voice out of his head.
“One day, I won’t hear you anymore.” Billy said through his teeth, his hands tightly gripping the steering wheel as he sped out of Hawkins. “And when that day comes, I’ll win. I’ll fucking win and you’ll really be dead.”
—
Steve: Will you be home soon?
Steve: It’s so hard to sleep without you here.
Billy was floored by the wording of Steve’s text. Home? Soon? Was Hawkins his home now?
Billy: Yeah. Just finishing up a job.
Steve: There’s a serial killer going around the country killing men. Please be careful.
Billy: Lol I’m probably not his type.
Steve: you’re not funny 😭 but you’re my type.
Billy: I love knowing that.
Billy: Be careful, okay?
Billy told him, as if he were trying to save Steve from himself. He’d never want to hurt Steve, of course, but it did make him uneasy to live his life knowing a monster was resting dormant inside him.
When he was with Steve, he was a normal, fun-loving guy and the widowmaker would never emerge. Even in the presence of Jim Hopper, an older, remarried father. He felt no urge to kill.
Jim became someone dear to him, along with his daughter and the sweet wife he had, who would make him desserts and bring them by when Billy was alone at Steve’s while Steve worked.
Billy parked his car in a random residential area, not expecting a thing. He just wanted some place quiet to think, to shake Hawkins off for a bit and awaken the widowmaker.
He was startled by the sound of breaking dishes, and he could see a man beating his wife.
“Stop before the kids get home!” She plead.
Neil. He thought to himself.
He didn’t care if this man was remarried or not. Billy was going to kill him.
He was going to kill Neil.
Again.
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