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chososdiscordkitten · 5 months

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Obsessive!Choso♡ pt3

pt 2 here content: Choso refers to reader as his gf- other than that no use of pronouns. mention of reader wearing lipstick, obsessive crush to stalker arc :>

(a.n) this is slowly becoming a fic and I don't hate it. I felt lack of inspo last night and did a deep dive into what stalkers do- the red flags before they start the actual stalking lol

taglist: @flam3bird

Obsessive!Choso who almost felt his heart burst when he saw you wave hi at him when you walked into class. Smile on your lips as you walk down to your seat. Hearing your friend speak a little louder than a whisper while taking a practice test, seeing you look back at him and make a face almost asking him, ‘can you believe what she's saying?’ before turning around again, watching your friend lean in close to you and keep pestering you. His eyes watching you turn your phone on under your desk, ‘During a test? What are you thinking-’ he thought, mentally scolding you.

Obsessive!Choso who almost died when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, pulling it out and seeing that you had texted him. ‘can u hear her from all the way over there ?’ reading it and hearing your voice. The realization of, ‘you were thinking of me?’ making him slouch in his seat, feeling his heavily pieced ears start to warm. Staring at your text, looking down at you, noticing you had the conversation still open. ‘Are you waiting for me?’ he asked you in his mind. Quickly screenshotting the notification before opening it, ‘yeah, i can.’ he typed, sending it and seeing you turn your head and smile at him. Seeing you look down at your phone, his heart beating quickly when he saw the typing bubble show up. ‘she keeps asking me what the answers are’, smiling when he saw that your auto capitalization was off, another thing you two had in common. ‘is this not a practice test?’ he typed, thinking how crazy it is that he was talking to you. To you! Person of his dreams, everything he wanted in a partner. You. The person who always greets him with a warm smile, who's always nice to him.

Obsessive!Choso whose heart skipped a beat when he saw you move your shoulders, indicating that you were trying not to laugh. ‘I make you laugh?’ looking down at his phone and seeing you had texted again. ‘dont think she knows that’ you replied, putting your phone away and getting back to the paper in front of you. Making sure to remember to ask you why you're friends with someone like that. ‘You're not the same kind of person- or even on the same level mentally. So why would you be friends with someone who does nothing but bother you?’ Thinking he knew everything about your friendship with this person.

Obsessive!Choso who went to the campus coffee shop, in hopes that maybe you'd be there. Knowing from your instagram stories that you usually came to pick up a coffee after one of your classes. Only this time you weren't here. Pulling out his trifold wallet before paying, looking to see he didn't have any cash, trying to find his card. “Pretty girlfriend.” the cashier said, breaking the awkward silence while looking at the photo of you in his wallet. “Sorry?” he asked, looking at them when he found the piece of plastic. “Your girlfriend-” they continued, eyes pointing at the picture. The sentence made him flustered, not paying attention that some people notice small things like that. Smile on his face as he mumbled a quiet ‘I know.’ before tapping his card onto the screen.

Obsessive!Choso kept those few words in his mind whenever he caught a glimpse of his wallpaper. ‘My girlfriend.’ he'd think, smile on his lips when he would refer to you as that.

Obsessive!Choso saw a picture of your laptop and a notebook next to it in your story. Knowing you were home, knowing that you were waiting for him to text you, you had to be right? Opening the google doc on his computer, seeing that you were on it as well. A few minutes of him watching your cursor type a sentence and delete it. Before seeing a message from the upper right corner of his screen. A message from you, ‘Hey, I know it's late. But I hit a wall with this stupid project- could I call you?’ he read, eyes widening at how right he was. Clearing his throat at how forward you were being. Call? As in on the phone with you?

Obsessive!Choso who almost choked when he heard your voice on the phone. Pressing the phone closely to his ear, closing his eyes with a smile when he heard you say- “Heyyyy”, not being able to find the words to say to you. A small ‘hi’ leaving his throat. Hearing you let out a small giggle before hearing you place your phone down. “So i'm on the doc- and I saw you were on it too-” you started, Choso pictured you. Sitting in front of your laptop, smile on your face while speaking. He could tell by just your voice that you were smiling, smiling while talking to him.

Obsessive!Choso who desperately wanted to record the conversation- well, more like record your voice. He wasn't the one speaking a whole lot. You had gotten used to filling the silences he left in the air, being able to tell that he wasn't much of a talker. But little did you know that he was thinking longer replies, but only thinking them. Smiling when he’d hear you ask a question. You started reading aloud what you had written- making sure it sounded right. Choso accidentally let out a low ‘Mhm’ while hearing you read, closing his eyes in regret when he heard you stop. “You sound so different on the phone-” you started, almost a whisper. He exhaled quietly in relief when he heard your fingers start to press onto the keys of your computer. The call didn't last longer than 20 minutes, you just wanted to ask him his opinion on if what you had so far sounded smart or not. But in his mind, the only real reason you called was to speak to him- to hear him.

Obsessive!Choso who felt like he could die when you told him ‘thank you’ for his help. But when you mumbled a tired, “Goodnight Choso-” before you hung up, made his cheeks flush and his heart pound in his chest. The first time you had ever said his name. Immediate regret filling his gut when he remembered he didn't record it. But he would always remember it, always keep it close to his heart in memory.

Obsessive!Choso was walking to the campus coffee shop after class. Seeing you speaking to some guy- probably one of the so called friends you choose to surround yourself with. Slowing his pace when he saw you slowly backing away from him- and nodding no at him. Seeing this guy, reach for your arm, speaking over you as he stepped closer. Even from a distance he could see your face look uncomfortable. At that moment, Choso didn't know what came over him. He walked over- more like storming over. His face full of anger, slapping a sweet smile onto it when he saw you look over at him. “I was just about to go find you.” Making sure to keep a sweet tinge in his tone when he spoke to you. Smile of relief on your face when you saw him. Dark eyeshadow and combat boots almost making you feel safe. A quiet ‘hey’ trailed from your lips, feeling the stranger's hand fall from your arm, taking a step back. “Me too, I wanted to bring up-” you started. Rambling about what the professor had taught today, noticing the guy back off before walking away. Seeing you exhale before looking at his face. “Thank you.” you whispered, looking down at your shoes. “A friend?” he asked, his tone deeper than before. Using the same tone he spoke to you while on the phone. “Absolutely not-” you smiled, looking back up at him. “Just some guy from my public speaking class. He's been bothering me since the first day.” You laughed, seeing him crack a small smile, his hands fidgeting with his rings. “Are you busy? I was just about to go grab a coffee-” you started, looking away from him in the direction of the same coffee shop he was going to.

Obsessive!Choso who thought; ‘Aren't you forward. Trying to spend more time with me?’ as he nodded no, “I'm not.” he replied, his hands in his pockets.

Obsessive!Choso who was convinced you were starting to feel the same way he did, even if it was only a week since they paired you together. I mean, who would ask someone if they wanted to have coffee with you? “Sorry if you had plans- or whatever.” you started, walking slowly next to him. “I didn't.” he mumbled, hearing his boots drag onto the concrete. “The least I could do is buy you a coffee!” you exclaimed, ‘No need to thank me- who else but me will protect you from all the horrible men in the world?’ Choso thought, looking over to see you, remembering all the people who have been broken by men who didn't love them. Knowing that you would never have to worry about those silly things with him.

Obsessive!Choso who purposefully switched the two coffees you had paid for- in hopes he'd be able to share an indirect kiss with you. Knowing if he tried to pay, you'd see the picture of yourself he had in his wallet. Sitting down at one of the round tables, heavily ringed hands around the cup as he looked at you pick up his coffee. Making a face when the sour taste hits your tongue. “I think they switched our cups-” You smiled, pushing his cup towards him. Seeing him mutter a feigned ‘Oh’ as he gave you the correct cup. His eyes focused on the light print of lipstick you had left on the black lid. “I could get you a new one- I know some people are huge germaphobes.” You smiled, taking a sip from your cup to wash the bitter taste from your mouth. “There are worse things in the world than sharing a drink with someone.” He murmured, slouching in his seat, seeing you give him a sweet smile in return.

Obsessive!Choso who took one sip of his coffee, only to assure you that it was okay that you had drank from it. Who felt his knee start to bounce with anticipation when he felt the satiny feeling of your lipstick on his bottom lip. Hearing words falling from your mouth, but not listening to them. Thoughts of how technically that was your first kiss with him. Seeing your phone light up on the table, hearing you sigh loudly. And it continued to light up- repeatedly. “Jesus- this girl doesn’t know how to take a hint.” You exhaled, picking up your phone and typing something. ‘Must be the girl from class.’ he thought.

Obsessive!Choso whose lips moved before his brain could process what he was saying. “The girl from class?” he asked, seeing you look up at him and smile. “Yeah- she keeps trying to come over to my house for a sleepover.” You placed your phone down, “That girl is the epitome of peaked in highschool.” You mumbled, Choso finally found an opportunity to ask you. “Why are you friends with her?” he questioned, seeing you inhale at his words. “I chose this college to get away from all the bullies and all the pretentious people who would live the same boring suburban lives.” You started, “And to become myself- to find myself.” You mumbled, looking away from him. “Imagine my disappointment when I got here and it was full of superficial delta chi’s-” You laughed, seeing him return a smile to you. Humming in response to your words. “I was never good with confrontation- The idea makes me anxious and uneasy.” seeing him look at you with his head in his hand. Eyes half lidded while listening to you. His pointer finger tracing doodles onto the table. Liking the way you opened up to him, letting him get to know you. Being able to hear your unfiltered thoughts, not the bullshit you over thought before you posted on your story.

Obsessive!Choso who paid close attention to what you were saying, hanging onto every word that fell from your lips. Feeling yourself cringe at how you just aired out your business to someone who was practically a stranger, not knowing why it was so easy to speak to him. Somehow never sensing any judgment or lack of interest in what you said. Feeling a wave of relief whenever you were able to speak to him- a real person who didn't care about people's opinions. “Honestly I don't know why I'm still friends with her- I've tried to sit in other seats, hoping she wouldn't sit next to me in that class anymore.” You spoke, finally answering his question. ‘I know. I watched you every time you moved seats.’ Choso replied to your words mentally. “I think the reason I'm failing that class- is that I can't focus on what is being taught because she's in my ear the entire time.” You smiled, easing up on the heavy topic. ‘Aha. I knew you were failing- just like me.’

Obsessive!Choso wanted to suggest that you to sit next to him, knowing your childish friend won't follow you if you did. “Failing?” he asked, eyes scanning your features. “Yeah, I was hoping this-” You sighed, “stupid project would help my grade at least a little.” Closing your eyes and leaning back into your chair. ‘Ask me. Ask me and I'm yours. Ask me to help you.’ he thought, fighting off his excitement when you looked at him. Lightbulb practically popped up above your head, “You're doing good in class, aren't you?” you asked, smile on your lips as he nodded yes without thinking. “I know that we were only paired for this assignment- but would you be ok with helping me study?” You smiled, eyes so bright he swore he could see the universe in them. “Of course.” He smiled, seeing you exhale and look down at the table with a smile.

Obsessive!Choso who almost let out a small giggle when he saw your face flush. ‘Are you- blushing?’ he asked himself. The question you asked him didn't make him nervous. He understood most of what was being taught, but he didn't have the energy to physically write the essays, and besides- Choso preferred spending his free time thinking of you. Not of the stupid course work that he didn't need for real life. Trying to get to know you better through your social media. Dissecting every single photo you posted. Zooming into the background of your bedroom, seeing if he could find anything worth researching. A band poster, a shirt on the floor, a stranded bottle of nail polish he could buy so he would match with you- anything that would let him see you. The real you- not the person that you pretended to be with the fake friends you had. The person he saw a flicker of that day at the cafe. The person you came to this college to become.

pt 4 here

(PLS LET ME KNOW IF U WANNA BE TAGGED IN THE NEXT PART PLSSSS) omg thank god I posted this. I am alr writing pt 4 I don't CARE. this is my new passion, wrote this while listening to 'Such Small Hands- La Dispute' Choso thinks this is all fun and games, what happens when he sees I am crazier than he is ?

#jjk #choso kamo #jjk choso #choso my beloved #choso x reader #jujutsu kaisen choso #college au #non curse au #emo choso #sfw jjk

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inkskinned · 2 years

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but you couldn't, like, see a gay person kissing.

it was alright that i had been catcalled at 12 years old. it was alright that i had been followed and groped at 15. it was okay men were leery and treacherous. it was okay when a man asked me my age and when i said 18, he said, that age is my favorite.

don't you like feeling sexy? i love action movies, but i often have an internal tally of how often a camera will begin at someone's hips and travel to her face only as if by accident. weirdly, you can't show too-much asscrack in the same movie, even if it was the style in the nineties. sort of only apply a tasteful sprinkling of asscrack.

i am wearing a body type that is very easily sexualized. it's a compliment, you'll miss it. it is not his fault, i am told - and then usually with this assurance, someone will compare me to an object. i am, by the way, not using "i become an object" metaphorically. well, you wouldn't wear a precious watch in a dangerous city - i am the watch, in this situation. can you blame a thief for taking a jewel if it was just left out in the open? i think my personhood is the jewel, but sometimes also it is pain. a dog sees a steak. i like this one because it does refer to men as dogs, even if it does literally compare me to a piece of meat (which is, you know, somehow worse than being a dog. at least call me a bitch, babe).

it's inappropriate to show two men kissing, but it's totally normal to hear that "best" age for childbirth is 15. (it's not, by the way. try 20's & 30's. do your fucking reading). and on tv - let's cut from a murder mystery where a woman is shown brutally bloodied, carved into pieces (only pg-13) into a tampon commercial where she runs around, happy and fluttering, refusing to use the word period, white pants abounding. periods: gross, icky. violence, though, is just a gendered currency.

so it's like - you say "can we please treat women like they're people and stop cutting their heads off in advertisements" and then it's like. no actually we needed that woman's bellybutton to sell drain fluid don't like it don't look. and you say "can you please not make every latin person a drug dealer holy shit" and they're like. unfortunately if we don't make the latin person a drug dealer we literally will go rabid. and you say "okay can we at least agree you super don't need to use racist epithets why is this even a conversation we're still having" and they're like. actually my child is a make-a-wish kid and his only wish was that i get to use words that make your skin crawl and if you don't let me use the words it's because you love cancer don't you.

so it's kind of a lost cause. because when something is complicated even a little bit, you find yourself trying to explain that the solution isn't make women cover up, it's that the idea "sexualization of nonconsenting parties is wrong" can also hold hands with the idea "not every expression of fondness is sexual in nature, nor is nonhegemonic sexual expression somehow more inflammatory or inappropriate than its counterpart"- and both of those ideas can also hold hands with "the male gaze is rarely censored despite the massive amounts of societal harm it imposes." but like, that's a big thought. let's just slap "pg-13" on the movie because they actually use the word lesbian. and let's cross our fingers and hope no kid figures out they're lgbt+ before college - otherwise they have access to literally no resources, since even google will censor the results in case they're pornographic. now, if you wanted to know how to hide a body...

when i was a kid i used to keep my eyes on my toes while walking past bra stores, feeling uncomfortable. it was gross to look at ladies, i knew that much. the way the women were posed was... not for me. not even for the people shopping. it was weird. i don't think anyone actually there-for-the-product was like yeah this is inspiring.

and i remember in high school my friends and i were still talking about how uncomfortable we felt in victoria's secret, shuffling our way out into the new england chill. little yellow leaves around our feet. a guy held the door open for us. a few seconds later, he jogged up after us. we were so startled we turned to look. "sorry," he said. "i just wanted to ask how old you all are." we were young then, so we lied and told him we were older. we'd talk about this later - we all thought maybe one of us had dropped our wallet or something. he smiled dolefully. "i just wanted to say you all are fucking beautiful. you have amazing tits on you."

sometimes i wonder. what if one fraction of the effort they put into making sure no gay thing ever occurs onscreen just went into controlling and educating their own fucking population. now wouldn't that be something.

#this is all over the place #im still recovering from nona #this doesn't make sense #i think what im saying is #fuck censorship #friendly reminder the hays code was LITERALLY created to appease nazis :)

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bonesbuckleup · 2 months

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Hi, random q. I saw in your tags that you swear by Scrivener for original fic. I’m still plugging away in ye olde Word and now I’m intrigued to know what about Scrivener you like so much. I’ve def heard about it but never used it, so I’m curious :)

YES I would love to tell you about my lord and savior software Scrivener. I hope you don't mind I published this long, long answer publicly.

So. The main issue I have with Word and Google Docs is that you hit a certain length/word count, and it starts to lag and load kind of jerkily. You know? Also, navigating chapter to chapter or scene to scene is awkward for me--you either have to have a whole bunch of individual documents and multiple windows open, or you have to use headers and the table of contents...which is fine for quickly finding chapters but less so for scenes within those chapters.

Messy, basically. Does not spark joy for me.

Enter Scrivener.

Now, before I evangelize a bit, I will say that Windows Scrivener and Mac Scrivener are not 100% created equal. They are both better, I think, than Word or Google docs, but the Mac version is a bit slicker and a little nicer to look at. I only say that for if you're using Windows, because if so my screencaps below won't exactly match what you see if/when you download the program.

ONWARD.

So, the #1 thing that Scrivener has over Word is that it's a one time fee, not a subscription. So while it is a little pricey (Just went and looked, $59.99 USD), it's only the one payment. All updates and such are covered and available as free downloads. I will also say that Scrivener gives you a 30 day free trial. That's not 30 consecutive days, but 30 days of use--if you only use it every other day, you'll have the trial for 60 days. They make it really easy to figure out if it's for you or not.

This is also going to feel like a lot, but there are built in tutorials and it's actually pretty intuitive, depending on how your brain works. Anyway! The basic gist of Scrivener is that it's a digital binder. You can keep all your book stuff in one place:

As you can see, there's the manuscript (aka my book), notes, research, more. Tbh, I mostly just use notes and Manuscript, but if it floats your boat, you can store maps, place names, worldbuilding, playlist links, moodboards, a whole ton of stuff, all in one menu that's easy to access and in a single window. You can organize it however itches your brain the best way.

But like I said, for me, the best is that Manuscript part, which I'm going to go into now. I use a three act structure for books (but break the big ol' middle act into two pieces because it makes my brain happy), so each act gets a folder.

When I click and expand that act, each chapter has it's own folder. However, it also shows quick-reference index cards, so I can have an at-a-glance at what's going down in each chapter. (I'm using a outline system called Save the Cat for this book, which is why all my chapters have titles like 'Catalyst', feel free to ignore those...I also have a very compact timeline, so to help me stay organized, I labeled each chapter with when it happens.)

You can do the same with each individual chapter and the scenes, where when you click on the chapter folder, each scene gets a card. If you don't type in a summary, it'll just auto-populate the start of whatever content you were writing. You can see this in the 'Copper's Candids NEW' card.

And, of course, it is writing software. When you click on the individual scene, it opens the blank document, and you can get cracking.

So. This system is nice for a few reasons. My favorite is that it makes navigating, reorganizing, and/or rewriting scenes extremely easy. It's just point and click, drag and drop. You can also open two docs in the same window at once, like this:

Which is a nice feature for several reasons--you can work on a new version of a scene with the old one pulled up next to it, or if there's something you wrote earlier or that comes later that's important to what you're working on now, you can have them both up for quick referencing.

Another slick thing is each doc has a notes section off to the right side of the screen--which is optional! I use it for future revision notes/descriptions of how I want the scene to go:

My other favorite part of Scrivener is that it makes it very easy to hoard your deleted scenes like a deranged dragon in case you want them later. My garbage looks like this:

There are SO MANY FILES hanging out in my trash, and you know what? I so rarely actually need them, but my god am I glad they're there on the rare occasion that I do. Word, again, can make it more difficult. I always had a massive 'cut' document that was longer than the actual project and again, awful to navigate. This just makes it easier.

Scrivener also makes it easy to compile the manuscript into other doc types--pdf, doc, docx, etc--for easy printing and sharing.

ANYWAY. I'm sure there are approximately 1 million other things I'm missing, but basically Scrivener takes all your book/long project bits, puts them in one centralized file, and makes it super easy to navigate. I've also found that outlining is easier, because I can just make the folders and scenes and drag them around while I noodle through the plot.

10/10, would recommend to any long-form writer. If you have any other questions, please let me know! If anyone has read this far and has a thing about Scrivener to add, please do! I love Scrivener, and a lot of my writing buddies love Scrivener, and it really kinda has revolutionized the way I write original fiction. I'm always happy to yell about how great it is.

#mail #story-monger #long post #Scrivener #free yourselves from the shackles of Word and Google Docs my long-form-writing friends #there is a Better Way #writing

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nevros-fr · 1 year

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Big question: Who or when was the first use of the term UMA?

Cross posted to FR's forums but I thought fr tumblr meta readers would like this too! Introduction What is a UMA? It stands for User Made Accents, where the companion term is User Made Skins, but UMAs caught on as the catch-all term instead of UMS. I was in the Arcane discord server where foxaquinn made a joke about UMAs and wondered who was the first to use it. If you are on GASP (general accent and skin pinglist), UMAs pop up regularly where I got pinged 60+ times for threads with UMA in the title. I research by day and play pet sims by night so here I am, combining research and pet sims to unravel how language changed throughout the years in the skins and accents community! I included in text citations for my sources because I like those and I don’t like making works cited lists. :) First, what language does the staff use for skins? Maybe UMAs came from them? The Kickstarter uses the word “customs” in regards to the skins (Kickstarter, 2013) The first skin submission competition for the festival, Undel used the word “customs” to refer to the skins users made (Undel, 2013). Note that the current competitions and even the tooltip for blueprints use the word “customs” as well. The blueprint page even uses “user-created” and not “user-made” so "user made" must have stemmed from the community as a more casual way to say user-created.

Results Let’s rule out some approaches that may give an easy answer. I tried to use the FR search tool to see if I could find the first use of UMA, however it only indexes up to one year of results or 100 pages, whichever you hit first when you sort by age so I wasn’t able to glean anything from that. Note that I tried to stick with UMA as the search term because use of UMS just overlaps too largely with the sound “um” when I use the search bar, which also means that plurals are captured by FR’s search. I can also tell you that FR’s search lets you type in user-made or user made and it will pull up the same results.

Then I tried google where I used the key terms site:https://www1.flightrising.com/forums/ "UMA" with a time range from 2013 to 2014. It looked promising at first because it looked like there was an instance as early as 2013. When I actually checked it though, it pulled up the most recent use of UMA in the forums in the first two hits as seen by the timestamps of May 2023 next to it. Google indexed when the forum board was established instead of the individual threads for this search. I dropped the time range and just checked what results it would pull up.

There was an individual thread called the FR Abbreviations Guide that got pulled up. It was made in 2014 and includes both UMA and UMS in the definition list. However, UMA was added to the page in 2020 (FR Abbreviations, 2020).

I decided to just look back at some of the early Skins and Accents posts to see what language they use. It was pretty interesting, where many people just used skins and accents. There is no distinction yet, likely because there weren’t any festival or coliseum skins that users could submit yet! There were still categories though, since blueprints were so expensive, some artists offered “premades” which were skins people could buy for a certain cost on top of providing a blueprint. There were also options for “ghost artists” where the artist could design a custom skin but pass the psd files to the patron for them to distribute instead of the artist selling them instead. “Customs” was also another common term, where it works the same as it does today. People commission an artist to design a unique skin for them. The majority of skins on the market right now would be considered premades back then, which makes sense as it lets the artist have their creative liberties and will allow like minded users to support them.

I was clearly a fool to think UMAs were old because with the skins and accent threads research, I decided to comb through my forum posts to see what I ended up using. I first used UM accents in 2016 since that is when I first started collecting them, then the last time I used it was in early 2018 because I started using UMA by early 2019. I have no posts between 2018 and 2019, but clearly there was a language shift for me that preceded the FR abbreviations update just a year later (FR Abbreviations, 2020). I’m usually slow in the uptake so I decided to try and track down other forum boards besides the skin specific threads to see what terms were used.

As I was thumbing through the pages, I think I may have overestimated the age of UMA use popularity because I thought it started back in 2013-2014 since that is when the site first got started and I felt like UMA was such an old acronym. The General Skins and Accents Pinglist (GASP) started in 2016. I raked the first version for mentions of “UMA” and there was nothing ! The use of “UM skins” and “UM accents” was the norm (GASP, 2016; GASP V2.0, 2016; GASP v2.0, 2018). One of the first instances of UMAs being used in this thread was in 2018 (GASP, 2018). Can I do any better than 2018? It surely is an older term!

The accent trading hub was established in 2014, so chances are, there are some time points there! The results for “user made” predates “UM accents” by one year, and “UMA” by two years which were 2014, 2015, and 2016 respectively (Accents Trading Thread, 2023a; Accents Trading Thread 2023b; Accents Trading Thread 2023c). There were 14 pages of results for “user made”, 64 pages for “UM accents”, and 96 pages for “UMAs” from the accent trading hub thread. “UMA” was used by two people in 2016, then 5 pages worth of posts in 2017, then another 6 pages worth of posts in 2018, and it took off with 25 pages worth of posts in 2019. Clearly the language was developing around 2016 but exploded in popularity in 2018. This trend was similar in the UMA mentions in the skins and accents forum board. I used ctrl + f with UMA to see when it started regularly showing up in titles, and that was in 2018.

Discussion

According to the UMA searches in the discussion boards, do you know what cultural icon got a revival in the minds of mainstream media? Uma Thurman specifically because of Fall Out Boys who released a song with her name. And you know what Uma is like? UMA, User Made Accents. I’m not saying that Fall Out Boys planted the idea in our heads, but it’s quite the coincidence the song came out in 2015 and UMA as an acronym use started in 2016. In fact, when I searched the FR threads for UMA across the site, the early ones were Uma as a name and Uma referring to the song. The earliest mention of UMA that was actually relevant and broke containment from the skins and accents board was in 2017 in the tiny little questions thread asking what does UMA stand for. (tiny little questions, 2017).

I would like to say that while this user wasn’t the first to use it, they repeatedly popped up when I tried to see who used UMA the earliest. And that user is chocomonster, they showed up and consistently used UMAs in the forums since 2016. I’m saying they showed up in the bug reports, suggestions, dragon trading posts using “UMA”. They are definitely an early trendsetter for UMAs and repped it across the forums.

Popularity of UMA rose in 2018, you know what else got popular in 2018? Reselling UMAs to the secondary market. Typing in UMA in a title means you have more characters for other things. You know which artist got really popular in 2018? Ravenhearst. She has since changed her username but I will keep Ravenhearst for the search results legacy.

I know correlation doesn’t equal causation, but her skins were massively popular when she was regularly releasing skins for the highly rendered wings and sky scenes where there were skins sold in the 100s range. I looked at the game database for Ravenhearst’s earliest skin which was #24078 and compared it to my hoard of festival skins as a year benchmark. The Flameforger’s event in 2017 has a skin with #23992 while the Crystalline Gala in 2018 had a skin #25608. She started her night sky niche around skin #25001 so it lines up with the 2017 - 2018 timeline.

A stronger communal identity was also created with groups like accent addicts anonymous in 2017 or aaa for short, which is a group of collectors and artists who came together to make collaborative skins. An early "big hit" for them were the wildclaw male line where the participating artists made flower/halo/wings skins that were super popular at the time but also being hated on by the vocal minority. If you weren't around for the bustle, one example that came out would be Invidious by fenmori or Bewitched by Churyu. Some examples of the aaa's recent work would be like aaa. Amanita Ambrosia where three artists take turns, one sketches the concept, one lines the skin and one renders it .The increase of more people interested in buying skins and artists flexing their creativity allowed for a great burst of interest that has carried on to this day.

Conclusions Can I pinpoint who first used user made accents, UM accents, UMAs? No, but, I can guess that it was sometime between 2015-2016. It is clear that language has evolved in small ways right under our noses and that human memories are terrible as I thought we were using UMAs since the very beginning. The customization and uniqueness of the UMA system on FR is such a joy and I can't wait to see how the community changes in the future!

If someone wants to try to tackle who first said UMA, be my guest and let me know! My earliest mention of UMA was October 2016 in the Accent Trading Hub Accents Trading Thread 2023c.

In conclusion, I love umas and will probably look at their sales and trends more.

#flight rising #flightrising #flight rising meta #flight rising uma #umas #nevros writing

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charmwasjess · 1 month

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6, 13 and 18 (Dooku) for the fandom ask, please :D

6) Show us a bit of a WIP!

:D You get the Sifo + Dooku + Time Travel Piece that I'm "definitely" "not" "writing." Some Asajj + 20 year old Dooku team-up nobody asked for. Especially not Asajj. -

Asajj studied him again, more appraisingly this time. He did look disconcertingly familiar.

Did Dooku have an heir that she’d never heard about? She’d clocked the boy as younger, what with all his naivete and whining, but now that she really looked at him… Nineteen? Maybe twenty years old? The age lined up disconcertingly well with Dooku’s first days as Count. A hereditary title, after all, passed from father to son. The idea of Dooku reproducing was nauseating, of course, though it was at least a little funny to imagine the former Jedi’s face upon being informed that House Serenno required his “gift” to ensure the bloodline’s survival.

But no. Why would House Serenno surrender an heir to the Jedi? She didn’t need to see the long braid to recognize that this was clearly one of their Padawan Learners; he reeked of a sheltered Temple upbringing. She could practically smell the refectory milk on his breath.

“Why do you want to be the one to kill Count Dooku so badly, anyway?” she asked, instead.

“He killed my best friend!” His voice broke on the word best, but his fury streaked, vibrant as a comet in the Force.

Asajj almost choked on her laugh. It was so melodramatic. Cliche. Like a line from an overwrought holonovel, spinning out in predictable plot hooks before her eyes. This Jedi child was pathetic. She ought to get them into space and send him to look for Dooku out the airlock. It seemed like it would save her and the Jedi both a lot of trouble.

She thought of her sisters.

Vengeance. Thick and sweet and tangy, like spoiled cream clinging to her tongue. It belonged to her, but no less to the others whose lives Dooku had crushed out for no better reason than because he could. She was here to glut on the Count’s blood. Who was she to deny this hungry child his own right to the feast? Dooku made a big corpse. There was plenty for all.

“Do you know how to sit down and shut up?” Asajj turned briskly to the ship controls. They had already wasted too much time.

“Yes.” A lie. She could tell that without even looking at him.

“Yes, what?” She prompted, glancing back. Maybe she just wanted to hear him try to call her “my lady” in that ridiculous, overformal Coruscanti accent of his.

He swallowed audibly, clearly uncertain. He glanced again at the twin lightsabers at her waist and seemed to decide. “Yes, Master.”

Asajj couldn't help the small, startled laugh that broke from her chest. That hadn’t been what she was expecting. No one had ever called her that. She felt surprised at the strength of her own reaction. Perhaps this would actually be amusing. At least, for a little while.

“What is your name?”

“My name?”

Asajj rolled her eyes. “You have a name? Or should I just refer to you as ‘idiot’?”

She watched his hesitation, saw those big, guileless brown eyes drift and refocus. Black fucking stars, he lied artlessly, like a child.

“Sifo-Dyas. My name is Sifo-Dyas.”

13)What's a character or ship you haven't written/drawn yet but would like to some day?

I know I went backwards here writing the most unknown/unpopular character in the series with Sifo-Dyas to the most popular, but I'd really like to spend a little bit more time with Obi-Wan. He's got a large role in the next chapter of Twelves Months to Murder Count Dooku and I'm really excited. I really like the character. Kenobi changed something for me about him.

18) Type [charater]'s name and tell us what the autocomplete suggests as the next word

Lolol. "Dooku FOUGHT." "Dooku only" and "Dooku Nu" were other suggestions. Yeah, that really says it all. No notes, google.

#such a fun ask thank you so much Ant!!!#don't worry too much about Sifo-Dyas in the WIP he's just off playing with his clones #and Dooku fought Dooku only and Dooku Nu are my three main ways to write Dooku after all #answered asks #time travel au #why is that a tag I have now someone stop me

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immortalbutterflycos · 3 months

Text

I've come to realize something important in writing. (specifically in my personal experience)

(TLDR; I have ADHD and writing is hard even though I'm still doing it every single day. Make it make sense.)

If you have a story in your head that means a lot to you, and you need to take more time to develop and fully flesh it out before posting it, that's totally okay! In fact, in my experience, it has the potential to make the story better over time, really forming it into what you imagine it to be.

Here's an example because I just typed a lot of words and right now I can't seem to process whether they make sense or not.

I have a fanfic that I've been working on for a year now. (For the Marauders fandom if y'all are curious)

It's one that I haven't talked about much because every time I do, I end up losing the motivation to write. This is what happened to another one of my fics for the Haikyuu fandom. (well that and the Marauders.. yeah they fucked me up in the best way and Freckles and Constellations has really suffered because of it smh)

So the reason why this fic is taking so long is because it is such a specific AU that I'm out here trying to meld magic systems, and I've got like EIGHT MAIN CHARACTERS to write backstories for to fit this AU while also being true to them and even though I know the basic plot, there are just so many little details and aspects that will make this fic what I desperately need it to be.

And no one knows just how intricate it is or how important it is to me. Which is totally fine. I don't even know if people are going to read it when I finally manage to post it. This fic is purely self-indulgent.

let me just break down for you what I have prepared for this already:

countless drabbles and scenes and plans written on the backs of receipts and on bits of scrap paper

a 3" 3-ring binder that I've been trying to organize it all in

a google doc titled "TAoRfOL Doc Masterlist" that has links to every single doc I have for this one fic. (it's dated back to March of last year and as of this month has 93 total links. Only 5 of those are reference links.)

notes and ideas i have written in my phone to transfer into docs so I can add them to the masterlist

Hero Forge digital models of those 8 main characters because I wanted to see what their group would look like outside of my imagination

Multiple Spotify playlists dedicated to this fic and the characters which I listen to every single day. (currently @ 494 songs)

And you know what? I just recently, at 6 am this morning, finally figured out the solution to a fucking plot hole I could not work around.

Basically what I'm saying is that I needed all of this time. Every single day I see things and get inspiration. Every day I learn new things and fix errors in my own plans.

As much as I crave the validation and recognition for all of my hard work on this project, I know that If I had just bit the bullet and posted the first chapter without having done all of this research and all of this planning, then it would not have lived up to the story I have in my head.

I admire people who can just write without all of the added steps and in some cases, I can do that. I haven't been able to in a while (which is why that Valentine's Day microfic was actually really big for me to have posted) but that's just how my brain works.

I needed all of my experiences and all of my daily thoughts and all of my collective playlists for this fic to be able to write the story I intended and that is exactly what I'm going to do.

(though if I'm being honest, this timeline is rough. I really want to just write and post this first chapter so so so bad. ToT)

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byghostface · 3 months

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Look I dunno what this Daminika shipping drama is all about. (I followed you because I like your Rayllum art).

but it's not a cool thing to do to share stuff calling Jon Kent/ Damian Wayne ship "pedophilic yaoi". sounds homophobic.

We should only call the actual crime of pedophilia that and not use the word like a petty insult. Also all this rage gave me the impression that Jon/Damian was like a super twisted ship or something but I googled it and they are 17 and 13 y.o. which would be weird irl yes but that's still literally not pedophilia. they are both teens and people draw them looking the same age in fan art anyway.

If you are not in the dc fandom then maybe don't speak on something you think you know.

But it's not a cool thing to do to share stuff calling Jon Kent/ Damian Wayne ship "pedophilic yaoi". sounds homophobic.

Damian and Jon always have 3 years age gap, even before dc age up Jon, they are like 13 and 10, And after age up(Jon is stuck in space had lived through years and is back on earth) they are now 14 and 17. In most of the fan art, you see people who draw them looking the same age pre-age up, because Damian is really short at 13. And people started to ship them when Jon is 10 year old child. You don't date a child when you're a teen, or date a 14 year old teen and being a college student, that is weird.

In the current comic Jon Kent has a boyfriend-Jay Nakamura(Gossamer) whom he met in college and still happily dating.( then there are racist thing ppl would said about Jay on twitter just bc he is a Japanese character and the other shipper use that to attack him too bc they doesn't like Jayjon as a ship )

-[Action Comics v1 1059 (2024)]-Artist: Marguerite Sauvage-

As an asexual, I mostly headcanon Nika and Damian as nonbinary and asexual. And a lot of the ppl who like Daminika see them as trans for trans too.

You said you followed me for my rayllum art. So you don’t know what the characters I’m talking about, have been drawing about in dc fandom. In my previous vent post is referring to the weird age gap ship, and the maturity of different ages and mentalities when characters are being ship together. And that ship's shippers + incest proshippers are being misogyny towards Nika relentlessly. It's not about against mlm ship, or being homophobic like you claimed.

Maybe you are young and see the fanart and can't think clearly what the issue is. That I can understand, because a few years ago(when I was young and dumb!! and didn't/unable to use my brain to think clearly!!!) I used to think the weird age gap was nothing but now I'm looking back and regret the weird ship I used to ship and draw (Toph and Sokka), I don't ship them anymore + Suki x Sokka superior!!

I have deleted some of Toph and Sokka art and the remaining ones have changed titles and tags to platonic sense. I didn't delete them all because they are still part of my (dumb and reckless!!!) art journey and the things that I'm now getting over and will not ever draw as a ship again.

Which would be weird irl yes but that's still literally not pedophilia.

You admit that would be weird irl and yet tired to dismiss me when I express my uncomfortableness and wanting those ppl to leave the characters(Nika & Respawn) I care about alone. If you are the type of proshipper that says fictional doesn't affect reality… then stop talking to me + invalid opinions‼️ (don't affect reality?? Of course it is! You are a person in reality who argues with me about fiction and conception/representation that affect all of us)

Like I said in my vent post, I never want to interact with them and I don't go into their page or cross ship tags and comments on things or anything related to their ships before. And this is the first time I have spoken up and tried to defend Nika here on Tumblr. Because I'm the only one constantly making contents about her and love her as a character and the only person here on Tumblr who wants to talk about/express my love for her through my art for nearly three years.

And I can't speak up when they want to tools Nika and Respawn for their own ships and set them up as toxic made up characters in their head?!? And I should let that kind of blunt lies disguise as "playful! fun even!!" fanon and let it slip and damage Nika and Respawn's character!?!?? And let that MISOGYNY energy towards Nika fly into fanfic further misconception both of their character and personalities?!??? Similar things that had happened to Talia being constantly demonized through racism and misogyny by fanon?!?!?? A reappear theme by shipper/yaoi incest proshipper tools her as a bad Asian mom to make a sad and twisted background for Damian to need to be protected by the characters they ship him with?!??

Not all of the shippers/fic writers do this but still, I'm meant by the misconception fanons that spin out of control… then SOMETIMES THE ACTUAL COMICS WRITES(different ones/weird ones) WOULD MAKE IT CANON AND DAMAGE THE CHARACTERS‼️IT HAS HAPPENED BEFORE‼️‼️

I know the shippers and the fandom will always be there because of the internet. And I can't control it, so I set up boundaries now by speaking up and defend my favorite characters while I still can.

You can comment under this post if you still disagree with me(unless you're a proshipper then stop interacting with me‼️), and don't hide behind anonymity before you understand what I'm talking about and don't twist my words for your own comfort.

(Again, sorry if you are not in the dc fandom and catching strays of my discomfort and anger. But I love Nika too much so I had to speak in my page)

#flatline #nika #flatline dc #nika dc #respawn #respawn dc #robin 2021 #dc comics #sorry about another one vent post #sorry for not being a happy person and not posting art #how dare I speak right?#how dare I express my discomfort and set boundaries #about my favorite characters #and female characters #ask #vent post

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 10 months

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Aita for 'Breaking up' with a friend?

This is going to be a loooong post so buckle up. I have been friends with this person, who I will refer to as Bread, since 2017. They were pretty much my only close friend beside my sister(Who i will call Gamer, she is important later on) but also i always found them kinda annoying, but I never said anything because i would have to see them in school everyday and it would be too awkward. So right before my school shutdown for Covid, like on the last day, I (basically) said "I don't want to be friends with you anymore." I however continued to be their friend because they acted as if nothing had happened and honestly it took me a lot of courage to say the first thing to their face anyways. This is the end to the first chapter in our story.

So skip a few months in which we have no school. When online school starts we did it on google hangouts, and i found a way to reconnect with my school friends, i.e Bread and two other people who will become VERY important to the story. These two people who i befriend i will call Sprite and Pepsi. Sprite and Pepsi are currently two of my best friends, however Bread has had a long running history of issues with Pepsi. Mainly they set these aside for the good of the friend group. I introduce the three of them to one of my outer school friend, who is slightly older than us and therefore i will call Mentor(who actually has a tumblr so if you see this, by now you know this is me so keep scrolling.) The six of us become very good friends(for those who need a reminder, that's me, Gamer(my sister), Bread, Pepsi, Sprite, and Mentor. Cue 2021, the friend group now all uses discord and I have been invited into a side group chat, titled something along the lines of 'plans to remove Bread from the friend group.' Now, during this time skip i have mentioned a few incidents have occurred. 1) Gamer and I have gotten in heated arguments with Bread over silly things, them being really rude about Sprite's art, them not liking a documentary I recommended, several incidents where they 'introduced' us to their online friends who was just them on an alt account. Anyway, back to the group chat. I am filled in on even MORE discourse between Sprite, Pepsi, and Bread. I don't really remember any of it know and the gc has been long since deleted. We talk shit about them behind their back while also pretending to be their friend(this is partly the asshole part because we did this A LOT.) During this time Sprite is our double agent, being the person Bread always rants and vents too, despite Sprite discouraging it. During this time somthing very childish happens that i am honestly embarrased to type, so i will skip it, occurs, acting as the catalyst for all of us breaking our friendship with Bread in favor of Pepsi. During this event many hurtful words were said, mainly aimed at Bread(to their face this time.) Our break in friendship, however, does not last long, as right after we(Me and gamer) are added to a groupchat where Sprite tells us that they were a double double agent and was on NO ONE's side during this entire thing and also kind of telling Bread what was going on. They explain that this friendship stuff is dumb, and we all become friends once more (including Bread and Pepsi.) Things continue as normal. This is the end of chapter two

School reopens. I am in a class with Bread and no other friends. Each day my resentment for Bread grows. (Also a quick context for our school, Bread, Pepsi, and Sprite all use the same bus. Me and Gamer do not. Mentor does not go to our school. Many events transpired on the school bus that i am not fully aware of.) At this point I fucking DESPISE Bread. Its lots of small incidents, that i never addressed with them. Them being too touchy, invading my private space, not understanding that WHEN I PUT MY HEAD DOWN THAT MEANS I AM TRYING TO SLEEP SO FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DONT POKE ME. At this point all of my friends and I use insta, as me and gamer have just gotten it, instead of Discord. My friends never used discord much, so now, I start talking to my friends more. Pepsi and Sprite start filling me in on more and more of Breads misdeeds. It is revealed to me how pushy Bread is, how they ignore peoples boundary's, etc, and how practically everyone in our grade fucking hates them. This is news to me. I start cutting Bread out more and more. The shit talking behind their back returns, but this time with a vengeance. This time more people are involved. This time, the friend group is larger. This time, the exclusion Bread faces is on a larger scale. It is 2023 now. I barely talk to Bread. Their friendship with Pepsi is entirely down, they had a big friendship over haul that i have not gotten into, but we're still friends, only in name, for Mentor. Anyway, I use Pepsi as a human shield. Bread will avoid us if we are near Pepsi, and wont come to a group event if Pepsi is there. Life is great, because i no longer have to deal with Bread and their bullshit.

Now i come to the final part. The actual breaking up. Bread has confronted me a few months prior about how i avoid them. I weave my way around the topic of saying I hate them because i am very non confrontational. But now, I have confidence. I just finished hanging out with my friends. Its the middle of the holidays so i can send them a message via discord and not have to think of consequences. So i do. I tell them that I don't like them. I don't exactly outline the problems, but I do tell them this has been a long tome coming. Now, comes the reasons why i could be an asshole.

One, I have been 'soft blocking' Bread for a long time before this and i should have done it ages ago. Two, They have literally no other friends now. They are entering a new school year completely friendless, and i cant completely say its their own fault. Three, Most of what I have heard about their wrong doing is passed down from mouth to mouth, so details may have been twisted and I should just confront them about it instead. Four. As their only friend, it was kinda my job to help them, isn't it? but i didnt . I just abandoned them as soon as i got fed up. Five, even when i was genuinely their friend, i was a really shitty friend, refusing to take their side in any conflict that arised. Six, Bread acts like a genuinely nice person that i don't mind hanging out with in person, its just certain things, and the way they act with others and online that pushed me to this point.

So thats it, thats my story. A few helpful things to keep in mind: This is only an abridged version of events. I will be answering any questions i can on a throwaway account to clear up any confusion, and also add more detail on what exactly Bread has done wrong. Also we are all under 18 in this story and currently, so please keep this in mind. I don't think i did anything wrong but also i am surrounded in an echo chamber of people that hate them so i need an outside view to really understand how bad of a person Bread is. Sorry for any spelling mistakes, and I hope this was, at least, entertaining to you.

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

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olderthannetfic · 1 year

Note

Goyim goysplaining shit to me is why I don't write Jewish characters anymore. "Well actually that name is this AGAB so the character isn't NB they're *insert AGAB here*" "well actually according to Google you shouldn't have used the word candle you should have said this" "well actually goy is a slur and it's not bad of commenters to use 'Hebrews' to refer to all Jewish people even though I *will* get mad if you call Catholics 'Latins' in response" "well actually it's a kippah not a yarmulke you can't use the word yarmulke it's a kippah" "well actually Jewish people are white so why is this Beta Israeli character not white Jewish = white" "uh excuse me but your Jewish characters didn't exchange Hebrew names that's really unrealistic" "uh excuse me why is your character breaking kosher to stay alive? everything I see on TV says Jews would rather die than break kosher and live - no I don't know or care that pikuach nefesh is a thing I just wanted to correct you on the proper way to write a Jewish character" etc. Whether it's goyim commenting on Undertale fanfics to say all Jewish people would be Red souls (because we don't have individual souls, personalities and colors like the non-Jewish characters, that'd be silly) because we survived the Holocaust or goyim saying Jewish Bruce Wayne makes sense because Jews have all the money, or being confused on how you can headcanon anyone as Jewish who isn't white because Jewish people are white (which is a surprise to my Iranian Jewish self but go off I guess) there is always someone there to tell you that you're not human like other people. These people would never go "oh Latinos all have Red souls and the same personality, definitely" or "Muslim Bruce Wayne makes sense, those people all have oil money" but they'll say antisemitic shit right to your face and then have the gall to be annoyed when you don't like it.

This is why I pulled all my fic without leaving copies up for archives. "B-but I love your fic it's the only multichaptered one for this rarepair!" Well you didn't respect me enough not to say Jews have all the money, so fuck you. "Nooo I loved that fic it had such a good magic system!" Yeah well I didn't love being told my "race" shares a single personality type/soul color so tough shit.

And then afterwards of course they write "Jewish Batfam" fic where there's 1 line in the entire thing where one character mentions Hanukkah once and they pat themselves on the back for being such good, diverse, inclusive writers. They're so woke and accepting and galaxy brained, devoid of prejudice, aren't you going to pat them on the back for clogging up Jewish related tags with fic where skipping one line could erase all presence of Judaism from it? No? Well then why don't you go write your own fic then?!

It's a rhetorical question, but here's the non-rhetorical answer: I don't go write my own fic because I'm tired of having to hear Jewish people talked about the way y'all talk about Tolkien's elves or Undertale's monsters and having to advocate for the idea of treating Jewish people like people is exhausting work.

Literally the only fandom I've ever been in that didn't go "oh well that's just fandom! if you don't like it don't write fics lol" was Star Trek. And even then, you venture outside of AO3 at your own risk.

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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 2 months

Text

I’m about halfway through the audiobook of The Holy Vible, the book that Elis James and John Robins published in 2018. It’s really varied, with each chapter being on an entirely different subject (they went with one chapter for each letter of the alphabet, which was a gimmick I thought I’d find annoying, but in fact find myself looking forward to seeing what they get into next every time they finish one). John wrote some of the chapters and Elis wrote others, but they both jump in on each other's chapters with little commentary.

A lot of it is, to be honest, not objectively great literature. Listening to Elis spend an entire chapter talk about how great his favourite band is is only interesting if you’ve listened to a lot of Elis James already, and you happen to really really enjoying hearing people tell you why they like their favourite thing so much. Luckily both those things are true of me so I’ve enjoyed this. I probably wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who’s not already really invested in their radio show.

Anyway, I’ve managed to hold off for a while on doing another post about how listening to John Robins is bringing up mental health-related stuff for me, but then I got to chapter L in this book, which they have rather convolutedly titled “Living – Grief Is” (because they couldn’t make “Grief Is Living” Chapter G, as they had to use G for Elis’ favourite band, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci). It’s a reference to episode 191 of their Radio X show, the time in October 2017 when John Robins came on the radio to explain how the night before, he got drunk alone in his house, ate ten bags of something called Space Raiders (I’ve Googled them, they’re like chips – crisps – I think), and decided he’d do some writing, but due to being too drunk just wrote the words “Grief is living” in a notebook and then found it in the morning next to the chips wrappers. This story caught on with listeners and led to a bunch of people emailing in with their stories of vaguely harrowing shit they’d done in the middle of the night after drinking too much.

I liked how many people connected with the story, because that’s pretty high up on my list of experiences I’ve had frequently but never tell anyone about (or wouldn’t have – now that I’m making an actual effort to stop drinking, I feel like I don’t have to try as hard to minimize how much I was drinking, and being freed of those mental gymnastics is one of the few upsides to what’s been a mostly shitty process so far). When I’m drinking I’ll hit a point where I’ll start feeling things more and think I need to share this, but also be conscious of how much I will fucking hate myself if I start sending anyone drunk messages (not that I never have done the drunk messaging thing – I used to do it a lot when I was young enough for it to be almost acceptable, like early twenties – but especially in the last five years or so, I’ve started getting so paralyzingly mortified at realizing that anyone could ever hear or read my drunk thoughts that I’ve started avoiding getting too drunk around other people and definitely avoiding sending any messages while drunk), so I’ll open a Word document and just type out whatever I’m thinking. And figure that if any of it makes sense in the morning, I can do something with it.

I also have the quite common habit of eating terrible food in the middle of the night while drunk, so that image – of waking up and finding wrappers from the shitty food you ate and something you wrote that’s harrowingly depressing but also cringe-inducingly stupid – is an experience I’ve had many times, leading me to immediately delete everything and throw everything in the garbage and try to forget I ever did that because I hate the person who did that. Somehow, waking up to find something I wrote in a Word doc about something that was making me sad – I somehow find that almost as mortifying as waking up to find I’d sent those thoughts to someone in a message, even though obviously writing stuff in a Word doc that I don’t send anywhere should be no big deal. But it’s always something I wrote about some emotional thing that’s there when I’m sober and that I try to be an adult and ignore, and then I see how horribly I laid it out when drunk, and I can’t stand to look at it. And obviously I also feel guilty for ordering Subway at 1 AM or whatever I did.

Like I said, pretty high on the list of things I have done regularly but don’t even let myself think about, much less share with anyone else. And it was kind of cool to hear John Robins recount a similar story, and then get all those other people writing in to say “Oh yeah I do that too.” I mean, obviously it’s a bad thing to do and all of those people should stop, and John Robins has stopped, and that’s good. But it is nice to hear it’s not just me. It’s up there with that one chapter from Michael Legge’s book, which described the specifics of a post-drinking morning in harrowing detail – for the most painfully accurate description of this that I’ve heard in comedy. And what do we look for in comedy, if not painfully accurate descriptions of substance abuse problems?

Anyway, John Robins named The Mental Health Chapter in his and Elis’ book Grief Is Living, because he explained that that story resonating with other people is an example of why it is worth sharing these things. I got to this chapter while on a break at work, listened to the first five minutes or so, quickly realized that this was far too emotionally heavy a thing to listen to while being at work, but by the time I worked that out it was too late, it had made me feel too many things. I did even really feel in a place to put on some other more lighthearted podcast, so I tried music instead, played the Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy album that was referenced in the chapter, which was a terrible way to try to make myself feel less emotional and more ready to work. The last session I had to run that day was a rather tough.

John Robins acknowledges early in the chapter that he feels awkward and a bit cringe-worthy doing a “Mental Health Chapter”, and I feel similarly about picking out “The Mental Health Chapter” as the one to make a Tumblr post about. Feels like it’s saying “This chapter is the really significant one in the book, because they Talk About Mental Health”, and I feel weird saying that. If it helps at all, this isn’t the first post I’ve written about that book. I actually wrote a really quite long post rebutting all of Elis’ points in Chapter F – Football, because he spends so long explaining why football is better than other sports and all he does is list things that can apply to any sport, football is not special because it has drama and excitement, that’s just what sports are, and listening to him explain the justification for Popular Team Sport Playing With a Ball And a Net Supremacy did make me feel a bit like I was back in high school having my objectively much bigger athletic accomplishments in a much less popular sport superseded on the announcements for the junior boys basketball team making the regional semi-finals or whatever. I wrote a long and detailed post explaining point-by-point why Elis’ argument is not specific to football and actually lots of other sports do that better, and then I looked at it, said “This is overly defensive high school bullshit”, and deleted it all without posting it.

So here’s my second post about the audiobook I’m listening to, and it is on The Mental Health Chapter, though I’m going to touch on the couple of chapters around it as well, because honestly the best cure for listening to something that makes you feel too many things is to write them down and say them into a void and then they’re gone and you can move on with your life.

When I got home from work, I re-listened to the first few minutes of that chapter, and I started transcribing as I listened because I thought I'd include some of it in this post. I didn't go in with a plan for how much to transcribe, and ended just continuing to write until I'd covered the whole introduction. So here's that:

When Elis and I began broadcasting together, it never occurred to me to be anything other than as honest with him on air as I was in person. If he asked me how I was, and I was sad, I would say so. If he asked me, “How was your week, John?” and I’d had a tough time, I might exclaim, “Awful!” before playing Green Day. It soon became clear that this wasn’t very common in the world of commercial radio. And, as a result, over the years, our Radio X show has contained many references to, stories about, correspondence concerning, all kinds of things one might place under the broad heading of mental health.

I must admit I’m even slightly uneasy using terms like “mental health”, or depression, maybe because I worry that other people – whether rightly or wrongly – might cringe, or tense up, or think, “Oh, this isn’t about me,” or, “I don’t want to hear someone being all open about stuff.” So thank the Lord for our old friend Elis James, who, with a common touch like no other, coined the term “the darkness of Robins”. Little did that man on the street know that not only was he predicting the title of the 2017 Perrier Award-winning show (sorry Fosters, if.com, lastminute.com – that’s what I’m calling it) – and, by extension, predicting that one day I would be crowned the funniest comedian on Earth (plus Australian support) – but he had found the only word I felt totally comfortable using to describe my vibe. (Note to self: potential game show title. Get Elis to pitch it to one of his TV friends?)

I was reluctant to write about darkness. I’m far more comfortable describing how it manifests itself, and then having a laugh about it. I would never want to suggest that my experience was in any way unique, or that my take on it was in any way authoritative. I think perhaps, what I feel most acutely is a fear that anyone suffering from any form of mental health problem may read what I write and think, “That’s not my experience. Maybe I’m even more unusual or alone or weird than I thought.” What I have learned is that the more subjectively one talks about such things – eg. “I ate ten bags of Space Raiders before writing ‘grief is living’ in a notebook” – the more people can see themselves in those stories. Yet, when you try to speak generally – eg. “Depression is like running up a hill through treacle” – you immediately exclude most people. Because our experience of mental health is as varied and individual as our experience of physical health. Just because I get pains in my left hamstring after long drives doesn’t mean your eczema isn’t real. (The sole downside of being one of the world’s most accomplished clutch balancers.)

I wouldn’t say I’m depressed, or suffer from depression – I don’t think I do. However, I do feel dark at times, and my general outlook and baseline mood is often one of darkness. I felt a connection to the word when I first heard Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s masterpiece: I See a Darkness. It’s a flawless album, and the title track speaks to me very personally, as I’m sure it does to everyone who has heard it. Have a listen, and then a read of the lyrics. It’s not as bleak as it first sounds. It’s a song of honesty, friendship, and hope. But it’s still sad, mournful, and dark. I love that balance. There is light in the darkness, but also darkness in the light.

There’s an interview with Will Oldham – aka Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – on music website Pitchfork. It’s a characteristically stupid interview, where, hilariously, the interviewer begins by asking why Will Oldham doesn’t like interviews. And, having heard his reasons – nuance impossible, detail glossed over, interesting topics rushed or edited, complex topics not pursed – he then spends the rest of the interview proving Will’s point. There’s a great bit where he asks if Will Oldham has had much experience of karma. He answers, “Tons and tons.” To which the interviewer simply responds, “Johnny Cash played I See a Darkness on his last album. What was that like?” I mean, come on! Maybe dig a little deeper into the interesting thing he just said. It’s like that bit in Knowing Me, Knowing You where Alan Partridge asks the racing driver if he gets bored of the same old questions, before asking, “When did you first want to be a racing driver?” Anyway. If you don’t want to be annoyed, don’t go on Pitchfork.

But there’s one really cool thing Will Oldham says in the interview. He’s asked, “Do you think that you’re more depressed than most people?” Which, speaking as someone who has given a few interviews over the last year, is a really horrid question – and I’ve had some stinkers. (No, it’s not about her and she’s not seen the show and yes, we do speak.) There’s no way out of that question without A) your answer becoming the story – eg. “Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy has depression!”, or “Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s melancholic persona all a lie” – or, B) sounding self-important. Answering either yes or no would make him sound like he thinks he’s somehow special, and separates him from his audience. If you fudge it, it sounds like you don’t want to engage with depression or mental health. And, in fact, it’s impossible to answer, because how do you know how everyone else feels? Such a dumb, unanswerable question.

However, somehow, the brilliant Will Oldham finds the perfect answer: “Not today.” I absolutely love that answer. I love it so God damn much. Because in one exchange, something of the experience of mental health is captured, without anyone claiming ownership of what that experience is like. Everyone has mental health – both positive and negative experiences of it. And everyone’s experience is not only different, but different day to day. In that answer, we have a world where everyone is depressed and not depressed. We’re all experiencing emotions in different ways, at different times.

First of all, I need to acknowledge that in the first part of that, John Robins says much more clearly and precisely something I took way too long to try to explain in a post I made last month, after I listened to him and Elis on the Comedian’s Comedian podcast, about why I like their term “darkness” so much. I like that they don’t set out to explicitly “talk about mental health”; they just tell stories about their lives, and those stories often (this mainly applies to John) involve things that indicate deviation from the platonic ideal of a psychologically healthy person. In 2014, Elis James made an offhanded comment about how John should someday write a show called The Darkness of Robins, cataloguing all these deviations because clearly they resonate with people.

The term grew from there, John started referring to his issues with the vague term “darkness” (ie. “Pretty tired this morning because I couldn’t sleep last night, woke up at 2 AM with a case of the darkness”), listeners started writing in to say this show has helped them with “the darkness”, and nobody has to actually say the words “mental health”. And as John acknowledges in that chapter, that can be a good and a bad thing – maybe in some ways bad because properly naming mental health issues can be important, in some circumstances. But I don’t think a commercial digital indie radio show has to be one of those circumstances where that’s required. “Darkness” is a word that makes it so much easier. It’s a word that can be used to include people who have a whole range of different mental health diagnoses, or multiple diagnoses, and who don’t want to get into all the specifics but do want to be included. And it includes people who are undiagnosed, and people who wouldn’t be diagnosed because their issues don’t meet clinical diagnostic criteria, but they still lay awake feeling terrible and would like a word to describe that.

It’s also a word that strikes the perfect tone. Obviously naming a show “The Darkness of Robins” is ironically grandiose, and there’s something just slightly ironic about it every time they use that word. Obviously they’re being a bit intentionally silly by calling day-to-day psychological struggles something as dramatic as “darkness”. But it’s only a very small touch of irony – just enough irony to take the edge off and make you feel like you’re not formally Talking About Mental Health, but not so much irony that it starts mocking or minimizing the struggles.

I said basically all of that in a post I made last month, and now I’ve said it all again here, and I enjoyed listening to John Robins say pretty much the same thing, but say it much better than I have, and confirm that I was reading it right. They really did hit on a good thing with that word.

I also find that last bit of the above quote really interesting, about the impossible interview question. I’m pretty sure a really difficult part of life is figuring out what bits of your experience are normal and what you should assume is an exception. I’ve gone through phases where I was convinced that everyone’s basically depressed, I don’t think anyone identifies as being “normal” or “happy”. And I’ve gone through other phases where I’ve thought everyone except me is basically normal and I have nothing in common with anyone.

I think during most of my twenties, I leaned more toward the former way of thinking, possibly because I spent most of my time around people who all had something so wrong with them that they felt best when doing a sport where they could literally throw themselves at other people and either physically overpower them or be physically overpowered and being able to do this five or so times a week is all that kept them functioning. If you spend all your time around people like that, you start to think any issues you have are probably normal, everyone has issues, I’m no more messed up than anyone else. On the other hand, last year I started an in-person job for the first time in ages, and either my coworkers are a lot better than I am at being normal and functioning humans, or they’re a lot better than I am at pretending to be normal and functioning humans. I suspect it’s a bit of both.

One time in 2019, my best friend and I had been in an argument for a while about something that does not matter now, and I went over to his house and we ended up getting into it again. He told me this was upsetting, and if I hadn’t come over we’d have avoided all this and would have both have enjoyed our evenings much more, so there was no point to doing this. I said that as shitty as this was, if I’d stayed home, I’d have just spent all evening feeling bad about how we were fighting and worrying about the issue at hand, so for me, this was an improvement on if I’d just stayed home. And he told me “Well that’s the different between us, because my default state isn’t sad. If we didn’t have this argument, I’d have spent the evening feeling fine, because I don’t just feel bad all the time the way you do.” We resolved that fairly unimportant argument pretty quickly, but that sentiment’s stayed with me. Most people’s default state is not sad. It’s possible that I am, in fact, more depressed than most people. Most days.

Not knowing whether you’re “normal” compared to other people isn’t just an issue when it comes to issues of darkness, either. I’m in that cycle of “I’m pretty sure no one is like me” and “I’m pretty sure no one is special and everyone is pretty much the same” with everything. Like people who identify as being really nerdy – we joke about that, but surely we know everyone jokes about how very nerdy they are, so no one is really more nerdy than anyone else, right? Everyone has the thing that they’re a big nerd about, and they think it makes them different from other people, but it doesn’t, because everyone else also has a thing. I mostly thought that, but in fall 2022, I got stuck in a meeting at work where they had an “icebreaker game” of saying your name and a topic on which you could easily give a 30-minute speech. You didn’t have to give the speech or anything, you just had to say what topic you could easily do. There were eight people besides me in that meeting, and seven of them said this was a really difficult question and they struggled to think of anything. One person said Taylor Swift, and that is fine because I am a very non-judgemental person who has no opinion on that (the last clause of this sentence was of course sarcasm, though to be honest, I do genuinely have more respect for someone who could take for 30 minutes about a subject I think is stupid than I do for the people who didn’t have that strong an interest in anything). Maybe that’s a sign that my level of nerdiness does significantly set me apart from most people. Or maybe all those other people were just doing the same thing I was, which is going through the massive list in their minds of subjects they could explain for half and hour, and trying to find one that wouldn’t sound too weird or niche, and not coming up with anything. I hope it was the latter.

I’m thinking of that Daniel Kitson bit where he said you assume other people’s mentalities are basically the same as yours, but then you remember that some people hang their coats up on a train, and the illusion of shared experience shattered. I really like that one because it’s such a specific thing, but he did nail it. I cannot imagine hanging my coat up on a train. It’s such a small, insignificant thing, it’s not against my moral principles or anything – it’s just something it would never occur to me to do. And yet, I have been on trains and seen coats hung up on those little hooks. Some people just go through the world differently from me.

I think the smallest, least important thing in my life that gives me that feeling Kitson was describing – that “Oh shit, the baseline assumption I made that we approach life in basically the same way is incorrect” – is when someone recommends some media to me, and then lets me know what paid streaming site it’s on, as though that will have any bearing on how I watch and/or listen to it. I think the biggest, most important thing that gives me that feeling is that some people have children on purpose. Some people out there think “I find getting out of bed in the morning and tending to my responsibilities so easy that I could probably still do it even if you added a lot more noise and stress, as well as a huge number of additional responsibilities, and raised the stakes to the point where an innocent child's life depends on me getting it right every single day for many years, even at this higher level of difficulty.” They don't just think they're mentally and physically functional and will likely stay that way for the next eighteen years - they're so sure of this that they think it would be fine for a child's life to depend on it. The massive gulf between my mentality and the mentality of a person who could do that – the deep fundamental level on which that gulf exists – makes me sometimes think I don’t have any common experience with almost anyone. And then I listen to a story about someone getting drunk alone and writing something stupid like “Grief is living” in a notebook, and I say “Okay, there are some common experiences.”

The chapter before “L: Living – Grief Is” is “K: Keeping it Session”. This is John Robins’ expression that means sticking to session ales when drinking, which means under 4.5% (basically, weak beer). He goes into great detail about how this improves both the experience of drinking, and your life in general. It’s another thing I’ve described before on this blog, which is that it’s a sneaky thing that seems like it promotes responsible drinking, but actually it’s just a sign of a drinking problem, someone who loves the act of drinking alcohol so much that he’s found a way to make it last longer, because if each drink is weaker then you can have more of it, all else equal. That chapter made so much sense as I listened to it, and I was thinking, once again, that maybe I could try this as a way to satisfy alcohol cravings. Until I got to the very end of the chapter, which I’ve also transcribed:

Having banned spirits in my house from April 2017 – due to factors – the power of my moral hangovers has lessened. Yes, I still have the odd cloudy day that I have to write off, and spend ignoring the self-doubt and seeking emergency crying nooks in central London. (Unused studios at Radio X HQ are an absolute Godsend for any tearful digital DJ caught short welling up in public – for example, after watching the film Arrival at a central London cinema in Jan. 2017). But these days are rare. I have had to admit that spirits, rum especially, had a large part to play in the end of every relationship I’ve ever been in, numerous shame wells, and all my major career failures/plateaus, 2007-14. But I’ve now reached a happy medium where, by sticking to session ale and having the odd day off booze, marked in red Sharpie on my official Queen calendar, I’m genuinely able to enjoy my drinking and my life. So, go forth, dear friends. Spread your alcohol over longer nights, extended chats, and deeper nooks. Forgo wasteful units, erase shame from your mornings, and keep it session.

That bit reminded me that – oh right, this is all bullshit. That is a man who, since writing that, has admitted he had a significant alcohol addiction that was not, in fact, resolved in 2018. That man just explained to me, in 2018, that he has now figured out his drinking habits and is able to do it in a healthy and responsible way and it’s all fine. That’s just lying, I’ve done it too. I don’t know how many years in a row I’ve said “I think my drinking was reached problem levels last year, I’m glad I have it under control now.” Don’t take alcohol advice from people who are lying. (I mean, obviously cutting back is better than not cutting back and drinking weaker alcohol is better than drinking stronger alcohol. I just mean, if you’re having ten drinks in a night on a regular basis, there isn’t a way to make that a good idea, no matter how much I – and apparently John Robins – would like there to be. And if an alcoholic tells you there is a good way to do that, they're probably lying.)

Later in the Grief Is Living chapter, John Robins gets more into discussing how mental health problems manifest and what he’s learned about how to deal with them. To his credit he is very careful about this, he keeps saying he’s not an expert, his experiences will not necessarily apply to anyone else, and the vast majority of his actual advice consisted of referring people to experts, or relaying things he’s learned from experts.

He breaks down lifestyle things into categories that he tries to take care of for the sake of mental health – food, sleep, drink, exercise. And then goes into detail on each one, acknowledging that sometimes you can’t get it all right and sometimes people aren’t capable of following advice on this and sometimes it’s not enough, but it tends to help. He then added that while this doesn’t apply to him, the other big everyday lifestyle factor in mental health for half the population is menstruation, as a huge number of people find their mental health fluctuates significantly with that cycle. And then he talks about how many women he’s known who suffer horribly from this and how they try to manage it, and gives some advice about taking it to a doctor if it’s bad and demanding to see a specialist if you get brushed off or told there’s nothing they can do because it’s not right that women are expected to just “live with it” when there are medical treatments that can help with that.

This of course made me think of the routine in his 2014 Edinburgh show, about his girlfriend’s PMS/PMT. I wrote about this before too, how I do see where he was going with that. The routine is less bad than any one-sentence summary (like the one I just wrote) could make it sound, because he was clearly trying to be more nuanced than just “women be crazy on their periods”. He was approaching it with sympathy for how frustrating those feelings are for the woman experiencing them – but at the same time, he was also making a joke about how those symptoms look odd from the outside. Sara Pascoe did almost the same thing in her show LadsLadsLads – said she suffers from clinically bad PMT and then told some stories about times that led to getting emotional in ways that were amusingly disproportionate and that looks odd.

Obviously, the giant, glaring difference between the two situations is she gets to make that joke because it’s her experience. I guess it’s a double standard, but it seems fair enough given the trade-off of who has to actually live with it, that people who get periods are allowed to make the joke and people who don’t should be very, very careful if they try doing the same thing. John Robins was more careful than most cis men throughout the history of stand-up have been, when it comes to writing a “women be crazy on their periods” routine. But still, not careful enough. That routine is the bit of Robins stand-up that I think is least defensible (aside from that other bit about Sara Pascoe at the end of Darkness of Robins – it’s fine, she hasn’t seen the show and they do speak, it’s hopefully fine and he hopefully ran it past her), I cringed through it when I re-listened to his 2014 show recently and I think including it was a bad call. However, I do like that hearing this bit in the book confirmed the way I read that routine, which is that he doesn’t actually think the primary victims of people suffering from PMT are their male partners. That he was trying to talk about how it’s a genuine issue that people suffer from and that sucks for them, but also, we can make lighthearted fun about it! He just… didn’t do it nearly well enough to justify touching a subject that has such a terrible history of cis male stand-up comedians being dicks about that.

Anyway, I don’t want to get into detail here (or anywhere, talking about it makes me extremely uncomfortable and that sort of thing is why destigmatizing and normalizing discussions about it are good, ie. a cis man including it on a list of lifestyle factors that affect mental health because it’s a huge one even though it doesn’t apply to him – normalizing it through jokes in stand-up sets is also good, but probably best to leave that to the people who experience it), but the fact that I have this cycle every month has a significant detrimental effect on my mental and sometimes physical health, as well as in some ways my overall quality of life, and I appreciate hearing it mentioned so casually. To be honest, that’s another situation where I used to think I’m worse off than most people, but now think I’m not. Every person I’ve ever known well enough for them to have told me about their experience with that cycle has had horror stories that should not be normal, but given how common they are, I think that is normal. My ex-girlfriend had that issue described in the book, of doctors brushing off her terrible, abnormal symptoms because this is just what women are expected to go through. My mother had an emergency hysterectomy at age 48 after experiencing so much blood loss over so many years that it gave her permanent disability issues, and it took until that point for anything to get done because women bleeding a lot is assumed to be normal. It is a good thing to talk about and differentiate between common and normal, I think. Sorry about the tangent, I just figured I’ll package all my oversharing in this one post and then we can move on.

I need to get into another part from later in the Grief Is Living chapter of the book, when John Robins talks about the gambling addiction he used to have, and relays some things he learned from the Gambler’s Anonymous meetings he attended for a while. He explained: “I haven’t gambled since the sixth of December 2002. If you’d told me, on the fifth of December, 2002, that I would go sixteen years without gambling, I would have thrown up at the horror of that idea. Slash burst into tears, slash started gambling.” I wrote out that quote just because I found it helpful. Thinking about giving something up forever is overwhelming and impossible and will immediately make you turn to that thing just to cope with the thought of living without it forever. But you can do it a little at a time and someday it’ll add up.

I’m going transcribe one more quote from that chapter:

My point here is this: You are enough. You did something. Too often, we feel like we aren’t in control, aren’t capable of things. And it doesn’t matter whether it was writing a symphony or emptying the dishwasher, you did it. And hold onto that for dear life, because when it’s all you can do not to bang your had against the wall, or stay in bed all day, or drink into oblivion, emptying the dishwasher is a symphony. And it’s with these small, seemingly insignificant handholds that we can begin to pull ourselves out of the swamp.

I included that because it made me think of that blog he wrote for Chortle (which John and Elis' book described as "comedy's Bible/menu/tabloid", which I found quite funny), during the 2007 Edinburgh Festival, that I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. I made fun of one particular entry in it, which I mostly stand by, because it was so fucking pointlessly intense in such a Classic Robins way. Firstly, he writes glowingly about a Phil Kay show he saw:

It does begin, however, with some of the most beautiful prose I’ve heard in a comedy show. So much so that I have to take out my notebook to write down the statement “the law of love says ‘you are enough’”. Unfortunately Phil sees me do this and takes me for a reviewer. “He might be a journalist” I look up “bang, you’ve missed a bit of the show” he says. I’m wearing headphones round my neck and he riffs on that for a while then moves on. But by now my face is burning and I become his point of focus after delivering set pieces. I feel terrible for the pressure he now seems to think he’s under when there is no need, “I’m not a reviewer Phil! I’m a fan! I’m a worshipper!” but I stay quiet, sit back, and enjoy his remarkable talent. I was going to give him a review, just for neatness, but I don’t think you can really review his shows, just him. He walks a line of personal confession that any self proclaimed storyteller, myself included, is simply miles away from. Of course it’s an intensely personal thing, but for me, as nice as it is to make badges, this style of comedy is where i find hope for the new wave, or whatever you want to call it. The amazing thing is that Phil’s been doing it for nearly 20 years.

So adorable, so annoying, so pointlessly intense, so pretentious but earnest, so sweet – a 25-year-old inexperienced comedian taking out a physical notebook during a show because he was so moved by the line “The law of love says you are enough” that he just had to write it down. But then, he writes about how the night unfolded later on:

After the Zone, which pretty much sold out and was really good, (a high point was Carl telling a woman with an annoying laugh ‘it’s like being heckled by the Lilt ladies’), we went to the Brooke’s Bar. It was rammed and hot. I met a person I’ve not met before, and it was he who made me realise that Phil Kay is not the only one off up here this year. I won’t mention his name because of what transpires later, but he’s like a cross between Chris Morris and Peter Cook circa ‘Derek and Clive get the horn’, drunk, breakdown era, vitriolic Peter Cook. He’s bounding about the bar vomiting all forms of obscenity out onto an unexpecting audience, save those who know him, who reliably inform me that this is normal behaviour. It’s ‘what’s the worst thing you can say to a stranger’ stuff, captivating as much as it is abhorrent. When it crosses the line into straightforward assault I keep my distance. But he reminds me of me, in a way. Not the assault, but the tractor beam of desperation to perform that throws you round a room of strangers and leads you to ruin their evening.

First of all, I need to acknowledge that this does not sound anything like Chris Morris. And I know Peter Cook had issues, but surely there’s a less dramatic simile than that, that John could have used to explain that some comedian was being a dick in a bar. Anyway, the story escalates very fast after that. Weirdly fast. The guy who is not Chris Morris or Peter Cook leaves, and then John and his friends leave, and they find the guy again in a chip show, where he's shouted verbal abuse at some locals and picked a fight with them.

He is chased out by 6 or 7 very rightly angry men, they knock him to the ground and begin to beat him. It’s the kind of thing you only imagine doing when you’re brain won’t sit still at night; “God, imagine if I shouted ‘Fuck you all’ at a funeral, or went to a Millwall game and called them all fags”. It’s not just social suicide, but increasingly physical suicide that I am watching. As the punches and kicks are thrown we wade in to stop the trouble, in the slightly awkward position of being totally sympathetic with the people who are kicking the shit out of him. One minute they were buying chips, the next being called “foreign cunts” and being told to “speak English” in their own country. He didn’t mean these things, but says them to achieve the desired effect: self destruction. As Burgess said, and never truer than now, “destruction’s our ode to joy”.

As we break it up, and shelter our colleague away from the gathering crowd, tears fall from his battered face, and now I properly see myself in his little boy lost eyes. I know that burning need to feel something, anything, other than what you’re feeling inside. In a former life I’d have put my fist through a door, or smashed a bottle or jumped through a shop window, something more controlled than letting half a dozen drunk Scots administer the punishment. “We need to get on top of this”, I say to him, and beating in my head is that statement, like a fucking beacon; “the law of love says ‘you are enough’” to be honest this guy is more than enough. But somehow I need to show him that like Phil suggests, he himself, is all he needs to do whatever he wants. That release, the blessed release that comes from being half killed by an angry mob can be found inside you, the law of love says so.

You definitely should not shout racist abuse at people who have graciously allowed thousands of annoying performers and tourists to take over their city for an entire month (though you also shouldn't beat people up in the street even if they deserve it, and if you see other people beating someone up in the street you should try to stop it if you can, even if they deserve it). And it's pretty fucking intense to quote the likes of Anthony Burgess to Phil Kay while describing the tear-stained face of a man who just picked a fight in a chip shop. I certainly wouldn't call it pointlessly intense this time - that situation got pretty fucking dramatic. But John Robins' narration also got pretty fucking dramatic, and I made of fun of that in another post a few weeks ago, and I mostly stand by that.

But I have to admit I did feel a bit bad after writing that, because of course I know exactly what he's talking about, I spent over ten years of my life unable to function unless I could go into a small room and physically throw myself against people until I knocked them down or they knocked me down and something hurt enough to stop me feeling anything else. And I realize that is also a pretty dramatic thing to write, it's the sort of thing I'd wake up to find written in a Word doc on my laptop next to a Subway wrapper and an almost empty whiskey bottle (which is, obviously, also a way to achieve that feeling of catharsis), but it is an experience I know well and is probably worth talking about. Maybe if more people wrote their feelings down in overly dramatic blog entries, fewer people would feel the need to go pick fights in the street.

And I thought of that old Chortle blog entry when I heard that line in The Mental Health Chapter of his audiobook written 11 years later: "My point here is this: You are enough." He remembered that line. Or he forgot it and it's a coincidence that he repeated it, that's probably more likely. But it did make me think I should be less of a dick about a twenty-five-year-old comedian contributing even more spelling errors to Chortle, while trying to express the way he connected to someone's emotional experience, in the hopes that it might turn out this one doesn't set him too far apart from other people. After all this, I really don't have grounds to make fun of someone else for doing that (although, in my defence, I at least keep my spelling errors/convoluted connections to an emotional experience on this website/gremlin network, and don't sully the highly respectable Bible/menu/tabloid of comedy with them).

Okay I'm done the dramatic parts now. The next chapter is "M: Mind Scenarios", which is much more lighthearted as it looks at the things he thinks about when trying to sleep, although that chapter does contain the line: "I find falling asleep sober so difficult that I’ve twice called NHS Direct because I thought I was having a heart attack," because it's John Robins, so even the fun little ones can get fairly dark. But that chapter is mainly not un-acknowledged alcoholism, it's mainly Sherlock Holmes fanfiction. That is not a joke, it's not something I'm taking out of context to make it sound weird. It's a very literal description of the chapter.

He explains to us that he likes to invent Sherlock Holmes mysteries while falling asleep, and then he spends quite a bit of time - a significant portion of the chapter - reading out an example. I kept waiting for there to be some twist or double meaning that would connect to other things from the book, but no, he just wanted to read us his Sherlock Holmes fanfiction. When he finished the Sherlock story, he didn't add any analysis or explanation of why he'd done that, he just immediately moved on to discussing the cognitive benefits of fantasizing about a nuclear apocalypse.

...Like I said, I'm enjoying the book, but I recommend it to people who are already on board with James and Robins and their whole thing, and I recommend it no one else. I'm having fun though. The vast majority of the book is much more fun than this post.

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derseprinceoftbd · 10 months

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An explainer for Homestuck, typed up on a Google doc for Reddit, and now transplanted onto Tumblr, with the hope of crossposting it onto Reddit. Most explainers I've seen utterly fail to get the tone of the series across, thus not answering the main question I see: "what is Homestuck *and why is it like this*". Why does it evoke the reactions it does? Why are so many things considered a reference? Who is Vriska? (I can't actually explain that one in under 3000 words, it turns out.) But, here's a briefer briefer (heh) on the subject of "What the actual fuck is Homestuck":

#Homestuck, A History;

Andrew Hussie, a person (now going by any pronouns) then known for various obscure things around the net, made an interactive reader-driven comic-type-thing called Jailbreak where he would draw panels demonstrating the events of the story as dictated by other posters in the thread, putting his favoured suggestions in the narration and responding in kind. The happenings and variables were influenced by his own strange brand of humor and set of fascinations, such as rap, the Starsky and Hutch movie and the cast thereof, horses, clowns, and H!rry P!tter as a cultural presence. He would eventually compile this, along with the unfinished followup, Bard Quest, on its own website.

The third installment of the so-called MS Paint Adventures, Problem Sleuth, was a massive step up in production value, featuring impressive art and output speed as well as evolutions such as some pages being flashing gifs. This sort of thing was considered to be one of the best demonstrations of the potential of the internet. It ran for 1674 pages over the course of about a year.

Homestuck was the followup to that, running 8123 pages from April 13th 2009-2016 with numerous hiatuses in the latter half of that time. It featured such advancements as colored panels as default, videos with sound, small WASD-controlled computer games on various pages, and most importantly, actual conversations between characters, allowing them to become three-dimensional and truly sympathetic. (Hussie, it would soon be revealed, was heavily skilled at writing compelling and unique character voices and dialogue writing in general.)

Homestuck was definitely the most complex MPSA, with a grand overarching plot being integrated into the results of the actions of the readers. The plot revolved around an in-universe game called SBURB with the power to influence reality, sort of a Jumanji with time-travel mechanics that would soon be revealed to be the centerpiece of reality itself, a program that destroys the home planets of its players to motivate them to enter the world of the game and fulfill an unknown grand purpose, complete with millions of fully sentient NPCs.

Homestuck has been described as "a story that's also a puzzle", and this lens has gained authorial approval. This is the sort of story where the Author appears as a character to explain things to the audience, another character ends up changing the color of the site to his own scheme and narrating in his own voice, and the Author bursts through a literal fourth wall into the world of the story, hunts him down, and beats him with a broom. This is the sort of story where one specific person has killed another three times across multiple iterations of both themselves and the universe, and three of the killee are alive at the end, despite all of them being versions that were killed by the killer, who himself has one alive at the end, and both of those people have four-letter names, the first two letters of which are the same.

Eventually the suggestions from readers became so numerous and difficult that the suggestion boxes were closed near the end of the first year, but their influence carried on; one easy example is a character only seen from the top half initially being theorized on the official forums as using a wheelchair, a fact which would not only become Canon, but highly relevant.

The early MSPAs curated an audience through programming humor and 80s-90s film references as filtered through the styles of Terry Pratchett, Mark Twain, and the Something Awful forums, but the audience for Homestuck, due to the nature of the characters, was markedly different, especially after the Trolls showed up.

You've probably seen them.

The Trolls, initially presented as some extremely odd and bothersome fellows on the internet, were soon shown to be a race of grey-skinned, orange-horned aliens that had undergone a SBURB Session that they claimed had been influenced by the lead human characters. Trolls possessed multicolored blood in both organized castes and clear deviations, psychic abilities, unique typing styles, insectoid traits as opposed to hominid, near-universal bisexuality with the sole known exception being Sapphic, and a complex romantic system with its own symbols, comically vague-yet-comprehensive reproductive system, and of course, relationship dynamics.

I cannot express how perfect the Trolls were in terms of catching on. Tumblr loved these fuckers and it's not at all hard to see why.

It's also worth noting that this wasn't the only market-perfect part of Homestuck; Classpecting, the equivalent of Hogwarts Houses, featured a 144/168/288/336/384(depending on who you ask and what they count, I've always thought 192)-strong grid system of human personality traits that not only seemed eerily accurate as a personality mapper, but corresponded to what elemental powers one received in the game of SBURB.

So... yeah. Homestuck was an incredibly complex and engaging work in both plot and presentation, driven by a single incredibly talented and flawed creative voice above all, and which was perfectly made to attract a massive, unabashedly bizarre/proudly cringe, and notably largely queer fanbase across a younger internet. The style of presentation, art, and character writing was instantly recognizable and relatively easy to imitate, leading to fanfiction and even fanmade adventures galore, most of the latter hosted on MSPFA.com.

The main site for Homestuck is broken now-it's recommended that new readers download the [Unofficial Homestuck Collection](https://bambosh.dev/unofficial-homestuck-collection/), and starting with Problem Sleuth to ease into the format and writing is a pretty popular choice. The ending is also considered generally quite poor in a number of ways, particularly regarding unfollowed forshadowing and blatant abandonment of character arcs, with some fans even [making](https://friendlybatteringram.tumblr.com/tagged/altstuck) their own [works](https://mspfa.com/?s=44153&p=1) as [substitutions](http://mspfa.com/?s=12003&p=1). Few speak of the epilogues. Fewer still speak of the sequel.

Content warnings for Homestuck include: blood, clowns, dicks-out furry art in the background of like ten pages, brief black-and-white nudity, swearing, the R-slur, a joke about an acronym organically forming the F-slur, child abuse, discussed child abuse and homophobia, mocking of the disabled (as an unsympathetic action), cartoonish levels of sexism (as an unsympathetic action), mocking of otherkin, minor characters being racial stereotypes of Black (Meenah) and Japanese (Damara) people, minor characters being stereotypes of disabled people (Meulin and Mituna), a controversial and prominent depiction of blindness, underage alcoholism, written depections of noncon (as an unsympathetic action), jokes about pedophilia, and child grooming (textually 100% non-sexual, but sexually-coded).

Also: when I said the Trolls type weird, I wasn't kidding. Every character gets at least one color for their speech text, plus a pattern for how they type, generally worse for the Trolls, ranging from "no caps" to "British" to "drunk" to "ebonics" to "aLtErNaTiNg" to WH4T3V3R TH3 FUCK K1ND OF L33TSP34K BS T3R3Z1 1S DO1NG. So that's worth a warning.

And that's as abridged as you can get when summing up Homestuck.

#homestuck #andrew hussie #altstuck #tlcstuck #csau #crow strider au #Double-Death Of The Author #Homestuck explained #contains references to Priest-Scribe theory #explainer

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mandariiiini · 10 months

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My two cents on Crowley's angelic identity

I watched the 2nd season of Good Omens and was really drawn to Crowley's angelic past... But some of the other theories I've seen haven't properly answered all of my questions so I decided to type my own theory out!!

(Please keep in mind that It has been Years since I last watched season 1 and I'm not presenting my theory as the end-all-be-all solution to their past. I'm just a theology nerd and this mystery got my brain working it's magic. )

!!!!SPOILERS FOR SEASON 2 OF GOOD OMENS AHEAD!!!!

My theory is that before they fell, Crowley was Zadkiel/Tsadkiel, the Archangel who ruled over the Dominion-choir of angels.

What is my proof? Here are my main pieces of evidence for this:

First and most importantly we should take a look at the Angel Hierarchy.

(I found this picture from google but it shows the most important thing which is the ranking of angel choirs)

This chart of types of angels will serve as a guide for us during this theoretical journey.

Hint number 1:

When Muriel brings Crowley up to Heaven in 2x06, they are able to access documents meant for "Dominions, Thrones or above", defined by Muriel. This alone rules out classes below Dominion, which includes other angel choirs mentioned in the show, such as Principalities, Archangels and Angels. I think Dominions are one of the only suitable angelic choirs for Crowley. Why? Seraphim's are described as "singing God's praises" and overall being mostly on God's side in all matters. Crowley most likely fell because they resisted God's will concerning Earth and the rest of space, which is why them being a Seraphim feels very unlikely to me. As for Cherubim and Thrones, both are described as attending to God personally, either as an advisor or an actual chariot being driven by a Cherub. Either way, Crowley isn't a personal assistant to God, which is why I would rule those choirs out of the question.

This did confuse me a bit, since it ruled out the possibility of Crowley belonging to the Archangel choir of angels. That was, until I did some more digging on Dominion angels.

Hint number 2:

Once again in 2x06, Crowley and Muriel get to see the conversation between Michael, Metatron, Gabriel and Uriel. In which, Metatron says this line: "For one Prince of Heaven to be cast into the outer darkness makes a good story, for it to happen twice makes it look like there is some institutional problem." I believe Metatron was referring to Crowley in this. Why? Zadkiel is referred to as a "Prince" of the Dominion category, which made me believe the "Prince of Heaven"-title to refer to him. The Archangel Michael is also referred to as a Prince, but he is still seen in Heaven so I don't believe this to refer to him either. (This is the least waterproof of my points, but I still believe it is important to pay attention to the words used.)

This brings more proof to my Zadkiel theory, but I still have some more!!

Hint number 3:

When Shax comes to speak to Crowley in 2x02, Shax and Crowley exchange the following lines: S: "A miracle of enormous power happened last night -- The kind of miracle only the mightiest of Archangels could have performed." C: "..." S: "Somewhere very close to your friend's bookshop. Are you telling me you don't know what caused it?" C: "..How'd you know I didn't do it?" Shax then changes the subject. I think definitely confirms Crowley's status as an Archangel turned Demon. Since we know both of the demons in the car know that Aziraphale is not an Archangel (the demons' book on angels clearly show their rank being a Principality -- one rank above Archangels. This book is old but I doubt Aziraphale would get demoted during any of that time. I also assume that both of the demons have read it, considering that telling angels apart is part of their job), which leaves only Crowley being the "Mightiest of Archangels" required for such a strong miracle. Zadkiel, while being a Dominion by Christians, is described as an Archangel in the faith of Judaism. Since Crowley would need the title of Archangel while being a Dominion angel (leagues stronger than an actual Archangel), them being Zadkiel would make sense titlewise as well.

I fully understand and accept that my theory can be debunked and I don't mind. The whole faith system in Good Omens is confusing at least, mixing all of the Abrahamic faiths together and such, but I understand it gives them more room for creating more fun and diverse characters.

This isn't to be seen as an attack to any other theory or any faith at all. This is all meant to be just fun speculation and I'd hate for it to be viewed as anything but that.

Please let me know your opinions on this, any feedback is greatly appreciated!! <3

#good omens #good omens 2 spoilers #go2 #go2 spoilers #good omens theory #good omens thoughts #neil gaiman #just a theory... a GAY THEORY

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re-locative · 1 month

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Making an app feel like a place: real-time, persistence, pictures and words

The first room in Experiment 2.

I've always been fascinated with apps that convey a sense of things happening "in the same place." From Minecraft servers to shared Google documents, many virtual platforms seem to foster a sense of shared geography by virtue of their design.

Ever since the research survey, I feel like I'm approaching a sense of what makes a virtual platform feel like a place, and the most succinct way to state those insights thus far is that it's a combination of:

Real-time

Persistence

Pictures, and

Words.

To break this down a little: the platform should support a back and forth of interactions between users who are present at the same time. This makes up what some refer to as co-presence (Schroeder, 2002). It should also support scattered, accumulative interactions between users who are not present at the same time. Changes made by one person should alter the app's state for everyone else, but also remain in place for subsequent users to see and engage with.

As for what media actually gets sent/placed in an app like this, this varies massively across platforms with different aims, but for something to feel like a place, it seems that the minimum is a combination of both spatial (i.e. visual or positional) and precise (textual) communication. (While media types aren't the focus of this post, it's a curious hunch that I will explore later.)

All of these traits would ideally be woven together into a single continuous interaction experience (rather than separate texting, drawing and streaming features, for example). The user does the rest of the work: the feeling of place emerges from what they do with the platform.

And it largely cannot be forced. But when it happens, it can be exciting.

---

So, let's start designing a place-like app from first principles!

It's easy to take for granted all the design elements needed to project an app's capabilities. People don't automatically "buy into" the synchronicity and asynchronicity of an app: it must be built to telegraph these features. They must be made aware that:

There are others are "present" on the same platform,

Their actions are being broadcast to all concurrent users as they happen, and,

Their changes won't simply vanish after the browser is closed.

#3 seems complex to telegraph, but it is actually the easiest solved. New users should be introduced to the app via an instance (document, room, world, whatever) that is not blank. Ideally, it would already been altered in deliberate ways.

Oftentimes, having something already there is simply the natural result of a user bringing a friend into the experience, but if you're the one launching it, you might want to put something clearly hand-made in the very first instance you publish, an exemplar to "seed" the possibilities of the app. Approach it playfully.

Now for the pricklier part. We would like our place-like app to feel synchronous, so it should update in real time. What are some ways to do this?

While I don't want to bring too much jargon into this, we can't really discuss this in abstract without at least touching on what technologies are available to us.

Before the PhD, all my synchronous apps worked by polling a server. For lightweight apps without much of a userbase, it does the job. It's how my first PhD related web project, Two Map, works, actually. An app that tacitly plots movement on a map, it sends your location data back to a server and retrieves any updates since the last call.

(My supervisor called this a "stalker app," which isn't wrong! I figured that any location-based app I made would have to explicitly request consent from the user before starting, or give the option to pick a location. But that for another post.)

But polling a server becomes a problem if more people are using an app and too many simultaneous updates emerge as a real concern.

The most accessible solution for web development is websockets, and for ease I went with Pusher, which lets you set up a websocket server with a free plan + paid tiers scaling to number of messages a day. Most programming languages/libraries that interface with the internet support TCP or UDP sockets in some form and one can pick based on needs and resources.

Whatever the protocol used, these are low-overhead connections that are kept open between app instances to relay very short segments of data - enough, usually, for you to convey and update positioning, URL pointers, and text content, or to signal for an app to refresh.

Pretty cool! But beyond the technicalities, we also need to think about how to show users that this open connection exists. The easiest and perhaps most obvious is real-time visual updates. A user adds something to the page, that thing shows up on everyone's page.

But what happens for a user who's using the app at a time when no one else is online?

That seems little outside of one's control, but there actually is a way to telegraph synchronicity even then: by letting past concurrent users record their synchronous interactions in a clear, textual way.

From the first board in Experiment 3.

This is where the persistence of communicative features is paramount: if a user sees something pop up, they can react immediately with text or an image, and said reaction is preserved on the canvas. This demonstrates to fellow users, present and future, that the interaction happened as a back and forth!

Future users may not necessarily come to this conclusion from seeing past interactions, but it certainly doesn't hurt to support it.

Finally, there are more explicit ways to show that there are other people around, from user icons in a corner, to a "N users online" slug, to cursors or avatars on the page. These are often collectively called presence indicators in corporate speak.

I like to employ spatialised presence indicators (like cursors that show "where" other users' cursors are), but implementing realtime cursor indicators can be heavy on the TCP/UDP server, so since I am lacking a budget, I settle for an indicator that updates when the user makes a significant interaction (e.g. clicking the canvas to open a form).

As with everything else, this requires buy-in from the users. They need to want to play with it! There are ways to invite play, and that could be the subject of another post. But set up the platform right, and you're at least delivering an open invitation for such interactions.

That's all for today - thanks for reading! I'm excited to delve into each of the experiments in more detail next.

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phantomphaeton · 1 year

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The Bridgerton Brothers, Seduction, and Robert Greene

The English language is vast and there are a thousand unnecessary words for everything, but in many cases the different words that all describe the same thing actually provide small nuanced differences that can provide specificity for our understanding. Among those words—and this subject of this enormously long post—is the word rake.

At some point during my extensive Googling of the boys, all three Bridgerton brothers and Simon, the Duke of Hastings, have been described as rakes. The word is beaten to death throughout the two seasons we’ve had so far, and I am already prepared to have it dinned into my ear further during season three.

But with the show’s immense popularity, the word is making its way into mainstream vernacular again. Now let’s take a seat and pour out some whiskey coffee, and put our feet up by the fire while I take a closer look at the liberal use of the word in the series and how it specifically applies to the men we’ve encountered on the show thus far.

First of all—before I get to analyzing how the word applies to each of the Bridgerton brothers, the question must be asked: What the fuck is a rake?

Well, the most standard of sources (dictionary.com) defines a rake as ‘a dissolute or immoral person, especially a man who indulges in vices or lacks sexual restraint.’ In the words of myimperfectlife.com, ‘a rake walked so that modern-day players and fuckboys could run.’

The author Sarah MacLean, a prominent historical romance novelist, defines a rake as thus: A rake is a lovable scoundrel….Usually, a rake is someone who has been around and has had a number of relationships. He's probably pretty handsome. He's probably pretty charming. He's definitely someone who's not interested in marriage. Celibacy is off the table. No serious relationships of any kind. Essentially, the rake is the bad boy with the heart of gold.

Eh, seems straightforward enough, right? Not quite. As it turns out, there were a lot of different types of seducers back in the day of quills and chamber inkpots. A rake was just one of them, and while the showrunners (and Julia Quinn) prefer to use the word rake as a broad-stroke description for all three of the men I’m going to be classifying (like amoeba or something—this is very clinical), the reality is that there are other names for ladies’ men that have been sidelined even though a powerful argument can be made that they are infinitely more appropriate for the individual characters.

The author Robert Greene, whose works on human nature with respect to war, power, and seduction provide the main reference point for most all of this essay, defines a rake as thus:

A rake is a male seducer who catches the female fancy by incessantly pursuing her….a rake has an effect on women due to his ability to show an ardent devotion to her. She is attracted to him because he seems to be madly in love with her. He shows no hesitation or reluctance, and unabashedly admits his weakness when in her presence, hence making himself every woman's dream come true. He is an expert at using words and language to show his devotion….the Rake also keeps a part of his personality hidden, creating a sense of danger and thrill. He also has a reputation for being a ladies's man and being reckless in love, but he never downplays or hides his notoriety. Instead he uses it to his advantage to generate interest among women.

With this definition before us providing the central argument of my entire essay, we can see that the word ‘rake’ has been too liberally applied for pretty much every guy on the show. So now I will proceed to conduct my analysis on each of the three gentlemen we’ve encountered thus far, why they are not rakes, and what type of seducer they are instead. This requires me to clarify an important point:

The three oldest Bridgerton siblings (Anthony, Benedict, and Colin) are all, at some point, described as rakes. The only thing this is meant to imply to us as viewers and consumers of Bridgerton content is that none of them are virgins, which honestly doesn’t really help us classify them.

Let’s begin with our favorite unhinged, slovenly whore—the Viscount Lord Anthony Bridgerton.

It wasn’t tough to analyze Anthony in spite of the fact that the second season left me thinking he was insane. Anthony is defined—in books and on screen—as an incurable, Capital R Rake. If you know your alphabet, then you’ll know that after an R must come an S, and Anthony’s season saw him transition from a Capital R Rake to a Capital S Simp. In between him going feral for Kate’s perfume, picking out the sheerest shirts known to man, and eye-fucking Kate from across rooms while he emotionally masturbates to their fantasy future, we hear the word get thrown around a lot. It’s not hard to believe it—he behaves like a real fuckboy.

But let’s take a closer look, shall we?

Anthony is the easiest character to classify as a rake. His opening scene in season 1—literally the first impression that we get of him—is him fucking a girl against a tree while his coachman valiantly tries to pretend that he is literally anywhere else. This falsely presents Anthony as a lighthearted, devil-may-care sort of guy. He’s living without a care. He’s enjoying his youth. By the end of the pilot episode we know better. We see him as an overprotective, overbearing, controlling, more-than-slightly misogynistic asshole who needs to introduce his face to a straight razor (and not just because of the sideburns).

His fierce protectiveness of Daphne, which bars her from expanding her social network with critical connections during this extremely important part of her life, does not win him any brownie points among fans. His hypocrisy in being so obsessively overbearing only makes us dislike him more—we as viewers know where he goes when these parties are over. He takes his sisters home and treats them like lambs to be herded, and then scurries off to the other side of town and crawls into bed with his mistress. We develop a deeper understanding of him as the show progresses, and by the end of season 2 he’s pretty much adored by the audience.

Is Anthony Bridgerton a Rake? The answer to that is in his romantic history.

Right from the start, Anthony is established as a sexually active man. He spends the entirety of the first season hung up on his turbulent relationship with his mistress Siena Rosso, a beautiful and strong-willed opera singer. The relationship appears shallow at first glance, but as the season progresses we as viewers come to understand that there is way more to this relationship than just sex. By the end of the season, we understand that this is not just a dalliance that Anthony is indulging in—it’s a full blown relationship between two people on either side of an irreconcilable socio-economic divide.

The concept of boyfriends/girlfriends did not exist at this point in history and would not exist for another two hundred years, but that is what Anthony Bridgerton and Sienna Rosso were. Its temporary end hit Anthony hard, and its rekindling was just the right high for Anthony to get before he was crushed by the second (and final) breakup at the end of the season. This is not Anthony being a rake. This is a serious, long term relationship progressing and then falling apart.

When season two commences, we see Anthony on a warpath to find himself a bride and fulfill his duty as Viscount. His time away from Sienna hasn’t done much for his neuroticism—he’s somehow managed to become even worse as he prepares for the new season. He overworks himself half to death, makes his peace with the end of his relationship with Sienna, and stresses…and stresses…and stresses.

In between all of this, we see that he’s found an outlet for his stress—he’s a regular at London’s brothels. He is seen dropping coins onto nightstands and shuffling quietly out of dark rooms half dressed before that fateful morning ride that introduced him to the woman who would become his Viscountess. He’s working on autopilot, a car crash waiting to happen. His family’s inability to distinguish any specific difference in his behavior now with his behavior in the first season shows us that this isn’t particularly new—it’s just who Anthony is.

Is Anthony Bridgerton a rake by these standards? No.

Having a long-term girlfriend and then going on a rampage of paying for sex does not make one a rake. It simply makes one sexually active, which we had already known. So by this definition, Anthony is definitely a slut, but I doubt there’s a soul on the internet who hasn’t called him that. And while we can definitely refer to Anthony as a lover of ladies, if we’re going to call him a seducer, we need to be more aware of which type of seducer we ought to call him. A rake—capital or lowercase r aside—just won’t cut it.

The crux of Anthony’s entire love story in season two hinges on his abject fucking refusal to be vulnerable with literally anyone. He lacks the patience and the skill to pretend to be devotedly in love with anyone. How he manages to fool Edwina into thinking he cares about her is a mystery that could rival the Da Vinci Code. (Hint: she’s a teenager, which is why she was fooled.) Throughout the entire series we see him displaying impatience, hot-headedness, stubbornness, and authoritarian tendencies. When Edwina dares to describe him as even-tempered, Daphne laughs at even the implication that Anthony can pretend to be calm. It takes rare moments of genuine affection for Anthony to be truly vulnerable with people.

This isn’t a critique of his character (which is one of the most wonderfully complex ones of the entire show) but simply an analysis of who he is and why the concept of a rake—a person who’s entire seduction modus operandi relies upon false devotion and admiration, ardent love and relentless pursuit, vulnerability and garnering sympathy—simply doesn’t fit Anthony’s character at all.

So if he’s not a rake, then what type of seducer is he?

That Anthony is in fact seductive is beyond dispute. He makes it plain to Kate that he knows what he’s doing.

So with that in mind, I posit that he is not the Rake, but instead The Charismatic.

The Charismatic, as defined by Robert Greene, is described as thus:

Charismatic seducers are inherently exciting because they come across as self sufficient and self driven. They represent the kind of personality that most people want to see themselves as. They might be great orators, public figures, visionaries or leaders. People might look towards them to alleviate their sufferings or to save them. They use their powerful personalities and their way with words to sway emotions and to stir up change. Some charismatic figures are able to seduce by creating contradictions within their personalities e.g. cruelty and kindness, power and vulnerability.

Further reading provides additional clarification:

Confidence, purpose, contentment, sexuality—when someone has an intense aura on the outside but stays rather detached, we can’t help but be smitten.

Sound familiar?

Anthony’s brooding intensity and confidence, strong sense of duty and responsibility all make him into a natural leader. He’s been wearing the mantle of family patriarch long enough now that he’s quite a natural at it. It’s not easy to make a guy like him feel awkward in his skin. He’s driven, he’s focused, and like him or not, he’s in charge. This effect is powerful enough to win over people even when he isn’t trying to seduce them. He terrifies the ever-loving fuck out of his baby brother’s Latin teacher, and it’s hinted that he commands the respect of plenty of other people within his polished and glittering social circle, too.

The Bridgerton family’s power stems from the Viscountcy, a noble title that places them in the fourth of five ranks of the peerage. That’s pretty low on the totem pole compared to a lot of people within the ranks of Mayfair’s elite, and yet the Bridgerton family is prolific, well respected, and enormously powerful. Anthony’s been sitting pretty in that seat for a decade. If he was anything less than excellent at his job, then that status would not have held for long after his father’s death. It’s his intense focus on doing the job right and commanding respect even among the most respected of the Ton that makes Anthony so formidable.

General Vandamme once said this of another Charismatic seducer, Napoleon Bonaparte:

That devil of a man exercises a fascination on me that I cannot explain even to myself, and in such a degree that, though I fear neither God nor devil, when I am in his presence I am ready to tremble like a child, and he could make me go through the eye of a needle to throw myself into the fire.

It is this exact energy in Anthony that draws another fierce seducer into his orbit. Kate is presented as a strong and independent woman who is more or less running the show with regards to her family. She and Anthony spend the entire season taking each other apart piece by piece, but while special attention is paid to the unraveling of Anthony, we still get to see that it’s that exact intensity and confidence that pulls Kate in.

tl,dr: Anthony Bridgerton is not a Rake, but he oozes Charisma.

I also analyzed Benedict and Colin.

#anthony bridgerton #this show is testing me #bridgerton #Capital R Rake #seduction #benedict bridgerton #colin bridgerton #kanthony

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darklydeliciousdesires · 2 years

Text

Edge of Seventeen - Chapter Two.

A huge thank you to all of those who have interacted with the first chapter of this, I appreciate you SO much!!

Previous chapters - One

Tag list - In the comments

Words - 3,253

Warnings - 18+ content throughout, minors DNI!

Song reference - Feed my Chaos by Lilith Czar - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyMeaoD1p-c

‘Am I the victim? Am I the criminal? Am I the angel or diabolical? The bullet or the gun? What have I become? Created in the pain of filth and dust

Sex and energy Turn your head off Chasing reality Feed my chaos Bathed in holy light Crown comes with a cost Fuel me from the fight Feed my chaos.’

Angel couldn’t stop listening to it, the original track by Heavenly Creature, entitled Feed my Chaos. They’d only been formed for three and a half months and already, they’d pooled their money together to record a few tracks, gotten themselves a few little shows, and were determined to make a name out there. He admired Bella’s tenacity and zeal hugely, putting together all of the lyrics she’d been writing over the years and crafting actual songs, good songs, too, confessing to him that she was a hoarder of notebooks, always scribbling down something, never without paper and a pen to record inspiration whenever it hit her.

Because of their conflicting schedules, Bella busy with college and his life between outlawing and scrap metal heaving keeping him busy, he hadn’t actually managed to see her again as yet, but they chatted regularly via text in the five days that followed their first meet. In fact, whenever Angel wasn’t busy with club duties, his phone appeared to be welded to his hand.

‘Hey pretty girl. What you up to?’

Hearing her message alert, Bella reached for her nightstand to pick her phone up, squeaking with excitement when she saw it was from Angel.

‘Just chilling at home, playing guitar, writing stuff. You?’

‘Hanging at the clubhouse before I hit the gym. You busy this afternoon?’

‘Nope, I have a half day from college so I’m just gonna sit here with my guitar and stuff myself silly with bagels and cream cheese. Unless you had a more appealing alternative?’

Shit. Was that too forward? Was he merely asking what she was doing out of interest, and not leading anywhere with it? Could she unsend the message before he read it? Two little blue ticks next to the Whatsapp box revealed she couldn't, Bella cringing as she softly thudded her head against the top of her acoustic guitar.

‘Wanna meet me for a few drinks?’

Phew!

‘Yeah, that’d be great. If I get on the train, I can probably be in Santo Padre by the time you’re done with the lifting of the heavy things.’

“Lifting of the heavy things,” he chuckled quietly, typing out another message.

‘Alright. Do you know where West Point Social is? It’s a real cool bar, and they do great food too, if you wanted to stay for dinner?’

‘I don’t, but I have Google Maps, I’ll find it! Meet you there at say, 3:30pm?’

‘Cool, see you then.’

Placing her guitar down, Bella rushed off her bed towards the large, heavy oak wardrobe in the corner of her room. Everything was vintage and nothing matched, but that was hers and her mother’s taste all over. “What the hell do I wear?” Flinging the door open, all of a panic, she raided the contents, considering a dress but then quickly vetoing that decision, landing on her skin-tight, light blue jeans and a simple cropped white top. She teamed them with her black stiletto heeled boots, her usual abundance of jewellery too, picking up one of her beloved heavy fringed bags, this one dark red and unloading all of her stuff into it before quickly touching up her makeup.

The train took forty-five minutes to reach Santo Padre from her home of La Jolla, Bella barely making it after purchasing a ticket, running across the platform as fast as her feet would carry her, sliding in between the doors just as they were shutting with a grateful sigh. She would arrive at 2:57pm, looking on her phone and seeing that the bar was a twenty-minute walk from the station, which was doable.

Her feet disagreed with her two thirds of the way through the walk, but the sight waiting for her at a table on the decking area outside the bar was more than worth it. Fuck. She’d almost forgotten how attractive he was. He was without his kutte, dressed simply in a white vest, dark grey shirt left open and a pair of dark blue jeans, heavy silver jewellery adorning his neck, fingers and wrists. When he saw her, he actually felt a wave of butterflies flutter through him. God, she was so gorgeous, every set of male eyes outside of the bar watching her as she walked, Angel feeling ten feet tall when she arrived with him, standing up to greet her with a hug and a quick kiss.

“Damn,” he breathed, sitting down again. “You look smokin’!”

Bella felt herself blush, her insides screaming with excitement. “Thanks. Looking pretty lush over there yourself, too.”

“Lush? Is that a British-ism?”

“Yeah, kind of. More Welsh than anything. I picked it up off one of my favourite TV shows, Gavin and Stacy. I doubt you’ll have heard of it,” she spoke, placing her bag down, giving her long hair a little ruffle.

He looked completely nonplussed. “Nope, but maybe I’ll watch it with you sometime.” He sat back, shaking his head, barely able to believe his luck. She was so beautiful! It was making him a little crazy, truth be known. “So, what do you want to drink?”

“A Coke, please.”

He leaned forward, making a beckoning gesture with his finger. She reciprocated, leaning closer. “What do you really want to drink?”

She bit her lip, grinning. “Malibu and Coke, please?”

He winked, getting up. “I’ll be back.” He didn’t have any qualms about buying her alcohol, even if she was three years under the legal age limit. Besides, she easily passed for twenty-one. While he was inside, Bella took out her cigarettes, lighting up and looking out around the space. Southern California was, as one might imagine, completely different to her native Hammersmith. The vibe, the people, everything was in stark contrast, most of all the weather, London mostly dull and grey, save for the stifling summer months. She realised that after six months in San Diego, though, she knew nothing of hot weather prior to her move.

“What’s that stuff like, then?” Angel spoke, arriving back and placing her drink down, Bella taking a grateful sip. She was parched after her walk. “I can’t say I’ve ever tried it.” He nodded towards her glass, Bella sliding it across the table to him.

“Here, try a sip.”

He picked it up, giving it a cautionary sniff. The face he made prompted her tiny snort laugh, sipping it back all the same. “Oh, Jesus in a fucking side car!”

There it was again, her booming laugh. “Not a fan?”

“It’s vile! It tastes like air freshener!”

“And now many Magic Trees have you been chomping down on to be able to use those as your comparison?” She bobbed her tongue between her teeth playfully, Angel leaning forward in his seat, pointing at her.

“No shaming my snack habits. They’re low carb.”

She was in soft fits. “Low carb, all card?”

“Exactly that,” he confirmed with a nod. “So, how was college?”

“Boring!” she yelled, maybe a little too loudly. “We had to learn about the basis of chord progression, which is stupid since I know it already! I’ve been playing guitar since I was six!” She suddenly realised her statement came off as a little arrogant, continuing. “I mean, I don’t want to sound like a Johnny know-it-all, but I was just frustrated because I could have been using that time for something else, something brand new to me.”

He reached for her hand, seeing the sudden worry in her face. “I understand, it’s like, you want to make the most of your time. You’re there to build on what you already know, not go over the same things. Maybe though, just see it as a chance to reminds yourself of those things again and keep them fresh?” She’d never looked at it like that before, and had to admit, he was right. She guessed her headstrong youth had a lot to do with it, Angel getting past his now at thirty-six. Already, she knew that would be a point of fascination about him, the fact he was likely a lot wiser than her in some ways.

As they sat and chatted, Angel was fascinated by her, learning more about her homeland, the UK a place that by his own admission, he knew very little about at all.

“I miss it there, I do,” she replied in answer to his question. “I mean, San Diego has everything London does, almost, but what I loved so much about London was the extremities of the cultural diversity. We have so many nationalities of people migrating, and they bring their culture of course, from food to music, it was just such an amazing scene. I always said I wanted to travel, though, so these are my first steps in making sure I don’t stay rooted, that I get out there and see the whole world.”

“And you hope it’ll be your music that’ll make that happen for you?” he asked, taking another nacho from the huge plate they were sharing.

“It will be, I’m certain of it. I’m not going to stop until I make something of myself, and music is going to be it.” He loved that about her, how confident she was. She had every reason to be.

“Well, you damned sure got the talent,” he began, taking a swig of his beer when a particularly spicy piece of jalapeno began sizzling the back of his tongue. “Seriously, I can’t get enough of your music. I usually mostly listen to either old school hip hop or metal, but your stuff, I fucking love. Your voice, Jesus Christ, man! You even impressed Bish, and that ain’t easy to do. He’s very set in his ways over what he likes, but he was stunned when you started singing.”

Her face was curious, wiping sour cream from her fingers with a napkin. “Who’s Bish?”

“President of the MC, Bishop Losa,” Angel confirmed, Bella’s eyes widening a little.

“Does he have a daughter called Hadleigh?”

Angel nodded, pouring the remaining salsa over the nachos. He always ordered extra, because of the inevitable dry under chip situation. “He does! My beloved ass face!”

Bella almost choked on her drink. “I know her! Well, I kind of know her, we move in the same circle. She’s dating a guy who’s friends with Ian, our drummer. Why’d you call her ass face?”

“Because Hadleigh Losa is the biggest pranker on earth, she gets it right from her old man, and they prank on each other constantly. One night, she fell asleep at the club, and to get her back for emptying flour into his leaf blower, he drew an ass on her forehead with marker pen. She went fucking insane! Came off with rubbing alcohol, but I swear, I nearly broke a rib from laughing so hard!”

“He sounds like a fun dad. I remember mine used to be the same. He’d play jokes in my mum all the time, particularly with an airhorn. He used to hide behind doors, under the bed, tables, and one time he even managed to wedge himself in the pantry. She said that was the only thing she didn’t miss after he died, the fact that at any given moment, she was five seconds from pissing her pants in fear at the threat of an airhorn being let off,” she detailed, remembering one time when he’d hid behind the curtains and gotten her, her mum throwing an entire bowl of popcorn in the air. Their old basset hound, Rufus had eaten well that night. “What was your dad like while you grew up?”

“Stern,” Angel confirmed, thanking the passing waitress when she took their empty bottles and glasses away. “Mom was always the fun one. She was the sweetest woman, I swear. She was like you in so much that she lived and breathed music, so we listened to so much, from traditional Spanish stuff to Janis Joplin and Joan Jett, who she loved.”

“Oh my god!” Bella cried, holding a hand to her chest. “Those women are two of my biggest idols!”

“She even got to see Janis, you know. She snuck over the border and hitch hiked all the way up to Hollywood to watch her play at the Hollywood Bowl.”

Bella’s eyes couldn’t have been more alight. “Bloody hell! Now that’s dedication. She sounds like she was such an incredible person, and you’ve only told me a little about her. I’m so sorry, about what happened to her.”

Angel nodded, something sharp tingling in his chest. He missed her so much. “Thanks. I know you get it, though, that’s something we have in common, really missing one of our parents. So, tell me about your mom then, or mum, as you call her.” he teased.

“She’s just terrific, she’s my best friend,” she began, scrunching her nose a little. “And I know that sounds really lame, but she is. She’s so chilled out, a real hippie type, and hugely clever. There literally isn’t a single thing she doesn’t know about plants, and her work is so fascinating, everything she researches in how plants can be used for differing purposes. She specialises in what’s known at phytochemistry.”

“It sounds really complicated,” Angel confessed, sipping his beer.

“Oh, it is. Half of what she tells me I’m just sitting there like, ‘what the bloody, buggery fuck, mum?’ over!” He laughed, loving her differing colloquialisms. He heard plenty more of them as they continued to talk, sharing stories from their lives, finding common grounds, detailing their differences, leaning so much about one another that the time flew by.

It was a first date that went so well that by the time the sun had gone down, Bella had moved around to the other side of the table, sat across his lap, sharing kisses that probably bordered on much too steamy for a public place, but she didn’t care. Neither did he.

“I hate to put a stop to this,” she sighed, her lips tingling.

“Then don’t,” Angel interjected, his hand stroking her thigh.

She laughed softly through her nose, leaning in to kiss him again. He was the best kisser she’d ever experienced, probably because he’d likely kissed hundreds more people than she had, or he was just naturally talented. Either way, she didn’t care. She couldn’t get enough. “I have to, though. My train leaves in forty minutes, and it’ll take me twenty to get back to the station.”

He looked thoughtful for a moment. “How much later could you stay if I paid for your cab home?”

Her mouth dropped open immediately. “Angel, that’s at least a sixty-dollar cab ride! I can’t ask you to do that!”

His hand wandered up and down her back, leaning forward to kiss her cheek a few times. “You ain’t asking, I’m offering. How long?”

Looking at the time on her phone, she worked it out. She didn’t have a curfew as such, her mum being quite relaxed, but she knew that in order to be fresh for college the next day, she should be home for about midnight. “Two hours?”

“Done. Your sexy butt is staying exactly where it is,” he confirmed with a nod.

“More than happy with this decision.” Her confirmation was delivered with the kind of kisses that made his pulse flip madly, Angel not able to remember a time when he’d been so attracted to someone. It wasn’t just that she was gorgeous either, it was her, all of her. She was smart, talented, funny, and so, so gentle and sweet. He was also revelling in the novelty that as a completely smoking hot eighteen-year-old, she could have any guy she wanted, and she’d seen him and thought ‘yep, that one.’ It wasn’t without its charm.

The two hours passed much too quickly, Bella feeling a little sad pit in her stomach as the cab pulled up, standing in his arms, kissing him goodbye.

“You might have to take me with you, because I totally don’t wanna let you go,” he confessed, actually poking out his bottom lip and looking utterly adorable, Bella returning such, making him melt completely. Oh, she was too cute!

“I don’t want to leave you, either!” she exclaimed, quickly calling to the cab driver that she’d be a couple of minutes, the friendly man replying with ‘okay, darling’ before she turned back to the man she was very reluctant to let go of.

“We could remedy this, you know,” he began. “I could give the driver my address instead, and you come stay at my place, blow off college tomorrow, or I’ll take you back there early in the morning, if you want?”

“Erm...” she began, knowing the connotations. She shook her head. “I think I know exactly why you’re asking me back to your place, and it isn’t going to happen. Not this soon anyway.”

He shrugged. “I can keep my hands to myself.”

“Yeah, but maybe I can’t. I’m not easy, but with you, bloody hell. I could be, and I’m not screwing it all up by having sex with you right away,” she confessed, Angel respecting her decision. Albeit somewhat begrudgingly. He then realised, though, that such a stance made her very, very different to just about any other woman he’d encountered in recent years, all of them ready to jump into bed with him right away. God. It only made him like her more.

“No worries, baby. You free this weekend? I’d love to see you again,” he asked, his fingers stroking her lower back in a way that made her tingle all over.

“Not until Sunday, I’m afraid,” she lamented. “I have rehearsal on Friday night, then on Saturday I’m at work in the day, then on the evening we’re playing a little show at a bar not far from where I live, but yeah, Sunday daytime I can be all yours?” Ahh, yes. Sadly, Saturday daytime was out of bounds for her, Angel remembering her briefly detailing her job as a hair washing girl at a salon close to where she lived in La Jolla.

“Then I’ll call you on Sunday morning to arrange something. Text me when you get home, alright?”

She leaned in for another kiss, drinking him in, her heart fluttering madly. “Will do. Thanks for a great night.”

Getting into the cab, she could barely wait for Sunday, grinning like an idiot for the entire duration of the ride home. He was the first guy in a long time who she really, really liked. In fact, she’d never felt like that before at all, she realised, replaying moments from their date in her head all the way home.

She was smitten.

As for Angel, he felt much the same, so much so that after discovering the name of the bar Heavenly Creature were playing at that coming Saturday, he planned to pay her a surprise visit.

Bella almost felt her heart somersault out of her chest when after taking to the stage, she picked him out in the crowd. She realised then that he was just as into her as she was him, and that? That felt wonderful.

#angel reyes #angel reyes fanfiction #angel reyes smut #angel reyes imagine #angel reyes fanfic #angel reyes x ofc #angel reyes fic #mayans mc #mayans mc fanfiction #mayans mc fanfic #mayans mc imagine #mayans mc smut #mayans mc fic

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