Memento Mori

A lot of Bolaire’s petulant behavior through episode 31 makes a lot more sense if viewed as what a 14-year-old’s perspective would be:

Theater is the best thing in the world because it woke me up and freed me.

A lot of People deserve to die, and I’m gonna stoop just as low when I murder them because they deserve that too.

I work at a museum collecting Things that no one deserves to have, and I’m a Thing, so I deserve to be in charge of the rarest Things.

Thjazi is mean to me because he hates Things and hates me. He ruins Things. He’s trying to ruin me. He taught me what hate is.

It’s a long shot that Thjazi’s actually gonna die because he’s totally got a plan like he always does, but there’s st— oh, shit. LOL

At least the funeral is an excuse to visit my best friend and his awesome family. They’ll get over it.

Thjazi broke a bunch of Things to make an empty freezer with a portal to the underworld. He’s awful.

My friend joked that she’d push me into the freezer to the underworld, and I told her I’d have killed her. We laughed because we’re cool.

I’d totally do it, though.

She and the rest don’t know that I fight tyranny because I’m a living weapon, and no one can know or else they’d lock me up, that’s why I have a secret identity and a secret lair full of cool Things.

Okay, you can know my secret identity and see my secret lair full of cool Things because we’re friends.

Also, Thjazi sucked guys. He totally did.

I’m gonna stop People from taking Things and talking because what if they’re bad. Power Word: shut up.

A Person that became a Thing? Come back to town so we can be best friends I can show you the ropes.

All this bad stuff happening is Thjazi’s fault.

Give me some teenagers to help make a mess in my museum because someone is trying to take Things away from me it.

I’m gonna 1v1 this Big Bad in the sewers because I’m worse than them and also awesome.

My best friend is gonna kill this host and put me on a new host just like in a play he would write, omg, we’re so cool. (He doesn’t need to know that was unnecessary, he’s down for it because he’s cool.)

This is the best magician ever and the best imaginary friend ever. Oh, hell, stop messing with my room I love what you’ve done with the place.

Don’t forget that Thjazi sucked so much.

My best friend and I are gonna steal Things from my museum at night by ourselves because that’s cooler than just doing paperwork to give the Things back to their owners.

I’m gonna 1v1 this Big Bad sorcerer in my museum because I’m worse than them and also— oh, shit.

Big Sis is alive and that’s terrifying because I’ve been doing other stuff, but it’s not my fault because I’m clever and didn’t figure it out, so it must have been impossible. I did not forget to take the chicken out of the freezer, it wasn’t there when I looked, I swear.

Thjazi sucks guys, of course he had bad ideas and bad plans, I’m tired of keeping quiet. Fine, ignore me, whatever.

Fine, break a mask and be rude to me. I don’t need to see your stupid play. I bet it’s about Thjazi, so I wouldn’t like it anyway. Whatever.

I’m gonna go on a secret spy mission with Team Spy because I’m super cool and can fight the bad guys with them, just stick me o— who the fuck is this. Ew.

Oh, no, Big Sis got out of the freezer. Fuck. Oh, good, she didn’t see me.

WAIT, DON’T LEAVE.

Big Sis is terrifying, but she saved me because she loves me, and I can tell her the truth about everything because she loves m— oh no.

Do you love your brother? THEN CRY ABOUT IT.

MY MIND PLAYS AREN’T RIGHT.

Big Sis is mean to me because she hates me and I don’t have a family.

My best friend is mean to me because he hates me and my life is over.

Everyone is mean to me because they hate me and everything sucks now.

Whatever. Stick me in a box, I don’t care.

They're the ONLY surviving NONDAMAGED form of the show. In the late 90s, the masters from which the show is printed were damaged with a red-pink hazy filter.

So. Good luck buying them even if you find them. They're some of the most valuable collector's items in the entire franchise.

Without piracy, there would be NO UNDAMAGED COPIES OF SAILOR MOON AVAILABLE TO ANYONE ANYWHERE, PERIOD.

Many, many people celebrated Pulse. We were told we deserved it. That it was God’s punishment for our sin of loving the same sex. We are sent messages like these I received in 2018:

We in the community often call the victim count 49+ to include the survivors who couldn’t live with the pain.

The event was never officially declared a hate crime or targeted homophobic attack and is rarely listed as one in databases.

At our vigils for those slaughtered, Extremist Christian groups showed up to protest, holding signs like this:

ID: Me kissing a woman I was casually seeing in front of an angry looking man with a “Sodomy is Sin” sign.

Please understand how much more than just a mass shooting this was. We are still to this day harassed and told we deserved it by some.

Callisto: Number 1: Harm someone else!

Sometimes, in fandom, we just want to write id-tastic fic that rolls around in tropes that might be viewed as problematic. But we don’t want to address the problematic side of things in this particular fanwork; we just want to roll around and wallow.

It is considered courteous to give readers a heads-up via use of AO3 tags. I propose a tag that signals that a given fanwork is for rolling around, not giving a measured evaluation of anything. The MCU has carved out a space for this sort of fic with the “HYDRA Trash Party” tag, for which I commend them. Trash Party is a bit too specific to cover all of the ground I’m thinking of here, though; I propose “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.”

For those of you not familiar with Arrested Development, Michael Bluth finds a paper bag in the freezer labeled “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.” He opens the bag, finds a dead dove, and reacts as follows:

[gif of a white man saying “I don’t know what I expected” in a deadpan manner]

The “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat” tag would essentially be a “what it says on the tin” metatag, indicating “you see the tropes and concepts tagged here? they are going to appear in this fic. exactly as said. there will not necessarily be any subversion, authorial commentary condemning problematic aspects, or meditation on potential harm. this fic contains dead dove. if you proceed, you should expect to encounter it.”