#Not to mention his lack of a healthy support network

[insufferablemod]

hi im still mad davesprite never got to talk to dirk

#IT'S SUCH A WASTED OPPORTUNITY #Exploring the different ways the daves have dealt with their trauma #And their relationship with bro #Like #Davesprite Saw bro die #There's a chance he even died saving ds #And even just the guilt from not being strong enough to save him #coupled with how dehumanized he already feels from being the'Other Dave' n part of the game #Would make it So much harder for ds to realize just how bad his childhood was #Not to mention his lack of a healthy support network #(Noone really had a proper support network tbh. Their all fucking traumatized teenagers) #How he was isolating himself #I'm #THE FACT THAT HIS THOUGHTS ON BRO ARE NEVER EXPLORED #I'm normalI'm normalI'm normalI'm normal #Rambles #Daves

[darkkitty1208]

hi! you mentioned you liked alpha!tony and omega!stephen, do you happen to have any recommendations? 🫶👀 thank you in advance <3

Hey, Nonny!

Oh dear, I gotchu. I'm putting everything under the cut in case any of you want to preserve your innocence (and me, to preserve my dignity. Ugh)

Minors DNI

Unfortunately there aren't much Omega!Stephen/Alpha!Tony fics out there, and a lack of Bottom!Stephen/Top!Tony fics in general. But I'll try.

I'm not sure if you're looking for plotty or smutty fics, so I'll just split them up.

Plotty A/B/O Multichaps

Alpha Syndrome by atypicalsnowman – A beautiful fic featuring Alpha!Tony and Beta!Stephen Strange. Tony Stark has to bond with an omega. He has to or face a slow and painful death. No matter how much he loves his beta, Stephen Strange. Then magic steps in. (Some good smut, a healthy amount of angst and whump, too.)

Can't Help Falling In Love With You by Chocopiggy – Animal Shifters and A/B/O Canon Divergent: Tony falls in love with Stephen on Titan. Specifically, the moment when the wizard stops scrying with that time stone of his, and Tony's met with the most loving look from Stephen (or anyone) he had ever seen. Back on Earth, Stephen has his memories of the alternate futures blocked by Wong, in order to protect the omega's sanity. And it's up to Tony to get Stephen to fall in love with him once more, just to see the same expression on Stephen's face once again. (In progress, no actual smut (yet), and a good amount of fluff, romance, slowburn, angst/whump and hurt/comfort)

Children of the Old Moon by old_blue – After an encounter with a supernatural killer goes wrong, Stephen is pulled into another world. There, he meets a very familiar face... Now he just needs to catch the murderer, save the multiverse, and find a way back home. (It's not Ironstrange actually, it's Sam Wilson/Stephen Strange (dunno their ship name, rarepair), but it's one of my favourite Omegaverse pieces. We all know how messed up the abo verse is, but I've never actually seen it being addressed in a fic itself. Also has super good plot twists and mysteries, and a LOT of good smut)

Royally Fucked by Insert_Witty_Username — King Stephen Strange’s kingdom had been at war as long as he can remember, locked in a battle between the fey, Stephen’s people, and the humans. The war almost ended with the union of Stephen’s parents, one fey and an omega human, that is, before they were killed in an attack. Stephen, now blooming into his early twenties, and still suspiciously unpresented, has taken it upon himself to meet the human’s king and put an end to the war ravaging his land, no matter what it takes… however it ends up taking a whole lot more than he expected. When his meeting with the alpha prince Anthony spirals south, triggering Stephen’s first-ever heat and revealing him as an omega, King Howard of the Stark Kingdom sees it as a perfect opportunity to create a union between the humans and the fey through marriage. Anthony and Stephen struggle to get along, both unable to see past the inescapable bonds of their inevitable wedding. Stuck in a strange new world, Stephen is lost without a support network all while his entire identity and sense of self is turned upside down. In the meantime, something far larger and far more dangerous than a petty squabble over the union of a prince and a king brews in the background… (In progress, Stephen is a fae here so magic does exist. He gets all dolled up with fae clothing and the descriptions there are superb, there's even a fanart by slasher_art444 picturing it.)

Smutty A/B/O Oneshots/Fics

Family by Chocopiggy – Scared of the rain, Stephen curls in his nest and waits for Tony to come home. The need for his mate to comfort him is stronger than ever, thanks to his approaching heat. (Hurt/comfort with a dash of smut)

With You Series by Descaladumidera – A series with three installments, each with a good smut scene and some plot.

Falling by IronStrangeLover (sherlockian4ever) – Stephen has been hiding the fact that he is an omega with magic. When he meets alpha Tony, he falls for him hard. Tony's scent triggers Stephen's heat and they end up sharing it. Afterwards, they date. The inevitable happens and they bond. (Filth. Absolute wonderful filth. And yeah, also some fluff and romance because they love each other and it's ironstrange)

101 Ironstrange Kinks by RisingQueen2 (FallenQueen2) – Not all chapters are A/B/O, but they are in Chapter 1, Chapter 10, Chapter 32, Chapter 38, Chapter 55, Chapter 63 (personally I did not read this specific chapter, it's uh.. pregnancy kink. But feel free to read it, no one's judging).

#ironstrange #fic recs #ask #anon #omegaverse #stephen strange #omega stephen strange #tony stark #alpha tony stark #minors do not interact #minors dont read

[athenabehavioralhealth]

Five Common Causes of Relapse

Relapse can occur at any point in time. It is not necessary for an individual to stay sober once he/she has stopped using the substance of abuse. In fact, many people relapse once, twice or even multiple times before completely abandoning the use of drug/alcohol.  Therefore, it is essential for the recovering person to be aware of the common factors that might trigger relapse. Some of the common causes that have been identified over the years by the experts are as mentioned below:

1.Stress

 Stress has been identified as one of the biggest factors that triggers one to reuse the substance of abuse. This is more prominent if the person used to abuse the substance to cope up with his/her stress. To avoid this trigger, it is important to identify what stresses him/her out – whether it is a toxic relationship, a financial debt, or something else. While he/she cannot get completely rid of stress, he/she can certainly minimize its causes.

2.Lack of planning

 Prior to leaving the treatment facility, it is important to have a proper plan in place regarding the environment he/she plans to live in, his/her friend circle, his/her family members who would surround him/her, and others. This is to ensure that he/she does not end up going into the same environment that encouraged him/her to use the substance earlier. If not pre-planned, there are high chances that he/she would relapse and begin reusing the substance.

 3.Not enough support

 Having positive people around the recovering person is as important as a positive environment for him/her to stay sober. If he/she is surrounded by the same group of people who encouraged him/her to use drugs/alcohol or accompanied him/her in his/her act, then he/she can never stay sober. Relapse is sure to occur within a few days. Therefore, it is necessary for him/her to make sure to have a positive support from his/her family members and friends so that they may inspire him/her to stay sober and avoid using drugs/alcohol.

4.Inability to deal with post-recovery challenges

Neither the road to recovery is easy nor the life after recovery. There are multiple challenges that one has to face post recovering from his/her addiction to any substance. Therefore, it is important that a person sets realistic expectations from his/her path to recovery as well as the life after recovery. There will be situations that are likely to shake his/her determination to attain and lead a healthy life post recovery and therefore, he/she must be prepared to deal with them diligently.

5.Low self-confidence

 Having a low level of self-confidence increases one’s chances of relapse. If he/she thinks that he/she cannot succeed in life or get easily tensed in stressful situations, it is possible that he/she would relapse and begin reusing the substance of abuse. Therefore, it is important for him/her to trust his/her abilities and have enough self-confidence that he/she can cope with the challenging situations in life to stay sober.

 Seek Professional Help

Recovery is a lifelong process. Therefore, if a recovering addict can learn to recognize the situations/places/events that may slip him/her into reusing the substance of abuse, there are higher chances for him/her to stay sober. Building a positive network and surrounding oneself with people who support him/her in him/her measures to prevent relapse work as a great help. But one must never get demotivated if he/she stumbles while walking on the path to recovery.  

If one thinks that he/she has already relapsed and cannot recover on his/her own, it is necessary for him/her to seek professional help immediately. Athena Behavioral Health is one of the reliable, safest, and secure treatment center for mental health and addiction recovery. Offering its patients, a custom-made treatment plan, our treatment experts ensure that they attain recovery in the minimum time possible and begin leading a healthy life.

Relapse prevention and its treatment is another area of expertise of our experts. They closely monitor each case and plan a proper plan so that one may get rid of addiction to any form of substance easily. If you or someone you know would like to know more about our treatment plans, contact us at 9289086193 or drop us an email at [email protected]

#mental health treatment facilities #Mental Health Services Gurgaon #Addiction Treatment Facilities in Gurgaon #Cocaine Addiction Treatment Center in India #De-Addiction Treatment Center in Gurgaon #Addiction Services Gurgaon #Benzo Treatment Centers

[skullsandwineglasses]

You Are My Hero (2021) Review

Overall impression: The drama started off really cute and promising in the first half, but was weak and underwhelming in the second half. In-depth review below (with spoilers).

A cute and fluffy romance premise

Right off the bat, the love story between the leads is tropey as hell, but manages to not be tacky and is actually really endearing. The ML, a SWAT officer, rescues the FL, an aspiring neurosurgery medical resident, from a bank robbery 2 years ago. They leave a lasting impression on each other, but don't keep in touch afterwards. The FL never sees his face because he's wearing a mask, but the ML remembers her name. 

Fate brings them together again 2 years later when the FL enrolls in an emergency rescue training camp that’s supervised by the ML. He recognizes her and falls for her immediately, but she doesn’t know he’s the one who rescued her years ago. 

Their relationship starts off rocky, similar to how a CEO romance would start: the ML first appears cold and distanced, strict and brooding, but actually has a huge soft spot for the FL. The FL is put off by his coldness, but is sometimes surprised as random moments of tenderness. When the training camp is complete, the ML becomes a cute and awkward lovesick puppy who tries to figure out how to woo the FL because this is his first time (and hers) falling in love. It’s fun seeing him become so flustered around her when he’s usually so calm, collected, and in control as the leader of a SWAT team. 

On other hand, the FL slow falls for the ML when he reveals a more real and vulnerable side of himself. They banter a lot, but she slowly warms up to him. 

And as a no-nonsense drama, the two leads acknowledge their feelings for each other quickly (although they haven't directly admitted it to each other yet). They're in the awkward phase of attraction and going on semi-dates, but they haven't defined the relationship yet. *Sigh* First love. 

Things I enjoyed

I appreciate that although the FL is a Mary Sue, she does make mistakes. She's smart, but she isn't the top of her class. She’s kind and selfless, but she also isn’t overly tolerant of people. When people overstep their boundaries and are unjust to her, she’ll confront them. Ma Sichun is such a natural actress. She can do cute and flirty, she can be clueless and lost, she can be confident and in control, she can be angry and indignant. I especially loved her character’s adorable interactions with her best friend Xiao Xia. 

The acting in this drama was all around great. It’s probably the best part of the drama. It was so comfortable and fun to watch. I think AvenueX described it best: the acting in the drama was so natural that sometimes it felt like the actors broke character but the director kept the take. Some of the laughing, giggling, and gestures felt so genuine that you wonder if it was improvised, scripted, or a blooper scene that became canon.

I like how the FL and ML are each experts in their respective fields. They have very separate careers that occasionally intersect. I'm tired of CEO dramas where the FL is working for the ML, or there are class differences between them. Instead in this drama, the FL faces problems everyday at work that the ML doesn't know about. Her problems do not relate to him at all. She has problems that he can't understand or help with. Likewise, he also goes on missions that she isn't aware of. They work in completely different fields with different skill sets. They even talk about how their philosophies differ. Her job is to save lives but not make moral judgments of character, while his job is to enforce the law, which is all about assessing character. Where their careers do intersect, is the goal of saving others and putting others first before themselves. 

Another dynamic of the relationship that I really like is that the FL and ML are always occupied and on the move because of their professions, and yet, their loyalty and devotion to each other never change. They are each other's rock. Despite encountering so many different situations and people, despite all of the chaos and noise from their careers, nothing can really outweigh how important they are to each other. Despite being out in the field, far away from home, their hearts are anchored to each other. I just like this trope a lot, i.e., the trope of being away from home, but remaining true and loyal and unwavering. Despite having bigger and more important things in the world to deal with, their ultimate dream is wanting to just spend some time together. It's analogous to how in ancient period dramas, there are generals who command armies and and maintain a strictly professional demeanor and don't mention a word about their family to their soldiers, but when the general retires to his tent at night, he's writing a long and thoughtful letter home, because his loved one was on his mind all day. 

The supporting characters are great, but I do like the older and mature supporting couple (Xing Ke Yao and Shao Yu Han) more than the younger supporting couple (Xiao Xia and Shu When Bo), despite the actors playing the younger couple being literally my age. I also appreciate how the FL has multiple close friends who are quite separate from each other, instead of just the single token sidekick best friend (although the second half of the drama does just focus on one of her main friends). It's relatable because we all have different groups of friends. We have friends from high school, we have friends from college, and we have friends from work. Most of these friends are kept separate, and sometimes they interact. But I like how this drama shows that the FL has a small network of friends from different walks of life. 

Things I didn’t enjoy as much

The plot derailed and lost its charm after episode 30. There were fewer hospital cases, and the ML had to complete a mission that I had no interest in following. There was no other point to the superfluous mission besides to show that the ML has a busy and demanding job that prevents him from being at the FL’s side when she needs him the most. 

I also really, really disliked the introduction of the random love rival in episode 31 just to try to stir some angst. The plot device was pointless because in the end, there was no angst because the leads have a strong and healthy relationship, and so the love rival’s attempt at sabotaging the relationship was just laughable and completely random. It just disrupted the mood and pacing of the drama because that plotline just came out of the blue. It was just so annoying seeing the love rival and her sister cause trouble and wreak havoc in the FL’s workplace. 

The drama did a good job at showing how the leads put their careers first, which caused strain and tension in their relationship that they tend to ignore. But, the drama never explores this further, even though it’s a very real problem that many career-driven and ambitious couples face. The drama presents a very idealized vision of a relationship between a police officer and a doctor. Like when the FL leaves for a special research and training program in the States, the drama shows that the leads breezed through the two-year long distance relationship in a quick montage. They had no issue in communication. Yes, they miss each other, but they’re blissful. But what kind of long distance relationship has no bumps in it? The drama also implies that they never saw each other in person during two years (in the final episode, Xing Ke Lei squeezed her arms and said that since they haven’t seen each other in 2 years, he had to check if she was missing anything), which is highly unrealistic. Was she never able to go back home for the holidays? Did Xing Ke Lei, whose parents live and work overseas, never bother to visit his girlfriend? Overall, it seemed a little off to me that despite the budding tension and issues they’ve been having between them, they were able to overcome a long distance relationship so easily. You could argue that they’re used to long separations because of their work, and the drama has shown that they’re used to communicating over video calls, but I was just a little disappointed that they rushed this final plotline when so much more could have been done with it. 

Speaking of parents, we never actually got to see their parents. I understand that the parents are not relevant to the focus of the story, but the parents are rarely even mentioned, which further makes the romance in the story seem too idealistic. Whether it’s a near-death situation, getting engaged, or studying abroad for 2 years, the FL never mentions talking to her parents about these decisions and life changes. The drama handwaves the parents’ absence and lack of influence by having the FL mention early in the drama that her parents are busy with their business back home, so they don’t have time to worry about her. She also no longer bothers to update them about her work because she’s afraid they’ll be worried about her. And then from there, we never hear the FL mention her parents again. It’s just so weird to see that the most important person in her life is the ML and she only ever talks about major life choices with her friends. I mean, if the plot had said that she didn’t have a family, it wouldn’t have mattered. But the fact that she does mention her parents, but they’re completely absent and non-existent just felt a little off, like something was missing. But in the grand scheme of things, this is not really an issue. I’m just nit-picking. 

Lastly, I just want to comment on Bai Jingting as Xing Ke Lei. I admit that he sells the part well. At first I was skeptical about Bai Jingting as a SWAT officer because of how skinny and baby-faced he is, but he actually pulls it off surprisingly well and has some unexpectedly good chemistry with Ma Sichun too. Although during moments when he isn't talking and we're just left with his resting face, I'm suddenly hit by how young he looks, but then he speaks or is back in uniform and again, the gestalt shift goes back to Xing Ke Lei, the handsome SWAT officer. They made a point of showing how muscled his arms are, which was a little jarring to see in comparison to his youthful face, not gonna lie. So, while I liked him as Xing Ke Lei, it was a little distracting switching back and forth between seeing him as a really young, adolescent-looking actor, and him as the broad-chested character. 

Should you watch?

All in all, a really cute and easy-to-watch drama with some thoughtful and sentimental moments. Very fluffy. Minimal to no misunderstandings. Charming characters. There are the storylines of three couples with medical/police subplots interweaved between the romance. On bilibili, some people even edited clips of the drama with theme songs from TVB medical and police dramas like The Hippocractic Crush and Tiger Cubs. So, as someone who grew up with TVB dramas, it was nostalgic to see those thematic parallels. 

But, the drama does lose steam in the last 10 or so episodes, and has a lot of filler to stretch it out to 40 episodes. That’s the issue I have with modern dramas. The plot in modern dramas is usually quite basic, and I would argue that the modern romance is easier and less angsty. You either love each other or you don’t. You either are willing to commit or you’re not. There aren’t many external excuses for angst or misunderstandings. (Of course, I’m trivializing things; real life isn’t as easy). 

Still, I would recommend this drama for anyone who’s between dramas. I watched this drama to help me get over the rut I was in because I was going through withdrawal after finishing The Rebel Princess, so I needed a light-hearted drama whose genre was completely different from TRP. And this drama was perfect for breaking that rut. 

Rating: 8/10. Simple, fluffy, and not too much to complain about. I also forgot to talk about the great humour in the drama, but there were many moments when I laughed out loud or couldn’t stop grinning. This is also a drama you can take your time with because there aren’t constant cliff hangers to peg you on. It doesn’t consume your life, and you can pause (although, the first 18 or so episodes are definitely binge-worthy because the development of the leads’ relationship is just too cute, and so they suck you right in). However, while it is one of the better modern romance dramas I’ve watched (and the characters are very consistent), it’s not a very memorable drama. It doesn’t make me linger. I guess it’s because I’m more of a historical and xianxia drama kind of person. So take from that what you will. 

#you are my hero #你是我的城池营垒 #cdrama #bai jingting #白敬亭 #ma sichun #sandra ma #马思纯 #cdrama review #cdramanet

[jaskierswolf]

Yes Chef

My fic for the Novigrad Exchange! For the marvelous @ohnomybreadsticks

Ship: Calanthe/Eist Rating: E Summary: Restaurant AU with a healthy dose of smut? I don’t know. I’ll think of a better summary later 😂 AO3 link to come later on!

CW: 18+ smutty time, vaginal sex, oral sex, semi-public (they are alone but in a public setting),

The kitchen was sweltering, the chefs moving around the small space in an intricate dance that only they knew the steps to. The air was filled with a cacophony of smells; slowly roasted barbeque pulled-pork, fried onions and garlic, chocolate brownies. It all wafted around the kitchen in a mess, mouth watering and delicious. For Calanthe, there was nothing better than the hustle and bustle of a professional kitchen. She had been cooking since she was a child, her own grandmother had often let her help around the kitchen and Calanthe had been hooked. There was just something so addictive about creating masterpieces out of nothing. How could flour, butter, sugar become something entirely different? A cake, soft and melting in her mouth, flavours exploding on her tongue, almost better than sex… almost. 

The industry itself attracted Calanthe like a moth to a flame. It was undoubtedly a man’s world, and that pulled her in, the need to prove herself, a competitiveness that drove her forward in life. If there was one thing in love she truly loved, it was proving that the patriarchy was absolutely shit. Whenever there was an opportunity to prove that she was better than a man, she took it, and as she grew older she learned how to use that to her advantage. It didn’t take long for her to rise above her rivals. Her ingenuity and skill in the kitchen was unmatched, and she had a remarkable talent for ruling the roost. When she spoke, people listened. 

Opening her own restaurant had been a dream come true. 

The Jewel of Cintra. 

The cuisine wasn’t fancy but it was clever. She didn’t leave her customers hungry and wanting for more, but it was posh enough that she could charge a decent amount. It was also almost entirely locally sourced. That was the hook. Her restaurant supported local businesses, and she had crafted the menu using old traditional Cintran recipes. She was determined to preserve the Cintran way of life, especially with Nilfgaard slowly taking over the catering industry with their new wave recipes that blended old Southern style flavours with that favoured by the North, creating a brand new fusion.

Calanthe hated it. Cintra had a wealth of history and it was being wiped out.

It did keep her on her toes though, she had to constantly think up new ways to stay ahead, networking at conventions and collaborating with other local restaurants and breweries. It was draining but she thrived on it, and her head waiter, Jaskier, was an absolute blessing. He could charm any customer and handled complaints without even blinking an eye. 

So naturally she was furious when he’d handed in his resignation. The idiot had been snatched right under her nose. He’d gone and fallen in love with the head chef of Kaer Morhen, a gastro pub in Kaedwan, the pair had met at one of the conventions that Jaskier had gone to in her stead. Two months later, her best waiter had announced he was moving to Kaedwan to be closer to Geralt.

And Calanthe was left to replace him. 

The applicants had all been shit. No one could compare to Jaskier, lacking his charisma and easy going attitude. Those who might have stood a chance bristled at the idea of bowing to Calanthe, men who thought they could come into her restaurant and overthrow her. 

The misogynistic pricks.

Yes, the applicants had all been shit… until Eist Tuirseach. He was infuriatingly good, handsome, suave and seemed to already be completely head over heels with her. So, she’d reluctantly hired him. 

And she couldn’t bring herself to regret it. 

“Good morning, Chef!” Eist waved cheerily as she sauntered into the kitchen. He was helping Lambert wipe down the counters before service started. Her sous chef was a talented but prickly young man, and she trusted no one else to get her kitchen in order when she had her rare days off. He’d been trained under Vesemir from Kaer Morhen, but had been eager to escape Kaedwan. His boyfriend, Aiden was her pastry chef and, when they weren’t flirting up a storm in the kitchen, they were some of her most efficient workers. 

Calanthe felt herself blush as Eist winked at her. She blamed the heat of the kitchen. “It’s almost five in the afternoon, Eist,” she shot back. 

“Ah, but that is morning for a chef.” 

Calanthe scoffed. He wasn’t entirely wrong, she was a night owl, most chefs were, if they slept at all, but she’d also seen five in the morning more times than she would have liked. Delivery days were killer, and when they had parties and events most of the team were in the kitchen early for prep. 

“How are the books for tonight, Eist?” She grumbled, getting straight to business. It was easier that way. 

“Fully booked as always, Chef. Nilfgaard wishes they could have our numbers. No one else can compare to your skill and talent, not to mention your beauty,” he said with a caddish grin.

The same smile he’d used to charm her in his interview.

________

“Eist Tuirseach?” Calanthe asked as a handsome young man entered her office. He was well built, roguish in looks, and reminded her of a lost puppy. He smiled brightly at her as he took her hand, his grip strong and firm and for the briefest of moments Calanthe wondered what those hands would feel like caressing her body, rough callouses against her breasts. 

“Aye, that’s me. The Lady Calanthe?” Eist said, smirking as he cocked his head, making his tousled brown hair fall in front of his eyes. 

Her heart skipped a beat in her chest, and she felt a familiar warmth at her core.

Fuck.

Of course he had to be cute. He was the last applicant and she was really really hoping it would be another idiot so she could politely decline Jaskier’s request to leave before his notice was up. She wanted to keep the young waiter for as long as she could. 

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” she lied. “I expect professionalism in my kitchen, and you will refer to me as Chef.” 

And this was the point where most of her applicants had turned tail and run. Eist, however, blushed instead, his tongue flicking out to lick his lips, and there was a definite hunger in his eyes. “Yes, Chef.”

Calanthe swallowed. “Good, now… I have some questions, and at the end if you have any questions for me, you’ll be given the opportunity. Unfortunately my sous chef got called away on a family matter, but if you’d like a second person here, we can rearrange the interview.”

Eist smiled even brighter, adoration and lust shining in his eyes. “No, I think we’ll be just fine, Chef.”

____________

The bastard hadn’t stopped charming her since, and it was taking all her self control not to let him ravish her in the kitchen. They danced around each other and flirted like there was no tomorrow but… well, she didn’t want to give in. She knew what it would look like; the head chef and the head waiter dating. No. She didn’t want to give anyone the opportunity to question her integrity, but after months of being around Eist, she felt weak. The way their fingers brushed whenever she passed a plate over, the easy banter that made her laugh even when she was in a terrible mood at the start of the day, the disappointment she’d felt when Eist had booked off a couple of weeks to visit his family in Skellige. 

The kitchen had felt empty without him. 

And she just wasn’t as good at dealing with complaints. Calanthe had a short temper, and when people complained, she couldn’t help but take it personally. She got defensive and fought back. 

She needed Eist. 

She hated Eist. 

… Or perhaps she loved him. 

“We have a party of eight booked in at half-seven. No known allergies, should be pretty straight forward, but I’ve briefed my team and let your’s know too” Eist hummed, picking up his clipboard. “Most of the other bookings are couples and smaller families.”

“Fuck,” Calanthe hissed. “I hate big groups.”

“I have no doubt that you will be flawless as always, Chef.”

“Getting the plates out in one go is a faff that I could live without,” Calanthe groaned. “Lambert!” She barked. 

Lambert looked up from his station, his hair slicked back and his sleeves rolled back to his arms, revealing an intricate tattoo sleeve that went down to his wrist on his right arm, wolves running through the woods. He strolled over to her, crossing his arms in front of his chest, hazel eyes alert and attentive. 

“Yes Chef?”

“You’re in charge of the party of eight, I want you working with Eist and his team. No fucking around with Aiden, understood?”

“Loud and clear, Chef,” Lambert nodded then smirked. “Can we fuck around after?”

Calanthe rolled her eyes, swatting him over the head with her palm. “Behave, wolf.”

“What?” he gaped, rubbing the back of his head. “You and Eist are worse than us, and you still claim you’re not together!” 

“We’re not together.”

“Not yet, at any rate,” Eist chuckled.

Calanthe shot daggers at her waiter. “Get out of my kitchen, Eist. Before I get you for harassment.”

Eist quirked an eyebrow. “Tell me to stop, Chef, and I will, but you have yet to tell me no. One word, Calanthe,” he paused, giving her a chance to admonish him for using her name whilst they were at work, but he said it so reverently that she was too stunned into silence. “One word and I’ll stop.”

No.

The word should have been easy. 

“Don’t,” she whispered, and his face fell, heartbroken, and she could already tell he wouldn’t argue. “Don’t stop.”

She felt her cheeks burn, and the eyes of their audience were piercing into her soul. So, she cleared her throat. “Right!” she snapped. “Back to work!”

The kitchen burst into life once again, giving her the privacy to wink at her waiter. “Later?” he mouthed at her, and she nodded. 

The dinner service went by in a blur. It was busy enough that she didn’t have to think about anything but the quality of the food her chefs were serving. She’d rolled up her sleeves and got stuck in, flitting about between stations and helping wherever she was needed, supervising and delegating the tasks, running a tight kitchen as she always did. However, that didn’t stop her from feeling a little giddy whenever Eist flew through the double doors, looking like some kind of Oxenfurt actor in his suit, the server’s apron strapped around his waist. 

Anticipation curled in her gut, the heat that crept along her skin was from more than just the ovens. There was a hunger in his eyes whenever he looked at her, and she wanted more. She wondered if his lips were as soft as they looked, whether his beard would scratch against her skin. 

It was all very distracting, but if anyone noticed, they didn’t say anything. 

By the time the kitchen was cleaned up, and she’d dismissed the last of her chefs, it was past midnight. Lambert waved her off with a lewd comment and jumped onto the back of Aiden’s motorcycle, the two of them speeding off along the road. 

“So,” Eist’s voice came from behind her as they stood in the doorway, watching the motorbike drive off into the distance, and Calanthe spun round in a start. “It’s just us.”

Calanthe smirked, her fingers wrapping around Eist’s tie and pulling him in for a kiss. The waiter groaned and went willingly, their lips melding together in a slow and languid kiss, noses bumping as they explored each other’s mouths. The heat crept along Calanthe’s skin, her heart fluttering in her chest. How had she denied this man for so long? She was already soaking, aching at her core with want, and soon, she grew impatient with the pace of the kiss. Nipping at Eist’s lip, she pushed their bodies together, forcing Eist back into the kitchen and towards the kitchen counter. Another day she would love to take this gorgeous man apart, fuck him over the worktops in her kitchen, but that would have to wait. 

She made a mental note to keep her strap in the back of her car. 

She had a very good feeling about Eist.

For now he seemed content to please her. He spun them around, helping her to wriggle out of her trousers and ruined underwear before hoisting her up onto the counter. She gasped into the kiss as his fingers teased her clit, slipping inside her wet cunt with little resistance. Calanthe’s head rolled back, her hands gripping the edge of the cold metal counter. The kitchen was quiet except for the sounds of their moans and his fingers pumping inside her. It was thrilling, everyone had gone home but there was always the off chance that someone would walk in on them. She moaned, rolling her hips to force his fingers deeper inside her. 

“Fuck me, you bastard,” she gasped.

Eist just winked. “Soon, Chef.” 

She expected him to finally unzip his trousers but Eist seemed to have other ideas. The waiter fell to his knees before her, pressing kisses along her inner thigh with a soft groan. Her hands threaded into his soft brown hair, guiding him towards her cunt. If he wasn’t going to fuck her then he’d better put that mouth to good use and she was tired of waiting. Eist’s stubble scratched wonderfully against her skin, a reminder of just how strong this man was, and yet he still knelt eagerly between her legs, as if there was nowhere else he’d rather be. 

“Fuck,” she moaned as Eist’s tongue flicked at her clit, fast and feather light and sinfully good. She thrust forward against his face and he groaned, one hand gripping at her thigh, the other joining his tongue between her wet folds. His fingers pressed inside her as he continued to lick and suck at her clit, moaning as he devoured his feast. 

Calanthe’s fingers stroked through Eist’s hair as he ate her out, hips rolling against his face. She felt like she was on fire, her skin so very sensitive and every lick of his tongue had her moaning, crying out in pleasure. 

“Stop,” she gasped before she could cum. 

Eist groaned but pulled back, staring up at her with dark eyes. His lips were wet and glistening, and he smirked as he wiped his mouth. “Chef?”

Calanthe raised an eyebrow, barely able to catch her breath. “If you don’t get your cock inside me now, there will be consequences.” The waiter closed his eyes and moaned, a visible shudder going through him at her words. With a quick tug on his tie, Eist was once again standing. “If you like eating me out so much-” she purred, “-maybe I’ll have to find something else to feed you with.”

“Calanthe,” Eist groaned. “Do you have any idea what you do to me?”

“Why don’t you show me?” Calanthe challenged.

That seemed to finally spur the waiter into action and he met her lips in a messy kiss, the taste of her own slick on his tongue. She moaned into the kiss, desperate and wanton as he fumbled with the zip of his trousers. There was a telltale rip of foil but when he pushed inside her, fuck, it felt so good. She easily stretched around the girth of his cock but he just filled her so completely.

“I’m not going to last, Chef,” he gasped, lips never leaving her’s. 

She closed her eyes. That wouldn’t be a problem, she was already so close from all his teasing before. “Get on with it!” she snapped, rocking her hips forward to the edge of the counter. 

Every thrust made her cry out, obscene sounds filling her kitchen as they both chased their release. Eist panted as he left messy kisses on her neck, nipping and biting at the tender skin. Her orgasm hit her like fireworks as she clenched around his cock, sparks flying in front of her vision. She gasped wordlessly as he fucked her through the waves of pleasure that just seemed to keep coming. Calanthe swore, the pleasure beginning to wane and her body oversensitive. Eist grunted as he followed her over the edge, his thrusts becoming erratic and desperate. She caught his lips in a sloppy kiss, their breaths mingling as he slowly came back to his senses, slipping out of her with a groan.

She pressed her forehead against his as they panted breathlessly in the otherwise quiet kitchen. One hand gripped onto his shoulders while a leg was still hooked around his waist. There was a disgusting splat on the floor as the condom fell off. Calanthe tried to keep a straight face, she really did but Eist snorted and let out a hearty laugh, his fingers lacing with her’s on the countertop. Mirth bubbled up inside her, a ridiculous giggle escaping her lips as they both looked at the mess on the floor. Soon they were both laughing, hysterically and without any restraint, their post-orgasmic bliss making the whole thing seem utterly hilarious. 

“You’re cleaning that up, Eist.” 

He groaned, capturing her lips in another kiss with a muffled “Yes, Chef.” 

Calanthe rolled her eyes and cupped Eist’s face in her hands. “You can call me Calanthe outside of work, you fool,” she said with a smirk. 

And her partner seemed to melt under her touch. Eist’s face lit up in a dopey smile that made her heart skip a beat. He took her hand in his and bought her fingers up to his lips, his eyes never leaving hers. “Yes… Calanthe.”

#the witcher #calanthe/eist #calanthe x eist #queen calanthe #eist tuirseach #wolfie's witcher writing #novigrad exchange

[conspirwbytheorist-inactive]

Some Cinder Thoughts

So I saw this post from @hoepunkausta a while back and was going to reply. Then I realized that this was the first time I’d actually sat down and taken a good look at Cinder and holy cow is there a lot to this character. Anyways, it got me thinking about Cinder's potential background and, while I've always seen her as a foil and tied to Ruby, I never realized how she could potentially tie in to ALL of team RWBY. Which is. . .pretty awesome from not only a narrative point of view but in regards to character redemption as well. Full take under the cut.

TLDR: If we assume Cinder’s backstory is in keeping with the popular version of the Cinderella tale, it ties-in to a lot of the our heroes’ traumas, giving each of them a reason to relate to her. Currently, Salem maintains control over Cinder by presenting herself as the fairy godmother, because were Cinder to see her as the stepmother she was, she would potentially leave. Were she to break away from Salem, recognizing her shared traumas with the members of Team RWBY could provide her with the connection needed to grow and heal as a person.

***Content Warning: Mentions of abuse/abuser tactics***

Intro

The post itself is pretty simple. Do we think Cinder came from an abusive background or do we think she came from a normal family that died under tragic circumstances before she met Salem? I’d always gotten the vibe that Cinder came to Salem searching for power after a life of rather horrific abuse similar to a more traditional Cinderella story.

The way she craves power, not just as a resource but as something she desperately needs for her own survival (her line about Pyrrha “taking her fate into her own hands” in V2 and the “I refuse to starve” of V7 come to mind), leads to believe that she came from a home that didn’t allow her much freedom or agency. She seems to know exactly what it feels like to not be in control of her own life and, now that she has found her escape from it (Salem), refuses to ever go back.

But how does this translate into ties to Team RWBY? She obviously has been foiled with Ruby, but the other 3? Kind of a big leap to make. Well, stick with me. Naturally, when thinking of a Cinder backstory, it makes sense to look at her main allusion, the Cinderella fairy tale.

A Cinder Story

Cinderella doesn’t start her story with an evil stepmother and step sisters. By most accounts she started out fairly privileged. With that in mind, imagine this woman, who we have come to know as a murdering power-driven villain, as a small child with seemingly everything she needed. A loving family, relative financial stability, decent social standing, etc. until one day, out of nowhere. Her mother dies. And suddenly she finds her world turned upside down. Her father remarries to a woman who loathes her and, who, after his death, does her best to control her, isolate her. Everyday she is told she is lesser than her sisters, meant to act as a servant. To cope with the difficult circumstances, she daydreams about a perfect place (in the main story, the ball/landed nobility but in Cinder’s case perhaps the opulence of Atlas) where if she can just prove herself good enough, endure enough pain, she can finally earn a happy ever after.

Now, what’s interesting here is that in just this bare bones outline of the Cinderella story, we touch on the key traumas of each of our four protagonists. Ruby and Summer’s death, Weiss’s isolation and molding under Jacques, Blake’s experience of racism as a faunus and abuse under Adam and Yang’s attempting to live up to Summer’s ideal to cope with abandonment. Which is really fricking cool because it means if ANY of this hypothetical backstory were to come to light, at least SOMEONE if not EVERYONE from the team has a potential point of empathy for where Cinder is coming from.

Something I love about RWBY is how it (for the most part) does its best to show how people are not inherently good or evil, but rather products of their circumstances and environment. So imagine the narrative and thematic potential of a villain for whom each of our cast could theoretically look at and think “Wow. That really could have been me” instead of “look at this monster”. A moment where they realize that, had things gone a bit differently, had they not been a position to cope with their traumas and actively choose to love instead of being engulfed by their pain and anger, they very much could have been this story’s villains rather than its heroes. A moment where, through Cinder, they concretely realize themselves as products of choice rather than destiny and, in that same vein, perhaps Cinder can see the same for herself.

Okay, but what about the Salem part? If we reduce “badness” all to a matter of choice ignores another key theme of RWBY: the importance of an awesome support network and team to back you up. At every point of the series our heroes have had someone to help them. Ruby had Yang and Qrow growing up before her team and JNR after Beacon, Weiss had Winter and Klein, Blake Ilia and Sun, and Yang had Ruby growing up and Tai after Beacon. But who did Cinder have to help her through her darkest times? No one. Except Salem.

The Case of the Fairy Stepmother

That brings me to the second part of the question: Is Salem the stepmother or Fairy Godmother? Honestly I think it’s both. The real question (and what I think will be the biggest obstacle for Cinder growing as a character) is how does Cinder see it?

In the Cinderella story, the Fairy Godmother and Evil Stepmother play opposing roles. Stepmother does all that she can to keep Cinderella underfoot and away from realizing her full potential as a person while the Fairy Godmother steps in when Cindy is at her lowest and uses her magic to give her all that she needs to get that “Happily Ever After”. In theory it should be impossible for one person to be both at the same time, but turns out it’s a matter of perspective.

Imagine Cinder at her lowest point. Maybe she was a no-name seamstress in Argus who daydreamed about being swept up into the glamour of the Atlas elite. Maybe she was a scared kid who saw becoming a huntress as her ticket out of poverty and into a life of adventure. Imagine her getting that wish of her own accord. Playing the game, doing everything right, biding her time until finally, she escapes - only to find herself trapped in a new way. (a Prince Charming who controls her as a plaything, a student not willing to be a child soldier, there are so many possibilities here). Only to see that the system was stacked against her in way where she could never escape it under her own power. That’s. . . a lot to process and a feeling of hopelessness that I think a lot of us can relate to (especially in our current world-state).

Then Salem comes in and not only promises Cinder the power to create her own destiny, but delivers it. Cinder goes from having almost nothing to magically receiving the means to accomplish anything she desired. All because of Salem. I see a lot of people question why Cinder is so loyal to Salem, but given this view, it’d be very difficult for her not to feel indebted to her savior in some regard.

Furthermore, Salem seems relatively fond of Cinder. She defends her from ridicule in Volume 4, goes out of her way to praise her strengths and, honestly, seems to have more patience with her than the rest of WTCH.  Given her backstory, I wouldn’t even be remotely surprised if what drew Salem to Cinder was the chance to give this angry young woman the power she wished that she had had prior to her curse. It’s almost. . . motherly. In a way I would expect a millennia old woman driven mad by isolation and Grimm Lakes and a very traumatized Cinder to view motherhood.

But, that doesn’t mean that the two have a healthy relationship. We as the audience see how Salem’s “love” comes at a price. She never hesitates to keep Cinder underfoot: oscillating between praise and threats of punishment, criticizing Cinder’s discomfort in Volume 4 as weakness, and making it clear that Cinder is only important to her insofar as her usefulness. The whole “Without you I am nothing” really illustrates how far out of her way Salem goes to make Cinder painfully aware that all that she has, all that she has accomplished is because of Salem’s magic. Salem hasn’t helped Cinder as a benefactor. A benefactor would let Cinder proceed to live her own life. Salem has instead taken advantage of Cinder’s lack of any support network and feelings of isolation to establish herself as Cinder’s sole source of support.

While we as an audience can see how abusive this dynamic is, Cinder can’t. Right now, she’s more or less fully embedded in Salem’s manipulation tactics - Salem’s narrative is her truth. And, even if she does come to see it (don’t think I missed the hints of resentment in the trailer), there’s nowhere for her to go. What can she do? Go rogue? The woman has an entire Grimm army! Turn to Emerald, Mercury, or Neo? They’re all either children or also in on all this! Just like the Stepmother, so long as Salem keeps Cinder feeling isolated, the chances of her escaping or changing remain slim.

Seeds of Support and Redemption

So, that leaves us with two things Cinder needs in order to break away from Salem:

Recognizing Salem as a controlling/toxic “Stepmother” figure instead of a  “Fairy Grimm-Mother” and that this is NOT what she wants out of life.

Finding connections/a support network she can go to after leaving

This is why Cinder having parallels to all of Team RWBY is so frickin cool. I’m still not 100% certain of a full Cinder redemption. Like, I love her as a character. But part of the reason I love her is that she is a hot mess who will go full ride or die no matter the situation. So getting her to even pause and go “is this what I want out of my life?” is probably going to take something pretty drastic to rattle her current convictions.

However, that being said, I find it really suspicious that the team would take a character that could be used to parallel the traumas of all four main heroes and just hang her out to dry. In a different show, I might think they could set her up with a death as a warning for our protagonists. But, that doesn’t make sense. Every possible warning I can think of motivating Cinder’s death is already being conveyed by another character. The dangers of falling to spite? Adam. Isolation causes only weakness and pain? Raven. Sacrificing humanity for the sake of power is a crap idea? Ironwood.

Instead, these seems like a great way to set up a situation where Cinder can find connection. After all, if our team could potentially look at Cinder and go “This could have been me”, what’s to stop Cinder from looking at them, seeing their pain and how they support each other, and going “Huh. Maybe this could be me?”. Especially if something radical has just happened to get her to want to break away from Salem for whatever reason. Maybe I’m just crazy, maybe I’ve been sitting on this too long, but I think that that would be really cool for a show about the power of love and connection to have its longest-term “villain” illustrate how, given support and humanity, victims of abuse can grow and find genuine connection with people.

#cinder fall #rwby #rwby analysis #rwby theory #cw abuse #cw mentions of abuse #This thing took me over a month to write #but i regret nothing #all of this is speculation btw #feel free to comment thoughts! #salem #salem rwby #long post

[mbti-notes]

I'm the INTJ who talked about self-awareness. I keep being terse, dominating conversations, and generally putting people off but I often don't know what I'm doing to put people off. I don't realize that I'm being immature (e.g., abruptly dismissing bad ideas without being tactful about it) until well after a conversation. I struggle with identifying when I'm doing this so it's difficult to stop but it's interfering with my ability to work with other people effectively. (1/?)

[con’t: I have depression that has worsened in the pandemic and it's made me very tired and uninterested in pretty much anything. I work very slowly now and procrastinate. I'm a college student set to graduate soon. I don't have family and the only person I have in my life is my partner. He wants different things for his future, including where to live, so we decided we should part ways. I'm mourning the loss of the relationship. I'm worried I won't be hired (for many reasons), I'm financially unstable, will soon lack any safety net/support system. I constantly feel exhausted and any time my plans are derailed it's hard to muster energy to continue. My head often feels foggy and it's hard to think. I feel like I've painted myself into a corner and can't find my way out. This time is critical for networking and I keep burning what few bridges I made. Contingency planning usually makes me feel better but the fear has been taking over and it's hard to see a way for it to work out.]

Unfortunately, this still doesn’t get to the heart of the matter, so my previous reply still stands. TJs are independent, strong-willed, and fearless people who know how to take life into their own hands. TJs should be energized by using Te to re-organize life, make plans, pinpoint and solve problems systematically (one by one), and increase efficiency and productivity. Thus, once again, this raises the question of why Te isn’t working for you. Is it because you are mistyped? Is it because your way of using Te is wrong and you don’t realize it? Is it because you have encountered too many setbacks such that you’ve given up hope? Is it because you have a deeper problem of unhealthy dominant Ni? 

If the problem is actually unhealthy Ni, then you need to work on using it better. Envision a path forward. Reflect on your life, what you want to accomplish, what goals would be meaningful to you, etc. Only when Ni is healthy should you deploy Te to create forward movement. It seems that you lack imagination and thus aren’t able to change your outlook. Why is that? Life is constantly throwing obstacles at us all. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. But that’s also how we learn and grow. It’s up to you to adapt to obstacles creatively, if you don’t want to get stuck in life. There’s nothing more I can say about type development until you get to the bottom of the Te failure. If there is a mental disorder interfering with type development, such as depression, it needs to be addressed first.

In terms of mental health, it’s obvious that you’re experiencing too many negative things all at once and getting overwhelmed by the stress, but it’s still unclear whether there is a more deep-seated issue in you than external stress. We are living through a difficult pandemic, so it’s understandable that problems tend to fester when there are fewer opportunities to solve them. Feeling down during a down time is normal. You say you have depression. Is it a serious lifelong problem? Are you getting treatment for it? If not, I strongly recommend that you get professional help. A specialist can help you better determine whether depression is more the cause or the result of your problems. They can help you be more objective about your circumstances and sort through issues logically. They should also be able to help stabilize your mood. Once you are more emotionally stable, your head is clearer, you’ll have a better chance of finding good solutions to your problems. 

You mention the word “fear” only in the last sentence yet it is the most important word in your whole message, since you claim it is the thing holding you down. What are you afraid of exactly? TJs tend to be fearless because Te allows them to efficiently eliminate all sources of fear. Therefore, that’s what type theory would logically advise TJs to do. If that doesn’t work for you, then you need to dig into the fear in order to discover the deeper truth behind it. If you aren’t able to do it on your own, a therapist should be able to guide you if you ask them.

#intj #auxiliary te #ask

[stuckinapatriarchalbullshitland]

Lauren’s Attunement/// The Catharsis of the Dark Diary (Long ass post)

Ah ... I really don't know how much I could say about this Attunement that I decided to separate into two parts and notice that I am going to deviate a bit from my original intention to make some clear points because there is a lot to get out of what Lauren has said. With that in mind I hope it is not too confusing to read.

First part: Cancellation Culture

I think our moonchild has been perfectly clear on this point. "We are living in a very sick world" "In a world in great need of healing and that will not do so through the culture of cancellation." Cancellation culture sucks, folks. A twisted idea of ​​exposing things from the past of people who have not been good and that people have become accustomed to criticizing as if all those who criticize were a mirror of virtue and perfection when nobody is perfect and Lauren also mentions that in your Attunement. Lauren also mentions that we cannot hold people accountable for their mistakes because it is the most important part of the process. And it is a truth like a cathedral. People who make mistakes need to take responsibility for their actions so that they don't make them again. It is necessary to learn from it and improve as people and heal. In the part where Lauren mentions that she would never publicly embarrass the people she loves, she reminded me of Camila. I did not want to mention Camila in this because we know that Lauren has also been humiliated but if we talk about the cancellation culture that part goes to Camila. Camila has been a victim of the culture of cancellation long before leaving the band and they have made Twitter threads, blaming her with a racist past for which she has apologized many times but still drag her to hell, no matter what. Camila has haters who love to fuck her and Lauren knows it too. She has known it forever and a clear example is (I'm not going to put a screenshot because it would distract me) the tweet where someone calls Camila ugly and Lauren responds to that hater saying: "Hello, can you show me a picture of you? " It is these details that make us understand that everything she sees on the internet in relation to her and her loved ones affects her a lot and what she says when she talks about the online world where we are all the time, is bullshit. She says that it's not that you can't do what makes you beautiful, that she's fine with it, but also the people who are watching don't know that shit is fake and that people aren't happy with who they are. "That when they look in the mirror they don't love themselves." And I think she hit the spot there too, folks. She has perfectly outlined a hater's profile. The lack of love of those people who have found an escape route to their frustrations, to what is wrong with their lives, that makes them what they are. Because as she says, we live in a screwed up world, it's true but the point is, how the hell have we got to this point? How do we get to this point where the human being has lost humanity and has become shadows of hatred and rejection that lives by making Twitter threads and canceling people to feel better about themselves? And then Lauren talks about Trump. She mentions Trump as a symptom of lack of love. And again she is not wrong. Donald Trump's life was never very happy. With an authoritarian father who always preferred his eldest son to follow the legacy of his family and perpetuate the name of it, when this son did not want that pressure, the father banished the eldest son and all the shit fell on Trump. The only other male in the family. Trump is that man's mirror. From that egomaniac, controlling, arrogant, undoubtedly macho and racist father because he has really shown it. Trump lives on appearances. To demonstrate something that is not and to hide its shortcomings in a marked narcissism.

Another thing that strikes me about what she has said and another truth is also that we no longer love each other because we do not know where we are standing. And that is also true, we do not know who we are because others dictate who we are. They dictate what to say, what to eat, what music to listen to, what television series to watch until we become cattle. We have lost our ability as individual beings to fit the mold of livestock just to give us the feeling of feeling connected, as if we were part of something. Part of a whole that is still controlled. From this part Lauren begins to talk about what she has written in her diary so I will continue with the second part, but to close this one, I can only say that many of the things she mentions are a reflection of what we are doing living, of what we are suffering and our own fragility as a human species.

Second part: Black Diary and Amy's Shadow

I think we have a concept of great artists as broken human beings, wrapped in dramas and additions that actually "help" perfectly in their art. Where, the more chaos there is in their lives, the more geniuses they become. And I think Amy can be an example of that. And talking about her, because I'm going to start by talking about her and then I'm going to express my thoughts about Lauren. I remember responding to an ask yesterday saying that I was terrified when Lauren said she felt identified with her because their lives were a kind of parallel. And then I thought better of it and realized that yes, both lives have that parallel but with a difference, Lauren has what Amy never had. An emotional support network. Good friends. Amy's life was marked by rejection, mockery, the circus that was her life where her art was in the background and her voice was shattered to make way for the addicted, alcoholic Amy, where her greatest achievement was to climb to a drugged and drunk stage, with glasses of wine that she drank live and her show was to demonstrate her weakness so that others made fun of her. Her parents perpetuated that shit because it gave them money, and as long as she made money, at the cost of her own physical and mental health, nothing else mattered. Being an artist is not only knowing how to sing, dance, write, paint and be good at all kinds of artistic expression, but it is much more than that. Being an artist is breaking yourself into pieces and giving them to your fans to do with those pieces what they want. It is giving more than what nobody will give you in return. And Amy got broken. They broke her into thousands of pieces and they all jumped like vultures wanting a piece of her until she ceased to exist because they never gave her a chance to rebuild herself. They never gave her a chance to learn to love herself to be able to heal because they didn't want a healthy Amy because that didn't sell. They were only served by her pain because she filled their bank accounts, those of her friends, those of her managers, those of the entertainment tabloids. Those of her boyfriends. The ones from her own fucking parents. And so far we can draw parallels with Lauren. It is possible that our moonchild has had or is having her problems with her mother, or with her record label, or with whatever she is having problems and is dealing with right now, but at least she does not have a family that just supports her and is there for the money she may or may not earn. And yes, she mentioned many fears at first before reading the newspaper, but at least she has had a chance to regroup when she needs to. Lauren has the ability to heal herself, her own will thanks to her own strength. Because even if you are afraid of breaking or feeling pain, you have to feel it. You have to hit rock bottom to learn how to get out of there. You have to go to the extreme of falling enough to know that your own will, your own inner strength is so great that it helps you to rise not only once, but a thousand times if necessary. And she has that ability. I believe and have always said it, you already know it. That the real problem, or part of it, is not Lauren's fragility because that is bullshit. Lauren is a strong girl but at the same time she has this angel, this kind of kindness that really does not go well in an environment as rotten and toxic as the industry. Lauren Jauregui does not fit molds. She cannot follow rules if she considers that they are not fair and that people in the industry do not like because they lose their ability to manipulate it. There is a reason that her song Toy has disappeared, folks. Lauren is still an artist and of course she too falls into the concept of what it means to be an artist, breaking herself into pieces and giving those pieces to us who are her fans. And since we have a piece of it, perhaps we create ourselves with the right to demand more from her because we are not satisfied with what she gives us and we criticize her for it. The worst fans are capable of fucking her and haters are able to write Twitter threads exposing what they hate about her.

That would scare anyone, folks. Even if you are not an artist. There is a Lauren Gif that I posted on the blog as part of a set of images related to Camren. In that gif Lauren looks at the audience with such a raw expression on her face saying something like: "You who are there screaming like crazy, with your perfect lives while I am being pressured to the point of breaking and you just want more" (I put the only screenshot because I don't have the GiF image at hand)

This GiF is something that always caught my attention and since I have known Lauren she knew that there was something else with her. I met her as the bad girl, the bitch one. That image that appeared to conform to Tyren. And then her smile disappeared. I remember when I joined the fandom where one of my first posts about PR circuses was to ask myself: Why do girls look so fucked up? Why is Lauren so sad or why has her smile disappeared? And then there were those weird videos where she seemed like "haunted", like outside of herself and that agreed with the time that she had to stunt for Tyren and always seemed to be the same dynamic with her. And then it was not only me who realized that Lauren was not well, but also other mutuals and we kept repeating the same thing to the bastards on her team: "Lauren is not well, please take care of her " That was something that we repeated a thousand times with Lauren and then also with Camila because it always caught my attention that the two of them were equally fucked at the same time. Before I knew that Lauren had her problems with her family, I also noticed that separation. I think I received a bit of shit after expressing my thoughts but in the end, I was never wrong because Lauren herself has expressed it and I think if I had been in the fandom long before 2018 I would have noticed it too. This has been a very emotional Attunement on Lauren's part and I told her in a tweet, as her fan has been a privilege to have witnessed that. It is a privilege to be a fan of a girl with a huge heart who has flaws that make her more human than other people and who has grown enough to know that she can continue to do so. With this post I have tried to be respectful and say that, although I do not know her, we connect in a special way because we have almost the same way of thinking in many aspects (although I do not agree in many others) and I think that still does most important to me. About the newspaper. It reminded me of the lost diary topic, but apparently she has more than one. Who knows. I remember my period of having diaries in my teens and I appreciate that because it made me realize that writing would be an important part of my life. If there is one way I am good at expressing myself it is writing, and no, not in English so I apologize for the mistakes. There is one last detail of Lauren's Attunement that goes a bit more on the personal side. When she says: "To be a real one, is to be an emotional one". I have always had a conflict with being emotional. Starting with my zodiac sign (yes, I know it's a bit silly to believe in that but it amuses me). As a Pisces, I am an emotional being. As a physically disabled person I have my limitations and although these limitations do not define me, I have always had a fierce fight with my vulnerable side. I hate depending on others, physically and emotionally. I also hate getting sick and others having to take care of me when I'm unable to do it on my own, that's why I don't get along with my emotional side. Excessively emotional and I prefer to be more cerebral in many aspects (I think you have noticed that my favorite word this year has been brainless people, right) and dependency is something that I can't stand on myself. That they depend on me does not matter, I am always for those who need me but being dependent is something I tend to avoid like pests. Relying on others to do things for you, depending on the affection of other people ... my family (except my mother) was never very affectionate to say, it was not impulsively hugging you or public displays of affection and I learned to be the same . But I also learned to give what others did not give me. And it cost me. That of leaving the mold of a family that is there and that sometimes worries but that others can leave you and not know what you are doing on any given day. A family that demands expectations. At least some of my uncles. I think that in that part I feel identified with Lauren and it is curious because I am adopted but she is not. And still I feel identified with Lauren and at the same time with Camila and the relationship that she has with her mother, which is almost an exact copy of the relationship that I had with my mother throughout my childhood and adolescence. I guess that's why I follow them both, apart from because I love the music of both. The last detail and I already stop talking about me because this post is about Lauren. What she talks about the industry, the molds, how female artists within the industry are treated. That was also an important aspect because here we are, always complaining about the fact that female artists are undervalued and punished twice as much as a male artist because the music industry is misogynous and macho. That's true.

Society tends to forgive the mistakes of male artists who sometimes do more reprehensible things than female artists and all the mistakes of those female artists (Leigh-Ann of LM throwing shade at Camila) come to light more times and they are more hated. That is a part of the industry that I have always hated and that makes me sad at the same time because it always affects our girls. And I don't know what else I have left to say that I haven't already said, I hope I wasn't too confused with my ideas but it was something I had to write about and I've taken my time to do that. I don't know if Lauren is ever going to read this, but I wanted to thank her. Thanks moonchild. Thank you for giving us that piece of you that makes you vulnerable so that we know it. Thank you for being yourself, for teaching us that we can heal and continue to grow. Thank you for that beautiful mind of yours that has so much to express and deliver to this screwed up world. Don't stop being real, mija. Don't let that light you have go out. I love you so much moonchild ...

sorry for the long reading, folks but it was something I needed to said.

#lauren's attunement #lauren jauregui #cancel culture #dark diary #amy winehouse #vulnerability #music industry #artists #camila cabello #personal thoughts #long ass post #personal #family issues #co dependency #camren

[cytusimagines]

How about characters actions when their partner is a diabetic?

This is probably the longest post I’ve made and I’m so sure I may have gotten some things wrong, but here we go!

Cytus Characters With a Diabetic S/O

Aroma/PAFF

-So I like to think that PAFF has probably the best healthcare and will get you on that plan ASAP

Insulin is expensive, that she knows

If she can bring down the costs for you, she’ll do it

Hell she might as well buy your medication She does by the way

-You cannot convince me that Aroma does not have a planner

Inside it is her schedule for meetings, interviews, concerts, etc.

But she always makes time for you

Especially to make sure you’re eating on a consistent schedule and checking your levels

Will move everything around her schedule when you mention that you have a doctor’s appointment coming up

Will also attend said appointments to make you more comfortable

-She is aware of what you can or can’t eat

Sometimes when you have dinner with her and Helena, she helps cook

This is to make sure Helena doesn’t do anything that could make your levels too high or too low

Of course she always asks for your input

-Overall a loving and supportive partner to her S/O

Neko

-Let’s be real, she’s not the best equipped to help

-But as long as you explain to her what she should do, she’ll be fine. Maybe.

-Will hound you about your insulin and levels if she suspects something off

“Don’t lie to me Y/N! Nothing gets past Neko!”

If you thought she was annoying before, she will be even more annoying if you even forget for a nanosecond

Sometimes she forgets though, especially in between streams and making music

-Please help Neko understand it more so she’s not constantly panicking about your health

-Honestly she does her best to help, but you’ll have to give her reminders to relax from time to time

Nora & ROBO_Head

-Nora knows how challenging something like diabetes can be to have

She doesn’t have it, but considering that the Ender virus took her ability to walk, she at least shares the sentiment

-She programs ROBO to have an alarm when it’s time to check your levels and take your insulin

-She can also be pretty strict when it comes to your diet/meal plan

You’re always allowed to give her feedback, but you can also tell her to tone it down if you think it’s too strict

It’ll take some time to adjust, but she will listen to you

-Where Nora is lacking in emotion, ROBO picks up the speed for her

On days where you beat yourself up, he’ll play you some music he made to make you feel better

His screen will show a pixelated heart to let you know that he loves you

Nora understands that it’s hard to keep everything balanced and in check, so she reminds you that there is always tomorrow to do it right

Ivy

-Walking database based on everything she’s been seeing on the cyTus network

-Let’s not forget that she is slowly gaining a “human” side to her as her research went on

She’s protected humans in the past from dangerous situations

So to see that she is protective around you is not surprising

-I think when you two are in private, she knows you can take care of yourself just fine

-It’s when you’re out in public going to a restaurant that she starts to worry

She will make it clear to the staff of any changes you would want to the item you want to eat

She may not be a Karen, but she can probably exert that energy off to the staff

You’ll probably need to talk to her about letting you do the talking when it comes to ordering your food from now on

But be patient, she’s still pretty new to this

Crystal PUNK/Cherry

-Sherri has some family that are diabetic, so she knows what they go through

That doesn’t mean their experiences are the exact same as yours

-She doesn’t hover over you about your diet or when to take your insulin

You should know how to take care of yourself

Will give you small reminders just in case you forget though

-Cooking dates will become a thing

She wants to learn how to make your favorite foods

She also wants to learn more about what you can and can’t eat

Please give her kisses for a good job

-Overall she won’t baby you about it and knows you’re able to take care of yourself

Vanessa

-So let’s say Vanessa survived the final events of the game and Ivy & PAFF were able to fix both her body and core

She’s back to being kind hearted and more stable than she ever has been before

She was also able to escape from A.R.C since they were using her to keep the cyTus network up and running

-Years of knowledge don’t necessarily prepare her to help with diabetes

It may have been around since her time or it may have developed after The Decommission, I don’t have the answers exactly

Regardless, she’s just not prepared

You’ll have to tell her more about it and how it affects you

-Despite being unprepared, she is more than willing to put in the effort and help you live a normal life

As normal as it can be since she’s still recovering from what happened to her

She’ll most likely go to Ivy for help since Ivy has lived upon humans longer than her

-Chances are with time, she will know more based on your experiences and anything she’s researched with the help of Ivy

Xenon

-First thing’s first- teach him about diabetes!

I promise he wants to learn more about it and how it affects you

Is it Type 1? Type 2?

What type of medicine do you take and how many times a day?

Is there any food you can’t eat at all?

Tell him everything please-

-You bet he made a spreadsheet and spent the next few nights researching everything he could find on diabetes

-He can’t go to your doctor appointments most of the time since work keeps him busy, but when he does he asks them multiple questions

Cares so much about your health, even if it sounds like he’s being rude to them

-Will help you with formulating a good diet based off what he knows about diabetes and what the doctor recommends

Obviously you’ll have to give him some input since you know your body the best

-Has a schedule on when you should check your levels in case you forget

ConneR

-Very knowledgeable man, we love that

He has no knowledge of how diabetes works and assumed the worst when you told him

You had to inform him of how it actually works and how it’s affecting you on a daily basis

-Now he doesn’t panic, but he sure was worried for a second there

-You know, he would be extra and write a whole ass song for you

It’s based on your experiences and everything you’ve told him about diabetes

He’ll play it for you when you’re having a bad day or feeling upset about having to deal with it

-Tea time is his favorite time of day with you

He does love a good cake with his tea, but he won’t have it around you

-He’s also not afraid to correct anyone who spreads misinformation about diabetes

Why anyone would do that, he has no clue

He’ll go after them though, that shit is not allowed so long as he lives on the internet

Joe

-My man respects the fuck out of you!

You cannot look in his eyes and not see how much love he has for you!

And you got diabetes? Shit, he doesn’t care- he loves you for you!

-With that being said, he’s stupid and has on occasion slipped up on what you can’t eat when he’s cooking dinner

“Babe, how come you’re avoiding that?”

“Because I can’t eat it.”

“Son of a bi-”

-He is doing his hardest to cook you delicious food while working with your meal plan

I think it calls for good job kisses and cuddles

He definitely deserves it

-Anyone at the bar that decides to make fun of his S/O gets whopped by a pool stick and his foot up their ass

He does not accept anyone talking shit about them just because they have to deal with diabetes

All the regulars know not to fuck with him or his S/O

-He’s always testing out new dishes and drinks that’ll appeal to more customers with diabetes (just like you!)

Feedback is always appreciated! He accepts your critiques very well

Also free lunch? Who doesn’t want that?

Sagar

-You picked either the right or wrong person to date

-Do you love exercise? Do you love healthy meal dates? Do you love feeling like your core is going to explode?

If you said no to any of these questions, too bad! :D

Sagar is ripped for a reason

And he will ensure that you stay on top of your health 100% of the time

-He’s the partner that will get you up at 7 am to go on a run

“But Sagar, it’s too early-”

To him, it’s never too early to stay in shape and keep you healthy

It is too early for you

-However, he does have fears of something bad happening if he doesn’t keep this up for you

The unknown scares him the most, even if he doesn’t show it

The next time you’re cuddling him, give him those gentle smooches and let him know that you’re going to be okay

You’re not going anywhere anytime soon

Now back to exercising

Rin

-She is an absolute sweetheart and her botanical work may pay off!

When she first heard about your condition, she wasn’t sure on what to do

After a long talk, she understood and took notes on what you need when it comes to her support

-She finds a few plants in her greenhouse that can be added to your food depending on your meal plan

Any time you mention you don’t like eating a certain herb, she puts it on her “Do Not Feed” list

-She can’t exactly cook and leaves that up to you. You know what you can and can’t eat, after all

-Will pick up on your schedule when it comes to checking your levels and taking your insulin

-She is your emotional support Rin when you need her

Cuddles are her favorite thing to do when you’re feeling down

This isn’t an easy condition to deal with and she knows that

Dotes on you and calls you cute nicknames to get you to smile and cheer up

She’s a shy kisser, but cheek and forehead kisses are always up to the plate when it comes to you

#cytus ii spoilers #cytus 3.0 spoilers #version 3 spoilers #ver 3.0 spoilers #cytus ii #cytus ii imagines #cytus aroma headcanons #cytus neko headcanons #cytus nora headcanons #cytus robo_head headcanons #cytus ivy headcanons #cytus crystal punk headcanons #cytus vanessa headcanons #cytus xenon headcanons #cytus conner headcanons #cytus joe headcanons #cytus sagar headcanons #cytus rin headcanons #cytus imagines #cytus hc sfw #diabetic s/o headcanons #i hope i did this well!

[mylittlegemlins]

STEVINEL IS NOT PEDOPHILE (AND IS BAD SAY IT)

Hello everyone 💖

Index:

introduction

inspiration

-pedophilia

- biological age

- mental age

- age of gems

-case spinel

-conclusion.

Today I finally got the inspiration from multiple publications stating that stevinel is in fact a pedophile ship and therefore we should not support it. Since I am a multishiper and I am very much in love with spinel I could not miss the opportunity to defend this ship to cloak and dagger.

Many of these comments I saw in the English fandom and the truth is that the debate did not seem to go anywhere like:

-is a pedophile ship one has 6000 and 17

-the gems are ageless.

[And I didn't really see that they would get anywhere, especially with a lot of immature people insulting most of the time and let's admit that comments from networks like Instagram or Twitter are not the best place to debate

Let's start by getting some concepts straight: Pedophilia :

Sexual attraction of an adult to a child of either sex. (google dictionary) This means that there must be a crush on a person who is (usually) considered an adult at 18 years of age or older and a minor who can be a baby from 5 years old to a puberty of about 14 years old, and between an adult + 20 years old and a teenager - 18 years old. Pedophilia does not occur among people who are at the same stage of life. Like two teenagers or two adults even if their ages seem far apart, see the case of two adults whose age difference is between 30 and 50 years.

Biological age

Biological age is marked by the number of years since your birth that your body and mind develop and change. We human beings have clear concepts of life stages, we know when childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age begin. There are even approximate ages where one has to consider oneself an adult. Like 18 or 21 years old.

And a number of behaviors are expected depending on your age, for example if you've had a brother or a cousin and you've seen it since you were a baby you may have seen one of these little brochures of what a healthy child should do depending on his age. Mental age Mental age is measured by a person's intellect and knowledge, which may or may not coincide with biological age.

Since biological age is expected to coincide with mental age and healthy development is usually measured only by the time a person has lived. Now, how does this work for gems? According to the concepts of the series a gem is literally a stone with a physical form of light, like a hologram with mass, these share many characteristics of humans such as being able to think, feel emotions and imitate some actions that naturally do not need to do like eating and sleeping. In humans it is very easy to measure age only by the amount of time since birth, because they change, and as the pink diamond itself showed. Gems can change but they don't need to.

The gems society is characterized by having a defined and static role and if you don't comply with it you are dead. Let's start with the mental age: In the diamond society everything worked in a very simple way, if you were born and you had to be a mechanic, you will be one for the rest of your life, since you are born with the necessary knowledge to fulfill this role. You don't need to learn new things unless it is about mechanics since you will not dedicate yourself to anything else, you don't need to alter your physical form since you are not allowed to, you don't need to change since you must fulfill your work and nothing else.

Your mental age remains completely stagnant because it does not have the need to mature just to fulfill your work, the gems are born with the ability to speak, communicate and interpret ideas, as is the case of Ruby Leggy, who was born one day when he left for his first mission.

Biological age :

The same Pearl confirmed that the gems cannot be babies, nor to age, reason why the babys and the old age do not exist for the gems. To the being its body only a projection of light the form that can acquire is very varied and changes of radical way in some occasions, although the form that represents an adult woman, this form changes radically depending on the class of gems, lapis lazuli and pearl have a body formed of a young woman, the quartz gems have a much more muscular and robust body that is made much to a physical-culturalist man.

The clearest example of a male gem is Topaz, since anyone would think he was a man until the moment they heard his voice, and even though the rutile twins use the female pronouns have a masculine appearance.

Gems like Fluorite are represented as a much older woman, even though their components may all be young.

She speaks very slowly due to the amount of gems that have to process the information within her mind.

And gems like Padparadcha have a much younger and smaller appearance, like some girls, compared to Sapphire because of her behavior Not to mention gems that are literally rocks and walls that are impossible to classify. All of these exaggeratedly different shapes make people interpret gems with different ages based on their behavior and appearance.

amethyst is the example of a growing gem, perhaps the fact that it is defective has a lot to do with it, she crawls in her first seconds of life during the film and imitates everyone like an infant trying to form her personality from others, she had a much sweeter and smaller appearance in Greg and Rose's flashbacks, being carried by Perla and hiding behind Rose's lack, Rebecca confirms on a podcast that Rose was like a mother to amethyst, if the gems were adults without exception, why would an adult need a mother figure of another adult?

Her outfit accompanies her as she has comfortable clothes and a skirt, she behaves like a teenage big sister figure for Steven during the series by accompanying him, at the same time that he allows himself to mock and fight with him, having that love / hate relationship that many people with brothers can understand and as an adult when reaching the future.

Peridot is represented in a very childish way too, the people who ship stevidot did it because they saw a kid, suddenly she was the same size as Steven, she behaved childishly and Mr. Smile called her kid, so far it was only confirmed that It was from era 2, so it could be both 5000 and 5 years old.

Probably the gems need to get along as a team, if they have to coexist with many other gems, but in theory this does not go beyond a coexistence or friendship of work colleagues since dependence or romance leads to sentimentality, which for the mother planet is useless and even harmful. In short, from birth all their social and intellectual development is truncated and they cannot mature So for most gems on homeworld their mental age is almost the same from birth to destruction.

This was demonstrated with Peridot and lapis in the episode "The New Crystal Gems" Both are gems from the mother planet, one knew how to terraform planets and the other had extensive knowledge of engineering, however they fought over who was to blame for their failure using insults like "foolish" and comparing themselves with other people, a very childish behaviour. So much so that a human thousands of years younger had to correct them. Within the series we were unable to confirm if peridot and lapis had a team to socialize with. So it is likely that throughout their lives they have not had the need to socialize and live together, or even accept their mistakes. Peridot seemed like a child prodigy with so many scenes of childish behavior and her high knowledge of what she was assigned, while other gems like pink diamond were born as immature children and it took her millennia to reach maturity.

With the case of spinel it is completely different. In her introduction stanza she says "her cut is perfect and she is pink too, she will give you endless entertainment, your new spinel best friend" that and together with what later says pearl "she was the little pink diamond playmate". It gives us an idea of what spinel used to look like.

It even strikes me that pearl refers to her as "little playmate" giving the impression that some gems are considered bigger than others based on their rank/trade or size.

First, let's remember that Spinel is literally based on a cuddly toy that Rebecca loved but forgot in a garden and when she returned after a year her belly was black from the fading sun, the doll was in the same place but had already been permanently damaged. Rebecca wanted her character to feel old as "stuck in time" that's why she uses Ruben Hose style animation from the 30's and later in future she uses references to 90's video games to give the feeling that she grew up since she left the earth but she still keeps an old and animated essence.

Spinel is a gem that was born perfectly fine and flawless, besides being literally a living cartoon like a lonnytoon, was created only with knowledge of gameplay and fun to eternally entertain its owner, and that was all she cared about, making her best friend happy .

She was practically a child, all she cared about was playing and being happy with her best friend, something that a neuro-typical adult would not do. She spends most of the movie without leaving Steven's side, even when she sees that he is depressed she can't think of a way to comfort him and just tries to make him laugh, instead of asking him about the problem and trying to provide him with a solution. I can't help but think that she was playing the whole time, from her fight in her evil form and the time she was in her friendly form with the rest of the gems, since almost every battle consists of dodging the attacks as if she were playing tag, and using the gems as dolls or balls. He even says he doesn't want to play anymore when he's done with Steven 💔

And after being stuck in the garden doing nothing but waiting without moving, the phrase "stuck in time" becomes more literal since by doing absolutely nothing but thinking there is no change or maturity. It is not until after the trauma that she goes into a fit of thinking she has changed for the worse, but she was not thinking reasonably at that time. Her best friend left her and she wanted to kill a whole planet. What was she going to do after she succeeded? How would she get back to the mother planet where we had killed a new diamond?

After the film she goes on with her life with the diamonds, the series did not deepen much in her development so she seems to be better, even after her scars manifested in tears and dark circles she still maintains an energetic personality, excited and wanting to help even if it is with a stupid song. Spinel is certainly not close to looking like a mature adult for her 6000 years of age, like many other gems.

As for her physical form I am not 100% sure what age she is approaching as the designs of the gems are very varied and extravagant. She has an adorable and childish design, like a cuddly toy, her height is in fact almost the same as Steven's (17 years old) and she also has good hips in some scenes. I would say that her shape resembles that of a young girl.

Even people who are not very familiar with the series might classify her as a child or a teenager, but not as an adult. Because the logic of the human body and biological age cannot be applied to gemstones, this is the reason why many ships Stevenx gem are so popular, but adult human x Steven don't exist at all. Because they know that age only applies to humans.

I know I've focused a lot on Spinel but because of Steven being half human there's not much mystery.

His physical form literally fits his mental age. Let's also remember that Steven is not 14 anymore, he was 16 at the time of the movie and 17 in the middle of the Future series, there were many time jumps within this series and I think the longest one was right at the end, where it had been months since the collapse and since he started therapy, when he finally decided to move he could perfectly have been 18, which is the age to become independent, at least in the USA, he is not a child, he is starting his young adult stage, just 4 years old from the age Greg was when he fell in love with Rose.

Conclusion.

Even if he were 17, he can drive, he can move, he can be independent and choose his own path, he had just left the nest and that is called being a conscious adult. Besides the fact that the separation of 18 years is used only for consent to sexual relationships before the law, but in practice it is the approximate age at which a person should already mark his maturity, that you like ships with minors is not a justification for drawing nsfw with minor characters, and it is not intended to defend that in any way in this blog, ships like the conniverse can work without +18 content in the same way that stevinel can have content without +18.

The gems can have an age but it is not at all similar to that of humans, since by the circumstances you are can remain stagnant during millennia or change in few years, the same for their physical form since you are not able to acquire a form of baby or old people, and its body remains of the same size throughout all its life, except for cases like the one of Rose/Pink.

I know that there are many people who don't like stevinel because it is toxic or because there is conniverse and I won't say that it isn't because the blog is not about that.

I know some will say that "but they are adults, no matter how they look, act and be like children." Well, it does matter, since we are talking about immortal aliens who are not born, grow, reproduce, or die.

The cartoons do not always represent human beings realistically, much less immortal characters. In fantasy a child can have a highly developed body or a PhD, and an adult can transform into a child with time machines and grow twice.

The fact that Steven falls in love with a gem whose shape resembles that of his age is as healthy as Greg, who fell in love with a gem in a physical form similar to women of his age, Who should have the appearance and maturity of an elderly woman for her millions of years, but the fact that she acts and looks like an adult is what makes her an adult character. His cousin Andy confirmed that he has always liked big women, so he could have fallen in love with Rose 4 years earlier too.

Spinel does not have to exercise a power relationship over Steven, her dependence arises from the fear of being abandoned and not because she is jealous of her other friends, when she leaves with the diamonds, it is seen that she is not attached to them all the time. He gives himself the freedom to meet new people through the halls of the palace and leave the diamonds alone when requested, proving that he is capable of changing for the better just as Steven told him.

So the relationship could work if the right circumstances are given, such as in the AU where fans give themselves the freedom to invent scenarios where the spinel does not try to kill him, where Steven is of legal age, where both are human, etc. And so with many other ships that can go from toxic to healthy in a few fanfic chapters.

We must not forget that it is a caricature and that everyone can have fun shiping characters. Unfortunately this age argument has become a bad excuse to hate a shipp or the people behind it.

And it's wrong to say this because reducing such a strong theme to something childish, fictional and fantasy can be considered an offense to the victims that exist in real life, this myth has given rise to what real people who cannot enjoy their tastes and what others find a perfect excuse to be haters without measuring their words.

Both children and adults do not perceive an adult and a child in relationships involving immortal characters even after knowing the series, this was never the first thought of someone who saw the characters together, in fact it was 5 months from the release of the film before I found out that someone was calling the relationship "pedophilia".

Because they don't grow linearly like humans do. Unlike relationships between human characters of a more realistic appearance as happened with Danny PantomxVlad where they can see first sight who is the adult and who is the child.

What they can see with the naked eye is how well accepted it is to insult the likes of others, that it's okay to be made to feel bad for making the terrible mistake of liking a ship, and that you have the right to insult the likes of others. if they do the same with yours. Which is too present in the Steven Universe fandom.

So no, they are not protecting children from pedophilia in the SU fandom, they are harming real children at the cost of trying to protect a fictional young man, making them insecure of their tastes, giving them the tools necessary to hate someone to death, and making them accept that their tastes are terrible and they must swallow them even if they are not doing anything wrong.

Accusing innocent people of pedophiles, liking or promoting pedophilia is not something you can take so lightly, also it should be illegal if everyone can be a pedophile for simple and innocent things, the word loses its meaning and the subject is taken too lightly, reducing the severity of actual pedophilia and causing serios problems for people who ate wrongfully accused.

They both look good together to me and I can still enjoy comics and pictures of them together, and those who don't, live with it, and enjoy your favorite ship.

Well I really hope you liked this, I can't believe it's 14 thousand characters, remember that insulting comments will be deleted or blocked. Thank you so much for watching :3

#stopthehateplease #stevinel #my ships #steven universe #sunews #steven universe future #steven universe ships #spinel #crewpleasehelp #connieverse #pink steven #Spinel #antis #haters #no ignore the real victims #steven universe spinel #insult stenel is insult victims #stopbullying #toxic #toxic fandom #su future

[wrightiverse]

Last batch of commentary for the last chapter of Crowd

Glenn looks over to see how Nick's doing, and the kid gives him a beaming grin and a thumbs up. Glenn’s heart thumps almost painfully in his chest as he grins back.

But I won't feel blue / Like I always do / 'Cause somewhere in the crowd there's you.

The “you” that was somewhere in the Crowd had to be Nick. As much as I like Robin, Nick is still the most important person in Glenn’s life, and affirming their bond was the right note to end on.

* * * * *

See, Glenn's cautiously adjusting to the idea that Nick isn’t going to kick Glenn out of his life on his 18th birthday. He definitely doesn’t know a lot of guys who get along with their fathers, but even his oblivious ass has noticed that Connor’s over at the loft every few weeks, crashing on the bunk beds that he and Nick insisted were necessary. Hell, Robin called his own parents back in Boston this morning to proudly tell them about Glenn’s show.

That's what Glenn did to his own dad, and of course that's what he's afraid of with Nick. You can't be what you don't see, and unfortunately I don't think Glenn knows a lot of guys who have a good relationship with their fathers. I certainly couldn’t come up with a third example from the characters in the dndads universe.

* * * * *

Choosing to be happy is a high-stakes bet, but Glenn's decided to let it ride. Giving up just doesn't hold the same appeal that it used to. He's going to stay in the game, trust his luck, and see what the cards have in store for him.

One of the changes in Glenn over these stories is him grasping that much of the stuff in his life, good and bad, was due to chance. He didn't bring the bad times on himself by being a bad person, and the good things in his life now aren't because he's turned it all around. Refusing to roll the dice didn't actually protect him the way he hoped it would, so he's getting back in the game. We threw it in kinda casually at the end of a silly part of the story, but it's more or less the thesis statement: Life’s still not fair, but occasionally, with the right people around... it’s good.

* * * * *

Maybe he'll get to be around to watch Nick grow up. Maybe he’ll actually find a gray hair one day, and it won’t be the end of the world.

Glenn’s vigilance about looking youthful, particularly with regard to whether his hair is going gray, has been a running bit since way back in Name. In contrast, they're both very comfortable with Robin looking his age, to the point where Glenn has a hard time even accepting that Robin looked different when he was a young man. It comes up a couple of times, often relative to Glenn's parents. Robin asks Glenn when Bill went gray, and Glenn doesn't know (and gets stressed out at the question). Robin realizes when he meets Adele that she does her grays exactly the way that he thinks would look good on Glenn. I have to imagine he never brought that particular suggestion up again, but the fact that he found out via meeting Adele and not via Glenn saying "no, that's what my mother does and I hate it" is not a great sign. Anyway, all those moments take on a different cast in light of Glenn's difficulty with making decisions on behalf of his future self. As with the "fatherhood extends past the point when your kid turns 18" revelation, some of it just comes down to him being somebody who is fairly isolated and lacks role models. This is where their often-alluded-to age gap comes in really handy: Robin and Connor can provide at least one model of a functional father-son relationship that’s a few years along from where Glenn and Nick are. That’s not the only thing Glenn needs to help him out, but it can’t hurt.

Glenn tends to self-isolate, and from my perspective, essentially none of his problems are solvable in isolation at all. This is a guy whose best friend is his kid and most of his adult interaction is with his bandmates, with whom he has a bad relationship in both this and canon. Canon Glenn never tries to use his phone to talk to anybody but Nick, IIRC. His dad is dead. His wife is dead. He never mentions any other partner, a friend, even an ex or a neighbor. He seems to vaguely know a couple of the other dads from school stuff, but not well. Maybe he has an entire support network that got mentioned after I stopped listening, but he always seemed like a really lonely guy to me in eps 1-30 or so. It made his failings make a lot of sense - he has no support and he has no points of comparison, so he just sort of freestyles it and gauges his success based on whether Nick seems happy or not. That’s not a sustainable or healthy approach, but every other one would probably require a) effort and b) external support, so... nope.

The future isn't the only time that Glenn is bad with. He also has major parts of the past blocked off, and most of the time when he thinks about something in the past, it's the result of a trigger, rather than a choice. There are definitely things in his past where it's understandable that he doesn't want to linger, but it means he’s left some good stuff behind, as well. Part of him figuring out how to break out of his patterns is developing the ability to envision both the future and the past. That's why it's so good to see him reconnecting with the first music he played, and why they finally have some pictures of Morgan up. He is making peace with the past, he is understanding that the bad stuff that happened to him was the result of random happenstance (rather than deliberate punishment for him being a bad person), and it enables him (as do some of the other things discussed above) to contemplate the premise that tomorrow might not necessarily be worse than today and the future might be worth showing up to, gray hair or no.

*****

Maybe he’ll become old and boring. Maybe he deserves to. What Glenn can say for certain is that in this moment, he's happy, and he's lucky, and he's loved.

It's tough to figure out where to end a slice-of-life story. In this case it made a lot of sense to bring it full circle with Glenn performing on his own. He opens Crowd rehearsing miserably and he spends a lot of the subsequent story untangling the mess that's become of the band and his relationship to music. I honestly don't remember why we decided Glenn's canon exit from the GC3 didn't apply, since it was a decision we made back when we actually were trying somewhat to adhere to canon, but I'm glad we did because it gave us the opportunity to follow this out and explore the different nuances of it.

I don’t know if this happens to anyone else, but I am always hugely tempted to end dndads fics with some riff on the “it’ll be all right” thing. In this case, I wanted to avoid it not just because it felt hacky but because it was a contradiction to everything we’ve been saying. There are no happy endings. I can’t promise that everything is going to be all right for Glenn, but I can promise that in this moment, in this story, in this universe, he’s happy and loved. I hope that felt earned and that you enjoyed getting there with us.

#wrightiverse #commentary

[pradip-burman]

First Ever Delhi based NGO talking on 'Population Control': Mobius Foundation in partnership with Zee Media Group

Mobius Foundation in partnership with WION is taking the vision of the Government of India forward, and launched a one-year-long social initiative called 'Mission Sustainability - Population v/s Planet'. The campaign commenced with a two-hour-long Thought Leadership Conclave on February 20, 2021. The launch was graced by Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare and Amitabh Kanth, CEO, NITI AAYOG.

Expressing his satisfaction at the timely importance of holding the event, Dr. Harsh Vardhan said, "More people require more resources, and as the population increases, the earth's resources deplete. The population boom has been affecting the planet and the human race in many adverse ways. People in developing countries like India, feel the impact of environmental problems more acutely." - Quoted (indiaeducationdiary.in)

On this occasion, Amitabh Kanth, CEO, NITI AAYOG said, "'Family Planning' is considered the smartest development investment. For India to realise its sustainable development goals and economic aspirations, it is important to ensure that people have informed access to contraception and quality family planning services."

The launch had visionaries and dignitaries on board from across the country, and from different fields. Mr Rameshwar Prasad Gupta, Sec. Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change, Dr Madhavan Nair, Sec. Ministry of Earth Science India, Ms Poonam Muttreja, Executive Director, Population Foundation of India (PFI), Ms Shailaja Chandra, Former Secretary to the Government of India and Former Chief Secretary, Delhi, Mr Manu Gaur, President, Taxpayers Association of Bharat (TAXAB), Kartikeya Vikram Sarabhai, Founder and Director, CEE, Prof. Saroj Yadav Dean (Academic) NCERT, K.S. James, Director, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS) were part of the launch.

The complete 2-hour launch was divided in two three robust segments, each setting up the contest of the year-long awareness programme. The three segments were:

SESSION 1: POPULATION VS PLANET: SUSTAINING THE BALANCE SESSION 2: POPULATION STABILISATION: THE ROAD MAP SESSION 3: EDUCATION AND AWARENESS

To watch the launch, visit: https://youtu.be/ADEA06gbUv4

There was an exclusive one-on-one fireside chat with the Chairman of Mobius Foundation, Mr. Pradip Burman, where he mentioned that the "Mobius Foundation is focusing on two main objectives EDUCATION and POPULATION STABILISATION and emphasised that two solutions which can be implemented right away are RECYCLING and RENEWABLE ENERGY. If we can attain 100% of these two things, then our problem is solved."

Dr Ram Boojh, CEO, Mobius Foundation along with other panellists shed light on why we should focus on education and awareness around 'Population Stabilisation'. Points brought in focus were 'education leads to lower birth rates and slows population growth. This makes it easier for countries to develop. A more-educated workforce also makes poverty eradication and economic growth easier to achieve. The literacy rate is directly proportional to the fertility rate. Lack of formal education on matters related to population, like family planning, sexual education, reproductive behaviour, cultural and social values, and contraception is missing from the educational structure. This should not be a controversial subject, rather taken to the younger generation and young couples openly.

Mobius Foundation with this campaign is working to put the spotlight back on human population growth. Programme is titled "MISSION SUSTAINABILITY- POPULATION VS. PLANET" for English audience on WION Channel and "संभलना ज़रूरी है - जनसंख्या बनाम प्रकृति" for Hindi and regional audience on Zee News and it's regional network. Under this campaign, topics on how over population is responsible for exerting pressure in these areas or developing these issues are Climate Change, Bio Diversity and Natural Resources, Energy Crisis, Air Pollution, Jobs and Housing, Water Pollution, Depletion of Non-Renewable Resources, Education and Empowerment, Waste Generation, Education, Over Consumption Patterns etc.

About the Mobius Foundation:

The Mobius Foundation is a non-profit organisation, committed to supporting sustainability, empowering technologies, strengthening systems, encouraging healthy behaviour and   focusing on education. The Foundation intends to create sustainable, culturally relevant   solutions, enabling communities to break longstanding practices that are detrimental to human existence. The Mobius Foundation has been working in India since 2015, collaborating with a diverse range of civil society partners and NGO partners to contribute to achieving a sustainable India.

Media Contact: Mobius Foundation [email protected] 011-49433823 Mobius Foundation

#sambhalna jaroori #Pradip Burman #Mobius Foundation

[themachiavellianpig]

“I’m Telling My Story”: Ainsley Whitly, The Prodigal Daughter

Throughout the first half of season one, we can see a great deal of how Martin Whitly’s actions affected his wife and son, both of whom are still actively struggling with the guilt of having been in some way intimate with such a man. Ainsley, in contrast, seems relatively unaffected by the situation and even describes herself as “lucky” in comparison to her brother- she is at least five years younger than Malcolm and seems to remember little of her father, giving her a significant emotional disconnection from his crimes. In direct contrast to her brother, she can hold down a steady job, engage in close relationships, and doesn’t appear to be in any kind of therapy. Unlike her mother, she isn’t even shown to be self-medicating in any way - she simply does not seem to need such coping methods. 

This relative stability is a gift, one for which Jessica explicitly gives herself credit: “Do you sleep at night? ...When you close your eyes, do you find peace? That peace is because of the choices I made. You can thank me any time you like.”  (1x03)

And it’s a gift which, arguably, Ainsley squanders over the course of the first half of season 1. 

“I don’t remember my dad. I was forbidden.” In the first ten episodes of Prodigal Son, we get to see some of the time immediately before and after Martin’s arrest, all from either Malcolm’s or Jessica’s point of view. We see nothing at all of Ainsley, except for a brief shot of her being held by her mother during Martin’s arrest. Given that Ainsley was only five years old at the time, this is admittedly unsurprising. Her memories of that time, so far as we know, are limited to Malcolm’s reassurances (“I was only five when Dad was arrested, I don’t really remember it. But I remember you. Telling me everything was going to be okay when you knew it wasn’t.”, 1x01). 

But she would certainly remember what happened afterwards, in the twenty years between Martin’s arrest and the first episode of Prodigal Son. We do not know exactly how Malcolm and Ainsley grew up following Martin’s arrest, but we can make certain deductions. 

Malcolm, as the person who discovered Martin’s true identity, as the one who was clearly and obviously traumatised by the discovery, would likely have been the focus of Jessica’s attention - in the same way that any child in crisis would be. Jessica’s active concern for Malcolm continues into the present day, clearly signposted in the first episode: Malcolm: “I assume you don’t break into Ainsley’s place like this.” Jessica: “God, no! She’s perfect. You’re my only concern.”

Additionally, we know that Martin Whitly, perfectly understandably, becomes something of a ghost in his former home. All reminders of him are packed away - there are no photos of him, his private study in the basement is walled up and forgotten, leading Malcolm to hide certain reminders of happier times in a shoebox under his bed. We don’t know exactly how Jessica navigates this particular transition from well-to-do nuclear family to tabloid fodder - how she told Ainsley the truth about her father or, quite frankly, if she ever did explicitly. Did Martin become something which simply was not spoken of in polite company, or indeed any company at all? 

Ainsley’s choice of words in 1x03 (“I was forbidden”) suggests a harsher line than simple silence, potentially indicating that questions about Martin were not only frowned upon but actively discouraged. Martin Whitly, loving father, was gone for good; the Surgeon was all that remained, and the Surgeon was not to be discussed. As early as 1x03, Ainsley even says that she has no idea what being back in contact with Martin will do to her brother’s mental health because she has no knowledge of who or what Martin Whitly really is. 

Just like Malcolm and Jessica, Ainsley seems to be struggling with having a connection to a monster. Regardless of the fact that she doesn’t remember having a familial relationship with Martin, he is her biological father - and if her mother and brother can’t give her the answers that she needs about him, she’s going to go straight to the source instead. 

“Martin Whitly is your biggest fan.” Ainsley’s decision to meet with Martin in episode four is prompted, I would argue, by a combination of curiosity and, let’s be fair, the sort of spite that springs up when a controlling parent tells you not to do something - after all, she only goes to visit Martin after both her mother and her brother have done the same thing, all while maintaining that nobody should ever go and speak to the Surgeon. But I find it very interesting that she only makes the decision to visit him after her mother lets slip a brand new piece of information: 

Ainsley: Thanks to both of you, he doesn’t even know I exist.  Jessica: He knows all about you. He watches you every day. He daughter, the ace reporter. Martin Whitly is your biggest fan. 

This information, it should be noted, is only news to Ainsley. We, the audience, see Martin watching one of Ainsley’s broadcasts in 1x02; in episode 1x03, he asks Malcolm to “Please tell your sister that her diction is impeccable!” and, in the same episode, he compliments Jessica on her excellent childrearing (“You did well, Jessica. I am so proud of him, and of Ainsley, and of you, for raising our beautiful children.”). 

And, from my perspective, this information is also profoundly creepy. A convicted serial killer obsessively watches all of a homicide journalist’s broadcasts? That’s a two-parter of Criminal Minds right there. 

But to Ainsley it’s a link, a connection, to a part of her life which she has never really been allowed to engage with. The trauma of Martin Whitly is written large on her mother and brother, but her trauma is second-hand and reactionary, which is admittedly a great improvement on the alternative, but would Ainsley see it that way? All children want to do is feel like they belong, and being the one left out - even the one left out of trauma - is never pleasant. 

Now, through an offhand comment from her mother, Ainsley knows that her father is interested in her, and in her work - in direct contrast to her mother, who supports her work idly, never really watching her reports (“Not with the sound on!”, 1x01), who finally starts to tell her something real about her father and his opinion of her and then immediately tries to shut the conversation down (“Can we please talk about something else?”, 1x04).

And so Ainsley heads off to see her father for the first time in twenty years. 

“You made him out to be just a monster.” We, the audience, had a full two weeks to wait between seeing Ainsley in Martin’s cell and hearing anything of the conversation that they shared, which was genuinely one of the most infuriating cliff-hangers I’ve seen for a while. 

The meeting with Martin undoubtedly rattles Ainsley, albeit not in the way she expected. As Jessica points out, Ainsley went to that cell to meet a monster, and instead found a seemingly loving father (1x06). A man who regretted his absences in his daughter’s life and had filled the gaps with daydreams of “birthdays, piano recitals, dancing with [her] at the debutante ball” (1x06), daydreams in which, judging by the fantasies shared with Ainsley, he plays the starring role of Devoted Father. This conversation could have been repeated between any father-daughter duo separated in television plotlines around the world - the cause of that separation is so overlooked by Martin’s little fantasy to be actually hilarious. 

And, by this point in the series, we’ve seen both Malcolm and Jessica be taken in by Martin’s acts, not to mention all the people that Martin had fooled during his days as an active serial killer, so it’s hardly surprising that Ainsley is at least a little taken in as well. The split between Martin-the-father and Martin-the-serial-killer is also one that has preoccupied Jessica and Malcolm throughout the twenty-years and it’s one that Ainsley, through her lack of memories about Martin, has been spared up until the moment she comes face to face with him, and asks him the “most important question”: ” “Was it real? … Did you love us or was it just some psychopathic act?”

The surviving members of the Whitly family may never really know the answer to that question - and it’s a question which has no easy answers. Which would truly be worse - being an unwilling cover story for a monster, or genuinely being loved by a monster? 

But, for Ainsley, the question is no longer about what her relationship with Martin was; it’s about what it could be - or, more precisely, about what it could do for her.   

“Ambition is not a dirty word.”  The decision to interview Martin is one which, full disclosure, makes perfect sense from a professional point of view; an interview with a notorious serial killer, particularly one who had never spoken publicly about his crimes before, would be a feather in the cap of any crime journalist. She is also arguably the best choice to conduct such an interview from a creepy mercenary perspective - her familial relationship to the Surgeon gives the interview a sensationalist angle which would be impossible for any other network to easily duplicate - and, unlike the rest of her family, Ainsley has not yet been traumatised by Martin Whitly. 

Of course, it's the ‘yet' in that last sentence that has Jessica and Malcolm so worried about Ainsley - her visiting Martin might be less immediately damaging that Malcolm or Jessica coming face to face with their own personal demon, but it's still very unlikely to be healthy. 

Interestingly, Malcolm's concerns about the interview seem to be extremely focused on Ainsley's immediate personal safety ("You’re putting yourself in his cross hairs"), and his reaction on learning that she's already seen Martin is to ask if she is okay. Jessica, as the only member of the family who really remembers the immediate media aftermath of Martin's arrest, becomes far more focused on the potential PR concerns: 

Jessica: Ainsley, if you do not have a plan to make him look bad, he will look good. Tell me you understand. Ainsley: Mother, these are the questions I sent. Not the questions I’m going to ask.  Jessica: Alright. I see what you’re doing.  Ainsley: Good. Can you stop worrying?  Jessica: I am far more worried now.  Ainsley: What? Why?  Jessica: Thinking you are more clever than Martin Whitley, that’s the worst mistake you can make. He’ll exploit that. He’ll find a way to come off sympathetic and you will be sitting there like-  Ainsley: Like what?  Jessica: His accomplice. 

Jessica, as we learn later in the season, was herself questioned by the police about her role in Martin's crimes, and I am sure that the media speculation around the Wife of the Surgeon would have been horrific and heartbreaking. She clearly does not want Ainsley to put herself through the same thing - and she certainly does not want Martin to have any opportunity to manipulate the wider population, as he has so easily manipulated his own family in the past. 

This is not to say that Jessica has no concern for Ainsley's safety - her immediate reaction to the potential interview is to get the entire thing blacklisted by the network itself. It's only when Ainsley reveals a willingness to outplay her mother at that particular chess game that she relents - not to give her blessing, but to step back and allow Ainsley the dignity of her own choices. 

And, potentially, Ainsley does take some of her mother's fears seriously - she insists on keeping Martin in his restraints during the interview, despite technical concerns from Jin the Cameraman, and she makes sure that the red safety line on the cell floor is in shot. She even refuses Hair and Makeup the chance to make Martin look anymore physically presentable before the interview begins.  

The interview itself, however, does not go exactly as Ainsley had clearly wanted it to - first, Martin neatly sidesteps her attempts to throw past crimes in his face, then her brother interrupts with police business, then her cameraman gets stabbed. All in all, hardly a good day at the office.

The interplay between Martin and Ainsley hashes out the timeless question of what really makes a person - Ainsley focuses on the lives her took, complete with grisly details ("Billy Franklin, age 23. Aced his LSATs, wanted to become a civil rights lawyer. You removed his heart to see how long he could live without it. He died a gruesome, agonising death. My question is why?", 1x07), Martin fights backs with the lives he saved ("How about Corey Goldstein, age 10? A brutal car accident left him with a surely fatal aortic rupture. Until he landed in my OR, where I saved his life.") and the medical procedures he developed ("Did you know they named a medical procedure after me? ...I’ve heard a rumour that doctors still call it the Whitley, in hospitals all around the world", 1x07). 

It's a far more complicated portrayal of evil that Ainsley had prepared for - she has no good response prepared for the accusation that Martin did some good in the world, unlike her pithy retorts about particular victims and what Martin did to them. We don't get the chance to see if Ainsley would have been able to retake control of the interview, given Malcolm's interruption, as his arrival gives Ainsley a very different line of attack - the only line of attack, it must be said, that ever seems to really rattle Martin. Ainsley is the only character in the first part of season 1 to really get under Martin's skin - but she can only do it by using her own brother as bait: 

Ainsley: So. I mentioned a number of your victims earlier, but I’d like to discuss one more. Malcolm. Malcolm Whitly.  Martin: I’m not sure I understand Ainsley: You claim to care about your son, but what you did twenty years ago harmed him irreparably.  Martin: Well, that’s not true.  Ainsley: Isn’t it? He’s been diagnosed with complex PTSD, generalised anxiety disorder, night terrors. Dr Whitley, do you know what happens to the human body when it withstands that much stress for that long a period of time?  Martin: I’m not sure that’s relevant-  Ainsley: He was fired from the only job he was ever good at. He hasn’t been in a stable relationship for years. And the ten years he went without seeing you were by far the happiest, healthiest of his life.  Martin: Well, that’s absolutely not- Ainsley: What does that say about you, except for you’re an absolutely terrible father?  Martin: I’m not.  Ainsley: He just wanted to love you. And you caused him so much pain.  Martin: Stop it.  Ainsley: What kind of a father does that?  Martin: Stop it! I was a good father, damn it! 

This interaction goes on to form a crucial part of the interview - Martin's loss of control is featured in the introduction to the actual broadcast (as seen in 1x10) - and it was not at all discussed with Malcolm beforehand. We, the audience, are not entirely clear on how much information Martin had about his son's condition prior to Ainsley’s disclosure- he would have known some things, noticed symptoms such as the hand tremor, but that is still potentially miles away from Malcolm's having his mental health history spelt out like that in front of Martin and, potentially, in front of everyone who watched Ainsley's interview. 

It's a successful and potentially satisfying manipulation of Martin, to be sure, but it's also a heart-wrenching violation of Malcolm, and Ainsley never seems to notice. 

In a matter of hours, Ainsley double-downs on the notion of violating the privacy of others when she films Martin perform surgery on Jin the Cameraman, stabbed in the patient-uprising which Martin himself engineered. We never get to see Malcolm's reaction to his violation - he doesn't seem to challenge Ainsley on it directly in any way - but Jin does (1x08). Jin, when he wakes in the hospital to find that Ainsley filmed the surgery and didn't tell him about it, has a very simple and understandably reaction. 

Jin: What is this? You filmed my surgery? Ainsley: I was going to tell you. I just- I- I- I got so caught up in the adrenaline and it was so compelling- Jin: Oh, was it? Was it compelling when I almost died?  Ainsley: We went there to get a great story and we got one. I was doing my job!  Jin: I understand. This is who you are. I just don’t think that’s the kind of person that I want to be with. 

And Ainsley doesn’t try to apologise to her boyfriend, or try to explain herself any further - she leaves Jin in the hospital, taking the interview footage with her instead. 

“I’m telling my story!” The interview, despite the various dramas around it all, is eventually broadcast. Thanks to Jessica’s well-thrown shoe (seriously), we never get to see the interview in its entirety (which is a great shame, seeing as we only see Ainsley get a few minutes of usable footage in 1x07), but we do get to see the introduction: “Dr Martin Whitley murdered 23 people as the Surgeon, making him one of the world’s most deadly serial killers. I’m Ainsley Whitley for American Direct News and the Surgeon is my father.” 

The clips that we see include Martin's lose of control at being called a terrible father, which strongly implies that at least some of the section concerning Malcolm was kept in; we have no idea if the footage of Jin was used, although I'm assuming that he would have had to give permission for his own surgery to be shown on national television and, given his reaction in the hospital to the footage, I'm equally comfortable assuming that he would not have given such permission. 

While Malcolm tries to watch the interview, possibly to support his sister, possibly to torture himself futher, Jessica is adament that she will not. Her initial plan seems to have been to pretend that it never happened; she only speaks to Ainsley about it when Ainsley pushes past her joking “no comment” to challenge Jessica on her perceived lack of support for her daughter's professional accomplishment. 

This pushes Jessica to have perhaps the most genuine and honest conversation with her daughter about Martin and their past which they had ever had (1x10):  Jessica: Your father destroyed us. Your brother and me. You put him on television and let him talk about it. You have gone and soaked yourself in blood. The press devoured us twenty years ago, and now they are at it again.

This information is given calmly, perhaps even dispassionately: for Jessica, the destruction of herself and her son is a simple matter of fact. Not to be spoken of, of course, but ever-present and utterly undeniable. She does not even become angry until Ainsley accuses her of "playing the victim": "I am not a victim! But there are victims. Real ones. How do you think those twenty-three families feel when they see you on television? And why is the story never about them?"

The story is not about them, of course, because for Ainsley, the story is currently about her. Ainsley's newfound 'ownership' over the Surgeon story is clearly spelled out in the interview's introduction ("the Surgeon is my father"), her reaction to the paparazzi outside her mother's home ("Any breaking news about my family is mine to report") and, finally, in her retort to Jessica's challenges over the entire interview: "I'm telling my story!"

But, as we've discussed earlier, Ainsley doesn't actually have a story with the Surgeon. In the real-crime biography of Martin Whitley, she's a footnote at best. Jessica, who married a monster, Malcolm, who unveiled a monster, the twenty-three or more people who died at the Surgeon's hands, the hundreds of people, including Jin, who had their lives saved by the Surgeon, they all have a story with the Surgeon. Ainsley simply does not. And in her attempts to create one during the first half of season 1, she only really gets anywhere when she uses the stories of others - her casual retelling of the horrific things the victims went through, her reveal of Malcolm's mental health diagnoses, her filming Jin's surgery.

Ainsley’s lack of personal connection to the Surgeon was her greatest asset in a very broken family at the beginning of the series; her attempt to create such a narrative when none organically existed has been the cause of pain for plenty of people other than herself. 

All that remains to be seen is how this narrative - either genuine or manufactured - continues to develop in the second half of season 1. 

#prodigal son #ainsley whitly #character profile #halston sage #themachiavellianpig overthinks

[inspector-montoya-fox]

#5 - The Cold Heart of Hate

Setting: well that was fast... we make it to Russia, where we’re greeted to the evilest of evil lairs. when not dodging robo-falcons and burning boulders, the first mission acts as a tour and establishes the fact that we’re legit in a volcano. i don’t want to say that this is anticlimactic because the missions in this episode are truly hard, but there’s no hub to explore. instead, it’s a chain of missions that lead to the Clockwerk battle, and i guess that makes sense since there’s no time to waste, the stakes are high, etc. if you weren’t able to piece the clues together about Clockwerk’s identity up to this point, the missions do not help. unlike some of the game’s other episodes where the baddies’ personalities are reflected by the settings, Clockwerk remains a shadow up until the very end (and that’s kinda ironic when you think about how he has a huge fucking tower with his face on it). considering the absence of a main hub, the missions do a pretty good job in establishing the mood. we see the outside and inside of the volcano while controlling the van, and then Bentley’s hacking and Sly’s journey into the lab exhibit the level’s technological/ science-y aesthetic. on that note, let’s talk a bit about that lab. i’ve mentioned this before on my account but Cold Heart of Hate is a slave to the early platformer tradition of having an evil lab as the final stage. i don’t blame the game for that - here’s what’s weird though: if Clockwerk is so much larger than Sly, he couldn’t possibly fit into that lab. so... who works there? the robo-falcons? or is Clockwerk actually a ship for someone else? i uh *removes tin foil hat* ...... the huge Clockwerk tower is great for exposition, given that Clockwerk, although a rotting owl corpse stuffed inside a machine, has a huge ego. Sinking Peril is my favorite mission in the episode because it sets up the perfect atmosphere for the final bossfight. fighting the bird over its sinking tower of a replica not only ups the ante but also makes it feel even more satisfying when we finally get to drop it into the lava. lastly, i said Sunset Snake Eyes represented red and i kinda regret it now because that should have been orange and Cold Heart of Hate should have been red. welp! Cold Heart of Hate can be black. seems fitting.

Characters: i lied - the setting does reflect Clockwerk’s character in a very specific way: we’re literally inside a cottdamn volcano. tensions are brewing, the veil is about to be removed. Clockwerk is great. no, he’s more than great. he’s a satisfying and deserving final boss. he’s a maniacal, narcissistic, eGoMaNiAc that really gets under your skin when he keeps on pulling off the reveals. not ONLY has he killed Sly’s entire lineage, the QUEEN had the AUDACITY to stay alive for centuries! Clock-werk it baby! we have no choice but to STAN. the bitch is evil and that’s made crystal clear. his source of youth? hatred. the bird literally killed to remain healthy. and i’m glad he knows no shame because the monologue at the beginning of the bossfight is everything i ever wanted. i guess, Clockwerk has the shortest appearance in the game but still manages to make it impactful. whoever played the game during their childhood knows what i’m talking about - the music, the dialogue, the purple shooting cues: they all remain fresh in the head. the bossfight is the stuff of nightmares. Carmelita makes her final comeback in the perfect recipe for a climactic clash. she starts off as the damsel in distress that can’t be trusted because of her profession, but ultimately helps Sly take down Clockwerk. and i love that this is the beginning of Carmelita putting an end to Sly’s nemeses. her role is great here. yes, she’s the love interest that gets shamelessly left behind at the very end, but she’s the one that helps Sly get back his cain. actually, here’s something i’ve never thought of before: we make such a huge deal out of Carmelita being a playable character in Sly 3, that we all forgot she was playable in Sly 1 as well. i’m lowkey shocked. i don’t know how i overlooked this BUT ALSO shocked to just realise that in both Sly 1 and 3, Sly loses his cain (SP stuck to the original formula for final level suspense, i guess). and let me use that revelation to segue to Sly. he’s made it y’all!!! he’s finally here, ready to extract vengeance. and it shows. we might take his valour and chivalry for granted because this is the Sly we all know and love, but if this was your first time playing the game and somehow escaped all possible clichés by living under a rock your entire life, you’ll appreciate the raccoon’s persistence to save Carmelita. he didn’t have to do it, but he did it. let me praise Kevin Miller here for a sec, because without his voice-acting this would mean nothing. but it’s because of him that it means so much. when you finally beat Clockwerk and the cutscene starts playing and Sly says how he’s made it, it really feels like home, y’know? damn. also: Bentley and Murray finally come into the spotlight. i don’t want to go into detail because i’d rather talk about friendship in the cottdamn Themes section, but Cold Heart of Hate is what makes them true characters.

Themes: off the top of my head? legacy, revenge, friendship, love trumps hate, climax, heat, honour, the past, and many more. i’ll go with my favs because this deserves a post on its own. friendship goes hand-to-hand with love trumps hate because it’s represented by everyone that came out to support Sly. Bentley, Murray and Carmelita come through. they put their fears and differences aside and prevail to help Sly get to the top. they all play their roles, their motivation being love for the raccoon, and that comes into stark contrast with Clockwerk’s preachings. the age-old “good vs evil”. Clockwerk stayed alive by feeding on hatred and got his ass kicked by a group of friends and the love interest (not yet a woman on her own). it’s traditional and it works. similarly to Tide of Terror, the theme of heat ensures that the player is kept engaged. there’s no time to roam around, find clue-bottles, etc. the need to finish this as quickly as possible is enhanced by the volcano landscape and the high temperature. this is especially seen in Sinking Peril because of the rising lava. if you waste time you will literally get gobbled up. the lava encapsulates Sly’s progress and his temper as well. he’s burning inside, itching to finally get revenge (you’ll notice that Sly 1 has no operations and that presents the gang’s early days, Sly’s rash attitude and his persistence to just go up to the main baddie and fight). and the heat’s significance is ultimately shown when Clockwerk sinks into the lava. he doesn’t only get blown up - he “dies”, sinking into the volcano, deteriorating in the heat, showing how time is inescapable. there’s some karmic energy going on here, as Clockwerk cheated the Coopers of a normal death and in turn got served, showing that even if you find a way to stay alive it ultimately won’t work. i also want to touch on motifs, and the motif of technology is a nice one. it doesn’t only showcase Clockwerk’s genius, but it also allows for Bentley to go head-to-head with the owl. there’s something truly cyber about Cold Heart of Hate, but not in the traditional sense. like, the collapsing computer screens during Burning Rubber feel absurdly surreal, pushing the cyber-ness to its limits. i don’t even know anymore, i’m tired.

What I Like: hmmm... i like traversing Clockwerk’s lab. i love Sinking Peril. i love that the end cutscene gifted humanity with those Japanese Barbie Girl rainbow videos. there’s no room for likes and dislikes here, but favourite detail would definitely have to be Clockwerk’s health-bar animations during the bossfight, slowly turning from owl to computer brain thing. very reminiscent of a purple yak toy in a Cartoon Network show which i’m dying trying to remember. if anyone knows what i’m going on about lmk please.

What I Don’t Like: the lack of a hub to explore kinda irks me but i won’t say i don’t like it because i understand why they didn’t include one. instead, this spot goes to Murray’s driving and Bentley’s hacking. thematics aside, i literally do not want to replay Cold Heart of Hate because of the Murray section with the slime monsters. the controls continue to be clunky, the slime monsters are annoying and look like they have raisins for eyes. Bentley’s hacking isn’t as annoying, but it’s definitely frustrating. it’s a far cry from Sly 2 and 3′s hacking parts... yea.........

Quote: Perfection has no age...

#it sure as hell doesnt! #this was hard to write #sly cooper #episode project #sly 1 episodes: DONE

[superviza]

For all the characters I’ve never liked, Master Fu is the only one I’ve ever done a PowerPoint for. Maybe that secretly means I love him.

I created this series just to organize my thoughts regarding Master Fu’s character. Exploring this character was my of asking questions that allow me to enjoy the show more. Just trying to solve a mystery and learn more about a show I like. In that quest these questions arose. 

Doing this has made me wonder, do I hate Master Fu? The answer I come back to is no. But Supervisa, people don’t create write whole PowerPoints roasting someone that they like. Debatable. I often judge characters based on a few questions, one of which being, “Can I have lunch with this person?”

The results vary....

No I’d rather not have lunch with Sakura or Leenalee Lee. (For some people, thems fight’n words.) But I also adore Azula and by no means would I have lunch with her. The only way they’d let me in the room is if I were serving lunch. In other words, this calls into question the character’s morals. I personally am a sucker for virtuous persons, or in some cases someone who tries to be, the antihero types. A person with outstanding morals and ethics is the type of person I want to talk to, get to know and above all emulate. That guy I’ll buy lunch for. Now that creates a contradiction. Sakura Haruno is one of the good guys right. Its not like she supports murder or human rights violations. No, but I never saw her as friendly person, between telling Sasuke Naruto was a bad person because he had no parents, to lying to Naruto so she could kill Sasuke with the very limited power she had (at the time, no lie I dig Sakura Uchiha a tad) I’ve just never seen her as someone I wanted to be like. Bringing up Sakura can usually start fights but the bottom line is, if I’m thinking about a character with traits I’d like to possess, I’d shoot for maybe Izuku Midoriya. Specifically his love for people which I could use more of. So do you want to be like Azula? That brings me to the next question.

“Did they do their job?”

That’s the question that separates my Sakuras and Azulas. Azula played the bad guy with finesse. She was tactical, decisive and ruthless and did the job of every and any character in any literary work, she supported the plot. Why am I so passionate about this? I love storytelling. The job of every character, anything mentioned in a story; is to support the plot. Nothing in a book, movie, graphic novel or TV Show, should occur due to happenstance. That’s not how real life works. No one exist for no reason, everyone has purpose and everything that happens to (wo)man is of no coincidence. (If you choose to give it meaning.) Therefore a body of work should reflect that otherwise its a waste of ink on paper, a waste of a polygon in a 3D mesh. A writer should be able to justify every stroke.

I think everyone agrees that Zuko had some of the greatest development the art narration had to offer. However, how often do we talk about the parallel of his growth to his sister’s decent. Azula was who Zuko was trying to become, confident, feared and above all, respected. Imagine if Azula didn’t posses those traits, book 2 would’ve ended differently. Zuko’s growth would’ve been motivated in some other way. In addition to that, she was the adversary that was most difficult to defeat after her father. This is not just because of strength, she was cold, ruthless and calculated, driving the Avatar’s objective. And imagine, once she has everything she wanted, and what Zuko thought he wanted, she came to the same conclusion her younger brother had arrived at. Everything we were taught, the callousness, the rigger and patriotism, it amounts to nothing. Her own mother was afraid of her. No amount of honor she gained could restore that relationship. Thus, I believe this supports my prior statement, Azula is a great character, not due to morality, but because of how she supports the plot and character growth in the series.

Does the character have multiple dimensions?

Everyone loves a multifaceted character, but do we know how to create one? This is another concept the resembles our reality. Humans, animals, creation in general is just a network of stories. (Get’n philosophic) Why else would we create characters ranging from human to bacteria source: Ozzy and Drix. But how do we make that character seem real? We’ve heard “one dimensional” used to describe characters in a negative way but why. This usually means the character needs more traits or lacks realism. It’s the difference between the relationship with your child and the relationship with your co-worker. A good parent is more likely to know what their child is thinking before the child acts. (You know, your mother just comes in with something you wanted but haven’t asked for yet.) A co-worker on the hand, even if you’er friends, the relationship will have to see a lot of upgrades before you have the same level of trust you would with a parent, generally speaking, but by then you maybe married by then. In a literary sense, a character with one dimension is essentially a stranger or acquaintance to you. How do we turn that character into our baby?

We get to know them like a real person. What was their childhood like? What event changed their life? What kind of things frighten them? What’s their hobby? If they could vacation anywhere for free, where would they go? The beach? The mountains? Some place urban? Take Izuku for example, he keeps notes on any and every hero? That’s a dead giveaway that he’s a relatively organized person, even more impressive for a 15 year old boy. It also gives the impression that he has a lot of self discipline. He did pick up a work out regiment from a world renowned hero and completed it in ten months, after he overworked himself. He also found ways to work out in during class. It makes you ask how he developed that self discipline. Even his room, covered in action figures and memorabilia, is organized and the rest of the decor matches. Not something very prevalent in men let alone teenage boys. His mother doesn’t seem particularly strict, but Izuku has proven himself to be very thoughtful. Keeping a tight ship may be the result of an attempt to make things easier for his mother. Theory, but that’s fun part in my opinion. It’s like that satisfying feeling that comes with scratching off a seal with a coin. Even if the conclusion you draw isn’t cannon, every time you ask questions about the character or world, it’s like you read/watched the squeal. And if the theory is proven in the show, film or book, it becomes that much more fun. A one dimensional character isn’t destined to be awful however, it just means we need more time to get to know them. 

So where does Master Fu fit in this complex scale of character appeal I’ve been painting? Can I have lunch with him? Sure. Do I want to emulate him? Absolutely not. Is he invited to the cook out? Depends on who all over there. Did he do his job? This is the moment of truth. Before I characterized this question from a literary stand point. That, I can’t speak to with an ongoing series.(I’m not holding my breathe though) Thus far, the character of Master Fu has supported the plot, giving viewers plenty of information about the world and lore. Does Master Fu perform the tasks he’s given in the duration he’s on “stage.” No, he failed miserably. Is he multifaceted? I’d say so, in fact, that may be the vary issue I’ve subscribed to. He has 186 years of backstory that I enjoyed probing. Even if the question I raise take me down the wrong rabbit hole, it’s like I got to explore the show from a new angle.I refrain from details because they’re in the slides.

So I say all this because I realize I may very well be alone on my Disaster Fu island. So if any viewer is wondering how I arrived at this conclusion, I hope this clarifies that. I can’t hate Master Fu if I wanted to. I have a healthy anger toward him, like the anger one has when their significant other leaves dishes in the sink. (Except your boy/girlfriend probably didn’t destroy a temple.) I think he would be a great cashier, but not a guardian. Master Fu could work at a mall kiosk, but miraculous guardian is not for him. It do be like that sometimes. Art, I am good at, but don’t ask me to play an instrument. I wasn’t planning writing on an essay but I felt an explanation was in order.

I don’t hate Master Fu

I don’t believe Master Fu was a good or even ok guardian

I decide how much I like a character according to their moral makeup or even attempt at morality

I decide how much I like a character according to their role in the plot and how suited they are to the role

I decide how much I like a character according to their different facets.

With that criteria in mind I made this series to organize my thoughts

This is just my way to explore an aspect of The Miraculous Adventures of Ladybug and Chat Noir

That being said I hope you like the series as much I enjoyed making it. Maybe You agree with it or you don’t regardless, I shared it hoping it would make you laugh. I hope it makes you ask questions not just about Miraculous Ladybug but about your work and whatever you fan for. I hope those questions allow you to experience the story again in a new way that’s enjoyable. There will be more soon!

@solembum22  @starcrossedrose @firstdove15

#miraculousladybug #the miraculous adventures of ladybug and chat noir #miraculous ladybug #ladybug and chat noir #ladybug #chat noir #marienette #adrian agreste #rena rouge #alya #alya cesaire #nino #nino lahiffe #carapace #100 miraculous reasons why master fu is a disaster #100 miraculous reasons why #miraculous reasons why #master fu #master fu is a disaster

[scripttorture]

I've gone through a couple posts, so I'm not sure if you covered this. If a person is exposed to torture from a young age, would they be desensitized to it and see it as normal and thus not bat an eye? Would their reaction be different if they were the victim instead of a bystander or perpetrator? You mentioned in another post that child soldiers tend to participate in torture as well due to their environment, however you also stated many times that humans are empathetic beings.

I think this depends on what you mean by ‘desensitised’. Because someone can see an experience as normal and still be damaged by it. A trained lack of external response does not necessarily mean a person is unmoved.

 And, based on what I’ve read so far, I’d suggest that that is the most common experience of children exposed to torture from a young age. They think it’s normal. They accept it as a part of life. And it makes them ill.

 Unlearning that takes time, social support and a healthier environment.

 We can be moved by each other’s pain and still not know how to react to the world without violence.

 And- this is part of what makes rehabilitating child survivors really hard. They’re ill, they’re traumatised. That’s difficult enough with an adult. On top of that they don’t have a lot of other life experience to look to, they don’t know what ‘healthy’ is.

 And they can be violent.

 One of the really awful things that’s come out of the lack of response to Daesh is- this sudden flood of children who are traumatised, angry, without a support structure and struggling against years of being taught violence is the ‘correct’ response to the world around them.

 Introducing these children back into a community that’s traumatised often leads to other survivors viewing these kids as aggressors. They reject them.

 I can understand why. If you’re dealing with your own trauma, your own pain, it’s hard to take on someone else’s. When that someone else echoes things torturers said, when they’re sporadically violent or seem aggressive, that can be too many complex problems to expect another survivor to ‘fix’.

 Children in these situations need intensive, professional help. Generally they don’t get it.

 Essentially all of the things you’ve mentioned can be true for child survivors at the same time.

 Recovery is possible. There are a lot of cases of child soldiers, and other children who survived torture or genocide, being reintegrated into the community. These children can grow up to live full, happy lives.

 If you’d like to read about someone who survived that kind of childhood then I recommend looking up Aki Ra, who did his level best to remove all of the land mines he was forced to lay as a child.

 As with other survivors recovery does not mean the absence of symptoms. It means learning to manage and live with symptoms in a way that doesn’t interfere with what the survivor wants out of their life.

 Most of the positive outcomes I’m aware of for child soldiers involve kids who didn’t have access to professional help. What they had was constant, consistent community support. They were welcomed into a pre-prepared support network, often a religious one. And after years of hard work, support and good parenting they improved.

 Now- when it comes to a character’s reaction to being a victim, witness or torturer, well the answer depends on what you mean.

 The symptom set is the same across these categories regardless of age. There are behavioural differences in children, ie they tend to express their symptoms in different ways to adults. But I don’t know much about childhood development so I don’t feel confident speaking about differences based on age.

 A character in any of these categories could be traumatised. For a torture victim or a torturer trauma is guaranteed*, however when it comes to witnessing some individuals may be traumatised and others may not be. If a character has witnessed torture once and has experienced no other traumatic events a lack of symptoms is within the realm of possibility. But the more traumatic events like torture they’ve witnessed the more likely it is that they’d develop symptoms.

 But symptoms alone don’t really tell you much about a character’s emotional reaction and how they process or justify things.

 You asked about resistance specifically and given the context of the question I’m interpreting that as meaning opposition to torturers.

 This is a common response in both torture victims and people who witness torture. In political struggles it’s a powerful recruitment tool for the opposing side. I’ve not seen anything to suggest that changes with age. In fact a few of the survivor accounts from children kidnapped to be soldiers talk about witnessing torture as- the thing that made them decide to risk their lives and attempt escape.

 But torturers don’t express this. They don’t talk about having sympathy for their victims and they don’t seem to feel driven to oppose each other. Even though they’re clearly effected in the same ways, because they manifest the same symptoms.

 I’m not a psychologist so I’m not sure how well founded my suggestions here will be.

 That said- Based on a combination of what torturers say and what they do I think torturers spend a lot of energy denying their instinctive emotional and physical responses to torture.

 They re-frame brutality as proof of their strength, ‘toughness’ and dedication. They deny the fact they’re experiencing symptoms up until the point they collapse.

 This is exacerbated by the social structures they build up. Torturers don’t function alone. They work in groups. The toxic hyper-masculine subculture these groups build up means any sign of ‘weakness’ is dangerous.

 Torturers have a marked tendency to turn on each other because they see themselves as locked in competition with each other. This means they egg each other on to more and more brutality. It also means that any sign of sympathy or illness could be met with violence at worst and being thrown out of the social circle at best.

 Given the way they behave towards each other, well I suppose you could argue that torturers do act in opposition to each other. Not in ways that stop other members of the group from torturing or in ways that oppose torture. But they are competing, the comradery they display towards each other is understood to be fragile.

 They know that the group could turn on them at any point.

 And this makes any admission of the effect torture has on them a big risk.

 Ex-torturers do sometimes talk about the effect torture had on them in a way that is- almost sympathetic to the victim. They talk about things like recurrent nightmares and particular events or images becoming intrusive memories. They talk about finding particular things grotesque.

 But they tend to talk about these things in a way that’s at a slight remove. They acknowledge that what happened was awful but in a way that almost makes it sound as if they played no part in it.

 They talk about torture in a way that focuses on their pain, or regret or symptoms with no real consideration for the victims or reflection on the fact that they caused this.

 And like I said, I’m not a mental health professional. I don’t really know the underlying reasons why they do this.

 Perhaps it’s the only way they can keep themselves going.

 With child soldiers in particular we’re talking about a group of extremely vulnerable people who are coerced into participating in torture.

 I don’t have enough data to reach definite conclusions about their responses because they are often both victims and perpetrators.

 That said, from a few anecdotal accounts, there may be a difference between individuals who embrace the ideology/group that kidnapped them and those who don’t. The former group tends to survive longer in the group and that may also be a factor.

 But the older individuals who have participated in a lot of atrocities and appear to embrace the armed group they’re part of- my judgement of the interviews is that they sound more like torturers when they express their views on events.

 Younger individuals who escape (and I have access to more interviews of this type) tend to express regret, revulsion and a deeper understanding of the harm they inflicted. They also tend to emphasise that it wasn’t ‘their fault’ and that they were forced to act the way they did.

 There’s a sense in which both responses can be seen as a survival strategy: the former for life within the armed group and the latter for life in a group of survivors. That- is not a suggestion that either response is a conscious choice. Just an observation that both responses make survival more likely in one group and less likely in the other.

 I hope that answers your questions. It’s not a simple answer, or a short one. These are complicated scenarios.

 The question of when a child stops becoming a victim and starts becoming a collaborator has been plaguing us for- well since the advent of warfare. And the ‘correct’ ethical response is not a one-size-fits-all stamp-

 Perhaps if we had worked out a better way to deal with torturers we would have a better answer for these children, one that acknowledges both the harm done to them and the harm they caused.

 *We think that the mechanism that leads to torturers becoming traumatised is the same as the one that leads to witnesses being traumatised. But the intensity of the violence someone is exposed to makes a difference. Torturers do not generally see torture only once; they see multiple incidences a day, every day for months or years at a time.

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#writing advice #tw torture #tw child abuse #tw child soldiers #child soldiers #child prisoners #child torturers #writing victims #writing torturers #writing witnesses #effects of torture #effects of torture on witnesses #behaviour of torturers #rehabilitating child soldiers