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#but let's be real she wouldn't have an answer. it's beyond her to even think of this stuff
arolesbianism · 1 month
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Every day I mourn the fact that none of my family and friends give a single shit abt oni lore, I don't wanna keep repeating shit I've already said before on here but every now and then I just remember the horrors™ and nearly explode not being able to scream abt it again
#rat rambles#oni posting#just everytime I think abt olivia's 1500 cycle onwards logs I want to start biting things#shes soooo fucked up and tragic and she doesnt get any closure and she never will and I LOVE it#I fucking love her so much she rewired my brain so hard shes like one of The blorbos of all time#damn you klei you rly know how to make characters that destroy me beyond repair (hi carter twins)#I still find it fun imagining olivia and jackie interacting with the dont starve cast even if they wouldn't like most of them#I have lightly changed my mind on one dynamic tho#I still think that jackie would be stressed out by all the kiddos and would at least dislike them. but.#I do think she could end up kind of getting along with walter#like look at me. she was probably just like him as a kid. she would hate him for it but they could also talk for hours.#hed start sharing fun facts abt his bug collection and jackie would start lecturing him abt ants or whatever and hed think shes so cool#I think olivia still wouldn't like him tho but that's purely because hed probably stress her out#same with the rest of the kiddos I think if you put webber in the room with the two of them theyd both have a breakdown#not because hes a spider solely because hes a little boy who probably just asked them if he can have icecream#and wendy and abby would just be a situation of them not knowing how to talk to kids let alone depressed kids#oh and theyd probably also be stressed out by wurt for basic they dont know how to deal with kids reasons#rly the two would just hang out with wickerbottom and no one else if they could help it#except wanda they'd bother her non stop to the point shed start avoiding them lol#you see Im sure plenty of the cast wouldnt like olivia and jackie either because of just how much they wouldn't take magic as an answer#not that theyd be like no that cant be real cause thatd be magic theyd more likely start sciencing out the mechanics of all the magic stuff#in practical terms while also refusing to call it magic#and worst of all knowing them theyd probably get results because fuck man they brute forced their way into time travel (sort of) so why not#so itd just be maxwell being soooo pissed as the two somehow manage to replicate his spells without the codex#dont let them meet wagstaff then itd rly be jover
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izzy-b-hands · 7 months
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Cancelled the in person interview for today after discussing phone interview with Mum and Housemate last night (and the numerous red flags and cost of the lyft there and back for a job that ultimately the place wouldn't be able to convince me to take if offered, bc the general consensus was 'this is literally likely to be as bad as the current job BUT with the added cost of lyfts back and forth that they wouldn't be paying enough to offset, why on earth would you (me) take this job lmaooooo')
Which works out good bc the ongoing Mum trauma stuff is hitting hard as soon as I've woken and maybe I can get the Big Cry out today. Or write down any of the memories that have been playing on repeat in my mind
(with all this said, yes, I still asked and do legitimately care abt my mum's opinion and experience with jobs despite this; yes it feels weird; no I don't know how healthy that is or not lmao but I'm gonna lean towards Not Healthy bc im discovering that the work my previous doc did certainly uncovered this codependency and trauma which absolutely was a great help but like...we didn't actually really untangle any of it so I could try and untangle myself from my mum, even from 1600+ miles from one another. So. probably not healthy.)
#text post#Housemate was the far more helpful one of ae and mum tho and im very grateful ae took the time to talk over the interview with me#to help me figure out if doing the in person was worth it#mum did kind of help in that she pointed out several dakota eye like red flags from the employer that in retrospect yeah#were flying right in front of my face but i just. want to find better work so it's hard to ignore the red flags sometimes#until someone else goes uhhhhh hey maybe not this job no matter how desperate you feel#which is what it boiled down to more or less in discussion with both of them last night#it's just a weird thing of mum was still helpful and im glad i had a call with her but also it was low key triggering#and part of me wants to call her back and ask if she knows that she's a major part of why i struggle to say no to anyone#who feels even vaguely an authority figure over me no matter what my feelings are or if im being hurt#because id rather be obedient and pleasing than independent and honest (& possibly disappoint ppl with the latter)#but let's be real she wouldn't have an answer. it's beyond her to even think of this stuff#she'd be upset and offended and I'd be groveling like usual to try and make up for daring to question any part of our relationship#the same groveling i do on autopilot for any potential offense because it doesn't matter even if i asked & was given permission#im still always finding there's something i need to ask her forgiveness for anyway#but i love her and am incredibly grateful for her and how much she's given of herself to me as a single mum#idk im gonna shut up abt emotions for now and figure out what on earth im doing with myself today
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deconstructthesoup · 5 months
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Thinking about it now, I think the thing that was kind of a curveball for me about Nerdy Prudes that's obvious in hindsight is that... Grace and her parents have a very loving relationship.
Don't get me wrong, Karen and Mark are still exactly the type of people who I wouldn't want to meet in real life. They're super conservative, they're ridiculously set in their ways, they think that seeing PG movies and carrying each other's books is scandalous, and the lessons that they've instilled in her daughter have clearly messed her up---she thinks that touching herself and lying to the police is the worst thing that she could've done even after she unintentionally gets Max killed and then covers it up, and something as inane and subjective as her virginity is what she cherishes above her family, which is insane. But honestly, I did expect Karen and Mark to be unbelievably strict towards Grace, and for her to be visibly tired with all the pressure.
Instead, Karen and Mark think that Grace is their little angel who can do no wrong. They're clearly worried about her once she starts acting off, and Mark actually seems vaguely easygoing for the Chastity standards in terms of letting her off. Even though their values are messed up, and they're pretty much the reason why Grace is the way she is, they're sweet and supportive.
Which makes so much sense for Grace. Obviously she wouldn't be so high-strung and uptight if she resented her parents. Obviously she wouldn't parrot everything they say if they were horrible to her. She has to have a great relationship with her parents, or she wouldn't be Grace Chastity, Nerdy Prude. Beyond that, that gives the relationship nuance! Karen and Mark can have unhealthy values that messed Grace up and made her go off the deep end over one sexual fantasy, and they can also absolutely adore their daughter and implicitly trust that she's doing what they think is right! It doesn't have to be a clear-cut "they're bad parents" dynamic! They can be good parents to Grace while also having failed her in some very key ways! This is fascinating!
And maybe this is just because they're played by Curt and Kim, who just make every relationship they play better, but it works. It really works. It makes the entire Chastity family so much more fascinating, because it's even more compelling imagining a scenario where Grace goes through positive character development and has to tell her parents that what they taught her is wrong. Can you imagine how hard that would be? Telling your parents, who have been nothing but loving and supportive to you for your whole life, that you're having doubts about what they taught you---and dealing with the very real possibility that all of that love and support could go away once that's out in the open? After years of having an open and honest relationship with them?
Would Karen and Mark not love Grace anymore if she was no longer her teacher's pet, straight-laced, prudish self? Would they kick her out? Would they try and change her? Or would they listen to her, and take the time to be better?
We don't know, because they're complicated. On the surface, they're stereotypical, but peel back the uber-Christian jargon and the 1950's sitcom attitude, and you have two individuals who clearly love each other, and their daughter, very much. Is that love conditional? Who the hell knows? Until Nick and Matt answer us, all we have is speculation!
And that's so! Damn! Fun!
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neonscandal · 4 months
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Hello, I'm new here and I really liked your tumblr. I would like it if you could answer my question. Don't you think Saturo is a little needy, you know he always wants to get people's attention, he always wants to force a friendship, that scares me a little, he can even be unnecessary sometimes.
Hiii! I literally have no idea how you came across my blog but I'm happy if it made you feel welcome ❤️ Thanks for reaching out.
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Don't be scared by the tall man with the impossible eyes and bulk volume suffering. He's here to help! ✨
I mean, you pretty accurately described Gojo, tbqh. He is needy, I wouldn't say he wants to get people's attention... but he has it, anyway, he is desperately reaching out for human connection, he frequently ponders and is consumed by the unnecessary (just as much as the necessary) and people tend to conflate his strength with his identity.
How do we put one at ease with this larger than life personality? We speedrun it, of course. The best way to empathize with someone is to understand how they got from point A to point D and this is as it applies in real life, too. Consider this my humble offering toward this threat I made a few years ago. Going to avoid spoilers beyond what's been animated but this is still going to be a long one so strap in! JK there's a minor spoiler that's marked (⚠️) but it's not a major plot point.
IN DEFENSE OF GOJO
A mostly unsolicited essay ✨
Before we get into how Gojo became Gojo, let's look at the basic information we know about jujutsu society in universe.
Curses are formed by negative emotional runoff, typically from people who can't control cursed energy.
There are humans who are born with cursed techniques but the brains of humans so their powers were dormant until Kenjaku!Geto activated them in the last episode of season 2.
Those with power that are beyond the comprehension of the elders happen to find themselves carrying death sentences (as it applies to Yuta Okkotsu and Yuji Itadori, specifically).
There are 3 Big Families: the Gojo, Kamo, and Zenin Clans, likened to nobility, which have been active since the Golden Age of Jujutsu hundreds of years ago.
Generally, the Gojo clan inherits the Limitless technique. Six Eyes is a lot less frequent and both techniques haven't manifested in one user in over 100 years until Gojo was born. (Purple or Hollow Purple is another hidden move which each family has some extra razzle dazzle offshoots from their main cursed technique.)
Kamo clan passes along Blood Manipulation (re: Choso, Noritoshi Kamo, the Kyoto student, and Noritoshi Kamo, the blemish on the Kamo clan who created the cursed womb paintings)
Zenin clan has the Ten Shadows Technique (re: Megumi. Bear in mind, previously a Zenin Ten Shadows user fought a Gojo Six Eyes + Limitless user and the fight ended in a stalemate that resulted in both of their deaths).
Anomalies, like that of Maki and Toji, exist even in these age old clans where an heir is born without the ability to manipulate cursed energy and/or see curses.
Of the above and those of the main cast specifically, the inheritors of these generations' old techniques have pretty shit origin stories. They are privileged but cursed in a way. Heavy is the head, and all.
BIG THREE FAMILY CULTURE
We haven't gotten a lot of insight into the Gojo clan except that it's basically a clan of one: Satoru Gojo.
Noritoshi, the Kyoto student, bears the name of the blot of the Kamo clan and is a bastard son who happened to inherit the familial technique. Because of this, he is shepherded into the fold of the Kamo the family, foisted into a position of responsibility, and separated from his "disgrace" of mother. She leaves him, knowing her presence would hold him back, and hopes that her sacrifice in doing so will enable him to better help others. ⚠️ However, when Kenjaku!Geto used remote Idle Transfiguration to awaken dormant vessels and dormant cursed technique users, the proper firstborn heir of the Kamo clan's inherited technique was awakened which swiftly saw Noritoshi's expulsion from his status and the clan.
The most damning evidence we have of the culture of these families is from the Zenin clan:
They terrorized Toji Zenin, despite his inhuman strength, simply because he was born without the ability to manipulate cursed energy. To the extent that an incident from his childhood left his face scarred and likely radicalized him into the sorcerer killer he is today.
Mai and Maki were gravely mistreated because, in addition to being girls, they were born twins which is considered highly unfavorable.
The twin superstition is "justified" by Mai's weak cursed technique and Maki's inability to see curses or manipulate cursed energy.
The misogynistic treatment of the girls is likely not uncommon within the Big Three families given 1) what we've seen happen to Kamo's mom, 2) the treatment of the twins' mother, and 3) the way that Gojo vehemently advises that Tsumiki would never be happy with the Zenin clan (as both a jujutsu outside and because she's a girl as determined by events that haven't been animated yet).
Empirically, from the above, we can extrapolate that familial ties don't mean shit in the Big Three Families, blood relations are tenuous at best. Tradition, power and hereditary techniques reign supreme to maintain status. Those outside of the blessed few are at the mercy of more powerful members of the family which will be more evident in season 3.
💡 As an aside, kinda interesting to think about Geto's ideology applied to these traditional families. In fact, I wonder if Geto cultivated his beliefs based on what Gojo told him about his family.
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UNDERSTANDING THE CHARACTERIZATION OF GOJO
Now that we understand society as Gojo would have known it, let's get into how he experiences the world from birth.
Canonically, his birth shifted the power balance between sorcerers and curses. A lot of readers assume he has a god complex which, in addition to being categorically false, is more a reflection of his canonical in universe power. He is neither a god nor does he necessarily perceive himself to be one. But that's not to say he doesn't have a bit of an attitude problem.
He is born with both the Limitless and Six Eyes techniques which, again, hasn't happened in over 100 years. Subsequently, stronger curses are on the rise to compensate for this dramatic shift in power.
💡 Lowkey, I kinda headcanon that the influx of more powerful curses comes from the bitter resentment that periphery individuals must have harbored against Gojo because, let's be real. He's clearly Mappa's favorite and it brings out the anti in everybody IRL lol I can only imagine in universe if you were born to a jujutsu family and lost out on the genetic lottery when it came to cursed energy.
He explicitly draws the ire of curses and cursed users alike with a bounty that immediately incites an onslaught of first come, first serve mercenaries. As a child. Even Toji, the great sorcerer killer, tries to get the drop on a young Satoru Gojo but none are successful at coming close. Not even the invisible man.
From what we know of the Big Three above, the miracle of Gojo's inheritance would likely push him into a place of great power and influence within his clan, even from an early age. Further, we've seen what the burden of responsibility an inherited technique looks like as it applies to Noritoshi Kamo. Gojo would have been burdened with this status and, simultaneously, constantly placated by others so as to appease the miraculous heir.
Additionally, as we saw with Noritoshi, other clans may also have a vested interest in currying favor with the young heir because even proximity to Gojo creates a sense of power and status.
By blood, Yuta is a distant, distant cousin of Gojo's from a branch family and we see how OP he is.... Later in the story, Gege makes it a point to use the Great Satoru Gojo as a measure of power and, subsequently, more explicitly how close other characters' power, prowess or technique come close to that of Gojo's.
Subsequently, as the Kamo clan heir, Noritoshi tries to ingratiate himself to Megumi despite the fact that he's no longer even connected to the Zenin clan. He curses that Mai didn't inherit Ten Shadows to make relations a bit smoother. Gojo would likely have several people vying for his attention and grace whether he wants it or not.
I think you can see how, a smart kid like Gojo who literally has nothing but time to process and compute the ways of the world around him, would come to understand the motivations of others as it specifically relates to him and his power. It would be understandable if he were innately wary and distrustful of others, especially when you consider his initial experience as the target of an onslaught of, albeit unsuccessful, assassination attempts.
Here, I think, is what really gives life to the isolation that Gojo feels from a very young age which is only known by those with immense power like Sukuna and other characters who've yet to be revealed. Gojo is less an individual and more a means to an end. He is a monolith for power, protection and status. His power is so incomprehensible for other sorcerers of the era that his potential for vulnerability is taken for granted.
With a culture that prioritizes strength over, perhaps, morality, it makes sense why, when we see Gojo years later as a high school student, he is relatively disrespectful toward his elders and thinks it is silly that the strong should have to diminish themselves for the comfort of the weak. Bear in mind, this disrespect is likely because no one was really checking him on manners from a young age. Further, from his experience, strength has always been commodified, why would you diminish that? He was and remains head of the Gojo clan with all the pomp and circumstance that comes with that.
Enter Suguru Geto, the smoking gun as to why we know Gojo doesn't have a god complex. Suguru, like Geto, is the only other special grade sorcerer aside from Yuki Tsukumo (and she makes it a point to not take missions). Qualified as equals, the two are constantly doled out missions that higher ups are not even equipped to handle. Try not catching an ego about that.
Even though their power may not necessarily be on par with one another, it is enough that Gojo deems Geto an equal. Their friendship tempers Gojo's character in ways his family could not.
THE HUMANITY OF A GOD
Gojo is not a god but, to those around him, he's certainly lauded as such. Part of that entails inherently overlooking that which makes him vulnerable, makes him human. As someone who can, at will, literally turn off the ability to be touched at all, the premise is ironic. But the fact remains, from all the above and his behavior therein, it seems as though Gojo had to wait until high school to act like a kid at all and that is all thanks to Geto.
As an outsider, Geto's opposing ideology suggests that the strong are meant to protect the weak and keep others who are strong in check. Gojo is frequently shown taking Geto's criticism and point of view under critical advisement. In fact, realizing how out of touch he is with the reality of others, he defers to Geto as a moral compass, trusting implicitly in his judgement.
Not only that but, from what we saw during the Kyoto Goodwill Event, it is not uncommon for sorcerers to be wary of disclosing what their cursed technique is to other sorcerers. You can never be too careful nor can you know who's a cursed user in the making, even amongst your own classmates. With inherited techniques, word gets around but... Geto, an outsider, was intimately aware of the drawback Gojo experienced when overusing his technique and that speaks volumes about how comfortable Gojo was being vulnerable with him.
Geto encourages Gojo to speak more politely to his elders, again, a pushback he clearly wasn't getting anywhere else or, perhaps, direction he simply wasn't taking from anyone else.
Because Gojo recognizes Geto as an equal, he is more relaxed and able to behave accordingly which Geto graciously allows and creates a safe space for. Imagine all the steam this little weirdo has been holding in out of obligation? Moreover, as someone who has always undeniably been the strongest person in any room, imagine the relief in finally knowing that there is someone else you can rely on? Feel safe with? Someone you can be needy and greedy with. Gojo found his One and Only best friend.
Geto allows him to authentically be himself AND HE STARES AT HIM LIKE THIS WHILE DOING SO!
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Additionally, we talk about Gojo being unnecessary at time, which he is. I poke a lot of fun at how Gojo will take in what someone like Yaga explains to him and then the output is some Digimon reference a lot. He literally speaks in gibberish half the time but Geto just... understands him. Or makes it a point to try. Bear in mind, Gojo's silly goofiness belies his penchant for serious contemplation, as well, as he's knowledgeable about historical poetry, prominent figures and events. The dichotomy of this is whiplash inducing to Ijichi. If you think about the adage, those who don't know history are destined to repeat it, it shines an interesting light on why Gojo seems to have such a wealth and emphasis on the history of not only jujutsu sorcerers but also other politics at play dating back centuries. Even more so if you consider ItaFushi to be SatoSugu 2.0 as... the story kind of feels that way, doesn't it? BACK TO THE POINT, Gojo behaves like a fool but he isn't stupid.
I think this arrogance and silly facade is a product of being plugged into the reality of what it truly means for the few to protect the greater good. He's probably hyper aware of the prospective survival rate of his peers based on empirical information he has at his disposal. It's why he pointblank tells Ijichi not to become a sorcerer. I think it's also why he's frivolous with having and creating fun. Not just for his kohais but later for his students. With Geto, he experiences a closeness he hadn't had with anyone else and it improves his ability to connect with others by extension.
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I know this is not from the canon material but I think this is the perfect inclusion as to Gojo's proclivity for frivolity. LOOK AT HIM.
MISSION FAILURE AND FALL OUT
Based on the information we have currently, Gojo didn't exactly have the same splintered origins that Megumi and Noritoshi had. But from the above and his socialization with people outside of the Gojo clan, we see how coming from a place of privilege can still create deficiencies. But it isn't enough to simply learn and benefit from the good times. Maybe people take for granted that which isn't tested or taken away. We can't fully understand adult Gojo without understanding the failures of teenage Gojo.
Tasked with a mission that literally impacts the fate of the world and is relayed as such, the two special grade sorcerers take on the Star Plasma Vessel mission. As we saw in season 2, it didn't exactly end well. From this we can glean the following:
From the beginning and despite that which hung in the balance if they were unsuccessful, Gojo and Geto were willing to blow it all, come what may, if the vessel opted out of the merger. They were willing to fight Tengen themselves to spare one life even if it destabilized everything else. The idea of which seems Icarian in nature and we saw how that worked out for Icarus.
Toji's plan of attrition (wearing Gojo down specifically) was successful partly because of the false sense of security engineered by Shiu Kong that allowed them to recapture Kuroi.
However, based on Gojo's hubris, Gojo and Geto were already living in a false sense of security. Any attempts Geto made to temper Gojo's ego were appeased by the fact that, he wasn't alone. Finally. He had Geto and Gojo was insulated in the comfort and security he found in Geto's company. He could take on Tengen, he could risk another night in Okinawa burning through his stamina. It did not matter if he had Geto to rely on. They were the strongest.
Turns out it did matter and they were both foiled, thoroughly. The fall out of these events results in the following:
Gojo's evolution wherein he learns how to control reversed curse energy which shoots him past his previous limits.
Gojo avenges his loss to Toji and Riko, by extension (that order feels important to mention). He achieves a level of enlightenment and transcendence which saw the successful use of the Red Technique that he'd been unable to use in a fight against a lackey during the same mission which also made it possible to execute the finisher attack Hollow Purple, resulting in the fight's end.
Upon reclaiming Riko's body from the Time Vessel Association, Gojo, in the haze of his victory, asks Geto if they should slaughter the people celebrating Riko's death. Showing that, regardless of his power up, he still needs Geto's guidance and values the opinion of his equal. I say this even though we know Gojo lies about Shoko treating his injuries. Even he's aware that this latest evolution creates a greater disparity between their relative strength but he defers to him anyway.
Geto begins questioning whether the lives of non-sorcerers who are capable of such evil are really worth fighting and/or dying for.
The acknowledgement that, even though there is nothing beyond special grade classification, Gojo became the strongest.
Foundationally, Gojo came to terms with the vulnerability that Toji was able to exploit and subsequently trained to remediate that. Simultaneously, Geto fell deeper and deeper into a despair over a persisting moral crisis that Gojo, with Six Eyes at his disposal, was incapable of seeing or understanding. The occurrence of which is maddening to me, personally but such is the way of a fatal flaw.
Geto's subsequent and "sudden" defection pulled the rug from beneath Gojo's feet.
We have seen him dust off countless attempts on his life as a child, shoulder the burden of the Gojo clan as a child, execute his obligations as a sorcerer regardless of his beliefs as a child, and bear the brunt of jujutsu society because of the magnitude of his strength as a child and he never batted an eye. Not to say he didn't have something flippant to say about it but he endured it.
But with Geto's abandonment, whatever security he'd finally found was abruptly destabilized and it's important to note that only when it comes to Geto do we see Gojo's nonchalant facade falter. When he learns of the attack on the village with Yaga, when he confronts Geto in the streets of Shinjuku, when he encounters Kenjaku wearing Geto's corpse, he's not so silly goofy anymore is he?
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Finding Geto was like finally feeling the warmth of the summer sun on your face after living in the shadows of a cave all your life. For Gojo, his departure was like never knowing that warmth again.
Not to mention, his immense power and status of being the only other special grade sorcerer meant he also had to carry the weight of being his best friend's executioner. Please.
He spends his adult life cultivating strength in others, rescuing kids from a society that seeks to destroy what they refuse to understand, uniting other so they aren't burdened by the same loneliness that plagues him and, whenever possible, trying to bring light and fun to the lives of kids who may never make it out of high school because that's the reality of sorcerers. That's the burden of responsibility they carry so, in between missions, he tries to be silly, he tricks them, he leads them on wild goose chases so they actually get out and experience their youth properly.
You're not meant to fear Gojo. Fear the society that allowed for these things to happen because he's trying to fix it. If anything, pity the man who is not allowed to be weak or vulnerable because he has always known the weight of the world. He could have been a god but he chose instead to love and it was his undoing.
If you'd like to pity Gojo further, dive into an expansive list of all the SatoSugu brainrot I could think of.
Lowkey, this feels like a call out, because why am I also terrible like this?? Am I being cyber bullied? I feel like this took me several days to write.
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rallamajoop · 7 months
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Some statistics on Lucy and the odds of surviving (non-vampiric) blood transfusions
Because it’s Dracula-season again, and because I am absolutely that kind of nerd, I spent some time calculating the actual odds of Lucy surviving all those blood transfusions from unrelated donors. To summarise what I found up front: Lucy's odds aren't great, but they're still a lot higher than you might think.
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Now, I’m not the first person ever to tackle this question, and having no medical qualifications whatsoever, I'm not the best person either. But figuring out the answer to my own satisfaction was a great excuse to learn a whole lot of fascinating stuff that took some digging to figure out, so (with the caveat that I am entirely open to corrections from real professionals) naturally now I want to share it.
The complete world history of attempted blood transfusions is way beyond scope for us here (you can find plenty of sources on it online if you’re curious). But as Stoker’s text aptly demonstrates, the science of blood transfusion had come a long way by the Victorian era – just not the means for doctors to reliably predict which transfusions would be successful, and which would simply kill the patient. The principle behind the basic A, B and O blood types wouldn’t be discovered until 1900 – 4 years after Dracula was published, and wouldn't become part of general medical practice for much longer – and the additional Rh-factors wouldn’t be discovered until 1939. In Stoker's day, doctors were still so far behind the ball some of them thought transfusing milk into people suffering blood loss was a good idea (yes, really). And though I'm focusing on blood groups here, it goes without saying there are plenty of other risks that come from letting any Victorian-era doctor open your veins.
That said, what the average person knows about how blood types work may not be all that much advanced today from what doctors knew in the 1890s. It’s easy to come out of Dracula thinking, “Wow, they gave Lucy blood from four different people? The odds all their blood types would matched hers must be minuscule!” (and a quick search of the web for this topic will find people asking exactly that). But there are several factors which make Lucy’s chances a whole lot better than they might look on paper.
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(Image source)
For one thing, even though there are many different blood groups to worry about, some are much more common than others. If just one blood group accounts for half the population (which is actually true of some countries), then Lucy’s odds of hitting four donors with the same group just by chance would go way up.
But far more important is the fact that blood groups don’t have to be a 'match' to be compatible. If Lucy is one of the 2% of the British population with the blood group AB+, she’d be a universal recipient – theoretically capable of receiving blood from anyone without adverse reactions. Similarly, if any of her donors were O-, she’s in luck again, because that makes them a universal donor. If Lucy herself is O-, however, she’s in trouble: universal donors can donate to any other group, but they can only receive from other O-negs.
Confused? Time to get a bit more technical.
When receiving blood, your greatest enemy is your own immune system. Vital as all those immune cells are, they are not smart, and have no way of knowing that all this foreign blood suddenly flooding your system is friendly. If the don’t recognise those blood cells, they’ll attack them, bonding to their surface and causing cells to clump together and form clots which can clog up your arteries and kill you. Transfusing the wrong blood type can and likely will kill you.
The immune system identifies blood cells as intruders via specific antigens found on the cell’s surface. The most important antigens in blood matching systems are the A and B antigens, and secondarily the Rhesus antigens (marked + or -). Some people have all of these antigens (AB+), some have none (O- with the ‘O’ more literally indicating a ‘0’ or a null) and many have some but not all (A+, B-, O+, etc). Meanwhile, the immune system of the recipient body, much like your racist uncle, will attack most anything with distinguishing features it hasn't seen before (like I said, it’s not smart). A blood cell which is missing a familiar antigen will slip through, but a blood cell sporting an unfamiliar antigen will trigger a reaction. So the immune system of someone with B-type blood will have issues with any A-type blood you try and transfuse in, but will be just fine with B or O, since O lacks any antigens to mark it as an intruder.
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Once you know what you’re looking for, A, B, AB and O type blood can be identified fairly easily, just by mixing blood or antibodies and watching the reaction. I’ve seen some suggestions that this may have been understood even to some of the better-informed doctors in Victorian times: when unsure if a transfusion would be safe, they could try transfusing just a small amount of blood, watch for a bad reaction, and continue only if things look good. If you absolutely have to do a blood transfusion without any testing though, an immediate family member is your best bet: blood types can still differ among a family, but there’s a strong genetic component. (Sadly, this wouldn’t have been an option for Lucy, as her mother was already unwell, and would not have been considered a good transfusion candidate.)
Things get more complicated when you add in the Rhesus factor, which wasn’t discovered until some decades later, and for good reason: bad reactions to Rh+ blood develop in Rh- people only after that first transfusion. While A and B types might be like your racist uncle, the Rh factor is more like putting a dog on your basketball team: you’ll get away with it once, because you’ve brought in something so unexpected no-one’s made a rule about it yet (let alone bothered to come up with anti-dog basketball tactics). Unlike the standard A and B antigens, the immune system has to have 1) seen Rh+ blood, and 2) spent some time thinking about a good plan of attack before it’s ready to do anything about it – by which point the donor blood should be out of your system anyway. It's only the next transfusion after that where you can hit problems.
In practice, the Rh factor is of most concern to Rh- mothers carrying Rh+ babies. The first baby should be fine, but the delivery process can result in some mixing of the mother and baby's blood ‒ and that can leave her immune system primed to take offense at any future passengers of the Rh+ persuasion (why this apparently doesn’t also apply to A and B type babies in A or B negative mothers I’m not sure, but obviously the Rh-immune response works differently). With all today’s modern medical technology, this is something doctors can identify in expectant parents and manage with medication, but obviously they're still going to want to avoid transfusing Rh+ blood into an Rh- patient (especially if they’ve already got Rh+ kids).
Regardless, for our purposes, it’s only from the second transfusion that the Rh factor could trip you up. So could that be an issue for Lucy, if she’s getting so many transfusions? It's harder to find good info on exactly how long the Rh immune reaction takes to develop after the first transfusion, but most of what I could find suggests we’re looking at a period of weeks to months at least. So that’s good news for Lucy: we can ignore Rh factors when we’re calculating her odds of survival.
As a minor aside here, the standard eight blood types you can get by combining A, B and the Rhesus factor aren’t technically the only blood types out there. These three antigens matter most because people both with and without them are common in the broader human population, but a small minority of people are missing other antigens that the rest of us get as standard. European blood banks apparently also classify blood by a Kell factor, and people with anaemia and other conditions likely to require regular transfusions may be checked for several other potential Rh-like issues. A handful of people worldwide have blood classified as neither Rh+ or Rh-, but Rh-null – missing antigens common to 99.9% of the human population, and being in that class is a very mixed blessing. Blood donations from someone Rh-null can be used in recipients with rare blood types that would make them incompatible with almost any other donor. But if someone Rh-null ever needs a blood donation themselves, they’re in big trouble.
So, enough theory. What’s all this mean for Lucy’s odds of making it through 4 blood transfusions from unrelated donors?
Unsurprisingly, ratios of different blood groups vary a lot country to country and population to population, so I looked up ratios in modern Britain (Van Helsing is Dutch, of course, but blood groups in the Netherlands are similar enough to those in the UK that we’ll ignore that, just for simplicity). It’s possible these ratios have drifted since Victorian times, but figuring out how is so far beyond scope here we’re not going to worry about it. As discussed above, we’ll also ignore Rh factors – Lucy’s almost certainly never had a blood transfusion or a baby before, and everything happens far too fast for an Rh-immune response to kick in.
Alright. It’s statistics time!
We don't know Lucy's blood group, so any are possible. For each potential Lucy-blood-group, we can generate a list of blood groups which will be compatible donors (we'll call that list C(x)), and from that, we can calculate the probability that she'll be compatible with any randomly-selected donor. For Lucy to survive, we need her to survive 4 successive blood transfusions, so we’re raising that survival probability to the power of 4. Then to calculate her overall probability of survival, we multiply the survival rate by the odds she’s in that blood group, and add them together (no need to divide by the total population, that’s an easy 100%). So if we let n = number of transfusions and P(x) = probability a person is in blood group x, we get the following lovely equation:
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(Yes, I know, I'm sorry ‒ someone out there is going to want to check my working, and I like to be transparent.)
And with that, (assuming I’m not just talking out of my arse with all those calculations), that suggests Lucy’s overall chances of surviving 4 different blood transfusions is about: (drum roll)... 27%. So, roughly 1 in 4.
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The really savvy reader might notice that Lucy does not, technically, survive all four transfusions – she dies shortly after the fourth, so it’s conceivable that last transfusion was a mismatch. If we take the requirements down to where Lucy only needs to survive 3 transfusions, her odds go up to 34%, or closer to 1 in 3. Still not great, but given the sorts of crazy one-in-a-million coincidences all fiction is built on, that’s actually pretty reasonable. Even if you do factor in Rh compatibilities, we're still looking at around 21% survival rate after 4 transfusions, which are pretty decent odds in the world of Victorian medicine.
Do those odds sound a little high to you? Here’s something to keep in mind. On paper, Lucy’s odds of surviving even a single random-donor transfusion are only 65%. But given she survived that first transfusion, the odds go up that she’s in one of those near-universal blood groups, and they keep going up. Sure, every new transfusion has a new chance to kill you, but statistically speaking, every transfusion you survive marks you as someone who’s a little more likely to survive the next. So someone who's already survived 2 transfusions has a 76% chance of surviving a 3rd ‒ and if they do survive that 3rd, an 80% chance of surviving a 4th.
As another aside though, even after surviving four successive transfusions, the odds Lucy’s in that lucky AB universal-recipient category are still only about 10% (compared to 3% of the base population). Statistically, it’s still far more likely she’s in the A-group ‒ the second largest group in the UK, and who can receive blood from the other largest group (O), letting them receive blood from a whooping 86% of the population without issue. Aren’t statistics wonderful?
Oh, all right – I’ll stop with the maths. We’ve made our point here.
Now, we could still point out that, for a supposedly-experienced physician, Stoker's Van Helsing seems pretty blase about the possibility his blood transfusions could backfire horribly ‒ but then, Lucy's already on death's door each time he resorts to asking for volunteers. He's doing the only thing that might save her life (and it does, until it doesn't).
To conclude, no-one is going to tell you Dracula makes sense. This is a book which offers no explanation for why Dracula should just happen land in England on the same town where his solicitor’s fiancée just is taking a holiday, let alone the rest of it. And Stoker had no way of knowing Lucy’s actual odds of surviving such a very Victorian procedure. But that whole blood transfusion sequence is far from being the least probable thing in the book. 
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raphaellight · 4 days
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Insane, untrue, don't know why it even came to my mind?
Sera is the one with Alastor's soul on a leash.
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Here, I said it. Also reussing this frame, because her face is just 'cheff's kiss'. Although Emilie's face wouldn't be this happy hearing this one.
Had to get it out of my head, because if by the sheer miracle I get the twist of the show, I then will be able to say "GOT THEM" Here is the reasoning why I would think that:
Sera is the Machiavelistic character, without a clear boundaries not to break for a "greater good". She agreed for extermination, owning a soul isn't beyond her.
Can't tell that with certainty, but she seemed quite well informed about hell's business, in a sense that she never showed any sign of being taken a back by anything. Can be just her general personality, but take Vaggie coming to heaven with Charlie. Sera had to know she is a former exorcist, it's not rocket science, it would be perfectly reasonable to think she got informed an exorcist had been casted out. Yet she shows no sign of suprise to seeing her come with Charlie to heaven, like it's not news to her who is engaged in that project, like she has more sources of info that we know of.
She clearly mentioned "hell uprising". Extermination was one way to keep hell at bay, but it's possible she took more steps to ensure heaven safety, including espionage.
Now for Alastor:
This dude is not only one of the most powerfull beings, but also one of the most intelligent people in hell. Person above him has to be not only as powerfull as him, that person would also have to possess insane power to even have anything to offer Alastor that he couldn't possibly get himself (unless we go by my previous theory about Alastor deal, but these two don't exlude themselfes)
Right as I started listing points about Alastor, my playlist jumped to "Insane" :D
Alastor is weirdly protective over identity of his owner. Of course it's a reputation thing, he doesn't want his enemies knowing he can't control himself, but even to himself, he never says who he owns his soul to. Maybe part of the deal is that noone is suppose to know, because that someone doesn't want to be known for owning Alastor (which, let's be real, if anyone in hell owned Alastor, that person would spend all his time flexing that fact, I know I would).
Whoever owns Alastor is clearly letting him preety louse. As far as we know, the only thing the deal does, it makes Alastor weaker (unable to enter his full power), which would be weird for demon, but in character for an angel that wants someone on inside for specific tasks, not full time servant
Alastor immidietly upon arrival took down powerfull overlords. It's been played as him being crazy, but what if it was to break hell's power and create power vaccum to cause chaos.
Just when hell is emptied of most overlords, Alastor dissappears, then returns when it is once again under control of semi-fincional goverment of overlords (and right as angel dies in the extermination day)
Zestiel alluded that Alastor fell into "heavenly hands". Maybe someone saw Alastor dissappearing into angel's portal and this created the rumor.
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I won't really defend this idea, I know we have to little information for any definitive answer. We have at least two seasons to go and I don't even think next one will be the one to resolve who owns Alastor soul. But please, let me know, if I'm crazy, or IS this just as weirdly fitting both all plotlines we know so far and character we encountered so far as it seems to me. Follow for more crazy posts like this one.
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nimrism · 15 days
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could you make this post? please, it's so fascinating i really want to hear your thoughts on it
"The Dark Tower" Morgwen Interactions Analysis
i've literally been waiting for someone to ask me this so i can go all out in answer, so you're literally my favorite- THANK YOU! i've tried to put all the thoughts swirling around in my head into one coherent post, so strap in and let's LOOK AT THE IMPLICATIONS (from my perspective)!
first and most importantly, i want to zero in on morgana's choice of kidnapee; she could've chosen anyone in camelot, any one of the knigts who were regularly privy to arthur's battle plans and schedule, but nope. if we're looking at it from the perspective of "she needs the closest person to arthur" wouldn't that be merlin? she could have kidnapped and brainwashed him; he would've made for a fabulous inconspicious mole in the court, and arthur literally goes to him for anything and everything. i actually think it would make for a really interesting au/fic if it were merlin who was kidnapped instead of gwen (love confession/magic reveal possibilities are ENDLESS), but maybe it's a little too close to the plot of "a servant of two masters" and the writers didn't want to be repetitive. i'm going to be biased and delusional in believing that morgana did choose gwen, in particular, for more personal reasons as well as for her nefarious ones.
the way i see it (and this is obviously very objective), by the time we get to this point in s5, morgana is LONELY, like, has-no-one-in-the-world-except-aithusa type of lonely, and her choice of allies has been lacking diversity as of late (why are they all men 💀), AND they all end up dying anyway. so, she needs a plan, and she needs a trusted ally (she also needs a bit of love and lip balm cause DAMN). BUT the thing is, why would anyone be loyal to her? she's never kept any allies (or friends) thanks to her wit and charm alone, she's only ever kept men loyal to her by striking fear in their hearts. it's the same for her friends and family, i think. she doesn't believe they even tolerate her existence, so she needs to be crowned queen to subdue them and FORCE them to respect her. the same goes for gwen. she was only morgana's friend when morgana was a naive and vulnerable girl, plagued by nightmares and unexplained fears, and the second morgana grew out of them (or learned to control them) gwen stopped being affectionate, stopped being open. that's how morgana sees it, and it only reinforces her belief that gwen would never understand the person she's become now, she wouldn't quite see what morgana was trying to do. unless morgana forced her to.
the whole kidnapping affair was to MAKE gwen understand, because she wouldn't do it of her own free will. gwen would never willingly be on morgana's side, so she had to jump through a few morally questionable hoops to bring her over. in the end, i do believe all morgana really wanted was a friend (maybe a little bit more, amirite ladies), though by this point her concept of friendship had become twisted beyond recognition, and in all the chaos, this was the only way she thought she could have one. throughout the episode, a lot of the old morgana shines through, even if it is portrayed as just manipulation, and i do think that was her either slipping back into old habits or forcing herself to, for the sake of the brainwashing and for the sake of their friendship that she's trying to rekindle.
a point that i've seen several people make is that between the niceties, the "real" morgana peeks through several times throughout the ep, but i kinda disagree. i don't necessarily think that just because her smile drops, it means that the niceties were a facade and her "evil" side pops back out. i read the sudden change in expression more as disappointment. gwen fights back with such vigour that it's probably painful for morgana to realize that her former friend sees her as nothing more than an evil witch who's hell-bent on hurting her, now. she's disappointed that gwen, who was supposed to know her best, believes what the others do, and doesn't believe that morgana is being sincere in her offer of friendship.
a small remark i also have is: why wasn't morgana one of the visions/hallucinations gwen had in the dark tower? it's interesting to see that the closest three people to gwen are her brother, arthur, and merlin, of all people. i feel like gwen's history with morgana has to have had a lasting effect on both of them, even if morgana is supposed to be "evil" now. you don't stop loving someone just because they've chosen (or BEEN chosen by) the dark side. morgana was one of the people gwen cared about most in seasons 1 through 3 (s3 is pushing it a little, but still), it doesn't really make sense for it all to be forgotten so completely like we see in this episode. i also think it would've been super interesting to see a hallucination of younger morgana in particular, partially as a reminder that part of gwen still cares about morgana and largely because i'd like to see how gwen would react to that vision... would it differ from the other three? what would morgana do? would she sneer and laugh like elyan and arthur? would she do a little rawr like merlin (😭)? i feel like a ficlet is in order for this concept cause i would like to see it but i have to imagine it first (but that's the hard part 😭)
NOW ONTO THE MOST DELICIOUS PART OF THIS ANALYSIS: THE QUOTES
M: "Would you prefer some chicken?"
i just found this one hilarious tbh like she's so out of pocket what are you doing offering your kidnapee some chicken and WHAT WAS THE OTHER OPTION, IF NOT CHICKEN?
M: "I know how lonely you must be, all by yourself in that room. At least you're not shackled, and there's daylight. You can move, you can see."
oof. she's obviously referring to her own capture and torture, pulling from her own experience. it's heartwrenching that morgana has been through all of this, traumatised beyond reason, but it's even more heartwrenching that she thinks she's doing gwen a service, like this. it might not seem like that to any sane person, but after everything she's been through, morgana's worldview is completely different. in her mind, however twisted and detached it has become, she's being merciful to gwen this way, giving her luxuries that she was never afforded when she was captured. (including a warm meal with chicken at miss havisham's table 🤩)
M: "I too have suffered, Gwen. I spent two years living in darkness. I spent two years chained to a wall at the bottom of a pit... You did not know."
goddddd this line... it's just so painful, so powerful, so indicative of SO MANY THINGS. it's EVERYTHING. every acting choice katie and angel made in this scene was brilliant but ESPECIALLY their facial expressions in this particular part WOAH. the way morgana's voice cracks on the word "pit" is DEVASTATING. i was floored. the way gwen's face falls as she processes her words and they properly set in... INCREDIBLE. the concern in gwen's eyes is palpable as she realizes the horrors inflicted on her friend. and the final "you did not know" was so, so powerful. morgana realizes that gwen didn't know about and clearly wasn't okay with what she went through. gwen had no part in it. morgana SMILES at gwen's reaction, but instead of it being a smile of malice or evil it's one of RELIEF, and one that she hides very promptly. she's reassured in the knowledge that gwen had no idea she had suffered so immensely, and that, more importantly, she wasn't involved in it. it's SO important to note that morgana has no idea whether arthur had a hand in her own torture or not. it's especially not a good look on him that he invites the sarrum as a friend of camelot so soon after the events of "the dark tower", so, as far as morgana knows, he could've been a "friend" when she was being tortured for years, too. i wonder what would've happened if morgana had kidnapped gwen AFTER the sarrum's visit to camelot... i feel like that would have complicated things with gwen much further, if morgana thought she was complicit in her imprisonment.
M: "I would have sold my soul for someone to show me kindness such as this."
only two points on this heartbreaking line: 1- FUCK the sarrum of amata. all my homies HATE the sarrum. s4 and s5 morgana might both be textbook cases of "evil", but they're two VERY different people with two very different worldviews and tactics. morgana's imprisonment turned her into the cold husk of a person she is by s5. and 2- this just further confirms that morgana thinks she's doing gwen a favor, dining with her and letting sunlight into her room and choosing not to tie her up etc.
M: "Your hands are cold... I have a warm fire going for you."
oh boy is this a MOMENT. the way morgana keeps her hand held out. the way gwen reluctantly puts her hand in hers (MORGWEN HAND-HOLD!) *ivy by taylor swift starts playing out of nowhere* {ohhhhh goddamn, my pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand, taking mine, but it's been promised to another, ohhh}
um anyway i digressed. then the way gwen wriggles her hand out of morgana's grasp, while morgana grips her fingers with unwavering determination... it's just delicious.
M: "Anything you want, you can have. I'll give it to you."
idk about you but personally i'm SOLD. take all my money. i read this as morgana trying her utmost best to sell gwen on joining her, but i can also see the manipulation laced in it.
G: "Why are you doing this?"
M: "Because we're friends. We always were."
to me, this reinforces the theory that morgana's just trying to get her friend back on her side. by stating that they've always been friends, morgana reaffirms their friendship as much to herself as to gwen. she was her friend once, and she can be again.
M: "I'm helping you. I'm looking after you."
this sort of feels like morgana is telling herself that, more than she's telling gwen. maybe it's just part of the manipulation process, but i do believe that this was morgana's conscience reassuring her that what she's doing is in gwen's favor and that she's being kind to her.
M: "It's alright, I'm here."
UGH this line. morgana is being the person she needed when she was imprisoned. this scene is also a parallel to all the times morgana woke up screaming in the middle of the night and gwen was there to comfort her in s1/2. this time the tables have turned and it's morgana comforting gwen. simply delicious.
M: "My darling, I was wrong to make you suffer."
TEA! to say that this line was spoken from the bottom of morgana's heart might just be a bit too delusional, but i like to think there's at least some truth to it. torturing gwen had a lot of paralells to morgana's own imprisonment and torture, and she did want to make her suffer, at least in the beginning. but it was also different from what morgana went through. this is NOT to justify torture, btw, torture is BAD, but her "manipulation" tactics got a bit too personal at some point, and i like to think at least a part of it was genuine.
G: "No. Whatever twisted game you're playing, I want no part in it. I would rather stay here and die."
ouch. gwen's resistance to the last possible minute shows such strength on her part (cause me? i would've given in before she even dragged me through the desert tbh) and it gave us such a delicious performance from angel; the reluctance? the uncertainty? the distrust? the relief that morgana is there but also the FEAR of what she's doing? the contradiction between the morgana that gwen once knew and the morgana that everyone KNOWS is evil? but the morgana that gwen once knew is shining through now, and she's saying everything gwen wants to hear... grade-A angst.
IN CONCLUSION they're gfs your honor, this was all just a plot to snatch gwen back from arthur cause morgana didn't think seducing her herself would work. (this phrase could be in reference to this ep or the "lancelot du lac" ep i'm cackling morgana really is hopeless) there are also SEVERAL psychological layers to it, but describing it this way is just easier.
SO... this is possibly the longest post i've ever made. it got a little more comprehensive than i originally thought it would be, but THERE YOU HAVE IT! that's my take on the morgwen interactions in the dark tower. if i seem a little biased, that's because i 100% am :) i hope that clears things up. this is an open invitation to keep sending me asks (even if it's about the most random things ever) cause i love them and i love every single person who sends in an ask, and a public apology for how long these answers get sometimes 😭
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alyssasmaddworld · 3 months
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there's this level of dissociation that goes hand in hand with daydreaming and i feel like it's something i wouldn't know how to begin explaining to somebody who's anti-endo.
maladaptive daydreaming is not inherently caused by trauma. it's considered something you use to cope with it. but for a LOT of people, and as confirmed in multiple studies, it is a dissociative disorder. there's even a level of plurality with it.
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you have these people in your head, and you cant destroy them. a lot of them can feel like REAL people. you create worlds, plot lines, and you connect with these characters in a way where they slowly become their own being. their own person. how is this ANY different from being plural?
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the answer is: it's really not. if you view plural as synonymous with systemhood then maybe i can see why you'd have a problem with the phrasing, but based off of the actual definitions of plural, maladaptive daydreaming fits the criteria.
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the next issue that people tend to have with maladaptive daydreaming being considered plural is that maladaptive daydreaming isn't its own disorder. but something doesnt need to be a disorder for it to be significant in the mental health industry.
a common "rebuttle" of endogenic systems is that they "appropriate" other cultures, but what most people making this argument fail to realize is that, this is HOW culture works. western culture is actively affected by the cultures of other areas. do you genuinely believe that theres not a single Buddhist in america practicing tulpulmacy? that this is SOLELY a non-western phenomenon? then why is "traditional traumagenic" mentioned at all, and not JUST traumagenic?
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but there are articles that talk about the importance of listening to the internet, and the words they've cultivated. something i've been told is irrelevant because "an endo made that word" IS BEING heard by therapists all across the globe, not just in america.
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"the reader is reminded that culture is dynamic rather than static, meaning that just as our understanding of the online community is different today than it was twenty years ago, this will continue to shift and evolve into the future as well"
things CHANGE. research ADVANCES. and with that, we also know that maladaptive daydreaming is BEYOND VALID on the dissociative spectrum. it has ALWAYS been there, it just wasn't considered a disordered behavior before the 2000s.
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on top of this, there's a study that further affirms it's place in the endogenic sphere specifically.
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despite this, her brain scans showed "great activity in the ventral striatum, the part of the brain that lights up when an alcoholic is shown images of a martini. Frankly it was super strong"
this means she isn't just mind wandering. mind wandering is what people THINK daydreaming is.
"Mind wandering refers to the occurrence of thoughts that are not tied to the immediate environment—thoughts that are not related to a given task at hand"
mind wandering lights up the Default Mode Network side of the brain, the DMN. the DMN controls Autobiographical information, Memories of collection of events and facts about one's self, Self-reference, Referring to traits and descriptions of one's self.
maladaptive daydreaming has its own dissociative absorption, and it affects the brain differently than mind wandering. it's a proper form of dissociation.
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and..would you look at that?? spiritual practices are mentioned. i wonder which endogenic system that reminds me of! (much love to sophie!). it's just further credence towards the fact that non-traumatic systems can exist. why else would maladaptive be on the spectrum, honestly?
trauma doesn't CAUSE maladaptive daydreaming. trauma doesnt cause dissociative absorption. they are ALL coping mechanisms as a way to deal with whatever trauma may be going on-- or it can literally be a choice in the sense that you can actively choose to get absorbed into a book, or how you choose to maladaptive daydream. you can let it interfere with your life and become debilitating and disordered (because sometimes people dont WANT to change) but this doesnt mean it's traumatic.
with all this being said, how is this not a valid presentation of plurality?
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coraniaid · 2 months
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I don't think there should be a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot and I don't have any reason to believe there is going to be a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot and I would not watch a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot.
But, that said, if there were to be a Buffy reboot I think a big (small) change that would improve the show a lot (especially in its first season) would be to have a much broader pool of recurring student characters from the very beginning.  Not just the Scooby Gang and Cordelia, but ideally almost all the students we see in the first season should appear in multiple episodes and, if they die, they should be talked about at least once afterwards.  As it is, Season 1 is full of ghosts: characters like Amy and Harmony who will go on to be somewhat recurring but aren't quite there yet, and characters like Jesse and Cordelia's boyfriend Kevin (remember him?) who only exist to die and are not mentioned before or after. Most of the show's recurring minor student characters will only be introduced in Season 2.
In particular, I think the characters most ill-served by this in canon are, in order of first (and often only) appearance:
Jesse
I actually think the concept of Jesse – as a sympathetic character who is killed in the opening episodes before we really get to know him – is a good one.  Beyond any possible shock value of his death, it's a useful way of establishing that people can and will die in this story, and of stating out loud the setting's rules for vampires ("you're not looking at your friend, you're looking at the thing that killed him").  On the other hand, the execution is pretty awful because it is immediately clear that Jesse is not the same status of character as Willow and Xander (he isn’t even in the opening credits), he is not actually sympathetic at all (he seems to exist to answer the question "what if Xander Harris but Worse?"), and large parts of the fandom (and later writers of the show itself) will decide to completely ignore what the show is telling them about how vampires as a concept on Buffy work and why Buffy is not only justified but morally obliged to Slay them.
But the most egregious thing about Jesse is, of course, that after his death in The Harvest he is never talked about again.  I honestly think that just a couple of lines of dialogue spread out over Season 1 (Buffy blaming herself for Jesse's death while worrying whether she’s making a positive difference as a Slayer, say, or Xander mentioning Jesse as a reason for disliking vampires, or Jesse being named as one of several mysteriously missing students by Principal Flutie) would go a really long way to fixing that.  
A brief cameo appearance in Nightmares wouldn't have hurt either.  (Just months ago Xander failed to save his best friend from vampires and was taunted by the demon wearing his corpse and had to watch him turn to dust in front of his eyes, so of course he’s terrified of … clowns.  OK.)
Amy
OK, for real, if I were in charge of creating a Buffy reboot I would be very tempted to just add Amy to the Gang after Witch.  She knows that magic is real!  She knows Buffy knows magic is real!  She seems to be on friendly terms with both Buffy and Willow when the episode ends! And yet she vanishes after her first appearance more quickly than Marcie Ross.  
But, failing that, having Amy show up more than once a year in the high school seasons would be a start (especially since the show implies so much is happening to her behind the scenes each year).  Let her be a friend of Buffy's who doesn't know anything about Buffy being the Slayer.  Have Willow at least think about asking her for help with Angel’s soul curse!  Pull the trick the writers used in The Wish (and never used again) of having Willow talk about her as if they're friends even in episodes she's not appearing in.  Show us Willow spending time with her rather than Buffy during Dead Man's Party!  Remember that this character exists even when she’s not on screen!
Lance (and his various bullies) from The Pack
Hapless victim Lance is basically a proto-Jonathan and, if I were remaking the show, I would just lean into that fully and simply replace him with Jonathan from the very beginning.  
It would be tempting to do the same thing with Kyle and Heidi and the others, too: rather than retroactively introduce multiple new characters who apparently used to bully Xander in Seasons 2 and 3 that we’ve never met before and never will again (how big is Sunnydale High meant to be?).  
The obvious problem with that is that the show tells us that the Pack remember eating Principal Flutie alive, which means rather than hanging out in school giving Xander and Willow a hard time when the plot requires it they should probably all be in therapy for years.  But you can fix that while fixing The Pack as an episode by just ... not having the fact Xander not only remembers assaulting Buffy but lies about it to her face presented to us as a punchline?  Have Xander forget what happened to him. Have them all forget what happened when they were possessed, and then Kyle and Heidi and the others can be conflated with Inca Mummy Girl's Rodney and School Hard's Sheila as and when required.
Owen
This requires slightly more work, but I think Owen and Scott work better if they're the same character too.  Rather than Owen promising to stay friends with Buffy and then never appearing or being mentioned again, or Willow telling Buffy she "wasn't ready" to date Scott before Season 3 as if he even existed then, just make Scott somebody that we've already met and who Buffy had previously briefly dated pre-Angel.
The challenge here is that Buffy breaks up with Owen because she doesn’t want to get him hurt and she’s still very focussed on keeping her identity as the Slayer secret and only letting a handful of people know.
But that fits into the wider theme of Season 3 perfectly.  By this point, Buffy’s let far more people know than just Willow and Xander.  Xander’s girlfriend Cordelia knows, and Willow’s boyfriend Oz knows, and Buffy’s own mother knows, and none of this has caused the world to end.  Why shouldn’t Buffy try dating a normal guy who knows she’s the Slayer?
(And I think everything about Scott works better if he’s somebody we’ve seen before – somebody we’ve seen Buffy be romantically interested in before – rather than suddenly appearing only to disappear almost as quickly. Scott is meant to represent Buffy trying to reassert her claim to a 'normal' life after everything that happened with Angel last year..  What better way to do that than to try to start things over with the one person we do see her trying to date on the show before Angel? How much harder would Scott's rejection of Buffy hit if we'd seen that the pre-Angelus version of Buffy really did get on well with him and would have expected to make things work?)
Kevin
The end of Season 1 features, back-to-back, two of its best episodes.  In Out of Mind Out of Sight, we focus on Cordelia Chase.  We're reintroduced to Cordelia's friend Harmony and we meet Cordelia's current boyfriend, Mitch.  (Who is attacked by Marice Ross, but survives.)  In Prophecy Girl Cordelia briefly bonds with Willow while talking about how much she likes her current boyfriend, Kevin, only for the two of them to discover him dead, killed by vampires on school grounds.
Wouldn't the death in the latter episode work much better if those two "current boyfriends" were the same person?  Wouldn't we care more about Kevin's death if he was somebody we'd actually met before? 
But let’s go further than that: at the start of Season 2, in Some Assembly Required, we meet Chris, whose brother used to date Cordelia but tragically died. Chris tries to bring him back, and his brother pursues Cordelia.  The show doesn’t mention – or doesn’t remember – that Cordelia already has a tragically dead ex-boyfriend, one who died only two episodes ago.  Why not fix that?  Why not identify Chris’s brother Darryl with Kevin as well?
Make Mitch/Kevin/Darryl a single character, and then we would achieve that rarest of sights on Buffy: a minor character who we meet an episode before they die and who is mentioned again in an episode after they died.
And wouldn’t that almost make a potential Buffy reboot palatable?
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18 on the choose violence 😏
EDIT: As y'all may have guessed, my queue I was saving drafts of these in was running last night and I forgot to switch the time over so here's the real answer.
18 - It's absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on: you want me to CHOOSE?!? You expect me to CHOOSE just ONE character from Sandman that the fandom sleeps on?!?!?!? Oh, jail for 1000 years - well let me spin the roulette wheel Rose and Jed.
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ROSE. God I'm emotional about her. She's been through so much, the loss of her baby brother with a father who it's implied was not the nicest, lost her mother and her best friend in the same year, and she nearly destroyed the world but yknow what, she literally did nothing wrong here. She called Dream an asshole and totally got away with it. She's got gay hair and gayer friends (fellow bi!Rose truthers anyone???? Hello??? Someone else please discuss, queer people do all tend to flock together) and I hope she gets everything she wants.
I really want to explore the possibilities of a growing relationship with her and her immortal family sometime. Morpheus isn't just going to forget about her and Jed and him looking out for her baby brother is the only way I can see her kind of starting to warm up to him again. Like I WANT to see that weird tense but possibly loving relationship explored. Dream clearly respected her intelligence and wanted to give her more information (even if he was also using her to find the Corinthian which. Not cool).
(Also I think she'd go NUTS for the library of Dreams. Like she's a writer and suddenly she's seeing all the books never published?? Who wouldn't want to read them all?)
I have feelings about the parallels between her and Death. Plus I have a hc as some of my friends already know, that in one of Rose's low moments Despair finds her and something about the fact that this girl is family tugs at her. She has her function and her duties but she also has a sense of loyalty. So that could cause some seriously juicy potential internal conflict for her AND Rose honestly kind of needs an outlet for her bottled up grief and the weightof responsibility she feels. For Jed, for Lyta and her son...feel free to ask or dm me if you want to know more this post is already long enough xD
(And the fact that in a series where she's ONE OF THE MAIN FUCKING CHARACTERS for multiple episodes of this series she gets so much less attention ON HER OWN SELF - I'm talking art and fic overall PERIOD, let alone stuff where she gets any interiority of her own or her character taken seriously is just. I don't even know man)
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jED. My precious baby boy my son. I want to give him a hug. I want to wrap him in a warm blanket and give him cocoa and as much popcorn as he wants. Dream's reaction to Jed was in fact channeling me. This kid has been through too much and he deserves to live a happier life with his sister, so thank God he's gonna get it.
(But also does anyone wanna talk to me about the fact that Jed is a possible candidate for Dream's successor when he's older and might be even more viable than MASSIVE COMIC SPOILER ALERT Daniel Hall and all the ways this could complicate things HELLO.)
Miranda Walker - either the gif search function is broken which isn't beyond the realm of possibility here, or I couldn't find one gif of her in this show. And I KNOW people have made them I just can't find one...sigh
But I really want her to get more attention because her story is so potentially fascinating even if she barely got any screen time. Like this girl is the granddaughter of Desire, that must've massively impacted her life. I want to know how she dealt with the relationship with her children's father going sour and him taking Jed away and her struggling to raise her kids.
And last but certainly not least drumroll please...UNITY. That's right we're giving the whole Walker-Kincaid family some love!!
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HER. The queen the legend the moment.
Her story man...it gets me emotional every time. She could've had a life in the waking world. I really want to see more about what her dream life (which we know she experienced as real, with time passing and all, because of the things she said about it) was like. Even without Desire, how did she handle basically growing up in Wonderland surrounded by dreams? (I can't take credit for the Alice in Wonderland vibes that was @violetoftheendless 's great idea.) Did she make friends and a new found family there? Did she see signs she didn't understand at the time of dreams and nightmares falling into chaos and eventually leaving the realm in a slow trickle?
But also she's just such a genuinely lovely person. She took Rose into her heart without a second thought and was prepared to take Jed - I'm sure she didn't know how much more time she had but she knew she didn't have forever, and she wanted a family again and she'd lost her own parents long ago and never gotten to say goodbye...and the kicker is, unlike in the comic where she's basically on her deathbed already, she COULD have possibly lived a little longer. But she chose to sacrifice her new life to save Rose's. If this woman doesn't deserve the Spirit of Love label like I've seen in some truly beautiful meta from @windsweptinred I don't know who does. BUT ALSO she's not a perfect inhuman angel either, she is capable of being charmed by the Corinthian, which - looking around at the fandom, one can see she's not alone so I for one can't blame her too much, but also she met the king of dreams and nightmares and within less than 5 minutes called him a himbo to his face. She's beautifully human with icon behavior and Sandra James-Young deserves all the credit in the world for this role.
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avatar-anna · 2 years
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can you do one where harry started dating y/n to get closer to her best friend bc harry has like a hugeeeee crush on her so he decided to date y/n to get closer to her but then he fell in love with y/n and y/n find out the real reason about why harry dates her and all that angsty stuff ( you can end it however you like!) Thank you so much ❤️🥺
She knew tradition wasn't so traditional anymore, but maybe Y/n should've known her relationship had been doomed from the start when she was the one to ask harry out. He said yes, which sent her over the moon with happiness, but once the novelty of being with him faded and the reality of the relationship set in, she realized dating him wasn't what she had envisioned in her head.
She planned dates, she sent the good morning and good night texts, she kissed his cheek and reached for his hand. Harry wasn't a bad boyfriend, but he was just kind of...average, and she didn't like settling for average when she knew she deserved better.
And one night when they were out with all their friends, it hit her.
All the things Y/n had been wanting from Harry, all the little touches and smiles she wanted to share with him, he was doing with her best friend. The moment she realized that, she felt sick, hurt beyond belief, used. how could she have been so stupid?
But as the saying goes, "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," so when she and harry were finally alone, she broke up with him. No explanation, no warning, she just told him plainly, "I think we should see other people."
And Harry didn't even seem hurt, just surprised (probably because he was only with her to get close to her best friend). So then they were done, they went back inside and hung out with their friends, and it wasn't until she was alone in her bedroom that she finally let her wall crumble.
It was pathetic, but Y/n was miserable, torn up over a sham of a relationship. Perhaps she was mourning the loss of friendship too, knowing that she wouldn't be able to go back to the way things were after knowing what she did. Y/n finally had what she wanted, only for it to be a complete disaster.
But after a few weeks, she began to pick up the pieces. She started going out with her friend group again once she felt strong enough and comfortable enough to be around Harry, knowing that she wouldn't have been able to handle one of her best friends openly flirting with her other best friend. So she waited, and waited, until she was finally ready, or as ready as she'd ever be.
Her best friend was the first one to pull her aside at the bar, concern wrinkling her brows. "Where the hell have you been? It's so unlike you to not answer my calls! And the Harry thing? How could you not tell me that you broke up with—"
"He's into you," she blurted, effectively cutting off her friend.
Shock was evident on her face as she asked, "What?"
"We were together, but he was all over you, and I didn't want to fight a losing battle, so I just ended it."
Her friend pulled her in for a hug. She was the only one who knew about Y/n's feelings for Harry before they started seeing each other, and had even worked with her on how to ask him out.
"You know I would never go out with him, right? I wouldn't do that to you, Y/n, I swear."
"I know," Y/n said, squeezing her best friend just as tight. "It just sucks, you know? No one ever choses me, not even Harry. I had to ask him out, but he said yes, and yet he still—he still didn't want me."
She didn't mean to start crying, she really was fine. but perhaps not. Rejection was a tough pill to swallow for anyone, but as someone who no one ever really saw as more than a friend or a sister or whatever, it was awful.
"Oh honey, I'm so sorry," he friend said, pulling Y/n further from their friends so she wasn't having a meltdown in front of them. "Harry's a dickhead for not seeing how amazing you are."
"Yeah but it's not just harry, is it? this has been my whole life. something must be wrong with—"
"Hey, is everything okay?"
Harry was the last person Y/n wanted to see right now, especially when she was crying over him with the person he was into. Sniffling, she tried to dry her tears as best as she could. "I'm fine, H."
"Listen, I know we broke up, but we're still friends, so you can come to me if—"
"You know what? I know that we were friends, but I don't know if we can be right now. I—I don't think you realize how much I liked—how much I still like you, so I just—I can't."
Y/n's friend gave her a thumbs up as she walked out of the bar. She wasn't expecting to unload on Harry like that, but she did feel a lot better after the fact.
She was outside for about two minutes when the bar doors opened up and Harry was alone with her. "Y/n, I just—I don't understand. You were the one who broke up with me out of nowhere."
She didn't understand why he was still playing games with her. They weren't together anymore, he wasn't into her, so why was he acting confused?
"You're into my best friend, Harry! You hardly gave me the time of day when we were dating, but when we're out with friends, you're practically infatuated with Y/f/n!" she said, more frustrated with him than ever. The look on his face told her everything she needed to know too. He didn't even try to deny it. "Look, I, um, I know we weren't together for very long, but I've liked you for a really long time, which you obviously didn't know, but, um, a bit of advice? If you don't like someone, don't lead them on. Tell everyone I wasn't feeling well and went home, will you?"
Harry's face was unreadable, but Y/n just wanted to go home and be alone again. She couldn't stand there while he looked at her pityingly, unable to come up with any kind of explanation or excuse.
So she left. She walked home, the brisk air clearing her head. The bar wasn't far from her apartment, but it wasn't exactly close, either. But it ended up being just what Y/n needed to calm herself down. When she got home, she pulled out her laptop and started researching.
She was going away on a little self-care vacation to forget about Harry, all she had to figure out was where.
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Harry looked at his phone, staring at Y/n's Instagram page like a stalker. She'd been gone nearly a month now, and he had no idea when she was coming back.
He never thought he would make his closest friend cry, but seeing her eyes so full of tears made him feel like the biggest asshole on the planet.
He'd only ever seen her as a friend, and had had a crush on her best friend for a while. Y/n was always so quiet and closed off at times about her feelings, so he was surprised when she asked him out, and perhaps it was for the wrong reasons, but he said yes because he didn't want to hurt her feelings.
Things were fine, they weren't great, but they were fine. He still had a crush on Y/n's friend, and it was wrong of him, but his feelings couldn't change over night, and he would find himself gravitating towards her and not Y/n at times.
It was safe to say that everything was just one big mess. Y/n liked Harry, but Harry liked her best friend. he didn't know who Y/n's friend liked, but it obviously wasn't Harry. When he came back into the bar, she went off on him about fucking with her best friend and how she would never be into him when Y/n so clearly was.
In all honesty, harry never realized Y/n liked him that way until she’d asked him out, but while she was gone, he was able to look back and see signs. she had been there for him for years—at parties, family functions, midnight study sessions, midnight stress sessions—anytime harry needed someone, Y/n was there.
How did he not know?
And now that she was gone, Harry felt Y/n's absence. It didn't help that she wasn't answering his texts or phone calls, didn't acknowledge the few times he commented on her Instagram posts, and apparently had given her best friend specific instructions to not give him updates. He had no idea what she was up to, he couldn't talk to her, and it was torture.
Her posts on her Instagram page made his heart skip a beat. she'd never posted like that before, and he was happy that she was confident and comfortable in her own skin, but he hated the fact that he was noticing her now and not beforehand. Harry always thought Y/n was beautiful, but it was like now he was being punched in the face by her beauty.
So now she was out finding herself, thriving because he wasn't there, and he was miserable, but he supposed it was only fair.
Harry was scrolling way past Y/n's vacation to when they were at university together. Her page was littered with posts of them at pubs and coffee shops and at sporting events. Her head on his shoulder, his arm around her, smiles wide and dimples showing. They really were two peas in a pod, and he never—
She was calling him. Y/n was actually calling him. Harry scrambled to hit the answer button and not accidentally like one of her posts from four years ago.
"Y/n. Hey," he said, feeling breathless all of a sudden.
"Hi, H. how have you been?" she asked, like they hadn't spoken in weeks.
Her voice was like music to his ears. He didn't realize a person could miss a voice, but he did. He absolutely did. "I'm—I'm good. Are you—Are you still on vacation?"
"No, I got back a couple hours ago," she said, which made Harry's heart skip a beat. What the hell was happening to him? "Y/f/n wants to go out tonight as a kind of welcome back. Are you free?"
"Uh, yeah—yes. Of course. What time?"
He figured he would've been the last person Y/n would want to see, but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. He missed her a lot, and he wanted to tell her that. He wanted to tell her a lot of things.
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Y/n was nervous as she entered the bar. She hadn't been back in weeks, and now she was coming back a new woman.
Vacation was exactly what she needed. On the plane ride, she realized that she was the type of person to give and give and give. To everyone but herself. And now that she was alone on vacation, she only had herself to give to. and she did.
She slept in, she bought clothes she didn't need, she drank cocktails with little umbrellas in them. She even went to a spa, something she'd never ever done before.
It was amazing, everything Y/n needed and more. She obviously thought about Harry, but she made it a point not to think about him so much, which was hard when he kept calling and texting her, but she managed.
But now that she was back, she felt ready to see him again, for real this time. Y/n knew that those feelings she had for him weren't going to go away anytime soon, but enough time went by where she could go back to suppressing her feelings. Harry had been her friend for years, she couldn't just let that fall down the drain.
He was actually the first person she saw upon entering the bar, and she briefly saw a smile curve onto his face before someone slammed into her with a hug.
"You're here!"
Y/n couldn't have been happier to see her best friend again. "I missed you so much."
"I missed you too. You should've taken me with you, you dick, but I understand why you didn't," she said jokingly. "Come. Everyone's so happy to see you again."
So Y/n went over to her and her friends' normal booth, smiling when everyone greeted her. She'd always been the quiet type, but she gained a newfound confidence while on vacation, and she let it carry her through the night. Where she would've spoken softly to Harry, Y/f/n, and the rest of the group individually, she was practically the center of attention, talking about all her adventures, making jokes with everyone, and having the best time.
"I'm gonna get another drink. Does anyone want one?" she asked.
When she received a resounding no, she went over to the bar by herself. As she waited for a drink, someone came up to her. A very cute someone.
"Hello," she said, smiling faintly. She'd been bold all night, but now she felt all shy again.
"Hi. How are you?"
She was cautious as she spoke to him, but she stayed by the bar anyway, thinking that maybe she needed to expand her horizons a little more now that she was home.
He was nice and offered to buy her drink, and actually asked her questions about herself. He didn't really give her butterflies, but she didn't mind. It was just nice to be noticed.
That was how she felt on vacation too. Boys came up to her while on tours of the city, at bars and clubs, it was all kind of new to her, and a little overwhelming. She didn’t do much with them, just flirted and asked that they take her picture from time to time. She tried to kiss one of them to see if she could move on, but it just didn't feel right, so she kept her fun to innocent flirting, and the occasional flirty social media post, knowing a certain someone might see it. A little desperate, and maybe even pathetic, but hey, Y/n looked good, she felt good, and she decided that everyone needed to know.
And having been so wrapped up in her conversation, she didn't even realize Harry was next to her until he tapped her gently on the shoulder.
"I just wanted to check on you," he said. "You've been gone for a while."
"Well, here I am," Y/n said, feeling a little awkward now that she saw Harry sizing up the guy on her other side. "I'll be back in a little, okay?"
"Is this your brother?" the guy asked. "It's nice to meet you. I'm—"
"I'm not her brother. I'm actually her b—"
"He's a friend. One of the friends I came with tonight, so I should probably get back," she said quickly before Harry said something they'd both regret.
Grabbing him by the wrist, she pulled him along until they were outside. Y/n shivered a little, wrapping her arms around herself as the cold seeped into her bones. She'd become so used to sunny weather, she'd almost forgotten what it felt like to be outside at night back home.
"What were you—Thank you—What were you doing, Harry? that was none of your business," she said. She was frowning at Harry, even when he draped his jacket around her shoulders. It was warm and smelled like him, but she tried to ignore that so she could stay annoyed.
"You don't know who that guy was, Y/n. He could've been a creep, and you would've fallen right into his trap if I hadn't been there," he reasoned, or tried to reason. But Harry had never been protective of Y/n like that before. She would give him her drink while she went to the bathroom, and she trusted him to take her home and get her safely into bed when she had a little too much to drink, but she was pretty sure he was about to say he was her boyfriend, and that was definitely not something Harry had ever done before.
"What were you going to tell him? When he asked if you were my brother?"
Perhaps she was only setting herself up for failure by getting her hopes up, by even entertaining this conversation, but she was curious. She wanted to know what changed.
"I—I don't know. I just—I just knew that I didn't like that we've hardly spoken in weeks, and that even though you're here now, you've hardly given me the time of day. and I know that's rich coming from me and you probably think I'm a dick, but I've been miserable since we last spoke a few weeks ago, and I guess I just wanted you to know."
Harry's cheeks were red, but Y/n wasn't sure if it was from his confession or the cold.
She was speechless now, utterly unsure of what to say. On the one hand, it was along the lines of what she'd been waiting to hear, only it came at a time where she was debating whether she should move on from Harry. This all could be some pride thing where he didn't want to date her, but didn't want anyone dating her, either, and that she wouldn't stand for. On the other hand, though, he could just be a stupid boy who was slow to recognize feelings.
"You shouldn't be. I thought you didn't like me that way," she finally said, looking down at her feet. They were hurting from being in heels, and all y/n wanted was to take them off and go to bed. "I put myself out there and asked you out, but it would've been much less painful if you let me down then instead of letting me think I had a chance. And now here you are acting like a jealous boyfriend when I know that isn't the case because—"
"I want to try again!"
That made her look up at him. His eyes were wide, like he was surprised he'd said that.
"Huh?"
"I took our friendship for granted. I took you for granted, and I'm sorry," Harry said, taking a chance by stepping closer to her. "I—I did have a crush on Y/f/n, but when you were gone, I didn't know what to do with myself. I realized that I thought she was cute and nice, but you—not talking to you drove me insane.
"How I handled things wasn't right. I should've been honest about my feelings," Harry said, nervously fiddling with the hem of his shirt. "And I know it might not seem like it, but I'm trying to be honest about them now. I like you. I want to be with you. I want to be better for you because you deserve better, but if you—if you don't like me that way anymore, that's fine I'll understand. I saw on Instagram that you were hanging out with other guys, and that's fine. I'll even be your wingman for that bloke back there at the bar, but I thought you deserved the truth."
Y/n looked at him closely. She'd always had a hard time reading Harry, but right now his heart was on his sleeve. Now she just had to decide whether she wanted to wear her heart like that too.
"I...don't. i'm sorry, Harry. You're just a little too late."
Harry's face fell completely, the little ember of hope he had winking out. "Oh. I understand. Thank you for being honest."
After an awkward silence, he muttered a farewell and began to walk off. When he was a few paces away, Y/n couldn't hold it in anymore.
"Harry!"
He turned around immediately. She was sure he thought she was just giving his jacket back as she slipped it from her shoulders, but when he was close enough, she spoke again.
"I was kidding."
"You—You what?"
"I was kidding," she said again, a small smile appearing on her face. "I just needed a little revenge. Give you a taste of your own medicine, if you will."
Y/n wanted to launch herself at Harry the moment he said he was miserable while she was gone, but she couldn't cave that easily. She needed him to know how badly he'd hurt her, and she needed to see for herself that he meant everything he said. Maybe it was a little mean, but she had to know.
"So you—you're saying that—that you would like to..."
Nodding, she said, "Yes. You're an ass, Harry Styles, but I still like you. I'd like to give us another chance too."
Harry shook his head as he came closer, clearly exasperated by her little test. "You're a little shit, you know that?"
"Hey! I'd be nice to me, if I were you. You don't know what—Ah!"
Y/n couldn't even form her next word as Harry picked her up and spun her around. Her arms instinctively went around his neck as she held on tight, her cheeks hurting as she smiled against his chest.
Both of them were giggling and smiling like idiots when he finally set her down, though they stayed just as close as before, so much so that Y/n had to tilt her head up to look at him properly.
"Thank you for giving me another chance," he said, all business now.
"Thank you for apologizing," she replied. "And I know this is all very important, but I would really like to kiss you now."
"Don't have to tell me twice."
There were moments where Y/n thought that her feelings were merely a silly crush on a boy she'd known for years. She was comfortable around Harry, and he was really the only boy in her life at times, so of course she would develop feelings.
But kissing him now shattered those thoughts. This was no silly crush. This was the real deal, if the electricity zapping from her head to her toes was anything to go by. And she could tell Harry felt it too. He hugged her closer to his chest and leaned down even more to deepen the kiss, pushing her mouth open with his own to explore more of her.
It just felt right. Y/n didn't have much to go off of, but she was pretty sure a kiss didn't get any more perfect than this one.
"I'll make it up to you, I promise," Harry said, his forehead heavy against hers.
"There's a new italian place downtown I've been dying to try," Y/n said, the corner of her mouth tipping up into a smile. She was sure some people would insist that Harry didn't have to make anything up, but she was still his friend, and she would milk this for as long as she could (within reason, of course).
And Harry knew that too. He saw her smile and recognized the mischief in it. "You're gonna enjoy me grovelling, aren't you?"
Leaning forward, she gave him a quick peck on the lips, still smiling. "Definitely."
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hello-nichya-here · 10 months
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In your opinion, do some of the more dubious moments in ASOIAF (Rhaegar and Lyanna, Dany and Drogo, Dany and Jorah, Tyrion and Tysha, Cersei and Taena, Theon and Jeyne, Lysa and Petyr) count as rape/assault/grooming?
Let's go through this answer case by case.
Rhaegar and Lyanna
Ah, probably the most controversial "Did she consent to it or not?" in the whole story - and for good reason since we only ever hear about it from other people. However, even taking that into account, there are enough hints in the books to shed some light into that mistery - and honestly, I think it points to BOTH "Lyanna ran off with Rhaegar willingly" and "Rhaegar was asshole who took advantage and ruined her life" being true.
Lyanna didn't want to marry Robert. She objected to it repeatedly, and we hear all the time about how she has the "wolf's blood" - and Ned, the person who was likely the least in the dark about all of this, said that this "wolf's blood" led both his brother and his sister to an early grave, implying that she did go with Rhaegar willingly.
Rhaegar was also seen as handsome, charming, clever, and just basically every woman's dream husband. It is not impossible that Lyanna took a liking to him. Rhaegar would also not be the first Targaryen prince/king to elope with the woman he loved, and Aegon the conqueror became king of Westeros with his TWO wives. He could have easily used those tales about his family to assure Lyanna that things would be fine, that her running away with him wasn't that crazy of an idea and that there wouldn't be tragic consequences.
We also have Jon Snow, who we are 99% sure is her son in the books like he was in the show, constantly discussing "bride stealing/kidnaping" with Ygritte, which is treated not as real kidnaping but essentially as courting, with the woman choosing to elope with him or not. We we even hear the story of Beal the Bard, the king-beyond-the-wall who pretended to be a singer, was allowed to take a flower from Lord Stark's garden - and in the morning, Lord Stark's daughter is gone, but there is a blue winter rose in her place, a flower that is CONSTANTLY associated with Lyanna in the books. Once again, the story is told as love story.
But, while all of that gives us a pretty romantic, happy start to their story, we cannot forget how it ended: Lyanna all alone in a tower, dying while giving birth, seemingly completely in the dark about the fact that Rhaegar's family has been killing hers as no one bothered to explain to the Starks that no, she wasn't kidnapped, she went with him willingly.
And Rhaegar did not elope with her just out of love. He was trying to fullfil a prophecy. He needed a woman to give him another son - the right son - and clearly priotized making sure that child would not be taken by the Starks or anyone else over, ya know, not raging war against Lyanna's family.
The power imbalance between them is also quite great. Rhaegar is an adult, Lyanna is not. Rhaegar is a married man taking a mistress, Lyanna is dishonoring herself by sleeping with him. Rhaegar is the future king, free to go wherever he wants, Lyanna is a noble girl that is far away from her family and locked up in a tower. The further they get from Winterfell, the more Lyanna has to rely solely on Rhaegar - and look where it got her.
So yeah, in all likelyhood it started out as a love story, but ended with Lyanna losing all agency, her family, and even her life - things Rhaegar could have at least tried to prevent, yet we get no indication that he did.
Dany and Drogo
Just their first time is already one hell of a controversial topic. Daenerys is 13, she's terrified, she just wants to go home and be a kid. She is also being courted by Drogo and they do share some nice moments during their wedding. Then it's time for the wedding night, and Daenerys is once again cowering in fear and in fact tries to cover her body up, but Drogo won't let her. However he also tries to be reassuring, gentle AND asks her permission to go all the way, and she accepts. Dany goes to non-consenting to as consenting as someone in her position can be, and then back, A LOT. It's mixed-bag.
But let's not forget what Drogo does when Dany is clearly NOT consenting, and is in fact hurt, crying, terrified, and freaking suicidal. He takes what he wants anyway. She's his wife, so he is usually kinder to her than he would ever even consider being to any of the random women he raped, but he does still view her as property. If she's being all sweet and willing, great! If she's not, then she's gonna have to endure because the decision of when they do and do not have sex is his to make. In his mind, he probably thinks "I was nice to her the first time and she agreeded to it - that means she's ALWAYS up for it" because if the idea of marital rape is already something the people in that universe can't grasp, the idea that a wife consenting to sex with her husband once doesn't mean she has consented for EVERYTIME might as well be just a bunch of nonsensical words to them.
Now, Dany does take some more control later on. She becomes as equal to Drogo in the relationship as she could possibly ever be (again, considering her age and Drogo's mentality), and the two of them end up genuinely falling in love, and sex with him becomes something Dany quite likes instead of just more suffering. But retroactive consent doesn't exist.
Lets say that Dany was an adult who married Drogo willingly, they got along right away, and for months all the sex between them was consensual. Then one night she turns him down and he doesn't take no for an answer. The one non-consensual time doesn't magically make all the previous times they had sex sudddenly become rape, nor does the fact that it all started out consensual change the fact that he did rape her that one night.
Drogo raped Daenerys. The feelings they would develop for each other later on and all the times she did consent don't change that fact.
Dany and Jorah
A way more mild exemple compared to the previous one, but still worth discussing.
In the third book, Jorah kisses Dany, and that kiss is the thing that sort of re-awakens her sexuality, which had been dormant since her husband died AND since she was in a lot of pain due to the truly agonizing birth of her child, that had already been dead, but also wasn't, but kind of was. Anyways, Dany kind of liked the kiss - even though it's very clear she wishes it had not been with Jorah, but rather with someone younger (her lovers are all men, as in fully grown adults, but they're not thrice her age like him).
However, let's look a the actual scene.
Dany is changing her clothes in a hurry, not thinking much about the fact that Jorah is there (she did walk around with one breast out nearly all the time after all, and he did not do anything other than look). This time though, he surprises her and pulls her for a kiss, and while Dany doesn't really struggle, she does think to herself "I'm his queen, not his woman."
She tells him he shouldn't have done it, he replies that he shouldn't have waited that long. He keeps on staring at her naked chest, and she covers up. She says it wasn't right and that she is his queen - a very clear "Don't do anything I didn't give you permission to do" - he calls her the most brave and beautiful woman he has ever seen and calls her by her name, leading to her very sternly reminding him to call her "Your grace." Jorah agrees... and then goes on to talk about how no man would ever be as faithful to her as him, and it's very clear he isn't saying that just because he is her loyal knight, but rather to once again declare his romantic attraction to her.
Daenerys is being VERY clear and rejecting him. But every word she says goes in one ear and out the other because Jorah doesn't want to listen to what she has to say. He did not kiss her again (as full on forcing himself on her out be VERY out of character for him), but his complete disregard for her repeated verbal objections to his attempt of making her think of him as a potential lover are not great.
And it makes perfect sence considering WHY he is so "in love." While he genuinely connects with Dany, the attraction comes from the fact that she looks just like his second wife, the one who loved and who abandoned him to be part of a rich man's harem.
Whenever Jorah acts on his feelings for "Dany", Daenerys is, ironically, the last thing on his mind. He is thinking of his desires, his pain, his feelings. The girl in front of him be damned - she's just an object of lust/affection, despite her clear discomfort.
Tyrion and Tysha
This one is rather easy. It 100% is rape - however, Tysha AND Tyrion are being victimized, because the real abuser, the one holding all the power, is Tywin.
The whole "give her to the guards" thing was HIS idea, and Tyrion, who was just 13-years-old, says he was FORCED to watch, and then to rape her as well, and it's clear the event messed with his head. WE feel sorry for Tysha and think of how horrible that must have been for her, but Tywin's intention was to hurt TYRION, and she was just a way to do it, not a person.
Tysha went through hell on that moment, but so did Tyrion - and that was by design.
Cersei and Taena
The argument for this one is even simpler: Cersei's intention was to assault Taena, therefore this one should be treated, at the very least, as attempted rape, if not full on rape.
She had been thinking of all the times Robert raped her before she decided to assault Taena, deliberately hurt her and blamed it on the wine before saying she'd have what she'd want anyways because she's the queen - almost word for word what Robert used to say to her. And during the act, Cersei is fantasizing about torturing Taena to death.
"Oh, but she was aroused, seemed to enjoy it, and even offered to fuck Cersei too!"
1 - Cersei explicitly mentioned said to her "I'm the queen, you don't get to say no to me." The message was very clear that even if Taena didn't want it, she'd have no choice but to play along.
2 - Taena ALWAYS knows what to say to make Cersei happy anyways. She made up the whole bullshit story of "Loras is totally in love with his sister and joined the king's guard to be near her" because she knew it was Cersei's love story with Jaime and thus she'd be super biased to believe it. OF COURSE she'd play along to anything Cersei did.
3 - Arousal and orgasm are involuntary. It's just the body reacting to what is being done to it. It is NOT the same as consent.
4 - Even if we assume Taena was attracted to Cersei, wanted to have sex with her, and truly enjoyed herself that night, once again, Cersei's INTENTION was rape. Imagine that Cersei serves her food that was supposed to be poisoned, but for whatever reason it ended up not killing her, and intead Taena only had a lovely dinner - it's still attempted murder, even if Taena never realized it.
Cersei wanted to make Taena her victim. End of story.
Theon and Jeyne
Once again, this one is very simple. When Theon "warms up" Ramsay's wife for him, he is doing it under the direct of threat of "If you don't do as I say, I'll torture you until you beg for death, then torture you some more." It's like when Jeyne says she'll do anything Ramsay wants her to, with anyone he desires, including the dogs, and adds a "He doesn't have to cut my foot" at the end.
Both of them are Ramsay's victims. Theon was terrified as Jeyne. It absolutely was rape, but the rapist was Ramsay.
Lysa and Petyr
When Lysa went to Petyr's bed to sleep with him, he had been so drunk, that he mistook her for Catelyn. The second time they sleep together, hehad just gotten beaten so badly by Brandon (Cat's would-be-husband) that Catelyn had to BEG for his life. Naturally, with someone in that poor condition, he was given plenty of things to help with the pain - and as the books have stablished all the time, these lead to very weird dreams and leave the person way out of it.
This throws any consent Petyr could have given in both nights out the window, because even if Lysa asked his permission before doing anything, he was barely even understanding what was going on around him. If consent was impossible, it was rape by default.
Now, we know that Petyr will not only brag about these two night, but also go on to sleep with Lysa many more times and even become her husband eventually. But let's not forget the context here.
1 - Like I explained in the Daenerys and Drogo bit, retroactive consent doesn't exist. It doesn't matter how many times he had consensual sex with Lysa, it does not magically erase the fact that that first two times were rape.
2 - The idea of a man being raped by a woman is just not something the society of Westeros thinks is possible, so naturally Petyr would NEVER understand that what Lysa did to him was assault. At most he'd be bitter that "slept with the wrong sister"
3 - Petyr is very clearly lying to himself about A LOT of things. He convinced himself Catelyn loved him, that he slept with both Tully sisters, that Sansa is BOTH the daughter he and Catelyn never had AND Catelyn 2.0.. Him being in denial about potentially feeling abused, or at the very least angry that he was "tricked", because the story of "Everyone tried to humiliate me but I just ended up fucking my crush AND her sister" makes him feel better about a event that was deeply traumatic to him in a ton of different ways.
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aqours · 7 months
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In defense of JK Haru Vol 6
i know the plot decisions that emerge in volume 6 of the JK Haru manga (about halfway through the novel) are controversial but i'm gonna go to bat and say i think it. actually really makes sense and if anything i think helps create more context for what this story is supposed to be and fits into its themes very well.
and it isn't like, surprising its controversial: its a huge thing that comes out of NOWHERE on the semi-final volume of the manga/halfway through the book. and the question of "Why would Haru go back to the brothel?" and "Why didn't she just use this early on?" are, imho, actually really valid questions. and the answer is because it wouldn't matter. JK Haru isn't a story about changing the world, it's about the abuse that sex workers face and how Haru exists in that world. nothing really changes in the entire world from beginning to end: and i think that works perfectly, actually.
gonna post more under the readmore both for spoiler consideration and so it's not too long if you don't have the thing that cuts down post automatically! bare in mind i've read the novel and a chunk of JK Haru Summer so there might be spoilers inbound, as well as talking about what vol 7 will probably cover! (and on that note if i'm incorrect about anything from JK Haru Summer let me know, i haven't read all the vignettes yet and i'll edit this post)
nothing really changes in JK Haru's world from beginning to end. hell, the last bonus chapter of the novel is more or less just sharing the setting's mythology and explaining why misogyny is so deeply rooted into its culture: Haru does not change this world, nor could she. it is impossible for one person to have the strength to change such an incredibly rooted misogyny in the world.
Haru has an incredibly godly OP power that is not revealed into halfway through the novel because there is no way to capitalize on it. women are barely allowed to go outside on their own, and her power is one that requires her to -as bluntly as possible- fuck a LOT OF PEOPLE before it can start doing anything useful. and i'll acknowledge this could've been an interesting story in itself: "JK Haru Is A Former Sex Worker In Another World Who Wants To Defeat The Demon King" with chapter 1 being about how she's waited for the better part of 8 months to amass skills before setting off on her adventure: it'd be a dime in a dozen beyond talking about misogyny and having a fem protag for that genre, but i'd like to imagine it's a shiny dime. like, if i had to use a dime for a vending machine and had two dimes, i'd use the other dime first.
but that's not what it it's about.
JK Haru isn't just a scathing criticism of misogyny present in the isekai general, it's a scathing commentary about our real world attitudes. and it IS funny at many times, it is absolutely an erotic work that also wants to sexually entertain its readers if they want it to be a work for such, it is a commentary about what sex workers actually face. we live in a world where prostitution is referred to as the world's oldest profession: and society at large views their lives as worthless. Haru's problems aren't bad because she's a sex worker: it's the rampant misogyny and the treating that the lives of her and her friends are worthless as a result.
Haru at no point really objects to the fact she does this for a living in this odd new world she finds herself in. the most is her shock at the very beginning of "oh, ok wow yeah ok i'm gonna be a sex worker i'm learning how fantasy world contraceptive works-" and it's not this aspect of her life that's nightmarish. the abuse she and her friends have to face because they are women and because they are sex workers is a societal ill. it is made very clear that even if Haru had done this scenario of biding her time before setting out: what would have realistically happened?
if she beat the Demon Lord, if there was even a single man that was a part of her traveling party society would do their damndest to cover up and hide this fact. again, the skeletons of what could still be a fun story, is one that approaches the attitude of one person alone can destroy society's evil. so at the end of the day: those super OP powers end up just becoming a tool for one moment, then it's back to her old life.
because Haru enjoyed her life. she actually notes with hope this is the world she turned 18. this is the world where she graduated from being a JK.
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Haru never dislikes being a sex worker because it's sex work: her issues come from misogynistic customers. and she even enjoys it more than once: her relationship with Sumo was something that even if she didn't particularly get a lot of physical pleasure from was something she enjoyed doing. the time with the Bard, while weird, was funny and clearly not something she actually disliked. she's a human being who enjoys sex, and at one point even develops feelings for somebody else and wants to have sex with him.
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Haru, Lupe, and Sherasquo's problems are not because of the fact they are sex workers, that they are people who have sex to make a living, as opposed to the misogyny that comes with it, which tragically takes Sherasquo's life. if either her or Lupe had Haru's OP skill? it's likely that beyond the fact Sherasquo survived, they wouldn't have done much for it.
Haru isn't looking to be a hero. she's just trying to live her life as happily and peacefully as she can in the other world. and as we've now stated, Haru does not dislike the fact she is a sex worker and is unashamed that this is her occupation. the treatment she faces, the misogyny, those are the things she hates and harms her and women like her.
and the world keeps revolving. even after Haru finally uses her power to murder an entire squadron of soldiers, nothing changes in that world. Haru goes back to doing the work she is good at and comfortable with because she has found a happiness in her life and does not feel a need to use this power to radically change her life. because the truth is, even if she did, the misogyny is simply so deep-rooted into this world that Haru would probably find herself significantly less happy and much more miserable than doing what she wants to do. that is the choice she ultimately makes, and why a status quo returns: and it's a status quo that is still riddled with pain and suffering, but despite it, Haru managed to find a happiness for herself. and it is not as if she decides to forego all other desires ever: Haru does make a choice she wants to use her skills as an adventurer at the end of things, and even decides she does want a shot at the Demon Lord. she actively tries something new in her life: and ultimately returns to where she was to continue trying to live happily.
nothin really changes all that much in the world of JK Haru. everyone goes through some growth: hell, even Chiba of all people actually manages to become... kind of a decent person by the end of JK Haru Summer? but the world is largely the same. the reality is that sex workers like Haru will continue to face horrific misogyny, and at worst it may result in their murder. Haru is pregnant and ready to raise a baby and might or might not be married to the Demon Lord of her own free will.
so i don't believe Volume 6 doesn't ruin the manga. i don't believe that Volume 6 renders everything pointless. this was never a story of epic fantasy and fighting and how Haru changes the world around her: it's a story about one girl ripped from her home finding her happiness in another world. and she finds this happiness as a sex worker, is not ashamed of that, and has to overcome many trials to be able to truly claim her happiness in her hands. those who describe this as truly bleak misery porn are, simply put, just kind of wrong.
Haru is probably the single most powerful individual in this entire world and rather than using it to change the world with force returns to sex work to continue seeking her happiness, and that's OK. she decides that the usage of these powers cannot bring her to happiness, and that's OK. JK Haru is about the struggle of a young woman that must navigate a violent and misgoynistic world to obtain her happiness while drawing attention to the fact that for many sex workers in the real world, in our earth, this is a reality they have to face, and an adamant message that sex workers are people who are as entitled to their happiness as you, me, and everyone else. the fictional world doesn't change because of one woman's actions just as our real world will not change because of one person's actions, the entire setting isn't radically changed by Haru, and her having her powers even if enough to defeat the Demon Lord would not be able to change the world around her.
so in all?
volume 6 doesn't ruin this story or anything. it just further hammers in what kind of story this truly is, what it's really about, and i think that's... that's OK too.
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goodnightmemes · 8 months
Text
EVIL DEAD RISE (2023) SENTENCE STARTERS
❛ You looked like you were gonna shit a brick out sideways. ❜
❛ It wouldn't have been a clean decapitation with these blades. You'd just scramble your face up real good. ❜
❛ I gave her Klonopin so she can sleep off whatever the fuck is wrong with her. ❜
❛ Who's the brainless meat puppet now? ❜
❛ We're watching all the Freddy movies in a row. Even the shitty ones. So, you, um, wanna come over and… ❜
❛ You look like mom. ❜
❛ You know, the downstairs buzzer is totally busted. I was able to walk in right off the street. ❜
❛ Ghosts aren't real. ❜
❛ I only believe what I can see. ❜
❛ Hey, be nice or you don't get a gift. ❜
❛ Why didn't you tell me? I would've jumped right on a plane to help you work through this. ❜
❛ I called you. Twice. ❜
❛ I don't blame you. I hate the sound of my voice too. ❜
❛ I screwed up again, like I always do. And I need you to help me figure it out. Again. ❜
❛ I think I peed my pants. ❜
❛ You never take the elevator after a quake. ❜
❛ Oh, honey. I love you guys so much more than pizza. ❜
❛ You think it might be worth something? ❜
❛ I don't think Mom wants cash from something you stole. ❜
❛ Weird shit like this gets locked away for a reason. Just leave it. ❜
❛ I don't like this. You need to put it back right now. ❜
❛ I would like to present what I believe to be one of the three fabled volumes of Naturum Demento, The Book of the Dead. ❜
❛ Destroy it! It's called The Book of the Dead for a reason! ❜
❛ Its pages contain ancient rituals and incantations, the recitation of which proclaim to allow contact with supernatural forces that exist beyond the thin veneer of our known world. ❜
❛ It's okay. It's just a blackout. ❜
❛ It was a perfect day and all I could think about was how much I wanted to cut you all open and climb inside your bodies so that we could stay one happy family. ❜
❛ It's in me. ❜
❛ Don't let it take my babies. ❜
❛ One minute she was fine and the next she was talking crazy and...and now she's gone. ❜
❛ May I pray? ❜
❛ There's an old fire-escape ladder on the north side of the building. I could try to get down that, raise the alarm, get some help in here.❜
❛ You got the tools? We could just cut right through the door. ❜
❛ You ain't gettin' through those old doors without something heavy-duty. ❜
❛ I'm gonna get my gun, and we're gonna blast it open. ❜
❛ I don't like being trapped. ❜
❛ Everyone is on edge enough without a gun getting fired in here. ❜
❛ I don't know what to do. You're the one who always has the answers. ❜
❛ No matter how busy you ever got, you always found time for me. For everyone. ❜
❛ You have to help me. You have to. I'm burning. I'm burning alive! ❜
❛ Mommy's with the maggots now. ❜
❛ What's happening to me? ❜
❛ I'm free now. Free from all you titty-sucking parasites. ❜
❛ Let me kiss it better. ❜
❛ Who wants to rot next? ❜
❛ Get away from the door. ❜
❛ Please, we need help! Let me in! ❜
❛ You never should've stolen it. ❜
❛ This isn't my fault. ❜
❛This is your fault! ❜
❛ You don't turn on each other. Ever. ❜
❛ [name]'s right. This is all my fault. ❜
❛ Oh, there you are. Hey there, cutie-pie. ❜
❛ Open up and let us in. We can be a big, happy family again. ❜
❛ You don't look so good. ❜
❛ Nothing a big old hug and kiss from you won't fix. ❜
❛ Open the door like you open your legs, you stinking groupie slut! ❜
❛ What are you looking at, hon? ❜
❛ I gotta kill the creepy-crawlies that I got inside my tummy. ❜
❛ Is this a nightmare? ❜
❛ Is what happened to [name] gonna happen to us? ❜
❛ You'd be a good mom/dad someday. You know how to lie to kids. ❜
❛ I thought I should tie her up. Just in case. ❜
❛ Yeah, well, maybe there's words on there that can help stop all of this. ❜
❛ My want to understand and commune with the other side could not have been more misguided. ❜
❛ This evil is not governed by the rules of man. No, it takes its pleasure in creating terror through total chaos. ❜
❛ [name]'s kitty hides up there sometimes. ❜
❛ Told you, you should've put the book back. ❜
❛ I can hear them outside the doors now, begging for me. It is only a matter of time before I am taken too. ❜
❛ Nothing can stop this demonic force. Even its final remnants will come after you. ❜
❛ You must run. All you can do is run! ❜
❛ This horror will not stop until innocence is destroyed. ❜
❛ I will swallow your soul. ❜
❛ [name] waits in hell for you and your unborn bastard baby. ❜
❛ Are you gonna be a mom? ❜
❛ I'm getting us out of here. ❜
❛ You have no idea what it's like to bring a child into this world. ❜
❛ Everybody here dies by dawn. Dead by dawn! ❜
❛ Am I dead? ❜
❛ Come get some. ❜
❛ You know, you really do look like Mom. And you're gonna fail miserably just like her. ❜
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thetimelordbatgirl · 27 days
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So I watched the teaser for Red and I have lots of questions:
Why Cinderella’s hair and Chloe’s hair blue?
Isn’t the actress for Chloe half white?
Why there’s a Merlin Academy hall of fame in Auradon?
Why Queen of hearts have a beef with Cinderella? Isn’t that supposed to be Lady Tremaine?
Why Uma is principal?
Why didn’t they change Beast’s statue to Ben’s?
Isn’t Wonderland an imagination in Alice’s head?
Why the Villains are considered VKs?
Why the heroes are in school with the villains? Especially Jasmine, Aladdin and Cinderella?
What’s going on with this?💀
Answering in order here:
*Honestly no fucking clue- I assume its because they want their main characters to have colorful hair like the prior main characters in Descendants 1-3, but even their hair looked better then Cinderella's, both young and old, and Chloe's blue hair. I really don't get why they were allergic to just, letting Brandy and Malia keep their normal hair instead of shoving ugly blue wigs onto them, but... *I do not know about Malia Baker's ethncitiy, I just know with the ugly blue wig and the lighting on that photo shoot, she looks light- not as light as Audrey did at times in D3 with her blonde hair, but you know, its up there. I do know Descendants fucked up when announcing this whole film, aka implying Dara Renee was casted as Chloe, but nope, turns out Dara is playing Ulyana, Ursula's latest younger sister, and Malia Baker is playing Chloe...so don't know what the fuck happened with Descendants there but....and if Malia is half-white...yeah I guess I wouldn't be surprised with Descendants and their track record with POC....or actually Hollywood in general, sufferer of Fate the Winx Saga here... *I can only assume its because Auradon Prep took Merlin Academy's place when Beast established it and such. How it affects what Ben said in D1: "Auradon prep, originally built over 300 years ago and converted into a high school by my father when he became king." can only be described as contunity/timeline breaking....aka Descendants favorite past time- but because of this, I just guess they count Merlin Academy students as ones to honor, since they learnt here once as well. *I have zero fucking clue WHY Cinderella and Queen Of Hearts have beef beyond someone in the Descendants writing room likely threw darts randomly and whoever they landed on would be parents of main characters and also have random as fuck beef- though bold to assume they'd allow Tremaine and Cinderella to have beef, D3 basically at the end was pro-forcing victims to forgive their abusers so like...
*Uma's teaser established that she was asked by Mal (no D*ve means get used to Descendants finding ways to mention Mal in this film) to become principle of Auradon Prep, so uh, that's why- no clue where Fairy Godmother is but she is confirmed to be returning in the movie so like- personally, I don't think Uma as principle makes sense character wise, but I do also see the reasoning other's have used for this character decision so like...its not the worst thing in this film. *I'm pretty sure the statue is less of a current ruler thing and more of a founder thing, since Ben said his father wanted it to remind people anything is possible when Beast founded Auradon Prep. I also don't really see Ben caring much for a statue of himself, since he doesn't give me the vibes of that. Plus, bold of you to assume Descendants films would give Ben a statue, they'd give Mal one over him with how Ben was treated in D3 in comparison to Ben, the actual ruler, during the meeting scene. *In terms of the animated film only? The vibes are that yes, Alice imagined Wonderland after dozing off, since she wakes up back in reality just as shit is hitting the fan. But let's be real, Descendants stopped caring about keeping to the animated films a while back, so they just gonna make Wonderland a real place and roll with it basically. *Answering those two together really on the VKs thing and the school thing: because Descendants is now entering EAH/SFGAE rip off terrority really, aka the idea of future fairy tale heroes and villains attending school together basically. Therefore, all animated films stuff and Descendants contunity/timeline is thrown out the window in favor of this. Like Jasmine and Aladdin logically should not be meeting at this point because they meet first time in animated and Jasmine was kept inside the palace her whole life?? Cinderella at this age would technically be being forced to be step-family's servant and therefore not likely allowed to attend school even? FUCK IT- rip off time! Not like EAH can do much since Mattel basically killed it in the end and SFGAE is doing god knows what right now...
And to that last question: "What's going on with this? 💀" Good question! I do not fucking know. I just know I wish someone would put the dumpster fire out already, but when this movie was announced, it was two movies, so god help us if they go ahead with the second one...
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distortedclouds · 10 days
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Do you think Armin is circumcised? I read that (based on my two google searches lol) circumcisions have been around for thousands of years, but they didn't really become common until the mid-19th century. Aot's technology's seem to be around the late 1800's to 1920's. That being said, do you think there's a chance our boy is cut? oop
......
I think I was the wrong person to ask considering dicks appear in my head as vague rods of light like in censored hentai....
SO I ASKED MY VERY DEAR WIFE @moonspirit! and here's what she had to say (i trust her opinions on The Armin Dick)
"So as a prologue - yes, circumcision did become more widespread toward the late 19th century because by this point in time, it had become first and foremost, a sanitary concern and only after it, a religious tradition. To add to this, during wartime, military men faced the challenge of maintaining proper hygiene at all times and were ordered to undergo surgery to prevent penile illnesses that could affect their service and the overall strength of the military.
Now if we take both of these facts and try to fit it into the Snk universe… The first thing to note is that Paradis was 100 years behind the rest of the world. Let's assume then that without the advancements and progress in medical opinions, circumcision was still seen as a shameful practice, something men would try to avoid unless they had no other choice. Further, religion in Paradis during the 840-845 year period is quite debatable. The only signs of religious presence we see is that of the Wall Church, an organization with considerable power but little influence beyond the inner cities. These guys believed that humanity as a whole was a sin, and that god had put them in the walls to punish them with the threat of titans. It wouldn't be a stretch then, to also say, that these guys would've encouraged circumcision as a procedure to stop men from "committing the sin of masturbation", an idea quite common in the real world back then.
However, going back to the Wall Church's influence - it was very weak in outer cities. In Shiganshina, maybe non-existent among the poor. So it's reasonable to assume Armin wasn't circumcised as an infant, because it wouldn't have been thought necessary.
But what about in the military? Even at the time Armin enrolled as a cadet after the walls broke and the military scrambled into seriousness, we still don't see any circumstances of the military appearing to be influenced by the Wall Church or any such religious or traditional ideology. Then would they have mandated circumcision for sanitary reasons? But they let him keep his long hair (and some other characters have long hair too) so I don't think the rules and regulations were too strict aside from the usual shaving, since graduating the military was a terrific feat in itself, and able bodied soldiers with good ODM skills may have been considered extremely valuable.
Putting all these facts together, I'm inclined to say he's not circumcised." And here's your answer, p1sher. Your boy is intact!
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