This is probably because I grew up watching 24/7 animal planet, but what finally made the allo/aplatonic thing click for me were the nature's of big cats.
Lions are powerful, regal creatures who are uniquely adapted to pack life. They need these connections to live a healthy life; A lonely lion is a miserable creature indeed.
Jaguars are solitary, beautiful creatures who live happily solitary. They prowl their lush world with self-sufficient majesty. A jaguar is not lonely without a pack. In fact, forcing jaguars to share space with others they do not enjoy is just as damaging as forcing a lion to live alone.
A lion may choose to head out on it's own for the most part, but in the end must return to the pack to thrive. A jaguar can choose to trust and enjoy the company of others, but they never feel the need to form a pack.
Is a jaguar selfish for this? A psychopath, a narcissist or any other such horrid assumptions? Is it a less moral creature than a lion, who seeks others like it to thrive?
Is a lion pathetic, or needy, or selfish for wanting community? For requiring contact with others like they require water? For their inherent need to string complicated webs of relationships that may seem silly or dramatic to others?
Of course not. These are ridiculous questions to even ask.
They are simply lions and jaguars.
In fact, is a jaguar that chooses to spend time with you not as magical as a lion's love? For a creature that needs no bond to thrive to still enjoy your presence enough to share it a time? Is a lion who can prowl the night alone not impressive in its strength and resilience? Is it not awe-inspiring in its ability to conquer a life it was never wired for and reign still?
Are they not both beautiful and awe-inspiring in their own ways, without being wrong?
Alloplatonics. Aplatonics. Are we not both special and beautiful in both our bonds and self-confident happiness equal, in each our ways? Is there not unique beauty in lifelong bonded packs and magical encounters that need no perpetuity to carry life forward?
Are we not but lions and jaguars? Neither wrong, neither selfish, but just different and beautiful creatures in each our ways?
That's how I've come to see it, anyway.
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I just want to say, that I agree with almost all of your Critical Role takes and you have 1000% better and more nuanced takes than all of Twitter and I greatly appreciate it! The takes over there regarding Liliana and the gods are just wild and you bring some much needed sanity to the content I see
Thanks! I hope you don't mind because I've been thinking about this re: the Twitter takes but the thing about Twitter and Liliana specifically that I've seen is that there's this really bizarre fetishization of like, the fact that she is a (white) southerner (this also weirdly happened for Birdie though to a much lesser extent, and the person who spearheaded that wasn't even American so I have to assume this is a specific corner of Twitter Culture At Large). And like, here's the thing. It's true that fantasy tends to be very British in its accents, and it's also true that accents in a fantasy world are used to convey the same things we'd assume in our world - RP British for educated, southern American for rural, Cockney for rougher types, etc.
It's also true that laying the exact socioeconomic parallels from our world onto, say, Liliana and Orym (who reads to me as non-regional but I, like Liam, am from the Northeast originally) is a recipe for disaster. Or rather, it's not, but it is going to reaffirm your own biases, some of which are dangerous to reaffirm.
There was a popular post on Tumblr a while back, probably not long after Trump was elected, of someone talking about how they were convincing a relative with the confederate flag towards socialism by appealing to the idea of "isn't in unfair how uneven wealth distribution is and how a small group has so much control" and a number of people were rightfully like "uh, maybe you should focus on the racism" or "hey OP ask your relative who they think that small group in control is because I'm getting a really bad feeling they're going to say it's The Jews." And I feel that a lot of the empathy for Liliana from those spaces feels like that OP. Or in other words: I get that you see your relatives in Liliana. Unfortunately, I cannot help but see me and mine in Orym.
You see someone trapped by circumstance and desperation in a dangerous ideology. I see the fact that I haven't gone to a synagogue in easily 6-7 years without there being a security guard present and usually, the doors locked with someone looking through the window to let you in, and then in the sanctuary there's been an installation so that you can quickly bar all the doors in case an alarm goes off or you hear shots in the lobby.
I think there's a great case for seeing yourself in Imogen, who is in a painful struggle with the fact that her mother does love her very much but is in dangerously deep and has done a number of incredibly terrible and harmful things. That latter point is important, incidentally; I get that cult members sometimes rise through the ranks but all but the leader are being manipulated. But the fact remains that a brainwashed person can still commit atrocities, and in this story, they have, many times over. It's especially true because like...sure, plenty of people are like "I lost my relative to a cult and I just want them back and I couldn't harm them," but also, as we've seen, this cult can and will harm Imogen! Plenty of people are also like "yeah I gotta cut them off, it hurts but unfortunately my horribly bigoted and violent relative, while a victim of brainwashing, is a threat to me too." It's not even the full picture of the Temult side of things, let alone the picture that includes the Vanguard's victims.
I also think the Southern gatekeeping is unhinged because it's like. guys there's QAnon members and other cults across the country; the Confederate flag example above was actually notable in that OP wasn't even Southern so you couldn't even write the flag off as deeply misguided heritage but rather was explicitly being used as a hate symbol. It's awfully presumptive to assume all southerners have the same experience (especially since the Temults are portrayed, physically and in accents, as white southerners, not that the experiences of white southerners aren't also incredibly varied). It's awfully presumptive to assume that people find Liliana threatening because they have no personal experience with people like her; often, it's because they have all too real experience with people like her, and it says something even worse about you if you can say "but you guys, I see me and my family in Liliana" when people are telling you that they see them and their families in Orym. I would not, personally, publicly admit that one's empathy extends to the people who remind you of your family but runs out before it reaches their victims. Nor would I publicly admit that I assume everyone who disagrees with me clearly has never had personal experience with this topic.
I should also note that, as I've noted a number of times before, that these are fictional characters and not real people. Twitter seems to be really fucking bad at grasping that. Like, yes, this is the other thing; I do not think that OP should kill their Confederate flag-toting relative, whereas if Imogen did so to Liliana I'd be like "hell yeah." The former is a real person who I do hope gets deprogrammed, just, you know, maybe adjust those priorities; the latter is a fictional character in a story.
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post-canon every single member of kimcom likes to spoon kim dokja. nonsexually. it's just nice to know he's alive and there and feel his chest rise and fall within the circle of your arms. try to do something stupid now asshole. oh you can't? because of my octopus impression? that's right. take THAT. however i will make one exception for yoo joonghyuk. yoo joonghyuk may want to spoon kim dokja, but he never gets the opportunity because kim dokja wants to spoon him more. so the sleeping arrangement is yjh>kdj>all other kimcom members on rotation. actually i take it back there's one other household member who doesn't want to spoon kim dokja and it's yoo mia, but that's fine because she's one of the only people (besides kim dokja) who yoo joonghyuk would be comfortable spooning. so there's probably times when it's yma>yjh>kdj>today's lucky winner.
incidentally this is also the order for the doing-each-other's-hair train because while yoo mia WILL allow other people to do her hair, no one wants to because she always compares their skills unfavorably to her brother's. and she's really articulate about it. just utterly scathing. one time her criticism was so devastatingly, accurately incisive that she made lee hyunsung cry. yoo joonghyuk spooned him that night to cheer him up and yoo mia was so mad about it that lee hyunsung had to leave the country for a couple weeks. the household learned a valuable lesson that day. it's best not to disturb the delicate spooning/hair-train balance.
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I don't usually talk about the mgafs, but like-
Bloodmoon has a bomb in their head now-
First Lunar, then Eclipse, and now Bloodmoon…it really went full circle-
The parallels continue to drive me insane/pos-
ALSO WHAT THE FUCK, DID THE CREATOR KILL A BUNCH OF KIDS??
WHERE DID ANDREW AND JAKE COME FROM???
ARE THEY HIS SONS??👀
ARE THEY JUST TWO RANDOM CHILDREN???
The Laes episode was also just-
Jesus, Sun really needs this!
He sounds so tired, so unsure…
He has been through everything, and just when he thought, they got through the worst of it, shits hitting the fan so damn fast, he isn't able to process it!
He seems to become rather numb to it.
I have seen someone point out, that it could be survivor's guilt, which does make sense.
He has seen so much death, both before, and after the separation, and now it's involving people he cares for.
Lunar died, someone who moved out, after Sun yelled at them, likely leading him to blaming himself.
Old Moon passed, something he has blamed himself for, I'm pretty sure.
And now it's Solar.
This time, Sun simply took the time to relax, to move into the background and leave things be, which now makes him feel as though he didn't do enough, didn't help enough, when in reality, he shouldn't have to.
It has just become such a norm to stay on guard for them all, that it feels wrong to take a breather!
I can imagine there being guilt, after living through so many deaths, and being the last one standing.
Beside Earth, of course!
There might also be guilt, for not grieving as much as the rest of them🤔
He wasn't as close to Solar, and while he did care, and does grieve, he feels as though he's not feeling enough.
Sun has grown so damn weary, he's just kinda going through the motions.
Everyone in this family needs a big vacation, and a lifelong break!
-Stardust
I KNOWWW the way I immediately went !!! at Bloodmoon getting planted w/ a bomb in the same fashion as Lunar n Eclipse. I am UNWELL.
AND THE WHOLE DEAL WITH THE STITCHWRAITH YEA OMG. WHAT IS UP WITH THAT!!!! I think any possible option here is just varying levels of "oh right the Creator is a wretched little man" LMAO 😭
AND SUN AOUGH YEA :( I noticed that he sounded kinda distant too and I was just like aoaughhh... poor boy. It absolutely reads as survivors guilt and that honestly just breaks my heart. I feel like a lotta people worry that Sun has yet to be effected by the celestial family curse, but honestly it makes just as much sense if it never hits him and he's just left with the weight of years on his back, yk???
AND YEA oms I didn't even think about the fact he'd feel bad for taking a step bacl bc he's so used to helping however he could with the Current Events. But now he's just chilling and it feels like he's not being "useful enough" :((( UGH that's so sad. I am SO seconding the vacation and lifelong break </3
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