#in a very specific self destructive manner | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cerastes · 1 year

Note

'stultifera navis' is a reference? I mean, when I saw people going "oh it means stupid boat" figured that that wasn't *quite* the whole story but no one's explained what else it means.

You know how we are intimately familiar with Plato's Allegory of the Cave?

This thing? Alright, so Plato didn't make just one allegory. Plato's Allegory of the Cave comes from Plato's "Republic", specifically Book VII. In Book VI, one can find the Allegory of the Ship of Fools. Long story short, the allegory's intent is to represent the problems of leadership and governance in a political system where the key figures aren't chosen based on expert knowledge, but rather, other things altogether ('divine right' is a good example).

Now, with this in mind, we talk about Stultifera Navis, a satirical allegory from 1494 by one Sebastian Brant, a German humanist. It's other title is Daß Narrenschyff ad Narragoniam, in medieval German, all meaning the same: "Ship of Fools". It's worth noting that the Ship of Fools was a popular concept in this era, much like the internet really likes the Allegory of the Cave! Humanity has always been the same in some regards.

Brant's Stultifera Navis was about a fleet, the Fleet of Fools, bound for the Paradise of Fools and, without getting too into it, because it's a decently long read consisting of over one hundred brief satires, it serves as a criticism towards the Christian Church and how it was, largely, a mangle of underqualified fools not only having WAY too much agency in the lives of WAY too many people, but also, it was driving itself in such a hilariously self-destructive manner that it eventually sinking was practically inevitable. Brant creates a character, the Saint Grobian, whom Brant made into the patron saint of vulgar and crass people, so not only was he making a whole book with over 100 little stories about how much a dumbass collective the Church was, he also got spicy and threw in his own OC, Grobian the Hedgehog, the worst and shittiest of them all, and the one that codified the Church most closely.

Now, you may be thinking, "Hey, did Brant get fucking burned at the cross for this or something? Wasn't criticism of the Church the leading cause of death back in those days right after being invaded by Church for no reason?". Well, there was a SPECIAL JUTSU you could use back in the day, one that rendered you naught but a little birthday guy that couldn't be killed for criticism: Employing the voice of the fool. Y'see, Court Fools were allowed to say whatever they wanted, because they were court fools, and this little loophole allowed certain figures of the time, like Desiderius Erasmus, to criticize the Church openly, as he did in "The Praise of Folly", and when the Churchboyz came to his house with pikes and broadswords, demanding he step right out to they could eviscerate him for the SIN of speaking ill against Our Most Righteous, Loving, And Considerate Of Institutions, The Holy Church Itself, Erasmus threw his arms up in mock surrender and yelled "I'm just a little fool! The work was written from the voice and perspective of but a fool! I'm just a birthday fool! Come on, man, don't get so mad!" and then the Churchboyz, smoldering in white blistering ire, sheathed their arsenal and walked away FUMING because he was now impervious to Christblasts.

Well, Brant used the same jutsu, as the book is Entirely about Fools, he claimed it was just the fools talking, ergo, it's not what he REALLY thought, ok? Just some food for thought, a little what if, no need to get so spicy over a WORK OF FICTION. So the Church harrumphed and hmppphroomed their way home, stomping their feet all the way through because AGAIN they couldn't execute someone for their (alleged) opinion.

Now, moving to the Arknights' Stultifera Navis, given how much the event shows the longing for the Iberian Golden Age, and very much states how impossible it is to go back to those days, simply because, one, the world has changed to something that would never again sustain this Iberian Golden Age, and two, the 'Golden Age' in itself was built upon the systematic oppression and suffering of others, ranging from the Aegir persecuted within the Iberian lands to the Victorians and Bolivars raided and pillaged outside the Iberian borders, and it was the selfsame greed, close-mindedness and ignorance of Iberia that led to its natural end. The Inquisition is very much a Ship of Fools: Guided by old relics, fueled by archaic and obsolete beliefs, it's bound to collapse under its own weight. Saint Carmen himself is the perfect representation of the Inquisition: Tired, old, full of regrets, putting a strong front, yet completely ravaged and exhausted, his life artificially prolonged well past the natural lifespan of a Liberi, guided by ostensibly good intentions and yet adhering to principles that necessarily involve the oppression of certain people in order to exist. I wouldn't say Saint Carmen and Saint Grobian are one and the same, but you can't help but see some similarity. Patron saint of the vulgar and crass indeed.

The allegory also extends to Aegir to some degree as well, but we don't have the full picture just yet. Stultifera Navis does suggest that Aegir Beefed It to some degree as well, and not a minor beef, either.

Notably, Laurentina defies the trope: Her recovery stems in part to having let go of her "Golden Age": The times when she could have pursued her passions as a sculptor, the times when she happily hunted away with her fellow Hunters in the 2nd Company, the times when she didn't have a country's worth of Super Death Rock Cancer Juice in her spine, the entire swath of time she lost due to having been replaced by 'Specter', the time when she was blissfully unaware of her Seaborn blood, she makes it clear to Amaia: She's fully aware that all of these things are irrevocably lost, and that that's fine, she's got the present and the future still. She misses that Golden Age of her life, but doesn't agonize over it, she simply has to make a new Golden Age, comprised of other, unknown, exciting things, in the future.

Sometimes, you don't need to think too hard about it. Just tear apart what's in front of you, and move forward. She is not a crewmember of the Ship of Fools.

There's a few more comparisons and connections you can draw between the Allegory of the Ship of Fools and Arknights' Stultifera Navis, but I think the point has been made!

#biggaybunny #arknights #stultifera navis #specter

522 notes · View notes

she-posts-nerdy-stuff · 11 months

Note

Absolutely banger content!! Love it! When Kaz calls Inej "treasure of my heart" he's cheapening an otherwise meaningful phrase. Do you think he is being totally sarcastic or is he deadpanning his feelings to a degree? Because a little later he describes another time he said something cold-blooded to Inej and says to himself "in moments like that he thought she might hate him." Can the second quote be used as context to explain the "treasure of my heart" quote?

Hi, thank you so much!

I definitely think that this is a prime example of using sarcasm as a defence mechanism, so although he comes across completely sarcastic - as confirmed by Inej’s reaction, which is to look pointedly at his cane and wish him a long trip down the stairs before she herself slides down the bannister - I would agree that to some degree he is voicing his genuine feelings. It could be viewed in a somewhat self-destructive nature, because by voicing these feelings in a manner that he knows will elicit a negative response from Inej he can use it as evidence for her not returning his affection and therefore use it as a reason not express his feelings in any real way - claiming that she won’t be interested, when actually he simply has a massively debilitating fear of being vulnerable bred in him by Rollins and the general attitudes/environment of the gangs in the Barrel (and arguably to some degree Jordie as well; by trying to protect his younger brother he doesn’t necessarily convey the full severity of their situation when they first arrive in Ketterdam, inadvertently leading to the belief that such vulnerabilities should never be spoken of or discussed becoming a highly complex and difficult aspect of Kaz’s character)

When Kaz comments “in moments like that, he thought she might hate him” it’s coming off the back of him effectively defending the appropriation of Inej’s culture. She is horrified to see the Suli Jackal masks on sale and being worn by pleasure seekers in Ketterdam, because they should only be worn by Suli seers and are “sacred symbols”. In return, Kaz says that he’s seen the seers “ply their trade on party boats and in pleasure houses” and that “they didn’t seem very holy”, and when she says that “they are pretenders” and “they’re laughing at you behind those masks” he responds coolly that he would never pay to have his fortune told, whether it was from a conman or a holy man. When Inej is visibly upset by this conversation, he comments that he wonders if she hates him, and I think that a large aspect of this is because he is the only person who knows what she went through to its fullest extent. And the specifically relevant aspect of what he knows here, is that Inej was forced to appropriate her culture herself when she was at the Menagerie (slight tangent, but so was Nina, it’s very interesting, I’ve mentioned it in a post before). Inej describes her room at the Menagerie to be a farcical mockery of a Suli caravan, she was forced to “donn false Suli silks”, and it’s even mentioned that the only reason she was ‘the lynx’ is that the Jackal masks were seen as unattractive - “but what man would want to bed a Jackal? So instead, the Suli girl - and the Menagerie always stocked a Suli girl - wore the lynx”. What a quote. What. A. Quote. Starting with the Jackal, it makes it clear that there are no lines that won’t be crossed, and that’s emphasised by other girls at the Menagerie wearing animals sacred to their countries such as the Fjerdan woman being the wolf, and that the only reason Inej didn’t have to wear an outfit similar to the one she’s so horrified by here is that it couldn’t be sexualised and exploited the same way the lynx could. And then we have “and the Menagerie always stocked a Suli girl”. Wow. That gets me every time I read it. There are two main things I want to comment on in this quote, so I’ll start with “stocked”. This singular world is so dehumanising; the idea that the women and girls at the Menagerie are seen as stock, produce, literal consumables that can be bought and traded and sold. There’s also the point that Inej herself is the one using this word, and I think it’s left purposefully ambiguous as to whether this is a satirical usage of the word on her behalf as a criticism of the culture surrounding pleasure houses and cultural appropriation in Kerch (although more specifically Ketterdam), or if it’s the product of indoctrination to this toxic culture - similar to Nina’s horror at releasing that the appropriation and disdain for foreigners she’s been surrounded by has actually led her to judge traditional Ravkan dress as old-fashioned in Crooked Kingdom (I think it’s chapter 13). The second thing about this quote I want to mention is “always”. “Always”. It so subtly introduces so early on in the books the deeply ingrained over-sexualisation of Suli culture, which is evidenced time and time again but most specifically in the ‘Rare Spices’ billboard that Inej describes un Crooked Kingdom. I could talk about that billboard for DAYS so I won’t go into it here because this is already a long post.

But I think it’s incredibly important that Kaz knows all of this when he makes these comments, every time he mocks her gods or her “depressing Suli wisdom”, he knows that he is part of a culture that dehumanises and sexualises and appropriates and reduces everything about who she is, and he knows that it’s hurting her, of course it would hurt her anyway, but especially hurting her because she was forced to do it herself as a cherry on top of the worst year in Inej’s life, a year made of unending pain and terror. But arguably this is once again all that self-destructive nature; the pushing her away, similarly to the sarcasm as a defence mechanism, because it is easier to hate than to love, and because if she hates him then he never has to be vulnerable with her.

Oh wow I just looked at that and realised it’s way longer than I thought, sorry about that… Thank you for reading it, and thank you so much for the question this was really interesting to think about! :)

#grishaverse #leigh bardugo #six of crows #crooked kingdom #inej ghafa #kaz brekker #nina zenik #jesper fahey #wylan van eck #kanej #kanej brainrot #kanej my beloved #kanej supremacy #analysis #fantasy books #book analysis #long post #amita suman #freddy carter

156 notes · View notes

plinkodiskhorse · 1 year

Text

on labels

The back and forth over the use of the word “queer” baffles and frustrates me. I think the arguments, and the term itself, are illustrative of a dialectic. Queer is simultaneously collective and individual, affiliation-group and self-identity, over-arching and specific, degrading and embracing. Until a time comes that all variations and expressions of gender and sexuality (and combinations thereof) are free from social and institutional stigma, queer will never mean just one thing.

Queer, as an over-arching term for anyone who is NOT cisgender, heterosexual, or perisex, acknowledges the overlap and interplay of gender assigned at birth, identified gender, gender expression, sexual attraction. A cisgender, butch dyke (a person assigned female at birth who aligns with that identity and is attracted to other women, while expressing her gender in a “masculine” manner) and a faggy, transgender man (a person assigned female at birth who “rejects” womanhood while dating men and expressing an “effeminate” masculinity) may seem very different from one another but can have MANY shared experiences of “queerness.” Both may be targets of transphobia and misogyny — even when one of them isn’t trans and one of them isn’t a woman — and both may be targets of homophobia. “Queer” (can, should) holds space for all of these aspects of self, even when they seem to contradict one another.

(How can a transgender man experience misogyny? When he is not perceived/treated as a man, but as a “failed woman.” How can a cisgender woman experience transphobia? When she is perceived/treated as a “non-passing” transgender woman encroaching upon “women’s spaces.”)

When this hypothetical cis dyke and transfag both claim the word “queer,” there is (or should be, in this umbrella interpretation of queer) an understanding that “your fight is my fight.” We may not be the exact same flavor of queer, but our liberation is interconnected. My freedom, as a transgender man, cannot be won at the expense of women’s freedom. I don’t mean that just in the sense that I would be morally opposed to that situation; I mean it in the sense that the oppression of women WILL impact my own freedom.

The baroque complexities of queerness become further entangled when considering race, religion, and disability. Can “queer” hold the history of racialized gender in America? That black people have been hypersexualized/virilized and subsequently fetishized and denigrated for this projection. That East Asian women have been seen as seductresses or naturally submissive, while East Asian men are desexualized or objectified as seeming young and effeminate. The stereotypes of the hot blooded Latina and the macho Latino. Can “queer” encompass the deliberate destruction of Native gender identities and the subsequent (current) obfuscating mythologizing by white queers? Can “queer” be a place for people who see their gender and/or sexuality as a manifestation of/connection to the Divine while also being a place for those deeply harmed by religion because of their gender/sexuality? Can “queer” accept people with disabilities as people capable of eroticism even if their bodies don’t allow for some forms of sex acts?

As a dialectic, rather than a static fact, queer can hold these things, and there are times that queer will be too broad for all these things and specificity is needed.

As a dialectic, queer is a slur and an academic term. Queer is an acceptable word in a peer-reviewed journal, and has the potential to be “fighting words” interpersonally. What matters is the context and the individual interpretation. And it’s HIGHLY personal.

I was born and raised in Texas from the 90s to the 2010s. I never heard queer used as an insult, except in media from (or set in) the past. If I had heard someone use queer as an insult, my initial reaction would have been confusion. Are you fucking old? Is this the 70s? But I did hear gay used as an insult all the time. And faggot and dyke, if there weren’t any teachers within hearing range. I didn’t really encounter queer until undergrad, as an academic term, an area of study, and then as how my friends self-identified. Because of this, my associations with queer are largely positive.

But I know people who also grew up in Texas, only a 30-45min drive away from where I grew up, who did experience queer as a slur. For them, they may feel more comfortable reclaiming fag or dyke, rather than queer. And that’s their decision to make. And yet, it would be reductive if they were to treat queer as only ever a slur, not as a word with decades of usage in academic and intracommunity contexts.

I like queer as a word that can veil meaning.

It can be a conversation stopper. You don’t get to know the specifics of my gender history, my sexual partners, the roles I take in sex, the acts I enjoy during sex.

It can be a conversation starter. I see you’re different in a way that is similar to how I’m different; let us now ask each other oblique and leading questions that the cis hets around us won’t understand.

I dislike how queer is increasingly absorbed into the corporate rainbow-washing of assimilationists. A company doesn’t get to sell me Pride merch with one hand and donate to anti-trans politicians with the other hand.

I cannot say that queer retains its edge, nor can I say that it has been defanged. I cannot force others to reclaim the word, nor can I gatekeep the word. In the first “queer studies” class I ever had, my professor explained “autonomy” literally means “self-naming.”

There is no right or wrong answer, there is only ever-increasing nuance.

#lgbtq #on labels

268 notes · View notes

morlock-holmes · 8 months

Text

The real reason that nonviolence is considered to be a virtue in Negroes—I am not speaking now of its racial value, another matter altogether— is that white men do not want their lives, their self-image, or their property threatened. One wishes they would say so more often. At the end of a television program on which Malcom X and I both appeared, Malcolm was stopped by a white member of the audience who said, “I have a thousand dollars and an acre of land. What’s going to happen to me?” I admired the directness of the man’s question, but I didn’t hear Malcolm’s reply, because I was trying to explain to someone else that the situation of the Irish a hundred years ago and the situation of the Negro today cannot very usefully be compared. Negroes were brought here in chains long before the Irish ever thought of leaving Ireland; what manner of consolation is it to be told that emigrants arriving here—voluntarily—long after you did have risen far above you? In the hall, as I was waiting for the elevator, someone shook my hand and said, “Goodbye, Mr. James Baldwin. We'll soon be addressing you as Mr. James X.” And I thought, for an awful moment, My God, if this goes on much longer, you probably will.

James Baldwin - The Fire Next TIme

Man, man I followed a chain of links and found that paper, "Decolonization is not a metaphor" and I read like three quarters of the dang thing before I realized that we all already got mad at it because it is morally insane.

This is less about the idea of a literal mass expropriation of land, and therefore wealth, from the current owners in the US, which A) is not going to happen any time soon (Land acknowledgements are acknowledging that you ain't giving the damn land back to anybody); and B) if you tell me that the land I live in will be given to the local indigenous people my first question is,

"So will they be raising the rent as much as the previous owners did?"

What's morally insane is... Okay, no, I object to the idea that the question is irrelevent, although the authors of the paper do say fairly explicitly that it is wholly irrelevant.

What I find morally insane about the paper is not the idea that the authors wish to ignore my feelings on the matter, but the very strong suggestion that I should train myself not to have an opinion on the matter.

I linked the paper up there, I don't want to summarize too much, but essentially, it posits a triad of indiginous person/settler/slave, which in the US context maps more or less onto Native American/white/black.

Indigenous peoples are those who have creation stories, not colonization stories, about how we/they came to be in a particular place - indeed how we/they came to be a place. Our/their relationships to land comprise our/their epistemologies, ontologies, and cosmologies. For the settlers, Indigenous peoples are in the way and, in the destruction of Indigenous peoples, Indigenous communities, and over time and through law and policy, Indigenous peoples’ claims to land under settler regimes, land is recast as property and as a resource.

Settler, in this paper, is not meant very literally. The settlement of the US involved not just the theft of land specifically, but the creation of certain narratives about who has rights to use land and in what way. My ancestors in this country go back hundreds of years but they are, to our best knowledge, legally white, and I am therefore a settler in the sense of having a certain relationship to certain racial and conceptual categories.

Don't get me wrong: the history of this country makes at least certain versions of that idea very plausible.

So what am I supposed to do with that?

If I take the authors of this paper morally seriously, (And once I took similar views very seriously, in some ways I still do) where does that put me?

Settlers in a country like the US do not and cannot have a creation story about how we came to be in a certain place. That I am a settler in the US very much does not make me somehow indigenous to Brittany where many of my ancestors come from; I do not have a story of how my people came to be in Brittany or Great Brittain any more than I have one for how we came to be in the USA.

What I can become, perhaps, is an immigrant:

Settlers are not immigrants. Immigrants are beholden to the Indigenous laws and epistemologies of the lands they migrate to.

Here's a question: How, as a settler, would I acquire the moral right to influence the laws and epistemologies of whichever land I should migrate to?

I don't have the legitimizing moral narratives that indigenous peoples do, am I doomed to simply occupy a subordinate place in a new hierarchy?

The authors, I should note, explicitly say no, but also explicitly say that they basically can't explain why not and so I just shouldn't worry about the question for now.

Honestly I think a tremendous amount of American history involves attempts to deal, psychologically, with the fact that the question of who has power and who doesn't has been decided in a way which is at odds with most of our country's moral pretensions. I think that shame has been one of the great psychological factors driving white attitudes in the US, both racist and anti-racist.

Think about what the "moves to innocence" that the authors delineate would mean if you took their moral position seriously. Those moves to innocence are attempts, I am quite sure, to find a way to act in the world for your own benefit without feeling shame. The indigenous person can ask for the control of the land they occupy without shame; for the settler, even to occupy the land is to make yourself part of a shameful process.

"Decolonization is not a metaphor" treats the desire to express oneself without feeling shame around it as essentially a distraction.

The settler is simultaneously morally obligated to exercise a tremendous amount of power and effort, because how could the non-metaphorical expropriation of all US land and the end of the USA as a functioning state take anything other than a tremendous amount of power and effort, but also to have no thought at all about what the ethical exercise of power from a settler would look like.

It is morally imperative that the settler begin to act and use his power in a moral way and at the same time the very question of how the settler would do so is understood as a frustrating distraction from more important questions.

The only possible response for a person who takes this seriously and conceives of themselves as a settler is to just fall back on an entirely incoherent self-image because the demands being made of them are fundamentally incoherent, to feel a kind of shame without shame.

I have probably over-explained this and yet not quite gotten to the central problem. I really disagree with this paper, and I think it is fundamentally unserious and fundamentally poisonous.

Not because the authors propose a massive reorganization of land but because they are utterly unwilling to think about what that would mean on any level whatsoever.

#politics #discourse #Yes I still am very angry at this stuff #I admire the james baldwin quote I used just to be clear

143 notes · View notes

utilitycaster · 1 year

Note

The wildest part about the reaction to Ashton’s comment is that Laudna herself didn’t even seem to take it personally? Her reaction to it seemed more like “ok that’s not true and I’m going to push back on it, but you’re clearly having a self destructive dark night of the soul and I want to make sure you’re okay”. Like give our girl a little more credit here.

Hey anon,

Hope you don't mind but you are getting a heavily edited and more measured part of the threatened rant because like. Yeah. That's the thing isn't it? Laudna is the one who sought out Ashton while they were drinking. And when he slips into self-pity, she tells him to snap out of it, but she's not mad. I happen to agree with this meta that Ashton isn't saying "I know loneliness and you don't"; they're saying "I know the very specific loneliness of not knowing where I came from". (I also think there's a possibility that they're saying "I know the loneliness that comes from knowing the people who weren't there when you came back to life could have been and chose not to"; it's not that Laudna didn't wake up alone the first time, it's that she was alone because everyone else was dead whereas the Nobodies could have chosen to stick by them and did not.) And then, the next day, he apologizes (something Imogen does not do), and she tells him not to be too hard on himself.

Laudna clearly looks on this conversation positively. She even brings it up when she talks with Imogen in that manner - she doesn't say "wow can you believe what that asshole said?" but rather focuses on Ashton's compliment to her. I mean, it's nothing new, for people to carefully ignore any context that might more sympathetically frame a character they hate, or to defend how perfect and traumatized their Mary Sue-ass interpretation of a female character is in such a way that it denies the actual agency and emotions of that character as portrayed on screen, but it's just as stupid every time, as is the constant insistence that the best way to have a ship is to isolate two characters such that they only have each other, that they're the only ones who can ever truly understand each other.

You know, I've seen people draw parallels between Laudna telling Imogen the choice is up to her regarding how they proceed tomorrow, and Imogen telling Laudna that the choice was up to her during her resurrection. And here's the thing: Imogen's appeal to Laudna during the resurrection failed. The goal of bringing Laudna back succeeded, but Imogen's specific attempt was a minor hindrance, not a help.

I can't help but wonder if Laudna leaving things to Imogen might end up the same; that they keep going on, together, but these hairline fractures keep building up and never healing, and perhaps one day there will be too many.

Shippers keep saying this is so beautiful because it's about giving each other choices when they've never had any, but that's patently untrue. Laudna had no choice in Delilah, but really, given how normal people even in small towns like Heartmoor Hamlet have been towards her, or the fact that she's not significantly weirder than Weva Vudol, or the fact that every shopkeeper in Exandria is, canonically, fucking bananas, there's a lot she could have done in those 30 years. I mean, she somehow made it to Gelvaan which is not exactly something you fall into from Tal'Dorei without making some kind of decision. Imogen had no choice in her powers but otherwise she's had no shortage of choices. In fact, that's quite literally what Laudna is saying: Imogen always had the option of going to live in a cottage and raise horses. Imogen has always had choices, and doesn't need to kill the gods to free herself.

For that matter, could you not draw a similar parallel between Laudna's transformation at the hands of Delilah without her choosing, and Ashton, who was part of a ritual as a young child below any reasonable age of consent that permanently changed them physically? Or FCG, who was quite literally programmed to be who they are? If you take off the shipper goggles and actually remember that there are five other characters, suddenly these parallels become far more widespread.

But also: here's the thing about leaving all the choices up to the other person. It protects you from the possibility that they might say no to you. It reframes things: had Laudna not been successfully resurrected, she's not saying no to Imogen; she's making her own choice, even though the result is the same. If Imogen goes with Otohan now, well, then Laudna can tell herself that it was Imogen's choice to side with the woman who murdered her, but at least she has the thin comfort that Imogen didn't exactly say "no" to a direct appeal; that it's merely an implied rather than explicit betrayal.

It's just...I know this campaign is a little weird in that this massive world-ending event is happening comparatively early; but also, Imogen and Laudna have known each other for two years. And obviously Imogen isn't Vex, she isn't Vax, she isn't Fjord, she isn't Beau or Yasha, but like, you know what all of those people did when they were facing a dangerous situation and thought death was imminent? They, through word or action, looked at the person they loved and didn't just say "I love you", they said "I'm in love with you", "can I kiss you," or opened the door naked. They said "I might die tomorrow and I cannot go forward without telling you that this is something more than just friendship to me," knowing that it was possible that, on the last night of their life, the person they loved might turn them down. Hell, Keyleth did initially turn Vax down, and he still did it.

Imogen and Laudna? They spent the night the same way they might have at the very beginning of the campaign - before the campaign, even. Laudna said she loved Imogen in what, episode 6? They've been sharing rooms and beds for two years. Nothing has changed in their relationship. And it is my suspicion that nothing will, until one of them actually asks something of the other. And again - that's all it will take for me to go from "this is boring and empty" to "ok, this is a ship" - for them to be able to take a risk.

I could quite honestly go on but like...this reply, which I got shortly after Laudna's death (when I said there was value in a story in which she remains dead) has haunted me since.

It really explains everything, doesn't it? It's why people were mad when I said it was valid for Imogen to be upset at Laudna about the gnarlrock; it's why they were mad that I said that there was no canonical basis for the people of Gelvaan or Relvin mistreating Imogen (in fact, it outright contradicts what we've seen in canon); it's why they hate Ashton right now. It's why if Imogen is interested in the gnarlrock as a way to find relief from her powers and gets mad at Laudna for breaking it, she sucks, but if Imogen considers starting the apocalypse to find relief from her powers it's totally fine. It's why they'll harass people for saying "you know, it could be an interesting story if Laudna dies permanently," and then turn around and offer more sympathy to Otohan - the character who would have been responsible for that permanent death - than they do to Orym, the character who has lost two family members and nearly his own life to her. Because Otohan might have murdered Laudna, but damn, at least she seems to ship it.

They don't see Imogen and Laudna as separate characters who can grow and change - they don't even refer to Laudna as her own fucking name, just as part of a portmanteau - and they are terrified whenever the two have even the slightest conflict (not unlike Imogen and Laudna themselves) because it means that the characters interact with people other than each other. Laudna dying permanently isn't a character death to them - it's "throwing [the ship] away." Laudna having other conversations and relationships is a threat to the ship, even if Laudna enjoys it - in fact, especially if Laudna enjoys it. Other people coming into Imogen's dreams with the express purpose of helping her is a threat. Because if either of the characters ever realize that this codependency isn't serving them, and that they have other people who will stand by them and won't leave them to their loneliness...well. The constant reassurances that they have each other might no longer be enough if they have other people.

That's why the shippers are mad at Ashton. Yes, because it's a possible competing ship; but also because they pointed out that Laudna had six people by her when she woke up, not just one, and that opens the door to Laudna realizing she has other people who will stand by her, and who aren't openly and repeatedly entertaining an alliance with her murderer. They do not actually give a shit about how Laudna feels.

#answered #Anonymous #long post #critical role #critical role spoilers #me @ laudna: girl your security blanket is full of asbestos fibers #anyway for those wanting more rants in this vein please feel free to ask me why this is not comparable to caleb and veth's relationship #or uh. really anything about why it's like. not good or interesting as a ship

147 notes · View notes

nottapossum · 2 months

Note

I'm not sure if this was already asked or not, but how is Alastor with other littles? Like if or when he has playdates? :3

I did talk about it a little bit

Here

And

Here.

Buuuuutttttt I could go over more specific littles.

When it comes to interacting with adults, little Alastor is completely fine with females, but he's very suspicious about male caregivers. Even if they're only watching him temporarily.

And it's similar to littles.

-Alastor and Niffty match energy so well, so he always gets along with her (little or otherwise)

-Charlie always tries her best to make him feel comfortable and like he can be himself around her. She doesn't always understand his crazy antics, but she does her best to be supportive anyway. And he appreciates that.

-Vaggy and Alastor co-exist pretty well while regressing. Usually, she's pretty mild-mannered and simple. So he'll just quietly join whatever activity she's doing. Like an adorable copy cat.

-Angel: Angel has issues getting along with other littles, just like Alastor, so it will take them a while to get used to each other. As things start, at least their little self having a playdate would be them staring at each other.

Angel with a glare.

Alastor with his creepy little smile.

-Sir Pentious: Pentious would try to get Alastor to play Legos with him, and Alastor would destroy everything he builds. Pen would try to tolerate it, but eventually, Pentious would get sick of it and leave.

Alastor would naturally assume he won the game they were obviously playing! :D

-Cherri: Cherri actually thinks Alastor is a lot of fun! She loves the chaos and will encourage any destructive game he wants to play!

-Alastor loves nothing more than to mess with lucifer. Big or little.

Like he'll often pull pranks on him, frame him for stuff he didn't do, and they'll argue a lot. Even if Alastor is very baby, he'll babble angerly while 3 year old lucifer gets very offended at stuff he doesn't even understand.

They'll glare at one another and compete at any game the family is playing.

No one else matters. They're only enemies to each other!

And he loves it more than anything!

@todayimfour

#ittybittysinners #ittybittysinnersq&h #little!Alastor #helluverse age regression #helluverse agere #hazbin hotel fanfic #hazbin hotel age regression #hazbin hotel agere

48 notes · View notes

henrysglock · 1 year

Text

We Really Need To Talk About Henry Creel and the "Psychopath" Label.

I'm putting the word "psychopath" on a high shelf and out of reach until further notice because we as a whole clearly a) does not understand what psychopathy is, b) does not know what it actually looks like in people, and c) is more than happy feeding into the already existing stigma around the disorder by using the term to describe someone who is a villain, but who's also very much not a psychopath if you look at his actual mannerisms and beliefs.

That is to say: If we completely ignore any timeline fuckery and treat Vecna/Henry like one singular guy...The terms you all are looking for are "pathological altruism", "superiority complex", cPTSD, and/or autism.

Y'know, things that can stem from intense, prolonged childhood trauma and are characterized by a) believing oneself to have the power, authority, and duty to fix others' problems for them, b) fluctuations in sensitivity/reactivity to triggering situations, and c) reactive judgmental behavior.

"Psychopath" is not a catch-all for villains, and it does not equate to "violent man disorder".

Let's do a little psychoanalysis of what Henry actually does, working chronologically.

Little Henry (age 12)

He's described as "sensitive". This is code for many things throughout the show, some of which being artistic tendencies, quiet personality, increased vulnerability to emotional harm, queerness, neurodivergence, and connection to the supernatural.

He's shown gently collecting spiders in furnished jars. Henry identifies with the spiders, identifies that they both have been cast aside, and uses that connection to reach the conclusion that the spiders need love and care. He then handles them gently and spends time making homes for them. This alone is a display of empathy, sympathy, and compassion.

He's lonely, rejected by his mother and his peers. This rejection hurts him, and he later bitterly internalizes/recontextualizes the experience to avoid that hurt.

He's called "broken", but later realizes that he isn't broken at all. This indicates that he believed he was broken for some span of time, and his later anger surrounding the topic indicates that that experience hurt him.

He displays a variety of emotions. Henry openly displays sadness, fear, anger, enjoyment, fascination, and excitement.

He is unable to hide his social "wrongness". He couldn't hide the fact that he was different from the other children, indicating that a) he tried and failed, and b) he wanted to fit in at one point.

His father seemed to have liked him as a person. Whatever was "wrong" with Henry, whatever it was that he couldn't hide, it wasn't something that made Victor dislike him.

He recognizes cruelty in society and openly condemns it. Yes, I recognize the later irony in that. That's part of the narrative structure of his villain arc. This isn't about Vecna, it's about preteen Henry.

He hates dishonesty. Whether it be dishonesty with others or with the self, Henry has a specific and powerful hatred of lying.

Now, if anyone tries to tell you about diagnosed "child psychopaths", they're lying to you.

Psychopathy is clinically knowns as Anti-Social Personality Disorder, and it cannot be diagnosed until ages 18+, since children tend to grow out of any "psychopathy markers" they might display in childhood. Children displaying these markers might be flagged as having "conduct disorder", but not psychopathy.

However, lets look at the markers anyway:

GM: Grandiose-Manipulative, DI: Daring-Impulsive, CU: Callous-Unemotional Source

Conduct disorder: Generally characterized by aggression towards others/destruction of property, lying, theft, and limited prosocial emotions. GM: Superficial charm, glibness, suave behavior. Megalomania and narcissism. Lying. DI: Fearlessness, impulsivity, recklessness, lack of responsibility. Risk taking behaviors. CU: Lack of remorse, empathy, sympathy, or compassion. Shallow emotional affect.

Let's tally him up.

Psychopathy:

Grandiose-Manipulative: ❌ Henry does not fit in, and it's clear to everyone that he does not fit in. He can't hide this, no matter how hard he tries. He is not charming or suave. He also internalizes the "broken" label and recognizes that he's rejected for a reason, and it hurts him. It's only later in his childhood that he realizes being different=/=being broken. He has a specific hatred of lying. If we compare him to Billy, the narrative anti-hero who acts as both parallel and foil to him, we can see artificial charm in action. Billy lies and uses acting to get his way. Repeatedly (see: his interactions with Karen). Billy represents GM behaviors in action. Little Henry is, then, in direct conflict with GM traits.

Daring-Impulsive: ❌ Henry only lashes out with violence when he perceives himself as being in imminent danger. He is shown as and later described as being afraid. The only fearlessness we see is in regard to spiders, and that fearlessness can be traced back to his empathy for the spiders as disliked/socially rejected creatures. Again, Billy. Billy and his erratic driving with Max in ST2 and his attempted fling with Karen are both classic displays of DI traits. Little Henry, in contrast, does not display DI traits.

Callous-Unemotional: ❌ Henry displays a range of genuine emotions. He also displays empathy, sympathy, and compassion. He's described as a sensitive child, for heaven's sake. Billy, as a contrast, does not display empathy, sympathy, or compassion. He's unnecessarily cruel and violent for his own entertainment (the car scene) or to maintain control (Max), and he does not display remorse for it. Little Henry does not meet the criteria for CU traits.

Conduct Disorder:

Aggression/Destruction: ❌ Henry is often hiding, he's reclusive, his father describes him as "sensitive", and he's gentle with the spiders. Even his later visions aren't particularly aggressive. It's spiders crawling out of a drain, a cradle in a fireplace. Disturbing, yes, but not aggressive. Henry is shown killing a rabbit, but his reaction is distinctly unhappy and we're only conclusively shown him doing so once. Due to differences in killing style between his singular kill and the other dead animals his family finds on the property and the fact that there are animals that show up mutilated on the Creel property which Henry wouldn't reasonably have access to (see: chickens)...It's not a concrete pattern of behavior. He's not an aggressive child, especially if compared to Billy. Billy is openly violent and aggressive, and he seeks out opportunities to physically hurt others. Henry does not do this. He only lashes out when cornered, which is what happened in 1959 (if we take canon at face value).

Theft: ❌ We are not shown any instances of or inclination towards theft.

Low guilt/remorse: Inconclusive Henry is shown (supposedly) practicing his powers on a rabbit, but he looks distinctly disturbed while doing so. Henry lashes out at his mother with his powers and displays little remorse, but that was self-defense, which muddies the remorse waters. Compare him to Billy, who is clearly enjoying tormenting kids whenever he can (see: the fatshaming at the pool, Max in the car, Lucas at the Byers house). Generally, Henry doesn't meet this criterion, but it remains inconclusive.

Low Empathy: ❌ Henry visibly and verbally displays empathy for the spiders (A similar trait in autism: more empathy for creatures than humans)

Low Affiliative Behaviors: Inconclusive He has issues with regulating eye-contact (it seems like he tends to stare), and he doesn't seem to seek people out. He's reclusive and quiet. However, these are also shared traits with autism...or just being an introvert, and we do see him display warmth/happiness on multiple occasions. We also know he has interest in connection with others due to his later bitterness over the lack of connection he experienced as a child.

Deceitfulness: ❌ Henry hates lying and dishonesty. That's his whole thing.

Fearlessness: ❌ Henry visibly and verbally displays fear on many occasions.

Henry Creel, age 12, is not meeting the markers for conduct disorder/precursors for psychopathy.

Next time point.

Henry Creel, age 32: Orderly

He's good with kids. He soothes El's anxiety, calmly engages with her anger surrounding her mother, sits on the floor beside her to be on her level, takes her concerns seriously, and tries to help her succeed against her struggles in the lab.

He's relatively social. He's the only orderly who interacts with the children willingly/actively seeks out social connection with the children. He's shown wandering around the room observing them, and he seeks El out as company (this will come back later).

He's not harsh with the children. In ST1, we see El being carries around by her arms and thrown around by orderlies. We see Henry being dragged by his arms by orderlies after his electrocution scene. Henry, even when given the authority of an orderly, doesn't engage in this kind of disregard for a) personal space, b) autonomy, and c) wellbeing. The worst we see from him is his reprimand of 002 when 002 is bullying El, and even that's just a quick verbal reprimand.

He empathizes and sympathizes with the children. Henry is openly disturbed by 002's electrocution, even when no one is watching him except the audience. El isn't watching, Brenner isn't watching. Henry empathizes with 002, given that his own electrocution scene just happened in the previous episode. We're being shown genuine empathy and sympathy coming from Henry.

He's still quiet, gentle, and reclusive. He often hunches in on himself when he's not being watched by Brenner. He's consistently soft-spoken and unassuming. His likability comes from his lack of stereotypical superficial charm/suaveness. He comes off as the guy who was bullied to hell and back as a kid, not like a politician (which is what psychopathic charm is most likened to).

When he isn't being like that, it's an act...and an unconvincing one at that. Henry looks distinctly uncomfortable and out of place when he's trying to play the straight-backed, unfeeling orderly. We get tons of side-eye from him directed at Brenner. He doesn't enjoy being on display like that.

Henry tries to help El and then acknowledges that it didn't work/made things worse.

Henry tries to help El escape with no request for anything in return. Her escape was not transactional. Soteria's removal only happened when El reached out about Henry not coming with her, and even then he never asks her to remove it. He gives her information, and then he lets her make her own choices. She wants him to come with, he did not ask her to set him free. All this, despite the fact that he easily could have asked her to remove it as repayment for letting her loose without any red flags being raised on El's part.

Henry displays concern for El's wellbeing He takes her with him when the guards come running after Soteria, even though it would have been a good distraction/would have given him a head start if he'd left her. He defends her and himself from the guards who clearly want to hurt them. He hides her in the store room and tells her he's going to find them a way out.

Let's tally him up.

Grandiose-Manipulative: ❌ Henry still lacks the "classic" psychopathic charm. He's still a bit kooky, definitely not suave. A touch of narcissism might come into play with his desire to "save" El, but that's leaning into pathological altruism. He doesn't display himself as powerful, even after Soteria is removed. He's still soft-spoken and curled in on himself. Of course, we could argue that he's doing all this to manipulate El. Sure...but he never asks for anything in return even when it would be logical and understandable to do so. Getting El to remove Soteria would be like taking candy from a baby. All he'd have to do is say "If you take Soteria out, then I can help you escape. I can only help you if you take it out, though", and she'd do it. She's a lab-raised 8 year old. It would be a far safer gamble for him to flex his authority than to...what? Not mention it and hope she says something? Hope she chooses to do something? Okay. Hell, if we take the show at face value, no timelines or anything...Henry has already leveraged his authority with El before. "If you want to escape, you must do exactly as I say", he tells her in the chess scene...and then he just straight up never mentions Soteria. No matter how you slice it...that wasn't manipulation. It was altruism.

Daring-Impulsive: ❌ Henry does display risk-taking behaviors, but we need to apply context. He's been locked and abused in this lab for 20 years, El's been there for 8 years under similar conditions...there's no chance at escape for either of them unless someone takes a risk. Even so, it's not the type of risk that's associated with thrill-seeking. He's not doing it for the thrill, he's doing it to get out.

Callous-Unfeeling: ❌ It's a bit more difficult to say that it's not an act here because he's usually being watched by El, however...in the times when he's not being watched, he displays empathy, sympathy, and compassion, and those displays are paired with distinction emotional expressions. This is where the escape scene comes into play. Henry once again only attacks once he's cornered and in danger (not to mention that this time he has a dependent to worry about). His plan is to run. He's not inclined towards violence until he's left with no other choice, and when he does lash out he doesn't actually use his powers to kill until that final guard (who seemed to take great pleasure in the prospect of getting to shocked both him and El). He throws the other soldiers around, but he doesn't give them that menacing, sadistic look. That's reserved for that specific guard. It's sadism borne of a personal grudge due to prolonged mistreatment. It's revenge, not sadism for the sake of sadism.

Orderly Henry Creel, age 32, definitely has something going on up there (likely a whopping dose of cPTSD). He sure is a Guy in a Situation. However, he does not meet the criteria for psychopathy.

And now, my favorite and most controversial section:

Vecna-Henry (ages 32-38)

First and foremost: I need you all to read this with the understanding that I am explaining behaviors, not excusing them. Nothing that happened was right or justified, based on a normal person's frame of mind. However, in order to even come close to psychoanalyzing someone, you have to get inside their head. It's their thoughts and motivations that matter here, not what outsiders judge them to be. That's why it takes months of talking and testing to pin down diagnoses.

We need to be able to look at things from Henry's point of view and piece it together in his frame of mind. You feel me? Good.

I'm abandoning the checklist format for this section because it requires more nuance than just "yes" or "no", but I'm still going to list off some key traits about Vecna:

He chooses his victims carefully. Our 4 victims are not chosen willy-nilly. This isn't "I want to kill for fun", or we'd have Art the Clown instead. He personally kills exactly as many as he needs to open the Rifts, no more. He doesn't kill for killing's sake.

Each victim is chosen with a specific backstory in mind. I've spoken about this before, but if you know anything about serial killers it's that they're almost always going after victims that tie into their own trauma (i.e. killers with mommy issues going after women who look like their mothers, etc). Stranger Things, of course, is a touch more intricate. The order and specific stories of the victims tells a meta narrative. Chrissy and her horrible mother with the rotting food that's a direct link to the custom-made painting in the Creel dining room during the dinner scene. Fred and being a murderer, even though it was a negligent accident. Max and Billy, whose story is so complex and so inverse of Henry's that it fits perfectly with a song about swapping places to feel how the other feels. Again, a death outside of the victim's control, but this time tinged with the relief that an abuser had died after years of wishing for it to happen. Patrick and his abusive father, his abusive Papa, if you will. They tell us a story, just like almost every other serial killer. We know Virginia was a bad mother based on the situation Henry finds himself in at age 12, but we're never shown the extent of that conflict because we never see them interact. It wasn't physically possible for Henry to have killed Alice. How could Henry, who was near-fainting after having "killed" Virginia, find the strength to trance Victor and kill Alice? How could he do that, when we don't even see Vecna do that, when he's so much more powerful? He's not capable of multitasking. ST4 made that very clear. Thus, negligent death. Billy and Max vs the Creel murders are essentially just an inverse situation. Older abuser dies, the young victim wished for it to happen and is now Feeling Things about the situation. Lost a sibling in the process. And last but not least, Patrick, who shares a name with a lab guard in ST1 and has an abusive father. That's a Brenner link. It's a story by proxy. Vecna uses that shared trauma to connect with his victims. (That's the real deal: Shared Trauma). It's weaponized empathy.

He talks over and over again about honesty and ending suffering. Those are his two huge Things in his kills. He holds up a mirror to what the victim perceives to be the worst part of them, and then he turns around and all but tells them he'll make it end. After all...everyone is just waiting, waiting for it all to be over. He's got a fixation on making sure his victim knows that a) this was their fault, and b) he's being the Good Guy by relieving their suffering.

He has no reason left to pretend to have a Good Moral Justification for his kills, and yet he still talks to his victims like he's justifying their deaths.

That's...a lot, but let's dive right in.

Henry and his funky morality complex is endlessly fascinating to me, because what he seems to be doing is self-soothing about it all. Psychopaths, in contrast, are aware of moral compasses, of good and bad, but they aren't typically beholden to the concept. A psychopath likely wouldn't feel the need to self-soothe about their actions by telling themselves and others that they're doing what they're doing to relieve suffering...which is coincidentally exactly what Henry, as Vecna, does the whole time.

At this stage in the story, Henry would have no reason to keep up that kind of savior charade when his audience is just himself and his victim. There's no one there to manipulate by falsifying morality. The only other person listening is going to die imminently. The interesting part comes in when we understand that Henry doesn't have to play the angel at all in ST4. He's certain he's already succeeded by the time we realize what he's up to. He doesn't have anything to gain by lying about his perceived morality. Psychopaths, generally speaking, don't care enough to put the effort into lying if it isn't useful. That means that the last time he would have actually needed to play the angel was during his 1979 monologue. However, we see the same phrases about suffering and the associated release that we hear in 1979 continuing to return as far in as 1986, when Henry no longer has any reason to lie, even if he were okay with lying in the first place (which he's not)! They're all genuine lines. They're a core part of his character.

Vecna wants to be in the right, in the clear, morally. He can't accept that what he's doing is abusive; he has to frame it specifically so that he is doing what's right, that he's freeing people and solving problems.

He's doing his damndest to actualize his "predator, but for good" line from 1979.

This does not smack of psychopathy.

This smells like a savior complex.

Even as far back as 1979, Henry has been obsessed with saving things from their problems ("Tricked you? No. I saved you"). He "saves" spiders from the vents of his house and gives them new homes, he "saves" El from the lab's brainwashing, he "saves" the ST4 victims from their suffering...and dare I say it...he "saves" the lab children in 1979 from their suffering as part of Brenner's lab, the only true escape from which is death (And if it was a 2-birds-1-stone situation with absorbing abilities...well. That's just a bonus).

Granted, the morality surrounding the manifestation of Henry's savior complex has been warped by massive psychic alteration and 20 years of unimaginable abuse with no feasible escape, so yeah. It's a little fucked up. He's a little fucked up. Obviously.

However, at it's core: Everything Henry has ever done has (in his mind) been Right, Good, and Necessary, despite the fact that he's now actively doing more harm than good.

This reeks of pathological altruism.

Here's what that can look like, clinically:

Source

Well damn, doesn't that sound familiar? (I'm staring directly at Henry's spider hoarding versus the above image)

"Saving" spiders, but condemning them to death in jars after his kidnapping. "Saving" El from the lab, but traumatizing her and ultimately condemning her to his own fate: being the sole focus of Brenner's attention. "Saving" the ST4 victims from their suffering, but hurting them in an attempt to kill two birds with one stone: free himself, and eliminate their suffering as a nice morality bonus.

Pathological Altruism. Savior Complex.

Jamie himself has said that, based on what has been shown to us, Henry truly believes that what he's doing is right and beneficial (which fits with his Catholic-God coding (here) so well).

All this to say, and I cannot stress this enough: This is not psychopathy. What Henry displays is not psychopathy. This is pathological altruism. Psychopaths, particularly those who go on to commit violent crimes, largely do not have savior complexes. A psychopathic serial killer would not care, and would not hide that they don't care if there isn't anything to gain from it.

Henry also has this incredible fixation on truth and right vs wrong, and yes, he weaponizes that, but again he does so while self-soothing with padded morality phrasing. He monologues for ages about how terrible it is that everyone is lying to themselves and others, and how everyone is suffering but no one wants to admit it. His main goal is remaking the world with a "better" version of society that's less oppressive (which happens to be one where a rule-bound society is entirely done away with). Henry then swings way past "Good, Right, Necessary" into villain territory but going so far as to force his victims into facing the truth of what's going on inside their heads, forcing them to stop lying about their own mental states, only to then use the "worst" thing about themselves to judge them. He's quite literally playing God based on his use of right and wrong to maintain control/power while holding a moral high ground. (He's doing a pretty good job, too. He sounds just like the Catholic God.)

This is not psychopathic behavior.

His behavior seems more like black/white judgmental thinking:

A misguided and overwhelmingly strong sense of justice:

Source

and a killer superiority complex fueled by chronically low self-esteem:

Source

A psychopathic serial killer would have little attachment to truth or right and wrong.

A psychopathic serial killer would not care.

Source

The thing is: Henry's whole issue is that he cares entirely too much. His problem is that everything matters, everything can and should be sorted into good and evil, right and wrong (and obviously he is in the right here), save and destroy. It's judgement and warped justice and the need to believe he's special, that it all happened for a reason, that the world deserves to burn for what it did to people like him, that he can fix the world if he destroys it first.

This also happens to be why Henry cannot be considered a nihilist, which is another term I'm putting up on a shelf. Henry sees the world as inherently having value, that life has value, that there's something worth rebuilding (so long as he gets to dictate what the rules are...so long as he never gets hurt again). If he didn't care so much, he wouldn't be so damn upset about it all. He's a mess. He legitimately cares too much, the hurt is too deep.

That, in combination with the perspective warping from not only his absorptive quality but also 20 years of MKULTRA/Hawkins National Lab Fuckery, has created the mentality we see in ST4 and the actions it has manifested in (again, ignoring timelines).

Vecna is a violent, lab-made hypocrite with a touch of trauma-borne misanthropy, for sure, but he's not a psychopath.

tl; dr: Psychopathy is not synonymous with "villainous man disorder". Henry Creel is not a psychopath, though as it stands he is technically our villain.

#breaking: media fans told that psychopathy is NOT just ''evil man'' disorder #[squirts fans with a water bottle] AHT. AHT. PUT THE LABEL DOWN.#henry was a good kid. a good young man even. and i'm standing by it #henry creel analysis #henry/vecna/001 #psychoanalyzing henry creel #st character analysis #stranger things

140 notes · View notes

ruthlesslistener · 1 year

Note

I have a question, who do you think of the *Pale Siblings take after the most of their respective parents in terms of personality/mannerisms?

(Hollow, Hornet, Ghost)

It's less about who takes after their parents the most, and more which traits are inherited from each! Nature vs Nurture is a complex mix of both elements, but a lot of the time, one's basal behaviors can be attributed to parental inheritence. Its super super cool, and while I can't explain the exact genetics of it, know there is a genetic componant there and that inheritence patterns are thus randomized

[Coughs] anyways

Hornet: Pretty even blend of Herrah and PK. She has Herrah's stern determination, ferocity in the face of danger, and desire to see things through to the bitter end, but she inherited PK's cold, calculative mind, which makes her excellent at solo survival and crafting, but terrible with emotions and people

Hollow: Takes after their mom in personality more than their dad, actually- they inherited more of his physical traits. Like their mother, they are naturally calm, patient, and intruigued by people, but once that patience wears thin, their temper is long-burning and leaves a grudge. Also has a very keen sense of the environment around them, to the point where sight is almost secondary to worldsense. Unlike their mother, however, they have an intense desire to protect the people of Hallownest specifically, which comes from their father...as well as all of their mental illnesses. Their depression, anxiety, self-hatred and lack of self-worth is 100% inherited from him- he just made it worse

Ghost: Takes after their dad more, actually. Like the Pale King, they are intensely curious, have an intense desire to fix things, a stubbornnes that cannot be quelled (though their mother is similarily stubborn), has a strong sense of white and black morality, wants to prove themselves, and loves so deeply and so intensely that it would almost be dangerous to everyone around them- if they weren't already well-versed in what agony such love could bring. What makes them different, however, is that they lack PK's rigid sense of structure, inability to change, and potent self-hatred, which means they use those traits to take down boundaries rather than cage themselves in a maze of hopeless, impossibly self-destructive expectations. That's not to say that they haven't inherited qualities from their mother as well- their social nature speaks to that- but the ones that are the most apparent seem to be inherited from their father, and indeed might give us insight into what a young Pale Wyrm might have been like (a terrifying thought)

#hollow knight #the hollow knight #the pure vessel #hornet hk #little ghost #the knight #i dont wanna sound like im reducing them to just pk #bc they aren't #but pk's inherited traits sure do shine loudly in these guys #*genetics*#anon #reply

95 notes · View notes

a-d-nox · 4 months

Text

web of wyrd observation: it's a strength year; here's what we can expect!

good universal strength energy

nations showing their power/potential, seeing the unlimited possibilities of what people want, and/or huge humanitarian efforts / hard work

neutral universal strength energy

seeing both the strengths/weaknesses of humanity, a year for the history books, chaos, larger than life spaces/objects/people, grandiose presentations/events, shift in those who controls armies/masses, the need for expensive clothing, a shift in forestry/agriculture, an unforeseen underdog rising to power, a need for physical exercise/movement, extreme expressiveness/emotionality, increased standards, and/or a change in the management the masses

bad universal strength energy

heightened aggression (i mean it is an election year), world's continued interest in consumerism (the greed for luxurious accessories, designer goods, and expensive things - expect more trends similar to the "boo/burr basket"), the desire for violence, tyranny in leaders, increase in pricing specifically for cars/housing/food, self-destructive public figures, unforeseen blind rage, people projecting on others in a very public manner, increase in violence worldwide - domestic violence/crime/robberies/etc, seemingly inappropriate public sexual behaviors, pain/burden for the masses, increased boastful energy, the manipulation of the masses via politics/lobbying/etc, failing to eat/sleep/rest/exercise properly leading to increased stress, sexual health issues, people paying victim/weak, people being afraid of losing their reputation, proud/envious people, people seeming cruel/violent, and/or inability to prioritize between family/work or duty/desire

like what you read? leave a tip and state what post it is for! please use my "suggest a post topic." button if you want to see a specific pac/pile next! if you'd like my input on how i read a specific card or what i like to ask my deck OR BETTER YET - what you would like to see next for a wyrd web observation, feel free to use the ask button for that as well.

click here for the masterlist

click here for more web of wyrd related posts

want a personal reading? click here to check out my reading options and prices!

#tarot deck #tarot reading #tarot cards #rider waite tarot #tarot #tarotblr #tarotcommunity #divination #tarot community #tarot witch #wyrd web #web of wyrd #matrix of destiny #matrix of fate

21 notes · View notes

simplifyastrology · 3 days

Text

How the 8th house causes depression (Through Rising Signs)

The 8th house in Astrology has much to do with manifesting depression in a life. Why is this you may ask? The 8th house is 2nd from the 7th other of "others." Being 2 places away makes 8th the house of other people's speech, values, family, money, and resources. In a roundabout way, you can say the 8th house is anything about other people's survival needs and projections that can cause you pain. Often depression is environmental and this comes from the environment created by others through the 8th house. This post is about how a rising sign can react when depressed through feeling blockages.

Aries Ascendant and Scorpio in 8th

Act Mysterious and appear to be very withdrawn from everything Portray self-destructive behaviors when depressed Compulsive and extremist Behaviors to deal with sadness Have compulsive sexual experiences to fill the hole of sadness Become reactive and confrontational when depressed and hurting Act suspicious, jealous, and resentful in brooding ways when upset Become distrustful and even paranoid about situations that cause depression or just act out this way when depressed Seek confrontation with others who wrong them or cause depression isn't uncommon Feeling a loss of control…Pursue hidden knowledge or mystical forces for help

Taurus Ascendant and Sagittarius in 8th

When depressed can become philosophical or look for higher meaning in suffering Tend to act very rude, arrogant, and temperamental when depressed Think they know everything in an arrogant manner Can be cynical and degrade others for not being on board with beliefs Run Away from commitment or simply become a commitment phone entirely Suddenly become impatient and act in careless ways Become overly indulgent and do anything to have fun to deal with sadness

Gemini Ascendant and Capricorn in 8th

Become melancholy, pessimistic, and very dark or brooding Acting cynical towards others and not being involved Become more responsible suddenly while being emotionally guarded Slowing down and only focusing on one thing makes it hard to reach Consolidating and organizing their life to structure it "get it together" Acting famished for attention and using people to fill a specific hole

Cancer Ascendant and Aquarius in 8th

Become malcontent and negative towards everything Appear disinterested and reject everything they loved before become unpredictable. live erratically and do paradoxical things Only want to interact with like-minded people in a safe comfort Lack empathy and judge other people for their actions harshly, perhaps disregarding their own wrongdoings Become stubborn and Act in perverse character ways Do paradoxical things that can appear attention-seeking in nature

Leo Ascendant and Pisces in 8th

Act in illogical ways to deal with depression, perhaps due to inner restlessness looking for anything to help Prone to self-isolate, being elusive and hard to reach in a moody manner When present with others can appear confused, indecisive, or vague in interactions Act in illogical ways to deal with depression, perhaps due to inner restlessness looking for anything to help Splurge on drugs, drinking, sexual or immoral deeds to escape depression May actually become more imaginative and creative during periods of depression

Virgo Ascendant and Aries in 8th

When depressed can come across as very egotistical and selfish Act naive that anything is wrong and deny it like everything is fine Become very angry, leading to being narrowminded and argumentative toward others Be insensitive towards others' feelings or input and be demanding Become impatient and do things impulsively or in brash foolish means This can lead to making situations even worse while trying to fix things that caused the original depression Can turn to ambitious projects or work to bury themselves away from depression or sadness

Libra Ascendant and Taurus in 8th

Be rooted in depression for long periods, but be passive about admitting or realizing it Can become intensely stubborn when feeling depressed Find themselves resentful and jealous toward people more easily Resistant to allowing people to persuade their opinions or judgments Display a very passive nature not wanting to do anything, even being lazy Become indulged in the material side of life to deal with sadness Portray a tendency towards retail therapy and buying things to fill depressive holes in life Can binge eat or overindulge in any sensual pleasure like sex to deal with sadness May go into debt or dry up savings dealing with depression Convsenely may actually find a more pleasurable time than normal being depressed

Scorpio Ascendant and Gemini in 8th

The attention span can become scattered and broken when depressed Become more prone to boredom due to inability to focus on things Appear more flighty and fickle being unable to commit to anything Life can lack purpose which causes restlessness during periods of depression Depression periods can lead to periods of asking questions concerning feelings Periods of overthinking and rumination can occur during depression especially if there is no easy answer to what causes depression May have a tendency to take on other people's depression in a copycat manner A sense of humor may be more apparent when depressed as a way to deal with feelings

Sagittarius Ascendant and Cancer in 8th

Give off a vibe of being moody and sulky when depressed Become very irritable and just in a generally bad mood Behavior can be more private and keep things buried internally that cause depression Live a lonesome life and withdraw from usual activities Act in a very defensive manner and communicate in a more sarcastic tone May act more smothering or needy toward loved ones when depressed, especially women or the mother Be inconsistent concerning depression which may be favorable for returning to normal sooner

Capricorn Ascendant and Leo in 8th

Depression can make the attitude very sulky when things are out of their control Can have a tendency to be loud, outspoken, and overdramatic about what they feel is wrong Can be very impatient and unable to deal with things at all when depressed Act in a very egotistical and domineering way when depressed Show of a snobbish and arrogant attitude when things aren't going their way During periods of depression can become bossy and domineering to get things fixed that cause depression To others, this attitude can make them seem entitled and spoiled like the world revolve around them The positive side is periods of depression may spark creativity Leo is a bright and optimistic sign that is full of life, so oddly maybe they seem more full of life and vigor when depressed? (king of depression?)

Aquarius Ascendant and Virgo in 8th

Depression brings a very negative and cynical nature to come about Not unusual to be standoffish, shy, and withdrawn Depression can cause or be caused by feelings of self-doubt Being self-critical when depressed isn't uncommon at all When this happens nature becomes judgemental or skeptical of others which can cause a ton of friction May seem to "shut down" and be very picky, needing things their way to deal with depression On a positive note, depression can bring out a conscientious side. Periods of depression can raise feelings of being anxious and restless Internally feel like some kind of work has to be done to fix a problem Work hard on improving the self to have more to offer, or simply have better skills to deal with what troubles them

Pisces Ascendant and Libra in 8th

Periods of depression can manifest as being very lazy, passive, and unreliable Nature is to push people away and detached; leading to a loss of interest in social activities altogether Furthermore can push away friendships and love relationships when depressed Can struggle greatly with committing to anything that is loved when depressed Another form of depression might lead to codependence and overly relying on love to pull them through The root of this may come from issues with being decisive due to having many ideas taken from others Depressive periods can culminate in being self-absorbed and indulgent in beautiful things to escape reality May love to listen to music, eat good food, enjoy sexual activities to deal with sadness May overspend or work on their appearance or beautify their life to deal with depression

Check out more posts at the Simplify Astrology Masterpost (Click Here)

#astrology #depression #environment #other people #ascendant #rising signs #aries #taurus #gemini #cancer #leo #virgo #libra #scorpio #sagittarius #capricorn #aquarius #pisces

14 notes · View notes

cuntyqueerleondraisaitl · 11 months

Text

Saw people talking about how Choreman is doomed to repeat the narrative, and that got me thinking about all their possible parallels to Hilson/Huddy, but also how they have all the potential to be MORE

One very notable thing that I catch myself thinking about a lot, is that neither character, at least when we left them in season eight, is a perfect parallel to House, Cuddy or Wilson. Instead its like you combined them all together, and then split them in half.

Like House, Chase is brilliant, sarcastic, has daddy issues and is extremely self destructive. He often doesn't think he deserves love and has a tendency to drag everyone he loves down with him. Like Cuddy, he often feels that he isn't good enough, and doesn't deserve to be in the position he's in. But like Wilson, he wants to do immense amounts of good in the world. The biggest example of this I can find is in the episode where Cuddy has to get some procedure done. Chase sits and stays with her, House ordered him to of course, but he joked around with her, and made her feel comfortable. He has an excellent bedside manner and you'd be lying if you said he didn't have "Kind eyes"

Like House, Foreman is snarky and rude, but he has two very specific people he seems to care about (House's are Wilson and sometimes Cuddy, and Foreman's are Thirteen and Chase) Like Cuddy, he immediately rises to positions of power. Cuddy was made hospital administrator in her early thirties, and Foreman rose to the occasion as soon as she left. As opposed to Chase who had a very fully fleshed-out storyline about how he was afraid to take positions of power and advance with his life and career. Like Wilson, he is the best friend who is always there. To those two people previously mentioned, he has always been there for them. Whether dealing with heavy emotional stuff (Chase getting stabbed, Thirteen's Huntingtons) or lighter stuff (the Chastity belt bet)

I definitely think that they have the potential to have a lot of Huddy parallels, but good Huddy. The very sweet parts of early season seven Huddy, before everything went south. They could calm each other down and just be outright super sweet to each other.

I think that the fact Chase is so scared of commitment could parallel nicely to the fact that House is an asshole with a negative EQ (affectionate). It really could be a huge difference because, yes Chase is scared, but he WANTS this. He wants to be happy. In opposition to Cuddy having to put up with House's jerkiness, Foreman could embrace Chase's nervous energy.

Both Chase and House are undeniably self-destructive, but one of the main Huddy/Choreman differences that I can think of is the way that their self-destruction manifests. Chase's main coping mechanism is, and I quote 'having meaningless sex with random strangers' something that would be avoided if he was in a committed relationship. Am I saying that that would immediately heal all of Chase's mental health issues? No. But It could help him.

On the Hilson side of things, there is so much potential there! Just imagine Chase having eureka moments when talking to Foreman, and them watching rugby or something together(I don't know anything about Australians don't sue me) Helping each other get ready for dates or just generally vibing.

Hilson is so similar to Huddy because both Wilson and Cuddy are enablers, but the fact that this would be both a Huddy AND Hilson parallel because Foreman would be enabling Chase in a legal way (as the hospital administrator) as well as in a social way (boyfriend and best friend)

Holy shit this got long, I guess what I'm trying to say is that I love them and they are forever doomed to repeat the narrative. In their very own, fucked up, gay-ass way

#At first this was just gonna be a list with bullet points but then I thought #fuck it I gotta essay this bitch #two long ass choreman posts in an hour lets gooooo #foremanchase #choreman #robert chase #chase x foreman #eric foreman #dr chase #dr foreman #house md #chase md #hatecrimes md #hate crimes episode

84 notes · View notes

happiest-hotch · 1 year

Note

since you are amazingly thorough at expanding the backstory of reid, i'd love to hear some headcanons you have about hotch. what was he like in high school, college, law school? what do you think his life looked like after leaving the bau and once jack got to his teenage years? what do you think he'd be like in a second marriage? i love hotch and I think you''re great at like adding so many details to these characters that I've never thought about. thank you for answering! ps. does hotch wear boxers or briefs lol

i love stuff like this, i'm so glad you asked me to do this. also, i went right back to his childhood

CHILDHOOD

It's never mentioned where he grew up, just that his mom was from Manassas and went to college there. However, I have my own little theory. His dad was very abusive, likely to his mom as well, (mentioned in 1x08), and one thing that abusers often do is isolate their victims. If his mom didn't go far for college, she would have had family in Virginia, so I think his dad would have moved them away from people they knew who could have potentially helped Mrs Hotchner get away from her husband. I think they moved specifically to Seattle but I'll come back to why later.

In terms of personality, I think he was probably very smart, but more of a depressing wise-beyond-his-years type of smart and knew things he shouldn't know, probably very mature, well-mannered, and overly willing to please. He got a sense of right and wrong very early on and saw a lot of hypocrisy with how his family presented themselves, eg. his dad being a prominent lawyer, vs how they really were. This is based on what he also speculates in his interview with Vincent (1x08) that he (or they) learned to smile despite the abuse and how a house can look happy from the outside while being violent.

BOARDING SCHOOL

He and Sean aren't close because they didn't spend time together growing up since Hotch went to boarding school when Sean was still young. I think Hotch was sent to boarding school because he hit his father back based on what he also says to Vincent in 1x08: "you probably thought 'one day, one day when I'm big enough'" about fighting back. It sounds very self-reflective, so I think Hotch reaches the age of 13/14, and he decides he's big enough to take on his father, Mr Hotchner obviously doesn't like it, so he sends Hotch away. Then Mrs Hotchner persuaded him to send Hotch to boarding school in DC/Virginia where her family would be near him. I think this because he met Haley at high school (1x22) and Haley's father owned a store in DC (10x20) so it figures she went to school there.

I still think he was a rule follower, fearing his father and Hotch knew he could not share what happened to him, but it was an escape from his home life. He got to form relationships without his father knowing, and I think he had lots of friends, probably a lot from Haley's friend group as well. Also very self-sufficient, mature, intelligent, and determined.

COLLEGE

In my mind, his dad died in Hotch's freshman or sophomore year of college, since it's mentioned (in 1x16) that Sean was young when it happened. And I think it fucked him up a lot, like quarter-life-crisis level. This is where I could see him going a bit crazy, breaking up with Haley, underage drinking, a lot of hookups. Basically, just him using typical college behavior to be self-destructive. His relationship with his mom is really strained because he can't understand why she never left (and he doesn't until he's in the BAU), and he's jealous of Sean who didn't have to deal with any/as much abuse.

I think he was naturally smart so he didn't work any harder than he had to which makes him a little arrogant but in an attractive way. Also, he definitely has a trust fund or inheritance

LAW SCHOOL

the same as college really. i love the idea of him being a bit of a player and during his work with the BAU, he sees someone who knew him back then and they're so confused because he's all official and he used to be so laid-back but they just make a silent agreement to not talk about it

at some point, he starts taking things seriously, maybe when he got back together with Haley. and then they're really happy and in love <3333

LAWYER/SEATTLE FBI YEARS

i don't think it's mentioned where he was a prosecutor but he was in the FBI Seattle division afterward, and this is where my theory about him growing up in Seattle comes from because why would he pick Seattle to go to? It's a nice city but it's a big move from DC and GWU where he went to school. It's the type of move you might make if your mother and younger brother who's acting out live there. Also because at this point, he would know more about why abused women don't leave so he wants to heal his relationship with her

WITSEC

this always makes me so sad because did anyone tell Jess? Jack's friends? what about Roy, did he forget Jack ever existed? and Sean, did he just think Aaron got sick of his poor decisions and decided to cut him off completely???? someone tell me because i cannot cope. I don't think they were kept around the DMV like Haley was, and I doubt they went to Florida because Peter Lewis is from Jacksonville. I think they would move to the suburbs somewhere rather than a city center because they'd fit in with the general demographic and if they moved to a small town, it might be more suspicious. I don't think they'd place them in Virginia, Florida, Texas, New York, Chicago area, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Maryland, or California as there was a large concentration of cases there.

i don't think he had a job while in WITSEC, especially not if they were using aliases because then more people would have to keep his identity a secret, but even if he was allowed to use his real name, he can't exactly have a potential employer calling emily and asking for a reference and saying where they're calling from. Which would be a very good thing because Jack's at that age when he probably needs more support, especially after his fucked-up childhood, he'd love to be his dad's number 1 priority for once

POST-WITSEC

I think they stay living in the same area because Jack would have made friends, and hopefully, Hotch knows better than get a time-consuming job, but he'd go crazy with nothing to do so maybe he practices law again but with reduced hours but he could also lecture so he's able to go to all of Jack's soccer and do the dad stuff he didn't have as much time to do when he was in the FBI. I also think they travel a lot because Hotch mentions that he didn't travel with Jack when he was little so they'd do that during the summer

I like the idea of him meeting someone while he's in WITSEC and he seems really closed off so there's lots of pinning because he doesn't want to get her involved in something and he's having bad Haley flashbacks. then he can finally tell her everything when Scratch is dead. i think he'd be a lot more interested in getting remarried knowing that he doesn't work in a dangerous job that could put her in jeopardy and since his first marriage failed due to his absence, he's much more present

the boxers or briefs debate has been settled with this one photo

#aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner headcanon #aaron hotchner hc

93 notes · View notes