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libraryofgage · 4 months

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Good Vibrations Four

One | Two | Three

It has been a hot minute since I updated Good Vibrations hfjdksl thanks everyone for being patient with me, I just couldn't get this part written the way I wanted to for the loooongest time

There's a meme at the very end for anyone who sticks around!

As always, if you see any typos, no you didn't ;P

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Of all the ways for Eddie's free period to go, getting cornered in the boy's bathroom by Robin Buckley was pretty damn low on the list. It's not even Robin's presence in the boy's bathroom that's throwing him off; it's the way her arms are crossed and she's glaring at Eddie like he's just bragged about kicking her puppy down the street.

Eddie pauses just inside the stall, holding the door open as the toilet struggles to flush behind him. A few seconds pass before Eddie forces himself to walk over to the sinks and wash his hands. "Buckley," he says, "to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"We need to talk, Munson," Robin says, her eyes narrowing as Eddie shuts off the faucet, grabs a few paper towels, and dries his hands. "What's your game?"

"D&D, mostly," Eddie replies, dropping the paper towels in the trash and giving Robin his full attention. He notes, briefly, that she's locked the door to the bathroom, ensuring nobody is walking in on them.

"With Steve, asshole."

Oh.

Eddie pauses, shoves his hands into his pockets, and tilts his head at her. "Still not sure what you mean," he says. He's starting to get an inkling, though.

Robin frowns, seeming to argue with herself before shoving her hands into her hair to push it out of her face. She just leaves it even frizzier and messier as she takes a deep breath. "Do you think Steve is just, like, your entertainment of the week?" she asks, placing her hands on her hips as she levels that same glare from before at him.

"What? Shit, no, of course, not," Eddie says, sliding back a step at the implication. "What the fuck, Buckley?"

She grits her teeth, takes a deep breath, and marches up to Eddie. "Listen, Munson. I know you. I know all about your little Munson Doctrine. I agreed with it once. And because of that, I know you might be thinking of getting to know all about how former King Steve is a...a...a deaf idiot so you can tell the whole fucking world about it," she hisses. "And I'm here to cut that shit off before it even starts. So, if that's your angle, Munson, I suggest you waltz your flat ass out of Steve's life before I bury you in the football field."

There's a lot to unpack there, and Eddie is going to start opening suitcases soon, but first he can't help saying, "My ass isn't flat, Buckley." Robin raises an eyebrow at him and pointedly looks in the mirror. Eddie doesn't follow her gaze, deciding he'd like to spare himself that tragedy.

When she looks back, Eddie clears his throat. "Besides, that's not...that isn't what I'm doing."

"Then what are you doing?"

Eddie looks away, squirming slightly under her gaze. If this were anyone else, if this were someone who hadn't endured the most awkward seven minutes of his life with him, Eddie wouldn't admit a thing. But because it's Robin, because he knows she'll understand even if she doesn't agree, he finds himself blurting, "I think he's cute!"

"Oh? Oh! Oooohhhh."

He can see Robin going on a whole journey over the course of one word repeated three times, and Eddie almost immediately regrets admitting anything. "You can't tell him," Eddie says, moving forward without thinking and grabbing Robin's shoulders. "I'm serious, Buckley, you can't tell Steve."

She blinks, studying his expression for a moment before humming softly. "What do you want me to do? Lie? I tell Steve everything. He'll know if I'm not telling him something," she says.

"Just say it's not your secret to tell! Because it isn't! It very much is not your secret to be sharing around."

Robin huffs and shrugs Eddie's hands off her shoulders. She leans against the sink, head tilted. "So," she says, her tone implying they're changing the subject now, "when did this little crush of yours start?"

"What do you care?"

"If I'm going to help you, Munson, I need to know."

"You're gonna help me?"

Robin grins at him. "This is my entertainment of the week."

Eddie huffs and looks away, pacing a few times from one end of the bathroom to the other before finally stopping. "Okay," he says, more psyching himself up than anything else. "Steve has always been, you know, hot. It made me so fucking angry when I realized in sophomore year since he was a jock and all. But now...now he's...more. And I'm burning up, man, I've gotta know everything. What's his music collection look like? Do the kids know he's deaf? How does he interact with people when he can't hear them? Is he comfortable closing his eyes when he kisses? Does he feel everything more because he can't hear? Wou--"

"Okay, I'm stopping you there," Robin says, her face twisted in disgust as she levels a judgmental look at Eddie. "I don't want to hear your questions about Steve and kissing or whatever else your dirty little brain is thinking of."

"You asked."

"And now I'm telling you to stop," Robin replies. She runs her fingers through her hair again, frowning slightly. "Okay, I think the most important thing here is etiquette."

"Etiquette? What, am I too rough for Steve's delicate sensibilities?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you'd like to avoid offending him the way you did the last time you spoke."

Okay. Fair. Eddie grimaces at the reminder, the image of Steve's frown and the sound of his closed-off voice forcing themselves to the front of his mind. His shoulders slump and he nods. "Yeah, I would," he says.

Robin nods once, pushes herself off the sink, and places her hands on her hips. "Let's start with some basics," she says, taking a deep breath, and Eddie finds himself wondering if he's about to get overwhelmed by these basics. "Don't talk when Steve isn't looking at you. Don't have anything in or covering your mouth when you speak. Talk a little slower and make sure you enunciate, but if you talk slow like Steve is stupid, I will punch you. If Steve asks you to repeat something, repeat it word-for-word, no matter how many times he asks. If someone addresses Steve and he doesn't notice, give him a subtle nudge. Never sneak up on Steve when he's alone. Even if it means more walking or whatever, move to a spot where he'll notice you approaching. Be expressive when you speak. Steve can't hear things like tone, so he doesn't always know when something is a joke or sarcastic. And never, ever, call Steve or anything about him bullshit."

"That last one...," Eddie says, trailing off as he frowns slightly.

"Is the most important. I'm serious, Munson."

"Okay," Eddie says, nodding once and figuring he'll leave it at that.

"Oh, and ask Steve to teach you sign language. It'll give you an excuse to see each other more often."

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Robin has been acting weird since she started her shift, and Steve barely manages to wait until he's 95% sure the store is empty to turn around and ask, "What's wrong?"

Her hands falter, nearly dropping the tape she's busy rewinding. She catches herself, though, and looks at Steve. "What do you mean?"

"You're not telling me something. You tell me everything. What's wrong?"

She hesitates, looking away and biting her bottom lip before sighing and looking back. "I learned a secret today, so it's not mine to tell."

"Oh," Steve says, his shoulders relaxing some. "I thought you were hiding something actually important from me."

He doesn't hear her scoff, but he sees the way her head jerks and her eyes roll when she does. "Why would I bother hiding anything from you, dingus?"

Before Steve can answer, Robin stiffens slightly as she looks over Steve's shoulder. He braces himself for the customer interaction he's about to endure, slaps on a fake smile, and turns around. "Welcome to Family Video. How ca--Eddie?" His smile softens into something genuine at seeing Eddie on the other side of the counter. "Hey, man, what's up?"

Eddie flashes a smile in return, glancing at Robin over Steve's shoulder before focusing back on him. "Hey. Just, uh, kinda had a favor to ask you," he says.

Several possibilities run through Steve's mind, all of them related to the kids, since he can't think of any other reason for Eddie to need a favor from him. "Oh," Steve says, frowning slightly in confusion. "What's the favor."

Instead of answering right away, Eddie shifts awkwardly. He looks away, tugging on a few strands of his hair like he's nervous. He starts to use them to cover his mouth, making Steve dread his inevitable request for Eddie to repeat himself, when he stops. Eddie literally freezes, his fingers twitching before he drops the strands of hair and places his hands on the counter like he needs to keep them in sight.

He takes a deep breath, and Steve is starting to get really concerned now. "Hey, Eddie, whatever it is, just ask. I won't get, like, angry or anything," he says, hoping that makes things easier.

"No, I know you won't," Eddie says, huffing softly before nodding once, more to himself than anything else. "I was, uh, thinking. I read once that sign language is, like, a thing. So, if you teach me some sign language, I'll write you a song that's all noise and vibrations."

Steve doesn't get it all at first, concentrating on Eddie's mouth and getting distracted halfway through by the thought of dragging his thumb across Eddie's bottom lip. "Could you repeat that?" he asks, steeling himself to actually pay attention this time.

Eddie doesn't complain. He just nods and repeats himself. Steve got more of it, enough to know what Eddie is asking for, but he finds himself pausing when he meets Eddie's eyes again. There's no annoyance or frustration at being asked to repeat himself. All Steve can see is patience and nervousness. Without thinking, he asks again, "Sorry, one more time please?"

And Eddie says everything again. He repeats himself word-for-word, still lacking any negative reaction to saying the same thing three times. Steve feels something warm settle behind his ribs, and he nervously licks his lips, catching the way Eddie glances down to follow the motion. He shoves his hands into his pockets, balling them into fists so he doesn't do something stupid like grab Eddie's hand. "One more time," Steve says, the words feeling breathy and soft as they brush past his lips, and he hopes he wasn't too quiet.

Eddie blinks, tilting his head slightly and glancing over Steve's shoulder again. Steve hasn't forgotten about Robin being behind him, but he figures he can just play it off as fucking with Eddie at this point. Eddie doesn't complain or ask if Steve is serious, though. He just...repeats himself, and Steve suddenly knows that Eddie would keep repeating himself until Steve got tired of asking.

"Thanks," Steve says, deciding to spare them both from continuing the loop. "I got it that time. What do you want to learn sign for?"

"A D&D campaign. Thinking of using it in the plot."

"Oh. Uh, yeah, I could teach you. Are you doing anything on Sunday?"

"Nope. Totally free. Nothing planned at all."

Steve can't help a slight grin, and he tells himself it's just because he's excited by the prospect of Eddie writing a whole song catered to how he experiences music. "Cool. Come by my place around noon."

Eddie nods once, exhaling like he's forgotten to breathe the entire time they were talking. His hands tap against the counter, drawing Steve's attention downward, and he suddenly wonders what Eddie's rings feel like. Steve forces himself to look back up before that thought can go too far.

"Will do," Eddie says once Steve is looking at him again. He flashes a smile and adds, "See you then, sweetheart."

With that, he turns on his heel and leaves, waving over his shoulder like Steve isn't trying to figure out if he read his words correctly. He watches Eddie leave, waiting for the door to close behind him before whirling around to find Robin still rewinding tapes like nothing happened. "Did he call me sweetheart?" Steve asks, needing to know if he's misunderstanding.

Robin looks up, eyebrows raised. "Don't know, dingus. I wasn't listening."

Steve barks out a laugh. "You're always listening," he points out.

She grins at him, her expression screaming trouble and that she knows something he doesn't. "Well, not that time," she replies, her grin widening as she adds, "But if I was, I'd say he did, yeah."

"He did," Steve murmurs, looking away from Robin and letting her confirmation sink in.

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Tag List (the tag list is completely filled up! There definitely wasn't enough room for everyone who requested a tag orz

Please follow the tag "good vibrations Steddie" or put on notifications for my blog to see when new parts are posted :D)

@hallucinatedjosten, @queenie-ofthe-void, @r0binscript, @jewellthebooknerd, @paintgonewrong, @vacantwatchers, @newagemyth, @gutterflower77, @just-a-tiny-void, @littlebluejane

@whenindoubtb72, @different-tale-student, @sharingisntkaren, @current-steddie-brainrot, @willim-billiam-byerson, @nuggies4life

@lostgurl-12, @anomalygal, @synonym-for-strange, @sani-86, @missmagillicuddy, @ilikechocolatemilkh, @thoughtfulbreadpolice, @harringrieve, @awesomeimportantfan, @fredtheemoplant, @warlordess, @therealscarletpumpernickel, @gsvshsjsbs, @mightbeasleep, @mollymawkwrites

@lil-gremlin-things, @honorarybrit81, @sonny-ray-of-goth, @potent-idiocy, @fandomcartographer, @heartsong18, @lingeringmirth, @ko0kyco0kies, @ccomandercody, @spiderman-stilinski, @l0st-strawberry, @xxsky-shockxx, @stilesstickitinme, @boxsam, @thepansexualsnake, @37-screamingfrogs, @yourmom-isgay, @brainsteddielyrotted, @plasticcrotches, @hannahhook7744

The meme for those who stuck around:

#steddie #steddie fic #good vibrations steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #robin buckley #platonic stobin #deaf steve harrington #protective robin my beloved actually #eddie thought he was soooooo smart coming up with that little deal #meanwhile robin is that “i know what you are” dog meme behind steve #my writing

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writingwithcolor · 5 months

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Author with cultural disconnect: How do I write without making it seem as if I hate my own heritage?

Anonymous asked:

I’m a white-passing Asian author, and I’ve never felt all that connected with my heritage. My current story centers on a fairy (re: fantasy-world POC) child and ends with her realizing that her parents are toxic af and her human best friend’s family takes her in. This is the perfect opportunity to sort through my own issues with my heritage and finally convince my monkey-brain that it’s okay to not know how to cook Vietnamese food or celebrate tet or speak Vietnamese… But I also realize that if I’m not careful, this could easily slip into “Hey, I hate my heritage and so should you!” So how can I stop that from happening?

Writing for yourself first, not an audience

I ask you a simple question: why put pressure on yourself to have any sort of non-offensive messaging for a story that hasn’t been drafted yet and is to convince your monkey brain it’s okay to exist as yourself?

That seems like the fastest way to stop the story from being actually cathartic and instead a performance art piece when you already feel hung up on performing as “properly” part of your culture.

As I said in Working Through Identity Issues and Other Pitfalls of Representation, not all stories you write need to be for public consumption. Especially stories you’re using for your own self-processing and therapy, because you’re trying to get a cathartic moment that is rewriting your own story.

At what point does the public need to be involved in that?

I do understand the compulsion to want to post—I have definitely posted some Questionable™ material in my drive to get validation for feeling the way I do, wanting people to witness me and say “same.” It’s a powerful urge. Sometimes it’s worked, but most of the time it’s just made me feel horrifically exposed.

But you really do not have to post in public to get any sort of validation. Set up a groupchat with friends if you want the cheerleading and witnessing—people who will know your story and give you good-faith interpretations and won’t accuse you of anything. Honestly I’d suggest setting up this groupchat anyway; as someone who just got one again after quite a few years without it, my productivity has skyrocketed from being around supportive people.

Let the monkey brain have its monkey brain moment and shut off the concept the story is for the public. Shut off the concept of performing for an unknown audience. It’s for you. Be authentic, no matter how bad it would look to outsiders. They’re not reading it. Part of getting catharsis, sometimes, is being the worst version of yourself, somewhere nobody else can see it.

Deciding to publish the work

If, after you do write it, you find that you actually do want to polish it up and put it somewhere… edit it. Rewrite it entirely if that’s what it takes. Take the story through the same drafting process every story needs to go through, ripping out the unfortunate implications as you go.

Editing can be its own form of healing, as you try to figure out what this character would need to not be hateful. As you realize, once this longform journal entry is out of your head, what was bothering you now that you can see it pinned down on a page. But you absolutely do not need to write with the intention of editing in that healing. When I’ve tried, it’s fallen flat.

The healing will come from being yourself, no public involved, and writing about your feelings in their rawest form. Anything else is extra.

There’s no point in trying to put guard rails on the drafting process, not for a deeply personal piece. And by the time that drafting process is done, you’ll likely have specific scenarios and contexts that you can ask about, and you might even have ideas on how to fix it yourself once the story has a shape to it.

This is 100% a situation where there’s no real sense in idea workshopping something in the plotting stage. You’re doing something for you. Decide if it’s for public consumption later (while acknowledging “no” is a perfectly valid answer), and only figure out how to make the story not overtly harmful if you decide to put it out into the public.

~ Leigh

#culture #cultural disconnect #creator responsibility #writing #authors of color #asks

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queerfables · 8 months

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Alright GO fans, let's talk Sodom and Gomorrah. This biblical story comes up a few times in Good Omens canon, a kind of offhand mention each time, and the most interesting part to me is the implication that Aziraphale was there.

If you only know the cliff-notes version, you've probably heard it as the story of God condemning homosexuality to the point of wiping out several cities over it. Maybe you've heard this too, but - that's not exactly what happened. Look, I'm an atheist, I have no dog in this race. If I thought it was about smiting people for homosexuality, I'd be happy to call God a wanker and move on. But I've read the story of Sodom and Gomorrah (You can too! It's very short!) and I've read other parts of the Bible that reference it, and I think a much more straightforward interpretation is that it's about offering hospitality and protection to strangers. It's also about the consequences of wanton cruelty, and God laying waste to those deemed beyond salvation.

In Good Omens, the book, Aziraphale and Crowley discuss Sodom and Gomorrah this way:

"Come off it. Your lot get ineffable mercy," said Crowley sourly.

"Yes? Did you ever visit Gomorrah?"

"Sure," said the demon. "There was this great little tavern where you could get these terrific fermented date-palm cocktails with nutmeg and crushed lemongrass-"

"I meant afterwards."

"Oh."

According to the book, then, Aziraphale at least saw the city after it was destroyed. Maybe Crowley saw the aftermath too or maybe he just heard about it. They both understand it as horrific.

The show is more direct, and suggests that Aziraphale was there during the actual destruction. Gabriel asks if Aziraphale remembers Sandalphon. Aziraphale does.

"Sodom and Gomorrah. You were doing a lot of smiting and turning people into salt. Hard to forget."

Aziraphale regards Sandalphon warily during the conversation. I believe we're supposed to interpret this scene based on the popular understanding of Sodom and Gomorrah as cities that God wiped out because of the inhabitants' sins. The obvious implication, then, is that Sandalphon is the heavy, the one called in to deal with disobedience. He's trigger-happy, relishes violence, and Aziraphale has seen what he's capable of. From the careful way Aziraphale discusses their prior acquaintance, I think he feels the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was a tragedy and believes Heaven's actions were disproportionate and unjust.

I'm confident this is how we're supposed to read the scene. In the context of the story, we're supposed to understand that Aziraphale doesn't approve of the smiting, and that he feels threatened by Gabriel and Sandalphon coming into his bookshop and pressing him about Armageddon. But I'm fascinated by what it would mean if Aziraphale and Sandalphon's history really tracks onto the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Because if Good Omens' version of Sodom and Gomorrah is at all biblically accurate, and if Aziraphale was there... it's kind of mind-blowing, actually, that he still feels so much compassion for the people who died and still thinks Sandalphon was wrong.

I'm going to explain why, but fair warning, it gets ugly. I promise nobody is actually raped, and I think that promise in itself says plenty.

According to the Bible, Sodom and its surrounding cities are accused of being overrun with sin. God sends two angels to Sodom to verify this, intending to destroy everything if they find it to be true. In the world of Good Omens, I think one of these angels must be Aziraphale. The other one is likely Sandalphon, but in the Bible it's God rather than either of the angels who rains down burning sulfur on the cities so it's possible it's someone else, and Sandalphon is only on smiting duty. Without anything else to go on, though, let's assume it's Sandalphon.

So our two angels arrive at Sodom in the evening, and at the gate to the city, they meet Lot. Lot is an immigrant who has made his home in Sodom, and I think the implication is that this is why he's not completely steeped in sin like everyone else. In any case, he immediately offers to put the angels up for the night, and although they'd planned to stay in the square, Lot is really insistent. He is a good host! Also, he knows the city is dangerous. So the angels go to his house and he makes dinner for them, and then before they can go to bed, a mob shows up at the door.

See, the men of Sodom have heard about the strangers staying with Lot. They surround his house and demand he hand them over. The New King James Version puts it this way: And they called to Lot and said to him, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may know them carnally." Several other translations say that the men wanted to "have sex with them". But I mean. It's a fucking mob. They've surrounded the house. We all get what this is, right?

So Lot goes out to meet the men, and he says "Don't do this terrible thing." Off to a good start! Then he says, "Tell you what, I have two virgin daughters. Do what you like to them and we'll say no more about it." Oh boy. Dad of the year award, right there. But still, he insists, "The angels are under my roof and my protection."

The men outside Lot's house are pissed. They say, "You're an outsider, who are you to judge us?" They threaten to do worse to him than to the angels. They swarm him and almost break the door down, but the angels pull him back inside.

The angels then strike the mob with blindness to stop them getting into the house. They say to Lot, "Look, you gotta take your family and get out of here. God sent us to see how bad things were and, uh, long story short, we're burning it all to the ground. You get it, right?"

Maybe you know the rest. Lot's son-in-laws don't believe him and won't leave the city. Lot's wife looks back and turns into a pillar of salt. Lot and his daughters take shelter in a small town called Zoar, and from there flee to the mountains. Everything else is destroyed.

It is a tragedy. The plains are leveled down to ash, until there's nothing left that can even grow. Was there really no one innocent in those cities? No children or animals? (You can't kill kids). Still, I think about that awful night under Lot's roof and I don't think I could blame anyone for giving up on all of it.

So what if that's the story? There were two angels in Sodom before it fell. What if it really was Aziraphale and Sandalphon, trapped through the night in a stranger's house, surrounded by men who want to rape them. Whatever their power as angels, that has to be terrifying.

If it was Sandalphon there with Aziraphale that night in Sodom, I have to wonder what he was like. There isn't any kinship or understanding from Aziraphale. Despite knowing the circumstances better than anyone, he still sees Sandalphon as a threat. Given that, I think Sandalphon must have taken a truly disturbing kind of joy in raining down vengeful fire and brimstone, beyond what you might expect from someone who was afraid or angry. Maybe he was never afraid; maybe instead he revelled in the violence building through the night as the reason he needed to tear everything down. Maybe he was afraid in the terrible way that exposes the depths someone will sink to to protect themselves (maybe offering his daughters was never Lot's idea). Or maybe Aziraphale just tried to reach out to him afterwards, to offer understanding and ask for some in return, and Sandalphon shot him down so coldly and viciously that Aziraphale knew immediately this wasn't something he was allowed to have feelings about. Whatever happened that night, it left Aziraphale feeling more of an outsider from Heaven than ever.

But if it happened that way, it happened this way too: Aziraphale survives a night like that, and when he looks out into the breaking dawn, he thinks, these cities don't deserve to burn. He sees the good in a place that's just shown him its absolute worst. I think that says everything about him as a character, actually. Of course he won't give up on Heaven. Of course he'll fight tooth and nail for his home on Earth. Whatever the worst is, there are still things worth saving. There are still, always, people worth protecting.

On that note, before I wrap this up, I want to go back to Lot's words to the men of Sodom, and draw a parallel that makes me feel some kind of way. Because when Lot declares the angels under his protection, what he says is essentially, "Do not do anything to these men, for they have come under the shadow of my roof for protection." And all I can think about, reading these lines, is Aziraphale standing in his bookshop as it's surrounded by hostile demons, and telling the angel under the shadow of his roof, "You came to me. I said I would protect you. And I will."

#good omens #good omens meta #fable talks good omens

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patrickzvveig · 1 year

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i keep seeing the take that "Katniss doesn't love Peeta she's just trauma bonded to him" it's making me lose my mind.

First of all, all the superior TikTok and Twitter psychologists aren't even using that term correctly. A trauma bond implies an abuser using the trauma as leverage. Neither Katniss or Peeta are abusive and you can't even make an argument about that so automatically this idea is untrue.

but more importantly- what's wrong with, outside of the abusive context, using trauma as a bond? Why does that mean that they can't love each other? This idea is so ridiculous. Peeta understand best (more than Haymitch and the other victors) what Katniss is going through. Very few people can provide emotional support to her. She has severe PTSD and the most powerful man in the entire country is attempting to plot her assassination because she's been made the face of a rebellion, in an act of defiance Peeta was also present for. Peeta, already astoundingly sympathetic to her (and others), is able to fully empathize with her. They have a shared past and have an experience that nobody else in the entire history of the games has ever had. Like are you saying Katniss feels strongly towards him because he understands and can relate to her? literally what is unhealthy or weird about that? It would be one thing if Peeta was abusive but he's not. In his normal state, he has never used the games or the shared bond they have against her and his basically only used it to help her, as well as himself.

like the basic implication is that people who have similar trauma don't actually love each other, which is just so astoundingly untrue it's really hard to even wrap my head around the idea. and if the idea is that Katniss and Peeta never would have been together if they hadn't been reaped (or she hadn't volunteered) is also not very smart, because it quite literally doesn't matter. These are the events that happen in the book and the alter Peeta and Katniss' understanding of both one another and the world at large. 2 hunger games and a rebellion is bound to fundamentally change a person in some way.

#if you don't like peeta and katniss together it's much easier to type that out #instead of this pseudo-intellectual bullshit #like people with similar traumas can date one another 😭 that's not a trauma bond #everlark my beloved im so sorry #the hunger games #katniss everdeen #peeta mellark #everlark

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a-doubleh-x · 2 months

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Why I like Charlastor

The other day I noticed there was some negativity in the Charlastor tag, including antis and people feeling the need to defend against antis, so I thought I might as well take a step back and just write candidly about why I like the ship.

I only got into Hazbin in October of last year, but already it has inspired me a lot to write and fantazise about it. Like most people, I started with the classic "they look cute together", but as I kept looking I couldn't help but think there was something else to these two than first met the eye.

For starters, I love Pollyanas! I think they get a bad rep for being naive, but I just appreciate an optimist like Charlie who just wants to make people around her happy because it makes her happy. I also like bad boys 😳 I'm a pretty heteronormative guy, so I haven't had a big chance to explore that part of myself yet, but I do like the danger and excitement someone like Alastor brings to the table.

I will admit when I started writing Charlastor I felt like I was handling dynomite. It's a lil scary to ship a boundless altruist with a manipulative sociopath, but bear with me.

I think each of them has something the other needs. I think Charlie needs someone to challenge her, someone to steer her in the right direction while she's mostly isolated. At the start of the series, practically nobody but Vaggie takes her seriously, and Alastor is no exception. He mocks her, teases her, but she still listens and I think it's because somewhere deep down she understands there's something he's trting to communicate in his annoying, but curious way.

Of course, I also love the fanon Charlie who's down bad for Alastor, and even if that Charlie is a little naive, I think it's also sweet and she can use some indulgence while most people treat her like a child.

On the other hand, when it comes to Alastor, this is a bit of a theory on my part, but I think he's secretely lonely. He has friends, certainly, like Rosie and Mimzy, but they're not good enough friends to live together with him. They don't seem to be able to save him from "pure, absolute boredom". But Charlie, for some reason can, even though she's a stranger at the beginning when Alastor chooses to move into the Hotel.

Alastor is not as much of a cynic as someone who chooses to see things in a perspective that benefits him. He doesn't think redeeming sinner is "hopeless", but "hilarious" instead, which has interesting implications to me. That's why he chooses to hover around Charlie, not because he thinks she's lame, rather because he thinks she's silly. She makes him laugh. Which I think is kind of how Alastor sees "love".

And then you have fanon Alastor who, depending on the writer, is either a horny animal, a wisecrack edgelord or a soft boy who's mean to everyone but Charlie XD I like several of those interpretations, but I kinda prefer mine just out of personal taste. I think the best part about Alastor is that he doesn't *care* what anyone thinks of him and always does what he wants, even at the expense of other people, which I find pretty enviable.

They're kinda both outcasts in their own ways. Charlie by being unable to fit in and Alastor being unwilling to compromise. But they don't judge each other. He supports her in his own weird way and she houses him and is delighted of him in general, which is tasty food for his ego. I do wonder why Alastor is interested in Charlie, both in canon and in a fandom vacuum.

There's some cool potential for drama there, but also growth and healing, in my opinion. Personally, I think Alastor doesn't want to actually *hurt* Charlie, but he may hurt those around her, which will be a moment to start settling compromises if Charlie puts her foot down.

That haz bin my review so far! I'm honestly pretty grateful for Vivziepop for all of the work she's done so far, I know directing, animating and writing two shows over the course of 5 year or so ain't easy. I'm also grateful to the fandom who shares their thoughts and vision, which calms the terrible voices I started hearing in my head since I bought this weird old radio.

I'm in the middle of a break, but if you're interested in my fanfics I'll get back to writing very soon. Cheers! 🌈❤🦌

#hazbin hotel #charlie morningstar #alastor hazbin hotel #charlastor

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sy-on-boy · 3 months

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My 2 cents on the plot / thematic relevance of Ch 95

This is not about advancing Plot B or showing Anya's school life (which is still true but has been discussed), but rather the overall theme of education and war. There was an excellent post about how Eden is at the frontline of the cold war and it is subtly shown through the innocent lens of the first graders (I can't find it now, would link it if I could). And I think that perfectly applies to Ch 95.

Quick recap on some references about education/students/war throughout the series (that I remember at the moment):

Sylvia gravely condemning the Berlint University Student Terrorists during the Doggy Crisis arc (Ch 20) and saying "did you learn nothing about war at your university?"

Henderson talking about his experience as a history teacher (Ch 27.5, Short Mission 4) and quote: "Yes, well, I have always maintained that there is nothing to be learned from the memorization of time lines. From the grand efforts with which our forefathers crafted society to the foolish notions that sent them racing to war, to not study the human element at history's root is to not understand history at all"

Note that Damian's best subject has been established to be history, and his family (father) has been involved in war, at least Donovan was PM during most of the war (established by Melinda in Ch 91). Donovan is also a graduated Imperial Scholar (Ch 64).

The Red Circus group started out as a peaceful student demonstration "advocating for peace and quality" (Ch 72) and "speaking out to protect the weakest members of our society". And Billy Squire said, "We were a respectable movement that fought for our cause with respectable means. It was the state that turned violent against us. So I'm not taking criticism from a member of the establishment (referring to Henderson, an educator). I'm gonna see to it that they reap what they've sown." Billy's daughter Biddy was killed by the state at a protest.

Less of a point, but Becky is the daughter of the CEO of a major military manufacturer. Despite their very likely involvement in military conflicts because they sell arms, the Blackbell cohort has been depicted positively so far: Becky being a kind, wonderful friend to Anya, Becky's father doting on her, and Martha again being kind and dignified (and also being an ex-soldier and acquainted with Henderson).

Eden Academy is a major setting for SxF and the themes of politics, education, and war are embedded in it. The students involved in protests/groups are older (the university students, Billy's daughter), but the political implications remain even among the youngest of the students— the first graders.

Hence, Ch 95. When mere first graders are shown to fight to gain connections, which can be political as pointed out by Henderson: "In the world of politics, dances serve as major social events". But of course, they are kids, so they see it more playfully and innocently, especially Becky with her shipper lens on.

Of course, there is also the aspect of getting to know other people better out of interest (the boys asking Anya and Becky to dance because they were impressed after the bus hijacking). But as people have mentioned, nobody mentions this to Damian despite him being equally involved in saving the class (all three of them got a star). The girls aren't interested in Damian as a person, they're interested in him as an asset because of his family and their power.

And I can see the teachers trying to diffuse the tension and create camaraderie with their friendly competition. To me, this reads as the teachers fully realizing "the battlefield of political maneuvering", and they want to remind the kids to have fun, to show good sportsmanship, to unite the kids, to operate as a class and be friendly with one another, and overall make it more lighthearted. It's nice to see the classes work together and get excited / win as a unit, especially compared to the more "individual" bits of fighting for a dance partner later.

We get a bit of comparison between Bill and Damian, with Bill showing good sportsmanship while Damian scoffs at him. But Damian ends up becoming ultra competitive and telling his classmates to not screw it up.

Like the Dodgeball chapter, Damian is clumsily attempting to lead the class by doing good in his quiz, while getting stressed and yelling at his peers when they don't succeed like he did. So he's not really a good leader. Like how him being good at history does not necessarily mean he is good at being peaceful (Short Mission 4 ends with Henderson staring in exasperation at Damian + Anya bickering with each other). But obviously, he is merely a child, and he is naturally immature.

At first Loid is all for advancing Plan B and analysed Anya's suitors in a rational (reductionist?) way by ranking them in terms of gaining intelligence, but he remembers this is just a dance, Anya is a kid, and she should do whatever she wants. Loid (and the adults) are very aware of the political side of the gala, but ultimately they want the kids to have fun and not worry / worry less about politics.

Because they're kids! They'll grow up and learn more and be politically active later, but right now, they're just kids. Kids who don't know much about the world but are eager to make the world a better place.

In the end, we get a panel of Anya and Loid "teaming up" to win Damian's hand for Plan B / world peace. The Damian-Anya dynamic is cushioned with the silly crushy feelings, but underneath it, Operation Strix continues to be a core motivation.

I find it interesting that Endo chooses to focus on the first graders and their innocent view of the world / politics. It's embedded everywhere and especially in a prominent school like Eden, but the kids don't really realise it / realise the severity of it. Heirs and heiresses are educated at Eden and grow up to have incredible influence and the power to shape the world. Our protagonist's best friend comes from a family that manufactures arms. Henderson mentions the importance of learning history to avoid making the same mistakes (ie. war).

So Ch 95 is a cute prom chapter. But I think it also helps to show the themes underneath the fun, bubbly interactions.

#spy x family spoilers #spy x family #spy x family manga #sxf analysis #meta #idk #what do i tag #long post

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eluxcastar · 1 year

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Fatui Harbingers with a child they don't own

── ୨୧：fatui harbingers & reader

୨୧﹑synopsis :: a child that doesn't seem to belong to any one of them is known to wander around headquarters, though it's not exactly clear whose it is or how it even got there. well, it's cute enough, isn't it?

୨୧﹑genre :: fluff

୨୧﹑content :: gn reader, child reader, child endangerment 💀, scaramouche is soft because baby, pantalone is trying to teach a kid stocks, pulcinella is such a grandpa

୨୧﹑words :: 2k

this was a little thought that came to mind, mostly because of the fact I was like "Capitano forced to carry around some lil baby would be cute" and I'm fuckin speed running writing this before sports tryouts I've got less than one hour 😭

nvm I didn't finish in time and it got cancelled anyway so we can work slowly now (I didn't even finish this until the next day anyway LMAO) the mild implication each of them handles the same child on different days and this kid is just experiencing all of these things is funny to me for no reason

you have a horrible habit of wandering off while waiting for your parent, somehow managing to find yourself in the stranger possible places. how you end up there, nobody who has to look for you ever really knows, but you usually end up finding at least one person who will—if nothing else—tolerate you.

the youngest of the Harbingers is the easiest to survive and get along with. Childe likes you, and knows how to keep you entertained while he somewhat awkwardly waits to see if anyone will arrive to look for you. admittedly, he likes it whenever you pop up, finding you a good little distraction, and you think his bow is cool to watch when he uses it. you think it's just the fact that he's so good with it that makes it so interesting, and he's very supportive when you tell him all of the stuff you don't get to tell anyone. it's not that Childe is constantly waiting to feed his interest nor does he always care a lot but he certainly makes it sounds like he does and it sounds very much like he's proud of you for even your minor achievements. are you hungry? he can get you food if you need and makes sure you're shockingly well taken care of and there's not a scratch on you when you leave. he even has you calling him big bro at some point though where that came from nobody is really sure.

on a very different note, Arlecchino is at first very confused by you, then quite soft. she does not coddle you, but she is never particularly aggressive towards you, initially believing that you were looking specifically for her for some reason. after all, what else would make a small child pull at her overcoat? she does begin to wonder where you came from, and was very impressive to you, though she warns you not to grab at her clothes too much. by her own words "Something might bite you" thought that really refers to whatever weapon she keeps, referring to it in a way a child would easily understand. she lets you sit with her while you wait, but warns you once more this time not to wander, sometimes letting you take her hand and guide her to pat your head and play with your hair.

admittedly, you are not what one might call the the most popular with the banker, though he gives you little trinkets and more frequently gives you mora to look at. he gifts you loose mora so much that you run off to him when there's something you want but can't afford, and of course he notices though you think you're so slick. Pantalone starts to give you more money, as long as you keep showing up, looking and learning all the things he wants to show you. he wouldn't indulge your greed so much if it didn't give him what was an opportunity. he finds fostering your curiosity is much easier than squandering it and when you want to see the many things you simply cannot afford while living on the salary of a lowly fatuu you've picked the best option for who to go to. someday you're going to need the knowledge he happily provides, and who better to learn from than the richest man in Teyvat? wait, what do you mean you barely understood a word of it?!

above all else you think La Signora is very beautiful, and really you just want to follow the pretty lady around even if she tries to pretend she doesn't notice you at first. your persistence got so annoying she was forced to turn around and try to figure out what you want, touching your face and observing your features to see if she recognises them. of course she doesn't. she has no idea who the hell you are, or where you came from or what you want. strangely there's this endearment to you, like she can't quite bring herself to get rid of you even if she's not over the moon about you insisting on holding her hand and going wherever she goes.

easily one of the most fun to bother is Sandrone, who may have been a little on the eager side to have someone who could act as a test user for at least a few of her automatons for her. if even a child could understand the instructions, surely grown adults would have no problem right? you make a great play tester, often finding several of them piled up just for you to play with. she knows you can't stop your wandering, you'll continue to come back to see her--her inadvertent bribery that she'll have cool toys to play with ready for you to seek her out. admittedly not all of your critiques make it in, mostly the ones that don't actually apply to their purpose as she has you believing they're just harmless toys with coincidental abilities. she is generally quite benevolent towards you however, always acting as if she really will accept them in a heartbeat. she always keeps you well taken care of too.

perhaps the most shocking reaction of all is Scaramouche who is…unexpectedly nice to you. for someone supposed to be bold and generally disliked, he sure is nice in letting you crawl all over him and ask your thousand questions. he fusses over you in that odd caring way, though never what you'd call particularly sweet about it. he buttons your coat for you when he doesn't want you to get cold and lets you hide under his hat from the snow. Scaramouche often sits you in his lap as he finds something to talk to you about whether it be school or home, all a ploy to keep you still perhaps, but if for some reason he doesn't enjoy your conversations-- well, you certainly don't notice. he does greatly enjoy it in fact, a little more than he cares to admit even to you.

talking at all to Pulcinella is like talking to your Grandfather as he comes to recognise you well, greeting you with a ruffle of your hair as he asks if you've gotten bigger. you haven't gotten bigger, and he's really not all that good at picking you up, but he certainly tries and you try to pretend your feet are more than an inch off the ground. perhaps manhandling simply isn't his strong suit. still you enjoy all the candy he has laying around, and the little gadgets you find around his office which haven't had a use in twenty years. a bit of interest to them doesn't exactly make them useful, and the things you really like are always the ones you can't touch like the little tin of rolled up papers secured with a rubber band and some suspicious stuff you can't discern, but he has many stories to tell of these things all to keep you distracted from the fact you got your hands on a tobacco tin and specifically cannot use it.

strangely the least opposed but most confused by you being around is Capitano, who cannot seem to simply scare you off at a glance and therefore has to wonder why you're here at all, where are your parents? you definitely don't work here. you must be cold, hungry? did you drink enough water today? he finds himself starkly confused as to why you just wander around him, can't seem to find an ounce of sense in you as you don't turn tail and run, and while he lets you sit on his lap when you get too tired he does not appreciate having to pull your hands away from his helmet all the time. maybe he should let you just to deter you after you almost get your hand bitten off. something about the way you still hug him tightly before you leave, or how you'll just dangle off your arm, even the way that you will appear in the most inconvenient situations and he'll just hook you under his arm and cart you off somewhere with him he knows is safe. of course you think this is the most fun you've ever had but on the other hand he really wishes you would show up at a time when he's not occupied.

to Columbina you are just the cutest little thing, drawn to the sound of her voice, though that is only what first leads you to find her by chance. she does not specifically take care of you so much as pamper you, playing with your hair and sitting you by her side to keep you company. you like to turn her hair and the ornaments in her hair, all which make you say she's like a pretty dove. she knows someone will come to find you, but in the meantime she is focused on settling you down to stop your wandering. she lets you cuddle up to her, lulling you to sleep with a pretty song that calms you down. you're much easier to watch that way. it keeps you from wandering, something she notices you must have a habit of considering you found her in the first place. it doesn't matter how full of energy you were when you walked in, always finding yourself curled up, head resting on her shoulder as you drift off to sleep rather quickly.

you are not exactly granted the warmest welcome by the Doctor, in fact you become terrified of Dottore the second he notices you've found your way inside and accidentally mistakes you for one of his test subjects. of course that makes you turning tail and running off seem quite suspicious, though you're also not very hard to catch. all of your squirming is expected, barely even stopping him very much at all. thankfully Dottore wasn't born yesterday, and the large stuffed animal you carry around and the clothes you wear are fairly indicative of the fact that you're probably not one of his subjects after all once he gets a better look at you. though it's hard to ease your shaking and wipe your tears when you're not eager to listen. he's not exactly the best with children either, though you do eventually come around once he figures out what to do, letting you cuddle up to him while he stroke your back to soothe you just in case you happen to be well liked by anyone he's not keen to annoy--rare chance but never impossible. you're not exactly eager to spend time loitering around there once he sets you back on your feet and watches you run off, but rare is not impossible.

how you even managed to find your way to Pierro is beyond even him, as the sudden opening of his door is usually met with a glare, though the sight of an empty space where a person would usually be prompts him to look down just to be sure. suffice it to say he's not exactly happy to have some little ankle biter running around headquarters, but he doesn't really have time to drop everything and scoop you up to march you back wherever you came from. you have to sit still and wait. Pierro should've foreseen you crawling around his feet to get under his desk and treating it like a hidey hole--being there in the first place should've indicated to some degree that you're not particularly into the idea of patience. his numerous attempts to catch you by your arm and hold you still don't work either, just resulting in you giggling and running off to some other corner where you get into something you shouldn't. he knows damn well all of his attempts are only encouraging you, and he's a glad to finally watch you give up, possibly just because you got bored-- but whatever the reason, watching you crawl back under his feet to fit between the little space in between him and his desk lets him breathe a sigh of relief and go back to working for a little white longer while you wait for him to go find whoever you belong to.

suffice it to say whoever was looking for you is sufficiently horrified by the time they find you, but that doesn't seem to be too unusual to you.

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artemisia-black · 2 months

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Something has been bothering me for a while

I will block anyone who is rude to me about this.

I absolutely hate the tag "Bi people exist, but x isn't one of them," which always does the rounds during shipping debates.

The use of "exist" in the phrase "bi people exist but x isn't one of them" bothers me deeply. It's not merely the act of excluding someone from the bisexual identity that troubles me; it's the implication behind the word "exist." It insinuates that my bisexuality, and by extension, the bisexuality of others, is somehow up for debate—as if our identities are akin to mythical entities whose realities are questioned.

This phrase doesn't just undermine personal autonomy; it feels like a direct challenge to the legitimacy of bisexuality as a whole. It suggests that being bisexual requires some form of external validation (to know that it 'exists"), reinforcing harmful stereotypes that bisexuality is a phase or that those of us who identify this way are merely confused.

It suggests that bisexuality must adhere to specific, narrow criteria to be acknowledged as valid. This not only negates the fluidity and spectrum of bisexual identity but also disregards the diversity and richness of our experiences.

Additionally, such statements fail to recognise the vast diversity of experiences within the bisexual community. Bisexuality is unique to each individual, and insisting on a homogenised understanding of what it means to be bisexual overlooks this diversity.

Just say you don't think a character is Bi. There is no need to say 'yes bisexuals' exist, because you are (perhaps unwittingly) implying that there's a chance that we don't exist and therein lies the problem.

For extra example, nobody says, "Yes, Straight people exist, but x isn't one of them".

#discourse

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balkanradfem · 4 months

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I was thinking the other day about how often biblical stories imply that any sort of species can be started with just one and one female of the species, and sells this as the correct (maybe only correct) way to start things. Like Adam and Eve, they're supposed to be the starters of humanity, one (presumably young) male and one again, presumably young woman.

It repeats again with Noah's ark, where two animals of each species are collected, one male and one female, so they could all 'start their species anew'. Noah's family also is presumed to be the regular, one male + one woman, enough to re-start the humanity.

I understand that these stories were written to establish and force the idea of nuclear family being necessary, good and the start of everything, and if you don't think further than 'oh yeah one male and one woman are capable of making a baby' and you stop thinking there, you might be sold with these stories. But if you think about it for a second further, the implications of this are absolutely atrocious.

One young male and a young woman, are never accompanied by their parents or their grandparents in the stories. They're purposely isolated from their families, or are presumed to not even have family, which means none of them has any support, anyone to go to for advice or help, nobody to rely on to do the massive amount of labour of having and raising even one child. This is already where it falls apart, two young people do not have the knowledge, experience or wisdom to raise a small child, alone. They need their mothers, they need their grandmothers, they need elders and community in order to be able to function - first of all tell me who is delivering that baby they're having? Where is her midwife? It's never mentioned how she gets through childbirth in those stories, apparently she just 'figures it out', while in reality birth is dangerous, and women need both emotional and physical support during labour. There's nobody in this story who knows how to deliver the child safely, or how to save one or both of them should the things go wrong. They both have a chance of dying and then the species is dead. This is all ignored and pretended not to be an issue.

So next in the story we're led to believe that these two young people have made a (mistake) baby and are raising it alone and this is fine. Even funnier is that they often first have a male baby, as an effort to repopulate their species, I mean yeah thats gonna do you a lot of good for sure. Two young people of the opposite sex, without any elders, community, family or support, have one significant power imbalance - the male will usually be physically more powerful, while the woman will be more intelligent, resourceful, adaptive, thoughtful, resilient, and infinitely more vulnerable during the times of labour. It has been shown again and again, that in these circumstances, males do not find it appropriate to protect and treasure the women, but they use their physical advantage to overpower and control her, and her reproductive abilities. But in the stories this is 'fine' because she should 'listen' to this dumber, bigger, less intelligent, more aggressive, more demanding, more exploitative, more dangerous, less useful creature who is completely parasitic and depending on her kindness, intelligence, ability to make food, reproductive abilities and sense of forgiveness of his crimes towards her, to survive. Women are apparently just supposed to be hosts for parasitic males, while isolated, not given a way to overpower him except poison, which is then again depicted as 'bad' because she should just resign to live in servitude to the creature if she wants to prove that she is 'good'. This is bullshit.

Let's look at the next stage, where even more disasters await us. So they raised their child, or children, who have only had these two people to look up to, so they've likely picked up the patterns of 'male is to be served or violence happens, women need to keep their head down and obey or the violence happens', and now the children are supposed to repopulate the species. With? whom? This concept relies entirely on incest? With children who have been raised on learning the massive power imbalance? We're supposed to have sisters accept sexual slavery from their brothers at this point, if we want to have a species of humans? The bible is promoting this?

The bible at this point realizes they've fucked up and write down 'well the sons just went to the nearest village to find girlfriends' OH YOU NEED A VILLAGE NOW DON'T YOU? Now you remembered that actually no, you will now rebuild a species without just one male and one woman and in fact, villages are necessary, and your story leads straight into incest and sexual slavery of women. Presumably the women in the village have whole families and not just two people put in this unnatural position of parasitism and power imbalance. But we don't know, we're supposed to remember 'one male + one woman is correct and nothing else is okay', when the concept is fucked up from the starts and they eventually cave and introduce a village, but do it casually like it doesn't really matter and the story totally wouldn't end up in forced incestuous pregnancies and making a mess of human gene pool.

It was so important for the bible to establish, and re-establish this concept because that is the only way for males to be able to isolate, use and control young women. The concept where women don't have their own mothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, families, friends, and villages to protect them from abuse, that is the only scenario where one male can sit on his butt, call himself the 'provider' and then raise his voice and his hand whenever she doesn't do exactly as he says. It's disgusting, and there's nowhere else this can go except abuse. Males will never be unwilling to use their physical advantage to hurt and control women, and we've watched it for centuries, they were more willing to kill women than to accept that we have the right to vote,, the right to divorce them, the right to abort at will (they're still more willing to kill us than to accept this right). No woman is safe in an union with one male, without her family, friends, and a network of support. To live her entire life normally, she needs to rely on the knowledge, experience and wisdom of her elders, so she wouldn't have to do everything alone, and learn everything alone. Male, in return, usually learns all the tactics of manipulating and isolating a woman and will use those, so she needs to be ready and have strategies to defend herself, to be able to escape if it comes to that.

And sometimes, even when the woman has all the support in the world, the male still ends up killing her, because he gets a chance to do it, and it's always at the distraught and horror of everyone who loved her.

Thinking back, the concept of nuclear family had to be invented because males didn't feel like they were able to control the women enough. They likely needed to establish this because they noticed that women were able to go on uncontrolled, they were too 'free', too supported, too resourceful to just trap and control. They needed to convince women that the right thing to do was be alone with one male person who just happens to be stronger and that in fact, not doing so is dangerous and wrong. The concept of nuclear family put the control right in their hands where they wanted it, and it's still ongoing, and we're sick of it. It's a trap.

If you don't believe these stories have influenced our views, think about how males sometimes dream up concepts where they're the 'only male left on the planet', in company of the woman who they're interested in. They relish in these fantasies because they believe in that scenario, they're entitled to rape her. She isn't entitled to resist because then she's responsible for the downfall of humanity, for not repopulating the species, and they feel that this responsibility has to fall so heavy on the woman's shoulders that she will not possibly try to resist him. Women still do, women say right away that if they were the last one, they'd kill themselves instantly. Because we know and understand there's no repopulating the planet with just male and one female. There's just female sexual slavery and incest.

Possibly even the story of Adam and Eve is just a fantasy concept of one male who looked at a woman who was able to say no to him, and thought 'well, what if we were the only humans existing. How would she be able to refuse me then'. And he realized she couldn't. So he wrote it down and sold it as the ideal utopia created by god himself. And we've all been hearing his fetish fantasy like it's gospel. And then the rest of the story is focused on how wrong Eve is for resisting the rules of the male, and the even more powerful male god, how she'll be punished for eating a piece of fruit. We should have never fallen for it.

#anti religion #anti christianity #adam and eve #religion critical #radical feminism #radfem #feminism #noah's ark #bible stories dismantled #bible supported incest but changed its mind at the last second #anti marriage

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dangermousie · 4 months

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And now we know what causes her to seek vengeance and I find it so interesting because he doesn't kill her clan - he doesn't even kill her and the gamblers and courtesans (her BFF dies but it's because she was tortured before; she was not ordered executed, or even tortured after he took over.) But it makes so much sense for her character's idealism and absolutism and the fact that this is her first hero worship AND first love meeting a dose of realpolitik brutality.

When she sees him she hopes...

She tries to speak up...(side note, I love the irony that under the past king, they were tortured into a confession to implicate Jinhan and under Jinhan, their sin is that confession. Commoners really can't win...)

And his reaction. And her face at that OUCH!!!!

It is so interesting to me. Because he does what the assistant asked him (it's a return for the favor of betraying the minister of war) and they are all punished "severely" but - pretty impressively - as I said none of them are ordered to be executed; they are exiled for hard labor for 3 years and to get a whipping which sounds like a brutal amount of whipping but is still not death penalty (and is delayed until they get to the border so they have time to heal.) By the standards of a feudal society, it's a downright merciful punishment. (Yes, they had done nothing wrong, but in that society, being in the wrong place in the wrong time is a crime in and of itself.) This is Jinhan doing his patented thing - paying back favors when he has to but trying to minimize suffering while keeping within the bounds of what will not cause trouble. This is EXACTLY what he did in Qing - I mean he fought (!!!!) on the side of Qing in battles and made buddy-buddy with their royalty ie people he loathed (like he made buddy-buddy with assistant here) and he made things marginally better but he couldn't fix the injustice just mitigate it at the corners (he was able to make sure ransoms on captives didn't rise, but not that they were abolished.) He knows exactly what he can do and what he can't.

And ultimately, despite his cruelly abandoning words, if you look at what he does as opposed to what he says, the punishment they get DOES spare the courtesan's life - ie what FL asked for. Hell, they aren't even making her walk to the border, they are transporting her in a cart. She dies because she was tortured badly before; now she may have lived if she got a doctor, who knows - but at best, it's an indirect sort of thing.

BUT!!!! Here is where their difference in age, life experience, and personality comes in. He's done his best to keep all the competing factions satisfied but she's not a person who can think through that - she is terribly young, she's frighteningly idealistic and absolutist (she was willing to be tortured to death rather than say a false thing, her whole schtick with baduk playing itself was an example of it too.) And more importantly, she fell in love with him but not the real him, not truly, but this perfect paragon of selflessness and perfection she made him in her head. He's a good man and a smart man in an impossible situation, trying his best, but he's not a patterncard of perfection because nobody could be and survive. She herself earlier seemed to have understood that his actions when a hostage weren't a sign of betrayal but survival and making the best out of a terrible situation but when it comes to her and her friend, she's too personally enmeshed (understandably so) to allow herself to think the same. And so she vows vengeance.

The thing is - I think she had some sort of an idealized vision that he'd be able to save everyone and rule everyone without anyone ever wrongly suffering and it's impossible. In his position, she'd perhaps rather die than do what he did and take the throne (or compromise with assistant minister in terms of punishment or w/e else) but with that attitude, she'd have also died in Qing captivity and got a bunch of people killed or less of them freed due to higher ransoms. She is unable to compromise and he's nothing but compromises and it's a collision and I love it so much!

PS As far as we can see, the only people who came close to dying were her courtesan friend who died from prior torture and FL during her escape attempt.

PPS preview shows she will want to work with son of minister of war and ummmm that dude was one who allowed his dad to torture your friend so badly she eventually died. BRAINNNNNN PLS!!! But she doesn't feel betrayed by him I guess because she expected nothing.

#cdrama #shin se kyung #jo jung suk #sejak #sejak: charmed deceit #captivating the king

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justanotherhh · 3 months

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something i haven't seen much of so far is analysis of charlie's journey from the perspective of someone who also needs to change how she engages with others (vaggie too, but that feels more obvious as she's an ex-angel/exorcist and a sinner)

when charlie tries to help angel by confronting valentino it's been built to in the other episodes, because it's made very clear that she doesn't respect sex work -- she's got that "we need to save them from themselves" type attitude you see a lot with people who haven't done critical analysis into their own biases from a position of mildly-to-severe privileged disgust and haven't engaged with the perspectives of sex workers as people who can frame and understand their own experiences (whatever work they engage in and why they do sex work to begin with). same for her opinions on addiction

the scene where angel has to do a reenactment with sir pentious frames addiction as

something to be judged

something pitiable

something predatory

which isn't exactly a great way to bring angel onboard with the programme/make him feel less like shit. meanwhile the anti-sex + weirdly heteronormative attitude is also present in that scene by having sir pentious dress up as a virginal young girl in an anime-type school uniform with a big lollipop (the irony of this being practically indistinguishable from a porn setup feels very intentional), who declares that "she" won't be having sex before marriage as the great crescendo (sidenote, monogamy in the afterlife sounds.... like a long time to be monogamous......... yzma voice: "why do we even have marriage??")

angel, up until his duet with husk, is having it made clear again and again that the people seemingly helping him find the essence of his being inherently gross. he likes sex -- yeah there's the performance/face he has to wear to get through the day, but i think the bdsm club was a sincere suggestion and vaggie literally calls it disgusting/shoots it down without thinking about how to do so respectfully (again, she's an ex-angel/exorcist, she has biases of her own to contend with, but also the implications that nobody in heaven is having fun sex or negotiated kink and bdsm... tragic. do they even have a sex club called consent up there?)

charlie is a fairly conservative person at the beginning of the story. yes, she wants to help, but her framing of what "help" looks like doesn't take into account her own biases; presumably she grew up with the idea that "sinners are bad people" as much as anyone else did, if not more considering lucifer gave up on the sinners and that's been her environment from birth -- cut off from the people she's supposedly in charge of, but "hearing stories." (in both the pilot and happy day in hell she clearly has a fondness for the sinners, but it's as an outsider, someone who does not relate to them, and generally there's that overtone of "royalty doesn't know shit about what anyone is going through" which, charlie being a ruler, i wonder if that will be a focal point or just something to accept, it's not a dealbreaker for me, just something i noticed, esp as helluva boss has poked on power dynamics in hell along those same lines). the yearly murdering of demons is, likewise, something that is simply status quo and so even getting to a place of "hey maybe we shouldn't do that" is big and was inevitably going to create more cracks in the logic of black-and-white heaven-or-hell, so it's cool that that's where we the audience get to first meet her -- right as those threads are about to start unravelling

but at the very beginning, in some ways she echoes elements of characters like adam and lute (who are of course far more in-your-face, being villains) in her original assessment of what makes someone "a bad person" -- it causes her to create a system that doesn't actually work, and then of course the hotel is destroyed, but next time they'll build it to be better! (metaphor *jazz hands*)

why is angel in hell, is the question later asked. is it because he was/is an addict? because he drinks? because he does sex work? because he likes sex? (it may be because he's killed people/was in the mafia, but we don't have all the context yet, for now those are the things people know in the story itself) at the beginning charlie isn't asking the right questions, questions that would need her to go into herself and challenge her own biases, but throughout season 1 she goes from merely proclaiming that "everyone" can be saved, to sincerely challenging the idea of "needing to be saved" from things that shouldn't be judged in the first place. "if angel's can do whatever and remain in the sky." yeah, how are we stipulating what's allowed and what isn't hmmmmmm? stay tuned for s2

(and youknow, apologises to angel for overstepping his boundaries, so it's not like angel doesn't know that she does care for him, s4 gives a lot of development for their relationship as well -- it's the tipping point for a lot of what comes next)

interested to see how that challenging will continue in s2. she's gone from "we have to make you into a good person by cutting out things that make me (and others) uncomfortable from a conservative/purity-based judgemental framework" to "why do we have these systems of judgement in the first place?"

tl;dr angel changed a looot in s1 but so did charlie. she understands better now that the work she's doing is going to look very different from what she'd first anticipated, and poking at her own biases in relation to angel helped that journey and brought her closer to actually understanding and relating to the people around her

(there's another element here about charlie and vaggie as queer women in this particular universe, but it's a slight tangent so... different post)

#charlie morningstar #hazbin hotel #angel dust #vaggie #vaggie hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel meta #first post let's gooooooooooooooooooo #my meta

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daisymylove · 1 year

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I sincerely don't know if Im alone on this one, so I want to know what yall think. Again, I may get some heat for this, but it’s my honest opinion.

Something I noticed in my reread is that I grew a slight dislike for lucie in chot, and as someone who had always previously rooted for her, I’m currently annoyed at myself.The thing is, Lucie IS a very privileged and sheltered girl.She was born into a wealthy, loving family and, because of her apparent “normalcy”, never suffered the brunt of the shadowhunter prejudice like Tessa and James.

None of this is a problem in itself, but my point here is that there were always other people protecting, thinking and worrying for her, so I think not only she never realized how precarious her family’s position actually was, but also has no true understanding of consequences and how the “real world” works.She knew in some level that what she was doing regarding jesse was dangerous, but was never truly afraid of repercussions, bc unconsciously she knows there will be someone to catch her . And while I do like to see a character become aware of its own privileges along the narrative, there’s no growing here.She finished the book without ever realizing it, because everything was just SO easy and convenient, and that bothers me greatly.

In all fairness, how could she? she does whatever she wants with no consequences.

I feel so conflicted bc while I actually cheered when she brought jesse back in choi, and always shipped them, I find the outcome of her actions to be low-key infuriating.Lucie wasn’t willing to give Jesse up, but also never seriously considered giving up her comfortable life to start over with him somewhere.That ludicrous and set to fail jeremy blackthorn plan wasn’t even her idea, it was the people around her finding a way to fix her “mistakes” to save all of their asses from jail.

Lucie could’ve had her marks stripped, her father could’ve lost the institute, it could’ve costed Tessa’s life.Those guys had been waiting 25 years for the slightest opportunity to pounce on her, does anyone seriously believe they wouldn’t all automatically think the warlock mother was involved? How come there was some major necromancy going on under her roof and she had no idea? we know she didnt, but still All of this was severely downplayed and there was little to no conflict regarding it, and anyone can correct me if im wrong, but none of that ever dawned on lucie.She never fully thought about how her family would be implicated, and nobody brought that up to her.Zero confict just chill, I guess this is our life now .Dont get me wrong, I dont want that shitstorm to actually happen,I just wanted her to become AWARE of it

she literally brought home this complete stranger to them all (we know jesse, the characters dont) that was 8 years her senior (it doesnt matter his body was frozen for 7 years, mentally jesse is 24), Tatiana’s son, and had been dead up until last tuesday, but nobody save perhaps jessamine, and god it pains me to agree with jessamine had a problem with that.Instant acceptance, no resistance, no objections at all.All it would take for that lie to crumble would be ONE trial by the sword at any point of their lives and everybody was as chill as chicken joe from surfs up

Her fight with Cordelia pissed me off too. Lucie meddled on something she had no right and no knowledge of,and demanded things of Cordelia without even being willing to hear her out. ”oh the poor thing is suffering so much bc of you, why can’t you just take him back?” GIRL, FOR ALL SHE KNOWS, UNTIL A WEEK AGO, HOME BOY WAS SWEARING UNDYING LOVE AND BURNING DOWN MANORS FOR GRACE BLACKTHORN.

WE know poor james was ensorcelled and fighting it, but what was cordelia supposed to think of it? How dare she assume that Cordelia “took advantage of James going to Cornwal to run away with matthew”?

The demon of secrets in edom scene was plain ridiculous.”yo I had a childhood crush on your brother, sorry for never telling you, I was embarrassed” is not a big deal.The fact that they needed demonic intervention for THAT so late in the book baffles me

While I do think most characters were severely nerfed on this book and behaved ooc on several occasions (swear to god I have some mild ptsd from all the times cordelia ran and did unhinged things) , my conclusion about Lucie’s arc is that she took her good life for granted, endangered her entire family, didnt grow from the experience, but still got everything she wanted with no consequences or sacrifices.She lost a cousin along the way, but who cares about that guy? what was his name again? Its my understanding that Lucie never even faced a trial.Thats unrealistic and bad writing, if you ask me.When I think it over, the word that comes to me is...spoiled.

And dont get me started on the fact that she found out Malcom was planning on doing full blown necromancy and didnt do anything about it.How that had no repercussions AT ALL still blows my mind.

The worst part for me is that I genuinely believe Lucie deserved better you know?

If lucie and cordelia hadnt been allowed to become parabatai, and jesse had received some other minor yet life changing punishment, and we had seen a trial scene I would’ve been satisfied, because at least it wouldn’t have been nothing.

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