#once again i should emphasize that there was no reason for them to treat me this way at fucking all

[strawberrybabydog]

for me, some level of trauma related to being the least-favourite child is directly related to playing videogames and boredom

growing up my younger sister got handed the SNES controller and i didnt. she played with my parents and by herself and i watched but didnt play. sometimes this was because i wasnt allowed and other times i thought it was a choice, even though, my choice was because i didnt know how to play and if i asked my mom would have said "really? you want me to start a whole new save file JUST for you?" and i would have quietly said nevermind, and remembered not to ask ever again

when we got a wii, for my sister's birthday she got 2 wii games. for my birthday i got decorations even though i was too young to understand what a decoration is and i just tried playing with them (emphasis on try). sometimes i would come home from school and my sister would have a random gift (something i never got) - another wii game! because it was on sale at blockbuster, and oh sorry Luna, we didnt get anything for you because they didnt have anything you would like.

by the end of our wii, i had 1 wii game that was mine - i chose whenever i wanted to play it, for how long, and if anyone else wanted to play it they had to ask. that was the rules, because it was mine. my younger sister has 11 wii games.

when i was in middle school, i was not allowed to get a better (real) console. it was too expensive. plus, we have the wii, it works perfectly fine, just play on that. m...my one game? that i've been playing since i was 9? that i've 100%'d 5 times? yes.

when i was in highschool i wasnt allowed to have money, especially not to spend online. "luckily" i met an internet friend who was a hacker and sold what he claimed to be abandoned steam accounts. he gave me one for free. i played stardew valley and oblivion religiously, because my laptop was built in 2010 and could barely handle the lowest graphics settings of a game several years older than it. it ended up getting double-hacked so after a year of using it, i once again had no more videogames

now im an adult and i just... cant play videogames. basically none of them. after abut 30 minutes of playing i get so anxious that i have to stop. i havent played stardew valley in about 2 years, my favourite game of all time that i used to stay up until 8am playing.

the game loads, and im anxious because i forget the controls. i walk up to an npc and get anxious because if i dont pick the perfect dialogue tree, im failing myself by not being perfect, so i'll pause the game and go on my phone for 10 minutes to find the answer (i HATE doing this.) i approach a puzzle and im anxious because what if im not smart enough to solve it and i fail again? i need to check if anyone's in the room with me now because if anyone is watching me play they'll know i'm a failure too so i should stop playing. but, videogames are communal (they must be,) i have only ever experienced playing them with someone else there (watching sibling/parents play, watching youtube letsplays) but if someone else sees me fail i'm the worst person ever. and i mean, realistically, how do you even play a videogame for more than 1 hour? how do focus on 1 thing for that long? sounds fake to me

but... i want to play videogames. i know they're experiences. and i want to have experiences. especially because as a disabled person my only other option is youtube. so if i'm not playing videogames, i'm bored out of my skull laying in bed, doing nothing, staring at my youtube screen watching the exact same video essay for the 6th or 7th time this week because the algorythm's only other choice is "perfect damascus steel knife blade DIY"

other than youtube, what am i supposed to do? i cant play videogames - i'm not perfect at them, i cant focus, and i just dont deserve them. there is nothing else.

#and im not even touching on how this has othered me socially #i had to go to high school and listen to my friends talk about playing soulsborne while i had to go home and play fucking #my sims kingdom for the wii. that was my game. that was the 1 game i had #i didnt even choose it either. or ask for it. or know what it was. my parents bought it because it was in the fucking clearance bin #once again i should emphasize that there was no reason for them to treat me this way at fucking all #i am autistic but i am also like very fucking normal. painfully so #i was especially a very normal child #but in their brains they just see me as the RWord and that's enough justification to not give me things that i need or make me happy #sorry for posting this on this blog i pretty much have 1 friend and she talks to me like once a week lol #personal #not dog #parental trauma #yes im including this as trauma btw i literally cry when faced with the task of playing a video game i literally panic #there's also something to be said about growing up in a hypermisogynistic environment and how living with 1 male and 1 TV #makes me immediately give up videogame powers to him. like. why am i playing the tv im a girl he's in charge He should be playing videogame #big shout out to the 0 people who will read this entire post why tf am i posting this oh riiighhht i have no friends. ok tumblr post now

[misscammiedawn]

Ethical Personality Play

So. I've written about my experiences with Personality Play in the past. A couple times, actually.

The TL;DR is that from early 2000s-2019 this was my signature move that the first three hypnotists I was tied up with utilized on a near daily basis. The damage of this abuse has never been fully tallied, but if you want my "how to alter your personality with hypnosis" guide in a word it is simple:

Don't.

"But what if I want to do hypnotic edgeplay?"

But saving that... let me impart some wisdom in hopes that y'all will play nice and safe with this.

Firstly let me define the terms.

Personality Play is any form of hypnosis scene that alters aspects of the individual's identity whether it be for a scene, as a permanent trigger or as permanent conditioning. The danger amplifies with the more severe and lasting the changes are but there is always danger.

So, let's cover each area of what can be done, how it can be harmful and how to avoid that harm.

General rules

Before even negotiating this kind of play. Disclose.

If you are engaging with intimate hypnosis at this end of the danger spectrum then you need to have a level of intimate trust relative to that risk and this trust needs to go both ways. If I were a hypnotist introducing this kind of play into the mix I would do so only if I could trust in my hypnotee partner's mental state.

I disclose my BPD and DID at the start of any hypnotic relationship and talk about how they impact me. How the depersonalization and derealization symptoms require a level of grounding before and after play and what to do if my emotional state switches during the middle of a scene. This is not an easy thing for me to do, especially if time is a limited factor, but it's a necessary thing to do.

I do not expect every person playing be willing to disclose every mental condition they have or open up about possible abreaction triggers. That's sensitive information and it's natural to not want to be open about that with every partner. I do, however emphasize that it is vital for that information to be known when approaching these topics. It is unfair for the partner in the scenarios to be responsible for managing safety on either side of the watch when they are unaware of the depths of vulnerability.

I have experience with this fallacy myself. In utilizing hypnosis to ignore my triggers I did severe damage to myself and I am now plagued with intrusive memories and nightmares of events that happened during scenes that I was able to effortlessly indulge in during the scene but as they say "The body keeps the score" and I was in fact doing further damage to myself. Something which my partner at the time was not equipped to deal with because I'd failed to disclose or even treat the situation as worth being safe about.

Now I am just burdened with further damage by ignoring my brain's defenses on my existing pain.

Once again, I refer to my first bit of advice on how to ethically perform Personality Play: DON'T.

Once you have a trusting understanding of both sides of the watch's limits and comforts the next step is grounding.

Grounding is mandatory.

I wrote about my feelings on this before in more depth. The short version, though:

Before and after a scene with intense reality distorting you should take an effort to make a person feel aware of their surroundings, to offer them connection "during the scene you will know I am here and you can pause the scene at any time for any reason" and for them to take stock of their mental state and how they are feeling. Just ask them to display curiosity and provide comfort in the connection between hypnotist and hypnotee. You will be returning here and you need to make it an inviting space.

Grounding should also include a reminder that the hypnotee will be aware of what is happening the whole time. I'll cover this more in the more risky portion, but the key to safety is to ensure that the hypnotee is not immersed in any headspaces they may slip into (with the understanding that there is another gradient here of subspace and highs and peaks from scene play which are chemical reactions and those highs are a little more natural than the altered headspaces I am referring to).

For another grain of personal experience and warning here, I just want to talk about the three hypnotists who played with me utilizing personality play. One knew what he was doing, one didn't know what they were doing and one didn't care. I'll refer to them as Noel (knew better), Dinny (didn't know) and Carrie (didn't care).

Dinny expected that if a scene got too much for me that I would drop out of trance or end the scene. To them they assumed that no one will do anything in hypnosis that they didn't want to do and that it was just extreme play-acting. They likely didn't believe in hypnosis all that much and used it as a framework for roleplay, which is their true indulgence.

So if a scene got too intense for them they would safeword. End the scene. They were in control.

As someone who was immersed in the play and had no grounding, there was no escape because within the framework of the scene, there was no "out of character" there was the scene and that was all that was happening.

You cannot assume that a hypnotee will safeword and end a scene unless they receive the proper grounding and instruction to do so. If you're going to be doing edge play, you have to surrender the fantasy and make sure reality is in the scene at all times. Both sides of the watch. If you are entering in a scene where a person is altered throughout then you cannot expect them to act on their agency. It's a CNC scene by default and you need to introduce safety and consent to avoid that.

Likewise I want to note the power imbalance that comes from play like this. A motivated hypnotee can fling themselves into this arena and do harm to the hypnotist. This does fly both ways. A hypnotee not advocating for themselves or exercising their agency will make a hypnotist accessory to the damage.

This is a sin I have committed.

A hypnotist has a responsibility to themselves to not allow a self-neglecting hypnotee use hypnosis as a method of psychological self-harm. This guide is as much to protect a hypnotist from being abused as it is for hypnotees to avoid allowing themselves to be abused.

Every side is vulnerable in these exchanges.

So... now that we understand the basics before we can even start, let's start in the shallow end and work out way up.

Emotion Control/Intelligence Play

Starting soft. This is fairly standard play and so long as you're being mindful I doubt many would have too many problems with these suggestions.

Infatuation potions, ditzy spells... this is fairly standard stuff.

The key thing to do is to ensure that the effects are temporary and impersonal. For instance for an intelligence play scene you may want to picture a dial in the hypnotees head that has a default setting. Take a moment to ground that default setting. What is normal. What it feels like out of hypnosis. Then you can suggest that it will always return to this default setting after a time but for now we intend to dial it back down, as you feel yourself growing sillier and sillier.

This is a safe way to handle a scene like this because even if you do not perform a post-session grounding (which you always should), the default will naturally return.

Likewise infatuation potions you can mention how your body will metabolize and you'll be aware of the artificial nature of the emotions you feel.

Being aware of the artificial nature of the emotions at play will prevent lingering effects. Even after you clean up there will always be a little bit left over and it's a matter of limiting how much sticks around and where the mind will return to.

I safely play with suggestions like this to this day even when Personality Play in the broader sense is Red for me. This is safe. It's manageable. It's temporary and with a partner who is willing to make space for it, you can keep reality in the room. Safe and secure.

But it can still be dangerous.

Let's see the intelligence play scene was handled poorly. Instead of a temporary dial which defaults to normal a hypnotist instead asked "Debra" to imagine herself with platinum blonde hair, a larger chest, all her thoughts evaporating into a pink bubblegum mist as boundless confidence overcomes her until she transforms into her bimbo persona, "Debbie" and Debbie can be summoned at a simple turn of phrase.

That right there? That's DANGEROUS.

We'll cover more as to why when I go over persona/character play, but it's a good example of how a "bimbo trigger" can be performed ethically and how it can be performed dangerously.

*sighs*

So let's move on...

Altered Headspaces

By altered headspaces I mean suggestions and scenes that play on your ability to perceive and process things. This can be the drugged/drunk sequences, hallucinations of any variety. It can be impulsiveness or boosts of confidence or terror.

Y'know. Stage hypnosis stuff. Because as we know, stage hypnosis tricks are a bastion of "ethical" suggestions.

Seriously though. The prevalence of these types of suggestion in the public perception make us as a community look bad and it's why doing them safely is vital, especially if we do get people entering the community with the idea of types of play which are risky at best from the get-go.

For these suggestions you want to provide the above grounding, but the hypnotee also needs to be able to have an objective view to their state so they can advocate for themselves.

Any altered headspace will supplement agency. It's why you cannot negotiate with someone when they are fractionated. Thusly, any interaction you have with someone in an altered headspace is going to be dubious consent by default. What if you made someone slutty for a scene and they escalated the scene to a sexual one without prior negotiation or existing rapport.

The correct thing to do is end the scene there and then. Otherwise the hypnotist is taking advantage of the hypnotee.

That's a fairly plain example, too. Hence why I feel even this level is edge play.

I don't particularly want to share my personal experience in this realm. Suffice to say I've never once in my life had lucid sexual intimacy with a partner. Every single time I was altered. I literally cannot approach the concept/act without being altered first. I invited it.

The body keeps score.

The way to practice this safely is to encourage the hypnotee to maintain an awareness and presence in the scene. There is a risk to this as incentivizing a dissociation between the conscious self and the altered self is the exact thing we are trying to avoid in these scenarios.

I refer again to the shining DON'T at the top of the post.

But with the correct grounding and temporary status of any scene this risk is lower than the risk of allowing a hypnotee to dive into a scene so heavily that they will ignore their personal ethics and safety for the consideration of the scene at play.

It's either allowing them the ability to advocate for themselves while altered, "the hidden observer will always be present during the scene and can stop things for any reason or just to check in" basically it's keeping reality in the room. A hypnotee should be discouraged from throwing themselves headlong into the fantasy and an awareness of waking self and the artificial nature of play is important, particularly the more immersive you go...

So...

Character/Persona Play

Which brings me to the final warning.

Please do not even attempt this. I see kids in tulpa communities and roleplayers who can't see the harm in becoming their characters and I wish I could share a grain of my experiences.

I did this for 18 years. Eighteen years. Daily. The damage it has done to me is never ever going to be fixed.

The thread I made on Twitter received a number of supportive messages from others with dissociative disorders who echoed my sentiments. I'm legitimately at the point where I ask "were we attracted to this type of play because we were predisposed to it" or "do we have serious disorders due to our time playing in the deep end"

Neither one need to be true. Doing so did damage. A lot of damage.

So here's my first question off the bat.

"What if your hypnotist gets hit by a bus?" what if one day you wake up and you no longer have someone to explore this gigantic portion of your soul with. What if access to this kind of play existed only within a relationship. Are you willing to allow that much of your personal experience and agency be left to someone else's hands?

What about trust. Can you trust someone to shape a part of yourself? Dinny, Carrie and Noel each did harm in their own way handling the bits of me I shared with them. Noel warped and twisted and perverted them to the point of which these characters, real and living aspects of me feel violated by his impact upon them. Carrie abandoned them and let them wither and die without even considering attachments I had made to them... attachments they had to the stories and connections they had made... and then Dinny? Dinny never treated them as real. They were fantasy and the situations were fantasy and it was all just a game.

Let me tell you about that last one. If you want to play out a hateship scene and utilize hypnosis to make your partner think that they are in that hateship scene, the emotions exist. They will bleed through and poison you in your waking state. If you are made to perform as a vampire who wants nothing more than to taste flesh then you are going to feel that desperate hunger and be trying with every fiber of your being to overpower the hypnotist who has the ability to end the scene if things get rough but, and this is the important part, unless you set up grounding-- you will not know that in the moment.

I legitimately have nightmares about the things I did while acting in scenes Dinny ran.

And lastly...

Are you willing to accept that there are parts of you that can do things that you in your waking and natural state, simply cannot do?

I do not know if doing these things makes you more vulnerable to the symptoms of a dissociative disorder or not, but I know that a damn lot of people who did this stuff excessively happen to have these symptoms.

Look. I don't hide my DID diagnosis on Tumblr. It hurts that I have a mesmerizing Fae in my heart who is more lovable than I am, more confident, more capable, more experienced and charming. I hate that she can perform feminine voice better than me. I hate that she can push boundaries and harm me without a thought. I hate feeling inferior to me. I hate feeling like I'm just a function of a person that people want around more.

I hate finding evidence that she had a whole online life that we hid so well that even post-diagnosis I am not fully sure what she did. I hate feeling powerless that I'm not in control of my own life and reality.

Dawn scares me. I am afraid of the part of me that most people love.

...and I have no way of communicating that as a warning that doesn't sound exotic and enticing. Because dissociative disorders are not exotic and enticing. They're boring, exhausting and tedious and though I am 50/50 on whether it can be accidentally induced through hypnosis play, I know there is no damned chance in hell any person should willingly gamble with that possibility.

I know so many systems and people who have endured extreme brainwashing who would be behind me when I say this.

DO. NOT. DO. IT.

...and so... assuming you have read all the warnings and you're not actively trying to invoke installed personalities into a person (which I do not condone under any circumstances at all).

How can we do character play and not leave lasting damage?

That's a question I have asked myself so so many times.

Firstly, avoid anything that makes the character headspace an extra layer. Do not use hypnosis to mold them. Do not give them their own triggers. Do not do anything which can be used as a divide between the waking self and the constructed persona.

But that's more "Don't" isn't it. Here's what you can do.

I think the best way is instead of having the hypnotee monitor the scene and step in when they need to, ask them to treat it as a performance. That they are aware of the artificial nature of the scene but at all times they will commit to taking on the role as an actor would on stage.

The key is to associate the role with the hypnotee enough that they are present in the scene while allowing them to commit to the actions without experiencing the thoughts and feelings of their own. Insist that no matter the morality and behavior of the character, the hypnotee as the actor will never cross their personal limits or ethics for the sake of the scene.

Then at the end of the sequence be sure to end the scene and ground the hypnotee, have them remember everything that had happened, remember them performing the act and deciding how to handle every decision. Make sure that the entire time that character and actor are one and the same and all hypnosis is doing is allowing the actor to invest in the bit.

That is legitimately the only safe way I think one can engage in this kind of play and from that angle it seems as harmless a suggestion as any scene.

But no shortcuts. No triggers that induce character headspace. No trying to breathe life into characters and allow them to inhabit. Even channeling them or letting them speak through the hypnotee courts a level of dissonance between states.

It's possible to enjoy the spontaneity of character play without suppressing the ego of the hypnotee. As I mentioned at the start, it may seem like a desirable outcome for some hypnotees to experience a state of ego-death and allow themselves to experience becoming someone else for a little while. It sounds appealing on paper.

A responsible hypnotist should never indulge that kind of desire and a respectable hypnotee should never burden a hypnotist with that level of responsibility. The damage is too risky.

Lastly, and this applies to all.

DEBFRIEF

Every major scene in any kink should involve a debrief segment. This helps with the grounding and it helps establish the in and out of scene dynamic while allowing the hypnotee to associate with their actions. "I did" rather than "they did".

One of my bigger mistakes in character play in my younger days was that I baked amnesia in and allowed my play partner to tell me about the scenes after the fact. This made it seem like the characters in the scene were the ones controlling things and I was a passive and absent spectator. Not good for healthy associations.

During a debrief the hypnotist and hypnotee should discuss their roles in the scene, how they felt during the experience. It gives both parties an opportunity to interrogate how the other is perceiving things, catch any flags (abuse of control over the scene, losing reality to fantasy etc) and give one another ideas for how to improve for future scenes. Debriefs make all kink play better in my opinion. Plus who doesn't like a bit of feedback on how you handled things in scene?

...look... I don't want to be an old lady yelling at the kids for doing things when I did them myself at that age.

I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't pretend I didn't see the allure on both sides of the watch.

I just... there weren't 20+ year experienced hypnosis veterans who had been in my character play abusing position when I was growing up. No one warned me. I learned all this the hard way and I hurt people. People I loved. Moreover I hurt me. In ways that will never heal.

I just want to spare anyone I can the pain of going through this.

So, in quick summary:

Ensure reality is always in the room.

Ensure the hypnotee is always aware of themselves and their action.

Reset after every scene.

Do not allow situational scenes to become direct triggers.

If you insist on reusing altered headspaces and characters then install and deinstal every time to limit any lingering traces out of scene. Do not allow them to have programming/conditioning unique to them.

Avoid allowing the hypnotee to circumvent their own ego and agency in a scene.

Debrief

Play safe... if you must play at all.

#camden posting #community safety #hypnosis #hypnokink #watch me post my trauma in public #personal

[bloobluebloo]

I’m actually disappointed Ganondorf nuke explosion death had no consequences on the land. A bomb just exploded in a giant beam of light. And nothing happened? No mountain cracked, not a single tree destroyed, no land was burned? At least give us a crater. An honorary Ganon crater, just for him. Forever imbedded into the earth

I HATE THAT THEY EXPLODED HIM FOR SO MANY REASONS-

I feel like exploding Ganondorf was such a hollow way to end his life. Apart from my issues around the fact that this nullifies everything we've learned about draconification after the game spent a couple of cutscenes reinforcing the permanency and immortality factor of the act, it just felt really annoying that it didn't apply to either Zelda or Ganondorf who are the main dragons of this story. (And before someone comes at me with the "oh what if dragons are immortal like lobsters are where they only die when they are killed" well, okay, then why spend so much time telling me, in several cutscenes, that dragons lose themselves and are immortal and it cannot be reversed? When it's emphasized that much the purpose is usually to reinforce that becoming a dragon is really *really* a permanent change, not that by the power of love and friendship and the gods hate Ganondorf that much that none of those rules apply)

Then, yeah! As you said! Ganondorf's explosion was of nuclear proportions! Fine, Link and Zelda are special and being right in the vicinity didn't vaporize them somehow (I guess another power of Rauru and Sonia is to pull Link into some pocket dimension to initiate their changing of Zelda back to herself or something), but the rest of Hyrule? The light from that explosion should cause eye damage in like half the population. There should be a huge crater or at least the land around him burned out of all greenery and living beings (which would at least leave a permanent legacy of what Ganondorf had intended to do). I guess we never get to really see Hyrule post-game anyways, maybe they would consider these things if we did (I highly doubt it because Hyrule's a magical place where specifically when the king of demons explodes in death Hyrule's blessed light prevents the land and its people from suffering any consequences).

(Okay fine change Zelda back to herself but also, she doesn't remember *anything* from being a dragon? Man these characters really go through everything with no consequences suffered at all! You blame Ganondorf for being mad?)

And finally, my problem really with it is how Ganondorf's death is sort of treated like...well like he was just in the way instead of a meaningful part of the story. In OoT, when you first "kill" him, Zelda acknowledges him in a show of pity, implying that he had reached a point that he just could not be saved from himself. When he is sealed away, you can see in his eyes and his face how Zelda's words about his inability to properly control his power really shows itself, having gone mad and swearing vengeance on their descendants. In Wind Waker, his final words are "The wind is blowing", perhaps alluding to what he had said previously, that the only winds he had ever felt were the winds of death, and here he is feeling it once more in death, having truly lost everything in that moment. In Twilight Princess, Ganondorf dies on his feet, the scene silent as Link and Zelda watch, as Zant cracks his neck, as Zelda bows her head once he closes his eyes. You don't have to *like * Ganondorf, but his deaths and his sealing left an impact on the player, mirroring the message and themes of the game. This just felt like "well, let's just get him out of the way quickly so we can move on to focus on Link and Zelda reuniting" which, look, I think that final fall where you dive for Zelda is epic, it gets me in the feels ngl. However, it just like, what does it say about the antagonist? What did he die for? Is he that callous and meaningless of a character that we just explode him and never acknowledge him again? That is a pretty painful way to die isn't it? I don't have all the words to convey my feelings but it just feels like, for a game that markets itself as the one that really integrates Ganondorf as a character and "solidifies his character" that it handled his death so poorly. He was as much as a whisper of a legend that he was when Link and Zelda went into the depths of Hyrule Castle by the end of the game and that just doesn't sit well with me.

#ganonthots

[metabolizemotions]

The creative choices on the show are as subjective as each of the viewer's interpretations.

I think a lot of why I personally feel deeply uncomfortable n resistant is the asymmetry.

I get the need for variety. The same thing may be expressed differently for different characters. A healing journey will differ from person to person. Each step is also taken on a personalized timeline.

But I can't help but think of the asymmetry of how the show dealt with Mason vs Beckett n even Dixon. They condemned Mason immediately at his worst but dug deep to show the sides of Beckett n Dixon that were still human despite it all.

The trigger shot scene with Beckett felt like 0 to 100 in his reconciliation with Maya. It felt like a 12-step program of which he skipped many steps when it came to Maya. From the get-go, we saw a sexist, incompetent captain who was demeaning to his team n constantly put them under stress n in danger, on top of endangering civilians n even equipment. For months, we saw this middle-aged man in a position of power, take perverse joy in bullying a younger female subordinate to appease his ego. That was workplace harassment. He also took out his unresolved trauma on the people around him, in this case, people he had authority over. Alcoholism was not the sole reason for all his bad behavior. Even if it was, it should not be used to excuse it.

The team, esp Maya, was trapped in this hostile work environment sanctioned by the female chief. This was a more common n insidious manifestation of toxic masculinity, one that was amplified by his position of power, n sometimes even supported by women, when their goals aligned in the power struggle.

Yet the show gave so much more grace n compassion to the bullies than the bullied. The team treated Beckett n Ross with more kindness n respect than they earned, n less kindness n more apathy towards Maya than she deserved.

Then he was given a long, carefully constructed redemption arc, while Mason, a rushed condemnation arc.

It felt like 100 to 0 with Mason. We saw Mason briefly in earlier seasons, mainly thru the eyes of Maya. We missed a lot of the in b/w. We caught him again at his worst. We only saw the side that was full of hate ideology, but not his side that was also human. We knew about his addiction n homelessness. But we didn’t see how as a young abused person w/o positive role models n a support system, he was vulnerable to these hate groups, which he clung to, when offered him just a semblance of belonging or respect. He had not learned to let go of his resentment of their parents n Maya but taught to transfer this unresolved hate to fill a meaning void.

The scene itself b/w Maya n Mason was great. It was an urgent n imperative story to tell. Maya's actions were right n necessary. But in the bigger scheme of things, it felt like a quick tie-up of loose ends, of a once-beloved brother, who came n went abruptly. Despite it being a logical narrative choice to wrap up the nature/nurture discussions of Marina n discovery that Maya's deepest fears about herself manifested in her bro instead. It's heartbreaking n yet disheartening that it was again about queer hate when it came to another main queer character on the show.

It is just jarring to juxtapose Mason with Beckett in 703 then 707. Also juxtaposing his empathy towards Maya with the lack thereof from the others, despite everyone having just been thru 706 n having witnessed Maya's breakdown. So, in a way, I see the actions of these characters as being designed with the goal to emphasize Beckett's empathetic side, in support of his arc.

When looking at a scene with 2 scene partners, what it is really about? Who it is really for? Would the scene be the same if one is replaced?

There are many different takes on this. For me, it was really about Maya, but choosing Beckett as the scene partner made the scene more for him. If it were for Maya, other scene partners would be more meaningful n realistic. Esp those who earned their right for her to be vulnerable with. Maya, who bottled her feelings, let alone spill her deeper emotions, to someone whom she never had a proper conversation with, not to mention a fraught shared history. To add, alone in a small enclosed space, while administering a shot that made her even more vulnerable.

For the realism argument, this was not more realistic to me than having Carina, for a show which took a lot of liberties. It was a choice to design the circumstances to make Carina n the others unavailable n combine 2 scenes together. Carina's also Maya's life partner n best friend. A more realistic choice for Maya to share this devastating heartbreak n grieving process with. It was a big aspect of their marriage. We saw many discussions b/w them yet when it finally came to the conclusion, it was with the least likely person, an almost stranger.

I see the trigger shot as part of Marina's baby journey I wish we get to see them undergoing together. It reminded me of 5b in that Marina's story about their own baby journey - again with someone of a fraught shared history, of a different nature - was more about him n to lead to his own bio family story. Marina's story was messy n got nowhere. And here we r, seasons later, rushing thru it.

It's not that Maya/ Carina or Marina should not have scenes with others. It's that it's usually more about the others even if it's their storyline. Or they r the backdrop for others' drama. They either isolate Marina or suddenly include them or one of them in an in-depth discussion of their private matters with others, usually something we hear about for the first time. I just don't remember something like that happening with other characters. Is it too much to ask to see a married w|w couple, with little screentime, share a meaningful conversation or moment first, also or exclusively? We so rarely see such a rep on TV. The show is not about Marina, but shouldn't their own story reasonably prioritize them?

#this is just my personal take on this #this is in no way to invalidate other takes #i'm sorry i really don't know how to be succinct #my fav thing abt fandom #is to talk. cry. laugh. be silly n fangirl tog #abt fictional chs #or actors #i love to see diff povs even if i may disagree w #when expressed respectfully #i love #discussions #or see details someone noticed #interesting connections... #feelings r valid #but povs r subjective #my 2 cents is #it's ok to like only one ch #or all #hav opinions on everything #or accept everything #u decide what u want out of it #viewers have opinions #agreeing w everything is in itself an opinion #i rant a lot abt the decisions bts #it doesnt mean i don't respect their hard work #my opinion is just my pov #it's not more right or better just diff #it's my way to make sense of this #station 19 comments #station 19

[coffeeandbatboys]

OLLOOOOOOO!

Congrats on your follower milestone!💜🎉

I have magically appeared in your asks to send you a little something here 👀

I would like to ask for Kix (or Jesse if he works better, go where the muse takes you😘)

with the emoji 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰 and i bestow the number

3

I hope you enjoy creating all of these! I'll keep my eye out for them! And i might just slide in with another later on if you dont mind 👀

😘💜💜💜

Yay!!!!! I definitely debated whether to do Kix or Jesse but I ended up going with our fav grumpy Medic.

Prompt is: Holding and cradling their face to study it, perhaps noticing something new. Something else to love.

(Btw anyone can send in multiple requests) and I am enjoying this very much. I love writing for my boys. Also I must say I find it crazy that a few weeks ago I was fangirling over your fics and now I’m writing one for you. It is an honor.

Warnings: mention of slight injury, medbay, Kix cannot be paid a million credits to be relaxed and happy for ten seconds. Reader is a mechanic.

Gray (Kix x Reader)

“Kriff.” You hissed, pulling your hand back. Not five seconds later did you hear footsteps behind you.

“Medbay. Now, Cyare.”

You groaned in frustration. “Kix, I swear it’s only a scratch.”

“There’s blood all over your hand!” He screeched.

“That’s an overstatement. It’s just a little patch,” you said, clutching it to your chest.

You had nicked your finger on one of the metal studs inside an astromech, and it started to bleed pretty heavily. Kix had shown up like a moth to flame when the curse left your lips.

“Kix, I feel like the reason you shave your hair is because it’s gray.”

He huffed. “No such thing.”

“You worry too much.” you emphasized.

“Just,” he closed his eyes and took a breath. “Come with me. Please?”

You obliged, feeling bad for making him go crazy. Once you both reached the sterile medical room, Kix motioned to one of the beds, which you plopped down on.

After returning with a bacta patch and a cleaning pad, he sat down in front of you with a sigh. He carefully took your hand and began to wipe away the blood.

The lack of conversation was killing you, because you couldn’t tell if he was still worried or just mad.

You decided to break the silence. “You know, you don’t have to worry about me so much.”

He sighed, again. “It’s just…” he shook his head. “Never mind.”

You cocked an eyebrow. “That doesn’t work on me, Kixie. Spill it.”

“You’re the only person besides my brothers that I get to care for. And it’s weird because I’m used to treating worse injuries from the battlefield.” He smoothed the bacta patch over the cut.

Your lips parted in surprise.

He grimaced. “Do I sound stupid yet?”

“No! No…I just…never thought about it like that. But there are other ways to take care of me, you know.”

He took the bandaged hand and placed a soft kiss on the bacta patch.

You slid both hands up until they cradled his face. You noted the little lines around his eyes, and the stubble that was growing out on his jaw. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days.

You frowned. “Maybe I should be the one taking care of you.”

“Aw, Mesh’la.”

“Here.” You scooted so that you were laying on one side of the bed and patted the space next to you. He huffed and did as you asked, laying down and resting his head on your chest.

“Sleep, Kix. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

He mumbled something into your skin that you couldn’t decipher, so you hummed in question.

He lifted his head slightly. “Love you so much, cyare.”

You shook your head with a smile.

“Love you too, Kix.”

#clone medic kix x reader #kix x reader #clone medic kix #tcw kix #kix #clone trooper kix #Kix x fem!reader #clone medic Kix x fem!reader #the clone wars #coffee’s 270 follower celebration #star wars

[lil-lost-mind]

(This is a bit of a along post about my general experience in the qsmp fandom, both good and bad, and it does mention xenophobia but not direct experiences)

I'm happy to see people here being so nice and reminding that we(Brazilians) are welcome here

I was really hesitant about interacting with fandom at first, I actually was there the Brazilians arrived because suddenly tazercraft live appeared for me on YouTube, I joined for a moment but didn't stay long, but I did look about it later. Because Brazilians youtubers/streamers are on a server with a bunch of people from other countries? I was curious about what this would lead to

Didn't regret it, but since then, I was a bit scared of interacting on fandom. Some comments on clips were fine. But then I started using tumblr because of a friend's recommendation, I kept a look on what was happening on lore on general but didn't really interact on fandom. Hence why I created this blog, and also why it took me so long to link this blog to my main one

Because, well, if I got hate for any reason, it would only be a sideblog that I only posted about qsmp. I could just delete it or just ignore them

I am by nature a person who is very shy to talk about my interests, it might have nothing wrong about it but I'm shy, I'm the type of person who goes on asks box on anon because is too shy, even if I'm not doing anything wrong there's this fear of judgemeent.

In the light of the recent events, I am once again reminded that's why I don't use or plan to use Twitter, but still I couldn't avoid but feel... scared in a way, I don't think anyone would like to be treated that way. And even a bit ashamed of saying that I'm brazilian. Ashamed might not be the right word, but there's this feeling wich is similar, and while I'm proud of being a brazilian, I just... maybe invalidate is a more fitting word, it's just feels like my culture is unimportant compared to others.

And this is what it seems, in my understanding, what looks like suffering from xenophobia is, but I imagine it's worse suffering it directly ofc, and ironically, I don't think I ever felt like that for those reasons before. And while I can't talk about how it feels when suffering from it directly, I feel bad for the people who had to go through it(not only Brazilians). Nobody should feel ashamed of their culture or ethnicity

Ofc tumblr isn't free of people like that. After all, no social media will be free from intolerance. But it feels like it's harder to see it. But I can't emphasize enough how it makes me happy to see so many people saying their blog is a safe place for us. After seeing this stuff, it makes things better, for me, at least. It reminds me that my culture isn't less important than any other

And qsmp brought something beautiful, the unity of communities. Because even with those bad things happening, it's not the only thing in fandom, it happens, and any fandom has this, unfortunately. But I love to see every time someone talks about their culture, facts about their languages, to see people motivated in learning new languages. It's beautiful and makes me happy each time

I don't regret making myself part of the fandom, the opposite, really, I've met creators that I would have never without the qsmp. I've met amazing people there, I've found incredible artists and writers. I've had fun

I've found the motivation to learn new languages again, more passion to draw

And I'm thankful to everyone there who is incredibly nice and so made me more comfortable interacting here, even if they will probably never know

So despite everything, I think it was worth it

Was worth reading character analysis and theories, enjoying stories, seeing fanart and animatics, learning new language facts and about other cultures. Was worth seeing people being happy

Again, I'm very thankful for all the people who made me, and I'm going to assume a lot of other people who needed to hear that, comfortable and validate here, I can't express how much this made me happy, I hope everyone coming from twitter have a good time here<3

And a very big and sincere "VAI TOMAR NO CU" to any xenophobic and racist person

I know very few people will see this, or even read everything, but I had to say this somewhere, so yeah, I'm rambling on tumblr again:D

#qsmp #qsmp fandom #I have no idea of what to put in the tags #why are those so hard??? #lil's rambling #also it's flipping 3:40 am for me #my schedule is so screwed

[nightswithkookmin]

Goldie, for God's sake, answer me just this once. Please, like I told you before, I'm not a shipper and i have a reason why but i can't descussion it here. I'm just Jimin Stan.And all I care about is the comfort of this boy who took my mind called Park Jimin. Just a question if Jikook is real. Why do I feel that Jimin is always unhappy? He complains about loneliness and not getting and making friends. Does one live in illusion only and imagines that he is happy while he is always insinuating and complaining about loneliness and gloom? Don't you understand his feelings through his album? Is it logical that this side appears when you are happy with the one you love, or does the one you love not treat you well?Please, I don't want to accuse anyone, but it seems that Jimin has changed a lot since before He became shrunken in himself and shy too much. Where is the bold and flirtatious Jimin? Something must have happened to him. Something last. Did you read the Weverse magazine article about him because it made me cry so much?

Sigh

Ever heard the saying the higher you go the lonelier you become? Dude literally released an album that addresses his struggles with fame and being in the spotlight- as big as Jungkook's dick is and as sharp as his thrusts are- big dick don't cure everything so let's not lay it on him okay?

I don't know if he's become shrunken in himself and shy when Jungkook has been saying for years Jimin is the most shy member of bts he knows. He is extroverted sure but he's quiet demure and graceful elegant and pretty too. Don't confuse is public persona for his actual persona. He's used to performing his extroversion and playing up his daring character for TV.

Jimin the artist is not the same as Park Jimin the brother, son, friend and human others know and that's what he's been saying for years. So if you ask what happened to the old Jimin I'd say FUCK IT HE'S FINALLY FREE BOTTOMS UP

Like he said, raise a glass to the old him- emphasizes on old. He keeps trying to break loose from old habits and behaviors that hold him back and don't serve him. I'd wager one of such habits was keeping up with his public imagine of constantly being a spectacle.

His duality is part of who he is. We should give him room to express and explore himself without attaching vehemently to our single lensed view of him. There's nothing wrong with him.

But I understand your concern. I used to be like this too. for years he had said bulking up and building his body wasn't his thing. I nearly- well who am I kidding, I had an actual melt down when he started working out and building his body again because I thought he was being coerced into doing it again- turns out he just wanted to look ripped in jeans🥴

Dude was tryna get laid and I was out here cussing hybe out for oppressing him💀

I don't know if he's always unhappy when he's only opening up about his struggles which I think is a good thing for him and his fans. For me it helps me understand him more, empathize with him more and grow more closer to him.

Jimin is not the melancholic type.

The shit he deals with is real. I've heard many western artists complain of similar struggles and some of them are happily married with kids. Relationships are not a magic cure for loneliness especially if the feeling of loneliness IS NOT STEMMING FROM LACK OF HUMAN CONNECTION.

Do you actually thing Park jimin is lonely because he lacks intimacy and human connection? Loneliness is a complex issue and many things can lead to a person feeling this way. For me, I think he's inability to be who he really is was his biggest emotional trigger. He lives in a conformist society surrounded by people who constantly expect maturity and discipline from him, with a fan base that will desert him and unstan him if he says the wrong thing, dates the wrong person or make the move. There's no room for mistakes and that can be pretty dehumanizing.

Social expectations can alienate people and I'm afraid jimin is no exception. And in case you aren't aware, life sucks and hits every body including Jimin.

I don't appreciate you demanding my attention in this way. It makes me feel I have to rush my response so if this feels rushed it's on you🙃

[s7arcr0sser]

I have to get this off my chest because I've seen these two get misunderstood a lot already, and with the little attention the pairing is given, maybe it's time to contribute some. If you're willing to read this please just keep an open mind, i understand that Buzz and Ozma aren't the fandom's favorite pairing especially because of the appeal some other non canon ships have (even i see it - i don't blame anyone for it) but it really makes me sad when bias influences people's ability to enjoy things outside of their main interest.

***i should also emphasize that this is just how i interpret it - the beauty of art is that it's subjective***

It always tics me off whenever someone says that Buzz is arrogant or anything of the type. The creators of the show describe his character as "...his biggest flaw is that he believes in his own legend." He's confident. He's overconfident even, which isn't without reason considering he has nearly 100% success rate. It's easy to confuse the two but the difference is in that, he does not belittle anyone and doesn't feel threatened by someone being as good as him or even better. There are times when he has joked at other people's expense (notably - Opposites attract, Speed trap and Plasma monster) but here's the catch - he always learns and by the end makes up for it. It's because he's not the stoic emotionless type of hero, he has personality and sometimes says things he doesn't fully think through. His whole team, Buzz included, loves throwing jabs at each other all the time, their goal never is to genuinely offend.

That leads to my next point. He always means well. Again, he never belittles ON PURPOSE. It's more or less confirmed he's introverted - before Team Lightyear, he worked alone and still loves spending time on his own. That means he likely spent most of his time around Warp and not much of anyone else, his communication skills aren't great because he focuses on his job too much and hasn't spent much time developing them. Sometimes he misses social cues and misunderstands situations or how people feel. He wasn't a jerk to Ty on purpose, everyone is constantly outdoing each other in praising his achievements so he had no idea it annoys Ty to pieces. The moment Buzz found out how he truthly feels he did everything he could to make up for it.

It's a recurring theme that Buzz isn't crazy about wildlife, it's not just his interactions with Ozma but the whole episode Dirty work is about that very topic. He's stubborn and because that's so far removed from his usual line of work he tries everything he can to use his old methods rather than to try something newer. Little by little he gives into it once he starts to allow himself to understand.

That character only cares about their working field, is willing to completely disregard anything that's outside of it, no matter how that may seem unethical to everyone else, and because they haven't gotten enough perspective from the other side they don't see why that's wrong, but is slowly learning throughout the show and could have gotten more development if the show continued.

I'm talking about Ozma this time. See how that can apply to both of them? Ozma is just as wrong as Buzz and they both can get across as irrational, but they actually are trying to protect what they believe in. Buzz doesn't care about nature and Ozma doesn't care about people - directly opposing fields, they are fighting for what the other would sacrifice. That's why their clash is so interesting, they have EVERYTHING in common, with just one difference that's so detrimental that it completely overwhelms their relationship.

Just like how Buzz is misunderstood to be arrogant, Ozma is misunderstood to be cold. She so isn't in the slightest. She treats the ugliest, most dangerous and scariest beast with utmost care and admiration, she gets excited at the sight of a rare specimen even if it could bite her head off in a second, and would risk her safety just to study or help it.

It's people where her enthusiasm dissolves, she is presented as introverted as well which is why sometimes she says things that don't come across all that great. Sure, sometimes she doesn't care because she's not interested in socializing, but she sometimes just doesn't know (example - the bloody water and floating guts comment in Beasts for Karn).

I gotta admit, it also confuses me how Buzz could come off as misogynistic towards Ozma - dammit that guy went in and memorized the most boring stuff in the universe (in his opinion) just to go in and try to impress her. He respects her work greatly - it's just in a field he's never cared for until now. Ozma could've been a male character and it would've been the same thing, because it's not Ozma herself that Buzz doesn't understand, but it's her cause.

He frankly just doesn't know how to act towards people he's interested in or that are interested in him. That's why he gives her unwanted validation - he's just genuinely impressed with her, which is why he's interested in the first place, but has no idea how to express it. He doesn't think any less of her.

Ozma was willing to team up with Zurg to protect the millennial bugs, Buzz was willing to kill Karnian beasts to get back on track with his mission. Both are just as bad, we gotta admit that. But throughout the three episodes we see them together, we see them learn to make more and more compromises for each other. They learn to see the other's perspective, and in their last chronological episode Return to Karn, they barely have fights at all (sure, there's a bit of banter, but it's nowhere near as agressive as it was before). I would kill to see how it would have progressed further.

She just reminds him of himself too much. Remember Good Ol' Buzz? He could barely stand himself because of how stubborn, abrupt and close minded he can be. It's the same thing with Ozma! She has the same traits, and so does he, and it turns into a screaming match until it turns into something else. Because that's just how they are.

So how the hell could this ever work for them? Simple - they are the only ones that could understand each other. With any other partner it would be "you chose your career over me!". If Buzz wasn't an awkward mess he could pull anyone he wants - he wants Ozma because she doesn't care who he is. Because she's brilliant, assertive, a badass and fearless. Because he has to prove himself and it doesn't come easy for him. If she doesn't care for his reputation, why is she interested? For the same reasons - he's just an awesome and determined person. He doesn't give up and believes in everything that is good, to the point of naivete. Because if anyone can give you hope in humanity's goodness, it's him.

And as much as I want to add the darker layer that Ozma might also be subconsciously reminding Buzz of Zurg but from a safe distance, that's a bit too much of a biased interpretation, and we might not be ready for that talk yet.

If you've read all of this, you're crazy, and thank you for coming to my ted talk

#it's one day late cause i wasn't planning on writing all of this #but i felt inspired #who knows if anyone reads this stuff but it's fun just typing it all out #blosctober #buzz lightyear #ozma furbanna #buzz lightyear of star command #character analysis #(i dont know what ship name to use but i'll just use whatever so that all shippy posts on my blog are organized) #lightbanna

[bestworstcase]

Huh. It's not parallels but there's a rhyme with how Salem opposed the Brothers to the Maidens specifically working for someone (they don't wish to) is... Well the only one that's managed to actually have a Maiden work for them in the narrative is Salem. Who specifically isn't doing what Ozpin or Ironwood did. (Hums Hope you're for revolution while mentally reviewing fall of Atlas) What a not surprise.

This show is not particularly subtle about shattering systems that are not working/helping people being good things. Mending instead of shattering being a virtue only for the good of those that'd be caught up in the crossfire.

i've made this point before but one of the central narrative arcs in v8 is salem finding herself in the same position of power over cinder that the brothers once held over her and making a very deliberate choice not to repeat their cruelty. she gives cinder a direct order ("you will remain here"), which cinder immediately disobeys—and this is genuine defiance, not really equivalent to salem praying to the god of darkness. it nearly got cinder killed. salem has a lot more grounds to be pissed than light did.

and cinder obviously expects to be punished quite harshly, because she failed. she's terrified when she wakes up back on the whale (and masks that fear behind anger at emerald) and she's visibly bracing herself while she kneels in front of salem later. she thinks salem would have been mollified if she returned with the staff in hand, but coming back with nothing…

but while salem does use pain to emphasize her point, her response to this defiance amounts to "i have chosen not to punish you, because i understand that my refusal to uphold my end of our agreement is what drove you to disobey me, and i accept that this is my fault." it is a manipulative reaction calculated to intimidate—this small measure of pain is a warning—but it's also perhaps telling of what salem thinks the brothers should have done, or what she wishes they'd done, in dealing with her.

she shouted "but that's not fair!" at the god of light because it really wasn't fair and it hurt to have her hope denied. she screamed that the brothers were monsters because they'd burned her lover to ash in her arms twice over and abused her faith in them. she rebelled against them because they left her suffering in abject misery for decades. deep down i think salem is desperate for someone—anyone—to acknowledge that she did not do any of it out of malice or arrogance or selfish but because she was in terrible pain and the gods kept hurting her. and perhaps there is no one in the world willing to absolve her of being human, but she can at least grant cinder that clemency.

later she clocks that cinder is lying to her (there's a moment during cinder's account when salem narrows her eyes—she knows) but refrains from retaliating or even rebuking the deception and instead just tells her she's done well. given the intensity of salem's hatred of lying i'm sure this is less salem choosing to overlook it than salem deciding it's more important in the moment to follow through on her promise to treat cinder better and discuss the lying once they've found some equilibrium again. but again, it's an unspoken rejection of how the gods—specifically darkness—treated her when she lied (or "lied") to him.

the cycle of abuse passed down from the gods to salem to cinder is still very much happening, and salem's reasons for adjusting her behavior are not without ulterior motive, but i also don't believe that she's being entirely duplicitous either. i do not think she has ever quite let go of her aspiration to make remnant a better world than the old one, and she's self-aware of being a god to her acolytes; and if she's one of remnant's gods then it falls to her to not become as monstrous as the gods of the old one. in pursuit of a new world, no cost is too great—she says, immediately before tacitly forgiving cinder's lies. how far is she willing to go to get what she wants?

even on the surface of the thing, cinder apologizes for letting the winter maiden escape and salem's answer is to say that no cost is too great. their conflict in atlas turns on salem's reluctance to let cinder pursue the winter maiden and in the end it's salem who blinks first, but when cinder reports that she chose to let the winter maiden go salem tells her well done. she needs to get those vaults open and cinder's craving for power would make her a convenient pawn, and yet: she tries to warn cinder against it. your newfound strength brings with it a crippling weakness. remember that it comes with a cost. there is only so much i can do to aid you.

there is an unreconcilable tension between what salem needs from cinder and what she wants for her, and what salem wants for cinder is undeniably better for cinder. when the most formidable obstacle standing between salem and what she wants is her own plans, how does she answer the challenge? what does she choose to sacrifice?

spring can wait. the timeline has changed. you deserve so much more than i've given you. no cost is too great. again, and again, and again, she puts cinder first. cycles of abuse are not easy to break, but she is going to try. she's already trying.

ozpin does to pyrrha what the god of light did to ozma, ironwood does to penny what the god of light did to salem. both of them treat the maidens like pawns on a chessboard, tools, weapons, keys. salem set in motion a plan reliant on doing the same to her maiden and she can't. as cruel and ruthless as she is, she can't do it; perhaps because she knows too well how it feels to be denied personhood and used, maybe because she sees too much of herself in cinder. it's a line she can't bring herself to cross.

and that's the only reason she hasn't lost cinder yet. delicious.

i also think, on some level, cinder has known this for a while. her insistence that she doesn't work for salem rings less false than it otherwise might when it's sandwiched between cinder being taken aback when salem flatly tells her no ("i've given no such command"—cinder splutters), then disobeying without a second thought, and salem conceding to her. if salem won't enforce her will and refuses to punish disobedience, if there is an understanding between them that cinder is allowed to do whatever she wants so long as salem gets her relics… how accurate is it, really, to say that cinder works for her? certainly there is an expectation that cinder will deliver the relics in the end, but there is an equal expectation that salem will deliver what she promised.

cinder works with salem, not for her, and nearly everything she does in v8 is about proving it. the paradigm shifting and breaking the cycle of abuse is as much cinder's doing as it is salem's; nothing changes until she demands that it change and forces salem to make these choices.

apropos for the maiden of choice.

#gnawing the bars of my enclosure

[igotanidea]

The Raven's daughter: Morpheus x Matthew's daughter pt. 4

Before you get confused please read the author's note.

previously: part 1, part 2, part 3

Part 4

-You should not be here – Dream repeats looking at her with darkened eyes

- Yeah, I’ve heard that before, and yet here I am – she smirks – and believe me, I would love to get back to the living world, so can’t you just, I don’t know, make it happen?

- No.

- No? Such a change of attitude in a short time.

- I won’t send you back until we get some answers.

- Lovely. This might be the first time we agree on something. But… aren’t you suppose to know everything about your Realm? – she asks and she genuinely meant nothing wrong with that sentence. Dream however, must be thinking something entirely different, his face grim once again.

- Abel, will you excuse us? Miss Y/n and I have some business to tend to.

- Of course, my Lord –Abel bows his head and get back to the house. – It was lovely meeting you, y/n/n . Hope we’ll see each other again.

- Likewise –she smiles with the most beautiful smile, her eyes lighting up and for a spare second Morpheus just stares at her. That is until Matthew notices and caws bringing him back from his high – Now – the girl sighs – do you know why I’m here all of a sudden? Why now?

- I have my suspicions.

- Care to share?

- Not just yet - he just keep standing in front of her, awkwardness slowly creeping in.

Of course not – she thinks to herself. Well, if he’s trying some sort of intimidation I’m not giving it. Might as well spend an eternity in here, not giving him this sort of satisfaction.

For some time (might be minutes or hour) it seems like her predictions are going to be true, but then The Dream Lord turns around and starts walking, clearly expecting her to follow.

-You shall come with me to the palace.

-Is that a command? – she raises one eyebrow teasingly

-Indeed. I am the King of this place, and whatever I wish shall happen.

-Is that how you treat all of your guests? No wonder you don’t have many. Where are your manners my Lord?

Dream stops his steps, his back to her.

-Apologies.

-Really? – that was suspiciously easy

-You are my guest indeed. And a lady – y/n rolls her eyes at this title he gives her. - And therefore, I shall let you through. I will be right behind you.

That sneaky little bastard – she thinks to herself.

-Em, y/n…. – Matthew gently sits on his daughter shoulder – you.. you should know that while in the Dreaming, Lord Morpheus can hear your thoughts.

-He does? – at this point she mentally slaps herself – Well, if that’s the case I suppose you heard a lot about yourself. Both good and bad.

-What Matthew meant is that I can, but most of the time I don’t do this - Dream interupts - Unless it’s absolutely necessary. And it only work on dreamers and my creations. There’s some sort of bond between me and them.

-Right – how should she react on such confession – so, what….?

Before she could finish they arrive at the palace. Once again, y/n is taken aback by its beauty. She couldn’t see a lot of the details from the distant, but now, that she’s close everything is even more breathtaking. What she believed to be plain walls is in fact decorated with elaborate ornaments, not a single place left without it. White marble start glistening in the sun, almost blindingly but also gives god-like vibes and atmosphere. Almost like if she’s entering some sort of temple. Normally she would make a joke about delusion of grandeur but just this once bites her tongue. After all, the palace is indeed a masterpiece.

-Did he make it by himself? – she whispers to his father staying a few steps behind Dream

-Yes. Like I was telling you in the still unfinished story, after collecting the tools he rebuilt it this way.

-Em… exactly how powerful is he then?

-More powerful than you, that's for sure. I don’t think you have any reason to fear him, that is until you push the limits of his patience, which is low – Matthew emphasizes the last word – but I advise you to watch how you speak to him. If not for yourself then for me. I want some answers as badly as you do.

-Fine – she raises her hand in surrender – I’ll try but don’t hate on me if I fail. My attitude makes who I am.

-Oh, don’t worry, I’ll peck you every time you start to cross the line.

-Dad! – she whisper-screams at the bird.

-Are you both done? – Morpheus raises his hand cutting the family talk and teleports the three into the library.

-If you have the that kind of powers why did you make me walk all the way here? - y/n asks

-Are you questioning my motives? – he eyes her but turns his gaze aways clearly looking for someone else – Lucienne? - he calls

-Yes, my Lord.

-We have a visitor.

-It’s been quite some time since the last one – y/n sees a piece of clothing behind the shelves and then a tall, lean figure emerges into her sight. – Hello, little one – the woman greets – I’m Lucienne, the royal librarian.

-Hi. I’m y/n, but…

-Oh, so you are the famous y/n/n , Matthew’s been talking about to everyone who wish to listen.

-Did he? – y/n looks at her father grinning.

-I did. She’s my greatest pride and joy so why shouldn’t I brag? – the Raven raises his head acting majestically. Or trying to.

-Because it’s embarrassing for me?

-There’s nothing to be embarrassed of, dear. Although it was a bit annoying. You’re father’s a real talker.

-Always been – y/n smiles at the bird – anyway, I love this place. So many stories…- her eyes wander the shelves - Abel was right about it. I could really just stay here forever.

-You are surely not going to – Dream chimes in again, visibly angry that no one is paying attention to him – Lucienne, shall I see her log? We must immediately find out how she ended up here quite aware of the fact she’s asleep. That is unusual and gives me bad feeling.

-A log? You keep a tab on every human or is it just me?

-Don’t feel special. I oversee the subconscious of every living being. You’re not extraordinary. You're just another human.

-Thank god, I was starting to worry you were on my tail all this time.

-Can you hold your tongue? – Dream looks at her so coldly that his gaze could freeze Hell right now and at the same time Matthew pecks her hand, just like he said he would.

-Ok, fine! I’ll shut up. Just stop it, dad! Jokes aside, I really do want to know what is happening to me. Does your smart book give you any information?

-Not really. But… there’s one other place we can look.

-So? Let’s go then.

-I shall go by myself. This is somewhere you, like any other dreamer cannot enter.

-So I’m just supposed to sit here doing nothing?

-Precisely. Is that too much to ask?

- I suppose not…..

-I’ll be taking Matthew with me.

-You will? – the Raven caws clearly surprised with Dream’s sudden need for companionship – Why?

-You are my messenger and you could be of help.

-I hope we are not going to Hell again? - y/n vision sharpen. She will definitely not let her father go there. Again.

-Not this time. However it may take a while, so you must be patient Kayleen. We will get the answers you need – Morpheus gives the girl almost human and reassuring look and he disappears in the cloud of sand taking the bird with him.

-So now what? – y/n asks confused but quickly lights up realizing she’s in the library. No better place in the world. – Can I pick a book for myself, Lucienne?

- Of course, I’ll be more than happy to recommend something to you. What genre do you like? We have any book published or those that will be published in the future.

- For real? Like, I can I reads another volume of Games of thrones? It’s taking forever to write.

- If that’s what you want – Lucienne looks at her innocently, fixing her glasses, but a silent disappointment can be felt in her voice. Out of all the books in the world she chose this one....

- No, Lucienne, wait. I know people get hyped over this, but to be honest I’d prefer something less consumed by the show-business.

- What do you mean?

- I think it’s crazy that most of the times the book only get popular because of the cinematic adaptation. People tend to choose easy entertainment instead of intellectual stimulation. That’s why there are two groups – the first knows every detail about the plot and would argue over the hair color of the protagonist the other just want to see a pretty face on the screen. Not that I'm against pretty faces - she blushes.

- Isn’t that a bit exaggerated, dear? – Lucienne asks

- Might be – y/n/n shrugs but continues on her thought – but that’s just a figure of speech. I’m trying to make an objective observation. Not to offend everyone.

- I already like you, y/n/n – Lucienne leans over the table and gently touch the girl's hand – Really glad I get to meet you.

- Thank you. But that’s still the problem, isn’t it? I’m not supposed to be here – she quote a sentence that was already said to her twice - and we don’t know how that happened.

- Don’t worry about it, now. Lord Morpheus and Matthew will figure this out, I assure you. We’ve been through many storms and are still standing.

- You know, Lucienne, my father started telling me some stories about after-imprisonment but never finished. I don’t really want any spoilers, but was Dream always like…- she hesitates - this?

- Like what exactly?

- So… I don’t know…dark? Quite unlikely for a dream.

-Don’t forget Lord Morpheus is also a nightmare. And he has changed after his time in captivity. He became more … humane, but don’t ever use that against him.  He has learned a lot, for sure.

- I believe it must have been hard – y/n/n looks down – a century all alone – she never mentions that but she knows the feeling of being lonely. – Good thing he have you and my father to keep him up – she smiles and suddenly some sort of tingling in her head makes her dizzy. – What…?

- I think you’re waking y/n. This is goodbye… for now – she adds quickly – I got a feeling we will see each other soon.

***

- Professor! – y/n felt someone’s hand on her arm gently shaking her back to reality. – Wake up, the class is about to start -  as she opens her eyes she notices one of her students watching her with eyes wide open. Luckily, the auditorium was still empty so no one saw the lecturer napping on the desk. – Are you ok, professor?

- Yes. Yes, I’m alright. Thank you, Gina. Now please, take a sit. Like you said, the class is about to start and we need ourselves completely focused, don’t we? – she smiles  and as the students start showing up she begins her lesson. I’m gonna have to wait for the answers till Dream gets back. Wonder if dad can make it to our evening meeting. – she thinks to herself.

part 5 coming soon :)

edit: part 5 is here

taglist (open)

@marvelsmylife

@wickedly-grim

@mind-of-a-girl

@thereeallink

@lisacarolined

@boofy1998

@endlessdreamqueen

@mikariell95

@shadowluna25

@sippysthoughts

#sandman #sandman x oc #morpheus #morpheus x oc #the sandman imagine #morpheus fanfiction #fanfic #dream of the endless #dream of the endless x oc #dream #dream x oc #dream lord #dream lord x oc #the sandman netflix #lord morpheus #lord morpheus x oc #the sandman #morpheus x reader #dream of the endless x reader #the sandman x reader

[lucas-deziderio]

Dezi reads Pact: Null 9.6

I truly hate being negative, but it's time for me to complain about Pact's power scaling. You see, most fantasy stories where people use powers to fight one another usually scale upwards. Our protagonist gets more powerful in order to face more dangerous foes and so give the story higher stakes. We all know that. Wildbow even follow that formula in Worm, where Taylor learns new tricks she can pull with her power, gets access to more varied insects and pairs up with more powerful capes to take down increasingly dangerous threats.

Now going back to Pact: a story about wizards and magical beings battling against one another, with a very wide range of possible powers and abilities. And even then, we're halfway through our story and our protagonist has absolutely nothing on him! All of the abilities he painstakingly conquered were taken away from him. If anything, Blake is weaker now than he was in the very first act. Still, the author is throwing him on a fight against a very powerful demon.

My man here just went through the magical equivalent of a 16 hour shift at your local Arby's! His hands are mangled, one of his eyes stopped working, he just relived a very traumatic event in the last couple hours. His only weapon is a broken sword that hurts him while being wielded. There is absolutely no way he's in condition to fight against Ur. Just a couple arcs back he went into that same fight but with actual preparation, a plan and allies and still got his ass kicked. There is nothing in the narrative that can justify him being defeated then but surviving now when the odds are even more against him.

It's not even like Wildbow wrote himself into a corner. In previous chapters we were made aware that Blake has had allies that were eaten by Ur. He could have met them again in the Drains and gotten their help. Or he could have made an actual deal for power with the dead god he found. But nope!

I came to this book waiting for battles were magic and preparation mattered. I love hard magic systems specifically because you can have tactical confrontations where the practitioners can use the rules themselves against one another. But this? This is a mangled man with zero tools in his arsenal going up against a Lovecraftian beast and surviving out of luck.

No. No, no, no! This might be a pyrrhic victory at best, but Ur has absolutely zero reasons to not swallow you up again right now. And I must emphasize:

WINNING 👏 DOESN'T 👏 MATTER 👏 IF 👏 YOU'RE 👏 IN 👏 THE 👏 DRAINS 👏 AGAIN!! 👏

That's it. I'm pissed. This is the second time that a big arc ending battle in this story has left me pissed with its plot armor. Blake should be dead right now.

Anyways, moving on, there is another detail that also pissed me off in this chapter:

Blake, you should definitely be taking a very long bath right now. First because that whole dimension was nasty and I don't want to imagine you looking like a sewage golem for the rest of the story. Second because, as someone who has experienced homelessness, you should be well aware of how people treat you differently when you're dirty or clean. And third because you desperately need power right now and we have been shown in this story that spending time on your home, relaxing and taking care of yourself can help one replenish theirs. NOW GET IN THE FUCKING BATHTUB!

OK, I think my negativity spree is over. Let's see what's next...

OK, this isn't the end of the world. Part of me was hoping he would get to reactivate his connections once he was back to our world, but it looks like that's a no-go. At least it's just a material thing. He can buy another bike or get the same back later. Don't worry, guys.

The important part is that now he's gonna meet the rest of the cast and get reintroduced into the main plot...

OH MY GOD, EVAN WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO RECOGNIZED HIM! EVAN WASN'T AFRAID!! I'M NOT WELL!!! SOMEBODY HELP ME!!!!

Previous • Next

#Dezi reads #pact web serial #liveblogging pact #pact spoilers #pactblr #otherverse

[jasontoddssuper]

Tw for discussions of nasty n///fw shit(including ped0philia and r*pe)

H*rny Todomomo is obviously bad becuase of the ped0philia aspect but there's also how like.Momo's already a victim of ped0philia because of Horikoshi s*xualizing her and there's also an instance in the actual manga where grown ass men hit on her(in the Bakugou rescue arc when the team walks out of the store they were buying disguises in)and she's really scared by it so it's pretty obvious she's not into older men(hence why the headcanons of her crushing on Dabi because he's 'her friend's cool and hot older brother😳' are ooc and hella creepy,especially when Dabi enables it-which is ooc for him too btw!!!Him being a flirt is pure fanon,he's never hit on anyone in canon,not even once!!)and it's worth noting she also gets mad at Kaminari and M*neta when they're horndogs to her and the rest of the class 1-A girls-It's clear she dosen't enjoy being viewed in an overly sexual light and it's an important part of her character that being adultified makes her anxiety act up.Which brings us to how she became friends with Shouto to begin with,that being that he treats her like an equal,not like she's perfect.He thinks she's extremely smart and strong and trusts her greatly but never let's get in the way of being kind,attentive and thoughtful towards her because she's just as much of a kid as he is and he's viewed her as such since Izuku helped him break out of his shell and embrace his kindness again.Let's not forget that while Shouto himself hasn't been objectified like Momo,ain't no way Rei was happy sleeping with the man who bought her from her parents so she could have his kids so they're were most definitely some consent issues going on(and there were romantic consent issues to begin with because again,he bought her).It's not just right to take characters like that and overs*xualize them and even more so if you add questionable aspects to it(which i have seen a fair amount),even if they were both adults.And the thing is,they aren't.Momo is 16,so's Shouto and it's emphasized multiple times.It's very gross to look at an underaged girl who's been treated like an adult woman over and over again which canonically upsets her because she wants to be be seen as her actual age and a boy her age who's a victim of abuse by his father who forced himself on his mother and decide to make him be possessive,condesending and s*xually aggressive towards her,ESPECIALLY when the whole reason she likes him in the actual story is that he's the polar opposite.Like this whole potrayal screams misogyny on top of my main point as to why it's bad and it confuses me so much that it's almost always made by people much older than Shouto and Momo,who should know better yet think minors and abuse survivors are 'immature' for not liking that they make sm*t of high schoolers

#todomomo #t4t todomomo #todomomo protection squad #momo yaoyorozu #todoroki shouto #pro momo yaoyorozu #pro todoroki shouto #dabi #dabi deserves better #group:freezerburn wonder woman and jason todd #rei todoroki #pro rei todoroki #antidabimomo #antitodobaku #antibakumomo #antitodobakumomo #antibakudeku #aizawa dont look #bnha geekery #letters from summer

[maglors-anion-gap]

(@cosmic-walkers so sorry for the late reply - work was very busy this week. Posting our thread as a new post because I feel bad gumming yours up with a bunch of reblogs. RIP to everyone's dash tho, the ADHD is leaping out and this post will not be short.)

Note: the text in all the images has been copied into the image description function on desktop. let me know if for some reason it can't be accessed.

Anyway, cosmic-walkers and I had a really good exchange about maeglin and his treatment in text that got me thinking again about eol and the difficulties I've had engaging with his narrative even after coming around to a more nuanced.

I mentioned this in my tags and asked how folks go about repairing eol's narrative:

And I got a really thoughtful reply that, with permission, I'm sharing here so that more people can see it. Hopefully it is as interesting to you all as it was to me. (browse images right to left, top to bottom. comments organized in vertical order in each image).

Thank you @cosmic-walkers for taking the time to write that out for me. It absolutely makes sense, and I actually really love getting long messages because I feel like the length constraints of both tags and comments hinder free conversation.

Thank you @cosmic-walkers for taking the time to write that out for me. It absolutely makes sense, and I actually really love getting long messages because I feel like the length constraints of both tags and comments hinder free conversation.

I have a degree in public health, and my focus was interpersonal and family violence; I don't bring it up to toot my own horn, but rather to offer some context for readers here and to draw from as I analyze the patterns of behavior in the narrative.  For what its worth, I think that more nuanced readings of eol's character line up pretty well with frameworks for understanding unhealthy relationships, abusive relationships, and family violence.

I think it makes people uncomfortable to engage with the idea that abusers are humans.  I don't mean that people ought to feel a preponderance of sympathy for them (at the expense of their victims), but rather that humans have human triggers, motivations, and psychologies.  Of course, we are talking about elves, but *vague hand waving.*  I joke that my degree was the most expensive, circuitous way to get therapy, but it really did help to engage with concepts like family systems theory to understand my own life and move forward in healing past "that sucked and my abuser is a monster .... who somehow manages to treat everyone else well... why me?"

Family systems theory posits that abuse can arise in certain dynamics and be conducted by people who, in other dynamics, would not act abusively.  It asks us to describe both the overarching family system as well as the subsystems that exist between different members.  Noise in one subsystem echoes to impact the rest of the system.  It emphasizes the impact of boundaries (divisions, openness or isolation, emotional closeness), roles (patterns of behavior, and who may be targeted/blamed/scapegoated), rules (spoken and unspoken standards, traditions, and guidelines), and hierarchy (power, who holds it, respect and lack thereof).  People chafe against the the last concept, feedback and circular causality, because when applied incorrectly it can sound like the victims are provoking their own abuse - this is not true, and it should not be applied like this.  It only means that a relationship yields certain behaviors depending on its climate, and that once a pattern of behavior is established it becomes harder to break. 

When analyzing family systems theory, many people choose to pair it with the family resilience model, which prioritizes repairing the broken aspects of (sub)system relationships, hilighing positive characteristics and using them as strengths to propel other behavior change, and promoting flexibility, openness, and equitability of social and economic resources to stabilize (sub)systems to begin the healing process.  Of course, not everyone wishes to remain in contact with their abuser.  Of my two abusers, one I have cut contact with and the other I now have a healthy relationship with.  But, utilizing models and evidence based practice like this is critical to actually understanding and then remediating abuse and its damage.   

Edit 1/1/23: I forgot to mention the impact of stress on abuse. Many abusers release their stress, confusion, and concerns in the form of abuse because they don’t have another way to process and positively direct those emotions. This can be caused by lack of emotional intelligence or ability to self regulate and soothe, lacking interpersonal communication skills, poor modeling from their own role models. I’ve written evidence-based program plans for mitigating teen dating violence, and to make an impact you have to far in advance of the common age of onset of dating violence. We should be teaching stress management tools, emotional regulation, communication skills, and bodily autonomy is late primary and early elementary school. But many people connect dating violence and sex in their minds and don’t want to talk about it with kids. In reality, a lot of abuse happens because of disregulation, not because of inappropriate desire. This is compounded in real life by theories of power and hierarchical respect - if people feel like someone is of higher value than them, they treat them respectfully, but if they feel like they are the person of higher value, they feel it is within their rights (and perhaps a just affirmation/ defense of system hierarchy) to treat them as they please.

I bring all this up because after reading your comments, I tried using it to analyze the system of Eol, Aredhel, and Maeglin, and the subsystems between them.  We agree that as a whole, their family system is tense, unequal, and prone to violence (not necessarily the physical kind). Edit 1/1/23: everyone in the family is experiencing stressors, including Eol himself. The way he responds to these stressors is not healthy and has an impact on the subsystems of their family.

The subsystem of Aredhel and Maeglin is the easiest to analyze in some ways, and there's a wealth of knowledge to pick over.  The two of them are emotionally close, open with each other, ally with each other (as in, we do not canonically see either of them display pecking order behavior in which one abuse victim then abuses someone less powerful in another subsystem), and seem to have similar power distance (aredhel is his mother, but she is not characterized as being domineering toward him, and has about as much systemic power as maeglin in comparison to eol, though eol treats maeglin worse initially, forming a subsystem I discuss next).  

Eol and Maeglin form a fractious subsystem.  It is characterized by high power distance, emotional isolation (see: not naming Maeglin until he was far along in childhood), and Eol regards him more as a possession than as someone worthy of his respect and basic dignity (see: the attempted murder).  Resources is a more uniquely human concept, but Eol is the lord of Nan Elmoth, he exerts some control over the forest, he maintains his own staff and people, and he has the ability to forbid (and enforce) certain behaviors.  Maeglin spends more time with his mother than father (out of the house too, if memory serves, though this may not be so odd for elves) and dreams of running away to Gondolin, and it seems to me that Aredhel's tales of Gondolin (ironically, a city-prison of another sort) are so sweet to him because of his current family situation.  

Aredhel and Eol form the third and final subsystem.  I think it is important to note here that many, if not most, abusive relationships begin well.  At baseline, many abusers are adept at concealing red flag behaviors until they successfully lock down their victim.  But I am more interested in exploring the family systems model of abuse here (Eol is often analyzed using the characteristics of a serial abuser, and while some people fit that model, in combination with the terrible handling of race and culture in this arc, brute caricatures, and white damsels, I think it does more to reinforce an over-done reading that leans into rather than away from Tolkien's biases).  

As you so rightly mention, Aredhel and Eol begin their relationship with a certain degree of love.  We can see some differences in power, agency, and respect from the start - I am reminded of Eol enchanting the woods to draw Aredhel in.  However, this is a storytelling device common to fairy tales, even ones intended to be read romantically, and because I am a huge lover of the Ballad of Tam Lin I must be honest with myself and admit that this alone can be taken as a stylistic choice and not an indicator of purely evil intentions.  

The difference in power only grows as Eol forbids Aredhel to visit the lands of the Noldor; this puts her in a difficult bind, as she is also not welcome in the largest kingdom of the Sindar.  In general, controlling someone's movements indicates a paternalism and lack of respect that it's difficult to build a healthy relationship on.  Now, initially they do go about exploring together, and I think this is something that would have endeared Eol to Aredhel, something she would have enjoyed, something they could have found common ground in, and something that perhaps reminded her of old friends like Celegorm.  As their relationship degrades, we see mentions of that closeness, emotional openness, and equity of station disappear.  Now Eol goes about his business, Aredhel concerns herself with their son, and they wait until Eol is gone to flee.

On the topic of why people agree to the demands of abusive or otherwise toxic partners, when interviewed many people say that they would like to stay with their partner but that they just want the abuse/hurtful behavior to stop.  Now, it's not always possible to achieve that, but many people love their abusers. They make excuses to themselves, their families, and to the medical and legal system to protect them.  We cannot discount the impact fear, threats, isolation, and lack of resources have on this behavior, but it would be wrong to dismiss the emotional attachment many people feel.  I believe this is a valid reason why Aredhel would initially entertain Eol's demand that she not travel in noldor lands (additionally, she has only had experience with her brother at this point, and Turgon eventually relented and let her go, so perhaps she thinks she can eventually wear Eol down into relaxing his restrictions).  It would also explain why she pleads twice to save Eol's life. 

Now, I think their relationship, even before Maeglin was (lovingly) conceived, was poised to fall apart.  Eol cannot get past his opinions of the noldor, and while those opinions are not incorrect and are, on their own, valid to hold, he marries a noldor woman and has a half-noldor child with her.  I think a certain lack of trust in Aredhel, and lack of respect for her cultural background, lays the foundation for his abuse of their son.  I read some excellent meta recently about the functional impact of the Quenya ban, and the writer posed that by banning Quenya, the language and culture was associated with kinslayers - thusly, anyone who wanted to participate in political life in Beleriand (which required peace and intergroup co-operation) would have to disavow not just the kinslayings (despite being overwhelmingly kinslayers themselves) but also there heritage.  I can see this kind of mentality come out strongly in Eol's treatment of Maeglin: he is concerned that Aredhel teaching Maeglin about her family is like a poison to him, that any faith he has in his wife's good nature or his own ability to parent effectively and teach Maeglin about his own culture is overwhelmed by the canker of noldorin culture.  

I think this further corroborates your claim that their relationship slowly degrades from good to bad, because I don't think Aredhel would have tolerated that initially, and if we follow LaCE I'm not sure conceiving Maeglin would be possible with the degree of animosity we see toward the end of their relationship.  But I might push a little on the idea that the relationship between Aredhel and Eol was healthy up until the birth of Maeglin.  I think the introduction of Maeglin to the family, the creation of two new subsystems, the shift and echo of power within the system, all combine to catalyze abuse.  But a loving relationship does not equal a healthy relationship, and loving and being loved by someone does not mean that you have a true, deep respect for each other.  It is fully possible to be in love with someone, care deeply about them - and be unable to relate meaningfully to them, or understand their fears or needs. This is how I perceive Aredhel and Eol's relationship almost up until the moment she flees from him.

Now I have some loose end thoughts.  Regarding the impact of Eol's parenting on Maeglin, there is some interesting research on chronic fear in children that I refer to now.  Chronic (prolonged, or recurring) fear in children causes a host of acute and chronic issues later, both physiological and psychological.  Blood sugar, stress hormone levels, sleep health, capacity for and strength of emotional attachment, attention span, short and long term memory, sociability and antisocial behaviors, and rage are all negatively impacted by experiencing chronic fear.  Fear is a word that has certain connotations in people's minds, but in this context it can mean anything from living in a war zone, to experiencing abuse, to being bullied or growing up being discriminated against for any reason, to being food or housing insecure, to being routinely disciplined in an illogical/punitive manner.  Not all sources of fear are imminent physical threats (there is a reason it is a separate and unique felony crime, for example, for a child to witness abuse taking place even if the child is technically safe).  

So we can look at all this and apply this to how we think Maeglin thinks, feels, and interacts with the world considering his poor relationship with his father, the disintegrating relationship between his father and mother, his introduction to gondolin (and losing both parents), and then the discrimination he faces within Gondolin.  He moves from one system of fear to another system of fear, and the irony is that his father couldn't stand him for his mother's heritage and the Gondolindhrim judge him for his father's.  I think in some ways, Nan Elmoth and Gondolin are reflections of each other, and what happens when xenophobia, isolationism, and fear come into play.

Something else that came to mind while writing was that different groups of Sindar view the Noldor differently. Doriath views them as a challenger to the rule of Beleriand, and this is evident in how Thingol speaks of his kingship and the laws he makes.  Some Sindar go with Turgon to Gondolin - though the ruling class, and the historians like Penlodh are all Noldor, so while Maeglin was not entirely alone in Gondolin, he still was not truly free, and the historical record after his death is most definitely biased.  the Sindar in the north see the Noldor as allies - though again, similarly to the Sindar that took Turgon as their Lord, or the Edain immediately swearing to elvish Lords, I see Tolkien's bias and racial hierarchy creeping in here to determine "logical" progressions of events.  I think all of this contributes to a very tense environment in Beleriand, between the noldor and the sindar, between different groups of sindar, etc etc, and different groups would likely have different fears/reactions to the Noldor.  I think Eol was poised, with his cultural trauma, for his marriage to fail.  And he is mentioned in connection to Thingol, not Círdan, so his cultural and political context comes into play here.  Additionally, we have no idea how old he is.  Thingol (and Círdan too iirc) is old enough to remember the Teleri that left for Valinor; this is speculation, but Eol could be as well, which would at least contextualize his intense reaction to the kinslayings as an even more personal grief. 

This was a very long free-form way of processing what I think about Eol, and I think I can safely say I find him more interesting as a character now.  I really wanted to like him! I tried so hard! I can find something to like about almost every character in the legendarium (even if it's just a "wow that is such an interesting/stimulating way to build characterization").  And I think I can do that with Eol now.  I think there's so much to explore re: Nan Elmoth, his skill as a smith, and his relationship with the dwarves.  

I actually think it was you that posted about Feanor and Eol being similar, and the thought crossed my mind again as I was writing this up, firstly because of their similar passions, but also because I think they respond to stress, fear, and grief in a similar way.  Neither of them handle it well, and they take it out on the people around them.  In fact, I think it's great to contrast these two.  On the one hand, we have Feanor, grieving his mother, his father, the last bit of stability in Valinor, and feeling like he doesn't belong in that society, that he's tainted, and that everyone secretly hates him (Morgoth's brain worms aren't helping).  On the other hand, we have Eol, who is grieving the murder of his kinsfolk, and who views the arrival of the noldor as the colonization and the potential obliteration of his people (a valid fear to have, and corroborated by those princes of the noldor who cross the sea not to fight Morgoth but to obtain kingdoms of their own).  And of course, the threat of imprisonment in Gondolin for life is the last straw, and very important in my mind when considering what Eol does next.  

It just came to mind, but you could perhaps draw a parallel between Eol trying to kill Maeglin as a perverse mercy killing to spare him the pain of being an outcast in Gondolin, and Denethor trying to burn himself and Faramir alive to prevent their remains from falling into the hands of the Enemy.  Eol has a certain love for his son, and unfortunately it's the killing kind.  

Again, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me, and I'm in agreement with you!  It was really helpful to hear your thoughts.  In a way, it was kind of freeing to hear you say Eol was kind of crap?  The last conversation I had (years ago) with someone about Eol and transformative works, I got the distinct sense that they thought anything less than a fully exculpatory reading of Eol (and reworking the narrative to place the blame of Aredhel's death on "an accident" or "getting between Turgon's men and Eol") was not good enough to repair the narrative.  And don't get me wrong! I actually really enjoy AUs and canon divergence, and this arc is no exception!  

But sometimes I like to stick closer to canon, and pick apart the biases in the narrative and how they're impacting the characters, especially in an arc that is tied so closely to those characters.  I had a pretty firm grasp of the biases at play, but I didn't have as good a handle on the dynamic between Eol and Aredhel and that really tripped me up when I considered possible adaptations to their arc.

My final thought is that I hate having the only character of XYZ background be the villain.  I think the way I can potentially get around that is that because it's easier to repair Maeglin's narrative, it's easy for me to make Maeglin sympathetic.  As you said, Eol is sympathetic, and nuanced, but also kind of a shitty guy.  Whereas Maeglin is sympathetic, nuanced, does some things are are Not Well Adjusted, but also imminently likable once the narrative biases are stripped away.  Most of Maeglin's "Crimes" in the narrative are like "he was in love with his cousin, but he was respectful and didn't say anything about it, but she was a mindreader and found out anyway," and "wow he's so close to the king, that's suspicious (even though they're blood related and that's not a red flag at all)" and "he gave up the city ... to gain his cousin as a prize ... but he was tortured first,  so maybe it was the torture that really sealed the deal, not the cousin-loving?"  Sorry, abrupt departure from academic language into dark humor.  But yeah.  Fully fleshing out both of these characters - and maybe including some of the sindar of Gondolin and Nan Elmoth as OC's even? - is maybe the way to go.

#Eol #Maeglin #Aredhel #Sindar #Nolofinweans #Gondolindhrim #meta #cosmic-walkers #tol-himling #long post

[riverofrainbows]

I am so sick of the moralisation of cleanliness.

It's everywhere. You can go in any comment section and see people judge and have no understanding whatsoever for even the smallest amount of clutter or dirt. It's people being judged on having any real or perceived lack of personal hygiene. And including situations where it is known that the person struggles with problems, including severe disability and cancer. Anything that doesn't look like a fucking minimalist furniture catalogue is unacceptable and gross. There can apparently be no problems that could possibly stop you from doing a proper hair wash routine or brushing your teeth or taking a shower.

I just saw a video of someone cleaning their elderly father's oven door which was pretty dirty. And even without actively condemning it, there were, without fail, comments going "But how could someone even let it get to that point?". I don't know, you fucking unempathetic asshole, i would say pretty easily? You need to be able to 1) kneel on the floor, bend over, or sit on a low stool to reach that area 2) be able to scrub something 3) have the mental energy and know how to do the task and 4) consider it enough of a priority in the limited time and energy of your life to do it. These faux concerned comments showing utter incapability to try to understand a life different to theirs make me so mad.

"But how could someone cope with living in such disgusting conditions?" well they probably wouldn't choose it if they could, but again, they wouldn't not keep up with cleaning if cleaning were easy to do. How can people not understand that.

And this includes judging on greasy hair, stains, bad teeth (did you know that the number one factor of having healthy teeth is genetics?), smelling (especially teenagers, hormones are a bitch), dirty fingernails, not having clear skin or body hair.

I used to sweat and smell easily as a teenager, and not for lack of hygiene. I showered or washed twice every day, wore a fresh clean shirt every day, wore double deodorants every day, washed my jackets too, and i STILL smelled occasionally and was judged for it. Someone once said i should shower more. Because they assumed the reason must be that I don't even try to keep clean.

Could i have done more? Probably. I could have taken an extra shirt to school every day and changed (I didn't even own enough clothes for that, but maybe i could have bought extra cheap ones at the charity shop (where we shopped anyway) that I didn't like and weren't in fashion whatsoever, which would have made me unhappy about my expression and bullied even more for my clothes style, not to mention be judged for wearing a different outfit), washed my winter jackets every few weeks as a precaution despite what it says on the label so they break within a year or two and i have to buy new ones (which i couldn't afford) or taken them to the dry cleaner for expensive money we didn't have, i could have gotten surgery to remove my sweat glands (has side effects, and i want to emphasize that i was like 13 when it started), i could have faked illness to go home as soon as i noticed my clothes start to smell (missing many school days). Or, you know, other people could have raised their kids to have even a cell of kindness instead of cruelty and ableism in their body.

And the moralisation of cleanliness goes for the jokes about how "white people don't shower properly" or people who smell of something you aren't familiar with (like coconut oil) too. Since when is "scrubbing your entire body with soap twice per shower every day" something someone could consider the 'bare minimum'? Why is people treating their hair or scalp with oil 'gross'? "Oh i would feel so gross if i didn't shower every day" well good for you, and also fuck you, because your personal habits and preferences don't constitute moral standards. And i won't complain over someone having theses standards for themselves, that's fine, but i will not accept that person judging others cleanliness as a moral factor. (Note the use of the word "gross" in the earlier example, which is a real example i see pretty often)

"But where is the line waah waah, so you would be fine with someone living with cockroaches?" The line is at health. Infestations and mold constitute health risks. Having so much clutter you can't even check if there's infestations or mold does too. Never cleaning your skin or scalp will give it conditions and might lead to sores that can give you sepsis. Lotion if you have dry skin that gets uncomfortable otherwise, washing your hair so it doesn't itch. Smells that you don't try to reign in and cause harm and stress to the people around you. Neglecting your teeth does affect them and can cause further health risks, so trying your best and brushing and flossing them.

And cleanliness feels nice! So most people would probably have a pretty high standard of cleanliness, IF THEY COULD.

If you're so fucking concerned with someone elses home being cluttered and dirty, fucking go offer doing a spring clean for them without judging them even once. Or shut the fuck up.

My room is always cluttered and often dirty. Would i prefer it to be squeaky clean and completely put away? Yes. Are some of the corners a little gross? Yes. Is that something bad? No! Do i have the ability to keep it clean and just choose not to because i prefer it that way and am a gross immoral person of lower worth? No but that's what apparently a lot of people think, which is horrible and they should feel bad about themselves. Would i keep it clean and tidy if i could? Yes. Can i? No that's the whole point. Is uncleanliness unclean? Yes. Is that bad and immoral? No!

So many people have not even the smallest idea of what disability, lack of time and energy, or just mishaps of circumstances can look like. They cannot imagine a world where the "normal" person they meet every day is not exactly like them. They cannot conceptualise disability (with it's many forms). They will also refuse to categorise things they do encounter in their life as disability, and thus refuse to open their horizon. This very quickly becomes "Well if they can't even do [insert what they deem as normal] them maybe they shouldn't have autonomy or be allowed to go outside." (just look at comment sections of posts and see how quickly this comment pops up)

And to finish on the topic we started, since this post is getting long, the moralisation and following judgement stops people from opening up about when they fail to meet these standards of cleanliness other people display, and creates a fake picture that pressures everyone else to try and hold it up too. And it's fine to have as high of a standard as you want for yourself, but everyone needs to understand that as long as health requirements are kept, finding something gross doesn't mean it's immoral. And that a lot of people have a higher standard of cleanliness than they can actually achieve and practice, and that that's fine.

If you feel the need to comment on someone's living environment or personal hygiene, if you aren't willing to personally help them clean and remedy the situation with kindness, don't speak at all. And if you want to go a step further than not judging others, how about you step up when you see your friends and family judge someone over a perceived moral standard of cleanliness.

#own post #cleanliness #hygiene #moralisation of cleanliness #ableism #tw bugs

[cr1mson5returns]

Personal under the cut. I'm just feeling many Things.

I had an appointment today at a charity/non-profit health clinic. I've been struggling to get my medical and psychiatric needs met for several months, since I'm currently uninsured. Since it was my first appointment there, I had to fill out some new patient paperwork - demographic information and contact information, the works, including an emergency contact.

And I hesitated, because...traditionally I've always put my dad in that space as my emergency contact. When I was a kid, he traveled a lot for work, and so it was smarter to put down my mom because she was more likely to be in town. But as I got older, I started putting down my dad, because he was more likely to have a level head about the situation, especially if it was anything self-inflicted. But today, sitting in that clinic, I couldn't bring myself to put down my dad's information. I just didn't feel comfortable with the idea. So I put in a friend's instead, even though I hadn't asked him beforehand if I could, because he's one of the few people I have local anymore who could reasonably show up in case of an emergency.

I'll concede that if it was life or death and truly very serious, I'd at least want my parents to know where I was, if not what happened to me. But anything less than "your daughter will literally die in 24 hours or less" I don't really want them to know about. I stopped allowing them access to my medical records when I moved out, because things had gotten so toxic as a result of me coming out. I didn't want them to have information they could potentially use against me. I just didn't have the strength to unpack that revelation back then.

It felt really strange to make that choice after so long of hearing "they're your parents, they deserve to know" on loop in my head. But the reality is that biological proximity to me doesn't mean they deserve anything from me. Not after the way they treated me, not after everything that happened to me. I didn't want my dad to walk me down the aisle at my wedding in 2020 because I felt like he would do it out of a sense of obligation, not because he loved me. I disinvited them because of how awful they were about everything leading up to the wedding. When I found out a relative had given them the livestream link, I was outraged. I hadn't wanted them to have access to that moment they didn't really care about. That they never even publicly acknowledged after it happened.

There's a part of me that feels like I'm giving up on my family by maintaining this no-contact state of being. Many different people have emphasized their feeling that I should be open to the idea of reinstating contact one day. But the thing is...I don't think my family deserves it. I don't think it'll ever be worth the anxiety of wondering if they've really changed, or the anticipation of the terrible treatment happening again. I don't think I could handle the idea that I'd fold back in just to have to exit once more. I can't imagine a world where they're willing to change their behavior. They loved the idea of who I was more than who I actually was, let alone who I am now. Sometimes I'm crippled with this fear that they'll mail me something to my old address, and it'll get forwarded to where I currently live. But then I remember that they never recalled my address the same way they did my oldest sister's, and they'd have to actually miss me to mail me something. Even if they did mail me something, I'd probably just throw it away. I can't hurt myself like that anymore. I can't go back to those places and mental spaces and all the things that kept me under that abuse for years.

Still, there's a part of me that craves that chaotic feeling of wondering if I'll ever be good enough for them, so I might as well try again because it might change this time! They might actually love me and be proud of me for who I am this time! But it never changes. I was always hurting myself with those efforts. It has to stop. Even when it's new and scary.

So I have a new emergency contact for the first time in my life.

#cr1mson talks life #emotional breakdown blogging #trauma recovery #emotional abuse

[miramilocamimira]

2k22 Mirabel Scares The Family

(TW Violence)

-

“MAMA! Help!” Isabella shouted once she got into the house, Casita helping take the bloodied man over to the kitchen however the house did not take the same care as it did with Bruno.

The man let out a cry of pain as one of Casita’s tiles hit a specific area.

Bruno was sitting in the corner of the kitchen slumped against the wall. Even with Julieta’s cooking, the encounter left him exhausted.

”Is this him?” Her mother asked, surprisingly calm. The look in her eyes betrayed her emotions though as she grabbed some tea she prepared.

”Mama! Tell Isabella to set me down so I can finish the fucking job!” Mirabel growled. Casita emphasized the young girls anger with a series of loud slams.

“Watch your mouth. He will be dealt with properly. Not like this.” Julieta replies, watching as the man is healed. “Set your sister down in the main hall. Everybody else is there.”

Mirabel growled as her sister did what she was told.

-

‘Just you wait Juan. Casita and I will rip you to shreds for harming our family.’ She thought as she was set down. Antonio ran over and she picked him up.

”Who was it?” He whispered. She answered and he nodded. “Did he hurt you again?”

”No. But he was hurting Tío and I wasn’t gonna let that happen.” She whispered back. Dolores gasped and stared in shock.

Hurt her again? As in someone had been hurting Mirabel and she didn’t tell anyone?

————

Julieta asked casita to help move Bruno and, the newly recognized, Cortez to where everyone else was once she got them both into chairs. Bruno woke as soon as he was moved but curled up in the chair, whimpering. For Juan, she retied the vines Isabella left- as a precaution of course. She chose to walk in between as to make sure their current guest didn’t get hurt anymore.

-

“Everyone calm down. We will find out what happened in a minute.” The matriarch of the Madrigals said. Mirabel huffed but settled down. Alma looked over as Casita and Julieta brought out Bruno and… Juan Cortez. Alma got worried. The Cortez family was well liked within the community. Mirabel better have a good reason for hurting the man.

Casita brought Bruno over to Mirabel and Antonio where they immediately worked on calming him down.

”Why is Juan tied up!” Alma exclaims. “Is this how you’re supposed to treat people?” Julieta glared and Alma felt shock.

”It’s how I treat people who beat on mi familia.”

‘What.’ The elderly woman thinks.

—

“And that’s exactly why I should be allowed to follow through on my promise to him.” Mirabel scoffs as she lets go of her uncle. She looks so at the man in question. “Because I’d love to-“

“How about instead, we talk about how you and Antonio were talking about how he attacked Tío and that he attacked you previously- multiple times?” There were multiple gasps and soft calls of the youngest female Madrigal’s name. The girl in question shook her head.

“This is about Tío Bruno being attacked by him. And what the family is going to do about it.” She argued back.

”MIRABEL! Explain.” Alma commanded.

”Fine. But I get to choose the punishment.”

”Mirabel…”

”I am the only one who could give you names and faces reliably. Tell everything that happened and the reasons why. Antonio doesn’t know most of it and Casita wouldn’t tell anyone.”

”Mirabel- don’t-“ Bruno tried to cut in but his nieces and nephews.

”I don’t know much about Uncle Bruno’s history with the village but I do know mine.”

”Fine.” Alma caved.

”Exile.” Juan’s eyes popped open wide and he started squirming with muffled yells. Bruno’s does too as he remembers the vision he gave. The reason why his wife left was because- “He will be exiled and have his deeds told to the village. The family, together, will request this and the village will adhere.”

”But-“

”You want to know what happened? I was the black sheep. The one everyone knew wasn’t cared about. If I went missing for hours and showed with bruises no one would notice or care beyond ‘go get an arepa and be more careful Mirabel’ and so day after day it’d happen.” She starts. “If you guys said or did something they didn’t like they’d come after me. Exiling him will make a point. Everyone is in the family is protected.”

——

After ensuring preparations were made, they set Juan aside and gathered up again. Mirabel talked about more of what happened, not noticing the family’s growing anger.

“They did that too you too!?” Bruno interjected, at some point. “Dios, I hated that the most. At least I could climb my way out of the well!”

”Right!?”

Needless to say, some changes were going to be made.

Tomorrow, Juan’s deeds would be known. The people of Encanto will watch as he walks out, never to return, with only the small bag of provisions and the clothes on his back.

Tomorrow, Alma will speak about how they have heard what a great many of them have done and if anyone is caught doing such a thing to another person in Encanto, anyone at all, their punishments will not be taken lightly.

Tomorrow, Bruno and Mirabel will be able to truly mend the rift between them and their family but for now? For now, they’ll talk and compare what happened. They’ll joke even though they want to cry and some parts they’ll hint at and the other will just know. And they’ll pretend they don’t know why they know. The family will be in tears and they’ll tell them that ‘it’s okay, we’re fine’ and everyone will know they aren’t.

But that’s just how it is sometimes. Sometimes it hurts and there’s no easy way. Sometimes the ending isn’t really what you want. And it’s neither good or bad, it just is.

It just is.

———————

(Let Mirabel Swear 2K22)

#encanto #encanto spoilers #bamf mirabel #mirabel madrigal #bruno madrigal #Mirabel Madrigal & Bruno Madrigal #angst #mentions of abuse #mentions of being beaten #violence