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sagaduwyrm · 2 years

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Yo, I wrote something.

It Matters to Have this Ghost Clan Near (This Family I Never Knew)

Held prisoner by an alien god-monarch, the only way the Justice League is getting out of here is by proving they have family waiting for them. This is easy enough for Clark and Bruce, but of Diana's family her mother isn't exactly easy to contact, and her relationship with the rest of her family is... complicated.

Luckily, just because he's dead, doesn't mean Kronos doesn't still care about his granddaughter.

"Clark. Bruce. Leave me here." Wonder Woman snarled the words as fierce as her heritage had taught her, and it only made Bruce more furious about the entire situation.

"Well? Have you made a decision yet? We won't wait forever." The alien monarch lounged on their throne, an ugly, amused glint in their eyes. It made Bruce want to break something, but the trio were outnumbered and far from home, and they were only getting out of here at all by the grace of the monarch's will.

He hated foreign gods. The ones on earth were tolerable, some, like Diana, he even liked, but gods from other worlds didn't push his buttons so much as they stomped on them with soccer cleats.

Wonder Woman was becoming visibly panicked. "Friends. Shield-brothers. Leave."

Bruce ignored her and tried to think of a way past this. The mrydonians and their god-monarch were fond of keeping people they found interesting. Anyone with any kind of power who stumbled into their lonely corner of the universe tended to find themselves stuck. They had even managed to trap gods before; the god-monarch reigned over the very concept of mrydonian space, and it allowed them to win out over gods of lesser or more distant domains. Diana, as the goddess of heroes, was below such a powerful genius locus, and the sun wasn't the kind that could fully power Clark up, preventing them from fighting their way out.

Thankfully, there was one loophole. The mrydonians held family sacred, even above their only god, and if they could prove they had family waiting for them they would be let go.

A quick call back home had settled the matter for him and Clark. His kids had answered the phone immediately, as had the Kents. Unfortunately, what little of Diana's relatives she considered true family were out of contact. They just needed one person who could claim her and mean it, but although she was close with a number of people, including his family, they had always labeled it as a friendship. He was kicking himself for that now, but how was he supposed to know—

"You can not find family for her then?" The alien's smarmy voice interrupted his thoughts as the being's smile widened. "She will just have to stay here then. We are so glad to host her—"

The doors, enormous and more literal incarnations of the god's power than physical objects, slammed open with a bang that echoed through the room. The god's head jerked around and they began standing up. One of the priests screamed, "Who dares intrude upon this sacred space?"

Between the open doors stood a boy. A teenager really, with floating white hair and inhuman green eyes, wearing a black and white suit. He waved. "Hey. I'm Danny." His bright smile was incongruous with the tense atmosphere, and every fiber of Bruce's being screamed with wariness. "That's my cousin over there. You know, the one you're planning on keeping prisoner."

"What. Diana—"

Clark was turning to her as Diana kept her eyes on the new threat, and she hissed back. "I don't know Clark. You've met all of my family. I don't know this boy."

The teenager in question stalked forward down the court, stopping between the god and the three justice league members. He moved oddly, too flexible and not as affected by gravity as he should be, and Bruce carefully took notice of what he saw. Oftentimes, when a being was non-human, the weak spots Batman depended on in a fight were in different places, so close observation was necessary if things dissolved into a battle.

The monarch's next words were an affronted rumble that did not lower Bruce's worries about a fight. "She does not know you, boy."

"No," Danny agreed. "We haven't met. Old family disagreements, you know the drill. Grandfather didn't want to impose, and I followed his lead." He tilted his head like a cat. "Doesn't mean I can't claim her, though."

"Grandfather?" Diana muttered next to Bruce in confusion.

The boy turned to her. "Mmhmm. He would have come himself, but by the time he saw what was going on, he was in the middle of something that would be dangerous to put down. He couldn't get a hold of your father, so he sent me instead." His face morphed into something bashful for a moment. "Sorry, I'm so late."

"It does not matter that you are late," the alien monarch snarled. They were fully standing up now, holding a dangerous-looking spear in their hands. It didn't look like the rest of the mrydonian weaponry Bruce had seen. He wondered if it was stolen just like they stole people. The god continued, "She does not recognize you as family, it is not mutual, it does not matter."

"See, that's where you're wrong," Danny exclaimed cheerfully. "By your own words, you 'respect other cultural understandings of family than your own.' Well," the boy bared his teeth in a grin. He had far too many of them, and they were far too sharp to fit in the reality Bruce knew, making him wonder which branch of Diana's family tended towards the Eldritch. As the boy spoke, the words began to gain a hint of static. "In the culture of my people, one can claim another as family without it being mutual and it still holds up in a court of law as long as the other does not outright refute the relationship." He swiveled towards Diana. "I assume you're not?"

She shook her head even as her eyes remained hawk-fierce on him.

"So, I may not be her cousin, but she is mine, and since that would be accepted in my culture, you have to let her go, by your own rules."

"Do not patronize me in my own domain, boy." The ground shuddered with the god's words.

The teenager snarled right back, a deep rattling thing that reminded Bruce of an avalanche, and he lifted off the ground. He had a cloak that looked like someone had woven the night sky into armored cloth and a sword of black ice on his hip. Neither were there a couple of seconds ago, yet they felt like they'd been there the whole time. "Try me," Danny snarled. "My own domain isn't as far as you think."

The air grew tenser and tenser before it finally snapped. "Fine! She is your family. You may take her. Leave now or my generosity may not hold." The alien god stormed out with their head held high, but there was a definite sense of loss in the way they retreated.

Danny turned back to them. He landed on the ground in front of Diana, missing his war regalia again.

"Sorry that took so long! He was surprisingly stubborn."

"It's fine," Diana said warily. "Thank you… cousin."

The boy's eyes widened before he started to beam.

Diana continued. "Can I ask who is the grandfather we're related to?"

"You know him as Kronos."

All three of the Justice Leaguers froze. Diana's mouth gaped open and closed like a fish, but Clark at least managed to keep his wits about him. "Kronos is dead."

Danny turned to him curiously. "So?"

"So he's not alive," Clark stressed. "He couldn't have sent you."

Danny looked at him for a moment and burst out laughing. When his laughter calmed he said, "A god is still a god when they are dead, and the soul of a god is not nearly so easy to destroy as the body. Who do you think has been repairing the time stream after all the time travel you heroes do?" he asked wryly.

"If Kronos was still existent," Diana said firmly, "we'd know. He'd have already tried to take the cosmic throne again."

The teenage… being's gaze was inscrutable. "Would he? Really? Where are you getting that information?"

Diana sputtered. "It's common knowledge!"

Danny said dryly, "So you don't even have a first-hand account?"

"Well I certainly haven't seen any evidence to the contrary," she snapped back.

Danny was suddenly the most serious Bruce had seen him since he entered the palace. "He likes baking. He makes amazing persimmon cookies, and he's been trying to figure out a cinnamon roll recipe he likes. One time when I was upset he tricked the Observants into dying their capes rainbow. None of them ever figured out it was him, but he still brings me back to that moment when I need cheering up." The boy's expression softened as he looked at the woman who he had claimed as a cousin of his own accord. "When he realized he wouldn't be able to come himself to help you, he was furious. He had to use a lot of power to get me here on time, but he would have thrown away twice as much if it was for family."

Diana's face was working its way through a series of emotions, and Danny seemed to grow embarrassed by everything he'd said. "I should go so you can get home. I hang around in Illinois if you ever want to find me." He lifted off the ground, reaching out to tear some kind of portal open in the air. He turned back for a moment before he left. "Grandfather goes by Clockwork, nowadays. He'll answer to that if you ever need him." Then the boy was gone.

#danny phantom #fandom stuff #dp x dc #danny fenton #diana prince #wonder woman #Clockwork is Kronos #dpxdc #dp x dc crossover

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heliza24 · 2 months

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Wilhelm's Journey of Radical Forgiveness in Season 3

So this is the next entry in my unintentional series, about how Young Royals embraces truly radical story telling. Previously I’ve written about Simon in season 2 and his arc of radical acceptance, and about how radical the act of quitting the monarchy could be for Wilhelm (and I have never been so happy to be right about anything). But now I’m ready to start talking about season 3, which I loved, and specifically about the theme of radical forgiveness, which I thought was laced throughout the whole season beautifully and drove Wilhelm’s arc specifically.

Before I jump in, I want to pause and really define the concept of radical. When I’m using "radical" in this context, I’m talking about something that challenges the nature of what we assume to be true. I’m talking about embracing an idea that may not seem logical at first, but feels emotionally true and necessary. And I’m talking about ideas that are revolutionary, that have the potential to change people and societies.

When I went in to season 3, I assumed from the beginning that it would end with Wilhelm leaving the monarchy. I have always seen this as the fundamental question of the show (will Wilhelm stay and fulfill his predetermined destiny, or leave and find his own path?). Wilhelm’s relationship with Simon is a catalyst for that decision and their ability to stay together depends on its answer. (There’s no world where Wilhelm remained prince and Wilmon was still endgame.) But during the gap between episodes 5 and 6, I realized that even if you could sum up Wilhelm’s overall series conflict as crown vs freedom/Simon, that was not the major thing driving him in season 3. Or rather, there was another dramatic question he needed to answer, or internal conflict he needed to solve, before he could decide to walk away from the throne and fix his relationship with Simon.

Season 3 starts with the private arbitration/settlement negotiation, and immediately establishes how inadequate legal and financial reparations are at mending the divide between Wilhelm, Simon, and August. Instead this setup pushes Wilhelm into more conflict with August, making him feel like he has to defend his family from August’s incursions. At the same time, the season also opens with the initiation reveal, and the immediate implication that Erik was one of the perpetrators of the sexual abuse that occurred and that August was one of the victims. Suddenly the audience is able to see that the perfect family Wilhelm thinks he is defending— including Erik’s memory— is so much more complicated than Wilhelm realizes. And at the same time, the supposed threat that August poses is also much more complex. No one is as black and white, as good or as evil, as we would like to believe. And Wilhelm’s arc this season is all about understanding this.

There’s one more component to Wilhelm’s arc this season, and that’s his relationship with Simon. As the season goes on, we see Wilhelm become more and more complicit in the abuse Simon suffers. As the season progresses, Wilhelm becomes an enforcer of the palace, asking Simon to give up more of himself, to compromise more of his values, to be with him. By episode four he is saying some pretty homophobic things (“do I have to represent all queers just because I’m in love with you” feels like a slap in the face) and by episode 5 he is subjecting Simon to a violent outburst, even if it’s not directed at him. Wilhelm says almost the exact same thing to Simon that Erik said to him in season 1 (“everything you do now represents me and the royal house”/“everything you do reflects on us as a family”). Kristina is explicitly asking Wilhelm to step up and fill Erik’s shoes this season, and Wilhelm obeys in more ways than one. Wilhelm begins to pass on the same cycle of abuse that is currently affecting him to Simon. The same cycle that has affected Kristina, Erik, August, and Wilhelm is affecting Simon now as well.

In order for Wilhelm to break this cycle, he has to be able to see what he is doing. And he cannot do that until he recognizes and accepts the nuances in both Erik and August. He can’t move on until he has made some sort of peace with both of them.

I think it was a genius idea to trap Wilhelm and August in Hillerska’s version of couple counseling (lol) and force them to talk to each other. (As an aside, I really do love how this show treats therapy as a thing worthy of being dramatized. It’s so powerful.) I also think it was important to see August begin to make some steps of his own, both in therapy and in the way he begins to give Wilhelm and Sara more space. We don’t really see the end of August’s arc of slow self improvement— by the end of the show he’s still very much trapped in the royal cycle and dependent on Sara in a way that’s problematic— but that’s ok because he isn’t the protagonist, and the important thing is that we notice that he is beginning to change, and so does Wilhelm.

The scene at the end of 3.4, when August tells Wilhelm about what happened during the initiation, is so important. August delivers that information genuinely, and not as a threat. And in that moment Wilhelm’s perception of his brother (and secondarily, of August) is flipped upside down. I think even more important is the kind of unspoken question lurking under this new information for Wilhelm: if I idolized Erik, and I detested August, and my image of both of these people was incomplete, then what does that say about me?

I think we can see Wilhelm questioning his perception of his family and of himself in a lot of subtle ways over the last two episodes. We see him put on nail polish and take it off. We see him afraid to ask his dad for more information about Erik on the phone, and then screaming at his parents for the way they abandoned him. We see him struggling to integrate this new information, and he completely neglects Simon because of it, leading to the breakup.

By episode 6, Wilhelm has lost Simon, reached a sort of catharsis with his parents, and maybe most importantly seen Hillerska itself— the setting where the abusive system seems to be baked into the very walls— crumble. All of the things he though were untouchable (his love for Simon, his parents’ authority, the everlasting nature of Hillerska) have completely changed. And I think all of that instability is what allows Wilhelm to finally accept that his understanding of both Erik and August doesn’t have to be permanently fixed either. I love the scene where August and Wilhelm meet at the party, August apologizes, and Wilhelm accepts his apology. And I also love the scene where Wilhelm throws out the broken frog prince snow globe, the one enduring symbol the show has associated with Erik and Wilhelm and their shared role over and over again. I know different fans will have different arguments about how Wilhelm feels about August at the end of the series, but for me their last interaction symbolizes radical forgiveness. By this I don’t mean that Wilhelm has to forget about what August did to him, just like he doesn’t have to forget the bad things Erik has done to others. But he does have to accept them as they are- full of flaws, but intricately connected to him. As part of his imperfect family. And he lets go of the violent anger that has plagued him through much of the series in that moment. That’s a type of forgiveness that makes a real change. It opens up a whole new avenue of possibility for Wilhelm. Because in extending that radical forgiveness towards August and Erik, he’s also able to forgive himself for the way he too has failed the people he loves.

Actually, I think there’s one more component necessary for that self forgiveness, which is Simon telling Wilhelm that he never gave up on Wilhelm himself, only on the Royal family and its rules. That one line is such a gift to Wilhelm. It allows him to see himself as an individual who is separate from his family and able to make his own decisions for the first time. It allows him to fully forgive himself, and to make the decision to leave for his own sake. It allows him to save himself. And then because he has saved himself, he and Simon can be together again.

So in the end Wilhelm ends up answering the driving dramatic question (crown or freedom?) but only after he extends radical forgiveness to his family members and to himself. I think it’s so beautiful, it makes me cry every time I think about it.

This theme of radical forgiveness is everywhere this season, not just in Wilhelm’s arc. It’s in Sara and Felice’s reconciliation, and in Sara and Micke’s relationship, and in the ways that Sara forgives herself and moves beyond shame (expect another meta from me about Wilhelm and Sara season 3 parallels soon, because there are many and I love them). It’s in the way that Linda and Simon forgive each other, and the way that Simon forgives Wilhelm, and the the way that Simon forgives Sara. It’s even in the ways that August grows in fits and starts this season too. I feel like I learned so much from this season. It challenged my assumptions about characters I thought I knew and reminded me to that there is beauty in acknowledging nuance in the world. And I think it will serve as an ongoing reminder for me that even when I mess up and do not live up to my ideals, I am still worthy of radical forgiveness. Growth can’t happen without that compassion towards ourselves and others. And if that isn’t the most perfect message to take away from this beautiful show that I have loved for so long, I don’t know what is.

#young royals #young royals season 3 #young royals s3 spoilers #my meta #wilhelm young royals

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h-sleepingirl · 3 months

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Milton Erickson and a Rabbi Walk into a Bar... (Essay)

Finally, I've finished this essay about connections I'm finding between hypnosis, Judaism, magic, and intimacy. It's ~4.5k words, extremely "me," and I'm really thrilled to share it. Enjoy!

My weakness is getting deeply invested in very niche topics.

Hypnosis was my first and most lifelong obsession. It was my confusing, shameful sexual fetish that I eventually took by the horns and -- through my desire to learn as much about it as humanly possible -- turned into a job. But not a normal sex work job where I do hypnosis for money -- a weird job where I just teach about it. The kink community, and the further-specific niche where people want to hypnotize each other during intimate experiences, became my home.

But the value of study doesn't really come from the quantity of people I'm able to engage with. It comes from the way it enriches my life. It creates and benefits from the capability to see overlaps between all of my various interests.

On the surface, it may appear that two skills have no relationship. But the deeper you get into each one, a synthesis appears.

At a certain point when you are learning hypnosis, all seemingly-unrelated information seems to fit effortlessly into your hypnotic knowledge. You can listen to a song and suddenly you learn something new about how to hypnotize someone. Maybe it was a lyric that gave you an evocative emotional response; maybe it was a pattern in the music that you thought about replicating with the rhythm of your hypnotic language.

Over a decade into my own hypnosis learning, I got very lucky and found a second passionate home in communities of Jewish text study about a year ago. I started from almost zero there and found myself again to be a greedy novice, obsessed with digging into it.

Of course, as I got further, it became that I read a page of Talmud (a text of rabbinical law and conversation) and suddenly I learned something new about how to hypnotize someone. And as I progress, it is starting to go the other way: I learn about Torah study by reading about hypnosis and intimacy.

There are two directions this essay can be read. “How can intimacy and hypnosis teach us about Jewish text?” And, “How can Jewish text teach us about intimacy and hypnosis?” One half is of each part written by me as an authority, and the other half is by me as an avid novice. The synthesis of these two parts of me -- just like any synthesis between concepts -- may perhaps create something new.

Models

I’m sure most communities have a version of the idiom, “Ask three people a question and get five answers.” For a long time, this was a source of frustration for me in the hypnosis community. Is hypnosis a state of relaxation and suggestibility? Kind of, but also no. Is it more accurate to say it is based on unconscious behaviors and thoughts? Well -- kind of, but also no.

So what is it? Well, it’s probably somewhere in the overlap of about 20-30 semi-accurate definitions and frameworks for techniques -- what we’d call “models.” Good luck!

Why is hypnosis so impossible to define and teach? How have we not found a model that we can all agree upon yet? I think many people share this confusion, and it's complicated by the fact that most sources for hypnosis education teach their model as the model. It makes sense -- it would be difficult to teach a complete beginner a handful of complex frameworks with which to understand hypnosis when that person is just trying to muddle through learning “how to hypnotize someone” on a practical, basic level.

…Or would it be? By the time I got involved with Jewish study, I had long given up on chasing the white whale of some unified theory of hypnosis. I was firmly happy with the concept that all ways to describe hypnosis are simply models -- and all models are flawed, while some models are useful. I was delighted, when entering Jewish community spaces, to hear the idiom, “Three Jews, five opinions.”

This concept is baked into Jewish text study, in my experience. You can look at any single line in Torah and find innumerable pieces of commentary on it, ancient and modern, with conflicting interpretations. Torah and other texts are studied over and over -- often on a schedule -- with the idea that there is always something new to learn. And this happens partially by the synthesis of multiple people's perspectives adding to and challenging each other, developing new models. My Torah study group teacher always starts us with a famous line from Pirkei Avot, a text of ethical teachings from early rabbis: “If two sit together and share words of Torah, the Shekhinah [feminine presence of God] abides among them.”

The capacity to develop and hold multiple interpretations at once enriches your relationship with the text. So too do I believe that being able to hold multiple interpretations of what hypnosis is and how it works enhances your skill with it. It is not a failure of the system -- it is the best thing about it.

Intimacy

It is intentional to make the distinction of “relationship with the text” -- not “relationship to the text.”

My job on the surface is to teach hypnosis, but the meta goal is to simply teach something that helps people develop profound intimacy with others. I think that hypnosis is a kind of beautiful magic that is well-suited to this, but it’s not the only path to take.

One of my favorite educators, Georg Barkas, describes themselves as an intimacy educator who teaches rope bondage. Their classes and writings are highly philosophical and align closely with my own ideas about intimacy -- as well as my partner’s, MrDream, from whom I’ve learned so much. I frequently cite Barkas when I talk about hypnosis because I feel the underlying ideas they have about rope bondage are extremely applicable to all kink and intimacy -- and I will continue that trend here.

Barkas recently published an excellent essay looking in detail at the concept of intimacy itself. They posit that our first thought of intimacy is usually about a kind of comfort-seeking and familiarity. That’s contained within the etymology of the word, and socially it’s what many of us think of when we define our relationships as “intimate”: settling in to engage with a partner who we love, know, and understand.

But, Barkas asks, what if we place this word into a different context? They talk of how in scientific endeavors, the goal of “becoming familiar with” is unpredictability and discovering things that are surprising and unexpected. This perhaps offers a different view of intimacy: intimacy where you do not engage with your partner as though you know everything about them; intimacy where being surprised by them and learning something new is the goal.

My partner MrDream teaches about this often in hypnosis education: approaching a partner with genuine curiosity and interest -- “curiosity” implying that you don’t know what to expect, with a positive connotation. There is a kind of delicate balance between being able to anticipate some aspects of what is going to happen hypnotically -- to have a general grasp on psychology and hypnosis theory -- versus holding tight to a philosophy that neither you nor the hypnotic subject really knows how they are going to respond. The unexpected is not to be feared, but celebrated and held as core to our practice. Hypnotic “subjects” (those being hypnotized) who can relax their expectations will often have more intense experiences.

Thus we come to the first time in this essay where I mention Milton Erickson, my favorite forefather of modern hypnosis. Erickson was a hypnotherapist active through the 1900s and is famous (among many things) for presenting a model of hypnosis that wasn’t necessarily an authoritative action done to a person, but a collaborative and guiding action done with a person.

In his book “Hypnotic Realities,” he talks about how his view of clinical hypnosis is defined by how the therapist is able to observe each individual client and directly use those observations to continually develop a unique hypnotic approach with them. The client’s history, interests, and modes of thinking are utilized for the trance, as well as any observable responses they have in the moment. For example, a client with chronic pain may have the frustration they express over that pain incorporated into the trance. This is in deep contrast to hypnosis where the therapist comes in with any kind of “script” or formula to recite ahead of time.

It’s important to Erickson’s model that the therapist doesn’t know exactly what to anticipate, and it’s also important hypnotically that the same is true for the client. A common “Ericksonian” suggestion is, “You don’t have to know what is going to happen, and I don’t know either.” In order to develop the most effective approach with each patient, Erickson would enter into a session with some presumed knowledge, but ultimately learning -- not assuming -- how to best hypnotize each individual person.

We circle back to the phrase, “a relationship with Jewish text.” In my opinion, engaging with Torah is exactly this kind of intimacy. Torah is something we come into in order to poke and prod at it, to interact with it and to see how it interacts back at us. The teacher of my study group always cites a model where Torah itself is a participant in our partnered learning and group discussions. We ask it questions, we push its boundaries, we strive to glean something new and yet unseen. A line that may seem simple on the surface can reveal much more when we explore its context or put it into a different context entirely.

This is easier for me to say as someone who is coming into learning Torah for the first time, but I am able to look ahead to when I will be fully familiar with the text and still be able to take this expanded definition of intimacy with it. Not coming to it without a sense of comfort, but still engaging with curiosity. MrDream teaches a model for hypnosis that is based on the idea of exploration -- exploring your partner no matter how long you have been with them. You are always coming to them as a different person, shaped by your ever-growing experiences and identity, and your partner changes as a human as well. I believe Torah is also dynamic in this way, as the context within which it exists -- and the way we interpret it -- is constantly shifting.

Ritual

I have been engaging with spiritual ritual on and off for as long as I’ve been learning hypnosis. The concept of magic has always been alluring to me -- not from a motivation to meet specific goals, but for something more difficult to pin down. I like that ritual, in an esoteric framework, is about looking at various metaphors between ingredients and actions; a candle representing an element of fire which may in turn represent intensity, or purity, or something else. Drawing meaningful connections between concepts like this is a skill I’ve developed in parallel with hypnosis, as well.

I was recently talking with a friend of mine who is also interested in esotericism -- we were sharing our frustrations with various books on magic and ritual. We wondered why so many sources would go on to teach prescriptivist formulas and associations, and not much else. Do this, and that will happen. This symbol represents that. My friend and I agreed that the ritual value of ingredients comes from how you personally assign meaning to them -- but why was everything always trying to teach us their meaning, as opposed to teaching us how to cultivate our own associations?

A week or so later, I happened to go to an excellent class that explored whether or not there was a place for smudging and smoke use in modern Jewish ritual. The teacher first took a careful, measured approach towards looking at indigenous smudging practices and the concept of appropriation. What followed was 30 minutes of history and text exploring examples of smoke in early Judaism, and then 30 minutes of a handful of interpretations of what “smoke” could mean and represent with relation to Jewish ideas -- directly practical to modern ritual. It was utterly excellent and immediately profound for me, as someone who has been yearning to blend my experience with esoteric ritual with my relationship with Judaism.

Observant readers will note that through this essay I speak passively about Judaism -- I am a patrilineal Jew, which for better or worse means that it is not a simple matter to say, “I am ‘fully’ (or ‘not’) Jewish.” (I am in the beginnings of working with a Conservative rabbi -- who affirms that I’m Jewish -- to make my status halachic [lawful], which is deeply exciting.) Opinions on that aside, a relevant piece of information is that the Jewish holiday we celebrated most consistently when I was growing up was Chanukah. While a lot of Jewish practice has been something I’ve been striving towards as an adult, Chanukah has always been “mine.” It was fast approaching after this class, and I felt motivated to use my newfound knowledge to make more ritual out of lighting the candles.

I was deeply surprised when all I did was light a stick of incense before saying the blessings over lighting the menorah, and my experience transformed into something intense. I smelled the incense and couldn’t help but think about what I’d learned about the Rambam’s commentary that incense in the time of the Temple was about making the Temple smell sweet to pray in after the burning of sacrifices. I thought about what I’d learned about the presence of God being smoke and clouds to the ancient Israelites. I thought about things I’d learned from other places -- hiddur mitzvah (the value of beautifying a practice), and a midrash (parable) about God loving the light and rituals we do in a very personal way simply because they are from us.

Esoteric ritual has often felt to me like exerting effort in making the associations of ingredients work for me. But this was effortless. I was doing something that was entirely my own, solidly founded by the broad and deep study I’d done, by my personal relationship with the concepts, by my identity.

In other words, the power behind this ritual came from knowledge, and the knowledge came from my intimacy with it. And that intimacy was not just with the study I had done -- it was also the process of being surprised in real time by what I was learning through the ritual itself.

Hypnosis gains “power,” in so much as we let ourselves use the term, through these same acts of intimacy towards knowledge. It operates directly based on various ingredients: how much we know about hypnosis theory itself, general psychology, the person we are working with, and ourselves. Hypnosis is a ritual -- it is setting aside special time to do something with a collection of ingredients that you have personal associated meanings with. If you can’t connect to those deeply enough, it won’t reach its full potency.

Knowledge, Perception, and Unconsciousness

One of my favorite concepts to teach in hypnosis is, “A change in perception equates to a change in reality.” This is derived from Erickson by MrDream, and it’s something he and I have had a lot of conversations about to refine. The implication of this is not something as trite as hypnosis having the power to change a person’s perceived reality. It is the concept that if you look at something from a different perspective, you gain various different capabilities.

For example, when you are feeling stuck in a situation and you think about what a close friend of yours would do if they were in your shoes, you gain the capability to see more options, to change your actual view of the reality of the problem and therefore change your actions towards it. In hypnosis, this could be the difference between simply telling someone to relax their legs versus another perspective of telling them to imagine what it would be like if their legs just started relaxing. It could be the idea that when a person does feel relaxation from a simple suggestion, their perception changes on what is happening -- they build more belief in hypnosis, and that belief in turn makes the next suggestions easier to buy into.

Erickson’s model of hypnosis is predicated on the idea that hypnosis itself matters, that hypnosis is a time within which someone’s reality changes. In his ideal hypnotic context, the subject feels like they no longer can expect things to behave as they usually do in their “waking” reality. They are thus opened to many different kinds of new experiences and capabilities. To Erickson, perception matters -- by itself, it’s a primary driving force behind literal change and response.

This ties back to our idea of intimacy -- just as I aim to approach my partners with this profound curiosity, just as I aim to approach Torah, I want to have this intimacy of the unexpected with trance itself. I want to allow myself to be surprised by hypnosis, by the things I don’t yet know about it even after more than a decade and thousands of hours of trance. But more than this, in an Ericksonian sense, simply changing my perspective to this motivation is one of the things that lets me get there.

I went through a guided study class about Shabbat (Judaism’s weekly sabbath of rest) with a partner, and so much of the class was in the abstract that it at times felt difficult for me to latch onto. We were learning all of this background context about a view of Shabbat where instead of spiritually striving and reaching on that day, you come in acting as though your spiritual work -- like your other work -- is “finished.”

In one session, we spent a chunk of time parsing through how we could interpret that as actionable. It felt like it just wasn’t clicking for me -- the midrashic texts weren’t offering enough for me to feel like I could make judgments on questions like, “Does this imply I shouldn’t meditate on Shabbat in this context?”

It wasn’t until I slept on it that I found a very simple piece of the puzzle: putting aside the questions of concrete actions, in an Ericksonian sense, the internal act of shifting my perspective would absolutely change the way I behaved and interacted with the day. It would become more indirect and unconscious -- instead of carefully analyzing my actions as I might with other Shabbat prohibitions on work, I could simply let myself act in ways that fit that perspective of “spiritually resting.”

The abstraction of the class made more sense -- perhaps it wasn’t trying to give us direct answers, but rather create a psychological environment for us that was well-suited to this more unconscious processing. Or rather, in addition to the sort of typical conscious halachic interpretation. If I allow myself an opinion here, I’d say that I care about halacha as actionable, but as always, I tend to care more about feelings and what’s internal.

This also lent credence to ways this class and the class on smoke and ritual changed my experiences. I was not given a set of actions to take, but rather a variety of perspectives that unconsciously made me think and behave differently. The concept of “knowledge is power” is both true and alluring in many different contexts, and yet had often fallen through for me in most ritualistic frameworks. The way that it succeeds, I believe, is when you develop a relationship with knowledge that actually changes your internal perspective and perceptions.

Limitation

With this we return to the concept of models and interpretations. It is serendipitous to be going through these experiences at a time where I am avidly working on my next book -- the thesis of which is that in order for us to progress as hypnotists, we must get comfortable moving fluidly between many differing definitions and frameworks (models) of what hypnosis is and how it works.

It is as the Ericksonian principle would say: If you take a perspective on hypnosis that boils down to “hypnosis is about relaxing the conscious mind,” you will do hypnosis according to that perspective. You will use relaxation-based techniques and make an effort to get someone to think “less consciously.” If you instead take a perspective that is “hypnosis operates based on activation of the conscious mind,” you may do hypnosis that causes someone to think and process in a more stimulating way.

Both and neither are true, and they can coexist. I believe that most models can be useful -- some more useful than others. But the best thing you can do is to not assume that one model is the most correct one -- instead, it is to develop the capacity to work within many at once even while being aware of their boundaries.

Jewish text, in my experience, provides models -- perspectives that themselves give guidance on how to understand things and act. I think especially about midrash and stories that are explicitly intended to fill in the gaps or give an alternate view on something. The question of, “Is there one correct way to do/see things” is more complicated here, but there are areas -- especially in those subtle shifts of mindset for ritual or interpreting text -- where the answer is still “no.”

My time so far in Jewish study supports this in a different way. There is a human element of collaboration and challenge. Learning as we do with a chevruta (study partner) adds another person to the relationship -- it is no longer just between you and the text. There is another human who you are building something with, and it is “intimate” according to our exploratory definition in an even clearer way.

The purpose of a “scene” inside of kink (a “session” of kink play) is to operate in a semi-limited framework -- limitations exist on who is involved, where it begins and ends, how partners communicate, and what themes/topics/activities are involved. These limitations -- though they may be quite broad -- are partially what allow for intense experiences. A scene needs to exist in a different “space” than our daily lives, and it needs to operate by different rules and involve different ingredients. Here, we also see overlaps with the definition of a “ritual.”

This doesn’t just facilitate intensity (and safety) -- it facilitates learning something new about your partner. By taking your relationship and putting it into a limited context, it allows you to observe it in a more careful way, where novel changes can be more obvious.

Studying with a chevruta is much like this. I have had study sessions where my chevruta and I are meeting for the first time and the only thing we are aware of sharing is our desire to dive into a piece of text. I’ve also had chevrutas where we know each other outside of study, and some of our time is schmoozing and catching up. But in all cases, we are limited in scope, and that limitation creates ease of access towards the common goal of expanding our knowledge and relationship with the text. We are focused; we are motivated. We are creating something that we can only create through who we are as individuals and what we are doing as avid learners.

This has surprised me at times with its tenderness and intensity. Building well-founded interpretations with someone is in and of itself very intimate -- not sensually, but humanly. It has given me something I have always wanted -- an intimacy that is pervasive not just in application of knowledge, but in the development of it. A feeling of sacredness and joy from being able to see so many different perspectives.

I long for this connection, this alchemy. Yes, all models are limited. But within those tight, restricting limits is the potential energy of creation.

“And I Must Learn”

There is an infamous story in the Talmud, in Berakhot 62a, where Rav Kahana hides under the bed of his friend Rav Abba. Rav Kahana hears Abba and his wife giggling and starting to have sex, and remarks out loud that Rav Abba is acting like someone who is famished. Rav Abba, mid-sex, understandably says, “Kahana, why the fuck are you under my bed listening to me fuck my wife?” Rav Kahana replies, “It is Torah, and I must learn.”

There was a version of this essay that began with this tale. I am enamored with the vast overlaps I can derive from its briefness: that intimacy can be studied sacredly both as a general concept and specifically with your partner; that we are obligated to learn ourselves, our partners, and general human desire; that there can be a thread of wholeness in every action of your life if you give every action sacred attention.

Even this, though, is a limited-context interpretation. The rabbis of the Talmud were certainly not sex-positive, especially not as we currently use the term. The surrounding triptych of conversations is similarly humorous but seems to comparatively describe sex as dirty or gross, and this bit of text cannot really exist separately from all of the places where there is halacha derived about sex that is about controlling women’s bodies or preventing queer and trans people from being able to live authentically.

But -- we are allowed to interpret like this. We are allowed to play with context and see what we discover.

For me, this is about finding the connections between my actions and my interests; parts of me that synthesize the whole. It is about developing intimacy with Torah, with my learning partners, with my romantic partners; with the people within the writings, with the authors, and with the readers.

Reading Torah is the same as hypnotizing someone is the same being intimate with someone is the same as doing a ritual. All things on a broad enough scale overlap this closely. There is value in this “zooming out” to a wide enough context to see the connections that exist -- just as there is value in celebrating the limitations that arise, models nestled alongside each other, when you “zoom in.”

We need both to be able to treat our learning -- all forms of it -- as something special.

#my writing #hypnosis #judaism #hypnokink

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jesncin · 3 months

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ABC / Half-indonesian/chinese half-english white-passing guy here, I really appreciate the amount of love and passion you(you both?) have put into the recent Superman stuff. I'm not personally that deeply a fan of DC, but being able to see characters that I share experiences with - written by people that are also like me - is a beautiful experience.

It's strange being mixed. I'm not quite either. I still feel like an alien intruding in on spaces I shouldn't be in, either way, but.. Clark does too, as does Ms. Liando. Thank you.

P.S; If/when Lois discovers Superman and Clark are one in the same, how would the dynamics shift, and how would it go? If you have any ideas on that.

Aaw thank you so much (indeed we both wrote and drew the comic)! I totally get it. Being mixed third culture kids ourselves, the concept of "belonging" to a community is a complicated one.

Well now I can't give that all away haha! I still have to cook the idea of Clark coming out to Lois as Superman in the oven for a lot longer before I'm ready to write it (mentally, it feels like a relationship milestone that they hit and not a story with themes quite yet), but here's what we're definitely not going to do:

Lois jumps off a building (or puts herself in danger) to force Clark to out himself before he's ready ❌

Lois smugly interrupts Clark before he comes out as Superman, showing off that she knew already ❌❌

Lois gets mad at Clark for keeping secrets ❌❌❌

Lois tries to harm Clark to prove he's Superman ❌❌❌❌

Lois Liando would understand as a fellow immigrant why Superman would hide himself and go by a different name. That's one of the things the Private Interview comic was about after all! They both had secret identities of their own, in different ways. Of course she's curious, but she does respect Superman not wanting to tell her that yet. I like to believe Liando has the emotional intelligence to understand that superheroes keep secret identities to protect people they care about on top of that. And the idea of Liando trying to out an immigrant before he's ready makes no sense to me.

At most I can say she'd feel complicated about it. The closest analogy I can think of is having a queer friend who you've known for years and are super tight with, but they only trusted to come out to you recently. Regardless of how good an ally you are, or if you're queer too, you'd feel complicated about it. Why did it take so long? Did you do something that made them doubt telling you until now? etc. It's important to me that Lois and Clark become really close and have known each other for years before he finally tells her. The slow burn of mutual trust ✅✅

#askjesncin #if I headed a Superman show the entire first season would be Lois and Clark being platonic work partners. no romance until S1 finale #it's the build up of mutual respect in a field they both share WITHOUT attraction in the equation. ✅✅#i imagine the Private Interview is the first time they're both like ?? do I like him??? do I like her?? yeh I'm srs about slow burn

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saintsenara · 10 months

Text

rare pair tag game

thanks for the tag, @said-snape-softly :)

i'm pretty sure everyone has done this by now, but if you'd like to, please consider this a blanket tag.

apart from all the tomarry and the odd dabble in remadora, i am a rare-pair enthusiast, so i am delighted to spread some propaganda here... the criterion i've used for a rare-pair is less than 2500 works on ao3.

pairs, little metas, fic recommendations, and some suggestions for authors to follow under the cut.

sirius black/severus snape

why i ship it:

this one can just about claim to be a rare-pair.

sirius and severus are narrative mirrors, whose complicated relationship to themselves and to each other is crucial for driving several of the most important arcs in the series.

in particular, sirius - constantly haunted by guilt and grief over his role in the death of the man he loved [you can decide if his love for james is platonic or not, but i definitely think the text thinks it isn't...], trapped in his childhood home, unable to have his real loyalties acknowledged before his death by the fact he's on the run - leads harry through his journey in hero-worshipping, then being disappointed in, then forgiving james. and then promptly dies.

this is one of harry's most significant areas of personal growth - it begins to chip away at his rather black-and-white morality, which is finally destroyed by his ability to confront the complexity of dumbledore in deathly hallows - but it is also key narratively: harry coming to understand james starts to hint to the reader that it is lily - otherwise absent from her son's conception of himself - who is the key to the mystery...

which brings us to severus - constantly haunted by guilt and grief over his role in the death of the woman he loved, trapped in his childhood home, unable to have his real loyalties acknowledged before his death by the fact he's a spy - who gives harry, and us, the final piece of the puzzle. and then promptly dies.

put them together, though? well, you get the delicious tension of two fundamentally broken people - who cannot comprehend the possibility of their own redemption - bound to each other. can they forgive each other and themselves? is it a disaster? the story can go either way.

and even in fluff there is so much potential for d r a m a between sirius' recklessness and severus' cunning, sirius' emotional control and severus' temper, the fact that sirius is canonically hot and severus is canonically not, how they react to harry and draco [i don't usually accept the fanon that severus is his godfather, except when it means snack can be fighting about it], and so on.

and i'm a sucker for two bitter old men getting a happy ending. sue me.

want to give it a read?

if you trust nothing else i say in my life [and why should you] you can trust this - second life by nwhiker and cassandra7 is one of the greatest pieces of writing i have ever seen, not only in this pairing but in this fandom full stop. it's a profound and solemn meditation on loving and grieving, choice and chance, and the great pain caused by the divide between the magical and the muggle worlds.

then, for gorgeous angst with a happy ending - two boys kissing by @writcraft and the merit in trying by brightened

albus dumbledore/tom riddle | voldemort

why i ship it:

the facetious answer is because they wouldn't be so obsessed with each other if there wasn't some sexual tension underneath it.

the facetious and nsfw answer is because it appeals to the part of me whose favourite book aged 11 was lolita

the serious answer is that they should be horrifying together: they're both liars; both incredibly self-righteous; both living behind masks which conceal their true emotions and motivations; dumbledore took one look at tom as an eleven-year-old, said "he reminds me of gellert", and then did nothing about it; tom thinks dumbledore's a hypocrite and is right, although not for the reasons he thinks; there is a colossal age gap; there is virtually no scenario in any timeline where they could be openly in a relationship unless one of them is concealing his identity; and - really, this seems quite minor in the grand scheme of things - they are constantly trying to destroy each other.

but.

intellectually, they are the only two characters in the series who could be the other's equal - i'm sure that violent arguments about the twelve uses of dragon's blood trigger the majority of their sexual encounters, and a man who's passionate about your research is hot.

if either of them ever fancy being honest - so, no - there is a shared cavernous [although, in tom's case, unacknowledged] grief in their lives which has shaped their not-as-divergent-as-the-text-thinks-they-are views on death, love, duty and so on. their active refusal to understand each other [i.e. dumbledore entirely misreading voldemort's motivations in the job interview scene] and commitment to constantly underestimating each other [i.e. voldemort bouncing around like an idiot in the chamber of secrets instead of using his brain and remembering what a phoenix is] could, in time, lead to something almost resembling acceptance. i mean, just imagine the hurt/comfort sex which happens when voldemort finds out about grindledore.

the way dumbledore describes the young riddle - "self-sufficient, secretive, and, apparently, friendless" - is also an exact description of him. that each sees himself in the other canonically drives their hatred of each other, but it could also appeal to two very vain men in a much racier way. after all, who doesn't want to bang their narrative mirror?

and being an orphan probably doesn't seem so bad when you realise your boyfriend's family is aberforth.

want to give it a read?

i can't recommend concordance by @laeveteinn enough, particularly for one of the best-written dumbledores i've ever seen. i find dumbledore is often written either as far more whimsical than i'd like, or far more fiery and radical [when one of his most interesting personality traits in canon is his tendency towards inaction], but this dumbledore is the perfect balance of contradictions, while tom is his canonical feral self, longing to perceived, rather than the emotionless sociopath of so many other stories.

i also recommend as an entire ocean in a drop by eldritcher, which really leans into just how similar these two are underneath all the artifice.

albus dumbledore/severus snape

why i ship it:

well, we've had dumbledore with one lost boy, let's have him with another [i haven't been brave enough to venture into dumbledore/harry yet, but i'll take recommendations...]

as with riddledore, we have the potential for horror here: a vast power imbalance; enormous age gap; the fact dumbledore sends snape out to potentially die every time he goes off to voldemort; and - this is the crucial one - the fact that dumbledore's recognition of himself in snape is pure self-loathing ["you disgust me"] manifested in punishment [allowing snape to be humiliated in front of fudge, not stopping the presumed-to-be-real moody searching his office, making him give harry occlumency lessons, not letting him teach defence against the dark arts].

but then this stops, when snape does the tremendously brave thing of agreeing to kill dumbledore, and their dynamic equalises, as dumbledore recognises that snape is courageous, steadfast, and redeemed. i'm always struck in half-blood prince by the fact that dumbledore has it with harry's sniping about snape and straight-up tells him to shut up, as well as by the fact that he very nearly gives the game away and confesses why snape switched sides [the thing he promised not to do] when harry finds out it was snape who gave voldemort the prophecy.

and within this equalised dynamic - so this hot geriatric sex is happening in the afterlife, i guess - we have two men who are intellectual close-to-equals, who understand grief and guilt, whose aesthetic senses are charmingly mismatched, who are rarely honest but might be for each other, and who have lots of profound similarities which might lead somewhere...

want to give it a read?

cheerfully disregarding everything i've just said about how snumbledore could work, i highly recommend in infinite remorse of soul by @perverse-idyll, which is a chilling look at how dumbledore uses the power imbalance between the two to assuage his own guilt through snape's humiliation.

for something much more wholesome, i'm a big fan of byzantium by eldritcher

petunia dursley/severus snape

why i ship it:

because vernon is a dick.

i'm fond of petunia, who i think is one of the most interesting characters in the series because of how full of contradictions she is, and who i think is also a victim in fandom spaces of how the adult cast was aged up for the films [in canon, she's only in her early twenties when lily dies, and the implication is that vernon is a good deal older than her)] which makes her inadequacies, such as her inability to truly care for either child in the household, seem much more nuanced than they do if she's pictured as a middle-aged woman with considerable life experience.

like snape, she teeters on a knife edge between various chasms: she is a working-class girl from the midlands made good in middle-class surrey, he is a working-class half-blood boy who spends most of his life in pureblood circles; she ends up with her whole life wrapped up in a square little house when she's barely out of her teens, he ends up with his whole life wrapped up in spying at the same age; she hates the wizarding world and yet covets it, he hates the muggle world and yet cannot escape it; she loves lily and she hates her and she loathes her for dying, he... well, you know the rest.

want to give it a read?

i was first convinced by this pairing by the lovely regretfully yours by @maria-de-salinas, which takes both snape and petunia's awkwardness and bitterness and moulds it into something really tender.

i also highly recommend barking at the moon by rinsbane, the summary of which speaks for itself.

merope gaunt/tom riddle sr.

why i ship it:

our first canon pairing, and probably the most problematic of the canon relationships, since the series never acknowledges that tom sr. is a rape victim.

but i have found myself recently in my merope era and, in particular, in an attempt to give her more nuance than she gets in canon. as i've said to anyone who'll listen in the three broomsticks discord server, i loathe the implication in canon that merope dies because she just cba to live [since it directly justifies voldemort's belief that her death was shameful] and prefer to see her as someone who was desperate to escape a truly horrifying life [the fact she's going to be forced into an incestuous relationship with morfin is right there in canon...] and so did something she didn't have the capacity to understand the implications of [this is not a woman who's ever heard of consent] because she thought it would give her the first chance to be happy in her life, watched it all crash and burn around her, and would have very much liked to have lived to raise her son.

i doubt there was anything real or tender in her relationship with tom sr., of course, and his escape - while merely a brief stay of execution from his son's perspective - is tremendously brave. it's impossible to write tom/merope fluff [although i respect you if you're inclined to try] but fanfiction gives a space to explore the intricacies of their relationship which canon doesn't allow, and i'm obsessed.

want to give it a read?

i'm recommending myself here, and assuring you that you will enjoy: enchanter's nightshade, which explores how merope's attempts to keep her husband enslaved fail; the snow child, which treats the relationship as folk-horror; and the shack at the end of the lane, in which there is redemption, in the end.

the best exploration of tom sr. dealing with the fallout of the relationship is @phantomato's exquisite ganymede, which feels so truly embodied that you can't pull yourself away from the page.

bellatrix lestrange/tom riddle | voldemort

why i ship it:

our second canon pairing, i am obsessed with these two and the tragedy and - to some extent - tenderness bound up in their relationship [which can be proven to be there because noted softy @whinlatter loves them].

i've written before about my conviction - in contrast to a lot of bellatrix fans - that her relationship with rodolphus is utterly miserable, and that voldemort is the only man in her life who can understand her desire to make a life for herself which is not constrained by the gendered expectations of her social class.

obviously, lord voldemort is not a shining paragon of a boyfriend [and he is an awful choice as a baby daddy, bella, get it together], but i think the enormous power imbalance is perhaps slightly less enormous than is sometimes assumed - certainly, she tells him to his face in half-blood prince that he's wrong to trust snape [she's a clever woman], voldemort never physically punishes her for anything [rip to lucius malfoy, who seems to get picked for this in her stead], and voldemort tolerates a surprising amount of nonsense from her which shatters his mystique.

all of which is to say... the scream when she dies isn't just because he's losing the war.

want to give it a read?

tee hee, i'm recommending myself again, and encouraging you to take a look at: atramentum, bellamort's last afternoon together before voldemort goes to the potters; nor all that glisters gold, bellatrix's life - including her relationship with voldemort - through sirius' eyes; and death (eaters) in paradise, because murderous psychopaths deserve crack fics too.

draco malfoy/tom riddle | voldemort

why i ship it:

because the ship name is taco.

these two are a pairing which i enjoy with my tongue firmly in my cheek [and tom's tongue firmly in draco's], as i do with most other things in which draco is a main character [do i want to read drarry angst? no! do i want to chuckle? absolutely!], although this should not be taken as saying that many of taco's fabulous authors don't manage to make the pairing entirely plausible.

in fact, consensual taco [non-con is, of course, its own beast] often has some of the best characterisation of both tom [fretful, mercurial, stubborn, and nowhere near as charming as he thinks he is] and draco [prissy, a very good judge of character, someone who likes being taken care of, and much braver than he appears if he absolutely has to be] i've seen in the fandom, largely because - unlike other voldemort-centric ships [especially tomarry, but also voldemort + any of the adult death eaters] - there's no sense of inevitability there. these two aren't connected by a shared bit of soul, or a prophecy, or having gone to school together, or having been hooked in by voldemort in the first war when he was unassailable.

they have to choose each other. or, more accurately, draco has to choose tom, and tom has to get chosen.

and the results have me entertained.

want to give it a read?

then you will want to have a look at the travelling cabinet by @the-paper-monkey [and its sequel, bluebeard], truly the gold standard of taco content with an absolutely brilliant draco, whose sheer capacity to cling on and make himself an irremovable part of tom's life may just end up changing the course of history.

narcissa malfoy/severus snape

why i ship it:

because i am in deep with the conspiracy theory that it's canon. i am absolutely certain that narcissa is the person that voldemort is referring to at the end of deathly hallows - "he desired her, that was all, but when she had gone, he agreed that there were other women, and of purer blood, worthier of him". it seems highly unlikely to me that the canonical voldemort would give a shit about snape fancying any random pureblood [although the snapemort version is, naturally, hugely jealous], but snape having had some sort of liaison with narcissa, and the ability knowing this gives voldemort to humiliate snape, narcissa, the memory of lily, bellatrix, lucius, and draco is definitely information he would go out of his way to remember...

plus, how do you know where he lives, babe? v suspicious.

want to give it a read?

if you want some fluff, you will very much enjoy the incredibly sweet the reformed man by gingertart50, which features narcissa nursing snape back to health post-nagini and is a favourite re-read for me when i'm drunk and it's christmas.

if you want some very-much-not-fluff, other women and of purer blood by yours truly will scratch the itch...

minerva mcgonagall/severus snape

why i ship it:

because i'm an equal-opportunity age-gap fan, and there is far too little older woman/younger man in the fandom.

and look, i'll admit it, i'm a fan of the fanon that snape and mcgonagall are friends prior to dumbledore's death - i'm not sure it's canonically plausible, but this sign can't stop me because i can't read - and i like the idea of that blossoming into something more, especially in fics where snape survives the second war. after all, he is a man who definitely needs to be treated quite strictly [and i don't just mean in the staff room], there is a shared loneliness and grief to them both, they're intellectual equals despite the age gap, and bickering about quidditch is absolutely fine as a method of foreplay.

plus, you can't tell me dumbledore's portrait doesn't ship it.

want to give it a read?

for a fic which shows minerva at her acerbic - and yet still sensual - best, always but not necessarily forever by gingertart50 is an old, fluffy, and very funny, favourite.

for something much more bittersweet, that good night by kelly_chambliss has my heart.

severus snape/tom riddle | voldemort

why i ship it:

because voldemort is canonically down bad for it - there is no need to believe snape's ridiculous cover story for not attending his resurrection, to try and spare lily as a treat for his man, and to give him a nice, painful death which allows the narrative to move on and harry to defeat him if the dark lord isn't firmly in his simp era.

more seriously, they obviously have an enormous amount in common, particularly in terms of their backgrounds [harry draws a connection between all three of them, but actually the fact that harry is rich in the wizarding world, not a slytherin, and with a muggle mother, therefore giving him a pureblood name, means he can't relate to the post-childhood experience of both halves of snapemort].

as a result, i think snape is the death eater who comes the closest to understanding voldemort's motivations - above all, the fact that he's not seeking an oligarchy, which the malfoys etc. obviously believe - while voldemort is someone snape feels understands his intellectual interests and his creativity.

want to give it a read?

boy, are you in luck, because i myself have a snapemort wip - scylla and charybdis. it is not wholesome.

tom riddle/myrtle warren

why i ship it:

because it started as crack and now i love them.

in particular, i just have so much respect for being incredibly annoying as a method of seduction, and i think myrtle's commitment to just following tom around chattering at him - and, therefore, without her realising it, preventing him from committing all sorts of crimes - is iconic.

want to give it a read?

then my unhinged rom-com - bookbinding - shall provide.

tom riddle | voldemort/ginny weasley

why i ship it:

because i enjoy seeing my dear friends who ship hinny shake and cry.

but also because ginny and tom have an enormous number of similarities, right down to the fact that they both have yew wands [if you're sick of people saying harry has an oedipus complex, you'll be delighted to be confronted with the mountain of evidence ginny reminds him of the villain who keeps trying to kill him instead].

they are both very good liars, quick thinking, remarkably resistant to shame, possessed of nerves of steel, predisposed to violence, brown-eyed, so hot they have harry gagged, and the profound enemy of someone whose surname is smith.

despite what he claims, tom was absolutely not just sat politely in that diary gritting his teeth while ginny complained about having second hand robes and idiot brothers. as he says, he opted "to start feeding [her] a few of my secrets", and i think it's justifiable from canon that they were at the very least half-truths [for example, i would not be shocked to discover he tells her he's a half-blood orphan brought up against his will in the muggle world - there's no other reason, i think, for him to successfully make her tell him these things about harry without it], which means that ginny has lots of lovely emotional leverage over him.

plus, as with tomarry, you have the element of "this is kind of inevitable" in the relationship, and the mysteries of fate are always sexy.

want to give it a read?

this is a tommary/hinny/tominny triad, but it has had me in a chokehold since the first time i read it - shameful company by merrivale, which, truly iconically, manages to be epilogue compliant.

#asenora fic recs #rare pair tag game #starprince #snirius #snack hp #riddledore #snumbledore #petunia dursley x severus snape #merope gaunt x tom riddle sr #bellamort #tom riddle x draco malfoy #snarcissa #minerva mcgonagall x severus snape #snapemort #tom riddle x myrtle warren #tom riddle x ginny weasley #lots to read

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spacelazarwolf · 9 months

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i just had a thought i am going to attempt to express but may not do so well

there’s a chance that the reason you attract so many assholes is because your jewish but “white”. people can be racist to you but if someone accuses them of racism they can claim that they cant be racist to you bc your white and obviously antisemitism isnt real as far as a concerning number of leftists are concerned

this makes you a prime target for white-supremacists/racists who dont want people to think they are

idk if this makes any sense and if it does its probably something you thought of and have mentioned already but it came into my head and I couldnt get it out

it's actually kind of fascinating bc no one on this website (save like two ppl i am friends with irl) actually knows what i look like. and someone who doesn't follow me or interact with any of my posts where i talk about my complicated relationship with race and ethnicity will have absolutely no idea about my background. i don't have any pictures of myself or indications in my bio or pinned post about whether or not i'm white. the only thing they see in my bio that they have to go off of is "jew" so their perception of my experience under white supremacy is entirely shaped by their preconception of jews.

if they think all jews are whiny, entitled white people who may have been oppressed a while ago but the holocaust is over stop milking it you're actually all privileged, then that's what i become. so any read of my posts will be through a lens of "whiny white guy who thinks he's oppressed."

if they think jews are conniving, corrupted subhumans who are conspiring against them, then that's what i become. my posts will be read through a lens of "predatory thing trying to infiltrate our community that we must protect ourselves from."

but of course, it doesn't just have to be either or. a lot of the time, it's both. the jew is simultaneously weak and pathetic, and aggressive and dangerous. which is why the rhetoric in a lot of posts about me or the discussions i'm part of sound.....Like That. bc the thing is, you don't have to be a bona fide white supremacist to have these be part of your subconscious biases. i've encountered people who are intensely dedicated to antiracist work, trans liberation, workers liberation, feminism, etc. who still hold these antisemitic biases. bc antisemitism predates every single one of these concepts, and people are simply not willing to go back that far for such a small group of people. so progressive spaces become a hotbed of antisemitism, and progressive jews are left with nowhere to go. and it sucks.

#ask avishai

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the-trans-folk-witch · 8 months

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Spirits within-

Part 1 The Fetch:

The Witch’s Shade and Its Distaste For “shadow work”

Alternate title: The [Un]Holy spirit of the Witch.

This blurb is meant to be lost to the internet as an opinion of one witch. This is not an academic writing documenting the fetch of folklore or of other traditions found in traditional witchcraft systems. Rather, it is a hot take on the mass hysteria and spiritual psychosis masquerading as “shadow work”. There will be discussions of the shade, the fetch, and the witch’s relationship with healing (or lack of) to follow. I am purely sharing my own beliefs from the tradition I’ve built. If anything here resonates please take it and add it to your own praxis. If you disagree then… cool I guess. Keep it to yourself lol.

The fetch has been called many things by different folks. Some titles being largely misused but nonetheless accepted: The witch’s shade, the hag, the shadow self, the inner child, and even the Unholy spirit. A creature within the pit of the stomach and/or the nether regions. In the average person, the shade is curious, animalistic, childlike, and sexual. It carries selfishness, trauma, greed, and lust. This is the part of the soul that sins and day-dreams. Everyone has one. Only, they all behave differently and the witch embraces its dark nature.

This is also the part of the soul that carries trauma. Within many modern occult circles this “inner child” is seen as something in need of healing. Something that needs to be nourished. This belief is valid from a folk healing perspective. The trad witch however, finds power within the shade’s restlessness. Healing it is antithetical to witchcraft. Before you run off saying otherwise, I wanted to stress that I am a huge advocate for therapy and self reflection. But as you may have guessed, My mental health practices do not overlap with my religious practice. Just as the folk healer is valid in the loosening of this spirit’s grip on their life. As is the witch in allowing their darkness to fester.

A term becoming more common within recent years would be “shadow work.” I have a complicated relationship with this term’s use. Again, there is historical necessity of spiritual healing. And many folk practices find importance in it. However, the western occult community has allowed toxic positivity to invade this idea of shadow work. The term is forced on all magical practitioners and psychology is being forced upon modern practices by people who are not licensed to truly deal out psychological advice. Many times have I heard false teachings such as “don’t do magic until you’ve done shadow work” as if it’s a one-and-done-chore. As if it’s linked to a spirit’s ability to help you. I can assure you, my money bowl will bring me money even if I have ignored my daddy issues and various traumas.

Shadow work has become a white E-girl’s fantasy that allows her to flex her DIY therapy and compartmentalization skills. And yes, it’s always white girls. Although, the white-ego and woman-traumas are a different type of blog post…..

Non initiated “witches” have removed the concept of the fetch and replaced it with psychologically obsessed and compulsory beliefs. There is an unhealthy blending of psychoanalysis and spirituality plaguing our world. Sifting through the healthy kinds of healing based practices verses the hysterical is daunting. But as a Witch I see all of it as unnecessary within my practice.

As I stated, everyone has a shade. But to the witch it is corrupt. It is not just curious, but hungry. It does not need to heal but to curse and steal. This spirit is not like the shade of the common folk. It can not be ignored, cleansed, purged, or healed. It is the witching spirit. It is the fetch. It is the hag. It is this self-serving and devilish outlook that has separated our shade from the others. This is not to say shadow work and the ever increasing interest for people to psychoanalyze their spirituality is unnecessary. In fact I’m saying quite the opposite. Despite the obsessive and compulsory need to constantly be healing and “breaking generational curses/trauma”; healing is important for humans of all beliefs. Folk healers have a long history of healing mental and physical ailments with prayers and the aid of spirits. But modern occultists have forgotten, the witch is not a witch if they are not hurt or oppressed. The witch is the opposite of healing and peace. The fetch reflects that. Our soul is stained by the devil. There is no healing it despite what the church tells you.

We all have a shade. But unlike Christians, I will not ignore it. I feed it. I will not shamefully confess the acts it urges me to do as a catholic would. I do not see it’s chaos as something bad. I do not believe that overcoming my trauma and getting therapy will effect my ability to craft spells as new agers do. I also do not think my spirits will refuse to help me just because I didn’t buy that stupid shadow work journal being advertised all over the internet. I am a Witch. A messy, cruddy, muddy, selfish, entitled witch. I am the villain society has told queers to be. I am the bad guy in most social settings. I purposely usurp, overthrow, and evade all social norms and authority figures just to make your skin crawl. I am THE edge lord of all edge lords. I do not seek to heal that wound. It fuels my witch fire.

TLDR: A shade born into oppression is likely to become a whitch’s shade. A living haint if you will. Blurring the lines between therapy and magic is not witchcraft. But it is not invalid either.

Now that I’ve established my beliefs in the shade and it’s transformation into the fetch; allow me to discuss how I view it as a spirit that can be worked with as a sentient daemon.

As an animist I quite simply view this shadow version of myself as being alive inside of me. It is a spirit I can send out to do my bidding and it is the hag I take the form as when I fly. An “astral body” as they call it these days. I will mention that many trad witches do not approach the fetch as a sentient spirit but do acknowledge it’s existence within them. Just as people doing shadow work do not approach this shade or “inner child” as an actual entity. But I prefer to view it much like Christians do the Holy Spirit. To me it functions as the Unholy Spirit which is placed within sinners by the devil. Wether it’s born with us as Catholics say sin is, or is placed within us upon dark baptism/initiation is up to debate. But it definitely is an outside source being blended with my own power. Hence the birth of it from trauma and magic.

My fetch appears in visions and dreams. Sometimes it’s beautiful and appears as a fictional and impossibly beautiful version of myself. It’s a jab at my insecurities. And other times it’s a gross wound of a being. Covered in wrinkles, hair, and sometimes bugs. The fetch is both my ideal dream and my worst nightmare. So, I use it to instill such traits in others. I take this spirit’s form upon myself and hag ride enemies. I steal beauty and wealth via dream visitations. I bestow disease and sour luck to those who have created this fetch (read ‘trauma’). It is the spirit within and without. A spirit that is me that has been made infernal and other. It is the Unholy Spirit made flesh.

#folk witchcraft #traditional witchcraft #transgender witches #beginner witch #folk catholicism #ozark magic #trad craft #witchblr #animism #shadow witch #shadow work #inner child #the fetch #spirits within

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shivology · 2 years

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speaking of shivs political opinions, the way her white feminism manifests itself is soooo fascinating to me

she clearly is a victim of misogyny and we see how people, namely roman, kendall, etc, lord her being a woman over her again and again but then the power dynamic switch flips and we see her lord her own privilege as a rich white woman over other women. cyclical nature of abuse etc etc

like the way she talks to marcia in the cut scene -- ("cmon talk to me, was it hard, the suffering?"), the way she immediately slips into microaggressive remarks with lisa when she refuses to do her bidding, the way she manipulates the cruises victim, the way she tries to set up a threesome with an employee days after the company was investigated for sexual abuse as per this post, trying to blackmail gerri, etc etc etc .

she's a white woman in a long line of white women who have never heard of the concept of intersectionality -- and not in the sense that she Actively Hates Other Women or anything, like she's not a im not like other girls type person at all. like, obviously, internalized misogyny and her complicated relationship with womanhood affect her relationships with other women and how she interacts with them, but i truly believe she believes she is for women. it's just something she is always so ready to push to the side if its for her own benefit. shiv represents how rich white women are complicit in the abuse and oppression of working class women and women of color as long as it gets them a seat on the table. she doesn't actively care for dismantling oppression, she just doesn't want to be oppressed.

it's just really interesting to me because it's so real and so much better than other on-screen depictions of feminism that isn't inclusive. like i know real white women like that! i do! like, shiv is fr the white woman u dated for a few weeks in college who bragged about totally not being racist even though her family is

#shiv #do u think margaret thatcher effectively utilized girlpower etc etc #no but yeah shes totally a centrist lib.#like for sure made voting for hillary a personality trait

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0hcicero · 19 days

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Ok, ok, ok, first, I need to preface. I love both Suvi and Amé as characters, and I love how Aabria and Erica are playing them. It’s meaty, it’s complex, it’s complicated, and they are crafting imperfect and really authentic characters, and clearly have so much trust between them as friends and scene partners to play in uncomfortable spaces, and it can’t be understated.

That said, OH MY GOD I JUST WANT THEM TO YELL AT EACH OTHER!!!! Both of them! Not just Suvi, who is most likely to let out her frustrations and her ire, but also Amé who is *least* likely to. They both just push so hard on each other’s wounds in a way that would be so much less painful were they not so deeply tied and if they didn’t care so deeply about each other.

Suvi’s need to externalize judgement, her need for control, and her need to confer blame (mainly on others) clearly are deep-seated symptoms of the trauma she endured as a child, losing her parents, and growing up in an environment and culture that is grounded in control, action, and externalizing judgement on others (e.g., guid mage vs citadel wizards, witches as lesser, spirits as resources, other nations’ magic as bad/wrong and other nation’s choices as justification for war and violent action - not saying in some cases unwarranted but just laying out the logic). The loss of her parents outside the citadel makes the world feel unsafe, and as a way to counteract that fear, she leans so hard into that control, blame, and judgement, and it pushes into Amé’s own wounds of shame, guilt, and people-pleasing, and lack of boundaries/inability to state her boundaries.

Amé grew up internalizing blame, other people’s emotions, and taking accountability and responsibility for others, in many cases, over her own needs and wants. Amé’s family gave her up because she was a witch. She blamed herself and holds still an incredible amount of shame simply for being who she *is*. The village treated her as an outsider, and her abandonment issues are clear triggers for her people-pleasing, her lack of/inability to state her boundaries, and why sometimes after relenting and following others’ course, it seems like she just snaps and has to do her own thing, the thing she’s been hinting at, quietly requesting, or wheedling for.

It was inevitable that in finding each other as young adults, our witch and wizard would be grinding and grating against each other’s rough edges. Suvi’s immediate stress response is fight, and Amé’s stress response is freeze and fawn. Those are hard to reconcile!

Without Amé clearly stating her needs, wants, and boundaries, Suvi has no real ability to map her control within the relationship, which would naturally lead to insecurity in it for her - the woman who needs to understand everything, black and white, no grey to muddy the waters. Without Amé to push back against Suvi’s judgements and blaming, Suvi further loses her openness to the world outside the citadel, instead, retreating into the comfort and safety the mentality of the citadel breeds.

Meanwhile, with Suvi’s judgements and ultimatums, it pushes Amé (who is so used to internalizing shame and reading others to navigate social dynamics in both her role as a witch and as a people pleaser) to shrink and apologize for her needs and wants, and to further take responsibility for the actions and behaviour of others (e.g., Ursulon’s safety after they were separated, after Suvi essentially sicc’ed the guard on them). At some point, the resentment will build so strongly it will become destructive, either to her or to someone else, but, and this is the thing that kills me, likely not Suvi, because she is the one that Amé is seeking approval from right now! She’s so deep in it, I worry that she won’t start asking if Suvi is the person she needs approval from, and why it matters so much for her. I worry that she will be able to intellectualize boundaries and psychological concepts, help others find their way to them, and yet never internalize them for herself.

The thing is, these two *need* each other! Suvi’s boundaries are so strong and reinforced, and she defends her personal sovereignty with tooth and claw - and my GOD does Amé need to learn how to do that, even if it will result in some inevitably tense and uncomfortable conversations for the both of them. Amé is a font of curiosity and non-judgement, of honest wonder, and what a joy that would be for Suvi to adopt - to be able to engage with the world not through a lens of fear or insecurity, because the world she has known has been dangerous, but instead through a lens of curiosity, because the world is surprising and joyful, and sometimes not having the answer means the journey of wonder gets to continue!

Can you imagine how beautiful it’ll be when they learn to balance each other? Amé, a confident witch who is not afraid to state her needs and make choices without guilt! Suvi, a wizard operating from curiosity, not fear, who lives not for the period at the end of a sentence, but the marginalia embroidering it!

Ah god, I’m not even through this episode and I had to take an hour to write my thoughts about it down. Gosh dang it Worlds Beyond Number, ya done got me by the throat on this one, y’all.

#worlds beyond number #the wizard sky #suvi kedberiket #aabria iyengar #quiddie #ame the witch #erica ishii #the wizard the witch and the wild one

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visenyaism · 1 year

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genuine q, why do you afford nuance and depth to every character but give daemon the most basic and black/white reading ever? i’m not even daemon’s biggest fan but i do like your analysis and can’t stop myself from noticing how super biased your takes on him are? i remember you saying you liked him as a character so i’m kinda ????

I feel like most of my posts related to Daemon Targaryen are on the joke-ier end, so it probably could come off like I am just a hater. I am not, so i’ll take this seriously. What is compelling about him to me is the fact that he is restlessly motivated by this constant emotional search for…something. I don’t think he can articulate what it is, but it’s what’s making him quit every small counsel position after six months and impulsively sabotage the relationships he has with the people he cares about and jump to violence as a response when he doesn’t have to.

What I think what is driving him is a desire for belonging, which is why he leans so heavily into the concept of Valyria because he says that’s the only place that a Targaryen could ever belong and it’s gone- to him, that’s why he’s like that. I also think it’s a search for the love and trust of his older brother and by extension, Rhaenyra and the throne. I think he loves Rhaenyra independently of the throne, but it’s also deeply connected to her as an extension of his brother, her as an image of his youth he is still chasing after, and her an extension of himself.

He’s devoted to his family, but that restless search for the thing he cannot describe, also means that he sabotages the close relationships he could’ve had- he is constantly doing things to get pushed away by Viserys because it’s the emotionally safe option. He murders his first wife with a rock. He chased after Laena in a pretty dramatic (and violent) fashion, but is pretty unhappy in pentos with her, and he’s not necessarily attentive to both of his daughters, especially Rhaena (the one who isn’t like him).

He loves Rhaenyra, and is determined to see her on the throne, but he also groomed her as a teenager (there is no getting around that) and is the one who brought down her reign before it even began in the eyes of the public by murdering Helaena’s infant son. But it’s also entirely possible that without him Rhaenyra would’ve just folded and not fought for her birthright when the coup happened. He also does leave Rhaenyra with/for a teenager (cannot get around that) which, from his perspective is tragic, because he realizes the home he has been looking for his entire life that he thought he built with Rhaenyra actually doesn’t exist and she’s not who he thought she was anymore. It is a complete and total gut punch from Rhaenyra’s perspective, but I digress.

In the books, I think Aemond is a pretty good foil for him, because they have the same impulses towards cruelty but book Aemond has way fewer tethers to reality so he’s a straight-up psychopath whereas daemon is a bit greyer because he’s fighting FOR something. (until the end when he leaves Rhaenyra with/(for?) nettles and realizes he cannot and does not want to come back from that so he is just fighting to die)

So like TLDR: it’s complicated- the negative impact he has on the people around him is pretty clear, but it is motivated by a more complex emotional situation than active malice. He’s trying, and he fails in the end, and that’s why I think he’s so interesting

#I don’t like interpretations of Daemon where people are like he’s a great husband and father cause he is not. but he’s interesting #nettles get behind me #asoiaf #hotd #anyways good morning. how are we doing

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taylovelinus · 1 year

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saw this Refinery29 article titled “Is Therapy-Speak Ruining Our Relationships” and loved it because it has put into words a concept I have been unable to describe for years.

Everything now is so unnecessary clinical, this obsession to categorize and neatly label and file each and every thought and feeling and interaction and relationship we have… don’t you get exhausted, constantly pathologizing every behavior and assigning some sterile, inoffensive name to everything you do? do you do it to sound emotionally intelligent, so you are perceived better? or maybe it’s to give yourself plausible deniability and an inoffensive, easily explainable and rational out for your shitty, selfish behaviors? no matter what it’s just so fucking insane. the internet has sincerely rotted some people’s brains, especially the brains of gen z, to where every relationship and every interpersonal interaction is viewed through this clinical lens…

we’re not lab rats in some project, we’re human beings. our interactions are not always easily categorizable. no one is 100% good or 100% bad. and this cold, clinical terminology being applied to everyday relationships 1) takes all of the warmth and beautiful complexity and humanity out of other people and your relationships with them, and 2) waters down the real meanings of these terms to the point where they don’t mean anything anymore. Your friend telling a white lie and denying it isn’t the same thing as gaslighting, and you need to get a fucking grip. Your friend confiding in you about something really emotional for them isn’t them trauma dumping on you. like holy shit have you ever had friends? like actual friends? confiding in each other is called being friends, like just for the record. I don’t know what the fuck “holding space” means and also I don’t care literally at all because I’m normal. I am busy having normal, beautiful, messy, complicated relationships with friends and family and lovers and I am not trying to attach clinical labels to everything because those things don’t help. all they do is create barriers between you and other people and you prevent yourself from making real human connections with other people.

I’m really sorry you have to hear this from me, but if you want something real, you have to risk getting your feelings hurt sometimes. you have to be willing to risk being confused or angry or hurt or frustrated, but through the shit you can find genuine human connection. it’s out there and it’s worth having and life is so much better spent and more deeply enjoyed when you allow yourself to just be and to get close with others and stop thinking about them like robots or test subjects and assigning clinical labels to your every feeling and interaction with them. be so fucking for real.

#rant #therapy speak #relationships

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lizardboy66 · 1 month

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im deeply bored so here are all of my gay 911 thoughts for your entertainment.

OKAY SO

Idk about 911 being queerbait guys...i dont think it ever was. I think we have entered a new era of fanservice. Usually with queerbait, the creators and people involved in the show are quite vicious to shippers and queer fans generally, and any easter egg or "moment" feels like crumbs to keep us hooked enough.

911 acknowledged the shipping very very early. Like second half of season 2, and there has never ONCE been a joke at the expense of the concept of being gay, or about buck or eddie being queer. It was simply a nod, like "hey, we get it, you want it, thats all good."

Its not 2010 anymore, gay people are accepted and visible in a way that has never been a reality in the past. In fact, gay people, especially gay men, have come to be understood as a fantastic marketing tool.

This is where i get jaded and cynical, but listen the outcome is the same so stick with me here. Gay pairings and relationships = money is not a groundbreaking concept. It's why they did queerbait. But with stuff like supernatural, it seemed like a far greater risk to make the repressed men kiss than to piss of the queer fanbase. But times have changed. But since the age of queerbait, there has been a rise in gay romance content being made, and being made FOR the fangirls, boys and theys. Think Red, White and Royal Blue, or Heartstopper, or Young Royals, or Our Flag Means Death, or Good Omens. Gay isn't a risk anymore, its a marketing category with a level of guaranteed success. And not just in the global north, Boys Love content has been booming in places like Japan, Thailand, Korea for decades, but never more than now. TV companies in these places figured out very quickly that producing fluffy, comforting gay love stories earns them billions, and have not hesitated to seize this opportunity. My point being, gay dudes sell as fuck.

911 got cancelled and had to move networks. The budget is too high and they need to pull viewership and quick. I think their answer is canonise that ship! I couldn't tell you if that was there original intent, but i do believe that it would be far less lucrative to fuck over their viewer base. I could be wrong, this could be a crazy long game to make the fans trust the show, then pull the rug from under them. But i truly think we are past that point with shows like this.

911 is pure fluff! No one ever dies, if someone is hurt they recover quickly and with no complications, conflict is tame and easily resolvable, and everyone is a sickeningly good person. And the show is also about family, found family, unconventional families. I think originally, the unconventionality of the eddie, buck and chris family dynamic was that it is two men who are not together or married raising a child as coparents and friends. Which is a great story, but even better fanfiction fodder.

I think they are going to do it like the fanfiction. It's the easiest way to bridge the epistemic gap between the current cannon and the reality of both buck and eddie being queer and having feelings for each other. they could try and explain it in their own way, but the fans have already done it, and have clearly agreed on some elements of how this love story plays out, so i think that will be the route they go down. Currently my evidence is that Buck is now canonically bisexual. For some reason a lot of the ships people have have one bisexual and one gay, so the trope is being realised. My next piece of evidence is the catholic thing for eddie. This has literally never come up, its a fan invention, and its in the show now. The eddie and marisol plot line is slightly bizzare, but i think the reason for that is that it is eddie making sense of why he struggles so much to commit to the women he dates. Or its just a bad storyline and isnt very coherent. I guess we will see. My next evidence is the whole set up of Tommy. He is so clearly a way to push eddie and buck together in my opinion. From his introduction, he acts as a wedge between the two that neither of them can make sense of. Very love triangle energy. And my last evidence is all of those goddamn interviews. It seems no one can shut up about these fire fighters getting it on with each other. I feel if they weren't doing it, there would be more effort to shut down the clowning gently, as they have done previously.

In conclusion, i too am a clown. My theory has rocky foundations, a rocky middle and an equally rocky conclusion. I am so tired and delulu right now. I'm with you girlies, this is stressful.

#911 #buddie #what am i doing #what is this #why am i here #i started watching the show a week ago i feel i have added nothing to the discussion #screaming into the void af

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egg-emperor · 1 year

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Sorry y'all but purity culture has genuinely made fandom so boring when you enjoy nuance and variety lol

Sometimes it just feels like everything is squeaky clean and sanitized, no conflict or complications, no character is really evil or are seen as broken and need to be fixed, they become better through the "power of love", every single one gets into a romantic relationship, have vanilla missionary procreative sex because all kink is bad and wrong, are put in a conservative lifestyle and marriage with a white picket fence and kids where nothing bad ever happens and everything is so wholesome and pure and must follow one life script

And yeah people have the freedom to do what they want and not liking it personally doesn't mean everyone should stop. But what really bothers me is there are people like me who feel the same and have very different darker complicated things they want to create but don't because anything considered too evil and dark is demonized and shut down. Then they're too afraid share in fear of backlash and it's really sad. So it's not being mad that the former exists and saying it should stop, it's being sad that the latter isn't allowed

And I do know people who used to explore and create for the latter but after backlash started only making the former and that's sad too. That includes many of your favorite artists that have now blocked me for creating things along the lines of what they did in the past. (Themes of violence and abuse in this case.) And many end up seeming really repressed and restricted as a result. It feels like there's a pressure for it and sometimes it feels forced. And because I don't want to do it it feels like I'm punished for it

But anyway yeah if you're an adult who enjoys evil and killing and violence, blood and gore, hurt and angst, complicated relationships, toxic fucked up characters, or are a sadistic freak like me who loves when terrible things and suffering and death happen in fiction then please, I invite you to join me as we travel to places in analysis and concepts that the surface of the fandom won't go lol

And before you can say something like "this is a kid's series and you're the problem for expecting and creating these things", aside from the ns4w and graphic blood and gore, all of these themes such as as violence, death, abuse, etc, has always existed in the official media already, so I think it should absolutely be okay to explore in fandom too and they have always been what's compelled me the most to create and I'm not the only one :P

#my post #rant

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hrodvitnon · 1 month

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Idea I had about the Iwi and their Guardian Titan.

A lot of people favor bringing Phosphora back as it makes more sense for the lore for it to not be Mothra- and I do kinda agree with that to an extent.

But… what about Battra? There's been talk of him being in Abraxasverse, but I feel he could actually be hugely important for some later events (Xenilla). Him being the Iwi's patron Titan makes a lot of sense as he may see them as the purist form of humanity- one that lives in harmony with nature instead of- what the rest of humanity does. He could've entrusted them the gift of the summoning ritual for whenever things got bad on their end or for when they believed The Planet needed protection.

Additionally- I'm an advocate for Battra as a major player in Abraxasverse. Especially as a Mothra foil as that could be a really cool exploration of both her and him as characters. Think of Mothra as an Oath of Ancients Paladin while Battra rocks the Oath of Vengeance against the Planet's enemies with extreme prejudice.

Also, and excuse me for getting Final Fantasy brained here, I think it's really a cool concept that Battra is associated with Black and Mothra is associated with White, and they're each the Planet's greatest assets (cough Black and White materia cough). Imagine if Mothra's healing and restorative prowess was inverted into destructive prowess.

Also- I personally think that Battra could have more authority then even Godzilla, Shimo, or Ozzy. Hear me out on this one: The Planet usually entrusts the job of keeping balance to Goji, Mothra, and the others. They do a good job a lot of the time- but sometimes even they're prone to getting biases about certain things (seeing potential in humanity even though they're a threat to the natural world, not wanting to kill Xenilla because they believe Ozzy can still be saved). Battra would not think like this. His loyalty to the planet would be absolute at all times and he'd only make his presence known when there's a world-ending threat that he suspects Mothra would need help with- or whenever he feels the need to remind the others of their jobs. I reckon this would lead to Battra having a very dynamic relationship with both the Iwi and the Titans. He'd be a portent, in many ways, a sign that the Planet is suffering or under threat- but he'd also be a sign of strength, of action; that the Planet is to go war with her enemies and she needs her Vanguard. If Mothra's the planet's All-Mother of Peace- he's the All-Father and God of War.

For this reason, I'd like to contextualize him as being the Titan's version of Admiral Stenz, or something similar. The Commander-in Chief of the Titans who only shows up when there's a bitter war to win. He'd wield the same amount of power as the King and Queen- essentially their Lord Commander who doesn't answer to them, but the only authority higher then them- the Planet Herself. Another idea I find really interesting- he could also exercise a form of executive power to make himself King, should shit get really out of hand. Essentially instituting a form of Martial Law amongst the Titans.

This would make his relationship to the Titans very complicated- especially with Mothra. She may see him as an older brother (especially if they grew up together, which I totally vibe with too) and hold love for him in that way. He may even reciprocate- but he has to put his duty above everything, and expect others to do the same. He may even see a disagreement between them as a betrayal- how could his beloved sister stand by while their home is decimated by the encroachment of the humans? How could any of the Titans? On one hand- Mothra's happy to see him whenever he drops by, but it's always 50/50 if he's here to help or get pissed at someone for not doing their job. Goji would feel a very similar way. Battra is an enormously helpful ally when he wants to be, but Goji's almost always the first person he yells at if shit's gone bad. He also can't really retaliate as Battra's basically his boss (or- his boss's messenger). I wanna stress that I don't see Battra as the Planet's mindless weapon- just someone fiercely loyal who tolerates nothing less then perfection when serving the Great Mother.

I've also seen people suggest that he may hold contempt for the synthetic Titans (Dagon, Abraxas, Biollante)- but I feel like he'd be a little more sympathetic to them, especially if they're making the best of their new lots in life in service to the Planet. He may be a little grossed out by them- but I feel he'd be infinitely angrier at the people who inflicted this torment on them. Like- he'd see Shin or Ladon once, hear about what happened with Apex, and then proceed to storm to Godzilla and Mothra and absolutely tear into them for not eviscerating every single Apex employee that draws breath for such a blatant affront to nature and act of cruelty. He'd be irate to hear that they think of themselves as parents to them if humanity got to go unpunished for this shit (read: They did not go unpunished- but in Battra's eyes anything less then millions of deaths in retaliation counts as unpunished).

Wow this turned into a big Battra HC ask- lol. Insert obligatory apology for ask box bombing. In conclusion: bat cool.

I do like this take on Battra! He provides an interesting foil to Mothra and isn't entirely wrong about the humans who actively mess around with the planet, he's just fiercely devoted to Earth; he hears "Apex employees who were just trying to do their jobs" and thinks "accomplice by inaction/apathy". I also like the idea that he doesn't immediately hate "unnatural" Titans and instead is like "you're strange, but your soul is as true as any."

(Ha, when the words Final Fantasy hit my eyes I thought "oh, like White Magic and Black Magic! Holy and Flare! ...oh yeah, materia. Close enough!")

#tosho89 #frostbite814 #abraxasverse #battra

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alpaca-clouds · 9 months

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Religion in Castlevania

So, uhm. Castlevania has a strange relationship to the concept of religion, right? The games are of course Japanese and to the average Japanese person Christianity is about doused in as much mysticism and alieness as Shinto is to the average white person. As such the games do kinda mirror this like many other Japanese media with European inspired settings. We will get a lot of Christian symbolism and maybe a line or two referencing it, but as much as the average western story using Shinto and Buddhism, it is barely more than set-dressing. It is not offensive or anything, just also not very in depth

The series meanwhile runs into the opposite problem. It is a western production first and foremost and in western circles the relation people have towards religion is... complicated. Especially when it comes to Christianity. Because the fact is that you really can only do wrong.

You show Christianity as something positive? Yeah, fuck it, you are doing white supremacist propaganda (because Christianity sadly is tied to that other believe as a vehicle. Not because of anything inherent to Christianity, just because of history). You show Christianity as something negative? Fuck you, you hate all Christians and are basically the antichrist time to boycot you!

Which leads to the interesting phenomenon that Castlevania has a Muslim character whose relationship with his religion is in depth explored. While Christianity... is somewhat iffy.

First and foremost: The only explicitly Christian characters we have are bad guy who get killed within the first season. Namely the bishop and the arch bishop. Who of course use their religion as a tool to spread hatred. In this case of witches. (Note to self: Write a blog about witch hunts.) And then there are of course the corrupted monks in season 3. The show does not go so far to imply "Christianity = Bad", especially as the show does have some no-dialogue characters who end up siding with the protagonists and what not. But... It also does not have an explicitly positive portrayel of religion, right?

Now, from our main characters outside of Isaac we barely know anything about their religious affiliation.

We know that Sypha believes in Jeshoa (Jesus) and some of the bible stories, but in a way that actually frames God as a vengeful, bad god, rather than a force of good. This is never further explored, though. It is basically two lines over the course of the series we get. All we know is: Yes, she believes it. She things Jeshoa was okay and that God is bad and hates the speakers.

And for the others?

We know nothing about the relation Trevor and Alucard have towards religion, and while there is like two very vague hints that Hector might be of Jewish descent we also do not learn much about that.

And it is kinda ironic, really. While the games do have very little in terms of dialogue linking Alucard to Christianity, there for sure is endless symbolism of him holding rosaries and what not. And it would have been interesting to explore.

Especially given that I also think that the relation between Dracula/Mathias and religion would be super interesting to explore and would be fun to see more about. But of course... we do not get that.

And while it is to be assumed that the Belmonts should be Christian... Well, outside of him cussing out God a lot, there is not a lot of him and his religious affiliation going on.

Which is kinda a pity. Because I found it makes for interesting storytelling. Especially in a world like this.

I mean, we know for a fact that priests can bless water and through this act turn it into a weapon against vampires and demons. And it would be such a fun thing to discuss, whether this actually means they get that power from God - or whether they just use a sort of spell. (Especially given that I somehow doubt that God is gonna channel his power through an undead bishop, you know? Making me think that the zombie bishop rather uses a spell.)

Side note: I would've totally loved to see Isaac use some Muslim prayer to hurt a vampire or demon. That would have been kinda fun - and it is something we barely see in media.

But there is of course more than that: The people in the Castlevania world (especially the series) live in a world where the existence of the afterlife is undeniable, based on the fact that people can literally summon souls from there. People can have a long discussion on whether or not that actually is hell - but it is undeniable that it is an afterlife. It is a place where souls move to after death.

And I do have to wonder how that would affect the people's relationship to religion?

I honestly never realized how interesting it is to write about religious characters. Because due to my own religious trauma, I just stayed the hell away from religion in my writing. Like, sure, in my own vampire novel there is a subplot about the main characters religious trauma (being a queer kid in a conservative Christian household). But she had left her religion behind and all that.

So... me writing Isaac in my fics was literally the first time I ever wrote a religious character in a story who was not framed negatively. And I learned that it actually... can do so much to enrich a story. Because it allows you as a writer to have yet another point of view to frame the story through.

And yes, it also ended up with me thinking a lot on religious backgrounds for the characters and their relation to religion - especially inside a world, where, again, the existence of an afterlife is undeniable.

And honestly, one of the favorite things to me in terms of writing was this bit about Gilles de Rais loosing his religion, upon realizing the corruption of the church. As a more gutteral and painful experience, than I have written before.

Also: Yeah, I have FlysEyes (who I have christened Nicolai, to give him a proper name) still a practicing Christian. Because that is kinda fun.

#castlevania #castlevania netflix #religion #christianity #western media struggles with religion #but japanese media does too #analysis #headcanons

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