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#or maybe that's just wishful thinking and the real world is a lot more horrifying than fantasy could ever be
olderthannetfic · 4 months
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Re: not wanting birth defects = ableism
Yes, there are assholes who don't want to have a kid with any issue, but there are a lot of people who are trying to avoid birth defects because they're simply against kids suffering. My partner and I both have a high chance of having a child with a very specific birth defect due to being carriers of the gene to cause it. We have decided to foster and adopt instead. That's not because we're ableist or hate people with disabilities. It's because if you do something you know can lower your child's quality of life, you've fucked up as a parent, and bringing a kid into the world who's likely to die by the time they're 10, as would be the case if my partner and I had a kid? That's fucking up as a parent. That's condemning a child to a decade of pain and dying before they can realize their dreams just because we, the parents, wanted to have someone related to us biologically so badly we decided risking that person's life was completely acceptable in the process.
I would never tell anyone else to have/not have kids or to have/not have biological kids. That decision is extremely personal and complex. However, the statement anon made that not wanting your child to have birth defects is ableist has a major flaw in it, which is that birth defect is a term that ranges wildly in its' implications. Yes, it is shitty to be, say, one of those Autism Speaks supporters who's terrified of having an autistic child and hopes that one day we can prevent autistic people from being born, to name an example I've met in real life. No, it is not shitty to not want your child to be in constant pain and likely not live to see double digits, to use another real life example.
When using umbrella terms like birth defect, there's going to be a lot of nuances in the answers because the umbrella covers so much. I'm sure anon was thinking of people who have actual ableism towards disabled children and was uncomfortable with that. A friend of mine was once told, "It's too bad you couldn't have known [daughter's name] would be deaf before you gave birth, or you could've just had an abortion and had a normal baby. Maybe your next one will be normal." It's why she doesn't speak to her mother-in-law anymore. Anon has probably met that kind of jackass and was horrified to see what they thought were other people thinking along those lines.
However, I've been lurking around this blog for over a year now, and happily I don't think any of us who interact with OTNF (or OTNF personally) have any thoughts like that about disabled people. We're fine with autistic and deaf people being born and a bunch of other disabilities, too. We're not fine with things that destroy quality of life to the point of cutting it short or in some cases causing the baby to die shortly after birth.
Good on anon for being anti-ableism. Wish I saw more of that in the world. I just think the scope of the umbrella term 'birth defect' was lost on them.
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There are some things, like Tay–Sachs, that we just never want to see again, and if genetic counseling or IVF could weed those genes out of the population entirely without preventing carriers from having kids, that would be great. It's a broad range, as you say.
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afterthelambs · 1 year
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Mushitaro+Yokomizo's parallels with other character pairings
I noticed a surprising amount of parallels between Mushitaro and his dead friend Yokomizo with the other characters in BSD (fyolai, dazai, ranpoe, sskk). There's even potential foreshadowing for the future of certain characters. Idk if anyone's done this before but I wanted to write something about it since we're meeting them in the anime soon. Just hear me out for a bit, and spoilers for the manga up to current events!
So Yokomizo is a mystery writer and his goal is to create the "Ultimate Mystery" greater than anything else in the genre. He achieved this by having his friend Mushitaro secretly kill him, turning his own death into a real life mystery. Basically, his death at his friend's hands brought him fulfillment.
This is a common theme in BSD characters: Death as an expression of love or death with the person you love bringing fulfillment. Yokomizo turned to Mushitaro to be the "key" to his death because Mushitaro is the only one he trusts. Mushitaro agreed to this plan because he cares about Yokomizo. He wants to "fulfill his friend's final wish" even if it hurts him in the process. This murder represented how much they loved each other. Chapter 56 shows Yokomizo telling Mushitaro "you truly are the only--" while Mushitaro cries:
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To me this parallels Fyodor and Nikolai's storyline later on. Chapter 78 is where we find out that Nikolai wants to kill Fyodor because Fyodor is "the only one who gets him" (which sounds a lot like what Yokomizo's last words to Mushitaro were). Since Nikolai's goal is to go against his emotions, that means his actual desire is to keep Fyodor with him. Nikolai's basically saying "You're the one I have to kill because you're the one I love the most." Just like Mushitaro, it's death as an expression of love.
I believe the parallel is intentional since it's through Mushitaro that we first meet Nikolai in chapter 57. Isn't it fitting that the characters with very similar arcs serve as introductions to each other?
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This could be more than just a cool parallel. It potentially foreshadows Nikolai's future if he does manage to kill Fyodor (or if he's fooled into thinking Fyodor is dead). We see what happens to Mushitaro after Yokomizo is dead. In chapter 69, he writes to Yokomizo as if he were still alive and cries while doing it. Then he hallucinates Yokomizo giving him advice in his time of need:
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In the same chapter he says "I can't drum up much interest in the outside world any longer." While Yokomizo found fulfillment in dying, Mushitaro was left alive and suffering. Maybe this is what awaits Nikolai if he achieves his goal? I've seen people meme on this before, the whole Nikolai-kills-Fyodor-and-instantly-regrets-it but given this parallel, it's actually a possible direction for his character. But this is just a guess/meta/prediction so take it with a grain of salt.
On a lighter note, there's Ranpo and Poe. They also have a dynamic where they're the only ones who get each other, and that's the reason Poe wanted to kill Ranpo initially. The difference is they realized immediately that the other's presence fulfills them more than their death would. (good for Ranpoe for being the most stable pairing in BSD). From chapters 32 and 49:
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The next parallel is Dazai and his constant desire for a double suicide. It's not as clear a parallel since there isn't any love here (he begs literal strangers for it). But he does have the same concept of death bringing fulfillment, even if the rest of the BSD cast is (rightfully) horrified/confused by it. Interestingly, he actually does commit suicide in the Beast universe... in the presence of Atsushi and Akutagawa. So like Yokomizo, he still wanted his death to be witnessed by meaningful company.
So is that all? I mean, the main duo of the series is Shin Soukoku but they don't seem to have any parallels with Mushitaro and Yokomizo. They try to kill each other yeah but they hate each other. This is supposed to be about death as an expression of love, or death by someone you love bringing fulfillment. What parallels could they possibly have with them?
Oh wait whats this--
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oh. oh.
So Yokomizo had a terminal illness... with one year to live... and he used his friend as a last resort to finding fulfillment...
That sounds familiar...
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Yeah... 🥲
Akutagawa desperately wants acknowledgement from Dazai before he dies. He thinks the only way he can achieve that is through his rivalry with Atsushi. Just like Yokomizo needed Mushitaro, Akutagawa needs Atsushi for his fulfillment. The fact that it can only be Atsushi PLUS the fact that Atsushi hallucinates Akutagawa telling him what to do in the recent chapter 105, similar to how Mushitaro hallucinated Yokomizo giving him advice in chapter 69? It shows they do find meaning in the other (even if it's not 'love').
Last bit of angst before this ends: if Yokomizo's illness truly is foreshadowing for Akutagawa's illness, then idk if I like that because it kinda foreshadows that Aku's ultimate fate really is to die even if he somehow manages to come back from being a vampire.
And that's fun. Everyone loves the thought of their favorite character dying :DD
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frostiifae · 1 month
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So, I dunno, thoughts about Witch from Mercury (including spoilers under readmore, so, y'know), because it seems like it's a cool thing to do, i guess. Maybe made more or less interesting because this is the first Gundam series I've actually paid full attention to.
In short, it's good! It's very good. But, I dunno, can't give it top marks as an alltime favorite. There are lots of superficial problems that probably mattered much more to me than they would to the average viewer, and like, you could argue that they just aren't even problems, I guess.
The biggest thing I can criticize without spoiling much of anything is that it dangles a lot over your head and then waits a long time to resolve almost any of it. It's tough for people who get anxiety, like me : ). No, that's not why I'm writing this post. This isn't a coping mechanism. Fuck off.
To reiterate, though, on the whole: good. Good show. Good stuff. Don't click "keep reading" unless you want to read a fucking novel, OK?
I have to say I think the strongest character of the show bar none is Prospera, but at the same time, she showcases the recurring problems I have with the show: firstly, that they spend way too long making Prospera sound sinister without you understanding at all why, and secondly, that it's a real shame we didn't get to learn more about her feelings and why (and how?) she'd gone to all of this trouble. I understand her goal in the abstract is to "create a world where Eri can exist", but it's not clear how exactly she intends to do that, and maybe it's just me, but those practical details can be really important in selling me on an idea.
Even so, I adore her. I adore the way she possesses so much influence over the plot despite having very little economic or political power herself - she just understands people, she understands what's at stake, and she understands how to manipulate things to get what she wants. I was so delighted to learn about her true motivation, imagine a girl kicking her feet and squealing as Prospera taunts Miorine about hearing the voices of her past that are urging her to seek vengeance. I wish she could have done more. I also wish she looked better. That helmet fucking sucked, dudes. C'mon.
I really want to say kind things about Suletta and Miorine, too - they had lovely character arcs in both seasons, Miorine in particular was a joy to have on screen at all times - but, ultimately, I also found them both very frustrating. The most engaging members of the cast by and large were side characters, my personal favorites being Chuchu, Nika, and Norea. (I guess Guel turned out pretty okay too.) It was a joy watching Norea go off the fucking deep end, even if her portrayal was a little shallow until it was a smidge too late; her final fight was beautiful and touching, especially the part where she went on a massive rampage and killed a lot of innocent people. I love me a hot girl who's a violent mass murderer.
Jokes aside; I found both of the main characters frustrating, but for different reasons. Suletta was the less frustrating of the two. Throughout season 1 I kept cringing at her total powerlessness within the narrative, which I know is kind of the point, but that doesn't mean I have to like it; at least in season 2 she develops a thin veneer of agency, and more to the point, the writers demonstrate that her lack of actual agency is in fact horrifying and not some kind of endearing country-bumpkin quirk, but it feels like it takes a long time before she can finally actually engage in the world she lives in.
To be clear, I don't just mean "she can decide for herself what she wants to do", that's her final arc, I know, I get it; more what I mean is, it feels like Suletta exists in a totally different show, an entirely different setting, for 75% of the show's runtime. She's not just clueless about all of the business politics and Earth vs Space racism; she's immune to it, it simply doesn't affect her, even when it badly hurts people she cares about, because she's unable to comprehend it, and can abstract away any threat behind Aerial's cockpit and duel herself to safety without ever understanding what was even at stake.
It's like Ender's Game but Ender himself never actually participates in any of the school politics, he just kinda is a prodigy in his own corner while the real story happens around him. If you're going to create a character who is powerless in the narrative, don't then shield her in the cockpit of a Gundam for the entire show, you know? If you're going to threaten me with her inability to understand what is going on, make good on that threat!! It just felt wasteful. She spent 16 episodes being a joke that we keep hoping will make Miorine smile, 2 episodes being depressed, and then the last 6 episodes being an actual character, and the tragedy is that I really liked that character and wish she'd been around for longer.
Miorine was much more fun, but also, much more frustrating. I wasn't especially into her character early in season 1, but she was at least a bitch in a fun (and highly sympathetic) way, and unlike Suletta she grew into a real character very fast, and got to spend the whole show actually having a meaningful impact on events around her. It was great! I have a few very small gripes about things she does - like the way she chooses to cut Suletta loose. I understand she's doing it for Suletta's safety, and I understand she's doing it because she believes Suletta won't be able to comprehend that reasoning - after all, their whole arc in season 1 was about depending on each other, and Miorine is being pressured into going back on her promise.
On the one hand, though, I feel like it was weird of her not even to try. At least try to explain to Suletta, listen, things are getting worse, you are going to get hurt, I don't want that, I need you to stop being Holder for your sake. You could even twist the knife further by having Suletta react with heartbreak but willingly agree when Prospera doubles down and tells her to do as Miorine says - imagine how betrayed and disgusted with herself Miorine would feel! For them to leave her completely in the dark, for her to fully betray Suletta with no warning and no attempted justification at all - and especially for Suletta to not question that - it just felt weird.
On the other hand, though, I'm really shocked and disappointed that Miorine didn't express more guilt over that decision. Given that her arc in season 1 revolves around recognizing that relying on Suletta is what makes Suletta happy, and she cares enough about Suletta to give her that kind of trust, you can't tell me that - even if she really believes it's necessary - she can just turn around and betray Suletta like she does and feel no remorse over it.
Overall this is a larger problem I have with Miorine; we don't get enough time with her feelings, so when everything finally collapses and she has a meltdown, it doesn't sell very well. I wanna be clear: I'll open the door myself is one of my favorite moments in the whole show, and that's why I'm sad. It could have been so much more, if we had had more time to see Miorine's heartache over what she did to her best friend, not to mention how tense and uncertain she must have been handing her full trust to Prospera, or leading a negotiation to Earth with the weight of Gundam's history resting squarely on her shoulders. I love cool, calm, reserved characters who can handle tense interpersonal conflict with a stern decisiveness. Miorine should be a slam dunk for me. But the best part about those characters is seeing behind the mask, even if only for little bits at a time, and there's just not enough.
Honestly, though, it's hard for me to hold anything against season 2 especially, because I think most of what frustrates me comes down to there not being enough time, and holy fuck, does that season go hard. I'm very ready to believe that there was all kinds of stuff cut from S2 because the sheer volume of things happening was so much. It's a shame to think that it's let down by its own density, that there was just too much happening to fit all of it into 12 episodes without a few things being left behind. There wasn't time for Miorine to introspect, there wasn't time for Miorine and Suletta to develop their relationship, there wasn't time for Prospera to get even more unhinged and weird, there wasn't time to examine how we could actually improve the world and its troubles, we just had too much to do. It's an unenviable position to be in, and I think it's fair to say the show does a great job with what it has.
Umm. Is there anything else? I could talk about the dudes. I could gush about Norea and Sophie, I guess, but I doubt I have anything particularly interesting to add there, I'm sure the takes "Norea is hot" and "I wish they could have been more toxic yuri on screen" are lukewarm at best. I could talk about Eri, I suppose, but I don't feel really strongly about her - I think she's weird, her presence as a character is very strange, the fact that she was a protagonist is weird, and just like with everything else, I think it comes down to a lack of time to be able to really get into understanding her. I can't say it's a mistake, really, so that'll just stay a mystery, and it's one I don't especially care to solve anyway. She can stay a weirdo for all I care.
Uh, I think that's kinda all? Oh, what, robot designs? Uh, Aerial over Calibarn, don't @ me. They're both sick tho.
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blackpearlblast · 6 days
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Hello,
I'm seeking help to share this message or advice on getting donations. We need to leave northern Gaza for Egypt due to severe conditions. Food is gone, and we're left eating unknown plants to survive. We're also scared of being trapped if the Israeli military comes to Rafah.
Thanks for any support.
I am sorry for annoying
I am exhausted from trying to contact organizations; reaching them has been incredibly difficult. Your help would mean the world to me.
https://gofund.me/78ba39cf
you are not at all annoying, i am so sorry you are going through this. i reblogged your GFM again, for advice i would say maybe focus on getting people to reblog this post:
where tamarrud verifies your campaign? there have sadly been many scams on here that pretend to be people fleeing gaza to take money from people who want to help which is horrifying, and also means people have gotten more wary of requests for help. a lot of people rely on palestinian bloggers from the diaspora who have been able to look at and verify campaigns as belonging to real people, which is what tamarrud did for you.
i honestly feel hopelessly unqualified to be providing advice in a situation like this but above is just what i know from trying to post other fundraisers on here to help them meet their goals. i will think more on what i can do to help today as well (i have one art commission that i need to finish and once i finish it maybe i can open art commissions in exchange for donations to your campaign) i am also posting this publicly in hopes some of my mutuals or followers might have ideas. i know @fairuzfan is in contact with someone who was able to bring food into northern gaza recently but i don't know enough about logistics if you would be able to get to them or if there is any food left at this point. i'm sorry i wish i had more to offer right now and i will keep thinking as hard as i can today on this.
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witchmd13 · 1 year
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this is going to be a long post and I'm not sure anyone who follows me really watches severance let alone is interested in the neuroscientific basis of the show, but having been doing research on memory for almost 3 years now, severance is both horrifying and interesting to me and I have to get this out.
one classification of memory is episodic and semantic memory. episodic memory is the memory we use to remember individual events tied to a time and place. in the brain, a structure called the hippocampus controls it. semantic memory on the other hand, is the memory we use to recall skills, facts and concepts and it's controlled by our neocortex (basically the cerebral cortex, the outer shell of our brains).
the way I understand it, severance seems to work by tying the formation of episodic memories to a certain place (this is also evident by the site of implantation of the chip which is deep within the brain, not on the surface where the cortex is. it's not clearly shown that they were implanting it inside the hippocampus or around it, but from the images they showed, I think that's where it is placed) and creating a barrier to accessing older episodic memories that were formed before the severance procedure.
now, historically in medicine, we have seen cases of patients where they had damage to their hippocampi, or had them removed during some procedure or other, and in the process lost their ability to form episodic memory all together. these patients can't form new memories and/or remember past memories, but their skills that they acquired or do acquire later are intact, and the facts they know about the world are still there also. they just can't form new long term memories.
now, we're still way far from understanding exactly how the hippocampus stores episodic memories (we have some sort of understanding but it's a little complicated and it's certainly not complete so I'm not mentioning it here), so, no severance as a medical procedure is still pure sci-fi, but the idea of it is fascinating to me.
In my research, I work on something called chemobrain, which is a term coined by cancer patients who have had chemo where they reported experiencing concentration and memory problems afterwards. for years it was assumed that chemobrain was just psychological phenomena, but recent research discovered otherwise. it is actually a very real damage to the brain caused by chemotherapy, or certain types of it to be more accurate. now we call it chemotherapy induced cognitive impairment. anyway, it turns out that those types of chemotherapy actually damage areas in the hippocampus (among others in the brain) and causes damage to episodic memory.
these chemotherapies kill nerve cells and literally target synapses in the hippocampus making the connections between cells weaker. they hypothetically do what the severance procedure does.
according to research, chemobrain can last from months to years, but in a lot of cases it gradually gets better. in my work we're trying to find medications that can reverse this damage in a shorter period of time. so who knows maybe I'll find a medication that will help helly, mark, dylan and irv as well
it's just fascinating to me how we might take this damage and turn it to a switch we can flip whenever someone gets a certain type of stimuli (like entering a new space). it's just ugh i wish the show expanded on the scientific aspects they used.
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everyonewasabird · 1 year
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Brickclub 5.4.1 “Javert Derailed”
I’m going to resort to bullet points, because I don’t know how to tackle this chapter as a whole.
- We come to this book’s last mention of Napoleon, as Javert, who has up till now folded his arms like Napoleon confident, now holds his hands behind his back like Napoleon uncertain. It feels significant that Napoleon never comes up again after this, but I don’t know what it means. We seem to be at another Waterloo in some sense, but mostly in a sense of combining a reckoning with a senseless waste of life.
- Javert experiences himself as a crystal suddenly becoming cloudy, which feels true of him, but also as damning as the rest of this. We’ve seen his cruelty and his corruption and the blind eye he turns on his coworkers’ corruption. The fact that he thought all that was a limpid pool is... like I said, not surprising, but it’s pretty awful.
- There are no stars or moon because of the cloudy sky. That means this chapter is conducted entirely by the light of streetlamps, which seems deeply unfortunate. Streetlamps are the eyes and the point of view of Authority, and they’re the light Javert has always operated by. Javert can see clearly enough to know he needs to leave this place, but there’s no other light to guide him. Valjean in his first upheaval after the bishop found a desolate place with a whole lot of creepy natural lighting effects--but the light he saw by was God’s.
- Javert is caught between a dog and a wolf, which we know means evening. Evening might have been a dubiously good sign for Valjean a few chapters ago, but it doesn’t seem auspicious here.
- The narrator is very close to Javert’s pov in a certain sense--we have someone to explain in great detail the feelings Javert has but doesn’t understand; the narrator understands much more about this than Javert possibly can. It’s also a pretty biting narration, though--there’s a real thread of sarcasm and mockery running through all this, maybe not undeservedly, that’s going, “Oh, so you’re noticing the world is maybe a smidge complicated NOW, huh?”
Which, you know. Fair. But it’s interesting being asked to understand this deeply while being subtly warded away from sympathizing.
- I love the line about “internal rebellion in thought.” We know from his intro that one of Javert’s big things is hatred of rebellion. I take it from this that the reason he hates thinking is that the thoughts he would have if he had thoughts would be rebellious ones, and he knows it. He’s been crushing all his instincts beyond the basic “search for criminal, arrest criminal” for decades, and that’s the towering mass of cognitive dissonance that’s been piling up over his head for years.
- God, there is something so sad about this marginalized person being horrified by the idea that there might be a narrative about the world that isn’t Authority’s narrative, or that his own experience and point of view could matter.
- I do really get why the Valvert contingent is the kinky side of the fandom. Just saying.
- Just like with Valjean’s revelatory moment, this would all go much better if he could see the person who overturned his worldview as a person, not some kind of impossible saint--which in both cases would go better if people had conversations and relationships instead of Big Dramatic Moments Of Apotheosis and then running away. It’s worse here, though, since Javert’s failure to see people’s basic humanity is one of his biggest problems. We are not in any way leaving behind his black and white thinking, we’re just messing with which is which.
- God, Enjolras and Grantaire seem so functional by comparison.
- It’s hard to pin down where Valjean fell off the road to Calvary tonight. I don’t think the answer is Javert’s refusal to play Pontius Pilate. Like, that’s a good thing, and the thing that went wrong for Valjean feels a lot more wrong than that.
- Javert wishing he’d thought to yell for Enjolras et al to come kill him because Valjean was failing to do his job right is absurd, and perfect.
- His reaction to recognizing the existence of kindness is genuinely so sad. There’s so much there, in the fact that he thinks he was “depraved” for being kind, in the fact that he can recognize all this as kindness, in the way that recognizing that the world has contained kindness in it all along is a uniformly bad feeling for him. It makes me wonder exactly which things he’s trying not to think about hard enough to regret.
- Man, that “Javert’s ideal [...] was to be irreproachable.” I can’t relate to his authoritarianism at all, but I was the kind of autistic kid who wanted to know what the rules were so I could do things “right.” There’s something really heartbreaking about somebody reaching 52 years old--and a whole lot of harm done to people and the world--before they 1) encounter any of the limits of that mindset or 2) encounter the idea that there might be something better to hope for and work for in life than not making Authority mad at you.
- For all that he hates what’s happening right now, I love the implication that hatred isn’t what’s at issue here. This is about having a heart, in spite of not believing in having hearts, and it’s about humanity’s indelible contact with the numinous, no matter how much he always tried to ignore and avoid it. I fight with Hugo’s optimism a lot, but I appreciate it here--Javert tried to crush his own humanity and, in spite of all the inhumane harm he’s done, all the cruelty, the pointlessly mean death of Fantine and all the other deaths he’s no doubt caused, he failed: he’s still human, he still has a heart. He still has a soul, and that’s what’s hurting him so much.
- All he can see of this is anarchy. Which feels like it’s exactly the streetlight thing: the only light he can see this by is the light of authority, and so the only outcome he can see of this is a destruction of authority. The higher truths are making themselves apparent to him by force, but they don’t really show up in the light he’s seeing by.
- His little note is so sad, it’s so nothing. He’s spent so long ignoring these petty cruelties and indignities and thefts, and people have suffered for it. And he’s all, “Hey, Authority, please, could you maybe just, if it’s not too much trouble....” This is the great firing of Javert’s soul towards Justice at last, and... iIt’s not very good. And hey, it’s a first try! There’s a lot he could learn if he lived and stayed on this route! But.... you know.
And this is the night of the day the barricade fell: we know what good, true, right, glorious, loving rebellion for the sake of alleviating suffering looks like. This note is how far Javert is able to get down the road of rebellion, and wow is it not very far.
- He’s writing all this in the police station in the Place du Châtelet. Underneath him are the now defunct dungeons where prisoners stood in the mud and their own excrement for months chained by the neck, waiting to be shipped off to the bagne if they didn’t strangle or starve or die of disease first. I think it’s underlining how utterly insufficient Javert’s “rebellion” really is.
- It’s really striking me this time the degree to which in the last section he literally can’t see? There’s no light from heaven, there’s no light from houses or passersby--that is, from men. The only light left to him is that horrible, horrible streetlight, and it’s skewing his view of everything. When he looks down or up or even at the city, he can’t perceive anything properly.
It really feels like he died of the void that was left when authority vanished from above him, and that if some other light, any other light, had come, he wouldn’t have concluded there was nothing left.
We saw Providence come for Valjean time after time tonight, but nothing and nobody came for Javert.
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I feel like if 9/11 happened again, no one would really react.
I think a lot of people were horrified on 9/11 because they didn’t know things like that happened. The boomer generation is all like “never forget”, acting like it’s the greatest tragedy since the Holocaust, and acts like joking about 9/11 is paramount to joking about genocides, but they went to school every day to learn about how to hide from a nuclear bomb.
At the end of the day though, the most that 9/11 effected the lives of most people acting like 9/11 is the world’s greatest modern tragedy is that they have to take their shoes off at the airport. 9/11 had disastrous effects, of course, but not on the people most intimately obsessed with its tragedy.
There’s a 2002 episode of Arthur where a school fire is used as an analogue for 9/11. (I really wish they just used real 9/11 that would have been so fucking funny) One of the plots is about Buster feeling bad about not really caring about the fire. At the time that was a super important message for kids, because why the fuck would they care? They probably don’t even know how much 3,000 is or necessarily what death is or maybe even where New York is. It’s unrelated to them.
9/11 happened 21 years ago. It can legally drink in the US. If you actually remember the significance of what 9/11 was when it happened, you’re kind of old now. Young people either were Buster or they learned about 9/11 in history class. It’s a meme now.
I’m going to New York in about a month and I’ve already planned to take a photo of the 9/11 memorial and caption it “I forgor”. I don’t fucking care; I wasn’t alive in 2001. I think older people need to accept that 9/11 is now a historical event rather than a modern tragedy, and a historical event with a comparatively low body count.
The fact that 9/11 gripped the nation for decades after isn’t just a consequence of the place and time it happened; it was intentional. It was a terrorist attack; it was meant to be flashy, it was meant to be destructive, and it was meant to be scary. Making 9/11 out to be the worst thing ever projects Al-Qaeda’s strength.
We’ve now lived through entire months in which every day has killed more people than 9/11. Of course that’s always been true, but not from one collective, abnormal cause. When you become desensitized to death, it’s no longer tragic. One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic.
The constant propaganda about 9/11 being the worst thing ever, counterintuitively, makes it seem less bad. It normalizes it to the point that it’s not the tragedy it once was. Especially when you didn’t live it because you were not yet alive.
This doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing, I mean no one cares about the myriad obscure genocides which killed hundreds of thousands to millions, but 3,000 people who happened to have a statistically higher income (the Twin Towers housed financial offices and the flights that were hijacked tend to have a lot of business travelers, especially on a morning flight early in the week)? Greatest American tragedy literally ever.
I think people not caring about the faceless people who died on 9/11 and ended up getting turned in to patriotic martyrs and caring more about the faceless people who die every day because governments around the world think it’s in their best interests for them to is a good thing. It’s an inevitable part of moving forward in time; the sands of time erode all but the number of bones.
So joke about 9/11. It ends the era of “never forget”, and brings about that of the perpetual apathy that faces all historical events with the inevitable bored child in an elementary school classroom asking the teacher why he should care about dead people.
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utilitycaster · 1 year
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i find there is a sizable overlap of people who want to 'fix' vax's death and the people who imagine Keyleth and Vax as static pictures of grief. Who never manage to find meaning in their lives after Vax. At first these seemed like opposites to me (making the suffering go away vs. suffering forever) but now I actually think that it's tied together. If you can't picture Keyleth or Vex as being able to find ANY meaning after loss, of course the (simplistic) solution is 'get rid of the bad thing'.
So here's the thing: that's true, and it sucks because I like both Keyleth and Vex more than Vax, and because unless you are so unfortunate to be the one who dies very young, someone you love, or even generally like a lot, will die and you will keep living for a very long time afterwards; stories about people who freeze in grief indefinitely are far more tragic and horrifying than stories in which someone merely dies.
But also? I think it's even simpler. I think it's really just "I miss Vax and want him back."
The thing is, that's valid. Honestly a lot of things I make snarky remarks about are valid. The thing I find irritating isn't being like "I miss him!", it's when people try to justify it narratively and do a bad job. I saw this post recently about ships and the thing is, as someone who has a lot of shipping opinions...I DO think it's fully valid if people only want characters to be together because they think it would be hot. It's just...I happen to be interested in my fiction saying something else.
So if someone is just like "man I wish Vax hadn't died because I love him as a character" that's totally cool, the stuff that annoys me is "well maybe if this series of events that has truly apocalyptic implications for the entire world and would absolutely destroy basically every other player character's life happens, Vax will be back." And that's because I'm a lore person and I like how everything weaves together in an interesting pattern (same reason why the EVERYTHING IS SUPER SUPER CONNECTED theories irritate me) I see that attitude and am like wow you'd literally throw everything else away for a guy who will be less interesting because you threw everything away. Real Legend of the Magi energy. And they probably think I talk about narrative too much, and honestly that's fine as long as we both make our snarky remarks on our own blogs and don't send anon hate or whatever.
Basically: I think most fix-it fic, for example, sucks, and I've said that repeatedly, but if someone loves their fix-it fic and acknowledges it is totally their own self-indulgent stuff, I think they should do them. It's when people get mad at or sad with the canon for not being the fix-it (or the pwp ship, or whatever) instead of embracing that they're telling a second story with some shared elements that I get annoyed. Literally, now you have two stories, the canon one and the one in your head. Why do you want to reduce them to a single one that's probably worse than either?
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admirableadmiranda · 1 year
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Man sangsang, I'm probably about to join you guys in getting hate despite barely blogging because of that post lmao. I don't even mind kinder interpretations of JC. I just hate that they are messing with a very specific flavor of JC that had it's own tag. They act like tagging "canon character" is a regular thing to do when I don't think I've seen it anywhere but here. But because of their inability to understand the word canon has no bearing on the validity of the post, it gives an opportunity to throw the word "nuance" at them as many times as I can since they seem to be unable to pick up on the nuance that a negative view doesn't mean character hate or bashing.
I remember when the creation of this tag happened. People getting harassed is never fun and shouldn't happen. But as someone who kinda enjoys watching drama from the sidelines the name of the tag was a joy to watch in real time. "Go make your own" -> "ok we will" -> "wait not that name". Perfection.
If they are so concerned with their post being 100% for reals correct interpretation, they should make their own tag. I've suggested "true to text Jiang Cheng" since obviously putting those words before the character name would make whatever is in the post true to the text in the same way any post in the canon Jiang Cheng tag proves the post is canon... As in not at all but maybe it'll make them feel better about themselves.
Oof, I hope you don’t! That would really suck if you were to get hate just for expressing your frustrations. I at least was prepared for it and invited it since I did blaze my post about the tag. But you’re not even part of the whole mess, so they had better leave you alone.
Yeah, I don’t think I’ve seen “canon character” as a tag anywhere else, though most fandoms don’t usually have such a… broad divide between a fanon and canon interpretations. I actually don’t mind a softer JC all that much myself as long as he’s tagged so I can decide if I feel like him today or not, and of course WWX isn’t getting all the blame for stuff going on.
Haha, are you at least having fun with the new word of the day? I agree, having a negative view really doesn’t have to be bashing or even disconnected from the character. Otherwise how would we ever be able to enjoy any villains? Some characters are just not made to be positively sympathized with to begin with.
Lol, yeah that was a lot of fun. I do remember those times fondly. They should have been more specific if they didn’t want me and my friends to have free reign of creativity on our tag. And you know what? It worked!
Lol!! If they do that, I would be happy. A single tag for me to filter out, peace and quiet in our time. I doubt it’ll happen, but also they ain’t winning our stalemate no matter how much Xicheng they put in the tag, so I’m sure that eventually it’ll be just another story in the MDZS fanbase to horrify and amuse new people dipping their toes in.
Thanks for stopping by! Your post made me smile this morning, even if it wasn’t a very happy post to begin with. I wish you all the luck in the world!
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marshmallowprotection · 11 months
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Seeing as VAE Saeran remains as Ray, does that mean Suit is still able to emerge?
I sincerely think this is a complicated question because the game itself does not properly explain what happens.
If you want my opinion here, I feel that Ray and Suit Saeran still exist separately. I always write the two of them Post-V’s-After-Ending with that in mind. I can't see it going any other way given what's given to me when I read through what you’re given in the Forgiveness Ending. I'll cut out a snippet here to talk about.
So, one of my main gripes with Jihyun is that he just can't bring himself to understand Ray or Suit Saeran. That happens in V Route and Ray Route. He'll disregard anything you say about Ray because he doesn't want to take the time to understand given how wrapped up he is in his own self-loathing.
As if to say, his opinion appears to be that his Saeran is Saeran no matter what. He doesn’t know why Saeran is calling himself “Ray” other than the fact that Rika tortured this new name onto him and made him horrified to hear his birth name. His persistence in this realm serves to disrespect Ray and Suit Saeran without meaning to do so. It isn't his intention hurt others but it happens regardless.
But, that’s who V is. 
He is the path paved to Hell made with good intentions. 
"Saeran wasn't the one blamed. It was ANOTHER Saeran, the one who sought love."
"The REAL Saeran is safe."
"Listen to this very moment. Then, you would feel the real you. Feel your body."
"...I'm scared to feel the real me."
There's always this back-and-forth talk about who Saeran is and who Saeran isn't. It confuses him, confounds him, and leaves him unsure of what the person looking back at him in the mirror feels. A lot of it comes from people pushing him to identify one way or the other, his autonomy over his sense of self is normally lacking. People nudge his heart to be one way or another.
Both Ray and Suit Saeran are fragile. They are terrified and afraid of the world at large. Why wouldn't they be? It hurt them again and now it's hard to believe in anything. One of them lives to protect through decimation and destruction and the other holds on to this fleeting hope that maybe it's okay to believe in something good. They fill a role in protecting their body and believe in it greatly.
They cling to those feelings and pray, praying that they survive even if it's as a weed.
This is an apparent identity crisis for Ray and Suit Saeran. But, it doesn’t help that V only calls them Saeran. I wish they would dive more into this because it doesn't have the same conclusion that it does in Ray Route. The only reason GE Saeran is able to emerge the way he does is that Ray and Suit Saeran fuse, ultimately creating GE Saeran with every part of their being.
That came from a desire to not only protect themselves but to be able to protect the person they loved together. That doesn't exactly happen in V’s Route. No, they blow up and almost die in that bomb back at Magenta knowing their first love doesn't love them the way they love them. That was mainly Ray's feelings for you, but I know Suit Saeran had to have consented to that bomb just as much as Ray did.
They were abandoned by everyone in their eyes and had nothing left but the end.
Then, V swoops in and stops that from happening. No wonder they're lost and confused! Pointedly, what makes me believe that it's not just a singular Saeran here is the fact that he keeps having "episodes" as V might call them where he thrashes and acts out saying that he will kill his twin brother. V thinks it's the elixir causing that to happen, but we all know it's a combination of drugs, abuse, manipulation, and the feelings mixed between Ray and Suit Saeran.
Suit Saeran is angrier than Ray is by this point. Ray gave up when he decided to hit the bomb switch. He wasn't happy with the world he'd been given and wanted the pain to stop. Yet, we know in his last few moments... he would've prayed that he could live happily the way he did before Mint Eye. With his brother, with V, and maybe even Rika.
I just can't see Suit Saeran getting over that contempt for others. He's the one that would set back V's "return".
Suit Saeran is the protector.
How does he know that V is going to keep up his end of the bargain? How does he know that they're not going to be pulled into something dangerous? How does he know that it's all going to work out and there's nothing to be afraid of? How does he know that Ray is going to be able to survive seeing their brother again? How does he know that it's going to be okay when the V cannot promise that? He barely has any trust for V as it is.
Even as Suit Saeran tries to heal, and tries to overcome his hatred; That's not going to stop when he is angry and confused.
If he is cornered when he is upset, it's only a matter of time before he explodes and he can't exactly control himself when that happens. His body acts without thinking and he lashes out. I can imagine what that would be like because the game won't tell us shit about it. I have to sit here and make educated guesses.
V won't let them go back because the "angry" Saeran keeps lashing out. "Angry" Saeran, my ass. It's Suit Saeran still struggling to accept this reality. He needs time and patience to get there. At least, V has given him the opportunity to handle it at his own pace. The same way Ray has if Ray is still here like I assume him to be.
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I don't think we'll ever have confirmation that the two of them are together or apart, you just have to figure it out for yourself. I just can't see any of that time spent with V bringing the right direction for them to come together as it does in Ray Route. It's just a shame that we're not shown anything about Ray or Suit Saeran enough to know what happened and how they're feeling.
So, honestly, VAE Ray, VAE Saeran, or VAE Suit Saeran could all very well exist. There's no right answer given so you just gotta make one for yourself.
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biderboy · 2 years
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letters he never wrote (they were written just never sent)
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i. don’t you dream, james potter?
i do.
i didn’t as a child, when i try to remember now it’s all blurred. i never had dreams, in every sense. when i slept, it was just blank. a peaceful escape where i was nothing, the sky was nothing, the world was nothing.
when i was older, enough to think about a future i didn’t want, i didn’t dream then either. no ambitions to be a doctor, or a teacher. never wanted to have a family or own a business. nothing.
i believed dreams were foolish, there was no point is wishing and thinking of something you didn’t deserve. something you would never achieve. something that would just ruin you.
when i turned 16 i dreamt of you.
i realized then i was right, dreams could ruin you. completely, wholeheartedly, fully. they would tear you apart from the inside out, run around your mind all day, even when your eyes weren’t closed. they could completely take over your mind, soul and body.
i wanted you to ruin me.
i never wanted to dream of anything else, i never have either.
i dream of your smile, the way your eyes crinkle when you laugh. how your curls look when you get out of the rain, how you hand fits in the small of my back. your laugh. your love.
i dream of your death sometimes too.
those dreams are painful, horrifying, and leave me laying awake for hours after, mind racing and hands shaking.
i dreamt of your death last night.
it looked far more real than i expected.
did you know, james potter, that you look beautiful even in death?
maybe that’s why it scared me so much, i reckon not even the cold grasps of the darkness could ruin you. no matter how gruesome death is, it could never take your beauty away.
i hope tonight i dream of you living.
your eyes are brighter in life than death.
do you dream of me too, james potter? (do i die in those? are you the one begging, blood on your hands, wand broken on the floor, eyes filled with tears? arm i in your place, are you in mine? do you dream of killing me, james potter? or do you dream of loving me?)
ii. the stars and their thoughts
i spoke to the stars about you tonight.
i couldn’t sleep, and instead sat and wondered in you think of me in these times too.
you probably don’t, that’s okay. i don’t need you too. i am content with just the thought of you. in my head, i can hear your laugh. i can hear your voice, whispering to the stars with me.
i tell them about you.
i tell them about the jokes you made in the hall, about the way you tripped on your untied shoe last week. how your eyes search for something amongst the books you never actually pick up to read. how you hands sometimes shake when lily evans gets too close. how you dance. how you smell. how my heart is forever in your hands, broken and bleeding but still beating. just for you.
i wonder if they get tired of my ramblings, that’s why i’m writing you now. maybe the stars are tired of my thoughts, i am not though.
i could think about you every second. i do, sometimes. the only way to escape the hell i’ve found myself living in is when your face is running around my mind and you name is on the tip of my tongue.
the stars don’t care about these types of things though.
iii. i love you.
there are a lot of things i’ve done in this life. plenty more i’ll do in my next. some i’ve redone, again and again. mistakes i made in my past life that i made again in this one. that maybe i’ll fix next time.
in this life, i have bled. for my mother, for my brother, for whatever side you believe i fight for. both sides, no sides, for myself. i have cried. for lily evans, who will one day inevitably loose her other best friend. for remus lupin, who suffers and will continue to suffer for the rest of his days. for my brother, my mother, even if i refuse to acknowledge that now.
i have sweat, i have fought, i have angered, murdered, and grieved.
but i have only ever loved one man.
that’s you.
you know this already. i’ve whispered it against your skin hundreds of times. i’m traced it in your hands, your back, your chest. i’ve written it in books and notes. i’ve spelled it out in every way i know and then some.
you know.
you knew.
perhaps you think i don’t love you anymore. that’s the farthest from the truth, but i cannot blame you for those thoughts. i haven’t done anything to prove them wrong recently. i apologize for that.
this letter could tell you.
i should tell you.
i can’t. i’m leaving soon, and then maybe my death will remind you of the way my mouth felt on yours or how my eyes always seemed to find yours even in the darkness of the forest at night. maybe my death will remind you, of all the times i whispered to you, with the stars and moon as our witness, that i would love you even in death.
death is coming james potter.
i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you
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fablesfancies · 1 year
Text
Holiday Card and Bets
Story, the Magicless Prefect of Ramshackle, settles in for a well-earned Holiday Feast with her Dormmates. Together they eat, puzzle over her mystery friend, and partake in the classic pastime of dissecting Someone’s love life. 
Warnings :Minor Spoilers for Chapter 4. Mostly fluff and silliness.
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“Mystery Dude?” Story frowned as she ran a finger over the mysterious Holiday Card. The quality was undeniable, if an odd choice. The front image showed a gothic style castle with the classic kind of font she’d seen used for Ren Faires and anything branded with knights and Fairytales. The inside was nearly too short and basic for her to make anything of, beyond how pretty the handwriting was. And those two little initials, staring her down.
“I really wish I knew the people from Diasomnia better,” She glanced at the ghosts. “Did any of them live here when the Dorm was still used before?”
“Nah.” Biggs, the round ghost shook his head. “That was long ago. They were thinking of keeping the Freshman unsorted and giving them a year of basics for ease of professors.”
“They were a real high strung lot,” Calloway, the thin one cackled. “I tell you, all I had to do was float past and the whole dorm was running out the doors and leaping out the windows.”
“Wild.” Story snorted. “Are all magicians such big babies?”
“Most young ones,” Ashton, the final ghost, nodded sagely. “I was worried when those Leech boys came. They’re…odd…”
“Guess that makes me odd too,” She sighed. “But that doesn’t solve who in Diasomnia would give me a Holiday Card…”
“Is it really that important?” Grim looked up from the can of tuna he’d been devouring. “It’s just a card.”
Well for Grim it was. Story looked back to the swirling script. Someone had taken the time to get her a card–not even her friends had done that much. Granted, Ace and Deuce ran to her side as soon as she called, but still…There was something intensely sentimental about being thought of. Especially being so far away from home…
“Why do you assume it’s a student from Diasomnia anyway?” Biggs asked, biting into a turkey leg.
“Lilia’s the Vicewarden,” She hummed, grateful for the distraction. “While he’s pretty friendly with most people, I get the impression that most dorms steer clear of interacting with them too much. Even Cater steered clear, and he’s pretty sociable.”
“Trey too,” Grim agreed. “But then those guys that came to confront Leona looked really scary.”
“Did they?” 
“You don’t know?” Calloway nudged her. “Your brain must’ve really cracked open after the SpellDrive Tournament.”
“I just didn’t find them scary.” Story laughed. “At least, no more than anyone else around here.”
“Don’t tell me you’re scared of most magicians!” Biggs looked horrified.
“More like it’s the most natural thing in the world to be a bit afraid of someone who has the ability to hurt you.” She leaned back against the couch. “It’s their character that determines how actually afraid of them I am. So far, I’d say the guys I’ve met from that dorm are...a little aloof, but not what I’d call scary. No more than the Leech brothers or Jamil. Probably less.”
“Did either of them have those initials?” Ashton suggested. “Maybe they wanted to thank you for your help! Or maybe one of them likes ya?”
Story scowled at the suggestion. “Nah. Both of them had ‘S’ names. Silver and Seb…something…”
“Drat.” He sighed, swishing his grape juice like wine. 
“Maybe it stands for Magical…Dealer?”
“Azul would just sign his name,” Grim grunted.
“And pick a more ostentatious card.” Story agreed. “I’m not sure who it’s from…”
“Looks like a master of Watercolor.” Ashton observed. “I think it’s handmade.”
“Curiouser and curiouser…” 
“Master of Divination?” Biggs suggested.
“Minister of Druids.” Calloway added a guess.
“Druids don’t have ministers,” Ashton rolled his eyes. “Maybe it stands for My Dear!”
“Stop trying to add in a new party to the bet!” Biggs complained.
“Bet?” Story glanced at Grim.
“We’re betti’n on who you go out with.” The monster offered, digging into the turkey. “Biggs thinks it’s Deuce.”
“Excuse me?” She stared at her dormmates in disbelief.
“Oh-ho!” Calloway crowed brightly. “So Ace then…”
“I’m telling you,” Grim waved a free paw at the ghosts. “Story’s cream of the Crop! Not just anyone can win the heart of a noble Prefect!”
“Who’d he bet on?” Story glanced to Ashton. 
“That Jack Fella.” 
“Right!” The monster nodded. “Now that’s the kinda guy who’d make sure his girlfriend and her dormmates were fed, no matter what. He’s principled like that.”
“Meanwhile Crewel’s thinking it’s a boy called Epel.” Ashton continued. “Presuming it’s a yearmate–otherwise he thinks it’ll be Vil.”
“Wait–the Teachers too?!”
“And the Headmage,” Biggs added. “He thinks you’d go for another Prefect, but he won’t say which one.”
“Isn’t that cheating?” Story squinted.
“As long as it’s not any of the ones the other’s bet on.” Calloway cackled. “I think he means the one from Iginhyde.”
“Right, because we’ve clearly met.” She laughed.
“Vargas thinks it’s gonna be Jamil.” Biggs carried on. “And Trien’s set on Trey.”
“I…” Story shook her head. “Doesn’t anyone have anything better to do?”
“Sam thinks you’ve got a thing for Ruggie,” Grim added, ignoring her protests. “I tried to tell him it was a terrible bet, but if he wants to lose, that means more food for me!”
“Oh!” Biggs brightened. “And Lucifer says Leona.” 
“Oh come on!” Story threw her hands up. “The cat’s betting too?!”
“And Ashton’s going on about how none of us are right.” Calloway glared. “Picked a candidate yet?!”
“A boy from Diasomnia.” Ashton grinned. “I’ll change my answer with Crowley when he returns.”
“I…” She shook her head helplessly. “Sure. Why not? You guys figure out my love life while I keep this campus from falling apart at the seams.”
“Will do!” Calloway laughed. “Don’t you worry, Story. You’ve got all the time in the world to decide.”
“This is worse than Thanksgiving with my great Aunt Carol.” She groaned. “No betting on future kids.”
“About that…” Biggs began.
“Oh, come on!”
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nanesuma · 9 months
Text
Hello journal, nice to meet you!
It's been about a week since I woke up here
I’ve decided to start writing in this journal to help me keep track of events and the timeline of what my life is now... I hope moms okay I wonder if she's worried not like I really reached out much. I’m not sure what month or year it is here and I lost track of time a lot back home. It’s been tough compared to my old life of wallowing alone but I already feel better I always thought I was more of a feral human it seems I was right the sky’s orange here which doesn't make sense since the sun’s still yellow but its kind of relaxing, my tinnitus is gone too although im not sure why. I think this world is going to be better for me in the long run
Here's everything different I've found about this world::
The sun is still yellow but the sky is a pale orange, the night sky is still mostly black but you can really see everything, it’s beautiful. There are new constellations to mark and it seems there's a north star here too, at least I assume its north I really have no way to know it seems there are no other humans here so I dont have to worry about my directions being wrong to others atleast
It is barren of cities, it's nice but off-putting sometimes once you’ve lived around thousands of faces every day it's hard to come to terms with the fact that everything you know is gone I haven’t wondered too far from my cave after the first day here I hope there's something sentient here or I might not be sane forever
Vegetation is largely the same, the leaves are a little different and the fruits tend to be sweeter but nothing huge.
Most of the same animals are here too although I've seen some new species im not sure what to make of them. Some are horrifying and probably lethal…
I’ve also found slimes are here and quite easily tamed they are very in tune with predators and have helped me stay alive so far all I need to do is give them food and they seem to be fine living in my cave
The trees are thick but there are some random patches of empty land, I’ve been worried to step there it might be some kind of trap door spider or worse, the sticks and rocks I've tossed yielded nothing but im not risking my life this early in
The air is so fresh, and everything about me has sped up to some degree it might be the survival instincts in me or the fact you can smell everything so strongly I wonder how these plants survive in such fresh carbonless air, I can't complain myself though
Magic is here, real magic the stuff I've dreamt of since I was a kid and it’s ridiculously intuitive like I was built for it or rather it was built for me. That's how I created this book and this paper, I wonder if I could print images too
Overall this seems like the ideal world for me I just wish it was the one I was born in, boredom's harder to fight I dont even have books to read
:
Today I managed to hunt some kind of boar and thanks to magic starting a fire was easy, the 2 slimes (I haven't named them yet) ate most of the bones which was a shock, they don't digest things normally my best guess is they immediately break down everything inside them and store it somehow.
Tomorrow I think I’m going to start mapping the area out I’m sure there's some way to measure distance with magic for an accurate map hopefully I can draw with spells too or it'll be messy
Plans for the map:
Scout around  the forest as much as I can until afternoon maybe I could try wind magic to fly up and get a better view
I’ll mark everything down as I go
To whoever may find this        -Nanesuma
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Text
Book Review: The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean
The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean
4 stars
I really enjoyed Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean. The first two-thirds are really well done while the last act felt too neat and clean compared to the rest of the story. I also think there may have been one POV too many, but overall this is a well-written, tense, and compelling book. 
Devon is a book eater who is a lesbian and mother to a child who eats brains instead of books. They’re both wanted by the book eating families for various reasons and have to go on the run, desperate for a cure. When someone Devon once loved comes to her with an offer: one favor for the cure, how can she refuse, even if it means depending on her family to keep their word. 
From here on out, there may be spoilers so beware
Things I loved
The concept is well thought out and the book eater’s social structure is really horrifying. Sunyi does a fantastic job capturing how suffocating and “all powerful” the patriarchy seems and how effective it is at punishing the lone brave souls who try to break free. The world building is intricate and feels very natural to the story and the lack of exposition dumps was very impressive. It was nice to see different sexual identities mentioned (especially nice to see an ace character), but I don’t think they’re properly explored in terms of worldbuilding. 
That being said, I love Devon especially as the story jumps back and forth from her efforts to keep her son alive and her efforts to keep herself alive and sane in the book eater’s world. She is at her most compelling when she is doing the unforgivable to survive because no matter what she does will never be worse than what was done to her. 
I absolutely adore her relationship with her son, Cai. It’s the core of the book. Sunyi does a fantastic job finding that balance of 5 year old child aged up by trauma and 55 year old man whose brain Cai last ate. I love that Sunyi lets Devon (and the reader) sit with complicated pregnancies and complicated and mixed feelings about one’s child. It’s refreshing to read a narrative where motherhood isn’t a sacred or even enjoyable thing and acknowledging those very real feelings doesn’t negate a mother’s love for their kid. There is also an element of codependency since Cai, despite being mature because of all the brain eating, is five physically and Devon literally has nowhere else to go and I wish that codependency was hit a little harder in the last act, when we meet more book eaters and there is the risk that maybe Cai wants to stay with people who truly understand him. 
Things I didn't enjoy
My two biggest complaints are 1. One of the POV’s is unneeded and 2. The third act is rushed and too neatly wrapped up.
Too many POVs
About a quarter into the book we are introduced to the POV of Devon’s brother to reveal a big spoiler, but this takes tension out of the story and dulls or makes superficial a lot of reveals that occur later in the book. It also takes some of Devon’s agency away regarding a potentially, truly unforgivable act that I actually really liked because it added further color and definition to Devon herself and Devon’s relationship with her child. But instead of it being a willing act on Devon’s part, it gets explained away as something relating to her brother. I think a lot of her brother’s POV was because the narrative wants its cake and eats it too. It wants to discuss the horrors we’ll commit for the people we love but when it comes to Devon committing something truly heinous, it takes a step back, pulls back the curtain, and says oh don’t worry, it’s ok to keep liking Devon. Here’s the line she won’t cross. But the line is really weird because she’s already done so many other horrible things, why would this be the “unforgivable” act that would turn readers away?
Devon’s brother’s POV also makes some of the chapters at the very end superficial since it only confirms the information we’ve been told earlier or just confirms what readers have already inferred from the text itself.
If this book truly needed a second POV, I think it would have helped the text and theme more if it had been of Hester, another Mind Eater and Devon’s supposed love interest (I didn’t really buy the romance at all, but as an aro-ace I’m often dense or unimpressed by most romances). Hester is the perfect reflection of Devon’s struggle with her own son, except Hester experiences everything Devon is terrified of happening to her son. It would have been the perfect way to build a connection between the two that made an impression instead of leaving certain reveals until the last third and preventing us the time we needed to sit with those reveals before the next secret was revealed and then the book wraps itself up.
The Third Act
I’m not sure why, but the book feels lopsided. The first two acts are really well done, the pacing is lovely, the character and world building work is fantastic, but then the third act crashes into the scene like a freight train. We’ve suddenly introduced to Hester’s family, including her brother who is literally the walking embodiment of everything Devon doesn’t want for her son, but we spend no time at all diving into what that means for Devon, the full effect mind eating has on Hester’s brother and what that means for Cai (or how Cai feels about being around mind eaters who maybe aren’t all there or trustworthy).
So many betrays happen at once but then are instantly forgiven. It’s literally one chapter Hester reveals a betrayal, next chapter Devon reveals a betrayal to Hester. Devon forgives Hester for her betrayal in same chapter and then next chapter Hester forgives Devon for her betrayal (even though Devon’s betrayal threats the things Hester has been trying to protect and we don’t understand why that doesn’t matter anymore – this is where Hester’s POV would have helped) then next chapter Cai discovers a betrayal but in the same chapter forgives the betrayer and then the final betrayal which is wrapped up with “Don’t worry, X knew you were never the one to truly blame” 
It was too much, too quickly, with hardly any time to sit with the many reveals or watch how those reveals affected these people (all who have extreme trust issues). I wish there was the same amount of discomfort and grey and lack of satisfying soothing answers in the third act as there had been in the first act. 
Questions I have about the worldbuilding
I loved seeing different sexual identities in the book, but I don’t think how book eater’s feel about these identities was fully thought out.
For example there is an ace character who is a man who is mostly left alone because there are so many men in the families it doesn’t matter that one of them doesn’t feel sexual attraction which feels odd because in this family sex is never about attraction, so why should it matter if that character feels sexual attraction or not? Shouldn’t there still be pressure to reproduce? Also, given how toxic the patriarchy is in this world, that ace character would not have been tolerated by the other allo men or women.
In real life, ace men suffer terribly both by their fellow men for their lack of sexual attraction and by women who buy into and perpetuate the bullshit that lack of sexual attraction makes ace men less of a man. I don’t see that being any different in the book eater world. The narrative in Book Eaters made it feel that being ace gets you out of a lot of social pressures to reproduce because you're a "lost cause" which isn't true at all and perpetuates a not great stereotype about being ace.
Additionally, I  am curious what happens to ace characters who are women. I assume the family rapes them just like they rape all the other women, but it would have been interesting to have it mentioned, especially since we are introducing the idea of aceness into this world. 
Notably, Devon dismisses being gay as a man as not a big deal because, again, there are so many men and so few women in the book eaters families, but I’m also not sure if that makes sense just looking at how our own severely patriarchal world treats men who different from the cisgender, allo norm. Similar to being ace, in this world, sexual attraction doesn't protect you from the society's need to procreate so why would the family tolerate any sexual deviation just because it's a man doing it? If anything, that sexual deviation would hurt their standing in the society, not being tolerated.
Devon is a lesbian, but there’s no mention of other lesbian or bisexual book eaters (except for Hester). What are those communities like? Are older book eater women (who no longer can have children) finally dating their childhood sweethearts? Are there groups of lesbians and bisexuals who try to protect the younger women (Devon was nursed primarily by women when she was pregnant. Is that where women (of all sexualities) exert their power? Do women use that as a chance to feel out other women about their identities and offer them community during a horrific time)?
If we’re going to talk about a lesbian revolting against a patriarchal family, it would have been nice to explore how, traditionally, that’s been done through community. Again, this potentially could have been explored more with Hester’s POV.
Finally, there is no mention of what happens for those who are trans or don’t fit within the gender binary. And the book mentions research into artificial pregnancies and how that’ll change the book eater’s life, but there is no mention of having an abortion. Surely, some book eater woman must have tried to have an abortion at one time given how severely their world treats them.
Conclusion
Overall though, I really loved this book. My complaints are really minor in the long run and the fact I have so many questions about the world building is because I was so engaged with the story. I highly recommend this book for anyone looking for a creepy, intense story about defying the patriarchy with a complicated mother-son relationship at it’s core. 
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buildarocketboys · 3 years
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Just wrote the outline for my camp nano novel!
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phoenixyfriend · 3 years
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In Which Palpatine Leaves the Door Open
So, @purronronner suggested this on discord:
au where anakin finds out about palpatine during clone wars era like, coming in for a visit and overhears a conversation with Dooku about war planning he’s been pulled between palpatine and the Jedi/obi-wan/various things but I want to see him pulled between palpatine and his men could go either way on the sith part of the reveal even
palpatine is not aware! unless anakin’s course of action is to go “hey palpatine I must have misunderstood something right? :(“
(This was a group effort but there's a thing I wrote that requires this context so please bear with me.)
I'm just imagining Anakin backing out, closing the door, and turning to the Corrie Guard by the door to say a thing... and not finding words.
Eventually "Did you guys know he was evil?" "He's a politician, sir." "But like the evil ranting..." "He's a politician. Sir."
He's willing to use his men to save R2, but that's because R2 was part of the team and helping, not arranging battles to make things worse.
Anakin: Normally, I'd go to Palpatine to talk about my problems, but right now he is the problem... Obi-Wan and Yoda are off-planet.... Anakin, phoning up Padme: Help?
Per @atagotiak we also have some Intense Thoughts
Oh hey. The deception arc. And the subsequent argument that we don't see and stuff. Like there's all the ways you could justify it especially from an opsec standpoint (If Anakin acts like that around Padme why would anyone assume he can keep a secret about anything?) And it was a pretty tactically important thing for the war as far as anyone knew. But just. I've heard some people say that perhaps also Obi-Wan reasoned that hurting Anakin is an ok price to pay to make sure someone Anakin cares for doesn't die for real which seems plausible enough.
Anyways. My point is. Anakin gets a front row seat to sheevception when he actually sorta knows whats going on. Gets sidetracked halfway through yelling and stuff to think about how convoluted this whole mess is.
For more clone-centric things all the times Palpatine's like "I wish I could do more, it's truly regrettable, but..." Would just seem awfully fake now.
Anakin, belatedly: Wait, does this mean that, behind all the layers of bullshit, Palpatine was the one trying to kill Padme at the start of the war???
WHICH IS WHAT LEADS TO A WHOLE LOT OF FUN and yes this is the part I'm sort of proud of.
Okay so: Anakin's a shit liar, yes?
After he meanders over to Padme and has a breakdown, he then goes off to tell the Council about all this. I imagine she goes with him as moral support, and also because she wants to protect him from them calling him out on his legitimately terrible decisions. They're trying to come up with a plan to take Palpatine down without tipping their hands too early, because they need to investigate; for the sake of this plot point, we'll say that Palpatine mentioned a contingency plan while talking to Dooku, even if he didn't directly name the chips.
Someone mentions that Palpatine is going to ask to see Anakin, because he does regularly. And, as experience has shown, there is very little that will stop Palpatine from insisting that Anakin come see him. They can stall for a bit, maybe, but not for long.
"You could send me to the other side of the galaxy," Anakin suggests. "Short notice, so sorry, won't be around for a bit."
They point out that won't work forever.
"So... arrest me, or put me on a mental health hold?" Anakin tries. "Say I got violent at civilians or the clones for no reason and you need to make sure I won't hurt him, and then even if he visits me in the cell, I don't have to act normal 'cause he'll EXPECT me to be upset."
Palpatine presumably has spies all over, so he'd know that hadn't actually happened. Also, Anakin's too important to the war effort for anything short of a cold-blooded murder of an innocent, and they can't just take him off the field without an absolutely massive violation of the Code or his orders.
"Tell him I Fell," Anakin offers.
A Sith Lord would be able to feel that from across the galaxy, if it had happened, especially with the amount of time that he's put into grooming Anakin.
"Oh," Anakin says, and his stomach drops out as he realizes that he can either keep his secrets, or keep people alive.
He thinks about how Palpatine had targeted Padme already, and how if Palpatine thinks Anakin's betrayed him, then he'll probably do that again.
He thinks about 'a Sith Lord would know' and realizes... well.
Anakin values his freedom, but he also values his men, his padawan, his master, his wife... the wife that's in danger if Palpatine knows that Anakin caught him out.
The Order has to keep Anakin away from Palpatine. They need an excuse to arrest him. They need an excuse to hide him away, one that Palpatine won't question too hard.
A Sith Lord would know if Anakin fell. Even if he came back afterwards.
"So... so tell him you found out about the Tusken Massacre."
The what.
"...tell him you found out about the time I actually did Fall," Anakin says, squeezing Padme's hand. She knows. She's the only one who knows, on Coruscant, other than the Sith they're hunting. "On... on Tatooine. You can claim it was an anonymous tip. He already knows about that one. He's one of the only two people outside Tatooine that do. He might not question it."
(He won't question it.)
What did you do, Skywalker.
"I killed... a lot of people. A Tusken tribe. Including the children. Right before the war hit."
----
It's a hell of a way to fall on his figurative sword.
(Mace is... both impressed that Anakin would take the hit to make sure they can handle the Palpatine problem, and horrified about the Massacre, because... who wouldn't be.)
(Mace is unfortunately Anakin's main handler on this project.)
Anakin puts in so much effort, all the time, into not Falling, so it’s surprisingly (terrifyingly!) easy for him to fake a 'near miss' with the Dark just by thinking really hard about things that make him angry. Nobody wants him actually Falling for the ploy if they can help it, but they need to sell the bit, and Anakin's... well. He's Anakin. It's easy to think about his own emotional volatility until any control goes out the window.
He's sacrificing a lot for this mission! It's fine! He's fine!
(Padme, the council is judging you so hard right now.)
Palpatine comes to visit Anakin in prison, and it is very easy for Anakin to disguise his anger as... a different anger. I have a very intense mental image of Anakin working himself up into a frenzy when Palpatine comes to visit, and then at some point in the following conversation he just snaps something about how "you said they were animals who deserved to die."
The Council can even eke it out a bit, make it so they don't want to admit why Anakin's in prison or under a psychiatric hold or whatever they claim it is, so their "I'm hiding something vibes" look like "I'm hiding the fact that one of our most recognizable war heroes just came clean as a mass murderer and we have no idea how to handle it" instead of "I'm hiding that we know you're a Sith Lord and are working to take you down."
Obi-Wan comes back from an off-world mission to find out that Mace arrested his former padawan and Ahsoka hasn't stopped crying for three days because nobody will tell her what's going on.
(The Council decided this couldn't be risked on even an encrypted comm.)
(They maybe tell him soon enough? But also they might treat it like the Hardeen thing and use his reaction as fuel to keep Palpatine convinced.)
SKYGUY GOT ARRESTED AND NOBODY'S EXPLAINING WHY.
Rex is overwhelmed because it's been his job to keep her calm.
Anyway, padawanship has been temporarily transferred to the grandmaster. You were half-training her anyway.
Insert a subplot about Obi-Wan being horrified and betrayed and aiming the feeling at Padme because she knew about the Tuskens and never told.
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