#putting this in the tags but the movie actually kind of emphasised a lot of the problems i have with the book

[eliotquillon]

just finished the rwrb movie and although i really enjoyed it (and was kicking my feet giggling the whole time) i do have a couple of major criticisms, some of which i think aren’t really the movie’s fault because they had to fit a whole book into 2 hours, but some of which left me kind of disappointed:

-i feel slightly icky that bea and nora got their screentime SIGNIFICANTLY reduced even after june got cut entirely (which i was upset about, but did understand). i loved zahra and adored her on screen but i do think it’s very odd that she is pretty much the only major female character in this movie since bea was nonexistent and nora got permanently spirited away to pez’s bed or something sometime during the second act

-it felt like a lot of the internal conflict in alex and henry’s relationship was very unbalanced and henry heavy - alex’s neurodivergence was erased, his bi epiphany was barely even an epiphany, and him not being explicitly kicked off the campaign after ellen finds out about him and henry essentially killed his whole subplot about realising he doesn’t need to have everything achieved at thirty and deciding he wants to apply to law school instead. which wouldn’t have been terrible but on the flipside it felt weird that we didn’t see very much of henry’s family considering how much they affect and shape his fear of being outed and his feeling of being in a glass cage - e.g bea’s treatment by the media during her active addiction (which was entirely erased), the extent of the tension between him and philip. felt like henry’s pov scenes were a super wasted opportunity for that and we were mostly just being Told about all of these things

-i am not actually that mad about oscar and ellen still being together lol but i felt like in the scene with oscar smoking the cigar on the balcony they were kinda building up to there being significant strain in his and ellen’s relationship that just wasn’t explored. especially since it’s clear oscar would never be able to be president because he’s not a natural born citizen + the sacrifice of his career for ellen’s is so much bigger now that he’s first gentleman in this version

-pacing in general was a bit off but the worst offender was the fact that there was a complete time skip between the alex henry confrontation/reconciliation and the outing. so much of the tension and desperation from that outing scene comes from the fact that the risk of it happening was slowly increasing throughout the book and it felt almost inevitable (the elevator cctv being leaked, henry having to fake date june) and honestly making it so abrupt weirdly reduced a lot of its impact for me

-similarly i actually completely understand why the richards plot / rafael luna plot was cut (i suspect republican election interference hits a bit too close to home after 2020) but my god was miguel a lame fucking villain and him being queer and hispanic erased a lot of the original commentary about racism and homophobia that the richards plot lent itself to. like in general this movie was a lot lighter than the book which is fine! but for a movie where the main subplot is a presidential election So Much of the political themes were heavily neutered or cut to the point that it seemed like the pressure on henry and alex’s relationship was disproportionately coming from henry’s side when in the book it was more balanced

again on the whole i really really loved this movie and i knew going in that certain changed were going to be made. and i hope more movies get made like it! these r just my Thots and i may change my mind when i rewatch it with my friend tomorrow

#rwrb #red white and royal blue #putting this in the tags but the movie actually kind of emphasised a lot of the problems i have with the book #re: gender at least #i remember first reading the book in 2019 and being upset that june giving up so many of her dreams #to support her family wasnt explored more #like with her ex boyfriend who it was implied she still kind of had feelings for but had moced to california #it also feels slightly disingenuous that casey hyped up bea/nora so much after the teaser scene of them talking was revealed #except that was the only scene they ever interacted in. ever #and i know it’s not that deep I KNOWWWW #but i’ve been thinking a lot about fandom treatment of women lately #and weirdly this movie kind of exemplifies a lot of the issues i have witb fandom as a whole and not just rwrb #anyway.

[awkwardnessandbaseball]

This might, honestly, be one of my favorite chapters of this story. It’s very simple and (imho) very sweet :)

Once again, so many thanks to: @cspupstravaganza, @sherlockianwhovian, and @lassluna

Tag list: @quirkykayleetam, @squidvisious, @carpedzem, @kmomof4, @revanmeetra87, @capnjay21 (Message me to be added!)

AO3 if that’s your jam: Prologue | Ch1 | Ch2 | Ch3 | Ch4 | Ch5 | Ch6 | Ch7

I’d Pick You (and Your Little Dog, Too)

A Captain Swan Pupstravaganza Story

Summary: According to everyone in the known universe, Emma Nolan’s dog is supposed to lead her to her soulmate. But she’s not even sure if she wants that. Soulmates are pretty idealistic, don’t you think?

Chapter Five:

Six Months Later.

It shouldn’t be a surprise when David brings up the topic of his moving out when they meet for lunch, just the two of them. Emma should have seen the conversation coming, really, but she’s been so caught up in her own romance, in having someone to share her innermost thoughts with, in Rascal having a playmate besides Princess… that she’s completely caught off guard.

“Mary Margaret and I are going to move in together,” David tells her, spaghetti sauce lingering in the corners of his lips. Emma opens her mouth to interrupt, but he keeps going before she can. “And we were thinking that maybe we could just… keep doing what we’re doing. I’ll move into the loft, and Killian could move in with you--”

“I’m sorry, what?” Emma nearly yells, but then lowers her voice, remembering that they’re at Granny’s, in the middle of the Saturday lunch rush, in a town full of gossips. “You moving in with Mary Margaret… sucks, if I can be selfish for a second, but... it makes sense. But why would you think Killian and I would move in together?”

David looks at her like she’s grown an extra head.

“Because he spends literally every single night at the apartment with you?” David offers, but Emma sits silently, staring daggers at him, so he continues. “Emma, you spend nearly every waking moment with him. You’re soulmates. It just… makes sense, doesn’t it?”

Emma thinks about it. She tries to remember the last time she slept alone, one side of her bed cold, with only Rascal at her feet instead of the extra weight of a second dog. Or the last time she woke up to the smell of her brother’s burnt coffee (or worse, nothing at all) instead of the delicious pancakes Killian’s taken to cooking for her.

It had happened so naturally that Emma didn’t even notice. One night, she was sleeping alone in her too-large bed, her brother snoring away in the bedroom down the hall, and the next, David was away at Mary Margaret’s and Killian had taken up residence against Emma’s side.

And then it just sort of stayed like that.

More often than not, they fall asleep on the couch, watching movies and old TV shows, Rascal and Procella curled up together in the armchair. Usually, they wake up together and the four of them trudge to the bedroom and resume their snuggling in a much more comfortable way. Occasionally, when Emma’s had a long day or hasn’t been sleeping well, she’ll fall asleep on the couch and wake up in her bed, with no recollection of getting there. Killian blushes whenever she asks him if he’s carried her down the hall, telling her that she just must not remember waking up.

The man carries her to bed.

All told, dating Killian is simple. There’s no grand gestures, which tend to make Emma self-conscious, and there’s no begging for sex, which Neal had done constantly. It’s exactly like it was when they were meeting for lunch every week, except that they’re together almost all the time.

Plus she gets to see a lot more of that chest hair.

It’s actually kind of gross - the sickeningly sweet relationship, not the chest hair - and Emma is constantly surprised at how comfortable she is with it. Must be a soulmate thing.

But still. Moving in together? It just seems so fast.

“I don’t want to scare you, Emma, but you’ve got a really wistful look on your face.” David is smirking now, and Emma knows he’s right, really. That swapping out names on a lease won’t change anything, that they’ve already been practically living together for six months.

At that exact moment, just as she’s weighing her options, debating the fear she’s feeling versus the idea of something more permanent, Killian and Mary Margaret walk in the door of the diner.

Any stress Emma feels completely dissipates when her eyes meet Killian’s, and she knows she’s lost the battle. And she can’t even be that upset about it.

“We’re not here to interrupt,” Mary Margaret chirps, all heart-eyes as she looks at David. “We’re starting our own Saturday tradition, but it also involves Granny’s. So… we’re just taking it to go.” She leans down to give David a chaste kiss, and then looks at him meaningfully. “We’ll let you get back to it.”

Emma watches the two of them, and imagines the conversation they must have had that led them here. Or, more likely, conversations. Plural. Because Emma knows her brother, knows that he knows all of her insecurities and her fears and she’s sure that it would have taken ages for him to work up the courage to talk to her about moving out.

Especially after last time.

But, Emma rationalizes, this time is different. For one, Mary Margaret is clearly David’s soulmate. There’s a reason they’re together all the time, a reason they practically live together. Moving in together isn’t just the logical next step in their relationship: it’s literally the only next step. Emma’s seen David looking at rings online during their many hours of downtime at work. She’s not stupid.

Plus, she thinks to herself, I’m not exactly alone, am I? She looks up at Killian again. At this man who chose to get to know her agonizingly slowly despite knowing full well that they were meant to be. Who’s never pushed her or made her uncomfortable.

Her brother is right.

After an uncomfortable amount of silence and meaningful looks on both sides of the table, Emma rolls her eyes and grabs the end of Killian’s jacket sleeve. He settles in beside her, casually throwing an arm around her shoulders.

“You can join us, Mary Margaret. We’ve already talked,” Emma says.

“We have?” David asks, eyeing his sister carefully.

“Yeah, we have.” She smiles and David seems to catch her meaning because he smiles back, crinkles forming in the corner of his eyes.

************

As Emma climbs into her brother’s truck, she’s struck with the strangest sense of deja vu. She turns around, sees the piles of furniture and boxes tied up in the truck bed, and she realizes that she’s done this before.

She knows, obviously, that her brother moved out before. She’d helped him move. But those memories are so surrounded by darkness, loneliness, and downright sadness that she’s shoved them out of her mind until right this moment. But this time, she feels a little hopeful.

Just a little.

“Ready?” David asks as he climbs into the driver’s seat.

“Yeah,” Emma says, and it’s not a lie.

When they arrive at the loft, Mary Margaret and Killian are waiting outside. Just the sight of him makes Emma smile, which then makes her cringe.

Sickeningly sweet, she thinks to herself. But she can’t bring herself to be upset at the simple happiness she’s feeling. She surprises him -- and herself -- by wrapping her arms around his neck when she steps out of the truck.

“Hi,” she says, followed by a soft kiss on his mouth.

“Well hello, love.” He’s smiling. She smiles back.

“Uh, are we moving today or are we all just making out on the front lawn?” David asks, his arms folded across his chest, but there’s no anger on his face. Just a small smirk in the corner of his mouth.

“Sorry, Dad,” Emma groans, separating herself from Killian and grabbing a box out of the truck bed.

When it’s all over, and David’s moved into the loft, and Killian’s moved into the apartment, Emma collapses on the couch. Rascal hops up beside her and situates himself with his head in her lap.

“Tired?” Killian asks her.

“Are you not?” Emma knows he must be. Her muscles are screaming, her eyes closing of their own accord.

“Oh, certainly. But I’d hoped we could celebrate.” He pulls out a bottle of wine from behind his back.

“Celebrate what?” Emma snorts. “You know we’ve been doing this for six months now, it’s just that now your stuff is in my closet instead of all the way back at home. You can actually get dressed in fresh clothes in the morning.”

“And that’s not cause for a celebratory glass of wine?” Killian asks, putting the bottle down and walking back to the kitchen to get two glasses.

“One glass, Jones.” She holds up a finger to emphasise her point. “And then you can carry me to bed like the gentleman you are.”

“Oh, I think I can handle that.”

It turns out living together is exactly like practically living together, in almost every conceivable way. Emma has to make room in her closet, but they’ve got a spare room now, so she just moves her shorts and her summer dresses into David’s old closet and leaves her thick coats and heaviest shirts in her own room until the winter chill finally subsides.

There are still pancakes every morning, and most nights they still fall asleep on the couch for a few hours before slowly migrating to their bed.

Their bed.

It’s all very domestic, and Emma slowly stops waiting for the other shoe to drop. She stops waiting for the morning she’ll wake up and there won’t be a handsome Englishman waiting for her, stops hesitating before she opens up the door for fear that his stuff will all be gone.

She stops being afraid.

#cspupstravaganza #captain swan #captain swan fanfic #cs fanfic #cs ff #CAITLIN WRITES

[hegodamask]

I think you've already talked about this before but I couldn't find the post on your Tumblr, so I was just wondering what your process was for making animated gifs. Like what methods you use to make them, what software you use, etc? Also, what parts do you find most fun or difficult or challenging? I've started making some animated gis, and while I don't know if I'll ever be nearly as prolific as you are, I was interested in learning more about them.

Oh hey! Thank you!! I don’t think I’ve ever gone through the process of how I make gifs in detail before, mainly because I don’t use Photoshop so I just assume my advice won’t be helpful to anybody. I don’t know how helpful this will be to you, but I’ve done a little step by step walkthrough of how I make a gif with a few general pointers thrown in. I was gonna try and keep it brief but it turned out much longer…..sorry.

I’ve put what I find most difficult and fun at the end, so you can just skip to that if you want.

As for the rest, here goes….

So, background: I taught myself how to make gifs using Serif Photoplus X2 because we used their products in highschool. Then a few years later, I updated to Photoplus X7 (made hardly any difference though). Serif doesn’t even make the Photoplus range anymore (they still sell X8 but it’s rubbish and crashes a lot, and their new product Affinity doesn’t even let you make gifs!). I’ve tried to use Photoshop in the past and everyone says it’s better, but I’m stuck in my ways like the stubborn old woman I am.

Anyways, when I want to make a gif I start off by capturing screenshots for the frames. I’ve always used GOM Player and their “Burst Capture” option to do this. GOM Player lets you choose the format your images are saved as and where you want the frames saved to. I have a special “captures” folder for temporarily storing the files in. So for example, these are my frames:

A good general tip for making gifs with any software is to use the best quality video you can find. Most of the stuff I make is with 1080p or 720p quality. I find it helps when it comes to colouring and making the gif look clearer.

Once I have my captures, I copy them into my animation “canvas” (or SPP file) which has a base colouring I’ve already made on it. It’s kind of like a PSD on Photoshop. I select my captures and drag them onto the canvas which looks like this:

The canvas is 1080p, the same as the captures but everything will be resized later. I originally captured 100 screenshots here, but I’ve decided to use only 40 in the end because I want to make a 540px width gif. If I used all 100 frames for a 540px gif it would end up being way over the 3mb limit and it wouldn’t work on Tumblr.

Now this is where the time consuming work comes in for me. Once my captures have been copied into the SPP file, they actually become layers which I have to turn into gif frames (if that makes sense). So at the moment they look like this

But I don’t have any actual frames yet at the bottom of the screen. So what I do next is go to the layers tab at the top of the screen and click “hide layers”, making them all invisible

Then basically what I do next is create a frame at the bottom and assign an individual capture to it by clicking the little grey square (making it visible again). So as you can see, my first frame is for my first capture/layer. The next frame will be the capture/layer on top of that.

So yeah, that means I create each frame individually. It’s veeery time consuming but you get quicker at it the more you do it (it’s also faster to do on a laptop touch pad rather than a mouse.). 

Once I’ve created all my frames, I reselect the colouring layers at the top so they’re visible on every frame. It should look like this

Next, you need to crop your gif and resize it. I want my gif to be 540px by 270px so I put 54.00 and 27.00 into the crop feature to get it accurate. This allows me to crop the canvas into the right dimensions.

Once I’ve cropped the canvas, I then go to the Image tab at the top and click “Image Size…” and set the image size to 540px by 270px. I usually ignore the Print Size bit.

540px is the best size for a full width Tumblr gif, anything bigger or smaller will make your gif look blurry. This gifset is a good guide for making sure Tumblr doesn’t blur or crop your gifs.

My gif is almost ready to be exported. But I want it to look clearer, so I sharpen all the layer/captures (yes, individually again). I have no settings for sharpening, but I find using the standard “Sharpen” effect under the “Effects” tab is enough. 

Once I’ve sharpened everything, I get to the colouring and exporting which is the biggest challenge for me. Photoplus’ options for exporting gifs are limited, so the only decent export options are these

“Web-safe” and “Ordered” makes the gif look like this

“Optimized” and “None” makes it look like this. Okay, but the background looks low quality and patchy

“Optimized” and “Error Diffusion” is the only one that to me, looks the best quality. That’s probably why it produces the bigger file size too (the gif below is 2.78mb)

But there’s other downsides to Error Diffusion which I’m still trying to figure out to this day.  Like how it makes parts of the gif “glitch” (that’s the only way I can describe it) or look extra fuzzy. The only way you can fix it is by playing around with the colouring. And by “playing” I mean adjusting and previewing until you want gouge ur eyes out :)

I think that’s why I like giffing The Terror so much, because the film they used has a grainy texture to it, making it easier to hide all my Error Diffusion sins. Though there’s been many times I’ve posted something and hoped no one’s noticed all the mistakes. 

Some general tips for colouring

Unless you’re going for a certain effect, emphasise on the colours that are already in the shot. In my gif  above for example, I turned up the blues and cyans.

Use Levels or Curves instead of Brightness and Contrast.

Zoom in on your gif to spot any Error Diffusion glitches.

Be mindful about whitewashing POC, especially if you’re following the pastel gif trend.

Look at how other people colour their gifs and use PSDs for reference but don’t rely on them too much.

Colouring can increase or decrease the gif file size. If you need to get below 3mb, try toning down super vibrant colours. If the shot you’re giffing is dark, make it a bit darker. If it’s light, make it a bit lighter. 

If all else fails, just make the gif black and white.

Reading all this back makes how I make gifs look like a nightmare lmao. But I’ve been doing it this way since like, 2012 and i love it. I started out making very bad Star Wars and Lady Gaga gifs but as time has gone on and I’ve gotten better, I’ve found I enjoy making things for smaller fandoms much more. I like that if I want a certain set or edit on my blog, I can just go and make it (with varying degrees of success) instead of waiting for someone else to do it.

You appreciate the work that goes into making a movie or show when you make gifs too. Like, you notice subtle little things in the actors performances or something the cinematography is trying to convey. You get to revisit a scene in detail and then share it with everybody else and if you’re lucky, watch them scream in the tags get some nice comments.

There’s lots of other stuff I like about making gifs but I’ve rambled on far too much so I’m just gonna shut up for now. But I think I’ve covered all the important stuff. I don’t know how much of a help I’ve been (there’s still stuff I don’t understand myself) but if there’s anything else you want to know just drop me a message. Good luck with your own gifs!! I’m sure you can do  a much better job than me!

#Ask #unspeakablehorror #phew! this is a full on essay i'm sorry #gif making #Serif Photoplus #photoplus #long post

[lewis-renalia]

Here is the aforementioned ‘jon and martin get over themselves and actually talk’ fic I ranted about in the tags of another post the other day. its 100% me just venting and wanting to write a fix-it for their personal lives. 

you can read it on ao3 (https://archiveofourown.org/works/19021939/chapters/45174940) or under the cut

Title: No rom-com bullshit

Pairing: Jon/Martin (M/M)

Rating: Teen and up

No warnings, just a little canon typical angst and fluff

Jon locks the door of his office behind them, Martin quirks an eyebrow as he hears the lock click into place but seems to decide it not worth commenting on. Yet.

“We’re not going to do this- this stupid rom com thing anymore.” Jon blurts out. He had planned what he was going to say when he got Martin in here. This was not it. His original speech had involved a lot about tempering expectations and careful planning but being in a locked room with Martin had thrown all that out the window in an instant. For better or worse, judging by how high Martin’s eyebrows were now it was probably worse, this was the road they were going down now.

“I’m sorry, what? Are you feeling alright?” Martin walks towards him, trapping Jon between his body and the door as he places the back of his hand on Jon’s forehead. Martin’s warm hand feels like its branding him, burning into the cool skin of his forehead. Jon’s breath faulters for a second, unable to decide if he should breathe in or out. He pulls his senses back, shaking Martin’s hand away with a flick of his head. Martin pulls back, faint lines of worry etching into his face. Jon pushes past him into the room so he can lean sit on the front edge of his desk

“We’re not doing the whole ‘will-they-won’t-they’ bullshit they love to put in those movies, blushing every time we get near each other, but always pulling away when the other draws near.” He’s suddenly aware that he’s waving his hands around to emphasise what he’s saying, he clamps them to the edge of the desk, “It all being super obvious to everyone but the couple. Being jealous when one of them speaks to someone else. All that unnecessary back and forth. We’re both too old for it.”

Martin hasn’t moved from where Jon left him, hovering unsure by the door.

“What are you saying?” Martin asks after a moment, breaking the tense silence that had hung between them. His expression is guarded while Jon jumbles the words around in his head, trying to find the way to say it without being a complete arse.

“I-uh,” the bravado that had gotten him through the first part of his plan left him, his words tripped over each other as the scramble to all come out at the same time, “listen to every-uh tape made. Not to mention the things I hear aroun- they don’t matter I suppose. People don’t know, they just guess, but they’re usually better guessers when it comes to these things than I am.” He forces out a hysterical sounding nervous chuckle that only results in Martin’s gaze changing from confused to concerned.

Oh sod it.

“I’ve heard that you have uh- feelings for me.” Jon feels like he might faint. His pulse bounds like a physical entity, a trapped animal, desperately trying to escape his chest as he forces each and every syllable out of his mouth.

Martin’s face cycles through a few emotions, each as inscrutable to Jon as the last until Martin manages to school his face into something approaching neutral.

“I see.”

“I’ve always been bad at these things, I mean I basically dated Georgie for a month before I even realised that we were dating, and when I asked her if we were dating she was understandably confused because, after all, I was the one who asked her out apparently and-“ Jon snaps his mouth shut as he realises he’s babbling, a nervous trait from childhood rearing its head. He can hear his grandma snapping at him ‘Say what you mean boy and nothing more!’. He takes a deep breath before continuing.

“Anyway, I didn’t know how to deal with,” he gestures jerkily between them, “this, so I’ve ignored it, blamed circumstances and squashed it all down. But I’ve been reliably informed that that’s not a solution for personal problems and is quite mean, which I didn’t even realise, so I’m sorry about that.”

“So, what? Back off? Leave me alone? I’m fired?”

Jon snaps his gaze back to Martin (when had he looked away, he wondered), finally seeing the hurt slipping through the neutral mask.

Jon cursed himself, for all the talking he’d just done he hadn’t even said what he wanted to say.

“No!” He speaks too loudly for the small space and his shout causes Martin to blink rapidly. “God no, quite the opposite. I-uh.” He stops, unable to force himself to say the words screaming in his head.

Martin’s expression softens, something on Jon’s face lets him step closer until he’s close enough to lay a hand on Jon’s shoulder, comforting but not rushing.

Jon takes a deep breath, holds it and releases. The fainting feeling recedes slightly.

“I might like you too,” he confesses in barely more than a whisper. He stares blankly over Martin’s should, the confession weighing too heavily to allow eye contact.

He starts when Martin’s other hand rests lightly on his cheek, gently directing him to make eye contact. His heart flutters wildly when he sees Martin smiling.

“Why do you know so much about rom-coms?”

The question surprises Jon, instantly breaking the tension coiled in his body, it forces it way out as bone deep laughter. He leans forward to steady himself, resting his forehead on Martin’s shoulder. Martin shifts his hand on Jon’s face to cup the back of his head as the other hand pulls them both closer, an almost hug. Jon barely notices as the giggles tremble through him.

The laughing subsides in fits and bursts but Jon leaves his head on Martin’s shoulder, enjoying the comfort of the quasi-hug.

“In an effort to not be like a rom-com,” Martin asks when the laughter seems to have completely stopped, “can I kiss you?”

Jon lifts his head and eschews words in favour of leaning in and kissing Martin.

The angle is wrong at first, with Martin being taller than him and Jon making himself shorter still by being half perched on the desk, but Martin pulls back slightly and Jon follows, not wanting it to stop yet. Then they are both standing, chest to chest, Jon’s hand furled tight in the shirt above Martin’s shoulder blades. Then, all at once, its perfect.

-----

“My relationships never last.”

Martin looks up at Jon, confused. They had been peacefully watching Golden Eye until Jon had thrown that sentence out into the aether of Martin’s flat.  

“Okay?” Martin prompts as he sits up, he’d slumped down throughout the movie until his head had rested in Jon’s lap, Jon’s fingers absentmindedly petting through his hair as they watched Bond save the world, but he feels this is a sitting up kind of conversation.

Distractedly he hits pause on the remote, freezing Pierce Brosnan in the middle of a cocky smile, “What prompted that?”

Jon shrugged, his usual emotional constipation snapping back with full force.

“I’d love if you told me if I’ve done something to make you uncomfortable.” He leans over and presses a kiss to Jon’s cheek as the other man determinedly avoids eye contact. “I’d love to avoid ‘all that rom-com bullshit’.” As predicted, this draws a scoff out of Jon and breaks him out of his reverie, he tilts his head to meet Martin’s and returns the kiss chastely.

“It’s nothing you’ve done, but-“Martin watches as Jon retreats into his head again and waits, giving him time to organise his thoughts. He sits back against the arm of the couch and opens his legs, inviting the other man to lean back against him. Jon, grateful for a way to avoid eye contact while explaining himself, scoots over to sit with his back to Martin’s front.

Jon is quiet for long enough that Martin fears that he might have nodded off to avoid the conversation but he eventually speaks, his words slow and measured, attempting to convey without accusing.

“It’s just how things go,” he shrugs, the movement awkward in his current seat.

“Hmm, and why do you think it’ll go that way this time?” He stops Jon picking at his thumb nail by entwining their right hands together palm to palm.

“They just always have. It’s fine in the beginning, people are happy with hugs and meals and little kisses.” Jon sighs, lifting their joined hands to press a kiss to their intertwined knuckles. “Then they want more an-“ his voice falters, a common issue when he talks about emotions, Martin knows he hate it, views it as a weakness on top of weakness. The words all lain before him but out of his grasp when he needs them most.

“and I can’t give more.” He grounds out, each word sounding hard won. “Then sometimes they say that’s fine, they can live without more. But they can’t. And they drift away. Or I push them away. Because they deserve more.” His grip on Martin’s hand is bordering on painful, his body tensing into stiff angles and pulling away as he becomes more and more agitated.

“What about what you deserve then?” Martin slips an arm around his belly forcing him to relax back against him again, “do you think you’re doomed to be lonely? Unloved?”

The silence speaks volumes, not a silence of thought but resignation. Jon slumps back against him, the anger and fight leaving him all at once, replaced with anxiety so thick it seemed to radiate off him in waves.

“And do you think so little of me? I broke into a spider filled flat for you once, remember? I don’t do grand gestures like that lightly. And that was when you didn’t like me!” Jon doesn’t respond, happy to wallow in his anxieties now that they’ve been aired. Martin sighs, letting his fingers drum lightly against Jon’s stomach.

“My instincts just want to swaddle you up from the outside world so no-one can ever hurt you again. But the fact of the matter is that I can’t fix this with some big romantic gesture or say something that’ll make you wake up tomorrow without all the hurt people have left you with. But I can promise you tomorrow. And tomorrow I can promise you tomorrow. And I can keep doing that until you believe me. Or maybe you never will. But at least I can always promise you tomorrow, so you will always have that to look forward to?”

Jon disentangles himself, twisting around to face Martin. His expression isn’t happy, Martin decides to label it ‘carefully optimistic’. Jon’s broken edges hidden again, hopefully a little less damaged than they were before.

“I thought you said no rom-com crap?”

-----

Jon shifts restlessly again, pulling away from the loose hold he’d had around Martin’s back. It had gotten too hot. Too much. Too unsure. All of a sudden it had gone from comfortable to anxiety inducing. He curls around himself, pressing his back into Martin’s. He feels the spark of comfort that comes from being in contact with the other man, the calm that the contact with another living being bring - Martin specifically- crawls through his skin and soothes him. Then feeling of ‘not right’ hits again, it’s not enough, it’s too much, its uncomfortable. He groans in frustration as he turns again, Martin’s arm heavily drops across his chest, pinning him on his back. Martin doesn’t open his eyes but shifts to tuck his head into Jon’s neck, a sleepy chuckle ghosts past his lips and brushes over Jon’s neck.

“S’top movin’.”

Jon tries, he turns his head into Martin’s hair. The scent of his shampoo curling into his nose. He counts backwards from a thousand, recalling the dewy decimal categories that correspond with the numbers as he goes. It’s not enough, the feeling of ‘not right’ creeps up again as he fights it with as much as he can, desperately trying to think what part of the arts section 730 covers. His discomfort is palpable enough that Martin raises his head, Jon opens his eyes to find Martin looking at him. He brushes a hand gently over Jon’s face, pushing the hair back from his eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

A low frustrated growl rumbles out of Jon before he notices he’s doing it.

“I can’t – nothing’s comfortable. Everything is- it’s too much? But no its- I’m fine and then I can’t breathe and it’s too warm but it’s also not enough, its overwhelming and underwhelming all at the same time, and I get frustrated an- I should just get up and let you sleep. I’ll read some statements an-“

Martin rests his forehead on Jon’s, eyes slipping almost closed again, and Jon loses his train of thought. The contact is once again sweet ambrosia, comfort and calm. The undercurrent of anxiety hums, the fear that ‘this too will pass’ churns in his gut.

Martin presses his lips to Jon’s, too sleepy, too fleeting, to be called a kiss, but the intent the same. The message is clear: ‘no rom-com stupidity’

“Let me try something?” Martin asks against his mouth.

Jon’s head twitches minutely in something like a nod, as much as he can manage without dislodging Martin.

Martin lifts the rest of his body off the bed, the mattress creaking in vague protest.

“Let me know if I’m too heavy.”

He manoeuvres himself wholly above Jon before lowering himself to lie completely on top of him. Jon’s breath is taken away slightly as he adjusts to the taller man’s weight on top of him, there is a little wiggling as pointy bones are moved out of the way of soft flesh and then Martin practically melts into him, tucking his head back into the crook of Jon’s neck.

“Better?” he asks, muffled.

Jon flexes his left foot, softly brushing the inside of Martin’s calf. He feels calm? The anxious scrabbling that usually takes up a sizeable chunk of his brain space has calmed, no more than white noise in the back of his brain. The urge to move goes with it, stifled by the heat of Martin’s body pressing him into the mattress.

“Much,” he decided, half pressing a kiss to Martin’s hair while trying not to move him too much.

“Good, now sleep.”

And, to Jon’s surprise, he finds himself already drifting off.

#fanfiction #jon/martin #fluff #my writing #tma #the magnus archives #i just want them to be happy

[scripttorture]

Star Wars AU anon! Thanks for letting me know! Basically, my questions were: How can I characterize Rey’s deskilling/mental health issues in a mafia setting if she goes on a trip with Finn? How could I characterize Boss Kylo and why he would keep a torture group that is poisoning his organization? I want Finn to inform him when he sees Rey’s condition and incompetence as more than just being new, but I want Kylo to see competent/powerful and not too dense about his organization. [1/2]

(Star Wars anon) Lastly, just to make sure I didn’t miss anything, would the torturers interact with Kylo and would they be disrespectful? Or only toward those who don’t like torture? Would Rey be nice to Finn even though he doesn’t like torture itself? [2/2]

Thisis quite a long set of questions, I’ll try to tackle it as best Ican. Some of these have more definitive answers than others. In somecases I might make suggestions based on the characters, as I’mfamiliar with them.

And this got very long so the rest of it is under the cut.

Ihad quite a few conversations with the author discussing the story,so I got quite a bit of extra information on the characters andcontext.

Oneof the things that came up in conversation with the asker was a fearthat this plot might have sexist connotations. That Rey is going frombeing led by Kylo to being led by Finn.

Nothingin the plot outline struck me as particularly sexist, though I agreethat context and connotations are important. Female torturers arerare but there’s nothing in the current research to suggest thatthis is because women are less likely to torture. Instead thedisparity is likely explained by women being denied opportunities.In most countries the sorts of occupations torturers are usuallyemployed as, are heavily skewed towards men. In some countries womenare actively barred from filling these roles.

Theresult is that (while I admit research is lacking) it seems likelythat there are less female torturers because there are less women ina position where they can become torturers. When there arewomen in these kinds of positions and environments then we dostart seeing them participating in torture.

Oneof the things the author mentioned in conversation was thedifferences between torture in a military or policing context (ie thefocus of most research) and in an organised crime context. When itcomes to the gender ratio the observations in policing and themilitary hold just as true for organised crime: most of thesecriminal organisations favour men and many actively exclude women.

Thatdoes effect Rey’s position here. The story puts her in a sexistenvironment, but that doesn’t necessarily make the story sexist. Ithink if you’re worried about that the thing to emphasise here isRey’s choice.

Theodds are that in this deeply sexist environment she’s listening toKylo because he gave her a chance. It may seem cliché butpeople do remember and respond well too individuals who help us wheneveryone else was dismissive. Stressing her reasons for followingmakes this less about Kylo and more about Rey actively choosingbetween the options available to her.

Youcan then extend that to Finn as well. Because if this Rey limitsherself to a life in organised crime (or a life as a torturer),  thenshe may well see Kylo as her best option. Listening to Finn thenbecomes less about Finn himself and more about Rey discovering thatactually she does have other options. Again, it’s aboutshifting the focus to emphasise that she’s making a choice.

Asfor how sexism would effect the way readers respond to afemale torturer-

Ithink whatever you do there will always be a couple of people whowill excuse a character’s actions because they like the characteror because she’s a young, pretty white girl and thereforecan do no wrong. However well you write this scenario you’re notgoing to get rid of that section of fandom.

Iknow quite a few fic authors who have written wonderful, lengthynuanced (tagged) pieces and still gotten a bunch of responsesthat say far more about the commenters prejudice then they do aboutthe character or fic. They are a minority ofcomments/responses. I would suggest preparing yourself for thoseresponses even while doing the best job you can.

AndI think the answer here is actually the same as the prior one:emphasise Rey’s choice. Kylo may want or ask her to dohorrible things but it is still her choice to do them. Emphasise herreasons and motivations. They won’t all be about pleasing her boss.

Somethingyou could include that would help here (and be in keeping with thebehaviour of torturers) is having her jump the gun sometimes. Havingher leaping straight into abusive behaviour before she has theorder or OK from Kylo. She might then have to justify her actions tohim afterwards. But one or two incidents of this kind of realisticinsubordination would serve to underline her decisions, her thoughtprocesses and her choice.

Ithink this is probably the point where I should start talking aboutorganised crime.

It’sa minor point but I’m not sure it’s appropriate to call thesesorts of Organised Crime settings/AUs ‘Mafia’ AUs. I’ve seenquite a few Italians object to this usage and- well it seems to implythat mafia groups are a thing of the past or from old Americanmovies. Rather than hugely powerful groups that are very much stillaround murdering people today. Hence why I’m referring to this as‘organised crime’ throughout.

Ialso think that the story you’re going for would benefitfrom a little distance from Mafias in particular. Because while youdo get torture around some of their ‘traditional’ activities (ieracketeering and ‘protection’ money) it comes up a lot morefrequently in human trafficking gangs. I’mnot sure if that’s something you want to use butif Kylo’s gang had a history of being involved in that trade itcould explain why they have a full-time torturer.

Fromwhat I can tell (and once again I’m not an expert on organisedcrime) most of these sorts of gangs don’t.There doesn’t seem to be the same relentless intensity of violencethat you see in the context of police and military torturers.

Iam not suggesting thatorganised criminals don’t torture or that they don’t dohorrendous things. What I’m saying is that individual gang membersdon’t typically seem to occupy positions where they’ll betorturing people 9-5, five days a week every week for years at atime. And that difference in intensity of exposure maylead to a difference in things like symptom severity. I don’tcurrently have enough data to confidently judge that.

ButI think if you characterise this criminal group as having beenheavily involved in human trafficking in the past (whether it stillis now or not) then you have more a plausible explanation for thespace you want Rey to occupy.

Internationalhuman trafficking gangs definitelyhave members who are engaged in torture in ways that are comparableto military and police torturers. Thishappens while victims are being transported and throughout the timethey’re held. The result is that gangs members who have directcontact with victims are oftentorturing or witnessing torture for the majority of their day.

Ifyou feel comfortable writing the characters engaged in these sorts ofactivities then you have a perfectly plausible explanation for Rey’scondition and function within the organisation already: she startedout at that level and she’s carrying the same behaviours andproblems forwards.

Ifyou don’t feelcomfortable writing that I think you could get Rey to a similarposition by having that as part of the gang’s recent past.

I’mthinking of a scenario something like this- The gang has stoppedengaging in human trafficking for whatever reason. However there arestill a fair few older members who were heavily involved with humantrafficking, including torturers. These older torturers are likely tofeel like they’ve been sidelined. They’re likely to feel bitterand generally opposed to the organisation’s current leadership. Asa result most of them are not likely to last long in the gang.

Butyou only really need one or two to last until Rey joins. Becausetorture is generally passed on in the same way ‘craft’professions are: an older more experienced person takes it uponthemselves to show a younger person how to do things.

Reyis already in this intensely sexist and competitive environment. Alot of fellow criminals are unlikely to want to give her the time ofday when she starts out and Kylo may not have noticed her instantly.She’d likely be isolated within this group, which makes her a primetarget for a torturer to pick up as an apprentice. The oldercharacter’s motivation here would be showing the others that theystill have a purpose and that what they do has a use. From Rey’sperspective she’d probably just be glad to have someone in the gangappearing to care for her and give her attention.

Ifyou haven’t found a use for Phasma in the story this could be avery good background role for her. It could also help address some ofthe worries you have about sexism by giving Rey a female ‘mentor’.

Thiskind of ‘training’ from early on when Rey joins could give anexplanation for her being pigeon-holed into this sort of violentrole. In fact it could be something her mentor figure here activelyencouraged. ‘Look how well I trained her to be violent. Use her forthis. Send her in when the protection money isn’t paid and you needto make an example out of someone.’

Itgives Rey her ‘role’ in the organisation and it would give adisgruntled, bitter formerly-activetorturer thekind of ego boost they thrive on.

Nownormally I would say that yestorturers would show a lack of respect to the people who outrankthem. Which in this scenario includes Kylo. But- well with some ofthe things I’ve outlined above, the likely sexist nature of theorganisation and this mentor-ship idea to explain Rey’s role- Ithink you could plausibly side step that.

Ina typical situation torturers disobey orders and don’t respond wellto authority. However this isn’t a typical situation. If Rey feelslike Kylo is one of the few men/people in this organisation that’sgiven her a fair chance (or one of the few to respect her‘abilities’) then that couldresult in a different relationship.

Theask and our conversations gives me the impression that theirrelationship isn’t distant. They know each other personally, thereseems to be a certain amount of mutual respect there. I think thatfits with the way you’ve established these two characters withinthis AU. It seems like this Rey may well feel personally indebted tothis Kylo.

Thatdoesn’t extend to other torturers though.

Thereare two realistic ways to handle that. The first is keeping thenumber of torturers very low; perhaps only two others aside from Rey.That could lead to a situation where Rey is the only one reallyinteracting with Kylo. The second is giving the torturers a highturnover rate: a lot of them are killed quickly for insubordinationor general incompetence.

Bothof those are plausible, realistic scenarios and they can functiontogether. The second in particular could be used to strengthen theboss-employee relationship between Kylo and Rey. He may well havenoticed that the torturers generallyaren’t trustworthy while also noticing that Reyhasn’t been insubordinate. That could also help with making himseem less incompetent; he believes Rey is trustworthy so he’sattaching the problems with other torturers to the individuals ratherthan torture itself.

HonestlyI’m a little unsure what else to advise with regards to Kylo andincompetence because one of the things I love about the character ishow incompetent he comes across as. I absolutely adore the way StarWars gave us this villain with huge personal power and no idea how towield it. With so many villains positioned as incredibly smart andtactical it seemed incredibly refreshing to me.

Divorcingthat question from the character though-

Ina military context a lot of superior officers don’t notice the facttorture doesn’t work because they’re not effectively comparingwhat their people are actually doing. Torture destroys their abilityto fact check.

Ithink this is probably easiest to explain in a policing context. Saythere’s been a robbery. The torturers go out and arrest some randompeople while the officers who are actually policing do the hard workof trying to look for evidence. To the superior (who is going by whatthe subordinate officers say)it looks as if the torturers have been more efficient. They havesuspects in jail already.

Bythe time the officers come back with some evidence the torturers mayhave forced a confession out of someone. The superior looks at thatand at the evidence and realises they don’t match. At this pointthe superiors has one group of subordinates telling them one thing iscertain, and another group saying something different. They’relikely to tell both groups to go away and investigate further.

Inthat time the torturers will probably get their victim to changetheir confession, taking the new details into account.

Thesuperior ends up praising them and feeling like they’ve got the‘right’ person. The officers go on working in the background anduncover more evidence that contradicts this, but by that point thevictim may already have been charged. The case might go to court andget thrown out because the evidence contradicts the confession.

Butby that point the truth, as it’s being communicated to the superiorofficer, is so muddied that it’s not particularly surprising thesuperior is having trouble. Especially when they’re dealing with alot of cases.

Unlessthey keep detailed records of these sorts of confused, contradictoryevents and the officers involved over time, they may well notidentify the problem with particular officers. It’s a question oftrust: superiors often need a clear reason to stop trusting theirsubordinates and torturers are usually very good at presenting theirstory as if it’s established fact.

Thisfeeds into the broader question of why an organisation might keepthese groups around. What follows is my opinion, rather thansomething I can point to research on.

Inthe context of the sort of organised criminal group you’representing- they may just not care. They may see it as something thatscares the competition and victims. They may (wrongly) believe thismakes people more likely to obey them.

Iget the impression that in military and police organisations there’soften a lack of will: the authorities in particular areas can’t bebothered to root out torture. There’s also often a high acceptanceof apologist ideals, especially ones surrounding victim’s‘deserving’ to be tortured.

Ifyou choose to use the idea that the gang engaged in human traffickingin the past they may have torturers through... inertia. They’ve‘always’ had them so why change?

Organisations,criminal or otherwise, don’tnaturally follow the path to greatest efficiency. People do thingsthey think work,rather than rigorously test everything. And if this organisation hasnever been without torturers then they probably have no idea how muchthey’re being dragged down.

Buthonestly? I don’t think you need much more explanation then anacceptance of apologist ideas and a lack of will/time/energy to roottorture out.

Ithink that covers the questions about the organisation and leaves thequestions about Rey in particular and her interactions with Finn.

I’mgoing to try and start with mental health problems.

Oneof the questions underlying this is what it takes for us to recognisesomething as a mental health issue, as opposed to an individual issueor not liking someone. And that varies greatly depending on theculture. The question of recognising and addressing incompetence intorturers is much easier.  

You’veprobably taken a look at the list of symptoms but here they are againjust in case.

Ithink characterising and recognisingthose symptoms depends on both the symptoms themselves and thecharacters.

Somesymptoms are probably easier to recognise in the context of thistrip. Memory lapses stand out as both obviouswhen you’re spending a lot of time with someone and something thatcan be tied to incompetence. Addiction could be used similarly butcan easily warp any narrative it’s put into: make sure you’ve gotthe narrative space to address it before deciding to use it.

Anxiety,panic attacks and PTSD can all make people freeze or seem to spaceout. They can cause visibleshakes. Anxiety and panicattacks can also make people repeat words or speak noticeably morequickly.

Depressionand anxiety can cause nausea and difficulty eating.

Hypervigilance,anxiety and panic attacks can look like paranoia. And any of thosesymptoms coupled with insomnia, memory loss or difficulty relating topeople can lead to situations where characters massivelymisjudge someone’s emotional state or a situation more generally.

Someof these things are easier to recognise as mental health problemswithout prior information on mental health. I think the best thing todo here is decide on symptoms, not just in relation to Rey but inrelation to what you think Finn would recognise. You need thesymptoms you pick to fit the broader plot as well as the character,so I’d suggest leaving out symptoms that you don’tthink Finn would be able torecognise as symptoms.

Deskillingis going to be- well prettydependant on what Rey and Finn are actually doing during this trip.

NarrativelyI think the best way to approach that would be to try and create anincident that highlights it, a situation where Rey leaps into doingsomething Finn knows is wrong. Not in the moral sense, in thepractical sense.

Thebasic template that comes to mind for me is this: Rey and Finn arelooking for someone, some thing or a particular important piece ofinformation. They’re in a new place. They’ve been together forthe time it took to get there but they don’t necessarily know eachother well yet.

Theydecide they’ll cover more ground if they split up. Youcould then show Finn following effective investigation methods andgetting some decent leads as a result. He contacts Rey and askshow she’s doing. Rey says she’s doing great and she’s got somefantastic leads. But when they meet up the things she’s saying makeno sense to Finn. They contradict the information he has, informationthat’s backed up by separate sources.

Finnmight be a little suspicious of this but interpreting it as a lack ofskilled information gathering means having the pattern repeat. Itmight mean Finn going out and trying to investigate Rey’s ‘leads’and finding either nothing or outright refuting evidence. Or it mightjust mean a generalised pattern of the same thing repeating; theykeep coming up with different ‘evidence’ and Rey’s is startingto seem increasingly outlandish.

Eventuallythat could lead to Finn questioning howRey is getting information. Finn might also start encounteringunexpected resistance. You could have previously reliable informantsflatly tell him they don’t want to talk to him any more because hebrought a torturer into town (perhaps people they know were targettedor perhaps they fear for their own safety).

Fromthe longer conversations I had with the author it’s clear that Reyisn’t completely comfortable with her role by this point and she’sprobably linked her mental health problems to what she’s doing insome way.

Nownormally I would saythat a character trying to intervene and stop a torturer (or justtrying to present an anti-torture point of view) was likely to getattacked. But I think a combination of the way you’ve characterisedthis version of Rey and the isolated situation they’re both inmeans that you could pull this off.

I’vespoken before about how torturers have a tendency to interpretanti-torture stances as attacks and respond accordingly. But thatresearch is all from amilitary context. What happens in that scenario is that thetorturer-sub-culture tends to close ranks. They try to make life asuncomfortable as possible for the person they see as a ‘threat’.Social isolation, bullying, attempts to sabotage their job and thelike are common. The situation can escalate to violence and attemptedmurder.

Howeverthis is within a context where torture is (at least theoretically)always against the rules. Your characters are alreadybreaking the law, none of them need to really worry about whetherbreaking another law is going to get them jailed or fired.

You’vealso taken Rey outsideof that toxic sub-culture when this happens. So she isn’t going tohave other people putting social pressure on her to reject what Finnsays.

Sometorturers do say theywant to stop. Especially when they acknowledge that their healthproblems are caused by what they do.

Whetherthis counts as ‘guilt’ or ‘regret’ depends on how you definethose terms. I think a lot of torturers regret the consequencestorture has had for them.But that’s not the same as a deeper understanding of what they puttheir victims through.

Fromeverything you’ve said about the way you’re characterising Reyand the story generally I think you could easily present her as‘regretting’ the fact her actions have led to her mental healthproblems. A greater insight into what she’s done would probablytake more time. But I’m not sure that greater insight would benecessary at this point, when you have Finn confronting Rey about thepointlessness of her actions.

Ifshe’s aware that she’s hurting herself and Finn can presentevidence that what she’s doing is ineffectivethen I think you have enough for the character development and arcyou have planned. It seems plausible to have an intervention workwith these specific characters under these specific conditions.

Ithink that leaves the question of Finn bringing this information toKylo and the question of how Rey might interact with Finn morebroadly.

It’sseems pretty clear to me that you’ve got their relationship growingand changing as the story progresses. It would make sense to havetheir interactions and Rey’s attitude change over that time periodas well.

Onceagain the differences between military torture and torture in anorganised crime context come into play here. Everything I’ve justsaid about how Rey might respond to Finn pointing out how ineffectiveher efforts have been is notbased on research. Because there is not so far as I know sufficientresearch on this in organised crime particularly. It’s an educatedguess on my part.

Imentioned that Rey is…. ina position where she’s at less ‘risk’ then a military torturermight be. That could result in a less confrontational attitudetowards Finn at first but I’m not sure. What it boils down to iswhether she sees him as a threat. Not in a physical sense but as athreat to the role she’s carved out for herself, her position inthe organisation, her prestige, her livelihood.

Ihonestly think you could play it well in a number of ways. You couldhave Rey start this trip not feeling threatened by Finn butdismissive of him. A general attitude of ‘well he doesn’t knowwhat he’s talking about’ that lets her ignore everything he says,right up to the point where he can underline just how pointless herefforts have been.

Ithink you could also start this off with Rey feeling quite threatenedby Finn’s stance and determined to ‘prove’ she’s right. Thatcould make it harder for Finn to reach her later.

Youcould also lean in to the fact that torturers are often quitesocially stunted. If Rey is already questioning what she’s doingbecause of the effect it’s having on her health she might feel tooconflicted about the issue to really know how she feels about Finnhimself. If she thinks what she’s doing is effective and haspurpose then she might see herself as sacrificing her health for theorganisation. She may find it difficult to interact with Finn oraddress any of his points against torture.

Shemay feel like she ‘needs’ to verbally defend what she doesbecause she sees it as ‘for the greater good’.

Ithink however you start their relationship off you could use theconfrontation, Finn pointing out how ineffective her methods are, asan opportunity to bring them closer together. You could use it as anopportunity for Rey to open up about her mental health, possibly forthe first time. You could use it as a chance to have her addressthese conflicting feelings about what she does, about what her placeand purpose is if everything she’s been taught about violence is alie.

Youcan bring the characters much closer together at this point by havingFinn willing to listen andto assure her she has worth.

Asfor taking this to Kylo-

Ithink that depends on whether Finn primarily wants to get Rey out ofa bad situation or end the torturer subgroup.

Thefirst option probably means emphasising the skills she does have andhow Finn finds them useful. How they makea good team and how thatwill make Kylo more money then what he currently has Rey doing.

Thesecond option would take longer and be more involved. It would meanspelling out to Kylo both that this isn’t working and that it’sdamaging his organisation. Particularly his ability to make money.

Ifyou go down that route I think you should include Rey in theconversation in some way. You’re concerned about her agencythroughout the story so Ithink involving her in dismantling the torturer-sub-group would helpaddress that. It gives her aplatform to state her feelings and views as well as something activeto do: rebuild part of the organisation afterwards.

Shecould also play a much more active role in convincing Kylo then Finndoes. Because it’s one thing to have someone uninvolved come alongand tell him that this doesn’t work. It’s another thing to havesomeone directly involved come along and say the same thing.

Ithink stressing the fact torture isn't working is probably the mainarguement to stress here. In this universe they're all violentcriminals so a moral stance is going to be less important. But Finnand Rey can still argue that they got further when they weren't usingtorture, that torturing made their job harder and that represents alarge waste of time. Time that gang members could be using to say,make money.

Dependingon how exactly you want to play their relationships with Kylo youmight also be able to have them making more personal appeals. Rey inparticular can attest to the way doing this has injured her andtherefore argue that Kylo is going to lose good loyal people if hekeeps doing this. If you go with some of my suggestions about theorganisation generally, with a high turnover rate among torturersthen that point could stand out; highlighting that Kylo doesn'treally lose anything by instituting this new policy.

Activelygetting rid of torturers is another matter.

Somethingas simple as a change in the 'law' (in this case 'the bossdisapproves') has a big effect. But to totally eradicate torturetakes more then that. It takes time, effort and perseverance. In thecontext of a criminal organisation, I think you need to think abouthow the organisation is set up and whether they'd ever make it apriority.

Theycould still get rid of the 'ring leaders', the 'mentors' thecharacters who are most actively perpetuating this toxic sub culture.In the context of a regime that would usually mean killing them.That's not the only option in this scenario. Kicking people out ofthe gang is a possibility, but it might be seen as a risky one. Theycould join rival gangs and give away the organisation's secrets.Another possibility is setting them up and letting the authoritiestake them away. That makes them someone else's problem. I think whereexactly you go with this aspect should depend on- well how you seethis criminal organisation functioning and where you want to take thestory later on.

And,at almost five thousand words I think I’m going to have to leavethat there. I hope this helps. :)

Disclaimer

#tw torture #effects of torture #behaviour of torturers #writing torturers #ways torture fails #organised crime #fantasy ask #star wars #fanfiction #deskilling #Anonymous

[fatgirlsguidetodating]

Blog: Toxic relationships.

I've come to the point in my life that despite the fact I desperately want a partner and to have a kid that I can say to myself that I'd rather be single than be with someone who doesn't love and value me. Over the years I have seen far too many of my friends in toxic relationships, places where they weren't happy but they stayed. I watched as they often started to lose themselves and made the other person's happiness their only priority. As they put up with bullshit because they thought the pain that the toxic relationship brought them was better than the pain of losing and letting go of the person that they loved so much. Some because their culture saw other things as more important than love and happiness, some because they thought they could do no better, some because they had a kid with them and some because they loved that person so much they'd forgive anything and everything and as a result were stuck in that cycle. I've had many an argument with people over the years who say if they weren't happy they'd leave but they don't understand sometimes there's that almost battered woman syndrome affect where they just *can't* walk away. I've never been a victim of BWS but a forensic psych unit at uni really made me think and see that "just walk away" isn't that simple. And toxic relationships- some where there's no abuse as such, some where there's physical abuse, some where there's mental abuse, and some where there's a mixture- have that same cyclic response. As a friend I truly think it's one of the worst things to see someone you care about in these types of toxic relationship. You want to support them but at the same time you want to shake them and say wtf mate, you deserve so much more! So what is a toxic relationship really? How do you know if you're in one? Why do they stay? By definition, a toxic relationship is a "relationship characterized by behaviors on the part of the toxic partner that are emotionally and, not infrequently, physically damaging to their partner...a toxic relationship is not a safe place. [In essence] it [a toxic relationship] is characterized by insecurity, self-centeredness, dominance, control. [One where by staying] we risk our very being. These [toxic] relationships have mutated themselves into something that has the potential, if not corrected, to be extremely harmful to our well being." (1) How do you know if your relationship is one of these toxic ones? Well there are red flags, signs that many chose to ignore because of the cyclic nature of these relationships (more on this later including those which are abusive). Such as criticism. Not the criticism that comes from a positive place that's to help the person or relationship but more so that used to express contempt or disdain where it makes the other person feel so unvalued, unloved and worthless. There's also arguing without communicating. By that I mean over and above the normal arguments that any relationship will have, where it's more about yelling over one another and no real communication and therefore nothing is solved. Or when you avoid your partner all the time because the energy when together is completely negative. Also when you are no longer yourself. Yes you will change within a relationship, that's a given, but there's a difference when the change is bigger. (2) Something also like a constant struggle for power. Suzanne Lachman, Phd, suggests imagining your relationship as a seesaw. "If both partners understand their power (or are empowered), the seesaw stays relatively level and balanced...But if one person in the relationship has brought in a feeling of powerlessness, [they] may try to compensate by baring down on the seesaw, shifting [their] weight, and perpetually uprooting, destabilizing, or ungrounding [their] partner on the other side.” (3) And also jealousy where your partner wants you all to his/herself, so much so that you barely see friends or family because they monopolise your time. In extreme cases this also includes where they may stop you from going out with say single friends or drinking. There are also behaviours that are toxic that most people would think of as normal within a relationship. The problem here however is that, in part, many unhealthy relationship habits are baked into our culture. As Mark Manson puts it "we worship romantic love — you know, that dizzying and irrational romantic love that somehow finds breaking china plates on the wall in a fit of tears somewhat endearing — and scoff at practicality or unconventional sexualities." (4) In his article he lists the 6 behaviours that psychological research has shown are actually toxic rather than just part of the usual ebb and flow of a relationship. These include keeping score (you know the whole well you got drunk at my 21st and I had to spend the night looking after you despite it being my big night so I got revenge by flirting with my hot work colleague), excessively passive aggressive behaviour (finding small and petty ways to piss your partner off so you can feel like being mad at them is totally justified), blaming your partner for your own emotions (you had a shitty day at uni but when you wanted that sympathy and support he was busy playing call of duty or busy with work) or buying solutions to problems (a holiday will solve everything right?). Despite this these relationships aren't necessarily hopeless but if they are going to work they need a lot of hard work to be changed into a healthy relationship. The paradox is that in order to have a reasonable chance to turn a toxic relationship into a healthy relationship, we have to be prepared to leave it. (1) One reason that seems pretty common for why people stay in a toxic relationship where they are unhappy more than they are happy is cultural reasons. Culture, tradition and religion are often bedfellows in emphasising that a marriage should be for keeps which is at odds with the way the law views marriage, which is more as a contract that, if breached, provides remedies such as divorce. (5) I was talking to a guy online, I think it was "Tagged" and he told me he was married. I wasn't shocked. I mean half of tinder seems to be made up of married men and it's just as prevalent on other dating sites or apps. (Take me and Married Guy for instance.) But rather than abuse him or just delete him or ghost him I asked him why he was looking for sex online if married? He was an Indian man and he told me that the marriage was great at first, they had two kids together, but, as time went by she stopped wanting to have sex with him so he was looking for that online. I said so why not leave? He said it was his culture that they stayed. And that he loved her and they were close and happy. Just not intimate. To tell the truth that could all have been a load of bullshit, I've had my fair share of poor me my wife has no time for me/my wife is away for work a lot/my wife's no longer into sex and even one guy who claimed his wife physically couldn't have sex with him anymore but because she had a major psychiatric illness he didn't want to leave her because she would hurt herself or kill herself. (Needless to say I blocked him pretty damn quick.) I've spoken briefly about a friend who stays with her partner because he's a good provider, not because she's in love with him anymore. They do have periods in the relationship where things are happy and harmonious enough though she doesn't talk about ever being intimate (except the 3 times she was pregnant when clearly they did the deed) and by the same token I rarely- if ever- hear her talk about loving him. I know she used to talk about it- they were about 22/23 when they first met and he was her first everything. Back then she couldn't get enough of him. Now the way she talks about him is in a detached manner. And it's usually more bitching about him. He even tells her if she leaves he will get everything including the kids (unlikely), or her own mother tells her that she'd be selfish to leave because the kids get supported better within the marriage, or her own sister says she'd be on her husbands side if they broke up. I can't imagine spending the rest of my life- what could equate to another 40 plus years- with a man whom she refers to only as "[my] husband" and never talks about him with any kind of love, romance or heck even traces of feelings just because he works hard and provides luxuries for them! Probably the most common reason I see and hear for people staying in toxic relationships is they genuinely believe that they either couldn't do any better or they would be alone forever if they walked away. Whilst they might know intellectually that nobody should have to settle for less than they deserve their emotions leave them conflicted. Underneath all of these rationalizations is a deep seated fear of being alone. Think back to your childhood. We’re you given many- or even any- examples of how to be alone on tv, movies, books, or the internet? Instead the chances are it was about how to make it work with your partner rather than to walk away and be happy alone until you found the right partner. Sure there’s nothing wrong with looking for love but very few people know how to be alone and happy. Too often the pleasure they find in a relationship is the release of not being by themselves in the world rather than love with their partner. (6) As Terry Gaspard wrote “too often I hear [people] who are coupled up rationalise while they are still in a relationship when...they shouldn’t be [saying] things like ‘I know my relationship isn’t perfect, but at least he doesn’t yell at me’ or ‘he is a really good dad.’...[things like that remind me] that breaking up with someone is an act of courage.” (6) Sometimes it's the partner who has put these thoughts in their head either with subconscious actions or conscious words, but often it's the person's own insecurities at play too. Or perhaps there's still a part of them that doesn't want to believe you can do better? (7) It's even been suggested that these people just don't *want* to find someone better, an argument that's attracted a fair bit of detractors. There was even a book written by Dr Henry Cloud saying that, essentially, there are plenty of people out there if you really wanted to. Carolyn Kauffman, who has a doctorate in psychology, finds this annoying. As she wrote this is giving out the implicit message that they just need to try harder. (8) I have a couple of friends like this. In truth I have to admit I belong here too. After all I accepted a fuck buddy relationship with J1 and Married Guy because I thought that something was better than nothing. And I thought to myself well hey at least they actually *want* me unlike most of the male population. I didn’t allow myself to think too hard about the fact that I was allowing the idea that I was fuckable but not dateable. Another guy I know, D, has offered me a fuck buddy relationship too but I haven’t taken him up on that offer because I’ve decided that I have to stop settling for less than I really want. How can I expect men to see me as being worth more than just causal sex if even I don’t think I am? In my case my insecurity is mainly related to my weight, but it also goes back to my teenage years and the damage the relationship with the man I lost my virginity to did to me and my psyche. Two of my friends are in situations where I do believe they stay with a partner or return to him over and over because they think they can’t do any better. In one case she’s overweight too so perhaps she thinks like I do- or did-, in the other case she may have a couple extra kilos on board but she’s definitely not what I would consider fat- though her husband often tells her that she’s a whale! (He’s a charmer that one!) In both cases I haven’t ever really asked them why they stay or go back to someone with whom they weren’t exactly happy and who show them no love or affection and barely even sleep near them let alone have sex with them. One of them admits she can’t even remember they slept in the same bed let alone had sex. This is because he often falls asleep on the pull out bed playing xbox (or PlayStation or wii or whatever the f game console all the cool kids are using these days), in the other case he often sleeps in another room because he snores, but to me they kind of seem like excuses not to share a bed with the woman they are in a relationship or married to. A third friend is kind of a combination of a few examples- she thinks she cannot do better as a bigger person and thus puts up with her partner cheating on her and even hitting her. (I’ll look more at cases of physical abuse in a follow up blog post.) Interestingly both have said to me at various times if they found themselves single again they wouldn’t bother looking for a new relationship anywhere, that they’d just be happy enough as is, with their kids. And kids, it seems, is the third most common reason why people stay in relationships they aren’t happy in. They think it’s the right thing to do to give the children that perfect nuclear family. A former friend of mine had lost her older children so when she had another child with her new partner she went on and on about making memories and giving [the child] the “perfect childhood.” She was overcompensating and I’m sure she knew it- especially when the kid was spoilt rotten! Another person I knew stayed with his wife for something like 4 years “for the kids.” They didn’t sleep in the same room, were barely home at the same time, didn’t even really speak when they were home at the same time and never showed the other affection. One of the kids even picked up on it asking her dad why he never hugged mummy like her friends daddy’s did. But is a relationship where mum and dad barely speak, unless it’s to argue, show no affection to one another and the energy in the house is always so thick with negativity better than being in a situation where they may have two homes but they also have a mum and dad who are actually happy? According to child psychologist Kimberley O’Brien the answer to that is a big no. And that parents pretending to their kids that the relationship is fine are fooling themselves. “Kids are really sensitive to changes to things like voice tone and parents’ stress levels”, she says. (9) Yes there are many benefits to children having a mum and dad together- such as the children are less likely to divorce when older or are less likely to engage in delinquent behaviour or get pregnant early- but if a relationship isn’t working then staying just for the kids is when problems arise. (10) Because there is a bigger impact on the children in these cases than you realise. For instance the kids pick up on a lot more than adults realise (like the friend I mentioned who asked her dad why he never hugged her mum), and ultimately two happy seperate parents are better than two together yet miserable parents. (11) The final reason I see for people staying in toxic relationships that are way past their use by date is purely that they love that person more than anything and forgive them anything and everything and as such the partner knows what he or she can get away with and thus the cycle of this toxic relationship continues over and over and over and it’s damn hard to break. But it *can* be done. As mentioned up above with time and hard work it can be fixed provided both parties are willing. Madeline Fugere, Ph.D, names some of the most common reasons why we may stay in relationships that whilst not abusive are still toxic and not great for us. 1) We can be satisfied with an unsatisfactory relationships. Perhaps it’s because we have low self esteem, thinking ourselves unattractive, or that they simply have low standards from what they expect to receive in a relationship. 2) A shift in priorities. We tend to see our romantic partners positively but sometimes that is unrealistic. What this means is that effectively we view characteristics that our partners have as more important and more valued than other characteristics. Like a generous partner may make up for a partner not being thoughtful? 3) Low quality alternatives. If you perceive alternatives- like being alone or in another relationship- as lower-quality alternatives, you are more likely to stay, even in an unsatisfying relationship. 4) Manipulation. If your partner is aware that you want to leave the relationship, he or she may use different methods of manipulation to force you to stay such as emotional manipulation like belittling, demeaning or even threats of violence against you or a future partner. The distress associated with emotional abuse or the physical implications of intimate partner violence are strong enough deterrents to those seeking to leave a relationship that women who are psychologically distressed may not feel like they even have the ability to leave the relationship. 5) Investment. When you have long-term investments with a partner such as a business, a mortgage, an investment property or children it can be harder to leave. And, last but by no means least in my humble opinion is 6) Love. Psychologists distinguish among three different components of attitudes- the cognitive component or thoughts, the affective component or feelings and the behavioural component or actions. And even though these components may not be aligned with each other, such as your thoughts being negative but your feelings positive. We may continue to love our partners, even though we consciously recognize that we are involved in bad relationships. (12) Psychologists have developed something they have dubbed the “interdependence theory”, which is essentially the science of relationships. The theory states that, in essence, each partner will evaluate “[their] personal satisfaction with the relationship by assessing costs and benefits...[and as long as the] perceived benefits [will] outweigh perceived costs [they] are happy with [their] relationship.” (13) We use pros and cons list for many things these days- do we move, get a new job, go on holiday, get a new car, etc- so why not with relationships too? Relationship satisfaction relies heavily on the following three things: * They’ve already invested heavily in it, giving them the sense that the relationship must have some value. * They see no viable alternatives that are better than the current relationship. * They currently feel satisfied with the relationship. In a recent article psychologist Levi Baker et al gave some insight that might help explain why people stay in an unhappy toxic relationship and continue that cycle over and over. They note that even the best relationship is bound to have rough patches. Career changes, illness of a family member or even the birth of a child can bring new stressors into a relationship which will significantly reduce relationship satisfaction for both partners. But they remain committed because this commitment isn’t “based on a current level of satisfaction with the relationship...[but rather] it depends on the past as expected relationship satisfaction in the future.” (13) In practice what this means is that your current level of satisfaction doesn’t signal commitment. Instead it shows whether there are problems with the relationship that need addressing. Any dissatisfied feeling tells you to put more work into your relationship. In fact, says David Ludden Ph.D, “ just doing something to improve your relationship, such as devoting more time to your [partner] or seeking couple's therapy, can boost your expectation for a happier marriage in the future, thus bolstering your commitment to work things out.” But when people can’t envision an alternative that’s better than the unhappy arrangement they’re in, they may stay and try to make the best of a bad situation. These couples find ways to mitigate the strife in their marriage, ending up as housemates rather than soulmates. They may derive little happiness from their relationship, but they don’t expect it, either. And some, perhaps many, still find sufficient happiness from friendships or other activities in their lives. (13) Fatgirl. NB: as this blog post was so big I’m going to do a separate one about BWS (and emotional abuse). How can you tell if they (or perhaps even yourself) are in one of these? How do you support a friend when you know- or at least feel- that what they are doing isn't the right thing for them? And, furthermore, what do you do when the toxic relationship turns violent or there is mental abuse in play? Sources: 1.) http://www.healthscopemag.com/health-scope/toxic-relationships/ 2.) https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.elitedaily.com/dating/13-signs-youre-toxic-relationship-ruining-life/966801/amp 3.) https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.rd.com/advice/relationships/toxic-relationships/amp/ 4.) https://markmanson.net/toxic-relationship-habits 5.) http://www.herald.co.zw/divorce-clash-of-culture-tradition/ 6.) https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4777120 7.) https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.theodysseyonline.com/why-you-cant-seem-find-someone-better-then-your-horrible-boyfriend.amp 8.) https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/blog/psychology-writers/201304/why-finding-life-partner-isn-t-simple%3famp 9.) http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-19/should-parents-stay-in-a-relationship-for-the-kids/8412350 10.) https://www.liveabout.com/reasons-to-stay-together-for-the-sake-of-the-children-1102599 11.) https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/6055010 12.) https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dating-and-mating/201705/6-reasons-why-we-stay-in-bad-relationships%3famp 13.) https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/blog/talking-apes/201705/why-so-many-unhappy-couples-stay-together%3famp

#dating #fatgirlsguidetodatimg #love #relationships #toxicrelationships #whywestay #whentogo #whentotryagain #commonexcusesforacceptinglessthanwedeserve

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Spider-Man: Homecoming Review Part 1

Goes without saying but there will of course be SPOILERS

Story

Adrian Toomes runs a salvage company that’s cleaning up after the Avengers battle with the Chitauri in Avengers Assemble. He’s put out of business by Tony Stark’s new company Damage Control. Consequently he and his gang use some of the alien tech they salvaged and become criminals.

 8 years later we follow Peter Parker chronicling an exuberant personal video diary during his trip to Berlin and his battle with Cap’s team from Captain America: Civil War. After he comes home Tony Stark tells him he’s not yet ready to be an Avenger but that he can keep the high tech suit he made for him.

 Two months later Peter has been fighting crime in Queens as Spider-Man (reporting in to a frustrated Happy Hogan seemingly every day) and claiming he’s working under a Stark internship as cover.

 During an encounter with some of Toomes’ men trying to rob an ATM Spidey notes the high tech weapons they were using. Later that night he comes home and inadvertently reveals his identity to his nerdy Lego loving best friend Ganke Ned.

 The next day at school Ned blurts out to Peter’s crush (Liz Allan) that Peter knows Spidey. After being goaded by his school rival Flash Thompson, Peter agrees to bring Spider-Man along to Liz’s party. However just before he makes his grand entrance Peter spots weird lights in the distance and goes to check it out.

 There he finds Toomes’ men (led by Jackson ‘Montana’ Brice/the Shocker) selling weapons to a man named Aaron Davis. Spidey distrusts the deal and give chase to the criminals but is attacked and dumped underwater by Toomes (who is sporting flight technology). However thanks to the tracking device in his suit he is saved by one of Iron Man’s suits that Tony Stark is remotely controlling. He is lectured by Stark to leave the situation alone and ‘stay on the ground’ but later Peter recovers some Chitauri tech that had been misplaced during the battle.

 Toomes fires Brice for his incompetence but when Brice threatens to talk Toomes kills him and gives his ‘Shocker’ weaponry to Herman Schultz. Schultz tracks the Chitauri energy core (which Peter and Ned removed) to Peter’s high school. Peter manages to evade Schultz but tags him with a tracking device and he and Ned learn Schultz is in Washington DC.

 Coincidentally this is where the school decathlon team are heading for Nationals so Peter and Ned tag along. Together the pair disable the tracking device in Peter’s suit along with enabling the full features of his suit, including his own personal A.I. (Karen). Peter fights Toomes on a Damage Control truck but (partially due to his inexperience with the new abilities of his suit) winds up imprisoned within it and consequently stuck in Damage Control’s warehouse, missing the Nationals.

 Learning from Karen that the Chitauri core in Ned’s possession is unstable and dangerous he escapes from the warehouse and tracks the decathlon team (sans the silent and cynical Michelle Jones) to the Washington monument. Unfortunately the power core goes off and damages the elevator in the monument prompting Spidey to climb up it and enter through a window near the top (scouting the area out with a drone released from his chest).

 He manages to save the team and back in NYC tracks down Davis in order to locate Toomes, trying (and failing) to intimidate him using the suit’s voice modulating feature. Davis is concerned about the weapons being on the street since he has a nephew in the neighbourhood (a reference to Miles Morales) so he informs Spidey that Toomes will be at the Staten Island ferry.

 On the ferry Spidey identifies Toomes’ new buyer as a gangster called Mac Gargan and proceeds to intervene. However Toomes and Schultz get away whilst one of the weapons goes haywire and cuts the ferry in half. Spidey tries to save it but lacks the strength to do so. Thankfully Iron Man is on hand and manages to rescue everybody.

 Stark (now in person) rakes Peter over the coals for his screw up informing him he set up an FBI sting on the ferry that Peter ruined. Peter claims he was just trying to be like him but Stark retorts that he wanted him to be better (admonishing himself for sounding like his own father) and demands the return of the Spider-Man suit. Peter protests that he is nothing without the suit to which Stark replies that if that’s true he shouldn’t have the costume at all.

 Peter returns home to an angry and upset May, gets a talking to by the school faculty about cutting out on class and generally accepts his life is on a real downer. However Liz agrees to go to the Homecoming dance with him and after May helps him prepare he heads over to Liz’s home. However he is greeted by Liz’s Dad who is in fact Adrian Toomes himself. Whilst driving Peter and Liz to the dance Toomes figures out Peter is Spider-Man and threatens to kill him and his loved ones if he interferes in his business again.

 Peter however cannot let Toomes walk free and after informing Ned of what he is doing heads off to stop him. He is however confronted in the school parking lot by Shocker who Ned helps take down.

 Garbed in his original homemade costume, Peter (directed by Ned from the computer lab) confronts Toomes at his lair where the villain tries to persuade him to his side. He cites how guys like Tony Stark step on normal folks like them. Peter doesn’t buy it and Toomes promptly buries him in the ruins of his base. Toomes, aided by his tech guy Mason (the Tinkerer), heads over to Stark Tower where Happy Hogan is loading tech onto an automated plane headed for the new Avengers headquarters.

 Meanwhile Peter buried under the rubble thinks about what Stark said after the ferry, screws up his will power and frees himself finding his way onto the automated plane mid-flight and battling Toomes. The plane crashes on Coney Island and eventually Toomes is defeated, Peter having saved his life.

 Days later at the school Michelle (whose friends call her ‘MJ’) becomes leader of the decathlon team; she also stares a little too suspiciously after Peter as he leaves. Her promotion is due to Liz’s family moving away in light of Toomes’ arrest. Happy Hogan shows up at the school to thank Peter for what he did and also takes him to see Tony at the new Avengers HQ. Stark congratulates him on his efforts, tells Peter he has a press court waiting to announce him as the newest Avenger and presents him with an all new armoured Spider suit.

 Peter is elated before ultimately turning the offer down and reaffirming that he should probably stick to the ground as a friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man for now. He leaves Stark at a loss as to what to tell the press when Pepper Potts walks in and Happy gives them an engagement ring he’d been holding onto since 2008.

 Back at the Parker residence Peter finds that Stark has returned his old suit to him. As he dons it though he doesn’t notice May behind him. She then exclaims in surprise.

 In prison Toomes meets up with Gargan who asks if the rumours that he knows Spider-Man’s identity are true. Toomes affirms that they are not.

 The movie wraps up with a Captain America clip that I dare not spoil because it is simply amazing.

 Review

When it comes to comic book films (or any films that adapt previously existing source material) there are three key points of view to evaluate the movie from.

·         The experience of actually watching the movie.

·         How the film works just as a story unto itself.

·         How the film works as an adaptation of the source material.

 For old dinosaur fans like myself it can be sometimes hard to divorce the third point from the second, so married are we to the source material.

However this isn’t to say it is impossible and I am going to try my best to be objective going forward. To help myself I’ve divided this review into two parts. Part 1 will cover my thoughts on the film as just a film. Part 2 my (much lengthier) thoughts on the film as an adaptation.

However, even when doing this evaluating this movie no easy task.

As an experience I’m not sure I ever walked out of a Spider-Man movie more fundamentally mixed in my feelings. Not disappointed exactly, but then I wasn’t exactly hyped when booking my tickets (by the way don’t bother seeing this in 3D like I did).

Okay to begin with let’s put things into context. This film had a Herculean job on its hands as it had to accomplish four key tasks:

 1.    Be a good stand alone film (or as stand alone as MCU movies can be)

2.    Showcase new possibilities from presenting Spidey in the context of the shared Marvel Cinematic Universe

3.    Lay groundwork for future Spider-Man movies

4.    Rehabilitate Spider-Man’s standing in the public eye following the Marc Webb Spider-Man films which left audiences fatigued and disenchanted with the character.

 And it did accomplish all of those...mostly.

 I could never in my heart of hearts call this a bad movie. It isn’t. It’s a good movie. It’s fun. It has action, humour, solid special effects, a perfectly serviceable story and strong performances all round.

 Last year after Captain America: Civil War I felt that I’d need to see more from Holland to determine how suitable he was for the role of Peter Parker/Spider-Man and how he measured up to Garfield or Maguire.

 This film has now convinced me Holland is perfectly qualified for the role. As for how he measures up...that’s a little hard to determine.

 His performance is much closer to Garfield than Maguire’s but ultimately the script is asking very different things of him than either of the two previous Spider-Men. As such it’s a little hard to compare their performances.

 He absolutely sells you on everything he is doing. The problem is everything he’s doing is kind of...atypical for Spider-Man. As such how he measures up as the character is tricky. Garfield’s Peter Parker/Spider-Man in comparison to Maguire’s essentially emphasised certain traits over the other. For example his Spider-Man was the superior quipster though this wasn’t wholly devoid of Maguire’s version of the character either. Meanwhile Maguire’s Peter Parker was most assuredly more introspective and nerdy than Garfield’s even if there were less examples of him operating as a scientist. Holland’s Spider-Man is in large part just a different animal altogether.

 Here Peter Parker and Spider-Man both are defined by their youthful inexperience and desire to play in the big leagues with the grown-ups, a league they aren’t yet ready for precisely because of that youthful inexperience.

 In this regard the film succeeds at most of the above points as this is undeniably something fresh and original for Spider-Man on film and it takes advantage of the possibilities of Spider-Man existing within a shared universe. Similarly Peter’s high tech suit definitely gives audiences something they’ve never seen before for the wall-crawler and it is firmly rooted in the wider MCU.

 In fact the whole movie can be said to be defined by the guiding philosophy of using the MCU at large to do something different. The characters are firmly rooted in showing you the ground level of a universe that in previous films has mostly showcased much larger stakes. Though this doesn’t apply to the whole movie as the inclusion of Ned as Peter’s friend and confidant and a greater emphasis upon Peter’s school mates help give the film a different flavour to what’s come before.

 And it does work...up to a point.

 Confession time. Back in 2016 when BvS: Dawn of Justice was released I dismissed just about everyone who ever tried defending that train wreck with the argument that the film was refreshing because there was a formula to the MCU films that employed light hearted goofy comedy. However between Doctor Strange and this film I have to admit that I’ve changed my tune.

 More than once in this movie Spider-Man is involved in slapstick comedy usually at his expense. It’s like advanced superhero clowning where the characters bumble and trip around. Now whilst this is fairly new to Spider-Man on film it’s actually not that uncommon for the MCU at large. You can see it for example in Iron Man 2008, Ant Man and Doctor Strange. That last one is particularly poignant because if there is one character who really does not lend himself to slapstick or goofy humour it is the ever enigmatic Doctor Stephen Strange.

 That sort of bumbling is cranked up in this movie because the point is the lead is inexperienced and learning the ropes. And when looked at on its own its honestly not insufferable or anything but along with the rest of the winking, quippy, jovial humour of the film does kind of feel repetitive of other MCU films. I think it’s definitely time for that formula to change if not be abandoned entirely.

 It doesn’t kill the movie though.

 Really there are only a few really serious marks against this movie as a film I have.

 To begin with the promotional material egregiously misrepresented Iron Man’s involvement (and spoilt way too much) but that’s not exactly the movie’s fault.

 The climax is not that satisfying as Spider-Man doesn’t beat Vulture so much as survives against him. The romance was kind of just there and existed more to serve other plot points rather than be its own legitimate subplot (a by product of trying to be different to previous movies I suspect). And the timeline with the other MCU films makes my head hurt. Seriously Avengers Assemble was 8 years before this movie? How does that make sense?

 The worst moment though is when Peter claims he is nothing without the high tech Spider suit Stark gave him. I have more problems about this when we get into part 2 but just in the context of the movie and the MCU this doesn’t really add up.

 Peter was operating as Spider-Man in Queens for something like a year before Stark showed up. Before unlocking the other features of it, the Spider suit he wore amounted to giving him an easily adjustable body suit, some high tech lenses and an advanced tracer. He used that for 2 months straight and only unlocked the added abilities of the suit a few days before Stark took the suit away (abilities that he couldn’t fully control).

 So he really didn’t need the suit to do what he’d been doing mostly up until then and he said it himself earlier in the movie, he was a kid who could stop a bus with his hands. He still has immense super powers and it seems illogical that he’d honestly not be able to recognize that. By extension the scene where he lifts the rubble to prove how he is more than a fancy suit doesn’t make much sense because of all the problems I just outlined.

 These hardly ruin the movie though.

 As for setting up future instalments, there is admittedly not too much done in this regard. The film is surprisingly self-contained for an MCU feature. There is a little tease of the Sinister Six but it’s very up in the air, it’s more likely we’ll simply be seeing the Scorpion in the next movie and maybe some more of Toomes. Other than that we have May learning Peter’s secret which may or may not turn out to be a really big source of drama going forward. We will have to wait and see.

 So as a movie that’s the latest instalment of the MCU I’d award this film a solid B. It’s a good movie about Spider-Man but probably not the best, but definitely not up there with the likes of Iron Man, the First Avenger, the Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy and most certainly none of the large scale team up films like Avengers Assemble, Age of Ultron or Civil War.

 I’d recommend you go see it as a fun entertaining time killer.

 However...as an adaptation...well, that’s a different matter entirely.

#Spider-Man #Peter Parker #Spider-Man: Homecoming #Tom Holland #Tony Stark #Iron Man #Mcu #marvel cinematic universe #robert downey junior #adrian toomes #vulture #Shocker #herman schultz #Liz Allan #Marvel #Marvel Studios #marvel comics

[pridemonthpsa]

Fetishism of Queer Men Pervades the Shadowhunters Fandom

Alright, I’ve been asked to do a piece about the fetishization of mlm in fandom. This is something that makes me very uncomfortable as I navigate most fandoms, but it’s on a whole other scale in the shadowhunters fandom.

I’m going to try and make this as inclusive of non binary people as I can, but of course, there’s nuance here. I want to emphasise that. This issue isn’t simply mlm vs women. I guess as beautiful enbies, I’ll leave it to you to decide where you fall in this issue.

While it is certainly possible for mlm themselves to engage in fetishizing behaviour, this often comes from internalised homophobia and it is NOT the place of non mlm to call them out on it. I want to make that clear.  Following on from this, if an mlm makes you (a non mlm) uncomfortable with the way he talks about his own sexuality, then… Do I need to finish that sentence? 

So, to make it clear: if cishet women (or men, though that’s less likely) engage in ANY of the behaviour I’m going to describe, then they are a mlm fetishist and should not be considered a good ally or be supported in fanart, fanfic, or discourse about mlm relationships. If a queer woman/enby engages in this behaviour, it can be hard to figure out what the deal is. Lots of queer women/enbies in this fandom engage with Malec as representation for them as well, since they are the only canon MAIN queer couple in the show. And that is TOTALLY valid. But sometimes, queer women/enbies can overstep too. My rule is if an mlm feels uncomfortable about the way you as a queer woman/enby talk about or interact with Malec, then you need to evaluate what you’re doing.

The main issue with the fetishization of mlm in fandom is that actual mlm involved in these fandoms are ignored, their voices aren’t boosted, and their fanworks are paid dust while cishet women are glorified for their ‘ally’ voices and fanworks. To illustrate just how much mlm get spoken over in fandoms, get this: I literally googled ‘fetishization of mlm’ to research stuff for this thread and the first thing that came up was a thinkpiece by a cishet woman. https://www.themarysue.com/fetishizing-slash/ Now, the article is pretty inoffensive as far as articles on mlm fetishization go, but why on EARTH is the most viewed article on fetishization of mlm written by a cishet woman? Don’t you find that interesting? Why is it that even when talking about an issue where we are objectified and cishet women are the objectifiers, cishet women’s voices are the ones overwhelmingly boosted? The truth is that REAL mlm aren’t wanted or desired in fandom, because the only thing mlm are needed for in fandom is to provide a cute otp that non mlm can project their sexual and romantic fantasies onto. Real mlm are more complex than a cute otp, so we are eschewed. 

So other instances/examples of fetishization? One of the classics that makes my blood boil, personally, is the way that non mlm write PWP about mlm couples. I thought about looking for an example, but I couldn’t bring myself to look through AO3 tags. But we’ve all come across those fics where two men in an established relationship flirt for 200 words and start stripping (in the sh fandom, helpfully hastened by Magnus’ magic). In these fics, the ‘top’ (more on that later) will either not prepare the ‘bottom’, or they’ll stick two fingers up there with one coat of lube, magically find the prostate and reduce the ‘bottom’ to a whining mess. Always a whining mess. After a couple of lines of prep (max), the ‘top’ will stick his dick in the ‘bottom’ and wait for a moment, then start fucking the absolute shit out of his ‘bottom’. Now, anyone who’s EVER had anal sex, no matter the gender, will tell you that this is not generally how anal sex goes. So why is this the way cishet women write about m/m sex? The simple reason is because these cishet women are projecting themselves into the position of the ‘bottom’. Vaginal sex, as I hope we know, is practically a lot easier than anal sex. By oversimplifying and straightwashing (for lack of a better term) anal sex, they’re assisting their female readers in their fantasies of being under this queer male top. This particular quote from this article - https://www.lambdaliterary.org/features/oped/08/19/the-fetishizing-of-queer-sexuality-a-response/ - struck me: “The edict for writing has always been: Write what you know. Alas, that is what the M/M writers are doing–they are writing straight male/female relationships but putting them in gay male bodies.” These fanfictions are not meant to celebrate queer men, they are not aimed at queer men, and they aren’t concerned with the reality of queer men. Instead they’re projecting themselves into the more desirable (internalised misogyny, much?) queer men’s bodies. This is similar to the way most mainstream ‘lesbian porn’ is aimed at cishet men. These videos show a version of sex between women that is palatable and ‘sexy’ for the male gaze, and these PWPs written by cishet women work the same way. I wish I didn’t have to point out why that’s harmful, but honestly… The shit I’ve seen in these fandoms I feel like I need to spell it out. Treating mlm as props for you, a non mlm, to get off to, is dehumanising and disrespectful. It is not allyship. It is not flattering. Stop it. Now I know that the sexuality of women, and teenage girls specifically, is judged and policed. I understand that. However, the oppression you face is not an excuse to throw another oppressed group under the bus for your amusement and titillation. That’s it. I said what I said. This article - https://versusthefans.com/2014/07/08/fetishizing-homosexuality/ - goes a little deeper into this issue, but here’s a quote that I thought summed it up: “While I certainly understand being thought of as weird, being scared or worried as [...] she feels about shipping Johnlock, for LGBT people they aren’t just scared because of who they ship, but who they love in real life. At the end of the day, [...] straight women [...] will legally marry a man anywhere in the world she wants and get off while dreaming of gay men together.  Must be nice to have your cake and eat it too. It’s not fiction for LGBT people.”

The second classic part of mlm fetishization in fandom is top and bottom discourse. There are a few issues conflated in this facet of fetishization. Firstly, being a ‘top’ or a ‘bottom’ is not generally a thing. The overwhelming majority of queer men do not strictly adhere to either the ‘top’ or ‘bottom’ position in the bedroom. Some of us joke about being one or the other, but it is not a law that we ALWAYS must bottom or ALWAYS must top. Sometimes you fancy something different. It’s human nature. We’re not one stereotype or the other. Ever. To assume as such is to reduce an entire human being to a sex position, just because they’re queer. Does that sound like good allyship to you?

Next, the very fact that people are so invested in whether a fictional character (or, god forbid, a real person, but again, more on that later) is a ‘top’ or ‘bottom’ is creepy and bizarre. Do you also debate on whether the female lead in your show prefers doggy or the reverse cowgirl? No? Then why do you, a non mlm, spend so much time and energy ‘headcanoning’ the ways m/m couples in fiction have sex? Is it because it’s somehow ‘hotter’ than m/f sex because it’s two men? Why is that? Take a look at your feelings here. Ask yourself why you find the idea of two men having sex so interesting. Is it because you’re only attracted to men, so it’s double the fun? Is it because two men banging is ‘taboo’ or ‘sinful’ or ‘naughty’? Is it because taking it up the ass is not a ‘manly’ thing to do, and is therefore inherently kinky? Unpack these things. Think critically. If it is any of the above things, then address it, because it’s wrong. Once again, queer men are not props for you to manipulate for your enjoyment. One mlm I found on tumblr here - http://bluethisisforyou.tumblr.com/post/162753965120 - had this to say on the issue: “[it] is NOT healthy at all bc, in my case, it makes us feel as if we only exist for entertainment and that our relationships are seen as wrong and/or dirty”. Do you intend to make mlm feel that way? If yes, then… Bruh, what the fuck are you do pretending to give a shit about mlm in the first place? If no… Maybe adjust your behaviours accordingly.

Because apparently it’s necessary, I’m going to lay out some facts for you, here. Taller man =/= top. Stronger man =/= top. Leader =/= top. Masculine man =/= top. Shorter man =/= bottom. Weaker man =/= bottom. Follower =/= bottom. Effeminate man =/= bottom. Everyone needs to stop using physical and personality traits to ‘argue their case’ as to whether a queer man is a top or a bottom. These things do NOT impact what kind of sex you like. To imply as such is homophobic and, frankly, misogynistic as well. By painting a more effeminate, smaller, weaker man as the bottom in these scenarios, you are implying that bottoming, and therefore submitting/yielding to ‘masculine’ penetration, is feminine and a sign of weakness. Having said that, you are not more progressive if you make the effeminate man the top for brownie points or because it’s ‘hot’ that the smaller one can weaken the larger one. It’s still creepy and rooted in harmful stereotypes. In the context of the shadowhunters fandom (that this essay is mostly aimed at), both Magnus and Alec are tall, strapping, formidable men who are powerful and badass, and yet in almost every fanwork by a cishet woman, one of them will always be shrunk or feminised. And on the rare occasions where they aren’t, the emphasis will be on the fact that the power struggle between them is hot. And people wonder why I have the vast majority of fanartists blocked.

The last thing I want to talk about as a symptom of mlm fetishization is RPF, or ‘real person shipping’. There are ALWAYS, ALWAYS people in a tv show or movie fandom where they’ll ship the actors who play queer (or perceived queer) characters. It happened with Darren Criss and Chris Colfer after they played Klaine in Glee, it happened with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman after they played Johnlock in Sherlock, it happened with Jensen Ackles and Misha Collins after they played Destiel in Supernatural. In every single instance except Chris Colfer, these actors have had female partners. I’m not going to say all of them are straight, because I don’t know their lives, and I don’t care about most of them enough to research, but all of them (except Colfer) is attracted to women. Most of them have expressed discomfort at the fact that they are ‘shipped’ with their co-star and friend. And yet so many people continue to write fanfiction about them and even harass their ACTUAL partners about a ship that only came about because of their acting jobs. The most confusing thing about this is that there are quite a few m/m couples in the spotlight these days that don’t get nearly as much attention from the RPF shippers. Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka, Tom Daley and Dustin Lance Black, Colton Haynes and Jeff Leatham all are openly in love, posting adorable snapshots of their lives together, and yet… Somehow, for these RPF shippers, that’s not good enough. It’s only good enough if these real man have been seen in fictional embraces together, if they’ve kissed in giffable high quality, it they’re (in their fucked up fantasies) cheating on a poor unsuspecting female partner in order to be together. M/m couples are only valuable to these people if their most intimate moments are visible, and palatable. It doesn’t matter if real love exists between them, all that matters is that they’re hot together, that their relationship is oh so wrong it’s right.

We as queer men deserve to be celebrated, and we deserve to be celebrated for the diversity and vibrance that we bring to the world. We deserve better than to be reduced to a sexual fantasy, to a cute little otp to squeal over, to something that is inherently taboo or naughty. We deserve to be respected. We deserve to be loved. We deserve a platform in a fandom that exists because of characters that reflect us. We deserve to be heard.

Further reading: http://thewoesofyaoi.tumblr.com/

https://www.lambdaliterary.org/features/oped/08/19/the-fetishizing-of-queer-sexuality-a-response/

https://versusthefans.com/2014/07/08/fetishizing-homosexuality/