#something about both of them just feels like a representation of the human spirit in its purest form to me. they impact me the most | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

heniareth · 3 years

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I was really curious about what your opinions on the DAO companions are :) I know we have talked about some, but I'd love to hear more and about the others as well :D I hope it's ok to pose this as an ask :)

Sure! That sounds like a ton of fun. This might be a long one tho. Mind you, this is not the finished version of the answer. I'd like to link stuff and add a cut, but rn that's not possible. I'll update it when I can.

Edit: I have updated it ^^

Let's go alphabetically bc why not.

Alistair:

Sweet guy. So sweet. There was a moment when I was hard pressed chosing between him and Zevran (alas, Zevran won). Also, he's weirdly tall according to the wiki? How did I not notice that before?

Let's get a bit more serious now, Alistair is a great guy. The only reason he's not the hero of the story is because he doesn't want to. He has all the qualities of a leader: he's good at dealing with conflict (as evident with the conversation with the mage at the beginning. He gets where he wants to get without antagonizing the mage, but without allowing him to trample all over him). He's a solid tactitian and knows how to make allies (he suggests to use the Grey Warden treaties, after all). I bet if he was in the leadership position, he'd even not bicker with Morrigan. His moral code is pretty tight; some might say too tight, but I think it's less about the moral code and more about learning to judge people by their actions, not by the labels they fit into (Morrigan is a proud apostate and therefore bad. Wynne is a humble circle mage and therefore good). He also has a bit of a black-and-white way of seeing the world. I empathize a lot with Alistair, especially with his experience with the Chantry and his subsequent reluctance to deal with it. I really wish I had gotten to know more about concrete experiences he had during his training as templar, but he seems reluctant to talk about it (gee, I wonder why).

Since I've only played the game once, I haven't really picked up on Arl Eamon's abuse towards him, which apparently exists (Isolde, however... I mean, even if he were Eamon's illegitimate son, he's a kid, ma'am, he didn't exactly get to chose his parents. So that's so not okay). Alistair's way of speaking about them both, however, is either sign that he has not come within a hundred miles of acknowledging how much it hurt him, or that he's already gone through the whole process and has decided to forgive them. The latter shows a very strong character; yes, he relies on the approval and leadership of others, he has his issues, but he's already started working on them.

That being said, irl Alistair would be like a little brother to me. I'd tease him relentlessly (all in good fun and I promise to stop if it makes him uncomfortable, but he's just so teasable). I still wish the videogame gave him the chance to take important decisions for himself. But that, of course, would somewhat defeat the point of the game.

Leliana:

Another sweet, sweet person. Her singing voice is amazing. Her belief in the Maker inspires me (I'm a religious person and seeing religious characters represented in a positive light is Very Cool. It's also sometimes a source of discomfort, because the Church has done a lot of very messed up stuff and positive representation can sometimes veer into apologetics for things that should not be excused, but that's a whole other can of worms. The bottom line is that religious characters sometimes work for me and other times don't and Leliana works for me very much bc she's an outsider inside the Chantry).

Leliana is best friend material, tbh. I'd love to get to know her irl, discuss theology and philosophy and maybe even politics? She makes mistakes and has prejudices, but, tbh, so do I. And I do get the feeling that she tries her best to learn. From the times she intervenes in a conversation between the Warden and an NPC, she shows herself to be compassionate and open to the needs of others. What I get from her character is that she genuinely wants to help, which is something that I adore of her. I suspect that she sometimes has a hard time deciding wether she's a good person or not. She has killed and seduced and worked for a morally dubious person, and she doesn't show the same nonchalance about it as Zevran (though they both do discuss their line of work in very... professional terms). This is, however, more of a headcanon than actual factual canon.

I also very much enjoy her girly side, like her interest in shoes and dresses. She's one badass woman who also looses her cool about the latest fashions in Val Royeaux. I like that. Between her and Alistair, a non human noble Warden has as good a help to navigate the Fereldan court as they're going to get. Leliana is also, I can't forget that, clever and insightful. It'd be easy to write her off as the innocent chantry girl, but she's so much more than that. Her kindness is paired with foresight, I think. She knows that taking on the trouble to help now can go a long way in the future. I just have a lot of respect for her.

Loghain:

This one's gonna be short bc I didn't recruit him. He's an amazing villain and would probably be a great Warden as well. He reminds me of Denerhor from LOTR; once a hero/stewart of his people, ambition and desperation have driven them both down a terrible path. I have also only little idea about his past. People say he lost a lot, and I believe it wholeheartedly; it doesn't excuse the fact that he plunged the country into a civil war in the middle of a Blight. I don't have a lot of sympathy for short-sighted politicians. I wish he hadn't made himself regent. That's what I take away from his character.

Edit: One thing I forgot to mention that really impressed me was his death. I had Alistair duel him (that was a rough duel), and then it kinda just jumped to a cutscene of my Warden nodding and Alistair executing him. That didn't sit well with me. I didn't want to kill Loghain, and less so in front of Anora. But what impressed me was that Loghain just accepted it. That takes a whole lot of guts. Compare that to Howe's death, and how he screams out that he deserved (more, probably, or anything but death) and it's crystal clear who the more noble of the two is. Loghain strikes me as very lawful neutral, and any neutral alignment has the particularity that it can be dragged towards good or bad, sometimes without the characters noticing it (which is interesting from a DnD perspective; neutral is often concieved of as just as stable as good or evil, but that may not be true. But that's a different post). Anyway, Loghain's death was impactful.

Morrigan:

I could kick myself for not maxing out her approval in the first play-through. I got to enjoy a bit of her friendship by the end of it and boy was even that little bit worth it. Friendship with Morrigan is something that is hard-won. It's all the more precious because of that.

Morrigan is full of paradoxes, I think. She's incredibly wise in some ways, yet also very short-sighted (”just kill them, don't solve their problems”. Morrigan, dear, I'm not going to gain a lot of allies if I kill everybody who poses a problem to me). She is so intelligent, but emotionally... not so. She knows so much about some things, and very little about the next. She's incredibly wilful and knows what she wants, but follows Flemeth's orders all the time through. She hungers for power and independence, yet craves closeness, but won't allow herself to have it. She asks you to prove yourself to her and is extremely critical of your actions, I think, because she's afraid. She bites the hand that feeds her because it might hit her next.

Like with Eamon, I haven't managed to catch the undercurrent of abuse that seems to permeate Flemeth's relationship with Morrigan. Except there are signs, because there must be something Morrigan is scared of and who has instilled all that rage in her, and that's Flemeth. Also, she clearly hates/does not care about her and wants her dead (unless killing Flemeth was part of Flemeth's plan as well? Hm.)

Morrigan is that one person who you are nice to, continuously, because nobody else is. And suddenly she becomes less cold. And then friendly. And suddenly you're asking yourself why everybody hates her, because she's a really good friend! I just wish the other companions came to a similar conclusion, especially Alistair and Wynne.

Oghren:

They did this man dirty. He has such great lines and I'm convinced he was a great person before Branka disappeared. He has that dwarven warrior spirit, and while he looks like Gimli, some of his most impactful lines remind me of Dwalin or even Thorin Oakenshield himself. He could be so noble had he gotten some character development, damnit!

Oghren as he is written is somewhat disgusting. I hate the lechering comments and the drunkenness. And still, I don't hate him because of those amazing lines he has when he's actually sober. It's frustrating and I'll give him that character development myself if the game won't. I strongly associate the song Whiskey Lullaby with him, bc that's how he would have ended up if the Warden hadn't taken him along (warning: the song talks about suicide and alcoholism). Like I said, they could have done such cool things with his character. As he is written now... it's just sad. Moments of lucidity drowned in alcohol and creepy jokes. As you can see, I don't blame the character for either. The alcoholism happens all too often irl. The creepy jokes... I put that one on the writers' tab.

I actually think Oghren could have been a great mentor figure (I know, I shock myself as well sometimes). Next to the Grey Wardens, the ones who know most about fighting darkspawn are the dwarves because they have to deal with them constantly. Especially a warrior caste dwarf like Oghren could have brought a lot of that invaluable knowledge to the team, especially since there are no Grey Wardens in Ferelden but two extremely green recruits. Next, you get the chance to give Oghren the command of the teammates you leave behind in the battle of Denerim with the reason that he has lead men into battle before. Where did that suddenly come from? Oghren should have been right up there telling my Warden that they were doing this wrong, that they needed more food (and booze) and a confident leader to keep the armies they've called together going. Oghren should have been able to tell my civilian city elf who got recruited into the Grey Wardens a six months ago how one leads an army. How one presents oneself to inspire confidence, how one doesn't crack under the pressure, how one gets the leaders of said armies (some who hate each others guts i.e. Dalish elves and humans) to work together. And, last but not least, Oghren could have had a great story about grief. This is a man who has lost most of what made him (and what he hasn't lost he's spilling down the drain with every mug of ale). This is a man who, if you take him into the Deep Roads, has to see what his wife did to his family, how his wife got absolutely obsessed, and can be forced to kill said wife or watch her die. All Wardens loose their home and families at the start of the story. It would really have rounded the whole narrative out if the Warden and Oghren could have recognised their grief in each other and hashed it out somehow. Such as it is, Oghren is a depressed drunkard and there is nothing we can do about that. I find that frustrating.

Rascal (a.k.a. Dog):

Best boy. 100/10. I wish we had gotten to see the reaction of the different origins to the mabari (because elves probably have a whole different experience with them from mages or humans. And dwarves just... I think they straight up have none? XD). Other than that, no complaints. The name Rascal was the one I gave my dog because you have to be a right rascal to survive what he did and play the pranks he plays. Smartest breed in the world indeed.

Shale:

Shale is one of those characters that I recruited rather late in the game, so I haven't had the chance to explore their personality and worldview, really. I didn't even get to take them to the Deep Roads (this will be ammended in playthrough nr. 2). As such, I don't have particularly strong opinions on them (or her? The wiki refers to Shale as 'it', but that sounds weird). But, because I know so little about Shale, I have a lot of questions. First, what were they like before they were a golem? Shayle, as she was called then, was the best warrior of her time if I remember correctly. Why did she become a golem? Was it to be able to eternally protect her people? Was the sarcasm the golem Shale exhibits also part of the dwarven warrior Shayle or did that come later (if for thirty years you have nobody to talk to but yourself, you better be entertaining. And I can imagine how it could make somebody terribly jaded as well).

Next, how attached is Shale to their golem form, exactly? According to the banter, they infinitely prefer it to a squishy fleshy form. If that is the case, however, why go to Tevinter to try and become a squishy dwarf again? It's not like that process could be reversed if they wanted to become a golem again; if Shale survives to the end of the game, the Anvil of the Void is destroyed and Caridin is dead. Was the whole spiel about their indestructible form a façade? It might have been, but not because Shale actually disliked their form. I think it would have more to do with the loss of their memories and with the very invasive experiments and alterations of Shale's body made by the mage Wilhelm. The loss of memories means that Shale is unable to remember life as a fleshy creature. They might be deflecting by pretending that they didn't care for that experience anyway because of the superiority of their golem form. The modifications made to their form by Wilhelm would have alienated them from their body. In light of this, it's significant that Shale asks the Warden to decorate their form with crystals.

All of this is, of course, pure speculation. I may have easily missed or forgotten details that would disprove the above thoughts. All in all, I like Shale and I hope we meet them again in DA4 (given that it's mostly set in Tevinter). It's a liking from a respectful distance, because Shale is tall and made out of rock and also way more experienced than I will ever be (they are literally the oldest member of the Warden's little Blight fighting squad).

Sten:

Sten is another person I'd keep a respectful distance from physically. That seems to be the what he would prefer, at least. I've enjoyed his character a lot, especially because he seems pretty clear-cut at first, but slowly lets the nuance of his person show (gruff and stoic, but then he has an eye for art, a sweet tooth and he likes cute animals). It's also very interesting that there's no moment when you learn "the truth" about him the way you do with Zevran or Leliana. There's no big reveal about his life under the Qun before coming to Ferelden. He says he was sent to monitor the Blight, but honestly? If neither Ferelden nor Orlais knew there was a Blight, how could the Qunari know? I think he's lying, and he takes his secrets back with him when he leaves Ferelden. And yet I think I know him enough to say that a Warden who has become friends with him has nothing to fear from Sten.

One thing I find very interesting about Sten is how he thinks. His conversation about how women can't be soldiers has been analysed a lot on this page I think. He seems to be arguing based on a different paradigma than the one the Warden has. He also seems to have a very clear-cut view of the world. What is fascinating to me is that, when arguing with the Warden and learning about their culture, he is not necessarily becoming more lax about his worldview. I think it's more likely that he is expanding his paradigma, the structure of thought through which he understands the world. I don't think that he is now convinced that women can be warriors as well. I think he rather understands that, in Ferelden, the relationship between occupation and gender is different than under the Qun. Which of the two he thinks is more right or more agreeable, I have no idea. I'm also not very interested in that. But I find it fascinating how he always seems to be looking on quietly, gathering data, classifying it and trying to fit it into his understanding of how the world works. I wouldn't be surprised at all if his original party was a scouting party to see how vulnerable Ferelden was at that moment to outside forces. One thing I don't understand with all of this is why he urges the Warden to meet the Blight head on. No smart soldier would suggest that, except if they are foolishly proud (and Sten doesn't seem like that kind of guy tbh). I get that the Warden takes way longer to gather allies than expected because they first have to solve all of their allies' problems. But surely Sten sees the need to have allies? Is he just that impatient? Does he have a death wish (à la, I lost my sword and am without honour, better to die sooner than later and in glorious battle)? Was he his group's previous commander and is he now having trouble following somebody else's orders? Or maybe it's his way to make sure the Warden knows what they are doing? To push them into becoming the self-assured commander their allies will need once they're all gathered? I really don't know. I like the last option best, however.

For me, Sten is my fellow, more experienced soldier. Like Alistair, he can potentially be the Warden's brother in arms, but he's definitely the older brother here. He probably doesn't take kindly to tearful confessions of how hard everything is, but I feel like he's otherwise a solid rock to lean on. I feel like the Warden can trust him to do what is necessary and count on him no matter what, especially after they get his sword back. His devotion from that point on is honestly so powerful.

Wynne:

Wynne was such a support for my Warden (except with the whole conversation about love vs. duty and that she may have to choose between Zevran and ending the Blight and that she should therefore break up with him. Wynne had a point. Astala was so not willing to sacrifice her relationship with Zevran. But the whole conversation came at a point where she was already so disillusioned that she blew up in Wynne's face (”can i please just have one (1) nice thing????”)). But all in all, Wynne is great.

She has a lot of flaws. She was very marked by her life in the Cricle and, for all her age, she has little experience living outside of it. She is also a conformist despite her strong moral core. In a way, her ability to find peace with her lot in life impresses me deeply because it speaks to a lot of strength of character. Sadly, however, strength can be ill applied and used to suppress. I think she has convinced herself that the Chantry is right under (almost) all circumstances to be able to rationalize the life that mages live. She's had her son taken away from her as a baby and an apprentice killed. Her reaction seems to have been to convince herself that this was right, or for the greater good (and now I'm thinking about the Guardian's question at the temple of Andraste's Ashes; are you wise or do you just repeat what others have told you? The answer is not as clear-cut as it might be). This is why she is so irritated by Zevran and Morrigan. By aligning herself with the Chantry, she is, in her eyes, good. Zevran and Morrigan are not; they do not conform to Chantry morality and they defend themselves tooth and nails against somebody who would try and convert them. This is something Wynne never allowed herself to do; she always did the "right" thing and it has cost her so much. I'm not saying she was right (it would probably have done her some good to rebel from time to time, and to trust her own gut instinct more), but in light of this, it hardly surprises me that she's so judgamental. She has to be, or she would be forced to confront all the evil she has not fought against all those years and all the hurt that has been caused to her by the very institution she protects (and thank God she only tries to argue and can appreciate it when people have found a good life outside of her comfort zone. If she tried to convince by force or, for example, drag her former apprentice back to the Circle... boy oh boy that would get ugly). If you think about it, Wynne really is a good example for what happens if you live by a philosophy of always choosing the lesser evil.

Something that I keep forgetting over her grandmotherly and dignified character is how damn powerful she is. She has escaped the carnage at Ostagar; HOW!? She protected those mage apprentices in the Circle tower for God knows how long. In the battle of Denerim, she wades through an army and comes out alive on the other side. The wiki lists her age at 40, I think, but that doesn't make a lick of sense unless 75 years of age are the Fereldan equivalent to 100. This lady, about whom people make grandmother jokes, did all that. It's impressive.

Zevran:

You know, I would really love to know what Wynne thinks about the events at Kirkwall in DA2. It might be a disaster for her, or it might pave the way for one last bit of character development. She certainly didn't want to return to the Circle after fighting the Blight. That may be an indicator of some change in her stance on the Circle of Magi.

Edit: I forgot that she is what the Circle considers a literal abomination! Holy cow, how could I forget that?? Anyway, her conversation about what being an abomination means is so... heartbreaking, actually. It's so tentative. So careful. "Am I an abomination? Am I the same thing that has killed my students? The same thing as Uldred? Am I lost and damned? Did I invite this spirit in? Is this my fault?" Like wow, Wynne is going through something huge right there. I love it. I have to continue playing the game to see what it ends up as, but it's fascinating and such a huge thing that she allows the Warden in on that.

Ah, Zevran, my beloved (he has stolen my heart so much it's not even funny anymore). He's funny, he's charming, he's so so loyal and it breaks my heart. Zevran is the one about whom I've read most meta: these three wonderful posts for instance, as well as this one about his possible lack of scars, and this one about his lack of freedom. All of these have influenced my opinion of him and they are great reads.

I have talked about Zevran with you before, so I'll just skip to the new stuff. I have come to conclusion that Zevran is an artist at heart. This is totally not biased by the fact that I also do art, but hear me out. One of his preferred gifts are bars of silver and gold. While those have the obvious utility of basically functioning as money (they can be sold to any silversmith or goldsmith and their value is pretty stable through time and in different countries), there's also this from his codex: "Zevran shows an affinity for the finer things in life—hardly surprising for an Antivan Crow—but his appreciation can be more poetic than he lets on. A simple bar of refined silver or gold, uncomplicated by a craftsman's hammer, is elegantly valuable." Tell me that is not an artist's eye that sees that gold and sees the beauty in it. Then, there's also the meta about Zevran the Seducer which I linked above and link here again. It talks specifically about how he lets himself enjoy the target and be seen in his enjoyment. Tell me that is not an artist's eye that beholds the beauty of something he is set out to destroy. Even his talk about his assassinations show this. He talks about it as an art, the way somebody would talk about the brutal intervention in stone that produces a sculpture. Yes, it's a rationalization of the act of killing and yes killing is still wrong. But he doesn't go on about it on a moral tangent the way Alistair or Wynne would (”this person was bad, killing them was necessary”) or even through the argument of survival like Morrigan would (”it was either them or me and it sure as Hell wasn't going to be me”). He talks about the pleasure of a job well done, of the satisfaction of striking the precise point and executing a plan to the perfection so as to minimize chances of discovery and to make a clean death possible. And pleasure in seeing and in doing, this I firmly believe, is absolutely fundamental for an artist.

My favourite part about my Warden and Zevran as a pairing is that Zevran precisely brings out that ability to take your pleasures as they come and to really savour them. Fighting the Blight is tough; it's so important to find good things amidst the chaos to stay sane. If Astala saves Zevran from himself by offering him a place to stay and a purpose, Zevran saves Astala from herself by keeping her from running herself into the ground trying to save the world.

There are some things I don't like about Zev. The incessant flirting, for example, sometimes makes me uncomfortable (it becomes enjoyable for me once the Warden and him are in a relationship, but before that? Nah, no thanks). I wish he would also leave the other female characters alone (and there's so many more shameless comments of his aimed at Morrigan, Leliana or Wynne than at Alistair or maybe even Sten).

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And that's my take on the Origins companions (this was rather long. Whew ^^' I hope it was still readable and that you enjoyed it!!) Thank you so much for the ask!! It's been a joy thinking about this. I was worrying at first that the less prominent companions like Sten or Shale wouldn't get as much content but... well XD

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johannestevans · 3 years

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The #MonstrousMayChallenge 2021

Love monsters?

The #MonstrousMayChallenge is going to be a series of monster-centric prompts for every day of the month of May!

Draw, write, talk about, analyse, shitpost, critique, rec, discuss, create, consume, and otherwise have fun with each prompt.

Tell your friends, pick and choose the prompts that you like best: make art, make fiction, make rec lists, make jokes, make monsters!

May 1. What is a Monster? May 2. How to Talk to Your Monster May 3. The Vampire May 4. Iconic Settings May 5. Feeding Time May 6. The Lycanthrope May 7. Adverse Weather Conditions May 8. The Monster in Love May 9. The Undead May 10. "... and add a monster." May 11. A Baby Monster May 12. The Alien May 13. The Domesticated Monster May 14. Clothing Your Monster May 15. The Mermaid

May 16. The Gentle Kaiju May 17. Monstrous Transformations May 18. Angels & Demons May 19. Monstrous Flora May 20. The Monster in History May 21. The Hybrid May 22. Kept Captive May 23. The Human is the Monster May 24. The Dragon May 25. The Monster Dies May 26. The Hive-Mind May 27. The Fae May 28. The Monster Extinct May 29. Cultural Differences May 30. The Minotaur May 31. Happily Ever After

The full write-up for the #MonstrousMayChallenge is below the cut — for every day of the month of May 2021, there’ll be a new prompt all to do with creating monsters and monster-centric stories!

You can either go directly off of the prompts themselves, or if you want a little more inspiration, you can come check this post for more in-depth exploration of the idea in question.

For each entry in response to the prompts, regardless of what platform you post to, make sure to tag the #MonstrousMayChallenge! In the meantime, just spread the word and tell your friends to get them ready for May!

Feel free to pick and mix the prompts you like best, to skip any prompts that don’t suit you, or to swap in prompts of your own if you like — every 3rd day is a specific category of “classic” monsters, and they’re not for everybody!

“Monsters are the patron saints of imperfection.” — Guillermo del Toro (x)

The emphasis on all of the prompts below are on monster-centric and monster-POV stories. Monstrous romances and monstrous erotica are both welcome and encouraged, just as much as platonic monstrosity is, and please feel free to join in regardless of your medium, whether you draw, write, animate, or create in another way entirely!

Just a note as to what expect — this challenge is intended for those who love monsters, who identify with monsters, who feel for the monsters, and all the prompts are written with that expectation in mind.

One small note: throughout these prompts there are references to folklore and ideas from different cultures and backgrounds. When exploring ideas from cultures that aren’t your own, remember that not every representation of spirits or monsters can be divorced from its original context, and take care to do your research to ensure you aren’t harming others by furthering harmful stereotypes or appropriating ideas of cultural importance.

We’re all here to have fun, which means that using a love of monsters as a vehicle for racism (whether that’s outright or by upholding colonial and imperial ideas, appropriating from other cultures, or fetishising other races and cultures) is not what we want to see in the course of this challenge, and isn’t welcome here.

Note the above especially in regards to the Alonquian W*nd*go.

Saturday 1st May 2021 — What is a monster?

Here’s a warm-up challenge to start the month off:

For you, what is a monster? What makes a monster monstrous? What delights you, excites you, scares you, horrifies you about a monster? What fills you with affection for monster?

When you first hear the word monster, what springs first to mind?

This is a free space — talk about, write about, draw, animate, sing about, the monster(s) you love best, and why you love them!

Sunday 2nd May 2021 — How To Talk To Your Monster

How does your monster communicate?

Do they have a mouth, lips, a tongue, like humans do? Do they communicate verbally at all? Do they communicate via telepathy, via their tentacles, or their limbs? Do they speak, but at a pitch or volume or speed inaudible or incomprehensible to human ears? How is this gap bridged?

Does your monster understand humans but struggle to make itself understood? Does your monster want to be understood?

Alternate: How does your monster communicate with other, different monsters?

Monday 3rd May 2021 — The Vampire

The vampire is a walking corpse that sustains itself by feeding off the the blood of the living.

There are a thousand variations on the myth — a corpse that rises from its grave at night only to mindlessly glut itself on the prey it can find becomes a reclusive gentleman who lives in isolation in a brooding, gothic castle overlooking a Transylvanian woodland (Dracula); a sparkly immortal Mormon who likes to climb into young women’s windows to watch them while they sleep (Twilight); a rich aristocrat so intent on preserving his properties and his privilege that he clings onto immortality at all costs (Interview with the Vampire); an extremely sexy vampire in sunglasses who’s devoted to killing other vampires (Blade), and so on and so forth.

Explore your own take on the vampire:

Is your vampire actually dead? Do they just appear dead, or sleep in coffins?

What makes a vampire? A curse? A ritual? Transmission of vampiric disease — via the exchange of blood or via sex? Are they born that way? Do dhampirs (half-vampires) exist? Do vampires become vampires by choice? Is there a contract or an agreement?

Does your vampire drink blood? Cerebral fluid? Consume human flesh? Do they sap energy from others in non-literal ways — for example, do they feed off of emotions or energy, or seek to devour a soul?

If they survive off of the above, do they also eat or drink other things? Are they capable of doing so without becoming ill?

Is your vampire sensitive to sunlight? Bright light in general? Do they physically react to it? Do they burn, or crumble to dust? How do they cope with this — do they only come out at night, do they wear leathers and carry a parasol, do they use a medicated suncream?

Can vampires become ill? Sick? What weakens a vampire? What kills them?

Does your vampire have any other powers? Can they fly, hypnotise people, transform into gas or another animal?

What happens if a non-human becomes a vampire?

Alternate: A non-vampire monster becomes absolutely obsessed with vampires. They love them to pieces! Why? How do they get their vampire fix?

Some inspiration, if you want it:

Article: An 18th-century guide to hunting vampires from National Geographic

Article: The Great New England Vampire Panic from the Smithsonian Magazine

Video Essay: The Sexy Vampire Trope, Explained, from The Take

Tuesday 4th May 2021 — Iconic Settings

Imagine an iconic setting within the horror genre or without — your Transylvanian castles, your unending deserts of shifting sands, your haunted houses and their infinitely winding corridors, your unholy spires atop distant peaks, your deep and dismal caves, your roiling seas…

What monsters lurk within these settings? How do they feel about their environs? What happens if you transplant a monster from one such setting into its opposite, or combine a few of them together?

What happens if these settings are invaded, lost, destroyed, expanded, changed?

Alternate: Imagine any iconic setting you like, but instead of the monster lurking within, the setting is the monster.

The seas themselves are sentient; the caves are toothy maws of impossible beasts; the mountains themselves have eyes; the castles and houses and ancient tombs and temples are, themselves, imbued with a spirit… Is it hungry? Angry? Lonely?

Wednesday 5th May 2021 — Feeding Time

What does your monster eat?

Is it predator or prey? To a human understanding, does it look like what it is? If it eats meat, does it prefer to eat it dead or alive? If it’s not from this planet or dimension, does it struggle to find new things to eat? What does it look like when your monster eats? Is it private about eating? Does it look scary when it feeds?

Does it eat at all? Does your monster get its energy from the sun, from electricity, from magic, from something else entirely?

Alternate: From a monstrous POV, a human’s dietary habits seem monstrous and strange. Why?

Thursday 6th May 2021 — The Lycanthrope

The werewolf is a person who turns into a wolf, typically at the time of the full moon. Lycanthropy is the name of the condition of being a werewolf, or someone who turns into some other animal.

The variations on the werewolf are infinite — the core is often people bitten by strange beasts and left forever cursed with their regular transformation (for example, in The Wolf Man); but a curse is also possible, such as when kings are turned into wolves as punishment for their hubris (as with King Lycaon in Metamorphoses); or of course, a curse inherited, such as when young men who come into their inherited lycanthropy and suddenly have a whole host of new puberty concerns (Teen Wolf).

And it needn’t be a wolf at all — there are all manner of shapeshifters between one myth and the next, and as much as there are werewolves there might be werelions, werebears, werebats, et cetera, et cetera.

For your lycanthrope, why not explore:

What animal or creature does your lycanthrope turn into? A wolf, a bear, a lion, a snake, a bird? Something magical — a phoenix, a unicorn, a griffin, a dragon?

Once transformed, can your lycanthrope be distinguished from the normal edition of the beast? What are the differences, for example, between a werewolf and a wolf?

Can your lycanthrope transform at will? Is it influenced by their emotion? Is it kept to a regular schedule? Can that schedule be interrupted? For example, if it’s a monthly cycle like someone’s menstruation, can they go for periods without transforming or with “spotty” transformations? If it’s with the phases of the moon, does hiding from the moon help? What happens if you send them to another planet?

Is the transformation painful? Physically or mentally taxing?Are there any health problems associated with lycanthropy?

When transformed, how conscious and aware of themselves is you lycanthrope? Do they know they’re transformed? Do they remember what they were?

Alternate: Sometimes, another monster turns into a human.

Friday 7th May 2021 — Adverse Weather Conditions

What weather is your monster happiest in? What weather is your monster least happy in?

Is your monster native to an area that’s extremely hot and humid? Very cold and dry? Is your monster used to heavy rains, droughts and little water, sandstorms, electrical storms, blizzards? If your monster lives in space or underwater, how are they affected by solar flares or tropical storms, shifts in tides and gravitational flows?

How has your monster evolved or developed to handle these weather conditions — or, is there anything your monster hasn’t evolved for, and struggles with?

Alternate: Your monster is a house-monster, and will not be going outside. They would like a blanket and a cup of hot cocoa and a nice comfortable bed, please and thank you.

Saturday 8th May 2021 — The Monster In Love

Your monster’s in love — what do they do about it?

Does your monster have any particular mating rituals or ways in which they show their affection? Does your monster mate for life, does your monster date, does your monster romance singular or multiple partners? Does your monster yearn, do they pine? Do they bring gifts, do they do special dances, do say particular words or have mating calls?

Is their love reciprocated — is it even understood?

When one monster loves another monster, what does it look like? What does it look like when a monster is in love with a human? When a human falls in love with a monster?

Alternate: Your monster has never been in love, and is baffled — perhaps even disgusted — by the prospect. Do they do research? Demand an explanation?

Sunday 9th May 2021 — The Undead

The undead covers a lot of things under a similar umbrella, and it’s up to you whether they count as monsters or not — ghosts, ghouls, poltergeists, spirits, revenants, draugr, reanimated corpses like zombies, arguably vampires… To infinity, and beyond.

We can be talking spirits without bodies or with new bodies, corpses with new spirits in them, corpses controlled by necromancers or the like, and so on.

So, for this prompt:

For your undead monster, are they conscious, sentient? Do they control their own body? Do they remember when they were alive, if they were dead and then reanimated?

If they have a physical form, can someone tell they’re undead? Are they rotting, corpse-like, desiccated, all bones, all flesh, all muscle? Are they missing parts? Do they have any extra ones? Do they look the same way they used to? If they don’t have a physical form, can you see them at all? Can you see them only sometimes?

What sustains this undead monster? Do they feed off of anything, or are they just sustained by the air itself, by magic, by some sort of magical object or curse?

Was your undead monster once a human? Once a werewolf? Once a faerie, once a dragon, once some other creature entirely?

Alternate: Your monster is a necromancer, and they are not undead, but control and raise, in some way or another, the undead.

Monday 10th May 2021 — “… and add a monster.”

Take absolutely any iconic work you like, whether it’s a classic piece of literature, a poem, a piece of mythology or folklore, a fairy tale, a fable, a shanty or a campfire song — anything that’s in the public domain and might be well-recognised — and add a monster.

Have Sherlock Holmes meeting a vampire, reimagine Jean Valjean as a minotaur, give Mr Darcy a deep and affectionate longing for his local werewolf.

You don’t have to keep to the same characters or plots — rewrite an existing plot with monsters (Rapunzel or Cinderella, for example), have two plots crossover (what happens when the monsters in two myths team up to defeat the hero out to kill them?), add monsters or change the monsters in the narrative, or if it already has a monster, add another.

Alternate: Take a public domain domain monster and give them a break. Send Dracula on holiday, give the poor result of Frankenstein’s experiments a spa day, etc.

Tuesday 11th May 2021 — A Baby Monster

How do the monsters breed?

Do they lay eggs? Give birth to live young? Do something else entirely? Are monsters active parents? What happens when monsters interbreed, or breed with humans?

Is the breeding… fun? 😉

I know not everyone likes writing babies or kids, and equally that some people have come into this challenge specifically for the monsterfucking, so there’ll be two streams of main prompts — one focusing on the breeding for you child-free monsterfuckers, and another focusing more on monstrous baby development once an egg is laid or a baby is born, etc.

Feel free to do both if you want to do both, as one does lead into the other!

Questions about breeding and monstrous pregnancy:

Does your monster fertilise eggs for the purposes of a live pregnancy, do they lay eggs, do they clone themselves, do they breed in some other way?

If your monster has genitalia, what do they look like? Are they analogous to human genitalia? Are they particularly big or particularly small compared to the analogous human parts, if so? How compatible is your monster’s genitalia with a human’s genitalia — or another monster’s?

If there is a size difference between monster and partner, what comes of this? Are there any chemical differences between monster and partner — for example, does the monster’s touch impart a high or some kind of contact aphrodisiac?

Are any attempts at breeding viable? If the monster’s partner is filled with eggs, what happens the longer they carry them? If the partner does carry the eggs or the babies to the point of birth and laying, what happens? Is it a painful process? Will they survive it? Does the partner know they’re pregnant at all?

And the pregnancy/egg-carrying questions: how does the partner’s biology change to accommodate the pregnancy? Do they have any strange or unexpected cravings? Does their biology change in any unexpected questions?

Questions about monstrous child development:

How is the monstrous baby first conceived? Is it an egg laid, is it an egg fertilised, an egg fertilised and then carried, as the result of a live pregnancy, something else entirely? If they’re laid eggs, do they go through a larval stage or other similar development?

Are monstrous babies born alone, or in groups? Do they have a high viability rate? Do the monstrous babies eat one another? Do they eat their egg casing or their placenta, if applicable? If not, what do they eat — do they drink milk or blood, do they need their food pre-chewed by their parents, can they look for food themselves?

Are monstrous parents very active in caring for their offspring? Are monstrous babies born able to take care of themselves, able to have a sort of independence, or do they need to be cared for for a period first?

How fast or slow is a monster’s development? How long does it take for them to become fully grown? How much do they grow, and how does their body develop and change as they run through their lifecycle? Do they shed their skin or any body parts, do they change a lot materially?

Alternate: What does monstrous contraception look like? Do they have a concept of it? If they don’t, how do they feel about it being explained to them?

Wednesday 12th May 2021 — The Alien

What makes an alien?

Are they from another planet, another dimension? How similar are they to anything found on Earth? How did they get here?

Are they intelligent, sentient? Do they know they’re on a foreign planet or in a foreign dimension? How fit are they to survive on Earth? How do they respond to the animals, the new sounds, the new world, around them? What technology do they have? Do they appear to be aliens as people imagine them? Do they pilot aircraft as people think they do?

Alternate: A human (or another species from Earth) is the alien on another planet or another dimension populated with “monsters”.

Thursday 13th May 2021 — The Domesticated Monster

Let’s look at the monster domesticated.

The likes of Pokémon, fantastical creatures as beasts of burden or as steeds — unicorns and pegasi and giant spiders and dragons, for example — or other tamed monsters that have learned to live with humans, and live side-by-side with them.

Are monsters actively bred for a result, or do they domesticate themselves as cats and dogs did? Do they perform tasks or assist humans? Do they give milk or eggs or honey or silk or meat? At what point in their domestication are they? Are they happy? Are they well-treated?

Alternate: A monster gets a pet of their own — is it a fantastical species, or is it a dog, cat, bird, etc? Is it even a human?

Friday 14th May 2021 — Clothing Your Monster

Does your monster wear clothes or armour?

What sort of clothes or armour do they wear? Is it grown, made, bought, traded for? Do they wear any other kind of jewelry or decoration? Do they always wear it, or only for some occasion? What do they think of human clothes? Do they want to try wearing any themselves, or taking human fabrics for monstrous clothes?

Alternate: If your monster does not wear clothes, what do they think of human clothes? How do they feel about the fact that humans wear them? Do they have a full understanding of the separation between clothes and flesh?

Saturday 15th May 2021 — The Mermaid

A mermaid is a half-human, half-fish.

You can take this very literally, as in The Little Mermaid, with someone who has a human upper half and fishy bottom half (or the other way around…😏), you can think more along the lines of the fish-person we see in Abe Sapien from Hellboy or (also) in Guillermo Del Toro’s The Shape of Water, or you can look at different variations on mermaids — the seal-like selkie who can remove their pelt to walk on land; the siren that calls to sailors so they dash themselves upon the rocks; naiads and other spirits of the water; the rusalke of the water, and so on.

Questions for your merfolk:

Do they belong in freshwater, saltwater, brackish water? Do they stay in the seas, in deep lakes, in ponds?

Do they regularly come to the surface, or do they live very deep below? What sort of temperatures are they used to, and how much sunlight? If they live in cold water or deep below the surface, are they very large and blubbery to ensure they can cope with the pressure and the cold?

Are your merfolk bioluminscent? Fish-like, cetacean-like, cephalapod-esque? If they do look similar to humans, with a human face or human body parts, do they look or feel like human flesh underneath the skin, or is it just for appearance?

What and how do your merfolk eat? Do they eat fish, meat, seaweed, plankton?

How do your merfolk feel about humans? About fish and other marine life? About animals on land? Other monsters?

Can your merfolk step onto land? Do they want to? Are they curious about what they find there? Do the humans nearby know about them, care about them?

Do merfolk live alone, in groups or as families? Are they migratory? How far do they travel, and for what reasons? Do they build towns and cities? How do they feel humans compare to them?

Alternate: A completely different non-merfolk-esque monster lives at the very bottom of the sea. What is it? How do humans come upon it? How big is it?

Sunday 16th May 2021 — The Gentle Kaiju

Kaiju is a Japanese genre of films— your Godzilla, your Mothra, your Rodan, all of these are kaiju: strange, gigantic beasts.

This prompt is centred around any monsters of superlative size that are trying their absolute best not to harm any of the little people scurrying them about them.

You can take this literally — think kaiju tip-toeing their ways through great cities and trying not to step on anything important, huge space beasts careful not to disturb planetary orbits in case they hurt anyone, or even the likes of the human trying not to step on any ants — or you can think of other monsters trying not to harm others despite some aspect of their biology making it difficult for them — Lovecraftian beasts doing their best not to do anyone any psionic damage, for example, or Medusa-like beings desperate to avoid people’s gazes in case they do any harm.

Alternate: An extremely tiny monster or another monster very easily harmed by human activities needs to kept safe.

Monday 17th May 2021 — Monstrous Transformations

How does a monster transform?

Does in transition between one form or another, like a werewolf, or between forms for land versus water? Does it regularly transform or transition through different physical presentations? Does it shed its skin, leave its old body behind? Does it grow new teeth or claws or body parts? Does it transform in response to disease or ailment?

Does a human transform slowly into a monster? Does a monster transform into another? Is this transformation willing, conscious — is it against all desperate attempts to prevent it? Is it painful? Is it agony?

Alternate: A monster expresses deep curiosity about human transformations — perhaps the differences between a child and an adult and their scale of growth, perhaps the apparent transformation when a human changes clothes, or puts on a mask, or even make-up.

Tuesday 18th May 2021 — Angels & Demons

A demon is typically an evil spirit or devil, and are sometimes thought to be fallen angels; angels are typically benevolent spirits, often thought of as celestial messengers.

Being as they’re often thought to be celestial or infernal, do you think of them as being from another dimension? How well do they mesh with Earth, from their own perspectives and human ones? How do they look or appear? Do they have to present themselves in a strange or unusual form? How do they communicate with humans — and why? Are they evil, benevolent, or simply neutral?

Are angels and demons separate things? How many kinds of angels and demons are there respectively? If they’re separate, do they communicate with one another, balance with one another?

Alternate: A monster that is not a demon or angel decides to present itself as one or the other. What is it? Why does it present itself this way?

Wednesday 19th May 2021 — Monstrous Flora

Your monster is plant- or mushroom-based!

(Or lichen-based, or algae-based, or moss-based, or coral-based, or…)

What does it look like? What makes it different from a mammalian or scaly monster? Where does it come from? How does it move, how does it breathe, how does it eat? Does it sleep? Does it 😏… you know? Is it good at it?

Alternate: Your monster lives codependently with, or lives inside, some sort of plant. What does that co-evolved relationship look like? How big is the plant? What does it look like?

Thursday 20th May 2021 — The Monster in History

Throughout history, the perception of your monster has changed over time.

Is your monster immortal? Over the progression of recorded history, has it been this same monster recorded in one sighting after another, in art or in story? Or, is your monster the latest generation of a species or line of inheritance that has gone on for a long while?

How much has your monster’s culture changed and developed in that time — has it changed in reaction to or alongside human cultures? How accurate has human perception of your monster been as the centuries have rolled by? How has art or stories about your monster changed in their telling?

How has the monster reacted to changes in human history, or different events as they have happened?

Does your monster even notice the passage of time? Are they in some way insensible to it, or do they experience it in a way humans don’t?

Alternate: The monster is a time-traveler! How do they do this? Why?

Friday 21st May 2021 — The Hybrid

A few things are bred together to create a monster, whether that monster be sublime or an abomination before the universe!

Think about griffins, pegasi, basilisks, cockatrices, and of course the manticore — any sort of beast made by combining one creature with another.

What creatures have been combined to create this monster? Has a human been one of them? How has this combination been achieved — via actual interbreeding, magically assisted or otherwise, via alchemy, a curse, or some other magical process? Has this creature literally been stitched together and then reanimated? How have the different creatures contributing to the creature changed its behaviour or its abilities?

Alternate: An attempt is made to create a hybrid… and unfortunately this is not the result. What is?

Saturday 22nd May 2021 — Kept Captive

The monster is captured.

How big or small is your monster? How was it captured — was bait used to draw it in, such as a food stuff, a copied call? Was it herded into an ambush? Was it trapped under a cage, in drop trap, in a magic trap? How easy was it to capture — did it take a long time, were several attempts made? For what reason was the monster captured?

Now kept captive, how big is your monster’s enclosure? Is it a cage, a glass box, physical chains or bondage, something else entirely? How long has it been there? Is it alone — would it rather be alone than the alternative? Is it struggling with its captivity? Is it marking out the amount of time it has been kept trapped, screaming at its captors, harming itself in its desperation for escape?

Is it likely ever to be freed?

Alternative: A human is kept captive by a monster.

Sunday 23rd May 2021 — The Human Is The Monster

From the perspective of the narrator, the human is the monster.

Who or what is made to fear them? What makes the human so monstrous in their eyes? Is it to do with the human’s size, their appearance, their behaviour, the nature of humans as a collective?

Alternative: The human thinks they’re thought of as the monster — the real monster is behind them (figuratively or literally).

Monday 24th May 2021 — The Dragon

A dragon is a mythical creature, often large and scaly, with variations found the world over.

Is your dragon extremely big, or very small? Is it indeed scaly, or does it appear so? Is it some form of sea serpent, or does it fly? Does it have wings, fins, a tail, teeth? Does it have very powerful senses, or different ones entirely to what one might expect? Does it have a mouth, eyes, a tongue, ears? Does it breathe fire or ice, have gills? Does it have some other supernatural power — telepathy, telekinesis, affect the weather or the tide?

What does your dragon eat? Does it eat meat, vegetables? Does it feed off of magic?

Does your dragon hoard anything — gold, jewels, young people out for a wander? Livestock? Something else entirely?

Alternate: An ancient dungeon, temple, or some other monument, is marked by a huge statue of a dragon. Something else inhabits it.

Tuesday 25th May 2021 — The Monster Dies

It’s the end of the story — or perhaps the beginning.

The monster dies.

Alternate: The monster dies… but only for a while.

Wednesday 26th May 2021 — The Hive-Mind

The monsters in this one are multiple.

They share a hive-mind, whether that hive-mind is created by pheromones, by fungus or infection or disease, by magic, by telepathy, by technology, or something else entirely. How many beings are part of this collective? Do they exist in conjunction with one another, and move as a swarm or a hive? Do they synchronise their movements, and work together toward a common goal? Can they work independently, or only as a group?

Can others be inducted into this hive-mind, willingly or otherwise? Is this painful or uncomfortable? Does it wipe away what experiences came before?

If a member of the hive-mind travels far away, do they remain connected to the whole? How is this hive-mind used, when beings work independently? Can it be sensed or its effects be noticed by outsiders? What is its everyday function?

Alternative: A being once a member of a hive-mind or a collective is severed from it, and now alone. Are they grieving? Do they feel free? Are tasks suddenly more difficult or easy for them? How do they feel?

Thursday 27th May 2021 — The Fae

The fae are supernatural beings or spirits found in a variety of folklore.

The fae are often associated with woodland, bodies of water, bogland, or other particular areas, but there are variations on variations of different fae legend: elves, brownies, merfolk, y tylwyth teg, the bean sidhe, selkies, gnomes, kobolds, leprechauns, nymphs, pixies…

In a lot of modern fantasy, the fae are associated with rigidity around law and rules, certain contracts, and many superstitions are associated with fae or fae-like beings, where one offends them at one’s peril.

What makes the fae monstrous? What makes them frightening and an object of horror for others? What rules do they follow and expect others to follow? What superstitions are associated with them?

Alternate: The fae are introduced to pop culture depictions of fairies. What is their response?

Friday 28th May 2021 — The Monster Extinct

The monster has been extinct for thousands of years, if not hundreds of thousands, and based off of the evidence of them — stories, fossils, remains, old art, people are trying to back-engineer what they were like, what they looked like, how they communicated.

How accurate are they? How off?

Alternate: The monster doesn’t exist yet, or is a long way off, but has been told about in prophecy, or glimpsed in visions of the future. Are these glimpses accurate to the truth? Do they tell the whole story?

Saturday 29th May 2021 — Cultural Differences

What does cultural exchange look like between monster and human, or between two monstrous cultures?

How do these distinct cultures affect one another or interact? Are there large cultural differences between the monstrous cultures and the human ones? Are there any moral, ethical, aesthetic, economic, political, legal, or other cultural aspects that are very much at odds between some cultures and the others?

For example, do the human and monstrous cultures both have money? Do they treat money as of the same importance? Do they rank things in the same orders of importance? Do they have similar customs around politeness, greeting, language? Does each culture respect the others, or do they consider themselves superior or inferior?

Alternate: A human has never had much experience of the culture they were born of — they only know the monstrous culture they were raised by and into. What does that look like?

Sunday 30th 2021 — The Minotaur

It’s my birthday and the minotaur is my absolute favourite, so! Minotaurs!

The classical minotaur was the son of Pasiphaë and the unwilling stepson of King Minos of Knossos: born with the body of a man and the head and tail of a bull, he was declared monstrous and trapped within the labyrinthine maze beneath the great palaces of Knossos, until the hero Theseus came to slay him dead.

Today, the minotaur is the name for any half-bull half-human delight, tragic or otherwise.

Alternate: You needn’t limit yourself to a half-bull half-human if you feel the need to abandon literal perfection — go for the drider, perhaps, a half-human half-spider, return to the merfolk of several prompts above, and go half-human, half-fish, the satyr, half-goat half-human.

Whatever it is, make it half-human, half-something else, and then decide:

Is your monster cursed? Were they made this way, were they born this way? Are they happy? Are they the same as their family members, or are they different? If they are the latter, are they loved and accepted, or made an exile?

What are the benefits and negatives to their physical appearance and to their biology? Are there any aspects that might be unexpected?

Are they viewed by people in general as frightening, intimidating, unusual, strange, incredibly sexy? Are they treated as a monster?

Monday 31st May 2021 — Happily Ever After

The monster lives happily ever after…

What does that look like?

Alternate: Or, your monster has a tragic ending — because you’re the monster, apparently! 😒😭

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Thanks so much for considering taking part in the #MonstrousMayChallenge!

If you want to do any of the above prompts, or if you want to do them all, but you’re not a writer or an artist, or you are but you’re not always in the mood for art, here’s a list of alternate activities you can do to tick off the prompts!

Do some worldbuilding, analysis, meta, or discussion of common tropes within or related to the prompt

Shitpost or make jokes or memes about or related to the prompt

Do some aesthetic or graphic posts

Watch movies or TV episodes, read comics, or consume other media, related to the prompts

Make rec lists for other people of movies or TV episodes or books (or other media!) related to the prompts

Comment on and show some love for other prompt fills in the #MonsterMayChallenge tag! Share your favourite work and support fellow creators!

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iamnmbr3 · 3 years

Note

I saw the ask about having the person feeling like that the Loki show is objectively bad. I liked the show, here is why.

I love Loki, and I love the MCU, but I don’t go into any of it expecting consistency. Tony and Loki are my favourite.

Tony goes through character development in his own movies, IM3 especially that main canon just kinda ignores. So I didn’t go into work he Loki show expecting them to get him consistent or right. I just went in prepared to enjoy the show for what it is in isolation. I also know that no one looks at the stories they write for the MCU critically, so I try and turn off that for a first time watch.

I really like the show, that doesn’t mean I think they made it consistent or in character for Loki. I get why people don’t like it.

I really like the TVA and all the concepts it introduced. I really liked seeing Tom acting his heart out. And I really like Loki/Sylvie because I find something very compelling about a character who hates themselves, meeting another version of themselves and being able to love them. It is not a ship I’m going to write fic about but I like them within the show.

Basically what I am saying is that I go into MCU media with the expectation they will mess up at least one character or plot point badly every time. I like the media for what it is, and I appreciate whatever it brings to the table that I can then cannibalise into da works.

Yeah that's fair. Everyone has a right to their own opinion. Fandom is better when there are a diversity of opinions and we can all respect each other and engage in open and good faith discussion rather than attacking people for having the "wrong" views or trying to harass them out of fandom.

For me personally I feel like the show fails on 3 fronts.

1) To me it fails as a Loki show. I really enjoy Loki as a character and I wanted a show about him. And I didn't personally see him in the show at all. I saw a completely different character who does not behave, speak, act, respond, react, stand, emote, or make choices like Loki does. He doesn't even LOOK like Loki because they did his hair and makeup wrong. And that's really what I wanted. I didn't want Larry (as I call the show character). I wanted Loki. That was what was advertised and to me he was so ooc that he was unrecognizable. If I just saw a clip out of context and didn't know what it was from I would have assumed I was seeing Tom in a totally different role.

Thor Ragnarok felt like a different take on Loki that definitely retconned some of his personality and history, but still felt like an alternate interpretation of the same character in the sense that I could recognize the character as Loki (albeit a different version of him); some people liked that, other didn't. But here it wasn't that. It just felt like a completely new (and to me far less interesting and compelling) character. And beyond that it felt like the show went out of its way to make a mockery of the character played by Tom and by extension anyone who ever cared about Loki's character. Like it felt like a mean spirited caricatured parody. Loki is also extremely sidelined in what is supposed to be his own show. And it most certainly didn't feel like a show about Loki, which is what I wanted. So for me the show didn't provide what I was looking for.

2) To me it also fails on its own merits. If I view it in isolation without comparing it to previous canon and just view it as its own thing it also fails. The quality of the dialogue felt very poor. None of the humor made me laugh and it all felt very juvenile and forced. The plotting and characterization seemed nonsensical and all over the place. Like Sylvie sets off those charges and the episode ends on a cliffhanger with that but then it's never addressed later.

The reason that Loki and Syvie allegedly falling in love breaks the timeline didn't really make sense. Sylvie is going around murdering timekeepers and yet Mobius somehow immediately like and trusts her and says he prefers her to Loki. Loki and Sylvie are simultaneously presented as the same person and also totally different people. Loki allegedly learns self love but we never see that - we see him call himself degrading things like pathetic. And we see him think that Sylvie is better than him. That doesn't seem like self love. The romance feels extremely rushed and unrealistic and awkward and we aren't given a compelling reason for why they are in love or what they even have in common. Sylvie doesn't really have much of a character. Mobius and Loki don't interact much and Mobius consistently mistreats him but Loki somehow thinks of him as a friend. Mobius is portrayed as a good guy for cheerfully carrying out the TVA's ends but Kang is a villain for creating the TVA. The TVA seems to be all made up of humans even though it's in charge of all reality.

If Loki did bad things, then the TVA did worse things and thus are not moral authorities. If the TVA’s actions are acceptable then so are Loki’s. If Loki was wrong to violently impose his will on a planet (let’s forget about the context with Thanos for a minute) then the TVA is wrong to violently impose its will on all of reality in order to eliminate free will. If Loki was wrong to kill a few people, then the TVA was certainly wrong to kill trillions. And thus neither Mobius nor the TVA are moral authorities when it comes to Loki because they are infinitely worse. If the actions that Mobius and the TVA took are acceptable, then there is no reason to criticize Loki because he did far less than them. Etc etc etc.

The cinematography is also very poor and unprofessional and the costumes look extremely cheap and unprofessional. The whole story feels confused and disjointed. The directing is bad because the actors are all very capable but the performances often feel wooden and forced and fake. And the pacing is terrible. A lot of it drags and then plot twists come out of nowhere with no setup so it just makes them feel jarring rather than earned or entertaining.

3) To me it also fails on a moral front. The show contains a lot of problematic depictions and messages and promotes messages that are offensive or even downright harmful.

Mobius gleefully subjects Loki to physical torture by leaving him to be repeatedly beaten in the genital area. This is a very clearcut and straight forward example of physical torture. And Mobius feels no compassion for Loki or remorse over what he has done to him. If anything he seems to find it amusing. And certainly the audience is supposed to find it amusing (which is gross and harmful messaging on Disney’s part). He also subjects Loki to psychological torture. This is a fact. There are multiple instances in the show where the TVA and Mobius subject Loki to treatment that would meet the legal definition of torture under both US law and international law. Furthermore, Mobius and the TVA are holding Loki against his will and forcing him to labor without compensation or any hope of release because they view him as belonging to a group of people (Variants) that they view as inferior and not really people. That’s a pretty textbook case of slavery. So objectively Mobius is Loki’s jailer, torturer, captor, and enslaver. And yet Mobius is presented as justified in what he does to Loki. The writer and director have even called it therapy. And a result many people have parroted this which is very harmful.

The queer “representation” feels straight out of bigoted propaganda. Loki’s personality traits have been retconned to map onto harmful stereotypes about queer men. He is overly expressive, makes grand gestures, is flamboyant, cowardly, dishonest, weak, bad at fighting, lazy, spineless, meek, unused to exercise etc. Now a person could be all these things and also happen to be queer. However, Loki was never like this before. His character was retconned to be this way only in this series where he is confirmed to be queer.

Furthermore, the entire premise of the series seems to be that it is funny and entertaining and justified when Loki is dehumanized, mocked, humiliated, hurt, tortured, beaten, assaulted, and/or robbed of his dignity. That’s the premise. That’s the whole show.

In addition to pro torture and pro authoritarianism and pro victim blaming messaging the show also has problematic depictions of black characters (see here and here), Asian people (see here) and also has a lot of fludphobia and transphobia issues. And much more.

@nikkoliferous has put together a great compendium here of various posts explaining the various issues with the show if you're curious about why some people disliked it.

#asks #loki tv series #loki series #loki 2021 #loki show #loki tv show #Marvel #MCU

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ficsex · 3 years

Note

in an ask you mentioned that fetishization can be positive. in my understanding, fetishization is an inherently bad thing, so if you're up to it, could you elaborate on that?

I can, but get ready for some early 20th century Jewish philosophy! :D

So, there's this guy named Martin Buber, one of the most famous Jewish philosophers, who posited a specific kind of existentialism: the theory of the I–It relationship and the I–Thou relationship (or Ich–Es and Ich–Du). Definitely read up on it, I'm going to do a shitty job of explaining it.

In essence:

The I–It relationship is a transactional, objectifying relationship. It's one where a person sees another being for what they are, and not who they are. There's no real connection between spirits, because each person only sees a representation of the other person in their mind.

The I–Thou relationship, conversely, is about seeing another being in truth, without any filters based on preconceptions, what they can do for each other, or what they want out of the encounter. It's the most true meeting, because you get to experience who a person actually is, instead of all of the mental and relational fog that we build around others.

Buber goes on to explain that I–Thou relationships are rare, and that each person may only have a handful of fleeting moments in their life where they get to experience a connection like that.

*****

Okay, so. What does this look like in practice?

(this explanation is mine, and is structured for ease and simplicity. Don't @ me, I know I'm deviating from Buber's purposes.) (He can @ me, you guys can't)

Imagine you board a specific bus for the first time. New job, new house, whatever. It's your first time on this bus line. You step on the bus, and there is a bus driver. You pay your fare and say thank you, and sit down. What kind of relationship do you have with this bus driver? It's an I–It relationship - your whole interaction is through a lens of purpose. They are there to drive you to their destination, you are there to pay your fare and be transported. There is no true connection there.

Now, imagine you take that bus every week day, for months and months, and you've started chatting with that bus driver. Now you know about their kids, what kind of coffee they like. They know about your job and what makes you smile. You like each other as people. This could be the beginning of an I–Thou relationship (Buber would disagree - whatever, it's my blog).

You had no way to develop that I–Thou relationship, though, if you hadn't interacted first through the I–It lens.

*****

"Mx. Ficsex, when do we get to the part about sex?"

Now, dear reader. Now.

*****

When it comes to sex and relationships, we often meet people through a lens of fetishization. The only reason you notice them is because they exemplify something sexual. They are a role or an object, but in the sense that Buber describes (and I bastardize).

We cannot control our desires. We can certainly control our behaviors, and we might be able to put in work to expand our view of what's considered "attractive", but we can't have a conversation with our subconscious to say "hey, I need you to turn off that fetish, please". That's a recipe for repression.

If you have a fetish for large breasts, you might view someone with large breasts as a role, as opposed to as a person. Their role is "sexy person that I look at". Their role is not "person who owes me sex" or "person I can demean" or even "person I can hit on", but your brain assigns them a box that they fit in, just like "bus driver" fits into the box of "I pay, they get me somewhere".

It's not that someone with large breasts is actually an object, of course, but the fact that they fit into the role of "sexy person that I look at" may be what connects you. Maybe it gives you a reason to say hello, or send a drink down the bar to them, or send the first message in OkC. This opens the door to a true and meaningful connection.

*****

This gets trickier when we discuss identities that are typically fetishized. I'm not going to go into the downsides of fetishization here (and there are many), as that would make this post a lot longer.

It can be empowering to be seen as sexual and desirable when you are part of a group that is frequently seen as deviant, undesirable, or non-sexual. It's not even a "well, no one regular likes me, so I guess I'll take someone gross who fetishizes part of my identity" (though that happens too). It's more "wow, this aspect of myself that society tells me / others is undesirable is a major turn-on for this person. If they are also a nice/good person that I get along with, this could work out really well for both of us!

(get ready for the thesis statement. drumroll, please....)

Fetishization is by nature dehumanizing, but that doesn't necessarily mean that there is no humanity to be found in potential connections. I–It relationships are all dehumanizing, to some extent, but we can use the "person as role" introduction as a foundation to create a "person as person" relationship.

If you are a person who is uncomfortable being fetishized at all, that is okay! You don't have to stand for it! I'm not being sarcastic, that is a genuinely good line to draw. But your point of view is not the only one.

There are trans women - especially older trans women - who are in relationships with men who are primarily sexually attracted to trans women (also known as chasers), and they can be good and healthy relationships. Yes, the relationship is built on an objectification of a marginalized identity, but the two people in that relationship have decided together that they are happy.

There are people missing limbs, either from congenital abnormalities or amputations, who have found love and companionship with people have have a fetish for their limb difference.

What is important to keep in mind is consent and power dynamics.

For example, race-based fetishization is almost always unethical, as it's based on a concept of privilege versus marginalization. So is fetishization based on cognitive ability, as it's based on being more powerful and able than a partner with an intellectual disability. People can't just say "I cannot control my desires", and use that to excuse bad intentions, bad practices, and bad behavior. But people can say "this aspect of a person attracts me to them, and puts them into a role of "sexy person I want to look at", and I therefore will see if I can get close to them.

*****

This post is getting way, way too long, so I'm going to cut it here now.

I want to wrap up by saying that this is ONE view, that I am presenting in ONE way. I am generally against the concept of fetishization, and only intend here to explain how it can be positive or powerful. If individual people with marginalized identities find value or desirability in being fetishized, that is not ours to police.

Enjoy my brutal butchering of Martin Buber's philosophy, and feel free to share nuanced takes in the replies.

#damn #this doesn't even get into ethical objectification #which is way less cringe than fetishization #and is one of my favorite topics to yell about

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herinsectreflection · 3 years

Text

I Don't Sleep on Bed of Bones: The Slayer as a Killer Across the Seasons

A pretty constant question throughout Buffy's arc - arguably the central question of the entire show, that Buffy must answer, is "what is a slayer? What does being The Vampire Slayer mean?". And a major part of that is the question of whether a slayer is just a killer. It's a question central to S5, but ripples throughout the rest of the show too, with some of the most iconic scenes in the show in converstion with each other around it. Inspired by an ask I received about this from @potterkid, I took a look at how this idea develops and resolves itself over the course of the show.

In S1, being the Slayer means accepting responsibility. It's metaphor for growing up - a metaphor that recurs throughout the show along with other ideas, but is strongest in S1. Buffy is torn between her teenage/human wants and her adult/supernatural responsibilities. She accepts her mortality and her duty (fighting the Master), and wins when she manages to integrate that with her personal desires (fighting the Master in a kickass prom dress with her friends and boyfriend). There's some stuff around the classic superhero idea that being around the hero is dangerous -e.g. in Never Kill a Boy on the First Date, but not much on the idea of a Slayer being a killer exactly.

In S2, being the Slayer means making hard choices. It means accepting that sometimes all your options are bad ones, but choosing one anyway, even at personal cost. This is introduced through Ford's story in Lie to Me, with Buffy's words to him forming one of the core thesis statements of the show ("You have a choice. You don't have a good choice, but you have a choice."), and it's climaxed beautifully in the tragic ending of Becoming. There's not much direct allusion to the idea of Buffy being a killer here, but this is a vital moment in that discussion. Ultimately, Buffy does make the decision here to kill Angel - not to slay Angelus, but to kill him. To take the life of her ensouled lover in order to save others. It's kind of the opposite of the decision that Ford makes - the best of two bad choices. It's the classic trolley problem, and Buffy's hand is on the lever by design - she has to make that choice because she's the Slayer. We will see this moment returned to again and again as this Slayer-vs-Killer theme develops.

Also, Ted is a very important episode for later. Buffy herself feels guilty specifically because she used her slayer powers on what she thinks is a regular human, and therefore killed him. Specifically, being the Slayer made her a Killer. It's also notable that this is where the idea of Buffy having a free reign to kill is first introduced - by Buffy's original shadow self in Cordelia no less.

Cordelia: I don't get it. Buffy's the Slayer. Shouldn't she have... Xander: What, a license to kill? Cordelia: Well, not for fun. But she's like this superman. Shouldn't there be different rules for her? - 2x12 Ted This isn't explored massively here but will be revisited again and again going forward.

S3 is where this theme really comes into focus. Faith enters as Buffy's shadow self and a representation of hedonism. How that manifests is as a Slayer who gives herself a license to Kill. She posits the idea that as slayers, they can and should decide who lives and dies.

Faith: Something made us different. We're warriors. We're built to kill. Buffy: To kill demons! But it does not mean that we get to pass judgment on people like we're better than everybody else! Faith: We are better! - 3x15 Consequences

Obviously, this is something that Buffy has to reckon with and fight against. But there is a glimmer of truth here, because at the end of S2, she does take the power of life and death into her own hands. She is faced with the choice between Angel and the world and decides that Angel should die. She had to, that's the position she has to be in because she is the Slayer. She has to be a Killer because she is a Slayer. So the two are intertwined.

More than this, Faith is someone who at least appears to revel in the kill. Up until now, we hadn't really seen Buffy enjoy being a slayer, but Faith does. Buffy is genuinely drawn to that, to slaying for pleasure. The equation of slaying/killing and sex for Buffy is first explicitly drawn by Faith in this season. ("Isn't it crazy how slaying always makes you hungry and horny?"). Slayers are very much like vampires in that respect, blurring the line between sex and death. In general, Faith introduces the idea that Buffy is drawn to killing - not just to protect people (the ideal of a Slayer), but for its own benefit. That's something that Buffy continues to struggle with going forward.

I have said before that Faith in S3 is an echo of Angel in S2, both in Buffy's relationship to them both and how that shifts mid-season, and in how it ends. In Graduation Day, Buffy again is given the power of life and death. This time, it's more personal - she can stop Angel dying by killing Faith. It's not such a straightforward (for want of a better word) decision as Angel .vs. the literal entire world, it's just the value of one life against the other. Another trolley problem, and it's not an easy choice, but it's still a choice. Just as she chose the lesser evil in killing Angel in S2, she kills the person filling the Angel role in S3. And this time, the choice is explicitly tied to the idea of being a Killer. Faith is set up as the person that Buffy could be in a slightly different world, and that person is a Killer, as Faith herself claims.

"What are you gonna do, B? Kill me? You become me. You're not ready for that, yet." - Faith Lehane, 3x17 Enemies

"You did it, B. You killed me." - Faith Lehane, 3x22 Graduation Day

In the act of choosing to pull the lever, Buffy has to kill. In the act of killing, she has become her dark mirror. In the act of defeating/becoming Faith, she becomes again the sole Slayer. Being a killer and a Slayer again intertwined. It's interesting here that she then makes the decision to feed herself to Angel. She unravels the trolley problem by throwing herself on the tracks. It's fascinating that between the dual trolley-problem finales of Becoming and The Gift, where in the first Buffy chooses to pull the lever, and in the latter she refuses and chooses a third option, Graduation Day exists in the middle as a stepping stone where she kind of does both.

The bulk of S4 is a little lighter on this theme, instead examining The Slayer as a role that must be juggled amongst a series of competing roles as Buffy's life as an adult becomes more fractured. There are flavours of it in Fear Itself, where Buffy fears that her friends will leave and her destiny lies with death and the dead, but otherwise not too much jumps out at me. Except, of course, for Restless, which is so heavy with this theme. It's one of the many reasons why I kind of consider Restless an honourary part of S5, as it's setting up the themes and arcs of S5 as much as it's wrapping up the like from S4.

RILEY: Hey there, killer.

BUFFY: We're not demons. ADAM: Is that a fact?

RILEY: Thought you were looking for your friends. Okay, killer...

TARA: I live in the action of death, the blood cry, the penetrating wound. I am destruction. Absolute ... alone. BUFFY: The Slayer. FIRST SLAYER: No friends! Just the kill.

OK, so SO much to unpack here. This is all within the under-10-minute sequence of Buffy's dream, and in that sequence she constantly shows a fear that she is in fact a "killer". It's clearly strong in her mind. Riley calls her "killer" multiple times, and Adam equates her with him, and with demonhood. I also find it very interesting how she responds to Tara's words, which are very literally describing the act of kiling ("the action of death...the blood cry...the penetrating wound"). She hears that and immediately identifies her as the Slayer, so slayerhood and killing are clearly bound up together in her mind.

Central to her concerns is the dichotomy between friendship and death. This was built up in Fear Itself, and it's central here. Riley and Sineya both frame it as a choice, between friendship and "the kill". This is a fear that Buffy has already, since S1, that her Slayer life will stop her ability to have a "normal" life of friends and family, but it also sets up her arc in S5 nicely. She chooses her friends over becoming a pure instrument of death in Restless, but that does not resolve her ongoing fears. They existed before and continue to dwell even more strongly in her mind, with words that both Sineya and Dracula repeat.

"You think you know ... what's to come ... what you are. You haven't even begun."

This sets the stage for S5, and her arc of choosing between family and being the Slayer. Friendship and family are presented as more of less one and the same a few episodes later in Family, and the choice Buffy is faced with in S5 is another trolley problem - the life of Dawn against the world. This time, it's more specifically tied to the Slayer/Killer dichotomy through the prophecy that Buffy is faced with ("Death is your gift"). This frames the similar choices she faced in Becoming and Graduation Day in the same light, with Buffy even specifically comparing this to the former.

BUFFY: I sacrificed Angel to save the world. I loved him so much. But I knew ... what was right. I don't have that any more. I don't understand. I don't know how to live in this world if these are the choices. If everything just gets stripped away. I don't see the point. I just wish that... I just wish my mom was here. The spirit guide told me that death is my gift. Guess that means a Slayer really is just a killer after all. - 5x22 The Gift

S5 is soaked in this Killer-vs-Slayer idea, and that's part of why I love it so much. It opens with Buffy having gained an appreciation of killing. She goes out not to patrol, but to hunt. To revel in the enjoyment of the kill, just as Faith did. There's also a constant theme of people identifying Buffy as a Killer. Importantly, it's a theme of her believing them. She knows that there is a kernel of truth there, and it develops from a subconcious worry in Restless to a more concrete fear in Intervention, where Buffy explicitly says that she is afraid that being the Slayer means losing her humanity and ability to love, and become nothing more than a "killer". Eventually, Buffy is so ground down by it that when The Gift rolls around, she simply accepts that the Slayer is "just a killer" as an inevitability.

BUFFY: Yeah, I prefer the term slayer. You know, killer just sounds so... DRACULA: Naked? - 5x01 Buffy vs Dracula

SPIKE: Death is your art. You make it with your hands, day after day. That final gasp. That look of peace. - 5x07 Fool for Love

FIRST SLAYER: Death is your gift. - 5x18 Intervention

I also like the way that Joyce is repeatedly linked to this idea. Buffy's response to Sineya points to Joyce's death as a rebuttal to the idea of death being a gift ("Death is not a gift. My mother just died. I know this."). Buffy talks about Joyce just before accepting that "a slayer is a killer" in The Gift. Spike's speech about Slayer's having a death wish comes immediately before Buffy finds out that Joyce is going into hospital. The idea of the Slayer as an instrument of death, killing every day, is juxtaposed against the mundane horror of what death is really like, as demonstrated in The Body. As the Slayer, Buffy must cause death, but this is what death looks like. It's hard and painful and mortal and stupid. Eventually Buffy reaches a point where she just can't do this anymore. She can't live in a world where she must choose to be a killer, because she understands death more now than ever.

It's here that the show explicitly connects the ideas of utilitarianism and being a killer. Buffy says that killing Dawn to save the world (and by association killing Angel to save the world, or killing Faith to save Angel), would make the Slayer "just a killer". This goes back to S3, and Faith arguing that the death of one innocent was washed out by the many people that they save, and that being Slayers gives them the right to make that calculation. Tara points to Giles in this episode, the voice of utilitarianism, and identifies him as a killer. Giles himself identifies himself as one when he kills Ben, and here draws a line between being a utilitarian/killer, and being a hero.

BEN: Need a ... a minute. She could've killed me. GILES: No she couldn't. Never. ... She's a hero, you see. She's not like us.

Some people criticise the moral absolutism of this, and could very justifiably argue that killing Ben, or even killing Dawn, would be the most moral thing in this situation. Who are we to say that Dawn's life is more valuable than the lives of a thousand other 14 year old girls, with families of their own that love them just as much as Buffy loves Dawn? But within the context of the show, I think it makes sense for them to reject utilitarianism. Buffy is a Sisyphean story. There will always be another apocalypse after this one is stopped. There will always be another impossible choice with innocent lives in the balance. Through that lens, the idea of "killing one to save a thousand" becomes meaningless, because there's a thousand apocalypses, and if you kill one to stop them all, then you've killed a thousand. That's how Buffy feels - she killed Angel, she killed Faith, now she has to kill Dawn? Where does it end? Eventually it all just gets stripped away, so what's the point? There's no winning move here. The only way to break the cycle is to change the game.

We should also keep in mind Buffy's words at the start of the episode. She fears that the Slayer is "just a killer", but she is also identified by the guy she saves in the alley in the opening scene as "just a girl". And Buffy agrees ("That's what I keep saying."). Buffy is The Vampire Slayer, which dictates that she must make these impossible choices, but she's also Buffy, which means she is a human being with the power of free will. She gets a choice - not a good choice, but a choice. As a human being, she can reject the options in front of her and find a third way. She can transform the whole game, and turn "Death is your gift" into an empowering statement. This was heavily foreshadowed of course - the Guide in Intervention outright stated that Buffy was full of love, and that "love will bring [her] to [her] gift". But it takes Buffy working through these fears and emotions and realising that she simply can't take Dawn's life. She chooses a new way. She avoids being a killer by rejecting utilitarian ethics. To paraphrase The Last Jedi, she wins by saving what she loves. Ultimately, she's not a killer, but a girl, a friend, a sister, a Slayer - a hero.

So season five is very much the climax and resolution of this theme. Very few themes ever disappear entirely from this show though, and this one continues to echo throughout the show. In S6, Buffy again fears she is slipping into darkness. That there is some kind of darkness that is innate within her. But where in S5 this was a fear that she recoiled from but at times seemed inevitable, in S6 it is something that she is drawn towards, that disgusts her but that she takes a kind of comfort in, because it's easier than facing the mundane reality of her depression.

This yearning for her own darkness takes the physical form of Spike, who she uses for what is basically sexual self-harm. Spike steps into Faith's role as Buffy's shadow self for much of the later seasons, and , and like Faith he represents killing as hedonism, and as sex. There's no vampire who so aggressively blurs the lines of sex and death/violence as Spike. Her fear that killing is part of her nature, and her fear of her own sexual desire, are very much one and the same. When she breaks down in Dead Things, she talks about the darkness within her, and of her shame over her own sexuality.

Spike also repeats Faith's utilitarian justifications from Consequences in the episode which forms the climax of Buffy's self-destruction, Dead Things. When Buffy attempts to metaphorically commit suicide by turning herself into the police, she does it while constantly identifying herself as a killed. She repeats some variation on "I killed her" four times in just two scenes. She wants to be punished for being a killer, and not protected for being the slayer. She has grappled with this several times, and is still resolute that being the slayer does not give her a license to kill, but this time she is desperate to be seen as a killer, to give justification for her own self-hatred.

The final way S6 explores this idea is with Willow. When she is after Warren, Buffy tries to stop her, not for Warren's sake but for Willow's. She knows that taking a life changes a person, and implicitly draws on the first time she chose to take a human's life, the moment she "became a killer" on that rooftop with Faith.

Buffy (re: going to kill Faith): I can't play kid games anymore. This is how she wants it. Xander: I just don't want to lose you. Buffy: I won't get hurt. Xander: That's not what I mean. - 3x21 Graduation Day

XANDER: She should be coming down at some point, shouldn't she? I mean, back there she was out of her head ... running on grief and magicks. BUFFY: Doesn't matter . Willow just killed someone. Killing people changes you. Believe me, I know. - 6x21 Two to Go Killing Warren might have been justified given what a complete piece of shit he was - just as killing Angel was justified, just as killing Faith was, just as killing Ben was. That doesn't matter, because Buffy still recognises that the act of killing leaves permanent psychological scars, which she is still bearing.

In S7, we get the final major exploration of the "does the Slayer have a right to kill" idea in Selfless. Here, Buffy seems to have reached the conclusion that Cordelia, Faith and Spike (all her shadow selves) were right, and she does, in fact, have the right to pass judgment because she's the Slayer, when she decides she has to kill Anya.

"It is always different! It's always complicated. And at some point, someone has to draw the line, and that is always going to be me. You get down on me for cutting myself off, but in the end the slayer is always cut off. There's no mystical guidebook. No all-knowing council. Human rules don't apply. There's only me. I am the law." - 7x05 Selfless

However, I don't think the show wants us to take this as gospel. Buffy is conclusively proved wrong in this episode, since killing Anya doesn't work, and it's Willow who finds a third option that saves the day. In S7, the idea of the Slayer-as-Killer is more an incidental theme, while the central exploration is the idea of "one girl in all the world". It explores the nature of that tragedy, that Buffy is by definition alone. Because of this, she necessarily must be a killer. She does have to pass judgement, because there is nobody else capable of it. She has to be the one to hunt and kill vampires. She has to face the choice to kill Angel, to kill Faith, to kill Dawn, to kill Anya.

This is where the theme ends up - as a tragic inevitability. Buffy must always make that choice. Making the selfless choice to kill her boyfriend doesn't stop it. Avoiding the choice and dying herself doesn't even stop it. That boulder just rolls down the hill again and again, and Buffy is the only one who can push it back up. The Slayer is a killer because the Slayer is alone. So the only way to break that cycle is for the Slayer to no longer be alone. There are still elements of The Slayer, and of Buffy as a person, that are linked to death and killing, but she has mostly made peace with those parts, and now can be free of having to be "the law" too.

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sag-dab-sar · 3 years

Text

The Word “Cult” and its Usage

Its a word with two meanings that could use some explaining.

The word holds a very negative connotation to a lot of people. I can completely understand this. I do not use the term cult statues or cult images for my animated representations of the Gods on my altar; I use the term Idol. Despite the fact that, in academia, “cult statue” is the non-derogatory term and “idol” is derogatory. I don’t like hearing the word cult in regards to my own practice but I understand and use its academic meaning in other situations. Also just kinda feels nice to “”reclaim”” the word idol tbh.

💬

When I write online about ancient religion I often use the terms Cult / Cultus because they mean something specific. They are more narrow than the general term “religion.”

🔹Cult includes the priestly system, the temple and its complex, the types of rituals, the importance and role of the God in that place, and the beliefs about that God in that place.

🔹For example, the beliefs and rituals to Athena in Athens vs the beliefs and rituals to Athena in Sparta may have differences. Indicating that Athena has two different cults despite us putting them both under the label “Ancient Greek Religion.” Thats how some epithets arose which many can be refered to as “cult titles.” (Not all, some epithets arise from poetry and other ways.)

🔹In Mesopotamia “Cult Center” implies that the God is the most important God to that city. Kutha with Nergal, Nippur with Enlil, Isin with Ninisina (Gula), and Eridu with Enki. They still worship the other Gods of course, polytheism interlaces the Gods in numerous ways that cannot be split, but there was still a sense of a particular God(s) being especially important to that specific city or settlement.

💬

“Religion” is too broad in many cases to be useful when writing about ancient polytheism and cult is usually a neutral term in academia. I have even come across some academic journal articles where the author specifies which definition they mean.

Lets look at this example (that I just wrote myself):

“Despite the city of Nippur never being the seat of a ruling dynasty the city held a vital role in Mesopotamian Religion. It was the cult center of Enlil, King of the Gods, and thus the place where kingship was bestowed”

I wouldn’t say “religious center of Enlil.” Religion implies some sort of cohesion. For example, Sunni Islam is the same in Y place as it is in X place, while interpretations of things vary greatly, for the most part the foundation is the same: same Quran, same prophets, same prayers, same prayer motions, same calendar, same holy days, same language used, same 5 pillars, and all Muslims face Mecca no matter where one is.

Ancient polytheism is not that cohesive, the Cult of Enlil at X city and the Cult of Enlil at Y city may be very different even though they still have the same common threads and basis of Ancient Mesopotamian Religion connecting them, such as the need for purity, general cosmology, role of magic, need for elaborate rituals, the sheer importance of the cult statue, prevalence of spirits, status of humans in relation to the Gods, etc.

Despite those common threads the prayers, the role Enlil plays as a city God, the functioning and administration of his temple, the other Gods that are worshipped in the temple, and the priestly hierarchy may all be different between X city and Y city. Thats why it should not be called a “Religion of Enlil” as it carries a connotation of cohesion between different localities and their worship of Enlil.

💬

Thus the terms “cult / cultus” and “religion” can carry significanlly different meanings when speaking of polytheism.

Hope this helps explain the usage you might come across.

May 19th, 2019

#paganism #polytheism #religion #ancient history #ancient religion #repost

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frogsthoughtss · 3 years

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The new spirit movie being made, simply put, isnt all that great (originally, I’d put trash, but I thought that was too strong a word to use on the internet.) Heres why: To start off, I’d like to give synopsis (summary??) of the first movie.

In the original, Spirit, the horse, is captured by the colonizers and separated from his herd. These colonizers attempt to “tame” him. Claiming all horses can be tamed, including stallions with enough power and control. The colonizers breach onto the horses land and are expanding westward, which is how they even get near the herd in which spirit is in. The only reason he even nears them is because he doesnt know who the colonizers are and is basically confused as to what they were. So now because theyve captured Spirit, they think that ‘oh he’s just a wild horse, we can tame him by showing him whos boss” they dont. Spirit is, as its said, an untamed soul. He CANT BE TAMED, or as Little Creek put it, shouldnt be tamed. Because his place is with his herd, running free. The eagle in spirit is a symbolism of the freedom. Whenever the eagle is there, it serves as a reminder not only to the audience, but to Spirit himself that he is a wild horse, a Free horse.

Now, Little Creek, the Lakota native american, shares ALOT of similarities to Spirit(which is where Im getting at). Natives as we know, have been treated terribly, in the most inhumane ways. Theres alot said about helping out poc, but ppl always seem to forget that Natives count as Poc and are barely, if ever, helped out. The fact that theyve been continuously pushed out of their areas and contained in small groups with others of their tribes, after having had their land stolen from them, is disgusting. Back to the point tho, Spirit. Little Creek and spirit share that, in the time which this movie took place. Theyre being pushed from their areas and ppl are trying to “tame them”.

Now, again with the history. This wasnt included in the movie but Natives back in the day, when they were younger, would be taken from their tribes and colonized. Theyd rid them of the rich culture and try to perpetuate the white, colonized ways. Colonizers would change their names to the basic boring meaningless names, forbid them from speaking their native tongue, and have them grow up as a white, eurocentric person would. In other words, colonizers take away what made them different and attempt to get them to become like them. Which, while not included in the movie, is important to know! Bc it shows the parallels between a wild stallion, and a native american: 1- taking their land until barely any is left for them. 2- ridding them of their ways of being, until yheyre the way that is seen as presentable to the majority (whites)3- attempting to tame them.

Natives were seen as animals. As feral creatures less then human and less than the dirt being walked on (WHICH IS NOT TRUE). The fact was, euros saw them as ppl that needed to be ‘educated’ on the ways of man, which they saw as the was of WHITE man. In trying to educate them, it can almost easily be seen as them trying to ‘tame’ them, as they would a horse. With strength, power, and Force.

So going on ahead, when spirit meets little creek, theyre two sides of the same coin, going through the same thing, but its seen differently primarily because one is human and yhe other, well, a horse. And its troubling. Because even tho Little creek escapes the center where they were both held at, it was an interest type situation. Spirit let himself be handled and captured afterwards by the Lakota, only because they held the same view that horses could be tamed. However, despite the attempts to tame Spirit, Little Creek realizes soon that even tho their methods of taming a horse are to show that they are equal to to the human and not below (such as the whites were trying to impose) he knows that spirit, a free stallion, isnt going to be tamed. He sets him free. Spirit is somewhat hurt, bc these humans, treated him kindly. And he saw how kindly they treated other horses. He was reluctant bc of how honest and humane they were, but left anyways bc spirit also knew that he wasnt going to let himself be tied. Even if it was by an honest group.

My point in all of this is that In Spirit:The Stallion of Cimarron, it beautifully captures the similarities of natives, and in this movie horses. Both were struggling to maintain their land and their freedom, and the new movie doesnt. Its no surprise that good representation in movies is little to none for poc, but its even less in native americans. If you can name 5-10 movies with good native rep, I’d like to know but I can assure you that at the top of your head, you probably couldnt come up with more than 2. So when I heard of this movie coming out, I had to know if it kept the relation between the natives and animals in it.

It did not. In fact, from what Ive seen (the trailer) it removed the natives and instead replaced them with hispanics (presumably mexicans as rodeos originate from spanish/mexican influences). Now, mexican/latino and hispanic rep is good! I completely encourage making it bc its good! However this was not the movie for that. They took away the aspect of how freedom isnt something that can just be taken. How, the liberty that comes with your own deeply rooted course, cannot just be changed- how it SHOULDNT be changed. And in this new movie they did. This hispanic girl, for some horse riding event somehow tamed spirit, whose ‘soul could not be tamed’. Like, did we watch the same movie directors???? Producers????Bc the point of spirit the stallion of Cimarron was that freedom should be maintained, not stripped for the wants of others simply because,according to them, its “beneficial” and goes along with what they consider to be the social norm. It was about the connection that humans could make with animals bc they didnt place them below them, but rather treated them as equals. And for that to be taken away??? I feel like having tamed spirit was the wrong call for them to make.

Overall, it appears that Spirit Untamed (its literally in the title cmon) stripped the basis of the original movie to create the basic horse girl ‘saves’ horse and is the only one who can ride him bc she’s the only one who can ‘understand’ his trauma. Like, watch any other horse girl movie and thats what you get. But spirit wasnt supposed to be that. It was sooo much more and the fact that they dumbed it down to that?? Smh

#spirit #spirit the stallion of the cimarron #spirit movie #movie #spirit untamed #movie history #horse #stallions #natives #representation #im open to criticism #if I need correcting on stuff pls say so #theres honestly only so much I know #so if smth is wrong pls correct me!!#I havent watched the series but bc its based off of the original spirit movie #I honestly did expect more #kinda all over the place but hopefully it makes sense

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yinses · 3 years

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fractured kingdoms

| he made you a princess … it was only right for him to play the white knight |

one

gojo satoru rating: 18+

a/n: this will be a slow pet project for me. i’ve outlined what i want to accomplish so we’ll see if i can manage to meet my own goals. thank you for all the interest!

the ability to be lured out with food was dangerous- for her.

likely for humans too, for those who may have fallen for her charms. but aside from milking them dry she didn’t seem to have any ill intents. rather didn’t know what to do with them or why she should bother.

gojo didn’t know if she stayed around this area for a reason or if he just got lucky. he’d played around with possible back stories for her origin.

he would have assumed the factory had been the place of her death given that’s where he’d initially found her. but the fact that she was able as stray as far as she did after their meeting meant that she could have come from a lot further.

whether or not she was the accumulation of her own thoughts was a contender too. she didn’t need to be the same girl who died per say. with as many souls lost in this area alone, she could have been the combination of plenty- yet her personality was strong enough to bubble to the top.

she was an anomaly. but that was also why she was still alive and not exorcised without a second thought.

swinging the bag of treats, the crinkle of plastic replaced what would have been small tut for her attention. he wondered if that would have brought him more ire or favor.

fortunately the smell wafting from the still warm desserts did the work for him. that faint scent drifted past his nose again, something still annoying indescribable, came from above again.

“these are for you, princess,” he responded to her unasked question.

“wow, you actually came back.”

shaking the bag again, gojo made a noise of appreciation when she responded eagerly, watching quietly as she dropped down and snatched up the bag without so much of a thank you. maybe only some princesses actually showed gratitude to their subjects.

the building had been cleared of bodies but not properly cleaned. there were still distinctive dark pools still staining the floor that would undoubtedly linger. she seemed to have no problem plopping down near one as she opened the first container.

“oh! i love strawberries.”

there is was again. a small inking of what should be a preference, bred from past memories. he doubted he would get a straight answer if he probed. whether from her own attitude or lack of understanding- it was too early to tell.

instead he took a different route.

“this is a pretty dirty castle.”

there was a splotch of pink jam at the corner of her mouth. his hand twitched but nothing followed up.

“it’s not like i live here,” she scoffed.

his brow rose,” oh, but this is where i found you again.”

it was a false representation but the way her cheeks warmed at the attention carried her image as a human girl. he couldn’t feel the heat but there was a hint of shyness pinching at her cheeks.

unable to resist, he delved deeper.

“so then you were waiting for me all this time.”

that was no surprise. he didn’t expect for her to follow him home like a lost kitten after he bought her nice things. actually he’d hoped she’d come back here until he could return.

it took him three days, but it was more than enough time for the lower grades to purify the area. the reports read that all lingering spirits had been taken care of with little issue.

it was safe to assume that the curse before him was far from a small issue. so either she was capable enough to conceal her presence through a purge or she had drifted off somewhere else and returned. both were very intriguing concepts.

“i thought you had come back earlier but they were just annoying pests.”

ah the plot thickens. so she had been here.

sliding his freed hands into his pockets, gojo tilted his head to the side. “you mean my comrades. yes, they needed to clean up the mess your friends made.” before she could retort with they weren’t my friends, he added. “how did you feel when they showed up?”

she made a face,” i don’t know. fine, i guess.” she tore at the dough and fed herself smaller pieces. “annoyed maybe? it made my head hurt a little and there was this heaviness in my chest.”

she almost sounded concerned, so blissfully unaware that she had been resisting a reverse technique so effortlessly. the clean up had taken at least a day and a half. gojo doubted she could have escaped the barrier placed without alerting someone so she must have just endured.

funnily enough, he imagined that she would have been crankier.

when presented with an untouched raspberry filled daifuku, he almost smiled. actually he did one better, dramatically clinching a hand to his chest as he lowered to one knee.

the greatest shaman alive bowing to a curse.

“i wasn’t expecting you to share. how sweet.”

she scowls and looks like she might take it back but he doesn’t give her the opportunity. he was going to stop by again on the way home but this would help sate the craving. gojo offered a thank you in return.

“they were suppose to kill me, right? did you send them?”

what an observant creature. and the way she made her voice so small as if disturbed by the idea of being removed to safe humanity. she wasn’t immune to what she could have done, what those in her likeness had conducted in her stead.

gojo swiped the pad of his thumb against his tongue, savoring the lingering tangy sweetness. “yes. though not specifically you.”

he did put out the official request to ijichi, even if he hadn’t filled out the actual order. they would have certainly tried to end her and likely called him back after she showed any signs of intelligence.

“but you did good, kitten.” why was he praising her for evading his colleagues? maybe he was a little proud of her for surviving his test. “that means you're about as strong as i predicted. maybe even stronger.”

curious eyes shot him a glare at the admittance, but she still partook of his peace offering- now that it had informally coined as such.

“why does it matter if im strong enough? i don’t want to fight anyone.”

but she would. eventually have to fight, if solely for the reason to survive.

maybe it was considered treason, or something along those lines. but gojo was willing to cross into that territory and give her a fighting chance against the odds.

her hair was soft, he noted. more surprisingly she allows him to caress the top of her head with his palm. gojo had expected it to be as grimy as her environment.

there was no reason to extend this curses life any longer; even if she did put up a reasonable struggle he could succeed. yet here she sat, not necessarily open but trusting.

gojo’s face was a mask as her smaller hands toyed with one of the empty wrappers. she cast a questioning glance towards him,” will you help me?”

and who was he, her self proclaimed white knight, to deny such a request.

“of course, princess.”

it would be my honor.

“call me satoru.”

#gojo x reader #gojo satoru x reader #gojo satoru #jujutsu kaisen x reader #Jujutsu Kaisen #gojo blessings

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