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redladypaige · 5 months

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@shonpota asks what I learned in Israeli school

What I learned in Israeli school is..

WHAT I LEARNED IN ISRAELI SCHOOL IS

honestly you're going to be disappointed

tl;dr it's not explicitly hateful, it's much more about emphasizing certain facts and ignoring others to create a narrative and lie by omission.

I don't think it's very different than other western education, but you'll be the judge of that.

I'll try to explain if it makes sense.

First of all, I studied in public school almost a decade ago (jesus), so things might have changed.

So this is the least religious education you can get. More religious schools have been caught with more explicitly hateful material, but that I can't tell you first hand.

Arabic class

From seventh to ninth grade you have mandatory Arabic in school.

Since it's such a short time you really only learn the basics.

The class doesn't really count towards your diploma grade, so you just have to pass it, so most people don't really take it seriously.

There are optional advanced classes to take later on, which in my case were took by Arab Israelis, people with interest in languages and people who wanted to be translators in the IDF.

Civics class

Mostly dry stuff about the system of government, how democracy works, elections, rigjts, stuff like that.

There is big talk about equal rights, mostly mentioning that women had equal rights by law since the founding and that Arab Israelis are regular citizens with equal rights.

Gaza and the west bank weren't mentioned at all, at least when I learned. This is stuff you learn from the news or from your parents.

And of course nothing about systemic racism or anything like that.

You can say that the class shows the ideal clean version of the vision of democracy without actually diving down to what's happening.

Putting "politics in school" is a very controversial subject over here, which I found similar to what's going on with the critical race theory thing in the USA.

Right wingers are in power for a while (and it's getting worse), and for them anything that puts Israel in not a great like is political and should be removed, though it is sometimes used against them too.

It constantly changes and stuff gets added and removed.

Tanach class

It might surprise you that even in secular schools you learn the Tanach (the old testament for you Christians) from first to twelfth grade.

It might surprise you more that we learn it not as a religious text, but much more of an historical one.

It was one of my favorite classes because it actually felt like it encourages skepticism and analysis.

There is talk about how the Torah was probably written by different authors because of contradictions which is literally sacreligous

We talked about which stories are or aren't corroborated by history, how to know about the author by the perspective of the text, events written on from different points of view, etc.

History class

You learn history from first to twelfth grade.

It's very very western.

Starting from Greek to Rome to the middle ages, enlightenment, the French and american revolutions and world wars.

Colonialism is displayed as neutral I guess - just an event that happened. Remember that they don't want opinionated teachers.

We gloss over stuff like slavery and native American genocide when learning about the us, its mostly the revolution and stuff.

Sometimes history from a specific place rotates in, but the rest of the world is mostly reserved for the optional advanced classes.

Of course, there is a big emphasis to ties to Judaism throughout.

Within those periods you learn about what the Jews were up to, usually under the lens of how the current ruler abused them.

World war 2 and the Holocaust obviously is a huge chunk of the material.

You don't get to modern history until like the 10th grade.

And then it's mostly the narrative of the creation of Israel, again viewed neutrally.

It starts from the Dreyfus trial, which had a Jewish officer been accused for a crime he didn't commit.

That caused a reporter named Herzel to think Jews will always be persecuted and to start the Zionist movement with the idea to find a homeland for the Jewish people.

We learn about different proposals for where it could be, raising money, the first Alyot (people who came to Israel to live there).

The Alyot are presented as good things generally, saying that the lands were legally bought and that the people wanted to live side by side with the Palestinians.

Of course the reality is more complicated than that.

We get the Balfour statement, explaining how it's the first time Jews got international recognition for a country but also how it's really non committal.

We learn the efforts to get a country against the British, both the diplomatic and the terrorist actions the early Israeli organizations did.

We learn about the UN division plan, with saying that the Jewish people were happy to share but Palestinians won't come to the negotiations table.

We talk about the declaration of independence when the British left, and how we were immediately attacked by the casus belli of killing all jews by all surrounding countries and still won at the end.

The atrocities of the war aren't mentioned at all.

The Nacba is mentioned, with the word it self constantly getting in and out from the books every year, but it's mentioned subjectively.

As in, "the Palestinians see the events of this war, when Israel took territory in a defensive war and people had to leave their houses as a day of tragedy with the intention to one day return" or something like this.

We learn about immigration after the Holocaust and Mizrahis from Arab countries (like me),surprisingly not shying away from the racism.

The narrative is "there might have been racism then, but now we are all a melting pot of a single culture" or something.

It gets as far as the Six Day War and Yom Kippur war at 1973, anything beyond that is not covered in school.

The main narrative we see about Palestinians is that most of them do want peace and are happy to live side by side with the Israelis, but every time their radical leadership hated their own people, and won't take any compromise.

They want to kill all Israelis and take everything, and Israel is only defending itself.

You can say that's the most radical narrative we learn.

There is little exploration of why, the assumption is anti semetism.

Every war is presented as justified and as part for Israels quest for peace, while being the constant victim.

Inner Palestinian politics aren't discussed, we don't learn their history, their views etc.

That's it I guess?

Feel free to ask anything and I'll try to remember

#israel #palestine #history #school

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queer-aunty · 9 months

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Songs in preparation for Fontaine:

Those are only speculations.

Arleccino, Lyney & Lynette (maybe also Freminet)

So I was listening to some playlist and I found this song:

And i think it fits, because they are/were (idk if they're still there) orphans at the house of hearts so they probably will help Arleccino and backstab the traveler, but later realize, that she and the Fatui manipulated them and feel betrayed/heartbroken/angry?

I mean no idea if i'm right, but i also don't want to know if i'm right, I want to see it for myself, when Fontaine comes out in a few days.

So everything I wrote in this is changed from the original lyrics also i tried to shorten it a bit, didn't always work so I just copied most stuff and changed stuff^^°

Hope my interpretation makes kind of sense and isn't just weird xD

I come from scientists and atheists and White men who kill God They make technology high quality complex physiological Experiments and sacrilege in the name of public good They taught me everything Just like a mommy (changed to fit) should

And you were beautiful and vulnerable And power and success God damn I fell for you your flamethrowers Your tunnels and your tech I studied showbuisness because I wanted To do something great like you And the real tragedy is half of it was true

But we've been fucking mean We're elitist We're as flawed as any country And this faux rad west coast dogma Has a higher fucking net worth I bit the apple 'cuz I trusted you But it tastes like Thomas Malthus Your proposal is immodest and insane [...]

[...] I loved you it's true I wanted to be you And do what you do I lived here I loved here I thought it was true I feel so stupid I feel so used [...]

I was your baby Your first born The hot boy in your magic class And I was Darwin's prep school dream Bred born and raised to kick your ass I fell for circuit boards Rocket ships Pictures of the stars If you could only be what you pretend you are

When I said take me to the moon I never meant take me alone I thought if mankind toured the sky It meant all of us could go But I don't want to see the stars if they're just One more piece of land for you to colonize For us to turn to sand

[...] I bit the apple 'cuz I loved you And why would you lie And then I realized You're just as naive as I am (not sure, if this would fit) You're so traumatized it makes me wanna cry

[...] I'm so embarrassed I feel abused

Well I don't wanna eat the rich I'd have to eat my hero's first And my tuition's paid by blood I might deserve your fate or worse But I don't need your goddamn money I don't need jack shit from you So when I speak you bet your life my words are true

Let me level with you man As someone guilty of the game I took the help I took the cash I would've taken your last name So if any girl on earth Should get to make a call about this It would be me and as I see it You're a dick

So fuck your god fuck your soldiers Fuck your country fuck your Tsaritsa again You promised you'd be a mother But you're just another Signora Because Signora broke apart All you ever broke were hearts I can't believe you tore humanity apart With the very same machines That could've been our brand new start

And the worst part is I loved you I loved you I loved you it's true And sometimes I feel like I still fucking do I lived here I loved here I thought it was true I'm so embarrassed I feel abused I feel so used I feel so used Take me to the moon Because I feel so used I feel so used

Idk it seems fitting, if you are creative^^°

#genshin impact #fontaine #arlecchino #lyney and lynette #lyney #lynette #freminet #Spotify

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tagthescullion · 9 months

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Il Minuetto della Ragazza

Fandom(s): Percy Jackson and the Olympians

Rating: T

Summary: Bianca di Angelo is alive. Alive and upset, confused, desperate… Camp Half Blood lost her little brother, and there’s nothing she wouldn’t do to bring him home safe.

AO3 link

Ch One - Ch Two - Ch Three - Ch Four - Ch Five - Ch Six - Ch Seven - Ch Eight - Ch Nine - Ch Ten

Chapter 11: Santa Fe

Before opening her eyes Bianca felt grass beneath her hands. Crickets sang around her, and she could hear a couple of whispering voices not too far.

She opened her eyes and was greeted with a clear night sky. The stars shone so brightly, Bianca could see the Milky Way.

By her side, an abandoned looking train station loomed under the moonlight.

“That ain’t right,” she heard a voice murmur.

“There’s no train, your brother’s taking you for a fool.”

“He’s not!”

It sounded like children.

Bianca stood unsteadily. She walked quietly towards the source of the voices and found a couple of boys sitting with their backs leaning on a chunk of wooden fence, not two metres away from the rails.

They seemed to be expecting something. A train, they boy had implied. But a midnight train?

Bianca looked around. She wasn’t even sure it was midnight, but she didn’t reckon they’d be seeing trains until morning. Not in a dilapidated station like this one.

“It’s always on this day,” said one of the boys. His eyes were bright. “You can hear it, every single year, this same night. Even my ma’s heard it, she tried to pretend otherwise but she was freaked out all right.”

The second boy appeared a lot more cynical of his friend’s tale.

“I never heard nothin’.”

“That’s ‘cause you live so far from the tracks. You don’t hear normal trains, how’d you hear the ghost train?”

The second boy shuddered. “There ain’t no ghost train! Let’s go back home.”

His friend stood his ground. With a stubborn frown he crossed his arms around his legs.

“I’m not leavin’ until I see that Lincoln train,” he spat. “You’re just a coward.”

The taunt hit where it aimed, the second boy sat back down beside his friend.

“I ain’t no coward.”

Bianca rolled her eyes, she never understood why coward was such a powerful insult. Sometimes cowardice was a lot cleverer than bravery.

She looked back at them, studying their clothes.

Something wasn’t right. Those weren’t clothes children wore nowadays. Hell, she’d know, she was still trying to get used to denim.

These boys wore suspenders of all things, and they were carrying a dim oil lamp.

She was dreaming of the past. She wasn't sure how old the scene was, nor did her surroundings really tell her anything useful.

The boys stayed quiet for a bit, and Bianca, unsure of what to do, sat down not far from them.

A cloud went over the moon, dissipating the light they’d had. Bianca’s surroundings looked even worse for wear than they had. Under the moon’s light, the old station had appeared mystical if run-down, now it looked plain and forgotten. The tracks lost their gleam.

She wondered if it would rain. Could she feel water in a dream?

She shook her head, that wasn’t particularly important.

A ghost train one of the kids had called it. After discovering, or remembering, or accepting –whichever it was– who her father was, Bianca didn’t really want to see any ghosts, in a dream or anywhere, really.

It wasn’t that ghosts scared her. They were people, that’s all. Her nonna used to call them ‘anime in pena’, or anguished souls. To Bianca, it seemed unfair to be somehow repulsed or afraid of them, souls could be anguished both in life or death.

Regardless, ghosts were a connection to Hades. And Bianca wasn’t sure how she felt about him. Her memories, or vague images if she was honest, of her father were those of a caring, if not very expressive man. She didn’t want to overlap that with the resentful, dangerous deity her fellow demigods painted him up to be.

Distracted as she was by her thoughts, she almost missed a low whistle coming from the West.

One of the boys trembled with excitement, while the other went pale.

“Did you hear that?”

The pale boy nodded.

“I told you it was real!”

At first, nothing seemed to happen, but to their left, by the place the tracks were lost in the horizon, a blue mist swirled into existence.

The breeze turned into a stronger wind, which ruffled the leaves of the trees around them. Fallen leaves, debris and old papers flew around in whirlpools.

A wrinkled sheet of newspaper landed silently next to Bianca’s left foot. She doubted she could pick it up if she tried, but she crouched to read the text better.

It was the front page of the Chicago Daily News, the morning paper by the headlines. April 21st, 1908.

Bianca heard the distant hiss of a steam engine and looked up to see a locomotive break through the blue mist. No, not break through. The mist seemed to come from it, as if the locomotive –train, she saw now– was puffing off blue smoke from below as it went. It mixed with the vapour coming from its chimney.

It wasn’t a chimney, Bianca remembered. She’d once been shown a similar locomotive by her nonno’s valet. But she couldn’t remember the right word for it.

The train got closer, running fast on the old tracks. The two children had gone completely quiet.

Bianca felt a sort of apprehension as the train drew nearer and nearer. A phantom train. What could it mean? Who’s phantom train was it?

It was a funeral train, she knew. She didn’t know why she knew it, but she was certain. A morbid way to parade an important figure’s corpse. But she still didn’t know whose corpse.

The locomotive slowed down as it approached Bianca and the boys. Or, she supposed, as it approached the station close to them.

It wasn’t just the children who’d gone quiet. The world seemed to have shut up as it was enveloped by the train’s ghastly blue mist. The only things Bianca could hear were her breathing, and the train’s rhythmical noise and vapour hisses.

She looked up as the locomotive was passing in front of her. Behind it the tender carried the coal. And behind that the passenger cars began at last.

Only it wasn’t people tending a casket that Bianca saw.

The train was full of skeletons. Like the ones chasing them in the quest! Their skins see-through, their bones opaque and contrasting under the clouds.

They were all looking at her. Not at the side of the train, they were focusing on her.

Their teeths clacked as they passed by her, making Bianca shiver.

‘Come find us,’ they seemed to say. ‘Join us in our journey.’

She wondered if the train would stop in the station, but it never lowered its speed enough. The train cars kept coming and coming, its skeleton crew chit-chattering its snappy cacophony.

‘Join us, join us, join us…’

Bianca wanted to run. She wanted to be far away from that. She wanted to turn to see if the boys had gone away, or if, like her, they stood frozen watching the train go by, but her muscles wouldn’t answer her.

‘Join us, join us…’

She struggled against her own body, trying to move, to speak, to do anything.

STOP! She wanted to yell. Stop, please!

Her voice betrayed her, but with a snap, she managed to make her body react. She fell hard to her knees, and covered her head with her arms.

‘JOIN US!’

She closed her eyes tight.

Finally, her voice returned to her.

“MAKE IT STOP!”

"Hey!"

Bianca was awoken by somebody shaking her arm. She wiped the corner of her mouth to clear the drop of drool forming there.

"Are we there yet?" She asked, her voice deep with sleep. Her heart still beat fast and loud.

She used a hand to cover the light in her eyes.

Standing above her, and looking like she hadn't slept a wink, was Thalia. She had taken off the silly sunglasses and Bianca could see the dark circles under her eyes.

"Not in Denver, which was where we were supposed to go," Thalia replied. "We're close to Santa Fe."

Bianca looked out of the window, she could see nothing. Not a blind nothingness, the landscape was perfectly clear, but it was empty. If they were close to any city, it wasn’t a very big one.

She could see mountains far away, but all around her there were low bushes. It felt less dry than Phoenix but it wasn’t much better.

It made her uneasy. She tried to convince herself it was only the memory of the junkyard of the gods, but the goosebumps on the back of her neck wouldn't disappear.

"I don't like this place," Bianca said. "How long until the bus starts again."

Thalia smirked. "One of the back tires was messed up, so it seems we'll be staying a while."

Bianca frowned.

"Yeah, I know," Thalia said, her eyes dark. "It doesn't feel right. Keep an eye out."

Thalia went down the bus aisle, with Bianca in tow.

Outside, the air smelled like dust. The sky was brightening, the colours were rather pretty, but the picturesque sunrise didn’t make Bianca feel any more comfortable.

The Hunters were gathered several metres away from the rest of the passengers, who weren't many anyway.

"I need you all to be alert," Thalia told them. She wasn't speaking loudly, but her voice carried well amongst them. "A punctured tire can be a coincidence, but so many of us together will attract monsters sooner or later."

"How optimistic," said Greta.

"She's being careful," Phoebe chided her.

Bianca was with Phoebe and Thalia, something was nearby.

“I’ll go see if they need help with the tire,” Maddie offered, taking off her jacket and tying it around her waist.

“Will they let a girl help?” Bianca asked.

She didn’t mean to be rude, but Maddie didn’t look a day over 20, and while she was open to the idea of the world changing, she was sure men were still unwilling to let women around cars.

Maddie smirked. “I’ve been dealing with men’s fragile egos since the 19th century, darling. I’ll make them listen.”

Thalia nodded. “All right, take Phoebe with you. If worse comes to worst, Phoebs, you handle the drivers while Maddie does the work, it’ll be faster.”

Phoebe seemed to agree with that, she even looked joyful at the prospect.

Thalia walked a few steps away from the group, and Bianca followed.

“Is she a daughter of Ares?” Bianca asked, pointing subtly at Phoebe. “She reminds me of Clarisse.”

Thalia shook her head. “Nope. Naiad. She had a nasty encounter with my uncle.” She saw Bianca’s scowl. “Oh, no, nasty for my uncle. Who knew the king of the ocean could have his nose broken, huh?”

“Does everybody here but me have awful experiences with men?” Bianca wondered.

Thalia made a face, as if she was debating whether to tell her something or not.

“Some,” she said at last. “Some have been hurt or betrayed by men. Guys can be selfish, disloyal, stupid.” Thalia’s fists tightened with each word. “Others simply come from a different time, back then they were powerless to do something for and by themselves, that led them to join. You can sympathise with that last group, I imagine.”

Bianca thought Thalia might look at her with pity. Luckily, the older girl appeared curious rather than anything else. She was probably thinking about that night when Percy and Grover had explained that the Lotus Hotel slowed down time.

“Yes,” Bianca said. “I know how they feel.”

She thought of her brother being taught how to assemble a rifle, and her being taught embroidery and how to run a house for her husband.

Just as she felt a stab of resentment about her unlocked memory, she saw the bus driver get up from the dusty ground, ten or fifteen metres away, and shake his head at Maddie and Phoebe.

Thalia saw where Bianca’s eyes were focusing on.

“Seventy years and we’re still dealing with this shit.” She shrugged. “But it’s a lot better, trust me.”

Bianca nodded. She knew. One of their teachers in Westover was an engineer, she taught Math. She hadn’t known why it had surprised her so much back then, but now she imagined what her nonno’s reaction would’ve been like if she told him she wanted to be an engineer.

Thalia was about to say something more but froze with her mouth half-open. Faster than Bianca could ask what was wrong she heard it.

REEEEEEEEET

Thalia groaned.

“Fucking Hades, not this shit again.”

#bianca di angelo #thalia grace #hunters of artemis #nico di angelo #pjo #hoo #toa #pjo hoo toa #riordanverse #pjo fic #tagthescullion #mis fics #il minuetto

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achangeinpriorities · 1 year

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I’ve been tagged by frequent partner in headcanons @sophiainspace for the Last Huzzah To This Hyperfixation fic meme, which is appropriate as I am also likely giving a last huzzah to the Arrowverse! (Incredibly reluctantly, kicking and screaming against my brain all the way, but what can you do)

My first fic for this fandom was Your Move, on 30 November 2019, an incredibly creepy prelude-to-Eowells/Hartley that set the stage for many of my later works

My favorite fic I’ve written is…oh so many choices. The one I go back and reread most often is If You Wanna Fight (We Can Go All Night), which is playful smutty Coldwave—with an honorable mention to With Benefits, in which aro Len and ace Mick end up doing affection at cross purposes

My fluffiest fic is probably Day In, which is a Flashpiper domestic fluff interlude in the middle of a fairly angsty series—I can throw in rest-point fluff sometimes!

My funniest fic is, hands down, Floordrobe Malfunction, which is exactly what it sounds like: Lisa/Cisco/Hartley get caught in the middle of V-polyam shenanigans and end up switching clothes

My saddest fic is Worse When It’s Late, one of only two fics I went into the knowing they couldn’t have a happy ending. (The other is At All Costs, which is just about as bad)

A fic I almost didn’t post was Worse When It’s Late, just because it was so much darker than my usual fare. I’m proud of how it turned out but I was terrified of how people might react to it

The fic I most enjoyed writing is probably still Tam Len, because I loved the worldbuilding and the characters ended up taking on a life of their own, to the point that several plotty things just…resolved themselves in the end, entirely driven by the characters!

My favorite ship is…oh boy. I have loved so many ships in my time in this fandom. Coldwave maybe? What’s not to love about Coldwave—they’re queerplatonic partners in crime who would rather die than admit a Feeling. I adore them

My favorite femslash ship is probably something with Nora West-Allen? Nora/Spencer maybe…or Nora/Spencer/Joss—all of whom I wish I’d written more of (and had more plans for, before the muse forsook me!)

My favorite OT3 is Coldwestallen, because no matter which way you slice it somebody is getting ganged up on by two people who are too similar for anyone’s good, and the resulting dynamics are impeccable

My favorite non-romantic pairing is…well. If I wanted to rules-lawyer this, I’d say Coldwave, because the aro Len headcanon remains strong. However in the spirit of the question I’m gonna say Barry and his dads, both as they interact with each other and as they interact with Barry’s partners about him. There were a lot of meaty, messy dynamics there that I wish I had explored more (and that I had plans to, before the muse evaporated)

My favorite character to write is Leonard Snart, by a long shot. I vibe with his strange strange brain. He taught me so much in my time writing him. I still want to study him under a microscope. I’m going to hold onto him for a long time even if the hyperfixation is fading

My favorite neurodiversity fic (I love that this is a category, Soph) is Pride In The Little Things, with post-diagnosis feels. It’s rueful, because I think there’s often an element of that following a diagnosis, but it’s hopeful too

The fic I most clearly remember writing is Complication, a Coldflash-to-Coldwestallen fic that was meant to have more to it and got cut down for the sake of making a deadline. I’m pleased with how it turned out, but there’s another universe where it was a much messier slow burn

My favorite written-out-of-spite fic is Unplanned, in which I took out my frustrations with the ‘Mick’s head pregnancy’ plotline of Legends s6 (feat. supportive Gideon who understands what dysphoria is)

My most read fic is No Hero (No Less Loved), one of my older Coldflash fics—one I’m not overly attached to, in truth, but benefitted from being a popular pairing and having a lot of chapters to add to the hit count

My least read fic is Pride In The Little Things, my newest fic with a very rare pair indeed (Lita/Jerrie Rathaway, my and @blueelvewithwings lil ship). I didn’t expect it to get many hits at all, so seeing it with even this much interaction is surprising

The WIP I most regret not finishing is an unpublished sequel to Complication that would have built off the ideas I cut from the original fic, including appearances by Joe and Henry, and also explained why Len was so weird all throughout Complication. I hope to force myself through finishing it eventually!

My favorite gen fic is Found, a Rogues-as-family fic that was meant to set the stage for more in-depth stories that never happened. It still stands on its own pretty well though

My crackiest fic is Critical Fail, a ‘Team Flash plays D&D’ fic written at the behest of an IRL friend (who, to my knowledge, never ended up reading it—ah well, it was still fun!)

And a bonus holiday fic is By Candlelight, with Coldwestallen celebrating both a contemplative Hanukkah and a rowdy West family Christmas

I believe my co-conspirator @blueelvewithwings has already been tagged, but I’m also going to tag @a-redharlequin who has been my instigator, cheerleader, and also partner, who I wouldn’t have found without this fandom. I love y’all and I’m so happy to have spent three years plotting together!

#fic meme #my assorted arrowverse nonsense #various fics on here come with trigger warnings that are listed on AO3 #so if you click through check the tags first

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studiorat · 9 months

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Vishan.

I have no idea how i never posted him here before? Unless i did and tumblr’s search is just being dumb, in which case, forgive the duplicate.

Anyway.

Meet Vishan.

A devout demonhunter possessed of a magic silvered rifle which is also incidentally fond of killing demonkin of all kinds.

He had another name once, but he won’t admit to it in company or out. We know he left a heavy history behind when he chose his new name, that he lost his parents young, and was separated from his only living bloodkin - a sister, whose name he never shares - when he was still a small boy.

He’s now 25 and has supported himself variously as a simple laborer, a trapper, a horse trainer, a cowhand, and a lawman. He’s short and wiry of build, athletic and flexible. He is illiterate and uneducated, and rather coarse in manners, but he is clever and a quick study.

Minor spoilers for La Mala Suerte under the cut

He is technically married… to Ana Sophia Seshet Riga. The scheme was her idea, ostensibly to persuade her father to change his opinion of Arelis - a semi-nomadic people found throughout the marginal forests of the known word - and folks of mixed heritage.

John Riga remained fixed in his prejudice, and shortly thereafter Ana Sophia picked up everything and everyone in her household - including Vishan - and went west.

The marriage is a cold and distant one, though not even Vishan is certain of Ana Sophia’s opinions about this. No one speaks of it - except Teca, who spends many long weeks trying (unsuccessfully) to persuade Vishan to return to his wife and make a good life in the village.

Vishan has evidenced a strange affliction connected to his compulsion to hunt, which seems to cycle with the moon. He has been both friend and enemy to Tecbalor, a circumstance neither of them particularly understand… and it gets worse as they travel together and physical attraction enters the equation.

He can communicate with - and sometimes compel - animals of all kinds, though he prefers the company of horses above others. He seems to hear the earth herself, and also the rifle that called him to his vocation many years ago.

He’s also very, very bi, and traveling beside Teca gets under his skin in every possible way - despite, or maybe because of, his demonblood.

#portraits #procreate #my oc art #novela maldita #long post #weird western #elves of color

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brown-little-robin · 2 years

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31: Learning to Purr

part one | previous | next | masterlist | ao3 version

Joseph took the week off of most of his commitments—weekly board game night, teaching at the community center, meeting up with Victor on Wednesday, everything in the afternoons. He’s overdue for a vacation from everything, and he wants to focus on figuring Thad out.

That week, Joseph discovers that Thad is a lot like a cat.

He sleeps so much. Joseph goes in to check on him at ten o’clock the first morning and finds him sleeping like the dead. Thad gets up at noon. Joseph asks if he usually sleeps until noon. Yes, it’s the depression, Thad says dryly.

Ah. All right. That’s something to watch. Joseph might need to establish an earlier morning. Sometimes that can help.

“Do you have antidepressants?” Joseph asks.

Thad snorts.

“I’m a speedster. Medication doesn’t work on me.”

Oh, yes, Joseph forgot. He hasn’t worked with speedsters very much. It’s a shame medication won’t help; Thad needs all the help he can get.

The second day, Thad wrinkles his nose and refuses hot sauce on his omelet. He explains calmly that the speed force is made of lightning, so he’s had enough of his tongue being burned. Seven years is enough, he says, perfectly casual.

What? The speed force burned him?! Wally West didn’t say anything about that! Joseph gives Thad a horrified look.

Thad smirks at him.

“Come on. It’s funny. Admit it.”

Joseph blinks at him, still processing the—the absolute horror of it—and Thad sticks out his tongue.

Joseph laughs.

Thad laughs triumphantly. It doesn’t seem malicious, though. Just childish.

But Joey kept thinking about Thad’s hurts. Wondering if there’s anything he can do for him. And he thinks there’s at least one thing.

When Joseph kissed him that first time, Thad looked like Joseph had short-circuited him. He just sat on the couch, hands drawn up by his heart, wide-eyed, for a solid five minutes. It frightened Joseph. He doesn’t know Thad, doesn’t know what kind of comfort would help and what would just make things worse—trigger him to melt down or lash out or go silent.

So he made hot chocolate. That’s a comfort drink, right? You can’t go wrong with hot chocolate, he thought. That turned out to be incorrect, but Joseph tried his best, so he doesn’t beat himself up over it. And crying was clearly progress for Thad. He was obviously taught never to show weakness.

But anyway. Thad looked like he was in pain when Joseph kissed him. And then he clutched his heart the whole time the hot chocolate was warming up. So Joseph figured he was probably touch-starved.

He decided to try pushing Thad’s limits.

Thad didn’t say ‘don’t touch me’. He said ‘ask before you touch me’. So Joseph started asking him every time he got the impulse to touch him, which was often.

And Thad absolutely ate it up.

He said no a few times. But mostly, he just nodded and went very still, watching and waiting and savoring Joseph’s touch. The first two days of this, Thad was stiff and unresponsive, like someone in shock. Joseph was patient. The way Thad stilled at touch didn’t seem like he was uncomfortable… more like he was afraid that if he made the wrong move, Joseph would revoke the privilege.

So Joseph kissed Thad’s forehead, squeezed his shoulder, held his hands, pulled him into short sideways hugs, always careful to let go quickly so the boy wouldn’t start feeling trapped. And Thad held very, very still, like an abused cat barely holding itself back from running away.

On the third day that Joseph hosts Thad, Thad asks if they can go to the North Metropolis Public Library. He explains that he needs to study for the ACT, which is next Friday, and that he goes to the library almost every day with Max. Joseph could have cried with relief. There is at least one normal, healthy thing in Thad’s life. Thank God.

Thad goes straight to the upstairs sunroom and plants himself in the corner. Joey goes downstairs, gets himself a promising-looking fantasy novel, and settles in opposite Thad, facing the window.

Thad lays on his stomach, comparing books, mouthing words to himself.

After a while, Joseph spots Superman flying by. He smiles and waves to him. It startles Thad.

“Joseph?”

“I saw Superman,” Joseph explains.

“I don’t know that word.”

Oh! That’s the first word he hasn’t known. Joseph signs it again, one fist making a large “S” over his whole torso, then fingerspells it.

“Oh, the Kryptonian,” Thad says. “Is it… customary to wave to him?”

Joseph shrugs.

“Lots of people do. Superman is well-liked.”

“Do you like him?”

“Yes. He’s nice.”

Thad hums lightly. He doesn’t seem upset at all. It seems that he’s not sensitive about all heroes, then… just the Flash and Impulse.

That night, Thad stays up late, sitting on the couch. He doesn’t talk to Joseph or ask for attention, but Joseph thinks he looks lonely. He sits down next to Thad.

Thad shudders. His fingers dig into his arms.

Okay. Okay, okay, something is wrong. Joseph gets up slowly, holding up his hands. Thad watches him with wide eyes and still doesn’t speak.

Joseph signs, “How are you feeling?”

Thad shrugs. “Jumpy.”

Joseph knows what that’s like. And he has an idea.

Joseph signs, “Can I try something?”

“Um… what?” Thad asks warily.

Okay, that did sound unintentionally intimidating. Joseph pushes the air as if to clear it of his words.

“I’d like to introduce you to music. Sometimes music helps me calm down.”

Thad snorted. “You could have said that to begin with. I thought I was trusting you with my life or something.”

Joseph laughs. Then he goes and gets his guitar. He’d love to introduce Thad to classical music, and pop and folk as well, but his heart is telling him that tonight is a guitar night.

Thad watches him with an almost frightening intensity as he settles himself cross-legged in front of the couch. He holds the guitar with the familiarity of having owned this machine for decades. Joseph won’t be able to speak while he’s playing, but that’s fine. He’s learned that when Thad is comfortable, he wears his feelings on his sleeve. Joseph will be able to hold an entire conversation with him via music.

Joseph starts with the Beatles. “Hey Jude”. Just the melody line. No need to dive right into anything complicated.

He plays the first verse without looking at Thad, just swaying himself into the feeling of the song. Melancholy, but sweet. He glances up just before the second verse, and—

And Thad is looking at Joey like he’s magic.

Lips parted, eyes soft and pleading, leaning forward. Joey falters, then sets his fingers in motion again. He looks away from Thad to play the next verse, allowing himself to ache with sympathetic pain… then he reaches the wistful little section in the middle, and he looks up again. Thad is hugging his knee, rocking back and forth to the rhythm of the song.

Well. Joseph was going to move on to some happier, more exciting pieces, maybe some classical music or rock if Thad seemed interested. But he ends up just playing lullabies and folk songs, little wistful tunes that make Thad sway.

Eventually, Thad started rubbing his eyes, and Joseph puts aside the guitar and guiltily looks at the time. 9:45. Much too late for Thad. He sends the boy off to get ready and go to bed.

And then he smiles to himself for the next ten solid minutes. Maybe it won’t be as difficult to get through to Thad as he thought.

The breakthrough with touch happens on the third day, when Joseph and Thad are leaving the farmer’s market. Joseph has two bags hooked in his elbows so he can still sign a bit. Thad’s holding the soap, onions, and kale, looking adorably serious about the task. They stopped at the car so Joseph could find his keys. It’s a beautiful day, sun shining past scattered fluffy clouds, and Thad has his long blond hair loose as usual. On an impulse, Joseph asks Thad if he can touch him.

Thad nods, and Joseph transfers the bag of tomatoes to his other elbow so he can ruffle Thad’s hair. And as soon as his fingers touches Thad’s head, the boy leans his head back against Joseph’s hand.

It startles Joseph so much that he draws his hand back.

He can’t see Thad’s face, his reaction, so he snaps his fingers. Thad looks at him. He’s grimacing. Joseph tilts his head and gestures inquisitively, trying to ask whether it would be okay to touch Thad again.

Thad closes his eyes.

Like a cat, Joseph thinks. Like a cat that feels safe.

Joseph ruffles his hair again, and again Thad presses back into Joseph’s hand. Joseph could cry with joy.

Joseph was going to start a soup when they got home, but he sees Thad run his hands through his hair, wince, stop, and try again, and he gets an idea.

“Thad?” he asks.

In a blur, Thad’s hands are behind his back. He looks guilty.

“Yes?”

“Do you ever braid your hair?”

Thad blinks, looking completely baffled.

“Um… no? My hair was always much shorter than this. Except when I was pretending to be Bart.”

Thad grimaces as his brother’s name leaves his mouth.

Joseph signs, “Do you mind if I ask why you keep your hair long now?”

Thad laughs quietly.

“I didn’t mean to,” he says. “After I ran away in the speed force, I was there for seven years, and it’s not like I brought scissors. And I didn’t have a physical body by the end anyway. The speed force spit me out like this.”

Wait. Wait, is Thad saying that he died? He died for real? Thad looks up at Joseph and winces.

“You don’t have to be so worried.”

Urgently, Joseph signs, “Can I touch you?”

Thad hesitates, then nods.

Joseph kneels down and pulls Thad into a hug. The boy stiffens up as usual. But then he sighs, and he puts his hands on Joseph’s back, and he squeezes him tight.

Joey holds him tight. His heart hurts. Of all the horrendous ways to find out that Thad died—and that he came back to life for no known reason—this might actually be among the worst.

Thad’s raspy voice comes from over his shoulder. “Joseph? Are you all right?”

Joey rubs Thad’s back reassuringly. Then he goes to puts his hands on Thad’s shoulders, and the boy lets go and backs up so fast that Joey doesn’t perceive the movement. His hands are behind his back, shoulders pulled back.

Suddenly, Joseph recalls why that mannerism is familiar. It’s from his own distant childhood. His older brother used to put his hands behind his back when he wanted to impress their father, before Slade taught him to salute. In a makeshift way, Thad is trying to be good.

“I’m OK,” Joseph signs. “Thank you.”

Thad relaxes a little.

Joseph figures out quickly that Thad is nonverbal. This is the first nonverbal episode with Thad that Joey has seen, so he wants to be… particularly careful. He doesn’t want to push Thad outside his comfort zone, but it’s not okay to infantilize people just because they can’t speak. So Joseph pursues his previous question: “Would you like me to braid your hair sometime?”

Thad nods emphatically. Hmm.

“Would you like me to braid your hair now?”

Thad is very clear about his yes, so Joseph sits Thad down in front of the couch and finds a comb and a ribbon. Blue, to match Thad’s outfit.

Donna Troy taught Joseph how to French braid back in his Titans days, and he makes a mental note to thank her later. It’s a good skill to know. It’s been a while, but the pattern comes naturally: over, over, gather more hair, over, over. Thad’s hair is more fragile than Donna’s, of course. He’s not an Amazonian. But it is very soft and long, excellent for braiding, and it feels nice and smooth on Joseph’s hands. Thad sits very still and does not complain at all, even when Joseph hits a knot and is sure it must have tugged.

The braid reaches the middle of Thad’s back. Joseph ties the braid off with the blue ribbon and pats Thad’s shoulder. Thad turns around. His face looks more solid when it’s not framed by his hair. Less angelic, more tired.

Joseph signs, “Done.”

“Thank you,” Thad says aloud.

“You’re welcome.”

Thad reaches to the nape of his neck and touches the braid, pulls it over his shoulder and inspects it. He seems fascinated by the texture.

“Huh,” he says softly, still running his fingers over the bumps. “Not very… practical, is it?”

Joseph raises his eyebrows.

“Why not?”

“An opponent could yank on it. You could get your neck broken like that.”

“You can yank on long hair, too,” Joseph points out.

“Well, but that’s not sporting,” Thad says disapprovingly.

Joseph gives him a “that’s interesting” look, but Thad doesn’t see; he’s engrossed in the hypothetical.

“I’d only yank someone’s hair to be purposefully mean. It kind of lowers you, doesn’t it? Or if I was about to die. I’ve done that before.”

How many times has this child had brushes with death?!

Thad flashes Joseph a look that’s half grin, half wince.

Joseph flashes the letters “OK.” He’s been doing that a lot lately. Then he signs, “Are you comfortable with having long hair?”

“Comfortable?” Thad repeats, an edge of irony in his voice.

“Would you rather have short hair? You could get a haircut.”

Thad blinks rapidly.

“I… I don’t know.”

Thad takes a halting step back, and then another, like Joseph is threatening him. Then he jitters, hesitates, sits down on the floor, and starts running his hands down his braid.

Joseph stays on the couch and waits. Eventually, Thad looks at him, ready to start talking.

“I liked my hair short,” he says, voice high and defensive. “It was practical. I chose it. I liked it.”

Joseph nods.

“I had it short and I was different from Bart, you know? And his…” Thad laughs bitterly. “His stupid, impractical hair…”

Joseph doesn’t ask him about Bart. When Thad speaks again, it’s quieter.

“I don’t understand why I don’t mind it this way. I shouldn’t want long hair. I shouldn’t want to be like him.”

“Maybe it’s not about Bart.”

Thad makes shocked eye contact for a moment.

“How can it not be about Bart? Everything is about Bart!”

“Maybe long hair is a luxury… because it’s impractical. Or maybe you just like how long hair feels on you.” Joseph shrugs.

Thad is quiet for a while. Then he drops his head into his hands.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Joseph wishes so badly that he could speak. He gets off the couch and comes and kneels beside Thad, hands folded tightly in his lap, watching him, waiting. He can see Thad’s back moving with deep breaths.

Eventually, Thad looks sideways at Joseph. His shoulders are hunched.

“You can leave if you want,” Joseph reminds him.

A short nod, and Thad’s gone in a flash of lightning.

Despite the setbacks, Thad slowly settles in. He starts moving easier, speaking more freely, laughing more often. He’s curious and bright. And Joey comes to appreciate his gallows humor. He doesn’t mean to hurt anyone with it; he’s just processing what happened to him. And he is wickedly clever.

The next-to-last day that Thad is to stay with Joseph, Thad comes to him and asks, “Joseph, sir?”

Startled and more than a bit concerned, Joseph turns from his easel to see Thad standing behind him with his shoulders hunched, one hand crumpling the sleeve of his pale grey button-down. What’s wrong? Why did Thad call him ‘sir’?

“Thad,” Joseph signs, careful to keep his motions smooth and definitely not angry. “What is it?”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Yes,” Joseph sighs, one hand in a fist, ‘nodding’.

Thad says, “You know I don’t always know how to be polite, so I’m sorry if this is rude. But I want to know about your scars.”

Ahhh. Joseph wonders tiredly if ‘scars’ is a euphemism for his muteness. Then he dismisses that thought. Thad isn’t devious like that. If he meant Joseph’s voice, he would have said so.

“Come sit with me,” Joseph signs. “I’ll show you them.”

Joseph leads him into the bedroom for this. The privacy of it feels right. Joseph sits down at the head of the bed. Thad hesitates at the edge, and Joseph pats the blanket in front of him. Thad does one of those speedster jitters that Joseph’s eyes can’t track, then climbs onto the bed.

Joseph signs, “I might have to stop talking about it at some point. That doesn’t mean I’m mad. Okay?”

Thad grins wryly.

“I have no room to complain.”

Joseph smiles knowingly. Then he extends his left leg. There’s a bullet scar in his calf. He got it while he was with the Titans, a stray bullet from a henchman in New York. He doesn’t even know which goon shot him.

Thad listens with interest.

“The Titans were worried,” Joseph signs. “I knew I would be all right, though. It was just annoying and painful.”

“Does it hurt?” Thad asks.

“Sometimes. When it rains.”

Thad nods.

“Can I touch it?”

Joseph blinks at him, nonplussed. Thad flushes.

“I’ve never had a scar,” he says. “I heal too fast.”

Ah. Joseph is a little jealous. But he’ll take his physical scars and anxiety medication over Thad’s perfect body and inability to get medicinal help any day.

Joseph gestures invitingly and holds still while Thad’s fingers gently touch the bullet scar. It tickles a little. Thad draws back his hand and waits.

Joseph points to his temple, where he knows the little line of a scar is visible.

“This came from Changeling.”

Thad blinks blankly. Joseph explains, “Changeling is one of my friends. He’s a shapeshifter. He can turn into any animal. I love him, he’s wonderful, but he can be overenthusiastic. We were play-fighting one time and he turned into an eagle.”

“He hurt you,” Thad says.

“Yes.”

“Were you angry with him?”

Joseph laughs. Thad smiles a little.

“Not even a little. I was only really angry at Changeling once, when he was accusing me of something I didn’t do.”

“What did he accuse you of?”

“Being a double agent.”

Thad flinches. Oh, no.

Joseph can’t lessen the blow, not really. It is what it is: it’s offensive to be called an impostor, and that’s what Thad used to be. But he tries.

“Changeling was very upset. Someone he loved had recently betrayed him and then died. He was hurting. He lashed out. The whole situation was a mess.”

“Yeah,” Thad mutters. “Mine too.”

Joseph holds his hand out, and Thad places his hand inside Joseph’s. Joseph rubs his thumb over the back of Thad’s hand and lets go.

Joseph holds out his right arm, then his left, and points to three faint scrapes.

“These are from blocking a wooden staff with my arms.”

That was painful. The staff left splinters in his arms. Joseph is definitely never going back to the vigilante lifestyle.

Thad winces appreciatively.

Joseph touches his cheek, expecting, as always, to have some kind of tangible reminder of his older brother punching him. But Grant left him no scars. Joseph tries to remember if he has any more non-Deathstroke scars. He’s only delaying the inevitable. Oh yes! His back! Joseph turns around and pulls his shirt up. Thad shifts a little closer.

Joseph contorts his arm behind his back, feeling for the marks. He can’t sign to Thad with his back turned. He finds one of the indents of the viper soon enough. He’s been told that they’re subtle, so he points it out.

“I see them,” Thad’s voice says.

There’s no missing the magician’s starburst and the sword scar, which goes straight through the middle of his back to his upper chest, so Joseph puts his shirt down and turns around.

“A magic giant viper grazed my back with its fangs,” he signs. “The venom burned me a little bit.”

“Acid,” Thad says approvingly. “Nice. I died of acid a lot in VR. It’s very effective.”

Joseph can’t hold it in anymore.

“How many times have you died?”

Thad winces, looking embarrassed.

“Maybe once, in the speed force, but I don’t know if that really counts. But in virtual reality… sort of… a lot. Like… hundreds.”

Joseph doesn’t have words. He opens his arms. Thad crawls awkwardly into his lap and lets Joseph hug him. His body is so small, so packed with wiry muscle. No child should have to be like this.

Joseph rocks him back and forth, presses a kiss to the side of his head, and lets him go. Thad scoots back. Joseph does not miss how his pupils have dilated.

“What about the white… snowflake thing?”

Joseph smiles despite himself. It was a horrible, horrible experience to get that scar, but it does make a good story.

“A magician tried to put an ice demon under my skin.”

“Tried?”

“I did battle with it in my mind,” Joey signs. He leaves out the detail that he had to face horrible illusory versions of all his friends and family before he reached the demon. “I won, and the demon exploded.”

“Under your skin?”

Joseph nods. Thad grins, intrigued.

“Wow. That never happened to me.”

Joseph smiles. The moment stretches out. And out. He’s going to have to tell him. There are only two scars left.

Thad shifts a little closer, looking up at Joseph seriously.

“You don’t have to tell me everything.”

Oh, sweetheart. “Thank you.”

Thad eyes Joseph thoughtfully. “Would you like to watch a movie with me?”

Joseph signs an enthusiastic “Yes!”

Joseph pulls his television out of the closet—it only gets used when other people are around. He finds some choices for Thad, dvds of his favorite movies. It’s quite an eclectic mix. Joseph is curious to see what Thad will pick… he noticed that Thad checked out quite a few non-fiction books at the library, books about arctic animals and mushrooms and such. Maybe he’d like a nature documentary. Joseph could swear he had one or two of those in here… he digs around in the box. Yes! Two of those old nature documentaries with the British narrator. He brings them out in triumph.

Thad takes them reverently. Quietly, he says, “I used to watch these with CRAYDL.”

CRAYDL, his dead best friend. Joseph clasps his hands and listens. Thad opens his eyes again, staring past Joseph’s shoulder with a frighteningly blank look.

“We didn’t get to do a lot of just-for-fun things,” Thad says softly. “Our documentaries were… special.”

He looks down at the dvd cases. He seems to be in awe.

“Joseph… Joseph, these are a thousand years old to me. They were in a museum database that CRAYDL had access to… they were historical artifacts, that’s why we could view them. I’ve seen this one…” his fingers trace the title Caves. “Four times. But Fresh Water… there are no known copies. This is amazing.”

Joseph reaches out and touches the dvd case. The smooth plastic trembles under his fingertips. Everything is so fragile. And yet Thad recognizes this from a thousand years ago.

He won’t even suggest that Thad watch them with Joseph. They’re a special memory. But Joseph wants him to have them.

Joey signs, “Keep it. Keep both of them. They mean more to you than me.”

Thad looks startled. Then he hugs the cases to his chest, and Joseph looks away. He’ll let him have his privacy with the memory of his friend. The boy is so mentally ill, bless him, that it’s easy to forget that he’s grieving, too.

Thad’s voice asks from behind him, “Will you watch Fresh Water with me?”

Joseph turns back. Thad’s eyes are screwed closed, determined. Joseph waits until Thad blushes and opens his eyes.

“Sorry,” Thad says, but Joseph just laughs. It’s an honest mistake.

Joseph makes popcorn and positions the television on the nightstand, just in front of the foot of the bed; they’ll watch from the bed. It’s the best place in the apartment for a movie.

Joseph looks forward to moving out. The apartment served its purpose, but Joey really thrives with more space. A dedicated art room, rooms big enough to host multiple friends or have parties… places to duck away for privacy… he’s looking forward to the mansion. He just hopes Thad will be happy there, too. Happy enough to make it his home.

He turns back from setting the television on the nightstand and entering the dvd to find Thad under up the blanket, two pillows leaning on the headboard like backrests. Thad lifts the blanket invitingly.

Joseph climbs in, careful not to touch Thad or jostle the bed too much. But the boy scooches over and leans himself against Joseph’s side with a sigh, pressing his legs up against Joseph’s thigh.

Joseph stills, worried. So much has happened to Thad—what if he was assulted, too? Did he misinterpret the situation? What if settling Thad on Joseph’s bed was a bad idea?

He turns, slowly and gently, and pushes Thad away by his shoulders. The boy shudders. He looks distressed.

Joseph signs, “How are you feeling?”

“Um—” Thad’s hands bunch up the blanket. “I’m sorry. For touching you. I know I should have asked before I touched you. But we’re watching a movie and Helen says the rule is that you have to cuddle when you watch a movie and I assumed—”

Joseph lets out a deep breath, utterly relieved.

“OK,” he signs, cutting off Thad’s nervous ramble. “That’s OK. You can touch me without asking, just make sure I know you’re going to. But you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

Thad nods. Carefully, he scoots closer and leans on Joseph again. His head only comes to Joseph’s shoulder.

The documentary is nice. Joseph expected it to be… emotionally fraught. But it’s mostly just fun. Thad gets very invested, and Joseph enjoys watching him.

“There’s a new movie from Pixar out,” Joseph signs after the credits start rolling. Despite the jostling of Joseph’s arms moving, Thad keeps leaning on him. “Maybe we could go to it sometime.”

Thad hums sleepily. Joseph smiles and puts his arm around Thad to pet the back of his head. It’s only mid-afternoon, but he has a suspicion the boy is going to sleep soon. Emotions wear him out.

Again, Joey finds himself worrying about his mother. He needs to suck it up and call her soon. Let her know that he wants to adopt, and he wants her to meet his—possible—son. A former supervillain. Adeline is not going to like this.

Thad’s head falls back into Joseph’s hand. The boy is putting his whole weight on him. Trusting him.

If Adeline isn’t okay with Thaddeus, Joey might end up telling her no. The idea of going back on a promise isn’t a comfortable one. But for Thad… he just might.

There’s a thrumming vibration against his hand. It’s been happening for a while, but Joseph only just registered it, and suddenly it tickles. Joseph jumps. Thad jumps, too, and ends up with his back pressed to the far wall. His fists are up, eyes wild.

Thad takes a moment to calm down, breathing deeply. He unclenches his fists and shakes his hands sharply.

Calmly, Joey signs, “What was the trigger?”

“I have no idea. I think I…” Thad touches his throat, frowning. “I started growling… I didn’t mean to growl…”

“Growling?” Joseph asks.

“If I slow myself down and vibrate my throat, it sounds like a growl,” Thad explains. “It’s not useful, obviously, because you have to slow down to do it. It’s just a speed force trick.”

Joseph looks at Thad, still backed against the wall like a scared cat, and he realizes what happened.

“You were purring.”

“I what? I’m a human being! …mostly.”

“You’re a speedster too.”

“I don’t purr,” Thad insists.

“Then what was that?” Joseph signs playfully, grinning. “Was it a growl?”

“…not exactly,” Thad admits. His eyes go wide again. “Joseph. I was purring.”

“You were purring,” Joseph agrees.

“I didn’t even know I could do that…”

The boy touches his throat again, astonished. Joey smiles so hard his face hurts. Thad himself might not realize it, but Joey knows what this means. Thad felt safe. For just a moment there, he felt completely safe.

Joey gets up.

“I think this calls for a celebration,” he signs. “How would you like to visit an art gallery?”

Thad asks, “Will there be a lot of people there?”

“No, it’s very quiet.”

Thad grins.

On the way out the door, Joseph nudges Thad with his shoulder. The boy looks up.

“You were purring,” Joseph signs, grinning.

Thad snarls mock-furiously. “Shut up.”

#The Strange Redemption of Thaddeus Thawne #Thad Thawne #Joey Wilson

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vaccerelli · 9 months

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it was in the nature of things to go from better to worse. the abominations that flooded in during the second moon always took someone, be it a child of a farmer or the blacksmith's young wife. sometimes the abominations were flesh, sometimes they were something akin to moving armor, and other times they seemed a macabre union of flesh and metal, but they could not be stopped. to the villagers of Kharesk, they were more like bad weather. the tinsmith's daughter had been outside during one of the thunderhead storms and been struck several times by lightning, leaving her immolated and weeping until she died later that night. the tinsmith had jumped from the garrison tower later that week and the blacksmith had taken all of his things, which everyone in the village knew, for the blacksmith was a jealous and greedy man, but no one said anything, because there wasn't another blacksmith until almost all the way to Drouv. above Kharesk sat the empty monastery and the full garrison, but the mercenaries in the garrison were portly and crude, and barely spent any time in the village, except to demand food or to molest the lovelier sons or daughters of the village. when the magistrate would come through, either once every three months or when the second moon turned red, they would proclaim their honor and celibacy and how they kept their swords sharp, and the magistrate would return to where he went. no one in the village protested. without the garrison, the abominations would overwhelm the town and everyone's sons and daughters would die screaming. the loveliest woman in the town, the armorer's daughter, was the only exemption, for without his favor, there would be no armor and no weapons. the blacksmith counted himself fortunate to have a homely daughter and an ugly, squat son, though in truth both had lain with men of the garrison in their own time. the empty monastery was known to be haunted by the ghosts of all the gods who had died when they were drunk up by the madness of the worshipper's cult, but many of the village's children and fools liked to spend time in there anyway, and marvel at the walls frescoed in fantastic images, and sometimes to couple beneath them as a tribute to their otherworldly beauty. sometimes the young adults of the village, only out of their first festival, would dare each other to sleep in the monastery when the abominations came. more than a few of the town's adults bore the deep scars and missing digits of that game. very high on the hill, taller than the tip of the garrison's tower, was the manor, for when the lord o' land came to the village. it was always clean. it was always fully stocked, even if some of the food grew rotten and had to be replaced. even if the lord never came for months and months, it was always ready for him to return. if the lord's brother, the great general, ever came, he would stay there for weeks at a time, entertaining the men of the garrison, drinking the products of poppy and vine, and often bedding down the strongest lads in town. he told them he himself was the essence of war and he was passing it to them, and some of the lads even believed him. some knew the great general had not been in a war for almost twenty years, and said the same thing to the handsome young boys of Drouv as well. when the lord came, time stood still. the lord was perfect in every way. tall, in the way of the west. kind and smart, but firm and commanding. his only odd feature was his eyes, which were yellowing and seemed far older than the rest of him. the lord often traveled with his chimerist, a lean and surly scholar who studied the abominations whenever possible. abominations always withered and rotted very quickly after death, and often left behind a gross ichor that made people sick to smell. the villagers who feared the chimerist, and in truth any kind of scientist or analyst, said he enjoyed the smell, and it excited him. they told many stories of him; how he had lost an eye to the abominations and replaced it with one of theirs, how he was the son of the lord and an abomination despite being the same age as the lord, or how he controlled the abominations and waited for the day the lord's rule weakened and he could seize power for himself. often times in the manor the lord, the great general, and the chimerist would drink greatly and laugh themselves hoarse over these rumors and superstitions, but it was noted the lord always kept one of the most fervent of the high guard around the chimerist at all times. to the black forests south of Kharesk was Drouv, as far as many of the villagers had ever gone in their lives, and to the far, far west was the Capital, home of kings, one of the few true cities remaining. other towns were listed on old maps held by the archive, but no one had ever been, and it was known the abominations had burned, eaten, and dissected those who lived there. there had been Tanjat, the nearest city, but it had vanished in flame and bone and weeping almost a century before the butcher was a descendent of Tanjat, and his thick frame and piercing eyes made him seem like he came from another world. the butcher often went without a shirt or armor upon his chest, and his many scars and tattoos were drenched in the blood of what the farmers brought him, and though he was a boisterous and kind soul, many in the village afeared him all the same. the provisional mayor was from Drouv, and the half-brother of Drouv's mayor, but he had very little command over the village and even less when the lord or any of the gentry were in town. he often spent his time in his own large home, obsessing over legalistic scrolls, emerging to hector the barracks chief or the town crier with useless information. it is here, in the second week after summer harvest, during the apex of the second moon, that our attention is drawn to Hopska, the beautiful daughter of the armorer, and her devious paramour, Zoltaff, one of the lord's man-at-arms. Hopska, despite her beauty, was far craftier than Zoltaff, but unlike Zoltaff, who schemed at all times, publically, and visibly, she kept her ideas to herself, and wrapped them in the innocence that the unblemished and gorgeous possess. it seemed her lambent green eyes could contain no wickedness. Hopska enjoyed Zoltaff, though she did not truly love him, for his crude schemes, and his strange delights. sometimes she would let him couple with her fundament, as though she were a man. she found it amusing that he found this to be some kind of treat, and so only rewarded it with him on occasion. she loved his hound more than she loved him. what Hopska wanted more than anything else was to go to one of the outremer cities and marry someone. a duke. a chancellor. anyone with a name and influence. there was no tool she did not consider. even Mensal, her father, she had once attempted to coerce into coupling with her, but he struck her and ran from the house without speaking and could not look at her for almost a week. she wondered whether that meant for his desires but she knew he could not be so easily used. once she had let a palantine from court have his way with her, and he promised her a dowry and a sturdy mount, but the next morning they had passed to the next region while dry seed was still on her. despite anything and everything Hopska still waited for opportunity. it would come. Zoltaff was simply ruthless. for Zoltaff, life was competition. he had been raised in the shadow of the garrison as a bastard son of the major Todogast. the major had once been a general but had been demoted for an aborted siege in which he and his men had fled the enemy’s gates. what Todogast didn’t know was that everyone inside the castle had long since either died of starvation or the dust plague. between demotion and exile, Todogast chose demotion. he could simply replace the lesser tacticians and fools and climb his way up the ladder again, and the fact the lord nor any of the gentry would ever trust him again was beyond him. Todogast had many bastard sons, for he never learned to restrain his urges, and most of them were sons of rapine and conquest. he thought of forming a bastard’s legion, before discovering there was already some foul company to the far west named such a thing, which put him in a bad humor for almost a week. Zoltaff had been brought to him a squalling babe and trained from birth to fight for the lord. Todogast thought no more of him than any of his other bastards, for Todogast had a trueborn son, Adathon, who fancied himself an artist and he was amused by the boy’s antics enough to let him pursue his stupid dreams. Zoltaff had attempted to form conspiracies among the other bastards to snuff out Adathon, but found the other bastards either uncooperative or downright hostile. and so he schemed and schemed and schemed without fruition, unable to understand both his demeanor and his obviousness left him harmless, despite his skill with the blade. Hopska found this both endearing and frustrating.

in the village, there was the aetherist, who was meant to report on the residual energies left by the passage of the death of all gods. in truth, this left him somewhere between useless priest and despised scholar, and the people either shunned or mocked him, though by mandate of the lord he was always fed and unmolested beyond scornful remarks. the aetherist, who was named Pethis but rarely was called anything beyond aetherist, truthfully knew very little about what he was doing. he knew the villages they lived in now were over the ruins of shattered cities that lay atop other shattered cities, and those who lived in the wild ages before them had also been reaved and ruined by the abominations. he knew the gods were all dead and their passage had unmoored the world from some central and unfathomable axis but there was nothing to be done about that. so he drew the patterns of the clouds, and the way leaves moved in different season, and the smell of the black rain, and put it into charts, in case the lord asked for information. he felt his uselessness deeply and often and would drink until he vomited profusely outside his house. his neighbor, Gekegzi, in contrast, found him highly amusing. Gekegzi was the town’s night watchmen, so he often heard or witnessed the aetherist stumbling from his house in a frustrated stupor. Gekegzi was a good watchmen, and had alerted the village on many occasions, and saved many villagers with his excellent vision. for that, he lived in fear, and made sure the villagers saw him out and about during the day, for the night watchman of Drouv had been accused of being a vampire, a thing of no life, and had been ripped to pieces by the villagers of Drouv in a superstitious frenzy and his parts placed on pikes at the village gates. it had turned out the vampire they feared had been one of the village midwifes, who had been using the blood for her rituals and strange carnal pleasures rather than to drink. she was also dismembered and piked, but by then the bloodlust of the Drouv had settled and they found themselves bereft of a watchman and midwife at once. Gekegzi only knew they had ripped the night watchmen to pieces and thought it was because of dereliction of duty and because they thought he was some sort of night creature, a kin to the abominations. and so he forced himself awake in the middle of the day to greet several of the people around town. Hopska had once brought him tea made from the leaves of waking and he had fallen a little in love with her, because no one had ever truly been kind to him before. so when she asked him if he would ever tell her if one of the lord’s outriders, or any of the gentry arrived first, he promised to. he envisioned some day holding her hand, or putting his hand down her shift, or merely feeling her sweat, and he would in turn begin to sweat himself, no matter the temperature outside. Hopska had that effect on a great deal of the men in the village as well as some of the wives. she had let the ferryman’s wife lick between her legs for an hour once, though she wasn’t truly sure what the woman had gotten out of it. Hopska was used to people’s demands of her body, and simply gave and withheld according to whim and tactic. Zoltaff thought he was her only true lover, and she allowed him that illusion, though he had on few occasions caught her pleasuring other men with her mouth in order to accumulate information. when she explained the seed of men died in the mouth long before it could travel to the belly he relented in his beating, and then he coupled with her so savagely afterwards she could barely walk the next couple of days, though it could also have been the beating. she didn’t know Zoltaff had made several of the stable boys pleasure him with their mouths, though he thought of it as proving his dominion over them, and what little power he held as a bastard being issued from his seed to them. the stable boys, no matter their age, were too often beaten or used or worked to exhaustion to ever reflect on this. Hopska had once let Zoltaff couple with her while one of his bastard brothers had coupled with her mouth, when they had all drunk from the narcotic ivy of the vine. she had been hallucinating and thinking it was the lord and somehow an identical twin brother of his and she had tried to please them as furiously as she could. Zoltaff had been imagining himself coupling with a great centaur, not able to separate the torso of his brother from the back of his beloved.

the ivy of the vine brought these kinds of things out in most people, which was why only the town chemist, a miser named Ozzik, was allowed to temper and distribute it. mostly the lord and his parties would take a couple of drops of it and stumble around their palaces and laugh at the shape of windows for a few hours before falling into dreamless sleep. Ozzik himself had once hallucinated so hard he saw the true faces of the abominations and had fouled himself and cried for hours, and when he had awoken from the hold of the ivy he had wept and cleaned himself in the river and swore to never drink or snort it again. Ozzik would have been a man of great faith, had there been any living gods, but he instead found himself a man of great science. his powders, alchemy, and miraculous tinctures were known everywhere around Kharesk and all the way to Drouv. he had attempted to make friends with the aetherist, who was too frail and sick with sadness to trust in Ozzik, and he had tried to make friends with the mayor, who was too pompous and solitary. Ozzik then decided to make friends with animals, and had soon trained a stunted bear though chemistry and treats to a slight sense of obedience, though the small bear had eaten one of the village hounds after a long and yowling fight and there had been no small amount of controversy over the death of the hound, it was enough of a curousity the lord allowed it to continue, in hopes at some point he could steal the diminutive bear and take it back to the capital as a kind of living trophy. the bear, which had tumors inside it from eyeball to asshole, was as close to deranged as a bear could get, but it never mauled a man or a woman. occasionally it would escape and eat the vomit of the aetherist, or it would walk past the space between two cottages where Hopska loved to couple with Adathon when he came down from the manor, and it came to know the smell of her exertions quite well. Hopska found the bear both terrifying and adorable, for it was too small to be a bear but had enormous sharp teeth that could rip her hand from her wrist easily.

Adathon, who fancied himself an artist, often wondered if Hopska knew how transparent she was. he knew she did not love him, nor Zoltaff, nor any of the men in the village, nor even the lord. Hopska loved Hopska’s ambitions and because he was the trueborn son of one of a fallen gentry, he was still high enough above her she was always desperate to pleasure him. he thought of how much it would enrage Zoltaff, who always looked at him with dangerous but cowardly eyes. if Zoltaff ever attempted anything, Adathon would simply cut him down, for Adathon fancied himself an artist, but he was by far the best swordsman for many miles around, which was what had driven him to artistry. once, after spending himself deep inside Hopska, he had shown her the art, the great dance of the blade, and she had gasped in mild shock at the ease of his movements. he knew she had never seen war, never seen battle beyond bandit and abomination, but he wanted her to understand he could snuff out life as easily as he could draw fruit and sunsets.

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trekwiz · 10 months

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Followed you after seeing your comment about how ALL christian denominations are fucked and how the ones that try to look progressive just shield the rest from criticism. Its so nice to see someone who gets it, it can be so so so exhausting to try to explain all that shit to people who havent studied christianity and still see it as the "nice, awkward, naive homeschool kid" religion, instead of the extremely dangerous, actively-toxic-to-its-followers-and-their-friends, terrifying death/rape cult that it is.

Anyway i saw you were looking for music recs. It seems dumb to suggest but just in case you havent listened to it, the Mountain Goats' All Hail West Texas album has a similarish vibe and is soooo fucking good. Ummm, Chris Pureka (queer folk artist) has some heart-achingly beautiful folksy stuff. Evan Greer (another queer folk artist) has some fucking kickass stuff that, again, has a very similar vibe. Those three are definitely worth a listen. :)

Honestly, one of the things I regret about my growth as a person was allowing people to convince me that it isn't all denominations, for far too long.

As a teen, I was angry about homophobia and the cause was apparent: Christians never hid that they were behind those atrocities. They were openly taking credit, and yet they were joined by, "no, really, that's just the bad denominations. I belong to a really progressive church."

It was amazing, really. Every Christian I met was one of the good ones. They all belonged to a great church that didn't discriminate. They were accepting. And supportive. I couldn't find the evil ones. Where are they? No one belonged to one of the bad churches. But THEY all know which ones are the bad ones. It's all those "fake Christians" from unspecified denominations. Sometimes it was an "opposing" denomination from theirs. It's all so theoretical.

They were nowhere to be found. And yet, these rare bad ones somehow maintain the political power to prevent our full equality under the law. But if everyone belongs to a good church, how do they control the narrative so well? How is the Christian "sanctity of marriage" argument still such a popular perspective if it's just an almost nonexistent few bad Christians? How did the "grooming" bullshit rise to such prominence again? There are no secular arguments for homophobia. Am I supposed to believe that suddenly the good Christians have lost their voice temporarily? That they're just being drowned out by a small powerless minority that tricked them into voting for their candidates?

And then you spend time with those good ones. They deny that Billy Graham supported conversion therapy while calling for a national holiday to celebrate such a "great man." They're very supportive. Don't you know that your sin of being gay is no worse than their sin of committing murder? It's all the same. And you know, some people genuinely have a problem with us having rights, would it really hurt us if we just compromised and let them punch us five times, instead of six? You confide in one of the really progressive "I like to think of myself as a follower of Jesus, not a Christian, because Christians really do bad things" and they use your distress at the fascist threat as an opening to witness, "Yeah, Christians are awful. But you'd love Jesus. He wouldn't support these behaviors. Isn't he great?"

There isn't a denomination of Christianity that doesn't believe that what we are is immoral. There are some that cushion the language to trick us into spreading the message of our oppressor. But not one treats any LGBT trait as being neutral--as a characteristic that just exists. There's inherently a judgment. The "good ones" are just a sleight of hand meant to trivialize the seriousness of what their religion is doing to us.

And it's unavoidable. You cannot create a sect of Christianity that will be good and peaceful in the world--at least, not without throwing away the very things that define Christianity. The basic structure of the religion is inherently damaging to a person's way of thinking: the absolutely worst, most unforgivable thing you can do is question the existence of Jesus or his inherent goodness. Regardless of denomination, questioning the authoritarian leader is grounds for eternal torture. You cannot have a healthy environment based on that perspective.

The concept of witnessing and missionary work is designed for genocide. The whole premise is to make people in other cultures "accept" that they're inferior, destroy their cultures, and join into Christian culture. It's why, regardless of denomination, that missionary work has always been so bloody--even into the present. Those bodies buried at Canadian church schools aren't that old. You can't view the world that way and end up as a good person. The core of Christianity--the very thing that defines the religion--perfectly resembles a fascist regime.

There are no denominations without these critical flaws. That we're so willing to pretend that there is, is why they came back so strongly after just a couple years of legal defeats. The LGBT-phobic sentiment never went away; it's still mainstream Christian thought. We'll never be able to end our oppression until we stop pretending that Christians have a right to these beliefs.

Regarding music--thank you for the recommendations! And please, no feeling dumb for making a recommendation. It's not obvious but my experience with music is. Well, it feels weird to call it new, but in the scheme of things, it is.

Short story: I learned as an adult that having a heart murmur can really mess up your ability to perform music. Music education in school was very frustrating for reasons that I didn't understand at the time. So I just didn't interact with music in any way at all. I expected it in games and movies, but just listening didn't bring me any joy. And in some ways, I haven't fully shaken that--I like listening on work days where I don't have a ton of meetings; it helps me focus on the tasks. I rarely just listen.

There were 2 things that changed my perspective. I was asked to join an African Percussion group in college (specifically Ewe music from Ghana)--I was learning about live audio for video production, and the instructor had me help them setup their PA system during performances. They ended up inviting me into the group, and I finally got something out of music.

A couple years later, I went to my first Renaissance Faire. And I found I was drawn to the really loud music--the kind that you can physically feel, not just hear. Which was an obvious connection to the percussion music I'd been playing. And I loved it!

That led me to be open to play Guitar Hero and Rock Band when I was invited to, which let me appreciate some more music. But I still prefer the playful kind. I'll take bag rock over rock any day.

So I don't really have a lot of knowledge around music. I don't know a lot of the groups people think would be obvious to know. And I don't really have a lot of language to describe what I like about different kinds of music. And so, despite your preface, feel comfortable: I had never heard of Mountain Goats before.

I will say, the content of the Mountain Goats and Chris Pureka were close to what I was looking for, but the feeling of the music wasn't. I found a couple songs from both that I liked, though, so thanks!

I tend to like really energetic music. I often shorthand to "fast" but I recognize that's not the main defining characteristic, I just don't have better words for it. Evan Greer was pretty much EXACTLY what I was looking for--thank you!

What I liked about the folk song I mentioned, and some of the artist's other work before she outed herself as a bigot, was the "fantasy" setting. Folk music is a genre where I'm less likely to enjoy content about modern life. I mean, most of my favorite music tends to lean towards fantasy/renaissance/scifi. But folk in particular, I like it to reflect a different time--past or future--I live here in this time, so it doesn't feel as interesting. I also liked the power in her voice (I don't have the language for what I'm describing; it's not just the forcefulness of her tone, but the way you know the instruments will never compete for focus against her voice), and the driving energy of the rhythm.

Here are some examples of what I personally would describe as a similar vibe:

March of Cambreath by Heather Alexander; Wanderer's Path by Mythemia; Wake Skadi by Hagalaz' Runedance.

Not quite as comparable, but I would consider Zumbaj by Reliquiae (or, since they seemed to have pulled the song for some reason, Šarena gajda by Rece-Fice zenekar és Bea Palya is a close enough substitute) and Dawson's Christian by Vixy and Tony to be the kind of vibe I'm going for.

(Actually, from that selection, it's probably kind of obvious about how much I enjoyed Evan Greer's work. Again, thank you!)

Though even compared to these, I felt like the song I referenced is still a unique outlier in this company, and I wanted more with that kind of defiant old gods kind of feeling.

#asks #ask trekwiz #ask #thank you!

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lookwhatilost · 1 year

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i can’t sleep again, Shocker. but i’ve been on a bit of a kick with digging into the incelosphere in my free time. i think they’re an interesting group, so here’s my incel thought dump, that i’ve been periodically adding to since 3 this morning:

there’s clearly some weird shit with race going on with these guys. per self-reporting on a popular incel forum, a little under half of them are men of color, and it tracks when you consider the active users. south asian men are absolutely overrepresented on there. not to mention the memes, like “jbw” and “jba” – “just be white” and “just be [east] asian”, respectively. someone recently posted a meta-analysis on there about race mattering more to potential partners than height, appearance, or money, common incel/lookism touchstones.

mediocre data and lived experience can be a deadly combination. an abundance of good data can sometimes be worse when you’re biased. what’s troubling about the social sciences is that, unless you have a study that’s asking the correct questions, it’s very easy for a reader to project or extrapolate wild things from the raw numbers. to convert incel-ese into more neutral language, you can consider the “blue pill” as the just world fallacy, which is something i’m on board with. it reminds me a bit of the scene in the 2003 adaptation of fma where a homunculus tells the elric brothers that equivalent exchange is, to put it in zoomer terms, a cope. but there are many contours and grey areas, and this is hard to consider when you’re working within the structure of rigid categories.

“truth hurts” can be a form of confirmation bias. natalie wynn has one of the more competent analyses on incels, albeit not without its oversights and errors, and she uses the term “masochistic epistemology” for this. that is to say, whatever hurts is true. but there’s also a bit of conflict here. i read a thread that commented on “chadfishing” – incel talk for catfishing as a chad with the explicit purpose of data collection – and the original poster said something to the effect of “we don’t want it to be like this”, which i believe. but repeated rejection can have a traumatic effect, and trauma fucks with how you think. which brings me to my next two points...

we experience an unprecedented amount of rejection in the digital age. send 20 job applications out on linkedin. get zero responses. just keep trying. you, as a man, need to send a lot of messages on dating apps to get results. the fact that most people didn’t respond shouldn’t get to you. don’t let it get to you! we interact with more people than we can conceptualize, we make and lose internet friendships. as the old horse_ebooks proverb goes: everything happens so much. incels are likely an extreme extension of this

the popular conversation around trauma is really, really bad. do you ever get the sense that people treat mental illness and, by extension, trauma, as an abstract concept that’s ever-present, but, paradoxically, only has excusable behavioral effects? something to the tune of “i only sent 80 emails today instead of 100 :/″. it’s a conversation largely dominated by the worried well, and it shows. we constantly dance around the fact that trauma is more than capable of making us worse and more selfish people, and it genuinely makes me angry that people typically don’t have the guts to admit that. if the incels have anything going for them, it’s their willingness to admit that rejection and bullying related trauma did serious shit to their brains.

dating apps are terrible, but so is the data we have on them. i’ve written about this is the past, but tumblr’s search feature is busted and i can’t find my post. the basic gist is that an oft-cited study on men and dating apps only took android users into account, and men overrepresent android owners. and that’s setting aside the predation the companies let slide.

“the west” is deeply conflicted about sex. you could write an entire book on this one. there’s the strictly political angle, related to contraception and abortions, in spite of the fact that casual and premarital sex and living with your partner are far from a taboo. you also have uncritical sex positivity and how poorly realized a lot of its rhetoric was. i guess a good example is, if we want to imagine sex as impersonal and meaningless, then what about rape makes it especially heinous? consent isn’t a good answer, because being crimed on is never something anyone consents to. what differentiates sexual consent from other things you don’t want? i’m not sure how anyone could answer this question without conceding that sex is an incredibly personal act, one that many people can’t compartmentalize so easily. we also have trad zoomer influencers, more visible talk from ex sex-workers about how the industry hurt them, and the general idea that “cool girl” behavior of the 2010s has just fallen out of fashion in the same was skinny jeans have. (also, zoomer sex negativity is going to overwhelmingly break through soon. you should probably keep this in mind)

a lot of early 2010s feminism was legitimately just aimless bullying. this clip from “inside amy schumer” – gross – embodies what i mean. it’s hard to argue that this is punching up. an important part of improving feminism is taking an inventory of past trends, and analyzing what we got from them versus where they set us back. in my opinion, this shit was a huge mistake and no one benefitted anything from it. maybe enough time has passed that we can audit it with no feelings hurt, but i’m not sure.

entitlement is more the exception than the rule. another thing i wrote about recently, reflecting on my femcel days. we need love and it hurts when you don’t have it. it’s alienating. it hurts in a way that’s intangible – you know something is missing. i don’t think wanting love and not being able to figure that out is 1v1 comparable with entitlement. reading rodger’s manifesto, what stuck out to me as entitled was “i deserve women because i blew thousands of dollars on shit from neimann marcus”. me? i have only spent $100 at neimann marcus and it was on a pair of extremely out of season jimmy choo sneakers that i really loved. i still love those sneakers but they have absolutely not have gotten me love or sex. there’s a massive psychological difference between “i should get it” and “i don’t get it”. my sense from the incels is that they fall into the latter group and are trying to construct meaning onto that experience.

i don’t think you can square the fact that most violence against women happens at the hands of intimate partners when you treat virgin men as the “real” threat. this one is more or less self-explanatory.

i’m getting increasingly skeptical of the “internet radicalization” narrative. i think it’s dumb to argue that it never happens, but in this particular domain, these men seem very low inhibition. it’s also worth noting that they were incels before they found any forum about this, and what they personally bring to the table is wildly variant. the internet can provoke, but the physical world is where this baggage comes from. extreme radical political stuff is probably too complex for anyone to speak broadly on. it’s also probably worth noting here that the earliest discussions of internet radicalization were predicated on islamophobic panic, and this has likely weakened its foundation as an area of study.

that’s it for now but, like, chew on it

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