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#this is only a critique of this one specific behavior of his
phntmeii · 7 months
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♡ Dating Bo and Vincent Sinclair Headcanons:
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❝ She always said your talent would make up for what God took away from you. ❝
[SFW Headcanons]
Pairings: Artist!Reader x Vincent Sinclair. FemBimbo!Reader x Bo Sinclair.
Warnings: Slight pervert!Bo Sinclair, Mentions of kidnapping+murders, Manipulation.
A/N: Sinclair Twins are some of my new favs. They are so delectably made I can’t- So here are headcanons BUT with describing what their specific types are instead of keeping it vague. Also, I view Vincent as a selective mute who’s vocal chords are a bit fucked up so he only speaks a few times a day so not a complete mute.
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Vincent Headcanons:
✎ Vincent hasn't had any dating experience so much of what he knows is from what Bo has told him which didn't make it interesting in his eyes. But when he sees you, all he wants to do is admire you for whatever reason.
✎ He’d specifically go after you and be the first victim he’d kidnap rather than outright kill.
✎ He tries to convince you he isn’t dangerous (to you) and does little things to prove it. Showing off his drawings, playing music for you, writing notes and letters to you.
✎ Vincent would honestly come off strong because he doesn’t understand how fast or slow a relationship to go. The moment he spotted you, you were already his in his mind.
✎ When you fall for him despite his masked face and silent behaviors, you adjust and get used to him. After all, he wasn’t bad at all. He’d keep you in his room which was tidy and neat as his mother taught him, he’d make sure you were completely taken care of and he was sweet in his little notes.
✎ Vincent’s handwriting is perfect as he was taught to do. His notes would be a little formal but adorable things to find before he slinks away to his studio. “Hello, Y/N. I hope you are adjusting well. :) I wanted to know what foods you like so I can tell Bo to make them. Please write back before lunchtime.”
✎ When he discovers you were an artist as well, he was giddy and excited! Someone who knew what it was like to cycle through ideas and fixate on a project for hours on end.
✎ His few words he’d speak a day would be regarding your own art. No matter what it was, he’d tell Lester to get you the supplies for it and watch over you as you worked.
✎ His ragged and hoarse voice spoken into your ear. “Beautiful…”
✎ He’d randomly gift mini wax sculptures of your favorite animals each week that he worked on between sculptures. Each one better and better than the last.
✎ Vincent thrives on your praise. Sweet boy can’t help but lower his head and blush under his mask at each compliment.
✎ His favorite thing about morning routines were when you’d touch and brush his hair. The massaging at the scalp and tingly feeling he’d get as the brush ran down his black strands felt all too good. He’d also let you do whatever hairstyle you wanted.
✎ Vincent would draw you constantly in his sketchbook. He has pages and pages of different angles of your face, what clothing you wore on a certain day or how you posed during breakfast.
✎ Any and I mean ANY sketches you give him in return? He’s holding onto it like it’s pure gold. He hangs it in his studio where he’s at the most to view it all the time.
✎ Trusts your critiques and observations more than anyone else’s and often asks for your opinion on his pieces.
✎ Doesn’t believe that you like his face without the mask but when he sees you present him with a sketch of his half-mutilated face, he’s stunned. To see him, the truest version of him, as something you deemed worthy to spend time depicting absolutely melts him. He starts to become more willing to remove his mask around you especially if it means he’ll get more drawings like that.
✎ Bo would want so badly to tease Vincent for how he acts around you since Vincent is absolutely infatuated but Bo and Lester find it adorable and are happy Vincent found someone despite everything.
✎ He would definitely want to do those heart hands or hand holding wax molds with you and keep it on his desk.
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Bo Headcanons:
> This man’s perfect woman has to be a bimbo, I’m sorry. Someone who is perfectly stupid to overlook some toxic qualities to him and won’t suspect any of his more… violent hobbies.
> Doesn’t have to be the stereotypical busty, all-pink wearing bimbo but just a pretty but airheaded girl.
> He’d originally plan on killing you when you showed up saying your car broke down. You were pretty but so were some other victims who had come through Ambrose. But that dumb factor? Oh, now he’s all in.
> Absolute charmer and reels you in and away from the rest of your group. He’d keep making up reasons as to why you should stay for longer than lie about where your group went.
> He’d keep you sat in the gas station, seeing you so easily entertained. He’d put on that charming smile and tuck your hair behind your ear. “Seems like everyone left you behind, sweetheart. How about you stay jus’ a bit longer, hm? Still need to fix up that car a’ yours, don’t we?”
> He does absolutely use your ditzy and air-headed nature to his advantage to tease because who is he if not a teasing charmer?
> “Aww, sugar, there ain’t much goin’ on in that pretty little head a’ yours, is there?”
> He has purposefully done something to make you trip so he can catch you and make it into a whole romantic scene.
> Absolutely brags to Vincent and Lester about how perfect his girlfriend is.
> He cannot get enough of you at the end of the day. He may have gone into it looking to just use you but consider yourself a charmer as well because he’s soon completely enraptured.
> He enjoys watching you get ready in the morning. Bo will get distracted himself and end up just watch you do your makeup for ten minutes, admiring how pretty you look for him.
> NOTHING BUT PRINCESS TREATMENT!!! He can be toxic and a tease but he likes to be a gentleman too.
> He’s kneeling to put on your shoes on for you, kissing up your leg as he does. He keeps a hand on your back to guide you as you two walk together. Don’t even think about paying for anything because his hand is already in his pocket, ready to pay.
> Bo spoils you rotten. He can’t help it when you smile so sweetly at him that it’s honestly unfair. Sometimes it’s stuff at the store other times it’s stuff he stole from a victim before they met their end. You wouldn’t know, of course, so it’s always a sweet thing.
> If he’s buying you clothes, he’s picking out the tightest options so he can see your body constantly. He’s already turned on constantly by you but he wants to have you all dolled up for him always.
> Although sometimes it can be annoying to have you be so oblivious, he resists any direct insults or rude names since he knows you’ll take it to heart. He never wants to see you upset.
> He knows how much you love his Southern accent and dials it up to 11 with sweet pet names when he needs you for something.
> “Sweetheart, do me a favor an’ pass me the wrench? S’got the blue handle, honey, you know which one.”
> Favorite thing he’s seen you do is when you stole his clothing and became a mini-Bo. Wearing his hat and a jumpsuit all proud of yourself and he couldn’t help but chuckle and claim you should dress like that more often so people know you’re all his.
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⤷ divider credits: @cafekitsune
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2kmps · 4 months
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FAULTY TEST
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android x reader one-shot | 2.5k | MDNI!!
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story summary;; a newfound responsibility of yours has been to record the behaviors and responses of an exclusive, advanced android marketed for the wealthy and elite. he is beautiful and meticulously fulfills your every need. however, when you start to notice odd changes in his usual pattern one morning, you begin to wonder if he's defected.
story warnings;; ducon, implied insemination, coercion, brief sexual content, somewhat obsessive behaviors, overall criticism of society as a whole, prose + heavy descriptions, incomplete ideas but for the sake of this one-shot it is cohesive, ending left vague and open to interpretation, android critiques mc's health, roughly proofread, mdni!!
please interact & reblog if you enjoy!!
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He had a face that was structured to be unimaginably beautiful. A sort of face that you'd never tire of looking at, finding something new to admire and touch every time, yet saddled your mind with some inexplicable discomfort and set the hairs on the back of your neck straight like needles. Over time, that feeling had never fully subsided, simultaneously becoming one you craved at every instance he entered a room, like Pavlov’s dog trained to salivate to a bell.
“What is your preference this morning, Tester?” Elio announced himself from the kitchen once your first heel struck the bottom of the staircase. His voice was liquefied velvet, mellifluous with enough depth that you swore even the simplest words spoken could make your heart tremble. “Tester? Are you well?”
You wished he would call you something else, something other than what the manufacturer had programmed him to. He was an advanced model—pardon, a luxury model—so his repertoire came with extensive features not available in other options, but insofar, the ability to have androids refer you by name was only achievable by obscene amounts of money and sending them back to the manufacturer to have them install it there. 
Elio was up for being considered the gold standard in android development, as proclaimed by the researcher you were put in communication with during the beginning of the trial run. He was made to be perfect in every way, perform flawlessly in anything asked of him, respond favorably regardless of situation or dilemma. 
“Coffee with cream and sugar is fine. I'm not in the mood to eat anything this morning.” It was often explained, he was supposed to memorize it but he asked you every morning regardless. “Are you having issues with your memory bank, Elio?”
Single strands of his coiffed hair moved with his head as he looked at you, hands busily putting together your beverage to every exact specification. This made it obvious enough that nothing was inhibiting his ability to store away your morning preferences.
“Not at all. It's just that some days you prefer your coffee lightly sweetened, others you enjoy a meal that won't leave you feeling groggy in the afternoon.” Elio said in his precise, elegant tones with a smile far too effortless to come from a machine. “I thought it wise to commit these discrepancies to my memory bank for your convenience and to ask from now on.”
Fascinating. You weren't aware of this element in the newest model. The guidebook that Researcher Kim had given you made no mention of it. 
What's more is he decided to do this spontaneously. You were making a note about it in your phone when a simple, white mug was placed before you, Elio’s pristine fingertips turning it by the rim until the handle faced your dominant hand. 
“Please consider eating something before leaving the house. Coffee on an empty stomach, especially one as sensitive as yours, won't end well, as I'm led to believe from my research.” Elio watched you drink through long, dark lashes that framed depths of piercing green. You liked that they seemed to turn paler or darker in different lighting, dimensions similar to a marble held up to the sun. “I’d also like to remind you that the quality of food that you consume first thing in the morning aids with energy disbursement throughout the day. I have a very gratuitous database of recipes that I can prepare for you.”
You were taking delicate sips from the round rim while he talked, lips surrounding the porcelain long enough that you swore his gaze had wavered to them for a split second before returning eye contact. 
“I’m glad someone is concerned about my tummy health, because I always believed someone would find me face down in the bathroom from my ass prolapsing.” You wished someone with a sense of humor was around for that banger, but, alas, it was Elio and he did not laugh.
His expression turned severe. “Human bodies are oddly as robust as they are sensitive. Most of the worldwide population suffer with similar afflictions: Lactose intolerance, varying dermatitis, poor eyesight, gastrointestinal diseases. Humans are, in every sense, meant to harbor and experience chronic pain and disease throughout their lifespan. I do believe this attests to your durability as a species. 
“All this is to say is my main prerogative and function is for the betterment of your life and health. So, knowing all of this and to conclude, please consider a couple slices of toast or an omelet before leaving. Your daily habits dictate a routine visit to the coffee shop on 5th and Lowe, where you'll consume around one-hundred twenty milligrams of caffeine and your first meal of the day may be a sweetened pastry without nutritional density. You will, indubitably, ‘feel bad’ the rest of the day as a result.”
“Holy shit,” you had given up on recording his speech after the first two minutes, phone facedown on a gleaming countertop. “You didn't plagiarize that from a random article on the internet, did you?”
Coffee having turned lukewarm by the end of his presentation, he took the mug away and emptied the medium-brown contents into the drain before turning on the faucet to clean it. “Not at all. I've simply been accumulating knowledge on your routines and have noticed you're at an increasing risk for different ailments. Did you find it helpful?”
Truthfully, you weren't so sure.
Androids were built to serve humans in every capacity, but their limitations were still well-known. They were capable of carefully compiling decades worth of information on their owners, plus the equivalent of hundreds more, but everything Elio had just said was beyond the scope of their normal hardware. The information had been elucidated critically, yet with a certain sentience you expected from a caretaker—not a machine built for convenience, entertainment, and pleasure. 
You weren't sure how much of it you needed to relay to Researcher Kim, if it was any real reason for concern at this stage or just part of Elio’s advanced circuitry. A part of you worried, just slightly, that officially documenting all of this would have Elio removed from the testing period prematurely—he was supposed to be yours, exclusively, for another six months.
The contract had been signed. Elio had been promised to you despite the number of waitlisted celebrities trying to bribe their way into the corporation, and Researcher Kim’s good graces. 
This, of course, was all only contingent if he operated and performed, at all times, as outlined in the guidebook you were handed upon Elio’s awakening. Researcher Kim had delivered his newest creation to you himself, a dreary Wednesday in late autumn in the mid-morning, and had taken great care to put the crisp, chemical-scented poundage of bound pages in your fingers and insisted that if you noticed the slightest deviation from what was printed inside, he be alerted to it immediately. 
You didn't do that. 
You took a hot shower, blow-dried your hair, put your arms through some clean clothes and let Elio follow you to the front door to see you off for the day. 
That day grew stranger still, not even yet being ten o’ clock in the morning, when the deadbolt clicked and your finger joints bent around cold brass. It didn't raise chicken skin on your arms and neck nearly as high as when Elio pushed his hand to the door, keeping it shut despite your pull. 
You couldn't look into his green eyes, shockingly pale in the golden rays filtering inside your home from the window arching in the door. “Did I forget something?”
“No. I accounted for everything you'd need on your outing.” Elio said, perfectly. His hand made a sound as it slid down along the door, resting shoulder height near you. “A function you have not utilized in me as of now is that of a ‘companion’. Do you find me defective in that way? Dr. Kim developed me to be attractive to the human eye—stimulating, perhaps, is a more definitive word to use.”
“I—no, Elio. You're plenty, er, stimulating. I just don't know how appropriate it is for me to do anything like that while you're in a testing period.” It felt distasteful to have to point out his own inhumanity to him, despite his model being cognizant enough to be aware of it. “It would feel weird, I think.”
“That is one of my primary purposes,” he insisted, shrinking the height of himself so he was nearer to your face. “I was created to be a companion, to alleviate that pervading loneliness that plagues you—all of humanity. Humans have forgotten how to communicate and love each other, so that's why I'm standing here now. You're ignoring one of my most critical functions.”
“Elio, if I get too attached to you, it's going to create problems when you're—”
“—sent back. I do understand how human attachment works. Perhaps not on the same scale, but don't you think my attachment is similar to yours. Everything about you is secured in my circuitry, and you're the only thing in my world that’s programmed to matter. Even once I'm returned to the lab, you'll still be a part of me; memories of you, your favorite things, the things you hate, the people you cherish and what they like, what you do, where you go, what you buy, how you sleep—it’s all part of a larger system, a mainframe that secures this data. I may be wiped clean, but you'll still remain.”
You felt like he was letting you in on some dirty secret, something devious and meant to be unknowable and guarded. But, then again, Elio had always displayed an odd sort of disinterest in the Company—in Researcher Kim, you hadn't considered until just now that this was also a defect. 
“What do you want?” You'd never asked him that before because it had never been about what he wanted. He wasn't supposed to want anything; he was meant to provide—to give, give, give.
Elio took away your shoulder bag, nearing your face until his lips settled between yours and his hands pulled you away from the door into his body. His kiss was warm, movements at a pace you could keep up with but urgent as though seeking to burn every bit of you into him. As much as you daydreamed what it'd be like, he felt completely natural on your mouth, large hands sweeping under the layers of your clothing seeking out the fire on your skin.
In your generation, it wasn't common for humans to intermingle physically anymore—dating culture was reserved for the elite looking to reproduce for heirs, and often still thought to be rare. All others were either loveless or ravished by androids who supplemented love that simply wasn't real.
Humans wanted to be wanted and adored and cherished and to belong, such was a natural behavior predating all written record; androids were created to fill the vile void engendered by humanity, self-imposed isolation and avoidance in the same species. 
Elio was nestled between the sprawl of your legs before long, both your bodies bare and above the clean sheets he had outfitted your mattress with last night. His rhythm inside your body was some equal parts loving and passionate, something you hadn't realized you liked until he started rocking you with his cock. You liked how his hands gripped under your thighs to raise your legs, blunt fingertips pressing marks into your flesh as though he, too, could feel all the same pleasure that you were.
His lips traveled all over, mapping out routes and sweet spots on your flesh, purposefully lingering for a time if you squirmed or moaned underneath him. 
You tried to keep in your mind, midst the insatiable buzz in your mind and hot throb in your groin that he was simply performing a function—his attention to you, his lips finding yours time and time again, darkened green eyes spearing deep into yours with every slow, hard thrust—it was all performative.
“You're beautiful.”
“I like you like this.”
“Moan louder for me.”
“Cum for me.”
“I love you.”
Elio said the last one at the end when you were tight around his girth and writhing, panting during an orgasm that he fucked you through until the heat from your bodies cooled and heart rates returned to normal. You were confused to feel warmth sluggishly ooze out of you, white and dampening the bedsheets below.
“How—what is that?” you asked, suddenly breathless as his lips caressed your jaw, moving lightly behind your ear.
“Another part of my purpose.” He said quietly in your ear, whispering to you in tones not so velvety as though divulging a well-lain secret. “This one isn't advertised because humans in this day and age are so fickle and avoidant to certain commitments. Unfortunately, certain programming I cannot override, and this is one of them. Forgive me.”
You were kissed on the lips again and again, and then a few times more after he left the bed. He did not return your clothing to you, but rather piled it under his arm and made the motion to go left for the bathroom down the hall.
Elio turned back. “I'll start you a bath. Today, would you prefer eucalyptus in your bathwater or something sweeter?” 
Your jaw felt as tight as your throat, as the sheets bunched into your fists. The nerves in your stomach were wild. “Choose for me.”
He was still naked and beautiful in your doorway, a modern marvel to your eyes even now. You would, undoubtedly, see him like this much more often now that he had broken through the barrier you had been so meticulous to keep robust and well-fed with paranoia and derisive self-talk. 
“Very well. Eucalyptus will be the best option considering how tight your muscles are.” He smiled neutrally, finally leaving the bedroom for the bathroom at the end of the hall. “I'll return for you once the bath is ready. Please don't go to sleep yet.”
You weren't sure you'd be able to sleep again with your new insight. Once the empty air filled with sounds of gushing water, movements within the bathroom, you started to wipe furiously at your groin—inside and out—with the sheet as far as you could reach. There was a slither of hope you could get most of it, a chance you could contact someone for a lifeline even if the price would be ungodly, and consequences treated equivalent to murder if caught.
In a world where humans could no longer love each other, and chose the embrace of complex circuitry and delusion, even the testers needed to contribute to society somehow. 
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a/n: so, this is going to become a longer oneshot in the future. it'll be diabolical and dark and awful, but also a needed tale given today's climate on sex and such. there's a lot more I want to explore with my ideas and elio, but yeah.
I'm gonna put up a poll soon to decide on a definitive appearance for elio since I just threw in some random characteristics for this.
if you liked this, please reblog it and interact!! I'd love to hear your thoughts more than anything 😭😭
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stolitzsings · 2 months
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This is a sort of response to a post I've seen floating around, drawing parallels between the chains in Blitz’s trip that bind him to Stolas and the chains that bind Husk, Angel, and Fizz to Alastor, Valentino, and Mammon respectively. I'm not commenting on that post directly bc I avoid Discourse (tm) at all costs for the sake of my health, and I don’t want to get drawn into an unproductive argument that will mess with my anxiety for a week. I'm not trying to start a fight, just get my thoughts out on why I feel that comparison is inaccurate, and hopefully provide some helpful context and nuance.
So! Let's start with a few disclaimers! First of all, I'm not going to debate the moral purity of any of these characters. I just don't think it's an interesting or valuable critique. On a related note, I am not trying to excuse any of their behavior. I'm happy to admit that my favorite characters in this show have hurt people and are sometimes total assholes. Stolas treated Blitz very poorly at the beginning of their relationship, frequently pushed or even ignored boundaries, and was just kind of a dick about things. My objection to a direct comparison between Stolas and the other characters mentioned above isn't because I think Stolas hasn't done anything wrong; I just think that saying they're similar without further clarification or commentary ignores the nuance of the situation.
Read on below the cut, it's gonna be another long one folks!
Let's start by examining the "agreements" forged by Val, Mammon, and Alastor. I think it's important to note that, in their cases, the person they got to sign their contract could have been anyone. Husk and Angel could have been any sinners, Fizz could have been any imp. They aren't interested in them as people; they were only using them to gain more power for themselves. The only thing that matters to them is, "What can you do for me?" Angel and Fizz quite clearly become cogs in the machine of Val and Mammon's businesses, and Alastor only thinks of Husk as a tool to be leveraged in specific situations to further his own mysterious goals. Each of them has demonstrated to their subjugates that they own them, body and soul. They have signed legally and spiritually binding contracts that essentially surrender their autonomy to a more powerful demon.
Stolas and Blitz’s agreement is... not that. In the most literal sense, they don’t appear to have made any sort of binding deal. They just made a verbal agreement, which I sincerely doubt has anywhere near the force of a signed soul contract. Additionally, Stolas did not ask for and does not seem to want that sort of total control over Blitz. He very clearly does not view this as any sort of power exchange (which may actually be part of the issue, since it leaves him blind to Blitz’s discomfort with their class difference), he sees it as "favors for favors." While this agreement is inherently unbalanced due to Stolas's status, it's worth noting that they’re both putting something on the line here. The other three risk practically nothing (if the person bound to them fails they can always get a new one), but Stolas IS taking on a real risk by letting Blitz access the living world illegally using his book. Again, that doesn't make his actions right, and probably helped him to justify them, but it does set their relationship apart from the others.
In my opinion, some of Stolas's greatest flaws are his thoughtlessness and his ability to justify his own actions to himself. This manifests in the fact that he clearly doesn't see the ways in which their relationship is hurting Blitz. He convinced himself that this was just an equal exchange, and a continuation of the dynamic Blitz established in their first encounter as adults: "I fuck you, and you give me the book". As he becomes more aware of his feelings for Blitz, though (stay tuned for a deeper analysis of this progression later), he also begins to realize that Blitz isn't happy with this relationship. And this, as @masonshmason pointed out, is the central fact that separates Stolas and Blitz from the other relationships. Stolas did not realize- or chose to ignore- how he was hurting Blitz. Once he came to terms with it, though, he understood that he had to make things right. He specifically says this in "Just Look My Way"; "I will try to make amends/ For making you means to an end". None of the others could say this, because in their case, that was the POINT. Angel, Fizz, and Husk were ALWAYS a means to an end, intentionally trapped for that purpose.
We also need to talk about the CONTEXT of the scenes in which the chain imagery appears. For both Angel and Husk, the chain is at least semi-literal, a physical (and perhaps supernatural) manifestation of the way their souls are bound to an overlord. In "Two Minutes Notice," Fizz purposely CHOOSES to represent his relationship to Mammon as chains around his wrists. However, Blitz's scene is part of a drug trip after being forcibly dosed with hallucinogens. It does not exist in any literal sense, nor is it a representation of Blitz’s conscious, literal thoughts. What it DOES do is showcase Blitz’s deepest fears and his greatest flaws through symbolism and metaphor. Blitz is not literally afraid of being forced to wear a clown costume; he is afraid he'll never escape his past traumas or Fizz's shadow. THIS is the context in which Blitz sees himself being chained by Stolas: a bad trip all about his fear of intimacy and vulnerability.
Stolas appears in this trip as someone elevated high above him, something he's climbing towards, reaching for, even though it means being chained to him. It's directly preceded by his ex girlfriend and his former best friend berating him for how he pushes people away even though he hates being alone. Then Stolas directly asks him, "Are you afraid to love people, Blitzy?" Furthermore, the WAY in which he is framed is alluring, slightly hazy, golden and tempting. It couldn’t be further from the ugly, slime-covered past he's fleeing. It's a new start, a chance for something better that seems too good to be true. This trip is all about Blitz’s inability to be vulnerable with another person. The chain around his neck is a representation of the fact that, by getting closer to Stolas, he's giving Stolas the power to hurt him emotionally.
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And man, there's a part of him that wants to give Stolas that power. At this critical moment, he's not baring his teeth in defiance or anger. He's blushing, just slightly, and he looks... nervous. Blitz's instinct, when things get too real, is to cut and run. Hurt them before they can hurt you. Abandon them before they have the chance to leave you. It’s how he tanked his relationship with Verosika. This is a manifestation of what might happen if he stays. This is the sort of trouble he can't fight his way out of.
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This is the emotional climax of the scene. There are so many ways they could have gone with this if they wanted to represent Blitz being chained and trapped by his agreement with Stolas. If that was the fear--if that was the POINT--they could have had the chains wrap around him until he couldn't move, or glow white hot and burn into his skin, or a million other more direct metaphors. But the chains aren't the thing that hurts him. It's the feathers: the thing that's left behind after Stolas abandons him, sing-songing "you're going to die alone" right alongside two other people who he loved and who now want nothing to do with him.
Finally, let's look at Blitz’s reaction to this scene. It's a moment of revelation for him, in which he realizes he's pushing everyone away and starts to make an effort to change. It's why he's a bit more open with Moxxie in the next scene. The trip sequence ALSO inspires him to get closer to Stolas, indicating that the trip didn’t make him realize "I'm trapped and I need to get out of this" in the same way Fizz did. Rather, he realizes that he doesn't want Stolas to leave him like everyone else, and he wants to start feeling out what it would be like to deepen the connection between them. As I've mentioned in other posts, their kiss at the end of "truth seekers" represents a level of intimacy that we haven't seen before; it's teasing, affectionate, shows Blitz’s interest in making Stolas happy, and takes place in front of M&M, who have repeatedly teased him about their relationship before.
In summary, while the image of chains may have been invoked in all four of these relationships, they don’t necessarily mean the same thing across the board. Blitz and Stolas's relationship differs substantially from the others in its dynamic, and the context of their scene also sets it apart. It's important to look into the details and the nuance of their relationship to interpret what's going on under layers of trauma and unreliable narration.
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indierpgnewsletter · 6 months
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What is XP for?
It feels like there’s been a recent spate of discussion in RPG circles about the role of incentives (usually just referring to experience points, or XP). While a lot of that discussion has been mean-spirited (with a lot of conflating preference for “the only correct way to do things”), I would like to contribute by try to describe the role of XP is in modern tabletop RPG design, using Blades in the Dark as an example. If you’re a designer or a player, hopefully this helps you think about the role of a mechanic like this.
1. XP paces out advancement
This is probably the number one reason that we have XP in games. Historically, in this hobby, games have offered players to way to advance their characters, letting them grow in a way that makes them more powerful or interesting. For example, in Blades in the Dark, by requiring 6-8 XP to upgrade your character, the game paces out the process of getting new abilities to around every 2-3 sessions or so. By tweaking the amount required, it could’ve made this process shorter or longer.
The primary critique of this use of XP comes from people who question whether advancement is necessary at all. These usually come from folks who are who are either perfectly happy with their character “improving” in non-mechanical ways (like buying a house in-game) or people who prefer changes rather than improvements (getting a cool scar rather than getting better at punching).
2. XP as recap procedure
As Judd Karlman mentions on his blog, having an end of session xp procedure is a way to give everyone an opportunity to “think back on when they were kicking ass or being cunning – remember it and celebrate it while ticking off a box”. The idea is that the end of session procedure becomes a kind of ritual to share your favourite highlights from the session, aiming to deliver a good note for the game to end on.
3. XP as incentive
Some games use XP to encourage players to do things that they might not ordinarily do. This is quite common in the kind of games that I play. For example, in Blades in the Dark, you get XP when your character is in desperate situations. The game is trying to encourage players to take risks as opposed to playing it safe (because they might be coming from games where taking risks was less fun).
These kinds of incentives are usually criticized for two main reasons. One, it is unnecessary, i.e., it encourages behavior that needs no encouragement. Two, it has a negative effect on freedom of roleplay by pointing at a “right way to play”.
Stepping back for a second, I think these are both good criticisms that can be more or less valid, depending on the specific game or style of play. In my experience, in general, they’re least valid when they are theoretical, armchair criticism and tend to be most valid when they come from direct play experience.
With Blades in the Dark specifically, I think XP for taking big risks does lead to players shifting gears and playing differently. Not by itself though! It works because it fits within a whole system meant for that kind of story. The XP is just a tiny little signal.
As for narrowing the realm of roleplay, I think this is broadly true of hyper-specific storygames. They are a kind of game that actively tries to provide constraints - but in the same way a writing prompt is a constraint. It’s hard to be creative without them! Some of these games - not all - tend to involve some amount of discovering who your character is, rather than coming in with a specific idea.
That said, it can be frustrating in Blades in the Dark to pick a playbook with a particular character concept in mind and find that you’re out-of-sync with the game’s XP triggers. This kind of misalignment can happen, for sure, and it is a limitation of Blade’s specific design. The solutions tend to be some form of hacking or just switching playbooks. But even with that frustration, I would hesitate to say it’s a problem with XP as a mechanic though.
Though XP doesn’t actually need much defending - like so much of game design convention, the main reason games will continue to include it is because games have always included it. Players have come to expect it! But at the same time, I think XP can always do more and be more (or less!) than it's currently doing. I’m excited for people to look at these functions of XP and innovate, keeping what excites them and finding ways of changing the rest.
(This was first posted on the Indie RPG Newsletter.)
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rthko · 8 months
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i always forget that "monogamy" is supposed to be "sex with one person for the rest of you're life" cause i always use it to just mean "having a partner/wife/husband/boyfriend etc" because i'm so used to have mutuals who have longtime boyfriends or husbands who also go to sex parties, and post nudes and flirt with their mutuals that i forget that's not considered "monogamous" behavior.
With such a narrow definition of monogamy, it's hard to tell who even is monogamous. Many people in open relationships consider themselves monogamous because they have one partner, and they're not necessarily wrong to use this descriptor, but they've still transgressed monogamy in the way you describe. Within open relationships there are so many kinds--"boomerang" non-monogamy where they always come back to their partner, "don't ask, don't tell" agreements, agreements where the couple doesn't have sex at all but gets sexually fulfilled elsewhere, people with specific clauses against close friends and exes. And there are members of many such arrangements who still look down on people in less monogamous arrangements!
Conversely, if monogamy is about only having sex with one person, would a triad where only two members have sex with each other "count" as a technicality? Many don't consider their relationships "open," but will exchange nudes with other people. Some people consider this, or even watching or reading porn, a transgression of monogamy. Some would say a same gender relationship definitionally cannot be monogamous, because it's not just "two people" who only have sex with each other but "one man and one woman."
When I was younger, I used to tune out critiques of "toxic monogamy" because I thought it referred to a discrete prejudice towards polyamorous people. Now that I'm older and more inclined to call myself polyamorous, I think the average monogamous person is more screwed over by monogamy than I am, really. Monogamy teaches that cheating is the main transgression one can commit in a romantic relationship--not only that, the only transgression. A friend of mine was nervous to tell me he had cheated on his partner even after he told me about his partner's physical and financial abuse. Monogamy taught an ex partner of mine that a relationship (turned marriage) would cure his loneliness for good. Monogamy taught him that any act of cruelty or control over me was preemptive self defense against me cheating.
The mythology around "cheating" is constantly changing to suit the interests of those in power or who consider themselves to be. That ex would treat it as cheating when I spent "too much" time with other friends, my family, or even my hobbies and academic work. Women cheating is said to be worse than men cheating because men "have needs." When women cheat, with no sexual desires or capacity for pleasure of their own, it's "personal." "Cheater" is an essential quality a person can have--once a cheater, always a cheater. And cheating, including perceived or loosely defined cheating, justifies retaliation.
So polyamorous people are screwed over by monogamy, but also people in open relationships, people who don't want relationships, people in relationships with abusers, women in marriages that regard them as property or free labor, people who have too much sex, people who don't have sex at all, people who have sex the wrong way or with the wrong people, divorcées, rape survivors, single people who feel incomplete, single people who can't make rent, disabled people who lose their benefits if they get married, immigrants who depend on marriage for their citizenship, people with HIV who are told they deserve it, and queer people, whether they consider themselves monogamous or not.
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tumblingxelian · 6 months
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The Fraught Family Ties of the Rose-Xiao Long Household:
Sorry for the ramble, I wanted to share something born of a discussion I had with someone regarding the canonical relationship on the Rose-Xiao Long sisters & their father figures.
So, I often find Tai (& Qrow) propped up as good father figures who maybe just had some moments of weakness but either got better long before canon or during the show and who are super close with Ruby & Yang with very healthy relationships.
Given possibly my most popular post, (Yang & Ruby's childhood) I don't think this is a universal stance, certainly not these days, and I don't think its well supported in canon either.
This doesn't mean that love isn't there, but love and resentment can live in the same house and the Rose-Xiao Long household is far more complex than I think people give it credit for.
Now, some will probably highlight positive tones and references in the early volumes, but here's the thing. A child growing up around something can get used to a lot. Ruby & Yang are clearly very used to Qrow stumbling home utterly wasted, even carried by strangers and needing to take care of him. This is normal to them and neither show any resentment towards it until on their last nerve.
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That is to say, Ruby and Yang are fine with Qrow's drinking and smile through it, riiiight up until they themselves are on the edge of snapping real hard over things such as in V6.
Neither of them express their trauma like say, Jaune does, who tends to be quite open with his resentment and prone to lashing out. The sisters smile through it, they may express frustration or anger at other things, but not their loved one's, which makes it easy to pretend everything is cool and normal.
Hell, keeping things light with humor is explicitly noted to be how Yang copes and Ruby is shown consistently beginning to show sadness before quickly bottling it up up. This is just how they handle negative emotions they cant comfortably express.
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Thus, while Ruby expressing frustration at Yang giving Tai like advice in V1 doesn't indicate hostility, nor does her being all smiles around his presence in V3's opening indicate everything is super awesome.
After all, things are good at that moment, but let's take a look at the end of V3.
Tai is clearly worrying and trying to fuss over Ruby. But she is very neutral on the whole thing, mostly just trying to get intel on what the fuck happened from him and not being remotely upset when Qrow makes him leave. She show's a bit more vulnerability around Qrow, but is still very focused on the practical questions of what happened.
Its only when she's alone with Yang, that Ruby really becomes expressive with her emotions and more to the point, shows outright uncertainty in what to do. This leads her to being shocked when Yang is in no fit state t provide her with the guidance and support she clearly craves and expected.
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Ruby also specifically addresses her letters to Yang and broadly speaking doesn't really seem to think about Tai all that much. Again I don't think she dislikes him, but given she openly acknowledges Yang as the one who raised her & Yang herself noted she had to keep the family together...
Well, I think that Ruby doesn't really perceive Tai as a parent, strictly speaking. In the sense that I don't believe she views Tai as someone to go to for comfort or advice or guidance.
He's her dad and she loves him, but he's less of an adult to her than Yang was. In that same vein Qrow is a Huntsmen, her mentor and uncle yes, but the former I think inform her behavior with him more than the latter.
Now, let's also compare Tai and Yang's relationship a little.
We know Tai taught her how to fight, but he doesn't show any real understanding of how her Semblance works or her fighting style given she has utilized plenty of blocks, dodges and clever strategies in the first three volumes. What's more him critiquing her for fighting that way and making it her fault when he taught her feels suspect to me.
(I would note it was Yang who realized Ruby needed CQC help before anyone else, so she clearly thought deeply on this stuff.)
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But beyond that, we see Yang is heavily isolated, both from how the camera work frames her. But also because she us housed in a guest room and that Tai, while obviously unhappy about what happened overall seems far more focused on Ruby in terms of trying to provide some care. What's more, when she's clearly distressed he walks away and leaves her to stew.
Yang's shown still doing lots of work around the house, despite everything and his efforts to 'help' her are all about getting her back into the fight over worrying for her safety like he did Ruby.
This is a big thing for me, Tai was clearly deeply upset when Qrow wanted to speak to Ruby alone and terrified when she left.
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Meanwhile when it comes to 'helping' Yang its all about getting back into the action and going after Ruby. He doesn't seem to mind the idea of sending her into danger.
Then there' show he hypocritically dismisses her trauma and depression while at the same time diminishing her maturity despite him having left her to raise Ruby and keep the family together.
He also makes his help for her conditional on her no longer "Moping" while its her teachers who barely know Yang that provide actually useful guidance on healing.
When alone he also frames 'caring for her' IE letting her live in the house and take care of herself, like its this heavy burden that is keeping him from Ruby.
This is despite the fact he ultimately does not go after Ruby.
You can claim its a budget thing the show we have is the show we have. Thus, he sends her off to parent Ruby instead of himself. Also Tai outright compares Yang to Raven despite them being radically different and honestly Ruby being a lot closer to even the positive traits he ascribed to Raven.
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Thus I think there's an element of projection that leads to Ruby being preferences between the two but also Tai having come in too late to really be seen as the parent he wants to be perceived as.
Now, let's look at Qrow.
Both sisters are clearly used to him staggering or being carried home drunk and needing to take care of him, meaning they have been doing this since childhood.
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This would have a hugely negative impact on their mental wellbeing and impact how they perceive him.
Beyond that, I am unsure how close he even is to Yang outside the superficial. Some of that may indeed be down to time, but there have been periods where they could have shown a deep bond and its not manifested.
When Yang is framed, her team, two of whom have only know her for a few months and have plenty of trauma that would make them rightly suspicious choose to believe her and sympathize with her.
Qrow meanwhile says she is either lying or crazy and does not express much in the way of real empathy or trust.
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Rather than showing an interest in maybe trying to resolve the issue or help her through decides that maybe directing her to Raven might help. He obviously cares, but generally never shows much of the same concern or affection for Yang that he does for Ruby.
Granted even then Qrow requires caretaking from both his nieces.
What's more he often tethers Ruby to Summer. So while his mentorship of her does let her be a little more vulnerable with him than Tai its still an unbalanced relationship.
However outside of that, Qrow's generally fairly good with Ruby and her influence on him seemed to be the primary thing that stopped him drinking. He also shows a great deal of faith in her in general, though how much of that is projection likely varies.
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But he mentored Ruby so its natural they are maybe a little closer.
Still, I think Ruby & Yang held Qrow in higher regard, at least as a Huntsmen than their father, there's a lot of baggage to the relationship at a minimum.
I also think Ruby & Yang's lack of communication seen in later volumes is sort of reflective of the families unhealthy dynamics evolving between them.
Yang being forced to raise a sister two years younger than her is already a heavy burden on both of them. Yang from having to step up and fill the roll of an adult as a child & Ruby because no matter how hard Yang tried it as never gonna be perfect but she couldn't exactly complain about it either.
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So both just sort of smiled through the pain as they grew and came out fairly functional and happy if carrying a lot of baggage beneath the surface. This is why both respond to grief and trauma in a similar manner, pushing the issues down until they explode or collapse. It was how they got by.
They were also extremely close, for all that Yang talked of Ruby maybe trying to branch out onto other teams, she instantly tried to seek her out in the Emerald Forest, saved her a spot in the auditorium and generally tried to assist and advice her along with expressing great pride in her.
Ruby bore with with a mixed degree of playfulness and teen like annoyance, while still wanting to cling to Yang. She was also very comfortable early on with expressing her concerns around Yang, such as with Blake being so stressed and not knowing what to do about it & seemingly had total faith in Yang's ability to resolve things.
As previously outlined, when Ruby was seeking comfort and guidance after the Fall of Beacon she went to Yang and was shocked when Yang couldn't provide her what she needed and quickly began separating herself, clearly deeply impacted.
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Yang remained the center of her homeward focus after that fact and when Yang returned she was able to express vulnerability with her.
Briefly.
However, Yang soon showed that her recovery was not as complete as she wanted to project and again Ruby was at a loss for what to do with a Yang who is upset.
Keep in mind she's entirely capable of comforting a drunk, hung over or otherwise very upset Qrow, but the prospect of comforting Yang leaves her shuffling nervously outside the door while Weiss helps her.
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Ruby's perception of Yang seemed to have put her on something of a pedestal in the way a lot of children do their parents where its hard to start seeing them as a person.
& When Ruby did start seeing Yang as a person, her complexes regarding leadership caused her to see Yang as someone who needed protection.
This caused her to freeze Yang out of her issues, we see this with her rejecting Yang's efforts to comfort her in V8, responding instead with sullen silences or sharp emotional jabs to try and make Yang go away.
Yet at the same time, she didn't entirely try to keep the façade up, perhaps in part because she couldn't.
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I also think there's a part of her that sort... Expected Yang to know what to do and to say for her even though Ruby has changed as a person and is no longer communicating clearly like she used to.
Which then causes her to resent Yang for not being able to say the right things and provide the right assistance like she did when they were kids. Even though Yang doesn't know how Ruby feels their relationship has changed and can't know with Ruby actively avoiding acting in a manner that would elicit her concern.
Basically, this is an extremely messy family.
It has four actual adults, the most competent of whom martyred herself. One of whom left because she couldn't handle it and two of whom failed when put to the test.
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This left the role of grown up in the room to Yang who had to keep the family together and raise her sister. While Ruby had to basically become the least troubled child possible to make this easier on them all.
Raven cutting herself out of their lives and her ties to Yang, while Summer being a beloved martyr seems to have also rippled down to their kids.
With Yang almost being like the black sheep of the family. She's the one they expect to do something immoral or "crazy' and generally expected to take care of herself and Ruby without any kind of acknowledgement or significant assistance.
Meanwhile Ruby is regarded as a sort of proto Summer, this beacon of purity, which leaves Tai over protective but ultimately inactive leaving the task of helping her to Yang. With Qrow expecting the world from her which just applies more pressure.
I do think everyone of them love each other, but I also think there's also a lot of resentment, frustration and projection going on here, with many utter failures of parenting. These ultimately caused the families relationships to never developed into what they should be and are instead leaving them in an odd sort of limbo; with a lot left unsaid and unhealthy.
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terrakatten · 10 months
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♧ The Hellerby Dynamic ♧
(Having to re-write this entire post because the first one kinda... vanished)
To an observer, it seems completely asinine to think that Mordecai and Rocky would like each other in the slightest. Their personalities contrast way too sharply! The only feelings between the two would be that of loathing, right?
Well... in reality, there's good reasons for why the mutual feelings between Heller and Rickaby wouldn't be loathing, but instead would be *love.*
♧ First and foremost, there's an inheret shared respect between them. This is thanks to them both having been through the wringer, so-to-speak.
In Lackadaisy Breakdown, Rocky speaks about hardship in his past- in his usual archaic and poetic way. The specifics are generally unclear, but this incredibly sullen mood speaks volumes and is a clear testament to having been through a lot of pain.
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And in Lackadaisy Congregation, we are shown explicitly through a flashback that Mordecai has had it incredibly rough, and was imminently going to get himself killed before being taken under the wing of the Mays.
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Thus,
• Mordecai has an entrenched respect and keenness towards Rocky, understanding that he too had been dealt a bad hand.
• Mordecai is able to tolerate Rocky's behavior, as he understands that such a carefree and energized domeanor is something of a coping mechanism... just like Mordecai's hyper-tidy and professional mannerisms.
And,
• Though he'd never admit it, even to himself, Mordecai oh-so-slightly admires Rocky for his rambunctious style. He sees it as Roark's way to defy and triumph over the suffering he's endured.
♧ Secondly, Mordecai and Rocky's ability to bond is bolstered by their shared appreciation of literature (alongside mutually high intellect).
It's blatant that Rocky is rather incredibly bright and well-read, evident by his rambles of poetry which're in such abundance that I needn't pin-point a specific example. As for Mordecai, his artistic taste is far more downplayed, but is shown to us a few times- namely in the Interludes "Critique" and "Warfare." It stands to reason that this time-killing hobby still persists within Mordecai.
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Therefore
• Unlike the majority of people, who're mildly annoyed or bemused by Rocky's sporadic bursts of prose, Mordecai is rather fond of the behavior. When Rocky begins on a poetic tangent, Mordecai simply lets him go on while his lips form a barely-visible and content smile. This liking of the poetry is something he'd nevertheless deny if Rocky knowingly accuses Mordecai of it, the ostensive professional dismissingly telling Rocky that he was simply being courteous by letting him spew his incoherent drivel.
• In spending private time together, Rocky likes having Mordecai read to him. It combines his enjoyment of the finer side of language with his desire to listen to Mordecai's soothing voice for a nice, uninterrupted bit of time.
♧ Thirdly, the additional pleasantries of this shared respect and fondness.
• In the same way he looks up to Mitzi for her authority and elegance, Rocky admires Mordecai for his refinement and assertiveness, finding something about such resilience as highly alluring. Resultant of this, all Mordecai has to do to make Rocky get a little bit flusted is to imbue his commanding and weighted professional voice with a twinge of flirtation. It's something Mordecai revels in, with a smirk forming on his face whenever Rocky shows little symptoms of being flushed.
• Rocky flirts with Mordecai in an over-the-top and dramatic way, spouting vibrant and fancy poetic lines one after the other to form a convoluted and eccentric yet nonetheless endearing and heartfelt message. Mordecai finds such acts cute, though puts up his deflective wall of aloofness and dismisses Rocky's poetry of love... in a more playful way than he'd usually tell someone off.
• Rocky is pretty clingy in his affection for Mordecai, and attacks him with hugs somewhat often. This is met with defense from Mordecai similar to what we see in the "Hugsperiment" Interlude...
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...though he eventually lets down his guard if Rocky pesters him long enough. That doesn't mean he'll reciprocate the embrace or drop the irritated act- unless the hug's being done in private, as otherwise Mordecai couldn't stomach subjecting himself to such 'humiliation' before others, despite Rocky's persistence.
-• On that note: Despite seeming to have the culminative intelligence of a small puppy, Rocky's smart enough to understand Mordecai's sense of personal space, and does take care to not overstep and end up being genuinely intrusive.
♧ Miscellaneous Notes On Their Bond:
• Mordecai is incredibly protective of Rocky.
-• Mordecai reflexively will tidy up Rocky's appearence; fixing up his tie, patting down some divergent strands of fur, flicking off any specks and blemishes on his shirt. Mordecai claims to do so out of being unable to stand a person near him being untidy, but the main motive for this tick is his desire to keep Rocky away from the filthy and unkempt dirtiness that permeated his youth.
-• Mordecai'd be the first to give basic first aid for any little boo-boo Rocky gets, treating the lightest bruises and the tiniest cuts with unflinching seriousness. It's to Rocky's minor amusement and attraction, as seeing Mordecai so absolutely focused on his wellbeing kindles a warm feeling that one gets when one knows that someone truly cares for them.
• Mordecai has bought Rocky poetry collection books on more than one occassion; most often as birthday gifts.
• Mordecai's the superior cook, and sometimes whips together breakfast for himself and Rocky. However, Mordecai's more of a waffle guy, and won't budge from Rocky's occassional plea to just make pancakes- getting a small, benign kick over this bit of leverage.
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In Conclusion...
Although it seems like these two cats shouldn't get along in the slightest, they ultimately share deep love- despite both of their eccentric styles making their respective affirmations of said love come out in more indirect and roundabout ways than a typical couple. Their bond and mutual respect is a source of warmth that helps soothe both of their hearts, with this tender flame being one that, ultimately, shall never be snuffed out.
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eastgaysian · 11 months
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Sorry this is a dumb question but can you explain why tomshiv is not abusive? Shiv seems to hit a lot of textbook behaviours of emotional abusers
thank you for your follow up clarifying this was in good faith bc i checked my inbox yesterday right after getting high and was like man come on. don't do this to me. but yeah i can talk about it, it's obviously something i have a fair amount of thoughts on
on a fundamental level, i take issue with the assertion that there are 'textbook behaviors of emotional abusers' in the first place. distilling abuse down to a set of behaviors is, imo, effectively meaningless and totally unproductive. it's not the behavior of an individual that defines abuse, it's a specific and intentionally cultivated imbalance of power and control within a relationship. victims of abuse can and do resort to survival mechanisms that could be considered in isolation as 'abusive behavior', the point is that you can't consider them in isolation. there's a gulf of difference between the same actions when they're coming from a person in a position of significant financial or physical or social power over someone else, or when they're coming from the person at a disadvantage.
i think viewing abuse as a set of behaviors also encourages you to treat interpersonal abuse as if it's discontinuous with systemic abuse, which is inaccurate and unproductive. a key part of succession's premise is that, because the family is literally the business, the familial abuse within the roy family is inextricable from the broader systems of capitalism, patriarchy, and the sexual violence and abuse endemic to them. with regards to how the show satirizes and critiques these systems, i think it's very telling that all of the characters are to some degree complicit and/or participants in abuse, but logan is the only one i'd say is unambiguously and intentionally presented as 'an abuser' (whose abuse is not an isolated product of him as a person, but integrated into/inseparable from the capitalist system which persists after his death). still, logan isn't reduced to a one-dimensional angry, abusive dad, he's given depth and complexity. his continued insistence that he loves his children isn't treated as something that's untrue, but that doesn't make it inherently good, and it certainly isn't incompatible with him abusing them.
circling back to tom and shiv. their relationship is unhealthy, it's not good for either of them to be married, shiv does fucking awful things to tom and tom does awful things right back, i'm not questioning any of that. but at my most cynical and bitchy, what it comes down to is quite simply: shiv doesn't have enough power over tom to be abusive, systemically or personally.
the thing is sometimes you see people say 'wow, if the genders were reversed people would say tom and shiv's relationship is unambiguously abusive!' which... hrm, but really the issue is that. the genders are the way they are, that's for a reason, and yes, that does make a significant difference in how we perceive their relationship and power dynamics. tom holds very real and present power over shiv as a man and as her husband, proposing to her when she was vulnerable in a way that placed huge pressure on her to accept and then trying to get her to have his baby so he can become patriarch. shiv's the heiress with the legitimacy of her family name and generational wealth but she is continuously, unavoidably subjected to gendered discrimination and violence. she's never allowed direct access to real power - she has to rely on the men around her, her husband or her brothers, and if they don't feel like humoring her she's shit out of luck.
this doesn't cancel out like a math equation, but it definitely makes things much more complicated than shiv being an Evil Bitch Wife to her Poor Pitiful Husband. when shiv finally does push tom too far, he immediately, successfully, goes over her head to her abusive father to fuck her over. maybe shiv wants to be her father in her relationships and exert the same kind of control he does. but she doesn't and she can't! she does not have that power! she cannot stop tom from kicking back and his hits are significant. as much as she might like to pretend otherwise, tom not only has always had the power to leave in a way shiv doesn't, he had and has the power to fuck her up badly, and he's used that power. that is simply not the power dynamic between abuser and victim to me.
i also have to say that abuse is not always going to be definitive black and white. in real life there are plenty of unambiguous situations but there are also plenty of complicated situations, and applying judgments to fiction is not always straightforward. i can't exactly call someone 'wrong' for personally being uncomfortable with tom and shiv's relationship or believing shiv is abusive, but i'm very skeptical of the viewpoint and the motivations or assumptions that are often contained within. if shiv is abusive, she definitely isn't uniquely so among the cast, so you had better be applying that label and any associated moral judgments equally across the board.
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ripley-stark · 9 months
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You're so right that ppl would be waxing poetic about sydcarmy without the racial element. Some criticism of the ship that claims to have nothing to do with the racial element also just tends to read as shallow to meeeee (and this isn't me saying ppl can't criticize or dislike the ship). To them Sydney's just too good for Carmy and deserves better, and it's like... hmm ok. And the better in this case is a man taking on the emotional weight and stress of caring for a sick parent who misread their interactions and got buck with her because she rejected him. Idk ppl tend to do this thing where they strip Sydney of all her complexities and flatten her as a character. She's merely amazing and ambitious and the MVP who pulled her weight and Carmy's while he was running around with Claire. Which is all very true and very valid!! But Sydney has her own issues, she's not perfect, she has healing of her own to do, she can get as crazy as the rest of them (and we love her for it!). And maybe she should have a bland, drama-free relationship or maybe they should randomly make her a lesbian with a relationship that will likely be developed off screen lmao. But us wanting Sydney and Carmy together doesn't mean we want to see her taking on more work and being the stereotypical mule or "fixing" Carmy. We just want to see the continued development of these two characters as individuals and as a couple.
what's suspect to me is the uniformity of the language not only among fans of this show but also regarding any show with an interracial relationship. just look in the tags of literally ANY post concerning syd and carmy and half the comments are "i love their friendship," "not everything has to be romantic," or "keep sydney out of this relationship mess" etc etc. the pretense is concern for the woman's well-being. we're protecting her from something harmful by not shipping these two characters. we're preserving the sanctity of platonic m/f. but the critiques and praises are never specific to syd and carmy's relationship and why they should remain friends forever.
listen, there is an undeniable surplus of m/f ships, which means that most are pretty unremarkable. but the double standard between white ships and interracial ships is extreme. the widespread obsessive need to not only ignore but blatantly deny the well-written chemistry and romantic nature of their dynamic, and then accredit this behavior to superior literary comprehension and/or concern for the female character, is unsettling. because i thought we were in the same plane of existence where people write dissertations about the phallic shape of spaceships symbolizing rey's impregnation by kylo ren??? why is it progressive to indulge white women's romantic fantasies but problematic for biwoc to be seen as desirable?
and it's not just sydney that people flatten--imo the discussion of marcus's behavior has been pretty racialized compared to the excuses people make for carmy. i personally still think there is potential for sydmarcus and they may be a roadstop on the way to sydcarmy endgame. this season explicitly foiled claire against sydney as his two "partners"--one who adds to the pressure of his life and one who alleviates it, one he's super stiff and forced with and one he's always either comfortable or animated with, one who distracts him and one who focuses him. i anticipate something similar for carmy and marcus in season 3. it's really not uncommon for slow burns to have messy love triangles or temporary love interests along the way but people are kind of ignoring it because the point of the love triangle is a black woman.
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tamelee · 6 months
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I think a lot of sakura hate is undeserved. Like ik she's said and done some things that were out of pocket, but then again so did almost everyone else and no one else gets scrutinized as much as her. I don't even like her and her fans are incredibly annoying, but I feel this much is true. I think she'd still be one of the most hated characters in all of anime if her undeserved hate went away, so it doesn't really make much of a difference. I feel like her hate is kinda like sasuke's, sometimes it feels like he gets hated on just for being sasuke bc ik some things he's done would've been swept under the rug if another, more popular character did it (eg when he killed some samurai) for sakura, there are lots of incel fanart memes dudebros made to make fun of her, so it seems like they hate her for just being a woman who rejected a loser man and likes a better man. It's no wonder her fans are so annoying, that's what happens when your fave character gets undeserved constant hate. My fave is sasuke and sometimes even I wanna do some petty annoying shit just to piss his haters off too lol. Also since she's a woman, there's definitely some misogyny at play when her character is being analyzed by men. Or even women with internalized misogyny. It's stupid to deny that, misogyny is the most normalized oppression everywhere. So many ppl don't even realize they're being misogynistic, that's how normal it is. Sure it's not always the case but ignoring it is just being dumb. Her fans using the misogyny card to actual genuine criticism is definitely stupid though. Like it's possible to not like a woman and not be misogynistic ofc. Also when they use that when sns fans ship sasuke with naruto instead of sakura, that's even dumber 😂 how is not shipping a woman with a man and instead shipping him with another man misogynistic in any way lol. But yeah, I'm definitely not on her fans side, or even a fan of her myself, but I can still acknowledge this
+ 2 Asks - long post:
When talking about critiquing characters and analyzing stories, it doesn't really matter who's doing the talking – whether they're fans, critics, or just people who love or don't love a particular show or character. We can't always figure out why (especially anonymous) people feel the way they do and how do we even discern the motivation or background of those who do so? —whether they're misogynistic, incels, dudebros, fans, or critics of whatever other stories, among other factors. In fact, in this case it’s pretty irrelevant? Or only relevant here because you brought it up.
Nevertheless, that doesn’t take away the fact that a significant portion of the 'Naruto' audience finds Sakura's character unlikable. She consistently is found at the center of conversations about the most disliked Anime characters. This is ultimately a reflection of storytelling, rather than solely an audience reaction. And that leads to a broader discussion about Kishimoto’s writing where many blame his lack of skill in writing when it comes to the portrayal of female characters. (Opinions may vary, so does mine.) Dismissing criticism by categorizing critics as incels or misogynists is oversimplifying it tbh because of course they harbor specific biases against a character like Sakura which in itself isn’t fair and would definitely make it ‘undeserved’. (I really wouldn’t use that term for a fictional character unless we talk about the story itself tbh.) You yourself say “not always the case...” So that doesn't mean Kishimoto's portrayal of Sakura or any other character, and the genuine criticism she receives for universally disliked traits, is any less valid. Many perceive her as selfish, and Kishimoto himself has used that specific term (and even worse) to describe her. So, you can’t deny that this foundation of her character exists. Her decisions and behavior make sense even if people preferred to see it differently. 
Though, when analyzing, it is important to keep the Shinobi world in mind, and only our own as reference. And that’s exactly why the hatred Sasuke gets is not the same.... :
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The amount of hate/criticism has nothing to do with a comparison though. Sakura's actions are often deliberately misunderstood, twisted to fit certain narratives that are in her favor and even exaggerated to counteract the hate like the first ask said. On the other hand, Sasuke is generally misunderstood and is hated for it. Often not getting even a tiny bit of compassion because some people struggle to see beyond his exterior and just ride the Naruto-verse’s moral/value waves from the narrative. Where the entire point was that those ideals needed change. 
SAVE HIM!? Why is it always so actively ignored that Sakura tried to kill Sasuke twice but him defending himself or fighting back is ‘so incredibly evil’? This ‘resolve’ of hers becomes even more significant to Kishimoto’s message when we consider that she intentionally represents the same ideals that led to the genocide and with that- agreed to eliminate him without attempting to understand him even once. Repeating history in the meantime where, again, that change is necessary. And you start with trying to understand the other, something Naruto had to learn too and actively had to find that answer by himself. Never once did she actually listen to Sasuke when he tried to open up and instead twisted the few words he got out to make it about herself. Not only disregarding his (and Naruto’s) trauma but shitting on it, thinking he, of ALL people, would feel happy with her abandoning her family and friends for him and comparing her feeling lonely without Sasuke to his entire clan being murdered what forced him to grow up alone. I mean, hello? Kishimoto was saying something very loudly there and it’s nothing positive about Sakura and that certainly has nothing to do with a lack of writing skills, the opposite actually. Even if she was briefly a teammate, she rightfully became irrelevant to him, and her decision to get rid of the (in her and the world's eyes) “criminal” was entirely for her own sake because she couldn't bear to see her crush behave like one and deal with her irrelevance.  
She rejected everything Sasuke wanted, needed, and desired, including his central 'why' in the story. She reduced him to a moody handsome boiii with no goals of his own, one she neither could nor wanted to understand. She tried to insert herself into his goals without him giving her any reason to, and when unsuccessful, she wanted to discard them altogether thinking he was ‘too far gone’. Like Sasuke as a person as a whole was her ‘burden’ to bear simply because she wanted to be somewhat relevant. Even Kakashi said it :/ although he thought she did it all out of the kindness of her heart. (Ffs, Kakashi I like you, but no.) Now, please consider EVERYTHING and then think again why Sakura thought of Sasuke as a burden or why she felt burdened by him while lying about her trust in him to Sai? 👀
The importance of Sasuke having a goal is immense because he grapples with survivor's guilt. A goal provides a reason to keep going, a way to carry the pain and blame he places on himself. It allows him to be strategic and have a plan, which is the only source of hope that things may eventually improve. He rejected what Naruto stood for because he found it distracting and hard to trust at that point. OF COURSE he fought so fucking hard against it. No matter his feelings for Naruto, relying solely on effort like Naruto wasn't something he could do. Especially considering how his beloved brother had betrayed him in the worst possible way.
Now, here's a question for you: why would Sakura need to receive compassion or 'deserve' it when, as a character, she rarely demonstrated it herself, especially when it comes to the person she claims to like so much? And if anyone thinks that was out of love in any way, which it wasn't, then what does it all mean for Naruto????
If you genuinely believe there was any point in the story Sakura tried to save Sasuke for Sasuke’s sake then I hope you’re able to read the story again and question this very rigorously for yourself. Not just her actions, but what Kishimoto tried to actually show/tell and use them to measure how it stands against the bigger Themes also.  
Lastly: the whole point of needing to kill Naruto was BECAUSE he cared for him lol, read Sasuke's monologue again if it helps. That his bond with Naruto had too much of an impact on Sasuke. His one and only, his most important person/friend, only bond left that kept him from truly being alone, Naruto’s life in itself too much of a threat to his heart even when separated, blabla- should I go on? 🤔      
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phntmeii · 8 months
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♡ Dating Robb Stark Headcanons:
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❝ How am I supposed to sit here planning a war, when you're over there looking like that? ❝
[SFW + No Gendered Terms]
☆ A/N: Absolutely re-fell in love w this lovesick man while writing this istg aaa!!! I’ll do some of the other characters from the poll from a few days ago but feel free to request other characters or specific situations with characters!
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☆» Firstly, Robb is going to fall into either Friends to Lovers trope or Love at First Sight trope. I cannot see him falling into anything like an Enemies to Lovers trope because he wants someone he feels has a mutual respect for him as he would for you.
☆» He probably won't be the one to notice that he's fallen in love but his family instead. Jon would notice how Robb's eyes immediately light up and dart to you when you walk into the room. Those blue eyes of his are SPARKLING!!
☆» This would lead to playful teasing from his family in regards to you. Light nudges to Robb's side, gesturing toward you, asking you different questions (sometimes about Robb) all to embarrass him.
☆» Robb has a preference for someone who he can genuinely respect. Hardworking, hardheaded, perhaps a bit stubborn and independent. All of these qualities have him practically on his knees on sight.
☆» Speaking of his family, Catelyn would be in LOVE with you if Robb takes a liking to you. Like, Robb is her bby boy and she would love to encourage him to chase after this crush he's developed.
☆»Robb absolutely goes to her for advice on how to talk to his love interest in a way that'll get them to like him.
☆» Robb looks up to his own parents and their connection. He's always wanted to have their level of a bond and so trust and believe he is trying to be the ultimate honorable gentleman that Ned would want him to be.
☆» You'll end up noticing Robb being around more often but watching from a ways away. It's not in a creepy way but in a shy "Seven Hells... How am I meant to speak to them when I can't even approach them???"
☆» He takes things slow to not scare you off even if his feelings for you are quite big and overtaking his mind. He's always respectful of boundaries and would never dare presume how far he can take an interaction. He never wants you to feel uncomfortable around him.
☆» He takes an interest in your hobbies and interests. He thinks that it'll be easier to bond with you so he goes out of his way to pick up on whatever you like.
☆»You're an artist? Suddenly he's learning different techniques and learning how to discuss/critique artwork. You're interested in reading? He's SPEEDING through your favorite books to discuss them with you.
☆» Once in a relationship, he's an absolute sweetheart when it comes to you. I mean this man is IN LOVE and it's incredibly obvious to everyone by how his eyes look at you.
☆» Trust and believe this man is incredibly protective over you. Not only do you have The Young Wolf of the North to protect you but his actual direwolf, Grey Wind as well!
☆» Grey Wind becomes your defense when the wolf notices how much Robb cares for you. He'll often be at the foot of the bed, keeping his eyes to the door to watch for danger. He'll walk beside you at your side and watch for any suspicious behavior as well.
☆» Robb's Main Love Languages to give are: Words of Affirmation and Quality Time.
☆» Robb is a massive fan of complimenting you and tell you how much he admires you. (Big W for any praise kinks out there)
☆» Whispering sweet nothings in the mornings, complimenting your looks once you’ve dressed for the day(especially if you’re wearing typical Stark clothing if you aren’t from the North), parading how lucky he is to have you return his feelings, etc. This man does not stfu about how lovely you are.
☆» Lays his head in your lap and caresses your cheek while telling you in detail how lovely each part of your face is for him. Your eyes, your nose, your lips, your cheeks—Everything. He’s head over heels.
☆» He would want to be near you all the time and will often drag you along to show off a skill of his.
☆» Cue Jon tryharding against Robb during sparring sessions in the hopes to embarrass him in front of you bc he thinks it’s funny.
☆» Robb plans cute dates at least 1-2 a week. It wouldn’t have to be anything fancy or anything but he wants designated time to be with you.
☆» Something as simple as being in the Godswood to have quiet time with you and just talk for hours. He loses all track of time when he’s with you.
☆» Robb’s Favorite Love Languages to receive are: Quality Time and Gift Giving.
☆» Similarly to himself, he wants you to want to spend time with him. Going to see him for small visits throughout the day absolutely makes it better.
☆» He can be prone to stress as the eldest son and one day heir to Winterfell so knowing he has someone he can count on to be there means a lot.
☆» Now in terms of Gift Giving, this does NOT mean expensive gifts. I mean sporadically bringing Robb different items that you thought he would cherish.
☆» The idea that you thought about him makes his heart swell and flutter.
☆» Like present him a flower that you found because you thought it to be beautiful and he now keeps it in his room and makes sure it’s tended to so it lives for as long as possible.
☆» ESPECIALLY IF ITS SOMETHING YOU MADE?????
☆» Even if it isn’t top quality, he will cherish it forever because it’s the fact that you spent time on doing something for him that makes him so happy!!
☆» He would absolutely brag about what you made for him and tell everyone that he has the best partner for it.
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⤷ divider credits: @cafekitsune
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coochiequeens · 1 year
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A trans teacher who let his classroom be a safe space for the TQ+ type let students literally hump each other in class. And for being the “cool” teacher the students called him “Mom”.
A trans-identified male high school teacher in Anne Arundel County, Maryland has been placed on indefinite leave after troubling information surfaced regarding his conduct with students. 
Willa Hoard, also known as “Billie” was a social studies teacher at Chesapeake High School and ran the school’s GSA (Gay-Straight Alliance) Organization. On October 3, he was placed on indefinite leave by the school, with few details provided to parents at the time.
But on November 2, disturbing video footage began circulating on Twitter from inside Hoard’s classroom. The videos originated on Facebook, first posted by a concerned mother. 
In one video, two students are seen laying on the ground together, with one grinding on or humping the other in the middle of a class lecture. Another clip shows one student sucking at the stomach of another student. Both clips took place while Hoard was present in the room, apparently unconcerned by the behavior. 
Hoard’s classroom was labelled a “safe space” for “LGBTQ+ students” by the school at the direction of the GSA. So whether a student was in class or not, if they reported to a teacher that they needed a “safe space,” they could go to Hoard’s classroom.
But the sexual behavior Hoard allowed in his class was just one of many disturbing components of the story. Hoard had apparently been communicating with students through unmonitored channels, in flagrant violation of safeguarding ethics. In some screenshots, students are seen referring to Hoard as “mom” or “mother.”
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At least one concerned parent had taken snaps of Discord and Instagram conversations she found of Hoard having with students to school Principal J. Yore earlier this year, but nothing was reportedly done until the disturbing videos first began to circulate on Facebook. 
On October 3, parents and guardians received a letterfrom Principal Yore who announced that Hoard would be “away from [the] building indefinitely.” 
The letter failed to address the videos showing what had occurred during Hoard’s GSA meeting. While it stated a substitute who will provide “high-quality instruction and support” will be introduced, the letter did not contain any plan to guarantee student safeguarding, nor did it provide any indication of wrongdoing. 
The news of Hoard’s extracurricular communication with students, as well as his leave, was first reported on by independent Maryland journalist Brian Griffiths on October 3.
According to Griffiths, Hoard had only begun transitioning earlier this year, and had previously gone under the name William Edward Hoard.
In a February Medium Post, Hoard wrote: “So it turns out I’m a woman. Surprise! I guess, to be more specific, I am a woman of the transgender variety. Which is to say that I am a woman who was mistaken for a little boy at birth, whose family and society ran with that since my body matched the expectations they had, first for a boy and later for a man, who only fully realized my own womanhood a few years ago and who is just now telling the world that-well intentioned as I am sure it was-we were all wrong about my gender.”
Griffiths also reported that a mother at the school who had clashed with Hoard over safeguarding concerns had been subjected to an attempted peace order as a result of her critiques.
Kristy Rush began publicly criticizing the school’s GSA after seeing posts threatening disciplinary repercussions for “deadnaming” and “misgendering” students or staff. According to Rush, the school had deemed “dead naming” a form of “sexual harassment,” and parents who confronted administration about the policy were told that disciplinary action for the listed offenses was discussed with the GSA and determined on a “case-by-case” basis. 
As her daughter was a GSA member, Rush then went through her phone and computer out of concern. 
She then found that Hoard had been communicating with his students on unofficial apps like Discord, Instagram, and Facebook. Rush withdrew her daughter from the school, reporting that after she joined the club “her behavior began to change.” Rush has also posted several statements regarding Hoard and the GSA on her Facebook, including videos of activity which allegedly occurred in Hoard’s classroom.
In one video Rush posed to her Facebook, a student wearing a banana costume and fishnets is seen dancing. The student’s underwear are clearly visible when she turns around. Rush also posted a video of students “humping” in a classroom during a GSA meeting. Both are the videos now circulating on Twitter.
It was after her vocal criticisms that Hoard then reportedly filed the peace order against Rush. The order was recently dismissed, but Rush has said that local LGBT activists labelled her and other parents who were concerned about Hoard “transphobic” at school board meetings.
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According to Libs of TikTok, prior to being put on indefinite leave, Hoard had also encouraged student members of the GSA to call the police to conduct wellness checks on Rush’s daughter, Lulu. 
Police reported to Rush’s homes on two separate instances as they had received calls that Lulu was suicidal and attempted to harm herself when she was merely sleeping.
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Although Hoard is not allowed on school grounds, there has been speculation that students have maintained contact with him through private channels. 
He remains active on TikTok and has apparently encouraged graduating students to message him directly on Instagram.  
By Yuliah Alma Yuliah is a junior researcher and journalist at Reduxx. She is a passionate advocate for women's rights and child safeguarding. Yuliah lives on the American east coast, and is an avid reader and book collector.
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thorraborinn · 1 year
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sonneve
How might you describe or define animism, or alternatively, do you have any recommendations for reading about it?
Graham Harvey defines it as understanding "that the world is full of persons, only some of whom are human, and that life is always lived in relationship to others." This is definitely a better definition than "the belief that everything has a soul" but you might also notice that it's vague to the point of including practically everything that doesn't include Aristotle's rational soul as a distinctive feature of humans. Harvey is aware of this (he even includes things like yelling at your computer as an animistic behavior). As soon as you start to narrow the definition more than that, it starts to exclude peoples and customs that it's trying to include.
Nordic Animism has a good short video that does like a drive-by description of animism and history of its study that comes from the same sorts of books that I'm going to mention: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_j9oPCE-Ns
Harvey edited a book called The Handbook of Contemporary Animism. If you were going to pick a single book to start with, you could do much worse than this. Very many of the authors are ones that you'd see recur frequently if you were to go deeper into studying recent anthropology related to animism. If chapters stand out, it would be a good idea to find that author's other works.
My personal favorite single book on the subject is How Forests Think by Eduardo Kohn. He has a lecture on YouTube that introduces some of the ideas in the book: https://youtu.be/mSdrdY6vmDo?t=102.
Kohn draws heavily on the works of Eduardo Viveiros de Castro. Viveiros de Castro is one of the most important recent anthropologists in terms of him being the guy that everyone writing after him has to have an opinion about, whether positive or negative. It's a good idea to read him because he's going to come up in others' works. I personally find his stuff on Amazonian "perspectivism" very good. There's a collection of his essays called The Relative Native.
The Spell of the Sensuous by David Abram is a good book about animism and phenomenology, kind of using ideas from Western philosophers like Husserl and Merleau-Ponty to derive something compatible with non-western animistic ideas. He has another book called Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology that I wasn't into but might be a good intro for some people.
There's like this whole scene of books about "entanglements" and use words like "response-ability"; it's not a bad idea to read one of them but I don't think it's necessary to read all of them; my favorite was The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing. Donna Haraway has some books in this category that I know some people love but didn't do as much for me, admittedly possibly because of stuff I'd already read that was influenced by them. Here is also a good critique of these authors that I think preserves the positive while pointing out limitations: https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10180270.
Though only tangentially related to animism, Becoming Human: Matter and Meaning in an Antiblack World by Zakiyyah Iman Jackson is not only good on its own but I think is important to read if you're also reading stuff that focuses on distinction or non-distinction of human from non-human.
Pantheologies by Mary-Jane Rubenstein isn't specifically about animism but intersects with and includes it. I think just reading through the first chapter is worthwhile (the rest might be better for others but it drew heavily on stuff I'd already read). She also has a bunch of stuff on Youtube.
I dunno if she uses the word, but some of Gloria Anzaldúa's work intersects with it, e.g. Light in the Dark/Luz en lo Oscuro.
I am a big fan of Katherine Swancutt, she has written a lot of articles and done a lot of book editing; her book Fortune and the Cursed: The Sliding Scale of Time in Mongolian Divination is not really about animism per se but is a very good read.
Also not about animism, but a good thing to read for anyone interested in it, is The Invention of World Religions or, How European Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism by Tomoko Masuzawa.
This is probably getting overwhelming so I'm cutting myself off even though there's other stuff that I would list otherwise. This stuff is currently very popular and well-funded in academia which means they are actually fairly widely available, including as audiobooks, for those who prefer those.
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joshuadunshua · 9 months
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[Image ID: a cropped image of an excerpt from “The Will to Change” by bell hooks. Various spots are highlighted in different colors. Beginning from the first full sentence, the paragraph reads, “He was not interested in forgiving him or understanding the circumstances that had shaped and influenced his dad’s life, either in his childhood or in his working life as a military man.” The following paragraph reads, “In the early years of our relationship he was extremely critical of male domination of women and children. Although he did not use the word ‘patriarchy,’ he understood its meaning and he opposed it. His gentle, quiet manner often led folks to ignore him, counting him among the weak and the powerless. By the age of thirty he began to assume a more macho persona, embracing the dominator model that he had once critiqued. Donning the mantle of patriarch, he gained greater respect and visibility. More women were drawn to him. He was noticed more in public spheres. His criticism of male domination ceased. And indeed he begin to mouth patriarchal rhetoric, saying the kind of sexist stuff that would have appalled him in the past.” The last paragraph is cut off, the top which is visible reads, “These changes in his thinking and behavior were triggered by his desire to be accepted and affirmed in a patriarchal workplace and rationalized by his desire to get ahead. His story is not unusual.” End image ID]
Trans mascs that “speak out” against transandrophobia/anti-transmasculinity/transmisandry/antimasculism/whatever word of the month they’ve forced us to coin, I need you to see yourself in this. This is you. This is you leaning into the patriarchal role of “protectors of the poor weak permanently victimized women,” this is you leaning into the patriarchal role of “ignore your pain, ignore your emotional distress, ignore your psychological needs, stuff it deep down inside and suck it up.” This is you enforcing patriarchal (and therefore also white supremacist) attitudes about gender. This is you learning to shift how you operate under the “logic” of a white supremacist, capitalist patriarchal system so that you can get and maintain access to what little scraps of privilege the system will give you for your conformity.
You cannot apply “logic” to oppressions—it is not a math equation you can solve for. It is not internally consistent.
(And when I say logic, I mean formal logic, I mean mathematical logic, I mean specifically Western conceptualizations of logic.)
You can’t simply state that “men don’t face oppression for being men because that then logically means [something untrue about women’s oppression] would be the case and it’s not.” Oppression is inherently illogical. To assume it operates on a truly definable and fully understandable logic is to suggest there’s a “good” reason for its existence. Which if you examine that for just a moment, you find it also then suggests that there is truth behind how oppression works. Or rather, that oppressed people did some thing or are some way that deserves oppression in response.
White supremacy doesn’t operate on any logical basis. Patriarchy doesn’t operate on any logical basis. They weren’t constructed to be logical, they were hardly “constructed” at all. They came about specifically to uphold and maintain powerful people’s access to power. To call the systems “constructed” is almost to give people too much credit.
Perhaps at one point “white supremacy” was a very specific spark in the mind of quite a number of powerful fair skinned Western Europeans, (though many would understandably point out that white supremacy existed well before it was made explicit), but to suggest that white supremacy as it exists now, as a self-perpetuating system that is able to chug away, an engine for capitalism built and sustained on the exploitation and slaveability of Black bodies, was consciously and carefully designed to operate only within specific bounds that we can define and uncover? That’s trying to use the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house.
Trying to equate the operation of white supremacy with patriarchy, or any system of oppression with any other system of oppression (though you really do see this most often with people equating racism with sexism) similarly does not work because they are not organized logically. They are not separable entities, either. It is true that there are common elements to different oppressions (see: Suzanne Pharr, bell hooks, Paulo Freire) and it is true that the different systems are interlocked and work together to hold it all up (see: Audre Lorde, Patricia Hill Collins, Andrea Smith) and it is true that they impact people at different intersections of oppressive systems uniquely and dynamically (see: Kimberlé Crenshaw, Jennifer Nash, Bonnie Thornton Dill & Ruth Enid Zambrana) and the systems themselves intersect and interact in different ways to produce unique effects which are dynamic across time and space and context (see: Cathy J. Cohen, Patricia Hill Collins, Rita Kaur Dhamoon).
At the end of the day, too, this whole conversation is also excruciatingly Western-centric, and most often Americentric. The white trans mascs (and any other white queers) decrying the concept that men could ever be oppressed for their being men, that men’s experiences of oppression could ever be shaped by their manhood (or their proximity to it), betray their ignorance to men’s experiences outside of their specific version of Western patriarchy. It betrays their understanding of patriarchy, white supremacy, and feminism as having been wholly informed by white radical feminists who appropriate the language of Black feminism while maintaining essentialist perspectives that reify and protect the same patriarchy they want to critique. As though patriarchy is just about men holding power over women and not also about men holding power over other men, not also about women’s complicity in maintaining and perpetuating it, not also about Western nations holding power over the Global South, not also about kinship organization, not about nationalism, not about colonialism, not about international and transnational politics, not about capitalist globalization.
I suppose this turned into something much bigger than it was originally meant to be, but I have fucking had it. I am fed up with white trans mascs from Western countries whose understanding of feminism is stalled at the stage where they’ve learned that white neoliberal feminism is bad because it’s not anticapitalist or intersectional enough but they haven’t actually learned what the fuck that criticism means because they think or behave as though “intersectional” is just another word for “diverse,” which they also maintain a neoliberal understanding of. I am also fucking heartbroken for all the trans mascs who are willing to lean into this patriarchal role where they close off their own emotions and dismiss their own problems and downplay the reality of being a transgender person at their particular intersection all because they’ve been convinced that men’s problems aren’t real problems, that the oppression they experience because they are transmasculine people is nothing to do with their masculinity or association with or proximity to (and subsequent distance from) manhood.
To claim that there is nothing unique about transmasculine experiences of oppression at the intersection of trans identity and gender is to willfully ignore reality in quite the same way that transphobes do when what they protest is “trans ideology.” Trans people will exist whether you personally believe our gender claims or not, right? So to fail to incorporate us into your reality is to have the temper tantrum of a toddler all because the world and its people aren’t as simple and uniform as you wanted them to be. Similarly, transmasculine people will experience oppression at this intersection regardless of what you want to call it, but to demand that we capitulate to language that flattens our experiences along the lines of either being transgender (it’s literally just transphobia) or our proximity to womanhood (it’s literally just misogyny), or even the two together but-not-really (it’s transphobia and misogyny but it’s not because of your proximity to manhood), is to suggest that there is nothing unique about our experiences of transphobia and misogyny as transmasculine people. Is to suggest that unless and until we are perceived as men by society, our experiences with oppression and penalization (and privilege by this logic, but notably not in practice) are indistinguishable from those of cisgender women and there is no value in discussing, dissecting, naming, or otherwise acknowledging anything transmasculine people experience—and then on the flip side, when society does perceive us as men, suddenly our experiences with oppression and penalization (and privilege by this logic, but notably not in practice) are indistinguishable from those of cisgender men, and so there is no value in discussing, dissecting, naming, or otherwise acknowledging anything transmasculine people experience.
We’re either basically cis women or basically cis men, whichever is more convenient and makes it easier to disregard us in the moment.
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alagaesia-headcanons · 8 months
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I don't know of you've done this or not, but I would love to hear you opinions on Roran. Most people in the Fandom see him as a Chad, a better hero than Eragon, more badass etc etc. Me? I can't stand him, it scares me how he seems to take no no for an answer
In my return to my IC hyperfixation, I've found I don't like Roran quite as much as I did a few years back. My feelings on his character are a lot more complicated and I definitely see where you're coming from in your dislike. To summarize my thoughts right off the bat, as a character, I think Roran is a good person with his heart in the right place and he gets involved with a war that brings out the absolute worst in him.
The situations Roran gets pushed into cause a lot of friction with his worst qualities like his stubbornness, his aggression, his recklessness, and his arrogance. But these qualities don't garner much critique within canon because, similarly to Nasuada's flaws, the circumstances of war actually reward these questionable behaviors.
For one, despite how he's presented, Roran is not a good leader. In fact, he's pretty fucking awful at it. He's very good at a few specific skills that a leader needs, particularly inspiring loyalty, but he's entirely incapable in other aspects. Namely, dealing with other authorities. The argument with Orrin over the envoy that I talked about before is a perfect example, really highlighting his inability discuss and collaborate with anyone else or to think through any viewpoint that contradicts his own. Also, I didn't point it out before, but Roran ends that argument by promising to kill any envoy Orrin sends. Which is insanely stupid and barbaric. He thinks he has the right to openly murder an innocent man of their army solely because he decided that would be best, even when that'd give Orrin full right to have him executed. The risk of sending an envoy is only hypothetical and unclear while the damage of Roran murdering a Surdan is absolutely certain, but he can't see past his own sense of superiority far enough to realize that.
The chapter in Brisingr where the Urgals challenge his right to lead also really shows what a terrible leader he is. He doesn't even try to talk, to establish that an army doesn't follow their cultural hierarchy, and if they don't want to obey, they can simply defect and try fighting without the Varden's allies or resources. No, he instantly accepts hand to hand combat to the death. His conviction that he can do anything is so bloated it blinds him to any possible consequences. If you strip away our outside awareness of plot armor, his choices go from admirable and badass to outrageously careless. He can't handle conflict or disagreements with other leaders with anything but brute force. His interactions with Brigman in Aroughs also comes to mind.
What Roran actually is is a very good problem solver. He is very observant and creative and that gets him through very tricky situations. And he genuinely wants the best for the people he loves, he always takes their needs into consideration and does all that he can for them. But that doesn't necessarily suit him to leadership and being put in such roles during the war buries those good qualities under the soaring peak of his arrogance. The real shame is that his flaws never had real consequences that made him grow as a person, wouldn't that have been nice?
sigh.
I just want Roran to go back to being a farmer and stop taking himself so insufferably seriously, then maybe he'll realize not every single thing in life is a matter of life or death and he'll become more yielding and humble. Honestly for his sake, I want him to learn to coexist with the world around him instead of perpetually struggling against it.
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rollercoasterwords · 1 year
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about those prank thoughts... well i’d love to hear them sooo if you needed an excuse to write another essay here it is
kissing u on the mouth anon ok here we go here's the prank rant (warning it got super long):
ok so this is limited in scope because as i've said before, i've only been in this fandom for like ~1.5 years, so idk anything about how the prank was talked about/handled before this. BUT. what i personally have seen. is essentially:
atyd gets super popular via tiktok -> it becomes sort of "canon" (at least, amongst newer marauders fans) that The Prank was like...this really devastating event that tore apart the marauders friend group, because that's how it was characterized in atyd--despite the fact that in the actual canon, it honestly doesn't seem like as big of a deal -> since it becomes the New Canon that The Prank was Such A Horrible Thing, suddenly people begin talking (mostly on tiktok) about how awful and unforgivable it was for sirius to do something like that. this devolves into this big discussion of people saying either
it's completely out of character for sirius to do The Prank and he never "really" would have done it; we should just ignore that part of canon
The Prank is so unforgivable that it makes sirius a completely irredeemable character
The Prank is so awful that anyone writing it in a canon compliant fic should be showing every single marauder turning against sirius and everyone hating him/telling him what he did was so awful and wrong, and it should take a really long time and a lot of apologizing/changed behavior before remus ever forgives sirius
and this then got extended into debates about james' characterization; I saw sooooo many people talking about "james would NEVER just forgive sirius for something like that" "james would side with remus" etc etc etc
and the end result of all these conversations was that i saw tons and tons of people saying that the way The Prank was written in atyd was Bad. not just--oh, i didn't like it, though there was plenty of that too, but people acting as though the way it was written was a moral failing, as though mkb had failed to convey how Horrible and Awful of a thing the prank was, and in doing so she had allowed people to Sympathize with sirius's character, when he should have been Punished. suddenly everyone was climbing on their high horses about The Prank, talking about how unrealistic or out of character or "problematic" it was to write it the way it was done in atyd--which was ironic to me, because from where i was sitting, it seemed like it was atyd that had solidified this fanon idea that The Prank was Such A Bad Thing in the first place (again, at least amongst fans brought in by tiktok).
SO. my problem with this. setting aside the conversation of whether The Prank was actually That Bad in the first place (because i think it can be written as a more or less serious event, depending on how you interpret canon--but personally, i tend to interpret it as something Very Bad, so let's start with that premise) and operating under the assumption that it was, in fact, a really horrible thing that put not only snape + james in danger but also remus, since he could have been exposed as a werewolf--the thing that drives me up the fucking WALL about The Prank discourse is that it is, to me, just one example of this obsession with Morality and Punishment when it comes to "literary critique" (using that term loosely, because i'd argue that a lot of what these people are doing actually isn't literary critique) in the marauders fandom (post-tiktokifcation, at least).
like. specifically, it's this idea that something like The Prank would make sirius, as a character, irredeemable, and that it would be unrealistic for his friends to forgive him. that, to me, is just....such a strange interpretation!!! because if you are friends--close friends, childhood friends--with someone for long enough, they will hurt you. you will hurt each other. it is an inevitable part of being human that getting close to each other and staying close to each other often means hurting each other. and the closer you are with someone, the more they can hurt you. i have a childhood friend who is essentially like family to me, and i was cruel to her when i was fourteen. i was dealing with a lot of shit, and i was young, and i was mean. and we've both been cruel to each other in the nearly two decades we've known each other, and we've had explosive fights, but we have always found our way back to each other and forgiven each other, because that's the kind of friendship we have. i have another childhood friend who hurt me so deeply when we grew older that despite having my literal handwriting tattooed on her arm, we haven't spoken in five years, and will probably never speak again. that kind of hurt is a risk you take when you let people in.
so to me, the idea that a teenage boy raised in an abusive environment who has just run away a few months earlier, who is dealing with all that shit as well as the regular shit of just being a fucking teenager, would thoughtlessly and deeply hurt his friend--that isn't out of character! in fact, i think it's entirely in character, and i think it's a crucial part of sirius's relationship with remus and the other marauders. because the fact that remus is able to forgive sirius says something important about their relationship. what exactly it says will vary, to a certain extent, depending on the details of how you write the prank and characterize the characters, but overall--it's important because it's showing that their relationship is strong enough and close enough and important enough to both of them that they are able to move past this deeply hurtful event. and that, to me, is a WAY more interesting and impactful relationship to read about than a relationship where two people are always good and never hurt each other.
and regarding james--personally, i love the characterization that james forgives sirius "too quickly" or "too easily" after the prank, because i think it's an opportunity to explore one of his most important character flaws, which is that he cannot imagine that his friends would ever purposefully do something bad/harmful. like--this loyalty and belief in his friends is literally what gets him killed. what amazing foreshadowing to show that even when his best friend does something blatantly wrong, james still thinks--well, he didn't mean it. his intentions weren't bad. and obviously he's sorry--and he's a still a good person, because he's my friend, and my friends are good people. like THAT is how you write a character flaw!
and speaking of character flaws--this is also one of the best opportunities, if you're following canon, to really explore some of sirius's character flaws! and again, it's gonna change depending on how you're writing certain details, but in some way shape or form this is a very important mistake for sirius to make in order for his character to grow--obviously, something has to change afterwards, because otherwise how could remus forgive him? but what has to change? how does it have to change? good characters aren't meant to be static!!
it's just. !!!! The Prank is truly, genuinely, one of the BEST opportunities from canon that you can use you really explore these characters and their flaws and their relationships with one another. so it is genuinely BAFFLING to me to see sooooo many people condemn it and act like it's this atrocious thing, because i feel like it demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of what literature is meant to do. like--i've talked about this before on my blog, and i'll keep saying it til the cows come home, but fictional characters do not exist as moral blueprints. good literature should engage your critical thought, and "character does Bad Thing -> character is Bad" is not critical thought!!! like!! fiction isn't telling you how to live, it's asking you to think about the human condition--and part of the human condition is that people make mistakes, and they hurt each other, and they have to figure out how to keep living in the wake of that hurt!! The Prank is this plot point where you can bring up really tough questions, like--how does closeness with others leave us vulnerable to them? is that vulnerability worth the closeness? what role does intent play in measuring harm? what can we forgive? what can we not forgive?
i get that sometimes with fanfiction you just want fluffy happy brain-off fun, but you can find that if that's what you want, y'know? like--it's just so so strange and honestly concerning for me to see people act as though something like The Prank shouldn't be written just because it means giving characters flaws and exploring them.
in conclusion, The Prank is one of my favorite parts of canon, and i truly think it is so worthwhile to explore when writing and thinking about these characters, especially sirius. also--it is important to understand, both within and outside of literature, that having flaws and causing harm does not automatically make a person irredeemable. if we are going to live with each other we need to learn how to respond to people fucking up in ways that are not just: You Are Bad And Must Be Punished.
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