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spacemagicandlaserswords · 11 months

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Feral Hunter

I wrote most of this in a reblog but thought it deserved its own post as my unwieldy response took on a life of its own, which they have a tendency to do. I’ve added more to it as well so there’s some new extra ramblings on one of my favourite ideas/headcanons/theories for season 3 of The Bad Batch.

Give me Feral Hunter. My kingdom for Feral Hunter. Completely unhinged, vengeance fueled, feral Hunter. He can go on his Joel Miller/The Mandalorian/John Wick/Liam Neeson in Taken/The Punisher arc, as a little treat.

I've been trying to figure out why I love this idea so much. I think it's because we never really see any of the Batch actually, properly unleash. Sure, they're unconventional and a bit bonkers in their approach but they're still a very well-oiled machine. When they're on a mission, they all know exactly what they're doing, what their roles are, and where their squad mates are. Even when they improvise on the fly, they all adapt fairly easily and smoothly. Everything is still all rather professional, smooth, and efficient. Like they're all operating on muscle memory, which they basically are given how many countless times I'm sure they've trained and done missions together.

Even when the Batch is fighting their way through Kamino, they still operate with that same smooth, efficient, hyper competent professionalism. Despite their unorthodox approach, there's still this sense that they're contained. Never throwing off the shackles and being completely unrestrained. The full unbridled force of their abilities and skills simmering just below the surface, waiting to be given free rein and just obliterate everything.

There's a little hint of this in the opening scene of episode 2x14 'Tipping Point', where the ARC Trooper in Echo comes out to play. But oh, how I would love to see more. From all of them, but especially Hunter.

Look at his face. Look at that expression and all those emotions from Sergeant Stoic himself, who is usually fairly reserved and contained. Dorito Bod Bandana Space Dad on the warpath to get his ad'ika back, cutting a swathe through the Imperials, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake, and taking out anything and everything that even thinks about getting in his way. Hunter goes full Space Rambo mode, ruthlessly taking out Stormtroopers, blood dripping off his vibroblade, eyes wide and deranged, as he turns into a complete animal. His half tattooed skull now completed by the blood of his enemies covering the other side of his face. For extra angst, when he finds Omega, she doesn’t recognise him. The figure standing in the smoking remains of the door to her cell looks like Hunter. Is wearing Hunter’s armour. Is holding Hunter’s vibroknife. But that’s not Hunter. That’s not her buir. Not anymore. And she’s afraid of him. We get a little hint of this at the very end of season 2 and oh ho ho, I am so ready for more. I am so ready for Hunter’s descent into vengeance, revenge and rage. Not just Hunter either, I’d love to see the rest of the Batch unleash as well.

Can you just imagine Wrecker properly unleashing? All of that strength and power finally freed as he rips limbs off Stormtroopers, snapping necks and crushing skulls with his bare hands. The crumpled, pulverised bodies of his enemies discarded behind him as he rages down corridor after corridor of whatever Imperial base they’ve infiltrated. We got a hint of how damaging Wrecker can be when his chip activated but that was chip controlled. This would just be pure Wrecker.

We see a little more of this in Crosshair's actions and you could also argue that this is chip controlled. Or if his chip has actually been removed, then Crosshair’s actions are definitely still clouded by his Imperial mindset and blind delusion that the Empire is right. Right up until it all goes horribly wrong on Barton-4 and he finally wakes up to the reality of his nightmare. Either way, that unrestrained part of him is still there. The amount of rage and anger that must be building up and festering inside Crosshair is eventually going to explode. When he snaps like he did at the end of 'The Outpost' then there isn’t going to be an Imperial left without a blaster bolt between their eyes. When Hemlock ends up dying (he better), my bet is on Crosshair taking him out and getting revenge. And it won't be pretty. He'd shoot him execution style at the very least.

I'd love to see Tech (shut up he's alive) completely lose it and finally snap off every ounce of his carefully crafted control. I've written about this before but Tech's combat is exceptionally efficient and precise. He only ever uses the minimum number of shots or moves to take out an enemy because he doesn't need to expend anything beyond what is necessary. Complete economy of form. His combat style is very contained, almost like a mirror of his personality and character. Can you just imagine him snarling and growling like a beast, teeth bared, eyes dark, face distorted in rage, as he slams a Stormtrooper's head into a control panel desk with enough force to crack their helmet and shatter their visor.

I mentioned above that we've seen a tiny bit of this slightly unhinged quality from Echo. There's another little hint of it when they're all in that training simulation on Kamino.

This gifset from @starqueensthings shows this perfectly, especially the above gif. I love the line they wrote at the top of their post as well, which I'm going to quote in part here: "I’d like to introduce my scomp arm TO YOUR JUGULAR WIRE." This perfectly encapsulates the unhinged quality lurking in Echo. He just leaps onto the back of what looks like the Kaminoan version of a B2 super battle droid and then proceeds to flail and stab madly before plunging his scomp arm into the battle droid's chest and ripping out the droid version of its jugular. Absolutely unhinged behaviour. The absolute madlad.

Now picture Echo finally snapping and doing this to a bunch of Imperials and just absolutely annihilating them. There is so much in him that is screaming to be let out. The general batshittery that comes with being an ARC Trooper. The insanity and chaos of coming from the 501st and Torrent Company. The unconventional, yeet-the-reg-manual-out-the-airlock, bonkers existence of The Bad Batch. Plus all that trauma, fury and rage of what has happened to him, what was done to him, and everything that he’s seen, experienced, endured, suffered, and survived. When the last few frayed threads holding Echo back finally snap he is going to go completely postal.

Is it healthy? No. Is it "good"? Probably not. But my god, would I love to see it.

The Clone Wars has a history of tackling and portraying difficult, multilayered and nuanced topics and we've seen that in The Bad Batch as well. More recent Star Wars series, such as Andor and The Mandalorian, have also had a real interest in showing the murky areas that exist between the good (Republic) and the bad (Imperial). There's been a particular focus on showing that there's a lot more grey than we think, rather than the pure dichotomy between cliched black and white. That sometimes there is no right or wrong decision. That sometimes everything is awful and everyone is stuck in a shitty situation from which there is no way to escape unscathed. In order to make it out alive, lines are going to be crossed. The battle of good vs evil takes on a new edge and the line between good and bad gets very murky.

That quote about how “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain” comes to mind. In this instance, the Batch are still fighting tooth and nail for each other but their sacrifices and actions are starting to take them to much darker places. It’s a classic example of good people being driven to do bad, awful, terrible things when those they love are in danger and they will do whatever it takes to save them.

The whole 'deeply flawed parental figure seeking vengeance' is a popular trope at the moment as well so Feral Hunter would make sense narratively for a number of reasons.

Will we actually get it? Probably not. And even if we do, it'll probably still be a watered-down kid friendly version.

But oh, just imagine if we did.

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nirvanawrites111 · 1 year

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Bend It Ova (Sub!Seonghwa x Dom!Reader)

Word Count: 2101

Pairing: Seonghwa x Black Reader

Summary: You're an entrepreneur having a bad day and you call Seonghwa to help you out.

Tw: Pegging, Degradation, Cum Eating, Good boy kink, Y/N is called mistress, oral (fem receiving) fem!reader, reader is neurodivergent, non-idol au.

A/n: Listen the Halazia live performances got me in a CHOKEHOLD. I've been humming and singing Hala hala hala halazia all damn day. I've always wanted to write a sub!Seonghwa and I literally had a bad day today, so that plus Seonghwa fancams inspired today's one-shot. I feel better now that I wrote this lol. I also didn't know what to name this so yeah there's that. Anyways, I'm rambling, ANYWAYS enjoy the story.

You were in a rut and everything that could go wrong with your day went wrong. You spilled coffee on your laptop, ran out of content ideas for your business, and lost a brand partnership.

The feeling of defeat had overcome you. You hated how things were falling apart. You also were so annoyed with how you have an all-or-nothing mindset.

The situation really isn't that bad, and it can all be fixed. Or, at least that would you hear Seonghwa telling you as he kisses the inside of your thigh.

"Hwa, you don't get it. You have stability with your corporate job. I am leaving gig to gig, living on a prayer," you groan.

You wish you could hold a job for over five years like Seonghwa. But, no matter how much you try, you always get fired. Either because you're late or you become overwhelmed by holding small talk with others. Why can't the workplace accommodate and embrace you for who you truly are? Why do you have to mask to exist in the world?

"But, you are a creative genius," Hwa praises you.

His tone is sexy, and it's precisely what you need to hear now. "A creative genius who can't be tied down to a traditional 9-5. It's okay if you have a bad day. That's why I'm here."

You lie back against the couch, and you want to stare at the ceiling, but your eyes focus on Seonghwa looking so fucking fine.

You ponder over why him being here turns you on even more. You love that he's always there for you. You take care of him, and he takes care of you. It's the perfect balance without any traditional labels.

You are non-conventional. You don't like labels, nor do you like how the world is so black and white. You are more of an out-of-the-box thinker.

That's why Seonghwa is attracted to you. He admires how intricate your mind is. There is just so much beauty in the way you approach the world. He loves how you ramble and light up when discussing your favorite hobbies.

You cut him off a lot mid-sentence, and not once does he gets frustrated with you. He always smiles softly and lets you get out of your thoughts.

Because he's learned that if you don't speak your ideas at once, you will forget them. He knows that one of your many beautiful ideas will turn into a million-dollar business, so you won't have to work as hard.

You are his sexy, intelligent, entrepreneur that creates their own path. He wishes he had the creativity you possess to create a sustainable life as you have. He wishes he dared to go after his dreams in the way that you do.

So, when you texted him at two in the afternoon saying it was an emergency, he took off the rest of the day to be with you. He knows how easily you can get lost in your thoughts and spiral out. He doesn't mind being there for you, his mistress.

Seonghwa adores how seductive you look with your gorgeous kinky hair that rises to the heavens, glowing melanin, and how the knitted bright yellow spaghetti strap dress you made hugs your body. He pushes it up further to fully admire your pussy.

He loves nothing more than to be on his knees for you. He has a mountain of work waiting for him on his desk, but being in his favorite position is more important to him.

"Mistress.. may I taste you?" Seonghwa asks.

You love how soft and delicate he sounds when he asks to embrace you. You stare so deeply into his eyes and grab him by the hair. "I know it's not my usual thing, but I want to be a bit rougher than usual. Are you cool with that?"

"Of course."

"Good boy. What is your magical safe word?"

"Halazia."

"Sounds good."

You feel a flutter in your stomach. You know that you usually are a soft dom when it comes to Hwa. He's so precious to you. He's been in your life for probably five years. You actually met him at his current job and hit it off quickly.

You love being gentle with him. But, you also love to be rough when it calls for it. But, you are always respecting his limits and boundaries.

You push him back to the floor and cover his face with your cunt. You can't believe you quickly leaped, almost like something you saw on television when you used to watch WWE.

Seonghwa cups your ass, and you reach to remove your knitted dress. You toss it behind you, and you peer down at him. His tongue strikes your pussy at the perfect angle.

Your knees are spread wide apart, and you are kneeling over him. You grind yourself over his tongue.

You can tell that Hwa is thirsty for you. He laps at your cunt, and even though things just started, you can tell he's eager to make you cum. He wants the reward of tasting your essence against his palate.

"Mistress.." Seonghwa moans against your core, and his hands rub your ass.

You are fully aroused now, and you can feel yourself dripping onto him. This is what you needed all along. Seonghwa underneath you, pleasing you and making you take your mind off your terrible day.

"Yes, baby?"

"I thought you said you were going to be rough with me," Seonghwa says between lapping up your juices.

You laugh at how he wants you to increase things. But, you have other plans for that.

"Hwa, be careful what you ask for. Make me cum, and I'll show you what I mean," You retort. You know how much he likes to change things up with you.

"Yes, mistress."

Seonghwa kisses on your pussy and moves up to lick at your clit. His tongue is probing across and around your clit. He's working overtime to make sure you come. You squeeze your breast while receiving this pleasure.

"Fuck me with your tongue," you moan. He obeys you and plunges his tongue inside of you. He adjusts, so now you are positioned perfectly and riding his tongue. "Mmm... such a good little slut doing everything I say so that I can rough you up."

"Only for you."

That sends you over the edge. Truth be told, you are a little possessive regarding Hwa. He's all yours, and you don't want to share him with anyone else. You love how eager he is to service you at the drop of a hat. No one else has ever been this loyal to you.

You lean back against his cotton tee shirt that he had on underneath his dress shirt. You come so hard that you almost black out. Seonghwa is underneath you, capturing it all as you squirt repeatedly.

You lean back against the carpet, and Hwa dives into you. Your body is still trembling after coming so hard. He savors your taste and licks up and down your legs to clean up every drop. He's hungry for you. Your core is still sensitive but throbbing to explode again.

You push his head closer to you and hold the back of his neck while his tongue dances against your clit again. Your body erupts, and he moves lower to catch it all again. You open your eyes, and you catch your breath for a moment.

"Bend ova against the kitchen table," you say, nearly out of breath.

"Yes, goddess. Anything for you."

You aren't tapped out just yet. Yes, he's made you come twice, but you still have more energy to mess around. You watch him run over to your table. You stand up. Your legs are still weak, but you hold it together.

You swipe your box off the coffee table and put on your favorite strap. You grab the lube and watch Hwa lick his lips when he realizes you have the strap on.

"Ready, slut?" You grab him by the hair and kiss his lips. You taste yourself on his tongue, and your core throbs. His lips are still glistening with your juices on them. "Fuck, you look so hot, covered in my juices."

You pull away from him so you can hear him.

"I'm ready.. fuck me."

You pull off his shirt as he quickly pulls off his pants. You pull down his boxers and push him over the kitchen table. You smack his cute ass. "Arch that back a little lower, baby," you instruct.

His hands are flat along the table, and he adheres to your instructions. You rub on his ass again, pour lube on your fingers, and slide into his hole. He squirms a little, but this definitely ain't his first time. Hell, at this point, you've lost count of how many times you've pegged the beautiful boy.

"Just relax, baby. I'm gonna take care of you, love."

"I know. I trust you, mistress."

You can't help but be a bit soft for him. You low-key a simp for him, but you'd never tell anyone. You get him ready to take your strap, and you stick another finger inside of him. He works himself against your fingers. You can feel him clench around them. You pour lube on the strap and slide in carefully.

Hwa looks so alluring bent over naked against your kitchen table for you in the middle of the afternoon. A professional corporate worker doing naughty things with you instead of his tedious paperwork.

You love this side of Hwa that comes undone for you. He's literally perfect for you. His back is curved for you, and you are pounding into his tight hole. His freshly tanned skin from when you two when to the beach last weekend.

"Fuck.. Seonghwa, you're fine as hell, but damn, you look good in this position," you moan and bite your lip.

Seonghwa is throwing back that cute little butt against your strap. His pants and moans from your stroke are sending you over. You can feel your juices leaking down your legs.

You love being this raw with him. The perfectionist that does everything right in life is coming apart right now on your strap. You love to see it.

You smack his ass again, but this time harder. He yelps, but you know it's turning you on. "Mmm... Smack it harder," Seonghwa vocalizes his desire for you.

You do it even harder this time, and his ass ripples. You can see his light olive skin turn slightly red.

"Let me find out you like pain."

You speed up, and you grab his hands. You hold them behind his back. His moans are so beautiful to your ears. You slow down and give him slow passionate strokes. You decide to change positions. You pull out of him.

"No, please don't stop," Seonghwa whines out. He towers over you, but you don't care. You might be shorter, but you still run shit. You push him back against the table.

"Boy, shut up," you roll your eyes and pulls him to the edge of the table.

You know he can only come while lying on his back, and you want it about his pleasure as well. He inches closer to you, and you enter him again. This time you are now facing each other.

You lean forward and kiss him. Your tongue slips into his mouth while his legs are wrapped around your waist. You work slower into him. You stroke his dick while you are deep inside of him. He's so needy to be touched by you. He's literally throbbing inside of your hand.

"Mmm...feels so good, mistress. Fuck.."

"I know," you cockily say.

You love taking care of Hwa like this, having him feel so good with his legs draped around your waist. You love being deep inside of him and being the only person that you can access this part of him. His eyes are so dark with lust, and he's so needy to be entangled with you.

"Come for mistress," you coo against his lips. He hungrily slips his tongue back inside your mouth as you pump his dick with excitement.

Ribbons of his cum squirt out and ooze all over your hand. You slip your fingers into his mouth, and he savors his taste off your fingers. That turns you on even more.

"You're so responsive to me. Now, let's take this upstairs since you earned it," you reply.

#sub!seonghwa #seonghwa x reader #seonghwa x black reader #sub!ateez #atz fanfic #atz smut #ateez smut #ateez seonghwa #ateez sexy #sub!kpop #sub!idol #sub! idol #dom! reader

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struggle-but-its-all-ocean-floor · 4 months

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I'm curious what you think about jungkook's apparent eagerness to do solo work at the beginning of chapter 2 when compared with the way he actually seems to have approached chapter 2. When I was watching the documentary, it struck me how early-2022 jungkook seemed eager to start solo work and very ambitious about what to do with it, and it reminded me of the 2022 festa dinner where he seemed like he was one of the members most interested in taking a break from group work (I believe he said something in the realm of 'it's been a long time coming'). None of this is bad and jungkook's been consistent, including when he started releasing his singles and album, about his ambition to do really well. Maybe I'm reading too much eagerness into him, but he seemed ready to go, and was even talking about his predicted album release order at festa 2022, but then the wind must have gone out of his sails a little bit? We know that the songs in golden were given to him mostly towards the end of 2023. I totally support the members using chapter 2 to live more normal lives and take a break, and I even wish some of them had worked less, so this isn't meant to judge him for not going full steam ahead but more wondering whether it was surprising to anyone else. At least to me, it seems like something changed in his mindset, and I'm not sure if it was maybe him realizing that it was more important to him to spend chapter 2 differently, that maybe he didn't have the same type of ambitions he thought he had for solo work, or maybe even just the pressure getting to him early on and causing him to stall out a bit? Do you have any thoughts on it? I know this is mostly speculation, but it just stood out to me when watching the documentary

Sorry for not replying sooner... I'm not watching the documentary so I can't really comment but even without watching it, I've seen clips so I get what you're saying. I agree that during Festa Jungkook seemed - not excited - but relaxed, comfortable with each member temporarily going solo. He didn't seem worried for the fans or the group. Plus, he's always had ideas for his mixtape and he likes challenges. I'm not watching the documentary so I don't have the full context of that clip of him talking about what he wanted to show as a soloist, but seeing the upside to a potentially challenging and scary situation is very Jungkook. Overall, it can be easy to see the positives and get excited about the possibilities of a given situation...

But then life happens, or we realize things aren't as doable as they seemed. Jungkook took an extended break, and when we stop for a while it can be difficult to get back to the swing of things. He knew he was supposed to release an album, but he enjoyed resting. It seems like he chose to rest, maybe because he didn't have a real grasp on what he wanted to do for his album. Jungkook took a break after Left&Right and Dreamers, and it's possible those two successful, though vastly different, songs made him feel pressured to go for a more pop sound since he became a lot more known through them. Maybe actually seeing the members plan their solo activities made him realize he didn't have their motivation? Or maybe the pressure of releasing an album, especially when all the members except V had already done it, got to him? Maybe Jungkook started thinking about his album and became unsure as to what he wanted to do - what kind of music, with what lyrics? I don't know if that extended break was planned from the beginning or if it was a consequence of all the other members going first, and if Jungkook extended his break because he didn't know what he wanted to do (we know Seven is the only reason he went back to work) or if it was always supposed to be that long... During his break, fans were always saying Jungkook looked sad. Maybe he felt a bit lonely, and a bit adrift without the members? Or a bit lost in life? BTS weren't super active in 2022, but the first half was full of possibility while the second half was full of goodbyes.

I don't know, maybe Jungkook had all these expectations, but reality is sadly always different. Jungkook is also very much the type to get super into something and then drop it. Remember when he took his drumsticks everywhere? Does he still even play?

Anyway, I talk too much. Did any of that make sense to you? Your guess is as good as mine.

Thanks for the ask!

#ask #bts #jungkook #text #thanks for the ask!

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liminalpsych-in-teyvat · 10 months

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…I have written ~32,000 words of a single story in the past month. I haven't done that since high school.

Wait. No. Holy crap. I take that back. I stalled out at 25,000 words during NaNoWriMo in high school in I think 2003 or 2004, and that was the farthest I got in a month's time. So this is the most I've ever written in such a short time. But I haven't written this avidly, this many words, this consistently since high school, at the very least.

(oh no I adhd'd in the morning when my meds were half kicked in. That's always a mistake of uncontained rambling. I'll be surprised/impressed if anyone actually reads the rest of this post; ...actually I'm going to put it under a cut because it just got out of control)

It's such a nice feeling! I had given up on writing fiction for a long time, especially after working in residential treatment (2008-2010) when I just. Stopped reading fiction and stopped writing it, because I felt like I "should" be spending my time on "productive" things instead whenever I had time to write (it felt like a trauma brain, survival mode kind of mindset; I was pretty shut down and dissociated).

And when I tried to write any time after that, I got blocked too from overthinking it, knowing just enough about psychology to feel like I was Doing It Wrong with character portrayals, but not knowing enough to do it "right" or for it to flow more naturally. 13-15 years, a graduate counseling degree, and 8 years of post grad experience in the counseling field later, that's not a problem anymore, and not even a stress point.

It's been interesting trying out different approaches to writing. I'm not doing pure discovery writing anymore (aka seat-of-the-pants writing aka pantsing, not having any outline or any solid idea of where you're going, discovering as you write); I've outlined more for this story than I ever have. I'm doing more editing than I did when I was younger (I'm gonna blame adhd meds for that one, thanks adhd meds, you're the best!).

I've also been using a thesaurus for the first time in my life as a writer, which is just embarrassing. It's because I haven't used my extensive vocabulary nearly as actively, not unless it's psychology related. So while I know a lot of descriptive words, I don't have easy access to them. I'll be like "…all I can think of is this direct/simple word, but it's not the Right Word, I know the right word exists but I can't remember what it is, it's kind of like this word but not quite" and so I have to look up synonyms until I stumble across the word I was trying to remember. 9_9 I'm sure it'll come back as I read fiction more and write more.

(Possibly some of it is the head pressure/health issues? Because I'll lose words when I'm having really bad symptoms, and lose a sentence halfway through speaking. But that feels different. Pretty sure this is just because of atrophy from not writing prose for so long, and for not reading fiction nearly as voraciously as I once did.)

(But I hadn't realized I could lose access to my vocabulary from disuse. It makes sense, because I certainly have lost access to the Spanish I was once fairly fluent in. I can still understand a good amount of Spanish when I hear it spoken or read it; I just can't spontaneously access the vocabulary to speak it anymore.)

but man. you definitely get more hits and comments on AO3 for fanfic in a larger fandom like Genshin Impact (65 million active players in March 2023) than in a tiny one like Arthurian literature (20 gay people on Tumblr, that's it, that's the fandom. ...this is hyperbole, but only barely, we might be up to 40 gay people on Tumblr by now with all the Reddit refugees).

and very likely you get more hits for Explicit rated fic / erotica than for non-erotica, but I'd have to post a general audience fic in the Genshin fandom to find out. (I definitely can't say it's porn without plot, the label I used for this fic before I figured out a title was "Kushiel's Impact", basically sex-and-trauma-and-sexual-trauma political intrigue story.)

#writing #fanfic #genshin fanfic #on writing #amod #a matter of duty #my writing

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vomitnest · 19 days

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a total mental shift is happening for me now because i've decided that i was suffocating myself for nothing. my obsessive tunnel vision was completely counterproductive. not only was it not generating any positive results or moving me closer to the goal of living my values and contributing something meaningful to the world, but it was ruining my life and driving me nuts. so obviously i need to think less about certain things instead of trying to think harder about them. and there is a lot of stuff i would perhaps do well to never think about again. my general outlook and approach to life seem to have become the issue.

it's alright to focus more on yourself, on being more secure and being more of a normal social human being. it is a worthy goal to simply live your life and to enjoy it. i seem to have lost sight of that for some time, but it's true. especially when your mental health depends on it. for a long time i was pushing back against this idea because i've always tried to circumvent being absorbed into a culture where that's all people do is think about themselves. the fact that the world is in crisis, the class war, the long revolution of the global south, all of that fades into the background. and eventually they have careers and families and they're so busy with the demands of their personal lives that they just become happy cogs in the machine at best. i didn't want to become that. i wanted to live in creative tension with the system.

i wanted to rage against the machine, not play the game to win. a lot of people were able to accomplish this, i think. but it can't be my priority right now because what i'm doing isn't working. it's making everything slightly worse by ruining my sanity and distracting from what i need to do just to be a somewhat normal functioning, healthy human being. no more vainglorious martyrdom. no more self-important obsessing, brooding, ruminating in circles and getting nowhere. the inner work for me involves letting go and reorienting my focus. so it isn't about more thinking, more effort. it's about letting go of that and redirecting my life by reconnecting with my soul. retrieving lost parts of my natural self that got buried and stifled under the weight of all my narrow, anxious, obsessive, one-track thinking.

it's beside the point, but the way to have gotten somewhere, if the time was right and i was emotionally stable and mentally equipped for it, would have been to just link up with the people doing the work. social progress isn't designed to be accomplished by solitary means or by neurotic hermits trying to reinvent the wheel. so i would have had to have been able to communicate with people and be social and therefore be a fully functional person in order to do it. that would be an impractical goal for me to try to reach without first going through a transitional phase of intentionally replacing the attitudes, and mindsets, and sorts of thinking and obsessing that is negatively impacting my ability to connect with people and have a stable ego and some better social skills and experience. there was a window of time that i did link up with activists/organizers and then i went nuts and made it weird. so right now i'm not necessarily feeling ready to try to reconnect with those guys.

anyway. if i'm wounded i need to do something about the wound. it isn't helping anyone for me to ignore it when it has gotten so bad that i'm almost completely socially inept and even alienated to the point of suicidal ideation. not to mention the fact that people are in many ways interdependent as human beings in order to survive and to function. the more alienated and solitary and wounded you become, the less likely and more difficult it will be for you to help to not only create meaningful social and political change but to experience the richness of human relationships, which are sort of two sides of the same coin. also it will increase the likelihood that you've sacrificed the opportunity to fully live your life without gaining much of anything in return. you will have squandered your life in vain and wasted all of your precious time.

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quantumshamana · 2 months

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Instincts

content warning: childhood sexual abuse

Well, shit.

My instincts are my superpower.

As a child I was trained very hard not to trust my instincts, but my instincts are pretty strong and when I listen to them good things happen.

As it turns out, I'm sad when I ignore my instincts. My desires are telling me the things that I need. A cat. Marijuana. Musical instruments.

I see repeating numbers constantly. It fascinates me. They give me comfort. I haven't quite known what to make of them. I've been taking them as an indication that I'm being guided down the right path by some spiritual entity, but what if it isn't that?

What if the numbers do mean that I'm going down the right path, but it's simply my instincts and how they are detecting whether or not I'm proceeding down the path I need to go down.

This implies a lot about the world. First, that there's even a path to be guided down. Second, that you can find it. Third, it means that humans do have some form of extrasensory perception, which feels absolutely WILD to type let me tell you.

Somehow, it's related to how my brain makes sense of the world. It is the interface through which my instincts are speaking to me. The numbers are standing out to me because they are important. I'm not going crazy; this is just how I interpret the world.

I've been living my life as if my instincts are wrong, as if I am wrong. About literally everything that I think. But that's the wrong mindset.

The pick-up artist dudes from the late oughts, who, in spite of their problematic-at-the-time attitude towards woman, were right on a few things. They always said to assume attraction. I've long felt that this could be because when you assume things through the lens of attraction, you act differently. If the reality that you live in is a reality that this woman you're talking to is overwhelmingly into you then you'll behave differently than if you are in a reality where a woman is just not into you. It won't change the other person's desires if they aren't ever going to give you a shot, but in those cases where it could go either way it will absolutely give you an edge.

My instincts keep telling me things that feel weird. To get high and record my thoughts and sell them. To start a religion. To stream my day-to-day existence online. That things with my current romantic partner are temporary. I need to accept these things I feel rather than fight them because they are how my brain wants to interact with the world. I was trained to ignore my instincts because...reasons? I have no idea what my early childhood was like, but the indications I"m getting aren't great. Christianity was all about ignoring the body, and that's before you add in the negative training about my body from the molestation.

As a teenager I had a strong desire for a girlfriend and I was incredibly frustrated and depressed because I didn't know how to go about getting one. I approached girls constantly as my family traveled from city to city and got rejected every time. Because it happened every time, I began anticipating the rejection. I had assumed that because it wasn't changing that I wasn't improving and I was just bad at it.

I did not understand the some skills take longer than others. The idea that I'm not going to understand something quickly means that I should give up on it seems like an idea conceived by an immature consciousness. I know cognitively that this isn't true and can point to many occasions where practicing something I was bad at led to positive outcomes. The fact that I believe this on a deep level implies that this was something I decided was true about the world at a very young age.

If I hadn't gotten discouraged and had continued to pursue these girls I met, I would have figured it out. I had a core belief at the time that because it wasn't improving at all that I wasn't meant to do it.

I really want to tell my teenage self that all it meant was that I didn't need to approach them that way. Cold approaches are very hard and I didn't even understand how to form friendship. I was trying to do a black diamond when I hadn't conquered the bunny hill.

The reason I'm dissatisfied with the women that I wind up with is that I instinctually understand that they do not have what I'm looking for.

I learned very early on as a small child that following my desires always ended in disaster. Following my desires was meant to be avoided at all costs and it was good to spend as much energy as possible fighting those desires. This is not meant to be a core belief.

This is likely something ingrained into me in early childhood and so deeply that I thought that it was a core directive. Following my instincts as an adult is how I find happiness.

That is why my subconscious has been pushing me to embrace my instincts, because they are good and I understand how to use them. They can lead me to the things that I desire. It's why I felt shitty during a business deal I got into a few years back. This dude was paying me to do some work for him and telling me these amazing things. His checks cleared and I had no reason to doubt him but I felt in my gut that he couldn't be trusted. And in the end he screwed me over. My instincts were right.

As an adult, my instincts are the key to my success and I need to follow them. They are my cheat codes and my superpower.

I really do see things that other people don't see. That doesn't mean that I'm crazy, it means that I have an advantage. Time to start taking advantage of it.

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weaselbrownie · 3 years

Text

we’re okay | d.m

draco malfoy x fem!reader

summary : draco and his girlfriend got in a fight but she stayed patient with him.

warning : swearing, angst, accusations?, fluff towards the end, talk about starting a family

a/n : flashbacks in italic

word count : 1.8k

01.30 am

It was late and you had to wake up early tomorrow for a potions exam but your mind was elsewhere. Tossing around in your bed the events of last night kept replaying in your head.

"Why can't you see– I love you Draco"

"No Y/N you don't love me– you love the idea of fixing me!" Draco shouted at you through his gritted teeth and locked jaw.

"You can't possibly think that's true..." You backed away from him as the tears in your eyes started to fall.

Fighting and fighting was all you've been doing with Draco. You knew what you signed up for when you got into a relationship with Draco, but you never thought it would get this bad. Every day you try to hold onto him, try to lend him your hand because God knows he needs it in times like this. After Draco got the mission from you-know-who, he has not been himself. Always sneaking away, only to come back to his dorm past midnight. You tried for so long to try to talk to him but he wasn't budging, and now, here you were. All you wanted to do was tell him he's not alone and that you love him but of course he would turn that on you, twisting it into something sick.

"Y/N we both know it's true, you come into my life when I'm at my lowest and you try too hard!" Draco continued to shout at your fragile state.

"Try too hard? Try too hard my arse Draco– This is what I get for caring about you?" You fought back at him not wanting to lose another fight to him.

"I didn't ask for you to care for me– You came to me all on your own trying to be little miss perfect, fixing the broken boy like last year's project! Well, guess what? You can leave now, there's the door Y/N!" Draco spat out at you when a single tear escaped from the corner of his eye.

Your body ran cold at his harsh words, you knew Draco didn't mean what he said but it still hurts like hell. You've been in his life since the very beginning, growing to love him through your years in Hogwarts. You knew he was hurting and it was hurting you more that you can't take the pain away from him, you love the boy so much to the point where you would sacrifice yourself in a heartbeat in exchange for his happiness.

"What happened to you? What happened to the boy who helped me ride my first broomstick, to the boy who stuck up for me when those Gryffindors cornered me, to the boy who took me to the Yule Ball–" You chocked out in between your streaming tears "What happened to the boy who I comforted in his home when it was invaded by death eaters? To the boy I've loved since the first year?" You really couldn't control the tears anymore, you had to get out of here before it gets worse.

You shook your head before gathering your book bag and robe, slowly making your way past Draco and to the door he pointed to behind him. You placed your hand onto the doorknob before turning in your place to see Draco's back.

"Please come back to me"

With that you were gone, tears run on Draco's pale face– realizing that he just drove you out of his life. Y/N, the last person to truly cared about him, the love of his life. Draco broke down with a scream throwing anything he could get his hands on.

On the other side of the door, you stood muffling your own tears as you hear him completely breaking. You wiped your face before forcing yourself to step away from the door and back into yours.

You took a deep breath as you stare up to the ceiling of your dorm. Your roommate was out for the night so it was even quieter, the thoughts in your head screaming at you. You decided that maybe a cold shower would help you sleep.

Before you could even move a muscle the doorknob started rattling, thinking it was your roommate to go get something you turned your body away from the door and closed your eyes, pretending to be asleep.

The door slowly creaked open and closed again. Footsteps started to approach your bed you could feel a shadow in front of you. The person in front of you stayed there for a moment before brushing a small strand of hair away from your face.

When the fingertips touched your face you already knew it was Draco, you didn't need to open your eyes to know Draco was touching you. Playing along you stayed still pretending to be asleep as Draco admired your figure wrapped around a thick blanket. Draco placed his hand on the side of your cheeks, stroking it lightly before softly letting out a few words.

"I'm so sorry"

"I didn't know why I did it but I didn't mean the things I said, I was just– angry, angry at myself for hurting you but angry at you for staying with me when I know someone else could make you much happier than I ever could" Draco softly said, still caressing your rosy cheek in the process.

"I have never loved anyone other than my family and I don't know how to process the feelings I have for you. This is for the best sweetheart, someday you'll find a guy who will treat you the way you deserve to be treated– like a princess. I'll be okay, as long as you're happy"

Draco whispered to you, as you felt a teardrop land on your cheek. Your heart aches, listening to him, listening to how he thinks someone else could make you happier. Little did he know that he was it for you, that he was the person you wanted to spend forever with.

He kissed your forehead lightly before cupping your face again. Goosebumps start to form on the back of your neck as he leaves little kisses on your face. Your head going dizzy, inhaling his scent that you love to drown yourself in.

"I love you Y/N"

Not wasting another second he pulled his hand away from your face and sniffled a little. The warmth from his hand leaving your cheeks, and then you heard his footsteps drifting away from you.

This was now or never if you don't tell him now you might never will. So with a determined mindset, you slowly sat up from your spot and turned around to see Draco opening the door of your dorm with his head hung low.

"Draco.."

He picked up his head and quickly turned on his feet to face you. His tear-stained face and his ruffled hair. He changed into a comfortable jumper along with sweatpants to keep him warm in the cold air. His eyes lit up when he noticed you were wearing his jumper, the very first jumper you stole from him in 4th year. He has told you many times to get rid of it as it was old but you never did, considering that it smells like him the most.

You eyed his figure in the dark before extending your arms out and made grabby hand gestures at him. He smiled softly before closing the door and walking towards your bed. He touched your hands keeping them in his for a while before closing the space between the two of you with a tight hug. You rested your head on his torso with your legs dangling off the bed on either side of him as he kissed your hair.

Draco finally let go of the hug just to kneel in front of you. He pouted when he saw your face with tears in the corner of your eyes and squeezed your thighs reassuringly. He took your hands and kissed your wrist before cupping your face to wipe your tears away.

"I don't want you to go..." You murmured down at him

His mouth fell into a straight line as he takes in the beautiful sight in front of him. His hands fell from your face to your hips, keeping them there and his head hung low too ashamed to look at his love.

"Nobody compares to you Draco– N-not even close.." You cooed lifting his head by cupping his face much as he did with yours just seconds ago.

His silver eyes were blown, looking up at you with all the adoration and love the world could possibly offer. He opened his mouth to say something but before the words could leave his mouth you closed your lips on his. He stayed still for a second surprised at your action before closing his eyes and returned the kiss. The kiss wasn't like the many kisses you shared before but rather a needy broken one. His lips were soft and tasted a bit salty from all the tears. Without breaking the kiss you guided him to stand and join you on the bed. You backed up until your head hit the soft cold pillow and Draco hovering above you with his arms on either side of you. The both of you finally pulled away in need of air as you admired the boy above you.

"Y/N wha-"

"Shush Draco," You said in your sweet voice looking into his eyes.

He smiled down at you before letting go and crushing you. You smiled at him as he snuggles into your neck, leaving a few open mouth kisses. You wrapped your arms around his shoulder and kissed the top of his head before playing with the ends of his hair.

"You will not speak such stupid words again Draco– I'm not going anywhere" You whispered to him as he picked his head up from the crook of your neck to look at you. "You do know that I want to spend the rest of my life with you right?" You cooed down to him as his eyes lit up once more.

"Do you mean that?" Draco asked slowly, wanting every word you're saying to be true.

"Mhm– After this pass, we can get out of here, get a house in the countryside with a big garden and maybe a pond. Then we can start a family, just the two of us– Unless you're not ready to start a family then we can wait as long as you want. Then we'll watch as the kids grow up and go into Hogwarts to start their own lives and then w–" You said as you imagined your life with Draco.

He looked up at you with a soft smile before interrupting you with a soft kiss on your lips. He smiled and chuckled into your lips as you do the same, the kiss ended up being a small laughing fit for the both of you.

"Darling I've never heard anything better" Draco cooed after you both calmed down.

You smiled at the boy in front of you and returned to your previous position with his head on the crook of your neck and your arms around his neck.

"I love you, darling"

"I love you too Draco"

#draco #draco malfoy #draco malfoy imagine #draco imagine #draco x y/n #draco malfoy x y/n #draco malfoy x fem!reader #draco malfoy angst #draco malfoy fluff #harry potter #harry potter imagine

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scripttorture · 3 years

Note

Hello! I have a few questions related to your most recent post and the definition of torture. You said:

"A trained person who was never tortured will always out perform someone whose training involved torture."

According to everything else I have seen on your blog, this makes sense - the mental and physical trauma from being tortured have lasting effects which make certain tasks more difficult.

However, this seems to juxtapose certain tropes I've seen in US military training advertisements. For example, "Hell Week" in the Navy SEAL training seems like it would be torture if it was forced upon someone (like if the soldiers didn't sign up for it and didn't have the option to quit.). *Hell Week is when soldiers are training continuously for 5 days in freezing, wet conditions, with little more than 4 hours of sleep for the entire week, under insane amounts of physical and mental stress.

- If someone chose to be tested both mentally and physically, I feel like it wouldn't be torture. However, if the same exact conditions were forced upon someone else (testing their mental and physical limits without their consent or understanding), does your quote above mean that the person who did not have a choice would not reap the benefits of the training/testing? Or would the Navy SEALs be better soldiers if they didn't have to go through 'torturous conditions' during Hell Week, regardless of their choice to do so?

(I used Hell Week as an example, but I meant this question generally. I'm trying to figure out how to best train an elite soldier and avoid any harmful torture apologia tropes, while also making sure that they are able to handle insanely challenging situations)

- My other question has more to do with the definition of torture that you quoted from the UN in one of your master posts. If someone is being seriously injured (pulled fingernails, whipping, starvation etc), but not for the purposes of interrogation, punishment, or intimidation, is that still torture, or is that just abuse? And, regardless of what we call it, would the effects be the same as if it were torture for any of the three motives above?

Sorry if this is long and hard to understand, I can clarify if needed!

It’s not the longest I’ve gotten and it’s perfectly clear, duck*. :) Honestly this is a difficult topic with a lot of nuance, it’s better to take a longer and more thoughtful approach.

From the stand point of the legal definition and what we study/understand as torture any consensual activity, however extreme, is not torture.

But here’s where it gets interesting: consent and our attitude to an activity actually changes our response to pain. It may even change how much pain we feel.

I’m going to take a slightly different example to yours. There are a lot of cultures globally that have practiced scarification, ritual cutting to deliberately form scars. And this can be done for a lot of reasons: membership of a family or clan, coming of age, traditional medicine, religion, you get the idea.

A lot of people in these cultures describe their scars as incredibly important and the process of getting them as a moving, deep and positive process.

This does not mean they wouldn’t be traumatised if they were attacked by someone with a knife.

Being able to approach something painful and see it as positive really changes our perspective. It makes trauma and mental illness a lot less likely. And being able to back out, even if it’s just for a little while to take a breather, seems to make us able to withstand more pain then we would have otherwise.

The simplest and most famous experiment that dealt with this relationship between our mindset and pain asked people to keep their hands in ice cold water. They timed how long people could do it when they were told to stay silent and how long they could do it when they were allowed to swear. If they swore they could hold their hands under for longer. An average of forty seconds longer.

Looking back over O’Mara (Why Torture Doesn’t Work, a very good intro to how pain works and what it does to the brain) the way he describes it as by thinking of the experience of pain as a collection of three things. There’s the physical sensation itself, the nerves firing. But there’s also an affective component, how we feel emotionally about the experience and a cognitive component, how we think about it.

Did you ever play that game as a kid where you stuff as many chilis as possible in your mouth to see who would spit them out first? I… might have done. And from what I remember it hurts an awful lot. But those memories to me are mostly about messing about with my friends, I remember trying to be stubborn about it and I remember us laughing at each other.

This is a completely different experience to someone being held down and having chili stuff up their nose. But the difference isn’t necessarily in the physical damage done or the physical sensation of pain. It’s in the other components, the emotional response and the rationalisation.

I also had a filling drilled in my tooth without painkillers as a kid. I don’t know how common this is in the West? It happened in Saudi. Honestly my biggest memory of it is the language barrier between myself and the dentist.

These are anecdotes obviously but I’m trying to show that you probably also have experiences in your own life that back up the experiments too. The way we think about a painful experience really does make a huge amount of difference. And that means consent matters enormously.

These soldiers are going into this experience knowing what to expect, how long it will last and that they can stop at any time. That makes a huge amount of difference. Those same factors have drastically increased the time volunteers will spend in solitary confinement for research. I’m pretty sure if I dug even a little I’d find pain studies with similar findings.

Here’s the flip side: the physical factors are still in play.

Sleep is an important physiological process that’s essential to normal functioning. Studies on consensual sleep deprivation have shown massive negative impacts on memory along with a host of other things that you can read about here.

Let’s take a non torture example. A student who stays up all night cramming for an exam is not going to develop the symptoms of trauma that a torture survivors who was sleep deprived would. But the effect sleep deprivation has on memory is due to sleep playing an essential role in preserving memory (and learning more generally.) So they’re both likely to have difficulty remembering things in days just before and just after sleep deprivation. They’re also both more likely to have false memories and catch a bad cold.

As a result of this memory impairment I question the educational value of anything involving sleep deprivation: you can’t learn while messing up the processes that let your brain remember things.

There have been cases in the UK of people dying during training for the armed forces. Because while consent makes a huge difference, mindset makes a huge difference- our bodies still have limits. We can choose to push ourselves past those limits and, whatever our motivation or feelings, it can do real harm.

Personally? I’m unsure of the benefit of these kinds of exercises. As in I’m unsure there is a benefit. Learning is going to be shot, chances of injury are going to be a lot higher- I don’t see anything that could be improved by these sorts of exercises.

Anecdotally people do report feeling like a closer unit after going through these sorts of routines. That might be the benefit: moral and unit cohesion, possibly self-esteem too.

If you’re making up something for your story I think it’d be helpful for me to mention a little statistical effect that gets used to justify punishment pretty regularly. Get some dice out if you’ve got them and roll one. Let’s say the number represents performance in some kind of test (because effort and learning matter but our performance also varies because of things we can’t control.) A roll of 1 gets punished, a roll of 6 gets praised.

Now after you roll that first 1 statistically speaking the chances are your next roll will be better. And if you roll a 6 then statistically speaking the chances are your next roll will be worse. People observe this effect in real life and they often conclude that there’s no point in praising someone but that punishment leads to improvement. Really it’s just a statistical effect, after a particularly, noticeably bad day the chances are things will be better next and vice versa.

This effect can make it difficult for people to recognise overall, long term progress. Which is the kind of progress you should be paying attention to when designing a training program.

If you want good performance from people, whatever the metric, the most efficient thing to do is ensure that those people are; well fed, have access to clean water, get plenty of sleep, have breaks and have access to medical treatment when they need it.

I’d say the main things to keep in mind when designing this fictional training regime are:

Being honest about the effects you describe, ie if they’re spending long periods without shelter are they at risk from exposure? If they’re standing in cold water are they going to get hypothermia?

Remember that even if something is damaging or causes lasting trauma it would not necessarily prevent someone from doing their job. Torture survivors have serious, lasting symptoms but many of them still work.

I think I’m going to leave that there because I’m not an expert in militaries or training people. And keep in mind that I am a pacifist, read this with my biases in mind.

Getting to the second question, there is a little more to the UN definition then that. The primary factor is still who the abuser is. For it to be torture (legally speaking) the abuser has to be (or be ordered by) an on-duty government employee, part of a group that controls territory (ie an occupying force). Some countries also count international organised criminal gangs in this definition.

It’s also important to note that torture can be targetted at someone other then the victim. So if the police arrest the brother of a political opponent and beat him in order to intimidate the politician, that is still torture.

Basically there are a lot of factors in the legal definition of torture and it’s that way by design. The hope is that you end up with a framework that captures as much government abuse as possible.

But it also means that there’s a pretty high barrier when it comes to proving torture. Which means that things which are legally torture can be prosecuted as assault, bodily harm or equivalents to these, because it’s easier to get a conviction for those charges.

Technically you are correct: if abuse done by a government official doesn’t have one of the four motivations in the legal definition (attempts to obtain information, forcing a confession, intimidation or punishment) then it doesn’t meet the definition.

However in practice I’ve not heard of a case failing because of the motive.

I’m not a lawyer and I’m not an expert in international law. I won’t say it’s never happened. But it’s much more common for cases to fail for other reasons. Off the top of my head I’d say the most common reason is difficulty proving the abuse took place.

The most common types of torture today are ‘clean’, a term we use to indicate that they don’t leave obvious marks. If someone turns up with fingernails torn out or the skin of their back lacerated by a whip that is clear physical evidence of abuse. Nothing else causes similar injuries. But if someone turns up at a doctor’s with swollen feet or reddened skin, if they’ve lost a lot of weight or they’re so tired they’re struggling to stand… Well all of those things can be caused by common tortures. But they can also be caused by common illnesses.

A lot of the deaths from torture today are similarly hard to prove. Beatings and stress positions ultimately cause death by kidney failure. Which can mean that prosecutors are asked to prove a victim didn’t have an underlying health condition. Or take drugs.

Honestly my instinct is that the motive is the easiest thing to prove. It’s often harder to bring charges against people in positions of authority, regardless of the country we’re talking about. Bringing those charges, proving abuse took place and proving it was done by the person in question, those are usually the tricky parts.

The difference between torture and abuse is scale. Torture is industrial scale abuse.

The law doesn’t define that scale but that’s what we’re talking about when we talk about abuse from organised authority. Abusers might have dozens of victims. Torturers have thousands, tens of thousands.

If you want to explore a different motivation in your story, something outside the legal framework, consider the scale at which this abuse is taking place. Consider how organised it is. If it’s organised and large scale, with multiple abusers, with no prior relationship between the abuser and victims then torture will probably be a better model then abuse. If it’s smaller scale with a more personal relationship and if it isn’t supported by a legal framework/organisation then abuse might be a better model.

For victims and survivors the difference isn’t so much about the symptoms they personally experience as the… side effect of that scale. Abuse victims are often very isolated and may not know anyone who has had a similar experience. Torture implies a community of survivors and possibly generational trauma. There are also effects to do with access to support, access to medical care and how likely it is that someone will be believed.

Torture survivors are often systematically disenfranchised in a way that abuse victims are not. Torture survivors are often forced to leave their home country. Anecdotally, based on what I’ve seen globally over the last few years, I think that struggling to get citizenship is increasingly an issue for torture survivors. And without citizenship there’s difficulty finding legal work, getting accommodation, accessing medical care, accessing the legal system etc.

I do not know whether torture survivors are more or less likely to be believed by their community compared to survivors of abuse. I do not think any one has attempted a comparative study. I do know that the prevalence of clean torture means that many torture survivors are not believed and this puts up a further barrier, making it harder to access medical treatment and bring charges.

Rejali’s book was published in 2009, so things may have changed a tad. At the time he was writing the average wait for a torture survivor to see a specialist doctor was about 10 years.

Abuse is to torture what murder is to genocide. And there are difference on a wider social scale as a result.

I mention all that because I feel it’s relevant but the impression I get is you’re mostly interested in the long term symptoms? In which case, yes the legal definition makes very little difference. The physical injuries caused by particular kinds of abuse don’t change depending on whether it’s a private individual or a police officer holding the Taser.

The lasting psychological symptoms are not particular to torture; they’re what the human brain does when traumatised. The same symptoms can manifest in people who witness traumatic events but weren’t actually hurt themselves. They can manifest in people who were injured in accidents and they manifest in people who were neglected or abused. Hell, I have a couple of them, though no where near the severity a torture survivors would experience. A sufficient amount of stress is enough for these symptoms to start developing in anybody.

You can find the general list of symptoms here. There’s also a post specifically about memory problems over here.

The pattern I describe; that these symptoms are a list of possibilities not ‘every torture victim will get all of these’ holds true for trauma survivors generally. Anecdotally there is some variability with chronic pain being reported more often with some kinds of abuse. That might be because it can have physical causes, psychological causes or a mix of the two.

Whether it’s torture or abuse there isn’t any way to predict a survivor’s symptoms in advance. Much of the advice I have about writing torture survivors and their symptoms holds true for trauma survivors generally. Which is why I’ll still take a crack at some questions that aren’t about torture.

Pick the symptoms that you feel fit the character and serve the story. We can’t predict symptoms and that means that there’s no reason why you shouldn’t pick the things that appeal to you.

And I think I’m going to leave it there. I hope that helps :)

Available on Wordpress.

Disclaimer

*This is a weird English endearment. I had someone ask if this was me trying not to swear.

#orphicphosphenes #writing advice #tw torture #torture as training #legal definition of torture #clean torture #military abuse #trauma #trauma and consent #pain #pain and memory #sleep deprivation #attitudes towards clean tortures #writing survivors #abuse within the military

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shannarous · 3 years

Note

hey i've seen some people claiming it still possible for eren to be father of historia child and its making me anxious. what do you think?

Hi anon! The short answer is no, I don’t think it’s possible, has never been. There is so much speaking against it - so here’s the long answer (stating the obvious):

Let's start with looking at Historia's reasons for becoming pregnant in the first place. Usually the reason for having a child is love. It's crystal clear though that this is not the case for Historia's child, no matter who the father is. The only one who Historia showed genuine affection towards was Ymir, and ever since her death Historia didn't really seem to care about anyone except for the orphan kids of Paradis. Now, chapter 138 confirmed that Eren was/is in love with Mikasa, or - if you don't see it that way - at least that Mikasa is the most important person in his life, so important that he would even ditch his best friend Armin and send Historia through hell just to spend his last years with Mikasa and Mikasa alone. Eren never showed similar feelings towards anyone but her, and the special moments he shared with her are plenty. Her memory shards always take up the most space by far and they're almost always at the very center. So, Eren and Historia both have (or had) their special someone whom they don't want to live without, and once they're separated from them their characters become dark. This makes Eren and Historia pretty similar to each other, and it's exactly why they became allies, or "partners in crime" even. They do care for each other, but not at all in a romantical way. Rather, we know that Eren cares for all of his friends and the people of Paradis in general. He wants them to live long and happy lives, so it's only natural that he initially stood up against Zeke's plan to turn Historia into a breeding machine and have her titanized eventually. He desperately sought a way out of it because it was against every single principle he has and because Historia is one of his dearest friends, but not his lover. Historia appreciated this, but she had actually accepted her fate and was willing to go through that hell if it served a greater good. Which is why it was no surprise that she was the one to suggest the pregnancy later while Eren had despised the idea the whole time.

So, if love isn't the reason for Historia's pregnancy, what is? Actually, there are several tactical reasons for it, and none of them requires Eren to be the father.

As mentioned above, Historia was the one to suggest the pregnancy, when she was talking with Eren about his Rumbling plans. We haven't seen the whole talk (yet), but I think we've seen enough to understand what it all meant. In short, the whole purpose of her pregnancy was to avoid her being titanized and Zeke being fed to her. While Eren initially just wanted to save her from having to bear a child she clearly didn't want and to stop the cruel cycle of children having to eat their parents, he now also had something different in mind. He needed a titan of royal blood to put his plan into action, and conveniently his half-brother was just that. However, Zeke would have been fed to Historia the moment he lay a foot on Paradis if the military had their way, and that may have even been an option for Eren too, since she’s got royal blood just as well as Zeke. But Historia actually wasn't okay with Eren's plans at first and even wanted to go along with the military's. So he needed to convince her to obey, otherwise he would have had to use Founding Titan to make her cooperate - whereas he had seen in his future memories that with Zeke he would be able to achieve his goal much easier. Moreover, had he used Historia instead of Zeke, her lifespan would have been shortened drastically, and not only that: It would've put her in grave danger. We don't know exactly how much Eren knew about the future, but even if he hadn't known anything at all at that time, he must've considered the possibility of his plan failing. Maybe he even already knew he was gonna be killed, and if it had been Historia in Zeke's place during the Rumbling, she would've been killed along with him. Eren did everything he possibly could to leave his friends out of his plans, to be the only one responsible for it all, to be the only "bad guy" - that's what the Rumbling was all about in the first place. He needed Historia to play along, but quietly. Well, Historia made it pretty clear she wouldn't support him with the Rumbling, so much so that Eren offered to alter her memories if the burden of knowing was too much for her to bear. However, when he reminded her of her own words, that she was "the worst girl in the world", humanity's enemy, I guess Historia knew in that moment that she wouldn't be able to stop him, so she gave up opposing him and became his ally again. Since the only option to prevent Historia from being titanized and eating Zeke was the pregnancy, in the end, it was a choice between certain death (either in the near future or after 13 years at the latest) or a 9-month-hell for Historia, and they chose the latter as it obviously seemed like the smaller price to pay.

So now they had agreed on the pregnancy being necessary as a way to prevent Historia's certain death and to start the Rumbling. I can see why some people think it'd be logical that Eren would "help" her with executing this plan, but there is way too much speaking against that:

- As I have made clear above, Eren and Historia are not in love, have never been. In fact, they are or were both in love with someone else. It is therefore highly unlikely that Eren would just say "sure you need a baby I'll make you one" - no, both of them would never ever want this. If you think they would, you haven't understood their characters at all. Besides, Historia may have given in to Eren's plan after all, but keep in mind that she was actually wholeheartedly against his ideas. While they were allies in the end, their mindsets were quite different, if not opposing. That's why I don't see that "connection" that some fans claim exists between them. They are very similar in character, but they deal with their fates very differently.

- I've highlighted before that Eren despises the idea of putting Historia through the living hell that is forced pregnancy. Do you really think he would even be able to have sex with her like that? The only reason he agreed to her becoming pregnant is that the only other option was her certain death. If there had been another way, he sure as hell would never have agreed to put her through that.

- I haven't mentioned him until now but he's probably even the most important piece in this puzzle: Farmer-kun exists. Why would Historia even bother to approach Farmer-kun if she really already had Eren to make her a child? He wouldn't be necessary. Some say he's just a "cover-up story", but what for? Why would Eren and Historia even have to keep it a secret if Eren was the father? That one military officer said it loud and clear when talking to Nile and the others: they do not care at all who impregnated Historia. The queen is free to chose her suitors herself. All they care about is the simple fact that she's pregnant. She could've even said she didn't know who the father was, it wouldn't have changed a thing. Moreover, consider the fact that Farmer-kun seems oblivious to all of it. If he really was a cover-up, he wouldn't know, and that means Historia would still have had to sleep with him to make him believe he's the father, even if she already was pregnant from Eren. And if Eren really was in love with Historia, he would never let her have sex with someone else just for cover-up. As if the pregnancy itself wasn't enough of a burden already.

- Last but not least: Eren does not have any special genes at all. He's not of royal blood, nor is he an Ackermann or Asian or anything that would make him a tactical choice for being the father of this child. Titan powers are not inherited by shifter's children either - it was stated unmistakably in the manga that when a shifter dies without passing on their titan powers, they're transferred to a random newborn Eldian child, no matter the distance or blood relation between the two. From this perspective, Farmer-kun's genes are just as good as Eren's.

I hope this helps anon, I know how anti’s theories can cause anxiety, even knowing that it’s probably not true. Chapter 139 will clear things up for better or for worse, we’ll see. Maybe I’m completely wrong, but I consider it extremely unlikely at this point.

#snk #aot #eren jäger #eren yeager #historia reiss #snk 138 #eremika #yumihisu #yumikuri #farmer-kun #anon ask

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linkspooky · 5 years

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I absolutely adore your Medaka Box Metas. Honestly reading you talk about the series got as much of an emotional response out of me as reading it myself. So now I'm curious to see how you'd tackle Iihiko, a character I've never quite come around to. What's Iihiko's Meta?

Thank you!

I have written about Iihiko before [here]. Since you bothered to send the ask though let’s approach it from a different angle. I’ve already talked about character so let’s talk theme.

Medaka Box is a story about a story, as pretentious as that sounds. It’s also a manga about shonen manga. It’s a story that constantly comments on the fact that it is a story.

There are several characters who act like the archetype they are usually presented as in manga, Kumagawa is the antagonist who believes he could never win because he’s not a main character, Ajimu is the last boss/mastermind, Medaka is the main character, Zenkichi tries to become the main character.

For some of these characters the roles they inhabit are a relief, a comfort even. Seeing real life through the lens of a narrative can give meaning to what is otherwise meaningless and senseless. In stories everything has a purpose, everything happens because the author wrote it that way with intention behind it, and in comparison the world is meaningless. Medaka Box is a manga that toys with the idea that it is a story over and over again, but eventually asserts life is nothing like a story and that it’s real. It rejects the idea of seeing life like a story.

Center to all of this is Medaka herself. She is the typical shonen protagonist in almost every way, she’s pure, ditzy no matter how smart she is, kindhearted and willing to help everyone, she fights for her friends, she always wins every battle and gets a new power up whenever she needs it.

Yet, Medaka Box the manga is about how terrible it is to be a main character. Yes, it may be empowering to see yourself as the main character of your own life, but that narrative ultimately harms much more than it helps.

Here is how we are introduced to Medaka at the beginning of the manga. She loves people apparently, but she also looks down at them the same way a god would a mortal. She is incredibly distant from them.

But, in Zenkichi’s mind she is always right. The world seems to be rigged in her favor, as if she was a main character with an entire story written around her. Ultimately, even if she’s misguided, even if she has her flaws, she’s still always right in the end, because that’s what it means to be the main character.

However, as good as this may seem it’s a role that is ultimately more restricting than freeing to Medaka. After all, Medaka’s view of her own birth is abysmal, she calls her mansion a coffin. She acts like this role is something that liberates her, but instead it’s a crushing burden that warps and isolates her.

Main characters are terrible. Thinking the whole world revolves around them, how selfish really. In a more serious sense though we get the impression as Medaka’s mindset is further and further deconstructed as the manga goes on, that she really is selfish in a way as all of this exists not to really help other people, but to give herself her own personal meaning, to make sure she has somewhere to belong in the world, so humankind does not reject her.

The Ajimu arc is really where the idea of being a main character really starts getting deconstructed. Ajimu says it straight out, that if this world were a manga Medaka would be the main character.

Ajimu is the most blatant one about it, but in a sense all of these characters to some extent apply narrative terms to real life like this. This is how Zenkichi sees himself, Medaka is the main event, and he is the sidekick, he is her pitbull, he’s the one who is supposed to help her with her ideals less of his own person and more of an extension to Medaka.

This is also the arc where Nisioisin starts to heavily show the danger of Medaka’s mindset and that Medaka’s role as the main character might not actually be a good thing. Once again, the villain of this arc is using all these narrative terms. When the villain tempts Zenkichi to her side, she doesn’t ask him to be a villain like her, she tells him to become his own main character. Being a main character is a bad thing.

Being a main character does not help Medaka in any way. It makes her lonely. It makes her unable to understand other people because her own viewpoint of the world is so self centered, like the world is a story being told about her and everybody else is just side characters. While Medaka is a selfless person, the mindset that she embodies is unhealthy and even self destructive as she erases her own identity to try to fit into the role of a main character. It’s why even Zenkichi eventually turns against her for her own sake.

Medaka’s mother even lectures her about that. In the end there’s no good, or bad, reality is just reality, without any particular meaning, rhyme or reason to it. If you give yourself a role and stop being yourself, you’re not going to be embraced by people it only drives them away because they no longer see you as a person. Medaka in her attempt to find meaning in her life, actually made everyone else around her reject her even more even though she wanted them to accept her as a human.

Medaka thought it was wrong for someone like her to have been born with so much talent and privilege in life by what came down to nothing more than pure luck, she felt guilty just for living because she did not have to struggle with what everybody else did. Therefore, she tried to give a meaning behind her birth and desperately searched for that. She adopted the role of a main character, but that too was just another chain on her that made it harder to be herself.

It’s a terrible thing to be a main character. It warps your perspective. It makes you egocentric and unable to empathize with others. You stop seeing them as people.

So, Iihiko himself is not really a person. The reason you don’t understand him as a character is because he doesn’t really have one. He’s an entirely empty being that just occupies a role.

Iihiko is introduced as the opposite of Medaka, if Medaka is someone who was born to save the world, then Iihiko is a man born to destroy the world.

Iihiko actually has a lot more in common with Medaka, or at least the Medaka we were introduced to at the start of the manga. He’s a “main character” in the sense that Medaka is, because he has an egocentric viewpoint of the world, and whatever he tries he suceeds at. In a way he’s a Medaka from the first few arcs who never grew up.

Just like Medaka he sees everyone as beneath him. Just like Medaka he doesn’t understand other people at all. Just like Medaka he forces his viewpoints onto others. He’s battle crazy like Medaka and seems to enjoy getting in fights with strong opponents, because otherwise there’s nothing to challenge him in this world.

It’s explained that he’s a hero from a story book, and that’s why he does not fit in at all with reality. For example heroes from the greek era hardly match our modern definition of hero, heracles, theseus, they have all done things that would make us label them as jerks. However, cultural values were different 5,000 years ago.

Except, Iihiko once again does not care about changing for other people, or the values of other people at all, he just wants to continue on living forever in his own storybook. hence why he displays such antiquated values and refuses to change them. He looks brutal because what was acceptable for his time is not acceptable now.

For Iihiko there’s nothing left accept his narrative, that’s why he alligns with the Shiranui village who just wants to perserve his own story. Iihiko so perfectly inhabits the role of a hero that it’s the only thing he has left now, it’s his entire identity. To admit that he is not a hero, that he’s nobody special, would completely destroy him. That is why, when he sees Medaka give up her ‘character’ as a hero, and just act like a person begging to have her friends life spared he’s confused.

He wants things to play out the way they should in a story. Everyone should live respectfully to their roles. When they don’t, Iihiko gets angry and tries to force them. What Iihiko fears the most is that he’s a nobody. That none of his actions even if they were legendary had any particular meaning. That he was a normal mortal just like the rest of us. He fears the lack of meaning in the world, the same way that Ajimu embraces it.

His definition of a monster is someone who does not see meaning in life. At the end despite having greater strength than Medaka, we see him lashing out at her if he’s nothing more than a child throwing a tantrum to prove his point.

Being a main character is something that completely destroyed Iihiko’s identity, and all we are left with is the dregs of a person, the shell of his former self left behind. Hence why there’s not much going for him as a character, hence why he has little to no personality and there’s nothing to get invested in. It’s a terrible thing to be a main character, it prevents you from being a person.

#yotomoe #mb meta #medaka box meta #metasks #medaka box #kurokami medaka #shishime iihiko

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hashtagsmitty · 5 years

Text

Smitty's Thailand Adventure - Day 7

Goddamn happened again - I spent two hours on this post and my phone deleted it.

In which snakes get tortured, an expatriot hero is honored, a suit is fitted, and axes don't get thrown.

I slept weird again last night - I'm not used to box spring mattresses. I have a Koala foam mattress and April has a futon, so springs poking me in the ass all night is a new experience for me. Plus the air con, it's hot then it's cold, etcetera.

Usual morning routine - the Hitler Youth and White Family Mart for breakfast. I planned my day while I ate - I wanted to visit the snake farm. Technically, the late queen's memorial snake farm. I thought that sounded awesome.

Skytrain to Siam, swapped to the other line. Not much new to say about the skytrain except there's this jingle that one of the ads plays that I will never get out of my head. Also, there's barriers around some but not all of the platforms, and the train stops perfectly such that the doors are between the openings in the barriers. It's pretty special.

Crazy Thai traffic aside, I made it to the snake farm. It looked like something out of the Walking Dead:

It was mostly the rust on the spikes. And the overgrowth. And the barriers in front of the entrance. And the red cross trucks unloading pallets of gear. I did not think I was supposed to be in there, but the sign said this way to snake farm, so in I went.

I found the place fine. Once I got past the zombie movie shit anyway. The farm looked awesome!

It was a big pagoda with open air snake enclosures all over the place. Very tropical, very novel. There was a big old rat in one of the enclosures. I watched him for ages to see if a snake was going to get him, but he was as still as a statue, with only his tiny rat ears twitching.

After the pagoda was an indoor museum - much the same, but with single cages for each snake. With glass. It wasn't quite what I expected from a Thai snake farm - far more like a zoo than a snake farm. Not enough zero-fucks-given Thai dudes with snakes wrapped around them. I looked at the snakes for a while. This guy was my favourite:

He's a Malayan Mangroce Cat-Eye Snake. I think he's gorgeous. I also thing I have a thing for snakes. They're like nature's ropes.

There was maintenance work going on inside - some drilling or digging or something. Lots of noise. I found it unpleasant, and I'm not a creature whose entire experience of the world is through vibrations. I didn't stay long inside, and left straight after.

I'm not 100% certain that I would never get a snake as a pet. I was before the snake farm, but now I'm not sure.

On the way back to Siam, I saw the Jim Thompson store! I had to go inside and pay my respects to a true expatriot hero.

Thompson's business was selling Thai silk, so the entire store was silk scarves and shirts and other stuff. Expensive silk stuff - one shirt was $200. The cheapest thing I saw was a scrunchie for $40. I looked around for a while then left, richer for having experienced the life of a great man. Also richer for not having bought any of that tourist bait.

I went back to Siam and went book shopping. I had almost finished Growth Mindset and needed something else for the plane. I found this awesome bookshop:

It took up the whole floor, it was so big. It had the largest non-fiction section I'd ever seen. I spent an hour walking around looking at stuff. It was great. I love bookshops.

I bought Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius, a stoic philosophy book I've been meaning to read for ages. I also got The King in Yellow, by Robert W. Chambers. Lovecraft listed it as one of his influences, and I love spooky.

The coolest bit was that the clerk wrapped the two books in plastic to keep them safe. I thought that was a really cool idea, and I was impressed by how quickly she wrapped them - like 5 seconds each. I only noticed later that the plastic had the store's logo on it - even better, now I won't forget its name.

I went home via Thai KFC. I wanted to try it before I left. I knew it was a mistake going in. I always know that KFC is a mistake going in, but this was bad. Weak McDonald's style chips, boring chicken "pops". A waste of time, what with bonchon around the corner. I regret it immensely.

I went home and chilled out for a while - it's been a big week. I've walked a good 75km, according to my phone. I finished Growth Mindset and wrote some notes, listened to music, charged my phone, lazy stuff. Josh texted me and I met him at my station. We went back past Siam to a station near the tailor.

We got bonchon chicken for a late lunch/early dinner. It was great - best I've had in Thailand, and way better than the culinary abortion I had for lunch before. I distracted Josh with a game I've been playing :

It's a programming game, which is 100% Josh's thing. He hated it, but couldn't keep his hands off it. It's based on Assembly, a really old programming language. The first one, pretty much. It frustrated him because it wasn't like normal programming, but I thought it was a good challenge in thinking iteratively.

We walked to the tailor from bonchon. I cursed that I was going to be fat for the fitting. Josh could barely move - we got 18 pieces of chicken and he had 12 of them. I was still full from my mistake earlier.

On the way, I told Josh how frustrated I was with Bangkok's footpaths. There are lips and cracks and broken bits of concrete everywhere. Manhole covers that could drop you into a sewer if you're not careful. Just look at this:

That's a tame one. I've lost count of how many of these things I've tripped over. Or on trick edges to the footpath - step down onto the road, expect it to be level, nope there's another step down, don't you look smart. Or, walking down the steps from the skytrain, again, expect it to be level. Nope! It's on a raised platform, enjoy your trip, see you next fall.

Josh told me to not stand on the manholes.

We walked past some massage girls. I finally saw first hand what Josh has been talking about all week - they pretty much screamed at him. "hey handsome man," they'd say, and he'd say "no thank you," and they'd say "come over here sexy," and he'd say "no thanks". It looked uncomfortable for everyone involved.

I don't know if I Iook less approachable, less wealthy, less naive or less desperate, but none of them have reacted to me like that. Maybe it's because he's 6'3".

We got to the tailor. The suit was almost ready :

Looks awesome - the vest turned out exactly how I wanted it to. The tailor is going to courier it to the hotel tomorrow after some last minute changes. I hope.

We walked back to the skytrain, but the foot traffic was terrible. Peak hour in Bangkok is insane compared to Melbourne. We couldn't even get onto the platform last time we tried. So, we sat down at Starbucks and shot the shit for a while. I showed him my notes on Growth Mindset, and we argued about that a while. He talked about how he was going to do some of Bill's contract, then renegotiate. Seemed reasonable.

We headed home around 8 - our earliest night this week, but it's been a big one for both of us. Josh is moving to a new condo tomorrow. The train ride back was bittersweet - it's been a fun holiday. We both said while walking around that there's very few people either of us could hang out with for a full week without going crazy. He's probably coming back to Melbourne next month though, so it's not too bad.

I'm going to miss him when I head back. But I'm not going to miss much else. Bangkok is -

I guess I'll save my thoughts on the city for when I'm safely no longer in it.

I found this set of signs on the street today and it made me laugh:

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