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peonycats · 8 months

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RACEBENDING NATIONAL PERSONIFICATIONS: A TREATISE

DISCLAIMERS:

I AM NOT WHITE, I AM A POC. I am not writing this because I’m a butthurt white person who gets pissy when someone makes my white faves nonwhite and thus unrelatable to me for ‘some’ reason.

I AM NOT PERSONALLY ATTACKING ANY INDIVIDUALS WHO RACEBEND OR IMAGINE THEIR NATIONS TO HAVE A DIFFERENT ETHNICITY THAN WHAT THEY DO IN CANON; ON A SIMILAR NOTE, DO NOT ATTACK SUCH INDIVIDUALS FOR ME. This is a discussion of general fandom trends and a larger phenomenon, the issue I am talking about cannot be solved on an individual to individual basis.

I AM NOT TRYING TO STOP FIRST NATIONS PEOPLE FROM RECLAIMING THEIR NATIONS. As I am not First Nations myself, I would not wish to deny what these individuals emotionally and mentally reap from reclaiming their nations.

I AM NOT THE “POC AREN’T ALLOWED TO HAVE FUN AND SEE THEMSELVES IN THEIR FAVES” POLICE; I AM NOT YOUR MOM, DO WHATEVER YOU WANT. Again, this is a discussion of fandom trends and a larger phenomenon. I think it’s almost always worth examining why we do the things we do and the reasons behind a trend.

I AM NOT AGAINST RACEBENDING IN GENERAL. This is specifically an essay on racebending in nationverse Hetalia and other personified nations fandoms.

PREFACE

As stated before in my disclaimers, this essay is not intended to be a condemnation of individuals who participate in racebending. Rather, I intend to make a macro-critique of wider structures and patterns. For this reason, this essay is not accusing anyone engaging in racebending of holding any specific belief. I cannot stress enough how much I do not know you, the hypothetical reader who engages in racebending.

Again, my intent is to critique wider structures and patterns.

This essay is a conversation I would like to have with other POC and other marginalized groups, especially POC based in white, Western countries. Thus, I ask people not included in the above groups to refrain from weighing in on this.

ALTERNATIVE GOOGLE DOC LINK HERE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Difference in Reception for Racebent versus Non-Racebent Characters

The Inherent Politicism of Personifying Nations

The State of POC Representation in Hetalia

The Assumption of Interchangeability in POC Experience

The Myth of Multiculturalism

“It’s Just Fandom, Why Are You Trying to Control POC Who Just Want to Have Fun and Want to Represent Themselves?"

Conclusion

The Difference in Reception for Racebent versus Non-Racebent Characters

I will start this essay off with an acknowledgement of my station in the Hetalia fandom and how it uniquely equips me to talk about this topic – I am very fortunate to enjoy a follower base that primarily follows me for non-Western characters, whether they be canonical or my own original characters. As someone who mostly posts non-Western characters, I can confirm that there is a wider disparity in reception between drawings of my white characters and non-white characters. The following example is not from myself, but from the artist miyuecakes who similarly focuses on predominantly non-white, non-Western countries. You can see there is a drastic gap in the amount of notes that post focused on five nations considered to be non-Western versus a drawing of Female America.

Stating this fact of the fandom is fairly noncontroversial. I would also assert that the following statement is equally true, however given recent reception, is far more controversial: “There are far more instances of racebent canonically white/Western characters, which receive far more traction than their non-racebent counterparts, whether canonical or not.”

I want to make clear what my statement is not saying:

Racebending is only done by white people seeking to score clout and diversity points without having to care about canon non-white characters. In fact, the vast majority of racebending in the fandom is done by POC looking for representation; given the amount of white canon nations compared to any other nation, POC who engage in racebending see it as a way of “evening” the disproportionate overrepresentation of white countries.

POC who engage in racebending are doing so to score clout and diversity points with a white audience. Refer to my above point.

Racebent canonically white characters are met with no controversy or racist/bigoted vitriol. It is fairly well known that there have been multiple harassment campaigns, particularly on Twitter, against artists and editors who’ve engaged in racebending even outside of the Hetalia fandom: see the Black Anya edit, Thumin’s artwork and resulting hate. POC being visibly POC in online spaces will always garner backlash.

On a similar note, I am not including POC cosplayers cosplaying white or light-skinned characters in my definition of racebending. Being angered by POC who cosplay characters of a different complexion is blatantly racist; anyone who is angered by this has nothing of value to add and not worth arguing with.

I am a bitter artist who is mad that I don’t receive enough notes on my posts with non-racebent characters compared to posts about racebent white characters. As stated earlier, I am grateful for the audience I’ve cultivated who specifically follow me for non-racebent non-Western content; I am also more than aware that my content is not what people who seek out racebent content are looking for, and have no interest in changing either my content or their tastes. The last thing I would wish to do is to label POC creators who engage in racebending as “the enemy” and POC creators who don’t as “my side.”

With that out of the way, I bring up this observation because I think it’s worth asking ourselves, POC specifically, the following questions: Why? Why is there this discrepancy in frequency and reception between these kinds of characters and content? Why do people racebend in lieu of focusing on existing POC and creating their own non-white characters?

The easy answer most would give is because white characters are over-represented and given more screen time and attention in the canon, so people, especially POC, will become attached to them and create variations of them that hit closer to home for them; this is especially the case if you are a POC who has had experiences living as a minority in a Western country. Some POC may also use racebending as a way to subvert national myths that have historically excluded people of color for a variety of racist, imperialist reasons. I know I used to subscribe towards a depiction of non-white passing America and Canada for this very reason.

In the rest of this essay I would like to examine and critique the practice of racebending national anthropomorphisms traditionally and typically depicted as white in the context of Hetalia and by extension other media involving similar premises. This essay argues that while racebending may be harmless for most other anime, Hetalia – by virtue of its content centering real life nations – carries political implications that are not necessarily appropriate.

I stress again that I can’t stop you or what anybody in the Hetalia fandom does. I do not have that kind of power nor the will to do such a thing. All I ask is for you to listen to the following with an open mind, and if there’s only one thing you take away from this, I hope it’s to realize that POC in particular have valid reasons to dislike racebent depictions of white nations; holding such a stance does not make them anti-POC representation and somehow no longer POC and instead, a member of the white oppressor class.

The Inherent Politicism of Personifying Nations

Firstly, I repeat that a series about personified nations is deeply political and every creative choice carries political and socio-cultural ramifications, whether intentional or not and made by the creator or the fan. Even if you mostly interact with Hetalia in a depoliticized context, others may not, and given that nationverse Hetalia is about personified nations, this is perfectly reasonable.

Let us look into the canon material of Hetalia- It is shown that nations on average have close ties to their governments, viewing them as their bosses and carrying out actions for them. We are shown that there are nations who go against the orders of their governments, such as Germany; this does not mean all nations follow in that pattern, however, and there are many who are in lockstep with their governments and their actions.

Therefore, for individuals whose ethnic groups and nations have suffered great harm from oppressor nation-states (Philippines v. United States, Indonesia v. Netherlands, India v. England), it is not irrational for them to be unsettled by their oppressor being racebent- especially when said oppressor nation-state is depicted as being the same ethnicity as the very group(s) they marginalized. This is uncomfortable for multiple reasons:

There is an implication that a member of a marginalized group possibly chose to take part in atrocities and misdeeds that the said marginalized group historically not the major perpetrator behind. In more egregious cases, a member of a marginalized group willingly chose to commit atrocities and misdeeds on a large scale against their own group.

The oppressor state personification was forced by their government to commit these grievous acts of harm against members of other marginalized groups/their own marginalized groups; thus, the personification of the nation-state, the people, has little to no culpability as an oppressor, and is instead made into a fellow victim of their own government.

This deflects blame from the embodiment of the state of being an oppressor. The suggestion here is that the state is somehow completely separate yet intertwined with the government – it was simply the government who perpetrated the crimes… the people were just unwillingly complicit. This can come across as an erasure/rosewashing of the very purposeful policies used to harm and disadvantage colonized/oppressed groups.

This can also erase the fact that in many cases, the people gave the government’s actions their tacit approval whether it was through whole-hearted enthusiasm or apathy towards the suffering of others.

In the case that the racebent nation’s minority ethnicity was historically involved in such acts, this involves highly sensitive conversations about minorities’ complicity in crimes and assimilation into the white/majority order (e.g. Chinese and East Asian settlers in Hawaii after America’s illegal annexation, Korean collaborators with the Japanese annexation of Korea, African American soldiers in the Philippines); these are extremely touchy subjects that should be had within the relevant ethnic groups, and should not be appropriated by outsiders, particularly white people, especially for fandom purposes.

(I will discuss insiders racebending nation-states to their ethnic group that have suffered mistreatment and oppressed by said nation-states in “The Myth of Multiculturalism.”)

Additionally, racebending may end up justifying those very same crimes, especially in the case of settler colonialism. For example, during French rule of Algeria, the French government began a program of confiscating Algerian land from indigenous Algerians and giving them to French and European settlers. Over the course of two centuries, more and more land was taken away from indigenous Algerians, forcing them to move to the margins of society, where they were barred from accessing employment, higher education, and the other societal amenities.

Many would be able to identify how personifying Algeria as a white, French individual would be erasing indigenous Algerians and implying that the French settlers represent all of Algeria. However, conversely, making France an Algerian man is also playing into colonial French propaganda. The French viewed Algeria as part of France and the French homeland itself, unique even among other French African colonies, and made plans to make Algeria a full-fledged French province, or department. To make the national personification of France Algerian then, is to suggest that this belief was and is correct, that the Algerians are a part of the colonial core of France, even if the intention is to represent the modern day Algerian diaspora in France.

IMPORTANT: I will expand on the politics of representing diaspora populations in the section “The Myth of Multiculturalism.”

Given all of these reasons for why POC may justifiably react negatively to a racebent white nation personification, some may argue against these with:

“Why is it that when the nation is white, they never have to deal with any of these heavy discussions of imperialism, bigotry, oppression, etc, but when they’re racebent they suddenly have to? Why are they suddenly politicized when they’re racebent?”

My response to that is that they were politicized, even when they were white because the act of personifying a nation is inherently political; to ignore a white nation’s history of oppression is a politically charged move in of itself. Are we really depoliticizing POC when we racebend a white nation and try to maintain that same ‘depoliticization’ and omission of historical oppression but this time for a POC face? To racebend a white nation is to refuse to contend with the contradiction of transforming an oppressor class to the very group they marginalize - making racebending an inherently political act. It is not necessarily that whiteness is unpolitical but rather that an active refusal to deal with this contradiction makes the political implications much more obvious.

Additionally, this rebuttal raises another question- Were we to completely forget about a character’s background as the personification of an oppressor state and the political weight of that, would that truly solve the problem of POC being politicized? I don’t think so- In the current world we live in, POC are always political. But exclusively racebending oppressor states makes no attempt to depoliticize non-Western POC states, creating a divide between POC that get to be “depoliticized” and POC who don’t based on their proximity to the West.

The State of POC Representation in Hetalia

Some would argue with the points of my last paragraph saying that I am not including POC who both engage in racebending but also create non-Western POC OCs; if equal attention is given to both, there would be no division between racebent Western POC who get to be humanized and non-Western POC who don’t, right?

To answer this we must acknowledge wider trends in racebending in Hetalia. Consider the following: When somebody has a North African! Romano, how many other North African nations (canon or non-canon) do they show appreciation for? Create content for? Expound the same amount of mental and creative energy for? Furthermore: If they do have another North African nation(s) they create content for, are they allowed to exist as their own separate beings, and not purely exist to be North African! Romano’s tie to North Africa?

Chances are, Romano is reduced to being the token brown character in a largely white cast and isn’t allowed to ever exist without whiteness surrounding him. This is a very diaspora experience, but I find it unfortunate that in a piece of media that enables us to explore any number of cultures and experiences over all of time and history, we (and I’m including myself as another POC who grew up in a primarily white environment) are unable to imagine ourselves outside of this setting and celebrate ourselves without having to exist against a white mainstream. Stories about white engulfment are allowed to exist and should be told, but why is this so common? Why do these stories disproportionately outnumber POC stories where whiteness is minute or absent?

As my audience is intended to be mostly POC, I will not elaborate on the following scenario too much, but I will ask us to scrutinize the ethics of it. What about cases where white individuals racebend some of their white favorite characters and position them as POC representation in lieu of actually focusing on POC, non-Western nations, canon or not? Does this not have implications about what kinds of POC and diversity are considered more palatable and appealing?

Furthermore, when another North African nation does exist alongside racebent Romano, their character and depiction is almost always heavily dependent on their relationship to Romano, a Western nation. This still perpetuates the same inequality I was talking about earlier where POC nations are humanized based on their proximity to the West, whether because they personify a Western nation or happen to have a relationship with a Western nation.

We should not just be talking about having “more” non-white representation, but also the quality of it. It is completely understandable why some POC may not be satisfied with the representation most racebent content provides, even beyond the reasons outlined previously; this type of representation excludes POC who do not have a relationship to the West, and is still largely focused on the West.

IMPORTANT: I am not saying that contact with or influence from the West makes POC somehow “less POC” or that stories from Western-based diaspora are a “diluted” form of representation. I will expand on this in the section “The Myth of Multiculturalism.”

“Well if it’s not good enough for those POC, then they should just mind their business and make their own representation! There’s plenty of non-racebent content out there!”

Many POC do exactly that- creating their own representation without racebending. However, as established earlier, racebent white characters receive far more attention and feedback compared to canonical non-white characters, despite the fact that both depictions fulfill the purpose of “representation.” This can be especially disheartening in a fandom that already heavily tokenizes canon POC nations, whether it’s India being presented as the “nanny”/surrogate parent in Commonwealth group art or Seychelles as the “adopted child of color” in FACES family. To POC content creators, it feels insulting that the wider fandom, rather than developing POC canon characters (or taking advantage of the source material’s potential by making OCs) and viewing them as representation, the fandom chooses to racebend Western nations and celebrates them instead.

I want to make clear again what I am not saying with that statement:

POC who engage in racebending are doing so to score clout and diversity points with a white audience. Again, it’s a fact that the vast majority of racebending is done by POC looking to create their own representation.

POC who engage in racebending should all go stan Seychelles and Cuba instead. This is an extremely individualist solution to what is a wider phenomenon. I do not blame POC based in Western countries for feeling disconnected to the few POC nations we have in canon.

Racebent POC content is more popular than content of non-racebent white characters.

What I am describing here is how an audience (the Hetalia fandom) receives two creations, both made by POC in the pursuit of creating more representation, and the difference in reception. The difference, it seems, is that the wider fandom deems certain kinds of POC representation more appealing, and thus, certain kinds of POC worth focusing on.

The Assumption of Interchangeability in POC Experience

Earlier, I mentioned that one of the possible reasons for POC to engage in racebending is the desire to see an iteration of their favorite character that is closer to their own reality and lived experience. Therefore, some may choose to racebend a white character to embody a marginalized minority in the country instead so they can share more experiences with the formerly white characters.

Here, I will not be dealing with the practice of POC racebending their own country to their own ethnicity, which is the focus of the next section. Instead, I will be delving into the practice of POC racebending another nation to embody a minority (one which they do not belong to) for the purposes of ‘putting themselves in their interpretations.’ I argue that to do this requires assuming a certain level of interchangeability between POC experiences.

First and foremost, POC are not a monolith- we lead drastically different lives depending on our ethnic backgrounds, where we live, our socioeconomic class, our political and racial context, and etc. Therefore, we cannot presume that our experiences of marginalization mean we’ll always succeed in properly representing other minority groups elsewhere; in fact, the goal of projecting our own life experiences onto them means that there will be an obstacle to properly representing these minority groups.

Take the following example: Imagine a Chinese-Malaysian individual greatly enjoys the character of Spain. Wishing to better relate to him, the individual racebends him to be also Chinese. However, a great deal of historical, cultural determinants and nuances separate the experiences of Chinese people in Spain and Chinese people in Malaysia. There are similarities, yes, but this Chinese Malaysian cannot hope to properly represent the Chinese population in Spain if their primary goal remains self-projection. Now imagine that our Chinese-Malaysian individual wished to racebend England to be Indian; an even wider gap separates the experiences and history of Chinese people in Malaysia and Indian people in England, making it even less likely that our individual will succeed in representing the experiences of Indian people in England.

Another point to consider is that attempts at racebending certain national personifications to represent minorities in the country end up erasing representation for the majority population of the country. For example, there has been a historical Japanese community in Peru that dates back to the 1800s and made a large impact on Peruvian culture. However, it would still be inappropriate to make a Peru OC that is mostly Japanese in race, because besides just being not representative of the 99.9% of non-Japanese Peruvians, it would also be taking representation from Peruvian mestizo and indigenous peoples, who make up over 80% of Peru’s population.

This isn’t even taking into consideration cases where nations are racebent to personify ethnic groups that do not have a numerically significant or historically significant population.

“So what if it’s inaccurate? I just want to self-project onto my favorite character!”

If that’s your response, then I encourage you to read the section “It’s Just Fandom, Why Are You Trying to Control POC Who Just Want to Have Fun and Want to Represent Themselves?” where I address assertions of "fandom is not activism" and similar points.

For now, I will ask you to consider the feelings of those very minorities you are ostensibly representing, even if your primary intention is to project your own experiences onto a character. Chances are, they also suffer from little to no representation that depicts them in inaccurate and unflattering ways.

Hetalia is a media property supposedly centered around exploring and learning about other cultures, but so often fails to accurately and sensitively depict many cultures and nations. Should we not show them the grace that canon Hetalia fails to provide?

The Myth of Multiculturalism

Multiculturalism is typically defined as a celebration of a nation’s ethnic diversity. This is generally considered to be a good and progressive value to have, but a closer and more critical look at multiculturalism in practice suggests that not even a value directed at xenophobia is immune to in-group out-group biases. When enacted by the state, multiculturalism is less an acceptance of diversity as it currently exists (especially in regards to non-indigenous ethnicities) and more an assimilation of these “foreign cultures” into the dominant national one.

For example, Singapore has built much of its national identity as a “multicultural” society. This is shown through government policies in language and education, where the languages of the 3 ethnic groups (Chinese, Tamil Indians, Malays) are all officialized and the government promotes education for ethnic minorities in their mother tongues. However, the label of “multicultural” hides the reality of power inequality between the various ethnic groups. Minorities face pressure to display literacy in the language and culture of the Chinese majority for greater societal acceptance and inclusion. In fact, the assertion that Singapore is a multicultural society that treats its ethnic groups all equally, is often used as a cudgel to shut down any allegations that Singapore fails to live up to this national identity. As my audience is intended to be predominantly POC, especially those living as minorities in Western nations, members of my audience are of course familiar with insistences of “But Canada/United States/etc is a melting pot society! Racism isn’t a serious issue, POC can’t be treated poorly in those countries.”

By racebending a national personification to be part of a marginalized population, this is making a political statement by asserting that the marginalized population is in fact a part of that nation, and has always been, despite historical exclusion. The act of racebending is an overly idealistic and uncritical agreement with multiculturalism, without considering how the value actually applies in practice. It rosewashes the reality and existence of cultural imperialism enacted on immigrant/outsider groups.

Racebending can therefore accidentally act as multicultural propaganda, especially when the invokement of multiculturalism is used to stamp out valid critiques of othering and racialization by ethnic minorities. (E.g. “Singapore can’t have problems with racism against Malays! Singapore himself is Malay!”)

IMPORTANT: If you want to argue that nation personifications are not inherently representative of their government, refer to the section, “The Inherent Politicism of Personifying Nations.”

“Well, POC based in Western countries will naturally feel more connected to their Western countries than their homelands, often because of those policies intended to break their connections to their homelands. Why can’t they racebend to reclaim? To feel connected to their Western countries in contrast to their realities of ostracization and othering?”

I have already discussed why other POC (those affected by a white regime’s actions) would be uncomfortable with the implications of tying a POC/marginalized group with said white regime’s misdeeds in the section “The Inherent Politicism of Personifying Nations” so I will not discuss it here beyond mentioning it.

Firstly, I must acknowledge that this argument is fundamentally an emotional one. I do not want to deny what POC in Western countries emotionally derive from racebending the nation-state, even as a fellow POC based in a Western country. Instead, I will approach this argument from another angle.

I ask the following: When trying to represent our experiences as diaspora and minorities, why is personifying a diaspora/minority community not a popular option? The act of choosing to personify a community is inherently political, and we can use it to empower ourselves as diaspora or minorities. For example, by personifying diaspora communities, we can acknowledge that diaspora experiences are different enough from those in the ‘homeland’ to warrant another personification, and also avoid accidentally justifying colonial possession of those ‘homeland’ states.

Additionally, by personifying diaspora/minority communities, we can 1) better reflect our unique day-to-day experiences of being racialized and separated from the mainstream, 2) avoid many of the earlier uncomfortable implications of minority collaboration in majority perpetrated acts and condoning colonialism, and 3) stress our independence and autonomy despite the efforts of the state and majority population to take that away.

To put it another way, why are there so many stories of minorities striving towards being included, or from another angle, subsumed, into the white nation-state despite its frequent rejection of them? Again, what does it say that these narratives of “inclusion into a historically white nation-state” disproportionately outnumber POC narratives where whiteness is minute or absent?

IMPORTANT: I am not singling you, the hypothetical POC diaspora individual who engages in racebending, out. I am asking about wider patterns of representation in media.

“But by personifying diaspora and minority communities separately from the personification of the nation-state, isn’t that basically saying that minorities will never be seen as part of the nation-state? That we will never be included when people think of our nation state?”

I believe this response takes too narrow a perspective on what multiculturalism is and “being part of a nation-state means,” and thus views having separate personifications as ‘justifying’ or ‘promoting’ our exclusion from the nation-state when it may not be the case.

Look at it from this way- Is it not also problematic to have only one avatar for, say, America, and thus imply that there is one true way of being “American?” Having multiple American personifications, in contrast, is a more true depiction of the realities of being American, and more true to the values of multiculturalism; it instead suggests that there are many ways to be American, that we don’t have to be subsumed into the mainstream to be considered “American.”

“Isn’t that functionally the same as different interpretations of the same nation-state coexisting? Why can’t fans just all have a different Alfred/America specific to their own experience who are all equally considered American?”

Once more: I am not trying to stop anyone from doing anything. That’s not within my power to do so. I agree with this statement that largely, having multiple American personifications and multiple America/Alfred fulfills the same purpose of showing that to be American means something different to everyone. However, the reason I advocated for the former approach is because it achieves the same goal with a lot less uncomfortable questions and unique benefits (minority autonomy), as detailed above.

“It’s Just Fandom, Why Are You Trying to Control POC Who Just Want to Have Fun and Want to Represent Themselves?”

First off, I am presenting this essay as a conversation with other POC because I want to make it explicitly known that my position here is not that of a white person seeking to silence POC and lecture them about what is and is not good for them. Secondly, it's because I want to talk about racebending as it currently exists in the Hetalia fandom, something mostly done by POC who wish to represent themselves and create the diversity missing in the source material. I believe pointing out that white people who are uncomfortable with POC characters or only racebend for self-centered reasons likely have a racial bias is obvious, especially to other POC, and wish to progress the conversation beyond this. This is why my discussion on racebending is moving beyond white bias.

As part of centering this as a discussion among POC, I am also assuming good faith from my interlocutors, that their desires for representation and diversity are sincere, and that I don’t look down on them. I hope then, that this assumption of good faith can be afforded to me as well- that my interlocutors believe me when I say that the last thing I want to do is control POC, as a fellow POC.

Having gotten all of that out of the way, let's address some rebuttals to the arguments I've made thus far.

"Who are you to decide what kind of representation resonates with POC?"

You're right. I can't decide what kind of representation resonates with POC. Again, I am not intent on controlling POC, and again, I recognize that many of the arguments in favor of racebending white nations come from an emotional place; I can’t control how POC feel, even if I wanted to do that.

However, it's precisely because of this that I've made my arguments based on factors other than emotional ones, such as the political implications and questioning the inclusivity racebending provides us with. POC joy and happiness is crucial in the face of a system that seeks to crush and suppress us. But from one POC to another, it's not much of a discussion if your response to my points is simply, "Well, it makes me feel represented and happy, and that's what matters most." If we argued based on that, we could go all day. Am I not a POC myself? Do the feelings and happiness of POC who are uncomfortable with racebending not matter? For that matter, who are you to tell the people whose families and people have been historically affected by white imperialist states to stop disliking racebent versions of those imperialist states?

For white people, it is easy for them to shut down racebending, because they don't understand the experience of never seeing yourself in any form of media. I have asked white/non-marginalized people to refrain from this discussion for that very reason. But in exchange for that, we should be able to discuss the ramifications of racebending national personifications, and look deeper at the arguments for and against racebending.

"You're taking this too seriously. People giving more attention to racebent versions of Western countries versus non-racebent POC countries doesn't say anything deeper about someone's political beliefs. People just like the silly anime about personified countries, and that silly anime happens to give more attention to the canonically white countries."

To a certain extent, I get this rebuttal. We cannot solve racism or the privileging of the global north by reblogging Hetalia fanart of Seychelles and Cameroon. Everything I have described here is symptomatic of much, much larger issues that affect billions. But it's symptomatic: fandom is not immune to the ills of wider society. We do not shed our innate biases and prejudices when we enter supposedly apolitical spaces like fandom. In a series about personified nations, our prejudices and biases are naturally magnified because the source material’s nature is deeply political, dealing with history and personified nations and states.

Again I ask: What does it mean that the POC representation made by POCs is so often limited to racebending canonically white characters, in the context of the world order we live in where proximity to the West automatically confers certain privileges?

IMPORTANT: Refer to the section “The Myth of Multiculturalism” if you respond to this with “Are you saying depictions of Western-influenced POC experiences are a lesser form of representation?”

If that fails to convince you, and you still believe the inequality in reception between racebent and non-racebent nations doesn’t say anything deeper, I respond with the following- Isn’t it still worth it to try and show the same support and energy to the non-racebent, non-Western countries and their creators, regardless of whether that content speaks to you or not?

One last time, I’ll clarify what I’m not saying with that:

Stop liking America and Russia and England. I repeat, I cannot control what POC like or feel or do, and I repeat, what characters you personally like is a very individualistic view on a wider, systemic issue.

In the section “The State of POC Representation in Hetalia,” I discussed how disproportionately giving to racebent countries versus non-racebent non-Western countries is not an intersectional form of POC representation, and fails to address the underrepresentation of non-Western countries and cultures given the global colonial hierarchy. My above statement is therefore saying that if we POC want to achieve a more intersectional form of solidarity and representation, to create a fandom that’s more non-Western friendly, to generally support all types of POC creators, we should not neglect certain kinds of POC content just because it doesn’t personally resonate with us.

You don’t have to. Fandom is not activism. For many, fandom is an escape from the grim realities of the outside world. But in a media property all about exploring other countries’ cultures and histories, can we not strive for the spirit of the source material, and be a little more open-minded in exploring other countries and other forms of POC representation? Even in this miniscule way?

CONCLUSION

I would like to conclude this essay on the matter of irithnova, and the recent controversy she’s been embroiled in for stating many of the points I have made. Yes, our tones were different. But no amount of harsh tone warrants the outrage and rather racist backlash her post received. irithnova has been one of the most active voices in the Hetalia fandom speaking out against racism, from the exclusion of POC in j-ellyfish’s character polls to myrddin’s behavior. However, as soon as she, a Filipino, expresses personal discomfort with certain depictions of a nation that’s caused great harm to her people, other POC were the first to get mad at her for seeing the political implications of a POC personified America, to the point of trying to deny her reality as a feminized and racialized member of the diaspora living in a colonial European country and calling her functionally white.

POC solidarity doesn’t mean we have to all agree with each other, or even like every other POC. But I want to note the irony here of people committing the very act they accused irithnova of doing- telling her, a Filipino, that she wasn’t allowed to criticize racebent depictions of America, thereby trying to control POC.

If your response to this is “Well, sure irithnova didn’t deserve the harassment, but she was still wrong to criticize racebending because it wasn’t her place!” I would like to remind you of the following points:

Scroll up to the top and read this essay again. Regardless of tone used, there are valid reasons for POC to dislike and criticize depictions of racebent countries.

irithnova, as a Filipino living in the West and has Filipino relatives in the USA, is intimately aware of the nature of American imperialism and racism against POC. The United States promised to help the Philippines achieve independence but instead robbed it of its sovereignty, putting down resistance to its takeover and instituting American rule because they viewed Filipinos as “lesser” and incapable of governing themselves because of their race. If it isn’t irithnova’s place to feel uncomfortable (and thus criticize) racebent America, then whose is it?

Finally, I want to emphasize one more thing- First Nations/Indigenous individuals have a unique relationship to the colonial settler states that occupy their land. Like I’ve said so many times, I cannot tell any POC how to feel or what to do, and even more so in this case because I myself am not First Nations/Indigenous; I’ve only provided arguments about the pitfalls of racebending and the merits of other forms of representation. But just as how I cannot tell you what to feel or do, nobody can stop other POC feeling put off by a racebent America.

At the end of the day, despite the who-knows-how-many paragraphs I’ve spent articulating the reasons against racebending canonically white nations, I cannot stop anyone from racebending nations if they wish to. But I do hope readers come away with a better understanding of the flaws of racebending, and the benefits of looking away from the Western mainstream and looking elsewhere to represent our experiences as diaspora and minorities. If you’re someone who engages in racebending, but still chose to read this 6K word long essay on the Hetalia fandom, I can’t express my gratitude enough for hearing me out. Honestly, anybody who read through this entire post deserves an award- Thanks for reading 💖

#jazzed about getting to use the word 'treatise' for the first time #hetalia #// disk horse #// racism #// colonialism #alternative title: a 6000 word long defense of irithnova

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twisted-wonderland-shenanigans · 6 months

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Hello! I've never sent an ask to anyone before, so I don't know if I'm doing this correctly! But I seriously love your aus, so I just had to try <3

For your monster!au, do you think that there is a difference in the kinds of food they eat between monsters and humans? The kinds of food, seasoning, preparation, how it's cooked, even the degree to which something is cooked. Especially with how you mention in another post about how some species can't eat certain foods.

Like, does Yuu (female pronouns please! Or gender neutral if you prefer) come to their world and have to figure out how to cook with ingredients she's never seen before, or does Yuu just start to cook things in ways the monster bois have never seen or thought of before? Would the boys enjoy it? Would it be safe for them?

Or do you think there wouldn't be much of a difference?

Also, out of curiosity, which species would you say has the most diverse diet?

I seriously love your page! Keep up the amazing work! Stay safe and stay healthy!💙💚😃

Thank you for sending in an ask! You did it correctly, don’t worry c: And thank you so much! I’m glad you love the AUs so much to send something in! ;;v;;

To a degree, the food being cooked in the Monster!AU would be different depending on the species. I know I’ve pretty much beaten the grape incident into grape juice already, but while some may be okay with eating it, other students can’t due to it being toxic (I looked it up, and cranberry wine is a thing. That means Crewel can still enjoy a glass of wine, and it’s possible that the monsters/ghost chefs would use it in cooking instead of grape-based wines!). The same could be said for certain herbs and spices that we take for granted being something that can make them sick or can be just as toxic as grapes, like onions or garlic. Chocolate can still be a thing for some species, but carob is the main alternative that’s available—which means Yuu will still have access to it at least!

There’s also an extra sensitivity to citrus based scents. Using citrus juice to cook something like ceviche for example would be difficult, as not many can even get past the smell even if the taste itself is amazing. Funny enough, there’s actually this one manga I came across called “His Majesty the Demon King’s Housekeeper” that actually touches up on this fact as citric acid is one of the few ways to clean certain stains off surfaces, but most of the cleaning staff in the mansion couldn’t stand the smell of the orange peels until it was turned into a powder form by the demon king. It’s such a cute manga, and has lots of helpful tips too, so it’s a win-win!

If you can’t tell by now, Slice-of-Life manga and stories are my jam. I love when they touch up on things that we don’t normally think about and put a spin on things! >v<

Anyway, as you can imagine, if (and that’s a major IF) we were strictly to focus on the ingredients we know in our world, recipes would have to be tailored to be suitable to each species to avoid causing issues while ensuring that each student has the right nutrients needed to sustain their bodies. This would have resulted in having to find alternatives that are safe for students to enjoy while still being able to ensure safety to avoid severe allergic or otherwise dangerous reactions to having something they shouldn’t.

That would be one helluva menu to try to cater to when you can’t use certain seasonings to flavor things. Good thing Crowley has those ghost chefs to work with the menu, because I certainly couldn’t fathom the mental gymnastics of creating that kind of menu! @.@

But to put it in perspective, it’s like trying to give chocolate to a cat or dog when we have alternatives such as carob as I mentioned earlier. Or how people who are lactose intolerant have almond or oat milk or even goat milk as an alternative, or how there are gluten-free alternatives for those who can’t have it due to celiac disease. Just to name a few examples anyway, since I know there are people out there who have restrictive diets due to health reasons.

Thankfully, these guys aren’t entirely missing out on flavor since in Twisted Wonderland—much like how they have unique flowers and plants such as mandrakes right around the corner—I’m sure there’s no limit to the types of ingredients that can be used to cook with! In fact, I’m reminded of this manga that I’ve stumbled across that I gotta start from the beginning known as “Delicious in Dungeon”. Basically, it’s where the characters are traveling in a dungeon and they not only find monsters and creatures to hunt and eat (not like there’s a grocery store or market inside a dungeon), but also demonstrate how to prepare and cook using the ingredients found in the dungeon as well as the creatures themselves. It just looks so delicious whenever they show the results and what you can do with the extra stuff you can’t eat!

But I digress. ^v^;

This means that Yuu will have lots of new ingredients to try and explore in various dishes, and this also means new opportunities to learn new recipes! Imagine what you’d be able to learn during the Master Chef event too!

So…what happens when you have a female human who has excellent taste buds and a love of cooking and also loves to cook for others? You’ve got a whirlwind of ingredients flying around and waves of delicious smells wafting through the air leading many drooling students investigating the source (and trying to sneak a bite).

Iron-stomach gourmet Grim is the one who gets to enjoy Yuu’s experimental cooking at first. After all, why shouldn’t he be able to enjoy the spoils of his hench-human cooking for him? He’ll try guiding her with his knowledge of flavors and what tastes good, and she learns which seasonings to use for each dish whenever she talks to Trey or Jamil or even Azul. His bragging of being the first to try true human cuisine wound up drawing in the first years, many curious to see her in action while others hoped to try and sneak in a free meal.

Imagine if she cooked two-three meals a day: mini waffles and giant pancakes that are several inches thick? She’s adding various fruits and berries and pairing it with the perfect syrup! Homemade chicken or beef soup? Simmering with noodles boiled to perfection! Roasted pork and beef stew? Veggie stir-fry? Baked fish? Burgers? Pizza??? Nothing is off the table when Yuu is in the kitchen! And don’t get started on the different desserts she could whip up with Trey!

Soon enough, word would have spread around the school about the human’s delicious cooking and it won’t be long before Yuu has visitors around every meal time.

/////

Yuu:*whisking eggs as the rice cooks* “Breakfast’s almost ready, Grim!”

Grim: “Hooray! Omurice cooked human-style~!”

Knock-knock-knock!

Yuu: “Come in!” *pouring the egg into two skillets before looking up* “Oh, hey guys!”

Ace: “Hey, Yuu! Whatcha making?”

Yuu: “I’m making omurice. I asked the chefs in the cafeteria how to make it and…wait…” *narrows eyes* “Did you guys come here just to get breakfast?”

Deuce: *sheepish* “Sorry, Yuu…we just really like the way you cook.”

Yuu: *sighs and smiles* “It’s okay. Next time, just let me know ahead of time so I can prepare more, okay?”

Grim: “Don’t even think of taking my portion!”

Ace: “Aww, is that any way to treat guests, Yuu?”

Yuu: “Grim, be nice.”

Grim: “What?! That’s not fair!”

Deuce: “I can wait my turn. Is there anything I can do to help?”

Yuu: “Could you chop up some more veggies and measure out the rice? Ace and Grim can have the first two, then we’ll have the next batch.”

Grim: “Stop encouraging them!”

Ace: “Oi! As if you don’t eat the food at the Unbirthday Parties!”

Grim: “Oh yeah?! Well I-mfh!?”

Ace: “Mfhg!?”

Yuu: *dusts hands after shoving two meat buns into their mouths* “There will be no fighting in my kitchen, you hear me?”

Ace and Grim: “Yeth m’m…”

/The Next Day/

Yuu: *standing in the doorway with a bowl of pancake batter* “…are you here to socialize or do you want to try some of my cooking?”

Silver: “Fa-I mean, Lilia…decided to cook breakfast today. He wanted to try and cook some old human recipes, but…”

Sebek: *looking mildly nauseous* “I did what I could to protect Lord Malleus, but…human food should not look like that.”

Yuu: “Ah, okay. Come on in. I’ll get another batch ready, so help yourself to the ones on the table! There’s fresh fruit and whipped cream there too.”

/////

I have a feeling that Yuu would be getting a lot of visitors from Diasomnia on days that Lilia does the cooking, and I’m sure she’ll be more than happy to feed them too! 😌

As for the “food bribes”…well, it’s kinda hard to argue with the results. Especially when they can be very valid trades. Yuu wants a specific utensil to make that special treat or meal? You’ll get first dibs on the finished dish!

Oh no, Yuu needs help with this potionology assignment and made too many cupcakes to eat by herself! If only someone could come and help with both…

As you said, there are many possibilities of how Chef!Yuu could take advantage of their knowledge and skill around the kitchen! And before I forget, if I had to choose which species would have the most diverse diet…I would have to say it’s a tossup between the basilisks and the faun and satyr species. Basilisk can essentially eat nearly anything without much issue as their stomach acid is strong enough to even digest rocks and crystals, whereas faun and satyr can eat most any plant and fruit or vegetable imaginable and can tolerate some forms of meat without issue. Though if you really want to enhance the dietary variety possibilities, Epel and Trey would have this in the bag as these two are hybrids of two different species, making them truly omnivorous like humans!

#twisted wonderland #twst #twisted wonderland monster au #twst monster au #ace trappola #deuce spade #sebek zigvolt #twisted wonderland silver #twisted wonderland grim #twisted wonderland yuu #twst yuu #fem!yuu

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convolutedblasphemy · 17 days

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Characters that are aroace according to me and several other people who have approved these headcanons. Explanation for who they are under the cut + brief summary of the source material because if you haven't consumed these yet, you should! (I need more people to talk about them with)

1. Toshinori Yagi: He's the main characters' mentor and No. 1 Hero in the anime and manga "My Hero Academia" which follows the story of Izuku Midoriya, a high school student who was born without powers in a world where about 80% of the population has superpowers, as he attends a prestigious hero academy to become a licensed superhero. Watch the show.

Aroace level: has never shown romantic or sexual attraction to anyone in canon, has however shown what I interpreted as sex repulsion on a few instances in bonus material. the aces in the fandom crowd around him. it's a popular headcanon.

2. Monkey D. Luffy: Protagonist of One Piece, which follows his very, very long journey across the world with his friends / pirate crew in order to find the One Piece, the most legendary pirate treasure, and become the pirate king. Watch the show.

Aroace level: basically as aroace as you can make a character without explicitly using the terminology. crap ton of evidence to support this both in the source material and in stuff the mangaka said. like genuinely, I consider Luffy an aroace protagonist.

3. Sampo Koski: A playable character in Hoyoverse's turn-based gacha game "Honkai: Star Rail" where a group of people travel on an intergalactic train to different worlds in order to get rid of the Stellarons, known as the "Cancer of All Worlds". He's a jester-type character who scams people. Play the game.

Aroace level: Personal Headcanon with no canon evidence but somehow the aroaces on Tumblr crowd around him.

4. Michael: A timeless being who oversees the neighborhood in which the show is set. The story follows Eleanor Shellstrop who falsely got sent to The Good Place (basically heaven) after she died and is now trying to learn to become a better person so she can stay there. Show is hilarious, teaches you about philosophy and has a lot of unexpected twists and turns! Watch the show.

Aroace level: Listen I do not know a single person, ace or not, who knew what "aroace" is and walked away from this show not under the impression that Michael is aroace. He's a very aroace character. You'll understand if you watch it.

5. Dr. Robotnik: Antagonist of the Sonic The Hedgehog movies. Watch them.

Aroace level: Do not come for me with this one because he gets shipped with his assistant and there's a lot of people saying they're undeniably gay and in love with each other but this is a character who's struggled with alienation a lot and openly mocks the average person's socially expected life; the headcanon basically writes itself.

6. 9th Doctor: Listen, I wouldn't know how to summarize Doctor Who even if I tried but it has time travel, aliens and chaos. Watch the show.

Aroace level: The Doctor in general is a very asexual character (even said by Matt Smith himself), and this one in particular just struck me as very aro as well. He kisses another character in the show but I did not register that as romantic at all...

7. Benjamin Linus: An antagonist (you will go back and forth between loathing his guts and loving him. also he gets beaten up a lot. like an almost comical amount) and pretty major character in "Lost", a show that follows the passengers of a plane crash after they landed on a mysterious, seemingly deserted island where strange things are happening. Watch the show, it's fantastic.

Aroace level: Personal Headcanon. Doesn't have a love interest or displays sexual attraction in a show where a lot of characters do. Singular attempt at romance looked more like display of his mental health issues than genuine romantic attraction.

8. JB Cox: A master thief who's simultaneously very cunning and also very stupid. Basically live action version of Sampo Koski. He's from the series "The Hardy Boys", which follows the teenage brothers Frank and Joe Hardy as they try to solve the mystery behind their mother's murder. Contains murder mystery, crime and secret societies. Watch the show, I have no one to talk about it with. Not a single person.

Aroace level: Not a singular display of romantic or sexual attraction but also he's the only notable character of his age group in this show. Lives in a secret hideout / apartment and spends his life breaking into buildings and stealing things for people who hire him. I cannot look at this man and imagine him as someone with a love life. I just can't.

#toshinori yagi #aroace #asexual #aromantic #aro #ace #monkey d. luffy #sampo koski #michael the good place #the good place michael #9th doctor #doctor who

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incorrect-riordanverse · 6 months

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It's really disheartening that Rick Riordan stance on the war I understand that he wants to be neutral on this stance but in my opinion by becoming neutral he only worsening the issue as many Palestines are dying that are mostly children, how the majority of Israeli are supporting the Genocide of Palestine, and how the government is trying so hard (but miserably failing) to justified the genocide. I will hold him accountable for what he said on this issue as during this period the choice is basically "you are with us or against us."

Part of me wishes he will realize what he said was wrong and understand the bigger issue that plays at hand. I will criticism for his actions as how can a man who promotes LGBTQIA and representation of minorities and disabilities in his books turn a blind eyes to Genocide of people. However we can only wait and see on his next move.

One last thing about your previous you said you don't group Riordan with other authors where do you would group him with? Also this is more on an opinion base answer but many people are boycotting companies that support Israel there as been another post on Twitter on boycotting authors. Rick Riordan happens to be one of them. Do you believed that he should be boycotted with other authors or he should be properly educated and apologized for his previous statement? If you believed he should be boycotted what do tou have to say to those who might have the mentality of "separate the art from the artist"

thank you for this ask, and i completely agree with you! it is extremely hypocritical of him considering what he preaches for in his books. i think he’s convinced he has properly addressed the apartheid by using very vague language that can be applied to anything, and in doing so, he’s addressed nothing really.

your first question on who i would group him with— probably other authors who are doing the exact same as him in their virtue signalling. i always like to link my other blogs to each other, so i don’t think it’s a secret that i have a red queen account and i’m pretty passionate about that. unfortunately, victoria aveyard is another fantasy author who has literally wrote a whole four-book series on the uprising against oppression but is now playing neutral in her address of the apartheid. rebecca yarros is in the same boat, although i haven’t read ‘fourth wing,’ fans have said there are large themes of oppression within the book. so if i had to group riordan it would probably be in the ‘i-like-to-write-about-it-for-profit-and-praise-only’ group.

in terms of boycotting, i think that’s a great idea! i would also like to remind everyone that the percy jackson tv show is coming out in a little over a month, but disney is a huge industry financially supporting israel as well ($2 million in funding), which is obviously far more damning than a poorly written address by one person. there is a boycott happening for disney as well— and the pjo show will be released on disney + . i implore everyone to not watch it on that platform!! personally i will be pirating it online (idk if i’ll get into trouble saying that here but lol oh well), because im pretty sure the boycott is only for withdrawing financial support, not simply consuming media.

i feel like separating art from the artist only works if that artist is… like, dead, and you’re using that art and its values as a historical insight to how the world was during its time. you can still like a piece of work that has a problematic artist, you can engage with the work (to an extent). but separating art from the artist barely works because either:

to engage with the art is to support the artist in some way, so that artist is making money based on your interaction with that (particularly in the case for singers and streaming of songs)

that artists’ views and values are so rancid that it’s literally embedded within the text itself. to ignore it is harmful.

harry potter is my all-time favourite example to use, because jkr is the scum of the earth, and her views are entrenched in her work. a lesser known example is sarah j maas and her books (she’s also not as dogshit as jkr, but then again, its not hard to be a better person than her). i’m not going to bag on these people for liking things by problematic people (would be hypocritical of me), i just think it’s cowardly not to address it when you come across it, or at least admit to it. to simply write things off as ‘separate to the artist’ is like purposefully turning off your critical thinking skills.

on whether boycotting or an apology is enough— if riordan did apologise and used specific language and not the nonsense he had in that blog, expressed his remorse for his ignorance and then actually did or said something to support the people of palestine then, yeah. that’s fine and that’s how we learn ig. but he should educate himself, too many activists, people from the arab community and especially palestinians are expected to be all-knowing and to educate everyone else on an already draining and personal tragedy. it’s been exhausting for me, i can’t imagine what they’re going through. if riordan (or anyone) needs to be educated, he should do it himself, and (at least in my opinion) i don’t think the info is very hard to find now. it’s just about weeding out the misinformation.

i think boycotting is a good idea as of now. it can serve to be a catalyst for self reflection for many people. also, as much as i hate most online discourses, talking about it online needs to happen. i don’t want these authors to forget, for a moment, about the ignorance they posted online during a time of international crisis.

#sorry if this is so messy. its 3am where i am rn #i finished two exams today and my brain is deaddd #but ty for this ask!#i have sooo many opinions about the whole ‘separate the art from artist’ and when to boycott something #because usually im actually not a big fan of boycotting. i just dont think it works most of the time (at least recently)#boycotting as a way of ‘canceling’ someone is something i think is a bit silly for instance.#esp when people gonna forget about what that person did in like. two months at most #but i feel like this issue (especially for corporations funding millions of dollars into genocide) is big enough to warrant a call for-#-everyone to abstain financially from things #like it isnt someone saying some dumb shit online. theres a whole country being wiped out.#unfortunately so many corporations fund israel. an insidious amount. so just do ur best to navigate thru it #riordanverse #incorrect riordanverse #rick riordan #hoo #heroes of olympus #percy jackson #pjo #trials of apollo #toa #ask #anon #free palestine #percy jackson disney+#pjo tv show #rewriting

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babacontainsmultitudes · 7 months

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Let's Talk About Lincoln And His Dads, Okay?

I think people claiming that Lincoln and Grant "aren't so different after all" because, like everyone else in the show, they both have blood on their hands, have mostly missed the mark on where the core of Lincoln's issues with his dad(s) lie in the first place.

Moreover, I'm tired of people insinuating that Lincoln's troubles pale in comparison to Normal's or Scary's or Hermie's, and I'm tired of people saying that Lincoln is overreacting, or that Lincoln is a hypocrite for calling out his dad's behavior, or that he is in the wrong for setting boundaries, or that he's ungrateful, or that he's responsible for ensuring his dad's emotional wellbeing and not the other way around!

*breathes* So let's. Let's finally talk about Lincoln and Grant (and Marco also him).

[WOAH THERE! Hey you, yeah you, this is a long-ass post, mhm, it's one of those, so please keep that in mind before venturing below the cut. Maybe grab yourself a drink or a bite to eat first, yeah? Additionally, sorry the transcript stuff is a bit messy in this one, tumblr has a 30 image limit and well, I had to find workarounds. Also, I haven't yet added alt text for the transcript screenshots- I plan to when I have a bit more energy for it, but I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause in the meantime!]

Part 1/4: "Honesty is hardly ever heard, and mostly what I need from you"

Lincoln is certainly a pacifist at heart (in more recent times important examples of this include Lincoln's refusal to harm Scary in the Swallows household, as well as Lincoln being the only one of the teens to successfully avoid using violence in front of d00d during their most recent standoff with Willy), and in good paladin fashion functions as the group's moral compass the majority of the time.

Despite this, Lincoln's morals are not so simplistic and idealistic as to not differentiate between different motives for violence, nor does he view acts of violence in and of themselves as signs that a person is "evil" or "irredeemable". He can for example, see the difference between the acts of Willy and those of the kiddads, as he tries to explain when confronted by the other teens on the matter:

In fact, even after Grant tells Linc all of this during the incursion:

Lincoln's primary goal is still to save his dad first and foremost, then offer him the room to explain himself, without immediately chalking him up as a bad person because of what he has done.

Lincoln certainly doesn't approve of Grant and his violence, though he can understand that things are seldom black and white. But the killing is far from the only issue here. In fact, it's not even the main issue.

Grant creates a foundation based on trust and accountability whose importance in the Li-Wilson household is hammered in from the very first episode.

And we see throughout the early episodes of the season just how strongly Lincoln believes that Grant would never lie to him.

Then of course the incursion point encounter happens. There are several elements of this encounter that we will gloss over for now and go back to later, but of immediate importance is the fact that this interaction serves as direct confirmation for Lincoln that his dad has in fact been lying to him his entire life.

Additionally, he learns that Grant possesses a deep hatred of himself, wants to die, perceives himself as "broken beyond repair", and fears that Lincoln will somehow wind up just like him. That's a lot for one kid to have dropped on them, let alone all at once and without warning!

So- Lincoln wants to confront his dad after this both because he wants his dad to explain himself and take accountability for his dishonesty and for his actions more generally, and because he is concerned for his dad's wellbeing.

Now let's look at how Grant has, over the course of the season, responded to Lincoln's attempts to get him to take responsibility for his actions, and talk about his mental health:

The first thing Grant does is pull a classic Wilson "we'll talk about it later". Then the very next thing he does is lie to Lincoln again, now pretending that his plan is to fix things with Erin by offering her a gift (when of course he's actually set out to steal the sun)

Then as a deflection when Lincoln further tries to confront him about the lying, he indirectly equates everything he has kept secret from Lincoln (see the incursion point stuff) to "little white lies" and, contrary to the philosophy he so heavily instilled in Lincoln, argues that sometimes lying can protect the people one cares about:

Which as a point of interest I would like to compare and contrast to something Lincoln says in an earlier episode:

"lies can protect" vs "protecting is also trusting"- anyways moving on,

From there Grant's plan to steal the sun eventually comes to light (heh) and gets foiled, forcing the teens to be the mature ones in the situation and try to negotiate something with Erin. While he is certainly disappointed by everything going on, however, Lincoln's priorities vis-à-vis Grant are still, first and foremost, to ensure that he is safe, and when time allows for it get an apology from him and get him to talk openly about everything he has withheld. At this point in time Lincoln, while obviously angry at his dad, still very clearly cares about his dad and just wants to be able to talk with him without all the lies or deflection or excuses.

Then the teens are backed into a corner when their attempts at negotiation go sour, and ultimately wind up helping Grant steal the sun. Once that is over, Lincoln tries to confront his dad again, now with regards to some of the things he said about himself:

(Do note that last bit especially as it will be of relevance in the next section)

Then after Grant ignores the other teens when they try to talk to him, Lincoln calls him out and once again asks him to apologize, in part for having told Lincoln previously that they were dangerous and that he was not to hang out with them:

(as you might have guessed, Grant does not apologize).

Then it is established that the "zone of truth" in the Li-Wilson household isn't actually a spell but an agreed upon promise between Marco, Grant, and Lincoln to tell only the truth when someone calls upon the zone of truth, further cementing the degree to which honesty is an important Li-Wilson family value. Whilst in the zone of truth, however, Grant beats around the bush with regards to his intentions, and the teens ultimately decide that they do not want him to come along with them to the church of the doodler, as he is untrustworthy, in addition to Lincoln saying that he needs some space for his own sake. Grant then pretends to respect this decision, though he is in fact once again lying through his teeth, and sneaks back on later.

Before exiting the bus for the first time, however, Lincoln tries to get his dad to open up a bit about his feelings. Grant's response?

Time after time after time, Grant refuses to confront himself and address anything from what occurred at the incursion, and in fact adds on to everything with a whole new slew of lies, and with each failed attempt at connection the rift between Lincoln and Grant increases. And Lincoln, true to his values and how he was raised, is not a hypocrite in wanting openness and accountability from his dad. Lincoln is not and has never acted like he is perfect and beyond making mistakes, but Lincoln takes responsibility for his actions, even when the degree to which he is actually complicit in the crime at hand is questionable. He writes a letter to the families of the firemen because he feels responsible for their deaths. He apologizes to Taylor for lying to him about the bracelets and helps not only Taylor but also Nicky escape the clutches of the FBI, even though the consequence of doing so could easily have been his own death. When he thinks he may have inadvertently lead Hero on, his immediate decision is to take accountability for it and clear things up. All of this in addition to consistently apologizing to his friends when he thinks he may have hurt them for one reason or another.

This is also an important thing to consider when we talk about the place of violence in the show. Yes all the characters, including Lincoln himself, have had to kill at some point or another for the sake of survival and protecting the ones they love. But Lincoln does not use the blood on his hands to justify violence in future decisions. Despite the fact that he has had to kill before, Lincoln, as mentioned in the beginning of this essay, continues to try incredibly hard to act as pacifist whenever he can, choosing to protect those around him with as little collateral damage as possible. Does he have a perfect track record? No! Does he still try his damned hardest to choose kindness and mercy? Absolutely! And this is an important distinction especially between Lincoln and Grant.

And then Grant kills Terry. Now Lincoln must shift his priorities towards protecting his friends from his dad, but in running after Scary still finds himself forced to confront him. So what does Grant have to say regarding his actions?

Both Lincoln and Scary are right to be furious with this response, Terry Jr. is dead and all Grant can offer in response is what is essentially another excuse. Grant's mental state does not absolve him of responsibility or accountability for his actions, which as Lincoln points out (and repeats later) consist not only of the singular choice of shooting Terry, but of every choice he has made before and after that. "I'm sorry your dad is broken" obviously doesn't bring Terry Jr. back, but perhaps more importantly demonstrates that Grant is still not willing to reflect on his actions any further than that and work on himself moving forward.

So Lincoln does what is perhaps the most difficult thing he has done in his life, and disowns his father. This is not a rash, impulsive decision. As established, Lincoln has given Grant many chances throughout the season to address his behavior and at least fucking *talk* with Lincoln about his mental state, but he refused. He refused, not because he means harm, but because Grant truly believes himself to be fundamentally broken and irreparable, and doesn’t see the effect that his own suffering is having on his son. This, in addition to continuously failing to take Lincoln seriously and treat him as more than a little kid, both in failing to listen to Lincoln's voices of concern as well as in disregarding any of his proposals to go about things differently (whether that means avoiding violence, trusting rather than lying, or both).

So when Lincoln says:

"It's not about what you just did now, Dad. It's all your choices. You chose me. There wasn't some passion, or, or just a kid. You chose me as your kid, knowing you were broken. You can't take that back. And… I love you, and I hate that you made me love you, when… you are who you are and you knew it."

This isn't Lincoln saying that Grant should not have had a kid because he is mentally unwell or has trauma, it is Lincoln saying that Grant continues to make choices without acknowledging his agency in those choices and the effect they have on those around him, instead choosing to pin his mistakes on his perceived brokenness without any resolution to do something about that.

And before you say, "but Grant didn't have a choice in becoming Lincoln's parent since he saved him from the Titanic":

This simply isn't true, as strictly speaking there was nothing stopping Grant and Marco from putting Lincoln up for adoption if one or both of them did not feel themselves to be ready or capable of taking care of a child and

Ignoring Lincoln's exact phrasing, "choosing to be a parent" is not just about the literal choice to have a child, it's about every choice you make before and after that. It's choosing not to express your concerns over parenthood with your spouse, which based on Grant's track record:

-Is definitely in-character for him. Conversely, in Marco's case, it may be choosing not to ask your partner about their feelings on the matter (because, really, asking Grant on the spot while literally on a sinking ship if he's okay with adopting the baby they just found is kinda rough). It's choosing not to go to therapy (not that we know whether Grant specifically did/does or not but all the same). It's choosing not to apologize when your child is upset with you because of something you did. It's choosing not to take them or their friends seriously. It's choosing to lie instead of trust. It's an endless amount of choices that Grant (and Marco) made every step of the way!

As a final note for this section, what's particularly unfortunate is that even with Lincoln's disownment, Grant still has failed to show any major signs of change. Note this telling exchange (from episode 40):

Grant: I-I understand that. I just thought. Just something that just occurred to me. Hey Dood.

Dood: Yeah?

Grant: Why did you kill those two guys?

Dood: Because I love you so much and I wanted to protect you.

Grant: Okay. That's all I wanted to know.

In which Grant is still making excuses rather than owning up to or apologizing for anything or striving to change his behavior in the future. What's great about Grant's "point" here too is that the two guards that d00d killed were absolutely unnecessary deaths, so this example does anything but work in Grant's favor.

Part 2/4: "My mother hates her body, we share the same outline"

But this is only part of the problem. As aforementioned, we learn early on and see repeated on multiple occasions that Grant thinks ill of himself to the point of believing that he deserves death, and does not want Lincoln to be anything like him.

This affects Lincoln in two major ways. Perhaps most obviously, it leaves Lincoln greatly concerned for his dad's wellbeing, which in turn acts as his main motivation for trying (and failing) to get Grant to explore and explain those feelings. Additionally, however, Grant's self-loathing also has a passive but deeply damaging effect on Lincoln's self-worth. The most important indication of this is when Lincoln says:

"Okay. Look, Scary, I just... You know what? I don't even care. I just needed a friend and I don't know… I don’t know what you're going through, but… no, my dad always said you can't love somebody unless you love yourself, right? Well, last time I asked him if he loved himself, he… He doesn't. So… I don't know, so maybe he doesn't love me either. And you seem to know what that's like, and, you're my friend! You're dealing with these things and I'm just here. I just, I don't know! I don't love myself either! I don't know! But I know that more people will die if we can't do this together, and you're the only person, like, in this group— I mean you guys are, I mean— [sighs] Look, you can go. I'm not going to stop you. You go if you want to go. I'm done."

Also classic Lincoln move to say he doesn't care then proceed to hug Scary through an Eldritch Blast. In this essay, on why people misuse the word "apathy" in applying it to Lincoln,

Though the issue comes up again in a less obvious but very interesting way when Lincoln says that:

Which I assume probably seems pretty out of left field. To explain a bit what I'm trying to get at here, consider the following scenario:

Your parent, who you care about immensely, possesses certain qualities (say, idk, intrusive thoughts or mood swings or delusional thoughts or *something*) that they possess great shame over, and truly, wholeheartedly believe makes them "evil" or unlovable or even outright deserving of death. Of course, you do not believe that your parent is any of these things, it hurts to see that they feel this way about them-self, so you try your best to support them, even if you know deep down that you are their child and this should not be your responsibility. Your parent does not see the effect that their mental state is having on yours, does not take your voices of concern seriously, and mostly leaves you feeling like you are talking to a wall.

This hurts already, but it gets worse. You are your parent's child, and you are human, and so you inevitably find yourself with some of the characteristics that your parent loathes so much in them-self. Maybe you have similar thought patterns. Maybe you've made similar mistakes. Your parent doesn't love them-self because of these qualities that you now see in yourself, so how can you be sure that they do not hate you for them too? Do they believe that you deserve to die for these things as well? Your parent obviously assures you to the contrary, after all, they love you more than anything. But your parent fails to offer any meaningful line of distinction between their flaws and yours (after all, there isn't one, not really), and continues to assert that, unlike you, they really do deserve to die. Your parent is a hypocrite, and their reassurance does little to convince you.

Hopefully that makes some sense. With regards to the "dreams about killing my dads" part, mostly what I'm trying to say is that these dreams, while certainly very different from Grant's conscious thoughts about violence, still tread the line of mimicking them to some degree, and Grant's "I deserve to die because of how my brain works, don't be anything like me because that's bad!" really doesn't leave Lincoln with a healthy way to process and interpret this fact about himself, even if these dreams don't actually say anything about who he is as a person.

Anyways all that to say, on multiple levels Grant's unwillingness to even try to love himself and treat himself better has been having effects on his son that he can't even begin to realize, in addition to everything discussed in the first bit.

"But baba," I hear you say, "what about Marco? Why has Lincoln seemingly disowned both of his dads?"

Part 3/4: Three is the loneliest number

Well, I think there's a couple things going on here. For one thing, I think in a sense Lincoln sees his dads as kind of a "package deal", which is to say that from his pov disowning Grant means Marco would have to pick a side, and though it pains him immensely (as we see evidence of on several occasions), Lincoln would ultimately rather give up Marco than have Grant be left alone without either of them, because he will always love and care about Grant, and because he's selfless that way.

Additionally, for a good long while, Lincoln doesn't actually appear to harbor any resentment towards Marco:

However, this later part of the season has brought with it a new wave of disillusionment, and in its wake Lincoln has finally come to question the last major issue characterizing his relationship with his parents: social isolation.

We have known from basically the first episode of the season that Lincoln has lived a very isolated, lonely life, and that the only reason he's even going to public high school now is because he finally convinced Grant to let him:

As a side note, I have seen discussion of the fact that since Lincoln was rescued from the Titanic, it's possible that he was homeschooled solely because he did not legally exist. The above statement from Matt seems to work against this theory, in addition to the fact that if Lincoln was missing legal papers to get into elementary school... That would also prevent him from going to high school. Also, I mean. If you actually were to find an abandoned baby there's a whole legal process you're supposed to go through, and since Lincoln surely wouldn't have any close blood relatives around, that would still leave the possibility for Grant and Marco to adopt him legally if they wanted to (and if they chose not to go through said process, that's kind of on them?). Which isn't to say that this theory is out of the question, but in any case being homeschooled is one thing, whereas the actual degree of social isolation Lincoln goes through growing up is way more than just that, as we will delve into.

Now, we know that Grant eventually puts an end to Lincoln and Normal seeing each other on the basis that Lark and Sparrow are dangerous, which... Itself is actually fair tbh, in particular given what we now know about Hero. Not fair to Lincoln or Normal, obviously, but understandable. Much less acceptable, is the fact that Lincoln actually grows up without any friends his age whatsoever:

We understand of course that the motives behind this extreme social isolation are not malicious or otherwise done with ill-intent, but that doesn't make this even remotely okay! Of course then Lincoln is very clingy and perhaps even territorial over his dads, to the point where one of his biggest fears is his parents having another child who would take some of their attention away from him- they've created an environment in which they are basically all he has!

As a direct result of this, Lincoln gets lonely very easily, and when he finally does make some friends of his own, he will do anything and everything for them, even if it means risking his own life (at least then he isn't alive and lonely!)

This is also why Lincoln is so especially distraught after the loss of Mr. Kicks, a digital avatar whom he considered his best (and only) friend.

Additionally, Lincoln's fear of returning to his lonesome childhood creates an unfortunate scenario in which he cannot be honest with his dads about the fact that he is being bullied at school

Even though that is definitely the case (and in fact we see it first-hand on many occasions), because to do so would run the risk of his dads taking him out of public school, and that, to him, is worse.

Lincoln beginning to view this aspect of his childhood (the isolation but also the over-protectiveness and overbearing attitude more generally) for what it is is why Matt's intros have recently shifted from "schooled at home" to "schooled in prison", in addition to pretty directly saying that high school was like heaven compared to his home life (in episode 40), and I don't think Lincoln is even remotely in the wrong for looking back at his isolation and thinking "hey, even if you had good intentions, that was kind of fucked up actually, and I need to distance myself from you for my own sake."

Not that Lincoln wanting freedom from his overbearing dads is a new thing! I mean apart from what one can logically infer from Lincoln convincing Grant to let him go to public school, Matt does drop a bunch of telling details here and there such as Lincoln's favorite sound being "the silence of being home alone and free". It's just that now is when these feelings are finally starting to come to the surface.

It is also something that Lincoln naturally would hold against both Grant and Marco, because they are both aware of and responsible for this aspect of his upbringing (whether Marco acted actively or as an enabler in the matter notwithstanding- though I would look no further than both Grant and Marco getting red cards the one time they tried letting Lincoln play soccer with other kids to observe how that family dynamic plays out), hence feeling the need to cut himself off from the both of them in order to set a long-overdue boundary. That said, to be honest with you, I really don't think he's actually all that upset with Marco, and would mostly just like to see him again.

If the events of the Titanic help to ease any aspect of Lincoln's frustration, it would be this one. Not in the sense that it magically makes what Lincoln went through growing up okay, but it does still recontextualize Grant and Marco's degree of overbearingness and (part of) why they are how they are, and I absolutely think that Lincoln would have sympathy for that.

So, where does that leave us?

Part 4/4: What remains (+ the case study of Scary)

"But baba," you say, "Grant and Marco are not just their mistakes! They've both done so many things right as parents, and they love Lincoln more than anything!"

I turn to you, tears in my eyes. "I know," I say, "I know, but that does not contradict or erase the fact that they have inadvertently hurt Lincoln in many, many ways, and he has a right to be upset with them, and express that, and set boundaries if he feels the need to."

You sigh. "So do you think Grant is a good dad or a bad one?" you ask.

I shake my head. "He's just... He's just a dad. A dad who's had a rough swing of things from the beginning. He never meant to hurt Lincoln, and I truly believe he's got a good heart, but I want to see him try harder. I need to see him try harder than he currently is to better himself, for Lincoln's sake as much as his own."

Is... More or less how I feel. I absolutely agree that as a parent Grant obviously gives a shit, and my intention here is absolutely not to say "hey actually, Grant is awful!"

As I mentioned at the very beginning of this essay, however, collectively I have found over the course of the season that Lincoln's trauma and struggles have gone severely understated and undermined, sometimes to the point of even turning him into the bad guy or depicting him as acting dramatic for a decision that I think was very brave of him, actually. So... It does feel necessary to me to point out that, as much as I care about Grant and recognize that he's suffered immensely too, he's still made a lot of mistakes over the course of the season, and still has a lot of room to grow as a person.

As things currently are, I would not blame Lincoln if he did not forgive Grant by the end of the season. Do I think that's what's gonna happen? No lol.

If you'll excuse a mini side-tangent, because for now I don't really want to make this a separate post, the mid-season evolution of Lincoln and Scary's relationship is actually a great case study for Lincoln's capacity for forgiveness, in addition to his inability to give up on people:

Tony Pepperoni's murder is, I would argue, an attack against Lincoln most personally (relative to the other teens). Aside from Lincoln having the strongest pacifistic tendencies of the group, it's in his home, it's in front of Marco, as established in the 3rd section Tony Pepperoni, by virtue of having been over for dinners at the Li-Wilson household before, is someone Lincoln knows more personally than the other teens and one of the only people in his life he could have possibly approximated to a friend. Most importantly though, Scary goes behind Lincoln's back in letting Willy out and disclosing the location of the party, and that is a significant breach of trust.

So Lincoln kicks Scary out of the house (and more or less out of the group by extension) because protecting the others from her is the most important thing at that point in time (sound familiar?). For the next bit, Lincoln's behavior towards Scary becomes a juggling act of keeping a close eye on her to make sure she doesn't cause more harm (and yes, it's also when they are meanest with each other), but also keeping a close eye on her to look after her (a notable example of this being that he doesn't leave her behind in the hall of mirrors, even when it would have been easier and perhaps even "beneficial" to do so in the context of the anchor quest).

And yet despite all the mutual hostility, Lincoln without question also fights the hardest to get Scary back. He breaks the pick as a sign of trust (and as Freddie put it: "that's love babeeey") and to show her she's welcome back in the group, follows through on this decision despite the fact that it creates a temporary rift between him and the others (Normal and Taylor) who oppose her return (perhaps a good time to also say as a reminder that Lincoln was the most against letting Willy out in the first place), breaks a door down to protect her from Willy even when everyone else in the house treats him as crazy for doing so, refuses to fight Scary when she goes on the offense, and hugs her through a god damn eldritch blast because he can't let her leave and hurt more people but still cares about her to the point that he would literally choose to die before hurting her or giving up on fighting for her. Like, if that's not love and forgiveness, I don't fucking know what is. This in addition to him encouraging the others to go easy on her and otherwise looking out for her past that point.

So do I think Lincoln Li-Wilson has it in him to forgive Grant in spite of it all? That is a resounding yes from me. Will the events of the Titanic facilitate this if only by painting Grant's situation in a more sympathetic light and showcasing some of his virtues? Totally, I mean, there's a reason Anthony decided to make the arc go this way. But will I be a bit disappointed if this forgiveness comes without any major growth on Grant's part? Also. Also yes yeah.

MM. I DON'T REALLY KNOW HOW TO END THIS ONE TBH. Heh. Well, thank you for one thing, for taking the time to read a post this long. If you're reading this not too long after I posted it I am most definitely pacing around rn going "oh god they hate it!" but uh. Well that's a me problem lol. Anyways, I hope this proves to be at least somewhat insightful? ...Yeah no apart from that I really am struggling to end this properly and honestly I'm real sleepy lol so I'll just say again (whether you agree with the points listed here or not) THANKS FOR HEARING ME OUT Y'ALL AND TAKE CARE.

#dndads #lincoln li wilson #grant wilson #Nervous about this one! Well I always am with these but people can be a bit touchy when it comes to Grant especially so there's that.#dungeons and daddies #but what can you do ig!#marco li #long post #baba babbles #<- tag I still don't use usually smh #second section especially I think is where I'm really like- man I *hope* I'm expressing myself alright and people get what I'm laying down #scary marlowe #suuuuure yeah enough Scary here that I can tag her in I think

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exsanguidus · 8 months

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Controversial opinion; I think Ascended Astarion is the true Astarion. In DnD lore, vampirism amplifies a person's traits for whoever they are at the time they become a true vampire. A Paladin wanting to save people will end up ruling a city with an iron fist to keep people safe. A mage wanting to heal those they love will hurt everyone else to heal them. Astarion was on a journey with Tav - one from being controlled, owned, and tortured to being free, curious, and even powerful. Becoming a full vampire and ascending just amplified that. It forced a self-actualization, not a descent into villainy. I think Ascended Astarion is cannon Astarion. He will always be a vampire, and vampires in DnD are always the amplification of a true self. Without ascention, he is still malleable - but I don't think its what he wants. He wants to be powerful (protected by his own power too - his power being a means to self-preservation), he wants to be loved, seen, and free. Free of hunger, free to walk in the sun, free of Cazador. All these things are true regardless of the path you choose. But, they are all only attainable through ascension. When you ascend Astarion - he gets everything he wants and becomes who he truly is.

I'm going to start this with a disclaimer:

I work in the mental health field professionally and majored in Social & Behavioral Science, which is partly why I felt drawn to Astarion as a sort of case study. Characters rooted in trauma are interesting to me and I enjoy picking them apart to judge how real it feels. I utilize my educational and professional background to essentially guide how I write Astarion on this account.

That said, despite me being a professional in the field, all of what I have to say is my personal opinion and interpretation of Astarion's character based on how I interpret the material Larian gave us and the material that can be found in DND lore. Even in real life, things have variation and not all mental health struggles (getting over trauma is part of mental health) present the exact same way. There are theories that exist to try and explain some trends in mental health studies, psychology, and sociology, but again they're called theories for a reason.

Now, my response to this question will be under the cut and will include spoilers.

I know what lore in particular you're referencing, anon, because I've been going back to it a lot ever since I opened this account.

Astarion very much has an insecure attachment style born from his abuse at Cazador's hands. Specifically, an anxious-avoidant attachment type that leans more towards avoidant when he's first met and then begins to swing more towards anxious as he begins to get closer to Tav and the other companions.

Anxious-avoidant attachment types (also known as the “fearful or disorganized type”) bring together the worst of both worlds. Anxious-avoidants are not only afraid of intimacy and commitment, but they distrust and lash out emotionally at anyone who tries to get close to them. Anxious-avoidants often spend much of their time alone and miserable, or in abusive or dysfunctional relationships. Anxious-avoidants are low in confidence and less likely to express emotions, preferring to suppress them. However, they can have intense emotional outbursts when under stress. They also don’t tend to seek help when in need due to a distrust of others. This sucks because they are also incapable of sorting through their own issues. Anxious-avoidants really get the worst of both worlds. They avoid intimacy not because they prefer to be alone like avoidants. Rather, they avoid intimacy because they are so terrified of its potential to hurt them (Mark Manson, Attachment Styles and How They Affect Your Relationships).

Typically, most studies of Attachment Theory focus on the relationship of parents-children or romantic partners, but it can also be applied to any significant relationship someone has in their lifetime. Attachment styles thus are capable of changing based on new relationship experiences.

If you end up giving him the "good" ending where he denies the Ascension, it's implied in his final dialogue that he's actively working towards having a secure attachment type due to the influences of his fellow worm-afflicted associates - particularly Tav.

I think that it's important to also note that, even if Tav doesn't romantically connect with Astarion, he shows hints of desperately wanting someone to care for him, support him, and love him. He does want to know what sex would be like as something other than a tool, and especially what it would be like to actually want to have it just for the pure sake of enjoying having it.

You have to understand that Astarion doesn't even understand the concept of casual sex or friends with benefits. All those times he had to seduce people for Cazador was not casual sex or a friends with benefits situation. All of them were transactions with a means to an end. He got nothing out of seducing those victims besides the possibility of not incurring Cazador's wrath that night - but even then, there was still a possibility because Cazador was an abuser.

Abusers are incapable of providing genuine safety, but can manipulate their victims into believing an illusion of safety. Often times, they manipulate their victims into this by using phrases like "you made me do this by being disobedient", "it wouldn't come to this if you just did what you were told", and then weaponizing basic needs such as shelter, food, and social interaction. The bare minimum becomes something the victim is expected to be grateful for and viewed as a favor, which means anything beyond the bare minimum is expected to be viewed as a theatrical showing of care and love.

In game, Tav has the chance to hear Astarion tell the story of how Cazador turned him. He basically states that he got attacked by a mob due to a ruling he handed down when he was magistrate and then Cazador saved him and offered him immortality. It can be inferred that in his pre-vampiric days, Astarion had no idea that Cazador was abusive to his spawn.

This is likely because it seems that Cazador is careful about his public image. He doesn't allow his spawn to drink from humans, very likely not just as a means to further oppress them and dampen their potential power they could get from drinking people's blood, but also as a way to ensure there's not just a bunch of people out in the city being bitten and left alive to tell the story - or left dead on the street suspiciously.

He has his spawn seduce and lure people, particularly lower class people that would be harder for general society to realize is missing or just that he knows people who could actually challenge him wouldn't care for (you learn that reading some of the books and notes in Szarr Palace). The only exception to this is the kidnapping of Gur children, but even then it seems to fit his MO as it seems Gur are considered somewhat outcasts from the rest of Baldurian society due to their cultural differences.

It should also be noted that he himself doesn't do these seductions or kidnappings. He specifically chooses spawn to be his lackeys and that's likely so, if shit hits the fan and the spawn gets caught, he has deniability since he wasn't there. It's methodical and thought out to keep as many eyes away from him so he can still obtain what he wants and keep sailing under the radar.

Cazador is this methodical and purposeful as a result of his own trauma, which we learn about from the skull of his master in the dungeon of Szaar Palace. There's one interaction in particular with the skull in which Tav can learn that, at one point, Cazador attempted to rebel and usurp his master. Cazador failed and his master punished him via impalement. Not because Cazador had the audacity to try and usurp him, but because Cazador tried and failed. Cazador's master punished Cazador via torture because his master was disgusted by the fact that his spawn was too weak to succeed in such a plot.

Which brings me to my next point... it's not uncommon for victims of abuse to later become abusers. Hence the term Cycle of Abuse exists. Many abusers who were once victims often have the mentality of either "I'm not nearly as bad as my abuser was, they should be grateful I care enough to not be so bad" or "I survived and it made me tougher, they need to suck it up and let it help them build character" or both. They often fail to view their abuse as abuse and fail to recognize how their experience as abuse victims contributes into making them toxic and abusive to others.

There's many peer-reviewed scholarly articles you can find about the cycle of abuse, but one I particularly find useful is Editorial: Dissociation, and cycles of abuse across generations by David P.H. Jones. It talks specifically about parents and children, but I believe some of the general points made can be applied to Cazador and his spawn, as he crafts a very family-like setting that can be seen in the way that his spawn refer to one another as brothers and sisters.

This would thus make him the father figure, a role exponentially made important by the fact he denies his spawn education on things that could serve to give them ideas or the ability to leave him (for example, Astarion mentions that none of the spawn were permitted to learn about the language of the various symbols around the palace) and he consistently chooses his Golden Children (Favored Spawns) as a means of providing more false security. Do what he says, when he says, exactly how he says and don't complain then you will have benefits. You will be Favored, and to have his favor is the highest honor you could achieve.

Torture is clearly presented as Cazador's primary go-to for discipline. Research has also concluded that trauma has a way of affecting the brain and memories.

Trauma can prevent information (like words, images, sounds, etc.) from different parts of the brain from combining to make a semantic memory. The temporal lobe and inferior parietal cortex collect information from different brain areas to create semantic memory (The National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine).

Astarion mentions a few times in-game that he can barely remember his life before Cazador, if at all, and a huge part of that is likely because of all the trauma Cazador inflicted upon him that exacerbated the natural occurrence of memory loss from aging (if vampires experience natural memory loss from aging, that is). This is most likely true for all of Cazador's spawn.

I say all this as a set up to truly answering you, anon, specifically where you say: "from being controlled, owned, and tortured to being free, curious, and even powerful. Becoming a full vampire and ascending just amplified that. It forced a self-actualization, not a descent into villainy."

I can argue that Astarion did not feel free up until after a decision to Ascend or not was made. And I argue that stance due to some dialogue he can have with Tav here he basically states that the power Ascension could guarantee that no one, even someone after Cazador is dead, could ever come in to oppress and hurt him again. Even with Cazador dead, he has such an intense fear of being enslaved and used that he turns to catastrophic thoughts as justification to why he needs to Ascend.

Catastrophic thinking is a cognitive distortion that occurs when people have a hard time weighing the likelihood of certain outcomes and believe that terrible or catastrophic outcomes—which are highly unlikely—become, in one’s mind, salient and extremely likely. (Tom Zaubler, MD, MPH).

Aside from the Gur, whom Astarion can manage to evade and even kill perfectly fine as just a spawn, we're not presented with any hints of another big bad in the vampire world that could possibly want Astarion. As such, there's not really any tangible threat, but rather a perceived threat that he believes is destined to darken his doorstep at any time.

His catastrophic thinking is a trauma response. His belief that he needs to be the most powerful being in the room as a way to be truly free is a trauma response. Cazador broke him down emotionally, mentally, physically, and sexually to make him believe that he was weak and trapped. Furthermore, that he remained trapped because he was too weak to do anything about it.

You see how this goes full circle into how Cazador's master punished Cazador for not being able to successfully usurp him? It places blame on the victim, allowing shame and helplessness to root that the abuser can manipulate. We know that Astarion definitely feels shame because he tells Tav that. For most of his dialogue until the boss fight, he's constantly bringing up that he did what Cazador wanted and acted obedient because he had no choice.

This is true, he had to act in self-preservation to survive and unfortunately that meant he had to be subservient. A few dialogue choices you can have your Tav pick can challenge Astarion and say he could have still tried, to which he'll rightfully tell Tav that Tav has no right to judge him for the choices he made to survive.

When Astarion encounters Sebastian in the dungeon, its made pretty obvious how much guilt and shame he truly feels. Furthermore, that for all Astarion's protesting and exclaiming that no one has the right to judge him, a part of him did believe that he didn't do enough to try and escape enslavement. A part of himself blamed himself and believed he allowed himself to be abused when, in reality, he was put in a horrible situation with very limited options. He did the best he could in the moment, with what information he had in those moments.

I also want to argue that who Astarion is when we meet him isn't his true self. It's who he had to become in order to survive Cazador. Astarion doesn't even know who his true self is because he didn't have the opportunity to explore his own likes and preferences. Cazador molded all of his spawn because he had a specific purpose for them.

Not only that, but since Cazador would have to more directly deal with these spawn since he used them as lackies, he also would have molded them to behave in ways to his preference so that he wouldn't find their presence unbearable and feel inclined to murder them out of annoyance. This is also where the Favored Spawn being separated and set on a pedestal comes into play. Those who could please him and play to his wants and needs had better benefits. If all of the spawn are acting in self-preservation, they would want to be favored and thus would want to adapt themselves to things Cazador liked and approved of.

This would mean learning to be cruel to those less fortunate and not doing anything as charity. This is the reason why Astarion approves of some questionable decisions Tav can make. Astarion learned his ideals and morality from Cazador because he had to so he could know how to please Cazador and stay in his master's good graces. After a while, even if you started off disagreeing, forcing yourself to act a certain way can become a habit that sticks with you. You convince yourself to enjoy it too so it's easier to swallow.

Astarion craves power because he knows that power is the quickest, easiest, and - what he believes - most effective way to prevent him from having to use that method ever again. It's logical to want power to solve that.

You said in your ask: "He wants to be powerful (protected by his own power too - his power being a means to self-preservation), he wants to be loved, seen, and free. Free of hunger, free to walk in the sun, free of Cazador. All these things are true regardless of the path you choose. But, they are all only attainable through ascension. When you ascend Astarion - he gets everything he wants and becomes who he truly is."

In the most literal of terms, yes, Ascension gives him all of those. However, since the basis of him believing he needs power to be free is rooted in fear, that's not actually really freedom. That is still his fear ruling over him.

There's a stark difference in what someone wants versus what they need. He wants power, to be seen, to be loved, and to be free. What he actually needs is security, stability, support, consistency, empathy, and autonomy. The things he wants is what he believes will solve the empty cups of what he needs, and he believes that because the only example he had on how to act to get what you want - until the events of the game - was Cazador. He literally had no other example of how to get your needs met except through selfishness, cruelty, force, manipulation, and abuse.

Again, I reiterate. The Astarion we first meet is not Astarion's true nature. Astarion's true nature was corrupted by his abuse from Cazador and the subsequent trauma that followed. If it had been his true nature, he would have happily been Cazador's subject because their true natures would have been in alignment.

It only becomes his true nature if he allows that trauma to define him and decides that he needs to embrace it rather than fight it. That is then what gets amplified because that fear that roots those wants becomes amplified.

Honestly, it's impossible to say what would be canon for Astarion because there's too many factors.

Studies have shown that having more supportive and positive influences, even if its later in life after leaving the abuser, tends to work in favor of the victim breaking the cycle of abuse. As such, I think that if you make a Tav who's core values are autonomy, consent, second chances, and redemption and somehow manage to get high enough approval that he'd even consider caring what they think; then its more likely that Astarion would reject Ascension due to observing how much softer, kinder, patient, and merciful Tav is.

But if its a Tav that has no interest in getting to know him beyond the surface or Tav doesn't exist at all, I honestly think he would end up going through with Ascension. Mostly because, to me, it seems like he didn't really bother to have more than surface level interactions with the other companions and the other companions really only ended up getting to know him better as a result to Tav managing to get past his masking. He does not lower his mask on his own accord, only after certain things are done and said by Tav.

Unfortunately, I just don't really think any of the other companions you can pick up in-game would really be able to provide support and determined consistency in the same way that players can make Tav. Hence I don't think he'd end up caring enough about any of them to ever start to think that perhaps freedom can be defined differently than the way he initially believes, and would view Ascension as the only right way to get his needs fulfilled.

#hc ; in one's blood #long post #bg3 spoilers #cw: trauma #cw: abuse #penned by grim ;#askbox ; blood oath

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skippyv20 · 1 month

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Skip, Julie here. I worked for 43 years in fantastic jobs. Some as an employee, in HR, and in Senior Management. My employers were very well known Companies or Government. They had sick leave policies where employees from CEO to newest employee were entitled to medical leave and privacy of all medical information.

As a Manager I was aware of some very serious medical issues and we offorded those people complete privacy. Time to heal was dependent on their medical team despite how much they might have been needed in the workplace (perhaps being the only person with authority or highest level skill to deal with something vital).

A couple of these medical issues dealt with very serious surgery plus complications, and convalescence to deal with consequences of how their bodies or lives were changed and the mental processes they had to go through to understand and accept the changes.

Under no circumstances would I have ever thought it necessary to inform the other employees what was happening with the ill employee other than to update the return date. These people worked closely together but knew the value of allowing the one who was ill the time and space to fully recover. My contacting the employee for an update on whether they needed us was their choice to make, not mine or the company.

Princess of Wales is a senior member of a firm and a much loved member of a family. In her case she has a world wide family who care that she has been seriously ill and as family members we just want her to fully recover physically and mentally from her ordeal. We care and I think that says so much about how highly people around the world think of her.

As a senior member of the firm her bosses are aware of her illness and prognosis and have given her sick leave based on medical advice. I know the taxpayers of the UK keep up the mantra of BRF works for us, we pay them. Ok they are shareholders in the Company and they have an interest in ensuring the Company is providing the service they expect from it. The Company is BRF but no Company provides health information on senior employees except the CEO for obvious reasons. The company continues to operate even if a very important senior staff member is unwell.

My personal view is Catherine has been through a major abdominal surgery that has immediate and long term consequences for her. For HER, her husband and her 3 children. She does not owe any of us an explanation or an update. She loves her job and she does it brilliantly. She is totally loyal to King and Queen, her parents, siblings and the Commonwealth. She will never intentionally cause harm to her husbands family members.

People need to give her the same space we would all expect if we were seriously ill. I know people want to know what happened to her but really it is none of our business. Our role is to allow her time to fully heal so she can return to her role in the Company as soon as possible. No doubt she is already working behind the scenes.

I’m sorry this is long winded but I feel for her. 20 years of trying to please everyone yet when she needs some help people turn on her some will be because they are worried others for their own reasons. People need to send a private message of support but otherwise let her heal.

Princess of Wales, Catherine, God bless and keep you and your family fully protected and return you to full health We await your return, with patience, to your essential role for the Monarchy and we look forward to seeing you with your beautiful family vase soon as you feel you are fully recovered.

This is a lovely, thoughtful post Julie…no not too long. I greatly appreciate the time and your experience you have shared with us. I am quite proud of the fact that the people that come to this blog, are sensitive and caring and express nothing but support for Catherine and her family. People are so concerned with “accountability “ these days….people are simply forgetting that behind the public life….is a real life going on, and people are dealing with all the same issues as everyone else. The old “walk a mile in my shoes” comes to mind! Thank YOU again Julie!🙏🏻❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

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pathfinderyderss · 1 year

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Heads up! The user barbex is a proshipper (supports romanticizing abuse in fiction).

Hi! So, I apologize for my delay in responding to your message - I have had a lot of thoughts and wanted to make sure l was expressing them in the best way possible.

I want to be honest, when I first read your message, I didn’t know what pro-shipping was, but I do know @barbex --I've been following her for the better part of a decade and she is an excellent author and l enjoy her views on the Dragon Age lore (and her views on Anders). I've also done more than a few of the prompt months that she's put together.

With all of that said, I wanted to better understand your viewpoint and see what it is that is defined as part of your block list. So, I hopped on your blog! I found your blocklist and the items you've listed as egregious enough to report users and as a former Literature Major, it saddened me to see such Puritanical and Orwellian views being broadcast with such vitriol.

The first thing I want to address is that in my fifteen plus years in fandom I have always subscribed to the “Don’t Like, Don’t Read" mentality. I am unafraid to block people on this website for a single take I don't agree with, and with that I am a FIRM supporter of accurate community labels as there are many things that I myself do not enjoy or want to read - so my blocked tags are plentiful and the blogs I block are many and that curated experience is why I do not get involved in any sort of fandom drama.

I implore you to do the same. Fandom can be such a wonderful, constructive experience when you surround yourself with like-minded individuals. A dear friend of mine reminded me of the phrase, ”No Good Fandom, Only Good Friends” and nothing could be more accurate. Your tiny corner of the Fandom is an amazing way to flourish socially and mentally; however when your energy instead is spent on searching for others with ideological differences the experience instead becomes a witch hunt full of dog piling and negativity.

Now, on your blog, I noticed that you bemoan that you are unable to have a conversation about Fandom/Purity Culture/Fanfiction and I feel like this is an important topic to discuss so l am going to indulge in this against my better judgement, and at the end if you don't like what I've said, l implore you to block me as well.

My primary issue with your block list is that it derives from anti-intellectualism and a puritanical view of fandom. Which, if that is how you want to experience fandom, that's fine, but publicizing it is beyond ridiculous and leads back to my earlier point about witch hunts and dog piling.

Based on your list, your primary concerns in your block list stem from the following topics: rape, incest, pedophilia- including predatory age gaps and abuse. And I wonder; do you devalue fiction in the same way?

The first thing on your list that caught my attention was your adamant disapproval of the Thanatos/Zagreus ship in Hades. Is this just a general distaste for all Greek/Roman mythology as all of it could meet your block list above? Does Disney's Hercules get a pass due to the inaccuracies in the retelling — does the Hera/Zeus relationship get a pass because it isn't explicitly mentioned? And does it matter that it is a more inaccurate retelling of the myth?

In that same vein; are stories like Jane Eyre (which contains both a predatory age gap and a horrific example of a mentally ill character) or Wuthering Heights (which contains incest and abuse) not worth telling to a modern audience because they show these things? Are we forgoing media literacy and critical thinking now because these things glorify the worst parts of humanity?

And regardless of if it is a piece of classic literature or a piece of modern fanfiction making the decision for others that they cannot read these things due to them being "bad” or "wrong" or "shameful" is no different than banning books. And you devalue the readership of these pieces of literature by saying that they are unable to critically think for themselves and find the value of an individual piece of fiction.

I emphasize again, YOU as an individual do not have to view or interact with this material if it makes you uncomfortable, but I beg you not to police others in an Orwellian fashion over the media they choose to produce or view. Use the block button and blacklist tags you don't like or make you uncomfortable - that is what they are there for. Instead, talk to people who share your views but do not turn this into a witch hunt or an NC-17 purge that we've seen so damaging to our communities in the past.

All of this is to say; find joy Fandom — whatever that may mean for you and let others do the same.

I hope this was informative.

- Ryder

#chats with ryder #long post #fandom culture

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melatonin-melanin · 5 months

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menhera as a movement and how it can connect to race

most members of the menhera subculture tend to have one goal in mind, and it's to be able to improve their mental health one way or another. for those unaware, menhera is a mental health movement originating in japan, where the term was originally defined as "someone who seeks mental well being." you can learn more about it here.

a large aspect of the menhera subculture is creating art in order to vent your struggles. this art is expressed most commonly through mediums such as fashion, painting, and music. any topics are acceptable to create vent art from, and often there will be motifs related to the author's trauma. however, over time, menhera has been watered down to containing mainly medical motifs in creations, as opposed to the original intention of being an outlet for a vast majority of issues that people may struggle with. of course, this doesn't mean that people no longer use it to vent; there are still many active members of the community, at least overseas.

you might be thinking, "that's nice to learn about, but what does this have to do with race? isn't this about mental health?"

well, your race can directly impact your mental health in multiple ways. when it comes to race, it's important to keep in mind that it's not just the color of your skin. race, as it is defined in society, is also your hair texture, facial structure, culture, and traditions. race is ultimately a social category, as it is fluctuating throughout history and is solely determined by people in power. think about it: for those growing up in the U.S., did you ever have to fill out forms for mandated tests? do you recall that, as time went on, more and more racial categories were added as options to check off when asked for your race?

with all of these factors taken into account, it's no wonder that race can affect mental health. whether it's from racial discrimination in multiple communities and institutions, cultural-specific struggles, or trying to find one's own place inside and outside of race-based communities, any and all of these issues can be mentally draining and have someone questioning their self-worth. added to all of this, it can be more difficult for someone to receive help for these troubles when they're not surrounded with people who understand. not every person of color is going to understand what a person with a mental illness goes through, and not every person with a mental illness is going to understand what a person of color goes through, either. depending on the people around them, a person of color struggling with mental illness may feel much more hesitant about reaching out to others because of this.

menhera as a movement was created in order for people to express all kinds of feelings without needing any particular label for what they're struggling with. it lets you wear your heart on your sleeve, and embrace aspects of yourself that you have trouble accepting. you can be beautiful, despite everything. you can be beautiful despite having traits that you've felt so insecure about for the longest time, whether it be skin color, hair type, face shape, cultural significances; none of that makes you any lesser, regardless of what you may feel or what others may have told you. my own race has tied into many of my experiences with my self-image, and my struggle with that view is part of why i identify with the menhera subculture. for anyone reading this who feels similarly, this is sort of my way of saying that you aren't alone!

i feel that, although the medical association is most likely here to stay, the majority of the menhera community can also work beyond only acknowledging certain facets of mental illness. this isn't only referring to the acknowledgment of racial issues, but other intersecting traits that affect people's experiences with mental illness. gender, class, physical disability, orientation; all of these undoubtedly influence each individual's views on mental health, and the community should strive to be more open towards all of these different experiences no matter how messy or uncomfortable they get. after all, the purpose of menhera is to tell ourselves that we're pretty, cute, handsome, gorgeous, and all of those kinds of adjectives despite how our troubles make us feel!

#rise and shine #menhera #yamikawaii #yumekawaii #メンヘラ #mental health

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askganon · 5 months

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I'm really tired. I just transferred to a new university to study psychology and it has been the actual worst experience in every aspect. The two biggest issues are the fact that I am autistic and thusly have issues making friends, and that I have this god-awful professor in my counseling class.

This professor is OFF his rocker. He actively talks about the secret society he is in, trying to teach us preposterous things that have no place in that class or even the school at all. I could write a novel about every problematic thing he has said, but my most major issue with him is how he views and treats women, and continuously brings sexual topics up when they have no relevance to the course material.

He has disrespected his wife over the phone in the middle of class and then tried to justify his behavior using his gender, spoken extensively about what features men don't like on women such as makeup or plastic surgery. He says "natural" women are "healthy" (well-endowed) in either the chest or behind but not both, and are uneven in the chest. He specifically targeted my classmate, who was the only one wearing false eyelashes, to say that men don't like that either.

Another time he told us that women run the world because men are obsessed with us, that we are not oppressed at all, yet he turns around and tells us how women in the corporate world go commando under their skirts and sleep around to work up the corporate ladder. He says this in a way that puts women to shame for this as well.

This week, though, was completely different. His departure from the course material started with the extremely invasive question, "what do you remember about your transition to adolescence?" Again targeting that very same classmate. I blink and he is now telling us that the male experience during puberty is far worse than what women experience, basically saying that—excuse my bluntness—getting a boner in class is much worse than anything women go through, even turning to our singular male classmate for backup on this.

He also tries to tell us that its so so bad for boys because the girls actively try to touch them or make them "psychologically disturbed," as he worded so decoratively. What adolescent girl wants anything to do with that when she's going through her own problems? Since when were young girls going out of their way to trouble boys like this? I was actively trying to deter boys during this time.

I and the other two women in my class were disputing all of this, until our professor finally said, "I will just let that go over y'all heads cause you will never understand the male experience," to which I, shaking with rage, replied, "—and vice versa."

My mental health has been suffering severely, and much worse since this happened Monday. I had never felt such pure, primordial rage towards someone before. This man makes me feel not only objectified but also demonized. Last night was my breaking point, working on one of his assignments. I experienced the most intense mental breakdown of my life so far, and afterwards spent all but two hours of the night trying to cram the project that was due today.

I guess my point is that I would report him, but my school makes it nigh impossible to do so. I'm perpetually exhausted and I do not know if I can make it through the last two weeks of class. I want so badly to be petty and spiteful to his face, but for the most part I've controlled it.

I don't really know what I'm looking for by doing this. I guess I just want to know what you think? Apologies for the length of my message.

Such is the mentality I encountered often in my youth by Hylian men, and women, toward my sisters. They would lust after my sisters based on their attire and physique, while also attempting to demonize them and ostracize them for the exact same reasons.

In short, men are cowards who carry the darkest urges shamelessly, but are too prideful to admit the problem within themselves. Instead, the vilify women for their own indiscretions.

They will openly mock my Gerudo for their appearance, while desiring nothing more than to own their flesh in the most disturbing of ways.

This professor seems like a prime example of the Hylian males I encountered. But if this is the case, then so too is his weakness.

He has likely been thwarted in his past in his attempts to procure a mate to his liking, and due to his pride, he believes it is all of womanhood to blame, and not himself.

This one he singles out is likely similar to those he desired but could never obtain in his youth. As such, he blames all others for his own shortcomings.

Likely too with his mate. I would assume her physique does not fit the desires he now feels entitled to, and as such he makes her the target of his criticism.

But through all of this, he reveals a second weakness.

Fear.

He fears that which he cannot control, and women as a whole seem out of his grasp. Every slight, every jab, and every assault from his lips is but proof that he is afraid of what women are capable.

In the midst of a Gerudo warrior, this professor of yours would crumble like kindling to a flame.

Take solace in the knowledge that you are superior to this worm, for you are what he can never have.

#Ganondorf #Legend of Zelda

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fkinavocado · 6 months

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DADDY ISSUES ANNOUNCEMENT

ok guys. let's recap. i've been writing on this fic since august 2021. i was gearing up to wrap it up for its 2 year anniversary in august, but my mental health got in the way of writing in general, not just for this fic.

however, there has been another major block in my way.

many of you might remember this if you've been around long enough, but i got a lot of backlash at one point in the story. some felt it wasn't going in the direction they had hoped for (a typical happy ending, picket fence, kids, etc- the whole package).

and ever since, this has been bothering me- but not just because of the obvious reason (which is, that this is my fic and i should get to decide what the storyline is ultimately, and who doesn't resonate can just move on instead of sending me hate for something i share on here for free and for us all to enjoy- me writing it, and you, hopefully, reading it)

no, the real, or should i say, bigger reason is that i was upset with myself.

because, honestly... i wanted to end the fic where part 1 ended!

but... i gave into the pressure. so many ppl were pleading for more, and although the initial plan was to just write extras going forward, little check-ins mainly based on prompts, i felt like i owed it to you all to give you the happy ending everyone was rooting for... when, in reality, i'd meant for it to have an open ending all along.

yes, the check-ins would have had them be together etc, but no major plot developments such as... getting married, babies, etcetc. because i just didn't want to give them a typical story. i wanted this to be based on their dynamic, their relationship, them working on it, but not have it be the traditional story with a happily ever after.

(very many insisted a lot on the baby plotline, and maybe that's why i went with that twist in the story... because i didn't see it for them in the immediate future. and writing it in a linear timeframe without too many timejumps meant that i had to find a workaround... which only infuriated people more!)

so i'be been debating this for months now... should i go on and just wrap it up in a lame way that i didn't feel did the story justice (aka another timejump where they're finally settled, have a kid and another one on the way, and describe their happily ever after) orrrrrrrrrrrrrr backtrack to where i feel i deviated from my original plan, and take off part 2 and 3.

basically, go back to where they were on his front porch and part 1 ended:

Harry looked at you for a long moment, towering over you- you could barely see his facial features in the dark.

But what you could make out clearly was the glistening in his eyes and the way his lips turned ever so slowly into a smile, his dimples on display. He was so handsome when he smiled, it hurt.

You slowly smiled in return, your worried expression fading away, and you just stared at eachother like that, smiling after months of nothing but.

You didn’t need to say anything, your eyes had their own secret language. Once more, your bodies were doing the talking for you.

He held out the palm of his hand.

And… you knew.

this... this is how i wanted the main story to end. and then to just write extras, prompts you guys send in, whatever you wanted to see more of- but maybe not them having kids etc because fjdhfksd this is just not that kind of story to me! i just wanted this to be about them, the two of them rekindling their relationship after so much time apart and all they'd been through!

so... i finally took the decision, and as a result, you may have noticed that just the first 25 chapters are still listed in the masterlist (essentially, just part 1)

this was a hard decision, one i've been debating for ages, because, well... i hated having to just erase so many chapters. chapters i worked on, chapters i still see as genuine and true to their story but just... not what i wanted to write for them as a whole. i wanted to just focus on little moments. not have it be a chronological recount of their story, going further.

i had to let go of so many special moments that i loved writing! who knows... maybe i'll save some of them and integrate them into extras

that is, if any of you still want me to keep writing extras for them! i know many will still want to see snippets of them, but i am well aware most have probably given up on this fic and i honestly don't blame them. it's taken me forever to reach this decision, but honestly, i'm taking the advice of so many lovely people who came into my inbox along the years and encouraged me to stay true to what i'd envisioned for them in the first place

so this is me doing that ❤️i love their story, and all the love you guys have for it and it's just so so special to me. i couldn't bear giving it an ending that would just feel like i was wrapping it all up and putting a pretty bow on top when i have so much i wanted to explore with them, otherwise. thank you all for your patience and all your kindness. it means a lot, and i hope this news makes you happy because... it makes me happy knowing i stayed true to myself in the end.

now i can finally move on and write more for them. let's have some fun! if needed, go back and at least give chapter 25 a re-read so you know where things left off. i'm still not doing well mental health wise so please bear with me- i'm trying. i promise i am. i desperately wanna write, i love writing. writing extras is so much easier logistically- little fun check-ins that i don't have to overthink. i'm hopeful that this will prove to be the right decision going further ❤️

#daddy issues #harry styles fanfic #harry styles smut #daddy harry

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feelbokkie · 6 months

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One Last Dance | Chapter 8

pairing: Minho x fem reader

genre: smau, crack, angst, fluff, non!idol au, major character death (I am apologizing now), friends to lovers, soul mates, first love, roommates

pov: 1st/2nd person (depending on how you view it)

warnings: swearing

summary: Childhood best friends Lee Minho and L/n Y/n are in their final year of university. While both of them are in love with each other, the only thing keeping them apart is Minho’s fear of change. As both dancers prepare for their lives after college, will Minho finally let fear rule him and his emotions or will he finally gain courage before he loses Y/n forever?

word count: 1,856

screenshot count: 11

taglist: closed!

previous | masterlist | next

"Are you concussed or do you actually not know the difference between your right and your left?" Minho yells after pausing the music.

The two of you have a few midterms together and you've spent nearly every day in the studio together working on your midterm performances. Except, Minho has been nitpicking every little you do. He's always been good at picking up mistakes while dancing, the mirror being his biggest aid. You're used to it. Both of you keep each other in check when you're dancing, catching each other's mistakes, and helping when a move is proving to be difficult. This time, Minho's pettiness is getting the better of him.

"What the fuck did I do now?" You yell back, frustrated with him.

"You're supposed to jump with your right leg and land strong on your left! You're doing the opposite!"

"That's because jumping on my left makes the most sense based on my footing partition from the compass spin! And I get to jump higher, making me stay in the air longer. You should try it instead of throwing a fucking tantrum!"

"I'm not throwing a tantrum. I just don't want to get a failing grade because you're too busy fuking the neighbor to practice." He says under his breath. He walks back to his starting position and barely waits for you to get into your before pressing play. Annoyed, you walk over to the counter and unplug Minho's phone from the sound speaker.

You're tired, not just physically, but mentally. Midterm season has always been the busiest season next to finals. The first four days of the week are often full of exams, which can either be one or two performances that you have to prepare for. On the last day, there is always a showcase. Unlike the monthly evaluation showcases, the midterm showcase is exclusive to upperclassmen and mandatory. The school thinks it gives the underclassmen motivation and relaxation after a week of torture. On top of your rehearsals for the showcase and midterms, you also have to work. Minho knows that. Despite being a complete asshat for the past week, Min still picks you up from work every night. And in the little free time you have left, you're choreographing the dance for your first round of company auditions. You wish you had the free time to get laid, at least you'd be relieving stress instead of dealing with Minho.

"Y/n!" Minho yells in annoyance.

"I'll plug your phone back in when you tell me what crawled up your ass and died. Because my dancing isn't the issue here and you know it." You cross your arms and keep Minho's phone close to your chest.

"Just plug it back in so we can finish practice and we can go see your boyfriend." He spits.

"This is about Chan?" You raise your eyebrow at him.

"I don't care what his name is," He grumbles as he walks over you to you. He tries to grab his phone back but you tighten your grip.

You watch as Minho's eyes turn cold and his jaw clenches. It's not a look you're unfamiliar with. You've seen it over the years and more frequently over the past week. But now you know why he's been stomping around the apartment like a broody teenager for a week.

"You do not get to do that," You say cooly. Minho looks up to actually look up at you, his eyes dripping with spite.

"Do what?" His hand rests gently on your arm.

"Be jealous," You say simply.

“I am not jealous of you and what’s his face.” He scoffs, backing up from you.

“Really? Because I don’t think you’ve spoken a full sentence to me that didn’t have to do with dance or school or the cats after I came home from hanging out with him last week.”

“Look, just do whatever you want with whoever you want. I don’t care, Y/n. You’re not my girlfriend.” He says as he walks back to the middle of the studio.

"I am painfully aware that I'm not your girlfriend. Believe me." You drop your arms and clench your fists. Your heart is pounding and you can feel the heat rushing to your face.

"Don't get mad then since you moved on onto, or should I say under, our neighbor." His back is turned to you as he says it, he doesn't have the balls to say it to your face.

"Not that it's any of your business, but I'm not dating Chan. Or anyone else for that matter."

"Oh, so you're just fucking and making out with random men in front of our apartment. Great. That's really great, Y/n. You're such a--"

"Such a what?" You push yourself off the counter and walk up to Minho, getting into his face. "I'm such a what, Minho? I fucking dare you to finish that sentence. Say it to my face."

Minho's face softens a bit, reading the anger and pain on your face. He hesitates, licking his lips as he thinks about something. You watch his hand twitch, clenching, and unclenching. You know he wants to reach out and touch you. To hold your hand or something but he hesitates.

"That's what I thought."

"You know," Minho takes a deep breath, "If I didn't know any better I'd think you were trying to make me jealous."

"After all these years, do you honestly think that's who I am? Okay, if that's what you want to believe, I'm making you jealous on purpose. Because my whole world revolves around you even though you don't care." You throw Minho's phone at him, his quick reflexes allowing him to catch it.

"I don't care?"

"No,"

"I don't care?" He asks again, mouth hanging open in disbelief.

"No, you don't" You spit back.

"Okay, fine, I don't care." He sighs, pulling his hat off and pushing his hair back before pulling the hat back on.

"You really don't." You cross your arms again.

"No, you're right. I don't care." He walks past you and heads back to the sound system.

You can't help but get annoyed at his reaction. You're not sure what you want from him, but this isn't it. You can't help but let out a frustrated scream, making Minho jump.

"Why the fuck are you screaming?" He yells, holding his ears.

"Because you're driving me insane!" You scream back.

"How am I making you insane?"

"Are you serious?" You pinch the bridge of your nose and take a deep breath to calm yourself down. The range of emotions he's making you feel in a short amount of time is starting to give you a headache. "Look, I get that you're scared of what happens to us if we start dating and it doesn't work out. I get that. I respect that even. But that doesn't mean you can act like a toddler who doesn't get his way when I move on or I'm with someone else. That's not fucking fair."

"It's not fucking fair for you to parade your newest fuck toy around. You know how I feel about you."

"Then fucking date me or shut the fuck up! You either are my boyfriend or my best friend! If you're my best friend you'd want me to be happy no matter what. But because you want to be miserable I have to suffer for it too! That's not how any of this shit is supposed to work!" You feel your face getting wet, angry tears breaking the barrier and flowing down your face.

"I don't want to be miserable and I'm not doing shit to you. I love you, and you can't fucking see that. That's why I'm like this because I don't want to hurt you when I fuck everything up." He finishes hooking up his phone and walks back to the center of the room.

"You're fucking everything up right now! You're hurting me right now! Because I love you too and I really, really don't want to anymore!"

"Then let's just never bring this up again! Let's go back to being just friends before either of us confessed our feelings to each other and--"

"Fuck this," You scoff, brushing past Minho to the counter.

You start throwing all of your things in your bag. You quickly swap your dance shoes for your everyday shoes and throw on your jacket. You make sure to shove your phone and keys in your pocket before zipping up your practice bag and slinging it over your shoulder.

"Where the hell are you going?" Minho groans.

"Home," You say as you walk to the door. Your hand is on the doorknob and you pull open the door.

"We haven't even run through the entirety of any of our exam performances."

"So I can listen to you criticize my dancing for another hour? Fuck that."

"So you're going to sink both of our grades because you're mad at me."

"I'm leaving because I feel sick to my stomach and have a migraine. I don't want to be in the same room as you right now. But you're free to stay here and pretend everything is fine while you dance. I'm going home."

"Great, I'll carry you through our performances like I always do." He grumbles under his breath getting into position again.

That's one of the things you hate about Minho. Both of you are competitive, but he always has to have the last word, even if he doesn't mean it. Especially if he doesn't. You know this, and yet you still drop your bag to the floor and walk over to him. Before he even realizes what is happening, you grab his right arm and sling it over your shoulder while you also take your right leg and position it between his legs. You swiftly knock him off balance with your hip and use your full body weight to toss him over your shoulder.

Thud!

Minho lands flat on his back, gasping for air. You know he didn't get hurt, just had the wind knocked out of him. You know how to safely flip him. You didn't want to hurt him, just shut him up.

"W-what...the...fuck...Y/n?" He pants, trying to catch his breath.

"Go to hell, Minho." You spit before going back to the door, grabbing your bag, and leaving.

You know the smart thing to do would be to cut ties with Minho. Move out, and avoid him at all costs. But part of you can't. You two are forever tethered together, whether you like it or not. A part of you knows you're never going to love anyone the way you love Minho. A larger part of you doesn't want anyone other than him. As much as it hurts, you're holding out for hope that Minho's feelings for you will overpower his fear and one day you'll be together. But just like you, he's stubborn as hell. He may never give in to his feelings for you, and deep down inside, you don't want to accept that.

—

Buy me a coffee?

—

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0809sysblings · 7 months

Text

Amane, indoctrination, and gaslighting

and why voting Amane innocent would be the best course of action

I've been wanting to write a big post on Amane talking about indoctrination and such. Because I see takes sometimes that make it clear the person doesn't really... Get It.

Most of what I'll be explaining comes from my personal experiences growing up.

Additionally, most of what I say when it comes to outcomes (i.e. "If x happens, Amane will do y") will be based on the assumption that realism, not entertainment, is prioritized in the writing and that there are no major holes in our knowledge of what's going on. Theoretically anything could happen since this is a fictional scenario and we don't know everything when it comes to the world, the cases, and the characters. Not to mention my situation was nowhere near as extreme as hers. So although I probably have a better understanding of it than most people, I definitely can't claim that I know what she's gone through.

Personal anecdotes I add to better support my points will be in the small font (this!) since I don't want them to distract from the main text and so that they can be easily skipped for those who may be worried about being triggered. But if anyone needs plain text descriptions, I'll happily provide them!

!! TW for child abuse, religious abuse, and cults !!

I recommend skipping my personal anecdotes if more detailed discussions about these topics are a trigger for you.

At the heart of "good" (read: successful) indoctrination is gaslighting.

Since gaslighting has been one of the many psychology terms completely watered down and distorted by the internet, I will define it just so we're all on the same page!

Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation used to make the victim question their own sanity, sense of reality, or power of reasoning.

Basically, you can't trust yourself. You can't trust your thoughts, your feelings, your interpretations, etc. You become completely reliant on other people (usually specific people who are the ones doing the gaslighting) to figure out what's real/true or not.

Toxic/extremist religious groups like to take gaslighting a step further though. Not only do they make it so you cannot trust yourself to judge what is right or not, they may also teach you that what feels wrong is actually right. You can see where this can start to cause some issues lol.

Anything your gut may tell you that contradicts what the group/cult leaders tell you—"this is wrong!", "this is bad!", "I don't want to do this..."—must be ignored. Because those feelings and thoughts, according to the leaders, are actually the sinful part of you trying to lead the good and faithful part of you astray. They make you question yourself to make sure you never question them.

They will figuratively or literally beat this into you until your first instinct is no longer to listen to your gut and do what it says, but to dismiss it and do what it's telling you not to do. Existing becomes a chronic power struggle between your unconscious mind and your conscious mind. Unfortunately, the fact that you're struggling often then gets used against you as proof that you need to follow their teachings. Because if you're unhappy, then you must be doing something wrong. You just need to have a little more faith, dedicate a little more time to the religion/group, go a little harder into your duties... Only then will you feel better—feel more enlightened.

An integral part in making all this work is isolation. If you don't somehow isolate the members, they may figure out that they're being manipulated and abused.

Now, isolation doesn't always mean purely physical isolation (though Amane is being isolated physically to at least some capacity). Psychological isolation is almost just as powerful. An almost universal psychological isolation tactic used by extremist groups and cults is the "Us vs Them" mentality. We can see this being very prominent with Amane. A lot of things she talks about with regard to the cult involves an Us-vs-Them dynamic. There is "Us", the cult, and "Them", everyone else.

Personally, we were taught that those who weren't believers of our religion were out to get us or will, at the very least, get us hurt/killed somehow. We were told many people wanted us dead just for being believers. You had to be careful and watch out when interacting with non-believers; you couldn't trust them. God was constantly testing you via others, and you had to make sure you stayed faithful.

This in particular is why no matter if you vote guilty or innocent, that itself will not actually do anything to change her beliefs. Voting her guilty will not make her start to feel bad and then question her beliefs. Voting her innocent will not make her listen to us and then question her beliefs. If we make her have any doubt about the cult, that's just proof to her that what we're telling her is wrong and is just another "trial" from God for her to overcome. So, changing her beliefs should not be a factor considered when voting since it's completely irrelevant. Everything can be twisted to support the cult. That's just how it works.

I don't think any amount of punishment will make Amane "come to her senses". I mean... what could we possibly do to her that she hasn't already had to endure? Punishment will likely only escalate things even more. Not to mention that having a bit of a fascination with martyrdom isn't all that uncommon in those who have been religiously abused and indoctrinated. The threat of punishment may only serve to motivate her to double down on her beliefs and behavior. Not to say she wants and likes punishment. It's obvious she's both scared of punishment and wants it to stop. After all, that's most likely the motive behind the murder.

Even prior to Amane's age, I was already fantasizing about being a martyr. A part of me almost wanted to be killed for my religion and community. It was seen as something extremely admirable. The ultimate sacrifice, if you will. We were taught that if given the choice between saving yourself by denying your faith or letting yourself be hurt/killed by standing your ground, you should choose the latter. Of course, I also did not want that to happen at all. It scared me shitless. But we weren't allowed to be scared about that stuff. It was seen as questioning God and the religious authorities, which was completely taboo. So I had no choice but to "want" it.

Isolating Amane is the worst possible thing we could do to her. No one gets better from being isolated, and this goes double for people living in abusive environments. She's been isolated her whole life. The best thing for her would be spending time with the other prisoners without restrictions. The more time she spends around people who have no connection to the cult, the better. Trying to argue with those in cults about why they're wrong and why they are in a cult (because most don't even recognize they're in a cult due to the gaslighting, indoctrination, and stigma) will almost always backfire. The best thing to do is to just be there for them to have someone to interact with who is not a cult member.

The only reason I left the extremist religious community I grew up in was because I made a friend who was not affiliated with it. I don't think I would've been able to see that the conditions I was living in were Not Very Good without that friend. He didn't even really do anything to actively help me. Just learning more about the real world through him was enough to make me start looking closer at my life.

To vote her guilty would be to continue isolating her. Not just physically as the guilty prisoners get restrictions put on them, but it's also an inescapable psychological isolation. Innocent vs Guilty is just another Us vs Them dynamic.

I fear that, if she ends up guilty this trial, she will likely be voted guilty again in trial 3. Her aggression will probably only escalate as she feels herself becoming more and more cornered. And since I know many people are voting her guilty solely to make sure she doesn't hurt Shidou or other prisoners, I can only imagine what the voting will look like for her in trial 3 once she's forced to become even more aggressive to protect herself.

And tbh... I can't imagine that having a prisoner with 3 guilty verdicts will make for all that interesting of a story for them. Not that it would be boring, per se. But having variety would, in my opinion, be the most interesting and entertaining! So, if nothing else I've said has been able to sway those who vote her guilty, then think about the entertainment factor!

Please vote this severely traumatized 12 y/o girl innocent. We can give her so many secret cakes to eat.

#Milgram #milgram project #milgram amane #amane momose #milgram analysis #... i guess?#ミルグラム #yeah im pulling out all the stops for this #tw child abuse #tw religious abuse #tw cults #this is a bit less in-depth than i wanted. but i also have a horrible rambling problem and am attempting to be more concise LOL #ive got shit to say you know? /ref #im so passionate about amane #pls have mercy... free my girl...#im nervous about posting this 😔. not sure why #my social anxiety is horrible. but. i very much encourage discussion and such #for amane i will conquer my demons. they may know how to swim‚ but /i/ know how to poison the fucking water supply

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