#LIVE ACTION??? i can understand animated but LIVE???

[secondbeatsongs]

Hello, you said in some tags in a poll that Speed Racer (2008) is your favorite film. If you’re okay with it, I’d really like to hear more about why you love it. I love the Wachowskis’ work (they’re among my favorite directors), but I kinda ended up bouncing off Speed Racer (2008). So, hearing that it had a real impact on someone makes me very curious why. I’m not interested in criticizing your opinion or arguing with you, I’d just really like to know why you love it in the hopes I might be able to enjoy that movie more in the future.

oh god this is from seven months ago, I'm so sorry - but I do love almost everything about Speed Racer (2008) and I still think about it nearly every day.

I love that it's so bright and colorful and absurd. I love that it's an anime in live action form. and I love that at its heart, it is a story about love.

it's about the mistakes people make out of love, and the consequences of that. it's about the way children grow to understand why the adults around them make the choices they do, and maybe choose to do the same things. it's about taking risks for the people you love, and the pain of failing to change the world, because everything is capitalism and everything hurts.

(and it's also about being transgender btw. like, that's one of the main things about it - it is very much a movie about being transgender)

what if your father's choices hurt your older brother, and your older brother's choices hurt you, and now it's you and your younger brother staring down a future where you're going to end up hurting him by making the same choice?

and then...what if you can escape that? what if the broken parts put themselves back together, and the hope doesn't run out, and you're not alone with the things that haunt you? what then?

and now you're at the end and mistakes were still made, people were still hurt, but everyone's grown and changed and they're different now. and they've figured out that maybe, just maybe, you can change the world by doing something you love, by creating art and beauty and making people feel things.

maybe you really can defeat capitalism by driving a car really fast. and even if everyone thinks you can't...don't you have to try anyway? shouldn't you fight with the skills you have, the only way you know how?

what if it works?

and I'm not even gonna get into most of the Racer X stuff (because I want people to go watch this movie, and most folks probably won't be spoiled for it), but his whole deal is just...everything. I love him.

(if there's a guy from Speed Racer that I want to put in a jar and shake every so often, or maybe wrap in a blanket so he can have a nice nap, it's Racer X. he's a great character. prime blorbo material)

anyway I've been rotating this movie in my head ever since I saw it for the first time, and I think I've seen it...seven? times now? and I still cry at the final race, and I still get blown away by the intro sequence.

(the beginning of the movie is genuinely one of the best things I've ever seen - it does an amazing job of introducing you to the world and the story of the characters, and gets you emotionally invested in it right from the start. it's fantastic filmmaking)

also like. story stuff aside, from a technical standpoint, the movie is a masterpiece. it's the type of thing that people hated when it first came out, but when you look at it now and see how it was made, how it intentionally looks bizarre and cartoonish, plastic and surreal, you can see the exact vision the Wachowskis were going for, and it's brilliant.

the way they did the visual effects, the way they made the outdoor scenes feel so detailed, the way the driving and the tracks work - they put so much thought into that, and the behind-the-scenes vids show how cool their process was.

also uhhh cars go vroom, crash into each other, flip upside down, explode, maybe have bees and hammers in them sometimes?

(the above is me complimenting the unhinged vibe of the races themselves, which I love very much)

anyway I could make other full posts about the script of the film and how much I love it, or the cool side characters, or the fanfic potential of the amazing world of the film, or how I can prove that it's set in 1991...but I guess if anyone wants those rants, they'll just have to watch the film and then come talk to me. :)

(please. please come talk to me about Speed Racer.)

so, yeah! I kinda lost my mind there and made this post way longer than I intended, but I do feel strongly affected by this movie, and I hope this has helped explain why.

#asks #crescentwench #speed racer #speed racer (2008) #speed racer 2008 #the wachowskis #my beloved #also it's important for anyone who hasn't seen the movie or cartoon to know #the main guy. his name is Speed Racer #first name Speed last name Racer #also the movie has vague found family vibes because Sparky and Trixie are here and are a part of this family #don't worry about it. they belong here #and so does chim-chim #he's their youngest child #and also a chimpanzee #sbs rambles #long post

[pabl0andm3]

Our dinner | P.2

Warning: Incorrect grammar

Authors note: Hey guys I finally upload the part.2 i literally forgot to upload it AHAHHA.And yes I changed the Title because It's a secret HEHE. And I would like to thank you guys for the likes on my P.1 story it means so much to me 🌺💮🦢

I woke up early in the morning to start my day I literally haven't planned on waking up early since it's Saturday and all I do is Stay home and chill. My fight with Pablo is still not ok we haven't sorted it out. Neither of us Want to apologize and about last night Pablo went home in the middle of the night knocking loud on the door.

And now that It's Saturday maybe this is the time we talk about our argument. Because I'm that type of person who doesn't like drama especially fights. I even regret Yelling at him for not taking me out maybe I'm being dramatic like he said. While I'm lost in my thoughts I didn't hear the bedroom door open revealing a tired Pablo. I was making us breakfast i expect him to hug me or talk to me about our fight last night but instead he grab his phone and type something that made him SMILE! wth.

I sighed while still cooking at the pancakes and when I'm done making pancakes I grab some plates for us and I made way to the fridge to find something to drink and I pick an orange juice for Pablo and apple juice for me. Once everything is Done I take the pancakes out and put in each plate and I also take some blueberry, strawberry and honey to Finish the pancakes. After that I didn't call him to breakfast after his behavior this morning he must be The one who talk or try because he's the MAN ! but oh well...

I was eating my food while scrolling to TikTok and I saw him washing his hand and take some fork to eat pancakes without a single word spoke to him not even a "thank you" or smile but NONE he didn't show any emotions. I finish my pancakes fast because I don't want to his Face Right now. Once I finish eating I put the dishes on the sink and Test him if he wash mines call me Brat but this man is On my nerves right now.

I went to the bathroom to shower a "long relaxing shower" after that I put some black shorts and paired it with over size shirt. I'm trying so hard not to steel his Comfy hoodies thankfully I still manage to not steel some he will for sure think I'm trying to Impress him Hehe. After I did my skincare routine and I put some mascara and lip oil and I'm ready to go downstairs to watch some movies that I have in mind.

While I was searching the movie I want to watch I hear the water drain and I want to look if he was washing the dishes but my mind said No. The water is still turning on and I know that his washing the dishes. After I find the movie I want to watch i get comfy. Half way through the movie I became hungry idk why so I went to the kitchen and when I'm about to open the fridge to grab some Food I find my PLATE witch the pink plate Pablo know that is my plate and This Animal is not washing my dishes.

I sighed and wash my dishes as I put the plate on the drawer while suddenly Pablo was in the living room clicking another movie my jaw drop on how disrespectful his behavior was I didn't say anything and went to him and pay his shoulder and said. " Gavi why did you turn off the movie I watch " he turn to me and said "come here" I did what he said and he turn off the movie while I make my self comfortable. "can we talk" he said minutes later

"Mhmm" I reply while looking at the ceiling " I'm sorry I really am. I regret every words I have said to you amor and I know that you will not forgive me easily and I truly understand that because of my stupid behavior but I just want you to know that I'm sorry and believe me or not I don't know how to apologize and that uhm I'm really really sorry I love you and I promise I will not do it again" he said while he take your hand slowly and stroking it with his thum.

"Look babe thank you for apologizing and I appreciate that but I need see actions to prove that you are really sorry because Last time we argue you always said the word "I will not do it again" which was a lie. And I'm sorry to for Testing your temper and I want to see if you really sorry or not. " I said calmly. " Yes amor I will show you " he said while hug and that day everything change ......

After the day you and Pablo talk about your argument Pablo change so much. He now go home Early to see you he even make you morning breakfast which was rare because he doesn't know how to cook and when you ask him "who told you to cook babe" he always answer "It's a secret" you just laugh on how adorable he is. And he often take you out or spoil you with hundreds of gift you always told him it's to much and ofc he's so stubborn to listen.

MONTHS later he is like a sweetheart to you and that you plan on Telling him that you have forgive him. So your plan was to cook dinner and tell him that you forgive him and everything will back to normal. You cook him a soup , a fish, carbonara, and ofc his favorite sushi and for dessert you made him carrot cake and homemade ice cream. You set all the food in the table and after that you change since you fell like Smelling fish HEHE.

After you change you heard the doorbell ring which means that Pablo is here you Excitedly open the door and to see a crying Belen in the door you freeze and said "Mama are you ok come here" you said while you close the door and make her sit on the sofa " Mama do you want to eat I made dinner " you said but nothing came in her mouth she just sob there and you stand up and take some water to help a little "here mama Have some water" you said while handing her the water "thank y.. ou dear" she said while drinking the water.

"Mama can you tell me what's wrong your worrying me" I ask again" dear I'm so sorry to ruin your night but I.. i... I have something to tell you that will break your entire heart " she said and now you feel nervous about what he's talking your thoughts goes on by "did someone die?" , "am I fired at my work", but you shock your thoughts away. "What is it mama" you said in nervous voice " P.. a.. Pablo-" before she could finish when you hear the name of your beloved boyfriend everything stop. " What happened to him" you ask in Trembling voice.

"he... He.... Got in to a car crash and ..and that according to the police that there is a white Lamborghini that overtake him and... And that was the reason he got into car crash and dear I'm sorry but we got him in the hospital and that's when the doctor said he couldn't make it. I'm so so sorry we didn't tell you... but he... He got you this" she said sobbing while I was crying my lungs out I couldn't believe this is happening.

I was crying so hard that I couldn't breathe but lucky Belen was there to help me after a couple of hours we finally calm a little bit and "Dear I'm sorry but I think I need to go and that please tell me if you need anything and if you want to see Pablo tell me so we can drive together yeah?," she said sobbing with red tired eyes. I just nod nothing comes In my mouth. " Uhm also Pablo got this for you the police saw it and have your name written " she said handing me the bouquet of flowers with letter on the top. And that when I lost it I scream and cry on Belen's shoulder my voice was crack my eyes are tires my heart was bleeding with regret and pain. Minutes later Belen finally go home she offered me to go with her but I couldn't stand up and that I need space she understood and hug me.

After Belen go home I finally have the urge to pick the bouquet of flowers I slowly take the letter while I was sobbing so hard. I open the letter to see his adorable handwriting and I read it carefully

" Hello Amor. This bouquet of flowers is for you and l want to say that. Thank you for loving me unconditionally, thank you for giving chances when we argue,thank you for always here for me when ever I want a shoulder to cry on when I want an arms to hug or cuddle me when I need it. And thank you that you change me you turn my anger to calm thank you amor. I want you to know that this day I want to ask if you forgive me or not. But I truly understand if you still don't forgive me. But again I'm sorry for everything. I want to love you the best I could I want to spent to you with all my life. I want you to have my babies and I want to marry you in the future I can't wait to ask you to be my wife.

I LOVE YOU MY LOVE AND I ALWAYS WILL❤️

- your Pablo

And after you read it you scream and cry your heart. "You should have forgive him " you should have react dramatically "you should have loved him more" the words on your head keep running in. You cry in the your shared bedroom while you sob one of Pablo's shirt. You cry like a river you couldn't believe it you want to open your phone to check what time it was but you don't want to see your wallpaper of you and Pablo on your anniversary. You sleep with an arching heart.

You wake up early in the morning you don't know why your heart still heart. You go downstairs to find the table you set for him and knowing he will not go home anymore....

Authors note : AGHHH please tell me if it's good or not. And I'm sorry again with my grammar correct me if I'm wrong sorry. So here it's is.. thank you guys for waiting the PART 2😭🙃

#reading #pablo x reader #pablo gavi #pablo gavi pablo gavi #pablo gavi pablo gavi pablo x reader #pablo x y/n #pablo x reader pablo gavira #pablo martín páez gavira #fanfic #heartbreak #sad story

[sgt-celestial]

this is literally disgusting they cant do this to the transgays

#LIVE ACTION??? i can understand animated but LIVE??? #well i hope its the cheapest smoshiest fucking movie in movie history and i hope it bombs and flops so so badly that it ends up being good #emi's meandering jotts #zelda

[ramshackledtrickster]

Wow another adult animated show headed by people who don’t know jack shit about the medium and then calls animation inferior and throws their artists under the bus and calls the audience stupid for watching animated media and thinking the only thing worthwhile about adult animation is making it gross and shocking and going “this isn’t like your Saturday morning cartoons haha you fucking idiot” while actually good animated shows with some level of maturity and respect for their audience gets axed left and right

Disappointed but not surprised in the slightest

#looking at you Velma HBOMax #I couldn’t even finish the first episode it’s just so unfunny and poorly written #saw that gag abt adult animation floating around and it really grinds my gears so I made this post yeah #also I went into the show expecting a dark satire but it didn’t even deliver on the good satire part 90% of it is just #‘isn’t this trope stupid’ and doing it #there are deeper issues I have with this show but the animation angle is easier to post about I think #also woke up to the news of Dead End Paranormal Park getting axed #and thinking back to how Hbo max did Infinity Train #it’s just rubbing lemon juice and pouring salt over a wound y know #also can we get people who respect animation to head animated projects instead of this trend please… #same thing happened with Housebroken where the writers kept demanding last minute changes because they don’t understand that #you can’t ‘reshoot’ scenes in animation like you would live action #just treat your artists with some fucking respect it’s not that hard

[philtatosbuck]

i literally don’t care if the movie is bad or not i’m watching the live action one piece because the cast seems like they had fun and it’s not like it actually affects the manga or anime idcccc. i’m eating it up it looks FUN

#one piece #one piece live action #one piece live action movie #literally looks like so much fun #ofc i understand ppl will be mad if they're mischaracterized but consider. it looks fun. #and also u can just ignore it if its ooc it has nothing 2 do with the flow of the manga or anime rn #I'M EXCITED FR LMAO

[akkivee]

so if hayama-san doesn’t voice this furry piece of shit i will literally cry blood because he is actually perfect for every single aspect of him 😭😭😭😭😭

#this is vee speaking #there’s been talks of an anime for a while but either the green light was flipped on bc of solo levelling #or there’s a collective sentiment brewing that the live action is about FUMBLE the series and this is damage control LMAO #i call him a piece of crap because he is lol but it’s out of love too bihyung big love lol 🥰 #he’s the mascot of a death game basically so i understand that higher voices are usually picked for those roles #BUT CONSIDER LATE GAME BIHYUNG BRO HAYAMA-SAN CAN BE BOTH #WHO DO I NEED TO CONTACT ONCE SEIYUU STUFF IS BEING DECIDED LET ME GAS UP HAYAMA-SAN #THE WAY JP AND OVERSEAS FANS MANIFESTED MIYANO MAMORU FOR DOMA KNY IS WHAT IS HAPPENING RIGHT HERE RN

[sonknuxadow]

One of the many things I appreciate about the Sonic movies is the variety of the voice cast despite there currently only being three of them at the moment: you have the A-list celebrity in Idris Elba, the professional voice actor in Colleen O'Shaughnessey, and the comedian in Ben Schwartz

i wouldnt exclude ben schwartz from the category of voice actor though he was in several cartoons even before he started voicing movie sonic theres literally so many jokes about all the blue characters he voices. he just hasnt really been in as much stuff as colleen has

#and the thing about idris elba. i complain a lot about animated movies casting celebrities over actual voice actors all the time #and my issue with it is that most of the time its some random person with little to no voice acting experience who doesnt fit the role #isnt a good voice actor and isnt even trying to be and in some cases like the mario movie for instance #theyre kicking out a voice actor whos voiced the character from the start for no reason other than to have more star power #idris elba 1. sounds fine as knuckles imo and 2. actually put the effort in to understand the character and do him justice #and 3. isnt really taking the role away from anyone because knuckles' voice actor has been replaced countless times already #he has the least voice acting experience out of the three but hes actually trying and he sounds good #back on the subject of the mario movie chris pratt DOES have prior voice acting experience he just fucking sucks at it #he just plays himself in everything and doenst even try to change his voice or tone or anything #basically im not 100 percent against celebrities and live action actors having voice roles in movies or shows or whatever #i just hate how often celebrities and live action actors just have voice roles handed to them even when they dont deserve it or fit it #asks #im really hoping that the sonic movies casting an actual voice actor for sonic AND keeping tails's game voice actor #can be the start of people in charge of movie casting respecting voice actors more

[luckycheesefoodie321]

Luffy being THE MOST excited when Sanji said he would join up XD

It was so damn charming. And y’all were right. Sanji really has been looking at Luffy with love in his eyes.

Also Luffy being the most devastated with Zoro injured. Y’all ZoLu stands being fed muchly.

Baratie arc definitely had the most changes done to it so far. They shed a lot of Sanji’s introduction in favour of getting Nami’s arc going. Which makes sense because we all know Sanji has his Moment much later in Whole Cake, but I loved Baratie so much bc it was about two people who faced a trauma together and built themselves from the ground up and it was only ever with love that Zeff was so hard on Sanji. And Baratie became a home for similar pirates who all had love for Sanji bc they could all see his potential and his future and knew his talent was being wasted. So they treat him like he’s a beginner chef that has no place at Baratie to push him out the door but in the end Sanji hears how much they love his cooking and feels so validated by it. Rather than it being about Sanji being super fancy with his meals and being stifled by that.

And not to say that the Baratie LA version doesn’t hold a lot of that core message, but you could never have Whole Cake without Baratie yknow? Know who Sanji became before you know how he got there.

And they still the big tearful farewell with Zeff and it makes sense for the LA and I did enjoy it but I would’ve loved him to do the dogeza thank you. One of my favourite Sanji moments. Because he reciprocates that gratitude and love back in the most respectful sense (especially after all he does is cuss out Zeff and the other cooks).

All that said, I still enjoyed the LA Baratie arc. It still kept a lot of the core themes from the source material while still holding its own within the story that surrounded it. I like that they’ve pulled back Sanji to really what he was in the beginning. Yes he’s a lady-dazed fool but he was very grounded and charming and cool in the beginning. It was only later that he started to lose his mind over women.

The only thing I have is that Mihawk was like “oh Luffy is interesting and I wanna see what he can do” which didn’t feel earned yet. His major interaction was with Zoro and he had a maybe 1 minute conversation with Luffy. And suddenly he’s like “oh this kid might get the one piece so it’s worth it to antagonise the marines who sent me after him”.

That part felt a little fast and loose. In the source material, Luffy had defeated Don Krieg and he had held back anyone from interfering with Zoro’s fight and he had allowed Gin to leave with Don Krieg. Mihawk took all that in mind and then left Zoro and Luffy alone. Here, Luffy was sidelined a lot. If Mihawk had been present for Luffy’s fight with Arlong, then I could probably understand his line of thinking.

So yeah.

#one piece #one piece live action #I’m trying to balance comparing it to the OG and understanding that an LA is an adaptation #an adaptation greenlit by its creator nonetheless! #but I’m not here to say it’s perfect or villainise either #I think it’s the best LA adaptation we’ve gotten #and one of the most impossible anime’s to adapt as well #the amount of doubters when this was first announced was insane and I was definitely one of them #but it has proven to be very full of heart and sincerely made and quite well executed #but like any media there are bound to be faults and I’m not gonna hold back if I see them #some of these faults will inevitably be ‘on the manga/anime did it better’ ! #bc how can I not when the source material is right there #but I’m also taking it at face value as a media for consumption #spoilers #manga #anime

[snekdood]

I think some of yall are just gonna have to accept that vegans have a different philosophy than you.

#YOU might think its respectful to eat animals or whatever the fuck #but like i dont and cant bring myself to. sorry #IM not about to let that get in the way of being friends w non vegans though . #like im never gonna be like 'killing animals is cool' bc to me it isnt and i dont think theres many reasons to unless you specifically have #to eat it for some reason. im not even a pure vegan. i still eat meat. i just dont see the pleasure in it. #ig i cant help but think about factory farming and the horrible ways animals die. i also dont really know if theres a Good way to kill an #animal just for sustenance. #i think itll be bad no matter what but ig theres *better* ways to do it if you have to #i think yall havw to understand that im literally just some person whos come to this conclusion #i dont have systemic power to change how things are so dont bitch that im taking your meat away when clearly its not going anywhere #yall essentially anti vegans are exhausting. #what i hate is how i say i care about animals lives and then in a defensive immediate retort people try to claim that i dont care about #oppressed humans. as if all vegans are actually just eco fascists who couldnt be assed to give a fuck about minorities lmao #im sorry youve interacted with shitty vegans but i promise theres vegans who just like dont want anyone to be killed if it can be helped #maybe i do actually just care about both of these things at once. ik its shocking #and i promise that me generally supporting ntv and other ppls ability to hunt for whatever environmental justification #isnt mutually exclusive from me thinking its generally not good to eat meat #like it IS possible to believe two things at once #also great news for you! i dont have control over you and your life. so whatever i say could fundementally not effect you #and no. thinking an action is bad doesnt mean i think anyone who hunts is a Bad Person. i also cant make them stop either #i just have personal feelings on the matter #sorta like how your friend has a preference for a tv show you find problematic and you've vented your frutrations w it #but they still love the show anyways and you wouldnt take that away from them bc a. you cant and b. it doesnt effect our friendship enough #for me to feel the need to try to encourage them to not watch it...? #the totally wacky and wild and unique unheard of thing abt me is that i dont need to control people who want to live a different life #even if i dont think its entirely cool whatever it is they do #obviously if theyre a racist or something i wont tolerate that but yeah #this is MY path in life. these are MY beliefs. i dont need you to follow in my footsteps. #im not ur guru lol #im not pushing for any policies. i dont have a plan to *make* everyone vegan. im just sharing my thoughts.

[guideaus]

there arent even lyrics to the songs being shown 😭

#personal #very different from the anime... its like being unable to understand a fight scene #or see an illustration #it cant be expressed well #like it should only be an animation or even live action before just a manga #itd be different if it wasnt the main topic of the series but no lol #not to be dramatic but idk if i can read it lol #YA BOY KONGMING SEASON 2 WHERE

[visionsofmagic]

day 6: roronoa zoro [cock warming]

࿓ synopsis • you ask to zoro whether he needs any help or not, and in return, he makes you sit on his cock so that it can get warm while he’s sleeping.

―❦ nsfw, opla!zoro, f!reader, reader is being needy & brat, pussy slapping, pet names, teasing, swearing, ‘is all! • 1.2k • a man that takes all my attention to himself in an instant in every type of universe; live action, manga, and anime. I chose to write for la!zoro version ‘cause why not? enjoy, hope I did everything right! [kinktober m.]

“stop moving, you're distracin' me.”

his deep voice cuts your actions of trying to stay still on his lap, adjusting your position so that your numb legs will fix, but, the struggle causes your pussy to clench around his length because of sudden movement which ends up by earning an unsteady thrust. looking at his face, hands gripping the collar of his sleeve, you see his closed eyes, trying to continue the nap he’s taking in the middle of the day.

 “sorry –“ you say, smiling innocently knowing he cannot see, “I didn’t mean to, it’s just –“ you try to find a solid word to describe the situation you’re in now but the weight of lust running through your pussy takes your brain away, wanting to break free, letting yourself go and wasting the last thirty-four minutes waste, waking zoro up, being a greedy brat – only to make him not sleep, instead, fuck you. “so much.”

you can’t bring yourself to say what you’re thinking aloud – just fuck me already! Just move this thick cock and fill me up! – pathetic.

you’re here, sitting down on his cock, warming it, being useful.

the moment of the morning came into your mind; the crew went to bring food and new clothes to the ship, and when they left, only you and zoro were on the ship, you said ‘I wanna be useful for you’ because he’s still healing and you wanted to help – anything, you added, which was a bad idea – maybe, it wasn’t that bad though.

zoro, being a greedy boyfriend even if he tries to hide it, decided to make you a useful one – for his damn cock – to warm it up!

“so much?” he teases you, taking you back to reality, making the sensation on your pussy grow bigger each passing time, moving his hips, acting as if he just adjusts his position like you did minutes ago – only this time, it’s an act – to try you, seeing how much you can handle this. folding his arms, he opens his eyes slowly, an eyebrow is raised, questioning, “what’s so much? I even didn’t begin to fuck you, did I, doll?”

opening your legs wider, challenging him, a whimper leaves your mouth yet zoro doesn’t show any sign of being greedy to fuck you – oh, what self-control!

but you’re not done yet. “it seems you will never do,” you say, shrugging, hands on his shoulder building up to his neck, playing with the hair on his neck – the most breathtaking man you have ever seen – he’s so beautiful that you would beg anytime now but you should try first – to break him into the point in which he will let himself go and move his hips. “I know I am here for the help – to warm your cock,” you point to the sight in front of him – your pussy beautifully covering his thick cock, wetness that comes out of you soaking his veined length. “am I helping?”

opening his arms, he puts them behind his head’s back instead as he leans to the wall of the chair you’re sitting on – eyes travel from your tight pussy to your face, meeting with your innocent smile and sparkling eyes.

“u-huh,” he says, trying to understand where you’re heading with this question, because he knows you well enough to realize you want him to move, yet stubborn and prideful to beg, not until the right moment which zoro waits to arrive. “warming my cock so well that I can feel you dripping into it – hot.”

nodding to him, heat rushes to your face at the sudden compliment, making you gain a confident manner, and continue on with your act; being a fucking brat, using his jealousy to achieve your goal – you would feel bad under other circumstances but not today, not when you want him to devour you – he’s hard to resist, and you’re so greedy to be a good girl.

“anything for my crewmate,” not boyfriend – a crewmate. it takes his attention, eyes on your face, daring you to go on with piercing gazes, jaw getting tight, straight face expression that screams danger. it only turns you on further. “I will make sure to provide my service to the captain as well than because he can need – agggh – zoro –!”

your words are cut by him; raising your body up a little until his tip releases you, and then, without missing a heartbeat, putting it down on his length, thrusting into your dozy pussy, earning a scream out of your mouth.

holding his shoulder tightly, you try to stay in balance while he keeps doing that without any particular rhythm and steadiness so that you get cockdumbed mind right away – all dizzy, just moaning, feeling him shoving his dick into you, balls hitting the ass – finally!

“is this what you wanted, brat?” he asks, hands open your skirt by damaging its buttons, nearly tearing it apart, cupping the breasts through the fabric of your bra before letting them watch how they bounce in sync with your body, raising up and down on his cock with more rapid pace now – devouring you – the things you wanted for a long time. “want me to break that pussy, pretty doll – ohhh – uhmm – y/n – you – you will fuckin’ get it!”

his hands are positioned on your waist, looking down, seeing your clit getting wider with each of his hard and strong thrusts, warming it with all the juices you make – you literally soak now, close to the edge, and zoro smirks at you the moment he hears the crew entering the ship.

his possessive and rough side takes control of his mind – his soul as he picks you up, you already begin to beg for him to put his cock inside, pleases coming out of your parted pink lips that you bite so hard. you let him turning your body, abdomen touching the surface of the bed, cock’s tip resting on the entrance of your pussy, then, he slaps it with his dick, a hand finds your neck, putting your face down onto the pillow – his body hovering behind you as your ass gets higher and higher.

it feels so vulnerable to be in this position as if you’re his own fucktoy to play with, and you can’t deny the fact that even the thought of it can make you cum in an instant.

“zoro – aggh – I –“ you try to say when his dick slaps your clit once again, your body jumps – feeling both shy and shameless at the same time but he cuts you out, cock enters you in one go, jolting your body forward.

“cut it. you don’t want to waste your breath now, you will need it when I make you scream my name enough to make all the crew hear it,” he chuckles – the rings of danger echo inside your head, making you look behind and see him; standing on his knees, eyes on your face, a smirk is visible that gives chill down to your spine at the sight – his glory has one meaning – is that he will not leave this room until others – and your brat brain understands only he can have you like this.

“will make sure everyone knows who’s fuckin’ you day and night, including you, you dumb doll. should’ve learned it sooner, but, I’m always open to teaching you how to be a good fuckin' girl for me.”

❦ tagging: @lilvampirina & @snowprincesa1 & @dookiemeshibear *cuties*

#💦 kinktober 2023 first week #kinktober 2023 #day 6 #zoro #roronoa zoro #roronoa zoro x reader #zoro roronoa x you #zoro x reader #zoro roronoa x y/n #zoro rononoa x reader #zoro x f!reader #one piece #one piece x reader #one piece live action #opla #opla x reader #opla smut #zoro smut #zoro roronoa smut #green #WHAT A BABYGIRL WHO IS BOSSY #was fun to write & hope you found it fun too!

[a-treatise-on-velociraptors]

I feel like the desperation to adapt ATLA into live action just speaks to an underestimation of animation as a medium. I can understand adapting a book or even comic to the big screen--it goes from still image or words to motion, to sound and sight and spectacle, but what is the point of adapting a story that was already created for a medium that moves. Is animation not good enough?

#atla #avatar #avatar the last airbender #netflix avatar

[creatingblackcharacters]

“Why’s she so rude?” (She’s Not)- Stereotypes, pt2

So I'm sure that you all thought I was going to give a blow-by-blow list of "visual stereotypes to avoid". I'm going to be honest here, I thought about it, and figured it would be redundant. My page already includes sensitivity on depicting Black people. So instead, I'm going to focus on stereotypical "character" concepts, so that you can 1) not write it in your stories and/or 2) recognize it in media (fiction and reality!) and in life!

Two major resources: the Jim Crow Museum website is an EXCELLENT resource to understand the imagery of antiblack racism in U.S. history and society. The other, White Tears, Brown Scars by Ruby Hamad. The book focuses on the many racist stereotypes projected onto women of color and how that purposeful, systemic negative perception of us bleeds into every aspect of our lives- specifically by white women/white feminists who believe that they are not contributing to said oppression.

I'll start with Black women, just because I’m passionate about it (obviously) and there are so many things I wish I had and hadn’t seen growing up. We deserve better by the year of our lord 2024.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: mention of sexual assault, assault

Misogynoir

What I want everyone to understand, before I get into this, is the concept of intersectionality, and more specifically, misogynoir. Misogynoir is the specific type of contempt and prejudice that Black women face at the intersection of race and gender. I say this because you might read these things and go “oh, as a woman, I experience these things!” I get it, but I want you to PAUSE, and remember, that right now, we are talking about Black women’s experiences. And those will often be different, due to that intersection of identities. And that understanding will have an effect on how you understand (and thus, write) those experiences.

The Jezebel

The link goes into much deeper detail, but the Jezebel is the idea that a Black woman or girl who is sexual is somehow “fast”, “salacious”, “a hoe”, “driven by desire/doesn’t understand purity”, and at its worst, unable to be r*ped/a victim because she is less valuable yet somehow inherently seductive to men.

This gets thrown around CONSTANTLY in media and life for Black women (my first experience of treated like I was ‘fast’ was when I was like… twelve?) One major, visible example is Megan Thee Stallion. Meg has a college degree, she likes anime, she’s a brilliant rapper, and has an entire personality and struggles she’s shared… But she also likes to dress scantily clad and have sex. By doing those things, she ‘lessened in value’. And because of this, when she was shot at and assaulted, even Black people questioned her character, rather than understanding that she could have been anyone, and she still wouldn’t have deserved to be assaulted. She's not allowed to be multi-faceted; she "brought it on herself".

Black girls and women who happen to take charge of their own sexuality, to the discomfort of society, are treated as Jezebels- as whores. Think about it- if one of Taylor Swift's recent boyfriends shot at her, would the media question her value or her word? Question her equivalently high ‘body count’?

Question how you write your Black woman- she can enjoy sex! She can be sexy! We love to see it! But if you're punishing her specifically, or judging her within the narrative, versus your other characters who are allowed to safely explore and act upon their sexuality… Check your judgment! Why do you feel the way you do about this character? Why do you think that your Black character is the one that should be judged for her actions. Would you feel this way if it were a nonblack character?

The Sapphire/Angry Black Woman

Ohohoho, I have infinite amounts of feelings about this one.

This is the "sassy Black friend", the "aggressive Black boss", “step on me angry mommy”, the one who does the z formation and makes everyone "uncomfortable". She’s not allowed to be confident, assertive, or self-assured- she’s arrogant, rude, and aggressive.

I discussed it in part one, but I'll reemphasize it: your Black woman doesn't have to be an ‘Angry Black Woman’ in order to be angry! Just like any other human being on the planet, we are allowed to be mad. (In my honest opinion, we have a lot to be mad about, but I digress 😅)

If the only character that ever gets angry is your Black character, I want you to consider why. What is she angry at? Was this something you wanted the reader to understand or empathize with? Are we supposed to disagree? How does everyone around her treat her anger? Is her anger righteous? Is she always shut down or dismissed for it? Is it only meant to defend her friends, but never herself? Does the narrative suggest that it’s only good in use of others and not herself? Would this be the same reaction if one of the nonblack characters was angry? Is this something you did on purpose?

Very often, we're called 'angry Black women/girls' to invalidate our emotions. My therapist once said anger is a protective emotion. We might be hurt, overstimulated, sad, depressed, frightened, anxious… But we are often not allowed the grace of others digging deeper to see that. Even if the other characters do not understand her anger, even if her motives are not meant to be understood at the moment… you as the writer should be aware. But if every time it’s time to show anger or upset, it’s your Black character… consider why this is the one you thought would best convey that message, and how your Black readers might feel seeing that this character (who may not even be the ‘bad guy’) is the one that is ‘only’ angry. No other development, no other emotions, just… there to be mad.

I take this one to heart, as someone who feels very passionately about things… this is one of those things where I wish, in life and in media, people would have more grace for Black women. We're human, too. We have feelings, too.

The Mammy

This one isn’t as visually blatant anymore in media as it was in the past (like every Mammy doesnt look like Aunt Jemima), but you may have seen this one as "the mommy figure". The "lesbian that parents the silly gay boys". The one that’s always encouraging the ship of the white boys, but never the one allowed to be in the ship (especially when her ship is canon!)

A good example of this was how people expected Jessica Drew from ATSV to be "more loving" to Gwen, rather than the mentor and boss she was (plus, as a Black woman with a Black mother… trust and believe, she was quite direct and gentle). And in comparison to her counterpart, white man Peter B. Parker, was decried far worse for similar detrimental actions.

The Mammy often serves in opposition to the Jezebel and Sapphire/Angry Black Woman. What makes the Mammy particularly annoying is that it implies that the only good Black woman character is a ‘nice’, demure, unthreatening, homely, motherly figure whose job it is to make sure to center the (usually) white ones. The Mammy is expected to coddle everyone, to her own detriment. She's a ‘good Black’ because she causes no issue, raises no fuss, never shows a negative feeling, knows that she has to ‘be strong’ but to always defer because the white characters know best. She’s ‘not a threat’, and that’s why she’s ‘allowed’ to be around. We shouldn’t have to be those things in order for our stories to be heard and understood, in order to be empathized with or treated like someone of value.

The Strong Black Woman

If I never hear this phrase again in my life, if we eradicate it from future generations for Black girls and women, I'll cry of joy lmao. I hate it, and it's not for the reasons most nonblack people would expect. Lord, this one. Anyway. The ‘strong Black woman’ is meant to protect everyone, no help needed! Whenever something is wrong and we all need a pickup, here she comes to ‘let me do it’ and everything is going to be okay! She did all the necessary suffering so that your characters don't have to! She can sweep in and save the day!

Now here's the dissonance kicks in. This one on its surface probably sounds like a good thing. She's a hero! She’s resilient! She's great! Who wouldn't want to be superwoman? Who wouldn't want to reject being a love interest, all women are always love interests! Let us be the badass that kicks ass and shows the men what for! Who wouldn’t want that, 24/7?!

The answer: US. 👍🏾🤣

This is a long, separate conversation on its own, but we have to understand that Black women (women of color, really) and White women do not always share the same end goals and understanding of "strong woman character" or even feminism. We certainly aren't always the love interest. Very usually not, in fact. We are always pushed to the side. We are already the hero in our lives, we're already the "strong woman".

Not everyone yearns to be the Singular Hero who will Fix It All as many of us are already expected to do. It's exhausting having to swallow your own needs for everyone else all the time, especially when it's suggested that you have no value otherwise if you don't. Heroism is Exhausting, and it's something worth looking into when you’re characterizing your Black girls and women. I’m not saying that we can’t be strong! We are, and it’s impressive! But I also want us to add some nuance to that strength, the way we would for any other character. What it means to have community, rather than to do it all alone. How even if she wants to be the hero (and that’s okay! That’s fine!) how it would still wear on her. Surrounding your Black girl character with unconditional support, to have a lover that actually wants to pull some weight- that's something many of us actually would like to see, because we're usually shafted to the side as 'someone who can do it all herself' (in order to hide that no one thinks we need or are deserving of the help).

It's okay to let your Black woman and girls show weakness, to rest, to be taken care of! It's not "less feminist" to accept that we're humans that need help and can't carry it all, too. That it’s okay to want to feel valued and protected. Because god knows, I wish I didn’t grow up strong and resilient, I wish I grew up knowing that the world cared that I was safe.

Standards of Beauty

These standards are not the same! I've mentioned it before in my lesson on skin tones, but very often when we think of "beauty", it’s easy to fall into the idea of whiteness. Pale skin, thin hair textures, etc. If those are our existing standards of beauty, then it doesn’t matter what any of us look like- we’re ugly! When I was in high school, I remember a classmate saying that Swedish people were the most beautiful people because of "white hair and pale skin". Without even meaning to, that guy basically said everyone darker than a stack of loose leaf printer paper was ugly by proxy of not being Nordic White (no matter how pretty they actually might be!!) 🤣

It’s also of note that whiteness/paleness tends to be connected with innocence and cleanliness in western culture, while blackness/darkness tends to be considered dirty, sinful, fearful. Now, while the origin of this idea may not be racist itself, when you spend hundreds of years implying that Blackness is bad- to the point that, in the U.S. they came up with an entire slur one step past “negro” (meaning ‘Black’) to deem you less than- it’s hard to say that the societal connotation didn’t apply.

Now we've already discussed working on describing our Black characters better! I continually remind you all that you should be describing them as wonderfully made as you do your white characters. Keep in mind that we live in a world where from day one when we enter the world, Blackness and Black features are not seen as beautiful nor emphasized. Whiteness is the standard of beauty that we, for a long time and still, are expected to adhere to. If you'd like to do better by your characters, remember that you don't have to give them "white features" or use "white" as an adjective to do that!

Black Women as Women

“There was literally nothing, not a thing, that a white woman could ever have that was worth more than her sexual virtue, and this obligated mandatory chasteness and sexual vulnerability… If the most important thing a woman has is virtue, and only white women can have virtue, then by definition, only white women can be women.” Ruby Hamad, ‘Only White Women Can Be Damsels’, White Tears, Brown Scars

Often, Black women by definition are not included under the societal banner of “women”, from our features, to our personalities, to our 'role' in life. "True Womanhood" is denied us, cis and trans, because of our Blackness. The things that make women ‘women’, we are not included under, because systemically, the only ‘women’ that were meant to mean anything were white.

I bring up Megan Thee Stallion again. Meg is probably one of the most beautiful, feminine women I've ever seen in my life. Men still call her a man, due to her height, due to her confidence, and due to their insecurities. Same with Serena Williams; Serena is damn near built like a god in my eyes. She was told she was manly from the beginning of her career, no matter how beyond skilled she was in women's tennis. Even when she damn near died giving birth- the most basic of 'tasks' women are seen as having in this society, it didn't matter. Black women are 'less womanly', 'less valuable', 'less in need' of that protection and identity that society swears Women™ need (and not in the honest way that we do need protection).

Consider that you're making sure that your Black women have the options of range of gender expression and emotions (and if they aren't allowed to, is that on purpose). If you're only ever creating us and we're in service of some dainty white woman and never the other way around... consider how that may reflect what you think our role is in your story, and in your mind.

Adultification

“Awkward moment when Rue is some black girl and not the innocent blond girl you imagine.” twitter: sw4q

It has been shown that Black girls the same age as their white girl counterparts are deemed older and less in need of protection, and supposed to 'be more mature'. Imagine that. Deemed inherently less innocent, due to your skin color. Having to parent our siblings, get jobs to contribute, do all the cleaning, and more. Yet, when we act with the maturity that we've been forced to grow into, we're "fast". A little 12-year-old girl, now to society, the Jezebel. All because she wanted to try pink lip gloss or wear a skirt; things that little tween girls might try to understand the big world around them and push boundaries. Now she's a woman, now she can never be a victim. Now she can be beat on and hurt and it's her fault.

I explain this for two reasons: One, for you to think about how your write your Black girls, and Two, for you to hold more grace for Black girls- real and fake. Do you hold her to a higher standard than your white characters of similar age? Does she inherently seem less innocent to you for reasons outside the plot? Is she as human to you as your other characters? Is she allowed to be a child? To act like one? To make mistakes? Are you as empathetic or understanding about that childishness as you are towards nonblack characters? Do you make these decisions on purpose?

It's not like Black girls can never be YA protags or anything- ofc we can. But keep in mind that she's not somehow automatically "stronger" by proxy of her Blackness, that she'd "be tougher". She's a kid. Let her be one.

Conclusion

There’s a LOT you have to consider when writing Black girls and women. I’m not going to sit here and say it’s easy, because being Black, and being a Black woman, is not easy. If you’re stressed reading it, imagine being stressed living it lmao. It’s a constant chain of quick-time events every day of your life to prevent nonblack nuclear meltdown in response to your every single action. I’m not going to apologize for it, either.

That being said, I don’t expect you to understand everything, especially not all at once. I just want you all to keep these things in mind, to question yourself when you’re writing your character- are you treating her differently on purpose? Or are you treating her differently because of a bias you might not even notice you have? It might help to go back, to read how you treat all of your characters. Or, if you’ve never written before, to maybe outline the traits of your characters and figure out where things balance out. As always, all you can do is practice at it. Because it's the thought that counts, but the action that delivers.

Whew, I'm actually emotionally strained after this one. My chest is beating fast. Let me go get some groceries now.

#creatingblackcharacters #character design #black characters #black character design #writing #creative writing #stereotypes #antiblackness #racism

[teaboot]

genuine question why you making that "humans are adorable" post even though humanity do horrible things such as genocide, racism, discrimination, ableism, sexism, rape, sexual abuse, and more?

i thought you aware on how awful people can be since judging from things you reblog you are aware of ongoing genocide and witnessing autistic children abused for their condition

Every day I choose to believe that every human being is fundamentally the same. That every adult was once a child, that every child had fears and hopes and joys, and every person desires to live happily and free of pain.

This does not absolve them of their cruelties. This does not condone or minimize their transgressions. This simply is to say, "I too could become monstrous: what would it take to push me there, and how could I prevent it, and if I could not prevent it, how could I stop?"

I believe that to be human is to be an animal like any other. I believe that we are not evil. Because if I believed that humanity was evil, fundamentally cruel, and incapable of better, what hope would I have? What purpose? What life could I live, as a plague surrounded by plagues?

I don't believe that people are good because I have not seen evil actions. I believe that people are good because I have to.

Do you understand?

I must believe in humanity. I must believe in kindness. I must believe in good, and change, and positive intent.

Because otherwise, I'd have nothing to live for.

Because otherwise, all I would have is myself, and self-loathing, and decades of existence in all directions, and a hopeless wasteland to spend it in.

I am not an individual naturally inclined towards trust. This takes effort. This is a survival strategy

#Dark themes #Abuse mention #SA mention #Ableism mention

[headspace-hotel]

Problems like climate change, where solving them requires millions of people to collectively work at hundreds of different solutions at once, are black holes for internal peacefulness because they give you a type of frustration where you alternately become bitter towards yourself or everyone around you. "If only I could work harder to fix the problem!" makes you exhausted, so you must become angry at others: "If only they cared about the problem!"

People who are already working on fixing climate change need to convince more people to work on it. And a popular thing is to share writings that describe how doomed we all are if climate change is not fixed, how terrible everything will be because of climate change, and how quickly all the treasures of our world are being lost.

There is a particular understanding of human behavior that is being accepted here without thinking about it hard enough. Popular news media shows headlines with terrible prophecies, written that way in hopes of getting the attention of otherwise disinterested people, who will then be "motivated" to fix climate change.

The trouble is that fear is no good for motivating thoughtful, patient, steady commitment to solving a problem. Fear is made to cause an organism to avoid things that might harm it. It creates a brief and explosive pulse of action where the organism's energy pours out as it instinctively, thoughtlessly reacts to escape the danger as fast as possible.

It's silly to blame people for avoiding thinking about climate change. The point of an organism responding to stressors is to avoid them. Oftentimes, the only tool people are presented with is personal choices about what products to buy, which inevitably is horribly frustrating and stressful, since a person will frequently be coerced by their situation into buying a certain product, and even if they don't they see others doing it all the time.

Relentless exposure to imminent threats that cannot be escaped causes Trauma, which severely impacts a person's ability to be resilient to stressors.

I think there is definitely a type of trauma associated with being constantly aware of the destruction of the environment and feeling helpless to do anything about it, especially since we as humans have a deep need for contact with other living things and aspects of the natural world, such as trees, water, flowers, and animals—a need that is often totally denied and treated as merely a Want or a hobby meant only for certain people who enjoy particular activities, like Hiking or Gardening.

We need to expand our minds on how this disconnection can hurt a human being. Imagine if a child's need to be loved by their caregivers, a person's need to be loved by their friends and family, was treated as a desire for indulgence or luxury, or a certain use of free time!

Yes, yes, one person has a condition that makes it hard to walk up hills, another doesn't like the bright sunshine, another is allergic to the grass or fungal components of the outdoor world, but WE ARE PART OF THE FAMILY OF ALL LIFE ON EARTH and WE EXIST IN SYMBIOSIS WITH THE ENVIRONMENT WHICH TAKES CARE OF US. Who showed you what beauty was, who taught you to feel peace and relief inside you in the form of a caressing breeze and rustle of leaves, who gave you awe and wonder at seeing the stars or the mountains? Where does every delicious food come from but the soil teeming with creatures? Isn't the most perfectly sweet berry grown from a plant, nurtured by the soil and pollinated by the bugs? Don't you feel delight at seeing a springy carpet of moss, a little mushroom, or a tiny bird? Think of all that the trees give us. Whose breath do you breathe? Whose body frames your home?

The writings of Indigenous writers such as the book by Mary Siisip Genuisz I am reading right now show me that the other life forms are our family. They take care of us and provide for us, and they would miss us if our species disappeared. Isn't that a powerful, healing fact? I think everybody is so enthusiastic about the book Braiding Sweetgrass because it is a worldview that those of us coming from the dominant colonizer culture are straight up ravenous, starving to death for.

Maybe, I think to myself, humans can experience a kind of trauma from being deprived a relationship with their Earth, just as they would experience trauma from being deprived relationships with other humans.

I really believe that it hurts us to be surrounded by concrete instead of soil, to see a majestic tree cut down on a whim without any justice possible, to see wild animals mostly in the form of mangled corpses on the roadside, to have poison sprayed everywhere to kill the insects that life depends on, to hear traffic and lawn mowers and weed whackers instead of birds and flowing water.

We KNOW that this is physically bad for our health, the stifling, polluted, and stressful environments of a civilization that doesn't know the ways of the plants, but I think it's a kind of moral injury too, right? To see a beautiful field turned into a housing development of ugly, big, expensive houses—no thought given to the butterflies and sparrows and quail of the field? To see a big old tree cut down, a pond full of frogs obliterated and turned into a drainage ditch beside a gas station? They aren't just things, they are lives, and while expansion and profit and progress are "necessary," a nice old field of wildflowers or a pond full of frogs are a different kind of necessary. I remember feeling this as a child without words for it—the sheer cruelty of a world that is totally without reverence for the other creatures.

"They own the property, they can cut down the tree" "They bought the land, they can do what they want with it" <but it can also be wrong, and many people know this on some level, even though our culture doesn't provide us with the framework.

Fear could never give people the motivation to fix climate change. Constant fear of what will happen in the future forces a person to protect themselves from the relentless stress by shutting it out entirely or developing apathy.

A fear based argument for fixing climate change either causes a worldview of nature with no bond of kinship at all, based on the physical and practical dependence on Nature as a "resource," or forces people to experience their kinship with Nature only through grief.

Fear tells us that we want to live—it does not tell us WHY to live. If a person tries to live on fear alone, they will eventually find the desire to live burdensome and painful in itself. I see this emerging on a society wide scale in the USA, feeding on influences from the Christian evangelicalism that sees the Earth as something already sullied and worthless, to be thrown away like a dirty tissue, and on the looming monolith of nuclear winter that gave our parents recurring nightmares as children.

If you go to r/collapse on Reddit (don't do that) you will see a whole community of people who cope with the threat of climate change by fantasizing about it, imagining it as a collective punishment for all humanity and a cathartic release from the present painful situation.

We cannot learn to live without seeing the reason for living. We cannot save the Earth without loving it. We cannot heal nature without caring for it. In order to collectively take action against climate change, we must be moved by something other than fear—and that something is love. Not just love of the outdoors as an activity, but love of the Earth as something that loves us.

The dominant Western culture cannot borrow Indigenous land stewardship techniques as though they are just one climate resilience strategy, without being also willing to change its dreadfully impoverished way of viewing human relationships with Nature.

What right have we to think, "Huh, maybe those guys were on to something with the multi-level polyculture systems and controlled burns" while still thinking humans are nothing but a disease on the Earth, and that Earth would be happy to be rid of us? The sustainable ways of using the land practiced traditionally by cultures who have lived in relationship with their ecosystems for many generations work because humans can exist in mutualistic symbiosis with the life forms around them. We care for them. They care for us.

I know for a fact that plants seek relationships with us, and I was taught by them to see how interconnected everything really is, and how I was made to be a caretaker of my ecosystem. I was, a few years ago, just as I describe above. Too scared and pessimistic about the future of nature to bother loving it, and because of this, I could not realize my niche in the ecosystem. It felt for many years like I could do nothing—i believed in climate change, but I felt hopeless, so I put it out of my mind. But when I began to cultivate a love and reverence for the sad, scraggly, beaten-down fragments of Nature around me, everything changed. So much became possible.

I am still learning and exploring, trying to open my mind to ideas totally different than the ones I knew growing up, paying close attention to every plant and learning its ways. And it stuns me to think—some people write about climate change without this process.

The author of the book "The Uninhabitable Earth" (a scary book about how doomed the Earth is because of climate change) says in the beginning of the book that he is not very much of a nature lover. You fool, love is our most powerful evolutionary adaptation!

#climate change #the ways of the plants #plants #nature #environment #symbiosis

[loriache]

Kabru, impossible mutual understanding & unknowable objects

Despite his concerted and constant efforts to understand other people, it’s established in a few extras that Kabru believes that true mutual understanding between certain different races is impossible. Specifically, between long-lived and short-lived races, and between humans and demi-humans. Partially, we can trace this conviction back to specific hang-ups caused by his life; the trauma of the Utaya disaster, prejudices he carries from his childhood, and his experience of racism among the elves. In this “little” essay, I’m gonna discuss how I think those experiences formed this belief, how it comes out in his actions, and how some of his actions seem to contradict it. The question of whether it’s possible to reach mutual understanding with other living beings despite our differences is one of the core themes of the manga, and I’ll also touch on how this aspect of Kabru’s character links to that.

Seeking understanding

Kabru is a character who devotes a huge amount of time and effort to understanding people, and he is very good at it. In his internal monologue, we can tell how advanced and complex his skills of analysis are. He is able to read a huge amount of information just from looking at people's faces and body language.

People are, to him, what monsters are to Laios. This is something that's been expanded on at length in other, excellent meta. It's the fact that they're foils; it's the fact that Kabru is also very easy to read as autistic, with a special interest which is the opposite and parallel of Laios'. It's something that came out of trauma and alienation, as Laios' special interest in monsters also began as a coping mechanism.

The complicated origin of this "love" for monsters and for people comes through, I think, in the fact that one of the places we see both characters use their fixation is in being very, very good at killing the thing that they love. This also ties into the idea that loving something isn't even remotely mutually exclusive with using it to sustain your own survival; using it for your own purposes; hurting it or killing it. Love can be, and often is, violent, possessive and consumptive. This understanding is part of what makes Kui's depiction of interpersonal relationships so compelling to me.

While Laios fixated on monsters and animals to seek a place of escape, in both his imagination and his self-image, from the humans who he couldn't understand and who couldn't understand him, Kabru seems to have fixated on understanding people in order to navigate the complex, socially marginal places that he has been forced into throughout his life. As an illegitimate child raised by a single mother with an appearance that marked him out as different to the point his father's family wanted to kill him, and a tallman child raised among elves who didn't treat him as fully human and wanted him to perform gratefulness for that treatment – treatment that, after he met Rin at age 9, he certainly always understood could be a lot worse – his ability to work out what people wanted from him, whether they were friendly or hostile or had ulterior motives, wasn’t just an interest. It will have been an essential skill.  

Milsiril, I think, was a flawed parent who tried to do her best by Kabru and did a lot of harm to him despite her best intentions. She may have treated him much better than an average elf would have, but like Otta and Marcille's mother, there are other elves with different outlooks on short-lived races. How would they judge her treatment of him? We don’t have any insight on what it could be, but to be honest, the person’s whose opinion of her I’d be most interested in knowing is Rin’s.

But even if she'd been perfect, living as an trans-racial adoptee in a deeply hierarchical nation with a queen who is a 'staunch traditionalist' who wouldn't even acknowledge the existence of a half-elf like Marcille (according to Cithis) is an experience that would deeply impact anyone.

Elves & Impossible mutual understanding

While Kabru was living with Milsiril - in other words, while living in the Northern Central Continent - he came to believe that "there was no way to achieve mutual understanding with the long-lived races."

This is evident in his political project: he wants short-lived races to have ownership over the dungeon's secrets. Despite his dislike of the Lord of the Island, he's a useful bulwark to stop the elves taking over. Despite his doubts about Laios, Laios needs to be the one to defeat the dungeon, because if he doesn't the elves will take over.

Kabru still carries a deep scar from Utaya, one that was exacerbated by the fact that he never got an answer to any of his questions about what happened or why. This, despite the fact that Milsiril knows about the demon and how it works. Do you think Kabru, with his social perceptiveness that borders on the superhuman, wasn't aware that she knew more than she would tell him?

Given that, the fact that he gets to a place where he "doesn't have any particularly negative feelings about [elves/long-lived species]" .... well, to put it bluntly, I believe that he thinks that's the case, but I kind of doubt it. After all, if he did have resentment, of Milsiril (someone who was his primary provider and caretaker since age six, and who despite her flaws, loves him and who I do think he loves) or of elves (who he has had to play nice with for most of his life, in order to survive, and will still have to play nice with in order to achieve his goals, since they hold all the power) what would that do except hurt him and make his life harder? Kabru is Mr. Pragmatic, so I don't think he'd let himself acknowledge any such feelings he did have. Exactly because he can't acknowledge them, they're well placed to get internalised as beliefs about the Fundamental Unchangeable Nature of the World.

However, these stated beliefs seem to contradict his actions. Despite his belief in the impossibility of forming a mutual understanding, he certainly seems to try to understand long-lived people, just as much as he does short-lived people. There's no noticeable difference between his treatment of Daya & Holm versus Mickbell & Rin that isn't clearly down to their relationship with him. His skills of human analysis were honed and developed while living amongst elves, and as soon as he's alone with Mithrun he immediately sets to understanding him - his interests, his motivations, his needs, and his past.

He treats him considerately and without bias, and despite the fact that Mithrun conquering the dungeon for the elves is both a reenactment of a core part of his childhood trauma and a political disaster for his aims, that doesn't seem to colour his perspective on Mithrun negatively at all.

This is something I find extremely laudable about Kabru, and it's another way he parallels Laios. He seems to understand that people, as a rule, (in Laios' case, he understands this about monsters - and eventually, all living beings) will act in their own interests, and if those interests conflict with yours, might harm you. But that's just their nature, and it's not something that should be held against them; you're also doing the same thing, after all. The crux of Laios' arc is precisely that he has to accept the responsibility of hurting someone else in order to achieve what he wants.

Kabru is deeply concerned with his own morals, what he should and shouldn't do, but mostly in the context of responsibility for the consequences - a responsibility he takes onto himself. He isn't scrupulous about what he needs to do in order to create the outcome he wants, but if he fails to create that outcome, then....

He blames himself to the point of thinking he should die. He doesn't blame Laios, or seem at all angry with him, despite concluding he should have killed him to prevent this outcome. That's because in his eyes, ultimately Laios was going to act according to his own nature, and it's Kabru's fault for not understanding that nature well enough. He's extremely confident in his ability to understand and predict others, (including elves and other long-lived people). Then, where does his conviction that mutual understanding is impossible come from?

Partially, it's the "mutual" part. I'm sure Kabru, who isn't able or willing to deny Otta's insinuation that Milsiril saw him more like a pet than a son, has felt that his full interiority, the depth of his feelings and his ability to grow, act, and think as a fully equal being, was something that the elves around him just couldn't grasp. Because that was their excuse for it, he came to understand this as a gulf between short-lived and long-lived beings, an inevitable difference in outlook caused by their different lifespans.

This experience might be part of what leads to his iconic “fake” behaviour. He trusts his ability to understand others, but if they aren’t able to understand him, then there isn’t any benefit to being honest about his feelings and thoughts. If his attempts to reach mutual understanding with his caretakers were never able to be fulfilled, then it isn’t any wonder that he reacts with such surprise and horror at blurting out his desire to be Laios’ friend.

In his experience, making yourself vulnerable in that way only leads to being hurt. Soothing him, hushing him, lying to him, talking to him like a child that isn’t able to use proper judgement – that’s an inadequate and deeply hurtful way to respond to genuine distress, the desire for autonomy, or disagreement. Ultimately, I think that’s why he comes out on the side of being grateful to Milsiril; because she did equip him with the skills and knowledge he’d need to reach his goal, and let him go.

Though he could understand them, they couldn't understand him. To the extent that was true - which I'm sure it was - it wasn't due to anything about lifespan. It was due to the elves’ racism, and the solipsitic mindset & prejudiced attitude that it caused them to approach him with.

Because, if it needs to be said, the idea that there is an unbreachable gap in understanding between the long-lived and short-lived species is not true. Marcille and Laios have a much greater difference in lifespan than any full elf from any short-lived person, and they’re able to understand each other – maybe not perfectly, but better than many other people who are closer in life-span to them.

That doesn’t mean that I think Kabru is wrong about this, however. Because there’s an interpretation of his statement that is reflected in his actions and is true. When he talks about his problem with elves, it’s not just their attitudes: it’s their power, and what they use it to do. They “explain nothing and take everything”. Though it’s presented in the guise of ‘guiding and protecting’, in fact it’s a simple case of a powerful nation using their military power, wealth, access to resources, and historically stolen land – including the island itself – to protect their own interests and advance their own agenda. That’s why they’d be able to show up, seize the dungeon, and forcibly take Kabru’s party and Laios’ party to the West. If Kabru wants to stop that from happening, or change that status quo, persuasion or a bid to be understood would be completely pointless. Between the political blocs formed by long-lived species and the interests of short-lived species, “mutual understanding”, given their current, unequal terms, would be impossible. This is something that we see reflected in Kabru’s actions; before he asks his questions about the dungeon, he grabs Mithrun as leverage. He never really attempts to persuade the canaries to see his point of view, because that would be pointless: they’re agents of the Northern Central Continent’s monarchy, and will act in its interests regardless of any individual relationship with him.  

I don’t think Kabru sees the different dimensions of this belief of his in quite such clear terms, however, as is evidenced by the other group who he thinks it’s impossible to communicate with.

Demi-Humans & Unknowable Objects

The other place that we see his conviction about the impossibility of mutual understanding is in the kobold extra.

I'm including the whole thing, because I think it's an excellent and clever piece of world-building. Aside from what it says about Kabru, which I'll expand on shortly, what this extra does is deconstruct and call into question the usual "fantasy ontological biology" present in these sort of DnD-like settings. Essentially, the kind of worldbuilding where a race (such as kobolds) can be described as war-like, and that's establishing something essential about their biological nature. That's common to the point that if Kui didn't include this, some people would probably come away thinking that's the case about, e.g., the orcs.

But here, despite what Kabru is saying, the information the reader actually gets is:

the conflict between short-lived humans and demi-humans such as kobolds is mostly over access to material resources that they need to survive.

These resources are scarce because powerful nations, such as the elves, have monopolised them.

Kabru, who has grown up in a place at the centre of these conflicts, ascribes essential, negative traits to a cultural group which was in direct conflict with his own. Communication with this other group is impossible; they aren't people, they're more like objects.

oh yes! just like this conflict between groups of tall-men, a conflict which the reader will immediately interpret as more clearly analogous to real-life racism. Our other protagonists also carry prejudices from growing up in a place where a marginalised group was in conflict with the dominant group over scarce resources. It's definitely impossible to communicate with these people, and you can only kill them.

Woah, when you say it like that, it sounds pretty bad!

But also, nobody walks away having had a realisation or unlearned their prejudices - because they don't have the tools they need to do that work. Yet. I do think, to an extent, it could happen - especially with Kabru, since it's suggested in the epilogue that Melini might become a safe-haven for demi-humans.

To focus in on Kabru, the key here is his statement that you should think of demi-humans as "unknowable objects". Even his extraordinary powers of understanding have seemingly hit a limit. Part of this is just inherited prejudice, and doesn't need to have a complicated psychological explanation, any more than the elves who were prejudiced against him need one.

But also... this is probably somewhat linked to the way demi-humans seem to be considered "pseudo-monsters". They're the place that the strict delineation between the human and the monstrous is permeated. Laios, who is not interested in humans, remembers and is excited by Kuro. Chilchuck and Laios argue over whether it's OK to eat a mermaid. Kabru's prepared to (pretend to) roll with the idea that Laios ate the orcs.

But these are people, aren't they? Of course, this is a social construction, as we see from the fact that in the Eastern Archipelago, the label of "human" is reserved for tallmen, but in most of the rest of the world it depends on some obviously arbirary classification based on number of bones; "demi-humans" aren't in any essential way monstrous, except to an extent in their appearance, and physical location - due to their marginal social status, they're pushed out to live in unsafe places such as dungeons.

Therefore, Kabru's view of demi-humans as fundamentally "other", unable to be understood - monstrous - could be read as akin to abjection, the psychoanalytical concept described by Julia Kristeva. In order to create a bounded, secure superego, that thing which permeates and calls into question the border between self and other, human and animal, life and death, is rejected and pushed to the margin.

“Not me. Not that. But not nothing, either. A "something" that I do not recognize as a thing.[...] On the edge of nonexistence and hallucination, of a reality that, if I acknowledge it, annihilates me. There, abject and abjection are my safeguards. The primers of my culture.” (Kristeva et al., 1984, p. 11) “It is thus not lack of cleanliness or health that causes abjection but what disturbs identity, system, order. ” (Kristeva et al., 1984, p. 13) “The pure will be that which conforms to an established taxonomy; the impure, that which unsettles it, establishes intermixture and disorder. [...] the impure will be those that do not confine themselves to one element but point to admixture and confusion.” (Kristeva et al., 1984, p. 107) (discussing food prohibitions in Leviticus)

This is both (due to its affinity with food-loathing and disgust) a very fruitful concept to apply to dunmeshi, and a psychoanalytical theory which I wouldn't exactly cosign as True Facts About Human Psychological Development. You may also know the abject from its utilisation in the classic essay "Horror and the Monstrous-Feminine" by Barbara Creed - that's a lot more approachable than Kristeva if anyone's interested.

Key here, though, is that through the symbol of the "demi-human" is embodied a step between "human" and "monster" - and that's a prospect that puts at risk the whole notion of an absolute separation between those two categories in the first place. To Laios, that's something wonderful, and to Kabru, it's terrifying. We can see this principle further embodied in the relationship both characters have with the notion of becoming monstrous.

To Laios, this is transcendent, and represents a renunciation of everything human - in fact, if it didn't, it wouldn't "count".

To Kabru, it's a deeply-held fear, established by his childhood alienation (due to his illegitimacy, his eyes, and perhaps also his neurodivergency), deepened by monster-related trauma and the sense of responsibility and survivors guilt he feels for what happened at Utaya. His identity as a human who is not monstrous is key to his sense of stability and safety; he doesn't want to touch monsters, he doesn't even want to see them.

To acknowledge a kinship, a possibility of similarity between the things he loves (humans) and the things he hates (monsters) would be more than touching them - it would be putting them inside him. We know, quite explicitly, that this notion is triggering to Kabru. He literally has what seems to be a flashback when he's about to eat the harpy omelette.

So he abjects it, classifying the demi-human as fundamentally unlike him - an unknowable object, or an object that he refuses to know. Because in understanding it, he would interject the things he hates and fears into his self, which is already, always under threat by that hated and feared object.

Of course, again, Kabru isn't very good at enacting this refusal in practice. For one, when he chooses between his desires and ingesting the feared object, eating monsters... he eats monsters. Part of this is treating himself badly, the "ends justify the means" mentality. His goal is to destroy all monsters, so if he needs to become monster-like to do that, he will. But part of it is also the other motivation that he didn't even seem to know about until he said it: he wants to become Laios' friend, and to learn from him how a person can like monsters. He wants, at least in some part of him, to reconcile the feared and hated object into something he can understand.

For another:

Kabru can speak the kobold language. In the first place, while this may have been common in Utaya, it also could have been something he chose to learn, an early expression of his interest in understanding and talking to all sorts of people. It isn't the kind of thing you learn if you believe that communication between yourself and the group that speak it is impossible, is it?

It's possible to harbour prejudices against a group while being kind to an individual, and given Kabru has those prejudices regardless of his reasons, that is what he is doing. But also, his treatment of Kuro doesn't reflect a sincerely held belief that he's an "unknowable object" at all. His approach is exactly the same as it is to any other person: an analysis of goal and motive, and an attempt to help if he's sympathetic and their goals align - going out of his way to give language and local knowledge lessons in secret. His conviction that Mickbell and Kuro will truly become friends when they can properly communicate is completely contradictory to any sense of demi-humans as fundamentally different, or impossible to reach mutual understanding with. To me, it seems like this self-protective shield against the corruptive force demi-humans as an idea present to his identity, this abjection, when Kabru is face-to-face with one, just simply can't hold up against his finely honed skill of intellectual empathy. Perhaps because he's autistic, it seems his "empathy" is less an emotional mirror response, and more a set of cognitive skills for analysis of others. That instinctual, emotional empathy might not trigger when presented with a member of an out-group, but if it’s possible for Kabru to turn his cognitive empathy off, we don’t see him do it.

This isn't to say that this prejudice doesn't affect his behaviour. For one, it could negatively impact his judgement of politics and policy, where individual people don't enter into it. For another, I'm not convinced he'd be willing to overlook Mickbell's exploitative relationship with Kuro if Kuro wasn't a kobold. As it is, since both of them are satisfied, he doesn't feel like he needs to intervene, regardless of the fact Mickbell isn't paying Kuro. But if Daya and Holm were in a relationship, and Holm took both Daya's and his own share from their ventures, but only compensated her in living expenses and kept the rest, do you think he'd tolerate it, for example? Even if she said it was OK?

Conclusion

The kelpie chapter establishes that "people can never know what monsters are really thinking." That isn't just true of monsters, though.

True mutual understanding is impossible - between anyone. We can never truly understand another person's heart. This is touched on in, for example, the existence of shapeshifters and dopplegangers. Even a monster that seemed like a perfect copy of a person wouldn’t be that person, and wouldn’t be a satisfactory replacement.

We’re intended, I think, to understand the winged lion's repeated suggestions to just replace people who have been lost with copies as something uncanny, which demonstrates the way that the winged lion never manages to attain a complete understanding of humans. A version of a person who was created to fulfil your memories of them, to be the person who you wanted them to be, would be a terrible, miserable thing.

Disagreeing, coming into conflict, and misunderstanding each other, are essential parts of what it means to be living beings, as fundamental as the need to eat.

The only thing to do is not to take more than you need to eat to survive, and not impose your own desires onto others. To do your best to sincerely communicate your desires, even if they're embarrassing or vulnerable or strange, like Kabru eventually does with Laios; like Laios does, bit by bit, with the people around him; like Marcille does, Chilchuck does, Senshi does... to hope they will accept you, and do your best to understand them in return.

We can re-examine, in that context, Kabru's line about the elves' tendency to "explain nothing and take everything".

They have the power to impose their preferred "menu" onto less powerful groups. And in that context, mutual understanding being impossible just means that they won't give up their power because they're asked nicely. Kabru's goal is to seize the truth that they won't give to him, and to create a situation where they can't take everything. Because he's accurately surmised that nothing about the treatment of short-lived races will change so long as the power imbalance remains. Despite the way he mistakenly ascribes part of that to "long-lived vs short-lived" or "human vs demi-human", the actual gulfs in understanding he identifies are structural, are about power and about access to material resources and safety.

I think he could come to recognise this. Yaad is teaching him political science after all, and while a prince's lessons on political science won't exactly get at much that's radical or invested in the interests and perspectives of the marginalised (Capital is a critique of for a reason after all...) I believe in Kabru's ability to learn critically and get more from a lesson than it was intended to teach.

#og post #kabru of utaya #kabru dungeon meshi #laios touden #dungeon meshi meta #dungeon meshi #dunmeshi #dungeon meshi manga spoilers #dungeon meshi analysis #kuro dungeon meshi #the canaries #milsiril #continuing to develop my kabru theses. #literally sitting and thinking about kabru all day. rotating him. #he's in the microwave. to me.