#because i am also terrified of having a surface level interpretation of a character like man just take me away to the guillotine atp/j | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

coffinbrotherr · 5 months

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Istg I keep seeing videos in my recommend that have either Andrew or Ashley sprites in the thumbnail and it's always in the lines of "shock storytelling is BAD" or "this needs to STOP" (I'm not providing examples as to not install a witchhunt but if youve seen them, you know EXACTLY who im talking about.) and I dont...I don't get why? Like, ok genuinely I'm having an actual hard time understanding why because being disturbed and being made uncomfortable is quite literally the definition of horror, so why is it a problem now.

To I guess throw my hat into the ring, I'd like to explain why i personally think incest integral to Tcoaal not only because I'm just fucking tired of seeing people not like the game just because of that aspect and I'm not knocking those people because of it because people can not like things for specific reasons, for example I am not one for horror involving teeth or the mouth so I tend to ignore horror media that prominently use those as setpieces. I'm mainly talking about people that bash it without actually playing it and people that see it at surface level and just make a Baseless assumption because to me and obviously a lot of other people as it still has great reviews, Tcoaal is wonderfully written and that IS thanks to its incest themes.

We see that throughout the game, Ashley obviously loves her brother, not only in the romantic sense but also in the power dynamic. While some aspects have yet to be revealed about thier relationship as we still only have two chapters, Ashley obviously manipulates Andrew and has since they were little as evident by the hide and seek flashback. It's incredibly obvious that Ashley likes control over people and since she doesn't really have anyone else that's closer to her, she uses Andrew exclusively as he's always been there with her figuratively and literally. While this behavior definitely comes from a sense of loneliness and fear of losing the one person that tolerates her as not even thier own parents wanted to stay around them let alone her, I think it also comes down to enjoying the control. Genuinely think about the story of the game for a sec, could you imagine being in that exact situation we see the siblings in. The closest thing we can even relate it to is covid, and we could at least still leave the house to an extent and have things sent to us that we wanted. Imagine going through all that not being able to leave, literally having the bare minimum of food being dropped off to you and being FORCED to stay inside not with a slap on the wrist but with active threats of death even though you know other people get to freely live outside peacefully. Not only is that terrifying but it gives a lot more insight to Ashley's character as she's literally stuck in a place she cannot control in an unfounded situation that is positively awful, but she does have one thing she can control, she has one person she can make exclusively hers and make him do whatever she wants through manipulation and the connection with love. The same goes for Andrew as we know Andrew was at least a bit more popular with people to the point where he even had a girlfriend (Julia) and to have literally all that stripped away from him is tragic, however for him there's one more person he can interact with, one person that cares about him and truly does love him in a way only they can share. It's a beautifully horrific way of telling a story because on the outside, it just looks like "oh hah hah, that's the incest cannibalism game" but if you actually played it you would see not only is the writing genuinely funny but also incredibly smart with its subtle meaning and player interpretation. It's NOT glorifying incest, it is actively showing an incredibly toxic relationship that was made through the circumstances and actions taken with both characters and to say it's just "shock storytelling" or "it's just trying to glorify incest" is just wrong, it's using the incest to further the narrative and that's why I personally find this game to be my favorite work of horror.

But that was just my interpretation, I'd love to hear your guy's views on it because I'd love to further the discussion and potentially add to my analysis as this was just something I wrote at 12:30 AM in bed. I could go on and on about my personal analysis but a lot of it would just be me being genuinely pretty annoyed with the games detractors and overall just make for a poor reading experience.

#the coffin of andy and leyley #tcoaal #andrew graves #ashley graves

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deiscension · 3 months

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so when can we expect this dissection of that lyric for sqx huh 👀🍿

@deathfavor You can get it right this instant if may be allowed to pull an swd and lose my entire gotdamn head. This isn't as detailed or organized as I'd like to get with it because I want to pull very specific lines from the different arcs they're involved in but I'm going to summarize as best as I can!

First off I need to emphasize that I think as "unfair" as what happens to SQX is, I think it needed to happen. I am putting "unfair" in air quotes because I'm also a HX defender and as terrifying and life-altering as Black Water arc is for them, I also do not think SQX would lament how "unfair" any of it was after the proverbial dust has settled (that's a discussion for another time though because I have A Lot Of Thoughts about swd's beheading + the direct aftermath + SQX not wanting to ascend again + immediately seeking to descend and not be sought out again after willingly giving up their powers).

SQX loves SWD, MY/HX, and XL. I refuse to put past tense there too okay she's full of love for better or worse. Usually for worse. I digress. She loves them, but she doesn't know them. She thinks she does. She's had no reason to believe she didn't, and that she was running out of time to know them all. That's why things had to happen the way they did. That's the price of her ignorance. It's not a faultless thing even if it was never meant to be malicious. And my GOD, she's lived her whole life in layers and layers of ignorance, all of it heaped onto her. She can go her whole life loving with all her heart but she has to learn how to actually know others, too. Let me try to break down what I mean through the three specific characters I mentioned. I am going to try to keep this short-ish because I will elaborate more when I've got the braincells and quotes to go for it but!! Here we go.

Also before I get into it, I don't mean to say that she didn't know any of them at all. She knew them all in exactly the ways they wanted to be known, in my opinion; not all of it convenient or surface level either! And she's a fair more insightful about all three of them than one might notice on a first reading. But she's still missed key facets of each one-- if I may be a bit heavy-handed, she's blinded by the sun and stumbling through the shadows, thinking that because she can't see those shadows they're not there. And that's not how people work. So!

Xie Lian -- while it is very indicative of the type of loyal, rational (when necessary), ride-or-die, and kindhearted person SQX is when they defend him against PM and then against the Heavenly Court, it goes to show just how easily blinded they are. Don't get me wrong, it also says a lot about their ability to think for themself (that's another bone I have to pick with popular fanon interpretation of them LOL) and not bend to social convention/pressure. But they're also letting one interaction inform them against centuries of history. Granted, we aren't ever told how much SQX knows about XL before coming across him at Banyue Pass. However, considering the amount of officials that play nice with SQX, I can't imagine they wouldn't have heard all matter of gossip-- truth mixed with tales and the like. And then there's the whole "he had remembered the flower but forgotten about the sword" line: SQX knows XL as a gentle, level-minded, experienced person. They haven't yet contended with his personal history. This trait of theirs is a double-edged sword. I can't imagine they wouldn't have reflected on this after being left in the Heavenly Capital. They would've never meant any harm by not digging into XL's past, but how ashamed they must feel of trying to be a good, reliable friend while remaining ignorant of all his past troubles.

Shi Wudu - that's her brother! She LOVES her brother! He's given her the world, he's kept her safe, he was the only person she had for so long-- the only person who didn't try to take advantage of her pain and ignorance and just wanted what was best for her. He'd never lie to her, he'd never hurt her, he'd never belittle her, he'd never give her reason to fear him. Not in any way that's anything more than a temporary sibling tiff. Except he did. Time and time again, he did. And I'm not saying this to disparage SWD because especially after a second reading of BW arc, I know SWD loved them too, and he is a fascinating character. We need characters like him alright, just as much as we also need SQXs and HXs and XLs and HCs and so forth. There's so much that needs to be taken into account when examining SWD's behavior towards SQX and how frightened SQX is of her own brother even before discovering the truth-- and I'd love to get into it but maybe not here because I'm already rambling soooo much LSDKFJSDF. Back to the point. SWD loved her. But at what point does love become a cage? At what point does it become hands around your throat? SQX has no idea what all was sacrificed for her. She's not allowed to know. Yes there's the iconic "the one he feared most had been beside him all along" about Ming Yi but HAVE WE CONSIDERED HOW MUCH IT APPLIES TO SWD TOO. HAVE WE!!!! Because I am Considering and I am Dry-heaving at how on the nose it is for SWD too. I already talked a little bit about it (here) but in his efforts to secure a place in the heavens for himself and her, SWD became the exact thing SQX hated and feared the most. SWD is a mirror to the Reverend, at least in actions. Gobbling up lives without a second thought, using fear as a means of control, laughing in the face of another's undeserved and unearned misery, "we've lived good lives"-- EVERYTHING SQX fears is her brother. Her brother, who she loves so much but didn't know nearly well enough.

I'm planning on doing a whole Shi sibling meta but I need to read through a few more passages with SWD first because while my brain is not particularly big I also refuse to misinterpret his character on purpose just because I sometimes want to give him a swift kick to the ass. SWD my beloathed-loved. Idk. Bestworst shitass brother. Still meditating upon that one though because they are both unreliable narrators with each other and XL is an unreliable narrator too so I have much to think about.

He Xuan - [gripping your shoulders and looking into your eyes] Help Me God I Am About To Explode. Where Do I Begin. I'm not gonna lie the first time I heard this part:

I was a kid until I fixed it Tore into a love affair Between me and what wasn't there Oh, I was kissing you Just to feel the air

my brain was like 'wow S.arah K.insley that's so SQX reflecting on her time with MY/HX you're so right'. Which is what led me to thinking even more about all SQX's other relationships too. I know fandom has a lot of contention in how to read into their relationship pre-BW arc and post-BW arc. Frankly I am here to cry as hard as I can and as long as I can so based on my second reading of BW arc + the way SQX acts with both MY/HX and comparing it to how she is with everyone else, I think her feelings with MY/HX are deeper than they're often given credit for. SQX is "friends with everyone", sure. But to HER, MY is her first true friend. Her most beloved, most trusted, most treasured friend. And she never really knew him. Oh, we can point the finger at him and say "well, he was pretending to be someone he wasn't, she wouldn't have found anything out either way". To that I say yes-- and I'm sure SQX did try to poke around for more, but she's so carefree and trusting, it seems logical to me that she would've taken his prickliness and closed-off nature as "just how he is".

All we have about her social life before ascending is pure speculation. I know I'm not presenting good evidence for my reasoning at the moment (I really want to cook up a post about the type of sheltered life SQX lived because all that spoiling and opulence came in after being brought into the middle court-- like yes SWD spoiled them by always being the one to take care of the difficult things, but again! Another topic for later! I have much to say about SQX's learned helplessness there). SQX didn't have anyone but her ge. I'm sure she had "lots of friends" in the Middle Court too. But she didn't have a capital-f-Friend. And then-- she has MY! Someone who's not trying to get to her brother through her (LOLLLLLLLL), someone who doesn't disappear during times of storm, someone who doesn't disguise their true nature or intentions for the sake of personal gain (LOL x2). Well I'm laughing there but again- HX defender. I digress, again. SQX isn't latching onto MY out of pure convenience. If SQX wanted to befriend someone who goes along with all her whims, never gives her a hard time, and plays coy for her amusement, she has thousands to choose from. Hell her brother could've picked for her. But she wants MY as her best friend and closest confidant. It would've been so easy for her to dump him on his ass and chase after best friend status with XL if all her clinging to MY was purely informed by self-interest and the desire to feel good about herself all the time. They themself even say that XL has earned "second best friend" status during the beginning of BW arc, all while XL is objectively the only person giving her tangible comfort. She doesn't just want a best friend, she wants her best friend Ming-xiong. My god! He's the first they cry out for at what's arguably their lowest: right after willingly giving up their power, when it turns out their brother is the type of person they've always feared the most, when it's clear they cannot save anyone, they cannot even save themself.

And oh, how she wanted to be the same for him! She risked HC's wrath (or at least she thought she was, which is also so funny in greater context) to "rescue" him. She would've done anything for him. Except she couldn't. She didn't know him. She failed him so terribly, so miserably, so shamefully. Him and everyone else who loved him and actually knew him, the ones who died so she could have a life she hadn't earned. We both know how agonizing those moments in the Nether Water Manor-- but what about the aftermath? What about when it was just them stumbling around, after the fear and shock had worn off, with nothing but their own audacious words echoing around in their head? "This whole thing has nothing to do with Ming-xiong, but he had to suffer like this". THEY DIDN'T KNOW THE HALF OF IT! And they said it with such grief then-- well, what about now? How much worse had they made his suffering? Had he felt nothing but revulsion that whole time? Had she made his loneliness, his suffering, his weariness worse? All those times she told him not to worry, all those times spent fussing over him, (trying to) dote on him, looping her arm through his and pulling him this way and that. Did it mean anything at all? He was her best friend, he was who she wanted at her side, but who was she to him? Was he ever really there?

But SQX is too empathetic to only think about herself when it comes to such pains. Once the wallowing wore off, how often did she spend wondering about him? Knowing that of anyone in the heavens and on earth, he was the one deserving of the good life, he was the one deserving of someone who loved him for who he was. What a fool she was for thinking she was that someone! She couldn't even call the right name. She did indeed cause the death of her closest family. She did indeed cause the death of her best friend. And what can she do? What can she say? Sorry doesn't bring anyone back; sorry doesn't make everything better; sorry doesn't make up for being unworthy of the time she squandered at his side, all because she didn't know. Ignore, for a moment, the fear and trauma now casting impenetrable shadows over the image of "her best friend", and consider: by any grace yet again unearned, could she ever accept an offering of forgiveness for such grievances?

I know SQX is doing "fine" as a mortal, she has friends that don't just want something out of them, and I know she's taking better care to practice knowing along with loving. But it just kills me how all her life she has had "everything" but nothing at the same time. None of it was hers. She did nothing to earn it, no matter how much she as a person deserved it. What's deserved without earned, after all?

#▌ ◈ ooc ; ⌜ he fucking ascended again! ⌟#▌ ◈ SHI QINGXUAN ; ⌜ study ⌟#deathfavor #collapses into a boneless heap in front of you. TYSM FOR ASKING BRIT. I'M IN SHAMBLES.#don't uh. don't mind how long the last bit is.#i have a lot of feelings and thoughts about all sqx's canon relationships #but i in particular have Many Many thoughts and Many Many feelings about sqx and hx #'short-ish' [folds my hands in my lap and smiles beatifically] i love being a liar!

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starbornvalkyrie · 3 years

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ACOSF USA BOOK TOUR NOTES

Hey y’all! I just attended the LiveTalks Los Angeles event with Sarah J Maas and Eva Chen!! I took lots of notes so I wanted to share them with you all! They’re a little incoherent on the page, so it might seem a crazy, they jumped topics a lot. Feel free to chat with me about what she talked about! But first.

MY RULES:

NO SHIP OR CHARACTER SLANDERING. I know that we all may have different opinions. I will not offer my opinions here, this is purely informational for those of you who did not have the opportunity to attend this event.

PLEASE NO ARGUING IN MY COMMENTS OR ASK BOX WITH ME OR ANYONE ELSE WHO COMMENTS

Acknowledge that I am not perfect and may not have written down everything perfectly. I did my best while still trying to enjoy the event.

I AM NOT SARAH J MAAS AND CANNOT INTERPRET WHAT SHE MEANS

I’m tagging this with #acosf spoilers and #acosfspoilers just in case.

If you understand and can abide by these rules, keep reading below the cut, and enjoy!

SJM said it was weird doing this event from her living room where you might be able to hear her dog in the background or her son trying to get into the room.

ACOSF started as a passion project while she was writing ACOWAR! It was never anything she thought she was going to publish. (more on this later)

About reading and writing growing up

in middle school, she read a lot of fantasy

in high school, she didn’t read as much, but wrote A LOT. it became her fixation, almost an obsession.

in college, she only really wrote on vacations (she had a very healthy social life hehehe) but her junior year is when she found her balance between schoolwork, writing, and socializing.

there was no plan B for her!! it was always to be an author. if it didn’t happen right away, she was going to find a job that would get her by until plan A could come to be.

her favorite author growing up was Garth Nix. She longed for books about badass women. She got to meet him and write a blurb to be on one of his books! She cries when she meets her favorite authors.

Talk about character names!

her character names come from everywhere and nowhere

sometimes she’ll just hear a name in her head and think “that’s it!” (Rhys, for example)

she needs to know the name to write the character

if the name doesn’t immediately come to her, she spends a lot of her time on baby name websites and makes lists until it clicks

sometimes the names just... connect. sometimes she doesn’t mean for them to.

it will always be uncommon. never “Frank” lol

Writing about Nesta!

on a “surface level” she loves writing when Nesta comes out to fight. for example, her favorite scene in this aspect to write was the bog scene. As soon as she got to it, it flowed out of her. The final product was almost identical to the first draft. She wrote it in one session, from the terror & tread to the “who am i?” to when she emerged--she went YES. MAJOR Mic Drop moment for her.

going deeper: definitely her overall journey was one of the favorites she’s ever written. From the dark place she’s in at the beginning to the very end.

Writing about Nesta meant so much to her because of her own mental health. She channeled a lot of her own feelings and went on the journey with Nesta.

it was a lot of “how do you face mental health in a fantasy world without therapy and medication”

it was easy to get into Nesta’s mind but emotionally intense.

ACOSF’S BIG MESSAGE: LEARNING TO LOVE YOURSELF AND OTHERS. YOU ARE WORTH OF LOVE.

YES there is a book planned for Elain!

As soon as Nesta and Elain came onto the page again in ACOMAF, she knew they’d get their own journey.

Nesta grabbed her by the throat in book 1

She was originally contracted for only the first three books but realized there was more she wanted to explore. Essentially the “what comes next” after ACOWAR in this new world with out the wall.

FUN FACT: while editing ACOMAF/writing ACOWAR, she drunkenly told her editor at the time, “hey guess what happens next?”, and it turned into a two hour conversation about everything she wants to happen for Nesta, Elain, Mor, Azriel, etc. TWO WEEKS LATER, she gets a call saying they want to buy the stories!! Obviously, she said yes.

This allowed her to start planting the Easter eggs for these stories in ACOWAR. She knew she did not want Nesta to be sympathetic at the beginning of the book! But she did not want people to hate her.

She always has one eye on the horizon for future books.

If she could visit one court for a day, which and why?

She LOVES the season Autumn, it’s her favorite. “BUT EVERYONE IN THE AUTUMN COURT IS AN ASSHOLE”. She would want to visit the Autumn Court when no one is there so she can enjoy the beauty of Autumn.

But also she would want to go to the Summer Court because she has a thing for Tarquin but only if it’s not gross and humid.

She would ALSO want to go to the Day Court for Helion and all his libraries.

ESSENTIALLY she would want to go everywhere but Spring because Tamlin sucks and is an asshole lmao.

BEAST FORMS

SJM’s beast form would be something totally not cool or majestic like a sea otter.

Nesta’s beast form would be something terrifying and beautiful like a snow leopard/dragon hybrid, a griffin, or a sphinx. **WANTS SOMEONE TO DRAW THIS**

FUN QUESTIONS

Nesta’s favorite smutty book would be JR Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood series. She reads these books for the distraction, of course, but also for the comfort they gave her that everything turns out okay for the characters.

Nesta’s Starbucks order: cappuccino- something simple, nothing with too much sugar or whipped cream. Elain’s would be a Frappe- something delicious and sweet. SJM’s is a flat white, iced or not, but never after 2PM.

SJM usually listens to classical music and movie scores while she writes, but she’s gotten used to write in silence so that she can listen for her son’s shenanigans with Josh.

“Stay Together for the Kids” by Blink 182 semi-inspired the scene when Nesta and Cassian go back to her family’s cottage. She can hardly explain why.

WRITING ADVICE

Write what you love, not what you think you should be writing.

Give yourself permission to suck. Her first drafts are shit and are usually accompanied with an email that says “I know I need to fix this, this and that” lol.

WRITE THE DAMN THING. Vomit on the page!

YOU CAN’T FIX A BLANK PAGE.

Her least favorite part about the publishing process is the first pass of copy edits, those last minute checks and balances. But once it’s off to the printer, it’s not her problem anymore.

She’s every publisher’s worst nightmare because she sends it off to the printer at the LAST possible minute.

For reference: Throne of Glass was finished almost... a year and a half? ...before it hit shelves, but ACOSF was finished this past fall.

MAIN CHARACTER TALK

All of her heroines have a piece of her.

SJM’s personality is a hybrid of Bryce and Nesta.

Feyre and Nesta got most of her in terms of learning to be empowered.

She has to have a connection to them in order to write them. It’s an out of body, method acting experience.

MISCELLANEOUS

She said “CC2 is a year from now.”

She started writing ACOTAR in 2008 before she published TOG.

She loves the story and dynamic of Elizabeth and Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. Cassian is Elizabeth. Nesta is Darcy.

And that’s all I have, folks! Thank you for reading, I hope you got something out of this!

#acosf spoilers #acosfspoilers #nessian #nesta archeron #cassian #sarah j maas #live talks

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hatboyproject · 3 years

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This is very long, but it might be of interest to someone, somewhere. I was asked recently about the direction I'm taking this romance in and whether or not I'll be addressing certain disability specific subjects within it. The answer, of course, is yes - I have always planned to do this in one form or another. Whilst no single piece of media can address everything I'd like to say on the subject, and I am working within the bounds of a larger story with its own pacing and focus to consider, there's still room to touch on some of these things.

I'm aware that my interpretations won't always be the same as others'. They are my interpretations, coloured by my experiences and feelings, and ultimately, this is my mod - I'm writing it for everybody who 'wears the ballcap,' so to speak! But, it's my interpretation of this character that I'm trying to share with everyone. Different people "took the helm" (laugh, I'm hilarious!) on writing Jeff across the trilogy, and as time has gone on I've been trying to convince myself that it's okay to have my turn at doing that, too - albeit in a non-professional capacity. So... Let's get into my interpretation of Jeff, where his stuff comes from on my view, and how things went to get him to where we are at the beginning of ME3, where the romance can occur.

A lot of how I interpret him comes from experiences in my own life with my own issues, and with those of my loved ones, some of whom are physically disabled in similar (but not identical) ways to Jeff. Some of this carries an element of catharsis for me.

Mechanically and narratively speaking, what draws me to writing this romance is the contrast between how these two characters are strong. It's this core idea that strength doesn't have only one manifestation in a person. That loving somebody doesn't have to be done only one way, that it can be beautiful and passionate and fulfilling - even if, when it gets physical, the headboard can't exactly be made to shatter with the force of it all. For me, it's also an exercise in insecurity and dealing with feelings of frustrated inadequacy - something that has plagued me my whole life.

Yes, yes, he's fictional - but the only way for me to really get into a character is to think about them as if they're a real being. When I look at Jeff as a person, I see many things... Some very positive, some pretty negative... I try to see him as a complete person with strengths and flaws.

On the surface he is often defensive, dismissive, sarcastic, and emotionally avoidant. But why is that? He is highly skilled, dedicated and capable, and knows it, but at the same time is a person who is constantly overlooked, underestimated, and asked to work thrice as hard to get the same considerations. Even then, his validity is questioned often by almost everyone around him. Over time, combined with the realities of living with his physical condition, this has given him some deep-seated insecurities. He feels the need to brag about his skills because they are, ultimately, the one thing about himself that he is absolutely certain has real worth. He overcompensates for this by abusing rules and technicalities wherever he can, because I think he knows that if he played life by the rules, he'd never have gotten anywhere. It's a stacked deck, so why not hide some aces up his sleeve? When you don't fit in the box provided, you question the value of every box you see.

When a person lives with this long enough, it can get hard to swim against the tide of society's expectations and still remain chipper about it, let alone not internalise some of it. It can cause a person to create a shell constructed out of distrust and untruth.

Living with a disability can really suck sometimes, and the suck is compounded when having to deal with your own frustrations plus those of others. In my personal experience, that happens a lot.

There is a certain sense of alienation that it can create, and it can become a kind of Sword of Damocles. It can be easier to anticipate rejection and others' assumptions, inabilities to understand or relate than to keep reaching out, only to have the same tired conversations about being different. I see a lot of this in him. I understand the chip he has on his shoulder.

I also see an extremely sensitive, empathetic, devoted and boundlessly loving person under all that. In fact, it's because of these things that I think he actively tries to distance himself. At the core of his being, I see Jeff as somebody who loves quickly and completely. I think he sees that as a vulnerability, incompatible with what he's learned he has to do to survive... and also with the machismo thing that comes with being a pilot. I think on some level he's terrified of that about himself, but he also can't help it. Jeff is ride or die. So, he tells himself he doesn't care and never lets anyone in. Any time anyone showed interest, he'd shut them down, alienate them, distance himself, and get in the seat of something that flies.

I think up until now, (ME3) he's seen intimacy both as a thing he longs for, but is also afraid of because of his fundamental knowledge that he is different. He thinks he can't "measure up" to what he sees all around him. He sees romance as something that will lead to his inevitable rejection and being crushed, emotionally - and if he's not careful, physically, too. I think he's embarrassed about that as well. He's very interested where it comes to all that, but the things he likes to watch, he knows he can't do like that. His only experience is second-hand as a voyeur, so some of his perceptions about that are unhealthy for him. I think any kind of attempt by the medical professionals in his life to broach the topic and offer support on, he's angrily changed the subject, or stopped listening to, because of the entire mess above. I think Jeff is kind of a lonely person, and some of it is self-imposed, though the reasons for him thinking it's the right thing to do aren't all within his control.

All this is difficult for him to reconcile with, because he has been desperately in love with his commanding officer since almost the moment s/he met him, but entirely unprepared to face it.

I think at first it was easy for him to dismiss it as a stupid crush. Everyone gets them when cramped up in close quarters in stressful situations and the Commander's magnetism was hard to ignore. But then it became clear that Shepard really hadn't read his file and really hadn't made any assumptions at all about him. S/he just wanted to know him, and as time progressed and that actually bore out, it got hard not to really feel something powerful, even though s/he was the Commander and it wasn't strictly appropriate to think that way. But, then there was that thing about not fitting in the box provided...

I think he agonised over coming to Shepard with it, but ultimately decided it would be selfish with everything they were going through. I think there was a part of him that decided s/he'd never be interested anyway, not when there were other, healthier people to choose from... People who didn't have these hangups or need special accommodations made for them. I think he decided to keep it to himself, for what he felt was both their sakes.

If/When the Commander quietly hooked up with someone else, I think he had a lot of feelings all at once. On the one hand, the person he cared for most was finding some peace in all the craziness. On the other, he wished that particular brand of peace was shared with him. Most of the time there were more important things to worry about, but during downtime, I think it was on his mind a lot.

I think he feels very sheepish about it, but occasionally his jealousy got the better of him and he interrupted Shepard at moments that got too hard to watch on the security cams. He watched the cams around the ship lot, and listened in on all the others a fair bit. I think because he saw himself as being at a remove from most people in a lot of ways, it was easy to justify that to himself. I think he saw it kind of like listening to a podcast or a soap opera or... Nature documentary, almost, or something. He got to know all of them in this way... Parasocially at first, but gradually, socially too. He felt better about trying, because he had this secret edge. Not the greatest stuff he's ever done, but... Complete person. Strengths and flaws.

And then, the unthinkable happened. He couldn't accept that the ship was dying. He was sure he could save it... But when Shepard's hand touched his shoulder, when s/he'd come back for him, he knew it was over. And then, it really was over. Shepard paid the price for his arrogance. The person he wanted to protect the most spun off out into space. The communicator between his mask and that helmet was still in range for long enough that he could hear the choking. For a long time afterward, even hearing people cough made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

The Alliance grounded him. I don't think he even had the capacity to be mad about it. I think that was a hard time for Jeff. I think between being burdened with the knowledge of the Reapers, the loss of Shepard, and the weight of his guilt, he was pretty close to the very, very edge when Cerberus knocked on his door and made him a bunch of promises. Pretty sure those promises had nothing to do with leather seats and everything to do with Project Lazarus. I'm very sure that the promise of Shepard coming back is the reason he even let Cerberus pay for the surgeries he agreed to undergo, because I don't think he valued himself much at all at that point. I'm pretty sure it was being ready to help Shepard that he was thinking about when he was learning to walk on his painful legs without crutches for the very first time. When Cerberus offered him a big shiny reset button I think he took it without hesitation because there wasn't anything else to hope for. I think seeing Shepard in the docking bay galvanised him and without ever telling them so, he pledged his life to them even harder than before. I think he told himself that he would support Shepard in every way he could. He would go wherever, do whatever, and when dealing with him, try to give them what he knew they needed; a goddamn break.

So, fast forward again, and now we are here. With all of this in mind... Shepard might have had a dalliance with someone else, or might've been too damaged by their previous love interest on Horizon, or whatever. Either way, I think Jeff saw it as not his business to even dream about that. I think the guilt tore him up every time he looked at Shepard. I think he felt like on some level, he deserved the pain of unrequited feelings which only ever got more intense. If he didn't think himself worthy of it back then, doubly so now. I think during the six months of house arrest, he tried to visit, but the Alliance denied his every attempt. Then the attack on Earth happened.

And so now we have Jeff, who, just like other humans is confused and groping about for a sense of what's up and what's down. Fortunately for him, Shepard is part of that sense of stability. He's just better at hiding it, because avoiding it and telling himself to focus elsewhere is second nature to him by this point. But things are a little different, now. Shepard seems looking around for a connection too. Future days seem short in number and the rulebook less and less important by the minute. Denying it to himself becomes impossible, and even EDI prods him about it. Shepard won't stop being so goddamn nice to him and even responds with things that if he didn't know better, he could interpret as... But then all the old insecurities come rushing back and he's walking on his own damn eggshells again. Fuck it. It's time to admit it. To come clean. S/he has to know.

So he asks. And s/he accepts. He's equal parts thrilled, stunned and terrified. He's even on some level, suspicious. Is s/he setting him up for a fall? Are they angry about his responsibility? What do they want out of this, actually? He hasn't explained what it'd be like. That what they're doubtlessly expecting of him is unrealistic. That he's completely inexperienced. I think at this point, he's a bit pissed off with himself and feeling a lot of dread because he's pretty sure how this is going to go. He realises he's got so caught up in it that he's done things in the wrong order. Damage control. He has to talk with Shepard and explain what s/he should expect from him, because it will be different. Manage expectations because he's had to manage his own. He goes in steeled.

But s/he knows it will be different, it turns out. As ever, Shepard has made no assumptions whatsoever. S/he only wants to get to know him. Wants him for everything he is, and accepts what he is not. It was never an issue for them beyond understanding how to work with it, because he is worthy just as he is, and has worked hard enough. He has to teach them about his limitations, about underestimating and overestimating... But where there's a will, there's a way. Time for a few shared moments of peace before the end of days, and through all the craziness, something feels right at last. He feels safe enough to let Shepard in properly. Thus begins his reassessment of himself and reckoning with letting go of the insecurities he has that aren't actually his own, but come from outside.

Also he totally gets to sext the Commander now when s/he's on missions. Nice.

So. There's a lot more I could say and expound upon but it's been hours and I have stuff to do. That's my direction. It's not going to suit everyone, and I doubt I can get everything across... But I'll try. I'm just one person, with just one perspective, with just one version of this story. But I hope people like what I come up with surrounding this framework, because I have lived a lot of it myself. Just a few less Reapers in my version. Not everyone's experiences and responses will be the same.

#shoker #shoker mod #hatboyproject #jeff joker moreau #character study #my approach

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nezumiismissing · 4 years

Text

Authoritarianism Without Leadership and the Formation of Spatial Identity

I think at this point I have probably brought this up in every single one of my analyses, so it’s about time that this topic gets its own breakdown in a full length post (or 2 or 3). There’s a lot to cover and it’s going to get way out there, but hopefully you can find something useful here. And if not, maybe it can at least be entertaining. More exploration of this topic to come at an unspecified time after the convention when my brain decides to enter the No.6 zone again. (and yes it is over 3000 words so, you know, plan for that)

So if you couldn’t tell, the No.6 anime does not have an antagonist, at least not in any traditional sense of the word. The opponent our characters are facing off against, it turns out, is not an evil scientist or an organization or a military, but instead it is the city and its systems that must be either destroyed or reformed by the end of the story. And while those other characters exist within the world of No.6, and all take actions that go directly against the desires of our main characters, they are not fought against especially directly and within the anime have no real identity, instead only existing as part of the whole. But what is the whole exactly? I think the easy answer here is to say that the whole is society, the culture we live within that shapes everything we do in life and that must have some amount of force placed upon it to change in any significant way. But when we say that “society is the whole”, and therefore the antagonist of No.6, what do we mean by that? And how does our perception and interpretation of what it means to be a society impact how we read and understand the story of No.6?

Now, having society be the antagonist of a young adult dystopian series is not something that No.6 came up with, obviously. It's basically a necessity of the genre. But within that structure, although not always apparent at first, there is a lot of variance. These worlds are almost always authoritarian and hierarchical, the result of some massive war or natural disaster that we have been unable to fully heal from, but outside of that, the way in which these worlds are built and understood are vastly different. Some are pretending to be utopias while others give us no image of what it means to be at the “top” and only show suffering. Some take place in over-crowded cities and others have sparse populations of people constantly searching for each other. There are social (and human) experiments, revolutions of all shapes and sizes, monsters and aliens and governments that are all in one way or another trying to reflect the very real events that are taking place in the real world in a way that is perhaps more comprehensible, or at least entertaining. Society as it currently exists is very much the antagonist of these stories, and at the center (and everywhere else) of a society are individual people making decisions that may or may not be good and may or may not have good intentions. So it is easy to see how, when it comes down to it, while society is implicitly understood to be the antagonist, most of these stories focus their energy on the removal of a tangible threat, usually a person or group of people who are determined to be “in charge” of the society and therefore responsible for much of the misery of a dystopia. The No.6 novels also fall into this group, as does the manga. But the No.6 anime, for whatever reason, decided to do something completely different, and something that is arguably much more terrifying.

From here on out I will just refer to the anime as No.6 and will specify if I am mentioning the novels/manga.

In No.6 things do not happen because someone says they need to happen, but they instead happen for…. what reason exactly? We see the mayor referenced briefly in the first episode, so we can assume that he is the one in charge of decision-making, but he makes no actual appearances. The military is clearly shown demolishing the West Block, but who is giving orders? Who is watching over the scientists at the Correctional Facility? Deciding where the wall will expand next if at all? In most stories you would see questions like these answered either near the beginning of the story or revealed at the end, and if it's neither of those then they’ll probably still show up at some point in the middle. But in No.6 there is none of that. There is no one or no group clearly “in charge” of what is happening at any time in regards to the city and its surroundings. Instead, it seems, the city has reached a point in which the details of how these things are occurring are unimportant, and that for the most part, things will unfold with or without the input of an individual or group. The implication of this being that No.6 is somehow separate from its people and government, and is, in a sense, alive.

I think this is largely why the anime is able to be so effective, despite its many other issues. On a surface level, the story lacks any kind of antagonist, making it unclear where exactly it's going. But the existence of the city as an independent entity fills in these odd gaps, creating the image of a society that has, quite literally, lost control of itself. It also makes more concrete the theme of “society vs nature” that is kind of hinted at for most of the story and then kind of shoved in your face at the end with Elyurias and Nezumi’s backstory. But with Elyurias being the physical embodiment of nature, what exactly is it that she is opposing? But before we get into that, some framing and questions (or maybe just one very big question).

What does it mean for a city to be “alive”? Not in the sense that things are happening in it and people are living there, but in the sense that it thinks and feels on its own and makes choices about itself that are not the direct result of human or other external input? Clearly people were responsible for its creation, and took care to create systems that would hold it together. But those systems were not created for the city itself, but rather the survival of the people living within it, with the city and society simply being a result of our need to be social. The city, if we are to see it as a living thing, doesn’t really gain anything from this arrangement so long as we are in control of it, and so will seek out ways to separate itself from us. It does need us to continue existing, however, and so it can’t truly create anything new on its own, and will instead make use of what we have already created. It will warp itself in unexpected ways, or cement systems that otherwise would change or disappear over time, so that it will better serve itself and maintain continuity while still appearing as though run by people. Different people will have varying amounts of control over how this all unfolds, but at a certain point there will be things that can no longer be changed through “traditional” means, at which point people will have to create and impose systems on a large scale that do not fit into the current form the city is in. And this is the point at which No.6 finds itself.

Now, there is a lot of my thinking that I’m skipping over here, especially in regards to how this applies to the real world and the implications that has, but for the purposes of No.6, this is a good starting point. The city that existed before No.6 was “killed”, restructured, and brought back to life as the result of a world war, and at the beginning of the story, we are already at a stage in which this new city has separated itself from its people and become a conscious entity. We see this process from a different perspective in the novels, with characters questioning how everything got to this point as they come to realize that the things they thought they were doing were never in their control in the first place, and that something else had made the city what it was. By omitting these characters entirely though, the anime makes their point clear, “it doesn’t matter who thinks they’re in charge of things, the city will function just fine with or without them”. I would argue that much of this is made possible through the advanced technology available in No.6, making it possible to automate systems in a way that keeps people entirely out of the process of dealing with massive amounts of vital information. You could probably even say that the “essence” of No.6, its identity as a sentient being, is mostly made up of these computerized systems and algorithms that determine everything about how a citizen will live their life.

This is, of course, similar to the way in which Elyurias is understood to operate, the main difference being that she is made up of natural, rather than man-made and technological systems. As sentient, omnipresent beings, they make use of small parts of their greater existence in order to convince different components to act in ways that are beneficial to their continued survival, reproduction, and expansion, with the survival of the individual components being far less of a concern as they are perceived as being easy to replace. Elyurias uses the parasitic bees to infinitely self-replicate, allowing her to endlessly alter and maintain the natural world as she sees fit. No.6, on the other hand, makes use of social and technological systems to convince its citizens to keep things as they are, or expand the limits of the city, or any number of other things it cannot do on its own, but are seen as crucial to its continued existence. Within the context of the story, there is no one person that needs to be “in control” of these actions, since the city is acting in what it sees as its own benefit, but it is also aware that in order to maintain itself, someone must appear in charge, and may even be influenced to believe that that is the case.

The problem with No.6, of course, arises from its desire to continue expanding while otherwise maintaining society as it currently exists. A static city is one that is destined to fall apart, or else have control returned to the people until a new form of stability can be achieved. So in order for No.6 to maintain its identity as an independent entity, it must change in other ways, and thus views expansion and increased complexity as a path forward. When it comes into contact with Elyurias as a result of this expansion though, it is clear that their goals as entities are incompatible and cannot occupy the same space. For Elyurias this necessitates the destruction of No.6, since the city has already been responsible for the damage and destruction of large areas of her “realm”, while No.6 sees her as an opportunity to improve its own systems through the assimilation of her powers into its “realm”. This assimilation, as the city sees it, both expands its power through the elimination and subsequent exploitation of a competing entity, as well as further automates its own processes through the combination of technological and natural systems. None of these benefits are seen by the citizens, of course, and in fact the result would instead be an almost complete removal of their free will, but for No.6’s purposes those effects are inconsequential so long as the people continue existing.

This formatting can also be extrapolated to describe Shion and Nezumi’s roles and understanding of the world, which clearly play a much more prominent role in the outward text of the series. Shion has a difficult time understanding and accepting No.6’s absolute corruption not because he has no experience with the suffering it has caused or or the inherent problems with hierarchy. Clearly he has been subjected to both of those things quite early on in the series. Instead the issue arises from the fact that while Nezumi, who learned about Elyurias in his childhood and has an understanding of “sentient” non-human systems, Shion has no basis for comprehending this, and is therefore unable to see how No.6 could have become so awful without anyone noticing or intervening, and cannot understand the true nature of the issue without first passing it through the filter of human decision-making processes. Nezumi falls into this as well on several occasions when he claims that the citizens are the ones at fault for the city’s problems. But unlike Shion, this comes from a lack of understanding of the specific systems that make up the city and a need to have a concrete place of blame rather than a belief in complete human control over society. Through this lens, the story of the human characters of No.6 in the anime is one of coming to understand the nature of both human and non-human systems, where they may intersect and overlap, and then determining how change can be brought about when we do not have control, or even meaningful access, to those systems.

So when a city has separated itself from its citizens, when it has become functionally “alive” and begins to behave in ways that no longer benefit or sustain our conception of humanity, what can be done to regain control? Can a city that has become independent be brought back under human control, or must it be destroyed and rebuilt, its structure completely altered so that little if any of what was originally there remains intact? The answer that No.6 seems to give is much more in line with the latter idea (at least in this fictional instance). Because of No.6’s rapid development, there was never a chance for people to fully grasp what they were really doing, and if anyone did realize what had happened, it was far too late to alter the city in a way that took away its power. The city is authoritarian to the point of self-inflicted genocide in an instance of internal social destabilization, and the faulty addition of Elyurias’ power makes this self-destruction incredibly easy. The fact that her assimilation into No.6’s system is incomplete only exacerbates the issue, and is ultimately what leads to its destruction.

The destruction of the wall as a physical presence has any number of meanings, some of which I have written about before and others that I may or may not write about in the future. But within this reading of No.6 as “alive”, what stands out the most is the fact that what ultimately gave the city its independent status was its refusal to even interact with other systems. Its purpose, its role, as an entity was entirely one of self-preservation, born from the paranoia that inevitably followed the war responsible for its creation. By destroying the wall, and allowing people access to “others”, the city cannot remain isolated and reinforce a singular concept of society, therefore losing almost the entirety of its power over people. Without the wall, there is no No.6, and without No.6, people are once again free to build something new.

Just to bring this all back around to where we started, and maybe simplify all that down to something manageable, what does it mean to have an antagonist that is alive, but not human or otherwise sentient in a way that we understand? In No.6’s case, I don’t think it is enough to say that society is the problem, or that by removing a government and installing new leadership, all of the problems can be solved. Unlike in the novels and manga, the anime does not even give us the second option, since there functionally is no government to oppose for the most part. Instead, we are given a city that people have not had influence over for a significant amount of time, one in which “society” is not a single thing shaped by the people that make it up, but is also a social system that is imposed upon people by a non-human force. No.6, as an entity, needs its citizens only to the extent that they are useful to it, namely as a mechanism for expansion and self-defense, but exists as such that the people living within it are completely reliant upon it in every aspect of their lives. Something so simple as putting someone else in the arbitrary position of “leadership” is meaningless when that person has no real power, and so in order to reclaim human control over the entirety of society, an inaccessible entity must be destroyed. In this sense, Nezumi is not wrong to say that No.6 needs to be destroyed completely, and is instead only misled as to what that actually means, mistaking the people living within the confines of the city for the city itself. The defining feature of the city, the wall, also acts as the source of its power and independence, and thus its destruction is functionally equivalent to its death, leaving behind only a loose collection of systems and beliefs that are no longer upheld in any physical or tangible way.

Society is made up of people, that is clear, but what is less obvious is that people are also made up of society. We can recognize that society impacts us and shapes who we are and how we think, but it is perhaps the case that to an even stronger degree, society is operating outside of our own individual or even collective input, and is, in a sense, self-sustaining. Rather than our own beliefs being imposed upon an ever-changing society, it is a preexisting society that imposes itself upon us, deciding when, how, and if things will change. It does change over time, and that of course is due to people’s existence within it, but what No.6 makes clear, to me at least, is that while people are unable to survive without the construction of a society, even if that society is destructive, the society at a certain point will no longer need people to maintain itself outside of the basic definition of its existence, and it is at that point that it becomes much more difficult, and dangerous, to change.

#no.6 zine #no. 6 shion #no.6 meta #not sure how i ended up feeling about this one!#on one hand im in love with the concepts introduced!#on the other hand i sound almost entirely unhinged for half of this!#my brain processes do not translate well to the written word sometimes and thats just how it is!#anyways i watched the entirety of an anime today that i think i may be falling in love with the more i get into its themes #so im going to get back to daydreaming about all the ideas for writing i want to do for that!#edit #forgot to add this in the original tags #but this whole concept was inspired by a very specific youtuber and a couple specific videos of his #so thats fun!#gonna try and keep being a bit experimental with these in the future!#originals

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werevulvi · 3 years

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I haven't made much of any personal posts here lately, and it's mostly because I've been too busy burying my feelings to be aware of them, and too busy living my life. Don't really remember what I posted here last time, but was probably either that bisexual coming out post or a gender ramble about identifying as a trans man again. So let's take it from there.

I intend to make a youtube video on this topic as well, in which I'll go more in depth, so I'll try to keep this short...er than usual.

For most of this year, I've been back to "presenting male" (i.e. not trying to pass as female again, and instead going with my "new" default which is that I just look like a dude) and for the past few months or so I've been back to labeling myself as a trans man again.

However, I still see myself as a woman deep down. I'm just terrified of facing the consequences yet again, of being open and honest about it, without detransitioning. Because I don't want to detransition anymore. Only re-identify. And I wanna go back on testosterone again simply because I felt better on it, and its pros outweigh its cons for me personally. It even feels like I was somehow healthier on it, actually. Or at the very least, testosterone has been very kind to me.

Also, I've been thinking lately that maybe I don't actually have any sex dysphoria anymore. Because I don't wanna be male anymore, and I've come to truly like being female, after overcoming my past trauma, which caused my hatred of being female to begin with. However, I also genuinely like my transition traits, which I always have, and cling on to them firmly. My discomfort with looking clearly female on a clothed surface level seems to be more similar to how any/most masculine women feel discomfort in dresses and makeup.

It's only dysphoria in the sense that it's a persistent and consistent pattern of comfort/discomfort with my gender presentation - NOT in the sense that I actually wish I was the opposite sex. And I'm actually grateful that transitioning can't take my female nature away from me, only change what it looks like. So, the reality of what transitioning can do, is EXACTLY what I want. Transitioning is not an escape from my sex; it helps me connect better, more positively, and more strongly to how great it can actually be to be female. It's just my strongly preferred presentation and social role. I do not wish to actually be male for real. So basically, I'm just gender non-conforming in an unconventional way. I've thought that thought many times before, but never quite managed to understand what it means until now.

I'd still prefer being able to continue presenting very masculine/male, but just declaring myself as a woman instead of as a trans man. Problem is though, that doesn't work particularly well in practice. Unless I wanna explain wtf I mean by "I'm a woman" while looking like a whole ass man, to every single person I ever meet. And frankly, I don't have enough spoons for that shit. No one fucking does.

I don't mind being seen as a man by default. The only thing that's missing is that I can't help but feeling like I'm not allowed to speak my truth in its full honesty, be vulnerable and real with people about myself. Not everyone needs to know how I see myself deep down, but sometimes I just want to be able to speak freely about things relating to me being a woman when that is relevant, you know. And believe it or not, that comes up rather frequently.

But I feel like I can't do that because people are only ever interested in debating whether I'm actually a real female or a zero effort trans woman, and question my reasons for living as a man. People don't have to agree with me or validate me, but what I can't understand is what's so difficult to understand about a woman choosing to live as a man? The only difference is that I choose to do it by medical means additionally to dressing and the social roles I take on. Because we have that option now in the 21st century.

The idea that I have to put in effort to even just be believed to be female... it upset me so bad that I basically started feeling that I can't ever talk of myself as a woman again, and have to keep pretending that I'm a man at all times, only because of the way I choose to look. Despite my female nature is a permanent condition, I feel like I'm often not allowed to reclaim my womanhood unless I desecrate my body first. I was flabbergasted by the astonishing absurdity behind that. It made reach out for the trans man label once again, but unfortunately I ended up hiding behind my same old lie a second time. Because I was essentially bullied away from identifying with my own sex, because I wasn't performing womanhood "right." How far am I willing to go for the sake of authenticity...?

To clarify, I'm not speaking of wanting any "right" to have others recognise me as a woman or to call me by she/her or any of that shallow shit - I'm only speaking of my wish to call myself a woman, and the extremely disheartening backlash that comes as a result of doing so. And how much I've debated with myself whether it's even worth it then. And I guess I've realised that it is worth it. Because I'd rather hurt from the other people's shit getting thrown in my face, than hurting myself. But I have no idea how to actually handle it in practice.

I feel a lot of shame about it, admittedly. I feel like it's shameful for a woman to look like me, let alone willingly. I've seen the frowns on people's faces after telling them, and I can't help but interpret their narrow mouths and upturned noses as expression of disgust at my character. And oh fuck it hurts so much, it sends me spiraling into dark places, until I can't stand my own reflection anymore. In my panic and desperation I then turn to other labels to call myself, to hide under and -protect- suffocate myself with.

Truth is I'm incredibly ashamed of being this extremely masculine, hairy and balding, as a woman. But I like it if I just don't think of myself as a woman. And it's not because I feel bad about the way I look. On the contrary... it's because I genuinely like the way I look, but society's standards on women eat away at my confidence. Oh why does it fucking matter, it's just a label? You might be thinking. I'll tell you why it matters: I feel empowered and proud of myself, at being credited as a woman. But I feel robbed of that power and pride, when credited as a man. As though I am being over-shadowed by a lie which was put in place only for the comfort of others. Because a man did not accomplish what I did. A man did not struggle through the hell I lived. A man did not learn to love himself after a lifetime of self-hatred, against all odds, to overcome what he hid. A woman did. It does make a difference whether I speak of myself as a trans man who grew up female and is happy with his transition, but no longer hates the nature of his biology - or if I speak of myself as a woman whose traumatic female upbringing brought her through a gender transition, which she now refuses to leave behind, just like her womanhood. Because it is those two aspects combined, that truly makes her shine. And I want to shine. I hope that clears it up.

#detransition #transition #ftm #trans man #woman living as a man #dysphoria #gnc #masculinity #social backlash #difficult choices #re-identifying #reclaiming womanhood #gender expression #female masculinity #labels

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unluckyxse7en-moving · 4 years

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Can I ask a question? I have been wondering stuff about myself and in the panel where it says "before 'me' disappeared." it stuck out to me. I've never had a good grip on who I am and figured I had to build it. Idk hat that is. Nor do I expect you to answer that. My question is, could you explain it more?

Yes, absolutely, you’re totally welcome to ask! and idk how well I can explain it but I’ll do my best based on my current personal understanding and experience! obligatory disclaimer, many systems have unique experiences and it’s not always consistent or cut and dry from system to system, but if something about this does hit home I encourage you to look into researching it more as you feel comfortable! Also a heads up, I’m going to probably overexplain terms and concepts since I’m not sure what you do know, plus if someone else reading this isn’t familiar I figure that may help them too, so bear with me! ^^ (this got incredibly long and incredibly personal, I hope that’s ok! We’ve found hearing about personal experiences from others always helped give us a way to compare our experience better in ways that medical definitions don’t help with, so we got detailed in hopes it’ll be helpful to someone. heads up, there’s some references to feelings of unreality.)

Gonna try to put this under a cut since it got so long, let’s hope tumblr cooperates!

So admittedly, I was intrigued when you sent this line in, because while I’ve reread this comic a couple times before posting it, I didn’t remember writing a line exactly like that. As it turns out, the writing was meant to say “when ‘He’ disappeared” but it’s really oddly unclear whether it’s an H or an M at first glance compared to the rest of the script? If I’m honest I actually prefer your interpretation better, especially because the ambiguity lends more to the comic’s meaning in retrospect. I’m not gonna say something like ‘oh one of my alters must’ve done that on purpose’ because back then our handwriting was just an inconsistent mess in general and the most involvement we could probably credit to the alters was just one person tried to write that H in their handwriting when someone else was supposed to be writing it. But I thought that was an interesting case of serendipity so I couldn’t help pointing it out lmao

That said, I think your reading actually makes just as much sense in the context of the comic, and is a phenomenon I think I can readily explain that I have had a little experience with. Currently, my system setup is a little bit like an archeological dig. The alters that have surfaced the most, who have been the ones in charge of actions/words/emotional responses/etc, aka ‘fronted’, are all the ones who have formed in more recent years. The ones from years past are further back, and harder to access because we’ve developed a protective setup where the newer alters act as barricades to keep the older ones from being more exposed to trauma, or anything else they can’t handle. At its core, that’s what the function of a system is - to develop other alters who can handle situations more vulnerable parts can’t - but not all systems are built with an onion-layer setup like mine either, so just keep that in mind.

That said, since I’m built with an onion-layer setup, that means most of my system experience is based upon those older alters being shielded and walled up. When you add enough layers, we can’t dig them out again and for us that’s where most of our ‘disappearance’ comes in that we know of. There’s another phenomenon that could cause the ‘disappearance’ effect but we’ll touch on that in a moment. In our case, we just eventually feel so distanced from who “I” was supposed to be, whoever that is. Very few of the ones who have been out in recent months are from older times. We’ve had a small handful who are from our high school years (we’re 25 now), and maybe caught a glimpse of alters older than that once or twice. We very rarely remember much of the time from that far back, and what we do remember feels incredibly detached. Almost more like we saw it in a first person pov movie rather than actually been there. We’ve gone through name changes a couple times by now, and I highly suspect that those name changes are further reflective of our archeological layers and who we decided to try to model our collective behavior around, to try to seem like one whole person.

“Erika” was a girl who behaved one way. “Erin” was someone who behaved another way. and “Cleo” has been our current blueprint for who we’re supposed to be on the outside when being incognito. And what’s interesting is that you mentioned feeling like you had to ‘build’ yourself, because while it’s not so precise or in our control, we’ve approached it much the same way. For each name change it was like different models. out with the old model and in with the new, now introducing Cleo v2.0, with these personality patches and old bugs fixed. Around the time we changed to Erin, we had firmly decided we wanted to put our ‘old self’ behind us and improve ourselves. We had come out of toxic experiences eyes open, and we were terrified of reflecting that internalized toxicity outward. So we took ourselves to the metaphorical workshop, and spent many many years scrutinizing who ‘Erika’ was under a microscope for our faults, our flaws, what made us work that way, so that we could iron out the kinks when introducing ‘Erin’. As we took ‘Erin’ for test runs in college, we would find different flaws and faults that needed fixing, so once we’d accumulated a comprehensive list of those we took Erin in for workshopping and shortly after we dropped out of college, out came Cleo. Our entire life experience from the outside has been a long-running fixer-upper project, and for a while we were proud of ourselves to see the long strides in improvements we’d made upon “myself”, for being so quick to see our flaws and find ways to manage them.

But what was really happening under the hood was, we weren’t actually changing as an individual, cohesive person. We were adapting and forming new alters, or at the very least reassigning them based on who handled what better - so if we had become sick of our short temper, we swapped that alter out so that what normally caused them to respond, would instead elicit someone less volatile and slower to anger. If one of us froze up at the sight of blood, they would be swapped out of the front for someone who had no problems with it. This is why we ended up onion-layering ultimately, to lower the risk of the other alters being in front at poorly timed moments.

So tl;dr for us, a lot of our ‘Disappearance’ of our selves was us trading them out or hiding them away, and most likely encouraging a state of alter dormancy - when alters become inactive for long periods of time. (for some of us we describe it like sleeping - I think it tires us out on a physical level if one alter is active too long, it probably works certain parts of the brain more depending on the alter, but that’s all speculation.)

Backtracking a little - there is another experience that would cause a more definite and permanent ‘Disappearance’ effect. We haven’t experienced it since coming out as a system to ourselves. But we’re pretty sure we experienced it once, or twice, way back when. It’s formally known as Fusion. Fusion is what happens when two or more alters end up “physically” (for lack of a better word) merging together. They cannot separate, and they become an entirely different alter. The new alter often has some elements of their components in terms of personality traits and memories, but also isn’t a complete merging of everything. Memories and emotional attachments can often get lost in the process. This is where the other Disappearance can occur.

We know it happened to us at least once. Somewhere around middle or high school, for no apparent reason, we had developed an acute awareness and fear of Amnesia, and the identity death that would inevitably come with it. We were always scared, what if we hit our head and lost our memory? What would we remember, if anything? Would we get it back? Media always dramatizes amnesia, where amnesiac characters have some twinge, some spark, where they get drawn to things super important to them from before the memory loss. Would that happen to us? What if it didn’t? What if we never remembered the things that mattered so dearly to us? Would we even be the same person anymore?

If you compare that to the concept of fusion, it’s almost uncomfortably spot on. But we had no idea about systems or fusion back then. Which can only mean we had experienced a fusion, and somehow that caused a disturbance in the system that led to that latent fear to hang over our heads, along with the constant feelings of unreality and dreaming that followed us all through high school.

But somewhere along the line, just as suddenly as that fear developed, it just. Dissipated. It’s still a terrifying concept for us. But we no longer obsess over it like we did back then. We also suspect that’s probably related to another fusion of sorts. We have no clue who they were, or who they are now though.

So to tie it all back in, in the comic the ‘Me/He’ disappearing would be parallel to an alter going dormant, or possibly fusing. The characters the protagonist and Tormenter are built around were originally part of a storyline of two separate identities that ended up ‘fusing’ to form a different whole, and while I can’t say the comic is faithful to the scientific or actual experience in a system, since I didn’t know about it at the time, I’m pretty sure it was based on what I had picked up on in my subconscious, so that’s the implications there, inaccurate representation though they may be. I have heard from a few sources that fusion is often the result of a necessary function, to help protect or help an alter that can no longer function or cope the way they have been by creating a new alter that can cope better, so with this understanding, and the direction of the comic, it makes a sort of sense.

These are my thoughts in regards to your question about ‘disappearance’ in the context of the comic based on my personal experiences, I hope it helped! Feel free to ask more or send in followup questions or statements, hopefully now that I’ve given a lot of context I won’t be quite so long-winded haha

#long post #personal #blablablah #osdd #actuallyosdd #actuallyplural #did #anon #versus #gonna make that my tag for the comic and q's related to it!#ask and ye shall receive #ps - sorry i took so long to respond! I've been off all day trying to pack for something fjdgndj

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mittensmorgul · 5 years

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It has to be done.

It Has To Be Done

This was the excuse Dean gave to Cas. It's also just one more variant on the Absolute Worst Thing it's possible to say on Supernatural.

"I did what I had to do."

"I don't have a choice."

“It has to be done.”

In a show where Free Will is the ultimate ideal, and where giving in to Fate is not only the ultimate failure, but has consistently been framed as a metaphor for depression, for giving up, for despair and even suicide, I'm incredibly disturbed by some things I've read today about Dean's state of mind, his intention to lock himself in the Ma'lak box, and Sam's actions undertaken to stop him from this.

I’m putting this under a cut, because it actively discusses depression and suicide, so please bear that in mind before reading. The TL;DR of what’s beneath the cut is my view of how the narrative has condemned Dean’s current mindset about his only choice being to throw himself into the deepest part of the ocean to suffer eternal torment, locked in a box with the metaphorical representation of his own worst opinions of himself, is being used as a direct metaphor for depression, self-harm, and suicide. So if this is triggering, please read at your own risk.

The show has even consistently put the actors’ own Meta Narrative Terms into the characters' mouths--

Sam: You have one card today! But we'll find another tomorrow. But if you quit on us today, there won't be no tomorrow! You tell me, uh, you don't know what else to do. I don't either, Dean. Not yet. But what you're doing now, i-it's -- it's wrong! It's quitting! I mean l-look what just happened. Donatello never quit fighting. So we could help him because he never gave up. I believe in us, Dean. I believe in us. Why don't you believe in us, too?

They essentially had Sam deliver the Always Keep Fighting motto to Dean here. Because like Cas's experiences with the Empty, like Dean's experiences with the Mark of Cain and then the Darkness luring him with the promise of complete annihilation of self and the end of suffering, like Demon!Dean unable to feel either pain OR joy, THIS IS ALL A METAPHOR.

For anyone who feels that Dean is actually CORRECT and RIGHT that this is the only way, to lock himself into eternal torment at the bottom of the ocean with the metaphorical representation of his daddy issues and self-worthlessness, I humbly suggest you might wish to seek professional help. Because that's just... horrifying.

Yeah, I confess, I am a Dean girl. But in the sense that I actually care about him, and want the best for him more than I need for him to be Always Right, you know? Because... he's definitely not right here.

He’s incapable, trapped in his current mental circumstance, of seeing the light. The same way he was incapable of seeing the reality of his situation while he’d been trapped in the eternal loop inside Rocky’s Bar. The view out those blurry windows was only the darkness of the inside of his own mind, you know? From where he’s sitting, there isn’t even metaphorically a door. Trapped inside the Ma’lak box already even in his own nightmares. That’s not a mindset from which one can find the way out on their own.

That’s depression.

I also do not see anything Sam has done in the last two episodes as abusive or in any way infringing on Dean's agency. Because people who are showing all the symptoms of suicidal depression don't actually HAVE agency. And I would've been DISGUSTED with Sam if he'd sat back and just accepted Dean's choices and actions over the last two episodes.

Everything Dean has done in 14.11 and 14.12 (and even trapped inside his own mind in 14.10, where Sam and Cas had to navigate a space that was identical to The Empty, and served the same function metaphorically as Dean having been "locked away" into this tiny box in an endless loop unable to truly find happiness and only surviving disconnected from reality in every way) has functioned as a metaphor for depression, hopelessness and major warning signs that people who are seriously contemplating suicide exhibit. Sam's reactions bear this out, and everything he does follows the playbook of someone who truly cares about Dean literally helping talk Dean down off the ledge.

Sam saw into Dean's head in very literal ways in 14.10. He heard Michael-- the embodiment of the worst thoughts trapped in Dean's own head-- attempting to convince Dean to give up because they were all doomed by his monsters coming to kill them all anyway. And that NEARLY happened, yes! They were tricked into bringing a monster into the bunker, who let in a flood of other monsters to attack the unprepared hunters. In a horrifying turn, Jack burned up a piece of his own soul to save them all, which allowed Sam, Cas, and Dean working together to lock Michael up, albeit in a temporary fashion.

But Dean is absolutely convinced that the only way to stop Michael from escaping again is to lock himself up in a magical box and fling himself to the bottom of the ocean. At this point, my brain refuses to let me go on unless I add the line, "And I would've gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!"

The plan Billie gave Dean isn't some sort of Safety Measure in case of Last Resort. It was portrayed as the easiest way out. It was the whisper of the void stroking Dean's brow and telling him he can lay down his burden and allow himself to quit fighting, to quit trying, to give up on everything he's ever stood for. It's HORRIFYING.

It’s horrifying in the same way Sam nearly giving in to Death in 9.01 was. Horrifying in the same way Dean going all kamikaze for a large part of early s3 was, knowing he was doomed to die he was reckless with his own safety.

Sam immediately started researching on ways to save Dean and defeat Michael, but Dean refused to even engage with that rational course of action. He'd already succumbed to the seduction of annihilation. He flat-out LIED to Sam about why he was leaving-- I mean yes, he did wanna visit Mary, and the side-trip to see Donna was nice, but Donna did call him out on his motives for seeing her. So did Mary, who was suspicious of Dean from the outset the way Donna had been. But it was that stupid awkward hug Dean gave Sam that he CORRECTLY INTERPRETED as a sort of farewell. It was a WARNING SIGN that Dean was hiding something incredibly dark and selfish, and self-destructive.

What Sam did as a result was ENTIRELY UNDERSTANDABLE. He didn't try to confront Dean directly. He treated him like a man on a ledge. He began setting up safety nets, alerting the people with Dean to his fragile state, even urging Cas not to confront Dean directly yet despite telling him-- because they are WORRIED about Dean-- what Dean's plans were.

This is what family who loves you DO when their loved one shows all the signs of severe suicidal depression.

This is what Cas did for Dean in 12.09, where Dean had textually been suffering torment “worse than Hell” in that prison, to the point where he’d dealt his own life away with Billie to help him and Sam escape. Cas took matters into his own hands, killing Billie to spare Dean from his own stupid choice. Because it was a stupid choice.

You don't just... go along with the depressed person or validate their suicidal ideation, you know? What madness is this that I've actually read with my own two eyes that Sam should've just... actually helped Dean effectively and metaphorically commit suicide? On what planet has this ever been something the show has said would be okay?

Everything Sam has done from that point forward-- from tentatively agreeing to stand by Dean at the end of 14.11 right through punching him in the damn face at the end of 14.12-- has been a textbook approach to supporting someone suffering through a major depressive episode.

His acknowledgement and surface level agreement with Dean in 14.11 was literally his foot in the door. If Sam had attempted to defy Dean in that moment, Dean would've packed up his box and left, and his final memory of Sam would be this feeling of betrayal. Sam needed Dean to accept his presence in order for him to have any hope of getting through to Dean.

I know from personal experience that depression lies. The hopelessness isn't real, but there's nothing more unhelpful in that state than the people around you just agreeing with you as if it is. It's a difficult balance to strike, though, between sympathizing with the depressed person and gently beginning to peel back the curtains they've shrouded themselves with, and revealing the hope and light outside. Just ripping it all down is just as horrific and untenable as letting the person suffocate inside their own hopelessness. So Sam takes the seat beside Dean and begins slowly chipping away at the literal tomb he's built for himself.

Sam tries logic, while Dean faces the horror of what he's condemned himself to in his nightmare-- clawing up the wall of the motel room enclosed in chains (the motif on the wallpaper formed a cage of chains around Dean, while Sam was framed in the doorway of light. Dean tore up his hands clawing at the wall in his subconscious drive to escape the fate he’d built for himself, and yet he keeps his back to that lightened doorway which is the obvious route to escape. He can’t even acknowledge it yet because he’s still bound in those wallpaper chains.

Sam tells him it's likely that Dean wouldn't die, that his suffering would never end, and that what he's suggesting isn't an escape from that torment that he's actually hoping to find. And Dean's mind seems to see this as fact already, demonstrated as exactly that in his own nightmare just moments before-- he's alive in that box that's already developed a crack where the water is drip drip dripping in. He knows the box cannot hold, and that he will not die as a result.

He was terrified of "drowning" inside his own mind when Michael took him over before, yet he thinks the rational solution now is to drown himself literally and in reality, for all time. I mean... this is not the thinking of someone who is behaving rationally. He's chained to his fear, and that fear is dictating his actions now. Should his loved ones simply accept that Dean is right and encourage him to self-destruct? Especially when we've been discussing all season how Dean's possession by Michael, his experiences drowning, his metaphorically locking Michael away, and his earlier drive to kill Michael before he could destroy the universe ALL as metaphors for Dean's own self-worth, his Father Issues, his guilt, his suppression of his whole self?

Dean’s been sharing reminiscences of childhood for a while now-- his story about Winchester Surprise with Mary, his confession to Sam that John had often sent him away and his fear ever since that Sam believed Dean had just abandoned him during those times are clearly the sorts of Dark Thoughts that are weighing on him now. Knowing just a little of the inciting factors we’ll see play out in 14.13 are giving me serious hope that Dean will find the catharsis he’s been unable to get regarding some of his long-standing, incredibly complicated feelings about his father. The fact that Dean will go in thinking his Deepest Desire (a phrase he’s used before to describe his temptation to self-annihilation, in 11.13) is to rid himself of Michael, but apparently manifests John alive instead is extremely telling since Michael has been a direct John parallel all season long.

But back to all the other metaphors and parallels that Dean’s possession by Michael has been used for all season long. How does all of that careful construction of mirrors collapse just because Sam punched Dean in the face? Suddenly none of that stuff matters because on a surface level, Sam Did A Mean Thing. That must be ABUSE! TERRIBLE! Because honestly that sounds just as nihilist as buying into Michael's deluded lies, which preyed on Dean's fears to sustain his belief in them.

Yeah, Sam realized he'd reached the end of his rope in letting Dean continue walking down the self-destructive path. Throughout the episode that Ma'lak box just dragged along behind them, always visible in Dean’s rear view mirror, silently reminding us of what would inevitably await Dean if he couldn't find a way off that path. It functioned as the specter of death, the shadow, boxed up so you couldn't see the Ma'lak box itself, but you just know it's right there under that thin surface.

Sam and Cas both tried patience. They both explored other metaphorical alternatives to active suicide. The situation with Tony Alvarez turned out terribly, but it was just one consequence of their previous mistake in letting soulless Donatello read the demon tablet. If they hadn't done that, then Tony would've fully awakened as a prophet instead of being driven to madness by the half-awakening he was doomed with because of the state they left Donatello in. And sure, they couldn't have foreseen that, but in the end the solution wasn't just to kill Donatello, but to find a way to save him.

Dean had been CONVINCED that "letting him go" would be the solution, and he acknowledged that parallel to himself in text.

Castiel: The natural order's been upset. Perhaps Donatello's state has created a prophet who's not only premature... but malformed. Sam: Okay. But if Tony was wired wrong because of Donatello, then the next prophet will be wired wrong, as well, and then the next, and the next and the -- the next and... How do we end this? Dean: You know how.

But from his position, Donatello was unable to save himself, despite his mind even unconsciously trying to do so. Just like Dean alone can't see a way out of his situation, which is why he NEEDS the help and support of his loved ones. Team Free Will, they're just better together.

This is the narrative the show has been building on in one way or another since the start. When they go their separate ways, they doom themselves. When they stick together, they at least have a fighting chance.

And after Cas provided the help to heal Donatello and break the demon tablet's hold over him, performing what they'd all previously believed impossible, Dean couldn't face that his own metaphor for what he wanted to do himself had completely fallen apart. He was already shaky on wanting to go into that box. He'd essentially spent the entire episode goading Sam into talking him out of it.

He doesn't WANT to go through that eternal torment, but he legitimately is unable to see another way out. Like Donatello's muttering what amounts to a cry for help through the next prophet, Dean was doing the same by harping on the "it's the end of the line!" nonsense that Sam repeatedly had to ask him to stop. He was also goading Cas with the "if you were my friend" garbage, challenging him to do something to stop him. Cas turned it around in the most painful way possible, laying out on the table the ONE THING Dean had said he was unable to do-- say goodbye.

Dean’s harping on the whole “last hunt, end of the road” stuff was the equivalent of a depressed person talking about themselves negatively as if there was something “honest” about romanticizing their depression. It’s fatalistic, and does nothing to help recover. It’s wallowing.

In episode, this was directly contrasted with Nick, who insisted his emotional pain had been the result of his wife never getting justice for what happened to her, but when faced with his wife actively holding out her hand and telling him “this is the way to salvation,” he rejected it, because all he wants now is to drown himself in Lucifer’s false salvation. He could’ve gone into the light, and let go, but he refused. Sam and Cas spent the entire episode trying to break through to Dean and bring him a spark of hope, and he’d been refusing and refusing. Nick was never really sorry. He was only playing sorry. Just like Dean until his final confrontation with Sam, where he finally called Dean out with that exact turn of phrase.

Dean wanted to run away, alone, and off himself. Cas was pressing him into dealing with it, demanding Dean acknowledge what he was really asking for. I think if there hadn't been an attack of Moosus Interruptus there, Dean would've cracked right there in the hallway, but of course they had to save Donatello first, making the metaphor complete.

That left the final confrontation to Sam.

Dean: Well, I would call this a win. Kind of nice. We're going out on a high. Sam: 'Going out' being the operative phrase. Dean: Sorry. Sam: 'Sorry.' How sorry are you? Sorry that you fight to keep Donatello alive, but when it comes to you, you just throw in the towel? Or are you sorry that, after all these years, our entire lives, z-after I've looked up to you, after I've learned from you. I-I-I've copied you, I followed you to Hell and back, are you sorry that all of that -- it -- it -- it means nothing now? Dean: Who's saying that? Sam: You are, when you tell me I have to kill you. When you're telling me I have to throw away everything we stand for, throw away faith, throw away family. We're the guys that save the world. We don't just check out of it! Dean: Sam, I have tried everything. Everything! I got one card left to play, and I have to play it. Sam: You have one card today! But we'll find another tomorrow. But if you quit on us today, there won't be no tomorrow! You tell me, uh, you don't know what else to do. I don't either, Dean. Not yet. But what you're doing now, i-it's -- it's wrong! It's quitting! I mean l-look what just happened. Donatello never quit fighting. So we could help him because he never gave up. I believe in us, Dean. I believe in us. Why don't you believe in us, too? Dean: Okay, Sam. Let's go home.

When the show is actively putting Always Keep Fighting language into Sam's mouth, is there really another way to interpret any of this than as a direct depression metaphor? Dean yells that he has tried everything. But... he’s literally tried NOTHING. He hasn’t tried one single other thing. He hasn’t even cracked another book or done a jot of research beyond the one Billie specifically put in his hands. Dean is just as trapped as Donatello was before Cas intervened to heal him. And he’s so trapped that he actually BELIEVES that he’s exhausted all his options. Because he can’t even begin to SEE any other options with his back turned toward the door focusing only on the wall he can’t seem to scratch his way through.

Suggesting that Sam was violating Dean’s agency in this circumstance is akin to suggesting that Sam violated Dean’s agency in forcing the demon cure on him, or akin to suggesting that Dean violated Sam’s agency when he shoved Sam’s soul back inside him. And yet... Sam and Dean both expressed gratitude after the fact, acknowledging that they couldn’t see just how badly they each needed help while in their respective compromised states. And that’s exactly the same framing they’ve given us to interpret Dean’s current mental status.

Sam had reached the end of his rope, and out of frustration and his own sense of failure to appeal to the part of Dean that should want to survive, he broke down himself. It hurt to watch, both for Sam’s sake because of the frustration of desperately trying to save someone intent on destroying themselves, as well as Dean’s sake because OUCH to have to face his self destructive impulse head-on like that... Sam’s punch hug forced that confrontation in ways none of their words had been able to.

It was the equivalent of Dean brushing the board game off the table in 7.21 and yelling at Cas that he wasn’t sorry, but only playing sorry... It was the sort of shock and shakeup Dean needed. He needed to see how badly his current state was affecting the people he loved, and the people he was deludedly trying to protect through what he felt was his own self-sacrifice. He needed to see first-hand just how wrong an assumption it was that they’d be fine if he went through with this effective metaphorical suicide.

and then when Cas returned, Dean confirmed that he'll let them help him, but he's holding that box in reserve.

Dean: Maybe Billie's wrong. Maybe. But I do believe in us. I believe in all of us. And I'll keep believing until I can't. Until there is absolutely no other way. But when that day comes -- if that day comes... Sam, you have to take it for what it is -- the end. And you have to promise me that you'll do then what you can't do now, and that's let me go. And put me in that box. You, too.

“Maybe Billie’s wrong,” is the metaphorical equivalent of “Maybe this depression is lying to me...”

He's still struggling with this big depression metaphor, but he has stepped off the ledge. He's acknowledged that there might be another way, even if he doesn’t really have much hope that he’ll be able to find it. But he’s accepted Sam and Cas’s help to guide him there.

And it's only one small step in the right direction, but it is a step. I'm betting it's a step big enough for at least a few of those books on Billie's shelves to have begun rewriting themselves. Because when has this show ever taught us to accept that giving in to Fate was the Good and Correct choice?

#spn 14.12 #oh DEAN #suicide mention #spn 14.10 #spn 14.11 #spn 14.13 #spn 7.21 #spn 9.01 #spn 11.13 #spn 12.09

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sailor-cresselia · 5 years

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Zi-O 22: WHOOPS I WAS BUSY!

...Okay, so I wasn’t busy per se, but I did keep putting this off.

(carryover curiosity from episode 21: How long, subjective time, did Uhr spend breaking that mirror over and over?)

Oh, GOODY, the mirror aesthetic carried over into BlackWoz’s Storytime Vault!

I… can’t tell, what’s that watch on Mirror!Zi-O’s right arm? It’s with the bike, but I don’t recognize it. It looks gold-ish, and they’ve both got the W and OOO watches, but I can’t make that one out.

Bah, onto the OP, and… they’ve already included a shot of Zi-O II. Huh. Thought they’d wait until after the form actually appears, but okay.

I don’t even know why I like seeing which version of the pre-show sponsor segment we get, but I do. Today’s was the jets-of-fire variant.

Hm… Tsukuyomi and Geiz never even considered the ‘and then what?’ of when they managed to defeat Oma Zi-O. I figured they hadn’t, based on Quiz and episode 21, but it’s nice to hear them confirm it themselves.

Geiz doesn’t… oh. Honey. He doesn’t think he deserves to think of a future, because he considered for a moment about sacrificing Shinji to take down Mirror!Shinji.

Sweetie, you are so much better than you give yourself credit for. You were disgusted with WhiteWoz. You wanted to work with Quiz, because his issues ran alongside yours.

Geiz. It’s like the OP says. Use those bonds that the three of you are building to move forward!

Just why is Mirror!Shinji attacking people who read Ore Journal?! I don’t get it!

Geiz’s face as Uncle Tokiwa (whose name I will someday bother to remember) rambles is precious. Theres a slight eye twitch, assorted types of resignation to ‘Well, this is my life now. This is fine.’ and ‘Okay, yeah, you should… just go do those errands yourself. Fine. This is fine.’

Meanwhile, Tsukuyomi is just dumbfounded. ‘This is a new level of absurd we’ve found ourselves in. How have we kept all of this from him so far again?’

(You haven’t. I’m still convinced he knows far more than he’s letting on. There is zero way he’s not dealing with time travel shenanigans himself.)

They’re acknowledging that Geiz and Sougo’s finishers are different! Huh! I didn’t think that ‘a small lag’ is what was going on with Another Build, but sure. It’s interesting to think about, though.

And here we hit one of the many key points of Geiz’s many problems: why he’s willing to sacrifice himself right now.

It’s because Sougo wouldn’t hesitate. Geiz and Tsukuyomi both trust him, they trust him to be a good person so, so much.

But Sougo’s expression while she’s telling him this. While she’s telling him that she really, truly believes he’ll never become Oma Zi-O.

He’s not so sure anymore.

(note that I paused for those last few paragraphs as soon as Tsukuyomi walked out, knowing full well there was more to come in the clock shop.)

I know that Mirror!Sougo is, in a way, his own character. But his base is still Sougo. And that lets him hone in on all those little niggling fears Sougo’s been having since he met Oma Zi-O. That he’s not as good a person as he wants to be. I re-watched the second half or so of 21 before I started up 22, so… yeah. Sougo seems to be falling into a depression funk. He took on more of Geiz’s usual role during Quiz, when Geiz took his role up first.

The others trust him to be a good person.

But Sougo isn’t sure they’re right to do that anymore, and Mirror!Sougo is honing right in on that.

Also, the way that Mirror!Sougo appears brilliant. Not because he’s using mirrored surfaces, although that’s the mechanic which allows him to.

But because he doesn’t appear in a window, or in any other type of surface.

He’s in the glass front of a display case full of watches, with the opposite wall reflecting in there with him.

And then in nearly a dozen clock faces.

Time itself is the weapon and the enemy in this season, after all.

So Okuno’s acting has gotten really good in the past… it’s only been five months? Wow. He is killing it with both of these performances in this scene.

Great going, kiddo.

(Heeey. I never noticed that the blue clock in there has writing on it. I’ll be coming back to that when I finish the episode. I might just have to make a post collecting all of these instances of English, actually, since most of it’s been pretty good. This ones just single words, but it’s been well done overall.)

WhiteWoz is incredibly scary. “He’s a troublesome foe, isn’t he? I’m starting to think you might be as well, my savior.”

Shinji blames himself for his mirror world counterparts actions. Which, isn’t wholly inaccurate, but the mirror selves as interpreted by Zi-O seem to be the dark doubts and fears that you would never actually act upon. I’m fairly certain that there was nothing, or at least very little, of that sort in Ryuki proper.

It definitely helps adapt out the Rider War, since the current season makes sure the Riders never existed, though. And it lets them work with the “who you choose to be” aspect that’s been cropping up throughout Zi-O.

That’s not just for Sougo, either. He’s the only one with Mirror issues right now, but it’s been hitting Geiz and Tsukuyomi, as well. More Geiz than her, seeing how Tsukuyomi hasn’t been given nearly enough time to shine…

Although, since this is Kamen Rider, if she gets too much time, there’s a very good chance of very bad things happening to her.

“If I don’t finish this, I won’t even have a reflection of myself. I’ll just be empty inside.”

...You mean like how Sougo’s probably been feeling every time he thinks about Oma Zi-O?

Clearly WhiteWoz wasn’t actually paying attention to any of the previous fights against Another Ryuga, since he doesn’t seem to have known just how impenetrable that reflection is. Case in point, a duplication attack from his Shinobi form? Just gets six attacks reflected right back at him.

Geiz: Guess we’re doing this then.

WhiteWoz and Tsukuyomi: Wait, no, stop!

Cut to commercial (presumably), and then to Sougo… who’s standing in front of the door that he was pulled into the Mirror world from.

… huh.

The other half of the Zi-O II watch… was with Mirror!Sougo. The ‘I think you can make good use of this’ speech, that comes with a Former(?) Rider entrusting their powers to him.

Technically, he just gave the speech to himself.

Because that is one of the only ways to move forward, when you’re confronted with your inner thoughts. You can stop, and just quit moving forward.

Or you can take those, and use both the good and bad, and balance them out. Be both sides of yourself, and keep going.

Sougo. It’s like the OP says. Set your sights forward, jump in, and believe in yourself.

(Guys, you have no idea how glad I am to be able to repeat that ‘like the OP says’ line.)

Yoooooooooo.

That scene? Geiz delivering and receiving the finisher?

THAT’S ABSOLUTELY BRUTAL.

Taking his own attack – quite literally, not just the energy from it being reflected, but taking his kick.

I am dead certain that Sougo and Geiz are not meant to fight Kamen Riders.

Case in point - the Geiz watch broke. Before Geiz went down.

Before he died. Yeah, there’s no way he’s not dead right there, except-

Except Sougo Says No. Sougo’s not having this, and apparently is able to manipulate the flow of time, at least on a small scale.

“Darkness and light, good and bad. Past and future. These watches rule over both.”

Sougo Tokiwa. You are absolutely terrifying when you get down to it.

The transformation call is disturbing. There’s at least three different belt voices in there. And one of them is his.

There’s a decent amount of gold detailing in that armor. And the watch bands that trail down? Those are awfully similar to Oma Zi-O’s clock-hand ‘cape.’

That fight was both beautiful and terrifying. When Sougo means business… he isn’t going to back down. For anything.

I’m not sure that’s always going to be a good thing.

Previewing the opponents future is really… it’s overpowered, but it seems to be a limited span of time, so at least there’s that to balance it out. That doesn’t stop it from looking absurd when he triggers it, though.

This? This was a curbstomp battle.

And his insert song was playing throughout. And it was pretty audible, too. There wasn’t much talking during it this time, not like back in 16.

Okay, opening credits, sure, fine, don’t tell us when the insert songs are coming. FINE. It’s not as though you’re probably legally supposed to or anything.

I’m really hyped for when we finally get these songs released, because “Zi-O Toki no Ouja” is REALLY good, and we can’t even hear all of it yet.

I really hope So goes onto some great things after this, because he’s getting some skills here. There’s his pre-existing ballet training, he’s getting really good at acting by now, and apparently he can sing, too!

So… Ryuki has, what, six endings now? Possibly seven, with that “Rider Time” spin-off special?

But that final scene.

Tsukuyomi and Geiz, discussing their plan.

Tsukuyomi is stunned – she hadn’t wanted to think Sougo could become Oma Zi-O, she didn’t think he could, and she said as much earlier this episode. That she wasn’t afraid of the Day of Oma.

And now she’s the one who wants to stop him.

But Geiz?

He blames himself for Sougo accepting that watch.

And I don’t think he’s ready to take Sougo out. Not nearly as ready as he used to be. Not nearly as willing as Tsukuyomi is right now.

“It pains me to say it, but our choice is obvious right now...”

Geiz doesn’t respond.

Her expression is resigned and determined.

He’s conflicted.

I think they’ve switched roles. All three of them. I think…

I think that Geiz is the hopeful one out of the three, now.

And isn’t that just terrifying?

#kamen rider zi o #kamen rider ryuki #sailorcressy says

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hollowedrpg · 5 years

Photo

CONGRATULATIONS, EMILY! — You’ve been accepted for the role of Dorcas Meadowes. My favorite part of your application was your description of how Dorcas interacts with customers, because how she interacts with customers at the Three Broomsticks has a direct tie to how she interacts with everyone else. It really provided a nice snapshot of how you saw her personality and how you’d write her in-game, and I have complete faith you’ll do her justice.

Thank you so much for applying. Please create your account and send in the link, track the right tags, and follow everyone on the follow list. Welcome to Hollowed Souls!

ooc.

name: Emily

age: (seventeen and up only) 28 years old

preferred pronouns: she/her

timezone: pacific activity: on a scale of 1-10? I’d say probably hovering around a seven. I work full time and am a mother of two, but my job is really flexible, so I float around a lot and I lurk on my dash a TON.

are you applying for more than one character?: just Dorcas—for now. I’m tempted for others, but I’m putting my eggs in a basket, which is nerve wracking.

how do you feel about your character dying?: Well, that’s exciting and terrifying and definitely something that I would do myself if I was moderating, so fair question!

anything else?: (questions, concerns, etc.) Honestly, I absolutely love the look of this roleplay (not that you’re surprised by that at all I’m sure, I mean, you gave me little teasers to try and kill me anyways [don’t you dare think that I didn’t read the plotline when you sent me that darn HTML girl]) and I’m so excited to watch this blossom and bloom.

ic details.

full name: Dorcas Evelyn Meadowes

date of birth: canonly, unknown; April 23

former hogwarts house: Hufflepuff

sexuality: bi-sexual

gender/pronouns: (would you like to play this character as non-binary or trans? list it here.) she/her

face claim change: (if you’re requesting to change this character’s fc, list three alternatives in order of preference. all alternatives must be approved by the admin.) I love the face you picked, so I’m game for that.

more.

how do you interpret this character’s personality? how will you play them? include two weaknesses & two strengths.

Personality - Quality over quantity had been ingrained in her since she was young -- certainly because of the fact that sometimes in Quidditch it was better to just let the damn snitch go rather than catching it and letting your team lose. As a result, sometimes she might not be the most efficient barmaid, but she definitely was a favored one because she took the time to chat with the old guy that came in after his granddaughters Quidditch match or the young ones that were probably at the Three Broomsticks for the first time when it came to a drink. She gets along with people and is more than willing to grin and flirt if she needs to but mostly she’s more than willing to have a listening ear to those that want to talk, or that need a little bit of a nudge in the right direction to talk.

Playing - The ideal will be more soft spoken -- she’ll let people talk to her and she’ll open her ear so she’s able to listen to whatever it is that they’re going to talk about on that particular day. Flirting might be a necessity when it comes to being a barmaid, Dorcas certainly isn’t unfamiliar with that and is willing to take the few extra seconds on a patron for the good company and a decent tip, sometimes in more ways than just monetary. In public she certainly doesn’t go through and show a bias one direction or another in this war -- doing such would spell trouble for her in the long run and wouldn’t make people on Voldemort’s side feel as though they could share with her. Still, she doesn’t tend towards loud and boisterous unless the situation calls for it, and that is certainly once every blue moon.

+Driven

+Charismatic

-Spontaneous

-Perfectionistic

how has the war affected this character, emotionally and otherwise?

While it might not have her as hard in the face until recently just how bad this war could go, it wasn’t as though Dorcas could pretend to be oblivious. Between the patrons within the pub and fact that people were willing to spill more information to an open ear than they might to the next individual to approach them? Well, Dorcas had heard her fair share of stories from both sides of this war and neither of them were a pleasant experience for everyone’s man in the apartment next to them. Her life wasn’t necessarily privileged, but it certainly had it’s advantages above some of her former classmates and the worst thing that she had to experience was the fact that her parents had a certain standard that she had to achieve in Quidditch in order to be the right kind of Meadowes.

While the stress of the war didn’t seem real to her until the recent attack, with friends missing and nothing known as to their whereabouts? Well, she couldn’t completely pretend that she wasn’t more than a little afraid of what this would end up bringing in the end, whether it would mean a shift in how the wizarding world ended up moving forward or if it was just a flux. Still, it’d lead to every bit of quiet in the pub and the weeks after the attack the owl post had been eerily quiet while everyone tried to cope. Mostly though? Well -- now she was just frustrated that she wasn’t doing more, that she was back in London while everyone else coped with the losses while she was buried in piles of mail and firewhiskey. Still, if she was caught, she didn’t particularly dwell on what it would mean for her in the future.

Where does this character currently stand? with those who wish to hide in godric’s hollow until the war ends, with those who wish to rebuild the order and continue fighting the war, or on neither side? Why?

While Dorcas understands the break needed to recoup and evaluate what it was that needed to be done moving forward, to say that she’d be okay with using Godric’s Hollow as a hiding place would be a mistake. While she might not be in the direct action, she also wasn’t going to pretend that she was oblivious to the fact that there seemed to be more activity the longer that things continued. Something needed to be done and for what little she might know, she knew that hiding probably shouldn’t be on the list of discussion topics on how to help fight against Voldemort. Remaining still certainly had never done her any good over the years, that was something that she was certain of.

What’s some of the most interesting things Dorcas has learned while working at an owl post office?

Her personal favorite certainly was something accidentally stumbled upon that isn’t even of use to the Order with two high ranking ministry officials apparently having an ongoing affair together. While she’ll certainly never use this one to her advantage? Well, it definitely is amusing now when people mention their names together.

Another one of them was the reality of pieces to a puzzle being put together after the attack on the Order. By far the least productive measure that she had taken, but the most telling in the span of who had known that at least there was something that was going to be happening, Dorcas found that the reality was that there were likely far more people that had been involved with Voldemort than people realized, even if most of them were surface level.

How does she feel about continuing the task of working there and opening mail while most of the order hides in Godric’s Hollow?

Depending on the day, she can be frustrated and also be proud all in the same breath. While it meant that there were pieces of trust in her ability to work without anyone else around her, it certainly also made her feel more than a bit alienated from the rest of the group and occasionally a little bit clueless as to what was going on back in Godric’s Hollow. It certainly hadn’t made the situation easier, but it definitely did make her realize that she couldn’t go through and just pretend that the world was fine when the people that she was around most were trying to figure out the future of their organization.

#hp rp #rp #marauders rp #lsrpg #roleplay #accepted

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margridarnauds · 5 years

Note

hey what's up i'm here to nudge you about your headcanons regarding Nous Ne Sommes and who Lazare is REALLY addressing it to

Thanks!

Your Fave is Problematic: The Lazare de Peyrol edition

*Mandatory disclaimer that the following is my own personal interpretation of the lyrics because I have never pretended to know what’s going on in Attia and Chouquet’s brains at any given point and I’m not going to start now because I feel like it would terrify me. Also I might be a little tired while typing this out and so the coherency is…questionable.*

With apologies to anyone who’s heard me discuss this before:

So, my take on it is that there are three people, or groups of people, that Laz is addressing here, the revolutionaries (surface, and tbh probably what they were going for), his men, and himself. (Info on the military history stuff comes from The Response of the Royal Army to the French Revolution: The Role and Development of the Line Army, 1787-93 by Samuel F. Scott which is a very solid read as far as emphasizing the social changes in the army and where everyone stood in regards to one another before and after the Storming of the Bastille.)

The Revolutionaries

“Insurgés obtempérez.” Need I say more? Lazare has been given the green light to put down the revolt by any means necessary, he’s going to do it. It’s also why he keeps emphasizing that this is their last chance (”Attention c'est l'ultime sommation“). I don’t like the interpretation of Lazare as a sadist, personally; it’s actually one of the things that I’m…not as fond of when it comes to what both Zuka and Toho did to him. (But Zuka gave me the glorious, glorious Peyronan content so I can’t really COMPLAIN.) He doesn’t necessarily want to kill people, but….well, he’s a soldier. He’s not a courtier or a diplomat (which is…unusual for the times, tbh.) He came in there to do a job, he’ll give them one last chance, and if they don’t, he’ll use whatever force is needed to keep the order. With that interpretation in mind, when he says, “Obéir sans défaillir/Nous nous sommes engagés/Toujours servir sans jamais fléchir/Oui nous l'avons juré” he’s reminding them that his men are sworn to do this and that they won’t flinch from doing what’s necessary.

His Men

This is where things get a little dicey. Historically, we know that there was a HUGE amount of tension between the officers of the regiments and their men, with a lot of the latter deserting. One of my favorite quotes is from a pamphlet being circulated to soldiers at the time, says, “We are Citizens before being Soldiers…we are in short, Frenchmen and not slaves…if they have swords, have you not sabres? If they are a hundred, are you not a thousand?” This was one of the reasons why there was so little military involvement when the Bastille was stormed; NO ONE was sure whether the men would stay loyal. There’s a reason why the ONE regiment that we have an account of, the Royal-Allemand Cavalerie, who charged the Tuileries on July 12 was…a group of German speakers, with significantly less chance of personal ties to the people of Paris. (And who faced insanely low rates of desertion because everyone hated them so much afterwards they kind of had to stick together.)

So…”Nous ne sommes/Les valets de personnes” is a good line for the revolutionaries, YES, but it also works very, very well for the situation about the men. And this time around, Lazare gets ahold of his men and keeps control, but…will it last? Look at his motions during some of the parts.

Sometimes, he’s keeping things perfectly in control, others, it’s like he’s BARELY holding things in check, his movements getting very erratic at points. It’s such a 180 from the way Seijou Kaito played it in the Takarazuka, where she’s pretty much perfectly composed, or the way that he’d be played in the Toho where he’s much more PHYSICAL, even stepping on Robespierre’s face at one point. He’s trying to control the actions (AKA keeping within his character description of “il représente l'ordre et la rigidité de l'ancien régime.” Peyrol THRIVES on order and control and everything being in its proper place, when that gets bucked, he doesn’t know what to do) but? In reality, it’s a DELICATE hold.

On one hand, his men are following his actions, mirroring him, but on the other, LOOK at his body language. His fists are clenched here as he’s leaning forward. And, like, obviously, on a purely practical level, Matthieu Carnot’s gotta be pretty damn exhausted because, despite evidence to the contrary, he’s not a superhuman figure of unlimited energy and stamina and our boy has to keep concentrated on the choreography, but on the other…Laz as a character is putting himself through some pretty difficult moves to keep control. At the same time as he’s reminding the people of what he’s doing with the lines about his men having sworn an oath, he’s also reminding THEM about it, “You swore this oath to the King, you WILL come through now” but are they REALLY going to take him up on it? It’s not really a full guarantee until the end.

So, who’s REALLY saying “We are not the valets of anyone?” The revolutionaries, yes, but what about his men? After all, post-revolution, it wasn’t UNCOMMON for officers to face the wrath of their men, their once guaranteed authority no longer enough to hold them up. Peyrol was able to assert his authority this time, but there’s NO guarantee that that will hold up.

Himself

His men, however, aren’t the only Frenchmen being ordered to fire on Frenchmen, though. And, even though Peyrol’s presumably been at this long enough that I think he’s somewhat numbed, this is miles away from what he did to Papa Mazurier at the beginning as far as the scope. (Though both of them are also situations where Peyrol thought he could assert control getting away from him.)

I’ve already discussed the way that Lazare tends to excuse away things, it’s seen in Maniaque when he tells Ronan that the King’s rule comes from God, from before the dawn of time, and it’s shown here as well. When he sings, “Avant que le sang coule/Par la folie des foules” on one hand…that’s an obvious reminder to the revolutionaries to back down, but on the other…there’s something OFF about it, at least to me. If he was talking to the crowd of the revolutionaries, why not address them directly instead of refer to them as “des foules.” (Besides the fact that it didn’t fit the rhythm of the song as well.)

He’s already beginning to justify his actions, lying to himself as his way of coping with what he’s going to do because, to him, there’s never BEEN another option. It’s always been the army, it’s always been unquestioning, unthinking loyalty. (Which is why Ronan’s very existence short circuits his brain on multiple levels.) And, more importantly, he keeps on doing it. “La sanction légitime.” Who cares if it’s legal or illegal? Not the revolutionaries. It doesn’t matter if it’s legitimate or not, they’re going to get shot one way or another. The men…probably not. It could work, as far as reminding them that this is a Very Official Order, but who would REALLY care? It functions as one more way that he tries to remove himself from his own involvement and guilt, trying to justify himself preemptively.

“I am here on the King’s order, I am speaking with his voice on this issue, and if I don’t do this, more people will die.” He’s addressing the people, yes, but he’s also trying to prepare himself for what’s going to come next.

It’s very, very interested to me how he emphasizes “NOUS” in his statements on “Obéir sans défaillir/Nous nous sommes engagés/Toujours servir sans jamais fléchir/Oui nous l'avons juré.” He’s talking about his men there, yes, but he’s ALSO talking about himself, emphasizing his own devotion to serving. Which…could go two ways: (1) He’s trying to find common ground with the men, tying into the above, since officers and the men traditionally tended to have icy relations, namely because most officers were too busy partying and taking leave whenever they could and only tended to the regiment when it came to disciplining the men under them or (2) He’s giving himself a sort of twisted pep talk, and even as he’s talking about the men, he’s also talking about HIMSELF. “I’ve never weakened before, I won’t weaken now, I made an oath, this is what I owe the King, these are my orders, this is what I’ll do.”

And, when he says, “Nous devons au pouvoir/La mort et le devoir”…on one hand, that could be describing the relationship his men SHOULD have to him, “We owe to those in power death and duty, therefore you should obey my orders” but it could also just as easily be speaking about himself and his relationship to the monarchy, indicating that he sees himself more or less as an expendable part of a greater machine.

Look at the way he’s looking when he’s cut off at his last “Attention c'est l'ultime…” He knows damn well at this point that it’s going to lead to bloodshed and that he’s going to give the order, and he’s DEFINITELY not thrilled about it. Determined, but not thrilled. But he’s already willed himself into doing it and he’s not going to stop now.

Tl;dr: Laz is working three different groups with this song, which also functions as a masterclass of how he lies to himself as a coping mechanism. He might or might not succeed with 2 of them. He really needs to give less shitty pep talks. Preferably over something besides murder. Also he is totally getting coal in his stocking for the rest of his life. And is going to be sleeping on the couch for a long, long time.

#1789 les amants de la Bastille #there's probably something i missed here #but oh well #lazare de peyrol #europeansdomusicalsbetter #1789 meta

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pleinedelavie · 5 years

Text

a thought exercise (of sorts)

I think a lot of y'all can probably relate to a feeling of discomfort with the popular/Christian model of the afterlife in which people who live in a certain, very specific way are going to go to heaven and all others will end up in hell. The popularity of The Good Place, which interrogates and criticizes this concept, is a testament to this. So let's run with that. (This is a long post and frankly also a bit of a rant but I promise I have a point, please bear with me.)

At least for Americans, we live in a society that buys into this idea pretty wholesale. Almost everyone probably knows some people who are pretty religious, or at least has encountered someone telling them that eventually their sinful life will catch up with them, and they will be in hell. "Go to hell" (and variations thereupon) is a common phrase in our society and the concept shows up fairly often in popular media.

And I think most of us agree that while many of these examples are surface-level harmless, being endlessly confronted by the belief that you are doomed to some horrific end, that the ultimate culmination of existence is this idea that you find horrific, is pretty shitty.

So we start to push away from this idea, at least in our minds. Some of us might try to reinterpret these concepts, mentally redefine how this afterlife works in order to make it line up better with what we're comfortable with. Of course there are lots of other religions and philosophies with different interpretations of the afterlife that give alternative possibilities for what the point of our lives is.

And of course there's the other side, the final belief: maybe there is nothing after this. Some people find a certain comfort or at least logic in the lack of some final reward or punishment for earthly behavior. They don't need that promise of ‘life everlasting’ in order to find life fulfilling, because there's a lot to live for on this earth.

My belief, at least, is that there's nothing wrong with any of this, and if you don't agree you may want to stop reading because you probably won’t connect super well to the point of this post. (Yes, there’s a point, remember? Eventually.)

As mentioned before, the hyperchristianity of American society and culture (at least, I can’t speak to other places) means that anyone trying to stand apart in this matter experiences a lot of pushback, some subtle and some not. There's a view that those who try to reinterpret Christian ideals are doing it wrong, fundamentally violating the faith in an unacceptable fashion. And of course xenophobia is rampant, and those who believe in other religions or none at all are seen as somehow less moral-- and thus, implicitly, less human.

And on the other side... I imagine even those who have made some peace with the idea of no afterlife find the concept of that final end, of simply ceasing to exist, a little scary; personally I think it's terrifying, and I would guess based on the concept of existential crises that this feeling is pretty common. Especially from a cultural context that's incredibly individualistic, probably because of the values from the same Christian obsession that brings us hell, there's a huge subconscious urge to fear that if we truly are gone when we are dead, that nothing we did had meaning in the first place.

Nevertheless, we believe what we believe, and while we can explore different paths I think that we don't really have a choice in what finally makes sense to us. So we walk that razor edge between the rather oppressive-sounding end society claims we are destined for, and the hysterical alternative it presents to make that end seem like the better option.

Now, maybe I'm just stretching out on a limb here, maybe I have been this entire time, but in my opinion, that description doesn't sound too different from the experience of being aromantic in modern society. To review:

We live in a culture that aggressively promotes something as a fundamental purpose of the human experience that we find repulsive or at least not especially attractive: romance

This concept shows up everywhere, almost ubiquitously present in music and fiction, seeping into language and pretty much omnipresent in public consciousness. We're often presented with the idea that even those who dislike or avoid romantic love are eventually doomed to it, with imagery like cupid literally shooting people with arrows actually considered charming (???), or the tradition of kissing under mistletoe getting brought up whenever two people who look like they might be a ‘good couple’ are vaguely near any hanging plant at a christmas party, or the trope of the aggressive matchmaker friends

The relentless push of this, the insistence that we *will* end up in a romantic relationship or at least experience simply as a result of being human, really sucks for aromantic people. It's upsetting for us to be confronted with it constantly with essentially no warning when we're just out here trying to have a good time. We feel attacked. (I'm using old meme language because this post is depressing to write and I needed to lighten up a little for my own sake, but I'm also 100% serious, it really does feel like an attack sometimes.)

We try to find our own way to be happy, some exploring romantic relationships despite not feeling attraction, or trying to seek fulfillment through different types of relationships such as QPRs, close friendships, family etc.

Some people aren’t looking for that sort of life-defining relationship; they genuinely feel fulfilled by other aspects of life.

(All of these approaches are okay and if you don’t agree kindly fuck off.)

We get a FUCKTON of pushback for this. Aros who come out to their romantic partners are often automatically dumped because they’re perceived as unable to hold up their end of the relationship; even if they genuinely love their SO, they're by default perceived to be 'doing it wrong'. This is especially relevant when the aros has certain boundaries because of their identity (or if they happen to also be ace, though that’s not necessary for this to happen), which to a lot of people makes their relationships fundamentally inferior to a relationship between non aromantic people.

The fucking insistence that *love makes us human uwu* means that those who choose not to participate in romance, or in any sort of life-encompassing interpersonal relationship, are seen as somehow less capable of being fully fulfilled or even just... Less human. If you don’t think this is true I want you to take a good hard look at how many aro/aro-coded characters in media are robots, aliens, villains, young children, or other groups not treated as fully human by the narrative. (I’m reblogging with links to articles about this because that’s apparently the only way to get tumblr to let it show up in the tag. There’s also an interesting movement called voidpunk which i think originated in the aro community that afaik is a response to this dehumanization)

This pervasive cultural drive toward romance also manifests as a sort of... I want to say internalized arophobia, let me know if that's appropriative since it is based off terms used by other groups. I, and probably a lot of other aros regardless of how genuinely proud we also feel, do have a fear that being without romantic connection will leave us unhappy, or worse that we are somehow broken. This feeling is terrifying and it sucks, and the fact that it’s reinforced and probably created by our amatonormative society means that there needs to be a change.

Finally, we are who we are. I'm pretty sure its not a challenging opinion anymore to say that you can't choose who you love, and that means aros are just as valid as any other identity. So I'll restate: we're stuck in a society that says either that who we are is impossible and we're going to end up somewhere we don’t want to be, or that who we are is horrible and will leave us fundamentally unhappy.

(If parts of this sound combative or frustrated, that’s because I am. We are. Sometimes, even often, it feels like society hates the very concept of aromantic people, and most others it feels like we’re just invisible. I personally don’t have the courage to talk about this in real life but all of the frustration has to go somewhere, so...)

I hope that this post helps you relate a little better to the problems that aros face. This post is partially meant for aspec people who want something to relate to, so I'd be really happy if other aros and aspec people weigh in, even/especially if its to point out the places where I'm overgeneralizing or just plain wrong. I'm not any kind of expert on this, it's obviously just my thoughts.

This is even more important because I'd also hope that this gets to non-aspecs and gives you some insight into our experiences with amatonormativity, because we are a pretty small community and if the world is going to get safer for us we need your help. If this post makes sense to you, please share it, because people need to hear it.

I don’t have a solution to the problems presented here, though the staples of this kind of thing are important: include aspecs, in your fiction and your discussions. think before you say something that might erase or dehumanize us, and if an aspec person tells you something you said was hurtful to them, listen. don’t constantly push romance onto people. (specifically @ some allo aces, many/most of you are fine but you know who you are, don’t put romantic stuff in our tags please god why). more generally, it would be really cool to start tagging things as romance or romance mention because some of us are romance repulsed and don’t want to be surprised by that stuff.

(Finally, because this post does talk a lot about religion, I do want to mention that I don’t mean to trivialize or take away from what religious minorities face, or say that our problems are one to one identical. Please let me know if some part of this is offensive because that's not my intention at all.)

TLDR: Since people seem to have trouble understanding how alienated aspec people feel in a society whose values are fundamentally hostile to our existence, here’s an example that might be more relatable.

#aromantic #aro #aspec #amatonormativity #aromanticism #vent #romance #romance mention #long post #death #death mention #religion #i guess

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oxfordeliterp · 7 years

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CONGRATULATIONS, BETH!

You have been accepted to play the role of LUCAS LOCKWOOD with the faceclaim of SEAN TEALE. Please create your account and send it to the main in the next 24 hours. I didn’t have to finish the application to be sold, but I finished it three times and, at every reading, I found something new to love. It’s a complex one, underlining not the surface of Lucas, but what’s inside his heart and after reading everything you have chosen to fill this application with, I can honestly say that I trust you wholly with this character, for you have already made him yours. You understand Lucas on so many different layers that I couldn’t imagine anybody else even trying to play him. Are you sure you haven’t written the biography yourself? I have seen your magic in this application tonight, but what I am truly enthusiastic about is the actual roleplaying with you.

OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION

Name and pronouns: Beth and She/Her

Age: 25

Time-zone: EST

Activity level: I work full time on a shifting schedule, I’m the main admin and currently only admin in another RP where I have eight characters, and I try to maintain at least a weak social life so I don’t want to promise anything I can’t live up to, so I cannot promise rapid fire replies all day every day I have free time, but I intend to do replies at some point every day, and truly believe I can manage and if anything it will be easier to slip in replies for a roleplay where I only have one character and where doing replies doesn’t trigger questions and hurt feelings over why I have not done more replies. I could end up not as available as I think, every other day or so instead of every day, but I am dedicated and I have no intention of just appearing only to stay off activity check or anything of that nature. Furthermore, I vow to reply with thought and substance, fully present when I am present—but now I’ll stop before I go on and make those promises I can’t keep. Alternatively, I could just write in this section: Bitch, you know how I roll

Triggers: I can’t think of anything I react strongly enough to for it to be considered truly triggering. We all have stuff that we are less comfortable with or don’t like, but for me there’s nothing that would cause any reaction stronger than to possibly skip reading the rest of the post if I’m not involved that I can think of right now, and nothing I believe I couldn’t handle being involved in especially as most traumatic plots would have to be cleared in advance and I’d have a chance to access my comfortability (ie rape or my character discovering the body of a friend who committed suicide), but I will let you know if something arises and tag anything in the triggers tag.

IN CHARACTER INFORMATION

Desired character: Lucas Lockwood. Several areas of his background struck with me. It’s always a balance of finding a character that you can put a piece of your soul into as a way to bring them to life but not making them your physical skin to a point where it is both boring to play albeit easy to know how they will react or dangerous that you may take things said/done to or about the character too personally. Lucas, truly, is very far from me—though those are the aspects I am drawn to too and can’t wait to explore, the Casanova spirit, the tough callouses grown on the path to “cool” and enviable paragon, the fake relationship with strong frames supporting rotting guts and the mindset of what would possess one of the ten men who could have anything to persist in that arrangement when the Casanova is limiting who he can charm into his arms and bed and how openly and the boy who for loves love deep at heart is settling for a lack, the sexual tension with the stepsister, and the evolution to careless rich boy—but his history spoke to me until I saw him as a kindred spirit talking to me about shared experiences. I was older than Lucas was when he lost his mother, but I know that pain and the further hell of seeing a parent shattered for years and being what feels like their caregiver when they still should have been caring for you, and to have that be what feels like the expectation, damaging words of “take care of your [for me it was my mother left]” or “you can’t be a child from now on” feeling like orders not just sentiments with some of them regretful. I’ve seen my remaining parent leave a job and collapse in—though I will defend that my mother didn’t do so to the extents I may hypothesize Mr. Lockwood did– and heard them talk about love so strong they now know why in some traditions wives throw themselves on their husband’s funeral pyres, making me wonder why love for a child wasn’t enough to live but then having the weight fall that parental love and obligation was the only thing keeping them on the earth. I’ve worn clothes until they literally fall apart and learned to cook from free food pantry items, and I’ve also experienced the recovery as life does go on and get better eventually, though there was no marrying rich or even new love besides finding new love for living and new jobs in my family’s story. My mother calls even the idea of finding someone new to love an abomination in the face of true love thirteen years after my father died and talks about him all the time, selling the idea of consuming love and soulmates until it becomes as terrifying as it is enchanting to hear of how life shapingly wonderful being in love is and you don’t know whether to run to or run away which are conversations I am sure Lucas and his father had. I know how deliriously, desperately happy and hopeful I would be if my mother did fall in love again, the way my knees would bruise with the speed and fervency I would drop to my knees to pray it lasts, and the lengths I would go to making sure nothing interferes while trying not to show how much it means and scare the budding love away, so it is all too easy to see Lucas’s mind on the new marriage. Those are the heavy aspects and those of what first ties me to the character over the other riot Club members, but, at the core I desire Luca because I do love the easy-breezy and charming aspects and I plan on having a lot of fun with our rioting rich boys and the inter-club war. Also, come on, I saw apps for Lauren and Cordelia and there’s a good starting place.

Gender and pronouns of the character: Male, he/him

Changes: As discussed, I would like to change the faceclaim to Sean Teale. I can think of no other changes at this time as it was already established we had the same ideas about areas of his backstory that were left more open (ie what age he was when his mother died), not that I believe I would have changed those anyway instead of adapting. Anything else that diverts from the bio would be unintentional, personal interpretation, or character growth over time and if something strikes you as off and wasn’t cleared beforehand you can approach and reproach me as it really would be misunderstanding more than likely.

Traits:

For someone with humble beginnings, Lucas lacks the social consciousness or sense of social responsibility one might expect –to a degree at least. He may furrow his brow occasionally and discuss heavy world issues with intelligence, but only until the next opportunity to change the subject comes up. Problems bore and choke him and he’s gagged enough on dust. He will fold his biggest bill and put it in a busker’s container or the homeless man’s cup with compassion but these are the same close to empty gestures of anyone with periodic guilt for having when there are have-nots and he’ll join the jeering too if anyone says they are where they are only through fault of their own, without correcting that it’s often more complicated. He not only doesn’t read evil intent into casual comments such as assumptions he’s good at football, but would defend there would be nothing wrong in it if these were in fact based in the shade of his skin rather than the facts that he has a footballers’ build and stance and is known to be athletic and competitive, or that he made a comment about playing in lower school one time. Not everything is racist, or everything is and it’s too exhausting to pay attention to all of it and not worth it if it’s not harmful. Nobody’s calling him any slurs, or the one time they did it seemed affectionate (And it was the wrong one, which made it funnier instead of more offensive, assuming his mother had been Sicilian not Spanish with family roots in…he isn’t even sure where. Someplace tropical, but God forsaken and constantly destroyed by hurricanes instead of fashionable, he’d say, getting the vibe part right and part very wrong and terribly offensive to any kin he could have tracked down on that side). He fired back just as quickly with a term of his own that could have gotten him in serious trouble in school, beaten up, or professionally blacklisted if said in the wrong setting to the wrong person, because he was lacking filter and sensitivity that day, but it was just jokes, just how the boys talk—and he loves his boys more than his own life that he’d dispose for any of them not realizing that claiming and feeling so he’s fallen into the love trap just like any romantic even if it’s a different genus of love.

It’s just like they can call each other every slang or synonym for homosexual in the book as insult with only the oversensitive in his estimation calling it hate speak, though they hardly do call each other that way anymore when it’s an outdated fashion. It’s more designer edgy—again, his estimation and his personality that all is aesthetic–to embrace yourself and your peers as any identity but straight and to wave your hands vaguely, spreading the smoke from your lit cigarette you openly mock as phallic as if anyone thinks Freud is more than a joke anymore as you slouch and sit with legs spread because careless is a fashion too, and talk about how you don’t see gender really and sexuality is a spectrum (as you, and only you out of millions who have said the exact same thing) understand truly. You say you don’t like to label or limit yourself and make eye contact with either the prettiest thing in the room or the one you want to exert dominance over because, gay, straight, pan, bi, demi, or any other either of you might be, if they look away first you’ve gained power. It’s a game. Lucas takes everything that makes up behavior lightly as a game that he’s childishly pleased to have learned all the rules of young—not that he shows how pleased, cool cucumber he must play.

Lucas is close to truly soulless, not mourning the morals he doesn’t adhere to like Nicholas secretly does, and not aware that he is miserable, self-hating, or even much miserable at all like Miles seems to be. He is content with what he’s sold, even content in not feeling the warmth of falling in love except in tastes that last for hours or nights or linger in generalities of finding everyone has something lovable. He’s a light spirit and adaptable in the extreme to the point he would seem weak willed and desperate to fit any mold to be liked if he were less shining and a touch more pathetic. He doesn’t see it as selling out or hiding a “real him” but that he’s gone and found his days in the sun and is enjoying them just as his father went and found new life.

I have hardly gone into the traits that make him up, though I’ve touched on some that weren’t borrowed explicitly from the bio to give you a better idea that I am immersing in and creating a character that is truly mine instead of just parroting. This was supposed to just be a beginning but I have talked too long (as I could truly talk about Lucas all day) and I will spare you further reading unless you want me to return to this section.

Extras:

First off, Lucas’s major course. I would have him go for a MEng in Engineering Science, which may seem weight-y and cerebral for Lucas, but I feel like it is befitting for:

Someone who grew up in thin times where handymen and other technicians like plumbers and electricians couldn’t be afforded and would be trying to fix things as they broke, far beyond his usual expected level sometimes as a child, and tinker until they worked—even if his father when he could be stirred did most of it and Lucas was just observing. You spend enough time trying to look at everything and figure out how it goes together and comes apart and how to keep it working, and you either get frustrated and resentful or develop talents and fascinations

Engineers are both respected and always in demand, and Lucas wants to be secure in life even if he one day never sees a dime of the McQueen money that is now the merged family bankroll. He doesn’t have the obsession with a certain style of life that Nicholas does. He could give up the designers that he only memorizes to fit in and because they mean something to others (and, on the other hand, only feigns ignorance of sometimes to bait Cordelia or make her eyes widen). He could leave opulent houses and once in a lifetime vacations that happen multiple times a year. He doesn’t need fine food and drink, but he does need to know there will always be a full table, a roof, and clothes on back no matter what fate throws, and he’ll develop talents that aren’t easy to learn and study advanced maths few want to approach to make himself indispensable even if he’s gone from top to middle of the class as to truly excel at his chosen course it requires dedication he has in spirit but not always in practice as there are so many things to commit time to instead of living in a mechanics or robotics lab or scribbling in a notebook or entering equations in a laptop every waking moment.

For a more fun and light extra, I made a text post meme post—on a blog not related to this RP because , though I know mock blogs are a thing, my own superstition is it’s tempting fate to make a character blog in advance unless instructed to. I could defend every quote I chose if asked, including why “having no fucks left to give” and “I cannot stop caring” are not as contradictory as they would seem at first brush, but, as you wrote the character, I am sure you can see where I drew influences from and if I am taking away the right bits.

http://the-dark-marks.tumblr.com/private/160156220833/tumblr_op8d47IkaB1ttdq0w

Headcanons and other extras will come through the days that come if I am to be accepted. Everything from here on out is an “extra” technically as we get chances to prove we can take the characters beyond the bios and add layers.

PARA SAMPLE

Lucas had taught himself to tie a tie from a youtube video in his room at eleven when some friend’s concerned parents compelled him into going to church services with them, pulling the trick by making it into a gateway to a whole day of plan, the family in question always having some adventure planned that they left for via a Sunday drive tradition straight from church. He knew it was all part trick, no reason they couldn’t double back and pick him up after services as he stood waiting in street clothes and they too had a chance to go home and change instead of awkwardly packing extra outfits if warranted and changing in the church bathroom. He didn’t even mind. They weren’t even trying to “save” him. They just thought he needed “proper influences” in his life like they could see through the windows of his house, though Mr. Lockwood could put on a face of the best of them and act the dear and doting, constantly cheerful jokester matured into cool dad that still had boundaries even though it took more to get to them that Lucas remembered from his early childhood. He slayed at parent and teacher nights.

So Lucas learned to tie a tie, the same tie that went with the same dusty and too short in the arms and legs by then suit he’d worn to his mother’s funeral a few years before, because he didn’t know how fancy this church was and he didn’t own a button down that wasn’t short sleeves anyway at the time and it was winter, so suit with suit jacket it was. He couldn’t ask his father that day, not only because he didn’t know how to explain that he had nothing else to wear and not make his father feel guilty if he laughed at the suit and asked the question the one who bought the clothes they both dressed in should already know the answer to. It wasn’t because he didn’t want to answer why he was going to church in monkey clothes (Ah, how funny to think how many times a year the Lockwood patriarch would be wearing true monkey suits to lofty events, parading tuxedos with pride and beaming over cufflinks in not too many years, though the beaming was for who had bought him the cufflinks and helped him pick the suit) just for the sake of a day on the pier and the beach after, why the other family wanted to drag him about so, when it was because they thought Lucas would be better imitating any of the upstanding kind of men you met in such a building or absorbing some good advice from scripture rather than listening to his father. It was because it was almost the anniversary of when his mother died again and Dad was locked in his room the past two days listening to their song.

He’d done a not bad job on the tie, but his father had caught him on his way out and, after a confused look that read startled to even see him in the house and not remembering that it wasn’t yesterday Lucas’ friend’s family was picking him up and today they were returning him much less that there was something planned that needed a suit, and following this with an obvious reassembling of expression that said he was going to pretend to be all knowing so he didn’t look like a bad father, adjusted it for him, giving him advice on how to make a straighter, surer not and have the tie lay better next time.

Practice and fatherly advice and Lucas got quite good at ties over the years. He added more and more styles of knotting to his repertoire over the years as he added more ties of finer materials and had more occasion to wear them, though he faltered on purpose at the first few events with the McQueens to feel that motherly touch of his father’s new wife that fulfilled a craving he’d shut himself off from having almost ten years before meeting her or to smirk at Cordelia and gaze into her eyes trying to decide whether it was amusement or disdain in them as she rebuked his uselessness and he felt her fingers dancing around his collar. Oxford and his mates taught him yet more and what styles suited what, well, suits and days until he could have written his own books on customs and etiquette just related to the silly bits of silk, and the only time now he felt at loss was when the question became what tie to wear in what style to Elizabeth Pemberly’s funeral and how to not make it feel like his own noose when he gazed on another coffin.

#lucas lockwood #accepted

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