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nat-20s · 3 years

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for @jonmartinweek THE FINAL DAY prompt- Pining/Longing. This one takes place, well, you’ll see

~*~

A Study of Longing, Told in Six Parts

Part 1

Martin wonders if he’ll ever get to a point in his life where kindness doesn’t feel like a shock to the system. It’s already surprising enough when Tim and Sasha invite him for drinks in a genuine offer of friendship, but for that kindness to come from Jon? Martin has no idea what to do with being believed, let alone being protected.

And now here he is, blearily opening his eyes only to find himself staring at a mass of hair. As he sits up and rubs the sleep from his eyes, the shape resolves into the form of one Jonathan Sims. He had apparently fallen asleep with his head cushioned on his arms, against the cot Martin was currently occupying. It’s not an image that Martin can fully process at the moment, so instead he debates whether or not to wake Jon up or quietly get off the cot to let him get some much needed sleep. He decides on the former, both thinking that it would be hell on his back to keep sleeping in that position, and that he would like an explanation.

Hand hovering above Jon’s shoulder, but not fully touching, Martin oh so quietly calls out, “Jon?”

That’s all it takes for Jon’s head to rush up with a gasp, glasses askew, and with the texture of his sleeves pressed in red marks on his face. It is a horribly endearing look. “Hrn?”

Martin opens his mouths, closes it, and waits for Jon to get his bearings. Jon smooths down his (frankly ridiculous) sweater-vest, adjusts his glasses, and slips back on his professional demeanor. “My apologies, Martin, I, ah, must have fallen asleep.”

Glancing to the crappy little digital clock resting on a file box next to him, Martin rolls his eyes. Only Jon could be quite so stuffy at 4:32 in the morning. “No apologies needed. Though, um, was there? Something you needed or..?”

Jon shakes his head and stands up, dusting off imaginary grime. “No, no, nothing like that. I had just, er. I had heard you cry out and I- I wanted to make sure nothing was going on. It appears that it simply a nightmare,so I will be.. taking my leave. Now.”

He doesn’t know what part of himself replies, “Oh! You don’t have to go!,” but he replies it anyway. Jon does that little thoughtful frown at him, which forces him to continue, “I mean, if you wanted the cot. For sleeping. I’ll probably be awake for the rest of the night, so, you know, no skin off my back .”

“Ah. No, that’s quite alright, Martin. Try to get some more sleep, there’s still a long work day ahead.”

Jon doesn’t even wait for a response before turning on his heel and leaving. Martin sort of hates how much he wanted him to stay.

Part 2

Jon is laughing. Jon is terrified, all the damn time, and yet, somehow, he’s laughing. Honestly, he was starting to wonder if he was still capable of it. Martin is gesticulating wildly with his fork, animated in a way that Jon’s only ever seen when in they’re in the middle of a rather silly debate. He thinks this lunch’s topic was something like whether or not snakes were cute? He lost the thread of conversation about half an hour ago, honestly. Covering his mouth, he lets the giggles run through his whole body, shaking his shoulders and heating his core. He feels light, heady, like he’s reminiscing with an old friend and they’re both on the edge of having had too much to drink.

He only wishes he could trust this feeling. He wishes that he could trust Martin, that they were normal coworkers having a normal lunch, that the previous person in Jon’s position had gone into an easy retirement instead of being violently murdered. He wishes he hadn’t read that letter telling him, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Martin, Martin, who took him to lunch and brought him tea and seemed so very warm in so very cold circumstances, was lying to him.

Jon stops laughing.

Part 3

Of course, the second his body hits the simultaneously stiff and weirdly lumpy motel mattress, his phone goes off. It may only be about 8 pm, but he’s tired, and he’s sore, and he’s had a persistent headcold for the past week for some unholy reason, the last thing he wants to do is talk. However, only about four people have the number to the burner cell, and they’re almost certainly have a purpose behind their call.

Closing his eyes and letting out a sigh that turns into more of a groan, he picks up on the 4th ring. “Hello?”

“Hey, Jon! It’s Martin, I’m not sure if you have my number programmed in that phone, or if it even has caller ID if you do. Anyway, it’s been about a week since I’ve heard anything, and I wanted to make sure you weren’t, y’know, dead or arrested or anything.”

His previously tense and aching muscles all relax, without him consciously deciding to relax them, and a sleepy smile spreads across his face, because some time in the past year he’s become a parody of himself. Yes, maybe he should be more affronted by how much Martin’s tinny voice brings him comfort, but he’s had a rather terrible time of things since...since he began work in the archives, really, and he’s worn down enough that he can admit he misses his friend.

Huh. Friends. They are, aren’t they? Wonder when that happened. (He can guess, something involving a fake CV admission, but he doesn’t feel like it right now.) “Martin, I recognize your voice, no need to introduce yourself.”

“Right! Yes, uh, ‘course..of course you can. Right. Sooo...I take it you’re not dead, then.”

“Correct. I haven’t been arrested, either.” It’s only sort of a comforting lie, so Jon thinks it can be forgiven.

“Good. Great! Yeah, that’s...that’s good.”

The conversation could probably end there. Jon could probably tell Martin good night, and they’d hang up, and Jon could get the sleep he had been so desperately craving not moments ago. Somehow, he thinks that neither of them want that. Scrambling for something to talk about, Jon replies, “Hang on, isn’t it something like 2am over there?”

“It...might be.”

“Martin!”

“What! It’s not like you have a monopoly on bad sleeping habits. Besides, I was up anyway, and I just..”

“Just what?”

“I just missed your voice.”

Oh. Heat rushes to his cheeks, and tears start to prick at the corners of his eyes, and god. He had missed Martin’s voice too. “Really? I know you’ve had to listen to a fair number of tapes lately, thought you might be sick of it by now.”

“No. I mean, I am a bit tired of tapes, honestly, but even the ones that you recorded, that not really your voice, is it? I mean it is, but it doesn’t sound like you when you’re actually, um, you. I wanted..I wanted to hear you.”

Jon’s far too worn out to deal with that sentiment, and the way that it makes his heart clench. So instead of addressing it, he says, “I am very close to being asleep.”

“Oh. Right, sorry, I’ll let you go-”

“No! No. Um. Would you mind staying on the line? Until I’m gone? I-I like hearing your voice. As well.”

“Oh! Sure, yeah, definitely. Anything in particular you want me to talk about?”

“Whatever you like. Something nice?”

“All right. I can do that. Um. Did I tell you about this little yarn shop I found the other day. It’s called ‘Puttin’ on the knitz’, and it’s…”

Jon peacefully drifts off, listening to the voice of the man who he can only admit in moments such as these, he wishes was in this bed, laying beside him.

Part 4

please come back please come back for the love of god come back I can’t believe you’re doing this do you have any idea how stupid this is come back to me come back come back come back

Part 5

There is plenty of things to long for in the apocalypse. A decent cuppa. The relief of actual sleep. Murdering Jonah Magnus. For there not to be a apocalypse. They are grateful, however, to not have to long for each other.

Part 6

Martin comes to without a knife in his hand, or bloodstains on his clothing. Those, under other circumstances, would be good things.

Martin comes to, laying in the grass, without anyone beside him. He barely has the moment to feel agony spike through him before he’s out once more.

There are no Jonathan Sims admitted to the hospital. As far as he can tell, no one was admitted into the hospital at the same time as him, and certainly no one with a stab wound.

There are thousands of ‘Jonathan Sims UK’, typed desperately into a library computer search bar, wielding mostly results about a sport manager and a romance novelist. None of the images are of the right person.

Sometimes Martin puts one foot in front of the other, carefully blank in heart and head. Surviving, even during times that he’s not sure he wants to, is one of his greatest abilities.

Sometimes Martin despairs.

On the worst nights, he tries to call the Lonely back to him, tries to be swallowed whole. It never works. He’s not sure if it’s because the fears aren’t in the reality or if they’re not established enough to have any leverage or if his connection has simply been broken. (He doubts the last reason. He hasn’t been this alone since Tim’s funeral. Even then, Melanie had thrown a few stilted condolences towards him. No one is aware enough of him to give condolences now. He misses Melanie. He misses all of them. He misses Jon like a gaping, bleeding wound misses skin.)

Seven months later, and he has enough money saved and identity built that he moves on to Scotland. The little village they had been adjacent to exists in this reality. Daisy’s cottage does not.

On a whim, he enters the yarn shop. He’s not going to pick anything up, hobbies are the last thing he can focus on, but it’s nice to look. To feel the various textures, to take in the rich variance of colors, to, hopefully be present in his own body, if only for a moment.

Martin steps in. The bell chimes. He’s there. Standing in front of him. Whole. In a cry that’s closer to a gasp, he calls out, “JON!”

Jon turns, looks up at him, recognizes him even before he’s even fully seen him. It’s his Jon, he’s here he’s here he’s here. The callback of “MARTIN!” sounds like it was punched out of him, the start of a sob and a laugh all at once.

In a blink, they’re together, their embrace a tangle of limbs, a collision of lips, a mixture of tears. Martin can’t tell which of them is saying the litany of “thank god thank god thank god” and who’s repeating “it’s you it’s you it’s you.”

It’s Jon that’s telling him, “I knew you had to be here. I knew it, because I kept thinking. Surely. Surely this new universe wouldn’t be so cruel as to allow me to live, but to make me live without you.”

It’s Martin that replies, “I didn’t know. I thought it would be that cruel. Please don’t make me go through that again.”

Jon pulls him in tighter, eliminating the centimeter of space between them. Speaking into Martin’s neck, whispered in fierce devotion, Jon promises, “Never again. Never again. You and me. Together. For the rest of our lives.”

Barely discernible through his sobbing, Martin tells him, “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

~*~

There are people that think that wanting is more worthwhile than having. Martin thinks, frankly, that those people have never been in love.

#jonmartinweek2021 #jonmartin #jon sims #martin blackwood #AHHH this is just over TWO THOUSAND words #i really was like for the last prompt i will not Shut Up lmao #also fun fact! part 4 was specifically designed to not be clear whether it was from jon or martins perspective

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stealingpotatoes · 3 years

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I am OBSESSED with your Desmond lives AU!! I want Shaun and Rebecca to be able to give Desmond all the hugs, I want Desmond to be able to choose to be an Assassin, to be able to help save the world again. Also, I am very curious about how you would resurrect Desmond, because I’ve had similar thoughts on such an AU, but I currently stick it near the end of Valhalla with the stuff that happens there. If you ever feel like expanding on it, I'd be super excited to see more!!!

first of all, AH THANK YOU!!! Yes those are ALL points that are very important to the Des Lives AU! Second of all, thank you so much for this ask in general!!! I was hoping someone would send an ask like this so I’d get an excuse to talk abt the AU more lmao XD!! I made this AU back in March last year, so there’s no Valhalla stuff in it, and it’s set right after/ during the Odyssey DLCs.

The long story short for my Desmond Rez (rezmond, if you will) is “shroud of eden, abstergo, and some Isu bullshit”. The long story long, however, is uh- you know what? I’m going to use this opportunity to explain the vague story I worked out last year -- but dw, I WILL get to the full ressurection explanation I thought through. However... I’m gonna have to tell the story in smaller parts because I’m lazy and can’t be bothered to write the whole thing out right now. So rez comes later and not in this post.

also uh-- before we start: I’m going to apologise for like… everything about the way I wrote this. It’s sort-of half fic, half that-way-your-friends-colloquially-tell-stories-that-you-can’t-keep-up-with. Mainly the latter. If you can make sense of this babbling, well done.

Anyways, without further ado, welcome to:

POTES TRIES TO EXPLAIN HER DESMOND (SORTA) LIVES AU: PART ONE

On the 21st of December 2012, Desmond Miles dies.

It’s not for nothing -- his sacrifice saves the entire world from a solar flare -- but he is dead. big ripz. The Assassins, his family, do not manage to recover his body. Abstergo gets it first. The Assassins hold a funeral as best they can. They mourn (all in their own ways), they keep fighting (for his memory), and they try to move on (they can’t).

On the 21st of December 2012, Desmond Miles died -- so when he shows up in a city in October 2018, almost 6 years later, it’s a bit of a shock for everyone. What’s even more of a shock is the fact he’s glowing like an Isu and has some abilities he DEFINITELY didn’t have when he died.

So Desmond wakes up in the middle of some city in he doesn’t know where (yeah ok i just never really worked out where the secret lab would be), with 1. no idea of how he got there and 2. no idea why his arms are glowing like that. He doesn’t get much time to think about it because then there’re a load of Abstergo goons with guns surrounding him. Des may have no idea what’s happening, but he knows one thing: when u see an Abstergo, it’s on sight. So he’s fighting them -- which is admittedly not fun or easy when you’re in the middle of a road and only have your fists as weapons. It’s not going well and then someone definitely manages to shoot Desmond which is very bad -- but then Des feels some very weird (but not unfamiliar) feeling and when he looks up from the bullet wound, every one of the Abstergos are on the floor???? He doesn’t think to check if they’re dead, just legs it out of there lmao.

Elsewhere, in an Assassin safehouse in an undisclosed location (can you tell I just didn’t think about the geography of anything), Mr Shaun Hastings is chilling on a balcony after a mission well done. Good for him. Then Rebecca Crane (queen ilu) yells “Shaun?” from inside.

“Rebecca?”

“Come inside. Now.”

Shaun immediately does so because he assumes it’s important or they’re under threat. “What happened? Have we been compromised?”

Rebecca doesn’t answer.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Shaun says, mostly joking and with a little smirk -- though Becs looks spooked.

“Desmond’s alive.”

Shaun’s not smirking anymore. “What?”

“Desmond’s... he’s alive.”

“What are you talking about? Are you high?” he’s totally about to look at her eyes to see if they’re all dilated and druggy.

“No Shaun, I mean it!” Becs harshly shoves her tablet into his hands.

Shaun doesn’t really know what he’s expecting to see when he looks down at the screen. What he’s not really expecting to see is Desmond Miles, who’s been dead for six years, fighting a load of Abstergo people -- while lined in Isu markings (also he’s not wearing a shirt forgot got to mention). ??? But wtf??!?! Desmond’s dead. That’s...

“It’s security camera footage from [the city]... About two hours ago.” Rebecca then swipes through more footage with shaky hands and explains that Des very violently burst out of an Abstergo facility in the city with glowing eyes and light leaking out of him (almost like an Apple of Eden). Then the glowing eyes and shining lights shuts off abruptly and Des is standing in the middle of the road looking very confused at his precursor-ass arms and chest. But Shaun is barely listening to what she’s saying and barely even looking at the screen.

“Where did you get this?” Shaun asks with a hollow voice, not looking up.

“The Initiates.” (bc who else)

Shaun looks at it again, then at Rebecca, and he’s mildly aware of the fact he’s slightly tearing up; “That’s fake. That can’t be him. He’s dead, Becs. We both saw the…” They both saw the autopsy footage the ac4 researcher got from Abstergo -- or at least, tried to watch it; they shut it off as soon as Shaun ran to the bathroom to throw up and Rebecca quickly joined him. They spent the rest of that night crying and drinking way too much.

“He died.” Shaun concludes firmly.

And so Becs is all like “yeah but what if he didn’t?? We need to find him. We need to investigate this.” There’s a determination in her eyes and Shaun knows he’s not going to be able to convince her to drop this -- not that he would. Desmond might be alive, and there is no way they’re going to leave him again.

They’re both standing there in pure shock and confusion, not saying anything.

Rebecca’s comm device lights up and starts buzzing, snapping them out of their general ????-ness. Becs goes to her desk to grab it, glances at the caller id and then shows it to Shaun. It’s William Miles.

The two of them share a Look. They know what he’s calling about -- what else would it be? There’s a stilted moment of neither of them doing anything before Rebecca finally accepts the call. “William?”

“How quickly can you and Shaun get to [city]?” William sounds shaken -- probably the same way Rebecca and Shaun are -- which is a very weird way to hear the Mentor of the Brotherhood sound. He’s seen the footage, hasn’t he?

“In a few hours,” Rebecca replies.

“Good. You need to get there as soon as possible.”

Everyone’s silent for a few moments.

“Is this about Desmond?” Rebecca asks. Dumb question.

There’s a pause. “You’ll be briefed on the ground.” And then he hangs up before Shaun or Rebecca can yell at him.

This is all moving very fast. Shaun and Rebecca share another look. Guess they’re going to [city]. ???

Fast forward several hours and Rebecca and Shaun are in The City [might just have to make the city london bc it’s the one city i actually know well -- however for plot reasons we’ll see later, a swiss city might be better… moving on!]. They get to an assassin base and meet up with Galina Voronina and 2 local assassins. Idk if you’ve read the comics, but to sum things up quickly, Galina and her team were investigating and then ended Project Phoenix -- so Galina now really wants to find out if the whole Desmond thing has anything to do with that.

Galina also wants to help Shaun and Rebecca get their friend back. They’re her friends, but equally she just lost one of her teammates to Abstergo (while ending Phoenix like 2 months ago, in the comics) and is uh- idk how to say it but she wants to help Shaun & Becs who have a chance to get their lost teammate back.

What follows is cool gang-gang trying to track down any trace of Desmond. You’d think it wouldn’t be hard to find a person who literally glows, but Desmond’s had centuries of Assassin training and knows how to hide lol.. which is making the Assassins’ job harder lol.

What’s making it even harder is the Assassins know they have to be quick because they know Abstergo is gonna be looking for Desmond too -- and they have way more resources and stuff. That being said, they’re also currently dealing with the fact one of their building and a decent amount of their guards just got absolutely mullered by weird-glowing-desmond.

The third issue with their entire thing is that they have no idea what they’re going to find when they find Desmond -- or if he even is Desmond. Is he going to be the man they knew but with weird powers? an Abstergo isu-clone? evil? they don’t know, and so they know they’ve got to be wary with him.

The Assassin gang spend some time (a couple of days at the very most) trying to track Desmond down. Rebecca is using all the tech she can get her hacker mitts on to find a trace of him and equally throw Abstergo off Des’ trail.

Soon enough, they get a solid lead -- don’t ask for the specifics, i don’t know them. But they get a lead, and it winds them up in an abandoned apartment building or also abandoned building site or something (a building in the city where there aren’t any people, basically).

Galina scans the place with Eagle Vision and she’s like “There is something very strange about this place.” (someone?) But she doesn’t see a person-shape anywhere. The 5 of them are hopeful but somewhat on edge.

They go about searching for any sign of Desmond. Galina’s pretty sure her Eagle Vision is just… Messing Up A Lot lol. Like something’s trying to heck with it. So she’s not quite sure it’s working correctly when a load of red figures appear somewhere below them.

She becomes a lot more sure when the red figures come into sight and START SHOOTING AT THEM! IT’S ABSTERGO!! CRAP! they found them!!

The assassins get down and a really cool fight scene w them vs the Abstergos in the building/ building site starts playing out. Woo Shaun and Rebecca electro-hidden-blade moments!! The fight splits the squad up and Shaun and Rebecca are away from Galina & the others -- but they dispatch the Abstergo guards near them.

They’re about to radio in that they’re all okay/ check if Galina & co are also good when they hear a slightly-too-loud footstep. They whip around to see an Abstergo guard aiming right at them, too far for either of them to get him before he shoots them. crap crap crap.

They would have been shot -- if someone hadn’t come up behind the Abstergo guard and snapped his neck (ouch).

The Abstergo drops to the ground, revealing the person who saved them and… Shaun and Rebecca stare in shock.

They’re both looking at Desmond Miles.

Desmond Miles, who is very much alive (and wearing a hoodie that is 100% stolen). And… with a load of glowing yellow lines on his face. But it’s Desmond -- it’s Desmond for sure. Holy shit.

Desmond doesn’t seem so shocked, only relieved to see them. Then his expression turns into serious confusion;

“What the fuck is happening?”

///

ok sorry leaving it there for now! hope you enjoyed what is here will continue soon

#desmond (sorta) lives au #desmond miles #rebecca crane #shaun hastings #galina voronina #william miles #Assassin's Creed #THANK YOU FOR THIS ASK i saw it this morning and have spent the day wanting to write this down but being in lessons /:#i know it's a complete mess however you'll have to excuse me i got excited #you opened a can of worms darling anon #I know I just used it as an excuse to Go Off but uh... sorry lol #asscreed #potes wrotes #sort of #thanks for the ask!#the night that the sun came up

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lightofthemoonglow · 3 years

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chapter four - when I'm with you breathing

Summary: How the first full moon cycle ends, basically. It’s just some fluff. And a flashback to their first meeting.

This is chapter four of ‘Snapped’, a fic in which Herbert’s assistant becomes a howlin’ hot werewolf…and he may like that.

requested by @bioshvckd

series masterlist

There is a bite to the January air as you rush across campus, hoping that you’re not going to be late because your last class had run too long. Your backpack hangs on one shoulder, thumping against your back as the snow crunches under your boots and your skirt swishes from your rushed movements. This is an appointment that you cannot miss.

This T.A gig could really change the game for you. The professor you would be working under is Herbert West, a doctor and scientist whose reputation is well-known even outside of Arkham and who you have been dying to work with since you had come to Miskatonic. But he generally refuses the sort of help that would be working with him directly or even close to that. So when the position had opened up, there had been a deluge of applicants. Getting the interview at all had been a minor miracle.

So, you had worn your best clothes. The sweater is a bit big, but the gray color goes with your black skirt, tights and boots. It’s all very drab, but you hope it’s professional enough. Or if it's not, that your record is enough to impress him.

When you get to Dr. West’s office, he’s not alone in there. Dr. Cain is there. You know who he is, everyone does. Your friends are always swooning over him, but he’s not your type, so you’re able to introduce yourself with the usual confidence, holding out your hand for a shake.

“I’m not here for office hours.” You need to say, keeping a tight smile on your face as you tell Dan your name and that you’re the same person who is getting the interview. You do need to bring out the contents of the folder inside of your backpack and show him your school ID. The picture is awful, somehow you look like you’re not even old enough to drive even though you obviously are in person.

“Herbert, Herbert!” Dan needs to call his name multiple types and pound on the desk before the other man even looks away from his work and gets up.

This time, when you hold out your hand, it’s shaking a little bit. “Hi,” you breathe out, blowing a stray strand of hair out of your face.

There is a moment when it feels like the world had slowed down and then Herbert’s hand meets yours. His skin is on the cool side, but you run warm.

It just feels right.

When Dan gets home the afternoon before the final night of the full moon, he notices the somewhat depressing atmosphere in the air. But he just assumes that it’s because of what has been happening recently. There is no manual on how to deal with this. At least for now. All of you have to play it by ear for now. Which is easier said than done for a bunch of scientists. Last night, Herbert had drugged you with a concoction of Thorazine, some plants and other drugs. You had been sedated for the night, essentially a giant, lazy dog, but upon returning to human form, you had been violently ill, lurching up the stairs and around the first floor and then going full Exorcist all over the kitchen.. It would not be a suitable solution for tonight. Or maybe any other night.

You’re curled up on the couch with Ginger, the large dog curled up next to you protectively. Dan swears that the usually friendly dog glares at him when he passes you and ruffles your hair. You still look wan, exhausted, despite having had the day to rest. It's clear that you're dreading tonight without you needing to say a word.

“Everything alright?” he still finds himself asking when he goes down to see Herbert in the lab. The destruction from last night is mostly gone. Though the holes in the wall still need to be repaired, at least you would still be able to be kept in the crypt. Which Herbert seems to realize, since Dan notes that all of the valuables have been moved.

“Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?” Herbert sounds vaguely irritated, so it’s business as usual on his end.

“Well, when I left, she had just thrown up all over the wall and wasn’t exactly coherent.” Dan sighs and drums his fingers on the edge of the table. “Look, I’ve been thinking about it all day. And I have an idea for tonight.”

That first night, the calmest you had been was when Herbert had been in the basement with you. Scenting him had soothed the savage beast. But of course, having him with you the whole time was a bad idea. Everyone knew that, even Herbert,the most reckless man on the east coast. But Dan had been thinking and had found a way to meet in the middle.

iii

Your reaction to Dan’s plan is less than totally enthusiastic.

“That’s kind of infantilizing.” You try to sound like you’re joking and mostly succeed. But there is an edge to your voice. Your brain is just scrambling for some sense of control, something that would mean your life is still your own, that you don’t share it with a wild animal that destroys everything. The real you wouldn’t be comforted to the point of quasi sedation by something with Herbert’s scent on it. At least you hope so.

“It’s the only idea we have,” Dan points out.

And he’s right, but you’re still not very happy at the thought. Your gaze flicks towards Herbert, who is looking over his notes. But the minutiae of his expressions tell you that he’s not really reading his notes, merely pretending. “What do you think?” you ask, playing with a hangnail.

“I think that Dan’s theory is valid. But you do not have to go along with it if it makes you uncomfortable.”

“How do you feel about it? It’s going to be your shirt and blankets used to make this...nest.” There are a few hours until the moon rises, plenty of time for Herbert to get his smell on his rarely used blankets and get them to the crypt. Dan had pointed out that being near Herbert had stopped your rampage on the first night and they can’t keep drugging you, so maybe this was worth trying.

Herbert finally looks up. Your eyes meet his and his gaze softens, if only for just a moment. “It can’t hurt to try.”

The pain is worse than the first night. As if your body is punishing you for the night before, for trying to find a way around this curse. You can feel any individual bone snap and reform, every little change your body goes through is worse than the last and by the time it’s done, you’re shaking as your paws hit the floor.

It’s all too much. You can feel every bit of texture as you sniff around the crypt, instincts telling you to fight, run, kill, tear into something warm and alive. Or to do something else to satisfy the parts of you that are screaming, fighting.

The satisfaction comes when your senses find the pile in the corner. It smells warm, it smells safe, it smells like home. It smells like something else, something you can’t quite name. It feels like whatever this is completes some part of you that even the wolf didn’t know existed.

It might not work next time. Or maybe not as well.

But tonight, you and the monster are content with this. Whatever it is.

In the morning, you come up from the basement on your own, You’re wearing one of the shirts, the white garment barely long enough for you to be decent. The exhaustion is still present, but you don’t feel that overwhelming anxiety and existential horror that had come with what had happened last time.

For the first time since this all started, you feel like maybe it will be okay.

#herbert west x reader #herbert west imagine

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bitch-in-a-bag · 3 years

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can we talk about how the LGBT movement has changed in the past 15 years?

in the light of the events surrounding Chris chan, and people prioritizing pronouns over the rape of a woman with dementia, I think it displays just how... different things are.

i personally feel like it's been co-opted by the more loud and entitled mtfs/ males/penis-havers/whatever pc term exists for the XY chromosome'd, who go too far and aren't reasonably kept in check. I think terf no longer has meaning anymore because it's just become a word we use to silence anyone that disagrees with a trans woman. immediately you're going to call me a terf, I accept that, but please continue reading. I may suprise you. calling someone who's transgender a terf is kinda messed up anyway, and that's exactly why im writing this.

I also think that everyone else (allies, ftms, etc) have followed suit because they've written this messed up narrative that EvErYoNe iS VaLiD. except for trans penis-havers, bc they're the most oppressed and the most valid, actually, regardless of their experiences.

I never used to believe the above because it was always written off as terf shit, and ignoring it kinda benefitted me, but between seeing ftms getting bashed for refusing to follow new "TME" rules as if they aren't trans too, and seeing outrage around Chris chans pronouns, I think it's time to start saying things that may make people uncomfortable. innocent people are already getting hurt by this, and we need to do better. it's time to get uncomfortable.

I want to remind you that perception is both the relying factor, and also the downfall of newer lgbt theory. if my profile were mtf coded, maybe it currently is, you'd call me a self hating trans and I wouldn't be that big of a deal. terfs would probably target me.

if my profile was ftm coded, I would be absolutely skewered for daring to speak out about these issues, even though they do actually affect ftms disproportionately. terfs would try to convince me that being trans is a plague and a mental illness, and to just ~be a cis woman~!

and if assumed cis, I would 100% be assumed radfem terf, and everything I say would immediately be dismissed because of the genuine damage terfs have done. but terfs would still probably flock to this post and berate me for daring to validate trans people At All, because to them, being transgender is a mental illness akin to an eating disorder, and "giving in" to it is "self harm". clearly I don't believe that, so hopefully you'll give me at least some benefit of the doubt.

so, does my identity matter? i have a feeling you'll say yes, because it gives us a good idea of experiences I do and don't have expertise in, and thus room to talk about. but I refuse to directly identify what I actually am because I want the focus of any resulting conversation to be my message and not my self identification. if you read between the lines and figure it out that's just fine, but I would like to be heard first and foremost.

my profile is thus an attempt at being cis female coded, somewhat out of comfort, and that is likely what I'll be assumed to be due to the beliefs I am expressing, even though there is a substantial risk of getting misgendered and dismissed, no matter what my birth sex may actually be. i will give you a hint about my identity: I am transgender, on HRT and everything, and I have been personally affected by all of this. rest assured, this is well within my lane to speak about, and it does matter if you misgender me.

I want you to really think about that. before you respond, really think about if someone saying words on tumblr, talking about their OWN experiences and their take on recent history that applies to themself, really more worthy of being misgendered and harassed than... someone who said they transitioned so they could date lesbians, and then raped their own mother with dementia.

is that fair or just? or is this just a new way of letting people with penises do whatever they want? I personally think it's the latter. we need to hold people like Chris chan accountable without getting caught up on something as minor **in comparison** as misgendering and self identification. Is it sad and confusing that someone who self IDs as transgender became 1:1 with the most dangerous stereotypes that exist for trans women? Of course it is. But it doesn't mean that self identification is suddenly more important than a literal crime being committed.

I would normally dismiss it as a fluke or outright trolling if the evidence weren't so damning that this is in fact a real event that happened. If I hadn't seen this happen to other people, and if I didn't literally know another mtf person who used their dysphoria as an excuse for date rape on multiple occasions and never got any consequences for it.

It's not a one time thing, it's a developing problem that we need to stop before more people have their lives ruined. I can't even imagine how traumatizing and messed up it is for an FTM person to be date raped, by another transgender person no less. When I, an abuse survivor, told people of this MTFs red flags, people violently silenced me. People who didn't know I was trans called me a terf and transphobic. We, as a community, could've protected someone from getting date raped, and we didn't. Trans women can be awful, horrible fucking people, because they are people. Protecting them at all costs is wrong. Protecting them from transphobia is what we should be doing.

That being said, misgendering is still skeevy, and I haven't done anything like raped a disabled woman who is no longer able to consent, or date raped my own partner. if you give a shit about respecting my identity, please use they/them for me. if not, use visual perception and make assumptions that will most likely be incorrect, skew your own argument, and put me on the same level as a rapist, and arguably a fetishist. And I do need to remind you that calling someone transgender a rapist and a fetishist without evidence is still definitely classic transphobia, to the letter, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't do that.

as someone who is same sex attracted, I also want to bring this up as well.

in the US in the past 15 years, the movement as a whole pretty much went "YEAH BORN THIS WAY" with Lady Gaga, and then jumped ship to prioritize mostly mtfs at every angle. do mtfs need support? absolutely. but they don't need misguided toxic positivity, and that's what it's turned into.

it's gotten genuinely homophobic to the point where actually homosexual people are constantly being erased and demonized via "genital preferences are a fetish uwu", and vulva havers, especially the trans ones, are constantly being told to shut up about their experiences.

as much as you want to deny bioessentialism, its still very much well and alive with newer trans movement sentiments when we classify ftms as not worthy of speaking about their own issues with terms like "TME". it's also incredibly ignorant towards FTMs who pass, but dress feminine for comfort, and get mistaken for MTF, and treated like garbage because of it. They are not remotely exempt from misogyny, transphobia, or the intersection of the two, and it is not anyone's job to tell them they don't ever experience that when they do. Turning ftms and biological homosexuals into our enemies-- especially when the actual cause is transphobia and harmful gender stereotypes-- does nothing good or healthy for our movement.

Dont be mistaken, though, passing isn't the focus or end all be all here, it's the perception of others that ends up drastically effecting your experiences. There are words like misogyny that imply treatment via birth sex, however this too can be reliant on external perception. If an MTF individual either transitions very young, has an abundance of resources to transition, or just gets lucky and passes well, chances are she will experience a lot more misogyny than people may give credit to. inversely, someone who just started questioning yesterday, but lived as a male their whole life up until then, they genuinely cannot speak about misogyny with that much room because they simply haven't experienced it at an accurate enough angle or for enough time to understand it as a repeated and sociological force.

It works the other way as well, though; someone who's known that they're trans for a long time and haven't had the resources to transition, or do not or cannot pass in the eyes of society; these people suffer pain that we don't neccesarily have a word for yet, imo. It makes dysphoria worse and it makes living seem hopeless. And as a community, we deal with this is in a really messed up way by over-validating them instead of solving the core issue at hand. and people who suffer from this, but also acknowledge they can't claim what they haven't experienced, are left with nowhere to go.

And its important to acknowledge these things because they're integral to the over-encompassing trans experience. Instead of lying to everyone and telling everyone they pass/giving out unconditional positive regard, our focus should be making it so that it **doesn't matter if you pass**. that you're still worth respect and dignity if you're transgender, no matter what passing is or what it means to you, and no matter how you present. But also, if you do something awful, you still need to be held accountable, especially if you use yourself, your body, or your trans status to contribute to other axi of oppression.

Transphobia is a word that encompasses and addresses all of that, regardless of birth sex. "TME" shuts that down in favor of only letting MTF's speak. Which is still very bio-essentialist, and I can't help but feel like we've gone full circle.

Once upon a time you couldn't even get married if your partner had the same genitals as you. in the US, this was less than 7 years ago. and if you care about human rights activism, you know damn well that legal modification is not the end all be all. people who are genuinely homosexual are still oppressed, but the trans movement has started stepping on them to make ground we don't deserve. homosexuals are ok and valid. it's not a genital preference, and the prescence of trans people doesn't make conversion therapy sentiments ok, ever.

we've gone full circle, and it's not right.

#trans rights #homosexuality #human rights #lgbt #lgbt community #trans #tw: rape #transphobia

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aloalovera · 4 years

Text

The week boasted no irregularities at Night Raven College, an unusual feat for an institution of its background. You however, having lived every week since your arrival shrouded with stress if not by the overblottings, then a troublesome class assignment, rather enjoyed the silence and appreciated it(while you still could).

It was Friday and the last bell of the day had rung, a cacophony of relieved sighs following the loud ringing alongside the rustling of materials being put away. You, as well as your irritating, arrogant cat roommate packed your bags as the teacher gave one last reminder of the homework. As it was the weekend, you would concern yourself with it until Sunday night.

You turned to Grimm as you both stood in the hallway, Ace and Deuce having just exited the classroom amongst a throng of final period students eager to return to their dorms. “I was about to tell Grimm, but since you’re both here, I’ll let everyone know,” you said as Deuce and Ace arrived to your standing point, “I’m not sure I’ll make it to movie night this evening so you guys can start without me.”

The four of you had planned a perfect and relaxing evening with enough food that would be enough to satisfy your craving for junk. Needless to say, you were annoyed to have missed such an opportunity. Especially as your guys’ schedules had uniformly lined up after a very long time of deliberation. Crowley sure had a knack for ruining your opportunities to relax.

Ace shrugged, “It’s not a big deal, let’s just reschedule for another day.”

“But we’ve been planning this for weeks! For once we all are not super tired after a single day. Besides, we already have all the snacks and finally convinced Headmaster to let us borrow his projection device-“

“Like Ace said,” began Deuce, interrupting Grim on his whining tirade, “it’s not like we can’t reschedule. Though I’m a little disappointed, I wouldn’t want you missing your errands.”

“By the way Prefect, since we’re on the subject, where are you going?” Ace still had that carefree smile, it eased your nerves for what was to come this afternoon.

You pulled out your student ID and pointed out what set it apart from regular students’. “This stamped crest at the bottom right corner recognizes me as an official Dorm leader, it will also let me into the room where Dorm leaders hold their meetings...”

The stamp in question was just like the official school crest, except the crow was positioned differently and instead of black print, it was red. You stared at it shortly before pocketing the laminated identification card.

“So, if I am understanding correctly,” Deuce muttered, “you’re attending a Dorm leader meeting?!” You winced at his booming words but nodded, a little confused with his outburst. He didn’t let you linger with confusion, “It’s just that, and these are just what the rumors say, but apparently Dorm leader meetings are incredibly violent. They begin arguing and escalate to a full blown magic battle.”

That didn’t sound too good.

“Then it makes sense that the door is sealed, Headmaster wouldn’t want students witnessing the Dorm leaders in disarray, huh?” Hummed Ace. You had a vague hunch the sealing was there for other reasons besides privacy but Ace suspected it too. It may be exactly as he said...

You could all but calm your jitters now, just what did you get yourself into? Or more like, what did Headmaster Crowley want from you this time? He was the one who asked you to attend mind you.

“Rest easy Prefect, you have your phone so if anything goes wrong, call or text us.” Deuce always knew what to say.

“Thank you Deuce, that’s very reassuring,” you smiled sincerely for you did feel much better. With a temporary silence, where all four of you stood awkwardly until you decided it was inevitable, you said your goodbyes, “Well, I’ll be off now. Wouldn’t want to be late on my first Dorm leader meeting.” You tried to put on a cheery smile but all that came out was one that looked eerily similar to how it would if someone had stitched the corners of your lips to lift them.

You exchanged “Goodbye’s,” some “good luck’s,” before ultimately starting down the hallway. The three magicians stood behind as you, their magicless friend, disappeared into a different corridor.

Ace then after said, “Well, can’t help it, we’ll just have to find a different day”

“You try to sound like you don’t care but you were actually very eager to show Prefect the movie you chose, huh” teased Deuce. And so, another round of bickering ensued as the desolate and ignored Grimm tried to regain their attention.

From the moment you stepped away from the comfort of your circle, the heaviness in the pit of your stomach increased tenfold. You could not imagine the refined and respectable Dorm leaders would really break the rules in front of the Headmaster, this logic gave you some semblance. Alas it could only last so long when you remembered how far Leona had gone just to remove from the Magift tournament your good friend Malleus.

Indeed a worrying amount of bad blood existed amongst the Dorm-heads but you hoped it would be subdued with the authoritative presence of Crowley. You’d hate to be caught up in any more magic spectacles. The sheer negativity from an overblot was enough to overwhelm a magician, so one could only fathom your exhaustion at such an exposure without an ounce of magical blood in your veins.

When you stopped in front of the designated door, your thoughts also stopped. Instead you realized how paranoid you’d become, so much so that you were thinking about a potential overblot during the meeting. It was silly to be this nervous, you had spoken with all of them and had befriended a few. How difficult would it be to sit through a likely mundane talk that would regard upcoming events?

Maybe there’d be bickering of course, but that was expected as not everyone would be in agreement at all times. They each were very unique individuals with equally unique thought processes. However knowing them, they would go onto personal territory and begin insulting one another. Which could lead to pent up frustrations being released and a whole blown out magic battle-

Slapping your checks gently, you deescalated the situation that had felt all too much like a premonition. From the pocket of your uniform, you pulled out your student ID.

Now, you’d dealt with magical tools before but that didn’t mean you were never at a complete loss when introduced to something new. You thought to bring it up like a scanner, but to no avail were you granted access. You fiddled with the door and the ID card for a couple of minutes, spying the time was five minutes before the meeting began.

At the moment your eyes landed on your wrist watch which was elevated to the level of the door’s knob, you noticed a small slit right above it. You slid the card in, first turned up, second time turned down.

Your third try you did face up again, with the end where your picture was located at tucked in first. An electronic beep followed, and as the door opened, you cheered at having bested the admittance tool that was much like a credit card machine.

The room seemed dark at first, or well that was more of your impression of it. Much of Night Raven College followed a dark, gothic type architecture as well as aesthetic. You weren’t surprised that everyone was already here, seated around a circular table with papers, pencils, and other materials laid askew.

You’d never been to one of these, so all you had on you was your backpack. That should work as it carried your writing utensils though. One more thing you noticed that set you apart, was that you were still in your school uniform. It seemed everyone else was wearing their dorm uniforms, even Malleus who never attended a meeting due to poor invitation etiquette(from other dorm leaders) stood out less than you, and he was well over six feet tall.

And it also seemed like Vil had made Captain Obvious his role, “Look at this potato, absolutely inconceivable that you would come to a meeting in those dirty rags.”

“You practically wear the same thing,” you pointed out, but the next attack swooped in so quickly and ridiculously you were left flabbergasted.

Riddle had been the orchestrator of the attack, having stated in his harsh tone, “You’re late.”

After twisting your eyebrows, you argued, “Even the clock says it’s 2 minutes before 4-“ You wanted to say that their little tea party didn’t seem too important but held your tongue. You had a feeling Riddle wouldn’t allow you access to the snacks if you spoke back anymore and frankly, you were starving.

“You should have a seat Prefect, Headmaster is very particular about everyone being in their place when the meeting begins.” Azul was kind enough to inform you.

You found it funny how Crowley demanded order in the meeting room but couldn’t do the same in dire ordeals involving a certain group of Dorm leaders. But enough about that, you needed a seat quickly.

However, there was no empty seats. You looked wayward into the room and found a sad little stool in the corner. It so happened to be made of the heaviest metal. The head splitting noise of the feet of the stool dragging on the floor filled the vicinity. You could feel a number of gazes on your back as you tried not to focus on the other occupants.

Whether it was by mercy or annoyance, definitely the latter, you were suddenly lifted and sat on the stool, you held on for dear life as it floated at a rapid pace to the table and then haphazardly twisted so you were facing everyone. You were squeezed between the floating tablet that had its own chair and Kalim.

Vil huffed as if exasperated and drolly commented as he leaned his chin on his palm, “If you are to continue to attend these meetings, you have to wear appropriate attire that represents your dorm.”

“But Ramshackle dorm doesn’t even have a crest(or clean water), there’s nothing to represent-“

“Up up, you will not argue with me. Make sure to have a uniform next time you come or I’ll personally make it so that you cannot enter this room.” Vil was always very harsh with you. Unlike everyone else who seemed to care less about the garbs you had on, he seemed especially offended. “You think you can look however as a Dorm leader? How can you call yourself an advocate for Ramshackle Dorm when you can’t even put the minimal effort into your appearance.”

You didn’t think you looked as awful as Vil criticized. Maybe your hair was a little frizzy and unkept at the hairline and your shirt wasn’t as tucked in as earlier but it wasn’t like you came in caked in mud either. Vil had impossibly high standards. However now that you noticed, you looked notably more unruly than the rest who had not a wrinkle in place and didn’t look like the standard tired student after a long day of classes. But then, suddenly some help-

“Ah, just knock it off. All your whining is getting on my nerves,” huffed Leona. He was leaned back with his eyelids closed and that angry look on his face. Whether his intention was to help you or not, you had to be thankful for his very honest character. Some disliked his bluntness and called him lazy, but questionable morals aside, you actually thought Leona was quite efficient. As they say, “lazy” people aren’t lazy, they are simply smart enough to come up with a more convenient and trouble free process. You were brought back from your thoughts by the lion himself, “Besides, he’s gonna arrive soon-“

“More like now-“ at Kalim’s excitable tone, the shrill of shattering glass engulfed your ears and you knew immediately, based on that very wasteful entrance, that Crowley had arrived.

As said, he stood before you as a flood of heaven’s light from the sizable hole in the window entered the murky, dank walls of hell. Crowley scanned the room and did a double take on you.

Your stool was much shorter than the high chairs everyone else had been graced with, you were also more or less slumping in an attempt to make yourself smaller. This was unconsciously done of course, try as you might you couldn’t stop acknowledging how little you fit in with the rest of the room’s inhabitants.

Crowley’s mouth opened and closed like a fish, as if he was at a loss for words. If you didn’t know any better, he was probably at a loss for words.

He said while his beady little eyes settled on your face, “Oh, well look who’s here early!”

“It’s ten minutes past the meeting time,” Riddle said rather snarkily.

“Ah yes...” the man in question mumbled, then after shouting, “BUT, we shall get started immediately!” Crowley had declared. “Come then Dorm leaders, let me listen to your complaints”

“I’d hardly call them complaints, they’re more like issues that need to be resolved for the sake of the student’s safety,” said Azul after a clean rearranging of his papers. “Octavinelle can deal with its own problems, however when those problems transcend outside of our plumbing abilities, we will request help from a third party source.” He pushed his glasses up his nose bridge and with finality said, “That third party source is you, Headmaster”

The pressure was on in a matter of seconds. You knew Crowley’s tune too well to understand that he had probably procrastinated on a lot of the topics that would be mentioned today. Half of you couldn’t wait to see his ear chewed off for once and the other half dreaded the length of this meeting for this was a meeting that involved Crowley and responsibility. Two elements like those simply did not mix.

And you were right... His first response?

Evasion.

“A-ah, I see. But Azul, was the flooding not fixable by magic?” The crow man said. You looked between the two, Azul’s eyebrows jutting down almost immediately after that statement.

“Headmaster Crowley, you should know that magic is not the solution to all of our problems. Besides, it’s only a temporary fix that is becoming more, and more frequent to see to. Please contact the plumbing company and have them fix our flooding problem-“

“Stupid.”

Oh dear. Dear, dear lord. You hoped he hadn’t any more insulting elaborating for your premonition would become very true if a certain octopus’s temper wasn’t moderated.

The single word had come from Leona. You had all paused to listen to the lion who chuckled mockingly much to your dismay. “You live underwater and you’re complaining about a flooding problem? To me it sounds like all you need is a custom pot and you’ll feel right at home”

Was Leona still annoyed that his deal had been for naught during the magift tournament? Definitely. Was Azul still brimming with irritation that his contracts had been reduced to dust? Without a doubt.

“Maybe you should concern yourself with that flea infestation from your own stye” Azul replied coolly. Your eyes widened as you looked down, feeling an awkward tension suddenly rise. You weren’t surprised an argument was being instigated between these two. Based on a couple of previous mentioned incidents that is.

You just wished nobody else would warrant any more input. Alas, it seemed these days all you did was hopeful and useless wishing.

“Cease your mindless bickering, you sound like fools. There are actual topics in need of discussion and exchanging insults won’t resolve them,” Riddle was the one who had mentioned.

But then he was in the line of fire, “If we’re bringing up issues that need discussion, then I’d like to put in a formal complaint against Riddle.” Riddle sputtered at Leona’s words. “He overworks his students and forces them into useless tasks like painting roses red. It makes it worse when you find out that he dictates the outfits they wear and makes them do it under the blistering heat.”

“I most certainly do not!” Riddle had shouted and appeared to be gaining a red hue to his face. “The weather in Heartslabyul is regulated”

“So you don’t deny that you exhaust your students regardless of the weather?” Leona added another quip, “ You wouldn’t be so defensive if you weren’t with any faults, your tomato face gives it all away.”

“Now now, do not insult Riddle for wanting to make his Dorm a beautiful place. We should praise him for putting in the effort of making it look so gorgeous unlike that barren wasteland of yours Leona. It’s an absolute eyesore,” drawled Vil.

“What’s an eyesore is that your face looks more like cake than cake itself Vil,” the lion fired back. Vil was readying his rebuttal. You clenched your teeth and looked helpless between both, looking to Crowley who had taken to sipping delicately out of a tea cup. Bastard.

It’s not that you were concerned for their strained relationships, it’s what their strained relationships entailed for you. Crowley wouldn’t herd his students into peaceful territory, instead he’d leave you to it. Once again the responsibility would be dumped onto you at the expense of having Crowley look for a way for you to return to your world. You sighed dejectedly as you watched the unfolding ordeal.

Before you knew it, Azul had jumped back into the mix and was berating Leona for always instigating fights with his “childish” comments.

“If I’m so childish for stating the obvious, what does that make you guys for stringing along?” His rhetorical question seemed only to further fan the flames of rage in the three Dorm leaders. You looked at Kalim besides you who was laughing loudly.

So carefree and free spirited...

He pointed excitedly and said to you, “It always seems to go South, just enjoy the show while it lasts!”

“I don’t remember it always being like this. But I suppose things changed in my absence.” Malleus chimed into yours and Kalim’s discussion.

“They did. A lot of us don’t have very good chemistry with one another. It always ends up in a big fight if Headmaster doesn’t intervene” said Idia on the other side of the floating tablet.

“But is it okay to simply sit back without doing anything to put a stop to them?” Malleus questioned, looking quite troubled. From what you were told(that he wasn’t ever invited to these meetings), you discerned Malleus had been quite looking forward to interacting with his peers.

Ah but there was no way to when more than half of the Dorm leaders were engaging in a verbal battle with one another.

Idia had said what you and Kalim had both been thinking, “If you try to stop them, you’ll just be dragged into their mindless argument like Riddle and Vil”

“It’s so easy to get lost in the rage. Idia and I have both fallen victims to the petty behavior,” Kalim said with a wicked wide grin. You don’t understand why he looks so proud of himself...

“Yes, it’s like this room is cursed or something,” Idia remarked.

You sighed wearily, “I don’t think the room is the problem...”

The lot of you watched on as the insults grew more and more personal. Unbelievable that they were so egotistical and prideful. Vil really felt like he was above all others(which you found ridiculous; beauty was subjective and as far as you knew, he only adhered to a selected society’s beauty standard). Riddle really believed he could exercise control over the rest(it would be better if he would try to coax the others into a compromise like an equal but instead he decided to shout commands like an arrogant, tyrannical brat). Leona was prideful and that bluntness you had praised not even ten minutes ago was becoming the bane of your existence. Speaking of banes, Azul couldn’t be more insufferable with his know it all attitude.

You had not realized that Crowley’s demeanor had shifted to something much darker and sinister as the arguing winded along. Finally he broke. Just like his tea cup.

“SILENCE,” the crow man shouted, effectively silencing the Dorm leaders, “YOU ALL HAVE ME SICK AND TIRED OF YOUR CONSTANT SHOUTING MATCHES!”

“Headmaster, you are shouting yourself,” Kalim said, matter of factory, scratching his temple with a single digit.

“Ah. Ahem, excuse me,” Crowley let the components of the tea cup he shattered crumble to the floor. They landed with a clink in the quiet room. “It’s been consistent arguments from you all and it’s very disappointing to witness this kind of behavior from you, who are considered elites at this already elite institution. I will not tolerate this blatant insubordination. You are Dorm heads and as such, are expected to conduct yourselves like so under all circumstances. You’ve disrespected and defiled your titles with your selfish and childish behavior and have left me no choice but to give a punishment of the worst severity.”

A heavy quietude hung in the air. The threat breathed down all your necks as you all waited with bated breaths. You hoped Crowley wouldn’t dish out the very formidable punishment to you. After all, you’d done nothing wrong. Crowley wouldn’t know what was coming his way if he even considered involving you in any more Dorm leader altercations.

Riddle braved up a few ass kissing words, “We understand Headmaster and will accept any punishment you give us”

“It was completely juvenile of us to act in such a way that defiles the good image of a Dorm leader,” Vil followed up.

“Yes, we profoundly apologize and will not do it again.” Azul bowed his head in shame.

Leona said nothing, for he had been truthful with his feelings and felt no remorse in expressing them. He thought the other three looked quite like boot-lickers offering suck up statements. Whatever Crowley had to offer, he could take it.

Bring it on he mentally challenged the bird man.

“Your punishment is,” Crowley sucked in a long breath, purposely leaving you all with the suspense. “So horrific you’ll spend every single day in complete and utter agony. Every moment will be a torturous reliving of your worst nightmare. You will come out changed men... traumatized changed men.” A few had nervous sweat drops rolling down their temples and others looked comically stone faced. “You all will be subjected to the cruelest, most severe repercussion.” Crowley said, “You will be subjected to...” and you all stood at the edge of your seats. The time came when he revealed the long awaited words, “A sleepover.”

“Huh?”

Leona was wrong...

HE COULD NOT TAKE THAT! Bring it back! Sweet sweet and noble ancestor, reverse this curse-

“WHAT!?” Vil’s shrill scream was enough to make you wince. Azul was stunned to silence much like the rest of you.

In all honesty you didn’t think it was that bad. Until-

“In Ramshackle dorm-“

“WHAT!?” It was your turn to scream as you stood up, knocking your stool over and causing a cry as it made harsh contact with the floor.

“For seven days-“

“WHAT!?” You all shouted in unison, baffled by the unexpected turn of events.

Crowley had nerve.

“To offer my dorm like that,” you sputtered in disbelief, “it’s unacceptable Headmaster!”

“Fufu, it’s the only place big enough to house you eight and isolated enough to keep you from interacting with anyone but each other.” Crowley explained as if you had all accepted it and come to terms yet. You would raise hell before you even considered allowing it. And you did.

“I refuse-“

“I override your refusal. This is for the benefit of the school and my decision is final.” That piece of no good dog shit. Bird brains were small with high capacities however this one seemed to only be small and know how to only be small. “I am very busy so I cannot police the Dorm leaders into acting civilized enough to not embarrass the school. However I will provide Ramshackle with all the necessities to host the additional seven temporary students for I am gracious.” He goaded.

“No Headmaster, you are not being gracious at all,” you fired back, “I don’t understand why you have to lump me in with all of them. Never mind that I am a Dorm leader, you never recognize me as an official one except when you need something from me. On top of that, why is Kalim, Idia, and Malleus being punished as well?”

“Kalim and Idia have previously participated in the discourse. As for Malleus...” Crowley rubbed his chin, “Well, I suppose it would be a learning experience for him. I’m sure Lilia will approve.”

“You still haven’t answered why you’re lumping me in as well- Hey!” You cried as you ran after the bird man who had hopped out of the window and was falling fifty feet. “Headmaster you can’t just leave without an explanation!”

“But I have explained already,” his voice echoed as you leaned out the cavity in the stained glass pane, “You are an impressive beast tamer! I trust all will go well in your hands! And be sure to have Ramshackle dorm ready to receive its new students by 7:00pm tomorrow!”

Ah... he was gone just like that. What do you know, he didn’t even let you chew him out...

The room that had been in chaos suddenly descended into a space void of any sound but breathing.

“Don’t say anything,” you weakly mumbled as you glared at the spires of NRC, the wind blowing through the flags and essentially masking Crowley’s location. You were sure that everyone had heard the crow man’s last few shouts of information, but had probably missed the one that pertained particularly to you. Defeated you turned to the rest and said in an eerily calm voice, “I need to make the preparations, please be on time tomorrow evening and make sure you have everything you will need for a week”

“But wait, aren’t you against this? Why are you suddenly giving in?” Kalim uttered, probably put off by your change in demeanor. In truth, you were still definitely against it but you took Crowley’s words like a threat.

Fingers tapped against your chin, “I think all of our hands are tied. You guys can’t disobey Crowley and I can’t afford to put him in bad graces with me.”

“Still, for him to just declare something like that and disappear without elaborating...” Vil seemed exasperated as the rest of you. You could hear Idia’s nervous breathing through the tablet as Riddle spoke up.

“With or without elaborating, it’s like you said,” he gestured to you, “we cannot disobey. Especially as he is correct in the fact that we have acted out of line.”

“Regardless of how quickly things have happened, I’ll have you guys know that I lock the doors at 10:00pm sharp. Be on time please.” You were already picking up your bag and heading out the door dejectedly. “Also, don’t forget anything!”

•———•••———•••———•••———•••———•

Ahaaa this chapter is super rushed and choppy but I’m looking most forward to writing interactions between the characters as they all settle into their new lifestyles for a whole week.

#twisted wonderland #twst #dire crowley #twst grim #ace trappola #deuce spade #riddle rosehearts #leona kingscholar #azul ashengrotto #vil schoenheit #idia shroud #malleus draconia #reader insert

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macklives · 4 years

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hey so this is gonna be a long-ish one. ive decided its been far too long since i did a session, and we did so many i can often forget what happened. i started in july and im pretty sure its been more than half a year now since this whole blog happened. and in that time, we’ve gone through 88 sessions and i want to know if i remember the relevant plot points and what we got up to in the last few sessions. a refresh/reminder if you would.

so i hereby commence my own little recap of act 5 because yeah no, its too much to do a recap of everything and i have andrew for that after every few acts. but i wanna refresh my mind on act 5 for now. so here we go.

1. alternia.. fucked up place. but its a place the trolls live on so what are we gonna do about it? overthrow the government? seems about right, lets do that with the next troll that gets introduced and if its not kanaya idk what andrew is doing by not having introduced the best troll yet. why the long wait? it was the second introduced? i honestly expected it to go in order when i first read act 5, because first we had karkat talk to jade which was the first new piece dialogue in the comic besides the main kids, but then we had kanaya with rose, which was followed by tavros, then terezi (iirc). so id assume we were following that order but nope karkat got fully introduced, then this random fucking juggalo called gamzee made its way into the comic. imagine my surprise.

2. theres been terminology throughout act 5, that i do not fucking know and will not remember and probably never will. like tf is a perigee again? i made a doc somewhere ill probably find it.

3. karkat’s introduction... short but very sweet. and by sweet i mean we got to know the depths of the angry edge lord. and by depths i mean karkat got angry at gamzee for typing in a way that he didnt like so he yapped like a chihuahua. nah, but seriously, i do like karkat tho, hes growing on me but only bc hes a bitch baby and his whole personality makes me want to mock him so thats the reason im not that annoyed and think hes funny, and the most harmless troll. even more so than tavros. and thats saying something. 7.5/10 bc im generous.

4. then gamzee... the high juggalo troll who has the worst typing quirk imo, i cannot for the life of me read it. but hes chill, i actually really like gamzee. hes funny and the least problematic as of right now. 8.5/10.

5. terezi’s introduction next i think. she likes playing as a lawyer with her stuffed dragons, ie by roleplay, shes blind, can see through licking, and she likes eating chalk, maybe its even nutritious. shes good. 9/10.

6. uhh in the process of these intros, there are teams being made? karkat joins gamzee and terezi in, i THINK, the red team?? bc terezi likes red?? could be wrong, i dont remember the teams except that its red/blue to represent sollux’s duality in those colors. terezi then tries recruiting AC but AC is like lol sorry i have to ask this friend of mine who has authority over me for some goddamn reason and terezi goes yuck tf i hate that guy................... yeah thats all we have on the teams. pretty sure sollux had smth to do with karkat about the making of the leaders, and they did the “i hate me” and the “no i hate me more than u hate u” or whatever the fuck that was. they got embarrassed afterwards and deleted their messages. im pretty sure they have no messages because everything ends up being mutually deleted so their logs are actually empty. ngl, kinda enjoyed their convos, made me appreciate their characters. i hope we get more because its good content. i also dont know what order this whole thing is in, who contacted who first? couldnt tell you. ill remember later on. and since im basing this off from memory alone, gotta deal with what i remember. uhhhh so yeah. we havent met all characters yet so the teams have not been officially decided but we got the bases, which is that.

7. god i found it, and the only thing im looking at right now is the terminology list i made and what the fuck?? what the fuck?? you miss a few weeks and suddenly the word nubslurping comes up and you forget what the fuck youre reading.

8. im PRETTY SURE aradia is seen after that whole team fiasco?? or its sollux... maybe. wait. its sollux, right. i just knew someone gets introduced mid way through is all. actually, someone gets introduced after every 20 pages. i have no idea. but ik aradia and sollux go hand in hand.

9. oh shit. OH SHIT! RIGHT! I REMEMBER! so this occurs in the latest session i did, and not the beginning of act 5, but AG and aradia team up, right?? and sollux fucking gets manipulated by them and ??? idk??? they make him find the game, reprogram it and then make him believe its going to end the world (which in hindsight is true, but anyways) so he refuses to play it which was AG’s plan all along so she steps up and becomes leader in his place. but aradia says sollux will still play the game no matter what, but she never went through with the plan for AG but it was apart of a prophecy? that sollux wouldnt be the leader at all? that he’d still play? but it had to go according to plan so it could succeed??? we just dont know why yet. anyways, point being, she still cares for sollux since she did it for him rather than for AG. and thats what i recall. god tf i forgot about that whole drama until writing down “sollux and aradia go hand in hand” which gave me violent flashbacks to the memory.

10. oh and id give aradia 9/10 and sollux 7/10. i do like sollux but if i put him higher than karkat, id get crucified. so im keeping them around the same.

11. man i really like sollux and aradia tho, i may have put him at 7, but i really like their dynamic and i really hope they make up and aradia explains herself about AG. because from one side it looks shitty. and while sollux is rude and never makes up his mind, he apologized to aradia after going off, and that was the only time ive seen him be sincere, so im pretty sure he cares for her to some extent. and i think its somewhat mutual? considering the whole “did it for him” thing. man, i see potential because i actually like both their characters. theyre well written. may not have the best personalities, but i appreciate well written characters and homestuck has the best ones ive seen in a while.

12. oh shit, hell yeah, the more i write, the more im connecting the dots and remembering. however, the more i write, the more i want to just make an analogy post but thats not for now. jesus christ its not all about analogies, mack, this is a recap. but.. how does andrew do it? to not go off track??? hard. telling ya.

13. anyways, didnt we break the fourth wall at some point and have the demon gods or whatever the fuck speak to us in third person for the first time in the comic, after having only gone into second person narrative, right after we were introduced to sollux and his “virus”? the uh, the phrase “the demon was already here” was said, or something along those lines. first line in homestuck to give me the creeps ngl and i appreciate it bc it gives me motivation to know what the fuck its about. its cool bc you have no idea where its going and it sure doesnt have anything to do with the current plot, since the trolls’ session/game doesnt have fucking demons so im curious as to what the fuck that was about. and if i really have to make a theory, i feel it has something to do with aradia’s voices in her head which also connect to the gods rose heard when she started disregarding rules and told dave to look at derse without listening to music bc it was as if he was purposely blocking away their calls. like holy shit, that gave me the shivers. while i do want to know more about wtf happens after act 4, trolls are taking priority right now. just like we did with the intermission. no discussing the kids unless necessary. treat this as its own separate comic. and THEN we can connect.

14. ANYWAYS, tavros’ intro???? that comes afterwards?? with the fiduspawn that made me gag a little on the inside? yep. remember that. fuck that lol. -1/10 but tavros himself is MAYBE a 6/10? i wish we explored his character more in his intro bc right now he just looks like a character made only to be a victim rather than have any depth and i feel thats robbing someone of their full potential. give me more personality andrew, rather than a quivering boy who falls prey to bitches. im expecting more throughout the comic honestly and i hope he gets growth so hes not looked as a “victim” but rather his own character. he is still sweet, and i like him because i want to protect him, but id rather have more info, you know what i mean?

15. oh hell. kanaya had a chainsaw at some point. that made me happy. and didnt she cut off tavros’ legs?? and he got robot ones? and some creepy dude was looking and we called him saggy tits bc hes sagittarius? right? neat. that did happen. pretty sure saggy tits is ACs friend that tells her what to do. the more u know. OH and they all have colored blood similar to their text colors lol. that i remember... so tavros has brown, terezi has blueish green, um. karkat has grey the loser. and apparently it forms a rainbow which is nice. rainbow is good.

16. i dont remember anything else actually

17. wait no i do. AG appeared. shes a petty bully. idk what to say about her. we didnt get that much, except that she hates tavros but is okay with aradia. she also looks like a bottle opener. actually, i think she teamed with aradia to gain leadership rather than to “be friends”. and while that is similar to how karkat did it, meaning the gain, the motivation and how they earned it is entirely different. kinda seeing a trend tho. the leaders of the red/blue teams are both characters who wanted the role, but never had it to begin with. only to win their way into the position. but rather than ask non-stop like karkat did, AG manipulated others so she could be successful. not too sure if she also used aradia for that, or is actually motivated to become friends since they were “past enemies” and she needed a rebound. pretty sure its somewhat both. while AG did mostly use aradia to speak with sollux, what she doesnt know is that aradia is a bad bitch who never even thought about AG and only followed through with the plan bc she had a plan of her own. i guess we’ll look into that later. i lowkey want to know their history.

18. OH AC!!! she appeared for a second as well. love her. shes amazing. 9.5/10. and you may ask yourself, why am i saying “i love this character” but none of them are 10/10?? weellllll its because, and i cant stress this enough, 10/10 belongs to kanaya, i dont make the rules. im waiting for her introduction, shes my favorite and its obvious. sorry.

19. oh huh seems i forgot about the term “lusus”. which.. is.. their parents but not really, its these fucking weird ass creatures that the trolls fought in a cave or something as a child. i dont fucking know. terezi hatched hers and it died? gamzee’s also died but his goat sea dad was never really there to begin with so while it is sad, its more sad that gamzee never saw him? um.. karkat killed his own by exploding his computer bc sollux said dont run the virus and karkat said u cant tell me what to do and did it anyways. so thats on him. but apparently theyre supposed to die, to become prototyped during the game, right? yeah. i remember now.

20. thats.. about it? idk anything else, nothing is coming back to me apart from the shit above. huh.... im surprised how quickly things do come back to you the moment you rant about the plot tho.... handy trick.

cool. neat. fun. this took me too long. but im glad i remember a little bit.

#i wanted to catch u all up on this #but ill most likely do a liveblog tmr bc i was bust today unfortunately apart from writing this out #bc this took priority for better understanding where i am rn #maaaannnn #writing wears me out #i love it #but its tiring the fucking bitch #so im in need for deep sleep #wish i could do more smh #welll #goodnight :)

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ancient-bruises-ancient-moon · 4 years

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ok SO I got an anon I wasn’t gunna respond to but I'm enjoying a vegan chocolate banana cookie dough thc/cbd infused smoothie I invented so fuck it, let’s do this

this isn’t gunna be eloquent at all and I hope what im intending to say comes off correctly. may not, my brain is mush- but here we go!

so last night/technically this morning I reblogged a lot from this brilliant intersexism blog. (highly recommend giving a follow!) which led to...a bizarre ass anon this morning (I'll make another post linking to her blog so ya’ll can follow. she doesn’t need to deal w/ this post after everything else she deals w/ on here- unless u want to ofc!! hi ur cool! ANYWAY...)

I don’t remember the exact wording but it was something like “so ud rather have sex w intersex ppl over trans ppl??”

ummm. I literally never said shit about sex w/ intersex ppl?? like, ever.

was that supposed to be some huge “gotcha!!” ??

‘cause it didn’t work, at all.

1. my body is not a democracy

2. why r ya’ll obsessed w sex as validation

3. ur rly gunna ask me, essentially, if I'd rather be intimate w a deranged narcissistic reality denying manic OR a person with an intersex disorder...and u rly think I'm gunna be like OH NO I’D RATHER HAVE SEX W A MANIAC???

like...it’s rly not ab sex at all but did u RLY think that was gunna work in ur favor somehow?? and if u did, why did u think so? could it be bc u use intersex ppl as pawns for ur arguments but then don’t actually consider them ppl that can be in loving and intimate relationships? do u rly think this is activism? do you feel no shame?? you should be fucking embarrassed. this is so embarrassing for you.

something ya’ll don’t realize: I worked at a center that offered therapeutic services, std testing, & peer activity groups for lgbtiapqbdsmnlmnop folxxxx

I know how ya’ll speak to your therapists, to your peers when you think no one is listening, I watch ya’ll take credit for things u did NOTHING for, I've watched your violence against anyone who disagrees with you (INCLUDING about tv show characters...like, come on..) Adult trans women using fake IDs to try to get into youth events...and then get MAD AT ME when I have to kick A WHOLE ASS HALF DRESSED MAN GRINDING ON THE FLOOR out of an event for CHILDREN... this is beyond just Tumblr. you’re also like this irl. and often, somehow, even fucking worse.

I had far less intersex clients BUT ya know who wasn’t throwing tantrums, being violent, trying to take credit for things they didn’t do, starting fights, sneaking into events to get near minors?? my intersex clients! NOT ONCE. AND let’s be real...my intersex clients had good fucking reason to be furious and there were absolutely times that I would not have blamed them in the slightest for slapping tf out of someone...but they didn’t. not once. (ngl tho if they did I would have “not seen” what happened tbh bc I am a very responsible adult lmao- I can say this now bc I left the field so it matters not at all for my career)

ya know who would stay after hours, silently crying in rage bc of the shit trans clients said to them? my intersex clients (the big one was trans ppl telling them they’re lucky they get to ~~choose~~ their sex)

ya know who took the time to use open activist hour to build presentations to teach the LARGELY ENTIRELY INEPT staff (myself included, more below) about intersex issues so the people who come after them can get better help than they were able to receive?? I'll give you one guess.

I left academia and working in the field w/ ppl bc of my experiences at this place & the direction this tender gender trender shit is taking academia. Intersex people deserve so much fucking better than even having to HEAR this bullshit. I would only go back into the field to work with women & intersex individuals. Probably as a volunteer though, but I digress

I worked there when all these new words were coming out too like demisexual android identified diaper baby or whatever the fuck lmao and the trans clients would be FURIOUS when anyone didn’t know wtf it meant

and in contrast our intersex clients were constantly explaining shit to staff/interns/volunteers about their conditions that they should never have had to explain TO THE PROFESSIONALS WHO WERE THERE TO HELP THEM. and I can’t even lie and pretend I fucking knew much, I didn’t. I was hired without even knowing i’d be working w intersex clients- I just needed to show I knew some trans buzzwords. but I put in the time to learn, I read every book any client recommended, any article they emailed me- but honestly that STILL ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH!!!! I should NOT have been hired!!! MY BOSS should not have been hired!!! Actually, the only staff members that actually deserved their job was an gay intersex man. OT but he was so cool and smart and hilarious and like FUN ANGRY like idk how to explain that better lol he was good at getting u pumped up ab shit & good at getting ppl worked up enough to DO something. The only other staff member who actually cared and knew anything was a lesbian woman (of course) but she had recently had a baby and became so afraid for the welfare of her wife and daughter that she went along w trans shit that she KNEW was delusional and unhealthy bc we SAW these trans clients being violent on the Regular. we were legally obligated to call the cops several times. she wasn’t wrong to be afraid but I do think she should have tried to work elsewhere if she could no longer do her job with integrity but that’s a conversation for another day.

agh im just gunna end this post now bc I can rly go on and on but I'll leave the post with this question that I'd very much like an answer to:

how can we as activists be of better service to our intersex sisters? this issue is becoming more and more pressing and I can’t sit back and do nothing for them anymore. does anyone know of intersex only orgs that need volunteers or have suggestions?? PLS LET ME KNOW. I won’t go back to where I was but there’s GOTTA be SOMETHING I can do for the intersex community. let’s figure it out <3 this issue very seriously needs the attention of radical feminists tbh so...let’s do something.

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aspoonofsugar · 5 years

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Tales of Arcadia: Three Rules

The first two installments of Tales of Arcadia explore similar themes, but they do so in almost opposite ways to the point that they become complementary.

It is, in fact, easy to see that the premises of the two shows are basically opposite.

On one hand, Trollhunters has a group of normal kids discover the magical and the strange. On the other hand 3 Below has three aliens trying to blend in human society. Both shows explore what it means to be humans, but the trollhunters do so by comparing their humanity with something different only to be enriched by it, whereas the akiridians do so by by underlining the weirdness of humans, but also by finding value in it.

The complementarity of the two shows appears evident thanks to multiple aspects and details which I will try to highlight in the meta. However, before starting I would like to underline that both shows have their protagonists follow three rules.

In Trollhunters the three rules are as it follows:

1) Always be afraid.

2) Always finish the fight.

3) When in doubt, always kick them in the gronk-nuks.

In 3 Below there are different rules:

1) You must prepare for change.

2) You must embrace your mistakes.

3) When in doubt, play with your phones.

It is obvious that these two sets of rules share a common function in the two stories which is to shed light on some of the main themes. In Trollhunters the themes explored are about living with and accepting what are considered by society negative or repressed emotions like fear and violence, whereas in 3 Below the themes are about understanding the strength of society like communication, the possibility of making mistakes and being forgiven and the ability to change.

Since we are at it, I really like that both lists have the third rule be apparently played for laughs and then have it be extremely important in key situations. As a matter of fact kicking people in the nuks in Trollhunters and using cellphones in 3 Below have been useful more than once. In short, the third rule of both lists is a practical application of the more abstract themes presented by the other two rules.

I will try to better elaborate both this point and others in this analysis.

THE TROLLHUNTER: WHY A TROLL WHO HUNTS TROLLS?

In Trollhunters our protagonists who are a group of normal teenagers discover that under their feet, in the underground of their apparent normal town, there is a world full of strange creatures who can be both extraordinary and dangerous.

The world of the trolls could be a representation of the jungian shadow.

Here is a definition taken from wikipedia:

In Jungian psychology, the "shadow", "Id", or "shadow aspect/archetype" may refer to (1) an unconscious aspect of the personality which the conscious ego does not identify in itself, or (2) the entirety of the unconscious, i.e., everything of which a person is not fully conscious. In short, the shadow is the unknown side.

Trollmarket is what lies beneath Arcadia, so it is a part of the city its inhabitants are unaware of and initially don’t want to face. What is more, trolls themselves are creatures which can’t stay in the sun and so they are beings who can only survive in shadows. They are also characterized by attributes like strength superior to the one possessed by humans and, generally speaking, their world is a very violent one and this is proven by some of their traditions:

In order to become a good trollhunter Jim must learn to live with fear and to finish his fights.

What is good about these rules is that they are not accepted as always true and there is no black and white view:

Fear is necessary and Jim must not block it out completely like he did in Young Atlas, but at the same time he should also control it since if he doesn’t he risks to be overcome by it. The idea of not being frozen by fear is explored also in 3 Below:

In this series as well, the idea is not that one can stop being scared, but that they must live with fear and insecurities. However, 3 Below’s approach is far more traditional than Trollhunters when it comes to fear, since the former simply underlines the necessity to overcome it, while the latter spends time showing its usefulness other than it being unavoidable.

The same could be said about the rule of finishing the fight. We see Jim discussing this rule and refusing to apply it blindly. For example, he doesn’t kill Chompsky and Draal and this leads them to become precious allies. However, as the series progresses it is made clear that Jim can’t hope to solve all his conflicts this way:

Jim’s first kill is not something which is glossed over, but it is given enough focus to make it clear that this is something Jim is not used to and something he will have to struggle with in his journey to become the trollhunter. Once again, killing enemies is something which happens in 3 Below as well, but it is not given the same focus and Aja doesn’t think about how she should finish a fight.

This is because Trollhunters is a story which deals with the shadow much more than 3 Below is.

This is proven by many details, like the amount of episodes which explore this specific theme (Young Atlas, Where is my mind?, Hero with a Thousand Faces, Mistrial and Error, The Exorcism of Claire Nuñez, A House Divided and Jimhunters are just some examples) and also by its hero and heroine’s paralleled journeys.

Jim and Claire have very similarly structured arcs.

First of all they have a similar flaw:

They think that it is all on them and this leads them to try to shoulder too much responsibility in an attempt to help others. For example, Jim thinks that, as the trollhunter, he should enter the Darklands alone to save Enrique, whereas Claire thinks it is her fault Enrique was kidnapped in the first place. Of course both ideas are wrong and this sense of wanting to shoulder it all alone actually creates bigger problems.

Jim entered the Darklands alone to avoid putting his friends in danger, but in the end they had still to enter that dimension in order to save him.

Similarly, Claire’s willingness to sacrifice herself for the trolls let Morgana possess her.

The two situations are clearly paralleled and Claire herself mentions Jim’s previous sacrifice when she is about to make hers:

The parallelism between their two arcs becomes even more obvious if one thinks about it in the following way.

At the end of a season (season 1 for Jim and season 2 for Claire) they sacrifice themselves ignoring their comrades’ prayers not to do it:

As a result, they both end up trapped in a reign representative of the shadow:

And they need to be saved by their comrades in episode 5 of the following season.

What is more they both integrate symbolically with their shadow:

And once they do they defeat the character representative of their darkest side (Gunmar for Jim and Morgana for Claire).

I would like to explore some of the above mentioned situations more.

First of all, it is interesting to highlight that Claire and Jim’s weapons are associated respectively with shadow and with daylight. After all, we are talking of a weapon called Shadow Staff and of an amulet which works with the words daylight is mine to command.

Because of this, Claire’s arc being connected to an integration with the shadow appears obvious.

First of all, her power is not simply called after the shadow, but it works by channelling negative emotions to open up portals. The first negative emotion Claire uses is rage, but later on she changes and starts using fear:

Once again, the first rule is at work here and Claire’s powers are an example of negative emotions being used in a positive way by the person who has them.

However, it becomes clear that indulging too much in negative feelings can let the person be engulfed by them which is what metaphorically happens to Claire when she is possessed by Morgana.

It is interesting to say that while she is possessed Claire refuses to aknowledge the problem:

The above frame of her finding the missing signs under the bed is especially telling imo. The idea of having monsters under the bed is something strictly associated with childhood fears:

Like the movie Monsters Inc shows perfectly, once a child faces it, their nightmare disappears. In Claire’s case however, she refuses to face what is happening to her and chooses to metaphorically hide it under the bed. She does so because she prefers to maintain the strong and independent persona she has rather than showing vulnerability and ask for help. This makes so that the situation gets worse and she ends up trapped in the Shadow Realm:

Here, Claire doesn’t have a shadow because her own shadow (which is symbolized by Morgana) has taken over.

So, Claire needs to be rescued by Toby and Jim. It is interesting that Jim and Toby find Claire in an illusory house while she is busy attending her daily chores as if nothing happened. All in all, this is the same behaviour she assumed about her problems after having opened the portal in Trollmarket. However, Toby and Jim are able to communicate with her and to make her snap out from this way of coping with her current situation. Once she does, she is able to fight Morgana herself:

It is interesting that she does so with Suzy Snooze which is an object strictly intertwined with her (it is what Toby and Jim use to find her) and her childish side (which is a vulnerable side of the self by definition and so one she tries to ignore).

After all, Morgana refers to Claire as her child many times, so, in the above scene, Claire freeing herself can be seen as her growing up and conquering her shadow at once.

After defeating Morgana, Claire is able to acquire some traits of the sorceress and to make them her own:

Not only she becomes the true master of the staff, but she is able to remember some simple enchantments and has some visions about how to reach Merlin. This shows that she has successfully integrated with the dark parts of herself acquiring new abilities, but she has managed to avoid being controlled by them.

Jim’s journey is very similar, but it takes longer and it might appear less obvious since, as stated above, his amulet is not associated with shadows, but rather with daylight, so the opposite.

However, I would like to underline some things.

Firstly, Jim is able to kill Bular who is his first major enemy thanks to him being a human:

He succeeds where his predecessor failed because of his humanity. Similarly, there are other situations where Jim uses unusual approaches because of his human nature. He avoids killing enemies, insists on working with others and so on. This leads to great results to the point that trolls start appreciating Jim and humanity more. However, at the same time, Jim slowly realizes that he has to embrace the trolls’ traditional ways of thinking more.

This is why he goes to the Darklands alone, for example. The Darklands are a place without sun, so they are perfect to symbolize an immersion in one’s shadow.

What is more, when Jim goes there he wears the Eclipse Armor which is made thanks to the three triumbric stones. These stones are linked to Gunmar himself, so it is as if Jim is assimilating a part of Gunmar in order to become strong enough to kill him.

However, Jim’s journey in the Darklands ends with him needing to be saved and Gunmar is freed as a result. This is probably because when Jim faces Gunmar (a symbol of his shadow) the first time he is still not ready. He forces himself to fight him before the time is right. This is basically the opposite of what Claire does when she ignores Morgana’s presence in her.

However, he will still have to integrate with the shadow when the time comes:

This scene is a direct parallel to when Jim repairs the bridge and goes into the Darklands. Both times his friends are calling him from behind a closed door and both times Jim ignores them and acts on his own. However, Jim’s final choice is framed as necessary to win against Gunmar, whereas him going to the Darklands alone is presented as a mistake. Why is that so?

It has probably something to do with Jim needing to mature and to find a better equilibrium between who he is as a human and his role as trollhunter. As a matter of fact it is made clear in many situations that deep down Jim has always known that his mission as trollhunter would have required him to sacrifice his normal life as a high school student:

After all, the episode Hero with a Thousand Faces is precisely about this. In the episode Jim faces different sides of himself and the most antagonistic one is the one embodying his trollhunter duty. His trollhunter personality represents his fear of having to sacrifice who he is to fulfill his role and Jim’s challenge is to reconcile this side of himself with the others.

Another instance which seems to support the idea that, at least unconsciously, Jim had always known the kind of choice he will be asked to make in the finale is what happens in the Deep:

It is explained that the Deep shows you your worst fear against which you have to fight. It becomes clear after rewatching the episode that the one Jim is fighting against is nothing more than himself as the Eternal Knight. In short, Jim is fighting his troll-part which is nothing more than his shadow. This interpretation can be used to explain some things.

3 Below offers us an explanation of what the Deep actually is:

If Krel’s hypothesis is correct and if Jim had actually conquered his fear there, then he should have found Gaylen’s core and broken the curse of the Deep. However, when Krel enters it, the Deep is still working properly. This may mean that Jim did not really conquer his fear, but simply fought it and managed to remain level-headed enough to escape.

This would also clarify why we never see how the battle with the mysterious individual ends. As a matter of fact, in the next episodesJim meet his friends after he has already escaped from the Deep and no more explanation is given. This is odd, but it makes sense if the battle had actually no real end.

This reading would also fit thematically since one of the points of Jim’s arc is to learn how to deal with fear. Sometimes it is not possible to completely conquer one’s fear and the person must learn to consantly struggle with it.

What is more, it would have made no sense to show us a resolution between Jim and his shadow in the Deep since the aim of the narrative was to have him reach that resolution at the very end:

In the series finale Jim becomes half-troll and wears the Eclipse armor for the first time since the Darklands. This is Jim’s second attempt to integrate with his shadow and this time he succeeds because he manages to find an equilibrium between the different parts of himself:

He has to face some responsibilities alone, but this doesn’t mean that the people who love him are gonna leave him behind. In the end, the battle is won because of everyone’s help even if Jim had to make some personal sacrifices and individual choices.

In conclusion, we can say one of Trollhunters main themes is the necessity to face unknown and dark parts of one-self the individual who lives in society usually avoids. In order to do so, the protagonists have to enter a world which is magical and less bound by society rules.

All of this, as anticipated in the introduction, can be summarized with rule number 3. This rule is a rule which must be applied during physical confrontations in order to survive. It is a very instinctive thing to do and implies that the one who does it is fighting for their life without any kind of regulations like the ones in sports.

So the characters must learn to survive in such a world and to adapt to it and at the same time they must show this world the value of humanity.

Here comes another joke which has been repeated a couple times in the series. The trollhunter is someone who hunts trolls, but at the same time it is usually a troll. Why does he have this name then?

The answer is here. It is because he has to protect two worlds. As a matter of fact, it is obvious that if humanity’s shadow is represented by trolls, then trolls who are creatures who can only live in shadow needs to integrate with the “light” aka with their more human parts. This is why the trollhunter is given the amulet of daylight even if all the trollhunters before Jim could not be in the sun. The trollhunter duty invites the one who must accomplish it to understand both humans and trolls and to be an in-between.

As Merlin puts it:

The trollhunter is both a hunter and a troll. So, he is one who hunts trolls, but also a troll himself because each individual must both embrace and control their instinctive parts to become a full fledged adult.

So, in a sense, the trollhunter must hunt himself:

3 BELOW: THE IMPORTANCE OF FAMILY AND SOCIETY

Akiridions are representative of the “other” and of the “stranger” even more than trolls are.

This is made obvious in 3 Below.

First of all, there is the fact that many Akiridions talk with different accents which strengthens the idea that they are not from Arcadia.

Moreover, the series is full of jokes meant to compare the protagonists to members of different minorities:

That said, the main characters exhibit prejudices too:

In short, their story is nothing more than a story of integration between different cultures.

What is more, this theme of different cultures integrating or choosing not to is something which goes beyond just the royals’ experience on Earth.

Let’s consider, for example, an important part of Aja’s arc i.e. her struggling to become a queen in waiting who would use her power to help others:

This specific part of her arc is explored by her foiling with Kubritz.

Kubritz is immediately set up to be Aja’s foil since their first fight when she comments that Aja is not the only woman trained in combat. However, their foiling is not about their physical prowess, but about them being two women in a position of authority who want to protect their planets.

Kubritz wants Earth to be safe from invaders who have a much more developed technology than humans. It is because of this inferiority that Kubritz is so scared of other life-forms and chooses to dominate others through strength and fear as her treatment of Tronos Madu especially shows.

Her approach is completely different from Aja’s who tries to communicate with people:

What is interesting is that Kubritz’s behaviour can be compared to the King and Queen’s. Aja and Krel’s parents are surely different from Kubritz and they are positive characters and beloved royals. However, in order to preserve Akiridion’s peace, they chose not to help other planets and not to stop dangerous criminals despite having the means to do so. This is also what it is implied to have led to their downfall:

Aja is trying to be better than her parents:

She has repeatedly chosen to help others even when it was not beneficial to her. For example, she refuses to listen to Zadra’s advise not to engage in the fight against the Gumm-Gumms, frees Buster even if that puts both her and her family in danger and so on. It is probable Aja will have to struggle between taking care of the interests of her planet and her generous nature which leads her to be willing to help others. However, I think it is made clear that her rule will be different from the one of her parents and something might have already changed:

Because of Morando’s coup, the Akiridions have become more active and have taken part in the final battle against him. In her speech, Zadra underlines that the King and Queen protected Akiridion’s peace and that now it is the people’s turn to protect them. In short, it seems to me that we might assist to some change in Akiridion-5 policies now that Aja is the queen.

At the same time, the theme of the “other” is something which is explored also on an existential level:

Krel’s mind reading glasses are here used to represent empathy aka the ability to understand others and to relate to them.

This is also why Krel is not able to pick up as many voices as Aja does. It is because, according to Aja, he has got the signal range too low since he is scared of breaking the device. This can be seen as a small detail which sheds ligth on what Krel’s main problem is.

Krel’s initial discriminating behaviour towards humans or his acting superior are nothing more than a defensive mechanism born by the fear of not being accepted. This is made clear by Krel being overjoyed whenever someone shows him even the smallest appreciation like Seamus in season one and later on when Toby and Eli tells him they are already friends:

In short, the story makes clear that it is not that Krel isn’t generous or caring or lacks empathy, but that he is probably scared of being hurt by interacting with others. This has probably something to do with him not having had many chances of interacting with peers on Akiridion-5 because of his status as a royal.

In short, Krel, just like Aja, desperatly needs to be normal, but, differently from his sister, doesn’t aknowledge such a need and assumes a somehow arrogant behaviour which ends up putting distance between him and others.

His arc is essentially about overcoming such a defense mechanism and being more honest with himself when it comes to his feelings towards others.

This ties up nicely with Krel’s passion for technology. As a matter of fact technology plays a huge role in 3 Below as the third rule makes clear. In this series, the possibility to use new technologies to bring people together is explored. For example, they use social networks to promote Dog Fight to save the planet, the siblings are saved from Kubritz thanks to the threath of having a video of the woman making racists remarks going viral and so on. Even in the finale the cannon is built thanks to a picture Toby took with his new phone.

So technology is something which is depicted as useful and fundamental to promote a more open society and it is not by chance that in the end Krel is able to create a wormhole to connect Earth and Akiridion 5 despite the two worlds being extremely far away.

When it comes to Krel, it is also shown in season 2 that his passion for technology is not seen as something completely positive by his father:

And tha Krel felt belittled for it since his father gave more importance to traditions and considered technology a hobby.

Throughout the series, we also see advanced robots becoming more human. I am talking of the Blanks and of the Mothership especially:

Mother starts becoming more human the moment she is damaged. From that point on she becomes less perfect in terms of performance (she can’t fly anymore and also makes mistakes), but in exchange she learns the importance of human emotions and human connections and becomes a real mother.

In short, we are shown society and community developing thanks to technology, but also technology becoming more human. This is because technology should never be separated from humanity in order to remain something positive.

We can say, in synthesis, that the series is about “otherness” both in how we react to someone different by being at the same time intrigued and scared and in how we are able to develop as individuals only thanks to interactions with others.

When it comes to this, let’s consider Aja and Krel’s two biggest moments of realization:

Both siblings have them while they are in a dimension symbolic of the subconscious.

Aja has it while she is in her parents’ subconscious, whereas Krel has it while he is in the Deep which models itself after a person’s interiority. In other words Aja realizes something about herself thanks to observing another person and Krel realizes something about his feelings for others thanks to a journey in his own mind.

As a matter of fact Aja has come to realize what she herself wants. She wants to be a warrior and her main problem with her title of queen is that she thinks a queen can’t be one:

However, by seeing her mother being an excellent fighter she realizes she doesn’t have to give up this part of herself to rule and that she can actually be a wonderful queen and a fighter.

Krel is instead stuck because he refuses to be honest with himself when it comes to his feelings for his friends on Earth. Throughout the series it is made clear that he is slowly growing fond of the planet and of its people, but he doesn’t want to admit it. This is why facing the Deep is so important for him. He grows not just because he overcomes his fear of Morando, but also because he finally accepts Earth as his new home.

These two situations are complementary (like the siblings are on many levels) and they show how the self and the other are strictly intertwined on different levels. Others can be mirrors on which we project sides of ourselves and at the same time understanding one-self better is useful for our relationships with others.

Moreover, when it comes to the royal siblings, their arcs embody the first rule (you must be prepared for change) perfectly. As a matter of fact they have inverted arcs in which each character discovers that what they wanted in the beginning is not really what they needed.

In the beginning Aja wants to be normal and her development makes so that not only she comes to accept that she has responsibilities to fulfill, but she realizes that doing so is really in her own nature and not something which conflicts with it as she thought in the beginning.

Krel is presented as more responsible than her sister and more obedient when it comes to his role as king in waiting. Moreover all he wants in the beginning is to go back home. However, as time passes he starts to exhibit a more childish side and he comes to the realization that he prefers staying on Earth rather than going back to Akiridion as King. Similarly, in the beginning he keeps highlighting his own superiority compared to humans, but by the end he chooses to live on Earth as a normal teenager.

Aja and Krel are also a play on the red oni and blue oni dynamic.

Quoting from the page I linked:

This trope is about two individuals (or occasionally, factions or civilizations) that are significantly linked together somehow (such as through a rivalry, friendship, being siblings, co-workers, competitors, etc.) that have differing personalities and, with it, often different approaches to the world in general, especially whatever they might be competing in/for/over.

The Red Oni is associated with passion, wildness, and defiance. A Red Oni character is often more brawny than brainy, extroverted, enthusiastic, determined, and filled with a zest for life. They are also much more likely to break conventions and rules than their counterpart.

The Blue Oni is associated with serenity, control and observing authority. A Blue Oni is more intellectual, proud, traditional, introverted, and cultured (sometimes more spiritual, although that's not guaranteed). Blue Oni personalities are often respected by others, but also likely to puzzle or confound their peers because they are difficult to read and have a mysterious quality to them.

Aja and Krel fit these descriptions and can be easily associated respectively to the red oni and to the blue oni as their respective colours in human form make clear.

However, as the series goes on it becomes obvious that the attributes listed above are nothing more than the surface of Aja and Krel. As a matter of fact Aja, despite how she appears in the beginning, is actually more mature than Krel under certain aspects and Krel has a very sensitive side which can manifest itself very strongly.

Let’s consider these two scenes in season 1:

They are parallels and inverses. At the beginning of the season Aja is the one who appears the most lost and is encouraged by Krel, whereas by the season’s end Krel shows insecurities and how the responsibility of repairing the ship is getting to him and Aja is the one comforting him.

By the end of the series Aja and Krel have acquired attributes which in the beginning were more strongly associated to the other.

For example, at the ending os season 1 Krel is the one improvising a speech and is said to be better than Aja in formal situations. However, in the last episode, he encourages Aja to speak for the both of them:

In this way, he shows to have overcome his little jealousy for her by letting her take the spotlight and at the same time he encourages her to speak in public and so to become better in a thing she feels nervous about.

Similarly, Aja accepts his brother’s feelings for his new found home and respects his choice to be on Earth and in this way she gives him the chance to pursue the normal life she once wanted.

In conclusion, it seems obvious that the two royals have changed and have reached endings which are the opposite of the ones they would have wanted in the beginning.

While Aja and Krel’s arcs are perfect to represent the first rule, Varvatos’s is perfect to embody the second one which deals with the necessity of accepting one’s mistakes:

Varvatos’s arc is an arc of redemption and at the same time it is a redemption arc which is a deconstrution of the trope according to which a character has to die to redeem himself:

As the scene above shows, Varvatos’s way of having his honour restored is not to die a glorious death which would be very painful for his young lieges, but it is to care for them as their new family.

This is not only something which he must do to help them, but also something which can help him to overcome the sadness for the loss of his family.

The series makes clear that Varvatos’s love for the siblings grows as time passes and he becomes a proper guardian for them to the point that he has no hesitation to suggest using the King and Queen’s cores to spare the two kids. Basically Varvatos repeats what he did in the beginning (he is ready to sacrifice the royals for his family), but this time his choice is framed as the right one and it is confirmed to be the will of the King and Queen themselves once they wake up.

As a matter of fact it is as Mother says:

3 Below is the story of two children losing their parents and finding a new family all in once:

What Morando says here turns out to be the truth since the two siblings will never be able to go back at being a family with their parents. So, we can say that the entirety of the series is a way to let Aja and Krel deal with the loss of their parents and build a support system.

Because of this, their family ends up incorporating many dynamics representative of many different family situations.

First of all, Aja and Krel have to deal with the deaths of their parents, but also with the discovery that they were not perfect. Realizing one’s parents’ limits is a necessary step to grow up.

This is something they must deal with also when it comes to Mother:

Realizing that a parent is not perfect means the child is starting to see that the world is more complex than what previously thought. At the same time, the parent stops being seen as someone perfect and is accepted as a person.

It is interesting to note that Mother parallels the royal parents in the general way her arc is outlined.

At the end of season one, Aja and Krel must fight an omen which has eaten their parents’ cores and a brainwashed Mother. This is symbolic of the two children’s struggle to overcome their parents and to grow up. This can only happen through some kind of conflict which in this case is symbolic and not a direct one. At the same time, the kids are taking their parents’ roles as protectors of the family.

However, even if it is right for the kids to become stronger and able to live by themselves, this doesn’t mean they should be the ones to protect their parents and to shoulder all the responsibility. This is why in the end Mother and their parents are the ones who sacrifice themselves for their well-being in a direct inversion of the season 1 finale.

Other than having to grieve for their parents, Aja and Krel finds themselves in a new family dynamic with Vex who becomes their guardian and later on with Zadra.

Vex and Zadra’s relationship is similar to the one two divorced parents have. Even if there was never romance between them, they still find themselves in disagreement on how to take care of the kids and keep fighting. However, in the end they are able to overcome their problems for the sake of the children and reconcile.

Finally, I would like to talk briefly of the two Blanks. They are basically a parody of a stereotyped American family and it is not by chance that they first appear when Aja and Krel needs to be accepted in school. It is a failed attempt to conform. At the same time, them feeling completely off to others can be seen as a joke about what a “normal” family should be like. In the end there is not a normal family and all family dynamics can be equally beautiful.

In the end the Blanks stay on Earth with Krel and become his guardians. This is a good way to end their story since this means that they have finally settled in Arcadia with a kid who, after some initial struggle, managed to fully integrate. Them being robots also tie with the role of technology both in the series in general and in Krel’s character which has been discussed above.

In conclusion, 3 Below is a series which shows both positive and negative aspects of human society. It explores how society treats the different, but it also shows that integration is possible. Finally it offers a view on multiple family dynamics present in modern society.

CONCULSION: TWO DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE ON HUMANITY

Both Trollhunters and 3 Below are about exploring humanity, but they do so from two different point of views.

In Trollhunters humans find their humanity challenged by something different and an equilibrium must be found between the trollish and the human.

In 3 Below the weirdness of humanity is shown thanks to the eyes of people who come from a different world. At the same time, these aliens also discover what is good about humanity and what they have in common with it. This shared part is obviously the core of human beings.

At the same time, the two stories are coming of age narratives and it is interesting that their protagonists growing up happen in different ways.

Jim grows when he leaves home together with Claire who is his companion. By doing so, he separates from his mother who build a new life together with Strickler.

Aja and Krel grow when they manage to go home:

This is fitting for a series where the main characters keep running away. After all, Aja is introduced while she is running to avoid a ceremony and after that they run from Morando and hide. Krel too, in a sense, is running away from his growing feelings towards Earth and his friends which he comes to accept in the end.

At the same time, the behaviours of Claire and Steve who are the MC’s love interests are also opposite. Claire chooses to invest on her relationship with Jim and to follow him in his adventure, while Steve chooses to stay on Earth with his family.

There is not a right or wrong choice, but simply different people who want different things and are taking care of their respective romantic relationships in different ways.

This is something which happens with Barbara/Strickler and Varvatos/Nancy as well.

Barbara chooses to let her son go even if it pains her and embraces a new life with her new partner, whereas Varvatos chooses to postpone his relationship with Nancy to when both Toby and Aja will become self-sufficient and won’t need their help anymore.

These are two different situations a parent might find themselves in and they are both shown as equally valid choices by the series.

#tales of arcadia #tales of arcadia meta #trollhunters #trollhunters meta #3 below #3 below meta #jim lake junior #claire nuñez #aja tarron #krel tarron #varvatos vex #mothership #colonel kubritz

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red-elric · 5 years

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so ive read fruits basket like twenty times, and over the last couple of years i noticed that, each time, i was drawn more and more to the characters of kimi and momiji, and identified with them in a way that was really confusing to me because i didnt really think i *actually* had a very similar personality to either of them? (discord friends may disagree but, well, this whole post is going to be about people and characters who change up their personality to be more likable.) i got all introspective about it and finally came to a conclusion about their characters that i subconsciously knew already: the key similarity between the two of them and myself is the way we very carefully layer subtle personality masks for ourselves to protect ourselves and to seem more approachable and likable without actually being vulnerable to other people. (other characters in furuba do this a lot too--key examples that come to mind are tohru, kagura, and yuki--but i care more about momiji and kimi so this is about them.)

to clarify a bit what i mean by this, ill start with a personal example. ive always been pretty good at remembering people’s names, especially if i think theyre cool and want to become friends with them, but i noticed around middle school or high school that people subconsciously find it intimidating/stalkerish if you know their name and they cant remember yours, especially if youve only met once. on the other hand, if they *do* remember your name, and you admit to not remembering theirs, they feel empowered and sympathetic to your situation; and if neither of you remember the other’s name, you have a moment of solidarity that can lead to a more relaxed relationship. so, i started pretending to have a manageable amount of trouble remembering the names of people i wanted to be friends with. the first two or three times that i meet someone, at some point i will use “clarifying their name” as a conversation starter, ie: “you’re....[], right?” or “is it []?” this is a small effect of a pattern of behavior i tend to follow: feigning incompetence to gain trust and camaraderie. is it manipulative? absolutely, but harmlessly so. its directly derived from my own social anxieties, but its a relatively healthy way to feel more connected with my peers and to stop feeling ostracized by people who resent me for being “smarter” than them--something i struggled with a lot in my youth. momiji and kimi dont put up the *same* masks as myself, but they are both rather adept at maintaining their own masks, and are both incredibly socially perceptive in the same way that i am: they analyze people’s reactions to their behavior and sculpt themselves to get the reaction they want.

lets take a look at what this means for kimi. surface level, kimi seems pretty cookie cutter--sure, shes a little chaotic, but she fits quite nicely into the femme fatale/dumb blonde trope (even though shes not blonde). but did you know that shes actually at the top of her class? its subtle, but to me its always been obvious that shes actually incredibly intelligent and constantly manipulating people to suit her needs. there are easy examples of this, of course: flirting with a teacher to get a new whiteboard, anyone? but there’s one scene that’s always spoken volumes to me about her character, and that’s the one-off joke where kakeru starts to say some “secret” about her, clearly joking, and she immediately shuts him down by cutting him off with “don’t say unnecessary things!” and elbowing him in the side, all while still smiling cheerfully. the subtlety of this is that, with her reaction, she’s actually imitating their audience: yuki. it’s yuki she doesn’t want to know about whatever kakeru knows, so she shuts down kakeru in a way we’ve seen yuki yell at kakeru whenever kakeru makes idiotic jokes. the physical attack, the angry smile, accusing kakeru of saying something annoying, but that doesnt really matter; none of these are particularly characteristic to kimi, she causes as much chaos as kakeru on a good day, but they’re incredibly recognizable to yuki. her reaction is familiar to yuki, and it invokes an assumption that kakeru is making a lame joke, not trying to reveal one of her deepest, darkest secrets, and it works because yuki would react completely differently if kakeru tried to tell someone about *his* secrets. yuki doesnt pursue the subject further, kakeru bounces back easily and doesnt give it a second thought, and kimi is safe. so, we can tentatively say that kimi has a habit of reflecting other’s expectations to hide her true self.

now, is this one scene enough on its own to prove this idea? of course not. however, when we view her actions as a whole we start to see a pattern. we see several instances where kakeru will say something stupid and kimi will listen, encourage it, or say something just as stupid back; it’s only when he tries to reveal something about *her* that she shuts him down. we see subtle signs of genuine anger when he tries to reveal her secret: the overly violent jab, the tensed vein/angry eyebrows, etc--not very characteristic for happy-go-lucky, flirtatious kimi. and, of course, we have several examples of how she manipulates a) men into buying things for her, granting her favors, leaving their girlfriends for her, etc; and b) women into feeling inferior to her, feeling aggravated with her, and thinking she’s incredibly troublesome but knowing that they can’t argue with the men about it. overall, its not a far stretch at all to think she’s manipulating everyone around her to avoid revealing information about her true self: a proud, intelligent woman who enjoys causing chaos, but is also very manipulative and controlling to the people around her and hates being vulnerable.

momiji is in some ways similar, and in other ways very very different. most people--especially characters in the story with him--tend to put momiji in this “sweet, innocent child” box. it’s not just his height--his fashion, mannerisms, outlook on life, etc are all very reminiscent of someone much younger than he is, and people tend to *treat* him like he’s much younger than he is. even if they know intellectually that yes, momiji is significantly older than he appears, it’s very easy for the older sohmas to treat him as a troublesome but still loved younger sibling--someone to be taken care of, not taken too seriously, someone lovable. i’ve seen several people point out that part of *why* momiji does this is because he subconsciously feels that hes not allowed to act like an older sibling (to momo), so he acts as a younger sibling in an effort to get a similar sort of familial bond without overstepping the boundaries that his family instilled in his mind, and i agree. i believe momiji has a habit of feigning youth to more easily bond with the people he loves. his childish actions and behavior make him easier to deal with, and also give him a little more leeway to do things that would normally frowned upon if he appeared older, ex: sleeping in a bed with tohru, wearing a girl’s uniform top to school, taking any chance he can get to be physically affectionate with people, indulging in sweets and candy, etc.

two things draw momiji’s true personality out of its shell: his growth spurt, forcing people to acknowledge his actual age, and the breaking of his curse. late game momiji, to me, has always seemed bitter, tired, and sarcastic, as opposed to the sweet, energetic, and sincere front he’d put on for most of the series, which is very interesting to me. of course, you’d normally *expect* someone who’s gone through as much as momiji to *be* bitter, tired, sarcastic, etc; however, when he puts his child-like mask on, it’s easy to pretend that he’s this loving, saintly child who bears no ill will towards anyone, who can be knocked to hell and back and still stand back up to smile again. and i do think it’s true that momiji has an incredible capacity for forgiveness and love, but there’s also no denying that he has a limit, and we can see that during his first conversation with akito after his curse breaks. this, i think, is the most raw, true representation of momiji in the whole story; momiji has lost his link with the family he made for himself in the zodiac, he’s been physically forced to grow out of his persona, he’s finally seeing that his primary abuser is really not so powerful after all, and he’s forced to finally confront the fact that, while his curse, the thing that caused most of the troubles in his life, is broken, the impacts it already had on his life won’t magically go away. momiji in this scene seems completely disconnected from akito, who is still caught up in the curse, still desperately trying to hold everything together; in his lowest moment, we can finally see momiji, not as an all-forgiving saint, but as someone who just wants to start over. he’s not happy that his curse ended; id even go as far to say that momiji, out of every zodiac, is the one who most wishes it was still around, for the bond that it gave him with the other zodiacs and as something he could pin the blame on for his family struggles. which is why it is so sad to me that his was among the first to break.

now, yall probably know by now that i am a momimi bitch, so lets talk about them together. most of the people i see shipping them--and i fully admit, this is how i started shipping them--simply just say “same energy,” make a few cute headcanons about how they’d use each other for clout, and call it a day. this is perfectly fine. however, here at Overthinking It Inc., we take it a few steps deeper. personally, i have a hard time getting invested in a ship unless i can see how the characters compliment each other, how they help each other grow, and how they could genuinely enjoy each other’s company enough to pursue a romantic relationship. it took a little bit of obsessive extrapolating, but ive finally figured out just *how well* momiji and kimi compliment each other.

momiji, at the end of furuba, is going through a metamorphosis. he’s been forced out of his childish persona and into the life of an adult rather quickly, and he takes the opportunity to try to become more true to himself. we can see, in the last few chapters, the beginnings of bounds of growth; however, i imagine that there is a significant “awkward” period in his growth. judging from what i know about his character, i believe he would, in his effort to be more honest and confident, overcompensate a bit; he would become overbearing, intense, perhaps even oversharing. he might have a tendency to try to figure out what’s “wrong” with his friends and family, might always be trying to “fix” everything. i could easily see him, in fact, develop a bit of a selfish attitude (albeit rooted in kindness--it is, after all, still momiji); in his journey to stop letting people walk all over them, i believe he might become prone to walking over people himself. he’d have no idea where the lines are, where someone’s limits are, because he never had the chance to test them out in his youth, and because the people in power in his life (his parents and akito) never respected anyone else’s limits. enter kimi: tough, walled off, and incredibly secretive, though she tries to hide it. momiji, with his social perceptiveness, would notice at some point how difficult it is for her to form genuine, emotional connections with others, and would feel the urge to help her, to draw her out of her shell, not realizing that she doesnt necessarily want to be understood, nor that she’s (now entering headcanon territory, be warned) *scared* of those kinds of relationships. she’d take it, for a while, but there would come a time when she’d snap. this would do wonders for helping momiji figure out where the boundaries are, and how to be more aware of other people’s wants and needs (and it is something that tohru, reserved little wallflower that she is, would never be able to do for him).

kimi, on the other hand, has not quite started developing her character at the end of the manga. i like to apply all sorts of believable anxieties onto her: maybe she regrets not having an easy connection with other girls, like she does with boys. maybe she refuses to believe in the familial structure (that momiji idolizes). maybe she’s so used to playing the part of the homewrecker that, when she finally realizes that she’s found something or someone she truly loves, she doesn’t know how to handle it, and always worries that somebody’s going to take it away for her. maybe she views connections with others, or vulnerability, as a weakness, something that could be used against her, and tries to do everything she can to wall people off and hide her true feelings. well, good news for her, momiji is the resident king of loving family structures. family is something he truly loves and understands, from how much he’s admired it from afar, and been grateful for the family he’s made for himself in hatori, tohru, and the other zodiac. he’s well primed to help her understand what a true family is like, that real love is a good thing, not a scary thing, and that it’s okay to be vulnerable sometimes. this big, sweethearted doofus who somehow managed to see how much she was struggling under the many layers of masks that she hides beneath? there’s no way kimi wouldnt fall for him. and she, this girl who challenges everything he believes in, teaches him valuable lessons about how far is too far, and is basically the most fun person he’s ever met? there’s no way momiji wouldn’t fall for her.

i believe the two of them would start things off as almost a play; theyd portray a satire of the ideal male and female celebrity couple rather easily; theyd lean into the standard boy and girl roles almost ridiculously so, drawing attention to the absurdity of the standard relationship and somehow flirting through it. kimi, as we know, likes to pretend to be this helpless, flirtatious, “i couldnt possibly do anything on my own, oh whatever shall i do O3O” caricature of the feminine “ideal” to draw men in; momiji, i feel, would respond to that with a dorky, happy-go-lucky, “i can help you with that, miss ; )” caricature of the masculine, “ideal” gentleman, just for fun. theyd put on a show, for each other, for their peers, and for themselves, but they would eventually run into some troubles (detailed above). things would be tense, but theyd keep up their personas--why would they *ever* admit to their flaws to the outside world, theyre perfect? their friends would notice, of course, but wouldnt be able to do much about it; in the end, the only people perceptive enough to read through the bullshit of one is the other. theyd come to an understanding--spoken or unspoken (with the subtleties of their relationship, its not unreasonable that they could change their entire perspective of their relationship with just actions, not direct words or conversation)--and shift back into their previous, flirtatious relationship, except its different this time. because now, they understand each other, they love each other, theyre practically reading the other’s mind, and theyre perfectly in tune. rather than putting on masks to hide from each other, they wear one together to hide from the world--but, they think, that’s probably enough.

#meta #it me #long post #and i do mean loooooong #kimi toudou #momiji sohma #momimi #please dont criticize me too harshly im not trained in writing and i do this for fun #<3 #fruits basket #fruits basket spoilers

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prorevenge · 5 years

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Want to f**k with your child’s life? You picked the wrong child.

This is not a hate post. This is about the revenge that we got on these bastards, pure and simple. If you want to go off all high and mighty about how awful <Topic> is since it was in this story, fuck off and do it somewhere else. This is about her revenge, not your opinion.

Anyways, let’s begin.

I’m going to retell the original story from the MC post because I left a lot out there. Sorry if you already read it.

About three years ago, I was in a multi-school academic support network, which had a summer camp. At this camp, I met K.

K was a closeted lesbian, and was very scared of us telling her parents due to their extreme political and narcissistic views. I had dealt with this situation a few times, but not on this extreme of a level. Her parents were so far off the end of the scale, I dared not say anything about politics or religion in fear of starting an inquisition. These people made Westboro look like moderates.

To give an example, they had complete control over her phone, emails, mail, and pretty much every other route of communication. So when they decided one of her friends was “too Jewish” (his last name sounded Jewish to them) they deleted him from her life. They called the program and rearranged her schedule so she would never see him. Later, we found out they filed false, anonymous complaints against him so he wouldn’t be invited back. Overnight, they removed him from her life.

And this was not the last kid they did this with.

K was terrified of her parents, but they owned her. There was no way to escape short of suddenly becoming an adult.

I was seriously worried about her, to the point where I bought her an emergency-only prepaid phone, which I told her to hide. This was, unequivocally, the best decision I’ve ever made.

Fast-forward to January. K is struggling with the stress of everything, and says something innocuous in group chat along the lines of “good thing I don’t have to worry about boys”.

We suddenly stop hearing responses from her. Her cell phone goes offline. The house phone kicks all of our numbers, but not pay phones or other lines. The parents pick up, but say that there’s no one with that name at this address, then hang up. Her classmate says she doesn’t show up for class that day. Alarm bells are going off for everyone.

And then I get the call from K. “Please, come pick me up. I was kicked out. It’s cold.”

I’m the closest, and I had a car, and I was driving in blowing, heavy snow in far below freezing weather. I won’t say that rage and panic fueled me, but I will say it got me there in one piece. I have never, ever, driven a car as recklessly, as hard, or as fast as I did that day.

When I got there she was huddled under a tarp, barefoot, in pajamas, at the foot of her house’s stairs. The parents saw my car and rush out to scream at me for “taking their child from the path of god” and “corrupting her with devil worshipping ideas” or some shit like that. I told them that if she listened to me, it was the first time she had ever done that.

And then the critical sentence (direct quote for once): “she’s not our child anymore! You godless heathen ruined her mind!” And then, “She’s no daughter of ours!”

Now, I’m going to pause this for a moment to preface everything that happens from this point on: this is not a pro-atheist or anti-Christian post. These whack jobs are the furthest thing from human I’ve ever seen. Do not use them as a generalization for <Religious Group> or a bandwagon to sell your ideals. I’m not dealing with that shit here.

K, freezing and scared, hides in my car. The parents start to get aggressive and hostile towards me, so I make two things very clear to them.

I am recording everything they say. I have a camera on my car and my phone, and I have a police officer waiting for me at the foot of the driveway (I called the cops before I arrived due to not feeling safe).

I am leaving and never coming back, as per their request. K will be coming with me, since she is not their daughter, per their screaming rant.

They start arguing with (aka screaming over) me about how she can be ‘cured’ by methods that range from dubious to straight up illegal. By this point, I’m done. I get back in my car while they’re screaming at me and head back down the driveway.

The cop and I have a short chat, and he recommends we be brought to the police station ASAP to prevent the parents from saying I kidnapped her. After a six-hour ER visit for her hypothermia and minor frostbite, escorted by police, we arrive. All of my video and audio recordings are entered into official records, and the officer’s dashcam footage, and K’s ER report are filed away.

I didn’t know it at the time, but all of that would prove to be essential in court later.

I sign her into a hotel in my town, and lawyer up. The lawyer I know specifically deals with cases like hers for free. He is very, very good at it.

There was a lot of legalese, and a long process and a lot of angry exchanges that I really didn’t understand or participate in, but two years later, she was emancipated. I got to be a witness, and that recording and the ER report cinched the case, proving neglect. The parents didn’t even try to argue against it, instead using some weird religious law argument.

K’s older half-brother learned what was happening during the first year and supported her financially while she was in school. He hated the parents far more than either of us did (K feared them more and I was just disgusted by them).

It wasn’t much of a fight. The parents represented themselves, and tried to drop the case on “religious grounds”, which isn’t a thing.

After this, the revenge started. And K did not hold back.

During proceedings, it was discovered that the parents had been using their children’s Social Security cards for loans, credit, bank accounts, and other sketchy stuff. They were already going to jail for that, but K took it to the next level.

Now, these were all the things K told me after the fact. I wasn’t involved in this part, and I didn’t write down all the details that well, but the following is approximately what happened from what I have been told or remember.

So, WARNING; fuzzy details.

One of the things that had been purchased in her name was the father’s truck. K reported it as missing, since she was technically an owner of the truck. They pulled the father over and confiscated the truck as stolen, because his name was not in the title, the wife’s was. When he tried to prove it was his by filling out the bill of sale on the back, he found that the title for the vehicle had been invalidated when K had ordered a new one and donated the vehicle to the fire department for Jaws-of-Life training. That same day.

The mother’s credit cards were the same, but K just cancelled all of them and declared ID theft. This froze some of the mother’s bank accounts, which were under K’s SSN.

The family was already in chaos but K cranked it to 11. Due to the SSN, K was listed as the main contact for the family’s cell phone and internet plans. She cancelled both. She killed the email accounts in her name that she could access and rerouted her mail to her new PO Box, where she may have “accidentally” forgotten to say they should only reroute her mail.

She also called in repossessions on everything that had been bought with her SSN on credit. The loans included renovations on the home, so the parents were forced to sell.

By the time K was done, the parents were happy to go to jail for fraud, identity theft, and their other, numerous crimes rather than live on the street.

All I do know is that they became social pariahs in town before that. Stores banned them for their increasingly violent attempts at converting people. People they knew for years turned on them. The father was fired for failing a performance review, and the mother lost her job selling <Stuff?> due to her increased radicalization.

In the end, K’s siblings went to live with her half-brother since he was the closest living relative. The parents lost all rights to visitation, as the state nullified their parental rights and gave guardianship to the half-brother, mostly due to the criminal charges.

But the real revenge might just be that as the sentencing was carried out, K flipped the parents off in front of the judge and the judge just laughed at the parent’s attempts to claim it was hate speech.

TL;DR: Narcissistic and awful parents attempt to ruin child’s life for being lesbian. Child sends them to jail.

(source) (story by CynicalAltruist)

#prorevenge #by CynicalAltruist #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro #revenge #revenge story #last10

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nomand-berserka · 4 years

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A little openly honest abridged intro in to me and dealing with my head and my black dog.

I am the newly appointed Team Leader for West Yorkshire with the guys at Veterans Hike. @veteranshike

Ive found a love for hiking over the past few months, since this crazy lockdown here in the UK.

I have struggled a lot over the years since leaving the Army, still dont feel like I fit into the bracket called Civvie. I know that may sound a little cliche. But it is exactly what it is.

I joined the forces straight from school. There was nothing for me where I lived, and with a long proud military history in my family, I felt it's what I'd always wanted and knew in my early to mid teens, that I'd join up.

I felt I did pretty well, considering pretty much everyone I knew, thought that I wouldnt even make it past selection. Well I pissed on their parade let me tell ya.

I'm not going to go into the ins and out of my career. But the tours I did, were SFOR (peacekeeping) Bosnia 98 and Op Agricola Kosovo 99.

Now with that, I've seen some pretty fkd up stuff at the ages of 18 and 19.. But you crack on and get the job the done. Get back home and continue as normal.

Now upon leaving the Army, I felt very lost. Ended up going from job to job, due to not being able to fit in with or liking the people I worked with. Often getting pushed out because of having a different mindset... This turned into a serious dislike for people in general. There was no bond, no brotherhood, everyone out for themselves and didnt care who they fkd over to get what they wanted.

This became the time I started with the heavy drinking and the stupid violence, infact the drink and the violence became the reason I lost my family and almost ended up 6 feet under.

The violence continued, as I just hated everyone... for lots of different reasons. This then led to me serving time on a couple of occasions. But it still continued after being locked up... I didnt see it as a problem, as I just thought "I wont take peoples shit", and I'll show anyone who tries to give me shit. That it will lead to getting hurt. Jump forward to being left for dead with 2 stab wounds... Yes it got that bad. Maybe I was asking for my way out?

Jump forward a year or so of living a dark time.

Its then i got into martial arts (Muay Thai under the tutilage of master Ronnie Green 5 time world champion), a friend of mine didnt want to see me locked up again. Or with more perforations than a "Tetley Tea bag". This became my drive again, I'd found something I could focus on and put myself, my whole self into again.

First session in, I was hooked. Had my first full contact fight at just over 6 months and had plenty thereafter, still have the copy of my official invite to the 2013 world championships. This was my crowing glory moment... This is where I'd found the focus to not be that drunked violent ass hat. My fitness went through the roof and I felt good again for the first time in years

Injury got me though, put me right back to not being able to train. Even ended my career, I tried to train again, but way too soon. Causing myself more problems. Taking even longer to get back to 100%

My anger started to creep back, the bad food the drinking... and yes the violence. then jump again forward to going back to prison for a very violent episode in 2015. Where 2 people got badly hurt. I pleaded guilty. I tried to reach out for help before the day in court. But it was too little too late...

However, in prison this time in 2016 I asked for help. Where can i get it, and who can help me the most.. There was a small eager group called Care after Combat, they concentrate on helping Veterans, who are sent to prison. During and after release. (I'll go into them at a later date).

I've kept my nose clean since then, was officially Dignosed with PTSD in 2017, so done a few local therapy courses Anger Management, CBT but still no actual PTSD help as of yet. Combat Stress, I think may have forgotten about me hahaha.

But the thought of prison!!!! id rather not go back ever again. Plus I'm getting on now, and not a 25 year old dick head. Eith a chip on his shoulder about civvies anymore.

Jump forward again, to present Covid 19 times.

I'm a joiner now put myself through College 12 years ago. The outdoors have always agreed with me. But after a work accident last year in August I had 14 weeks sat at home gaining weight. Bordem drinking and eating shit and the head started to go again. But thankfully got back to work early December.

In March 2020 and we get Furloughed. For however long it may take.

So I gave myself THE talking to. Stay off the booze (well not completely hehe). Keep yourself busy. Find a focus in something, anything. Just dont he that dickhead again.

So here I am, I spend at least 3 days a week walking the Pennines and the moors between my beloved Yorkshire and the dark soggy lands of Lancahire. Its literally 20 minutes from my door to where I park the motor. My head still goes south, but more into the low mood and hating myself for allowing what I'd done in the past. I've had depression for years, but it was always over shadowed by my stupidity. So when it does that, i hit my local park and do 10 laps (8 miles) of that. Or just get my pack ready and hit the trails. Often doing around 15-20 miles.

Now I've started with a small Daystack and have started adding weight, carring 15kg. plus 3 litre camelback, food stuff and inclement weather gear. Its north of England the weather does what it wants. "If tha dunt lyk weather, jus bloody wait 20 minutes It'l change". hahaha.

Doing this has given me more drive in my fitness and massively boosted my mental state. Plus the escape from the rat race bollox that we all have to live through. More and more people have started to notice my weight loss. Down from 20 stone to just over 17 stone. Now I'm as round as I am tall, but for a fat lad I've been told I'm pretty fit... Guess all those years in the Army, years of Muay Thai and Kempo Jiu Jitsu. It must have left some form of conditioning and muscle memory. So this again boosts me. I'm now picking up the weights at home and even got a bike... so this new found fitness is a fantastic feeling again... it's not just about keeping busy anymore, it's about showing people. Who I'd alienated during all these years, that I'm not the same guy, and they are wanting to come on hikes with me now

(Its also pushed me to train for the 3 peaks... but that's another story for another time)

It's also the biggest Therapy I can give myself, sometimes I go it alone and sometimes I have company. The outdoors is literally where I feel at my easiest and most peaceful... The benefits are there for everyone who knows me, to see. Its physically demanding, but it's so peaceful. If I bump into other people, there is always a nod a smile and a "morning/afternoon" exchanged. Not all people are nob heads haha!

I cant stress enough how good it feels to keep occupied physically and mentally, buy doing something I never thought I'd do...

It's become my passion... I'm looking into longer routes all the time, and now looking at some proper outdoors gear. Better rucksack even a tent. If being up the hills for a few hours or just a day, makes me feel things are better. Then surely a couple of days and nights will be even better...Right?

I want to thank anyone who takes the time to reads this, however you see it. Be it on insta, Tumbler or FB. So cheers guys and gals.

We all have hardships, we all need that help at some point. Go out and find what makes it all better, please guys. We all deserve to smile for what ever reason.

Who knows, we may even cross trails someday. You'll always get a smile and a nod from me.

Steve

The Nomad Beserka

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justsomeantifas · 5 years

Text

its 11:59 its still technically tonight so

this is gonna be my reference point to questions abt venezuela, at least regarding things pre- May 19 2019. Its a bit scattered and it may get edited down along the road, but yeah.

short version that draws some similar conclusions: https://www.salon.com/2019/05/17/the-plot-to-kill-venezuela_partner/

one difference in scales that’s important to keep in mind: the lifespan of people is 2-7 decades. the lifespan of colonialism lasts centuries. the lifespan of media memory is a couple years, tops.

Most western narratives of venezuela start meaningfully at chavez, which is a mistake. The focus point in history around which the country flowed was the Caracazo. You probably already know about this, but a massive uprising took place in the heart of Caracas, against decades of dictatorship both formal and informal, after severe instability in the global oil market. The people were hungry, the riots were fiery, and the bullets bled. knows the death toll even now, but its estimated well into the thousands. This happened pre-chavez, and started a cascade of events which brought him into limelight that you can read about here. not gonna go into more venezuelan history, but i talk a bit more here

chavez was democratically elected, multiple times.

in 2002, after his first democratic election, he was kidnapped by US-backed troops and replaced by someone who threw out the 1999 constitution, which was as legitimate as any other made in venezuela’s colonial and violently capitalist history, seeing as it was the first (aka only, so far) of 26 constitutions actually approved by popular referendum. He was reinstated largely due to massive protests in support of him. Maduro however doesn’t really have as much of the charisma and support of chavez, which is creating problems - as well as exacerbating problems created by the economic crises ramping up just around chavez’s death. In 2015, there were elections to the National Assembly, which ended up with the Opposition winning a majority of the seats (which does show that there’s some degree of fairness in the elections, at least verifiably up til that point, yet that isnt rly accounted for when western media describes it as “undemocratic” - many of whom don’t apply the same scrutiny to their own country: such as this UN Human Rights councilor who also happens to be the crown prince of british-iraq, currently residing in the noted democracy of the Kingdom of Jordan, which has no vested interest or control over any particular export of Venezuela.).

This turnout showed most of all that maduro had alienated as many as 2 million of his supporters, who didnt end up voting (though many also voted against him - trying to act on their feeling that whatever they want, its “not this”). This decreasing support also accelerates whats known as “Everyday Sabotage” - people not trusting in the government, and look out for their own interests contra everyone else. This is a danger inherent to tying “Socialism” to a primarily state project.

However 1999 Constitution was never meant as an eternal document & it created mechanisms to call for new popular constitutional referendums to be held. That’s what the “Constituent Assembly” is about, which is what a lot of the western world is describing as him singlehandedly rewriting it (while also being “vague about its contents”), or “created by him”. Elections to the constituent assembly were boycotted by opposition, so that it would be government controlled & look like a sham in the eyes of the broader world. That being said, the assembly was called both as a reaction to losing election but also in response to intensifying crises - it was put forth (i don’t see any reason to believe in bad faith) as a way to come together and figure out how to address the needs that were driving people to protest - to address the desire for “not this”, but bc of the uncertainty, it was easily twistable by reactionaries by putting all emphasis on the former. Also timing corresponds with increasing fears of maduro straying from the path of chavez, the image of scrapping one of his strongest plays for smth unknown is risky - tho if there are other meaningful options given the situation im not sure. And the body’s got at least as much constitutional legitimacy as Guaido (Chapter III)

The 1999 constitution also enabled a recall election to be called against maduro in 2016, bc it was written with particular attention to holding public officials accountable - similar noble commitments helped to end the presidency of Rousseff & bring in Bolsonaro (who was also one of the people spurring on the investigations and whipping up a social base).

(speaking of guaido & bolsonaro)

on Guaido:

part of student group in 2007 protesting against non-renewal of coup-assisting network, who the CFR (one of the major think tanks of the cold war still playing a big role in foreign policy today) considered “most important network”

close friend of Leopoldo Lopez, the aforementioned coup plotter.

politician since 2010, won a couple small elections

Unknown to majority of general population until 2019, most venezuelans surveyed didnt know him

Plan Pais

plans to privatize state owned industry & allow investment from foreign oil companies

center-right neoliberal draped in platitudes of “stability”, “revitalization”, “security”, and “rescue” - a message seemingly deliberately targeted to become more and more resonant with increased sanctions.

/on Guaido

governing is about the expression of power. I wanna live in a world where that power isn’t expressed, but as long as the exploitation of the global working class continues unabated, id prefer some of that power be put towards helping the poor.

there is no such thing as a static state of affairs, there’s no “goldilocks zone” out in the political universe where we tweak things finely until we find whats best for everyone, only different rates of change in different dimensions. what we need to do is figure out how we can push that state of affairs in a direction so that everyday people have the power to take control of their lives. re

re: “constitutionality” - if the supreme court calls it constitutional then its constitutional. period. There’s no such thing as a supreme court as an “independent branch” of government, but there are different degrees of integration into the rest of it.

The Supreme Tribunal of Venezuela has 32 members, (a bit more than a dozen put in by the national assembly, while the PSUV held it), and the opposition holds abt 3 away from a supermajority. Each member of the court holds their spot for 12 years. If that’s “The Most Corrupt In The World” according to Transparency International, i wonder what world the 9-person lifetime-appointed US Supreme Court (2 of which appointed by trump, and save for pulling a Weekend At Ginsbergs, likely 3) is on. In fact, one of the tactics that the more radical circles of democrat voters are putting forward is to pack the Supreme Court. Because thats how shit actually gets done, or at the least how shit is prevented from being committed w the stamp of legality. FDR learned that lesson too, in trying to pass what is today known as “The New Deal”

My comparisons to trump are for specific end: these actions are exerted on levers of liberal democracy, and every single liberal democracy is susceptible to them in some ways.

whats a “dictator”? if hes unelected, the millions of people who participated in the elections dont seem to think so. if maduro is a dictator, then what is donald trump? the majority of ppl didnt vote for him yet hes still governing. macron’s popularity has at several points been less than 1/3, and the yellow vest protestors have been violently attacked - why is he not “a violent dictator with only the support of the military”? These terms are not neutral.

“their elections are highly flawed” So What? show me a country whose elections arent.

“opposition jailed” - ok but coup plotters don’t get off easy in any liberal democracy. If someone - say Bernie Sanders - said “enough is enough” and succeeded in overthrowing the current government with the help of a foreign government…. you think they’d let him go free? what if ten years later he was getting his supporters all riled up to do it again? how long you think he’d be in jail for (assuming he can survive well into his 100’s)? You think more than 13 years? Think he’d get house arrest? Some US states lock you up for posessing weed up to 10. If you stay long enough around this blog, youll find plenty of other examples of much more cruel and unusual punishments. Look at Chelsea Manning, look at Oscar Riviera… look at the US protestors saying Guaido is illegitimate

what we have to keep in mind most of all, is to show that the contradictions being exploited are inherent to Liberalism. Contradictions are just expressed most freely at the margins - the interstices

poor economic decisions happen everywhere - 2008/2009 still affecting the entire world there’s violence thats “natural”, and violence thats “intolerable”. The dividing line is whether we have anything to gain by changing things.

sanctions: started under obama, originally targeted specific individuals, used as precedent for more generalized. They’re indirect - they have a “squeezing effect”, takes already-existing problems & just makes them markedly worse. also doesn’t necessarily correlate with emigration, bc it takes a lot of money to start a new life somewhere else, and sanctions disproportionately affect the poor.

war wouldnt likely look like (many) US boots on the ground - we’ve got plenty of other places to be. It’d look like guns being smuggled to counter-protestors. It’d look like sending resources to neighboring countries like Colombia or Brazil who would then use their troops. Colombias ruling party is right wing populists - much of current president’s campaign was run on fearmongering abt venezuelan socialism - they’re raring to go. It’d look like drones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caracas_drone_attack. Also means there likely won’t be a sudden trigger, its a gradually escalating stressful gradually-more-warlike situation.

If war does break out - where would the refugees go? In reality the majority would go to Colombia, but if anything significant breaks out there will be a stream of those looking to find shelter in the US, which has advertised itself as a beacon of hope - what would happen to them? some may get taken in as a gesture of showmanship, but nowhere close to the majority.

speaking of the US - imagine if trump and bolton manage to actually plot a winning coup. Do you think that that wont be his main bullwark against ppl like Bernie? you think the media and rest of the democratic party wont jump on that narrative and “begrudgingly” support a fascist because the alternative might mean supporting single payer and not-having-good-for-ratings-climate-apocalypse?

another term thrown around without regard is “once vibrant” - for whom?

most articles ive seen just take this as an axiom, and dont find any cognitive dissonance when also saying chavez reduced poverty hugely.

The answer to that rhetorical question: Citgo is venezuelan, before chavez none of the wealth went back to venezuela - thats what “vibrancy” means.

many similarities with BP (the-artist-formerly-known-as-the-anglo-iranian-oil-company)

in age of climate change & vocal ppl about phasing out oil, the more one’s livelihood is connected to oil, the more unstable ones country will be - either that, or the more instability ones country will cause.

“Oil exports fell by $2,200 per capita from 2012 to 2016, of which $1,500 was due to the decline in oil prices.”

The drop in price that affected the venezuelan economy so much in 2014 was largely by US shale fracking

in 1970’s Chile, copper was the main product of Chile - allende nationalized the mines, and in return wall street dropped the

(also worth noting that venezuela’s got non-insignificant untapped shale basins)

At least venezuela used the oil money to fund social programs instead of like, pad the pockets of Raytheon.

also oil price wars in africa highly correlated w oil (whose annual production doesn’t even combined total venezuelas)

a couple ppl have raised concerns abt my strong stance on equivocal dismissal - if there’s a difference, if there’s some way of reading your statement that says “X country that the State Dept wants to invade is an anomoly in the otherwise free world”, then that’s acting to push the discourse towards normalization & invasion. It’s not “whataboutism”, just basic consistency.

now more than ever, narratives are affected by people. They may not be ones we had a hand in forging, but the way that we propagate them actually does have measurable effects on the larger-scale political outcomes. Always look for the base assumptions, as well as the direction

sure denounce Chavez. sure denounce Maduro. denounce Kim, Xi, Castro, anyone. But if there’s no equally or proportionally loud denunciations of the horrors perpetrated by allies - the “assumed”, “natural” violence, then you’re acting to reinforce the narrative of exceptionalism.

Just make sure after you take a breath, you denounce Saudi Arabia & Yemen, Israel for Palestine, the conditions which brought Argentinian/Brazillian, Brazilian coup, the US for Puerto Rico, the conditions which have murdered dozens of journalists in Mexico per year…

what people want most of all is stability. “A debate over whether it is mismanagement and corruption by the Maduro government or the sanctions that are the author of the crisis is largely irrelevant. The point is that a combination of the reliance on oil revenues and the sanctions policy has crushed the policy space for any stability in the country.”

government’s errors and tensions

fixed exchange rate -> black market

took 5 years to address changing relation between dollar & BsF, all the room between those two curves left a huge room for intensifying crises, though since it also corresponds with the death of chavez, it sorta makes sense.

antidemocratic actions and remarks by maduro

scattered responses filled w half-solutions

diversification needed, but how do you diversify an economy filled with rampant poverty, malnutrition, illiteracy…

(nominally begrudging) support for mineral extraction 12.4% of territory opened to extraction - “Special Economic Zone” as a method of managing decay

this is also what much of the reality of “economic diversification” looks like

not enough socialism. (even fox agrees!) Venezuela shows the limits of Social Democracy in countries living outside of the Imperial Core - esp the dangers if you’re in the crosshairs already bc of oil

started out as populism, gradually grew as confronted more. shows shaping influence on political organs from actions of foreign actors - if you’ve survived a coup before, you’re gonna become paranoid about any more of them - especially when the coup plotters say “hey lets do more coups”

also shows the weakness of only having a small number of charasmatic faces representing the movement - if one dies and theres no clear and popular replacement, then you’ll lose ppl who were largely brought in by the charisma, weakening your political project, and creating cracks for reactionary forces to take advantage of - especially in times of transition.

bourgeoisie still control a majority of the economy. Capitalist businesses are internally unaccountable, and in this age of intensified global trade, one can punish countries for straying from the pack by moving business & focus away. If you’re looking for dictatorships, look at the thousands of private companies run as dictatorships daily

capital flight is a real effect, precisely because socialism is fundamentally and irreconcilably against the self-interest of the bourgeoisie. not necessarily against the interest of the humans-who-are-also-bourgeois, but of the impersonal self-sustaining force of capital.

Have you ever pulled something out of an electrical socket, and seen a quick spark? The reason that occurs is bc of what’s called an induction current, which is a fancy physics word for flowing electricity not liking to suddenly change its flow. If you accidentally touch that spark, you might feel it, but youll live to tell the tale. But if you only take the plug out halfway & touch it, that’s a different story. Capital flows similarly.

my country (lithuania) has been facing sky-high emigration since the collapse of the USSR (with an added boost after 08-09), we have also consistently had one of the highest suicide rates in the world (#7), a minimum wage of about 3 Euros an hour (after a recent increase), as well as one of the highest prison populations in Europe (discounting Russia & Belarus… which like….)

when are we gonna be invaded? when will the US media talk about our pain?

oh wait, they did. We cried all pretty for the TV cameras, then they got a bozo nobody really knew of to denounce the government, who they called dictatorial (though it was far from ideal, massive bureaucracies dont tend to mix well with single-person-decision-making). And to be fair, the fact that the government was unpopular wasnt entirely undeserved. But what was promised to us was the idea of “Freedom”, “Free Enterprise”; to “Get Rid of Corruption” and institute “Real” Democracy". They said we’d be integrated into the glorious capitalist west, and we understood that to mean that we’d be in the position of a Germany, or at least an Austria or smth. But they never meant to integrate us into the imperial Core, we have always been seen as part of the Periphery - the “assumed” violence that “naturally” happens.

Then we got to where we our today. Some of the stuffs more available, but expensive. Most of the bureaucracy’s still around, it just helps fewer people. We stand as an example of what to expect, in one of the best case scenarios, you would join our emigrees now making up a significant percentage of underpaid house-servants aka maids across the EU.

if we want the people of Venezuela to be healthy, safe, and fulfilled, then:

speak out and pointing to the effects of US sanctions is incredibly important. They’ve already killed 40,000 people in the last year, and 300,000 more are in extreme danger (and millions more in long-term risk).

what does it mean when you simultaneously sanction trade with a place but also demand they let you give them humanitarian aid?

if there is to be action taken by the international community, then the US has forfeited its right to speak. They threw it away once in 2002, and obama rhetorically picked it up and dusted it off so that trump could throw it in a bigger dumpster, thats also on fire. However we also still live in a world deeply shaped by US Hegemony, so the opinions of its close trade partners & closest-knit media buds should be seen as influenced as such. Doesn’t mean that theyre wrong on everything too, but they still feel the magnetic pull of the US economy and ecosystem (as well as their own potentially imperial interests) and the effect of that force cannot be discounted.

transitioning our economies away from oil & away from globalized neoliberalism which only values peripheral states by their exports - dissolves tensions of how to produce in unproductive terrain

socialize medicine in the US, so that drug companies run by dictatorships can’t control their lives & ours. healthcare is especially reliant on imports, sanctions affect especially strongly.

normalize the ideas of Socialism, without taking the easy way out of “oh no dont think of Venezuela, think of sweden or denmark”. None of them are Socialist, but to avoid the complexities of Venezuela is to imagine that US attempts at socialism wouldn’t involve significant capital flight. If we don’t consider that, if we don’t have solid actionable plans to deal with that, while also facing the inherent complexity of changing material conditions, then we’re gonna waste whatever shot we get.

redirect conversation normally centered around government towards support of the tens of thousands of small business co-operatives, where people live their daily lives in a democratic manner.

on The Communes:

“delegating responsibility throughout all members, and bringing important decisions to the whole to work through and find the best possible solution… They create “collective criteria” together; agreements stipulating whether individuals have power over certain decisions or whether it is up to the whole group. However, he assures that these “are not rigid, they can change at any moment.” The cooperative I lived with in Venezuela had regular organizational meetings where they informally came to agreement and were even able to come back to re-evaluate decisions that didn´t seem to be satisfactory for the whole group in this same way. Decisions and decision making, in this way, are viewed as a process not contained by meetings and discussions in board rooms, but are always being analyzed and made better by the process of putting them into action, and not only by thinking them out and writing them down.”

- the “Self Government of the Producers” - aka what it looks like for cooks to govern.

they have communal councils as well - neighborhood councils in the same vein that so many (rightfully) find inspiring in Kurdistan . They preexisted chavez, but they were able to proliferate and be given legal recognition through him. I understand that legal recognition can act to ‘name’ a body & pin it to smth that doesn’t match its requisite variety - how dynamic it is, but imo as its currently legislated it recognizes a good amount of the autonomy that they had already been excersizing. - liable to change government recognition of co-ops has drawbacks too, and correlates negatively with that coop’s success

"A good example of this intention is the de-emphasis that cooperatives in Venezuela put on advertising or “marketing” products, and instead push to find more people to become part of the cooperative, and choose the services or products they provide based on community decisions about what is needed. A cooperative I worked in […] was originally a family owned and operated theater group that traveled around the country performing theater pieces that highlighted social and environmental issues. When they joined the […] cooperative, the larger co-op did an analysis and decided they wanted a natural fruit juice concentrate producer and gave the group a loan to acquire capital and start producing. They have been doing this for only a couple of years now but have already paid back the loan to the larger cooperative and are bringing extra money in to support themselves, better their services, and supply extra funds to the larger cooperative for community projects such as the recently [2012] built community health center…

The cooperative services I experienced and learned about in Venezuela were health, dental, food, and a separate example of trash services. A dental cooperative […] provides quality dental services (I know because I used them) almost every day for affordable prices. You don´t have to be a member of the cooperative, and you don´t have to make an appointment. It takes only a couple of hours, and emergency situations are treated with urgency. The health center, built with funds provided by all the associated cooperatives[…], works the same way. Anyone can go there, the services are subsidized by the cooperative so they are affordable, the clinic and workspaces are clean and well taken care of, and the quality of the service is great. Worker-members of the cooperative receive health care at the facility without charge except for the massage and acupuncture services that they also provide at a really low price.

[…] food services are priced to provide more access to food for the community in which it exists. The original and persistent intention is to make the best situation for people on all ends of the process. The producers are part of the cooperative and are part of the group that decides the prices that growers get, as well as the prices that the food is sold for. This means that both farmers and workers at the market decide what to charge a person, which ultimately affects how much money the growers receive, as well as if the food is affordable for the people who need to eat who live in the city. In a normal capitalist market system these parties are separated and put up against each other, raising prices for consumers and lowering them for small producers, excluding those people from getting enough money to afford all the necessities that are typically only provided at a high price.

One communal council, a parallel governing organization of community members linked to investment funds from the national government, in the city of Merida, Venezuela organized themselves to get funds to buy a trash collection truck. The truck at the time was used for a specific waste removal project that removed waste from their community regularly but was not a traditional collection service. However, they did have plans to expand the project to start their own collection service, and this would be provided by the commal council, an anti-capitalist organization which does not require people to pay for the service. Although this is not a “co-operative” as some hardliner co-operative enthusiasts might point out, it is a horizontal anti-capitalist organization widening access of necessary services to the larger community run by community members; following cooperative values of equity, inclusion, and solidarity I believe this to be an example of cooperative economics and action. It appears to me that economic inclusion is much more likely to widen only when those who are being excluded are included in the process of organizing the services and are in control of the economy.“

until the communes, workers cooperatives, and the like are strong enough to rule themselves, having Maduro in power is the only option given to us which doesn’t trigger the control of reactionaries. People make their own history, but not in situations of their choosing - the exact outcome isn’t predetermined, but there’s only a limited number of poles - gravitational attractors - towards which that trajectory is heading at any particular time.

if maduro acts to squash the power of the communes, then thats a different situation. but until that point, we outside of the country must work to center any discussion on these bodies - they are the heart of the country and of whatever social revolution has occurred/is further possible. They are filled with lessons for us to learn from, and show how rich and dynamic the organized populace can be if they are allowed to control their communities. (ex of dealing with gang violence from @ 22:50)

This is all said with recognition that many chavistas have acted against communes, the bureaucratic machine acts to co-opt much of their energy, its linguistically obscured the concept of "ownership” with that of “control”, and that the state has changed its messages over time. But the heart of the communes is what’s a priority, and they have acted against the government overstepping its bounds & mis-identifying them. But whats important is that there’s a feedback process in the gvt to actually allow them to assert their autonomy. Liberals will do their utmost to close those channels.

If Guaido and the Popular Will take control of power, be assured that whatever gains made in organizing the everyday people of Venezuela will be at the top of the chopping block. How effective that suppression turns out to be is undetermined - it might turn out to strengthen the communes, but that outcome would be damage control, not something to try and bullseye.

Effective Propaganda knows that its more effective to control what’s left out than control what’s put in. Keep that in mind, and study trajectories and forces.