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soaricarus · 3 months

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i just think rain world is a beautiful game and i like doing it justice [as much as i can, anyway] when i write about it.

just consider how big the world is and how small you are as a slugcat. this world is not yours and yet it is. you've ended up here due to an incident during harsh rain. you're lost and you don't know what you're doing other than looking for home - and yet nothing is home. at least not in the same way as it was before. as the slugcat learns about this decaying world created by a now long-gone civilisation, one you can only learn about if you've seen the two biomechanical demigod constructs - and seen the city on top of one of them. the city you see as stargazer plays, just stinging you with a feeling of how alone and insignificant and small you are. the city in the distance looks so small, and yet it still looks and feels so much bigger than you and anything you've ever seen. and then you step out to the left, and then you see how vast the world is. there's so much more to it that you'll never see - so many more iterators standing there, in the far beyond, as the clouds slowly float by. if you pay attention you can see small green flashes underneath them behind the clouds. who are they? you don't know, and you never will, and you'll never know what's near them either, if there's more slugcats there, or even if there's creatures or even regions you'll see as familiar. the world is so vast and you are only so small in the grand scheme of.... everything.

and yet being there, in those moments, showing just how little you matter, and seeing them, are the only ways you'll ever be able to learn about that long-gone civilisation. you learn pebbles calls them the benefactors. he speaks of an older civilisation too, that he calls the ancients, that built temples beneath the ground and "danced their silly rituals". you will never know more about them, but you can learn small bits and pieces of what was once the benefactors. you even see the karma murals, as you go out of pebbles access shaft, showing just how important it was to the benefactors. you can find small little round shiny objects, that you can learn moon calls "memory construct pearls", through a single small line she'll say when you bring her nothing but a simple diamond sphere that's as useless as the carbon it's printed from. if you bring her pearls from the sunbaked lands with flora reaching beyond the clouds, you can learn once more about the other iterators. there's a conversation log between five pebbles, and seven red suns, someone we can assume he knows and is friends with. you learn he's angry. you learn he doesn't want to be a bug in a maze. you also learn nothing truly dies. there's another, that's just a small part of a larger conversation in a closed group called SliverOfOcean. you don't have the full context to this, but EP mentions someone called sliver of straw, and a triple affirmative. it sounds important, with how they're speaking about sliver, but you can't tell why. and then a third, giving you a little more context to the SliverOfOcean group - this time between five pebbles, chasing wind, big sis moon and no significant harassment. chasing wind mentions the pseudonym "Erratic Pulse" - if anything, it's more than clear this is the EP mentioning the triple affirmative and sliver of straw. you see how NSH jokes about gnawing through bedrock with their overseers, and you can see how moon worries about this. you learn there's something called sliverists, and someone that wants to "cross themself out". and then there's two more, one where moon says pebbles drastically increased his water intake - the iterators are behind the rains, it seems - and that he and moon share groundwater. it's dangerous for her. she has seniority privileges - further context other than forced communications is not anything you get. and she has no memory of writing this... and the last is her pleading for five pebbles to stop. he says she ruined everything. you don't get more context.

and then you're left wondering.... what was any of that about? you find a yellow pearl in the decaying body of moon, hidden in a little crevice, and you bring it to her for her to read. it's about sliver of straw. she's legendary among the iterators. a big problem, the triple affirmative... you're finally given context to the SliverOfOcean broadcast. "affirmative that a solution has been found, affirmative that the solution is portable, and affirmative that a technical implementation is possible and generally applicable"... whatever that may mean? sliver of straw is dead. it's extremely hard to kill an iterator. you learn more about how iterators split into factions regarding sliver of straw - and how moon thinks she should just be allowed to rest.

so you go searching for more pearls. none of them ever mention sliver of straw again, or the triple affirmative. but you learn about void fluid, the void sea, and how moon's creators' ancestors learned to use it to create energy, and that void fluid drills started a big technological leap. if you go down there, you don't return. then you find whats supposedly a small plate, which is a little text of spiritual guidance. there's a name tied to it. four cabinets, eleven hatchets... what an odd name. it's from before the void fluid revolution... does this relate to the big technological leap mentioned before, you wonder? regardless, it's how to starve yourself on herbal tea and gravel but disguised as a poem. you learn there were horror stories of leaving echoes behind when you jumped in a vat of void fluid, and how some would still starve and drink the bitter tea instead of taking the risk. you remember you saw one of these colroed memory construct pearls on top of pebbles when you went there and saw the city in the background. it's still as breathtaking as it was the first time; you feel just as insignificant as you really are when you stand there. you bring the pearl to moon and you learn that five pebbles is "Gift of Charity from Us to The World (unable to reach Enlightenment by itself - being composed mostly of Rock, Gas, dull witted Bugs and Microbes - and towards which We thus have Obligations)".... whatever any of that means. enlightenment? odd. the slugcat doesn't really understand this, and neither do you, as the player.

... you saw a golden pearl on your way here when you got lost, you think. you go looking for it and bring it to moon, too, but not before getting bitten by a few lizards and hauled off by a few vultures, only just managing to kill the last vulture by pure luck as it tries to stop you in your tracks. it's illegal information, sent over pearl to avoid being overheard on broadcast... huh. it's something about circumventing the self-destruction taboo that iterators have, and how there's more, but the slugcat isn't told, and neither are you, but they're written into every cell of their organic parts. as she explains.... this feels like it relates to the breeding program mentioned a certain EP individual doing. hm.

you remember, a few times while being chased by leviathans and salamanders and nearly drowned by leeches, you've seen two pearls in shoreline and you go looking for them, bringing them to moon. the pink one has the genome for a purposed organism. you learn moon is one - but only a small fraction of one. you learn most of her is in the walls.... she is the walls? was it the same for pebbles? was that why he berated you for crashing through his memory conflux? most organisms barely even looked like creatures. she mentions primal fauna. what does she mean by that? you can guess she means creatures that weren't purposed. she mentions its highly likely you're a descendant of a purposed organism. then there's the purple pearl. you learn how water is vital to an iterator, otherwise slag will build up and they will painfully die. you learn that iterators haven't ever really seen a river, so the analogy of an iterator drinking a river is completely lost on them. water supply was important when placing iterators, until a great equalizer, the fact they breathe as much water out as they breathe in, where they could be placed almost freely. apparently building pebbles so close to moon was believed risky.... both of you can see that it was a good decision in hindsight, despite how little the slugcat, and you, know. hm. you remember a bright blue pearl somewhere in industrial complex and you go looking for it and bring it back to moon, but not after dying to lizards a few times. something about bone masks, and how they were used to abate the self, and then later used for self expression. something about radiating the material with holiness. this record of a mask factory is from Side House, on pebbles grounds. is that what industrial complex once was? the slugcat, and thus, you, the player too, will never really get an answer to this. but you can wonder. many old industrial-religious were reused and incorperated in iterator projects, so, it is possible...

...

just how much more is there, to this world...? this is nothing but a tiny piece of what is out there. and yet you feel like you've learned so much you'll never quite understand. and that's because the slugcat won't ever understand it, either, it's as clueless as you, the player, are. you're on the same line as it. you can guess and wonder as much as you want to, but you'll never learn about everything there once was. and that's the point. you'll never learn about everything and you can't because it's gone. you're not the main character to learn every little lore detail about this wonderous, new world, you're a slugcat doing it's best to survive in this unfamiliar ecosystem.

and i think that's rain world's beauty.

#words on the wind #rain world #rainworld #making this love of rain world rant its own post. because i love it actually #writing this was so fun. i loved writing it. and i'm proud of it #long post #...1.7k words. goodness #rw rambles

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seventh-fantasy · 5 months

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friendships as marital ties (and other notes on relational ties) in mlc

this is sort of a third installment in the series of meta on 'mlc as an exemplar of constructing queer narratives out of chinese ideological frameworks' (1. jianghu as queer space and 2. how it manifests in li xiangyi) - focusing on the nature of relationships in it. (which I've briefly mentioned in the first one and finally actually getting to it!!)

I would like to first call attention to chinese ideological frameworks as a premise of queer reading in mlc. the goal of chinese philosophy is to explore the becoming of human, taking two broad paths of the (mainstream) secular vs. escaping the secular. (these two paths are not a strict dichotomy, and rather, are ever in flux and in conversation with each other.) as said by @markiafc too, chineseness is so much about the rigidity of structures, and in equal part, a desire to break out of them. thus, chinese ideological frameworks can very much offer a rich reading of queerness - that mlc, a story very deliberately structured based on chinese ideologies (more accurately, with good reasons for me to believe that it is as such), has managed to materialise.

if the conceptualisation of queerness is premised on a defiance against mainstream norms, then a reliable way to read queerness in chinese ideological frameworks can be to deconstruct it by the mainstream confucian frameworks.

in mlc, this is implicitly set up with its stage of wulin/martial jianghu. then it is further broken down by asking, hey wulin jianghu is still closely related to the hegemonic values and the mainstream structure of authority (historically, 侠 xia being politically involved says a lot about this), so what is the true meaning of jianghu? what does it then really take for jianghu to be a queer space offering comfort and freedom to those who have escaped to it - to be the space that allow the transcendence of rigid roles and labels? mlc took a step further to resist the proxy to mainstream values that wulin jianghu has become.

this is why there can be a very strong buddhism reading of mlc (suggested here, expounded in the A+++ meta by @markiafc here and here, and also what I've seen discussed by cnet as well), given that buddhism is one of the 'extra-secular' ideologies, alongside (philosophical) taoism. I've also touched on a taoist angle in this meta. both schools are articulated in different sets of languages, but ultimately convey a same ideal of what it means to be human and how to live well - that is, to resist the roles and labels defined by the norms.

so, back to confucian frameworks.

a lot can be discussed about mlc with it. but in the context of this meta about relationships in mlc, it's specifically drawing on how confucianism conceptualises social relationships with familial ties as a cornerstone, and how these relational ties are inextricable from the conceptualisation of the 'self'.

as such, one of the things about mlc that has fascinated me is how deliberately it seems to ignore and reject the conventional familial ties (the kind by blood and marital ties). I've joked about how it is a miracle for me to love mlc as much as I do, as a prime dysfunctional family story enjoyer, despite none of its main characters struggling with any complicated feelings about their (biological) parents. but on closer examination, mlc is also making a comment on the model of familial-based relationships that dominates mainstream society - but through the absence of it.

with this, I want to talk about 1) how mlc rejects the conventional ties; and then 2) how it repurposes these ties in its own ways.

the five relational ties in confucianism:

father and son 父子有亲 - (natural) affection between father and son

ruler and subject 君臣有义 - righteous relationship between ruler and subject

older and younger brothers 兄弟 (长幼有序) - this is actually about seniority within the family; the order between older vs younger family members

husband and wife 夫妇有别 - differentiation between husband and wife (demarcated by the 内外 spectrum of gendered inner-external spheres)

friends 朋友有信 - trust between friends

logically inferred, all these ties are hierarchical and familial-based except for the last one: friends. ruler-subject is sort of an extension of the natural familial ties, while friendship is the inverse space of 1-4 (ie. you fall back on 5 to define a social relationship outside of the familial sphere that cannot be qualified as 1-4). while all are premised on mutuality, it is only no. 5 that is defined by a sense of choice and equality.

on the surface, 1-4 don't quite exist in mlc in particularly meaningful ways to the narrative or are even outright overlooked, and friendship is the relational tie most valued by mlc. we can tell it's true just by looking at the most meaningful relationships in mlc of difanghua. but at the same time, it is more nuanced. we can take a closer look at how the story plays around with most of the ties as part of a broader queer narrative.

1) how mlc rejects the conventional ties

mlc's rejection of mainstream relational ties can be best seen in fdb escaping from marriage. and it was not just any engagement with anybody but an engagement with the imperial family. he struggles with the prospect of being married to princess zhaoling, but generally, it's about the idea of complying to mainstream conventions and expectations that includes compulsory heterosexuality. all these point not only to a defiance against amatonormativity - the resistance of the traditional husband-wife tie, but also an irreverence for the ties of ruler-subject (the engagement being an imperial decree) and father-son (matters of marriage being sole decisions made by parents).

of course this is on top of how fdb's own biological father is a p-o-s, and the narrative gives fdb minimal struggles in this aspect, allowing him to sever this tie without looking back (I love it, yeap). along the same line is how lxy is an orphan, who came to gain important relationships that are built on natural compassion among people rather than innate, blood-based ties - even as llh. the sense of defiance from the narrative is especially stark to me considering that he could have a completely different familial-based life - as a son, brother, and ruler, if his biological family was still around. the narrative also deliberately treats his biological brother as a phantom, replaced with an older brother who he was bonded with neither by blood nor marital ties. on dfs's front, absolutely nothing is to be known about his biological family. his childhood history with the toxic patriarch of his life - who is not even his biological father - was afforded a clean break and closure.

we can keep going on, but that's pretty much the point.

ritualisation is one of the most important things of the confucianism school, especially to the honoring of these social relationships (and the officiating of social roles). the one ceremony/ritual we saw in mlc involving the main characters - or more accurately speaking, came closest to seeing - was the imminent wedding ceremony of dfs and jlq. even in that case, it was premised on non-mutuality with dfs being the unwilling, passive party. (fem-coded dfs? 25 marks.)

and that brings us to the next part.

2) how mlc repurposes these ties

that particular wedding ceremony gets hijacked by dfs and lxy/llh, and gets turned into an important milestone in their relationship. they consummate - what is on text - their friendship after a long time being more enemies and rivals than friends. it is a clear establishment of the trust they have for each other. and here it is where I circle back to the subject of this post: friendships as marital ties.

in this article, as a part of a feminist, egalitarian reframing of confucianism, there is a proposal for spousal relationships to be reframed as a friendship tie. (this aligns with the interrelatedness of the five ties eg. the ruler-subject mirrors father-son dynamic, with the confucian belief that rulers have an obligation to their subjects alike parents to their own children.) by doing so, it removes the functional, gendered differentiation assigned to marital ties, and shifts it to something equal, and independent of gender. you exalt the value of trust between spouses, instead of basing marital relationships on gendered roles. as such, spouses become more like friends, and conversely, friends can also become more like spouses. (romance not a prerequisite. it has never been about romance anyway.)

given that mlc has repeatedly applied marital motifs to llh and dfs's characters in their joint narratives, this opens up a reading friendships as a marital tie. seeing marriage as a bridge for strangers to become family, marriage in mlc becomes a metaphor for the chosen commitment and mutual trust put in by strangers/friends (non-familial ties) into the becoming of family. the blurring of lines between marital ties and friendship encourages a genuine space of queer experience that goes beyond any pressure for strict labels - of sexuality, and relationships as romantic, sexual, etc etc.

(note: despite the borrowing of a feminist concept, I strongly hesitate to call mlc a feminist story. it's a whole discussion - or debate - on its own. nevertheless, it is definitely a gender-conscious story that lays foundation for a strong queer and egalitarian reading.)

it is to be noted that it is intended - and also beneficial to take the confucian framework of relational ties beyond face value. the framework offers what it believed to be the most fundamental social relationship dynamics, and sees room for extension and matching to other kinds of relationships (all if not, most). a relationship such as teacher-student, which is outside of the five ties stated, can also mirror the affection of father-son ties, albeit not in a literal and identical way.

speaking of which. fdb and lxy/llh.

indeed they're known by others to be good friends. fdb thinks they're good friends too - insists on it, and puts his best efforts in keeping it that way. but does it really go both ways? if it does not, then can it really still be friendship? my humble take is that, ultimately - weighing in with llh's perspective - this is a relationship that is not so much based on trust, and rather, based on an innate affection that is only unique to family. (in this case, not blood/marital-based but one that was chosen and built aka lxy's relationship with sgd.) in other words, less of a friendship, more of a familial one.

it is a lot clearer considering their relationship from llh's point of view: some brat you never wanted in your life came barging in, and whether he was going to bring any positive effect to your life was secondary to the tranquility - which you have carved for yourself in the past decade - that is so integral to your personhood. no way. but the moment you hear that he's family? well, that changes the game completely. even before learning about fdb being sgd's son (then beginning to take initiative in showing greater acceptance), it is apparent in llh that there was an instinctive resonance with fdb as his shixiong's nephew. (eg. he remarked to his shifu's grave about how alike fdb is to himself.) this is unlike with dfs whom he had taken a much longer time to build trust with. you do not apply trust - aka the quality of friendships - to family. family is something deeper, more instinctive than that. if fdb was never family, I find it hard to imagine given llh's personality, that he would have let some brazen, bratty stranger intrude for that long. (boy invited himself to llh's home, sat himself down eating the owner's dinner and nosing in his cooking abilities!!! ily bb but that was uncalled for 😭)

of course there are many more layers in their relationship. there is a substantial degree of their history as (unwitting) teacher-disciple: fdb is still healthy and alive all thanks to the existence of lxy as a spiritual teacher role model in his life, regardless it being one-sided or not. there is also indeed some part of friendship in it, especially from fdb's point of view. he sees llh as a kindred spirit who he could enjoy a life of freedom with for life. but llh never reciprocates. he knew this was short-lived. and so ultimately, the hierarchical layer of their relationship overpowers the equal one, where llh's treatment of fdb as a nephew/小�� younger family member and a disciple is the one that sealed the fate of their relationship.

if (blood-based) familial ties are irrelevant in jianghu, then the closest proxy to a father-son relationship in the martial world would be a teacher-disciple relationship. lxy and his shifu are a clear, indisputable example. for fdb and llh, their teacher-disciple tie is murkier and not consistently applied. they were also never ritualised as teacher-disciple, and thus are not teacher-disciple in any official capacity as far as confucian ideas are concerned. yet in crucial moments, it is invoked by llh as a card of authority over fdb to get out of sticky situations with fdb. and there was their final scene together: in a moment of sincerity, llh gives the approval to fdb as his disciple - then entrusting fdb with the secret manual of his techniques, up until his final letter in which fdb was recommended to dfs as a successor to his martial abilities.

in an imperial setting, this would have been the relationship of an emperor and his crown prince that straddles both ruler-subject and father-son ties aka a tag-team of disaster. the teacher has an obligation to nurture his disciple as a successor to himself, and love him like a son too. on the flipside, he holds the final power in their relationship - withholding knowledge and feelings from the younger one. they are only equals in a way a parent-child can be. they are only equals as much as the parent allows. and this is how fdb got left behind in the dust of llh's departure. he was the child treating his parent like a friend, supporting him emotionally and begging to be loved back the same way he loves his parent - but the parent had a lifetime way ahead of him and stayed out of his reach, physically and emotionally.

llh and fdb operate with the trapping of a friendship but have always been family in the core. llh had known that way before fdb did, just like everything else he had known and put out of fdb's reach. because. fdb did not have to know. fdb is different and will forge his own path. and that's a kind of love llh has for him that nobody understands (in fact not even fdb himself) - one that is on a different plane from friendships.

by repurposing the framework of relational ties, mlc showed that the essence of familial relationships aka its intimacy and closeness can be independent from biology and formalised rituals. and it is important to myself for stories to say that people can build close ties and deeply meaningful relationships even without being born or ritualised into any.

then back to how these relational ties are inextricable from the conceptualisation of the 'self' in confucian worldview: the roles you play in these relationships are intended to define you. there is no 'self' independent from it. while the concept of a social, relational self is fully rooted in reality, being locked into social roles can be a painful way to live - a way that llh has experienced as lxy the sigu sect leader. so, in order for lxy/llh to realise a sense of self that exists outside the norms, it inevitably points to another way that requires a cut from these relationships. that is then the buddhist (or taoist) answer of looking past attachments to the world such as the confucian idea of relationships defining your being. only with a dissolution of a sense of 'self', can there be true liberation.

#莲花楼 #mysterious lotus casebook #lhlmeta #lhl #my posts #dihua #can't believe this is how i choose to spend an inordinate amt of my free time 😐😐 being a broken recorder of brainrot 😐#anw the handful of fanghua moments that have moved me are the ones that are about the unbridgeable gap between them as 长辈小辈 as 徒弟师父 #(me realising lxy telling fdb 这个徒弟我没有白收 actually drives me nuts)#me: a brainrot-level dihua shipper first and foremost. also me: dedicating more of this meta to fanghua than dihua #about how fanghua's relationship is its own unique kind in the story. equally deep as dihua. just in a wholly different way.#dihua are friends and married and familial. but fanghua is family through and through #-> tl;dr of this meta actually #i just have extremely strong feelings about fanghua as a complicated little family unit.#which is independent of “shipping” FOR ME. but for anyone else though you can make anything out of it.#(gotta admit i'm a bit antsy about posting this and is uncertain how it's gonna be read. bc my reading of fanghua is so specific...well)#anyways. obsessed with dihua appropriating the heteronormative rituals <3 #edit: I CAN'T BELIEVE I FORGOT TO TALK ABOUT DIFANG aaaAAAGHHHHHHHHHH #but. it's true they're very purely friendship-based i think

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icewindandboringhorror · 1 year

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................ he

#i feel like I posted this already but I also can't find it in any recent posts so...#......he #cats #EVEN if I did post it.. why not poast himb again? it's he #I'm like halfway through actually editing aforementioned costumes and stuff and i WANT to work on sculptures again and I have video #s and that worldbuilding slideshow and all of these things so hopefully like.. more usual stuff soon maybe.. to be posted #for now though yeah.. just cats #The end of the year is also when I panic about the passage of time and how little I've gotten done and how I will never actually be a #sucessful game maker slash author slash cat cafe owner slash set designer slash costume designer slash psychologist #who lives in like Scotland or somehting and also owns my own candle company or something ghbjhb #and will probably just be a mentally ill hermit recluse all my life who dies early of mysterious health issues with 5000 projects left #undone and blah blah the crushing weight of chronic illness and capitalism and so on and so forth #So then I scramble to get projects done to try and meet some goals but usually that means I scatter between projects #so it takes longer to finish all of them. Like instead of dedicating 8 hours to one thing and finishing it one sitting. I'll do 2 hours on #this then 2 hours on that then 2 hours on another things. so they all get done slower even though I'm still technically making progress on #them all. This is also a very poo poo pee pee stink brain way to work and is not like. the most efficent thing but it's just how my brain #organizes tasks sometimes lol #***#(<ignore this its part of an OCD compulsion lol. anytime you see me type three asterisks I'm not bleeping out a curse word #it's just a Special Secret Foolish Thing I Have To Do At Specific Uncontrolable Times When Brain Says So gbjhhj)#ANYWAY... eeeee #Still haven't resolved my mystery chest injury though so being at te computer for too long is also kind of achey-inducing #Better get over it though because I have like 30+ hours of slideshow vidoe to edit hahaha hee hee hoo!!!!!

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asmidge · 5 months

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💚 Todd bashing his head against the floor 💚

#mods can we kill this guy #todd ingram #scott pilgrim #scott pilgram takes off #spto #scott pilgrim spoilers #anyway I'm going to make an actual gifset of him tomorrow but I just really wanted to post this one on its own #bleats

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iwritenarrativesandstuff · 1 year

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I have a question for you guys.

I was rewatching Yosano's backstory episode (and cried again. what of it?) but something this time caught my attention.

In the scene where Fukuzawa and Mori are fighting and Fukuzawa angrily tells him his plans "lack humanity"... is the word they both use... not "kokoro"?

It would appear to be, from this manga translation. If that really is the choice of word, that's really interesting, because one of irl Natsume-sensei's most well-known books is the novel Kokoro.

What does this mean? Is Mori really following the plan Natsume laid out for them? Is he derailing from the initial plan with the exclusion of "heart/humanity"? Did Natsume intend for "heart" to be sacrificed in the name of defense? Or is this conflict, with "heart" at the center, exactly what Natsume needed for this plan to work?

And on Mori's end: this isn't his usual cold, impeccable logic. This is anger that Fukuzawa is getting in the way. More than that, it almost seems to me like Mori has a paranoid streak. Check this out here:

To be quite honest with you, Mori sometimes makes weird calls that imo aren't the best decisions - and they're all out of some fear he has, typically over the protection of the city and the country. Mori's takeover of the Port Mafia is seen as overall a good thing - because the previous boss grew increasingly paranoid and started ordering unnecessary violence, something Mori himself wishes to avoid whenever possible. Yet his projection onto Dazai causes issues during the Mimic incident - sure it was logically sound, but he lost Dazai for it. Was it really then the best solution there was? And what about Yosano - so caught up in what she could prove and what she meant for the war effort that he failed to consider her taking drastic action out of sheer despair? It's interesting that Mori, who advises others on not letting their fears and emotions get in the way of strategy, is prone to the same thing at times. Might he get worse at this kind of miscalculation? It'd be altogether kind of tragic if he messes up later in the story out of paranoia, considering his predecessor's legacy...

Edit: I changed the last bit, as it's left somewhat unclear if part of Mori's reasoning in the whole Mimic incident was to get Dazai away from him - in fact, it's likely that wasn't the case at all and Dazai was just saying this to intentionally get under his skin. Unfortunately I am a bit of dumbass who misinterpreted this line on first read, and now read it differently:

He's sticking with the logicality of it - one person's life for a gifted business permit is a worthwhile sacrifice, even if it drove away his right hand man. Either way, whether it's projection (Dazai is just like me, so he'll understand) or paranoia (he is going to inevitably kill me someday - which is still kinda projection imo) or some combination of the two - I think the original point still stands: maybe focusing all your efforts on ensuring you're always prepared for some eventuality or other means you overlook things you deem less important or irrelevant. Maybe removing heart from your decisions... isn't actually the best call in the end.

#bsd #bsd meta #i suppose?#bsd fukuzawa #bsd mori #does this make sense? i can't read #storyrambles #the updated version with me actually properly rereading this bit wheeeeee thank you nawy for pointing that out #i had always assumed it was both motives to some degree but now i'm inclined to think it isn't #either is intriguing in its own way to play with though #mori arranging the mimic incident thinking that dazai would agree with his logic and failing to consider his emotions: way more interesting #especially character wise (also more canon)#mori arranging the mimic incident to in part get rid of dazai only to immediately regret it two seconds later: WAY funnier #anyways sorry for my mistake here everyone i hope this clarifies it #also i hope this updated post actually shows up #sigh

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moongothic · 2 months

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#The forbidden extra panels that're like ''And misgendering people is a shitty thing to do'' / ''That also makes sense'' before the last two #I'm sorry I'm choosing violence today #Look I'm not saying you have to call him Crocodad specifically or anything #Its just the seeming insistence FROM THE CISHETS to misgender him at every opportunity that just 💢💢💢#Another one is when people speculate about him being trans to begin with but instead of discussing whether or not he's trans #No it's a debate whether or not he's aCtUaLlY a fEmAlE #I swear to god #It's the whole Discussing Gender With Trans People vs Discussing Gender With Cis People-meme #And it drives me up the walls. Please just let me yell for a bit #Just to be clear: This is not a deeply serious post. If it was I wouldn't make it a Spongebob meme for crying out loud #This is simply MY BLOG and I'M ALLOWED TO COMPLAIN HERE #Also I do have to watch people repeatedly misgender him in the tags of MY OWN FANART completely unprompted so y'know.#Like randos pls don't misgender my husband on my posts I am fucking begging of you 😭#Moon posting #OP Meta

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tonyglowheart · 1 month

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"Does Shen Qiao even like Yan Wushi?"

I feel like it may be relatively easy for people to pick out "what does Yan Wushi like about Shen Qiao / what does YWS get out of yanshen." but I think a criticism/line of thought I see around is people struggling with "well what does Shen Qiao get out of all of this?" and like, "does SQ even like YWS, what with how YWS annoys him and gets him angry all the time."

But I think that actually is the crux of their relationship, lol. Because if you think about it, to everyone else, Shen Qiao is this lofty ideal, this untouchable immortal/仙, maybe even this obstacle or goal to conquer or shoot down.

Who else treats him casually and teases him and pokes at him to get emotional reactions out of him because they like that about him?

If he wants to seek people who treat him with respect and reverence, he just has to step out into the city square - hell, he just has to travel out and random people he meets are likely to treat him with that sort of dazzled awe or reverence too (we literally see this happen several times in the course of the novel).

So yeah, I think joking not joking, YWS makes him angry and feel Emotions and he likes that, YWS is enrichment for him, YWS pushes his buttons and his boundaries but reframing that it's pushing him out of his comfort zone and like hardening him off to the elements and realities of the world like a gardener with plants out of the greenhouse. But also, YWS treats him like a person, like a man, and not like Shen-daozun, Shen-daozhang, Shen-zhangjiao. To Yan Wushi, Shen Qiao is Shen Qiao. (and he loves to tease the shit out of him hehe (￣▽￣) )

CONVERSELY! This also gives Shen Qiao a space to *be* Shen Qiao. With Yan Wushi, he does not have to be Shen-daozun, Shen-daozhang, Shen-zhangjiao. He does not have to always be magnanimous and generous and a bastion of righteousness. These are in his nature, yet, but it's not ALL of his nature - he is, after all, still a man, a human, with human emotions -- including the full breadth of human emotions. Yes Yan Wushi annoys him and he shows it, but it's specifically BECAUSE of that that they are closer than him and anyone else in the world. He can "be himself" around Yan Wushi, he can get worked up and be petty and be snippy, and it's fine and won't cause catastrophes or undesired splashdown sociopolitical effects.

But also, he (lets himself?) get worked up by Yan Wushi - they HAVE that level of intimate understanding with each other where they can be like this and not have feelings hurt in any irreparable way. This isn't something that SQ does (lets himself do?) with just anyone, which we see throughout the novel reflected in his internal narration and comportment. So really, the fact that he DOES get annoyed with YWS shows that they are on a different, more "real" level with each other than SQ is with anyone else.

And like, they didn't get there in a day, sure, but imo we definitely see through the novel how they get there, so imo, the yanshen relationship is incredibly justified.

(I also say this bc I think literally every "I've connected the two dots" moments I've had in my reread, I would metaphorically flip the page only to be met with that connection I'd made spelled out on the page by MXS lmao. Like... yeah okay MXS *shakes your hand* you know your stuff. oh and also because I do think there may be some level of skepticism about yanshen esp from SQ's side floating around lol, but like... MXS did the legwork! yes chapter 45 happened, yes YWS never "apologizes" with words, but that doesn't mean that they don't share a deep mutual understanding of themselves and each other by the end, nor that they haven't moved past the events of literally 83 chapters ago, 96 if you count the extras -- a whole literal two-thirds of the novel ago. Like, I know we piss on the poor here and many educational systems around the world are in shambles these days, but work on developing reading comprehension skills, pls :') )

(lmao rip this post got long AGAIN. well, hopefully at least some people are reading all of this lol.)

#qian qiu #thousand autumns #qian qiu meta #yan wushi #shen qiao #mood is another great idea by ME dot meme #anyway here is my latest hot take! inspired by a meta post I glanced at from ages ago that I did not actually read properly #bc I think even then I Disagreed with the thoughts on it and thought it was kind of lukewarm lol #when like... I think SQ is also insane for YWS - it's just harder to see if you're approaching it from a conventional kind of interp #and also bc YWS is so much more vocal/ostentatious with his brand of craziness lol #but like. I very much ascribe to the 'actually SQ is like padme amidala' school of thought (that I coined lol)#and it's like. when you let go of 'but who would DO that/think that' and just accept. he does. and what does it say about him #it all starts to make sense #also yes I did this in a sort of long-winded reblog lol but now I'm making it its own post #hopefully this one is a bit more uhh concise than the last one now that my thoughts have percolated and set (as with a mousse) some more

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thisisntreaver · 3 months

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Thinking about how Whisper is so determined to prove herself to her brother and one up you she is literally willing to ruin her reputation. You're her biggest rival literally because one time you beat her while sparring in front of her brother. Thunder is the most important person in her life, and she just wants his approval which he continously refuses to give her. It doesn't matter how bad it makes her look. Like if you choose to protect the greatwood orchard, she'll go against it just because she sees you took it. She literally says that.

Whisper leaving Albion, away from Thunder who barely acknowledges her after she begins training. Away from you who is not only her friend, but her main rival, and biggest reminder of her mistakes, is really the best decision she could have made. And its really the only one we see her mke for herself.

#fable #fable whisper #whisper fable #thunder fable #fable thunder #hero of oakvale #I'm not the biggest whisper fan #but i do think her arc is pretty good #albions a bad place for her; it makes her a worse person because she plays into so many of her worst aspects #just to try abd earn her brothers love #and I don't think its even really that Thunder doesn't love her #i think hes just to into himself and his own issues and trying to make lady grey love him #that he lets Whisper fall to the wayside #and i don't think even realizes until its to late #We don't even know if they keep in touch after #i like to believe post game she comes back to Albion #more self assured and her own woman and firmly cemented in who she is as a hero and no longer needing her brothers approval #and able to *actually* be hoovs friend

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weather-cluddy · 11 months

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Man, today's question really reminded of how little interest Shidou seems to have in Amane as a person. He says he's frustrated that he doesn't have the time to "do something" about her, but even when she approached him, he didn't even try to reason with her or comfort her.

She tries to warn him that he's committing an unforgivable sin that will damn everybody, he's just like "Now, what could you be talking abooout? Anyways, just stop worrying about it and help me, okay?". And when she insists, his reply is "Ok, wow, you're so spoiled. Your parents must've been real soft on you until now, but that's not gonna fly with me, alright? I'm a responsible adult, I'm going to ignore you no matter how much of a brat you are"

He just dismissed Amane's very obvious mental breakdown as a mere temper tantrum, presuming that Amane doesn't truly care about anything she's espousing and that she's just trying to test boundaries. May I also point out how Shidou makes zero mention of Amane in his voice drama, either as a threat or as somebody who, like Fuuta and Mahiru, is in a precarious mental state?

And that casts a really different light on what "having the other adults deal with Amane" is supposed to mean. Is it really about making her more able to cope with the situation? Or just getting her out of the way? If it's about helping her, why does it matter so much that the adults do it?

Say, Muu and Haruka are in the best physical and mental shape out of everybody, and they have plenty of free time. Since Haruka says they're "sticking close" to Shidou, why doesn't he take a moment to suggest they should try to spend a little time with her, make her feel a bit better? Even if they can't convince her to change her mind, it'd at least useful to know in more detail what she's planning, right? After all, Shidou is willing to put his utmost ideal (dying to atone for his sins) on hold for the sake of the injured prisoners. Surely he must be very concerned about anything that could threaten their care, right?

Even if you take is as meaning "Well, the adults have the duty to care for the younger ones, so everyone under eighteen is exempt for responsibility", it's kind of really weird to put all the responsibility on three people having their own mental and physical breakdowns (Mahiru, Mikoto and Fuuta), one guy who said re:Amane that "we can't worry about that now" and "We'll just wait until the situation changes" last time Shidou spoke to him, and who's carrying the weight of being the only line of defense against Kotoko (Kazui) and one woman who's already taking mental care of Mahiru and also doesn't seem to want to have anything to do with anyone else (Yuno). Does a few years of age really give you that much more capability, such that it outweighs everything else going on?

So the fact that Shidou takes the trouble of specifying that an adult ought to help Amane really sounds like he's, at best, blinded by ideology. Only adults can help Amane because only adults are capable of taking meaningful action on anything, and only they have real ideological commitments that can beat a child's silly whims. At worst, Shidou is annoyed that Amane is threatening his worldview of "adults act, children obey", so he wants somebody to step in and bring her back into line. Of course, that person has to be an adult if they're to truly reinforce his perspective instead of opening a different kind of hole into it.

And this is hardly the first time he dismisses a child's thoughts on the basis of their age. In Molech, when Es tells him to treat them with respect as the warden, Shidou's answer is essentially "But we DO have a big age difference, so everything else is irrelevant. Let me pat your head to show how much I pity you, total stranger who's already annoyed at me for being condescending". At this point, either Shidou is being deliberately obnoxious or he's so thoroughly drunk his own kool-aid that it doesn't even register on the shallowest level when a kid tells him not to do something. Kids just go agoo-goo until they hit eighteen, yeah? No need to listen to their babbling.

And it's not just Shidou treating Es as both warden and child, he doesn't seem to have any respect for their ability to form their own opinion as a warden either. He literally goes "Hey, why go through the trouble of actually looking at evidence? Just take me at my word, way easier and faster". Even though by this point it's also obvious how much pride Es takes on being the guard and carrying out Milgram's mission, and that they don't necessarily trust Shidou. Again, either mockery or a frightful failure of basic pattern-recognition when the pattern doesn't match what Shidou expects from a child.

And to tie this back to Shidou's "my heart goes out to you" comment, sure, he's so concerned about any mental toll being the warden might take on Es… But he's still insisting on being murdered by them. Why? Surely Shidou of all people would know that murder can be hard on the killer. And if he wanted to die so badly, surely he can wait until Milgram is over and kill himself then, right? No need to make it Es' responsibility.

One of his last lines in the VD is "I feel sorry that you had to be given this role. And, I truly apologise for being so insistent about sentencing me to death as well… But, you’re perfect. You’ll give me the ending I’m most suited for." So apparently the thing is that being murdered by a child, specifically, would be very satisfying to Shidou, and Es' pain is secondary to that.

Kinda undermines all that talk about how tragic the situation is, doesn't it? In one of the app conversations, we see him being overwhelmed by sadness while grading Amane's homework, and he says "If everything about MILGRAM is true… why did a child like you have to become a murderer? Just imagining what sort of circumstances must have led to that, it makes me so sad…". But apparently his sadness isn't so strong that it'll stop him from setting up that sort of circumstances.

The only way this makes sense to me if it's he's subsumed Es' choices into his own so utterly that he can't imagine anybody, not even Es, could possibly hold them responsible if they did kill Shidou. It was simply suicide with Es acting as a tool for it, no more guilty than a bullet. I'm sure you can see how utterly dismissive this is of Es' autonomy.

TL;DR: I'm sure Shidou loves the idea of children, but so far he's been severely lacking in empathy for actual children when they deviate from his concept of how they ought to be or when their wellbeing comes in conflict with his ideals.

#The Minigram comic about Shidou trying to make Amane break her dietary vows also makes his priorities look highly questionable #but Minigram is not really canon so I'm willing to give it a pass. I don't think the app version of events is all that bad on its own.#Anyways this is why I hate it every time somebody goes “Shidou should adopt Amane!”#Not only does that utterly ignore Amane's thoughts in favor of “Well she'll change her mind once she sees how nice life is outside her cult #But also Shidou has shown zero interest or ability to actually help or understand Amane in any way #Also I should clarify that I don't think Haruka+Muu or even Shidou could cleanly solve eveything with Amane if they just tried #but Shidou's total lack of trying really rankles all the same.#milgram #long post

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warmmilk-n-honey · 1 year

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he's thinking about the horrors

#that's actually what's happening in this chapter #yeah I'm making this its own post #kuro #black butler #kuroshitsuji

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astrxealis · 6 months

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if i do "?" in text i'm genuinely tilting my head like a dog if i do "!!" my eyes are sparkling and i am figuratively wagging my tail if i am IN ALL CAPS i'm screaming from the top of a mountain with all the power i can with love and the strength of RAGHHH within me

#⋯ ꒰ა starry thoughts ໒꒱ *·˚#sorry guys. i will not shut up.#honestly i really miss it here on tumblr SNIFFS ..... i say this sm tho but damn real/offline life has really been fun <33 #anyway. meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow me #very good day ty to those who greeted me anywhere or even just liked a post as a little hi hbd or just acknowledgement ya know arghhh arghhh #I'M SO TIRED NOW ACTUALLY i'm on 5 battery but watch me keep talking (writing) some more #i'm insane btw i went out w friends earlier this tuesday (love them sm) and then. they pitched in to buy me the origin of species bcs i've #been wanting the book LMFAO AS A BDAY GIFT IDK IT'S SO FUNNY TO ME BUT GENUINELY I'M SO HAPPY (NERD) <333 #and today i've talked a lot again w one best friend and another of my dearest friends and another too and idk fun day fr #okay i shut up now #that's a lie btw who knows when i will shut up #i might shut up now actually actually #actually i like rambling it's so fun teehee #BUT YEAH TY AGAIN ... genuinely makes me so happy i feel so giddy i was scared today would turn out bad and hey it isn't perfect but to me #it kinda is. in its own way. imperfectly perfect ^_^ <3 yeehaw!!

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loveletterworm · 6 months

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(homestuck specifically does not count here because its too popular and would break the intent of this question. I dont care if you read homestuck. Pretend it doesn't exist for the purposes of this question)

#God I genuinely hope nobody adds a longwinded list of recommendations to this post. I'm just trying to check if I'm insane #mypost #The intent of this question being trying to see if my thought that nobody reads these is justified at all.#Not meant disparagingly to the medium really. Its just that it kind of seems like everyone keeps trying to make one but nobody reads them.#Or maybe that's just my own personal problem and very limited amount of people i know.#Ive had like at least 2-3 major ''tried to make comic and failed'' incidents in the past (when i was like 15 you don't remember them.)#without having actually particularly read or cared about anyone else's. i feel like this may be strange to have done several times.#it is only a very recent development that i am even keeping up with a comic at all and its still just one...#and that was kind of because it was started by a person i was already following beforehand #so it kind of would have showed up in front of me either way.

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seaweedstarshine · 5 days

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Hi! Long time no yap but I've been really bothered by this thing and I know you're just the person I can go to with this (even if we don't always end up agreeing at times).

I got into a tiff with someone in a comments section of a post that was about Amy (Which character do you think deserved to become a villain? or something similar). They brought up Amy's abuse of her boyfriend. I may have tried to defend Amy (key word is tried. I am officially rubbish at debating) but then I may have said something? Because they said that I (and apparently a lot of other fans) was excusing Amy's abuse because of her trauma. It got me stumped because isn't young Amy's treatment of Rory rooted in her trauma? Did I miss the memo where we separate trauma and abuse? Am I missing something?

That statement bothered me a lot because if there's one thing I never want to do it's defend an abuser. So here I am, humbly asking and hoping to clear the muddy waters.

Your really confused and disturbed moot, Tia 💌

TIA!!!!! Thanks for the ask 💌 , and I send you all the hugs.

Discussion of abuse, trauma, ableism, infidelity, and unhealthy relationship dynamics beneath the cut.

(First off… while I really appreciate your faith in my explaining skills <3 <3 <3 my passion for traumatized characters and mentally ill+neurodivergent rights doesn't make me especially qualified to fully clear muddy waters especially not knowing the full context, but I feel you, and what follows is my informed perspective!)

Speaking generally first, harm done in media is best examined by the impact on the audience, with a different lens than harm done to real people. While relatable experiences in media can be useful and validating and incredibly important, you can’t be “defending an abuser” when the abuse is fictional. It's actually normal for traumatized/ND/mentally ill people to project onto mentally ill villains, when villains are the only significant representation for those stigmatized symptoms in a media landscape that excludes and demonizes us simply for existing. RTD can't stop people who hallucinate from reclaiming the Master's Drums and projecting onto the Master, for example — 90% of the best Doctor Who psychosis fic by psychotic authors is about the Master, whether RTD likes it or not. It's not true crime.

(This is speaking generally. Amy Pond is very much not the Master.)

Abuse is a behavior, and there can be many reasons for it, but reasons based in trauma don’t make it not abuse (some forms of generational trauma can propagate abusive parenting styles, when the parent thinks abusive parenting is normal, or lives entirely vicariously through their child). This absolutely should not be taken to mean trauma correlates with abusive behavior; rather that abusive behaviors from traumatized people are more likely to present in specific ways.

Abuse is also a targeted behavior, based in control — not consistently displayed C-PTSD symptoms as seen in Season 5 Amy Pond through many aspects of her life. Mental health symptoms don't become abuse just because they hinder one partner from meeting the other partner's needs. Any life event can do that.

Without knowing the context of the arguments, this is the aspect of their relationship I've seen you talk about before (which I also feel strongly about), and what I assume is what you were debating? So, here I will talk specifically in regard to Season 5.

We all know Amy — she's never attached to Leadworth because she never wanted to leave Scotland, no steady therapist because none of them stick up for her, can't stick with one job yet her first choice is a job that simulates intimacy because her avoidant behavior (a known trauma response) isn't sustainable to her wellbeing. Rory knows her fears of commitment stem from her repeated abandonments, it’s why he’ll always wait for her, and it's why he blames the Doctor “You make it so they don't want to let you down.”, who apart from having caused a lot of her trauma, has actively taken advantage of her being the “Scottish girl in the English village” who's “still got that accent,” because he wants to feel important, so yeah, I think interpreting Amy's issues (and how Amy and Rory transverse them) as Amy abusing Rory indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of their relationship, as well as a misunderstanding of the (raggedy) Doctor’s role in Amy’s formative self-image (which of course she works through in Season 6, but I am sticking to Season 5).

Abuse is always based in control. That just doesn’t fit here. While Amy's detachment from her real life includes things like calling Rory her “kind of boyfriend” (which she is upfront about to his face; differing commitment levels isn't abuse, though it can be a relationship red flag for both parties IRL) — her Season 5 disregard of Rory’s feelings occurs only in response to the fairytale embodiment of her trauma. It's never a response to Rory; it's a response to the Doctor, who stole her childhood and led her by the hand to her death. She cheats on Rory with the Doctor in her bedroom full of Doctor toys, drawings, models, she made from childhood to early adulthood.

(And yes, like many repeatedly-traumatized people, Amy is prone to being sensitive and reactive. Take her “Well, shut up then!” line in The Big Bang; but given Rory responds to this by hugging her, clearly he doesn’t take it as her actually dismissing him. He knows her better than that.)

And by no means do I meant to imply this is fair to young Rory, poor Rory, who's left struggling with the feeling that his role in her life is in competition with the role of her trauma (aka the Doctor). But not every unhealthy relationship dynamic is unhealthy because of abuse. Labelling Amy's treatment of Rory in Season 5 more accurately isn't the same as excusing her harmful choices — but making mistakes is part of being human, Amy's mistakes are certainly understandable, and she works through them out of love for Rory.

If there's one thing to say about Moffat women, it's that Moffat allows his female characters the same grace that the male characters *coughTENcough* have always had, to hurt and struggle and make realistic mistakes and overcome those mistakes and to heal without being demonized.

Amy isn't perfect, but she is a fully realized character, and her story gives us a resonant depiction of childhood trauma.

#abuse #rtd critical #anti rtd #im NOT really anti rtd but im tagging it that because some people block that tag and uhhhh this post strays into rtd critique #maybe he does regret how he wrote the master! we'll never know because rtd is very anti-admitting-his-own-mistakes #words by seaweed #anyways tia i am. SO relieved you’re not upset with me about our last disagreement?#i high key jumped to conclusions after the lack of reply to the last DM? so thank you for this ask it's great to hear from you #sorry you were in a debate about this! that sounds extremely awful.#anyway i'm gonna WAIT at least a week to tag Amy and Rory to avoid this showing up in the character tags right away haha #because I am KINDA scared the anti-media-literacy ppl will find this (I had to include the first part tho its important)#(lack of distinction between harm to audience *in fiction* and irl harm *to actual ppl* leads to problematic public apologies where-#-public figures apologize to fans they let down *instead* of the people they actually hurt. no it doesn't work like that)#(parasocial relationships are not more important than real victims agency or privacy)#editing to say..... yanno what? ive come to terms with not all the posts with the following tag been about the doctor #and I am planning to make a post at some point about the nd aspects of Amy+the Doctor's connection which this stuff IS relevant to soooooo #(eleventh) doctor is neurodivergent tag

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