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magnus-rhymes-with-swagness · 9 months

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OKAY who wants to hear about why i think nimona challenges amatonormativity? you do! 🫵

one of the main ways this is accomplished is through ballister and ambrosius’s relationship. it’s arguable that it doesn’t necessarily fit the traditional model of romance - not only are they a queer interracial couple, and not only is their relationship ambiguous in the book, but there are certain instances, especially in the movie, that subvert traditional ideas of romance and friendship.

one instance that really stands out to me is when the director asks ambrosius what’s on his mind and he goes on his imagined rant about how arm-chopping isn’t a love language - you know the one. when he mentions ballister, he refers to him as “the man i love, my best friend.” and not just one or the other, but both! the man i love, and my best friend. he places equal emphasis on both the romantic and platonic aspects of the relationship, valuing ballister in both a romantic context and a platonic context without treating either one as more important than the other.

and even moments such as the first “i love you” and the kiss manage to subvert tradition. both of these things are generally seen as a pretty big deal, especially in fiction - if the characters are kissing or saying “i love you,” it’s usually a moment in which everything changes. a line is drawn, dividing the story into after and now. sometimes it’s dramatic and climactic, with fireworks and a swell of music, but even when it isn’t it’s still seen as a turning point of sorts. now it’s official, now it’s real. but this isn’t the case in nimona. both moments are certainly significant - they do a good job of showcasing the character development and where ballister and ambrosius are on their respective journeys, and are certainly important in terms of representation - but neither one follows the path that most fictional romance does.

another way in which nimona challenges amatonormativity would be the emphasis on friendship! in the tavern scene (in the movie) when ambrosius suggests killing nimona, ballister disagrees and says “she’s my friend.” ambrosius replies with “aren’t i more than that?”, implying he’s more important than a friend - thus upholding amatonormative ideas. ballister becomes angry at that and leaves - challenging this idea and prioritizing his platonic relationship with nimona over his romantic one with ambrosius, as nimona is the one he wants to defend.

additionally, a big part of this scene is the way ballister deliberately rejects institute values while ambrosius unintentionally upholds them. and because the story challenges homophobia and transphobia (and other forms of bigotry) through the lens of the institute, it would make sense for it to challenge amatonormativity too! it’s something that’s become incredibly normalized, to the point that lots of people don’t even know it exists, and this is reminiscent of the institute brainwashing, especially when it comes to ambrosius - he’s been manipulated his whole life and probably genuinely doesn’t understand the level to which he’s internalized institute beliefs.

ballister prioritizes nimona many times, actually. when he tells ambrosius she’s “smart, kind, and quite sophisticated,” when he’s overjoyed to see her again at the end, when he refuses to kill her and saves her instead. over and over, he proves how much he cares about her, even when this involves directly going against what ambrosius wants - which, of course, is really what the institute wants. a core tenant of amatonormativity is the false notion that romantic relationships are more important or valuable than other types of relationships, but ballister actively goes against this!

to conclude, as a story that at its core is about identity and challenging societal beliefs, nimona defies expectations and traditional ideas of what it should or shouldn’t be. it’s possible that amatonormativity wasn’t what the creators had in mind, but the story still manages to challenge it with grace and elegance. just like its main character, nimona refuses to conform to what others want it to be.

#nimona #nimona movie #ballister blackheart #ballister boldheart #ambrosius goldenloin #ballister x ambrosius #ambrosius x ballister #nimona netflix #nd stevenson #nimona spoilers #i could go on tbh but i think this is a digestible amount #often when i’m writing a meta i’ll walk around in circles talking into my phone recording my thoughts out loud #and then i’ll play it back and put the most coherent stuff into a list which eventually becomes paragraphs #and the combined recordings for this one are about half an hour in total lol #i’m just. absolutely in love with the whole story. both the book and the movie mean so incredibly much to me #changed my life shaped me as a person etc etc :’)#OH i almost forgot. this analysis is dedicated to the person who sent me aphobic anon hate about it before it even existed lol #i know i said i wouldn’t post anything if people couldn’t be normal but idc actually. seethe with rage! <3 #my words #meta

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genderkoolaid · 2 years

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Compassion and nuance is for everyone, not just the people you like or who have never done anything questionable or in poor taste or stupid or harmful in their lives. The end goal for bigots should be that they see the error in their ways, make amends and become better people, not a power fantasy in which we get to become the exact things we should hate.

Will that always happen? Of course not. Should we stop reacting to bigotry and fascism with violence? No, intimidating fascists into silence is a good thing. But violence should be something we unfortunately have to do to keep ourselves and each other safe. It shouldn't be something we seek out. And we shouldn't make bigots out to be two dimensional, inhuman monsters who commit evil acts for evil's sake. Because that is just distancing ourselves from our own, very human, capacity for violence and bigotry.

And, look. If you personally fantasize about committing acts of violence on your oppressors to vent and deal with the trauma of being oppressed, this isn't really about that. Your personal feelings&thoughts are personal and don't necessarily mean anything for your actions. I don't want to shame individuals for having normal emotions and thoughts in private.

What concerns me is when people start putting that into their activism, and start coming up with dreams of torturing Bad People(tm), dehumanizing people instead of focusing on progressive solutions and restorative justice. When fighting TERFs goes from "I will do what I have to in order to protect trans people, including violence if needed" to "I want to brutally murder every TERF I possibly can in the worst ways possible."

At the end of the day, why do you fight? Is it because you believe that people have a fundamental capacity for good, and everyone deserves respect and justice and happiness? Or is it because you hate certain people and want them to suffer? Because while violence, in my opinion, is inevitable in terms of deep social change, it's only one very complicated part of the puzzle. If it's all you focus on, you'll burn yourself out and maybe take a lot of other people with you.

Dehumanization and the glorification of violence are crucial pieces of bigotry and fascism. As long as you attach yourself to them, you will always be more vulnerable to those ideologies. A truly radical stance against them means also rejecting these parts of our activism as well.

#m.

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antifainternational · 1 year

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Do you have advice on how to be actively antifascist when you're too scared to go to protests? I try to go to demonstrations with no confrontation with police or nazis, but I feel like it would be more important to go to counter-protests and blocks against nazi groups but I know I would panic and be more of a hassle than help if things got hectic/violent. So what can I do to 'make up' for that? I really want to do something active but am easily overwhelmed.

Hi Anon, sorry for the delay responding to your question. We have a two-part response. Let's start with the part you're not going to like: PART ONE: GO TO THE COUNTER-DEMONSTRATION Are you afraid of what will happen to you if you go to the counter-demo? Are you afraid of being doxxed or harassed or arrested or injured or maybe even killed? WELCOME TO THE CLUB! EVERYONE who goes to confront fascists is scared of doing it. They're right to be scared. Part of being a fascist is encouraging and glorifying violence against your opponents. The list of fascist attacks against anti-fascists is too long to get into here, but this lil' snippet from research done by the Center for Strategic and International Studies paints the picture:

On top of that, fascists will inevitably have their best friends the police there to "protect them" which means to attack and arrest anyone who shows up to oppose the fascists. Sounds like there are a lot of good reasons to just stay home and let the fascists have the streets; or let other people deal with the problem for you. But when you choose to do that, Anon, you're sending three clear messages: 1) You're telling the fascists that few people oppose them and that the "silent majority" are on their side. 2) You're telling people targeted by fascists that the allies they thought they had weren’t sincere in their expressions of solidarity and support. That when push comes to shove, the people who claimed to stand with them can’t be counted on to actually do what’s necessary to defend the marginalized and vulnerable. Not actively opposing a hate event tells the people targeted that they face bigoted extremists by themselves; that they are alone and vulnerable when people are publicly threatening their existence. 3) You're telling the anti-fascists who did turn up to counter-protest that you do not have their backs. It tells them that you can not be counted on or trusted and that anything you’ve said about standing against bigotry in your own community was lip service. It tells the people who did turn up that their own bodies, their own lives, their own safety is much less important than your own. It tells them that you’re okay putting them in danger so long as you get to do whatever else you’re doing that day instead of standing with them. The problem, Anon, is that the most effective way for anti-fascists to protect themselves in confrontations with fascists is to turn up in greater numbers than the fascists. This has been borne out in thousands of confrontations with fascists over decades. You not showing up = endangering anti-fascists. We get that you can’t be there every single time; no one can do that. We get that doing this kind of work is scary; but we’ve all done lots of things in our lives that were necessary to do, even though they were scary. No one is asking you to stick around in a situation that turns too dangerous to stick around in, but not showing up at all helps no one but the fascists. We think you need to do what you need to do in order to get past your fear and make every attempt to show up when it counts. If you absolutely can’t be there, make sure you’ve found two people to take your place. PART TWO: ANTI-FASCISM IS SO MUCH MORE THAN CONFRONTING FASCISTS IN THE STREETS

Here's the part you'll like better, Anon. We know that violent confrontations with fascists is what makes the headlines and it's what most people think about when they think about "antifa," in the same way that most people only think about strikes when they think about unions. But in both cases - violent clashes with fascists or strikes - that's really maybe 1-2% of what actually happens. Take us for example: While most of us in Antifa International (a 10-person collective) will go out to confront fascists in our own communities, the entirety of our collective's work is done online - spreading news about anti-fascist actions and events, communicating the tenets of anti-fascism, and supporting anti-fascist efforts globally however we can. THERE ARE LOTS OF THINGS YOU CAN DO IN THE ANTI-FASCIST MOVEMENT BESIDES CONFRONTING FASCISTS IN THE STREETS! You want some examples? Here's a list of 30 antifascist actions that we believe anyone (maybe with the help of a couple of friends) could pull off. Don't like any of those? Check out 40 Ways To Fight Fascists. You could also take a deep dive into the 11,000+ posts in our archive to find examples/inspiration from anti-fascist actions/events around the world. Or read We Go Where They Go, which details how Anti-Racist Action, the direct predecessors to today's North American anti-fascist movement, did their thing. Pick something you're comfortable doing, do the thing, reflect on what worked/what didn't work/how you'd do it better next time, then move on to the next thing. It doesn't matter if the action you choose seems small or not-that significant - every antifascist action, no matter how small, counts. If the nearly 40,000 followers of this blog all took one small antifascist action today, that would add up to something pretty significant! GO DO THE THING! LET US KNOW HOW IT GOES!

#antifa #antifascist #antifascism #confronting fascists #safety

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deadbeatbirdmom · 6 months

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Personally I don’t expect team rwby to solve all bigotry, but I’d like to see them make any sort of attempt to at least begin to change something? Even relatively small scale?

The SDC seemed like the perfect opportunity but nope,

And maybe don’t kill,of characters like sienna and have characters like Robyn hill who are actively trying to combat class inequality get competed into fighting Salem instead

Movies like nimona manage it I don’t see why rwby can’t

This is the last time I'll be answering an ask to do with these issues in RWBY. I don't feel that there's a satisfactory answer, and certainly not one that I can provide. I've mentioned something along those lines before, but I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you're not the same anon and didn't see my posted answer.

I recently reblogged a post about these issues, but that doesn't mean my answer has changed. That post basically said there is no simple fix, and that means it isn't possible to do in RWBY, unless it was a fictional fix that wouldn't work in reality, which would be disrespectful.

I'm not sure what you expect four teenagers to be able to do, even small scale. They're good at fighting Grimm, but that doesn't mean anyone's going to pay attention to them about anything else.

Ruby's lucky at least some people listened to her broadcast about Salem, but that's connected with Grimm.

Weiss was the SDC heiress but ended up having that taken away before she could do anything good with it, and actually doing anything would have had to wait until her father was no longer in control.

Blake persuaded Menagerie's faunus to form a militia and help save Haven from Adam's corrupted White Fang, but that took a serendipitous attack on her parents and their house partly burning down. She can't command that militia to do anything else.

Yang would struggle to persuade anyone to do anything. The last time Remnant at large saw her was during the Vytal tournament broadcast, apparently breaking Mercury's leg unprovoked. The CCT is still down, so chances are most people have no idea she was set up. I dunno, maybe she could intimidate some sense into people?

I'm not sure when team RWBY would have had time to do anything while in Atlas. Ironwood kept them busy. Were they supposed to take down or reform the SDC with the one night off they had? If they'd tried they might well have found themselves arrested, the SDC and its Dust is rather important to the Atlas military. And then where would they be with their goal of getting the second Relic from the Atlas vault?

As for after things fell apart with Ironwood... As important as these issues are, avoiding arrest and doing their part to help get word out about Salem, or helping Mantle and then rescuing Oscar had priority.

It's not the reason they've done it, they just happened to fall in love, but I guess it could be argued that Blake and Yang's romance is some sort of proof that faunus and humans are equal.

After Salem is eventually somehow defeated, I can imagine at least Blake working with or even leading the reformed White Fang and campaigning for faunus rights. I'm sure the rest of her team would help her if there's anything they can do.

But survival against Salem has to come first. So a huntress like Robyn Hill doesn't really have any choice. There won't be any world to improve if Salem isn't stopped.

As for Sienna, take that up with Adam. I'd much rather she hadn't been killed off too, but there was no other way that was going to end between them.

That's the best I can do, anon. I'm well aware it's not a great answer. I can't provide one. I don't think there is one.

I haven't seen Nimona, I don't have a Netflix subscription. Maybe I'll watch it the next time I want to rewatch She-Ra. I've read the Nimona graphic novel years ago, but I don't remember bigotry being solved in there. Unless you meant an attempt being made? I need to reread it.

Edit: this got long and I forgot about a read more cut until now. Apologies!

#Ask #Anonymous #RWBY #team RWBY #RWBY speculation #Bumbleby #mentioned Bumbleby anyway #faunus rights #ensemble RWBY

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daydark4k · 8 months

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Going on a bit of a rant here about some problems ive noticed about bootwt.

I feel like it's become increasingly exhausting to be in this community, and ill explain why because i have left it behind.

A lot amazing work has been done by the community to make it a safer space for minorities, but in a way this has put the community on a pedestal. It feel like everyone is expected to be an activist or they are a bad person nobody wants around.

There's a huge difference in being an ally, and an activist. An ally is someone that will speak against shit when they come across it, do their best to educate themself, stand behind people in every way they can.

An activist goes a step further and seeks out ways to make change. Organizing charity events, going out of their way to educate others, uplift voices and being constantly posting about issues as they come out. Taking on the problems of others is not an easy thing mentally especially if you have your own issues.

Are you a bad person for not making a twitter post when some shitty cc says a stupid thing again? Bigotry is constantly happening and will continue, no matter what the community is like. But, if you were to watch the news, get overwhelmed and have to turn it off instead of tweeting about it, you wouldnt be a bad person right? The victim on the news could have their entire life changed by a tramatic event and you cant even have the decency to watch and give your empathy?

There's this overwhelming crushing expectation in this community of being an activist or else you dont belong. If you dont post wishing a happy holiday, happy heritage month, your deep supportfor the people that were discriminated against, then you dont care. People do it like its a checklist. it's not enough to simply care silently. It feels very performative as an outsider. It's always makes me feel so awful for watching ranboo and wanting to be a part of the community. The guilt is horrible. But if im not kept up with all the bad parts of it, im not doing it right.

There is also ableism. If you are uneducated or make a mistake speaking over minorities because of social issues you might experience, even if you try to be better it's held against you forever. These mistakes are valid and wrong. It's very important to have the attitude to improve yourself and see your mistake. As long as you are trying, why do people feel the need to kick you out of your safe space? I am not active on social media but i have seen this happen to many in the community.

I just hope for a space away from the hell i deal with. I just want to see and share silly art.

It's absolutely amazing the efforts of bootwt to make a good place for everyone. People work so hard and im grateful and amazed at what they have done. Racists should be bullied away. Ignorant people who do microaggressions but are willing to be educated and be better should be educated. Jumping people does not help anyone, help people realize their mistakes.

I hope the community continues the amazing work they have been doing. But lessen up on the expectations of others to also be activists like them. Communities are made up of all kinds of people. Everyone wants different things, some people need an escape from constant negativity. We should try to get along, point out each others mistakes and become better. Not put the community on the highest pedestal expecting everyone to be the same.

I hope this doesn’t come across like im a bigot trying to justify myself. I was really scared to post this but if I’m the only one who feels this is a problem just ignore me

i originally wasn't going to respond to this, but i want to break down some of this and explain it because i feel like i know what you're trying to say, but there's a lot of stuff in here that is misconstrued.

"It feel like everyone is expected to be an activist or they are a bad person nobody wants around"

you are not a bad person if you aren't an activist! i hope no one feels obligated to always be on the front lines fighting with people to make change. ranboo's community in the recent months has been one of the most active communities i've been in when it comes to rooting out bad people and making sure they know they're not welcome. if you feel unwelcome, why? you say it's because you don't want to be an activist. you don't have to be! but sending support and love to people who need it isn't activism. being educated and constantly evaluating yourself and your biases isn't activism. that's a part of living in the world we were born into that's entrenched in horrible bigotry that's been taught and ingrained since birth. ignoring these things doesn't make them go away, and the least you can do is acknowledge it and work to not continue the cycle of pain that so many minorities are subjected to. You say the community is supposed to be a safe place. how is it supposed to be safe if there are people who get away with saying and doing horrible things? its not enough to not be racist, ableist, antisemitic, sexist, homo/transphobic etc. you have to be anti- all of these things, and have a genuine love for the people who are affected.

if you feel like these things are too much emotionally for you, you are more than welcome to step away. no one expects anyone to be on the internet 24/7 or to always engage in the negative topics. hell, i've stopped talking about certain ccs and stopped constantly criticizing their actions because i know they wont change. i recognized it isn't healthy for me and there's no point to it. but when it comes to support, to making sure that everyone knows that bigotry isn't welcome, that is a very important aspect of a community. that's the DEFINITION of what a community is! and, if those of us who have followings and have thousands of people who look to us as a reflection of ranboo, don't do these things? how does that look from the outside? at this point it doesn't even correlate to ranboo anymore. me wanting people in bootwt to be educated and respectful people doesn't exist only in the online community, it exists in real life too. i want others to be aware of the impact they have on others. I would think that any fan of ranboo's would want that too, considering its one of the biggest things ranboo advocates for his fans. to be good people.

you correlated being an ally and being an activist, and you said that "An ally is someone that will speak against shit when they come across it, do their best to educate themself, stand behind people in every way they can." is that not what the community has constantly asked for? that's all minorities are asking for. you just described the community! then you say "There's this overwhelming crushing expectation in this community of being an activist or else you dont belong. If you dont post wishing a happy holiday, happy heritage month, your deep support for the people that were discriminated against, then you dont care." isnt that just being an ally, by your definition???? wishing people happy holidays to respect their culture and important days, and standing behind people who have experienced discrimination so they know they are loved and those hurtful things aren't welcome here? if you miss something or are late, that's normal! even if you after the fact say "hey, sorry i missed it but happy x hope your day was well" maybe one person will see it and will feel seen.

"it's not enough to simply care silently." im going to be completely honest. no. no its not. its not enough because being silent ALLOWS bigotry to exist. im going to link this article i researched specifically for this post, because it explains how silent racism works and is ingrained in our society

"It feels very performative as an outsider. It's always makes me feel so awful for watching ranboo and wanting to be a part of the community. The guilt is horrible. But if im not kept up with all the bad parts of it, im not doing it right."

no one expects anyone to always be caught up on which new cc was racist. we want people to be able to recognize bigotry and uplift the people who are hurt. to say, both online and in real life, when its safe: "hey, that wasnt cool, that hurts people." you shouldnt feel bad for wanting to be apart of the community. people are allowed to want to be apart of it. its a fun place to be sometimes! but also, people are allowed to distance themselves and not forgive some of the bad things they experienced.

"There is also ableism. If you are uneducated or make a mistake speaking over minorities because of social issues you might experience, even if you try to be better it's held against you forever. These mistakes are valid and wrong. It's very important to have the attitude to improve yourself and see your mistake. As long as you are trying, why do people feel the need to kick you out of your safe space? I am not active on social media but i have seen this happen to many in the community."

i do agree with you on this one. I don't like how the internet holds grudges. people aren't allowed to change and things they did are always held against them. BUT. on the other hand, if you have hurt people, those victims are not obligated to forgive you. this is a balance that isn't easily achieved in a large community, much less so on the internet. these are things that happen in all communities and its not fair sometimes.

at the end of the day. if you don't want to be an activist, then don't be. if you only want to see art and funny bits, mute terms. the more that these things are discussed and called out however, the easier its going to make it for the future. i don't think its fair to blame hurt people for making you feel bad about yourself. that's something you need to reflect on yourself and recognize why you feel that way, whether it be guilt or ignorance.

im not gonna be responding on this any further, go ham in the comments with thoughts if you want

have a nice day!

#long post #eclipsing #this is just a giant word salad i hope i got my feelings across #i think youre angry at the wrong thing and should direct your anger to the actual bad people. not those who just want to feel safe

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catgirlforeskin · 2 years

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I always find games that try to simulate people or society very interesting because, though all games reflect the beliefs of their creators to some degree, the only thing these simulators are is a reflection of someone or a team’s ideas about how people and the world work.

In Call of Duty, there’s still the obvious thumbprint of ideology, there’s the reason you always play as NATO forces and never against, but the main thing the game wants to simulate is guns, how they look and sound and feel, and that’s fairly cut-and-dry. But when your core simulation is an economy, or city infrastructure, or interpersonal relationships, you don’t get that.

The game I’m most interested in with this is Rimworld, in large part because it’s mostly a one-person project, and it’s on a more intimate level than something like Cities: Skyline. It also has an expansion called “Ideology” where every faction now has an intricate belief system (where you can also customize your own) where it’s fairly obvious that the creator has, at best, weird ideas about how governance and gender and sexuality and bigotry work.

And while there’s been writing on that already, what I really want to talk about is how this reflection doesn’t go one way, because the game has a huge modding scene that’s extremely accessible, and while many mods are quality of life features or just silly additions, a lot are active disagreements with the way the game constructs people and society, whether it’s overhauling how mental illness is coded, or how relationships form, or trying to add the ability to be trans and non-binary

And then these mods are often in conversation with each other, either building off of each other or outright competing, because even the most well-meaning additions still have to contend with the fact that translating the human experience into code is never going to go perfectly.

For example, I don’t use the biggest mod that adds trans people to the game, even though I obviously want us there, because the way it systemizes dysphoria and what transition means is in total conflict with my experiences.

A lot of the mods that add/change mental illness or disorders end up very imperfect, but there’s one mod’s version of autism that I love because, in addition to the basic stuff like “this character gets stressed by large groups or people trying to talk to her too often,” it also makes it so the character just straight up follow orders you give her, and she’ll get mad that you had the audacity to try disrupting her routine. She might do it later when she finishes her other tasks, or she might just never do it. I based a character on my wife and her little person hates the feeling of a rifle slung over her shoulder and will only pick up her gun when she absolutely needs it. She also won’t wear her proper helmet and instead wears a shittier one because she likes how it looks more.

And sure, the mod isn’t perfect, no effort to take the complexity of a person and simplify it into code can be, but to everyone who has ever had a game try to define you out of existence and fought back, I love you. Whether it’s the trans woman who dubbed over all of Jedi: Fallen Order because EA didn’t care enough to put women in, or my friend that I spent hours with figuring out how to replace all our soldiers in some indie rts game with women, or the countless modders for the Sims and Rimworld and every other game that simulates people who tried to make people who felt truer to themselves and those they loved, and everyone inbetween, I love you. I love you, and I’m glad I’m not alone in that fight

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detransraichu · 1 month

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I still do want to apologize for what I said, I genuinely hope you don't feel too bad, however I still want to say that your love for the trans community is really skewed, if I said that I loved the jewish community and every take I had was agreed with by nazis, it wouldnt exactly make me a great ally, again really hope the wheelchair thing didnt feel too bad, a lot of it came from my struggle with a wheelchair, my ass cannot walk either

i do appreciate the apology, as bewildering as it is!

honestly my blog is like a pinterest folder for me of the wide spectrum of radfem views that people have around these parts. not everyone is a jerk, which was fuckin wild to my detrans brain after so long in trans spaces being told they're all right-wing tradwives... what peaked my interest and led me to make this blog was me finding trans-led radfem blogs that were fighting for cis/bio women's rights and trying to find cis-trans compromises, talking abt being trans radfems or radfem allies while being trans. ofc you could say they're all fake, but i've even met irl trans ppl very open to certain radfem beliefs when i presented them out of curiosity without saying they were radfem ones. cuz let's be real, most ppl don't really know what radfems actually believe in, and know thy enemy is a pretty important thing in activism! ppl study all kinds of groups where bigotry has festered, and i don't believe radfems are like incels or nazis at all

it's late, so i'm going to ramble about what i've learned -- radfems, the ones that aren't just jerks, are basically saying: "i care first and foremost about afab rights! i want afab-only spaces in bathrooms & changing rooms, alongside gender neutral ones! i care about afab-specific issues like abortions and forced pregnancy and afab genital mutilation and trauma that only cis women & transmasc ppl face growing up, afab ppl face unique misogyny that is wayyy too often seen as a less important issue than transmisogyny instead of an equal struggle, and transfems can be misogynistic af against afab folks in a unique way that needs to be called THE FUCK OUT!! afab rights matter! afab people are more than just their body type! afab people have unique sex-based oppression!" they aren't calling for trans ppl's deaths, the grand majority anyway. they're all for gender nonconformity, they just don't believe it will ever your agab and they believe your agab matters in certain leftist discussions... like how transfems will say theyfabs and use the word afab to describe a specific dynamic between the two sexes, afab/female & amab/male

and i know "there are two sexes in humans" gets ppl mad -- from what i read about there being two sexes, radfems told me the one thing no one has been able to debunk so far is that if you google male & female it says that the male/amab sex is the group of humans that has small spermazoid gametes, and female/afab sex produce larger gametes; intersex people still fit under one of these two, and the term itself is actually seen as offensive, they're just people with DSDs. afab ppl typically are born with vaginas and go through estrogen puberty, and amab ppl are typically born with penises. radfems are saying that amab/male and afab/female are just body types that shouldn't dictate one's life, but the patriarchy and creepy powerful cis men have turned afab bodies (and afab-passing bodies) into something sexualized and objectified, and people with afab bodies are raised under misogyny from birth, which amab people typically don't go through unless they start passing 100% perfectly (and even then the misogyny they face is conditional; if someone learns they're amab, they will face homophobic disgust, like the typical movie joke of a guy realizing a girl is transfem and throwing up... that isn't the misogyny that cis women & transmasc ppl face). penises can forcibly impregnate and feel genital pleasure while penetrating, which does mean afab people & post-op transfems (the grand majority of transfems statistically still have dicks) are uniquely vulnerable against amab bodies. these are big differences that need to be talked about

radfems are saying that amab/male & afab/female socialization matters and the trans community should take it into account, and stop seeing cis women & transmascs as the one-way oppressors of transfems, when transfems are also privileged for being amab; they do not face systemic body issues that afab ppl face, and they do not know what it's like to grow up as afab, therefore sometime need to sit tf down and listen too. it's not a strict oppressor/oppressed dynamic, it's more complex. afab-unique oppression is violent and widespread worldwide, afab ppl have generational trauma and may face afab-unique issues that anyone amab cannot even begin to understand. i think everyone should listen to one another. i think transmisogyny & afabmisogyny both matter. that's what radfems are saying.

radfems often do not use the most respectful language. they say male instead of amab, female instead of afab, they misgender, they say trans-identified male (tim) and trans-identified female (tif). many have faced afabmisogyny from transfems and have nowhere to go. some are transmascs, and some are transfems and strong allies. radfems often do not mince their words. but i think, as an oppressed class, their words still do matter. if identifying as a woman makes you oppressed, and being afab makes you oppressed, wouldn't being a woman-identified afab person bring a unique oppression? don't cis, or as they call themselves biological women, matter? they don't feel a gender identity, they see their agab as just a body type, one they did not choose and may not always like, but they align with it and they want to normalize it and stop oppression against it. if cis people tell trans people they don't have a gender identity, they don't have ~womanly feelings~ inside their heads, does anyone ever listen or do they just go umm you're probably agender? if cis women say they have worries about certain gender-affirming things, bc it may bring harm their way, do we talk abt it or just mock them and call them terfy bitches? what about all the replies from trans people involving r*pe threats and forced impregnation and guilt-tripping same-sex attracted ppl for not being into the opposite agab, when some trans people also are only attracted to the same agab (transfem4transfem) or attracted only to the opposite agab. some openly admit it! yet cis people can't do the same? what about certain concerns related to medical transition, ones that many detrans people raise but no one except right-wing bigots listen to? and the ironic gender normative sexist things that some trans ppl say? why aren't there discussions abt this shit in trans spaces?? it genuinely worries me

there's soooo many of these issues, you see... and trans folks and trans allies aren't speaking up, they aren't posting about them, they aren't having actual discussions, they just brush it all under the rug as terf bs bc it makes them look bad so they want to believe all this shit is fake. that's why radfems are getting more and more fed up. i want to ease that tension. i want to do something. bc i care a whole fucking lot about all lgbtq people. trans people literally funded my escape from my abusive home when i was younger, i know y'all protect your own. i just want to throw away the misconception that cis women aren't a unique oppressed class too, and actually listen to what they're saying so we can put an end to the bullshit cis-trans war, bc the people killing trans people ARE ACTUALLY CIS MEN! the people in power ARE CIS MEN! we are wasting our fucking breath on eachother. and it needs to change. that's what my book is gonna be about and that's why i'm on here collecting receipts and having deep convos with radfems and eventually doing surveys etc

i genuinely did not know what i'd find when i started researching radfeminism. i expected something radically (ha!) different. i think the trans community could really benefit from at least learning more, if only to have genuine debates and not just slurs and threats. i really do care and i hope both communities can somehow find peace :/

#lay text #asks #radfem #radblr

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opinated-user · 1 year

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Ooh lily appears to be going down the radfem rabbit hole with that Dworkin defense she posted.

Hope she gets to the part where radfems have a bad habit of supporting right wing groups and generally unintentionally making rights worse for women

i... i have a lot of thoughts about this. 1. she wasn't just "critical" of the porn industry, she thought of it as intrinsically, inherently violent and sex workers as perpetual victims that needed to be freed, whether they wanted to or not. the idea that marginalized people could do their own pornography in their own terms to reclaim their own bodies and sexuality or, worse even, that some women actively, freely, choose to be sex workers is completely out of the table, which means robbing them of their own agency. this didn't cause people to be critical of the industry. it caused people to marginalize sex workers, often disabled, often already oppressed in some other way, so they industry itself very rarely is properly regulated, which ironically makes it even more abusive, and the sex worker to always being on the edge of becoming criminals, losing their jobs or be at the mercy of police enforcement. LO didn't just went completely mask off on being a fully supportive radfem, she went full swerf mask off. any statement that she ever made about how sex work "is just another job" has been completely and utterly rendered meaningless now. LO just loudly proclaim to any sex worker who could ever be interested to follow her that they're not safe with her, they don't have an ally with her and, as far LO's concerned, they don't have any free will. 2. even if she was trans inclusive, she was still the foundation of SWERFs to cause the irreparable damage that they have done to sex workers and undermining their rights for decades. being trans positive or not doesn't suddenly make that okay. many other people, including sex worker themselves, have already criticized the industry without painting it as inherently flawed and damaging, as not worth saving at all, exactly because they also want it to improve, so why invoke Andrea Dworkin at all... unless you want to associate yourself with the kind of people who actively abuse and make life harder for sex workers?

3. i googled "andrea dworkin transgender rights" and i was about to post the articles that can provide some quotes showing that Dworkin was trans positive on her work (for the time her works were written that is), but then i found this:

this is rowing using quotes from Andrea Dworkin on a thread where she pats herself on the back for her TERF manifesto. again. you can read it full here: https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1277265589782929410?lang=es of course, one can argue that she was trans inclusive and have actual quotes from her work to show that, inclusive testimonies from people who knew her intimately, as another way to argue against TERF... but is that changing anything? is it really worth it to repair the reputation of a woman injustly accused of being transphobic because her work has been appropriated and used by hateful people like rowing and her associates for decades at this point, if all we gain instead is a woman who would hate sex workers... many of them trans anyway? aren't we just helping SWERF and validating their branch of bigotry? this without even counting how anti-kink her views also come across. maybe LO is comfortable making that trade off. she was rather conflict free when it came to laughing along and promoting a bonafide real life nazi if that meant having someone willing to attack the transfemme person she hates. but i don't think that's an attitude that should be imitated.

#lily orchard #lily orchard is a swerf

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sophieinwonderland · 1 year

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Are you aware that hate-groups are not just your conservative uncle being a dick and are actually organized terrorist groups? White supremacists alone are not a hate group- specific groups like Council of Conservative Citizens, however, are hate groups. There is a differentiation between casual bigotry and those who are actively murdering or pushing for the murder of others. Hate groups have political power and advocate for legislation. Please do not downplay hate groups.

I... don't think the part about requiring violence or terrorism is true.

I'm not familiar with the one you named, but one that comes to mind is the Westboro Baptist Church. While being generally abhorrent and fighting against the rights of the LGBT community, as well as being known for picketing funerals, doesn't really have much political power. They're a small or moderate-sized church with about 70 members. Obviously way smaller than many anti-endo communities.

They advocate for legislation, yes, but not to murder anyone. At least, not as far as I'm aware. They're not terrorists, however repugnant and abhorrent they might be, (and they very much are) nor can I find them linked directly towards violence. But please, correct me if I'm wrong.

As far as I can tell, an organization doesn't need to be violent or terrorists to be classified as a hate group.

And I also don't want to downplay the anti-endo community's impact either.

Many endogenic systems are regularly harassed and fakeclaimed. We're privilege as endogenic systems go in that we have a stable life situation. I can take the constant abuse. But one of the top reasons for tulpamancers to make tulpas is to help cope with loneliness and MDD. Bullying puts lives at risks, and anti-endos largely do not care.

And it's not just endogenic systems. Like I mentioned yesterday, mixed-origin systems often have it worst of all.

Diagnosed mixed origin DID systems will find groups that should be supportive will instead harass and ostracize them.

Anti-endos infect spaces for trauma survivors, corrupt them with hate, and then cast out people who need support. And you might say that this is just the internet, but the victims of anti-endo exclusion and hate are often minors still in abusive homes with no support in the real world.

Exclusionism steals away the support these systems should have access to.

Hate and exclusionism endangers lives.

And I want to reiterate again that if your argument is that "anti endos aren't a hate group because they're not a group," you seriously may need to reevaluate if this is the hill you want to die on. You equating anti-endos to general white supremacists doesn't seem like an improvement to me.

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anthonybialy · 7 months

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Israel Battles Evildoers Who Got Rich for Some Reason

Hamas doesn’t switch to a rainbow avatar for June. I’m trying to get liberals to hate them. These are tough times for the anti-Semitic. You don’t have to feel bad for the worst sort of haters. Save concern for an assaulted nation that is demonized for existing.

Baseless vitriol has escalated to monstrous action. Slaughtering people going about their lives constitutes the clearest violation of life itself as possible in case anyone’s unclear. One party seems disturbingly so. The sole country in the Middle East without oil functions the best, which enrages those whose faith revolves around jealousy.

One side created civilization out of nothing. The other tries to turn civilization into nothing. All-time lies accusing Jews of doing awful things while actual awful things are done to them is one of humanity’s most appalling regular occurrences. The latest war could only seem worse upon realizing it’s nothing new.

Half of the sides are fiendish. Invading terrorists may just be the bad guys. Forget gruesome nonsense about Israel stealing land nobody wanted and that they just might have resided upon a few thousand years ago: acting like both attacker and target are perpetrators is the sophisticated way to lie. You just know Israel’s foes were asking by noon on September 11, 2001 why they hate us.

“Cycle of violence” is the dark magic phrase to spot. Anti-Semites realize how unpopular they are right now, so they conceal their bigotry by condemning an alleged cycle instead of the terrorists who began it. A mugger attacks victim. Said victim defends against threat to life, property, and liberty. Liberals shake their heads at the actions of both. The phonily high-minded would’ve lamented the cycle of violence on D-Day.

Israel’s antagonists pair pretend outrage with actual harm. As usual, Democrats spurred agony by trying to help. That’s sadly the best-case scenario. You might be more generous than deserved and presume they’re not actively encouraging mayhem. The best case is that doing such would require planning ahead.

Stimulus checks for Hamas got their sole industry humming. A foreign policy that was already discredited has added granting an allowance to barbarians as a bullet/low point.

It turns out there are worse bribes than giving liberals useless degrees at taxpayer expense. You’ll be shocked to learn those who shriek about paying back money they borrowed to major in political science so they can afford to keep patronizing artisan baristas don’t grasp how budgeting works.

Blaming the police for crime has devastated countless innocent humans. The principle has gone international. The baffling view that cops were the ones causing problems enabled subway-shovers. Its daft holders covered Iran’s discretionary rocket budget.

The White House did their part to wreck society and inhabitants by bailing out America’s sworn enemy. That’s America’s White House, for the record. The typical excuse is their usual one, namely that they had no idea their ideas would unleash perniciousness. Ruining budgets for Americans is accompanied by tossing cash at lunatic mullahs.

Democrats believed Saddam Hussein was building a chocolate chip factory, too. The only thing keeping Iran from prompting more devastation is ineptness. Joe Biden is here to help them. Claims that Iran’s trust fund won’t be spent irresponsibly are based in a Post-it stuck on the cash sacks noting it’s for humanitarian aid, which would be laughable if not for the blood splattered on Israeli streets. Their pet terrorists attacked Israel less than a month after funds suddenly became free. This presidency strongly discourages noticing consequences.

Earth’s most nefarious terror state used different bills to fund terror, so tell your conscience to pipe down. Take from this pile, not that one. A notion that’s either disingenuous or ignorant sums up liberal thinking. The mob budgets in the same way, with the difference being they can operate businesses.

Iran’s centrifuges spin in celebration. The usual mendacious scumbags cherish the subsidy, although they won’t send a thank you card. Democrats have gone out of their way to enable shoplifters, violent agents of urban chaos, and border-hoppers, so the terrible assault against Israel is no more surprising than who facilitated it.

Leave it to liberals to not grasp how loosening up dollars permits spending on other things. Why would anyone stick to some lame budget? Iran could’ve just printed more money.

An unwillingness to modify a budget because it would mean less fun is the signature economic principle from the adult children staffing this White House. You might have to choose grilled cheese instead of Chuck E. Cheese if funds are tight unless you live near the Tehran location. Under Biden, bread is a luxury, but only in his home country.

Iran’s hobby is funding terrorism. Their free-time pursuit was funded by Biden putting them on the honor system. Aiding maliciousness while hassling the decent is regrettably natural from an administration through its consistent opposition to reality.

Biden’s pals are being uncool. His fervent dedication to attempting peace by befriending the sinister hasn’t quite convinced them to behave. He’s still lunching alone in the cafeteria.

Inflation making money worth less finally helps, as medieval intruders couldn’t buy as many implements to inflict atrocities. Liberating funds on September 11 for a real cartoonish villain was not just symbolically disgusting.

Heinous Hamas will find a new homeland in the sea. The prototypical human demons are as evil as they are stupid. An excuse for Israel to remove a roving gang of serial killers will be executed with no help from a feckless president that allows mayhem like a substitute teacher.

Hamas failed to anticipate Israel’s righteously swift response for the same shortsighted reason lottery winners who don’t plan ahead spend until they’re broke. They just bought rockets with the Biden cash infusion instead of McMansions.

Opening wallets so terror benefactors can grab walking-around money turns out to not be a super strategy for finances and pace. A president who wants to disarm law-abiding Americans coordinated Venmoing the Hamas rocket fund. Add “fungible” to the ceaseless list of words liberals don’t understand.

#Israel #Iran #Joe Biden #Hamas #terrorism

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limeade-l3sbian · 11 months

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the bisexual tra "lesbian" larpers who flood lesbian tags with in-detail penis mentions or depictions, and then get violently angry at the full on homosexual women who tell them "you're bisexual, or maybe even exclusively male-attracted, if you don't think the same way about pussy (which considering how they mention "hole" in the notes this may be the case)" or "please stop claiming this is lesbianism / putting this in lesbian spaces" should literally just kill themselves.

i'm sick of the homophobia, the male-centering, the porn language, the conversion rhetoric, the political and emotional guilt-tripping, and the coercion. i know they'll see something like this and say "you're just a transphobic bully, see, you said we should kill ourselves," but how the fuck do they expect lesbians to react when they flood our spaces with "here's why lesbians actually like penis" just like every other homophobe has in the past, and then try to leverage our trauma of facing bigotry against us when we stand our ground and say sexuality is sex-based and inborn, and that lesbians don't like dick, and never have?

the worst part is that almost none of them will ever admit that they're the oppressors harassing a marginalized group, because it bruises their ego and means they have to put in the effort to change if they want to continue to call themselves "good people who support gay rights," instead of just endlessly ego-stroking each other for how "progressive" they are, when they're just the same old homophobes telling lesbians that they clearly are wrong and hateful and "need psychological help" for their "genital fetishes" to be morally correct (as if "female who is exclusively attracted to females" could ever be morally wrong).

hell, there may even be a tra who reads this and then reports back their deliberate misinterpretation of what it says (or, if we're lucky, screenshots for them ALL to deliberately misinterpret) to their discord hugbox so they and their fellow homophobes can go on and on about how stupid and evil lesbians are for "not being progressive enough" (read as: not allowing males into their spaces) while maintaining that they're "totally not homophobic," and actually, they're "more gay than those nasty evil yucky meanie fake gay genital fetishists who totally really oppress them." self-awareness would mean killing their ego, which is unthinkable, since they think their feelings are more important than reality, or actively decide reality. they care more about feeling good than doing good, and they certainly don't actually care about gay people like they care about the clout and sense of moral superiority that looking like they support marginalized groups provides them with.

#ask

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anderjak · 10 months

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i was thinking about making a big dumb long twitter thread, but since that site is dying, i'm posting it here:

all it really takes to be radicalized is learning how much is fakey-fake.

we cite gender as a social construct, which it is; it's entirely made up and shifts with the sands in the hourglass. but it's still pretty important for a lot of reasons.

laws are also a social construct; many of us collectively decided that there should be consequences for thing that hurt others, and we all shook hands and agreed that we'd punish people for doing those things. the fact that laws keep changing, being updated, being redacted, etc, is proof that we are quite literally making it up. most of them are just arbitrary ways of protecting us from ourselves.

money is also a social construct; bartering in and of itself is done under the belief of equivalent exchange, that to give also means to receive. we all did kinda collectively agree that, if we're gonna have a bartering system, it's better to use coins and scraps of paper instead of livestock and daughters to purchase goods and services and clout. (though we still kinda do this, it's just more frowned upon.)

we believe in these social constructs enough that defiance against these things is a pretty radical concept; part of the social contract (which in and of itself is a social construct!) is that we all agree to a certain subset of rules and expectations in order to not rub each other the wrong way or hurt each other, and violation of this upsets a so-called natural order.

what i'm saying is, social constructs are still treated as real and tangible, because many of the social constructs we have are important! they help inform us of our role in society.

however, a lot of social constructs are treated as facts of human nature, which isn't the case. one thing that kept fascinating me was the frequency in which i'd see autistic people play with gender, because, hey, if you're someone who misses social cues and often questions social constructs due to the way your brain works, it's a lot easier to perceive gender as a strictly optional selection of traits you can opt into and out of!

it also leads me to understanding why i know so many trans activists, communists, socialists, and anarchists; once you live a life wherein, as part of your modus of survival, you question a major social construct an entire culture builds itself around, markets toward, and enforces by way of marketing and storytelling and so forth. when you realize something's fakey-fake, it's a lot easier to be enraged by the idea that a lot of people simply agree that the social constructs we are expected to adhere to are inalienable and must be maintained at all costs, regardless of how many of these social constructs, like systemic bigotry, actively harm others in numerous overt and covert ways.

when you get to that point, it's a lot easier to finally start asking the question, "why DON'T we just abandon some of these things so we can actually improve our lives, especially if all they do is get in the way of genuine progress"

i think a good starting point of activism really does boil down to sitting with this idea that very few things we deal with and are affected by are in no way set in stone, and can absolutely be changed, and much of the resistance is folks who refuse to treat social constructs as anything but static and permanent.

#bloggerjak #accidentally posted to the wrong blog at first #whoops #forgot how to use tumblr

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aeide-thea · 10 months

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the thing is like. there was a particular context that sparked this but i honestly suspect it applies to most axes of marginalization—

like, sure, i think it's fair to be like 'pls recognize that if you pass as part of a hegemonic group, you aren't generally encountering the kind of e.g. physically violent bigotry that ppl who visibly defy the hegemonic standard often get subjected to.' certainly i think the sort of body policing i've personally experienced is more on the order of what, say, cis gnc dykes face than what ppl face who have visibly undergone some degree of medical transition. but like. it's all different points on the same bigoted continuum? like, ppl with so-called invisible* marginalizations are often not actively running into, say, physical violence precisely because they're preemptively enacting self-censoring violence on themselves, and are often in spaces where they're subjected to hateful rhetoric about characteristics the speakers don't realize they share. so it's violence against the psyche instead of violence that's physical, absolutely, but—i don't know. i fundamentally have never understood the—seemingly very common!—urge to compare apples to oranges and decide that one sort of fruit is categorically worse, instead of considering each on its own (de)merits in its own context.

like—i just get frustrated with how badly ppl always seem to want to take their pain out on also-marginalized ppl they see as More Conforming, instead of looking deeper to the actual overarching systemic prejudice which keeps all of us down, and which takes on whatever form is best suited to repress whatever resistance it's encountering. like i'm seeing it these days with theyfab discourse and i saw it last year with disability discourse and i saw it ten years ago with bi discourse and i wouldn't be surprised to hear it's also how intracommunity discussions of, say, colorism often go, and i just feel like. look. the internal emotional violence is the complement to the external physical violence, and the two pieces work together to enforce the same hegemony. no one subjected to either component is having a good time.

⸻ * though like. how 'invisible' are some of these things really. like. normies have remarkable spidey senses and they will ostracize you over 'hidden' qualities they instinctively subconsciously pick up on!

#anyway.#(i know some people dislike the so-called metaphorical use of 'violence')#(though like. the word has straddled senses for multiple langs and thousands of years at this point‚ just saying)#(but i guess i DO think like. seeing different flavors of violence as a connected system is important to a coherent analysis actually?)#theory

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silverandbone · 10 months

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The Arrangement | Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Word Count: 1,907

Warnings: General Harry Potter warnings, and discussions of blood purity and bigotry (I don’t know what you’d expect, given the context, but if that bothers you please don’t read), also there is a brief mention of sexual harassment, and also of physical abuse on the part of Walburga Black, and drunkenness/drinking, also, and I’m not sure if this needs a warning or not but I��ll put it here anyway, this entire story revolves around an arranged marriage between two people who aren’t thrilled with the idea but can’t do much about it inspite of being adults.

A/N: Parts of this story have been edited and now contain mentions and brief descriptions of sex and sexual activity. MDNI, adults proceed at own discretion.

The Arrangement Masterlist

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Scotland was beautiful at this time of year. And when you arrived that morning on the express, you had had every intention of enjoying it with your friend while you were there. Instead, you had found yourself sitting on Severus’s couch, in his quarters while attempting to convince yourself that getting wine drunk at 2 in the afternoon was a horrible idea.

The tears that only moments ago you couldn’t stop, were now dried leaving salt trails down your cheeks, and Severus floundering between finding McGonagall or offering you a drink – he wasn’t certain it was the best idea either, though it was certainly an appealing one.

Sitting down on his couch, Severus gingerly placed a hand on your shoulder, only for you to collapse against him, and curl into yourself pulling your legs to your chest, your feet on the couch. This was not what either of you had planned for your Saturday.

He had been meant to meet you at the station in Hogsmeade, and the two of you would have lunch together and pick up a few things he needed for his class before heading back to the castle so you could interview Minerva about her sudden ascension to Headmistress of Hogwarts – a welcome outcome after it came to light that Dumbledore had been mentally and emotionally abusive to his students for years, though Severus could have told you that after his first year.

He had greeted you at the station that afternoon, as you had planned, only to immediately notice that something was incredibly wrong from the way the small fragile smile you sent his way didn’t quite reach your eyes, and the way your hands shook, your movements stiff, as you placed your overnight bag on the platform next to you.

Steering you away from the small crowd gathered around the train as they waited for friends or relatives, he guided you to a small alcove next to the ticket stand, placing his hands on your shoulders,

“What happened?” he asked rubbing your arms up and down, “what’s wrong?” he tried again when you didn’t answer while looking into your eyes, trying, and failing, to get you to meet his gaze.

You had simply leaned your head against his chest, tears falling more freely than before.

“I don’t know where I went wrong,” you eventually choked out, tears staining the front of Severus’s robes.

Wrapping a warm arm around your shoulders and grabbing your bags for you, Severus apparated back to the school grounds and thanked Merlin that most of the students had opted to sleep in rather than get up early.

You had made your way, as quickly as possible, to his quarters, and he had made you a cup of tea the way he knew you liked it, adding some calming draught at the last moment, hoping you would be less fragile after drinking it.

Before you could take more than a few sips of the tea Severus had made for you, the tears had started again, and not stopped for what felt like ages before you could even think about beginning to explain to one of your best friends why the sight of him waiting for you at the station had sent you down a rabbit hole of tears from stress and anxiety and sadness you had been doing your very best not to show anyone for the better part of a year.

That morning, you had woken up at an unearthly hour. You had made yourself a pot of black coffee and turned on the muggle television to some documentary about puffins, letting it play in the background as you went about packing your bag for the weekend you were spending in Scotland, occasionally taking sips of your coffee, and stopping what you were doing to pour yourself another cup when you had finished the first.

Once your bag was packed, you turned on the hot water in your shower, letting the steam fog up the mirror. Quickly grabbing a bra and pair of panties out of your dresser drawer, you made your way back to the bathroom, slipping into the shower and letting the hot water release the tension in your shoulders, allowing you to relax, just a little bit.

Things had been going just fine at that point. It wasn’t until you were getting ready to head to King’s Cross that things went south.

Celeste, your sister’s owl, had crashed into your closed living room window, the clumsy owl not stopping in time to avoid the glass, and land gracefully. Around her ankle was a letter from your mother who, in her haste to send the letter to you before you left for the weekend, had likely not noticed that she had sent the wrong owl.

Freeing the letter from around the poor exhausted owl’s foot, you gave it a handful of birdseed, and sat down on the sofa to read the letter.

It had been a short one. But that in no way made it any better. Sirius had been arrested the night before and had spent the night in muggle jail for drunk and disorderly behaviour. Apparently, he had gotten more drunk than usual and had crashed straight into a muggle police officer as he was leaving the bar.

Chaos had ensued, if the rumours were to be believed, and Sirius had made a mockery of himself, his family, and, by the simple fact that your upcoming wedding had been the talk of the 28 since the disaster that was your engagement party, of you and your family as well.

You had held back your tears, as you wrote to your mother that you would handle it once you got back to London on Monday morning. The editor that had approved the article for publication would be dealt with, and by the time the wedding came around, something else would be the latest bit of gossip to be spread around the families of the 28 – you would make sure of it.

Taking a deep breath, you apparated to the train station, and boarded the Hogwarts Express to spend, what you had hoped would be, a nice long weekend in Scotland with one of your closest friends from school – and you would be able to be one of the first to interview the new headmistress of Hogwarts.

Instead, it had become increasingly more and more difficult to hold back the tears you had been trying not to let show for the past several months. And as you pulled into the station, it had only taken one look at the man that had been one of your closest friends during school for you to start tearing up again, and the bewildered look on his face as he saw the tears in your eyes for them to overflow and pour down your cheeks – likely ruining your makeup as they did.

Walburga was furious when she heard the news of her eldest son’s arrest. Actually, furious wasn’t a strong enough word. She would have killed him then and there if he had been in the room. Instead, it was her husband who faced the worst of her anger as he stood there, wishing he had thought to hide in his study and have Kreature give her the copy of The Daily Profit that had arrived that morning instead.

Crushing the newspaper in one hand, her face twisted into a sneer, Walburga made her way to the writing desk she kept in her favourite drawing room, roughly pulling out the chair, and nearly pulling the drawer with her stationary to the floor with the force she used to pull it out. Hastily she inked a quill and began her letter to her future daughter-in-law’s mother.

“Kreature!” she screeched, sealing the envelope with a bit of green wax and the Black family crest.

“Yes, Mistress?” Kreature croaked, appearing next to Walburga, who startled at the sudden appearance.

Still trying to calm her racing heart, she handed the house elf her letter, “Take this, and have it sent to the (y/l/n) family.”

“Yes, Mistress.” Kreature bowed and disappeared.

Walburga’s hands were still shaking with anger several hours later when she received a response to her letter. Sirius would be dealt with on Monday, but that was too long to wait if she wanted to keep what remained of her family’s reputation intact. Pacing back and forth in front of the staircase, Walburga decided then and there, that her daughter-in-law needed her help if she was to be successful in keeping the names and reputations of both involved families from falling into ill repute.

Thankfully, the woman she had chosen for her son was more than capable – she simply needed a bit of help. Help that Walburga was more than happy to provide.

Your brother had laughed when his wife handed him the paper. There wasn’t much else to do about it but laugh.

“Merlin,” he groaned, shaking his head as he hurriedly read through what had been written about you and your fiancé over breakfast.

“Slow down and mind your manners.” Your sister-in-law chastised her eldest son before turning her attention back to your brother.

“He’s really done it now, hasn’t he?” she asked, brow creasing as she noted her husband’s continued chuckling.

“I’m sorry, Darling,” he sighed, “but there isn’t much to say about this is there?”

Sirius’s behaviour had only become worse in the last few months. And if it had been anyone other than you engaged to the man, he likely wouldn’t have cared much at all. Wouldn’t have even bothered reading the article, but it was you, and he was at a complete loss.

Sighing, your sister-in-law took a sip of her tea, setting down her cup, “You could confront him?” she offered. “Visit him and try to make him realize the effect his actions are having on (y/n), and the rest of the family.”

He nodded, shaking his head again, and agreeing to visit Sirius.

“Basil,” he turned his attention to his son who was sitting next to him at the table “Will you find me some paper and a pen?” he asked, and the boy scurried off to his father’s study, happy to not be sitting at the breakfast table.

Sirius had not expected a visit from your brother when he woke up in a jail cell with a splitting headache and only vague memories of the damage he had caused the night before.

He had not expected to have his future brother-in-law bail him out after the way he’d been acting for the last Merlin knows how many months.

He had not been expecting to find himself sitting on the sofa of his brother’s apartment, the black and white of the newspaper on the coffee table in front of him blurring and swirling around making his headache worse as he fought off waves of nausea.

He had, somewhat, been expecting the lecture he received. He had just thought it would be coming from you, not your brother. He had also expected to be just the slightest bit more sober when he inevitably received said lecture. Instead, he was hungover, maybe still slightly drunk, and the guilt that had been eating at him for months was more apparent than ever.

Silent tears slipped past his lashes, as he leaned back on the sofa wondering how on earth, he had ever let it get this bad.

---

Taglist: @gretavankleep37 @srhxpci @bleh-bleh-blehs @howaito298

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cinnamoncountess · 1 year

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Omg i am so happy i found someone who dissected all the Angel/Krester scenes like i did! Ok i need to vent about THE SCENE. The way Krester moved his face away when Angel went to caress him during it, and also his non reaction to Angel initially attempting to give him pleasure but instead reversing roles and robotically doing it, was very deliberate i feel, but why? He seemed to just be going through the motions. Hard to get a read of what he was thinking at the time.

Hey there! :) It's always nice to stumble across a person with a similar mindset on certain topics (Krester/Ángel included, because their dynamic is absolutely intriguing, just as many other connections between individuals of this show). The 1899 fandom already feels like an extended family, at this point.

Anyway, you are always welcome to vent about this scene. ;)

Well, there are some theories as to why Krester might've reacted the way he did. At this point we can only speculate in directions, based on given clues. We can't be certain if their memories and traumas are real or not, obviously.

Assuming they are real, I find they depicted Krester's reaction to what was happening very comprehensible and organic. He is a deeply traumatised, torn human being. He can never truly be himself, because previously this has lead to massive pain, physical and mental distress for him and the majority of his family included. He loves his family and desperately craves for reciprocated affection as well. When Ada questions him about his "calling" in life, Krester snaps rudely at her. This could mean he doesn't seem to have a goal in life, knowing he is "marked" and therefore looked at as a "cripple" or outcast by many, rarely receiving earnest fondness from anyone outside his family (even Iben calls him "idiot" a couple of times, though he did a brave act in trying to find help and save his sister). He craves for his mother's affection, therefore follows her religiously fanatic believes almost blindly. Even though these are aims that, obviously, would further suppress his true nature. He seems like a deeply troubled, almost pathetic "lost boy", likely the incident with this particular rich boy, originating from a higher social class (ringing true through Tove's analogous statement "Rich people don't give anything for free, they always expect something in return"), overthrew him negatively and possibly shaped him in a way to encounter such individuals in a wary, anxious and cautious way, because they might be trauma triggers.

With Ángel the same imbalanced power structure confronts Krester and even though, deep down he probably wants this he has to recollect that he can't have this, because it might lead to another traumatic event and is a constant reminder of past pain.

Ángel ignoring physical boundaries, even though he does so cautiously, might overstrain Krester's inner trouble, therefore his first reaction is passive shock. Him then quickly turning the tables by taking the active part and refusing Ángel to carress him / his scaring during the act, might be an attempt to cope by finally being "in control" of a situation, whilst also dissociating with the reality of this act. out of shame. He's profoundly shaped by religious bigotry after all, so this is a great sin in his book that he, against better knowledge and lessons learned, gave into.

Also, not to forget that he couldn't understand a single word of what Ángel muttered towards him. How could he have been certain Ángel didn't just want some quick "robotic" sex as return service for the cigarette case? Krester might've looked for something more deeper, meaningful, but gave in anyway, because he was desperate to find his baby sister. A broken, distressed and empty person is an easy target for pleasurable offers like this, to receive some diversion.

#Krester #reply #Ángel #angster #krester x ángel

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