#is it perhaps because he has neurodivergent characteristics? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

skrunksthatwunk · 2 years

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i think it's so so so funny that my main transmasc hc character literally Is The Way He Is bc he's amab. like hiei's one of approx 3 characters ever whose asab is actually relevant and having it otherwise is impossible in the text. ridiculous.

is what i thought, but it's actually wayy way more complicated than i previously gave it credit for!! plus there's a LOT more queercoding than i first thought. lemme explain:

[tw: eugenics, fascism, queerphobia, self harm, suicide mentions]

[yu yu hakusho spoilers/meant for ppl who've seen yyh but probably understandable to ppl who haven't]

[ft too many uses of the word queercoded and my mushy feelings about hiei's arc and the queer experience]

hiei is literally thrown out of his home as a baby for being born male and that's just INCREDIBLY queercoded on its own, but specifically a lot of this is presented with the fact that he's a fire demon. this could just be a trait he got from his father, or it could be tied to the ice maiden species. i think it's a stretch to say gender/sex present the same across all demonkind, much less that it resembles our own. frankly, binary sexual classification doesn't really work for a lot of species (and it really doesn't work for humans anyway, because intersex people exist). his maleness is associated with it, and this creates a potential sexual dichotomy that, in this species, females present with ice powers and males present with fire powers. (i understand this has a very goofy "girls are cats boy are dogs" energy to it but let's roll with it for now). so hiei could have been born with what humans would consider female sex characteristics, but the ice maidens would look at him and go "oh he's on fire get this little man outta here". (this could also be where the idea that he'll destroy them comes from, if all males are, y'know, melty).

some of my initial thought process on this came about because i figured "oh if they reproduce asexually they've probably got all xx chromosomes, and that's how they only have xy kids when the parent has sex with someone outside the village", but even if that's the case (assuming chromosomes work the same for demons), there's still a ~50/50 chance hiei ended up with xx chromosomes anyway. perhaps fire is considered the primary sex characteristic that determines one's asab in the same way genitalia is for humans. so, to a human audience, we'd see his traits and go "oh he's trans", which i think counts for biological coding.

the ice maiden society is also incredibly restrictive in terms of gender and sexuality. they consist entirely of (ambiguously determined, as discussed above) women who reproduce asexually. one is not allowed to leave the bounds of this society, nor perform sexual taboos, such as sleeping with outsiders. hiei was only born because hina acted outside of the strict sexual norms of this society. people's queerness is sometimes chocked up to "poor parenting" (often based in sexual/gender/religious/otherwise traditional nonconformity) of parents. and even though hina loved her son and didn't want to see him, y'know, thrown off a floating island, the society as a whole still deemed him an outsider and a problem to be eliminated and left him for dead for the greater purity/"protection" of the culture. it's serving fascist eugenics tbh. (and hiei doesn't destroy their culture like they and he had expected, subverting their expectations of him and his "kind", though the idea that that subversion matters more than preventing further harm is one I'd disagree with. the choice to cut them out of his life entirely to me is somewhat more justifiable to me given a familial view over a community/cultural one, but i digress). regardless, this is reminiscent of societal marginalization in general, but especially categories that can show up in isolation in families (i.e. queerness, neurodivergency, disability, etc) in a way that other things (i.e. race, religious affiliation, etc) generally don't, and can thus be painted as rooting out abnormalities or defects in individual, bloodless, mundane cases (as opposed to the broader elimination that we associate with genocide)

there's also yukina, who left to find hiei, and who hates the ice maidens (presumably at least partially because she knows what happened to him). think of this as them trying to find each other after familial fallout.

this is all to say that if we view maleness/fire demonness as an equivalent to genderqueerness in the ice maiden society, hiei's story maps onto queer experiences incredibly well. so he's got that cultural/queer experience coding too.

we also see hiei topless all the time (he's actually incapable of keeping his chest covered. when he doesn't take it off it burns off or whatever like he can't fight covered up. can't even make it through the intro with it covered. whore behavior <3). "but he's got male presenting pecs, so he's amab," you might say. but he is (key to his character and returning home) well acquainted with a plastic surgeon. he literally has a body modification done as part of his backstory (specifically one he had to tell this story to to receive treatment!!!). transcoded asf. and frankly him being topless all the time is very reminiscent of lots of transmasc ppl who've just gotten top surgery. like they paid too much not to show it off. (this was actually the first thing that made me go "omg,, he's trans lmao. that surgeon guy totally gave him a 2 for 1 deal" and then it just. kept piling up. he's also quite short (4'10") and has a relatively high voice (definitely masc, but in a very in-the-throat way that a lot of afab ppl use), but neither of those are that compelling).

he also has a somewhat more flexible view of his body than the others, getting drastic invasive surgery, beating his arm when it disobeyed him(????? ok babe), and willingly sacrificing parts of it to learn fighting techniques (specifically a fire technique, so more gender stuff). this could be tied to genderqueer people's greater willingness/need to change their bodies, or potentially harmful practices (such as improper binding) to alleviate dysphoria.

queerness is featured a few times in the series and implied in others. we encounter a canon transfem demon named miyuki during the yukina rescue arc. karasu and itsuki are both distinctly mlm demons. hiei even acknowledges this in the eng dub, calling itsuki "lover boy" when he's doing his whole "omg sensui,, i want him to be evil so bad he's so hot" speech. the derision in this case seems to come more from hiei's dislike of him/the situation than disgust at itsuki's queerness (or else he could have just called him disgusting or perverse or whatever). kurama also makes a joke near the end of the series implying hiei is interested in him, which hiei refutes by clarifying his intentions, rather than saying smth like "ew nasty I don't swing that way", which is more standard in anime. I'm gonna gesture wildly to mukuro but we'll skip her for now. all this is to say that the only characters we see exhibiting signs of queerness are demons (other than the people we see atsuko hang with for a single shot). this is almost certainly a case of villainous queercoding (a detriment to the series that does rustle my feathers a good bit. the treatment of miyuki in particular makes my blood boil), but we could also read this as demonkind having different understandings of gender and sexuality in general. perhaps the reason we see this queerness in demons is more because the way their bodies work, the ways they present, and the ways they're attracted to others, to us, look queer.

hiei, throughout his backstory, is consistently demonized by the people around him (some of which is deserved bc he keeps killing people, but some isn't, like the thrown-as-an-infant-off-a-cliff thing). and while his arc throughout the show is about him becoming more able to let people into his life, there's always a distance there. he almost always pushes them away. he's always been treated like a monster, so that's all he tries to be, and it's part of his justification for further distance (i.e. using his criminal status as a reason not to "burden" yukina with the knowledge that they're related). for a lot of queer people (especially before the internet and in places without queer spaces like gay bars), you have no way of meeting people you can trust won't hate you for being queer (even queer spaces have transphobes or nb-exclusionists, etc), so you harden yourself and let very few people in. his trauma reads like a lot of queer ones, especially older american ones. this arc culminates with his relationship with mukuro, and his decision to stay with her indefinitely.

firstly, mukuro's referred to as a king and with he/him pronouns by the cast for a while, before it's revealed that she was hiding her true identity as a woman, and the characters' references to her switch to feminine ones. already tripping wires there. and the first time we learn this about her is when mukuro sees hiei's (queercoded) past and goes "you're just like me" and sheds her clothes (mukuro's backstory doesn't feel that queer to me, but she did have to run away from abuse and dehumanization, potentially for her body/the way she was born as well, so it's not insignificant). hiei's unconscious in one of those green anime healing tubes, but their shared nudity (and thus vulnerability) has a very intimate vibe to it. these fundamentally tightly guarded characters are letting each other in a bit in this way, and that backstory/vulnerability being connected with their bodies/genders, especially when you consider all the other queercoding surrounding them, feels very much like queer solidarity. meeting strangers who have been disowned for birth circumstances and immediately sharing your deepest secrets with each other because you feel some deep similarity to them and bonding over that experience (especially when it relates to asab/agab roles) in a way outsiders can't breach is very queer. (note that hiei didn't want mukuro to know his backstory, but was effectively outed, and she came out in kind). and eventually hiei helps her work through that trauma, and she gives him purpose and a home. a found family with a better fit, something more suited to him, than the main cast (as much as I want them to mesh perfectly).

i think part of why hiei is suicidal in the beginning of three kings is because of that distance and isolation. he'd fulfilled his mission of meeting yukina, but resolved not to tell her of their relation. he feels he can't tell her this big secret of his that might change how she views him, or views her home. it's just before the fight where he tries to die that his surgeon's condition that he could never tell her is revealed. the only thing allowing them to meet is keeping that secret, and the bodily change is what causes it. and he says he wouldn't want to tell her anyway. so he has nowhere to go. he doesn't want to destroy humanity anymore (as evidenced by his assistance in the previous arc and destruction of the chapter black tape), he can't get closer to his home or his sister, and there's still that distance between him and everyone else. (in case it needs to be said, all of this is crazy bonkers queercoded). but in the end, after he and mukuro grow together and bond, he tells kurama to tell yukina her brother's dead, to give up hope, to cut himself off permanently. kurama says he won't, because he believes that hiei will return and tell her they're related someday. and hiei begrudgingly agrees. someday he will tell her. when he's ready, and when he feels safe enough to. and from that change in the beginning and end of the arc, we know he's found that safety in mukuro, and may finally begin to really pursue his own happiness and authenticity. because he met someone like him, he now has hope. he can be loved and he can be enough, and he can look forward to it.

so, to sum up, hiei:

1. was disowned as a child for being the wrong/unexpected gender/sex in an incredibly homogenous society (in which it is ambiguous how they classify sex/gender)

2. has a medical and unusually personal history with a magical plastic surgeon and is topless all the time

3. reacts neutrally/without notice to other characters' queerness (when he is rude, it's for other reasons)

4. is a demon, the only group shown to exhibit canon queerness

5. forms a very deep bond with someone over their shared isolating (queercoded) experiences (with persistent body imagery and a social transition on mukuro's part)

basically, he's transcoded <3

#yu yu hakusho #hiei #yyh #yeah it's a long yhh hiei post #one of several to come im sure #trans coding #queer coding #other gender headcanons:#yusuke is agender bc i think his punk vibes would not mesh with gender structures #and also his idc about fighting women thing has a vibe to me #gender? who give a shit #kuwabara's either a trans woman egg or the token cis guy there's no inbetween #kurama's.. something #idk how i feel about him gender-wise but he's pretty gnc in canon anyway #MUKURO/HIEI T4T!!!!!!#LET'S MAKE IT HAPPEN GUYS #summoning all 3 ppl on yyh tumblr #idek if i want mukuro/hiei to be romantic or PEAK gay man/lesbian solidarity but the t4t reading is cute so #does it mean anything that the fire that got him disowned is what reveals his chest? in my mind yeah #also when i say hiei's one of my favorite characters im not lying look at this bs #poorly adjusted behavior on my part #<3 #guys this might be longer than the daigo found family post ndhsjsj #no but i went back and added the hope paragraph and im tearing up thinking about him ugh #hiei my beloved #YES i figured out the keep reading function ohohoho

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zwiebelbaguette · 2 years

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Okay, folks, so ... The Orville spoilers for 3x7 coming up. But let me talk to you about why The Orville is at least slightly better at letting disabled and neurodivergent people exist in their world than ... well, Star Trek (sorry, Trek, I love you, but you SUCK at actually making your WORLD accessible to people like me, not to mention that a lot of the fandom is deeply ableist) - and what still hurts a little.

So, we’re currently in Disability Pride Month and this fact and the current episode in combination are enough to talk about representation and world building in The Orville.

Let me start with the latter. The world building. Because even though we see stairs and steps on the ship, which sucks, if there’d be no way around, we also get to see people being allowed to hydrate on the bridge, take a break and there’s even talk about ‘my shift ends’ and weekend. Like ... we still don’t see part-time jobs, but other than Trek they actually have at least some foundation of a healthy work life that is not based on skipping shore leave and working over time as often as possible. And yes, of course, on Trek we also see people have some time off. But there never seem to be actual boundaries of ‘No, I’m off duty and I will not come to work NOW’.

And yes, of course, this is such a low level of accessibility. But in all SciFi shows I know, this is still the highest level of accessibility in world building to exist so far.

Okay, and then ... representation.

Yep, that ... kinda sucks, right? I mean, they have a lot of very different characters with very different needs, some of them actually at least relatable to disabled people. But we don’t see actual disabled characters yet.

And still ... The Orville has managed something this week that Star Trek is still getting wrong and has been getting wrong for its entire run so far: Let neurodivergent coded characters stay neurodivergent!

Because in Trek we had Spock - who was mocked for being Vulcan (basically neurodivergent, just with alien disguise) and who later only found peace in loosening up and becoming a little more neurotypical.

Then came Data, who always longed to become ‘human’ - which, again, here was meant as neurotypical, because a lot of the characteristics that were presented as not human were what we neurodivergent HUMANS can relate to, how WE live and experience the world.

Next was Odo, who tried to become more human to be able to win over Kira - even though she wasn’t even human herself. Just neurotypical.

Tuvok - mocked again, though he at least was allowed to remain who he was. But the ridicule never stopped. And Seven? Seven was even forced into lessons of how to behave properly. Even to the point where she was told she would only be granted freedom once she stopped being who she was. And she was forced, again and again, into situations that felt unnatural to her. That shit is real for us neurodivergent people. There are ‘therapies’ out there torturing us into behaving like neurotypicals!

Next is T’Pol, who again was defragmentised, got a drug addiction on top and then came the freaking ‘cured by love’ trope, where she became more open and more likeable - and less mocked - when she fell in love with a human.

Michael Burnham coming up now. And I admit, that was what broke me most. We finally had a HUMAN being, who was portrayed in a way that I could find myself in the character. There was a human who was allowed to be neurodivergent in a way I am. But oh no, we learn, that that was only forced upon her and within a few episodes (and of course, again, partially cured by love), she becomes ....well, traumatised, yes, but neurotypically coded. So, Trek has gone through A LOT to show people like me, that we’re not enough. That we’re not considered human and that if we want to live in the society in Trek, we have to either be neurotypical or be ridiculed. We’re not worthy of love, otherwise, and perhaps not even worthy being considered mature, free individuals with the freedom of choice. In comes The Orville with Isaac. Isaac cannot ‘feel’ emotions. (Though, in a way, while he cannot feel, he can, algorithmically, form bonds. Who’s to say what is considered emotion, really!) Isaac is curious about human behaviour and wants to learn, but not BECOME human, other than Data. And Isaac is corrected if he is rude, yes. And he is the victim of pranks. But only when he expressed an interest in humour, he is not being mocked for who he is.

And this week? This week he was given the opportunity if he wanted to get emotions. (Again, I don’t really understand how they differentiate human emotions from his algorithms, but alright.)

Claire, his girlfriend, first blackmails him into getting emotions. And yes, I’m MASSIVERLY mad at her. She also forces him to change his exterior to look human when they’re eating dinner. This is some unhealthy, shitty behaviour and NOT what a good relationship looks like!) But, and here, massive kudos to The Orville, when there’s a malfunction with the emotion and Isaac has the choice to either live on without emotions or loose his memories, but gain emotions, and he says, he’d do it for Claire ...

... She accepts, who he is and doesn’t force him into such a sacrifice. She makes the choice that he, how he really is, is what she wants. That he being himself is enough. And as much as I still think, the way she treats this relationship is really wrong and somewhat toxic, the Orville got right what Trek has messed up for SO long. Giving me the feeling of ... belonging. Of me also being enough. And yes, I might be crying here. Because, again, this is just a basic, low level thing about representation and belonging, but ... this is actually the best representation we ever got in a SciFi show! Because never have neurodivergent or disabled people ever BEEN ENOUGH, without walking the extra mile, without changing for the neurotypical, abled people around them.

So, thank you, The Orville, for once again taking something that Trek never didn’t quite get right ... and making it right. May this, as well as ‘The Tale of Two Topas’, be the foundation on which other shows will expand representation and inclusive world building. May we finally, with the help of SciFi, make the first, tentative steps into a better future.

#The Orville #Star Trek #disability pride month

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lpham2525 · 2 years

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You have so many interesting WIP names, it's really hard to choose!! I'm torn between "Loid as a a cipher" and "a series of scars". Can you tell us about (show a snippet of) either of those?

Loid as a cipher was one of my posts for the Spy x Family Rambling Analysis series. It’s not as interesting as it sounds so I never posted it. Here’s a snippet anyway: While Yor and Anya also misinterpret others, it’s often attributed to other reasons. Anya misunderstands others because she is still young and doesn’t fully comprehend the context behind what she learns. Yor, meanwhile, appears to have neurodivergent characteristics and has a tendency to take things literally, leading to her misunderstandings.

Loid, however, is portrayed as the most intelligent and astutely observant of the Forgers, and even then, he misinterprets the true feelings and intentions of other characters. Perhaps Donovan and Loid were right in their brief first meeting. Maybe people will never truly understand each other. BUT...like Loid says later in the same scene, the important thing is to meet to people in the middle. ************************************************************************ A series of scars is a Twiyor fic of Loid and Yor exploring each other’s scars. Snippet follows:

Yor started with his fingertips, turning his palm over and inspecting them through touch. Though her eyesight was sharp, she knew her touch was much keener and could pick up on things her eyes would miss. She glided her fingertips over his, sliding down the length of his fingers, then curving around to his wrist and up his arm. Yor’s instincts were right. Her eyes missed so many details, but her touch detected the subtle ridges and indents immediately. Granted, she had never looked that closely before. She never thought she had a reason to do so.

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aiyexayen · 3 years

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re: that "I'll live for you post" - WHERE'S THE ESSAY

this post? [innocent face]

alright, alright, JUST TWIST MY ARM WHY DON'T YOU, just force me to talk more about my boys!

4.9k word essay under the cut

Wei Wuxian

Let us take a look at Wei Wuxian first. Wei Wuxian has no problems throwing himself in-between the people he loves and danger, or even certain death. Hell, sometimes he just throws himself into it for fun and profit!

To some extent, putting yourself in danger to help others and being willing to die is something of a cultivator thing in general, a hero thing in general, right? And Wei Wuxian is a prodigy, exceptionally strong and clever, so he has more reason than most to be a little cavalier. But most of the point of training so hard as a cultivator and getting strong and aligning yourself with a sect is kind of so you can be in real danger of dying as little as possible, one would presume.

So we're going to set aside the danger-as-a-profession thing for now, because I think it's only tangentially related.

The real point is, Wei Wuxian is sacrificial to a fault. If there is a problem, he decides he's the one who needs to fix it. And his first go-to solution is to throw himself at it, to give up anything of himself if it's viable. As clever as he is, if he finds a workable solution that involves his own sacrifice, he doesn't stop to look for anything else.

Some of it is pride--not wanting to admit he needs help from anyone else, and the shame of being seen as weak.

Some of it is arrogance--a very natural kind given his competence, the presumption that he knows best in a given situation (neurodivergent arrogance walking hand-in-hand with self-esteem issues is always a fun time).

Some of it is appropriate--ranging from his own moral imperative to protect the weak and do what's right to his understanding of his place in culture and in his own sect and relationships.

Some of it is a natural bent toward caretaking, "fixing," and heroics--someone has to do it, so it's going to be Wei Wuxian. He won't hesitate to take initiative in any other area of life, and this is no exception.

And some of it, yes, is a lack of value placed in his own life--between a more youthful, dramatic perspective on 'I would die for you/for this cause' taking priority in his worldview, and some genuine self-esteem issues. Issues largely stemming from his uncertain place in the world growing up and his uncertain relationship with parental/guardian/master and other familial figures, all stewing under the surface and brought to light sharply when the world went to shit and choices were made and he lost or seemed to have lost everything from his reputation to his home to his extant support structures. The paranoia and voices in his head (the ptsd and resentful-energy-as-ptsd-metaphor both) only drove that home.

Basically, Wei Wuxian was already trending in some unfortunate directions but his circumstances and the people surrounding him kept him grounded, and the events of the story as it unfolded really pushed him all in. No one thing or one person--even Wei Wuxian himself--is really to blame for that, which is the beauty of the story really.

I also think Wei Wuxian started to buy into some of his own stories at his lowest points--the things he said or came up with, lies he told publicly, justifications he made for his choices once the heat of the moment and the panic was over. Justifications he made to himself and to others. He purposefully led people to believe much that was incorrect about him and his character and his status, to which the response was distaste and horror, and even though he planned it that way in order to push everyone away I really think he started to believe it himself. Depression and trauma are just really fun times.

I'm getting a bit off-topic.

The point remains, Wei Wuxian is extremely sacrificial. He comes by much of it naturally, and not nearly all of it is bad or melodrama or angst or even unhealthy or problematic. It's one of his good qualities, too, and it's one of the ways he knows how to love.

All of the threads weaving together to make Wei Wuxian and the situations he finds himself sacrificing things in are all true, but it also really comes down to love. He loved Jiang Cheng enough to sacrifice his everything and risk his life doing so. He loved his sect enough he was willing to sacrifice his right hand. He loved his sect enough to sacrifice his very ties to it. He loved Lan Zhan enough to sacrifice their friendship. He loved Jin Ling enough to sacrifice himself to the curse he got in the Nie tombs. (And more!)

Wei Wuxian loved, and so he sacrificed. Thus, the initial post.

Jiang Cheng

Let's switch gears for a moment and talk about my darling Jiang Wanyin.

Ah, Jiang Cheng, Jiang Cheng. Taking the initiative and sacrificing at the drop of a hat and so forth are not really characteristics of Jiang Cheng's the same way they are for Wei Wuxian.

And yet, is he not also a disciple of Yunmeng Jiang; is he not also a young hero? Has he not pride, and the incentive to do good?

Does he not also see love as sacrifice?

Zi Zhizhu was his mother. The woman who sacrificed to get Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian to safety. The woman who killed herself and crawled across the ground to hold her husband's hand in death.

You think she wasn't Like That the whole time? You think Jiang Cheng picked up nothing of such behaviours from her, even before that day?

Hah.

Besides which, there's absolutely an underlying theme of Jiang Cheng trying to be like Wei Wuxian for much of their lives.

Partially just...Wei Wuxian, strong and clever and popular shige, always manages to get credit and glory and good stories and good favour, exemplary of the Jiang motto--the one Jiang Cheng's own name is tied to. They were supposed to be shuangjie, besides. How could he not want to be like him at least a bit? If nothing else, it's a little brother's curse.

And partially this is also due to Jiang Cheng's parents and that whole Situation.

It was complicated for so many reasons, and absolutely left Jiang Cheng feeling inferior to Wei Wuxian. As though he needed to be more like Wei Wuxian, to emulate him, in order to be worthy of his title and station and inheritance, something that turned out to be categorically untrue in the end. There are many kinds of leaders, and many kinds of strengths.

As an aside, I personally think that's something Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan knew, themselves, as adults and leaders and political figures in their own rights. Adults often don't realise or think about how the things they say can influence children's entire worldviews and senses of self (why, no, I don't speak from experience, why would you ask such a thing ahaha).

Jiang-zongzhu and Zi Zhizhu got a lot of their own relationship difficulties and misunderstandings and conflicts and conflicting attempts to want the best for their children (and ward) tangled up in everything. I think if they'd ever been able to speak plainly, if they could manifest into the Ancestral Hall and speak to Jiang Cheng, they would say so.

Just as Jiang Cheng would have cause to be horrified by much of what Wei Wuxian believed about himself, I think Jiang Cheng's parents would have cause to be horrified by much of what Jiang Cheng believed. (I mean, and Wei Wuxian, probably.)

Anyway.

Jiang Cheng has plenty of reasons to aspire to those same ideals of sacrifice. And it's not just aspirations, either--we see him follow through.

He walked outside from that inn, saw Wei Wuxian in danger, and made a decision in the space of a single breath--a decision with full understanding, too. He knew he was giving up his entire life for Wei Wuxian's. He said goodbye in his head.

I would argue (and I'm sure I've said this before somewhere too) that his sacrifice was the purest example of this in the entire story.

Perhaps some of it is that many of Wei Wuxian's sacrifices are premeditated and just about all of them have alternative solutions that don't involve him just diving in and giving pieces of himself up.

That isn't to say that Wei Wuxian wouldn't see a sword aimed at Jiang Cheng and take the blow himself. But we never see him do that, exactly. As much as Jiang Cheng has internalised this ideal of Wei Wuxian's, he both encounters fewer of these situations and has other problem-solving tactics in his repertoire.

The way Jiang Cheng hates himself doesn't lead him to think of himself as disposable. I could get into a (very amateur) discussion of negative schemas formed in childhood and their various similarities and differences, and the different ways Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian's brains appear to work (Jiang Cheng sees himself as inferior, while Wei Wuxian willfully dehumanises himself in other ways), but basically, it's simply a different set of psychological issues.

But! When he is faced with the choice, Jiang Cheng absolutely dies for the ones he loves.

He loves his sect and his family, and he internalises love as sacrifice, and when it comes down to an extreme moment he chooses to die for them.

And then he doesn't die.

And then the war happens.

Jiang Cheng's Growth

There are a lot of reasons for Jiang Cheng to grow in this area, and I think it starts with inheriting the sect.

(This leads to excellent thoughts about What If Wei Wuxian Had Somehow Become Sect Leader but that's an au for another day.)

If sect heir was a position full of responsibility and reputation management, how much more so is zongzhu? Jiang Cheng is suddenly responsible for all these people. Whether he's good enough or not doesn't even matter. The job is there and it's inescapable and he's the only one there to do it.

I'm absolutely sure he still has all kinds of inferiority shit he's dealing with by post-timeskip and he only just gets to touch on some pieces of resolution by the end of the story, with the one person still in the world who would even know anything about the life that gave it to him.

Jiang Cheng has been responsible for people before, in small ways--night hunts and such, I'm sure, and he was certainly in charge of the Yunmeng Jiang disciples who went to Cloud Recesses. But being at the top of that hierarchy entirely is such a different matter, and he did so at a very young age and in a very fraught time.

The fact that he had to deal with all this new responsibility and duty to people more than his family and to causes greater than the first people in need he encounters is a huge perspective shift. Especially as a sect with nothing to give and no wiggle room where it comes not only to basic resources post-war, but to things like reputation and political standing. This is, of course, a huge facet to the conflict between him and Wei Wuxian (and the Wen remnants) at that point in the story.

But on a personal level it also speaks to the sacrifice thing. If Jiang Cheng sacrifices his life, he is not just sacrificing his own life anymore.

When he gave up his life for Wei Wuxian, he had not yet inherited. His parents were only barely gone. There was nothing to inherit. There was no surety of there ever being something to inherit ever again. Everything else was already gone. It was only the three of them, barely surviving, running for their lives. It was only him and Wei Wuxian in a street, and one of them had to die.

But once he inherits? He's a commander. He's a leader. He has all the knowledge and all the networking connections. He has the reputation. He has the social standing. He might still have a long way to go in developing his skills, but he has a natural leadership ability and he does have training appropriate to his station.

What happens if he personally sacrifices his life? What happens to all of that? What happens to everyone depending on him?

That's not very satisfying, very epic-worthy. That's not very dramatic or romantic. It's gradual, and messy, that kind of change and realisation. Becoming that kind of person. Making choices based in that reality. Deciding that you do not belong to yourself.

And I think it really comes to a head when his siblings die.

I think it comes to a head personally. Not just in his role as Jiang-zongzhu. We don't see Jiang Cheng choose not to die, in as many words. But we certainly see him choose to live.

Or, perhaps, we see the evidence of that choice.

Jiang Cheng could have faded away. He could have started delegating all his responsibilities, gotten help from other sects, trained up a replacement. He could have made such things necessary by getting more and more reclusive. He could have pulled a Qingheng-Jun.

Hell, with a-jie gone already, he could have just said fuck this and followed Wei Wuxian off that cliff, and if you don't think he wonders about that sometimes--at least at first--then we have very different interpretations of Jiang Cheng as a person.

And no, none of those are sacrifice. But at some point, he still chose to do the opposite.

He chose every day to live for his sect, to keep growing it into something powerful and secure. He took that vow that he made and he fucking stuck to it.

And he chose to live for Jin Ling.

I don't half wonder if that was a bigger driving force at first than anything else.

Jiang Cheng could absolutely have left Jin Ling to be raised by his Jin family in the absence of his parents and fucked off to hide away in Yunmeng and had nothing to do with him. He could have done a lot of things, let himself develop in a lot of ways, unhealthy ways.

But he so very clearly did not.

Jin Ling and Jiang Cheng have a close relationship. Jin Ling defers to Jiang Cheng, is answerable to him on night hunts and beyond them. It's never questioned why he's basically just in the Yunmeng Jiang party by himself. Yunmeng Jiang disciples answer to Jin Ling in turn, follow his orders without question in the absence of their zongzhu. It's a Yunmeng Jiang disciple who hands Xianzi off to Jin Ling outside the Guanyin Temple in Yunping, and Jiang Cheng is intimately familiar with Xianzi's commands and is apparently a trusted person to give them (which, we find out, Jin Guangyao is not.)

As much as Jiang Cheng is not good at saying what he means, and especially after everything he's been through his softer bits have grown harder and harder carapace around them, Jin Ling never seems to misunderstand what Jiang Cheng means. They snipe at each other and snark and bitch and roll their eyes and so clearly love each other.

Jiang Cheng's love for Jin Ling shines brightly the second you know how to interpret Jiang Cheng, and Jin Ling absolutely does. Jin Ling's trust in Jiang Cheng is incredible.

Jin Ling is practically Yunmeng Jiang's heir, and practically Jiang Cheng's son.

That sort of thing doesn't just happen, because you're related or whatever. In fact, the story goes out of its way to present blood relations not being close, especially father figures.

Which means from a young age, Jin Ling knew Jiang Cheng's love. Jiang Cheng, struggling young zongzhu of a struggling newly-rebuilt sect, who just lost everything, barely more than a kid himself, figured out he needed to not only stay alive, but needed to live for Jin Ling.

He needed to teach him everything, needed to figure out how to be the best of his own father and mother, and the best of Jin Ling's father and mother, and live up to every lost bit of love Jin Ling should have had, and try, and try, no matter how unworthy or unfit or inferior he felt. No matter how much he fucked up and didn't know. No matter how much grief he was dealing with. No matter how many people hated him and how few friends he had. No matter how much there was to do. No matter how overwhelming the endless tide of days, of forever in front of him felt, horrible and empty of everyone that had come before. Jiang Cheng still chose to live.

He carved out that new life because of love. He didn't die for anyone, and he didn't die for anyone's memory. He lived.

"I never thought I'd be worth the work it would take to piece myself together," but he did, for his sect, his disciples, his family's legacy, his siblings' memories, and Jin Ling.

And, as a bonus knife, the things we see him chide Jin Ling the most for? Are specifically things Wei Wuxian would have done, and even things he would have done in following him. Grandstanding, not asking for help when needed, wandering off alone, making unnecessary sacrifices.

Wei Wuxian's Growth

That brings us to Wei Wuxian coming back. And, well, the boy still has a long way to go. He goes through a lot of kinds of growth post-timeskip. And I think this is one of them.

For one, he's already fucking died once.

Honestly, almost ironically, that death wasn't even fully a sacrifice. Perhaps in some ways it was, in some ways he internalised that it was. But regardless, after all his sacrificing, he finally died. And, much like Jiang Cheng's sacrifice, it didn't stick. He woke back up. Albeit 16 years later.

Now, he wasn't keen on dying, or he maybe would have just gone back. But that doesn't mean he'd suddenly decided to live for anyone rather than die for them.

And, indeed, we still see that side of him come back with him in full force. He starts off by deciding he will just live this new life without Jiang Cheng and Lan Zhan altogether.

I think, for Wei Wuxian, this matter of sacrifice ends up being tied into a lot of other pieces of his growth--none of it happens independently of each other.

First, he is shown and told that he is wanted. That's the first thing. He cannot simply go on without inconveniencing/endangering/roping anyone else into his shit because his ties to other people don't work in only one direction. He is wanted.

Lan Zhan wants to be at his side, has not forgotten him, and loves him unwaveringly. That is a huge first step, right there at the beginning, when Lan Zhan grabs his hand, and they make eye contact, and by the time Lan Zhan turns to look away Wei Wuxian is grabbing his hand back desperately and that pretty much says everything it needs to right there.

The idea that Wei Wuxian can act at all without having any negative affect on anyone tied to him is something we see even outside the concept of sacrifice--how many times before his death, even before his defection, do we see him say things like "you can insult me, but don't involve the Yunmeng Jiang sect" like. Like. Wei Wuxian please. That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works.

So I think him realising that other people will willingly be tied to him and there's nothing he can do about it, that his actions affect the people who care about him all the time, is something he still has to learn/relearn even after everything that happened leading up to his death. I think, in particular, Wei Wuxian realising that it's not just his mistakes and fuckups that affect people, but his intentional actions, too. Like sacrifices. Even if they're at his own expense. Because people care and that's okay and good.

Lan Zhan drives that home with things like noticing that Wei Wuxian has transferred Jin Ling's curse to his own leg, and then insisting on carrying him.

Lan Zhan notices. Lan Zhan cares. This act of sacrifice does not end with Wei Wuxian suffering. It has cascading effects, even something this small. It is, perhaps, more effective a lesson on a small scale with fewer complexities woven in, than it would be on the larger scale issues he dealt with before his death.

This idea that his sacrifices affect people beyond him is carried through the rest of the story, too, from the way everyone seems to fret about him after the Burial Mounds and Lan Sizhui runs to hold him, down to the fact that he has to answer for how his sacrifice of his golden core to Jiang Cheng affects Jiang Cheng. Both the absence of his own golden core being a catalyst for a lot of other shit, and finding out about the core transfer actually fucking Jiang Cheng up. Which, it turns out, Wei Wuxian kind of knew would happen, he just thought he could get away with not dealing with it if he kept the secret better.

Wei Wuxian can't escape his sacrifices and his actions having an effect on those around him, the ones who care and the ones he cares about, or even the object of his sacrifice, and he really does have to have that hammered home.

He also deals with growth related to his pride and arrogance. He learns how to be weak, he learns how to have alternate forms of strength, he learns how to let others in, and let others stand with him.

Most of this is related to Lan Zhan, and I've already covered it at least somewhat in another meta, but it relates back to this, because those are two driving forces behind his sacrificial nature.

If Wei Wuxian is allowed to be weak, is allowed to hesitate, is allowed to go to others for help, is allowed to look for alternative solutions, that sets a better precedent for cutting down on the habitual self-sacrifice tendencies.

Additionally, he learns that others can and will stand with him in his sacrifices, when they are necessary.

Look at the way he pushes Lan Zhan away on the steps of Jinlintai, but Lan Zhan steps back toward him, and draws his sword, and declares his love before heaven and earth, saying in as many words that Wei Wuxian need not walk his path alone, and they fight together.

And the next time Wei Wuxian goes to sacrifice? In the Burial Mounds? He doesn't even think twice before volunteering Lan Zhan to stand with him. His entire plan revolves around the idea that Lan Zhan will stand with him--without even consulting Lan Zhan--and in doing so, they may be able to prevent Wei Wuxian from actually sacrificing his life.

Already we see him internalising a lot of that growth. He doesn't need to grandstand or prove himself; he doesn't care what everyone there thinks of him, and for the ones he does care about he is secure in their regard for him. He doesn't first attempt to sacrifice himself and be bait to draw the fierce corpses away while everyone including Lan Zhan runs off. He doesn't have to be convinced to accept Lan Zhan as part of his plan. He doesn't have to have Lan Zhan simply stay behind and then deal with the addition of him later.

Compare, if you will, the Xuanwu cave. Wei Wuxian absolutely expected everyone else to leave while he drew its attention, and Lan Zhan staying was not part of his original plan. Yes, later on they attacked the Xuanwu together, but that was different entirely. At first, he was just being bait to get everyone else to safety.

In the Burial Mounds? He's already worked Lan Zhan having his back into his plans.

It's still a sacrifice, but he's come a really long way about it.

So now that we've mitigated some of the sacrificial tendencies, modulated their effects on his choices, we come down to the "live for you instead of die for you" issue.

My positing that Wei Wuxian has reached this point by the end of the story has a lot more to do with having seen the patterns of his growth, watching the way he interacted with Jiang Cheng regarding the issue of the golden core transfer being revealed, watching the way he interacted with Jiang Cheng and Lan Zhan in general evolve, and watching him allow himself to have more and more attachments by the end of the story. And getting the overall vibe that living is now important, and there are things to live for in this world now that he's back in it.

However, if I had to narrow it down to one moment to exemplify this, I would point to the moment where he's caught around the neck by Jin Guangyao.

Wei Wuxian absolutely knows that if Lan Zhan sheathes Bichen, they're all fucked. Lan Zhan could easily take everyone here who would fight him, but not if he sheathes his sword and seals his spiritual power. And at this point it's increasingly likely that if they let themselves be captured they're simply not going to make it out alive. None of them. No matter what Jin Guangyao says.

Lan Zhan's best chance for survival and Jin Guangyao's best chance at being brought to justice/captured are one and the same in this moment--Lan Zhan keeping his sword, and either taking Jin Guangyao down himself or escaping to go fetch the assembled sect leaders and such at Lotus Pier.

Wei Wuxian knows this. It's why he begs Lan Zhan to be okay with his death and to do this Right Thing anyway.

Lan Zhan is not, and does not.

I don't think Wei Wuxian is surprised by this, to be fair.

But he could have ensured it would happen. He could have ensured that Jin Guangyao would go down. He could have ensured, more importantly, that Lan Zhan lived. He could have prevented Lan Zhan from sheathing Bichen to begin with.

He could have sacrificed himself.

It would have been incredibly easy at that point. All he had to do was fight back instead of hold still. Jin Guangyao was not bluffing, probably, though he just as surely knew if Wei Wuxian died then he was next, he counted on everyone wanting Wei Wuxian alive more than they wanted him dead. So if Wei Wuxian had tried to fight back or escape, he would have died.

Jin Guangyao would have been shocked, very very briefly. The resulting chaos would have seen everyone in custody who needed to be. Perfect.

And, you know, Lan Zhan would have been once more Wei-Ying-less.

Wei Wuxian very notably does not make this sacrifice. Even if it means they get captured. Even if it means they likely die together instead of only one of them dying. Even if that math is terrible on the surface of it.

He doesn't make Lan Zhan watch him die again. He doesn't presume that his loss means nothing. He doesn't presume that his life is not worth it, that his sacrifice is worth it.

Wei Wuxian actively chooses to live. He chooses to live for Lan Zhan. For the chance that they will both find a way out, and if they don't, then they are together in this and that matters more.

And he keeps making that choice. At no point in the confrontation with Jin Guangyao, for all those hours and hours and hours of back and forth and monologuing in that damned temple, does Wei Wuxian try to grandstand or throw himself sacrificially into the mix in any way. He is always working with everyone there to whatever extent possible, to the ends that everyone (including people he cedes the political superiority to) decides upon. He releases ownership of the situation, of needing to fix the situation, of needing to fix the situation by giving himself up.

I've been writing this so long I'm starting to lose the threads of my own thoughts, but yeah.

By the end, I think Wei Wuxian learns a lot and grows a lot and finally hits the point that Jiang Cheng hit years and years prior.

"I never thought I'd be worth the work it would take to piece myself together," but he was confronted with the idea of it again and again until it had to stick, and so he did. For Lan Zhan, for Lan Sizhui, for Jin Ling, for the other juniors.

I do think there will always be some element of self-sacrifice to Wei Wuxian's character that remain unchanged. He is a caretaker and a fixer at the heart of him. He is a big brother and I think maturity has only expanded that trait. He's also notably not a leader, and to some extent he does belong to himself both more and less than he ever could before his death.

But that doesn't have to be a bad thing. And it doesn't negate him embracing the idea of living for the ones he loves, getting better for the ones he loves, and letting them keep him in their lives.

I'd like to think that this piece of character growth is another significant thing in favour of Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng being able to forge not just a healthy relationship but a healthier relationship post-canon than they may have ever had before, or at least in a very long time.

#you would not believe how long this took to write out #why am i like this #my meta #unedited #the untamed #the untamed meta #jiang cheng #jiang wanyin #wei ying #wei wuxian #sacrifice #i may or may not be accepting constructive criticism at this time #this whole thing was probably terribly redundant but i'm too lazy to reread it and edit

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shoezuki · 3 years

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I mean like it is true that wilbur has talked abt having symptoms of autism on stream + even played up symptoms on stream, but he's also. Y'know. Talked abt the fact that he might have autism on stream & that he (& his parents) were considering getting a professional dx before ultimately deciding not to, so it's entirely reasonable to assume he is autistic.

It's just also super interesting 2 me that these ppl who r mad at phil for saying wilburs got a superpower ability in his ability to remember flags that normal ppl don't have are also the ppl who joke abt/make fun of/call wilbur weird for ND traits. Like calling his jars weird. Or saying his sand eating video is him going feral/being weird. Actually the statement of feral being used at all to refer to someone who potentially has autism.

Wilbur is constantly called weird for shit that are ND traits n it's like. Hey pp. Why is it okay 2 make fun of ND traits even if he is NT, hm?

i absolutely think wilbur has autism as well. PERHAPS. BECAUSE I RELATE SO STRONGLY KJSLKGH and like yea being autistic doesnt Require a fuckin assessment of it. its not like doctors go ‘you are now autistic :)’ yknow vkjsaggkjhsgkh. but AGAIN its not like. we cant speak w Absolute Certainty on wilbur, cuz thats no one’s place but His to do.

but yea you are SO right like. ppl apply SO much Weird passive ableist shit to wilbur n any other ccs w similar traits, it fucking sucks. like the ‘feral’ shit is weird, ppl talk bout wilbur going ‘batshit’ when hes jus really focused n excited, his rants about things are ‘weird’ and hes just so fuckin crazy n strange and feral right aha???????????? like. yeah.

Anyone can have traits n characteristics that are common to ND people, but makin fun of NT ppl for those traits is STILL ableist, because its making fun of those neurodivergent traits itself. like how ppl make fun of techno’s monotone voice, or ranboo’s stuttering or repetition in his speech. THAT is some shit we should look at and talk about and be critical of. not Phil complimenting his friend in some words that might not be ‘correct’

#a close friend calling someone 'not normal' is entirely different than a stranger sayin it #esp like. yall heard how fond phil was that shit is SWEET #discourse #twitter beef #ableism #felinedetached

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and-justice-for-zoisite · 3 years

Text

I've just been thinking

TRIGGER WARNING: Brief mention of guilt tripping into s*xual interactions.

As a continuation of my post I made about my last break up, which can be found here for context, I wanted to share my experiences with depression and the issues associated with it all.

I've learned a few very valuable things with my journey through romance, and how to identify a few red flags within some relationships.

To be completely fair, my ex boyfriend has Asperger's, but that doesn't entirely excuse some of the things he put me from. As a disclaimer, I am not speaking negatively of being neurodivergent at all - i love everyone for their different and unique characteristics, both physically and mentally - but this man belittled me for things out of my control.

I've noticed a large difference between my last and current relationship. I'll speak about my last relationship first.

I wasn't allowed to talk about or do any natural bodily functions - most notably, my period which is a very significant factor in majority of women's lives. He made me feel like I was gross for menstruating, and like as a woman it was my responsibility to conceal anything like my period, being unwell and so on from the whole world including him, even though we were on intimate terms and this would obviously effect him too. He made me feel like it was something I should be ashamed of.

Another hurtful thing was that he would guilt trip me into shaving my body hair. He would refuse to have any sexual interactions with me if I didn't shave my body hair, and would then guilt trip me into giving him a bl*w j*b instead. I'm not sure about other women, but my skin is very sensitive down there and I'm not comfortable with shaving it. And as for my leg hair, I don't always have time to shave it as I'm a high school student that's going to graduate in a year and I'm very focused on law. And I just personally don't like shaving my legs, I don't feel comfortable with myself presenting entirely feminine and this helps with a sort of body dysmorphia.

And finally, whenever I wanted to talk about what was bothering me, he would always find some way to make his situation sound worse. He would invalidate my feelings by saying that his mental health was 'worse' - and even if it was or was not, that obviously didn't make me feel better. If anything it made me feel worse. I'm more than happy to support someone I'm in a relationship with - It's literally one of the bare minimum things required - but I should not have to tolerate my feelings being invalidated.

In other words, he didn't allow me to be human. But I was so blinded by the physical affection he gave me which I craved to see what was so horribly wrong with this relationship.

But my new boyfriend made me see exactly what I deserved.

When I met him, he was nothing but sweet to me. He was patient, understanding, and upfront with me. And he was the exact same when we began dating. He opened up to me about mental issues he has upfront that I will not disclose and I did the same. We both reassured each other that these things were okay, and that we would handle them and take care of each other in the process.

I could actually be human around this man. I didn't feel the need to hide anything from him - my period, my scars, my stretchmarks. Nothing. He loved and accepted me for everything I was and am, flaws and all. He gets upset whenever I defended my ex's actions, because there isn't any excuse for the way he treated me. He made me see that I wasn't the villain when my ex made me out to be. He showed me that it was okay to feel the way I did, to just exist however I wanted and do whatever I want with my body. He doesn't make me shave my body hair or guilt trip me for having it. He treats me like a princess, how a partner oughta be.

I have an odd sort of way I identify, best described as perhaps a demigirl. Those surrounding me I prefer for them to call me Leo and refer to me with they/them pronouns, but for my current boyfriend I want him to refer to me with my birthname and she/her pronouns. This is because he knows me and my body intimately and he makes me feel comfortable in my own skin. But I just don't know how I feel about the surrounding people. My ex boyfriend would've never done that for me, in fact he talked very negatively of people who identified as anything other than their biological sex.

But yeah, that's about it. I just wanted to share that.

Thank you everyone :)

#love #feminism #feminist #red flags #green flags

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fruity-theatre · 3 years

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(ID: A picture of the character Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation. He is wearing his signature yellow Starfleet uniform.)

Data is undoubtedly my favourite character from the Star Trek universe. He is an android, the first one to join Starfleet, and he faces a lot of scrutiny for it. His greatest aspiration is to be able to feel human emotions, and to understand human interactions. He was created in 2336 by Dr. Noonien Soong, a fictional scientist from the Star Trek franchise. He was found, and reactivated, by the crew of the U.S.S. Tripoli on the 2nd of February, 2338, on the planet Omicron Theta. Data joined Starfleet in 2341, and by 2364, he had succeded to the rank of lieutenant commander. We are first introduced to him in the pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, where we learn that he serves as second officer of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

Data is very blunt, a trait which serves as a sort of comedic relief in the show. He has vastly superior mental and physical capabilities to the rest of the Enterprise crew, although he lacks in the socialising department. He has the tendency to take everything literally, and to reply to questions with the exact definition of the answers, which I consider the funniest quirk of his. Those characteristics render him a favourite of most neurodivergent fans, who sympathise with his struggle to fit in and understand societal norms.

I’m not entirely sure of what attracted me in particular to the character of Data. Perhaps it’s because I somewhat relate to him in feeling alienated from other people, or all the shenanigans he gets up to. Maybe it’s his child-like curiosity about everything he comes across, or the way he expresses his appreciation to his friends. Anyway, Data is one of the most complex and multifaceted characters in the Star Trek universe, and, in my opinion, the best example of humanity, despite not being entirely human.

(ID: A picture of a quote by Gene Roddenberry. It reads “It is the struggle itself that is most important. We must strive to be more than we are. It does not matter that we will not reach our ultimate goal. The effort itself yields its own reward.”)

#september #reflection #star trek #data #lieutenant commander data #data my little meow meow

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amazing-spiderling · 2 years

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5, 6, 11, 23 🙃

What character that you’re writing do you most identify with?

Perhaps this is going to sound strange or narcissistic even... but whoever I tend to be writing at the time? ^_^;; Since I'm just writing for fun for myself anyway, I think I naturally gravitate towards creating fanwork for characters that I can empathize with on some level, or at the very least, explore the parts of their personality that resonate with me. I think that's why I tend to use some of the same themes or ideas (even if the plots are different) or come back to the same core characterization when building a story.

Four example, four of the characters I've spent the most time writing recently are Peter Parker, Wade Wilson, Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson. All pretty different characters, but there's something about each of them that pings with me. For Peter, it's that constant hum of anxiety he has about needing to be doing more, putting his own needs on the back burner to take care of others. For Wade, it can be feelings of outsider-ness, feeling like you have a specific value to those around you, but aren't needed outside of that. (And oof let's not get into body image stuff!) With Matt (especially TV characterization) there's the idea of having to be self reliant and doing everything on his own even when there are people around willing and ready to help. And then Foggy has that "only sane man" vibe a lot of the time, or at least what resonates with me is the feeling of having to keep a level head when people around you are having much more dramatic and unstable moments. None of these things are the SINGLE defining characteristic for any of these characters, but they are the things I think I tend to zero in on because I "get" it, and I think I'll be more effective at exploring those themes in a fic.

What character do you have the most fun writing?

Gosh... You know, I think probably Deadpool? Which is a shame, I don't think I do enough of it. I think it's just easier for me to make myself laugh when I'm writing him. I will go back during editing and go, "yeah, that's still funny" and it makes me smile.

What do you envy in other writers?

The ability to craft rich, lush descriptions. I think it just comes down to how my brain works. I think when I try to describe things (even in speaking) I fall back on the idea of shared experiences more than descriptive language. "I saw that sunset and it made me feel like (something relatable I can't think of right now)" as opposed to describing the blending of colors. I'm sort of having to force myself to do this now though, as I venture into the Daredevil fandom and have to try harder to explain things from Matt's point of view and how he understands things. I have definitely been overwhelmed while reading descriptions of things because I think, wow, in a hundred years with a hundred dictionaries, I would never have thought to describe mountains that way. But I think that's one of the neat things about writing.

What’s the story idea you’ve had in your head for the longest?

Gosh, this is dumb and it's been kicking around, I don't think I really want to write it anymore? Or if I did it would need some severe rewrites and an entire crew of sensitivity readers. But I wanted to write a comic book (or YA book? IDK) about a group of people who were "ordinary" in a world where basically everyone is augmented with some kind of super power, whether it's biological or cybernetic etc. It was like a rag tag bunch of misfits who all had various reasons for not being enhanced, but because enhancements are what are registered with the government, this essentially means that they don't exist. So they come together and form this little squad that operates off the radar to get shit done (mostly helping people that can't work within the system for reasons). They all had they own skills that would come in handy, but they were all things they had to learn and practice (although I remember a few of the members were neurodivergent but that helped them like a pair of twins with the same synesthesia that used it to develop an unbreakable system of code words between them and yes I know that's not how synesthesia works but also I came up with this idea like 20 years ago cut me some slack).

#writer memes #thank you for the ask #this got long lol

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serialreblogger · 3 years

Text

Empty Masks

The Phantom of the Opera and Social Dynamics of Exclusivity

(or: an essay I will never have an academic excuse to write, but shall anyway, because I watched The Phantom of the Opera tonight and i need to get this out of my system)

I can’t express just how desperately I want to be the Phantom. The strange, half-human ghost hidden under a mask, with a billowing cape and an opera house to hide his secrets, snow-covered stone gargoyles hiding him from the streets when he ascends to the roof and sings to the cold, bright stars. His would-be bride, the ethereal maiden entranced and led down into those secret places, where dark spires arc overhead and dark water flows away beneath the prow of the boat the Phantom, her would-be lover, steers.

But therein lies the problem: we are not meant to wish we were the Phantom.

The Phantom is meant to be a stranger. He is, after all, inhuman. It’s in his names: angel, demon, monster, ghost. He is not a man. He is more, and less. He is altogether other, and while we may sympathize, we are never meant to see ourselves in him.

And yet.

Because the thing about alterity is that there are far, far more of us than there are “meant” to be, the ones who see ourselves not in the heroes but in the villains of such tales. We, the queer viewers, the POC, disabled and disfigured and neurodivergent watchers and everyone else that lives on the margins of polite society—we do not see ourselves in the heroes. We are not only invisible in the ranks of the righteous: far, far too often, we are (implicitly or overtly) represented as the villains, the monsters, precisely because of who we are. Of what we are.

And that’s why the Shape of Water hit so hard for so many people, and why we’re seeing so many reimaginings of Lovecraftian horrors as something sympathetic, something good. Because so many of us have only ever seen ourselves in the monsters. We aren’t the people fleeing in fear and being reassured by the death of the creature; we are the creatures, watching our counterparts die again and again, in a thousand different ways, with a thousand different justifications. We are the monsters, cast out for things we can’t control.

But, of course, that is unjust. Even the heroes could see that. There must be something else, some justification, a reason we deserve to be slain. And so every dragon-slayer tells tales of the stolen princess. Every story with a monster makes sure to establish that the monster is dangerous and evil, ruined inside and out.

The Phantom is a murderer, and so he deserves to be unmasked. We are meant to understand that the two are inextricable: the face the mask hides is the murder the man commits. Even as Christine sings that it is “no longer” his face she is repulsed by, but his “soul, in which the true distortion lies,” we know that the accusation of “murderer” is always preceded by, caused by, the more heinous accusation: “monster.”

The Phantom’s wickedness is an excuse. His murderous inclinations, his possessiveness, the “evil” characteristics that are narratively traced back to his childhood and the way he was treated—they are used to justify the way he is robbed of his mask before a crowd, the way he’s ripped away from his longtime home in the secret twists and hideaways of the opera house.

I had a visceral reaction to that scene, where Christine unmasks him. It hit too close to home. To have something that was kept so carefully hidden, something that, if revealed, could be so catastrophically dangerous—to have that be revealed, against your will—and by someone so intimately close to you? Someone you trusted, body and soul?

It felt like watching someone getting outed.

And, in a way, it was. The Phantom’s face was revealed, and it was as relevant as gender or orientation to his evil acts, and yet all the narrative repercussions still tied it inexorably, inextricably, into his villainy.

“Keep your hand at the level of your eyes,” Madame Giri says, and it is because his weapon of choice was a noose; it is because his face is a curse to behold. The Phantom’s violence is caused by his face. The Phantom is evil because of his face. The Phantom is a monster because he is evil—because of his face.

And that’s the rub of the Gothic genre, of horror that makes ordinary people monsters (of societies that ostracize its members for being “monstrous”): there is no place for the people that don’t belong.

The Phantom escaped his original prison (a captivity which has its own signifiers of racism and dehumanization—making very human monsters out of another oppressed people, this time the Romani—but that’s a whole essay of its own) and donned a mask, because his face made him a monster. He put on a mask of his own accord, perhaps, but he also didn’t have a choice. He couldn’t look in the mirror without it, not after everything he’d been told. He knew what made him a monster. He couldn’t change his face, so he tried to hide it. He was made to wear a mask.

It was not enough. There does not exist a mask behind which we will not long to look.

“Masquerade” is a masterful scene that shows the different layers of social exclusivity. There is the ballroom full of upper-class mask-wearers. Everyone there is unrecognizable, hiding behind their costumes. It is perfectly choreographed. It is perfectly gilded. It is entirely, divinely, grotesquely perfect. It is false.

A few floors lower, the servants and lower-class players have their own party, carousing and laughing with unbrushed hair and wide grins. They wear no masks, and feast on sour beer and stale pastries. They wear no masks because they can’t afford them. They are not permitted to be seen, but nor are they permitted to hide behind the masks of the rich. They make do. They celebrate together, because none of them have any masks, and that makes them friends, at least for the evening. They are forbidden from having masks, and so—if they stay in their proper place—they need none.

The Phantom has not removed his mask in years.

Even then, it is not enough. The room of the rich falls deathly silent as he appears in their midst. He cannot blend in among them. He cannot dance. He has not the patience, anymore, to try. He wears his mask, and at least they cannot see his face beneath it.

They fear him, not because he’s a monster, but because he is a mask. They want to know what’s behind it. They want there to be nothing at all behind it. The Phantom is a mask, and the person behind it is a blemish. They put up with him when he is invisible except for a shadow, a flash of white plaster and black cloak in the night. They can pretend there is not a person behind the mask. It’s a ghost. They want it to be a ghost.

It isn’t a ghost.

And when the mask is ripped from his face, when the person behind it is revealed to be human, even then perhaps they could go on; but he isn’t the right kind of human. He’s physically disfigured. He isn’t human at all. He’s a monster.

They hunt him like one.

There is no room in their world for a person that looks wrong, even one that hides behind a mask.

There is no room in their world for monsters.

(The monsters listen, and hold our masks a little tighter.)

#linden's originals #linden writes an essay #if anyone wants to challenge the idea that his appearance is directly the cause of his violence in and outside of the story #i can provide a supplemental argument but i don't feel like verbalizing it all right now #something something origins something options something #obv he 'had' a choice to Not Kill People but he's a character - the fact that he was written as a murderer #and his impetus to become a murderer was tied into his mistreatment #at the hands of a romani person and with the widely agreed-upon justification that he was subhuman bc of his face #yeah #whatever the conclusion sentence of that is #you know what i'm saying #if ur reading this wow ilu you're the real mvp here #thank u friend u are so cool #wow i did bother adding pictures to this gosh i love this movie so much #look friends i can love the gothic genre and hate it in equal measure for the same reasons #is it inherently ~Problematique~?#sure #so's pretty much everything especially in such a dysfunctional society with such an apocalyptic history #at least it's got style #at least it offers me a space in which my monstrosity is darkly - tragically - beautiful #at least it mourns the fate of the monsters (even though we aren't supposed to)#The Phantom of the Opera #gothic literature #meta #literary analysis

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thatpinkbetch · 3 years

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Hi Pink! Seeing you reblog that small post with Iida and Deku made me really happy!! They're two of my favourite characters, and as someone with autism and ADHD it's always amazing to see positive representation of autistic coded characters/characteristics (stimming, special interest: quirk analysis, trait mimicking/absorption, hyperfocus, etc). Hope this is an okay message to send, it just made me really happy

Yes of course!! Its more than okay!! I love them too so much and its so important to me as well! I almost cried when i realized that Midoriya most definitely has adhd, and hes the main character! They deserve so much more from fandom, especially Iida, who gets perhaps the least amount of love out of all the main characters.

Not only are they great characters, but their friendship really makes my heart warm! The way they look up to the other, how they find comfort in each other, its so sweet, and it makes me so sad when people seem to want to talk about Deku's relationship to everyone except for Iida, because Iida has influenced him greatly!! Im sure most people see him as a comic relief character, but hes actually incredible representation, and hes so important within the story and outside of it.

It also makes me sad to see the fandom cut Midoriya up and pick and chose what they want to see, what they want out of a main character. Hes an adhd nerd with social anxiety and his best friend has autism, and we should shout it into the fandom!!! 📣📣📣

Im very glad you're happy, please shout it out as well!! This blog celebrates neurodivergence, we're awesome, and we deserve more space to talk about it 💖💖💖

#bnha #boku no hero academia #mha #my hero academia #asks #cats-and-deities #yessssss more about these two please 💖💖💖#more analysis about this!!!#💖💖💖💖

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smelllikeholyhell-blog · 5 years

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Analysis of abuse

I told myself that this is where I was going to use this site to do my B I G A N G E R Y P O S T I N G so I might as well stay true to it.

Editing in some precursor TWs: I detail acts of abuse, sexual assault and manipulation below with the intent of analysing what allows those things such prevalence in society. If that’s uncomfortable for you I respect that and wish you a good evening/day : )

Through recent events in my life, developments concurrent with my own ability to criticise myself being at its highest, I’ve started reevaluating a lot of what behaviour is and isn’t abusive. This is predictably an incredibly uninspiring and unproductive exercise, most abusive behaviour is actually just abusive behaviour. But in paying attention to the attitude, aftermath and the vigour of abuse from abusers seems to dictate more than the actual behaviour itself.

Hot take for the post: All people will be guilty of abuse at some point or another in a relationship, and unknowing abuse is still abuse.

I’ve said this to a lot of people and it feels like almost all of them become apprehensive and feel a need to guard themselves and their friends in that situation. A few lines of reasoning appear; What about mentally ill people? What about when your partner won’t communicate abuse? What about in early relationships where you actually couldn’t know better? What about when the person has no control?

At the end of the day abuse is one thing and one thing only and that is the mistreatment of something or someone. I think an important standard to have set for yourself in your personal relationships--or at least a healthy and safe one--is to be able to identify patterns of abuse where they are. An important secondary one is to be able to identify the source of that abuse.

Some trauma victims engage in abusive behaviours as a way of meeting a standard of self-protective coping they’ve developed for themselves. I can say that their intentions aren’t even predominantly bad, just self-sufficient in the ways they’ve learned how to be. I can attest to that personally and also say that it’s something I’m working on. I have found myself doing strange things in fits of panic, things that are extremely worrying too. I can also say that almost every one of my significant others has, at some point or another, engaged in abusive behaviour of varying severity ranging from sexual violence and physical violence to a downright flagrant manipulation of emotion.

I’ve had exes try and separate me from my entire social life. I’ve had exes accuse me of things they themselves have done to me. I’ve had exes try their absolute hardest to convince me to commit suicide after a breakup, or sometimes close to one. Contrary to those actions; I would not consider all of them to be abusers.

I think a differential classification between abusers and people who engage in abusive behaviour is slight, pedantic and something I’ve done mostly to benefit myself but I also believe my reasoning behind it is sound. I believe an abuser is someone who engages in abusive behaviour with the added circumstance of no remorse, no willingness to change, or a complete indifference to how they’ve treated someone else.

I have two anecdotes I can use to separate these two types of people:

In 2013 I dated a girl named S, she was extremely sweet, very cute, and had a habit of emotional manipulation. She would buy affection and feel entitled to sexual interaction afterwards, if she didn’t get it a fight would ensue. When I explained to her that I was depressed she’s condescendingly disregard my state of being and respond that I’m “Always depressed, and pretty bad to be around like that”. I would consider that strong of an amount of emotional neglect, coupled with the desire to purchase the ‘right kind of partner’ to be abusive. I would, however, not consider her to be an abuser. Years later I presented her with what she had said to me, how she treated me, the precedents she set in that relationship, and told her I found it abusive. Her reaction was one of legitimate guilt, an actual desire to make things right. Over a few months I saw her actually change as a person slowly but surely, she didn’t just internalise that she had done something wrong (a distinguishing moral characteristic that separates abusers from people who inadvertently engage in abuse); she sought to fix the personality traits and habits that led to that pattern of behaviour. We had disagreements and a falling out anyway but that happens! And it’s okay. Not everyone you don’t like in this world is abusive, sometimes you both look at each other and just think “wow what an asshole” and stop talking.

My second anecdote is extremely recent, fresh in my mind, and one that can showcase what I did wrong too.

In 2018 I dated a boy named T. T raped me. T gaslighted me. T hit me, spit in my face, mocked me for being neurodivergent, mentally ill, having an ED, and for my history of self-harm. He enabled the abuse of other people around me too, for example his sister who would verbally abuse or berate me any time I came into contact with her.

Before I go any further into this anecdote let me explain what I did wrong too, that’s fair and I’m mature enough to work on my problems and also admit to them openly; In that relationship I was insulting. When an argument was started and an insult was thrown my way I wouldn’t just double down on retaliation I would metaphorically nuke the opposition out of existence. It took one or two insults to set me off to a degree that I feel incredibly guilty for, and had no right reaching. I yelled a lot, in my family we do nothing but yell and for all that I like to tell myself that I’m better than my family, more often than not that isn’t true. In arguments I would yell and I would shout in situations where a calm tone of voice not only was doable but was outright beneficial. I had issues with respecting personal space which is made even worse by the fact that at the age of 21 I’ve spent 14 years trying to cultivate the most dominant and intimidating physical presence in the room at any given point in time. I internalised reactions to abuse and turned them into different forms of abuse. I would make A feel trapped in some spaces, my physical demeanour would come off threatening. This is something I can happily say I rectified over the course of that relationship once it was brought to my attention but I still have no excuse for my behaviour, and will never do anything but admit to it wholly.

Let’s return to him, though; During an argument one day where I mentioned feeling a lot of disdain towards T for how he’d treated me, he pointedly asked “What did I ever do to you?”.

The response you could guess was coming; You raped me.

T’s response, significantly harder to guess but one that still haunts me to this moment: “I could tell people the same thing about you, how would you like it?”. In this relationship not only had T sexually assaulted me twice, coerced me into sex I didn’t want a half dozen other times, and made me extremely unsafe around him. He knew I’d been abused as a child. Not only abused, but disbelieved as well. When reporting the abuse of a close family friend to my family I was called a liar. I was smacked by my mother. Over the course of a long conversation that I don’t particularly want to remember the details of I was told that one day someone would say the same thing about me and I “wouldn’t like it too much then”. T knows this. T knows this and several different points in time he made it his mission to exploit that knowledge.

This sent me into a panic attack which resulted in T leaving for a week.

When he left, I went to a nonbinary support group we frequent and asked an organiser for help. I wanted him blocked from returning to that environment because I wanted to begin cutting him out of my life as quickly and efficiently as possible. I needed him gone, so I told an organiser everything that had happened. They said okay. That they believed me. But that they were going to contact T to tell him what was up.

As you can imagine I said: or how about fucking don’t, dude. This was ignored. T was contacted. He returned and began 6 months of cruel manipulation. He would trigger PTSD episodes, panic attacks, he’d hit me, yell at me and after all of this he would play the role of victim no matter what happened. Even if the retaliation was just me saying “You’re being abusive” this was somehow, in his mind, an act of aggression. These would become more flagrant around friends, in isolated situation with specific people. He’d started trying to divide me from my friends. Doing nothing with me but then constantly taking every opportunity to demand that I separate myself from my friends. Any situation that could be twisted into my friends being the ones making me unhappy would result in me being told I shouldn’t talk to them anymore, if I railed against that it would result in an argument where I was mocked for being mentally ill or neurodivergent. This sounds like hyperbole but this was a consistent pattern over the course of six months as well as a pattern of physical abuse and sexual coercion and manipulation.

Many, many more things happened but this isn’t an autobiography. The reason I give such excruciating detail to T’s behaviour is that he never felt remorse for any of it. Never changed any of it. When it came time to face the repercussions of what he’d done, T flipped it on me to the best of his ability. He took great strides to make me look abusive, to make me look deranged or unstable. I would consider T, regardless of his excuses and manipulation (or perhaps because of them) to be the quintessential abuser. Someone whose pattern of abuse is so hardwired into their daily existence that they see it as natural, that anyone disagreeing or disavowing that behaviour is the abuser. Even when confronted with the facts of their behaviour not only are things just not their fault the abuser says that those behaviours are healthy. That the victim is wrong. That nothing can be done, or if it can be done it’ll take so many years.

We can draw these lines in the sand as much as we want but let’s ask ourselves what contributes to these systems?

In T and I’s relationship we had a mutual friend named X; X always had excuses for T. Because T was afab, and I was not. If T was hitting me, slapping me and screaming at me I was expected to just leave, even if there was no option. If I hit T back once to get away I was immediately the abuser. Why? Because T was afab. And I am not. If T raped me while I slept it was because, well, in X’s words “consent is such a grey area”. Between this, the unconditional support from a twin sibling with a bone to pick, and a stunning lack of resources and social acceptance for amab people who are victims of abuse. It isn’t difficult to stretch our imagination to such an extent that we can see what causes this system. Because it takes no imagination, the contributing factors to this are laid out plain and bare in front of us; Only about half of abuse victims are seen as valid. And even more so, less than half of abuse types are valid. Sexual entitlement is a fundamental part of all cultures where men are present, be they trans or cis. Sexual entitlement removes the need and steps of obtaining consent while in a relationship because it is seen as “natural”. “Of course your significant other wants to have sex with you 24/7! And if you want it you should take it! Don’t even ask, champ, just go out there and grab it”. This attitude lends a toxic credence to the belief that consent is a “grey area”. It isn’t. Consent is a yes or no question, if you can’t get a yes or a no then do nothing.That’s final.

Just as well, the psychological aspect of physical abuse is completely unspoken of around amab people. Amab people know what they face if they retaliate to abuse. We know what the response from the legal system is. We know what repercussions we face if we defend ourselves, if we retaliate, if we leave. I know how I look in the eyes of the world, and no amount of being a pacifist will dethrone the birthright of complacency and resilience I’ve inherited. If I am hit I “deal with it, not like it could hurt that much” (spoiler; it does, physically and mentally). If I’m shoved “he’s so small, it’s not like he could send you flying”(spoiler; not the point and he has knocked me down).

And this is just what I can vouch for as an AMAB person myself, I am completely unable to even imagine what AFAB people have to put up with. But the psychological aspect of being hit, shoved, screamed at, degraded and raped and at the end of it all just being told “Well it’s not that bad really” destroyed me. It broke my will to leave my abuser. There is a social and political structure in place to demand a level of resilience from people that they cannot feasibly provide based solely on how they were born. In an equal society, or any society that strives to BE equal, we cannot expect that from anyone. We cannot expect victims of abuse to suffer their abuse and continue happily singing their song. When we place that expectation on anyone. When we place an expectation of “Don’t hit back” on anyone. When we place an expectation of “don’t ask for help” on anyone. We have all contributed a significant amount to perpetuating systems and structures that churn out abusers at a remarkable and terrifying pace, with remarkable and terrifying success. The continued existence of people like R. Kelly and Chris Brown is enough proof anyone could ask for that the current systems that have existed up until this point serve a multi function; To enable abusers the full control and automation they need to perform any abusive acts they could want to perform. To face no repercussions in the aftermath of that abuse, be they social and or political. And instill a deep sense of unequaled fear in the victims of abuse who seek to escape their situations.

When we fail to distinguish the difference between an abuser and a person making an abusive mistake--When we fail to distinguish an abuser with the appropriate connotations applied to their actions. We have opened the door for them to pass undetected through everyday life. Unless there is a significant and unified focus on deconstructing and disabling the perpetuated existed of structures that enable abuse, we have in turn enabled the continued presence and existence of abusers in safe spaces. We have enabled them to continue existing undetected in everyday life, unafraid of the consequences of their actions.

Think critically on systems of abuse and contribute where you can in dismantling them.

#abuse tw #rape #gaslighting

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