#kindness is a choice and having low or no empathy does not in any way make someone heartless but linebeck does abuse his own low empathy

[waywardsalt]

i have planned to write a pseudo-essay or some kind of detailed look at linebeck in phantom hourglass and how he can be interpreted as autistic but thats not going very well right now so here are some autistic linebeck headcanons

He has low empathy and as such has a hard time responding very well to emotional situations, but he can take advantage of his lower empathy in situations where empathy could make things harder, like tending to wounds or rationally handling emotionally-charged situations

His coat is a comfort object and he made it specifically to act as a very slight accommodation; it’s heavy and barely lets any light through it, and he can keep all kinds of little things in pockets sewn into the inner lining, but larger objects do make it more uncomfortable to wear at times. It’s mostly good to carry around things to fidget or stim with and can be helpful in trying to recover from overwhelming sensory experiences

He doesn’t usually stim in public, but taps his fingers on tables quickly and tends to rhythmically snap his fingers when excited, and on his ship is more vocal and more willing to stim, even if around others. One of his main stims that he’ll do for no particular reason is that he’ll hold his arm or back of his wrist/hand up to his nose and mouth for the smell.

He masks frequently to please people. His default mask is that arrogant and brave front he puts up for islanders and other he may come across. Usually, if that mask doesn’t work, he tends to double-down because it usually works and, in his experience, dropping the mask has usually gone badly (non masking he’s rude and blunt but more outwardly excited about adventure and his ship and all of that, i consider it where overseas in the game is when he usually isn’t masking. this shifts his arc to be about him learning to stop masking and feel comfortable being himself)

His special interests could include stuff related to treasure hunting but it could really range from stuff about adventuring or the ocean or engineering (relating to his ship) to stuff not at all touched in the game like music. He really enjoys music, listening to it, playing it, and writing it. He also enjoys and is fascinated by shellfish.

When busy or otherwise occupied, he doesn't usually notice when he's hungry. He doesn't have as much of a problem noticing thirst or exhaustion, but feeling hunger is a problem for him, and often leads to him going a long time without eating. On the other hand, he doesn't mind eating the same thing repeatedly and is perfectly fine with blander foods, so handling food supplies for when he'll be overseas for a long time is easy for him.

He knows he's autistic, he's known for a pretty long time, and he has books on it; he also knows that Link is autistic, but doesn't say anything about it and instead waits until someone else tells him. Until (and after, I suppose) Link actually learns that he's autistic Linebeck just makes sure to keep note of what accommodations he might need and if there are any textures or tastes or smells he can't stand. He doesn't have much of a problem helping out during sensory overloads, even soon after meeting him. It's more out of understanding how it feels to not have your needs met and a sort of solidarity rather than actual friendship.

#loz #legend of zelda #phantom hourglass #linebeck #OBVIOUSLY he experiences some nasty rsd and he's a bitch about it that's like. basically canon so i didnt mention it #a lot of linebeck’s autism is based and referenced off of my own with some extra additions #which is why i have an easier time writing him as autistic than link #kindness is a choice and having low or no empathy does not in any way make someone heartless but linebeck does abuse his own low empathy #to be a mean bitch with minimal emotional consequences #i think linebeck would call link a dipshit to his face and then not feel bad about it for like a few weeks until he starts caring abt him #linebeck stimming by smelling his arm is actually my main stim. its probably why i sit all fucked up bc i sometimes do it w/ my legs lol #the masking bit does kinda fuck some stuff up but i personally enjoy that take on him #one of his comfort objects is an old orange cat plushie named copernicus and if you know what that is specifically from thank you im sorry #linebeck being way into music has no canon backup i just like the idea of him playing piano and composing some form of his own theme #piano is a mad sensory experience btw i dont yet know how to really play it but when i did keyboard in pit it was a fantastic feeling #bangin' out the tunes. it was a really good sort of stim if i was feeling a bit overwhelmed by all of the new tech and music too #salty talks #not entirely an autism headcanon but he thinks gender is a sham and less identifies as a man and more specifically considers #his gender identity to be 'real man of the sea' which is initially kinda silly but kind of a fucking gender move tbh #i dont think he's explicitly trans or nb he's just having fun fucking with his own gender and doing whatever he feels like doing #he isnt a man but he is a man. kind of like how im a dude but also not. yeah. #these were initally going to be call 'quick' headcanons but you can see why i uh. didn't end up going with that

[butch-reidentified]

I've spoken before about psychopathy, particularly my own, and the importance of recent research and demolishing the stigma and absolutely absurd past conceptions and measures of psychopathy, which were exclusively based on studies of male prisoners convicted of violent crime.

Just to reiterate - psychopathy is not being deranged and uncontrollably violent. Villanelle from Killing Eve is actually an excellent and well-researched example of high-EQ female psychopathy, and the first fictional portrayal I can genuinely see myself in. Psychopaths with high EQ are entirely capable of cognitive empathy, and many (like myself) are actually very gifted in it, and can even make excellent counselors/therapists as a result of this combined with a lack of strong internal biases and the fact that we won't be emotionally impacted/drained by patients. This presentation of psychopathy is becoming more and more recognized and studied, and is distinctly more common in women. We retain the core defining traits, obviously - boldness, deviancy, disinhibition, very high fear threshold, a tendency toward meanness (self-control is a thing, though), reduced capacity for remorse and regret*, and of course lack of affective (emotional) empathy - but are much more able to moderate ourselves and prioritize social functioning, and tend to view the sadistic behavior of low-EQ psychopathic males as wasteful. My wife calls it "prosocial psychopathy."

Anyway, I just kind of wanted to touch on this again since it's been a while and there's a fair few new followers out here. I encourage you to read the above links and check the tag - it's a pretty interesting topic, to me at least.

Edit 4/25/2024: *Regarding the reduced capacity for remorse/regret: I firmly believe this sounds worse than it is. For people like me, at least, it's not that I'm going around doing terrible things and incapable of feeling bad about any of them. The truth is that remorse & regret most frequently occur as a result of intensely emotion-driven behaviors, which as a concept is largely foreign to me - I don't tend toward remorse/regret because the way I interact with the world, analyze situations, and choose to behave in response, is inherently from the very beginning done with the acceptance of potential consequences actively held in my mind. I'm not prone to regret/remorse because I know myself extremely well and make choices as consistent with my understanding of self as possible, having already prepared myself for the possibility that things could go wrong. It's more about being prepared for what might happen and able to cope when things do go wrong, rather than being a piece of shit and not feeling anything about it.

This doesn't make me better or worse than others; it's a neutral fact that male supremacy has made seem otherwise by constantly claiming that "logic" or whatever is superior to emotions. Fuck that. Loads of the best people I've ever known have been very emotion-driven (what non-shit people identify as a firm of being passionate) and some of the shittest people I've known would waste their dying breath insisting they're 100% logical creatures, as if that's even a real thing. To me it feels very simple: if I'm making the best (most internally consistent, most reflective of my personality and values, etc) decisions I possibly can with whatever information I have at the time, then I've done my best, acted with integrity, and don't need to regret my choices. This is very challenging to write/talk about bc of the stigma & connotations involved, but again, this is a completely neutral fact to me in the same way I describe being a woman as a completely neutral fact despite the stigma & connotations involved there. Does any of this make sense?

#mine #psychopathy #emotionality

[bobbile-blog]

Not sure if anyone’s said this yet but now that we have Laterano events plural I’m fascinated by their (imo) very deliberate choice of protagonists, and there are almost a couple of layers of narrative going on there. I struggle a little figuring out how to get this into words but specifically I think they’re chosen to be people who can carry a narrative without contradicting the orthodox morals of the church. There’s a LOT of vaguely anti-authoritarian rambling below the cut so please kindly bear with me and my English major brain.

I can’t really start there though. One of the reasons this is so brain hurty is how deeply it’s woven into the storyline, so to start, I have to verbalize how Laterano and Arknights writing more generally is different from other, similar settings. Because like, I hear the words “morally negative church in a grimdark setting” and my brain immediately shuts off. Come on, that’s so far beyond low-hanging fruit, if you’ve seen any grimdark setting ever you know exactly what that looks like. And sure, it was fine the first two or three times you saw it, depending on your tolerance for that kinda thing, but it gets boring quick and even when it was new it was kinda uninteresting story-wise. “Religion is always fake because it inspires hope which means everyone who takes meaning from it is either a corrupt grifter or naive and misled” isn’t just edgy nonsense, it’s also basically useless as an actual critique. It tells you absolutely nothing except how to tune out a particular kind of story, and a story that tries to get you to hear less is doing its job wrong.

So, Arknights does something different. Instead of denying the premise of the church entirely, it actually takes it at its word. Laterano is, in almost every definition of the word, a paradise. It is basically unmatched in terms of actual quality of life, with its only competitors being the Durin cities and maybe Aegir, and is worlds apart from now much the rest of Terra sucks. More than that, though, the paradise is specifically tailored to the worldview of a religion with a strong central authority - when I say it takes it at its word, I mean the authoritarian bits too. Laterano is a city that lives in perfect order and peace because everyone follows the law perfectly and they all understand each other and never fight. Empathy is really important for this, as it allows for a believable amount of superhuman societal order. Laterano has very little crime, political drama, or quarrels in general. It’s the promises of a strict higher authority actually taken at face value: everyone follows the rules and that means they have effectively unfettered freedom, because they don’t want to break the rules and therefore they can do anything they want.

Laterano is specifically written to be a believable paradise in a setting that has none, so that when the story then turns around and criticizes that setting, it has significantly more weight. Even when the promises of paradise are taken at face value, there are still issues that cannot be addressed because the system is inherently flawed even in the imaginary scenario where it works. Even worse, the problems that poke holes in the imaginary perfect scenario are the same problems that they face in the real world, like “how do you deal with the interpretation of scriptures” and “hey there’s this racism thing I keep hearing about should we be worried about that or what”. Because of the way this imaginary perfect system works, we then look back on our real world in a new light and understand it a little better. It’s good critique.

Okay so how did we get here and what does this have to do with the protagonists? Well, this starts with Fiametta in Guide Ahead, because she’s a really weird protagonist. This is a cold take at this point but despite being the character on the front of the box, she has very little to actually do with the central conflict of the event. Most of the conflict is handled by Ezell first and Andoain second, and Fiametta mostly putters around putting holes in people until the finale where Andoain receives the answer he’s been looking for, he turns to explain it to the world, and he runs into the only person in the whole of Laterano who does not care about his motivations or his revelation. Her role, in other words, is to replace the climax of Andoain’s story with her own, and in doing so she makes it much harder to actually get a resolution and a meaning out of the story (this should not be taken as a criticism of her character, let me cook). Guide Ahead’s ending is hazy, with only small piecemeal resolutions to its conflicts, and for the longest time that was just the way the event was written and it stood on its own.

But now, Hortus de Escapismo is out and the monkey brain see patterns. Specifically, with the choice of protagonists. Because Executor is definitely different from Fiametta as a protagonist, but there’s one particularly important connection between the two, and that’s that as I mentioned in the beginning, they allow for stories don’t contradict orthodox morality. Fiametta we went over, as she’s uninterested in any of Andoain’s morality and just wants him dead. Executor, though, is purely focused on his mission and views the world through that lens. He only wants to achieve his objective, and while helping the needy is in line with the stated objectives of the church and he does do so when able, it’s secondary to his assigned task. He does change as he gets further into the story, and we’re not gonna ignore that, but we’ll be back to it later. What I mean is more that he is designed as a person who is able to lead a story that doesn’t contradict with the morals of Laterano. He sees the injustice and suffering around him, but that’s not his job, so he doesn’t need to solve it to have a complete story with a happy ending.

This is where it really gets complicated, so I apologize if I don’t explain this very well. I see this as us dealing with multiple layers of fiction: the events of the story, the perspective of the church, and our perspective as readers. Back to the first point - authoritarian institutions almost always use stories to sell people on their brand of order. Simple stories, simple enough that even calling them myths seems like overselling it a little, your “Saint George slays a dragon” kinda thing. This is the point of the second layer, the perspective of the church. I don’t really have an in-world justification for this layer - maybe you could make the argument that it has to do with Law’s perspective on things, but I don’t totally buy that - I think it’s more in a weird narrative transition space for people who don’t read very carefully. Regardless, Fiametta and Executor’s shared indifference to the questionable circumstances surrounding them is designed to let them tell a story to prop up the existing order. Their protagonist status and their missions are specifically constructed to allow them to ignore the suffering around them, and as such ignore the larger questions that might poke holes in the larger order. They’re both playing out the story of Saint George, where they go and find a bad guy and kill them and that’s all there is to it. The story is designed and told specifically for that “that’s all there is to it”.

But, as we said earlier, this is a good critique, and as such it intentionally undercuts this story with the third layer: what we actually see as readers. We are shown the suffering and the injustice, and then get to see our protagonists ignoring that to pursue their goals. This is what gives Guide Ahead’s ending its unique texture, which sets it apart from every other event with a vaguely unresolved ending. We have seen the actual issues with Laterano, and also watched our protagonist explicitly ignore them in favor of her own story. It’s unsatisfying in a way that only really makes sense to me if we as the readers have an understanding of intentional authorship. Whether it be Yvangelista XI or Law or The Actual Real Life Pope, there are issues here that we want to see a resolution to but people are choosing not to address them. Again, it’s good critique. Not only does it push the reader to unpack and understand the actual real-world technique, but it also helps blunt it. You have just seen a plot and protagonist ring uncharacteristically hollow. You then look around to see why that is, and you realize there are many things that should have been resolved that weren’t. The next time you see a story resolve with that same hollow-ness, you know where to look. Surprise! Harry Potter was propaganda the whole time. It’s okay, it was never good, you were just twelve.

I guess the last thing is where we go from here, because Executor’s story breaks this mold somewhat. In Hortus de Escapismo, he has to deal with a mission that isn’t actually bounded by his normal rules, and because of that he actually does have leeway to help the people around him. He starts as someone who is totally mission-focused, but by the end of the event he’s done a total 180 and is blocking Oren’s attack, which makes the mission harder but helps the non-mission-critical civilians of the monastery. He breaks from the rigid thinking of “kill the bad guy and that’s all there is do it”, and gives his attention to the people he isn’t supposed to see. I think this is an indication of the direction we’re going to be headed in the future with Laterano events. The events aren’t going to get better - they’re going to keep being just as morally murky and complicated as in the past - but the characters are going to get better at handling it, and when they do, they’re going to actually start to change things for the better.

Goddamn that was a lot of writing for 1 AM. I still have a. Lot of thoughts on this event with stuff like empathy and Lemuen and Federico being an autistic icon(my beloved) but I’m going to leave things there, I think, because if I write for any longer my phone is going to crash when I try to post this. Anyway if you actually made it to the end thanks for listening to me rambling and I hope that made sense. Cheers.

#arknights #arknights thoughts #hortus de escapismo #laterano #fiametta #executor arknights #I deadass had to ask folks to proofread this one #to make sure I didn’t sound like I didn’t sound off my rocker #also don’t mind my random Harry Potter slander that’s an entirely different rant

[salted-bird]

One of the things I love about Limbus' Abnormality encounters, besides how cool the designs are, is the way the game uses them to tackle the topic of performative empathy vs actual empathy.

You can't just try to fix an Abnormality's core problems and expect it to work. And it's not because the Abnormality will attack you before you get the chance to do anything, rather, following this approach is a consistent way to hit your own party with demerits due to the simple fact that YOU ARE THE ONE HURTING THE ABNO IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Trying to remove the Umbrella Fox's umbrellas is incredibly painful for it because it involves tearing off chunks of its flesh, mimicking the Weeping Toad's cry will cause it to flee because what it actually wanted was someone who would listen, removing the brambles will make the Bride and Groom sad because it means you are destroying their home, giving water to a blazing metal bull obviously isn't going to help, etc.

Your intentions can be good, but as the Umbrella Fox itself puts it, solutions without "forethought" have the potential to be incredibly harmful.

Which brings me to the similarities this has with IRL ableism, and how often body-abled people will tell you to do X thing under the claim that it will help you feel better (or even cure you) without considering the implications of their own suggestions for a single second. Some wonderful examples of this are telling someone with a respiratory disease or injury to just "take a deep breath", telling a person with chronic fatigue to "go jogging, it will give you more energy" or recommending to an autistic individual that they "learn common sense".

I'm sure you can imagine yourself (or know from first-hand experience, sadly) the rest of horrible 'magical solutions' disabled people have to hear on a regular basis, so back to the point, this type of acts share the same kind of impulsive and patronizing empathy as the "help(?) this Abnormality" choices in Limbus Company.

Not only do they not help anyone at all, in reality they are an active detriment to the physical and emotional wellbeing of the target you are supposedly trying to help with the action. In the end, the only benefit obtained is that you get to say you TRIED to help someone, hence the performative part of this behaviour, it makes you look good to others and to yourself by awarding you some imaginary reputation points that mean nothing.

Now it's very possible that you are thinking (or not) something about the lines of: "But hey, I unplugged the electric sheep being sacrificed to fuel a city, and I also sprinkled water on the tree suffering from a drought, I did have success helping a handful of the Abnos!".

This may appear to contradict my logic as described above, but I want you to consider a key difference between the Abnormalities the game does let you help and those for whom trying to do so is an insult. The former group suffers from external circumstances that can be changed through concrete actions, the latter faces permanent issues because of the very way they are.

So on the first camp;

-The Electric Sheep doesn't suffer because it's electric, it's suffers due to being exploited for energy.

-The Desert Twiggy Ghost Tree doesn't suffer because it's allergic to water, it suffers because it doesn't have access to any water.

-Similarly, the Electric Centipede only suffers because people are experimenting on it and you choose how to torture it.

You can liken them to disabled people with low-support needs, whose difficulties would in theory go away once you implement a social model of disability because the problems they face are, as the name implies, mainly social.

Now, contrast this with how for example, removing the brambles from the Rose Thorns Cross involves destroying its very body, and you should notice the theme Limbus is trying to convey through these encounters; Nobody is the same.

Sure, jumping the gun may work sometimes, if the problem is small enough to be dealt with through individual action, but more often than not the reality of what the other person is going through is so different from yours that an attempt to force your own experiences and judgement on them is only going to result in pain, and what's worse, pain for both parties if you genuinely were trying to help.

Which is not to say there's no point in desiring to offer help, my favourite part about how Limbus handles its event choices is that it teaches you a lesson about the value of simple understanding.

Tearing off its umbrellas won't help the fox, but going past its threatening appearance to show that you care by petting it will, the same goes for the gloomy frog that is so grateful to you for listening to its woes that it leaves one of its eyes behind as a gift. You don't need to change the Abnormalities' nature as Abnormalities to make them happy, being there for them and accepting them as they are is more than enough.

I could write more about the parallels between Abnormalities as a group of "non-humans" that go against the general idea of normal while existing solely to be exploited for resources and the way IRL disabled people are exploited by doctors and pharmaceutical companies for easy money while society at large doesn't care, but in the end the message is simple, imagine a world where instead of treating them like children or even complaining about them, abled people showed those with disabilities this type of empathy, the real type.

#limbus company #disability in fiction #ableism #disability #project moon

[diseaseriddencube]

cutthroat has the 'tism headcanons

"uwu Rae isn't it kinda gross to give the serial killer character autism headcanons like isn't that villainizin-" shut up, i'm autistic, i would kill people too, murder is sexy and autistic and-

he fidgets, like, you can see him playing with his knifeys when he's got nothing else to do, and swinging his leggys when he sits

he's kind of a weirdo, like very much a weirdo, in the sense that he probably thinks he's pretty normal and just doesn't realize he's acting like a bit of a weirdo

special interest: murder, red things (i know he doesn't talk much actually but i'm sure you could get him talking like crazy if you asked him about why he likes red things) (and you know what, this is a more personal hc, but he had a previous SpIn in magic)

weird fucking posture, this is a stage play thing but if he doesn't have to stand, he likes to crouch (L vibes tbh)

actually another stage play thing which is basically fidgeting but i mean just LOOK at this movement, this is such a happy stim

are we even gonna mention that he's probably a picky eater, i understand narratively that their food choices were to show off character traits, but he's presumably been unfed in days and he chooses marshmallows of all things. he mentions liking his marshmallows to look a certain way as well (we're gonna ignore the cannibalism aspect <3)

his emotions seem pretty intense and sensitive, but he actually has a flat affect most of the time

he seems kind of socially inept, i know swindler is a special case but there's almost no consideration to what she says or what his actions/words would invoke in her, and he literally never talks to anyone else

^adding to this, he has no concept of personal space at all (though this may due to him thinking he literally owns her)

not to be infantilizing but I don't think we can ignore the obvious childish traits coded into his character (commonly associated with autism)

he seems to get bored really easily, like he can't stand just sitting around waiting

he seems kinda stupid but he does think outside the box, as seen with him using his knives to break the barrier when 10000 IQ hacker had nothing to offer and swindler was...panicking -_-

he gets hyperfocused on a task and ignores literally any pain in order to continue that task

probably has low interoception??? like he hardly seems to notice pain, and if any character would complain about being hungry, it would be him...but he doesn't, so i get the feeling he may just Not Feel It

also you cannot tell me that a character who dresses like this, doesn't have some sort sensory preference. I assume his clothes are weighted (due to both layers and knives) and the looseness is his specific preference for comfort

^ and he wears fucking leggings under his shorts, which is literally something i do when i hate the feel of the shorts/pants, i put a layer of good texture leggings under

object empathy > human empathy: he's way more visibly distraught over a beloved object (knife) getting damaged than....hundreds of human lives (and yk what, he kinda views Swindler as an object too)

^ but really this is like the most no-empathy having motherfucker i've ever seen

cluelessness about normal social things like not knowing what dating is (....ignoring the actual obvious reason he wouldn't know what it is)

and TW but self harm and suicide are actually somewhat common in autism and i mean-.... kind of-confirmed cutter and manga-confirmed suicidal person

autistic people like stacking things, and well, we all know what he spent ages stacking >:)

inability to lie/extreme honesty: he literally doesn't even hide his desire to kill swindler he just straight up asks for permission, and his attempt at lying is...pathetic to say the least

his vocabulary also seems....limited

unusual sleeping habits: he sleeps in a bathtub for god's sake

echolalia: "red! red! red!"

#rave ramblees #akudama drive #autistic headcanon #this has been on my mind for ages omg #i tihnk i may have strayed away from actual autism symptoms here #but fuck it if i relate to it and he does it....i can call it autistic :) #long post

[blood-orange-juice]

Hey! I stumbled across your account by accident and I’m curious on what your general take is on Childe (since each language’s VA brings something new to the table). I agree with the (c)PTSD take and often wonder if he might also have ASPD (I say this as someone with antisocial tendencies myself). Anyway, I hope things are going well!

-📀 anon (I’ll probably come back later lol)

Hey. :)

I hope you like walls of text because this turned into a wall of text.

He's a variation of the "came back wrong" horror trope, so a huge part of his behaviour is just some kind of taint/possession/curse (now confirmed in Fontaine's storyline) which you can't really diagnose.

There was a thread started by another psych professional where we still tried!

Personally, I think he doesn't quite fit the antisocial personality disorder profile. - has an aversion to lying and is horrible at it (you know, that thing ASPD brain makes so much easier to do) - shows zero interest in social status or having power over others. People with ASPD usually play social games on par with an average person, although one could argue that they only do it as a source of fun and safety and he has other sources of fun and safety. - is very loyal and, for all his self-centeredness, seems to give others a lot more than he gets in return (although can be argued that he just has too much resources on his hands and really doesn't do that much) - is far too trusting (but also in an unusual way, so it can be interpreted as carelessness) - has that weird "I'll give others the things I never got myself" thing going on (I think ASPD to-go compensatory mechanism would be something else) - shows zero social aggression, it's either 0% ("too polite for his own good" mode) or 1000% (jumps straight to physical violence). I think people with ASPD are generally better with more nuanced agression towards people. But also maybe it's a form of damage control. Or maybe he just never had to learn how to express aggression in socially acceptable form (he's usually the scariest person in the room anyway). - in his character stories it's stated that he used to be a very timid and anxious kid, and it's usually not the case with ASPD kids.

Any of these traits *could* be seen in a person with ASPD and can be explained but all of them in a 20yo guy with pretty horrible life experiences and no access to therapy? I doubt that.

I also think he's a character study on "how can good people end up doing horrible things" and having ASPD would ruin the whole point of his character.

Also it would actually be much easier for everyone inluding himself if he has more ASPD traits. At least half of the terrible shit he does stems from misplaced loyalty, not lack of morals. He might have negative traits of ASPD but not the perks.

My personal headcanon is that he has a dissociative personality type (not a full-blown DID, but a similar way of dealing with trauma by locking away/suppressing parts of himself and shifting between them in different situations), his background fits very well, and the way he deals with relationships, trust and aggression also fits (and it's very easy to write someone like this when writing PTSD, it just happens naturally). His particular brand of chipperness fits too.

But also if you *want* to headcanon him as an ASPD, it's a very good choice too! Low empathy, seeks excitement, doesn't care what others think of him, doesn't adhere to social contract, is fairly cruel, bases his loyalty and ideals on pretty surprising things that have nothing to do with human connection. (it's also questionable whether he seeks human connection in general, can be interpreted both ways)

#childe #tartaglia #rinn talks to people #psychoanalyzing characters

[blue-chimera]

Who Cares if We're "Fair" to Fictional Characters?: A closer look at one side of the coin

(continued from Part 1)

So, I believe the primary value of any kind of storytelling (besides the joy we get from stories) lies with a story's ability to shape our understanding of ourselves & each other. To quote a piece I've been working on, "Storytelling can help us to see these things with enough distance to judge but enough closeness to empathize (and thereby understand our own vulnerability to making these kinds of mistakes)."

To me, the downside of attributing a character's actions unfairly¹ to a personality flaw rather than appreciating how circumstances shaped their choices is that we close the door on an opportunity to picture ourselves in that character's shoes & understand the choices we might make (and thereby learn & grow).

For example: If you see Dean dismissing Sam's assertions about Lenore in S2:E3 "Bloodlust" & you take the easiest possible view of his motivations — "Dean does this cuz he's just violent/prejudiced/an asshole like that" — then, assuming you don't see yourself as violent or prejudiced or an asshole, there's not really a lesson to be learned. Dean does this cuz he's a bad person & you're not a bad person; ergo, you wouldn't do that. You can't even imagine it. However, if you understand Dean's actions as primarily born out of a complex set of circumstances, you can imagine yourself making the same choices.

The value in this kind of imagining is twofold...

The lesser gain, in my opinion, is the value gained just from flexing your empathy muscles. Empathy is a habit we can build consciously in low-stakes situations so we have it to hand when things get actually tough & we're tempted to make snap judgments in the real world. (I'm less interested in this angle for the moment, but there's definitely an argument to be made here.)

The more important gain has nothing to do with Dean (or whatever character you're talking about) and everything to do with you: with understanding what missteps you yourself might take under these same circumstances (or their real-world analogues) and why, each individual one feeling like a reasonable reaction to your circumstances but cumulatively leading you farther & farther down a bad path. My assertion is this: if you really understand how & why a character makes a particular mistake, the hundred little influences that played a role, then you can imagine yourself caught in the maelstrom of those same influences, and you'll be better prepared to act deliberately & mindfully (rather than thoughtlessly, reactively) when the day comes that you are.

To say it another way: We learn by making mistakes. But if you can empathize well enough with another person (real or fictional) to see all the little pieces pushing them towards their mistakes (allowing you to imagine yourself in their shoes, responding to each push), it's almost as good as making those mistakes yourself. You'll be better equipped to recognize these situations when you end up in them and to see your reactions in them as choices (and under your control).

Now, obviously, you'll never be confronted with the decision to kill or spare a vampire. But you may find yourself dealing with grief & a situation that causes you a great deal of anxiety at the same time, and you might feel like you can't talk to anyone about it (much like Dean felt after John's awful final words). Maybe you're afraid of burdening your friends. Maybe you're in a new city or a new school and don't really have any. And maybe it's caused you to make bad choices, like hanging out with some people you shouldn't have or doing some things you're not proud of. If so, you're in a situation that's broadly analogous to Dean's in "Bloodlust," struggling with his father's death, agonizing over John's dying words, trying to bury himself in something that gives him comfort, and listening to a new friend who tells him that (over-)indulgence in the same thing brought comfort to him when he was going through a rough time.

And maybe you're not prone to lashing out with fists when a loved one tries to confront you about your unhealthy coping techniques, but maybe you would lash out with words & damage your relationships that way. Maybe you would be tempted to close your ears to warnings, or close your eyes to harm you've done...

It probably sounds silly to say that a fantasy TV show could influence you to make better choices under those circumstances. And, for most folks, I can't imagine that any one story is going to be the tipping point — or even come consciously to mind. But whether you perceive a particular character as a role model or an "anti" role model (like Bobby telling Dean that he's better than John "so don't be him"), I think your capacity to handle tough situations gracefully is increased by cultivating a deeper understanding of how other people (real & fictional) handled similar ones, even if the specific details in some of those cases are fantastical.² In looking at how circumstances shaped others' decisions, good & bad, you step outside yourself and become more aware of your reactions to the same.

It's about empathy towards others, yes, but more than that, it's about self-reflection, mindfulness, and gaining wisdom from other people's mistakes so we can avoid making them ourselves. So... in the end, while it doesn't really matter if we're "fair" to fictional characters, I do see value in tipping the scales towards empathy. If we have to err on one side or the other (and, being imperfect, we kinda do have to "pick a lean" — when all else is equal or knowledge is sparse, where ya gonna fall?), I will err on a generous interpretation. (Until or unless someone comes along & convinces me otherwise, of course!)

¹The question of fairness here is a practical one more than a moral one for me. If you're aiming to imagine yourself in a character's circumstances to understand how they made a particular mistake, & the circumstances actually had very little to do with it, then you're not going to gain much from the exercise.

²Just as you can draw lessons from the fable of the Ants & the Grasshopper without being an insect, you can draw lessons from the story of a monster-hunter without any vampires in your life. 😅

#long post #half-baked ideas #I legit thought this was gonna be just a few sentences when I started #i don't honestly imagine anyone will wade through this manifesto but I wrote it so I may as well post it :) #useful for clarifying my thoughts #character analysis #spn meta #spn adjacent #manifesto #storytelling #there are obviously downsides to this approach — everything has pros & cons #i just don't have the time/energy to flesh out the other side at the moment #also... there may be a third side — idk #tip of the iceberg #there's probably plenty here that's illogical #or just plain wrong #but hopefully there's something useful or interesting in here somewhere too!

[empath-abuse-awareness]

went on a rant but realized it'd be better to phrase this in a more constructive way. this is long i am so sorry. if you decide to post this then empaths are encouraged to read <3

reasons to stop using 'narcissistic abuse' and the word 'narcissist' when speaking of abuse, by an abuse survivor without npd

1 if you call your abuser a narcissist, it takes away their own autonomy. it's better to specify that they abused you because they chose to, as implying that it is because of narcissistic personality disorder (npd) takes away their accountability. it's their responsibility to treat you well, and it is their fault, not that of the hypothethical narcissism.

2 putting them responsible for the abuse does not make your abuse any less valid or harmful than if you specify it is 'narcissistic abuse'. if non-traumatized people judge you, their arguments are false as they are speaking from a lack of understanding of what you have been through.

3 children growing up in abusive households could lean toxic or unhealthy behavior, yes, that is true. if you teach them about this and inform them of ways to learn better behaviors then this allows them to make the decision to become a healthier person.

4 if you portray them as abusive, on the contrary, then this does not help them and people are also psychologically more likely to express the behaviors that people perceive them to be doing. you can research this if you'd like. what i am saying is that if you call them an abuser they are more likely to abuse. if you teach them to express healthier behaviors compassionately, you can help them be a better person who refrains from harming themselves and others.

5 people with npd who express unhealthy or toxic behaviors are not doing this because they want to. their disorder is a response to trauma (yes, it could be the same as yours, even) and it is possible they are unaware of the consequences of their behavior. this is not because they are out to get you, it's because their caretakers have taught them it's the safest way to survive. their brains (yes, brains. it's not a conscious decision of the person themselves) psychologically do not understand that this is not the case for situations not like that household. once again, they deserve help in learning healthy behaviors. if you don't want to interact with a person who has npd then that is your respected boundary, but then let npd advocates be. that is the point of what they are doing. they are assisting pwnpd to be healthier and to treat themselves and others with kindness.

6 'narcissistic abuse' is not different from other types of abuse. why? because all abusers are self-centered. to abuse is to put your own standards above the personhood and safety of your victim. your self-centered abuser is not different from any other abuser (who is probably self-centered too), and if they are diagnosed with npd then you should learn the difference between mindsets and actions. people with npd have varying mindsets. people without npd do too. the question of whether someone turns out to be an abuser is their own choice. a person with npd can treat you compassionately and without harm even if you believe they have a 'big ego' or prioritize themselves.

7 on a similar note to my previous point: emotional, physical and sexual abuse are descriptors of the way in which someone is harmed. they do not describe severity. yes, your abuse can be very severe and very scary, i trust that. i believe you if you state that you were harmed. however, this harm could be inflicted upon you in varying ways, and the types of abuse describe that, rather than the amount of pain you've been through. you're allowed to speak about your pain. you can do this without blaming a disorder instead of your abuser. so please stop using 'narcissistic abuse'. i promise you your abuse is severe and it matters.

8 people with a lack of emotional intensity or low empathy have been through trauma too. they might have those responses Because the abuse was too much for them. the abuse they have been through was severe, too. if they don't feel as much emotions as you then this is not because they are heartless and cruel, it's to protect them from the pain you've probably felt too. they've hurt, just like you. their brains decided that they needed a safer response so that they wouldn't suffer more. your brain didn't because it made you more sensitive. that is okay, trauma responses differ, but they are still trauma responses.

9 if you insist that people with 'big egos' should have it become lesser so that they are 'put in their place', then the way to treat someone who believes they are superior is to give them equal treatment to that of others. to imply they are the same as everyone else, basically. isn't that surprising? if you want people who prioritize themselves to learn that they are not better than others objectively, then you treat them in the same way as you'd treat someone with empathy, or someone who is selfless, or whatever else. this should not be hard to understand.

10 emotions vary among people with cluster b disorders and in general, so surprise surprise, they can be affected. they can be hurt. you are influencing them negatively. treating them worse will not, in fact, lower their egos in the way you'd like. treating them equally will ensure they learn that is their place among others. recognize their personhood and help them. if you want to help trauma survivors, then the way to do that is to treat all of them with kindness. also, learn trauma responses and abuse. please. for the sake of pwnpd, yourself and everyone else who has faced trauma. that is all i ask. i understand you might not listen but for those who genuinely want some arguments i have presented them to you above. thank you for reading.

11 realize that 'ableist' is not an accusation meant to shut you up. it's meant to inform you of the consequences of your actions so that you can learn to be more compassionate to people with npd.

12 and finally, realize that mindsets rooted within you do not change quickly, and you deserve to set up boundaries. refrain from interaction with pwnpd if you wish. the only thing i ask of you is to cope with your trauma healthily and to not hurt yourself or others (including pwnpd) in the process. thank you.

sincerely, a trauma survivor who has been through abuse from (you guessed it!) self-centered assholes. and by the way, you're allowed to just insult them. calling them an abusive piece of shit is ok and encouraged. embrace yourself and hold that bitch accountable, there's more creative and harmless ways than 'narcissist' to do so!

100% facts

#narc abuse #narcissistic abuse #narcissism positivity #surviving narcissism #npd positivity #narcissist #narcissistic personality disorder #npdawareness #empath #npd #I can’t really read this rn because I’m tired but I skimmed it so yeah

[withthewindinherfootsteps]

For the Bingo, Wei Wuxian!

Almost bingo, but I nonetheless have to respect the great interpretations of his character I've seen...

In all seriousness, though... where do I even start with Wei Wuxian? He's my favourite MXTX character, and MXTX has a lot of good characters. He's the favourite protagonist I've read about in a long time, because he's just so incredibly vibrant and makes you enjoy every second he's on the page. He grabbed me by the proverbial horns and started running, and I’ve been caught up in MDZS ever since – he’s one of the main reasons MDZS is my favourite of the three novels (SVSSS is great too though), even.

I love his confidence in himself and his choices, I love his capability and intelligence, I love his kindness and empathy and the way he does do the right thing but it’s not because of any internalised issues! There are so many tormented protagonists out there who constantly throw themselves in front of the axe because they think they deserve it or shouldn’t live or that other people are inherently worth more than them, and I love how Wei Wuxian is not like that – his kindness and righteousness don’t come from a place of self-hatred, or low self worth or esteem, it comes from a strong moral core and an unshakeable conviction that what he’s doing is the right thing, and he’s going to do it. Like I said in a previous post, the thing he and the narrative focus on is the action he takes itself, not the price of it. He’s such a bright character, and one of the reasons fanon Wei Wuxian bothers me so much is that he takes all that away. 

And I love how so much of his personality and character comes, again, from that conviction that what he’s doing is right, and the choices he makes to do that. That’s another thing that bothers me with fanon Wei Wuxian, particularly the morally grey takes. I’ve spoken before about how some characters are more interesting when they’re morally grey, and how some aren’t, and it depends on how they’re written. And Wei Wuxian falls staunchly in the second category. He’s defined so much by his moral core, and taking that away in fanon takes away that core (haha) aspect from him, and I feel diminishes him so much.

Which is not to say that he doesn't make mistakes throughout the novel, or that he’s been completely perfect, morally, throughout the novel (...despite what I circled). Look at the Sunshot Campaign, for example (I’m not really sure if I count Nightless City, he wasn’t really in the right state of mind to be making active choices there?). But he learns from that, he recognises he went too far, he doesn’t do it again. People can make mistakes and learn from them, and that does not make them morally grey. Again, there are so many protagonists and characters who are morally grey and who are angsty and who are all that, and Wei Wuxian is not one of them. He’s so unique to me as a protagonist, and such a genuinely good person, 

And additionally, I just love his agency throughout the book, and the theme of choices with his character. He goes through so much, but time and time again he defines himself by his own choices, not the tragedy he’s gone through. I spoke a bit about how he parallels Xue Yang in that regard – they have a similar childhood, but what they choose to do is what separates and defines them. He has so many opportunities and excuses to become evil, or try to take revenge on everyone, or get consumed by resentment, but he doesn’t do that at all. And I love the way he has and makes choices within the story – he’s not pushed around by the narrative to the point where he only has one thing he can do, and that again allows for such a vibrant, defined character, and I love that so, so much.

He’s such a good character and such a good person and I love him :)

#thank you so much for the ask! #also #i know he's the main character ok #i know he's in nearly all the screentime #but. i need MORE #mdzs is the first thing i've read that made me turn to fanfiction not because i was interested in fandom takes or wanted to explore ideas #but because i genuinely felt starved for content #even though the book is really long #and SO much of that is down to wwx #he's just such a great character and so enjoyable to read about and just so *vibrant* #and yeah. the entire book is not enough screen time for me :) #also on a different note #i love how he's someone i don't have to drastically worry about when reading #he's in his element when he's confident and in control of the situation #and that means that my enjoyment of him doesn't have to come with angst! and that's so NICE! #(and also much healthier mentally for me because when i get emotionally invested in someone and they angst a lot... #let's just say that i get VERY emotionally invested and affected #to the point where it's not really enjoyable anymore? and does more harm than good #and i don't have to worry like that about wwx and thank GOODNESS because he's just so enjoyable every time he's on the page #and yet again #I love that) #mdzs #wei wuxian #jiangwanyinscatmom #ask game :)

[kustas]

now its YOUR TURN to do top 5 characters! >:)

I'll do the same way I asked you: regardless of source material, including a small summary of the character and why I like them so much :}

1 - From the Inkheart book series, Dustfinger! I read those books as a kid and he's the first fictional character I remember liking in a significant way. He represents a blueprint of sorts for most of my favorite characters since then, or at the least my personal originator of a bunch of tropes I love. His character is a wandering minstrel type with a borderline supernatural ability at juggling with fire. He's "cool" but rather unfriendly and sometimes straight up unpleasant, very focused on self preservation to the point of selfishness and cowardice, partially due to a rough and penniless upbringing but partially due to his personality. While he does have a family and other loved ones he's not very openly affectionate. I can't tell exactly what I like about him, he's a complex character who feels very human and who has a lot of character traits I adore. Having reread the series as an adult, I especially appreciated him being (at least in the first book) in a grey area of neither anta- or protagonist. He's just out there with his own agenda and a lot of personality, some of which isn't pleasant, but who sure is interesting

2 - The Mike himself... putting him as number two even if he's number one (badum tss). He's very hard to talk about because so much of his appeal is presented in the series as show don't tell actions of slightly cryptic nature. His character is an artificially created man meant to be a soldier and ideal peacekeeper. He's kind, clever, beautiful and supernaturally charismatic, and because of how he was engineered, earnestly dedicates his life to peace and love on planet earth. Part of his charisma comes from empathy so unnaturally deep he's able to feel what others are thinking and influence them by being around. This all makes him an uncanny and absolutely terrifying antagonist, one with ambitions for the whole planet as well as what you could describe as the best intentions. Why I like him so much is because he's so strange and compelling. Tragic and horrifying figure and a character concept I've never seen anywhere else yet executed so well

3 - After completing HxH more than once I realized that Ging Freeccs embodied every trope I like at once while also sharing a weird amount of similarities with my own self and it was over. His character is an extremely talented man who lives by his passions alone and who pulls off extreme individualism by just being that good at what he needs to live like that. Fascinating and infuriating at once. He loves a lot of different things in life and will throw away anything in the way of him not pursuing his passion of the moment, while also being weirdly selfless when it comes to doing what he wants to do. Also both a very strong personality and charismatic figure & with crippling social anxiety which is a hilarious combination. I like him because he has a lot of character traits I like, is very intriguing, and a total mad cunt

4&5 - I am not separating Black and White ever so I'll be describing them in alphabetical order and not rating one above the other... Both: two-people gang of orphaned street kids with no known background who reign over their little turf by the laws of the jungle, brothers by choice and not by blood, surfing like never before the line between soulmates and codependency. Black: more reserved and selfish, critically low emotional intelligence; he's stuck between the unaware pain of repressing his feelings and refusing to show any vulnerability & hyperviolent tendencies due to genuine prepubescent bloodlust. Very mentally ill miserable little man gaslighting himself into thinking he's the best because they're all afraid of him. White: curious and full of empathy, he's rather clever and much more friendly than his brother. Struggles with learning and focus among other things due to undisclosed mental disability. Pathological daydreamer with unpredictable and usually scary moments of clairvoyance. Why I like them so much: they're such flawed yet touching characters, their struggles are realistic and so is the way they act about, while still embodying the surreal whimsy of childhood. Real bittersweet to see their story unfold where they're going through it due to unchangeable circumstances. White's little monologue about how both of them were born broken but have the screws the other one lacks was the first thing that glued me heart and soul to their source material

#ask

[utilitycaster]

Whats your least favorite subclass for every class? Can be for mechanical reasons or just not liking the vibe.

I think I've done this before but I will do it again, honestly, because I probably can't find that post and if someone does find it you can see what opinions I have that have changed. Also I am sticking to what is officially published since you guys probably do not want to hear me scream in frustration about Empathy Domain again, and finally, worth noting that not liking the subclass is wholly unrelated to how I feel about characters of that subclass.

Artificer: None of them are bad. I've turned a bit of a corner on artillerist in that the spell list is fantastic but honestly my feeling is that alchemist and battlesmith are my favorites and armorer and artillerist are also fine, I just prefer the vibes of the first two.

Barbarian: The SCAG Battle Rager is just. it's not good. It's like someone tried to make a class out of what should have been a random low-level enemy stat block.

Bard: College of Whispers; it's mechanically weak, glamour and eloquence give you way cooler ways to focus on the charisma skills, and like, just multiclass into warlock/play Lore and make good magical secrets choices if you want something more sinister.

Cleric: I've just never been super into the Nature domain. There aren't any bad cleric subclasses per se, it just doesn't do anything for me; Tempest and Life or like, playing a druid all achieve the vibe in a way I prefer.

Druid: Circle of the Moon is objectively VERY good mechanically and I just am not terribly excited by wildshape; I prefer the three Tasha's druid classes which permit other uses of wildshape in which you can cast, or the much more casting/support oriented circles of the land, dreams, and the shepherd. There are no bad druid subclasses.

Fighter: Samurai; the extra HP and utility is nice but it's also like...you get a trillion feats as a fighter? just take tough and skill expert. I'm not a huge fan of Cavalier but you do essentially get some free battle master moves at will so it's a little better. I am slowly getting past my dislike of psionics (thanks, Imogen) and I have actually DM-ed a one shot in which my sister played a Psi Knight and kicked my ass; it is a pretty good class.

Monk: so here's the thing, I love radiant damage and all of that but I just don't find Way of the Sun Soul terribly compelling.

Paladin: my abiding hatred for Oath of Glory is well documented and continues on.

Ranger: Beastmaster is just mechanically very bad, unfortunately, because the vibe is good.

Rogue: Assassin is mechanically the weakest - it's not bad as a concept or for flavor but the problem is like, it's relatively rare that a D&D character is actually in a position where assassination is usually the way forward, and for intrigue, mastermind or like, a bard is better. It's again kind of like "this is a statblock for an NPC that you made into a class"; it works best as three levels of multiclass for a gloomstalker or an arcane archer or something. I also just find the phantom annoying in that I'm like "you used this energy on a rogue subclass?" but like. Unfortunately I have latent goth tendencies and I can't fully hate on it. The UA version of it sucked but they fixed it for Tasha's.

Sorcerer: Draconic is mechanically fine, it's just not very interesting. I also think the wild magic table can be Too Much, like, it's a very specific vibe and I happen to enjoy random tables like that but more as an environmental thing rather than "your magic is chaotic". On the other hand I LOVE clockwork. I know the flavor is so stupid but I love it. I love that the modrons are like "what if robots from the Plane of Neutrality went on the most boring version of the Wild Hunt." Modron lore is so dumb and yet I love it. Don't ask me why; I don't know. (also it is mechanically good).

Warlock: I just don't super like the fiend because just as I adore the stupidest modron/mechanus lore, Hell Lore has me like "I do not fucking care". Hell is the Florida of the D&D multiverse except without Cuban food or the beach, and that's that on that.

Wizard: objectively, War Wizard is mechanically horrible and should only be used as a few level dips in a multiclassed gish build. In my heart, Bladesinger is the worst because it's like what if you played a wizard but tried to avoid all of what I perceive to be the most fun parts of playing a wizard. TBH for both of these it's like just play a L5 eldritch knight and multiclass into the wizard school of your choosing for the rest.

Bonus: I feel much the same about blood hunter as I do about artificer; none are bad, but ghostslayer and lycan are way cooler than the other two. I don't love profane soul though; it's kind of like...just play a warlock, honestly.

#d&d mechanics

[seasurfacefullofclouds1]

You might not post this because you didn’t want to engage too much with that anon because they did make some good points and I agree with that but you are right that they did vastly oversimplify Louis. They kind of did some of the same things larries do to Louis. Louis’ lyrics aren’t complicated to them? There are a lot of different layers of meaning in so many of his songs. There is true poetic sensibility, especially in certain songs, across both albums. Even showing up in 1D songs he helped write. There are lovely turns of phrase, signature styles of writing which you can find in all of his songs, signatures which are there no matter who Louis is writing with. Louis is of course evolving as an artist because that is how it works when you genuinely love something, but he is already a wonderful artist, special, beautiful and careful, and he genuinely loves music. I don’t know exactly what that anon is responding to from larries, probably just the typical cruelty and lack of empathy but maybe its those long posts I have been hearing about, but that wording just feels wrong to me. Louis is not perfect and I don’t want or need or expect him to be. That is a ridiculous thing to place on anyone because no one can live up to that. I believe Louis is a good person who has had very difficult decisions to make and he made them, for better or for worse. Sometimes he may not even had a choice but he stuck to them. I absolutely think Louis has trauma from what he experienced. I think he does downplay it, for multiple reasons. Much of the world doesn’t have much sympathy for Louis and instead mock him if any pain is shown, including deaths in his family which is so incredibly low and cruel, and no doubt what he has seen and experienced has led him to hold his cards close to his chest. That is his right. We are not owed his pain or his vulnerability. Louis does offer that to us, more often in his lyrics, and he says emotional honesty/authenticity in his lyrics is important to him. Louis is as honest as he probably can be. Of course what Louis has gone through has affected him. Larries are the ones who dismiss that, because their house of cards is so flimsy yet they keep plugging it with glue and hope, trying to keep it from falling over, even though the insides fell out all too long ago. If Louis has been significantly hurt by industry, by all these people associated with an ex-bandmate they ship with him, then what are they holding on to? They don’t want to see it so they won’t. I think pity is not the emotion to feel because pity is patronising to a certain extent. Pity could imply you think you would have handled the same situations in a “better” way, which you can’t know unless you go through it yourself. Being sympathetic and/or empathetic are much more kind, careful, caring notions and are very different from pity. People have said it before but I think the lyric in HOTH where he says he’s not easy on himself is one of the truest and most honest lyrics ever written by Louis

I agree.

I think to say Louis’ lyrics are not complicated and that he’s a shallow writer insults him, his intentions, his accomplishment.

Also, saying that Louis is a good person is different from appraising his abilities as a musician.

Louis is both a good person and a good musician. He’s a great songwriter, too. Not perfect, not as good as he will be one day. But already great.

And yes, the people who claim Louis “lies” about his songwriting, about writing for his friends (best mate), they irritate me.

#louis tomlinson

[prof-peach]

What would make a good ghost-type starter? My kid's about to turn ten and REALLY wants a Gastly. I think it's because the Ecruteak Gym Leader, Morty, and his Gengar are like, her childhood heroes. She says she even wants to be a ghost-type specialist. Honestly though, I'm kinda reluctant. I mean, you've heard the rumors about ghost-types and children, right?

Your concern as a parent is wholesome, and I can understand your reluctance to dishing out a ghost Pokemon without further investigation first, so let’s put some rumours to bed here.

The dex entries often depict ghost types and tricky, scary, wild and sometimes even dangerous, stealing children away, being living grudges, turning lost kids to Pokemon, and being overall hard to handle, often somewhat lacking in empathy even.

This is what a dex does, it’s built for kids, it’s information is out there to inspire kids to find intrigue in species that are overlooked. When your little, you make up stories, as a parent I’m sure you know, some of those stories your kids tell you seem actually terrifying, horrific, some kids love to indulge in the creepy, the unusual. It’s not to be feared, it’s to be celebrated. The dex is an exaggeration, a base for further learning, and often the gateway to kids wanting to know more. There is a fatal downside, their entries and statements about some species can be unnerving to a regular adult. We are fearful, we see this potentially spooky dangerous thing and of course we want to protect the family from that. But the info given is often a 1% (at most) chance occurrence.

Phantump? They aren’t born of lost kids in the woods. You ask any breeder worth their salt, and they’ll tell you they’ve seen those Pokemon hatch from eggs like everything else.

Drifloon, tries to steal kids apparently? Nah, they’re lighter than air, most of their movements just simply look that way, but it’s usually the wind pushing their bodies about. They’re actually very kind pokemon.

What else, oh, Banette. Born of a discarded toy with an eternal grudge? Haha nope. They aren’t all made that way, at all, many evolve to be perfectly happy healthy Pokemon with a lot of love for their trainers.

The dex focuses in on the unusual, the extraordinary, the facts that statistically will interest their target demographic most, and kids have way less fear than us. Look at yours. She’s been exposed to the same stuff you have, yet she’s not hesitant to want a ghost type, she’s not afraid, not learnt that fear yet, which is an incredibly good thing.

On the very unusual case where a ghost type is like their dex entry, it’s usually captured, aided, and rereleased in a secure location, away from those who could get hurt by it.

Ghost Pokemon do not hatch with a choice of body, a choice of type, or a set of rules to follow. Just like us, they learn and amble through their life trying to find satisfaction, friends, work, family, love and kindness, and to figure out how they fit in it all. They’re highly complex and empathetic Pokemon, often treated differently because of what they are, rather than who they are. When they find people and Pokemon who don’t treat them with hostility and unkindness, they will spend their life with them, they will give everything for them, protecting their loved ones with the ferocity other species can’t muster.

I for one think that as long as your kid knows what to expect, and is responsible and reliable in caring for a Pokemon, then perhaps it’s a good time to start looking. A ghastly is a perfectly fine starter, they have low care requirements, snacking occasionally, but feeding mostly from places of reflection or worship.

You know why ghost types always hang around graves? It’s how they feed. When people reflect, they produce a certain kind of energy, it is not something you can measure easily, or see, but a ghost Pokemon can sense it. They have learnt to live off the energy people expend reflecting, and the most common accessible place to get this for a ghost type, is graves. They also frequent places of worship, monuments beloved by locals, and buildings that once housed a lot of love. You can tell when an abandoned house had something truly terrible happen in it, not even the ghosts will feed there. The energy is bitter to them, and many don’t care for it.

To help your kid, set up a place within the house where you, your family, your other Pokemon, can go to reflect. Some people build this space around the telephone, or computer. When thinking of, or talking to distant loved ones, the same energy is produced, so at home the ghost type can snack and not run low on energy. It’s a nice modern day adaption that’s makes caring for ghost much easier thankfully. Spending 10-20 minutes every other day in the reflection zone will feed the ghost, but will not drain you or your kid. They do not eat up a lot from us, nothing we haven’t already expended.

Along with this, be aware that the ghost line can be somewhat nocturnal, so setting up a regular bedtime might be a little tricky, so that the Pokemon is accounted for, but also so the kids not out all night, that’s not safe at all. Sunset seems to be their peak active hour on average, long shadows mean they can jump around fast between dark patches, a trick ghost show off regularly.

If you are worried, try to make time to go out with your kid and their partner, to a park or maybe a more central street that’s well lit, so they can practice and be trainers in a safe environment. I can totally get not wanting them out in the dark alone, safety always comes first.

What else. She’ll probably have to start carrying an umbrella around. Ghastly aren’t too keen on suuuuper bright light, midday is not easy for them, but some do not want to sit in the pokeball while their trainer is up and awake, they want to play and be around them. An umbrella means they can get some shade no matter the time of day, and have some freedom to move about even in harsh sunlight. Too long in the sun will drain them of energy, and they’ll need to rest and sleep it off, recharge at the reflection station at home, or go spend an hour in a churchyard or something.

They eat most things and sleep anywhere, so there’s not a huge amount of specialist items to be bought for the home. Test different flavours on them, and try to find a ghastly that has a temperament that’ll get along with your whole family. You should definitely check out local adoption centres, they are in undated with ghost types this time of year. People hand them in for all sorts of reasons.

Little tip, if you bring Morty spicy baked goods, like chilli cheese bread or something, he’s more inclined to help you. He hangs out near the burnt tower a lot with his team, and takes trips to the local food festivals too, so if you notice an advert for one, see if you can catch the guy there. He’s reluctant to take on students, but if your kid turns up with a ghastly, and (from what I can assume) and overabundance of energy for Pokemon, plus a spicy treat, the guy melts a little and you can ask questions or request a little time for your kid to get some tips and tricks from a professional gym leader. I think it’d be interesting to investigate at the least, sounds like he’s the closest link between her and the Pokemon she so desperately loves. Plus how cool would that be for her? Gets to talk to her childhood hero. Kind of cool.

As a parent, I advise you get some cleanse tags too. There may be rooms you don’t want them entering, or items you don’t want them messing with (knives/power tools ect) , placing a cleanse tag on each wall, or on the items, will stop them interacting with them, so you can sit knowing things are safe for the Pokemon and your family.

In short, don’t knock the ghost types, they’re just as important, kind and loving as any other Pokemon. I’m not saying naughty troublesome ones don’t exist, but chances are you’ll find one that’s a great match for your family. Thank you for asking questions and not jumping to just get a Pokemon ASAP, you’d be surprised how few people do their homework before inviting in a new Pokemon to the home.

#pokemon #prof.peach #peach talks #hoooo boy I went off on this one a bit #sorry guys #long post

[dendrite-blues]

For a relatively short exchange, this scene is jam packed with characterization for Loki. 

It’s also our first reliable look into what Loki was like before Thor 1. Not as described by others, but first hand and from his own mouth. I think that deserves a closer look, to see what we can learn about Loki and how he thinks.

This scene is significant because it tells us what Loki’s personality is like when he’s not running for his life. It tells us who he was before his trauma and what his core beliefs are underneath those layers of humor and bravado.

Better yet, since he’s alone we can assume that every line in this scene is presumably true, or at least Loki believes it to be true since he has no audience but himself. 

The dialogue centers mostly around the statement “You deserve to be alone, and you always will be.” I’m not going to focus too much on the “alone” motif since I already dedicated an entire meta post to it.

What I think is more interesting about this scene is actually the looping, and the stages Loki goes through in trying to deal with it. There’s a lot of really interesting character traits on display in that progression.

Loop 1: A Warm Bath and Glass of Wine

The first loop entails Sif lecturing Loki about cutting her hair, kicking him in the balls, and storming away. Loki kneels on the floor and he gives us this great line:

“A bad memory prison? How quaint. Some punishment. I remember exactly what I did after that. I went and had a nice, hot bath and a glass of wine, and I never thought about it again. Because it was just a bit of fun.”

So we can take this to be Loki’s default reaction to pain and criticism. When put into an unexpected conflict without any forethought or outside influence, this is what he says/does.

1) Downplay the damage/threat. How quaint. 2) Dispel/soothe the emotion. Nice hot bath. 3) Minimize the impact. Never thought about it again. 4) Deflect responsibility. Just a bit of fun.

Keep those in mind as we move forward, since we’ll be using them to make sense of what else Loki says in this scene.

Loops 2 and 3: Okay, Sif, Hang On

This bit is about Loki realizing just how bad his predicament is.

L: Okay. Okay, Sif. Hang on. S: No, you hear this. You deserve to be alone... And I always will be. L: Alright, I get it. Listen. You are a reconstruction of a past event created by the organization that controls all of time. So you need to trust me and you need to help me escape. Yeah? S: Pathetic. (she kicks him again) L: (winces and groans)

As we all would expect from him, Loki’s first impulse is to try and talk his way out of it. What he says to achieve that goal is pretty revealing though. Because he doesn’t try to ease Sif’s upset by apologizing or explaining or offering to magic her hair back. 

Any of these would have been more likely to save his nads in the given circumstance, right? The present threat is Sif, and she’s mad about what Loki did to her hair. But Loki doesn’t really see that. Rather, he treats her as a means to an end.

“So you need to trust me and you need to help me escape. Yeah?”

To me, that choice reveals something of a blind spot Loki has to the feelings of others. Even if he doesn’t actively like hurting people, he does prioritize their problems below his, and quite shamelessly. And at least on his first impulse, he doesn’t seem to feel much remorse or empathy for them.

Usually in fanon we attribute this callousness to his trauma. He’s learned that no one can be trusted and no one cares, and so he doesn’t allow himself to care for others. 

But between his Loop 1 sentiment of “It was just a bit of fun” for an event which caused real hurt to Sif, and his Loop 2/3 behavior of “you, stop being mad and help ME” I think it’s reasonable to say that selfishness/low empathy are traits Loki possessed pre-trauma.

Loop 4-????: Happens Off Screen

It’s unclear how many times Loki loops while the camera is following Mobius, but the implication is clear that it was been many, many repetitions. Somewhere in this his denial and deflection must break, because we come back to a much humbler, more pleading Loki.

The Final Loop: I Crave Attention

S: You conniving, craven... L: Sif. Sif. S: ...pathetic worm. L: Please, please, no more. Please, I beg you. I'm a horrible person. I get it. I really am. I cut off your hair because I thought it'd be funny. And it's not. Uh... I crave attention... because I'm... a narcissist. And I suppose it's... It's because I'm scared of being alone.

HOOO BOY, so this is quite a tough bit to analyze. There’s a lot of interpretations you could make, and a lot of topics to delve into. For the sake of focus, I’m going to ignore the narcissism question. That one really needs an entire post, and I want to focus on something else here.

That being, Loki’s way of processing conflict/punishment.

I’ve always found it strange how Loki takes such pride in being called a liar and cheat when he simultaneously has this chip on his shoulder about how nobody likes him. 

Those two traits don’t seem to play well together, and I always scratched my head over how they coexist in his character. If he wants people to be nicer to him, maybe he should stop antagonizing them? Yeah?

Well, here we’re finally given a clear reason. Loki craves attention, he hates being alone. So how does he avoid it? Pranks and mischief. 

Fair enough.

But then, if all his pranks lead to this outcome--outrage, retaliation, insult--why doesn’t he ever learn? How is it that after 1000 years of this behavior, he hasn’t found a better way to get the attention he craves? 

Loop 1: Downplay, dispel, minimize, deflect. He accepts zero accountability for the impact of his actions, and doesn’t think at all about how they affect other people. Just a bit of fun. I had a hot bath and a glass of wine, and never thought about it again. 

The only reason he reaches the level of self awareness on display in the Final Loop is because the looping forces him to contemplate his actions and the impulses within him that lead to that behavior.

This is projection on my part, but to me he acts as though this kind of deep reflection is a new thing for him. He sounds like someone sharing a revelation that he’s just had about himself. We’re being shown that Loki is a man of action. He will always move forward if he can, possibly because looking back to so painful that he can’t bring himself to do it.

Circling back around to the pride Loki has for his knavery, let’s suppose that he’s been on this negative reinforcement cycle since childhood. He’s always acted out to get attention, then received retaliation and insults for it, and then pushed the bad feelings out of his mind with creature comforts and mental gymnastics.

What happens over time, when you’re being constantly told that you’re a pain in the ass and no one likes you? Most of us would take it to heart, but Loki doesn’t. He has a big ego, big enough to resist that constant barrage of hate coming at him.

So how does he marry these two conflicting realities? 

He turns it into an identity, the God of Mischief. 

In his head, Loki excuses himself of blame by shifting the culpability to his moniker. It’s not that he’s immature and petty, he’s just a “trickster.” It’s in his nature to cause trouble, so he can’t help it. You wouldn’t dangle a steak in front of a tiger and blame the tiger for striking, would you? And if other people can’t take a “joke” then that’s not his fault, that’s on them for not having a sense of humor. It was just a bit of fun.

Here we see the union of these two halves of Loki, the lonely ice runt and the mischievous scamp. (And a little bit of the original Loki who Thor accused of being incapable of growth!) 

By refusing to think about others, and excusing himself from responsibility, Loki successfully preserves his self worth and insulates himself to most of the negative emotions he experiences.

Pain, embarrassment, and grief aren’t pointless emotions though. They are vital feelings that serve to regulate our behavior, and that push us to conform to the ways of our social circles. Without them, we annoy and upset others. Be annoying for long enough and you will eventually find yourself, well, alone. As Loki is.

Thus “Mischief” is a self-defeating loop, and Loki is just as caught in it as the cell Mobius trapped him in.

In order to be free of both traps, Loki has to stop running. He has to take a deeper look at himself and realize how much he is getting in his own way. The entire scene is one big parallel between these two “loops.” Pretty neat, huh?

Sadly these kinds of thought loops are really difficult to break, they’re buried so deeply in our personalities and habits that we usually don’t notice them until life forces us to address them.

The cell is Loki’s wake up call, and thankfully he does seem to rise to the occasion. He tells Sif quite clearly what his problem is, and he does it with beautiful, painful honesty.

Which is why it’s so fucking awesome for Mobius to acknowledge that, and to finally give Loki a taste of positive attention. 

You don’t deserve to be alone. I believe you can be anything, even something good. Whatever you two did, it was powerful enough to bring this whole place down.

It’s a beautiful scene. Well written, meticulously acted. The clarity of vision in the pacing and shot selection, it’s really something special.

#loki spoilers #loki #mcu #mobius #meta #discussion #discourse #scene study #long post #sif #time loop #tva #character study

[teaboot]

I'm talking about your post with a bunch of friends and i'm wondering why you said redemption isn't important?

I think that redemption is important in the way that any form of internal growth is important.

Good, evil, perverse- these are, ultimately, intangible concepts we made up that are heavily influenced by motive and context. They aren't *real* in the way that our actions are.

A murderer, for example- someone who has chosen to take a life when they had other options available. Would it be nice if they felt remorse, offered to atone, and returned to society to live a peaceful life? Sure. Would this functionally be any different from one who simply performed the second two, without any kind of internal change? No. Not to the rest of us.

I think redemption has a rather overinflated sense of importance in our heavily Christian culture. After all, excluding the concept of inherent sin, or of the necessity of suffering to earn forgiveness, what *is* redemption?

Does it really *matter* if a sinner regrets their actions, so long as they don't repeat them?

Does it *matter* if a liar earns your trust, so long as they don't betray it?

What's the difference between a law abiding citizen and a citizen who chooses to abide the law?

As a storytelling device, as a matter of personal growth, redemption is a fascinating and powerful concept. I just don't personally believe it's vital.

I feel like accepting that internal or spiritual redemption is a necessary part of justice inherently validates the idea that good and evil are decided by thoughts and desires instead of choices and actions, and it's that same sort of reasoning that says that sociopaths and people with low empathy or invasive thoughts are evil by nature, as opposed to just... being people.

And really, who cares if you have socially harmful impulses or desires? As long as you don't act out on them, and as long as it doesn't impact your choices and behaviours, it really doesn't make any difference to anyone else, does it

[darlingbudsofrae]

Neil Josten Appreciation Post

Foxes Appreciation Series : 1 || 2 || 3 || 4 || 5 || 6 || 7 || 8 || 9 || 10 ||

Alright, let’s just start this by addressing the big elephant in the room: everyone loves Neil Josten. EVERYONE.

If you don’t, you’re lying. 

Okay, first up- I’m glad this is getting addressed more on AFTG tumblr but Neil is literally so much smarter than the fandom gives him credit for.

Like yes, he’s a little dumdum on the social aspect of things (you could argue he kind of has a low EQ but also not really, I would argue that later)

but that doesn’t dismiss that he is smart af and that he can kill you and make it look natural if he wants.

For example, he literally outrun and hid from the mafia for years. Like, that in itself is an obvious point but we often forget that he did this at a very young age.

Like, he was presumably what? 16?? (when Mary kicked the bucket?) And kid was already playing hide and seek pretty well with a freaking mafia.

He does not get enough credit for this.

The survival skills it takes- the mental strength to survive as a runaway and technically he’s also homeless- at freaking 16, that’s just insane.

Also, let’s not mention the fact that it takes skills to forge official papers and all that.

We also do not talk enough about Neil and how he freaking have to relearn an entirely new position just to play exy.

I don’t think most remember that he’s actually a backliner, but have to play as a striker because it was the only available position in that local high school he attended in Millport, and that was how Kevin saw him so he was recruited as a striker.

We also additionally do not talk enough about how Kevin “literal and figurative Son of Exy” Day found potential for court in Neil “I’m a backliner but I’m playing striker because it’s the only thing available and I’m an exy junkie” Josten who only played it for like a year or less. 

Like yeah, Kevin said he needs more training but it’s not even Neil’s official position. 

The talent on this man- I cannot, he is such an icon. 

Aside from his great survival skills and being literally great at picking things up- he’s also like freaking academically smart.

Like that also doesn’t get enough credit- I mean, he does math for fun.

Frankly, I think if you did Kumon or if you had an awesome teacher you could also do math for fun (I know I did) but this should be noted with the fact that he didn’t have proper schooling.

He went on a run at a really young age so there is no way he received formal education.

Which means he is naturally like really smart.

He’s also a polyglot. And the languages he has under his belt are all freaking difficult to learn- like, no kidding: French, German, and he can assumingly speak intermediate Spanish, and we don’t even have an idea if this is all the languages he can speak.

Also, he and Andrew learns how to speak Russian, right? Like, that’s crazy.

The brain on this man and the power that he has- my son, I am so proud.

I mean, for all we know- there’s more than that and the fact that he’s like 18 at TFC screams supremacy.

This is where I argue about his EQ but Neil is crazy perceptive.

It took him like freaking 3 seconds to figure out the team dynamics the foxes have, and how to work against it.

He later figured out how to make it all mesh together.

Like the way he do things isn’t conventional but reading him analyze his team despite his lack of empathy really makes me shudder.

Like, this kid is so freaking smart. I remember reading his thought process for the very first time and being like, okay- I definitely did not think about that.

The main problem with his EQ though is that he doesn’t know how to process positive stuff when he’s involved, but when he’s the outsider- his perspective is so amazing.

Like again, he kind of lacks empathy but the way he understands things and is just so sharp is just noteworthy.

I’d argue he doesn’t understand social cues and “modern teen things” but he isn’t so completely clueless on the social aspect in general as to not manipulate an entire team of misfits with issues to work together.

He’s literally the key to unity in AFTG. Even Dan says so.

Also, the way he puts things into play- like he’s a master manipulator, and I love that for him.

We do not talk enough about manipulative Neil, like I just really love manipulative characters in general so much- especially if they’re just owning it. 

I mean, he freaking manipulated Andrew and Aaron into therapy. Kind of evil but also wow. (just a sidenote, please don’t force people into therapy lol)

Going completely dark for a second, Neil also has a freaking high pain tolerance.

The amount of horrible things he went through in the books were just so sad and the fact that he just kind of moves on from it? That’s just completely oh my gods.

My poor summer child, even if you can kill me at any given time, let me just hug you for a second with consent.

Everyone also gives shit about Neil’s fashion choices and granted it is said he kind of bags the homeless looks but the fact that he values utility above all else-

Yes, we stan a resourceful king. 

Lowkey though, am I the only one who appreciate Neil’s average style?

Speaking of style- I love the way Neil narrates. Like, the way he doesn’t give much attention to how the character looks- it’s just so realistic?

Because if I’m talking to a person in real life, there is no way I am noting how his blue polo makes him kind of casual but clean-cut and how his brown eyes is as warm as my morning coffee. Like, who even does that?

The thing with Neil’s narration is that it’s just so authentic- like it easily engages the readers and the way he gives importance to every thing the same way, it really makes it easier for the reader to discern things objectively, y’know what I mean?

He just has that quality in a main character and narrator- he’s laidback and sarcastic but not trying too hard, and he’s just really easy to love.

Like, I normally don’t like narrators/main characters in books because I favor a side character more or just because they’re annoying, but Neil Josten is legit lovable. 

At the same time, he’s also a really well-written character. Like, for all the technicalities I point out in AFTG, Neil is an asshole. He’s not perfect and I don’t 100% love everything that he does and I love that.

He’s a flawed character but he gives you something to root for- and I just really want to appreciate his characterization for a second. Most books make their characters’ flaws not even their fault to put a check to the flawed character but at the same time still have that perfect character. Eeww, no- give me real flaws to work with.

He’s one of the realest protagonists I ever read.

Like people give him shit for wanting to hide but also choosing to play a nationwide-discerned sport on an infamous collegiate team but for me it’s kind of realistic.

Because I think we, as human beings, also do things we love too much regardless of logic. I don’t know, like it’s kind of funny the way Neil is written but I honestly didn’t see him joining Palmetto as a loophole.

Like, just think of all those successful people who hid their identities via pseudonym or other necessary means to do things they weren’t expected to do or weren’t allowed to do.

For me, his character was really just looking for excuses to play his favorite sport a second longer and if anything, that’s just kind of sad.

But also, his dedication and love to exy is really admirable- like I never understood it but the way he literally does everything to stay on the court for a second longer just makes me want to root for him.

On a random note, Neil may not have an eidetic memory like Andrew’s but the way he memorize most phone numbers by heart? 

Bruh, I don’t even have my phone number memorized and I freaking have it for two years now. 

He also memorizes every twists and turns at every trip, every exits at a room he enters, and most people’s tics upon the first meeting, and other things and that’s just crazy perceptive but also really crazy on another level.

Also, we don’t get much ace/demi representation and out of the few I’ve consumed, demi Neil Josten validates me. He’s legit my favorite character that belongs in the ace spec in books.

I just really love Neil’s character so much- he’s just so amazing.

One thing I always appreciate about Neil Josten is that while he’s not a total angel (sadly), the way he loves the foxes- like he legit tried to mend the team and make sure everyone is going to be okay before walking straight to his death- like I’m with Andrew on this one, what a fucking martyr. Why are you like this and why am I crying?

Neil Josten is by all means not soft, that much is established, but the way he’s just still as precious and must be protected at all costs-

"You know, I get it," Neil said. "Being raised as a superstar must be really, really difficult for you. Always a commodity, never a human being, not a single person in your family thinking you're worth a damn off the court—yeah, sounds rough. Kevin and I talk about your intricate and endless daddy issues all the time."

I love him, your honor- where can I file this adoption papers and do I have anything else to sign?

#neil is legit my favorite character in the entire series and i love him so much #he's my second favorite character of all time #i just think he deserves the entire universe #all for the game #all for the gay #all for the angst #all for my son #aftg #the foxhole court #the raven king #the kings men #the king's men #nora sakavic #neil josten #aftg neil #I freaking love Neil Josten like who doesn't? #Neil Josten supremacy #aftg appreciation hours #aftg appreciation post #raeraegoaway