#so many people think that if you delve into a bad persons reasons for doing a bad thing

[itsclydebitches]

Hazbin Hotel: Let's Talk About Cursing!

Trigger warning for lots of cursing in this post (obviously) and discussion of canon abuse scenes

As I delve further into the Hazbin Hotel fandom, I’ve inevitably come across a variety of people who dislike the show for an equal variety of reasons. One criticism I’ve seen with some consistency is in regards to the cursing and yeah, I get it. That’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. However, the repeated claim that the cursing is only there as a—failed—attempt at bad, lazy humor got me thinking about why I personally liked the cursing, and why I think it serves a greater purpose in the show.

Now yes, some of the cursing does function as an arguably simplistic joke. The most common setup I’ve noticed is one that leans into a contrast in tone/personalities. We see this a lot with the polite, comparatively timid Charlie as she navigates her distinctly vulgar domain.

Charlie: “Hi, mister!” Demon: “Go fuck yourself!”

The entirety of “Happy Day in Hell” plays with this contrast, setting up Charlie’s slightly skewed, but significantly optimistic perspective of Hell. We are shown again and again how her lyrics are contradicted or twisted into something less innocent through the visuals: a “revealing” street where it’s “hard not to stare” has BDSM going on in a nearby window, Charlie will “open the door” for her people and then literally does so... for a guy who’s already dead. (Or, you know, temporarily out of commission until he heals, or whatever demons do when they’re ‘killed’ by things other than angelic steel.) The entire point here is to contrast the happy, skipping girl claiming that there’s a “warm, fuzzy feeling” in the air with the actual environment of unchecked fires and decaying limbs. And yes, that can be amusing. Not necessarily for everyone as humor is highly subjective and dependent on context, but distilling this contrast down to the shock of a polite greeting getting a “Go fuck yourself!” in response is a kind of entertainment. Especially when Charlie’s reaction adds another layer: for me that’s a very funny—and currently relatable—expression.

We can potentially make the case that this humor format overstays its welcome, but I personally think the show does a good job of keeping Charlie’s cursing both simple and comparatively rare, so that when she is put into these contrast situations the humor lands better. The best example I can think of in the latter half of the show is Susan. There we get the whiplash of polite, trying-to-get-these-people-to-like-her Charlie reaching a breaking point to become “FUCK YOU, YOU OLD BITCH” Charlie. It’s a moment that builds off of the earlier surprise of the courteous Alastor calling someone an “Ornery old bitch”—while Rosie is trying (and failing) to find a nicer way to phrase this.

However, as stated above I think the cursing serves more of a purpose than to just be funny for (some) viewers. Beyond those who simply find cursing distasteful, I’ve seen a fair bit of, “This is so stupid. No one even talks like that!” going around.

Except... I do? I talk like that.

See, I like cursing. I was born to former hippie parents and grew up playing MMOs, so cursing was something I became pretty acclimated to. Personally, I’m glad I was because I’m fascinated by language and cursing—for better or worse—is an integral way that many people communicate. I was taught to see cursing not as the Bad Forbidden Thing You Must Never Ever Do, but rather as just another form of expression, something to be used in moderation and under specific circumstances. Once I became an adult I already understood how I wanted to curse and when it was appropriate to do so. People at work are often shocked when I tell them I curse a lot because no, of course I’m not doing that at my job. That isn't considered professional in this space. Among my friends though?

We can sound a lot like the Hazbin crew.

Undoubtedly the most common curse in the show is “fuck” and its variations, which very much tracks with my personal experience among other people who curse. In fact, it’s so ubiquitous that it barely counts as a curse at all in some groups. It’s more of an easy, accepted way to add emphasis. Vaggie’s “What the fuck was that?” about Alastor’s commercial is a perfect example. She’s pissed and simply saying “What was that?” doesn’t carry the same weight, no matter how angry she may sound when she says it. Vox’s long “Fuuuuuuuck” at the end of “Stayed Gone” conveys an emotion you just can’t capture any other way. No dialogue at all would create a fundamentally different experience of Vox’s feelings and another non-cursing response is just gonna hit different. Not necessarily bad, just different.

“I don’t want to go to the party!” “I don’t want to go to the freaking party!” “I don’t want to go to the fucking party!”

The above represents three distinct characters to me and I think Hazbin Hotel gets that. Cursing isn’t thrown around randomly because something something cursing supposedly sells; it’s all linguistically logical. Characters curse when something surprising or bad happens, or when something unexpectedly good happens, when they’re angry, trying to be sexy, or they want to add that emphasis. That’s a lot of different situations where cursing can be useful and when you use “fuck” in your daily life a lot you become pretty desensitized to it. As said, for many it’s barely a curse at all. Which means that when you really want to curse you’ve got to up the ante. It doesn’t surprise me one bit that the two uses of “cunt” I can recall—a word that is generally considered far worse than “fuck” and makes a lot of people understandably uncomfortable—is used by two of the worst characters in moments that are meant to horrify the viewer:

Adam: “Can’t wait a whole year to slaughter those little cunts / I know it’s just been a week, but we’ll be back in six months!” Valentino: “When I say you’d better get that fucking cunt out of my studio, you say...?”

This horror is especially emphasized in Valentino’s scene. The creators know this word is coming up and deliberately build towards it. Angel is currently being abused and has been reminded that Valentino “owns” him. The above question is a part of a trio that Valentino asks (a standard structure in writing), wherein the third option is the outlier/most shocking of the three. The animation leans into that shock, with the music building and Valentino grabbing Angel to pull him close right on the word “cunt.” Perez even puts emphasis there because he knows that this is a significant word that will change our understanding of Valentino.

Despite having hit Angel multiple times and taunting him with the contract, this is the moment Valentino stops playing the ‘nice’ employer. This is the real him. No more fake compliments and endearments aimed at Charlie, no more fake comfort/intimacy aimed at Angel. That “cunt” conveys a hell of a lot about how Valentino really sees them and when you have a cast of characters who are already cursing on the regular, it takes a word on that level to do that kind of work. If Valentino had said, “get that fucking bitch out of my studio” it wouldn’t have had nearly the same impact because he’s the kind of guy who uses "bitch" even when playing ‘nice.’

Adam’s line from “Hell is Forever” does very similar work. The scene needs a word to align with the horrific reveal that another extermination is just six months away, that conveys Adam’s deep disgust for Charlie’s people, and that still catches the viewer’s attention even though he’s the character (I believe) who curses the most. Here the music drops and Adam is a little closer to speaking than singing; there's this shift because, like with Valentino, our perception of him is shifting. This isn’t just some egotistical idiot who wants to be called “Dick Master,” he’s the leader of an army coming to gleefully kill them. Framing a whole world of people—people Charlie loves—as “cunts” while treating their murder as a holiday that can’t come soon enough creates an, 'Oh shit. This guy is actually a threat' understanding that you can’t quite get with anything else.

On a smaller scale, cursing does other character work throughout the whole show. I watched a number of cursing compilation vids for this meta (that was a trip lol) and again, cursing is not thrown in randomly. Each character has a unique way of cursing that aligns with their personality and motivations:

As said, Adam curses the most in the show which helps sell his truly over-the-top, irreverent personality. Linguistically, the amount he curses also allows for some fun grammatical play. Lines like, “Fucking love putting my name on shit, shit’s the best!” help convey the versatility of cursing.

Also as said, Charlie curses a fair bit but she’s comparatively polite and her cursing tends to be a result of genuinely big emotions—like saying “Crap” when she’s shocked and falls, or “Shit!” when Adam locks her out of the room—rather than sprinkled into her conversations as a modifier. That leaves space to create those moments of amused surprise when Charlie really let’s loose.

Sr Pentious curses even less than Charlie which fits his secretly gooey center. He talks a big game at the start of the show, but he’s actually quite bad at being, well, bad (especially the Amazon version compared to pilot!Pentious). His idea of getting one over on Alastor is ripping a bit of his coat. He loves his Egg Bois and “doesn’t want to live” without them. He has no desire to go into battle without minions/a big machine to hide behind and, of course, he’s the first to be redeemed. He's too much of a secret sweetheart to curse a lot.

Interestingly, Niffty doesn’t seem to curse at all. At least, not enough for me to think of examples off the top of my head. Right now I’m inclined to read that as an extension of her lived experiences/design—the cute 1950’s housewife archetype who is obsessed with keeping things clean doesn’t [gasp!] curse—as well as a way to maintain her legitimate creep factor. As said, cursing is common among the hotel residents and is a way for them to linguistically fit in. Niffty, however, is positioned more as an outsider (despite how much they all obviously love her): she’s actually scary in a way most demons aren’t and despite how weird this whole world is, she stands out as someone no one else can make sense of (even Alastor). If cursing is normal, Niffty is a character who is decidedly positioned as not normal.

Angel curses a fair bit, though his irreverence is conveyed more through innuendos. Angel is great at verbally twisting others’ words (especially Husk’s) to give himself a conversational advantage:

Husk: “Go fuck yourself” Angel: “Only if you watch me~”

Husk: “You’ve come—” Angel: [very loud orgasm noise] Husk: “...to the right place.”

Meanwhile, Husk uses “fuck” plenty, but he’s also one of the few characters who use “bullshit" too. I wouldn’t say there’s anything particularly revealing about that choice, but just giving him a go-to curse that’s otherwise used infrequently helps make his character distinct in a cast of other cursing characters.

Vaggie occasionally curses in Spanish, showing us her heritage if she used to be human, or a distinct knowledge/verbal preference if she’s always been an angel.

Heaven, as the ‘good’ side, doesn’t curse as a general rule, which leaves room for cursing to do more of that silent character work. We’re reminded of the stuffy, overly critical beings she’s dealing with when Charlie receives the combined judgement of the court for saying, “Fuck yeah!” In contrast, we understand just how shocked St. Peter is to see a Morningstar when he lets out an unintentional “Fuck!” The angry vindication of Charlie’s “That’s what the fuck I’ve been saying!” lands harder after multiple scenes of very little cursing, and Lute’s “Some crack-whore who fucked up already? / He blew his shot like the cocks in his mouth—” helps set her apart as an exorcist + Adam's second in command: her shocking violence comes through in her word choice too; words that supposedly don't belong in Heaven.

In what’s arguably the funniest line in the whole show, Lucifer undermines his dramatic standoff with Adam by going, “You mess with my daughter and now I’m going to fuck you.” Beyond just cutting the tension, that fits his bumbling, oblivious personality perfectly. Lucifer is crazy powerful and can absolutely wreck Adam. He also has none of the classy intimidation that, say, Alastor displays when he tries to convey that. This is a depressed himbo who makes ducks in his free time and settles on, “Hey, bitch!” when greeting his estranged daughter. Of course he’s going to accidentally turn a threat into a promise of sex.

Which finally brings me to Alastor, someone whose cursing is already understood well by the fandom. He’s characterized as manipulatively courteous, using manners to both hide his true nature and draw attention to his power—’You’re so beneath me I’ll just calmly sip my coffee and politely ask who you are, despite the fact that we've fought multiple times.’ This is a guy who calls people “My dear” and unironically insults them with the phrase “wacky nonsense.” So when he curses you can BET it’s gonna have an impact. It sure did for me. I had to pause the episode after Alastor’s first “Fuck you” because it was so shocking to hear that language from him. And that’s the point! The scene wants that reaction from the audience. The "Fuck you"s visceral anger contrasting the fake laughs he and Lucifer have been giving, the quick-fire exchange that’s suddenly cut short by Alastor’s choice of a direct insult, the fact that he’s officially dropping the polite veneer they’ve both been indulging in and raising the stakes before Charlie intervenes, the loss of the radio filter that otherwise demonstrates his control over a situation... all of it screams, ‘THIS IS AN IMPORTANT CHARACTER MOMENT.’

"Fuck you” reveals that, for the first time in the show, Alastor is legitimately threatened by someone. Which makes sense given that, you know, Lucifer is the King of Hell. Cursing for Alastor isn’t normal, so when he does curse it’s going to reveal something about a guy who otherwise is obsessed with being unknowable. Having the King of Hell dismiss him is actually infuriating in a way Sir Pentious’ threats could never be and the exchange kicks off a rivalry that rattles Alastor in ways Vox’s never has. (Side note: is it any wonder people ship them? Character A making control freak Character B feel vulnerable is classic!) It’s no surprise to me than that the one other true curse we get from Alastor is, “I’m about to end your fucking life,” delivered to Adam who, like Lucifer, poses a legitimate threat and does end up beating him. I say “true” curse because calling Susan a “bitch” does similar work for him, but the takeaway is humorous rather than dramatic. It’s funny that the only people who can piss Alastor off enough to curse are the First Man/a powerful exorcist angel threatening his life, the literal King of Hell... and Susan.

So there’s a lot going on here, more than what many viewers might assume if they approach the show as just “stupid,” needlessly vulgar entertainment. As shown above, I don’t think the cursing is needless, especially given that, well... they’re in Hell. They’re sinners, supposedly the worst that humanity has to offer, so of course they're going to curse a lot. Does cursing mean you’re a bad person? No. Can you craft a hellish world that doesn't rely on cursing to convey a group's immoral nature? Sure.

Does it make sense that a writer would equate a sinful, irreverent cast with linguistic rebellion and would want to convey a certain vibe that, frankly, you just can’t get without dropping an F bomb?

Yeah, I think so. No one has to like that kind of creative decision, but it’s worth acknowledging it as a deliberate choice.

That’s all! Thanks for reading this fucking long post ✌️

#Hazbin Hotel #Hazbin Hotel meta #mymetas #tw cursing #cw cursing #tw abuse #cw abuse

[nu-carniviva]

A censored version of Nu: Carnival is coming to the app store... Which is not good

When this was first brought to my attention, I honestly didn't believe it at first. I mean, why would I? Nu: Carnival has advertised itself as an adult-only game since it's release. I rarely go on Twitter since it's a total shithole, but that's how I found out that the rumors were true. Nu: Carnival - Bliss, they're calling it. The overall plot, events, and gameplay will be the same. But many crucial changes will be done to the dialogue, CG, and audio. Long post ahead, but I'll be ranting about it below

Why is this a bad move?

There are multiple reasons as to why making a censored, teen friendly version of Nu: Carnival is a horrible decision. I might not get them all, but here are a few I can think of off the top of my head:

It is literally impossible to separate the nsfw from the source. Whether the devs like it or not, they made an nsfw game. After the first half of the prologue, the game opens with porn. You are introduced to two characters at the time — Aster and Morvay. That right there is already an issue. Morvay is an incubus. He is a sex demon who wears leather lingerie. While there is certainly more to his personality, his is very existence is sex. Sex is what keeps him alive and fed. Morvay is very open about his sexual desires and the topic of sex as a whole. He doesn't find it shameful or taboo. So... What are they going to do with Morvay? He can't be removed since he's bonded with Aster. Censoring him will have him take a MAJOR hit. Now that leads me to the second part of this bullet point: sex is a crucial part of the plot. Essence is what keeps Klein stable. Eiden and his clan's job is to use their essence to fix the gem altars so said altars can keep the essence regulated throughout the continent. While there are several ways to replenish one's essence, the most effective way is through sex. Sex also plays a crucial role in expanding on the plot and the characters. Sex scenes aren't just there for entertainment, there is genuine lore within the dialogue. Through sex, Eiden bonds with his clan members in the most intimate and personal ways. He sees his clan members at their most vulnerable moments, and through that they share a deep connection. You can see when sex scenes go from Eiden and whoever the clan member is having sex just to have it to having sex because they genuinely care for each other and want to physically bond. I could delve deeper into this topic, but I'm sure you all understand by now what I'm trying to say. Sex is not just an accessory or perk. It's part of the worldbuilding

Minors will not be able to escape nsfw within the fandom. Since the game's release, the fan base has been entirely made up of adults. Since we are all adults, we freely talk and post about the nsfw parts of the game. You go on any social media platform where Nu: Carnival is discussed, and you will see nsfw. It's a very casual topic in the fandom, and in a way it's something that bonds us together… As weird as that may sound. My point is, making a censored version of the game is pointless, because the source itself in inherently nsfw and the fan base is full of adults making nsfw content which is usually uncensored since the artists expect for anyone in the fandom to only be adults

Minors in fandoms often bring drama... Hear me out on this one. Not to sound like one of those "grr minors dni I hate minors" people, but kids in fandoms often bring drama and discourse. As aggravating at it is, I have to admit that it isn't entirely their fault. When you're in your early teens, you're starting to discover yourself. You become very opinionated and defensive over your beliefs because you're trying to figure out who you are and where you stand in life. You're trying to gain independence and autonomy. It's normal... But it's very draining. Since Nu: Carnival has an all-adult fandom, there isn't a lot of drama at all. Sure, you're going to have stupid people saying stupid shit to start drama, that happens everywhere, but those people are typically ignored because it isn't too common. With kids coming into the fandom and starting unnecessary drama, it'll be so much harder to avoid. Not only that, but kids don't have as much media literacy as adults do. It's not an insult, but simply a fact. Nu: Carnival delves in a LOT of heavy themes in the game. Some of which are stated outright while others require you to read in between the lines to pick up on them. Since the fandom is all adults, it's easier for us to handle these topics and discuss them maturely

Why are the devs doing this?

My guess? Money. The devs are part of a company after all. At the end of the day, all companies want to make money. By making a game they can put on app stores, the game becomes more visible to a broader audience. People who have never heard of Nu: Carnival before will see what appears to be an innocent anime game when it's far from that. All it will take is a simple google search for people to see the the game is very much nsfw and not something minors should indulge themselves in. It's dangerous for both parties involved, both the minors and the adults

But hey, whatever's bringing in the money, right? Sigh...

#not how i wanted to make my full time return but okay #btw guys hi i just finished my semester #i have like a month off so i'm planning on getting back into things i didn't have time for #this blog being one of them #god my autistic ass hates change so much #WE DON'T NEED KIDS IN THIS FANDOM #nu carnival #nu carnival aster #nu carnival morvay #nu carnival eiden #nu carnival yakumo #nu carnival edmond #nu carnival olivine #nu carnival quincy #nu carnival kuya #nu carnival garu #nu carnival karu #nu carnival blade #nu carnival dante #nu carnival rei #nukani

[missycolorful]

It's important to remember that the Antarctic Empire, and therefore SMP Earth, is essentially canon to QSMP. (as far as I'm aware) (it definitely will be for this post, so shhh)

Think about all the destruction, mayhem, and cruel things Philza did on SMPE. How nothing held him back. He committed so many war crimes with a damn smile on his face. As part of the Antarctic Empire, he took over the world.

And if SMP Earth Philza is also q!Philza, then it's interesting to see how much has changed since the old days. How, before being thrust into Purgatory, he's been chill and minding his own business. Never really got into conflicts, never caused mayhem or destruction. The only exceptions are two occasions: a) when he returned to the eggs being missing, and he lava casted the Presidential Building, and b) at the Guy Fawkes event.

(Which as I'm typing this I'm realizing. The Guy Fawkes day was an event set the day before things went to hell. An event designed to create mass destruction. An event in which the capybaras gave Philza all the power and control, to blow up with so many stacks of TNT. and Philza fucking loved it. Perhaps to just give us a taste of what's to come.)

But anyway! Philza hasn't really delved into chaos on this server all that much. And even in the beginning of Purgatory, what he has been saying about the Red Team being underdogs is true. They weren't off to a great start; the first day and a half were hell! And yes, he only killed in self defense. He didn't trust the eye worth shit. And of course, he didn't want to hurt anyone. And I'm sure that is still true.

But as time as gone on, as the days have passed, the underdog statement just isn't the case now, as they've embraced what has made them strong, even if they are lacking in other places (i.e. not a lot of PVP players, no enchanted equipment). And they've done some questionable stuff. The situation with q!Rivers, for example. And also one I don't see mentioned which, I think was Day 8? When Phil just. Stole a saddle and a stack of potatoes from Blue Team's base while he was taking/replanting their crops. But still, Philza wants to justify these actions. "It's the bolas way." "it was for a quest" "we did this cause this." He wants to believe that what he's doing isn't bad, because he's just trying to survive in purgatory, right? Philza is a survivalist, this is how he survives.

Then we had today, where Philza's intense gameplay shined. He fought so many people in PVP, didn't even take a second to hold back, used his impressive minecraft skills to work his way to Green's base, and he killed the statue. He went wild today. Just imagine, Philza, wearing the Bolas gas mask, descending upon you with a sword, with no mercy. No, not just Philza, but the Angel of Death.

I think this is what Purgatory wants out of him. Right? Because clearly, Purgatory wants to bring the worst out of everyone.

I also think the reason that q!Phil tries to justify so much of his actions isn't simply ruled as hypocrisy (though it's a bit, in a way) or, in meta, born from self deprecation. No, there's something more to it.

It's because Philza does not want to be corrupted by Purgatory. He refuses to accept that it's dragging him to a dark place. A familiar place, even. I genuinely believe that Philza simply does not want to be like how he was all those years ago. Destructive and cruel. He doesn't want to go back. He's not like that anymore. He's a better person now. He doesn't want to hurt people, and I absolutely believe that. That's different, though, than saying I won't.

#qsmp #philza #missy rambles #qsmp purgatory #i finally figured out why all the posts simply calling q!phil's actions hypocritical bothered me #like they are I don't think that was the problem #it's really because there's more to all of thissomething darker

[giac222]

I’m an Ashley Graves lover and defender till the end 🤞🏻🩷.

This is going to be a deep dive and a pretty long post, just a heads up! There’s a point in the beginning where I briefly discuss something else regarding TCOAAL because I felt that it ties in, but this post will mostly be focusing on Ashley + her experiences, and a little about how Andrew isn’t actually a doormat, not even close. 😶

Let’s get into it:

I adore her and I have the biggest soft spot for her, my empathy for her is through the damn roof. She’s a product of her environment, she wasn’t born the way she is (Andrew wasn’t either). It’s frustrating to see people claim she was born evil. I’d go as far to argue that she isn’t completely evil either. Her soul is the color of pitch black according to the demon in the game. But why is that? What caused it? The reason for this is because of how she’s been treated by everyone else around her throughout her whole life. It’s not like she asked or wanted to become a “tar soul”. Her environment made her sour, it made her hate people.. including herself.

After Ashley sacrifices the warden to the demon, when she’s thinking to herself, a text box comes up that says “You decide not to linger on the fact that your soul is apparently a vicious, pitch-black mess.” and after that we see another one that says “Guess you already knew that”.

I was thinking to myself, why the hell am I so attached to this character? Lmao. Why do I have such a huge soft spot for her? Then when I was thinking about it I realized it’s because I relate to some of what she’s been through. Especially her terribly low self-esteem that causes her to feel unlovable, ooo that hit home for me. For quite some time I dealt with that, and let me tell you, it truly is an awful feeling. It can make you very mean and bitter. It quite literally eats away at you. I’m 22 now and I’m able to reflect on those past experiences, that’s when I realized how bad it really was. When it comes to someone having poor self-esteem and not much self worth, it stems from somewhere. People don’t just randomly start hating themselves, there’s something that causes it to happen. It could be from a variety of things such as trauma, childhood experiences, comparison to others, and discrimination.

It truly sucks to see how many people online that seem to hate her (not on Tumblr, but almost everywhere else). Her backstory breaks my heart, it’s tragic, and it seems that people completely ignore what she’s gone through and what she STILL goes through.

I also hate that the game has kind of, in a way, become a meme due to the controversy. This game delves into very serious and depressing topics, so for losers online with 0 media literacy to water it down to “the incest game” is sooo agitating. This is just a personal opinion of mine, but I also feel as though the controversy made people play the game for the wrong reasons. Including a lot of “edgy” teenagers 😬. I don’t think I need to elaborate on that, I’ve touched on it before in a different post. I mean the amount of loud and wrong takes I’ve seen about the game… All I can do is shake my head 💀.

So, I’ll share my (maybe?) controversial opinion that some of the “fanbase” is part of the problem too, not just the people who hate the game that don’t even know what’s going on. I’ve talked about this before so I’ll keep it brief, but I feel it fits in the post so I’m including it. But on the game’s subreddit there are people who will reduce the game itself to fap material, and it doesn’t make sense to me because there’s quite literally nothing overly sexual or explicit in the game?? Even in the questionable route vision we don’t see anything explicit, we just know what happens. I’m like have y’all forgotten that this is a PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR game?? How some of these people managed to reduce Nemlei’s work that she clearly put a lot of thought and effort into that covers dark topics and serious issues to fap material is beyond me…. What a way… just what a way. Let’s hope they get weeded out of the fandom before ch. 3 drops 🙏🏻.

Just to clarify so no one gets confused, I’m NOT referring to people who create NSFW art/posts of the game, like duh you guys know I love Ashley and Andrew 🤭🤭. I know what I’m about! 😂. Seriously though, I’m referring to people in the Reddit community who will quite literally just take people’s NSFW art (any fan art in general really) and upload it there without the artist’s consent (edit: I think if they give credit it’s not a big deal, and some artists may not care regardless. Some probably care, some don’t). It just seems like the NSFW stuff is the only thing a lot of them care about, and the shit they say is so unhinged at times I’m like???? Seek help. (Obviously it isn’t all of the members, but it’s definitely a lot speaking from my personal experience there before I left). In a way, I can’t blame outsiders for side eyeing the fanbase if that’s their first impression.

Between the amount of haters TCOAAL has and some of the questionable “fans”…. Yeah, we’re in the trenches 😂. That’s part of the reason why I left the server and now only participate in the Tumblr community. Not even trying to gate-keep or sound like an asshole, but a lot of the Reddit community doesn’t fit the game. I said what I said! As I’ve said before in a previous post, most of the trash takes I’ve seen on the game stem from there, and YouTube too. 😬

TCOAAL is a game that requires you to think and dig deeper, that’s why I love it. It touches on very heavy topics. Tbh it’s not something you can simply take at face value, that just defeats the purpose.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about Ashley! 🩷✨

When you pay attention to all the details and look deeper into Ashley’s character, you see that Ashley has quite literally been treated like shit her entire life by EVERYONE around her except for Andrew. That’s why it’s so easy for her to treat people as disposable, because that’s how SHE was treated her entire life 💔.

This scene specifically proves that:

Andrew really is everything to her. That boy is her sun, her moon, and all of her stars. 🥲💚. We see that he’s her main, and basically only source of happiness. He’s the only thing/person she cares about. I find it genuinely heartbreaking that he has been the only person Ashley could depend on throughout her life. Due to this, it makes sense as to why Ashley goes to such extreme measures to keep him around. if she lost him, she’d have no one else. So of course she’s scared that he’ll leave her. Even though we know he’ll stick by her side no matter what, Ashley does not. She’s quite literally the love of his life but she doesn’t know that. 😩

Then again, Andrew doesn’t show it, so of course she doesn’t get it. He’s never said I love you back to her, the closest we get to that is when he says “I like you… but you’re so exhausting” after their huge fight. If you look closely at his face in that scene, you’ll see gray blush lines on his cheek. Ashley has been abandoned by everyone except for Andrew, she needs validation and reassurance from him to know that he’s there to stay. He doesn’t really give that to her though, but he needs to STAT! As I said, we know he’s in it for the long haul, but Ashley does not.

You see, Ashley operates under the idea that Andrew doesn’t actually care about her. She believes that he couldn’t love her of his own will and that she has to manipulate in order for him to stay. I hold the opinion that she doesn’t do those things because she necessarily wants to, she does it because she feels like she has to in order to keep him around. She manipulates, but she isn’t very good at it 🫣.

Thinking about their huge fight in apartment 302 after Andrew killed that lady (she definitely did not attack him first, but we’ll get into that in a minute). When Andrew’s choking Ashley she brings up the fact that she’s the only one who can make his nightmares go away, but guess what we see in ch. 2? Before going to snoop on the cultist, if you go back to their motel room and you interact with the bed. A text box pops up that says “oh yeah, you tooootally have nightmares as often as you claim.”.. So, we now know that Andrew doesn’t actually have that many nightmares, he uses it as an excuse because he wants to sleep next to Ashley and be close to her.

Back to the apartment 302 incident, when Ashley goes back to that apartment after completing the ritual, she sees that Andrew killed the lady that lived there, he claims she attempted to attack him with the nail gun, but the nail gun was in the same damn spot! People should’ve started side eyeing him at that point in the game. I know I did LOL, “doormat extraordinaire” my ass 😂. Btw, there are people who genuinely believe he tried to sleep with the lady in 302, but she wouldn’t do it so he killed her….. 🤦🏻‍♀️. I wish I was joking.

Anyway, in Andrew’s dream when we go over the justified deaths, with the lady in 302, the first reason he mentions is “Ashley would have wanted to kill this one anyway” then he brings up no witnesses. To me, the fact that the first reason he mentions is Ashley wanting to kill her anyway showed that he killed her for Ashley more than anything. I mean, It did make Ashley happy that she died. He didn’t say anything about getting attacked, although it was obvious that was a lie already lmao. I believe that’s why he got so frustrated, which led to him getting pissed off after Ashley started accusing him of trying to sleep with that woman. Especially because once she started, it escalated quickly and she just kept going.. He was like “girl??? I literally killed this woman for YOU.” I could be wrong, but that was my interpretation on the situation.

Another interesting thing I thought about was how during their argument, Andrew tells Ashley to butt out of his love life, and that she always makes up some bullshit crisis for him to leave/stay when he’s out or about to leave to go meet up with someone. But in the flashback with Julia during his dream, while she’s raising genuine concern and mentions that it could be good for Ashley to learn some independence for her own sake. Also for Andrew to stop cutting things short on her, for the sake of their relationship, and so they can spend more time together. Andrew responds to that with “If your sister needed something, wouldn’t you go?” 👀. Andrew likes Ashley being dependent on him, he doesn’t want her to become independent. During their heated argument he admits to knowing her so called crisis she has before he leaves is “bullshit”. Yet he still chooses to leave to be with her anyway. Because again, Ashley’s the love of his life, people can deny it all they want but the proof is right there lmao. Not to mention he looked so sad hugging Julia until he asked her to tie her hair up… I see right through you Andrew 😂.

Also, him bringing up Nina’s death (Julia’s best friend) and lying to Julia’s face about it like he had no part in it, that was actually scary not going to lie 🫢. Plus him lying about Nina’s death affecting Ashley…like you know damn well. After their huge fight, Ashley said she was glad that Nina choked, which Andrew responded with “I know you are”.

That’s the thing about Andrew, he’s very good at lying and we see multiple examples of this in the game. When they were at their parents house Ashley decided to stay quiet because she couldn’t keep up with Andrew’s lies. In a different post of mine I talked about how “Andy” was a facade, but Ashley doesn’t understand that yet. She thinks he’s changing for the worst, but in reality he’s always been that way. His true colors are just now finally coming out.

Andrew and Ashley both had a shitty upbringing. I mean Mrs.Graves made Andrew take care of Ashley when he was a child, and I remember in a flashback he asked Ashley if she wanted to go with him because their mom gave him money for groceries, like ma’am why are you making your child go out to buy groceries??? Also, at the end of the day, she sold them both to organ harvesters. However, Andrew was treated somewhat better than Ashley during their childhood. We see this through the plushies in the puzzle before the questionable route vision, if you set Ashley’s plushie down at the table she immediately falls off. At their parents new home during dinner, Ashley sat on a mini ladder while everyone else had a chair, and simply the fact that Mrs.Graves gave Andrew their new house address, but didn’t give it to Ashley. They always shut Ashley out, they never cared about her nor did they try.

Now, let’s talk about one of, in my opinion, the saddest parts of the game. The flashback of Leyley’s birthday 🥲.

We see that neither her parents nor her friends cared about her birthday, they didn’t even try. She looked so sad talking about her friends here 😭. The fact that she brought up how her friends are always busy when she asks them for something shows that this is a recurring thing, her friends suck. I am in tearsss. I’m sick rn, she deserves everything and more. Andrew attempted to make her birthday special for her at least 🥺.

Also, I know Julia seems sweet from what we’ve seen, but I’m suspicious of her tbh 👀. We know Ashley hung out around her and Nina. I remember seeing one of the screenshots from a progress report where Andrew asks them if they could invite Ashley to sit with them sometime at lunch, so I’m assuming that’s how their “friendship” started.

Nina had a crush on Andrew, and Julia ended up dating him later on. I think it’s possible they only hung out with her just to get closer to Andrew. Julia wasn’t a very good friend to Ashley it seems, so it makes sense that she wouldn’t be thrilled about them dating. Especially because Andrew is the most important, well, really the only important person to her.

Something else to think about when it comes to people in Ashley’s life outside of Andrew: After Andrew killed the warden to protect Ashley and before they left their neighbors apartment, Ashley tells Andrew “I don’t give a rat’s ass about mom or dad. Or any of my so-called friends anymore.” and “Not one of them felt it necessary to answer my calls…”. When she says this she looks very upset. So, even in present time, Ashley still gets treated like shit by everyone around her except for Andrew, this has been an ongoing thing since her childhood.

Next up is this scene with Mrs.Graves while setting up the ritual:

This was after Ashley says “Lookie ma! I drew a circle!”. Mrs.Graves immediately starts putting her down. Ashley’s response to what her mom said shows me that this is something that commonly happened. I’m sure there were many times in Ashley’s life where she’d attempt to impress her mom and receive praise, but would immediately get shut down by her instead. The more I think about how terribly Ashley was really treated, the more sad I get about it, what the fuck 😭.

Ok, last thing to dissect. I wanted to talk about this comment from a YouTube video that came up under the “all” section on there. Beware, it might make you lose braincells. 💀

“Ashley is heavily sexualized” let me stop you right there ✋🏻 lmao. No she is not. At least to me she isn’t, I never got the impression that the game sexualized her. A lot of male players sexualize her (because of course they do 🙄), but the game? I disagree. You could say Ashley views herself as a sex object, but that doesn’t mean she’s sexualized by the game. She views herself that way because of her low self-esteem and the fact that she doesn’t believe someone could genuinely love her. Not to mention her internalized misogyny. Source? I’m speaking from experience. Having terribly low self-esteem really does drive you to dark places. It can lead to you basing your self-worth on people finding you sexually attractive or just attractive in general, like your self worth is based on your looks alone. That’s how you get validation even if it’s from a not so good place. It wears off pretty fast though, and it leaves a poor after taste. It’s only a temporary “good” feeling. If you don’t like yourself, no amount of attention will be ever good enough for you or truly make you feel better.

“Goth-esque fetish ware”, first of all it’s “wear”, and the “fetish wear” in question is just shorts, a black shirt, and a choker 💀. I cannot lmfao. Does that mean Andrew has “goth-esque fetish wear” too? Bc him and Ashley literally dress the same 😂. Not that this matters, but Ashley and Andrew are more emo to me lmao.

“She’s definitely a manipulative psychopath”… opinion immediately discarded because of this part of the comment alone.

“Her heavily sexualized existence”…. Don’t piss me off 🙄 like??? I can’t believe they said that. People with a brain larger than the size of an atom know that Ashley’s entire existence isn’t sexualized, I’d argue that it’s quite literally the opposite. It’s almost like they want Ashley to be this seductive sex kitten, but she just isn’t that. They project that onto her. I feel like some people think that Ashley simply existing with a bigger bust means she’s automatically sexualized, some men feel this way about women with bigger busts in real life too, so them doing it to a fictional character doesn’t shock me. Worms for brains I swear.

The comment Ashley makes about her “big fat tits” in the motel room during her mini argument with Andrew was literally so unserious. There’s the scene where Andrew was lying on the couch in their parents house when Ashley wakes him up out of his dream, and we see him looking at her boobs from his POV. However, that was literally so mild, you hardly even saw anything lmfao. I feel like Nemlei added that in to show that Andrew’s sexually attracted to her, plus it was a little before the scene where Ashley playfully bites him, and (in my opinion) where they almost fully crossed the line (because of Andrew mind you) before their mom came in. We all saw that pillow placement 😂. There are other signs of him being attracted to her before that as well, like when we see him push the thought of hugging her to the back of his mind “where it may fester with all the thoughts he wish he never had” + that scene in the kitchen where he was sort of touching her butt and had his fingers through her belt loop, but when their mom came in he jerked away and looked as if he got caught.

People will claim that Ashley is the only one that’s incestuous and that she “forced” it onto Andrew, but in ch. 2, we see that Andrew is arguably more incestuous than she is. Ashley loves Andrew to death, but she isn’t exactly horny for him the same way he’s horny for her. Think about their reactions to the questionable route vision. Ashley was pretty chill about it, while Andrew was beat red and embarrassed because his repressed inner thoughts just got exposed. The demon clocked his tea 😂.

I’ve spoken about this before so I’ll keep it brief, when it comes to sex Ashley doesn’t care much about it and views it as transactional, as something she can use for personal gain. As I kind of said already, to me, her viewing herself as a sex object and having that view on sex in general ties into the fact that she has internalized misogyny and her personal belief that she’s unlovable. So, not only does she view herself as a sex object, but you could say that she also views other women as sex objects too.

This is my personal opinion which I’ve shared before, but when her and Andrew fully cross the line (because they’re definitely going to) and he finally shows her that he loves her as well, I think her views on sex may change a bit. That she’ll start seeing it as something out of love that they can both enjoy. As something they can experience together, instead of her ignoring her own desires and being his personal sex object to use to attempt to keep him around.

Do I think that Ashley isn’t horny for him at all? Tbh no. I mean she literally says she assumed it would happen between them eventually anyway, so she’s definitely thought about it before. However, it’s nowhere near Andrew’s level lmao. We know Ashley is a virgin and honestly, I think Andrew is the only one she’d happily lose it to. If she were to sleep with anyone else, I doubt she’d enjoy it and would only use it as personal gain for something. As of right now, she views sex as a way of keeping Andrew around, however, I feel this is because of the fact that she doesn’t actually think he loves her and will stay with her on his own. She loves Andrew and wants to be with him, she wants him to reciprocate her love. As I like to say, Andrew’s her boo 😂, that girl doesn’t want anyone else.

Alright, let’s finish dissecting that goofy YouTube comment.

“practically puts the usually male players protective instincts into overdrive.” I don’t know wtf this means lmao, but it made me cringe. Some men need to be banned from speaking on Ashley until we figure out what’s going on 😂. Bc every time they speak on her I lose braincells. “Protective instincts” yet they quite literally don’t understand anything about her character or her struggles 💀. Maybe sit this one out lmao.

Not to sound like a broken record, but a big part of Ashley’s character is that she has very low self-worth and that she doesn’t believe people, more specifically Andrew, could actually love her (💔). I mean think about how she’s been treated for her whole life, it makes sense as to why she developed those feelings about herself and others. Her mindset is “well people never cared about me, so why would I care about them?”. Having people regularly treat you like shit takes a toll on your self-esteem and impacts your world view. Especially if it happens in your childhood.

Ashley quite literally loves Andrew more than she loves herself. I want better for her :’( and she deserves better too. I don’t care about the Ashley haters opinions. There are people who believe that she’s faking her low self-esteem in order to manipulate Andrew….. 🤦🏻‍♀️. Have you even paid attention to anything in the game?? That’s one of the biggest things about her character like hello?

I should have added this in earlier oops, but I’m adding it in now. After her and Andrew first talk to the lady in 302 and they leave her apartment, Ashley asks why the lady got special treatment but they didn’t, and why she didn’t get any food. Andrew responds with “maybe you just aren’t pretty enough”, he wasn’t being serious, but she took it that way. It didn’t help that he said “I mean… wasn’t she?” After Ashley asked if he thought she was pretty. That’s why Ashley wanted to shoot her after the ritual. You can see Ashley looks upset when she asks “do you really think I’m not pretty enough?”. Then gets angry and says “So ugly am I, that I shouldn’t even be fed?”. This is her insecurity and low self-esteem kicking in on full display.

This is a similar situation to what happened when her and Andrew were looking for something to lock Nina in the crate with at the warehouse. She asked him what he thought about Nina and if he found her pretty. He said “she’s fine… I guess”, which made Ashley unhappy. Even though Andrew wasn’t into her, like at all. Ashley has been dealing with insecurity and low self-esteem ever since she was a little girl 😭. I’m so upset for her like you guys have no idea.

After Ashley traps Nina in the crate, there’s a point where she’s crying and says “It’s not fair!! Why does everyone like her better??” “I’m loud and weird and annoying and no one likes me at all!!!”. 😭. My heart is breaking as we speak. It’s hard for me to believe she said all of that just to manipulate Andrew in that scene. I know in ch. 3 we will be delving more into their childhood, and I have a theory that Ashley was also bullied in school. I mean to refer to herself as loud, weird, annoying, and to say that no one likes her at all. That absolutely came from somewhere, and I don’t think it was just from Mrs.Graves.

So, to see people with the emotional depth of a raindrop get online and say that she’s solely the problem, that Andrew needs to get rid of her, and that she’s simply just evil… is, to put it lightly, very annoying. I’m gonna say something, you know I love both Ashley and Andrew, but we need to be honest! People give Andrew too much of a pass. I mean they literally excuse all of the terrible things he’s done and blame Ashley for “making” him do it. They give him a pass for everything, but have 0 empathy for Ashley despite everything going wrong in her life since she was born. They completely ignore that she’s a product of her environment. When it comes down to it, what good experiences in life has she really had?

Also, Andrew is more violent than Ashley is. I think that’s self explanatory. People seem to forget that she quite literally just wants to live a peaceful life with Andrew. During the “quarantine” while they were still in their old apartment, she says “Aside from the starving, it’s not so bad here.” and “Aside from starving, I like it here”. Ashley doesn’t want to live a life of violence and chaos, and we see this in the room before unlocking the door that leads us to the two burial route choices. If you place the knife down (violence) nothing happens, but when you place the flower down (love) - (my bad guys originally I put heart instead of flower, I changed it!) - the door becomes unlocked. She also gets upset when Andrew tells her that they can’t live at their parents new house, she literally doesn’t want to be on the run and just wants stability.

On Pinterest, I see girls talk about how much they hate Ashley in the comment sections. They literally just do this because they think Andrew’s hot 😂. Especially when they call her a bitch, like grow up 🙄. I’ve also seen people refer to her as a “pick me”?? Literally how? Immature teens need to be banned from playing this game LOL. It’s giving those male celebrity fandoms that dig to find anything “problematic” on a girl said male celebrity is dating just because they’re pissed it isn’t them, they don’t actually care if she’s problematic or not.

It’s literally just misogyny, they do this a lot to women in media. Breaking Bad is the biggest example of this, the people that act like Skyler White is worse than Walter are delusional as hell. Sorry, but If you’re misogynistic, lack empathy and/or emotional depth, TCOAAL isn’t for you 🤷🏻‍♀️. Period. That’s why the game deserves a better fanbase than the one it has outside of Tumblr. It deserves better in general.

They don’t care to look into why Ashley is the way she is. If it wasn’t obvious already, Andrew brings out Ashley’s worst behavior and blames her for making him do bad things. In his mind he can’t be guilty, so he needs something on the outside to blame (Ashley). Mrs.Graves contributes to this btw, during the setup of the ritual before they sacrificed her and Mr.Graves she was pretty much saying “I know you don’t want to do this, I know she’s making you do it!” 🤦🏻‍♀️. She sounds like one of those boy moms that go “my son didn’t do shit!” 😂.

The worst are the people who reduce Ashley to fap material and a “hot crazy girl they can fix or make worse” 🤪, and basically fetishize her (unchecked) mental health issues that contribute to how she acts. Again, she’s had crippling insecurities and low self-esteem since she was a kid, Ashley has had just about 0 good life experiences outside of the ones with Andrew. So it is incredibly frustrating to see. I’m like I hate y’all I really do, read the damn room 🙄. They need to stop projecting their weirdo shit onto her.

People who fetishize mental illness and talk about how they want to “date a crazy bitch” are so gross. If/when they actually date someone with said mental health issues, when things get bad and they don’t fit the fantasy anymore, they’ll get disgusted and drop the person struggling with mental issues like trash. Anytime I see a guy say “crazy girls with mental issues are better in bed!”…. I’m like I know what type of man you are 🫥…. Perish 🗣️.

Ashley and Andrew both have unchecked mental illness, we know this. It’s quite literally not their fault. However, I personally don’t feel comfortable diagnosing them. Every time I see someone online say they were a born a psychopath, sociopath, etc. I lose brain cells. Mind you, I’m literally majoring in psychology and I still don’t feel comfortable diagnosing them.

To wrap things up because I know this post is LONG! I empathize with both Andrew and Ashley because they’ve both been dealt a bad hand in life. Their parents failed them in every way, and the society they live in is totally dystopian. However, when it comes to Ashley specifically? I have all the empathy for her in the world, especially because I understand some of the things she’s dealt with and how painful it really is. Digging deeper into her character shows you that she has quite literally been through hell and back. You can say she’s a victim turned villain, but honestly? I don’t really even consider her a villain, maybe that’s controversial to say but 🤷🏻‍♀️, I don’t think she’s irredeemable either. She’s someone who was hurt very badly, her wounds run deep, and she never really got to heal from any of it.

I just want her and Andrew to have a happy ending, it would be nice for them to experience genuine happiness for once. I would also like to see Ashley gain some self love in ch. 3, maybe Andrew will be able to help her with that in a way as their relationship improves.

Honestly, people who act like the questionable burial route is the “bad” ending are in denial so bad. Nemlei has said that “Burial” and “Decay” aren’t an indicator of a “good” or “bad” ending though. There will also be multiple outcomes to discover. I’m both excited, and scared lol.

I love Ashley Graves so much as a character, she’s so interesting and complex. I don’t play about her 😂. When it comes to defending her I’m on the frontlines lmao. The misogyny/hate when it comes to her is crazyyy. I’ll be the odd one out I don’t care, she’s my girlie 💕. It’s always refreshing to see other people who adore her and actually understand her as a character.

~~~~~~~~

Thank you so much for reading ❤️. I think this is my longest post yet 😳.

Also, a big thank you to everyone for all of the notes on my TCOAAL posts! I truly appreciate it. I’m so glad other people adore this game just as much as I do. :)

Unfortunately I’m not able to follow people back since this is a side blog. :/, but I do really appreciate everyone that follows me, I hope you like what I post. 💜

I’m currently working on creating an ooak doll of Ashley! 🤭💕. I’m SO excited to finish it and post her!

I plan on making a post about the Decay route at some point, because I realized I haven’t discussed it much. Probably because that route makes me sad 😓. However, it’s still incredibly interesting and I’m both excited and nervous to see where it goes.

#that one girl who don’t play about ashley graves #ashley graves’s defense attorney #tcoaal spoilers #tcoaal #the coffin of andy and leyley #nemlei #ashley graves #andrew graves #coffincest #gravecest #leyley graves #andy graves #kit9 #i hate reddit #i hate stupid people #this is a pretty long post oops #long post #longer post #just my thoughts

[bioethicists]

Genuine question, but is restorative/ transformative justice useful for addressing hate groups?

I was under the impression that the prevention of violence extended to hate groups, but I keep seeing the reoccurring message from some people that incels, for example, don't need compassion or community (reasoning being, that they became incels because of their entitlement and superiority complex, which would not be solved with accountable compassion or community).

But I don't really understand the unspoken alternative? It seems so much worse for the women they'll inevitably interact with to just leave them isolated in their community, edging each other to the extreme.

while i do think some people online genuinely believe that incels are like, broken sociopathic monsters who need to be murdered or abandoned by society because it's their own fault etc, i think most of the time what people mean by that is "the burden of teaching men not to hate women should not be on women; men are still responsible for their own hateful actions; they are not owed my compassion or empathy, even if it would 'help' them". it's also backlash to the fact that people like incels often get painted as poor little victims in a way many other people (like the women they hate so much) do not.

that being said, everything that happens to anyone ever happens in community, whether people like it or not. total individualism is fake + any leftist worth their salt knows this. if the only way you can imagine someone having accountability for their actions is to believe that something is entirely, 100% their fault with absolutely no outside influences or nuance, then nobody can never be held accountable for anything. everyone needs compassion + community (i would argue the benefit many ppl derive from hate group membership is a sense of community), but i wouldn't say they are owed it by any individual. i would also say that the way in which compassion/community is applied (often when there is no political analysis + it's just based on appeals to "everyone has good inside them" or "love away the hate") in these cases can become just a way of reinforcing an echo chamber, refusing to challenge someone's beliefs, or silencing the people harmed (critiquing ppl for not being "good" victims or not having compassion for their abusers).

ppl often misunderstand restorative approaches as being "lesser" or "letting people off" when they can often require more accountability + more demonstration of change than a carceral approach. it is not synonymous with "loving someone's hate" or "letting them off easy". i mean, under the u.s carceral system, membership in most hate groups is not illegal. even when it becomes legally relevant, the people who are actually harmed are rarely centered in these approaches- it's just a bloodfest over how much we can punish people so we can show off how we think misogyny is super bad even as the court system continues to be one of, if not the most prolific perpetrator of misogyny + victim blaming. as if a handful of violent misogynists' suffering is supposed to be vindication or deterrence (when it never rlly is).

ultimately, there are tens of thousands of reasons why someone may be a member of a hate group, but it usually boils down to the fact that they are deriving some sort of benefit- financial, emotional, familial, cultural, interpersonal, etc- for doing so. some people would probably respond really well to a restorative approach because they would be capable + interested in delving into why they believe these things + how they could get their needs met without harming others. others are fully aware of the fact that they are deriving benefit at the expense of others + simply do not care or, worse, that is the benefit for them- the hurting other people/feeling superior to others. part of moving outside of the logic of the carceral system is moving past the idea that every individual person must be either punished or saved, rather than focusing on the conditions which create hate groups + give them power.

there may be a lot of individual members of hate groups who would not benefit from restorative practices, but we can still make hate group membership as undesirable + lacking benefit as possible, minimize the amount of power + resources they have to do harm, magnify the amount of power + resources the people they are harming have access to. to me, this is restorative, because it focuses on minimizing harm rather than punishing perpetrators + centers around people who have been harmed. further, if we understand the needs or desires that often drive hate group membership, we can work to make those needs/desires easier to fulfill through less destructive means + do the structural work of addressing why, for example, so many teenage boys have a need/desire to feel sexually dominant or 'alpha'.

the biggest restorative work to me is not based on any one individual, but on making the pathways into hate groups as narrow as possible + the pathways out as broad as possible, while still emphasizing accountability + capacity for change.

[dailyadventureprompts]

Hello Mr. Dapper! Love this blog and your many reimaginings of classic dnd deities and creatures. I was curious about something: Considering your dislike of purely evil gods and DnDs future focusing on the guy, what are your thoughts on Vecna?

Deity: Vecna, the Whispered One

My task of overhauling d&d’s villanous pantheon was started by a simple critique:  that if god was evil, there still needed to be a reason for people to worship it. To go with one example,  So many of the death gods in d&d want to kill everything that lives, yet they’re still presented as having legions of followers who are happy to die for them in opposition to the party.   You can say “Oh they’re just brainwashed, crazy cultists” but that’s just bad writing and thematically empty, neither of which I want for the sort of games I run. 

Vecna is actually an interesting case study in that he’s an outwardly wicked deity that has a theme which people would actively want to follow:   As a god of secrets, Vecna is the patron of any who will sacrifice anything to learn the answer to their problems, or conversely, the ones desperate to ensure their own secrets will never be known.  The story of Vecna as a mortal mage who attained first lichdom, then godhood is an aspirational one for all those power mad occultists out there, a common enough demographic in the d&d world both as villains and as player characters. 

Cults of Vecna worshippers likewise make sense as the whole point behind the historical practice of mystery cults was that those at the upper levels maintained their power through control of information and access to secret learnings.  You want to learn how to do magic? To speak to the dead? To protect your secrets from being known? Put on this ominous robe, learn the secret handshake, and don’t forget to drop your tithe intto the altar’s collection skull. Think of it like a forbidden knowledge based MLM. 

 Here’s some adventure hooks: 

While many of the whispered one’s acolytes dedicate themselves to discovering to the delving of arcane mysteries, others focus their attention on more worldly secrets. A powerful noblewoman is being blackmailed by a worshipper of Vecna not only for personal enrichment but also as an act of devotion, after he uncovered proof of indiscretions that would ruin her reputation.  While she’s too afraid to go for help herself and risk exposure, a devoted servant has seen her hidden suffering and has contacted the party for aid. 

Barely disguising its fiendish nature, a devil in service to Vecna approaches the party with an offer to reveal the secret intents or weaknesses of their enemies, if only they will deign to meet its terrible price.  While this information could do great good, or even save lives, just how low are the heroes willing to stoop? 

Seeking out the aid of a powerful mage, the party discover the old man on the brink of nervous collapse, having looked to deeply into the void and filled his mind with visions best left unmentioned.  Haunted by nightmares both real and imagined, he needs their help in quieting his mind through the gathering of rare ingredients and the distillation of a potent elixir. The process is not without risk however, are the party willing to help if it means erasing the information they need from his head, to say nothing of potentially lobotomizing the poor wizard? 

Art

#deity #vecna #divinity: knowledge #divinity: death #divinity: magic #divinity: madness #spy #fiend #lich #cultists

[nami-moittli]

FUCK jamikali romantic angst what about jamikali sibling angst?

For context, there have been multiple instances of Kalim stating that Jamil is like a brother to him. I find it funny how many jamikali shippers delve so deep into the two’s relationship and never bring this up. Ofc, I get why, if you ship em, you probably don’t want to attach that label to them, but as someone who hates the ship, I will focus on it, thank you very much!

Kalim has a lot of siblings, way too many, really but it helps him understand all sorts of different relationships you can have with your siblings.

Including the bad ones. Imagine Kalim’s perspective, when it’s revealed that Jamil was the one who manipulated him. Of course, Kalim knew, deep down, but he didn’t want to believe it, to believe the one person he could trust was plotting his downfall, to believe that another one of his siblings wanted him gone so that they could be in the spotlight instead.

Do you think, in that moment, that Kalim saw the faces of all his siblings who tried to take him out, one way or another?

Kalim knew what happened when people, his siblings got caught in an assassination attempt. He knew the same thing would happen to Jamil, he knew that worse would happen to one of his beloved siblings on account of Jamil not being his brother.

And that was his weakness, wasn’t it? Loving to easily, to fully. Believing the good in others, always. That even the worst can change, because you never know, or perhaps, you know all too well, the reason why they’re the worst.

He didn’t want one of his siblings to hurt like that, even though he knew that those siblings never saw him as one

Anyway, I want to see less romantic jamikali and see more one-sided sibling jamikali. Thanks for coming to my TEDtalk

#twisted wonderland #twst #twst jamil #twst kalim #jamikali anti #jamikali siblings #please focus on this twst fandom 🙏🙏🙏 #toxic siblings jamikali >>>>> toxic romantic jamikali

[writerscafehub]

𝙸𝙽𝚃𝚁𝙾𝙳𝚄𝙲𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝙾𝚄𝚁 𝙱𝙰𝚁𝙸𝚂𝚃𝙰 𝙵𝙾𝚁 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙳𝙰𝚈: @the-iceni-bitch

ೀ ㅤ۫ ㅤ۪ㅤ۫ ㅤ ♡ ㅤ . 𝐆𝐄𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐄:

From one to five stars, how would you rate your writing? (No downplaying yourself!)

Oh god, a 3.5? I will admit that it’s very hard for me not to downplay myself, it’s what I’m best at. I will say that I have gotten much better as a writer since I took it back up.

2. What do you think makes your writing stand out from other works?

I think probably my dialogue. I find myself able to sink into relationship dynamics quite easily and am able to show a character’s personality through their conversation with other characters rather than just describing it.

3. Are there any writers that inspire you?

Well, I have to give credit where credit is due as @stargazingfangirl18 is the whole reason I started writing fanfic. Other fanfic authors I find myself drawing inspired from would be @angrythingstarlight, @boxofbonesfic, @slothspaghettiwrites, @onsunnyside, and @howdoyousleep3. For my non-fanfic writing I draw a lot of inspiration for Ursula LeGuin, George R.R. Martin, Robert Jordan, and Tolkien of course.

4. What’s the fic you’re most proud of?

Definitely In the Pines. It’s so different from anything else I’ve ever written and I honestly love it. It’s so haunting and I’m very proud of the prose.

5. Which character(s) do you find easiest to write and which do you find most difficult to write?

Easiest is absolutely the quadrouple - my Ransom/reader/Ari/Jake kinda polycule that’s part of my No Love Like Your Love AU. I also find it really easy to write for Natasha and her peach from that same AU. Most difficult? Oof, off the top of my head Mike Weiss, he’s just kinda depressing.

6. Who or what do you find yourself writing about most?

Again, the quadrouple. They’re my comfort characters for a reason. I also just love writing about people in relationships, about them being in love and working through tough times but coming out better for it. I love when two (or more) people are just completely open and honest with each other and do their best to make each other better.

7. Tell us about a WIP you’re excited about!

Fic wise all the upcoming stuff for the NLLYL verse, and there’s a lot. But I am most excited about my novel! It has so many characters that I love so much. It delves into stuff I’ve never written before but that I found surprisingly intriguing. And of course, there’s a ton of bangable characters. Blorbos for everyone.

8. First fandom you ever wrote for?

The Chris Evans fandom. I can’t help it, I want to fuck so many of that man’s characters. 

9. Any guilty pleasure trope(s)?

Omegaverse for sure. Specifically knotting and scent. I just want a giant, masculine smelling animal of a man to fuck me and then have his cock locked inside me for an hour. And the snuggly vibes of nesting and just having a bunch of soft and comforting things around you that smell like someone you love feeds the marshmallow romantic inside me.

10. A trope you’ll never, ever write for.

Look, every time I say I’m never going to write for something I end up writing it. But I can hopefully say that scat will never happen.

11. Wildest fic you’ve ever written?

Probably the one where Deadpool is stuck in a self-insert fanfic. It breaks the fourth wall and it’s short but it’s weird as fuck.

12. Favorite pairing to write for? (platonic or romantic!)

Ari and Jake. They’re so soft and sweet and perfect and I am never going to let anything bad happen to them ever.

13. Do you listen to anything while you write?

With my ADHD I have to. It’s usually just the tv though. I’ll put some sitcom I’ve watched a million times on in the background.

14. One-shots or multi-chaptered works?

This is kinda tough! I love creating AUs but I feel like those are more a bunch of one shots that just happen to be for the same couples in the same setting. But I also really love the actual series I’ve done. So I’m going to say multi-chapter.

15. Have you ever daydreamed about side adventures/spin-offs from your fic? Tell us about them!

Constantly! I mean, if I daydream about it I typically add it to my WIPs which is why I have so many. It’s usually just about my characters being happy and living their best lives in some way.

16. Is there anything you’ve wanted to write, but you’ve been too scared to try?

Not yet! I will say I’m a little bit intimidated still about writing for a male reader but after my first foray into it I feel much more comfortable.

17. What’s the nicest comment you’ve ever received?

I can’t think of a specific one but I’ve gotten a few from people who have told me my fics provide a little bright spot for them and I always enjoy hearing that! There was also an ask I got where someone told me they recommend and discuss my writing more than they do real authors and that felt pretty good.

18. Have you ever gone outside of your comfort zone for a fic? How did it turn out?

This goes back to what I mentioned before but definitely writing for a male reader. The reason I wanted to do it was part curiosity to see if I could do it and part desire to write for an audience I hadn’t had a chance to connect with. It turned out really well and aside from some cliche accusations of fetishization I had a lot of positive engagement.

19. Tooth-rotting fluff or merciless angst?

Fluff, always fluff. If I do the angst I end up living in it for days and I hate it. (I say this while hosting a giant angst ask a thon on my blog)

20. Do you have any OCs? Tell us about them!

For my fics, aside from my reader characters who in spite of being inserts are basically OCs, there’s the second generation of my NLLYL core group. All the kids are so cute and when they grow up there’s a lot of fun to be had, new romances and I could just go on and on about them. For my novel, oh my god you guys. There’s the Viking pirate sealord, the feminist icon, the super hot himbo best friend, the tiny and fiery lady of the lakes, the sexy villain, the spoiled but handsome prince. And that’s not even all of them.

21. If you could enter the universe of any one of your fics, which would it be and why?

Would it surprise anyone if I said the NLLYL verse? Because that’s the one. It’s like my security blanket.

22. Is there anything you wish your audience knew about your writing or writing process?

Just that I have zero control over where my muse goes. If you’re craving the next installment in a series or an AU I am also craving it, but I’m also not going to force my muse to go somewhere and put something out that isn’t up to my standards.

23. Copy and paste an excerpt you’re particularly fond of.

“The cold wind whipped through your nightgown and tangled it around your limbs as you stared at the sky in rapture, bathed in the silvery light of the moon like some kind of goddess.” - In The Pines

24. Ramble about any fic-related thing you want!

I just love the community I’ve been able to cultivate in the fic writing community. Not just the members of this server but so many readers who leave thoughtful and sweet comments that always make my day. 

#barista of the month #𖠰nat𖠰 #writer’s cafe ♡☕︎

[trojanteapot]

The writing blindspots in Infinity Train with respect to race

To get this out of the way, I love Infinity Train! It’s one of my favourite shows! I started writing fanfiction because of this show, and it still inspires me every day. 

I really do think that Infinity Train as a whole is a very thought provoking children’s show and I applaud it for exploring darker themes relevant to psychology and psychological well-being, which are topics often overlooked not just in children’s media but for adult media as well. However, I do want people to acknowledge some of its shortcomings, especially because it is a show that is dealing with such heavy and complex topics, and also positions its human characters as coming from a world which is pretty much a stand-in for our own.

Now I know that the storyboard artists for Infinity Train were quite diverse, but I don’t really know if it’s the same for the writer's room. The reason why is that as a POC viewer, it really does seem obvious to me from the way that the POC characters were written pre-season 4, that their race was mostly an afterthought.

Okay and to be perfectly clear, this is NOT A BAD THING. This is just a neutral thing. Obviously we don’t need every single story with POC characters to have to be about their experience as a specific racialized person. There are experiences that are shared among everybody no matter what race they are. I am not saying that you need to do super in-depth research into every single cultural nuance of every ethnic minority before writing them. It depends on if you really want to delve into how their heritage or traditions or specific life experiences inform their character arc. Not every character arc is about that. And it shouldn’t be!

With that being said, I do think that perhaps the writers should have tried to consider asking themselves very basic surface level questions on how being non-white would inform the problems and conflicts their characters would face. They don't need to know the ins and outs of each culture for each of their characters, but they could have just asked “How would I feel/react to others if people made weird assumptions about me based on my race? How differently would my parents raise me if they were afraid of prejudice or discrimination?” I think they should have reflected on that before setting in stone the backstories for their POC characters, especially with respect to Grace.

Part 1: GRACE'S PARENTS

So I am not Black myself, but I have had many conversations about Grace with one of my friends in fandom who is Black, and we both do get the sense that Grace’s race was very much just an afterthought to her characterization. To be clear, this is NOT because she has very wealthy parents. I am well aware that there are Black Americans with generational wealth. However, knowing what we know about affluent Black people in the real world, how Grace’s parents treated her makes absolutely no sense.

For example, among extremely wealthy people of any race, networking and knowing the right people is of the utmost importance. This is why so many rich people send their kids to prestigious private schools so their kids can get a heads start on knowing the progeny of other one-percenters. If you look up famous people with famous kids, chances are you’ll see a list of all of the very exclusive private academies that they all went to (looking at you, The Strokes). This is the case for wealthy people of all backgrounds, not just white people. And honestly, I imagine that the pressure is at least double for the kids of wealthy POC parents to get to know the right people as early as possible to be able to open as many doors as possible, in order to mitigate the inherent disadvantage of being a racialized person.

But what did Grace’s parents do? According to her, they never sent her to school of any kind, only having private tutors teach her, and her ballet instructor only made her join the other kids in her class once for a recital or something? This is, for lack of a better term... buck wild.

In addition, her parents are American diplomats. Diplomacy is an extremely people-oriented position. If anything, her parents would want her to not only be in the best private school, but to be the best student in school, to know the best people, to join the school clubs that all the other diplomats’ kids are in, and train her from a young age to be a social butterfly. Yes I know that diplomats will often leave their home country and be stationed somewhere else for long durations, and yes their kids could be taken out of school then, but some diplomats just enroll them in a different institution in the visiting country, or not take them out of school at all. This is what the IB Program was invented for, actually. Her parents being diplomats does not justify never enrolling Grace in school. In fact, it makes it less justifiable. 

The fact that they did the extreme opposite of that is so illogical to me that I wonder if perhaps the writers just cobbled together a whole bunch of tropes that they think apply to rich people without actually checking if any of it makes sense, doubly so for rich people who are non-white.

I think the reason why is because they wanted Grace’s parents to stifle her growth and her natural social skills, but on the Train, she can be who she truly is. I definitely agree that Grace finding herself and being able to truly blossom into the girlboss she is on the Train is a great plot point from a characterization perspective. However, I do not think that it should be because she was being stifled by her parents. The solution is staring the writers right in their face, but they can’t see it because it’s a blindspot for them.

What they should have gone with is: Grace's inability to become a social butterfly and a queen bee in her daily life is because she is a dark-skinned Black girl!!!

Her parents have extremely high expectations for her socially. They could have pushed her to make friends with kids she didn’t like just because they wanted to be on better terms with their parents for networking or diplomacy purposes – which they could have shown with that one girl from her ballet class. Missed opportunity! But no matter how hard Grace tries, she will never be seen as the perfect girl because of other people’s assumptions about her just based on her race. 

Once she’s on the Train, Grace then uses her people skills and finds that they’re a lot more effective there, because it’s no longer Earth’s society, it’s a different world, literally! Plus this even allows her to be a little bit more mean, a little bit more honest, something she wouldn’t be able to get away with in the real world without being punished for it harder than her white peers. We already see hints of this with how she interacts with Simon, a white guy who is the same age as her. 

CAVEAT: The dialogue where Grace reveals that she never went to school was something that she told Hazel in a private conversation. So it could be that she did go to school, but lied about it to seem more relatable to Hazel, who had never been around other kids before. Lying is in character for Grace because she would pretty much do anything to get on somebody’s good side. But the way that they had her voice actress deliver those lines, and the way that her expression changes when she talks about how lonely she was indicates that she was telling the truth. To be charitable, I suppose we can land on the reading that Grace told Hazel a half-truth. She did go to school, but she was frequently taken out of class or skipped semesters because of her parents’ jobs as diplomats. So her loneliness in that instant is at the very least truthful. Your mileage is going to vary on this interpretation of course.

This points to a weakness that I can sort of see in Infinity Train in general, where they push societal problems into purely the realm of personal failings. “It’s not because of society that Grace couldn’t succeed, it was solely due to her abusive parents” being just one example. 

Never forget this monologue from a Black father to his daughter in Scandal:

Part 2: JESSE'S ARC WAS PRETTY GOOD THOUGH

The thing is they actually did write a POC character having to deal with a problem that was society-oriented quite well, at least in my view. Although, I am still pretty sure it was still coming from a race-blind method of writing the characters. Otherwise I feel like Jesse’s status as an Indigenous American would have come up more than a grand total of one time. That they could do this well for Jesse makes the fact that they didn’t do the same for Grace quite disappointing. 

Jesse’s main issue that he had to overcome was he kept caving to peer pressure and had trouble saying no to others for fear of disappointment. Now, this problem is universal, and it’s not solely something that is specific to Jesse’s race or ethnicity or cultural background. In fact, I am quite certain that they wrote Jesse as a character without even considering that this problem he faces is relatable to POC experiences. But I definitely know a lot of POC in my life who do take on more responsibilities than they can manage, or feel a higher pressure to fit in with their peers. Hell, I’m that POC in many cases! It’s kind of like background radiation to us as minorities that we just have to do more emotional labour in order to be seen as equals. That’s just the reality of the situation. You can understand and relate to Jesse’s problem without being Indigenous/Native American, but at the same time it feels like a natural problem for him to have, because he is non-white!

I will admit that a personal blind spot of mine is I don't know and haven't had the chance to speak to too many Indigenous people, so there could be aspects of Jesse's arc that don't really make sense. If you are somebody who knows more than me, please feel free to correct me! I would love to hear how you felt about Jesse's characterization and arc as an Indigenous person!

Part 3: SEASON 4, THE ASIANS 

Alright now it's time to tackle stuff that I actually could have any ounce of authority talking about? Which is how they wrote Ryan and Min-Gi in Book 4. I myself am Asian-Canadian. Specifically, I am a first generation Chinese-Canadian but I've been in Canada since I was six so I find a lot of the experiences of second generation Asian-Canadians more relatable to me. In addition, my partner is fourth generation Japanese-Canadian, so his dad would be the same generation as Ryan's dad. (I also am really really into rock music, but that's besides the point.)

What they got right:

So first off, I could tell that they really did consult Asian people in writing this season, so good on them! The difference in how Ryan’s parents raised him in contrast to Min-Gi’s parents felt very natural and realistic to me. Ryan’s family is more westernized and has assimilated more into broader Canadian culture. 

The fact that Ryan has an English name and not a Japanese name immediately shows that. Min-Gi’s parents not choosing an English name for him is a bit of a surprise; very few Asian immigrants go without an English name back in the 20th century. Even nowadays it’s extremely common for us to go by English or Western names that we, or our parents chose, instead of names in our native language. But there are good reasons to not choose an English name. Perhaps Min-Gi’s parents wanted him to have a closer tie to his Korean roots, or perhaps if they travelled back to Korea to visit family it would be easier for them. 

Also, Min-Gi’s parents not supporting his dream of becoming a musician and want him to get a stable job in… I think it was finance? Definitely true back then as it is today. I’m not entirely sure how Ryan’s parents feel about his life choices, and we’ll get into that later.

The character arcs for Ryan and Min-Gi are excellent. This dichotomy of wanting to do the good, responsible thing that your parents want for you because they want you to have the best chance at a good life, and doing what your heart tells you to do, is an extremely relevant character arc. It’s a life decision that is not just an Asian thing, but something anybody can relate to. However, in East Asian cultures that were generally influenced by Confucianism, which includes both Korean and Japanese culture, upholding your duty as a child to not disappoint your parents in any way is something that Asian cultures are prone to emphasizing to a great degree. We see this in other media centered on the Asian immigrant experience as well, such as Kim’s Convenience, Turning Red, and Everything Everywhere All At Once.

What was a bit puzzling to me:

So I'll start off with the thing that definitely raised many many eyebrows if you were an East Asian or Southeast Asian watching the show: Why were Min-Gi's parents so friendly with Ryan's parents when they're Korean and Ryan's family is Japanese?!

So like, not to bring politics into it but… World War II happened. It affected, you know, the world and stuff. And in the Pacific Theatre (god I hate that term), the Imperial Japanese Army… invaded Korea?? Among many other countries??? And did a bunch of war crimes?????

Like, Japan was invading other countries well before WWII even started… This is common knowledge… for Asian people that is.

Yeah I know what you're gonna say. “But Ryan's family is Japanese-Canadian!! They wouldn't have done those war crimes! They would have been sent to internment camps!” Yeah dude, I know! My partner is Japanese-Canadian, remember?! And even if I didn't know him, we learned about the internment camps in history class. It's pretty common knowledge among progressives in Canada and the US. George Takei did a whole musical about it. 

But that's not how racism works. I can speak from personal experience that the scars of WWII trauma in Chinese and Korean communities run deep. Even my own parents needed a bit of convincing to be okay with me dating my partner, and my parents were born two decades after WWII ended. My partner said that one time when he and his grandmother got into an elevator with an elderly Korean woman, and at first she was friendly, but once she realized they were of Japanese descent, the elevator ride became deathly silent afterwards. 

So when you have Min-Gi’s parents, who were probably born during or slightly after WWII, immigrate to Canada, and then be like… totally okay and hunky dory pals with Ryan’s parents just because their kids were born the same day in the same hospital…? I mean sure, anything can happen. But it definitely speaks to how abnormally accepting, forgiving, and welcoming Min-Gi’s parents are. 

To be clear, this isn’t something that pulled me out of the experience, personally. Yes, it is strange, but it’s not impossible for a Korean family to be super okay and friends with a Japanese family. Maybe it’s because their small town has very few Asians and so they have to stick together due to solidarity or something. Maybe Min-Gi’s parents are the type of Christians that believe in the inherent goodness of everyone and giving everyone a chance. Maybe they are just extremely progressive and see Ryan’s family as Canadian more than Japanese (highly unlikely), or they know about the internment camps and that was enough to get over their biases toward them (also unlikely). I dunno, anything can happen.

The other thing that bugged me was that they really didn’t explore Ryan’s relationship with his family to the same depth as Min-Gi’s relationship with his family. 

They already set up the contrast of like, you have an immigrant who is more connected to their cultural background, and a third generation descendent who is less connected, and more alienated from his cultural background. That kind of stuff can really weigh on you as somebody who is a minority. You feel like you simultaneously aren’t Canadian enough because you aren’t white, and that you’re not enough of your cultural background because you had to assimilate, or were forced to assimilate. 

Yes it makes sense why Ryan would throw himself into his music, and be disconnected from his family. But they didn’t take the time to really explore why he is that way. Ryan barely talks about his family except randomly mentioning that they don’t care what he does with his life. I don’t even know if that really makes sense that they don’t care what he does? Maybe Ryan thinks they don’t care, but his assumption is wrong? Either way they don’t explore this point that much. Even if his parents were more assimilated they would still care if Ryan had a non-standard job, such as being a musician. There is a gap between Ryan and his family/parents that was alluded to, but not explored. Feeling like you come from two worlds but not neatly fitting into either is so quintessential to the immigrant experience of Canadians (and also Americans) it’s a shame they only paid lip service to it. 

I mentioned in a different post that Ryan would be monolingual while Min-Gi would be bilingual, and how this could cause tension between them. I imagine Ryan definitely feels inferior to Min-Gi in that sense of loss and disconnect with his heritage, just as Min-Gi is jealous that he feels he doesn't have the freedom to pursue his musical career in the same way that Ryan can. This is all stuff that can take a psychological toll on people, and is something which the Train as a metaphor for therapy should have been primed to tackle. But unfortunately we didn't really get that.

There is a term among the Chinese Diaspora known as “Hollow Bamboo (竹杠)” or “Rising Bamboo (竹升)” [more info]. It's an insult tossed at kids of Chinese ethnicity from judgemental adults for being unable to read/write Chinese or who cannot speak Mandarin/Cantonese/other Chinese languages fluently because they've been “too westernized”. They say we “look Chinese, but are hollow inside, like bamboo.” I don't know if there are equivalent terms for other Asian diaspora/immigrant communities but there must be. This term is controversial, and in my own opinion very unfair, because it blames the kids for this loss of cultural identity when there are so many different factors at play that makes them lose it, all of them outside of their own control. 

Again, I think this is a blindspot from the writers just not understanding how much this loss of cultural identity is such an integral part of the experience of being an immigrant, and that it's not only felt in first or second generation Asian-Canadians, but also third or fourth generation, and beyond. It's scary to go out there and redefine what your culture means to you, and how to pass it on to the next generation.

CONCLUSION

So there you have it, a summary of the strengths and the weaknesses in Infinity Train as it pertains to writing about racialized characters. Just want to restate that a lot of what I pointed out is pretty minor in the grand scheme of things and I do overall think the writing is solid. I am not going into this to say that I expected the writers to do a good job, because generally my expectations for media and pop culture to portray POCs respectfully is quite low. At least they didn’t fall back on tired stereotypes, which is a low bar to clear, but it is where the bar still is these days.

If on the off chance Infinity Train does get uncancelled and renewed for more seasons, I hope they take these lessons and craft better narratives for their POC characters. Maybe hire some more non-white writers while you’re at it!

#infinity train #infinity train book 2 #infinity train book 3 #infinity train book 4 #infinity train book two #infinity train book three #infinity train book four #writing poc #writing black people #writing asian people #writing indigenous people #poc representation #black representation #asian representation #indigenous representation #grace monroe #jesse cosay #ryan akagi #min gi park #rymin #analysis #character analysis #media analysis #cultural identity #olivia pope #rowan pope #immigrant parents #long post #raceblind writing

[windvexer]

hi, im really new to witchcraft and I've been interested in delving into planetary Intelligences and ig basically the idea of calling spirits (if that's the right word) to help me out. but honestly everytime i think about actually doing it i feel really really afraid. do you have any advice on how to stop feeling so uncomfortable? i just kinda feel afraid that I'm gonna piss something off and everything is gonna go to shit

Hi anon! Welcome to the wonderful world of witchcraft and spirit work ^-^

I think this is one of those things that doesn't go away with an easy answer.

Depending on where you're from, many of us were raised with deep fear of spirits and witchcraft, or even just the occult in general.

It's not wrong to be afraid, and fear itself can have a complex and powerful role in witchcraft; but I believe that's aside the point of someone trying to get into witchcraft and going "oh no! What if these forces are actually malevolent assholes who can't wait to tear me to shreds the very second I flub a line?"

But fear is information, right? One solution is to start learning and internalizing new, more balanced information, to help temper this response.

Gaining information can include things like:

Reading books from authors who work with planetary intelligences, who are able to speak on the personalities and behaviors of these intelligences

Linking up with other practitioners in a group setting and learning about their experiences

And eventually:

Performing rituals you're comfortable with and gaining information through experience

As far as I'm concerned, planetary magic is pretty decent to start out with. The planets are good guys, they're forgiving, not really all that uptight, and the magic is effective and powerful.

Some people might say, just jump right in! Start with a developed system and use the rituals of people who have done this thing a lot and have specially prepared rituals for beginners to try out what they want to try. Get over your fear by plunging in.

Which, sure, definitely do so if you'd like to.

But on the other hand, if you'd prefer to explore your fear a little more and gain balancing information first, why not do that?

Ultimately, I really don't think anyone out here should be working with beings they think are going to cause major shit if they get a little bit pissed off.

Recently I was speaking to a friend who voiced some concerns about spirit work, especially the possibility of making spirits angry and therefore aggressive. My response was, yeah, that's fine if they do that; accidentally pissing someone off is a normal part of interpersonal connection.

For example, imagine you run into a mother and her baby at the grocery store. You strike up a brief conversation, and overtaken by how cute that little baby is, you say, "what a cute baby!" and you grab and wiggle it's little foot.

The mother, reasonably, says, "no. Stop touching my baby. You shouldn't touch my baby."

And based on her expression, she means it.

So you say, "oh my gosh! I'm so sorry, I don't know what came over me. You're right, that was inappropriate."

And she chills out and then the two of you follow each other on TikTok and trade information on farmer's markets.

So it's kind of like this in spirit relationships, too. Anger and aggression aren't bad. When you go over the line, a shift in tone that encourages you to get back into your lane isn't bad.

It's information; it's telling you that you shouldn't be doing that. It's information that you choose how to act on.

The problem is if you choose to work with spirits who then decide to put you through shit if you do anything to ever dare piss them off, no matter how innocent or accidental your mistake was.

Which... don't work with spirits like that. And the planets aren't like that.

I dunno, I piss my spirits off. Not on purpose, but it happens. I pissed off my Initiator just last week and got lectured for a half-hour. I pissed off Mercury (planet) real bad once too. And he was just like, "ok, well... don't you do that again >:|"

If you're afraid of working with a category of spirits (like, planetary intelligences), ask yourself if there is any category of spirits you would feel comfortable with.

If your conclusion is that any spirit might start big shit with you if you make a mistake, then that information I suspect would reveal more about you than the spirit world.

Yeah. Work with the planets if you like; they're good guys. Take a step back and immerse yourself in things a little more if you feel the need to. Work with different spirits instead if you like. But I suspect that there is no single key that is going to resolve this for you. Big Fear Of Spirits is a big fear to transform.

#answered

[silverskye13]

I've been meaning to ask about this because I love love LOVE your writing but aren't really very deep into the hermitcraft fandom....

would I need to know anything prior to reading your hc fics? I've heard very many good things about redstone and skulk and I want to read it , but I dunno if walking in clueless is a good idea...

Oh. Hm. Well. I'm maybe not the best person to ask this, ironically. I have a hard time differentiating between actual common knowledge and fandom osmosis common knowledge. My thoughts under the cut because this might get long, but here are my, I guess, fandom initiation thoughts on my fics, for anyone curious?

Redstone and Skulk:

I think it can reasonably be read with little-to-no prior knowledge of the fandom. I do a decent job of explaining what the story is about, since most of it is original worldbuilding with (mostly) original characters. It's a mirror world, where in the main world death doesn't exist, but in the mirror world it does. All the mirror world characters are the bad parts / evil twins of the main world characters, and how they cope with that varies (and is sometimes explicitly stated). The first few chapters do a decent job of establishing this information, and I've had a few people mention RnS was either their first delve into hc fandom, or they had never been in the fandom and read it anyway because it came recommended by a friend. This signals to me it would be about like reading a sequel to a book series. You're clearly missing some establishing character stuff, and maybe some setting stuff, but you're not missing enough to be completely lost.

[basic knowledge of Minecraft mobs and game mechanics would definitely do you good, but that goes for all of these].

Monsters Splitting Hairs:

I personally think you can jump into this with no prior knowledge. All the characters are loosely based on the hc members they're named for personality wise, and place names [Octagon, Horsehead Farms] come from builds the players have made. Just about everything else is my personal world building though. The only upper hand knowing about HC will give you, is maybe cluing you in to who/what the different monster characters are before they're revealed [a la Rendog, who walks around with dog ears on his MC skin, is very obviously a werewolf in the fic.]

This fic is unfinished, and while I plan on finishing it eventually, it isn't being actively updated, and probably won't until RnS is done. It does have a lot of words on it though.

Hound's Tooth:

You need to know a lot of information to go into this one. Not only do you need to know a decent amount about the HC characters, knowing about both 3rd Life and Last Life is also kinda necessary, since the crux of the character motivation is Doc angsting over Ren doing Last Life after 3rd Life fucked up all his friends so bad the first time. Also, you need to know a decent amount about the early Octagon plotlines in s8 of Hermitcraft, the different adventure mode trial rooms they did.

This fic is finished.

Everything else I've written are ficlets, little one or two chapter deals. Anything tagged "RnS fic", you should probably read RnS before reading. Most of the others you need specific information for, since they're generally addressing topics that I had /just/ watched an episode for at the time, and I was responding to an idea or plot point being brought up. Anything with "Hels" or "Helsmet" in the tags or title, know it's about the mirror world and the evil twins.

[shrug]

I hope this helps?

#answering asks #anonymous #im glad you like my writing enough to try to read stuff out of your normal fandom sphere :') #thats very very cool of you #if you do give the fics a shot i hope you like them! and i hope theyre not confusing

[ot3]

omg thank you for being the first normal person I've seen so far about AI who's also an artist T-T like obviously all the stealing is horrible and it's good it's talked about but almost everyone really is acting like the idea of computers being capable of creating images killed their firstborn child

(also I don't mean it as one of the weird AI art bros but as an artist myself I'm just glad that there are other artist with open mind to the concept)

no right like its insane to me to see how many other people who seem reasonable and level headed are falling for the kneejerk response to say ai Isn't Art Can't Be Art ! It's throwing out the baby with the bathwater to an almost incomprehensible degree.

Unfortunately the fact of the matter is that we live in an era where essentially all new technology's first and prime purpose will be for ghoulish, capitalistic, anti-human ends. But to reject any other uses for the technology doesn't do anything other than make you look like an anti-tech weirdo. This is genuinely insanely impressive and revolutionary tech! There are a TON of legitimate artistic uses for AI image generation.

It also seems weird that everyone is delving into this false binary of 'dont use AI, learn to draw' as if there is any conceivable reason for these things to be mutually exclusive? Like, before all of the AI discourse really popped off i was doing some experimenting with using AI in my process.

the texturing used in this drawing was made by VQGAN + Clip (different type of image generation than the stable diffusion model that is producing most of the AI art that's up for debate right now) running through google colab. I made a bunch of these weird, ethereal images that would have been almost impossible for me to produce under my own power - it would have taken a titanic amount of time, effort, and design to produce any of these through illustrative or photo editing techniques.

here's a sampling of some of the textures i made. Now I think it would be a real struggle to try and claim that these images made are plagiarisms. However, I stopped messing with the google colab generation for one key reason: i didnt know enough about the image databases being used to train these models. That's the real stumbling block

the internet is CHOCK FULL of images that are free to use commercially and repurposes, there's stuff like wikimedia commons, the smithsonian open access, unsplash and pexels which have free stock photos, etc. I honestly think a nonzero amount of artists would consent to having some of their work used in image generation databases if they were promised noncommercial use of the resulting images, also. But the problem is the people training these AI don't give a shit about any of that. It's just the complete entitlement to other people's work and neglect for creative boundaries that makes AI generation bad.

The fact that people are attempting to replicate the art of living, working artists, or people like kentaro miura who by all accounts were so dedicated to the craft that they worked themselves to death sickens me. And the fact that the companies responsible for this are using that as an active selling point for their product is even worse. It's a pretty miserable time to be an artist, and this is just the icing on the cake.

But I don't want silicon valley greed and bizarre, impotent jealousy from redditors who want custom waifu jpgs to mean that nobody who could really benefit from AI image generation gets to use it.

like, my dad for example. he's been a creative person his whole life but it never really went anywhere. He drew a lot as a kid and then went and got a degree in filmmaking. My parents were living in LA when I was born, with my dad managing a filming/sound studio and the two of them trying to break into writing screenplays. This did not happen because they had three kids, and for the past decade and then some my dad had been doing database programming on contract for the CDC. Now, in his mid 50s, he's finally got a permanent and secure position and, rather than spending all his free time raising children or getting PMP certified to try and angle for a string of promotions, he can start having hobbies again. there's a comic he's been wanting to draw for as long as I can remember.

only, one big problem - in 2021 he had surgery on his cataracts and never healed properly. He's got severely impaired vision and looking at stuff too hard for to long causes him a ton of eye strain and pain. He has to look at a lot of screens for his job so by the time he's off work for the day he's pretty much too fatigued to do all the intense visual stuff it'd take to make a comic.

I wanted to tell him AI image generation could help him make the kind of stuff he always dreamed about making as a kid but instead I had to tell him that as it stands, the predatory nature of AI modeling means it's insanely hard to use it without ripping off vulnerable creatives. Instead we chatted a bit about combining 3d assets, digitally edited photos, or photobashing/digital kitbashing methods to try and make a pipeline he could do without drawing, but the time commitment to learn these methods is probably just not feasible unless his eyes make a pretty unprecedented recovery in future years.

Like, that's the worst thing about all of this. The idea that AI makes the production of certain kinds of art more accessible to people with disabilities isn't just a 'gotcha' being used by the pro-AI people, it's also true. I would love for my dad to be able to make his comic. I myself also have a huge string of health issues and sometimes the main thing stopping me from drawing is that it hurts to do so. Anything in my process that could reduce the strain drawing puts on my body is an accessibility concern in some ways. Eventually degrading so much that I can't draw at all is one of my biggest fears.

But that doesn't counter all of the negatives! It just doesnt! Which fucking sucks man it just sucks so fucking bad that we have this cool incredible thing and we can't use it without being complicit in some stuff i am fully ideologically against! As things stand I really cant imagine that 'ethical' AI image generation will ever exist, so unfortunately it will have to be in the hands of the people using it to decide for themselves if they are using it in a way that is predatory or harmful, or as a legitimate tool to make meaningful works of art.

#sorry to go on this whole rant ive just been percolating on these thoughts for awhile. #long post #ai #i know this comes off as preachy im just passionate about this subject

[mirrorhoppingdays]

not me and portrayal of twinship

Be forewarned, this is long as hell.

Normally when I think about writing about media depictions of twins (as a highly opinionated twin), two things stop me. One, nobody cares. Seriously, most people actively want to avoid understanding twins' point of view. It's my overwhelming experience. Two, it's just too much to delve into and I have thoughts about every little thing. I would digress until I became overwhelmed. But I think it might actually work to discuss this one facet. It might connect with a few people because fandom types are often actually interested in novel points of view and the emotional landscapes of others. And if I only talk about this one show that narrows things for me in a helpful way. So here goes.

As soon as Not Me starts with episode 1, there is an item on the balance sheet. We begin with the idea that twins can feel each others' feelings and feel when the other is seriously injured. We see this in Black & White's childhood and then again when White returns to Thailand after many years away. So, psychic twin connections. I'm both highly militant and oddly patient when it comes to twin depiction stuff. I don't love the psychic thing, but that's the variety of twinship media nonsense I'm willing to take on board *if* it's done well and it's worthwhile. When you begin a story about twins with a psychic connection and make it a central feature of your plot, you've essentially borrowed goodwill from me. If you squander it, then your balance will come due and you'll be left owing. If you use it well, I'll forgive the loan. So we start not on a bad note, but with higher stakes.

Pretending-to-be-one's-twin plots work okay for me. Why? Because as much as they might rely on twin resemblance, they can't work without the twins being different, whole people. That shouldn't be considered a positive because all characters should begin as whole people, but we know that doesn't always happen in general and it certainly doesn't always happen with twins.

We begin a whole big chunk of the story where the crux may be that White is sort of undercover as his own brother, but twinship isn't actually at issue much at all. It's about deception and risk, not twin connection or twinship. We do get constant reminders that White and Black are very different, and we get a lot of White trying and only kind of succeeding at pretending.

One thing that rings true to me is that he doesn't actually have to do all that great a job of pretending. If you don't know somebody has a twin, and to some extent even if you do, as a human being you'll default very hard to this-is-the-same-person. It's just necessary in every moment of our lives that we're not dealing with identical twins, so it's necessary to lean that way. Also, as a twin I know very well that the majority of people are highly unobservant about a great many things. And it's not like these guys have any reason to think this is some other guy, though it would have been a note of realism if at some point at least one of them had gone wait, is Black reporting on us to the cops or something because he's acting sketchy. They do point out that he's being weird, so that base is partially covered.

I did some Tumblr poking around before I was done watching, so I saw a few spoilery things. Thanks partly to that, I couldn't help but hope that Sean figured out comparatively early that White was not Black. That would have been kind of thrilling to see, honestly, as a twin. But I certainly understand how that might not happen, and I also see the efficacy (to the plot) of having him not figure it out too quickly. It's more interesting if he doesn't know right away.

Clearly Tumblr world loves memeing about how Black woke up from his coma when, possibly because, White hooked up with Sean (I'll be more coy in my wording than some). Twin-rep-wise, that's a wash to me, neither better or worse than the psychic connection trope. I'm already tolerating the psychic stuff, and I can't say it's not an interesting plot point. If you need Black to wake up, when else would it be? It probably borrows a little more goodwill, but again that's stakes rather than a deficit.

As someone who remains skeptical of the psychic twin connection trope, I will say this. The particular way Black wakes up kind of shows the absurdity of the whole conceit. I'm cool with it because this is melodrama and it *should* be bonkers, but it goes to show what you're playing with when you invoke that trope.

This is when stuff gets interesting, to me but I assume to everybody. White and Black are both running around in the world of the show, and crucially they're also interacting with each other. And some of what happens is honestly pretty great twin-rep-wise. I really have to hand it to writer/director Nuchy Anucha Boonyawatana—she must be a pretty empathetic, intuitive person. (Along with her cowriters.) She seems to have made an effort to put herself in both Black and White's shoes in a real human way. Like, well beyond what the story would require.

I wanted to avoid digressing too much, but I want to go back to the very first moment in the entire show. In that brief scene, White looks in a dark, foggy mirror and says these words in voiceover: “When you see somebody who looks precisely like you, every part of his body resembles yours, you must feel really strange. But for me, it’s special. I call that specialness ‘twins.’”

When I saw this scene, I won’t say I knew this would be a thoughtful treatment of twins. But I did find it promising. Part of what annoys me about being a twin is how non-twins, aka singletons, think that being a twin is great because on some level they think of their hypothetical twin as an extension of themselves. Your twin is not you, and your twin is not part of you. Your twin is a human being, and like any other human being in the world there are some moments and some ways when they can seem utterly unknowable, foreign, unfathomable.

Back to the point in the story where I left off.

There’s a big twin moment near the end of episode 9: White is confronted in Black's apartment by an unknown figure, only to find that it's his brother. White’s voiceover tells us what he's thinking, and he calls back to that brief beginning scene. Now that I’ve gone back to look at both moments, I can say that they’re very similar in length and rhythm. So I suspect our writer/director was not only deliberate about the echo but also exacting in how both moments play out.

White’s voiceover says: “I’d always imagined the day I’d see my brother again. It’s supposed to be a heartwarming moment. But now it’s happening. It’s surprisingly frightening. It’s as though I’m meeting my doppelgänger.” Of course this is a translation, but it’s worth noting that you can hear actor Gun Atthaphan saying “doppelgänger,” so you know there isn’t a ton of poetic license on the part of the translator here.

White and Black exchange some awkward pleasantries, and then Black echoes White, saying "You look so much like me, it’s creepy.”

If I hadn’t seen my twin in ten years (especially at that age), it would have been very surreal even if that person weren’t as menacing as Black seems to be. It’s just that there are dimensions to twinship that fade in your mind when you’re not actively engaged with them. I assume that regular degular siblings can experience this in partial ways or in flashes, but I don’t have any of those so I can only guess. Seeing your twin after a long time apart isn’t somehow magical in a good or a bad way. But your twin carries all the powerful associations of any close family member along with a similarly large number of associations to your own identity.

I chase catharsis in media, but I don’t usually experience it strongly. But there can be a catharsis in recognition of self, and that’s what I get from these moments. To be clear, I don’t feel some profound otherness when I interact with my sister. She’s a sweetheart and I feel very close to her. But the twin experience, for me at least, connects strongly and meaningfully to some very basic aspects of my human existence. The fact that one is a little bit alone even in the closest togetherness. The fact that other people are never fully knowable. The fact of my own identity and how its boundaries aren’t quite as firm and distinct as I might pretend they are. How much I need connection. The way so much about my perceptions and actions can be strongly influenced by others in ways I’m totally unconscious of. Some of this may sound hokey! But it’s difficult to express it any other way.

Moving on. White goes to meet their mother as Black, and just as their conversation is ending she makes it clear she knows who he really is. You might think that bit is meaningful to me, but it doesn’t strike a stong chord. Parents can tell their twin children apart, yes. Would it be harder after ten years? Assumably. What is it supposed to mean about her that she can? I don’t know; I’m not a huge fan of hers.

Black encounters Sean and is incredibly cruel to him, beats him, and it sucks. It annoys me to heap praise on actors for playing twins—actors play different roles all the time and that’s just doing two of them in the same project—but I have to admit that Gun Atthaphan not only does a great job playing dual roles, but a good job playing twins specifically. In a way it’s hard to understand now, having seen what we have as the audience, how Sean could fail to see that this isn’t “his” Black. But he doesn’t, because there’s no way anything else is possible according to what he knows about his world.

Sean sees White-as-Black again as White saves him from sketchy mercenary types, and then tries repeatedly to confront him. White doesn’t really explain and Sean doesn’t come to an obvious epiphany. But when Sean sees Black again, something has clicked. He attempts the trust fall White showed him and Black just stares on contemptuously. Black is smoking “again.” And we get to another big twin moment. This is episode 12.

Sean gets it. He says “You’re not the Black that I love.” He handcuffs himself to Black. They have an oddly realistic fight that involves various uncomfortable wrestling positions. And he says “You have a twin brother?” Black denies it, Sean insists repeatedly. And you see Black’s face change from contempt to anger as he says “Don’t you get close to my little brother again.”

This is a fun, climactic moment. It is, of course, adorable that Sean insists he won’t stay away from White, and honestly pretty adorable in an extremely grumpy way that Black is being protective. (Here again Gun is very convincing. For such a small, baby-faced guy he is genuinely menacing as Black.)

The moment is also true to my experience, though the only direct connections I can make aren’t exactly similar in circumstances. If your social world intersects heavily with that of your twin, there really are particular moments in many romantic relationships and even in many close friendships where the other person will sort of take a twin inventory with you. They don’t go on a spiel about how you’re cooler than your twin (unless maybe they suck as a person), they probably don’t even compare you exactly. But each person has to come to their own realization because (often at least) while they knew you and your twin are different people, they had to learn it all over again on another level. And they want you to know they perceive it.

There are smaller iterations of this phenomenon where people will emphatically tell you that while they have been able to tell you apart in the past, *now* they don’t even think of you as looking the same, now they can’t imagine how anybody *ever* confuses you. It’s not like this happens every single time I get to know every single person, but it’s so common in its broad strokes that I feel confident saying that the people around me and my sister share some common experiences in how they perceive us. And a change comes at a certain point that’s compelling enough that people are motivated to talk about it, try to make you understand.

Anyway, while this is a phenomenon that happens around me rather than to me, Sean’s insistence strikes a chord.

Sean finds White. White does a totally accidental trust fall, and it’s pretty cute.

White... decides to halfway drown himself to “remind [Black] of [their] connection”? Which makes some intuitive sense in the moment even if it sounds a bit silly. And is a little. Black finds him, they talk, Black concludes that he can’t stop White from staying with the group, going on their mission, and being with Sean. White stops Sean from going to the drug warehouse alone, at which point he says something that rings true for me as well. He explains why he hesitated to stay part of things, and says “I thought it wasn’t my place.”

When Black returned and demanded his phone, demanded White go away and not see the gang anymore, White went along with that because in a real way that was valid. White had genuine reasons for essentially stealing Black’s life, but that is what he did. White is an empathetic sweetheart so while he did get used to Black’s world he does feel guilty and out of place suddenly. But now he sees that things have changed, and he can’t go back to before all this happened. And of course he’s in loooove, so there’s that as well.

Then White tells the other dudes who he is (except for Gumpa, who knew the whole time) and it takes them a while to believe him. But when they do, they immediately do the twin inventory with him, saying how did I not see this earlier, etc.

They do their attempted heist, loads of shit goes wrong, they fall from various frying pans into various fires for a good while. They get away, things settle down. Sean does the twin inventory with White again and insists he’s completely able to tell White and Black apart now.

Then we have my final twin moment. White says he knows Black won’t be returning to the group. “Nobody wants to live in someone else’s shadow,” he says. “My brother sacrificed this role for me.”

This rings true for me. As a twin, you never want to think of yourself as interchangeable with your sibling. But at the same time many relationships and groups don’t have room for each of a pair of twins to feel comfortable. It’s not like you have to come up with some legalistic scheme for who “owns” a social group or anything like that. But at least in my sort of twin relationship, you’re never going to have a symmetrical relationship with a third person or a social circle. Even if you each have the same degree of connection to the same person, it’s different. And I can’t say it’s ever really been the same. One has always been closer, or more comfortable, or something.

Well, if you can believe it that’s not everything I could have said. But it’s a lot, and if you made it to the end I thank you. In case it doesn’t go without saying, I did find it worthwhile to indulge the psychic twin trope. What I got out of Not Me was worth the latitude.

#not me #not me the series #gun atthaphan #off jumpol #avoiding twin tags like the plague until i figure out which are not sketchy

[isagrimorie]

You know what I've wanted but I never thought they'd address in Star Wars Ahsoka?

Ahsoka's tendency to be just as lethal as Anakin. Obi-Wan could never kill Anakin but I believe with all my heart despite loving Anakin and maybe even because she loves Anakin, Ahsoka would have killed Anakin if she were in Mustafar too.

It would have broken Ahsoka but she would have gone through with it -- I believe she'd have done it too in Malachor, she'd die trying at least.

(source: @padawan-tano from this gifset)

But also at 16 years old, she beheaded 4 Death Watch members SIMULTANEOUSLY.

Even if Obi-Wan can do this move, he wouldn't choose to do this move because he wasn't a Wartime Jedi. I don't remember if this is before or after the Citadel arc. Looking it up, yeah, the Citadel arc happened in season 3, the Citadel mission was one of the hardest missions she's been on in her young life.

There was a reason neither Obi-Wan and Anakin wanted her there, so Plo-Koon, what the hell!? (I love you Plo-Koon but you spoil Ahsoka).

As this meta points out the Citadel arc is when the war gets real for Ahsoka in a way she can't just push away.

It's subtle and it's not called out but Ahsoka basically does something that Anakin did where Anakin stabs a bad guy in the back and the first notes of the imperial march begin to sound.

And ironically it's to save Tarkin.

Ahsoka had to stab an enemy in the back to save Tarkin (of all people, I bet Ahsoka regrets saving Tarkin years later).

The way Ahsoka stares dazedly at the man she killed by stabbing him in the back... The Citadel arc was rough on Ahsoka.

And then Tarkin tells Anakin: "You've trained her well."

No wonder Ahsoka's afraid she was a little too much like Anakin.

It doesn't help that a ghost of a potential future tells her:

(source by @mlmanakin)

“There is a wildness to you, young one. Seeds of the dark side planted by your master. Do you feel it?”

and then later: "There are many contradictions in you... and in him."

And I am so, so excited that we might be delving into Ahsoka's contradictions. She can be the warmest person in the room but god, can she also make the coldest, most pragmatic decisions for war.

Easily one of the coldest was her decision to set Maul free and use him as a distraction during the Siege of Mandalore - Shattered.

(source by @manny-jacinto)

Ahsoka doesn't want to directly kill or maim the Clone Troopers herself, but it doesn't mean she won't use someone else to do it.

If Maul dies in this, it would be one more thing off her hands.

And I don't think people really get what function Ahsoka served in the fledgling rebellion-- she was basically in Luthen's role in Andor. She's not as quick to go to the most expedient solution, but it doesn't mean she won't.

In season 1 of Star Wars Rebels Ahsoka, as Fulcrum, told Hera to leave Kanaan in the hands of the inquisitor, knowing full well what would be done to Kanaan. She was in the Citadel arc where Jedi were imprisoned, tortured, and killed. Ahsoka knew. But she did the cold math in her head -- but if it weren't for Ezra's message that reminded Ahsoka who she was fighting for and why....)

Ahsoka basically did the cold math in her head at the start of 1x04, Fallen Jedi, when she told Sabine they might have to destroy the map and strand Ezra in another universe in order to keep Thrawn from entering their galaxy and restarting another war.

This is why Baylan's condemnations:

Really, really got to Ahsoka.

When Ahsoka told Sabine in 1x03, that anger unbalances her -- it's extra true of Ahsoka.

But I also don't want to discount what Ahsoka's mother taught her about death, how one must respect death but not fear it, and how that might have influenced Ahsoka's understanding of death as a warrior.

Still, I feel Ahsoka has the same fear as Buffy did -- that all this killing has made her cold with a bonus fear that she might be too like her old Master and fall into the dark side.

I'm so excited for 1x05 and see how this will all tie together now that she's seeing Anakin again. Snips and Skyguy have a lot to talk about and resolve.

#ahsoka tano #star wars #star wars: the clone wars #flashing gif #flashing images #ahsoka spoilers #star wars rebels #star wars ahsoka #ahsoka 1x04

[aberooski]

My friend is trying to get me to watch GX, and they really like stormshipping. I’m just barely starting the series, but I want to understand the appeal of these two. So… take this as a chance to ramble about why you love them, I guess?

OOOOOH!!! 👀👀👀👀

Okay first of all, yes! Totally watch it! It's so silly and fun but also filled with The Horrors. It's flawed and all as most things are, but it's my favorite!

BUT STORMSHIPPING TIIIIIME!!! Let's see if I can do this with as few spoilers as possible aksksk

Those two are everything to me 😭 my roman empire, if you will.

Stormshipping is your classic introvert/extrovert, golden retriever/black cat, emo kid/theater kid, summer/winter, sun/moon type of pairing, for one, which is delightful. They compliment each other so well, and with just how MUCH subtext and stuff, and literally so much to analyze about them like that that we get considering how little the amount of screen time they have together is, there's no heterosexual explanation for like 90% of their interactions. And there's the complimentary parallels and associations and things like that. For example, Light and Darkness, they do have that parallel in what they're corrupted by against their wills. (Also the fact that Chazz has Light and Darkness Dragon as his ace card in the manga and he and Atticus totally represent it in the anime but shhhhhhhhhhhhh 🤫) also can't really delve as deep into that without talking about some major plot shit so

And it kinda as always, comes down to what those two are to each other.

As a blanket sentiment, they're best friends. But Atticus is the only person Chazz is shown to be genuinely comfortable around and willingly vulnerable and open with. Chazz comes to him when he has problems, he confides in him, he seeks him out when he needs to be vulnerable for a moment. I think he also gravitates towards Atticus at first, obviously because he wants his help to try and get a date with Alexis seeing as he's her brother and all, but I think also because his own brothers were so awful and abusive and didn't truly care about him. Most people don't, actually. But Atticus takes a genuine vested interest in him and legitimately cares about him and that's not something Chazz is used to. Not to say the squad doesn't care about him, they do, but not in the same way Atticus does. I think he starts out as a sort of surrogate big brother figure for him in the way Jaden is for Syrus for kinda similar reasons seeing that Zane was an abusive and really bad brother to Syrus for many years as well. But this isn't about them 😜

Atticus is also a mentor figure for him, that goes into the Japanese version, where Chazz actually calls him "master" and I mean 🤨 there are other words you could use buddy but okay you do you 😏

Atticus takes care of Chazz. He looks after him and is a kind hand and a shoulder and a steady rock when he needs it. By the end Chazz is the person other than Alexis that Atticus is closest to and is the most important to him. But also Chazz's friendship is very healing for Atticus. Their friendship is significant and is healing for both of them.

They both have a lot of trauma and baggage to varying degrees, and like I said Chazz isn't used to having someone genuinely care about him because of his abusive brothers and having to put on a facade and hide his authentic self as a means of being able to meet their impossible expectations of him and being able to handle the pressure any way he can. Atticus is probably the only person who's ever truly seen the real, genuine, vulnerable Chazz. He's basically the only one who makes him genuinely smile too honestly and that hits. Atticus is the first person he genuinely accepts as his friend and accepts love and care from too. He's comfortable with him, he feels safe with him. He feels cared for and loved with him.

And for Atticus, Chazz is the closest friend he's had in a long time. He was good friends with Zane before his disappearance the year prior, but because he missed so much he doesn't graduate with Zane so he's not around and with what happens with Zane after graduation, yeah they're not nearly as close or as good of friends as they used to be. And when Atticus returns, well he suffers a lot. He's so physically and mentally affected by what happened to him that I personally believe his entire personality and his quirks and eccentricities, as genuine and authentic as they are, have become a coping mechanism. And Atticus takes care of anyone and everyone but himself. So when he realizes how Chazz has all this trauma and baggage like he does, albeit to an entirely different degree and of different circumstances, he takes him under his wing and devotes himself to looking after him and kinda coaching him through life in a way. He helps him try to get a date with Alexis when he asks him for help, but personally I think Atticus set him up to fail there but in a loving way. Alexis doesn't like him like that and I also think Chazz is honestly confused about the nature of his feelings about her. I think Atticus sets him up for failure in that situation and I think he does it to so she can reject him, which she does very kindly I might add, and he can move on and learn and grow as a person and develop more emotional intelligence from it because of how stifled he is in that way because of his brothers.

Also going back to how Chazz's friendship is significant and important for Atticus, another reason for that is because Chazz is the only person other than Alexis he's that close to now. He has a friend to confide in and share his own feelings and innermost thoughts with that isn't his now fiercely protective little sister. There are things he can't talk to her about and things he can't go to her for and confide in her with because she'll worry and he can't do that to her. He can't make her worry about him again. And Chazz is so easy for him to talk to. Atticus is a social butterfly and and extrovert unlike Chazz, he has no problems with talking to people and being open about things, but we only ever see him actually do that with Chazz. They have private moments and they confide in each other and they look out for one another. Atticus is also protective of Chazz in his own little ways too as he is with Alexis.

Atticus protects and cherishes everyone he cares for but none more so than Chazz and Alexis. They are his world. His everything. His reason. His.

Also the fact that when you looks into all the GX media, the dub, the sub, the manga, everything. Across it they each are associated with a weather phenomenon. One of Atticus's titles across the manga and the sub is Blizzard Prince. Which makes sense seeing as his Japanese name "Fubuki" literally means "blizzard". And as we all know, Manjoume Thunder. They are each associated with a type of storm which in my opinion, is why they are stormshipping. And long those lines, I associate each of them with a season. Atticus's season is summer, for obvious reasons, and Chazz's seas to me has always been winter. And I made these associations before I ever connected these two dots here. Atticus is associated with blizzards. A winter storm. And Chazz is associated with thunderstorms. Which generally speaking, are summer storms.

They are each associated with the storm that corresponds with the other's season.

That blew my mind when I finally connected those dots, literally destroyed my mind.

ALSO HERE HAVE SOME CONTEXTLESS VISUAL EVIDENCE

Leaning more on Chazz than Alexis when he's a little fucked up 👀

ONLY Atticus would picture him smiling like that. Only Atticus COULD picture him smiling like that because nobody else has ever SEEN it before.

LOOK AT CHAZZ. LOOK HOW ADORABLE HE IS WITH HIM.

CHAZZY'S AWKWARD B L U S H I N G !!

THE WAY HE SMILES AT HIIMMMMM

T H I S S H I T. THE WAY THEY LOOK AT EACH OTHERRRRRRR. HE'S BLUSHING AGAAAAAINNNN !!!

There is no heterosexual explanation for this shot being from Chazz's POV.

LOOK AT THIS ROMANTIC ASS PRIVATE CONVERSATION ON THE BEACH AT FUCKING SUNSET.

Also the 0 heterosexual explanation shot is like right before this and that scene happens in the dead ass middle of the day and there were tons of people around. They waited until sunset when people had left the beach for the day to have this private conversation. So Chazz and Atty were probably hanging out together for a while already before this. Like they could've just gone somewhere else and had this conversation right away, but no. They WAITED. Maybe for a few HOURS. To have this conversation ON THE BEACH. ALONE. AT S U N S E T. O K A Y 😭

ANYWAY STORMSHIPPING IS EVERYTHING TO ME AND I ACTUALLY HAVE SO MUCH MORE TO SAY BUT I CAN'T EVEN ARTICULATE IT RIGHT NOW I'M SO MENTALLY ILL OVER THEM SO I'LL SAVE IT FOR ANOTHER TIME AKSKSK

BUT THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME RANT AND RAVE AND GUSH ABOUT THEM MY ANON FRIEND !!!!

#GAH I LOVE THEMMMMMMMM #I really do have so much left unsaid about the light and darkness stuff but that gets into m a j o r plot stuff #and if you haven't seen the show yet I don’t wanna spoil that for you! 💕 #so I'll leave it for another time #I honestly could talk about them for gours and hours on end I hope I didn't ramble to incoherently akaksksk #or left too many thoughts unfinished or anything akaksk #BUT FR THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME SCREAM AT YOU ABOUT THEM #AND PLS WATCH GX IT'S EVERYTHING 😭 #yugioh gx #ygo gx #chazz princeton #jun manjoume #atticus rhodes #fubuki tenjoin #stormshipping #yugioh #ygo #alexis rhodes #asuka tenjoin #jaden yuki #judai yuki #syrus truesdale #sho marufuji #zane truesdale #ryo marufuji #abby's in her unhinged era #aberooski asks #answered

[schismusic]

Æon Flux and the end of all things

I don't remember the first time I heard of Æon Flux but I sure as hell remember the first time I watched it, and it wasn't too long ago which would technically not warrant the level of obsession I have for that shit, but here we are anyway.

I was knocked the fuck out on painkillers, two of my wisdom teeth freshly removed, not even remotely worried about the exam that I had coming up in like two days from then. So I was barely moving away from my swivel chair and sleeping on a whole ass armored pillow to prevent from tossing and turning and shit felt so surreal to me. It was like the eating chair from the last Cronenberg movie. So I delved into Æon Flux essentially blind and bingewatched the shit out of it. Twice. Ended up downloading the whole thing from some sketchy ass 1080p remastered torrent, rewatched it again, and spread it around personally in a more cauterized Google Drive folder (so if you guys got a nasty ass virtual STD from it, my bad I guess), not even a month after watching the series. Shit was fucked, in short, and every rewatch just fueled this obsession even further.

(image taken from Episode 1, Season 1)

One thing about me: when I obsess over stuff I want to draw something at the very least inspired by it. Happens to me a lot with Autechre, who are actually one of maybe three bands I would not hesitate to call my favourite based on an absolutely objective principle which is absolutely not up for discussion and which might be the object of a future post at this point. But the point is fucking Æon Flux is essentially impossible to replicate because Peter Chung's character designs are so recognizable that you start seeing them in literally every other movie that came out in the late '90s/early 2000s - and for reference, Æon Flux was brought to an end in 1995. Consequently, all attempts at drawing Æon Flux-inspired stuff end up either feeling very derivative or looking like fucking trash. Artistry is a weird thing because sometimes it inspires other people, other times it just inspires man-slaughtering rage.

Somewhat many of my friends are or have at one point tried to be accomplished visual artists. Some have made it to professional/teaching level, some others have an art school diploma or degree - and I'll be using this space to shout out @coto-letta aka V., who has recently rejoined Tumblr after years of absence. We met on here, when her handle was much different, and I mistook her for an ex of mine (whom, surprisingly, we are still on relatively good - if quiet - terms with) so I slid into her DMs as you do, and she was like "yeah actually I have no clue who the fuck you are I just think your blog is neat and dropped a follow" which was quite a fundamental moment in understanding that while my life was written like a dodgy soap-opera, that didn't mean I was the centre of the entire world. Anyway, the reason I'm shouting her out is because sometimes something deeper and older than you remember has a way of finding you again when you least expect it and that's what happened when in January 2023 (after V. had left Tumblr for at that point about two years and we had exchanged Instagram accounts) I somehow ended up on her Insta and found out she had been tagged in a picture taken somewhere that looked suspiciously like my university's conference hall and I could not fucking believe she was in my city. I slid into her DMs again, as you do, and found out that no, that wasn't my uni's aula magna, but yes, she was in fact relocating in my city for her master's. So we met up after maybe seven years of on-and-off Internet friendship. It's a neat story, sure, but how the fuck do we tie it into Æon Flux?

(image taken from Episode 3, Season 2: Leisure)

Not trying to be overly dramatic here, but Æon Flux to me is just about a condensation of everything that "art" can mean. Not just visual flare or style, not just deep meaning or interesting ways of putting across one or more questions and never a definitive answer to any of them (more often than not, it's sets of possible answers - usually two, neither of which ends up covering the whole array of possibilities, both of which actually leave a lot to be desired in a number of different ways), not just this insane fucking music that toys with everything you expect from animation courtesy of Drew Neumann who may just rank as one of the best soundtrack artists ever in virtue of this single work. It's the whole package. You would think it'd work taken in pieces, and it does, no objection to that: but it works even better as a whole package. If the moral questioning (and the philosophical musings of season 3, which is unjustly underrated because "it's too normal" by hipster wannabe critic dilettantes who like to think that they could do better than that. Everybody else on the other hand is generally able to stop pull their head out their own ass and recognize, at the very least, the excellent craftsmanship and talent that went into the ten long episodes) wasn't accompanied by the weird fetishistic sex it'd be somewhat less impactful, almost like a cauterized Tenshi no tamago made into a series for mainstream late-night TV audiences. The twist was that MTV's executives, at the time, "didn't understand [the double entendres], they didn't even notice them. So, we were okay", in producer Japhet Asher's own words in the short documentary Investigation: The History of Æon Flux. The network was, in fact, trying to break into the mainstream - they simply couldn't keep their creatives at bay. No wonder they turned to Jersey Shore as they went along.

(image taken from Episode 5, Season 3: The Demiurge)

Even just the main characters' purported edginess, clearly something "of its time", is never played entirely straight. Both leads are way too complex, and very clearly presented as such, to be just summed up by "Æon Flux is an anarchist/Trevor Goodchild is a dictator". Both of which are true, by the way, they're just one part of a full picture. Even within the context of its necessary linearity - this is still an animated short and as such moves only in one direction, even though a number of episodes (specifically Mirror and Chronophasia) deliberately fuck with the viewer's perception of times on varying degrees of diegesis and extradiegesis - the series could be perceived as, indeed, a sandbox: consequently, the viewer could set sail and explore it. This is further encouraged by the series's active weirdness to whoever would want to try and make sense of the world's story. There is no history, there is just the story at hand: an eternal present which you can't understand ("un eterno presente che capire non sai": Ferretti knew his shit, regardless of how it went after CCCP) and which Æon and Trevor are not interested in even trying to contextualize. Not a surprise then that they'd be into each other: their closeness in body and heart doesn't exist at the mind's level, and the whole thing falls apart miserably every time it looks like they could be finally let their weapons down. But as Æon completely understands, and as Trevor seems to actively try to ignore, the fight is already the whole point: star-cross'd as they may be, the entire act of playfully hunting each other for sport both in the bedroom and on the battlefield is what Trevor Goodchild and Æon Flux thrive on. Trevor wants stability but an Æon who doesn't fight back is simply not Æon; Æon does not want the stability, but she definitely likes Trevor to an extent and finds more in common with him that she would probably be willing to admit (I would like to thank Tumblr user @brw on thons very good analysis of the episode A Last Time for Everything, which heavily inspired this section of the post!). In short: if Trevor seems to embody Pier Paolo Pasolini's idea that "there is nothing more anarchistic than power" ("non c'è nulla di più anarchico del potere") then Æon flips the statement on its head: "there is nothing more powerful than anarchism". That is, of course, until we once again confront my signature ad-hoc elephant in the room that this statement just summoned.

(Image taken from Episode 1, Season 1)

No spoilers intended, but if you so much as google the name of the series you will easily find out that Æon Flux dies a whole lot throughout the series*. Season 1 and all the shorts from season 2 end with her dying ungrateful deaths and a couple of the long episodes leave much to be desired in the way of positive closure, with Ether Drift Theory representing a peak in bleakness for season 3. Most of the shorts where Æon dies imply that either absolutely nothing changes in the world around when she's lost or that Trevor Goodchild literally just succeeds in all of his goals (see Season 1's finale), and one could make a case that even if she did carry her missions through there would be absolutely nothing to show for it: somebody goes up the chain of power, everything is restored, there is one more tyrant to murder. Not to be that one guy who quotes Nietzsche about everything, but the eternal recurrence of the same is the first thing that comes to mind when watching Æon Flux, especially exemplified and even literalized by the episode War, possibly the best of the short ones: it's the same fucking story four times over a five-minute run time and nothing ever gets better for anyone. The body count in the episode is unquantifiably large - every one of the fallen a potential new Æon Flux or Trevor Goodchild. But this, in a way, implies that Æon keeps being reborn, and one could argue that the act of capturing a fly with her venus-fly-trap eye could simply be her coming back to life, as it were; stopping the most evident sign of decay, turning her eyes outward yet again, to face the eternal return of the same again and again and again…

(Image taken from Episode 8, Season 3: Ether Drift Theory)

You can find Æon Flux for free on the Internet Archive.

*as I was discussing the final draft of this post with my friend @oldshittydog we had a pretty interesting discussion which I thought should be added here for an even clearer, fuller picture:

#schismusic #animation #tv series #aeon flux #aeon flux 1991 #aeon flux 1995 #peter chung #japhet asher #mtv #liquid television #pier paolo pasolini #giovanni lindo ferretti #a lot of random bullshit #i guess i had fun with this