#there's no other explanation for why people in this fandom advocate so hard for the slavers and ignore the slaves | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

matan4il · 2 years

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hello, I just wanted to ask you a quick question about your meta process. Do you play Devil's Advocate while analysing? I mean, do you ask yourself if there's a non-buddie explanation for everything (plotline, foreshadowing), or do you just instantly go for the Buddie explanation. I'm just curious because sometimes it feels like meta writers don't do that, and I get that your focus is on the buddie-mess of it, but surely in order to persuade anyone that your view of a thing is correct, you have to disprove all over possible explanation. You know, like Sherlock Holmes said "when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"

Hi Nonnie! Good question.

So the short answer is yes and no. I do take into consideration other explanation. Not whether they exist, 'coz if someone's adamant, there is always an alternate explanation. I have, for example, shipped non-canon het ships that can be compared to Buddie, and for them too, every romantic trope could as an idea be explained away. So the question isn't whether there's an alternate explication, it's how often do we see what has most often been a romantic trope being used with a platonic duo, how hard do we have to work to come up with an alternate explanation, are the tropes used in a way that's different to the treatment of actual platonic bonds (like Hen and Chim) etc. So I don't immediately go for the Buddie explanation and there were things that I saw how one could infer a Buddie interpretation for them, but I felt it wasn't the more immediate one, so I never included them in my meta posts.

At the same time, I'm also not looking to "prove" anything. I'm not a detective trying to solve a mystery and having to prove that my solution is the correct one. I started out writing my meta 'coz my whole point was, "we're not crazy, this is what we're seeing because the show has made some very deliberate choices, here is what I see and why I think it's intentional." But at the end of the day, I'm not trying to convince anyone. I'm a person online expressing my POV. I could be right, I could be wrong. My POV isn't better than anyone else's. And I'm certainly not trying to push any agenda, just say what I see in the show and what it was the show which made me into a Buddie shipper. I think that's true for most Buddie shippers: we didn't start watching to ship Buddie, forcing our interpretation on the show. 911 kept throwing romantic tropes at us in relation to Buddie which made us start shipping them.

So that’s my answer, yes and no. I do take other possible takes into account, I don't automatically try to turn everything into Buddie "proof" but I also don't feel the need to try and convince anyone. People who see what I do and enjoy my posts are amazing, people who disagree with my takes are also great. Let everyone enjoy what makes them happy! It’s a difficult life, fandom should bring relief and joy, not the burden of proving anything to anyone.

I hope I managed to explain myself? :) Please do let me know and have a wonderful day! xoxox

(I got an influx of asks, I WILL answer all of them, but it might take a sec. If anyone wants to check whether I've already answered theirs or to read my replies, here's my ask tag. Thank you! xoxox)

#buddie #911meta #buddie meta #911 meta #9-1-1 #evan buckley #eddie diaz #edmundo diaz #evan buck buckley #christopher diaz #ask #anon ask #fandom discourse #fandom discussion #911onabc #911 on abc #911abc #911 abc

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earlgreytea68 · 2 years

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I am in the delightful position of watching The West Wing for the first time, and also seeking out good fanfic. As I know you are an advocate of this excellent series, I was wondering why you have not ventured into writing for this fandom? I would so love to read your take on these characters, various ships, and different complex situations.

Okay, first of all, HOW FUN, the first time watching The West Wing is just SO GREAT. <3 <3 <3

When I was actively in West Wing fandom, I actually wasn't writing any fanfiction, period. I know, right???? I read a whole ton of it, but I didn't think I could write it. I was writing entirely original stuff, and I was, like, convinced I wouldn't be able to write "other people's" characters. The show entirely changed the way I write dialogue forever and that was immediately noticeable in the way my writing shifted but I didn't start writing fanfiction until many years after my West Wing heyday. In fact, I think The West Wing was off the air entirely by the time I started writing fanfiction instead of just original stuff.

(Incidentally, I still think I mainly write my own original characters, I'm just pretty good at hooking them into something that vaguely resembles a previously existing scaffolding lol)

Anyway, this means that my West Wing heyday did not coincide with my fanfiction writing at all, in the simplest explanation. But you're right that I've never written any West Wing fic at all, not even as some kind of anniversary tribute, the way I have other fandoms. I think about it sometimes, I really do, and honestly I never feel like...like I want them to be mine? Which sounds weird, but that show means so much to me, and they all mean so much to me, that I have never really felt an urge to co-opt them for myself? It's weird, and hard to explain, because I'm obviously not like that with other stuff. But I think of trying to imagine The West Wing in my head as opposed to what I was given, and I just kind of...can't? Which also is weird because, as I said, I read plenty of other people's West Wing fic.

Which maybe is all to say: Writing isn't super rational. Creativity isn't super rational. Fandom isn't super rational. We can take our best guesses as to why or why not some particular emotion gets triggered, but in the end, it either happens or doesn't. I guess I never wrote any West Wing fic because I never felt like I had anything to say about the show through fic. I said things about the show in myriad other ways over the years, but maybe it's always meant to be my show that stands apart from all the others.

#the west wing

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mariaiscrafting · 3 years

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I’m the anon about fanfic and fanart. I just want to say that I’m fine with analysis when they talk about how dnf react to each other when they say or do something but don’t really like how they bring that point into their relationship. It’s one thing to me to say they have a flirty friendship but insisting that they have something more in private bothers me. I always thought that fanfiction and fanart are ways to analyze creators or dynamics so I was curious on what you thought of them. Fans always project things onto creators they like so they make things arolving them. I know you’re worried about how this can strain the content creators and other fandoms, but establishing boundaries is important and it was already addressed by the Dream Team themselves so I don’t see why you have to go out of your way to tell dnf shippers to not to analyze them. I’m not here to hate you but wanting to understand how making a call out post to tell dnf shippers to not to psychoanalizing interactions instead of trying to put more of a distance between yourself and the blogs without putting them down. On Twitter, there was a tweet that misinterpreted Dream and George’s first meeting and Dream corrected them but never condemned them for shipping. He also said in many tweets and said in stream that just how they are and said that fans are allowed to do what they want when it comes to them. Also liking a fan tweet where #Dreamfell was dnf related even though the situation didn’t need to be. Twitter is directly involved with the creators themselves so of course it’s hard to ignore. Even then in Twitter you can still mute words. I’m here for a conversation and not out hate. This is Tumblr where it’s mostly Fandom focused and some dnf shippers like to analyze to project whatever onto them so if we don’t want to see it, asking for a tag so you can block it here. Like #dng long post or just block the analysis tag. We’re all responsible to create our own fandom experience so I don’t want to call fans disgusting when they haven’t done anything wrong since Dream had stated He’s fine with it. I don’t want you to feel excluded in the dnf side of Tumblr since you still find the ship nice, but if you don’t want the long analysis posts since it feels morally wrong to you then we can try to agree on separating the casual and the analytical side of dnf. Your feelings towards dnf blog analysises are valid so your fandom experience should be catered to.

I am actually half delirious while answering this, so Imma keep it short and simple.

I do cater my own tumblr experience to what I want. I do block people who post stuff I don't like so I don't see it in the tags. All your advice is nice, but unnecessary.

I think that I should be allowed to criticize circles that I am in in the hopes that they will approve and shift what they consider the norm. Yes, Dream said that he is okay with shipping and has engaged with it and panders to the audience with it. But to take anyone's green light on any issue involving their personal lives, and to run rampantly with it is still fucked.

And look, I don't think I've properly articulated why I call this behavior disgusting. I want to emphasize that I view it as dehumanizing. To reduce a person's behaviors and tendencies to whatever vicarious romantic gratification you can get from them is an appalling act, devoid of empathy. It exemplifies the commodification of CCs for the audience's sole entertainment and that audience's lack of basic respect for them or acknowledgement that they are real life human beings who function beyond whatever romantic framework you fantasize them in. I keep bringing up this example, I know, but it's what incited this whole discourse for me in the first place, but that analysis of Dream's few seconds of silence as him focusing on George's voice because he's just so in love with him? That analysis, and the overwhelming consensus on that post perfectly exemplify just how dehumanizing this crossing of a line can be. It erases the conceptual space for any other, rational and non-romantic explanation for a few seconds of silence that could have easily been attributed to distraction, a moment to collect his thoughts, etc. It also perfectly exemplifies how, through the overanalysis, shippers force CCs into two-dimensional boxes that best fit their wants, devoid of nuance. In this instance, Dream is not a busy content creator who hasn't streamed very often for the past few months and might be readjusting to consistently talking in front of a live audience, or a young adult with ADHD whose brain jumps from point to point in its search for dopamine, or literally any other kind of human being with multiple characteristics and personality traits influencing his behaviors; he is a prop for our self-idulgent ship. I'm reading way too much into this one example, I know, but I just want to also say that this is like a much higher problem than just one post. I don't care about the content of one fucking post, I care about what that post and the methods of analysis employ imply about the rest of dnf shippers. This community is following behaviors that are concerning, and this is just one example of hundreds that exemplify that.

Projection is fine. Projection is employed in RPF fanfictions, character headcanons, different fanart styles - it's all over the mcyt fandom and I don't have a problem with it. My PROBLEM is with people who act like their analyses of Dream and George and literally any other content creator are actually representative of reality. My problem is with people who don't understand that there is a difference between stanning and creating/consuming fan content for a creator's persona, and theorizing about what that creator's actual character as a real life human being is.

Okay, also, I might just be getting more irritable because it's 2 am and I want to be asleep, but I actually do have a problem with you essentially saying that a preferred solution for me is to simply cut myself off from half the community. Basically, I should just plug my ears and shield my eyes if I see problematic content I am morally against? Fuck off, mate. There are many, many things I choose not to start discourse on and simply block or mute because I don't care enough to try and change it. But dnf shipping is something that I actively engage with, is kind of a significant part of my online presence and experience, and also a way I've made a lot of friends in this community. So yeah, I have a vested interest in making sure it doesn't go down the same, fucked paths I've seen other shipping communities go down, and if that means making a discourse post that makes you uncomfortable, I suggest you block me.

I'm not advocating for this fandom to partition up based on what we all think is right and wrong. I want integration of different ideas, useful discourse, and self-growth. And none of that is solved by creating a separate hashtag

#asks #why did i answer this rn im so tired #also not proofreading this v sorry in advance #discourse #just btw im.prolly not answering any more anons on this line of questioning #if you want to send a public ask or just @ me go ahead and we can beefpublicly #but otherwise nah this is taking up too much of my time and mental fortitude #/neg

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babbushka · 4 years

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Saying this from a place of compassion and love... if a post criticising you has over 70 notes, the author and people who reblog it are being approached by others agreeing with them, if even anons not within the fandom but who are aware from the situation agree with them (like me)... have you considered they may be right? Please listen. Please do self-introspection. If there’s such a loud message out there it’s because of a reason. Lots of love

I hear you, and I understand where you’re coming from completely, and I’m going to say this as clearly and neatly as I possibly can, because it’s been made very clear that people on the internet like to whip things up and let it spiral out of control.

I reblogged the post that @wayward-rose made with the tags of “i still stand by everything that I said” without much more explanation than that, which people didn’t seem to really appreciate, and I recognize that that was wrong.

This response is going to serve as that explanation. This is most likely going to be long, so I’ll be putting it under a cut, but I hope that people will read my side of things before casting judgement against me. I understand people are going to still cast judgement, and that’s fine, but I would like the chance to just say my side.

The screenshots that were chosen to be put in that callout post about me, of posts and conversations that I’ve had back and forth with people, or posts that I’ve made/ask responses I’ve given, were confusing, because there is much more context surrounding pretty much all of these situations, as well as things that went on behind the scenes. I’d like, if I may, to explain what those screenshots are referring to, from my perspective. For ease of clarity, I’ll just go in the order of which the original post has been done.

The Oscars where JP won for best actor were filled with many beautifully heartfelt speeches about giving support to Australia during the wildfire crisis. Cate Blanchett, Patricia Arquette, Jennifer Aniston on behalf of Russel Crow, Pierce Brosnan -- they all made speeches. And yet, the only thing I was seeing on my dashboard were gifs of JP, a known sexual predator and overall very bad guy, being celebrated for at the very last minute, likely after having seen everyone else include a heartfelt statement in their speech, tacking on a ‘oh save Australia’ at the end of his own speech.

I made a post expressing how I was disappointed with the amount of coverage JP was getting in comparison to how little everyone else who had spoken up. @callmehopeless reblogged the post and began to say that regardless of what JP has done, his message is somehow more important than everyone else’s message that was said, because he won best actor. You all saw the conversation that took place afterwards, with me reiterating my point of ‘yes he spoke out about it but he’s not the only one and he shouldn’t the only one lauded for it.’ and her insinuating that I wanted everyone in Australia to die by fire. Not that it matters for anything, but I would like to mention that while all this was going on, I was frequently sharing support links, donation sites, and news coverage on how to help the wildfires in Australia, as we all were. I didn’t include it on the post, because that’s not what the post was really about, but I disagree with the insinuation that I wasn’t spreading information too.

I still stand by my point that he should not have received the most praise for doing the bare minimum in a time of crisis. I saw that the conversation wasn’t going anywhere, so I ended it. I never accused anyone of being a rape apologist, I only expressed my frustration that the known allegations about him were being ignored. There is a difference.

The second point regarding the blush, I will admit wasn’t handled well on my part. I fully recognize that now, and looking back, I can understand how my frustration with @wayward-rose looks hostile. It was never intended to be hostile, I was just genuinely confused with her reblogging one of my fics as having a “white reader” because of the inclusion of blush. I was extremely hesitant to approach TWR about this tagging of the fic, because the only interactions I had had previously with her, were when she reblogged one of my posts with writing of her own, surrounding a topic that I was uncomfortable with, and then proceeded to lecture me on what triggers are and are not as if I were an incompetent fool, which, for all intents and purposes, she might’ve thought that I was. Conversations with TWR very quickly turn to technicalities, which is why I tried to be as cut and dry about it as I was.

With this frame of reference from her point of view regarding the whole “I have friends of color so I can do whatever I want,” I would like to say that I never had that intention, and seeing it presented that way does make me feel awful, and I’m sorry for it. I don’t want people to think that I’m in any way tokenizing anyone, because if you know me, you know that that’s something I am constantly expressing feelings against. I was trying to explain that I didn’t make up this idea that only white people blush, but I admit fully that it was a poor explanation and a poor argument to have been made. I try very hard to make my readers as vague in terms of skin color as possible, and I thought that because I didn’t mention the color of the blush (like denoting it as a pink or rosy blush for example) that I would be inclusive. I was wrong, and I admit that.

In regards to the writing of Flip Zimmerman with catholic iconography even though he’s a canonically Jewish character, particularly by a non-Jewish author, I still stand by my point. Characters who have no stated religion can and should be interpreted as everyone sees fit, because representation matters for marginalized communities. But when a Jewish character’s identity is replaced or erased with another, well, that’s just a small piece of a long line of casual antisemitism that I wanted to bring up to her. I never wanted or told her to delete her story, I never sent anyone to go fill her inbox, I never told her to edit it. After the blush discussion, I tried to simply end the argument by voicing my concerns and saying I thought it was in poor taste to have done what she did, because of the history around such topics -- and I still stand by that.

The posts regarding the Very Popular Fic I take full responsibility for, I don’t deny that I make them, nor do I deny any of the sentiments in them. I expressed my annoyance at constantly being asked if I’ve read that fic, if I liked that fic, what I thought of that fic weekly for months and months after it blew up on tik tok, despite having expressed my dislike for it in the past. You can only get asked something so many times before it grates on your nerves.

I still stand by my point that seeing content which you find upsetting being the type of content that gets “””famous”” is frustrating. I didn’t imply that I’m only writing for the notes. I referred to the fic as a ‘joke’ because in the tags of that fic on AO3, the author compares it to a shitpost. Similarly to the Other Fic with the handmaid’s tale AU, the author themselves put in the tags of the fic on AO3 that they knew this was in poor taste.

I’d like to make it clear that I don’t dislike fics because they’re popular. I dislike fics because sometimes there’s content that I find disturbing or damaging, or in poor taste with regards to source material. I don’t go out of my way to read that content, because I don’t like it. So when hundreds of people are asking my opinions about it, and I express those opinions, then people like to jump down my throat and say I’m a bully...you can imagine why I get so snappish when the topic comes up. The comment about the brain cells thing was understandably harsh. I apologize for that comparison, it’s just a phrase I say frequently, I honestly didn’t think anything of it at the time, and I’ll do better in the future to not make such harsh comparisons.

I also stand by my point that I don’t like the fic, I don’t advocate for the fic, and it really shouldn’t matter what I think because the author will do what the author does, and that’s fine. I don’t have to like it, and you guys don’t have to like the fact that I dislike it.

When someone sends in a message anonymously, I have no idea who they are, and most of the time, unless they leave an emoji or something, I’ve got no idea what context they’re asking me about, particularly when it comes to blocking. I had absolutely no way of knowing that the anon who messaged me asking why I blocked them, was someone I had blocked for reblogging gifs of mine. However, the idea that it’s a bad thing that I blocked someone for reblogging my gifs with comments I didn’t really appreciate (I wouldn’t have blocked them for the comments shown in the fic, usually it’s stuff about how they want to get pregnant by flip, or once there was someone who commented that they wanted flip to destroy their pussy -- that’s the comments that tend to get blocked.

But either way, blocking people from accessing your content is not a bad thing, and I stand by my point that blocking does not always mean I have anything personally against them, but rather I’d rather just not interact with their posts/have them interact with mine. It’s really not that deep.

I don’t really know how many times I have to say that of course I don’t own a character or anything, but I do say it, constantly. Particularly regarding personal AUs, which, I really don’t find as deep as people seem to think I do. However, the content that I make, I do believe I have some right to voice my opinion on what the internet does with it. I think that if someone comments something on one of my fics, or my posts, or my gifs, and I don’t like it, I should be allowed to block them -- just as anyone else should be allowed to with their own content.

The comment about Ben Solo still stands, I won’t be expanding on that.

The last point that I would like to explain myself about, was made in Hope’s reblog of the post, is the whole “I bullied someone for leaving fandom” incident. I can only assume that she means an author who I had been informed was plagiarizing my work from the fic Blue Moon. I had never had this happen to me before, but I’d been told my many other people that this author has a history of taking other people’s content and uploading it as their own, including someone that I was at one point good friends with. I believed them, and I reached out to this author expressing my concerns, only expressing to please not do this in the future, or at the very least, mention that this was related to my story. This author deleted her account, and that was the last I heard about it.

I’m honestly shocked and confused by how many people have come forward and said that they find my responses to anonymous questions mean-spirited or toxic. I try very hard to maintain a general rule of, if you’re kind to me, I’ll be kind back. In many instances, anonymous questions come across as rude, disrespectful, flat out mean, or frustrating, and so I reply back with a less-than-nice manner.

The last thing I’d like to say on this whole matter is this: I want to make it clear that I mean no personal malice towards any of the people that these screenshots surround. I vehemently disagree with the narrative that I send people after one another, I just don’t do that. What people do is of their own accord. I don’t ever want people to be sent hate, because firstly I don’t think that’s a good thing to do, but secondly, I get sent hate all the time, and I know how it feels. I don’t want that for anyone. I know that the collection of these screenshots may make it seem otherwise, but I really do try to stay in my lane, and I only speak up on things that I’m passionate about -- whether it’s passionately positive or negative.

I would like to apologize for the way that I’ve responded to criticism in the past, it’s just frustrating when people are criticizing you from a perspective that doesn’t take into consideration that there might be more to the story. All I can do is move forward and try to check myself, and I hope that with these explanations, people out there will realize that when I act out of frustration or aggressively, it’s because I feel as though I’m not being heard.

I know that whatever opinion you form of me is yours and will be yours, but if you’ve read this entire thing then thank you, I appreciate you hearing me out. Hope you’re all doing well, and as always, I truly am sending you guys all my love.

#Anonymous #cowboy answers

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autumnblogs · 3 years

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Day 10: I think the true purpose of this game is to see how many qualifiers we can get to precede the word "self" and still understand what we're talking about

https://homestuck.com/story/1642

I don’t think anyone has said much about Calsprite. There’s not much to be said. I’m pretty sure, based on the Juju rules, that this Lil Cal probably doesn’t count as the real one - supposedly, any version of a Juju from a Doomed Timeline doesn’t count as the real thing? In any case, it’s a very mild comfort that this being isn’t a source of even more power for the already arbitrarily powerful Lord English.

Another thing that I think is interesting to note is that Dave’s use of iPhone technology marks him, in my opinion, as a poseur. While I am by no means advocating against buying from Microsoft’s competitors, but Mac vs. PC is one of those parts of my childhood, and as an actual IT Professional I’ve learned more than a little about the way that they brand themselves and the history of Apple’s struggle for market share - Apple doesn’t advertise its products as computing alternatives, or as productivity software, or whatever - Apple sells a lifestyle. Apple products are styled as the sexier, more cerebral, more artistic, more individualistic alternative to Microsoft’s products, a computer not for the Office Drone but for... well, the Hipster. Hipsters have stopped really being a thing, or at least, nobody calls themselves that any more.

Like the vast majority of subcultures, I suspect the hipster subculture has kind of been swallowed by time, its symbols expropriated by Capitalism, its center hollowed out and its aesthetics packaged for mass production, as the cynical and jaded approach to popular culture of the hipster, along with its more enthusiastic counterpart “the geek” (actually pretty well personified by John!) became more mainstream - both stereotypes are probably a part of Homestuck’s general commentary on fandom. Fandom is something I think Homestuck talks about, but I don’t think it’s something Homestuck is about in quite the same way that it’s about, say, Narratives, or Reproduction.

More after the break.

https://homestuck.com/story/1643

While Homestuck has been a story that involves some time loops, Act 4 is where it really gets off the ground as an actual Time Travel story. The thing about Time Travel stories, like the thing about Cosmic Horror Stories, is that once a story starts having Time Travel, or Cosmic Horrors in it, it’s that genre forever. This is why DND, for example, is part of a cosmic horror story, because something like 20 years ago, an adventure writer decided that there should be the Far Realm, and now it casts its sticky pall over the rest of the game’s setting.

Homestuck sidesteps this issue largely by involving all of the genres that do this to a story, and just kind of blending them all together into a genre-busting stew. Homestuck is a superhero story. Homestuck is a creation story. Homestuck is a theogony. Homestuck is a cosmic horror story. Homestuck is a time travel story. And so on and so on.

https://homestuck.com/story/1657

And so began one of the greatest partnerships in the history of Paradox Space.

Also of note is that Terezi compares Dave to fire here, not the first or the last bit of symbolism linking him to that element. It’s pretty strongly linked, in general, with The Hero, in kind of the same way that the color Red, and the Sword is in these sorts of things.

Dave fits the Classic Hero Archetype a lot better in a lot of ways than John does, and Bro has been training him for that role since birth. On a much larger scale, Lord English has decreed from his position as the overlord of Paradox Space that Dave is the Hero who should defeat him.

https://homestuck.com/story/1663

Friendship proves once again to be one of the most powerful forces in the universe, changing John’s direction, and steering him away from disaster.

https://homestuck.com/story/1667

Not much to say about this conversation, but the transition between Karkat’s explanation of the Veil and the beginning of [S]Jack: Ascend is smooth as fuck.

https://homestuck.com/story/1670

Our very first self-indulgent author self-insert; the Fourth Wall is explicitly identified as a Fenestrated Plane. 1 Point for the Narrative Contrivance hypothesis.

https://homestuck.com/story/1692

Dave actually does care immensely. Not only does he spend a ton of his time being overshadowed by cooler more powerful men like Bro, and John, now Dave even has to spend his time being overshadowed by cooler versions of himself - and that goes in both directions - both Davesprite and Dave seem to think that the other is the more real, more cool Dave!

https://homestuck.com/story/1710

As a Light Player, Rose is preoccupied with Meaning. She sees it everywhere, and she certainly sees where it is not (at least when she is not Miserable with a capital M). Meaning and Value - Fortune - is not intrinsic to this item, but it is instead bestowed upon it by the fact that Rose loves it, and by the work that Rose put into it. The Rabbit is a labor of love and a treasured belonging, and the Love in the Rabbit is the Light that the Seer Sees.

https://homestuck.com/story/1714

I’m pretty sure that John and Kanaya only talk to each other about twice in all of Homestuck, which is a bit of a shame! John and Karkat are really a lot more alike each other than either of them is comfortable admitting (which I think is probably why Dave is attracted to Karkat). By the transitive law of friendship, it seems to me that John and Kanaya would probably be pretty good friends. On the subject of the other diagonal line in the quadrangle of friendship, I wonder if Rose and Karkat talk to each other pretty much ever?

https://homestuck.com/story/1715

The clear indication here is a parallel between Dave and Sollux, but like a lot of things that probably didn’t go as intended with the Trolls, nothing much ends up materializing from it. I suppose that by fucking off to do nothing for the rest of the adventure, Sollux gets to live Dave’s dream for him, so there’s that.

https://homestuck.com/story/1720

Adorable. This is one of the happiest little moments in the comic.

So often, characters are cut off from one another by moments. They just miss each other, or literally can’t understand each other because of supernatural shenanigans, or can’t communicate with each other on screen because of the way that communication can’t happen unmediated in Homestuck.

And even when they can talk to each other, often the awkwardness and pain of communicating with other people, of trying to get them to understand you the way you actually are, instead of only seeing you one certain way, is too great, and communication proves impossible.

But here, Rose and Dave don’t need words to hang out.

They shut up and jam.

(It’s also incredibly sweet that Rose‘s actual in-person esteem of Dave is so great that she cannot restrain her own thought process. For all her joshing, she really does think Dave is cool.)

https://homestuck.com/story/1722

Also incredibly sweet that Rose’s first order of business as soon as they’re done playing around is to destroy that goddamn puppet.

https://homestuck.com/story/1754

Just missed him.

https://homestuck.com/story/1775

I wish not to contemplate the implication that Homestuck Sprite Mode Legs are actually wafer thin.

https://homestuck.com/story/1812

Nearly as soon as Rose has awoken and absorbed herself from the Doomed Timeline, she gets down to business alchemizing a lot of dangerous and powerful artifacts in preparation to fuck shit up. I’ve never thought about it much before, but I think it’s not hard to say that the memories she absorbed from the other timeline cause Rose to embrace her more reckless and less charitable side. She comments on her own dangerous pursuit of power, and then immediately ignores that train of thought.

https://homestuck.com/story/1836

Dave sure is fixated on bottoms.

https://homestuck.com/story/1852

Note to self. Come back to this.

So far, the only thing of note is the number 12, a portent related to the victors of Homestuck, if only coincidentally.

https://homestuck.com/story/1857

Dave’s sincerity senses are tingling. Maybe it’s an instinct since he and Roxy are pretty similar people, maybe it’s just because Dave himself is not nearly as insincere as he wants to be.

Dave’s anxiety about being watched is also probably best exemplified by his insistence on hiding his eyes behind glasses.

https://homestuck.com/story/1887

Adorable!

I wonder if Andrew already had the sprite designs for these squirts, and their names picked out at this time.

The hair and accessories are certainly correct.

https://homestuck.com/story/1895

Before I get too much further into this sequence, I’d like to pause and take a second to just appreciate this prose. The style is captivating.

The shipping pun is also pretty good.

https://homestuck.com/story/1903

BladeKindEyeWear has already done a pretty good job explaining what the Ultimate Riddle is, so I won’t belabor it too much more than he has here. The Ultimate Riddle itself is, “What Will You Do?” And the answer to it is, “Do What You Will.”

Do What You Will isn’t just the inscription on AURYN, it’s also an extremely old phrase intended for spiritual enlightenment, historically first formulated by Saint Augustine in his Sermon On Love, where he puts it thusly, “Love, and Do What You Will.” The Love that Augustine is talking about is not Romantic Love or even familial love, but Universal Unconditional Love - goodwill toward everyone and everything, to have one’s Heart’s Desire be that everyone should flourish and be happy.

Another formulation, the Wiccan Rede is, “An It Harm None, Do What Ye Will,” perhaps a more detached, declaration. In either case, the Will here is not talking about merely chasing simple wants, but an invitation to follow one’s true will, not to respond to simple passions, but to take voluntary action in accordance with who one is as a person.

https://homestuck.com/story/1905

threatening.............

https://homestuck.com/story/1922

Jake Harley begins a life of serial abandonment.

https://homestuck.com/story/1930

I really should have brought this up first when Rose and Davesprite went back into time, but this is about the time Homestuck starts to get lousy with all kinds of alternate selves, Dream Selves, Doomed Selves, and so on and so on, and from a narrative frame of reference, they’re actually all literally the same guy - the actions of one version of a character inform us about all versions of that character.

More on that later.

https://homestuck.com/story/1931

More Roleplaying. John has a wild imagine spot.

https://homestuck.com/story/1934

Dave stares at the blood on his hands, and contemplates his death for a long time.

https://homestuck.com/story/1936

Some immediate foreshadowing in here. Jade, I’m pretty sure, is one of the few people in Tavros’ life who shows him some genuine unconditional friendliness, so it’s no wonder that he latches onto her.

The way he does is still pretty creepy though.

https://homestuck.com/story/1940

As long as I’m mostly focusing on the emotional dimension of Homestuck, the two major emotional beats in this Flash are the Sovereign Slayer slaughtering WV’s army, revealing the source of his self-loathing and trauma, and the death of Jade’s Dream Self.

The death of her Dream Self is not nearly the beginning of Jade’s Trauma Conga Line, but it’s definitely the first in the chain of events that leads her to finally snap out of her learned helplessness and blind optimism, and to start taking her fate into her own hands. She’s been so sure of her destiny up to this point, and now things are finally starting to get out of hand.

Also, I choose to believe that the bizarre Squiddles interlude is the first moment that the Dark Gods make contact with Jade’s psyche. They know she’s about to die, and they’re starting to communicate with her.

Anyway, that’s all for today.

Yesterday’s cough turned out to be post-viral infection, since I had Covid the week of the 11th, so for now this is Cam signing off, Medicated, and Not Alone.

#liveblogging #commentary #the ultimate riddle #hipsters

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kdtheghostwriter · 4 years

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SNK #128 - Seeing Shadows

That’s bad, right?

There were some semantic debates regarding what exactly Hange meant when they said, “Humanity is out of time!” I think it’s clear now that humanity has no more time for them to be indecisive. Eren is on the march, and even if he settles for destroying everything on the Marley continent, that’s a massive loss of civilization and one you simply can’t live with if you think of yourself as a hero. The look on their faces tells the story. It’s no longer about saving the world; it’s about saving what’s left.

How much is left depends on how quickly they move, but it’s not as easy as mounting up the troops. Eren and his Colossal Army are across the ocean now. They’ve had at least one full day to march and probably more since the previous chapter’s events around the campfire. Think about how long it takes for a plane to cross an ocean. Not a full day. Their best bet is commandeering Miss Kiyomi’s special aircraft powered by the mysterious Iceburst Stone. Before they do that, we have to pause for another episode of the worst show in the world: This Floching Guy.

As much I have advocated for Eren to be accepted as the new villain – praising Isayama for turning the Face/Heel dichotomy upside down as it pertains to Reiner – those two, even in their most vile moments, still have their fans. There is no guesswork with Floch Forster. He’s predatory, conniving, authoritarian and mean-spirited. Above all of that, he’s a cocky little shit in a way that even Kenny Ackerman would have scoffed at. He’s the antagonist to the characters we’ve followed for ten years now, but in his own mind they brazenly oppose him, which is where the title of this chapter ‘Traitor’ becomes important.

For the last four years, Eldia has been ruled by deft slight of hand. In spirit, Historia Reiss, the rightful heir to the throne, has reclaimed her birthright. In reality, she retired to run an orphanage while the three branches of military have taken control of the government and all proceedings. Eren’s mission to Liberio as well as the counterattack from Marley’s Warrior Unit caused a vacuum to appear that was quickly occupied by the Jaegerist Faction. They now control the government and in extension all facets of Paradisian society. So what do you call a group of AWOL soldiers that are conspiring to sabotage your one method of security?

Traitors. Villains. Monsters.

They’re killing your friends and attacking your home. They’ve infiltrated your ranks and betrayed your trust. Thousands of innocent people dead just for the sake of completing their mission.

This week I learned that many people viewed Bertolt’s death as karmic in some way. I never saw it like that at all. His death at Armin’s hands was a necessary evil. Necessary certainly, but it was evil. It doesn’t make the 104th evil for carrying out the deed. It just happened to be the most brutal death in the series even if it wasn’t the most graphic. Bert is left defenseless as his powers are forcibly taken from him. He calls for his former comrades only to realize none of them will help. Then he calls for Reiner, his best friend who barely escaped with his own life. He dies a lonely, agonizing death.

“Who the hell wants to kill innocent people?!”

Who knows how long this question has been haunting Armin’s waking thoughts? There is evidence to suggest that the once bold Survey Corps veteran who was willing to sacrifice his life to help Eren take down the Colossal has been hampered by his successor’s timid nature. Ever since he acquired his powers, he’s always attempted to seek non-violent resolution. I don’t see this as simple naivety.

If you were given a power as destructive as his, where you are capable of destroying a town by simply calling upon it, why would you ever use it? Why would you ever want to? I grow uncomfortable with the amount of voices in the fandom concern trolling the 104th and their refusal to spill the blood of their neighbors. They’ve fought alongside or trained with most of these people. Why should they be expected to kill them like nameless drones? Even if it is necessary, why are they not allowed to mourn the choice?

Characters like these that we’ve known from almost the beginning. They know nothing of the outside world other than it’s filled with people that want them dead. Eren Jaeger is their best chance at keeping their society alive and these people they lived and fought and suffered with want to impede that and doom them. Samuel and Daz are soldiers, too. Forget for a moment that they’re opposing the main characters. Why would they let this happen?

I digress, though. This point is more about Bert and his exit from the story. It came at the end of a fierce battle that saw the SC expend all of their resources and most of their man power. The fact that they came away with even one shifter’s power is a small miracle. The characters can be excused then for watching, unfeeling, as their former teammate is eaten alive. Now the shoe is on the other foot. Armin has been mortally wounded and the one vehicle that can get them to Marley in time is about to be destroyed. Before Daz can do this, he is stopped by Armin who is delirious but regenerating. Before he can deal the fatal blow, Connie wrestles the gun away from Samuel and shoots them both.

The mission continues.

One could say that it’s overkill perhaps. How many times must the 104th learn the hard lesson? Even Annie made reference to the fact that the Warriors plan was being criticized with no alternative. If they spot them, the mission fails. If the ship is blown, the mission fails. If they Azumabito clan is destroyed, the mission fails. All of these facts are true and the current best way to keep any of that from happening is to fight and kill the Jaegerists. It’s remarkably easy to say, but then they are the ones who have to live with choices made.

No one should ever have to “get used to” the idea of killing…well anyone but especially not people you partnered with. Bert’s inclusion in this moment was no accident. It isn’t just because Armin inherited his mental likeness. This is the closest they have come to understanding the impossible position he was forced into four long years ago. Only this time, it’s Samuel who is scared and confused.

You can disagree with Samuel’s point of view but what Connie does next is by definition an act of treason. He shoots two members of his own combat unit and defies a direct order from a commanding officer. We know that the commanding officer is a sociopath and we know that following orders means being an accessory to genocide. But that genocide is the only thing keeping that island alive. That island has been the only home Samuel and Daz have ever known. They deserve as much as anyone, an explanation instead of a bullet to the face. But this is what happens isn’t it?

I love Metal Gear Solid for a number of reasons, but chief above them is the series protagonist, Solid Snake. In the flagship game, he is introduced to us as a super soldier engineered for battle that is pulled out of retirement to thwart his twin brother’s plans of nuclear destruction. This game is one of the few of its kind that can be completed without killing a single enemy. You are rewarded for your stealth. Because, you see, Snake the character is a pacifist at heart. He doesn’t want to do this, but he’s the only one who can. It’s a solo mission, so running and gunning almost always fails and if you kill too many people, the action hero main character becomes sick.

You see, because, these choices aren’t made lightly. They ripple and they matter. The 104th kids aren’t acting high and mighty, lording their moral values over the heads of those that betrayed them. They genuinely hate doing this. From your mouth you say, “We have to save the world,” but when you arrive you are told, “We have to kill these people.” For once they would like to preserve peace without additional death and I don’t think they should be scolded for that wish.

Stray Thoughts

- Wasn’t all that impressed by Magath’s little speech, especially considering what came before it. It’s a change of heart, yes, but not from a genuine place. When faced with the reality of his homeland being flattened, and the futility of his current position, he immediately goes back to torture. Yelena is callous in her own right but she did nothing to warrant the violence. He’s lashing out and I don’t shed tears for him.

- Onyankapon on the other hand. What a guy. He resets the joint in Yelena’s arm and crafts a splint to keep it in place. He has no powers, but you would want this guy on your team during the end of the world.

- Reiner finally puts the pieces together here. “I’m just like you,” Eren says and like Eren, Reiner moves to protect his former teammates from making this impossible choice. It’s a noble gesture and one I respect. There’s no going back for him. He has far too much blood on his hands. That he recognizes that is a strong moment for the character.

- Armin and Connie’s plan wasn’t a bad one. If nothing else, it bought time enough for Annie and Reiner to get into position. If they had attacked outright, the plane likely would have been destroyed. Some people are frustrated with them but honestly, go read Berserk if that’s the case.

- East Sea Gang rise up! Mikasa in combat is still an absolute treat. And Floch gives us an example of this faction’s greatest flaw. You know; besides the nationalist framework they are founded upon. Floch is the most experienced soldier they have and when Floch Forster is your best fighter, your team sucks. Mikasa Ackerman was worth 100 soldiers as rookie. As an adult soldier, she is easily worth two Jaegerist groups put together. Kiyomi is clearly capable, but she also took advantage of Floch’s arrogance in the moment.

- Credit to Reiner and Annie for hitting their cue. I wondered what it would be like having them in this group but it seems like for the purposes it should work.

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remus-lupin-is-my-type · 3 years

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Where have I been? (a post for anyone who might still care lol)

Anyone who knows me knows I’ve taken a looooong hiatus from cosplay, but I’ve also taken a general hiatus from this blog as well. I wanted to take the time to explain some of the reasons why. Explanation below the cut.

1. Toxicity

I’ve had this blog for many, many years. It’s always been My Thing to follow back everyone. But in doing so, I’ve accidentally created a pretty decently toxic environment for myself on my own dash? It seems that wherever I scroll, there are people arguing, constant reminders of how terrible the world and society are, and people shaming other people for things they like. My once-fun dashboard of fandom and all things queer, has just become not quite fun anymore? Social justice issues are really important to me, deeply important, but constant reminders about how terrible the world is can really bring me down (particularly in these already troubling times). I know that running from it is a particularly privileged thing to be able to do (I may be pan, but I’m still white and cis), but sometimes I just gotta put myself and my own mental health first. One day I’m hoping to try to take back control of my blog and do some much needed purging, but it’s going to be a monumental task after so many years. But I really do miss reblogging fandom things. I’ve made a completely separate blog for all things Aesthetic that do nothing but make me happy—essentially creating my own little safe space. It’s been a great non-pressure, anonymous way to just de-stress, but I do miss mucking around in fandom nonsense. BUT this also brings me to another reason...

2. Supernatural and The Destiel Debacle

*spoilers ahead for the final season of SPN* That final scene with Cas absolutely destroyed me. I’m a few seasons behind, but when I woke up one morning and Destiel was trending everywhere, of course I looked up and watched the video. And guys. I SOBBED. Not just a few tears, full on WEPT for at least an hour. I was so heartbroken, not just because a beloved character died, but of how he died. The fact that Cas told Dean everything I’ve always wanted him to, but in the WORST WAY POSSIBLE, only for him to promptly die without Dean even saying anything. I just couldn’t deal. I was Properly Depressed for several days after that, and I still sometimes think about it and get really sad. I could have forgiven this, had they put Cas in the finale, gave you hope that maybe he and Dean could be something in Heaven, together, but no. Of course not. The whole thing genuinely put such a bad taste in my mouth for all fandom and network television in general. Also, it hurt me to see people actually calling this a WIN. I’m not here to take away anything from anyone—if you loved it, that’s great and I’m happy for you. But GUYS. It was CRUMBS. Is it great that Cas is a confirmed queer character? Sure, but they killed him the second his confession was over. Rowan Ellis did a great YouTube video about the whole thing, and I highly suggest you watch it, it really put things in perspective for me. The fact is, they had TWELVE YEARS to give you this, and they didn’t. It’s like Marvel expecting us to be singing their praises cuz a Russo brother mentioned a boyfriend, a few minutes out of their ENTIRE MOVIE FRANCHISE. Anyway, I was so disheartened I didn’t want to participate in fandom whatsoever. (Luckily, I’ve recently fallen in love with Black Sails—also thanks to Rowan Ellis—and its amazing writing, characters, story, and queer representation helped give me hope again).

3. Self-image

This more directly relates to cosplay. I gained weight again, and my motivation to cosplay dropped significantly. Suddenly there just didn’t seem a point to getting into all the makeup and putting in the effort if I wasn’t going to like what I saw on the webcam. Luckily, I’ve recently read a FANTASTIC book called “What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat” by Aubrey Gordon, and it was honestly life-changing. It forced me to completely reframe how I think about myself and society, and I’ve actively been making an effort to feel better and unashamed in my own skin, and it’s been going well! I’ve stopped planning my entire life and happiness and worth around whatever number I wanted the scales to reflect. But, that being said, cosplay is still a struggle for me. Though I’m generally more accepting of myself now, I still find it difficult to play my favourite characters, almost all of which are attractive males. I’m admittedly hard on myself about it, my subconscious constantly telling me that I’m not androgynous enough or sexy enough to play these characters. Of course you don’t have to be these things to cosplay, I’m a huge advocate that ANYONE can cosplay WHOEVER they want, but this is what I, personally, am going through. One step at a time, as they say!

And that’s about it. I’m not sure when I’ll be back, and I make no promises. But maybe I’ll pop in to post a gay gifset or two sometime :) I’ve also been pondering TikTok a lot, so who knows, maybe that’ll be a thing in the future. This explanation was as much for my benefit as to those reading—it feels good to get this stuff off my chest and I hope you understand. Love you all so, so much and I hope you’re all getting nothing but the best out of this hell site lol ❤️

Stay safe and stay happy, Nicki xo

#personal #hp rp community

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sometimesrosy · 4 years

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Kim is a known Bellamy hater, she whitewashed Bellamy and said he had white privilege 4 years ago. He keeps downgrading Bellamy's importance in Clarke's life which was evident in both 6x07 and 6x12. Also in her interview about 6x07 too. She made that Octavia vs. Clarke in Clarke's mindspace about everyone else but Bellamy. She said she couldn't face Jasper and L.xa. LMAO. Do you even know who you are standing for at this point? You ignore all the edivence when you feel like it. It's annoying.

“known bellamy hater” isn’t really a fact. That is an interpretation that you have and I don’t share it.

She whitewashed bellamy yes. That IS a fact. That was ignorance as far as I can tell. She did not KNOW nor did she understand the complicated history of his background or what it means to be mixed race.

However, as a mixed race person who has been whitewashed by plenty of people in my life-- by possibly you for all I know, since there’s a large faction of THIS fandom who does so, and since you’re sending a nasty anon, you’re clearly not one of the people who likes me-- I understand that ignorance about a race/ethnicity you do not understand is not a fatal personality flaw. It could be something you need to learn. Or maybe you’re just a racist, it’s hard to know from one incident. We are ALL living with this racist society and we ALL have to confront the racist misconceptions in our minds.

That is what put Kim on my watch list for questionable behavior. I have not seen her do anything like that again. In four years, she’s never said anything racist like that again as far as I know. If she does, I will add that to my list. It has not been erased from my awareness of who she is.

Sometimes people are racist out of ignorance. Sometimes people are assholes. Sometimes people are all sorts of things. That doesn’t mean they can’t change or they don’t have other redeeming qualities. If you go around calling people evil every time they do something stupid, offensive, or jerkish, you’ll end up thinking the entire world is evil. I can’t live like that.

Everything you say after the whitewashing point, which is a fair point, and has gone into my consideration, and made me wary of her, is all bad interpretation and wrong.

Kim continues to write Clarke as the hero. She is Clarke centric. This, to me, is not a sin. In fact, I like her Clarke stories. She writes the hero as the hero. This is a good thing.

She may not focus on Bellamy as much as she focuses on Clarke, but that’s not wrong. She loves Clarke. She does not erase Bellamy. She does not hate Bellamy. She does not hate or erase Bellarke. Neither does she erase CL, which is good. She shouldn’t. She did love CL, and there’s nothing wrong with that, either. What happened during the CL years with the writers and fandom, I’ve put behind me. They seemed to have learned something from that.

That you think putting Clarke at the center of the narrative and telling stories about her and other characters besides Bellamy is some sort of slight to Bellamy and evidence of hating or diminishing his characters tells me that your perspective is that Bellamy is more important than Clarke, and Clarke’s main importance is as part of a ship or as a love interest, and I have to say, I find that perspective to be misogynistic. A female character who is placed above an equally strong male character and made the hero is “wrong.” It is only right if she is the love interest and focused on the male hero.

That is internalized misogyny, my darling.

I cannot support your interpretation of Kim’s part in the story, although I agree with you about the social media stuff. I just choose to let four years ago stay four years ago since there have been no repeat offenses.

I would like you to notice that I have not ignored any of your points, and I had explanations for them all at a moments notice. It is because I had already considered your points, and brought them into my understanding of the situation. And I brought up points that you didn’t. That is not ignoring evidence, that is taking it into consideration and then coming up with a different conclusion that disagrees with yours. That is why I think what I do about Kim. She messed up, but has not since then, and I am okay with the way she writes The 100 with Clarke at the center instead of Bellamy. Because Clarke is the hero. And I am tired of the misogyny that continuously erases strong women, both in fiction and in life.

This white washing issue with Kim is actually a personal issue for me, since I am mixed race like Bob, and have been dealing with the racism leveled at mixed race people since 1975. I do not have a knee jerk reaction to this issue. I consider all the information before I judge. I have been having serious discussions about this topic since, gosh, IDK, the 90s at least. And that’s many years after I’ve started having the thoughts. So what I’m saying here is that I have not ignored these things, I have taken them all in and have bigger and more comprehensive thoughts about them than you do, because I think about more things than “whitewashing=racism=bad=evil person.” Whitewashing is bad and racist, but it doesn’t equal an evil person. Since all of us exist in a racist society, we ALL have those racist ideas, and we need to confront them on a regular basis. We can say the same for misogyny, and you personally should consider how you’ve internalized misogyny in your thoughts about female heroes and their roles in the narrative.

And I find it very ironic that the same fandom who attacks Kim for whitewashing bob and bellamy is the fandom that white washed and attacked ME when I talked about being mixed race, latinx, economically disadvantaged, an advocate of teenagers at risk, or really anything they didn’t agree with.

So please understand that what Kim has done, as far as I know, is nowhere near as severe as what the fandom has done to ME, in regards to whitewashing. They will support Bob’s mixed race heritage against attacks and whitewashing and then turn around and erase mine and whitewash me.

So pardon me for thinking you’re all a bunch of hypocrites. :)

#i SAID kim was on my watch list for questionable behavior #but if i don't spout back your groupthink dogma you think i'm ignoring facts #i'm not ignoring the hypocrisy of fandom attacking kim for whitewashing and then whitewashing me instead

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mszegedy · 4 years

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30 Days of Autism Acceptance: Days 17-26

This is a list of questions by @autie-jake (full list here), where you’re supposed to answer one per day for every day of April. I keep forgetting to do these daily, so here’s all the days since my last post. My last post is here.

April 17: Have you experienced ableism before? If so, how did it feel and how did you handle it?

Yes! Actually, it made my childhood so bad that my brain decided to forget it. So, clearly nothing to write about here.

April 18: Discuss how you felt when you felt when you first learnt you were autistic vs how you feel now.

I’m not good at the whole “remembering how I feel” thing. My memories of my feelings are all semantic memory. I know as a 6th grader I thought autism was super cool and I read a whole autobiography of an autistic savant because I wanted to find out more about it (Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammett). After a lot of intense research, I decided that I couldn’t conclusively self-diagnose, and regretfully slinked away back into not understanding or advocating for my needs. Sometime later, an actually autistic coworker of mine looked at me for like five (5) minutes, and was like, “Hey, have you been diagnosed with autism yet?” I’ve since adopted her as my second mom, for that and other reasons. I’ve had very few moments in my life when I was sad to have an autistic trait, and I got over it fairly quickly.

April 19: Talk about scripting. Is scripting something that you normally do? What kind of situations do you have a script for? Does it help you?

People don’t like my apologies, so I have a couple apology scripts saved. Otherwise I tend to just wing it and fail spectacularly. The apology scripts tend to sound… scripted, but they’re better than just doing it myself, I think.

April 20: Discuss stimming. In what ways do you stim? What does stimming mean to you? What do individual stims that you do mean? Do you have any stim toys? What would you like people to know about stimming?

Pressure stims are the most important stims for me. I’m more likely to be squeezing a part of my body than not. If nothing else, I can cross my legs tight and squeeze them together. This doesn’t have any specific function; it’s just something I do that makes me feel better. When I’m stressed, I do it more.

I also do motion stims. Often my way of locomotion is more like dancing. This is a little strange, because I don’t otherwise dance. I always feel happy, relaxed, and in control when I do that. When I’m sad or tired, my feet are too heavy for it. I am also very animate with my hands when I talk. When I taught English in Hungary for the first time, the first question I was asked whether all Americans talk with their hands as much as I do. (I don’t think they do. I have it on good authority from at least one American I trust utterly that the way I use my hands is rather unique.)

I have two improvised stim toys for pressure stimming (a scarf for wrapping very tight around limbs, and a butterknife for applying waves of uniform pressure). I also recently found one of those head scratchy thingies, and now I use it every five minutes or so. It’s a little inconvenient with headphones on, but I’m rather creative with it, anyway. I don’t actually like light touch or tickles, but generally the head scratchy thingy can be given enough pressure to provide a substantial stimulus.

April 21: Give a shoutout to some of your favorite autism blogs/autistic bloggers

UM. HMM. Like 10-50% of the people I follow are autistic, but hell if I can remember any of their handles.

I reblog from @nonbinary-hawke and their native issues-related sideblog @finding-my-culture like multiple times a day but I’m pretty sure they kinda just tolerate me? I’m mostly cut off from the actual native community I’m supposed to be part of (the Siberian one), so I try to follow American native issues with kind of a “not my lane but I’m still sympathetic” vibe, and their blogs are most of my way of keeping in touch. But we have a lot of other random things in common too; similar age, similar neurotype, similar fandoms, etc. So I’m pretty much always gonna have a platonic tumblr crush on them, given that and how much I respect their principles.

@autisticadvocacy is ASAN’s official blog, I think, and it’s always posting useful and relevant articles.

@autisticjoy and @autismisaokay are two blogs I’ve followed for most of my time on tumblr. I get the majority of my autism-related content from them.

@autistic-noodle is the first autism-related blog I ever followed! I highly recommend her; if I haven’t unfollowed her after all this time, then that means that they’ve never reblogged anything that’s triggered me, which is pretty darn impressive.

@bogleech is my favorite webcomic artist, which is a vaunted honor coming from someone with ¾ of a special interest in webcomics. I’m not actually sure if he’s autistic, but he posts enough autism-related content to justify being on this list one way or another.

I’ve definitely learned at least one useful thing from @autisticlifehack. What was it? Who knows?

@autistic-flirting is very cute, if not very active.

Shout out to @tikibats and @dreamfriend, who I actually know IRL.

April 22: What are some social rules that do not make sense to you/that you don't understand?

I’m, uh. Actually not sure? I can usually explain stuff if I think hard enough. There’s some stuff I’ve never bothered to figure out, but none of it’s so pressing that I can actually remember it.

Oh! Actually! One night during freshman year of college, I went to the computer lab to do my homework in a not-at-all-revealing bathrobe. I’ve received several explanations on why this was wrong, but I don’t remember any of them.

April 23: Do you have any internal rules? What are they?

LOTS, wow. If I didn’t have them, I wouldn’t have any shred of consistency whatsoever. I am nothing but these rules. Some of them feel more like strong opinions that can be taken or left, like the ones pertaining to writing style, but even those I follow 99% of the time. They range from really foundational moral ones like, “Everything with a mind intrinsically deserves your friendship and understanding,” and, “Every neurotype deserves to exist,” to, “Always wrap code to 80 columns (unless it’s highly nested like Lisp, in which case consider 100 columns),” and, “When mixing fruit flavor tea, always pour the syrup before the tea.” It’s quite the hodgepodge.

April 24: Talk about community. What does the autistic community mean to you? Is it important? How does it feel?

I haven’t had much of a chance to actually participate in any autistic community yet. I don’t even really participate in the tumblr autistic community. It’s just sorta me, my second mom, and a couple random people I get to see occasionally. (Also, my dad, but we don’t talk about my dad.) Most of my friends are neurodivergent in some way, though, so I’m happy with the people I have. (Not that I don’t enjoy hanging around neurotypical people, too. But it feels good to not have to work to make yourself be understood.)

April 25: Do you know any other autistic people off the internet? Is anyone else in your family autistic or are you the only one? Do you wish you knew more?

See yesterday’s answer! I wouldn’t do this if I were doing these day by day, but I’m totally justified here, because it’s literally the previous paragraph.

April 26: In what ways can allistic people better accommodate you and other autistic people? What would you consider helpful?

It’s a broad question. My mom has been getting better at not punishing me for my autistic traits, but the other day she still antagonized me for stimming at the dinner table. (I’m 22. Nearly 23.) So it’d be great if she didn’t do things like that. Not even gonna talk about what my dad could do better. (The ways he does accomodate me seem unintentional.)

Outside of that, I appreciate it when people give me very clearly-worded instructions, broken down into small steps, with every possible detail specified. I appreciate it even more when those instructions are in written form, because I can only remember two or three of those when they’re spoken aloud.

I appreciate it when food places with complex menus have the option to just sit down with the menu, without a time limit, and make up your order. Sandwich and wrap places, like Subway, make me very uncomfortable for reason; Subway has an extremely combinatorically complex menu, and you’re expected to make up your order while they’re making the sandwich. I’d like to spend some time staring at a sheet with each sandwich ingredient listed and explained, and the ways they can be combined, first.

The current switch to online classes has been great for my ability to understand lectures, and terrible for my ability to do classwork and homework. Hearing the lecture through headphones circumvents most of my auditory processing issues, and seeing the lecture slides clearly circumvents most of my attention issues. But when it comes to doing classwork and homework, executive dysfunction rules me. I do wish my executive dysfunction were better accomodated for even in the case of normal classes (and probably careers), but it’s hard to guess what form that would take. I’ve run out of brainpower for good ideas.

For the rest of the month I will do these questions daily, one at a time. Hopefully.

#2020 #30daysofautismacceptance

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meta-shadowsong · 4 years

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On Change for the Jedi Order

Specifically in Relation to Nontraditional/Latecomer Students

So, there’s a commentary that’s been floating around lately, that examines whether the Jedi Order/culture should change purely because of Anakin’s issues integrating (and later issues as an adult, some of which are related). And if that were the question, then the answer is probably no--as these commentaries have pointed out, the vast majority of Jedi don’t have that kind of trouble and are, so far as we the audience can tell, happy/fulfilled. Or, if not, they’re willing and able to depart under peaceful circumstances. And, as has also been pointed out, if they did adapt to the changing galaxy in the ways that fandom, with its external viewpoint, would suggest, who’s to say Palpatine wouldn’t be thinking five steps ahead of them and have a contingency plan in place? (The man does love his contingency plans, I gotta say.)

These are valid points, particularly in terms of some of the doctrines/requirements placed on adults/full Jedi (i.e., no marriage, etc.) that tend to catch a lot of criticism, but I feel like there’s a piece missing from this conversation. And that’s a consideration of other nontraditional/latecomer students (and/or nonstudents who are rejected for being too old), aside from Anakin. Because, from where I’m standing, the evidence indicates that the traditionalist Jedi Order, as it is at the fall of the Republic, is not super great at helping them integrate.

Before I get into my actual examples/analysis, I want to say that I don’t think this is from a lack of compassion or effort on the part of the Order. I do believe that, once a nontraditional student is accepted, they are given support in terms of that integration. I just don’t think it’s very effective support, because I don’t think that the Order, as it stands at that point, is very well set up for it.

Second, I want to say that the reason why this matters is that there’s a not-insignificant implication that not all potential candidates are identified within the acceptable age range; and therefore some unknown, and possibly significant (in proportion to the size of the Order itself) number of people are actually affected by this policy. I’ve touched on this before, but the fact that Palpatine (who comes from a) a Republic sector capital, b) a culture that highly values children, and c) parents with means) is never identified indicates that there are some significant gaps in the search process; probably particularly for populations that are more likely to slip through the cracks in a society like the Republic (i.e., the deep underlevels of Coruscant; remote farming/mining communities that are essentially Space Appalachia; etc.)

I should also mention, as a caveat, that we unfortunately have very few examples of nontraditional students within canon, so it’s admittedly not the greatest sample size in the world--I came up with five, which I will discuss at some length. But the sample sizes for any discussion on this subject are pretty small (I think we have personal information/significant canon detail on maybe a hundred members (i.e., ~1%) of the Jedi Order of this period?), so assumptions have to be made regardless. The way I’m defining my five examples is that they are students who came to the Jedi Path later than the traditional Order would typically allow, and they were trained/raised by Jedi Masters who were themselves traditionally trained (so far as we know).

Okay. Moving on.

So, the five nontraditional students we see in any detail are Anakin, Rael Avaross, Luke, Ezra, and Ventress.

With Anakin and Rael, we see a failure to adapt to the culture. Again, this is despite a genuine effort given on the part of their teachers. Admittedly, I’m less familiar with Rael, since I haven’t gotten around to reading Dooku Lost myself, but I’ve read enough excerpts and analyses that I feel like I have a general idea of what’s going on. Basically, my understanding is that he has some of the same issues Anakin has, relating to the family he left behind, and wanting things that are out of step with Jedi values. And, yes, at least with Anakin, Palpatine’s manipulations play a role in that. But the fact that he’s not the only example indicates (to me, at least) that it’s not the only factor in play here.

Obviously, this disconnect does not in any way excuse what Anakin (or Rael) later does, when he comes to a crisis point. I’m not trying to say that.

What I am trying to say is that I think this is an issue of conflicting expectations, and a fundamental miscommunication/disconnect despite genuine effort, particularly in the early stages, that leaves nontraditional students with a shaky foundation even if/when they find workarounds to appear like things are on track. Because the fact is that the Jedi Order typically takes in very small children, who can absorb most of these cultural norms essentially by osmosis, through a combination of infant neuroplasticity and the Force. An older child needs a different approach, and I’m not sure that the Jedi Order actually has the tools it needs to adapt their teaching style effectively to those circumstances. Especially when trying to integrate someone into a close-knit, fairly isolated/insular culture, which is difficult for an outsider/newcomer under the best of circumstances, on top of the new modes of behavior/emotional processing/etc. And, given how few nontraditional students there are, this is definitely a factor.

So, then it becomes sort of a feedback loop--older/nontraditional students have trouble adapting, which means the Jedi Order is less likely to take them on in the future, which means any they do take in have further troubles, etc., etc. Legends sort of indicated how this cycle started; canon has not; but frankly it’s a chicken-and-egg situation as of the period we’re talking about. Once that cycle does start, it’s hard to break.

Which brings me to my next set of examples, and the reason I think this is at least in part an issue in the Jedi Order’s teaching style.

Luke and Ezra are also nontraditional students, who are taught by traditionally-trained masters. And they are both successful.

And maybe, in part, that comes down to some quirk in personality that they share that Anakin and Rael don’t. But there’s also the fact that (due to genuinely horrific circumstances; and I will interrupt myself here and now to say that, while I do advocate for change on this particular issue, I don’t think the catalyst for change had to be, let alone should have been, what it was; but in canon, it was a catalyst for a change in approach), their masters had to adapt traditional teachings and values into a somewhat nontraditional framework. One reason I lean more towards the second/change in approach as the stronger factor--and, granted, we don’t have many specific examples to cite; plus they don’t fit technically my established definition--is that Luke’s new Academy would pretty much have to be all nontraditional students, and, so far as I can tell, the vast majority of them seem to have been successful, or on their way there, until Kylo Ren happened.

So, that leads to the conclusion that there’s an issue in how traditional Jedi Order teachings/teaching styles work with nontraditional students. Meaning, the Jedi Order of the late Republic era has difficulty in adapting said styles to the needs of the few older candidates they do take in, though not for lack of trying.

At this point, I’ll interrupt myself again to say that adjusting these practices might have an impact on the children who are brought in at a more typical age, and there’s possibly a balance to be struck between the needs of those students and the needs of these others. The way the culture is structured now does seem to be beneficial for the majority of students brought in the usual way, and fixing this flaw might open another, which might be more detrimental in the long run. And if there were any viable alternatives for training and support, that would be the end of it, as far as I was concerned. But the fact is--there aren’t. Pretty much all other Force-adepts we see seem to be closed ethnoreligious groups (or Sith). So I think an increase in flexibility in the early-stage teaching style/age limit for adoption is actually of a net benefit. Whether or not any changes are made to the broader framework/culture past that period, which is a separate discussion.

And that brings me to Ventress, my final example, who is much more complicated and harder to discuss due to several key pieces of evidence that are missing.

Where does she fit into all of this?

The implication in her flashbacks seem to be that she does pretty well with Ky Narec, who--without the same awful circumstances pushing his choices--adapts and uses a non-traditional/one-on-one approach with her, rather than trying to bring her to the Temple and integrate her into the culture right away.

Of course, there are a couple of issues with this. One, Ventress falls apart when he dies, so his approach also clearly had some flaws. Two, her memories may not be the most reliable/she might not be a super reliable narrator. Three, we are missing so much information about how and in what order everything went down.

First, why did Ky Narec make the choices he did? One explanation is that he had no way off the planet/no long-range communications and couldn’t contact the rest of the Order. I find this hard to believe for two reasons: how did Ventress then get offplanet after he died; and how did she get onto the planet in the first place? Someone there has a connection with the wider galaxy, and if Ky Narec really wanted to make contact, I’m sure he could’ve found a way.

So, why didn’t he? Was it because he knew Ventress was too old, and he felt he lacked the standing/social or political capital to convince the Council to accept her anyway? Was that assessment accurate on his part? Alternatively, did he think he could get her accepted, but felt that some training on their own before trying to integrate her into the broader culture was the better approach; and then he died before he could complete that process? Was he already thinking about leaving (as did the Lost Twenty), and she was what pushed him to actually take that step? I’m sure there are other possible explanations, but those are the ones that jump to mind.

Second, what did he tell her? What were her expectations for if/when they finally made contact with the Order? Did he warn her that her training was unauthorized and the Order would not accept her (whether or not that was actually true)?

Third, what did she actually do when he died? Did she try to reach out to the Order? Did she assume that there was no point? Did she reach out to her sisters on Dathomir? (From what I recall, most likely not, but it’s been a while since I watched the relevant TCW episodes.) Did she go straight to Dooku?

Fourth, when she did finally contact Dooku, was she seeking him out as a former Jedi who might have some understanding and compassion for her situation, or was she seeking him out as a Sith Lord/Dark Side adept? (Unless that’s actually covered in her flashbacks as well; again, I might be misremembering/have forgotten.)

So…yeah. It’s really hard to evaluate this question fully without more information on how everything with Ventress went down. But all the other evidence does indicate a disconnect.

I guess my point in all of this was…no, it’s not right for an entire culture to have to change everything for one person. But on the other hand, there’s something to be said for a test case/case study that draws attention to an existing flaw in the structure. And Anakin, while the most visible, isn’t actually the only one here.

Also...on a more general note, cultures are dynamic. They do change over time. Sometimes very rapidly, when change is forced by external pressures, sometimes more organically, by gradual internal shifts. So, the implication that the culture of the Jedi Order should remain exactly as it is as of the late Republic because that’s the best possible way for it to be, no matter how much the broader culture of the galaxy and/or their role in it might shift, feels…a little off to me. Especially since the war itself was already an impetus for change. The postwar Jedi Order was almost certainly going to be somewhat different from the prewar Order; how drastic or subtle that change would be without Anakin making all the wrong choices is a little harder to determine. And--look, I know I’m citing Legends here, because canon has yet to provide deep (i.e., 100+ years pre-TPM) backstory, but some of these things already have shifted over time, in response to both internal and external pressures. The age limit for taking in initiates/apprentices being one of them.

...but I’ll admit that that last paragraph may be me misinterpreting/reading too much into some of the posts and my There Is No One True Way button getting pushed again whether or not it’s merited in this case XD

Anyway, tangent aside, I just wanted to highlight why I feel this particular issue should be addressed, even if the expected cultural norms/code of conduct for Jedi who have integrated into the culture remain the same. Because, yeah, those seem to work out for most members, and the option to leave is there for those who have issues.

But the problem of latecomers/nontraditional students, particularly when there aren’t really any other options available to them for training and support, and there are an unknown (but possibly significant, in proportion to the size of the Order itself) number out there, is still a Thing.

((Also, one last tangent re: why this matters/is a Thing…look, applying IRL issues/politics/history and so on to Star Wars can be a weird/hinky/YMMV thing, apart from certain direct/explicit/obviously intentional parallels, and in general I try to avoid doing it--and, like, earlier today, I had to stop myself from going off on a long tangent about the Constitutions of Clarendon and Thomas Becket on a semi-related post about Ahsoka; if I want to do it, I can--but given the issues older kids/teenagers have being adopted IRL, and given the idea that baby Jedi are essentially adoptees, the fact that older kids are excluded is a little…yeah.))

#fandom #star wars #originally posted february 2020

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morebedsidebooks · 5 years

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Some Publishing History of Sailor Moon in English

Part 1 of 8 of my comparison of volume one of the Sailor Moon Eternal Edition

Bishoujosenshi Sailor Moon by Naoko Takeuchi began publication in Japan in 1992 in the girls’ magazine Nakayoshi published by Kodansha, coming in by completion at 18 compiled volumes and since undergoing several editions as well as licensed in multiple languages.

The first 18 volume Mixx/Tokyopop USA Pocket Edition began in 1998 (the English Sailor Moon serialised the year before that in MixxZine, plus a more American comics single issue format as was standard at the time and subsequently other publications).

It was a product of its time with many changes, subtle slights or just general poor quality in all areas as a devotee populated frontier during the previous years in publishing Japanese comics in North America turned boomtown. The circumstances were so uneasy I remember readers being suspicious of things that there was no reason to think were deviations if you had read the original. Few in English-speaking fandom back at the turn of the millennium were apparently capable or, willing to refute all the incorrect chatter though leading to a kind of infamy. People accuse Stu “Whaddya Mean Dude” Levy of being the devil for a variety of reasons but, the edition of Sailor Moon from his company, while heavier handed than some other translated editions, is more a fascinating case study rather than amounting to being one of the evils. (Though the balls of acting like they had an exclusive interview with Ms. Takeuchi, or making it seem she addressed Mixx readers in the side panel comments!) Even in its filtered form in the process of its success Sailor Moon and other girls’ comics from Japan ended up in the hands of countless teenage readers across the Anglosphere, one form part of inspiring a generation to take an interest in storytelling, art, language or, who found in the characters something in themselves and now as adults are creating, teaching, standing tall and inspiring the next.

So, it was a big deal in 2011 when the Sailor Moon comic came back into print in English courtesy of Kodansha Comics USA touting an edition possessing an “incredibly accurate translation” and that was “completely true to the original”.

The 14 volume English release based on the 10th anniversary Japanese edition published during the live-action TV series in Japan from 2003 had some advantages and improvements over the Tokyopop USA edition such as the larger page count per book, color pages, revised art, and a philosophy of localization suffering less from Occidentalism. (Though on the other hand heavy reliance on a reader googling, as the CEO once advocated, is not an approach I feel like endorsing since accessibility and immersion is vital.) Sell the KC USA edition did but, it wasn’t as if the bar was set necessarily high in the first place by the previous OOP edition from a defunct publisher (at least at the time in North America). Unfortunately, the marketing from KC USA didn’t quite fit with the reality of its product containing a few missteps in translation, unnatural dialogue, as well as grammar, spelling and punctuation errors, inconsistency, lettering mishaps and even printing errors. Along with the question as to why some content like comments or the afterward strip specific to the 2003 Japanese release were absent. Eventually an explanation was given, Ms. Takeuchi didn’t wish for it to be included. The public also started to grasp at pieces of a much bigger picture of what was behind, as I described at the time, bad déjà vu with books being of a quality level more common a decade prior. KC USA hadn’t been established relatively all that very long back then and it showed, probably also to the exasperation of anyone (and there were veterans in the industry on the team) working hard on the edition. So once again there were a lot of exchanges about publisher styles, fanbase demands, target audience, lexicon, difficult deadlines and bureaucratic or language barriers between colleagues. Oh, and memes.

But time goes on. In 2013 for the 20th Anniversary back in Japan a new, pretty, A5 sized Perfect Edition of 10 volumes restoring more colour art and with again new cover illustrations was released.

Then the Bilingual Japanese/English Edition in 2017 crediting the same English translator who handled a number of volumes in the 2011 KC USA edition.

So KC USA had additional chances beyond the revisions done for reprintings (there have been several btw). After some delays, in September 2018 the huge, shimmering, much anticipated first volume of the Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Edition hit the street.

The question of course being does it live up to its name? I couldn’t be happier to say yes! (Seriously pictures do no do it justice.) So, if you’re interested in in a longer but, not all-encompassing comparison of the first volume I’m breaking it down Act by Act in following posts.

#girls comics #shôjo manga #pretty guardian sailor moon #naoko takeuchi #美少女戦士セーラームーン #bishoujosenshi sailor moon #武内直子

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sunshine-captain · 6 years

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Hi! I asked Phoenix (horsegirlharry) for fic recs about star trek tos and she sent me to you! I am a new fan and in desperate need for some good fics since I am having a hard time finding them. I would be very grateful if you could link me to some. Thank you in advance

Oh my goodness!!! Hello my friend! I’m honored Phoenix directed you to me, I really am! To tell you the truth, they’re the one that actually convinced me to watch TOS from the start. Welcome to the fandom!!

To start off with, here is a lovely rec blog that is exclusively TOS (that I’m a mod on, so I am of course biased, but I loved the blog even before I was added, haha!) It’s not updated that often at the moment, usually just when I have some spare time, but there’s a lot of recs already added to look through, and there are plenty of tags to maybe let you look for tropes or genres that you like. :)

Alright, here go the recs!

Sha Ka Ree The year is 2258. Jim Kirk is a Lieutenant on the U.S.S. Farragut, Spock the science officer of the U.S.S. Enterprise. When the ships come together for a priority landing party, these two strangers find themselves fighting against the odds for a chance at life in an alien world, and the only way they’ll make it through is by relying on each other. This is a TOS fic that takes place seven years before the show begins. It’s one of my favorite fics ever, it’s beautiful and just perfect. It’s a lovely slow burn, and it contains one of my fave tropes: Jim (Kirk) and Spock crash on an alien world and get stranded there. So, so highly recommended! Honestly, that writer is amazing and anything by them I recommend.

Crash and Burn As the Enterprise’s celebrated voyage winds down, the tension between her captain and first officer escalates, and three days aboard Jupiter’s premier lunar station will change everything. Jim doesn’t handle change very well. Slow-build, character-study prelude to the Lost Years and TMP. Unhappy ending, but canon functions as a fix-it! As the summary states, this fic doesn’t end happily. But it’s basically an explanation as to why Spock does what he does prior to The Motion Picture (I’m not sure if you’ve seen the movies so I won’t clarify just in case you haven’t, haha!), which also means there is a happy ending after the events of the movies. I had it in my bookmarks under the tag I use for fics that hurt me (literally ‘ow’, lol) so apparently I found it pretty painful. ;__;

The Squire of Eros An old nemesis pays a social call to the Enterprise just in time for the annual Valentine’s Day party. On this occasion it’s Spock who draws the brunt force of his irritating personality. But when his holiday-inspired antics turn dangerous, it’s up to the Captain and crew to take him down, and Jim is forced to confront his long-evaded desires regarding his first officer. Written for the K/S Valentine Challenge at LJ, beta’d by purple_spock. This one isn’t even remotely as serious as the other two. It’s honestly just a lot of humor and lightheartedness for the most part. It features Trelane from TOS paying another visit to the crew. :D

Definitions “We call it t'hy'la,” Spock says. This one is so beautiful. It’s a relatively short oneshot (under 10k) but it’s so romantic and in character and just perfect (this author is another one of my favorites, I would read anything at all by them.)

Pattern Deviations A mind meld is the most intimate of any possible connection – to know and be known, wholly and completely. Usually, melds are advocated for leading to increased understanding and empathy. Spock wonders what it means, then, that everyone he melds with is so repulsed by his mind… Until he meets James Kirk, anyway. This is by the same writer as Definitions; another lovely oneshot by them. I love it!

And I Am Also Quite Blind In the aftermath of Spock’s blinding in Operation Annihilate, Jim tries to help him through his pain. A fic with premise that Spock doesn’t handily recover from his blindness in Operation Annihilate. Lengthy, painful, excellent. I try to avoid WIPs because I can’t deal with the pain of fics that are NEVER FINISHED, but I started reading this one when it was only halfway through and man, it sucked me in. Worth it! (And it has been completed now, so no worries, haha.)

Undone During first contact with the highly telepathic Nghians, an invasion begins on their home world. A powerful psychic attack cripples the populace–and Spock.Out of contact with the Enterprise and stranded on a planet at war, Jim must struggle to keep himself and his violent, unpredictable first officer alive. Another of my favorite writers! I love this fic. Lengthy, excellent, and that favorite trope of mine again (being stranded, heh), this is great. Please note the tags, though!

What I Am To You I say, “Ask me anything, Spock,” for perhaps the fifth time.This time, you respond, your gaze bright and penetrating, “Perhaps you could satisfy my curiosity in–one particular.”“Of course,” I say enthusiastically.You seem perfectly calm as you ask, “How long have we been lovers?” And I am certain I have heard you correctly, even as I struggle not to allow my astonishment to show on my face. Takes place after the events of the third movie. Spock tries to make sense of his and Jim’s relationship.

Spice It’s a question of biology. Vulcan biology.The problem with falling in love with a member of an insanely private species is that it just might take you the best part of a five year mission to work out that the feelings are requited. And then you might discover that he’s already decided that the two of you can never be together.And what are you supposed to do if he won’t tell you why? Honestly, I’m reccing this one with…some trepidation. I never did decide whether I actually liked the fic or not, but I know a lot of people do like it. It’s most definitely one of the longest fics I’ve ever read in this fandom. It’s the SLOWEST OF ALL SLOW BURNS, which you said you liked, and even though it made me SO ANGRY at one point that I almost threw my phone across the room when one plot twist happened, it’s well written and in character. The reason behind it all is…kind of silly, in all honesty, but it makes complete sense why Spock thinks it would be best if Jim wasn’t with him, just like him to be so overprotective. *sigh* I’d say definitely give it a try and see if you get sucked in!

Translating Ennoia Spock intends to resign his commission with Starfleet six months into the Enterprise’s mission. Then he meets Captain Kirk – his t'hy'la – and everything becomes infinitely more complex. This author again! This fic has lots of pining. I love pining. And I love happy endings and romance and watching Jim and Spock’s friendship develop, too, and this fic has all of that.

Dirty Laundry Jim keeps leaving dirty dishes in the sink and toast crumbs in the bed. Spock deals with the mess silently until an unfortunate ironing incident puts it all in perspective. Jim and Spock have to adjust to domestic life. Spock has to adjust to Jim’s messiness. Domestic Spirk is always wonderful, and I enjoy that in this one it’s not all perfect at first. They have to adjust and learn to actually live together.

Breaking Tradition Newlyweds James T. Kirk and Spock spend their Holiday shore leave alone together in a remote cabin once belonging to Jim’s grandparents. They learn more about each other and Jim introduces his new husband to the Winter Holiday traditions - even if he doesn’t quite understand why he take part in them himself. An unexpected event occurs that disrupts the couple’s newlywed bliss. Luckily, one of them has experience with taking charge of a situation. This one is sooo sweet. Jim just wants to share Christmas with Spock, but they have a mishap. But it’s okay, because Jim takes good care of Spock. (Features cold!Spock, one of my favorite things. :3 )

Ghost in the Machine Tom Paris stumbles upon a Pandora’s Box of loss and regret. This fic is the outlier in this list; it’s actually a crossover of sorts between TOS and VOY. I’ve not actually watched Voyager yet, but that doesn’t stop me from reading and enjoying the fic, so please don’t let that stop you! Let me tell you, though, this has to be one of the most painful fics I’ve ever read. It just makes me cry for Jim and Spock both. It’s so painful. But also really great. But I totally understand if you don’t want to read this one, haha! It’s not for everyone. It messed me up though, I kept thinking about it for days. Especially Jim as he is in this fic. Ugh.

Home Renovation Shortly before his first mission to Romulus, Spock buys a fixer-upper house with Jim. Although Jim is excited to begin renovating their new home, Spock worries it’s only a matter of time before his husband falls off a ladder and breaks his spine. Not to mention, the house’s derelict state is preventing Spock from enjoying his remaining time with Jim. Old Married Spirk, protective!Spock, perfection.

To Be Wed “With a human ruling alongside King Sarek, it makes sense that they would want a Vulcan to rule alongside you. Look on the bright side. At least it’s not Sybok."Prince S'chn T'gai Spock and Crown Prince Sam Kirk are pushed by their families into an awkward courtship, sure to become an awkward marriage. Meanwhile, the younger Terran prince just wants to make sure his future brother-in-law feels comfortable in his new home. But unfortunately for Jim, the road to hopeless, unrequited love is paved with good intentions. It’s an AU, obviously, and it’s by the same author as Sha Ka Ree (who as I mentioned is one of my favorite writers) and I just adore this fic, it’s so great! Pining, slowly getting to watch Jim and Spock falling in love even when it’s ill advised, Sybok!! I’m also just a total sucker for royalty AUs so that helps.

In My Own Skin After the events of Turnabout Intruder, Jim is trapped in Janice Lester’s body indefinitely and has to learn to carry on with his normal life and duties trapped in this body. Established relationship with Spock, but things become understandably difficult as a result of Jim’s situation. Complicating matters even further, the Enterprise is assigned to a difficult diplomatic mission with a new member of the Federation. I don’t know about everyone else, but my brain definitely went “what if Jim was stuck in that body…” after watching Turnabout Intruder, and this fic definitely satisfied that urge to see that explored.

Heat Trapped together in a cave until the storm ceases, Jim and Spock find some freedom outside the press of the ship and its responsibilities. Oh look….this writer again. :DDD You’re starting to notice a pattern here, I’m sure. This was written because of a prompt I gave, so obviously I’m a little biased, but it’s just SO perfect??? Cold!Spock, cuddling for warmth (another of my favorites, hello), and just so ROMANTIC that I almost can’t handle it.

Okay, those are all TOS, but now I have just a handful of AOS AUs:

Still, Like Dust Vulcans have been enslaved on Earth for more than fifty years. To Jim Kirk, 14, this is just one more chapter from his history book… until his uncle brings home a Vulcan boy to help on the farm. I know this fic isn’t for everyone, it definitely isn’t, but it really is a great read and I enjoyed reading it a lot. There’s a lot of pain, it’s true, but there’s also a happy ending, if that helps.

Inside The River Starfleet sends Jim a spouse and an oddly vacant honeymoon. Arranged marriage!AU, always fun, and an interesting mystery going on throughout. Great read!

That’s all I’ve got for you for now, this should be a start! Welcome again to the fandom, and I hope you find something in this list that you enjoy. :)

#slumber--parties #fic rec #space husbands #tos #and like two aos but i wont tag that lol #can't remember which tag i use for that...#long post #this got long sorry

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i-did-not-mean-to · 3 years

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Never say never - Chapter 9

Aaaah, the longfic of my heart...

Finally got the time to post the next chapter :D

Fandom: RPF - Richard Armitage

Characters: Richard Armitage x OC

Rating : Mature (but not yet)

Warnings: awkwardness, veiled insults, swallowed compliments

°9° ~Richard~

“I’m sorry if I come at a bad time.” He offered and, of course, now, his warm smile came easily to him.

“You looked pretty upset just now, so tell me everything that’s weighing on your heart as well.” Elizabeth sounded so terribly tired that all of his anger vanished in an instant.

“I’ve just come to tell you that you need to let go of your plan. Victoria clearly dislikes me and…it might be arrogant, but I don’t particularly enjoy being disliked.” He said in a low, careful voice.

“She doesn’t dislike you. She doesn’t know you. She’s scared of you.” Elizabeth replied calmly. When she looked up and saw the concern and the genuine hurt in his eyes though, she heaved a heavy sigh.

“She’s…Her life…” She struggled finding the words. “Her father is a mean man, and her husband has left her for a 20-something blonde after getting his big break. I should have known it.” She was obviously disgusted with herself.

“Because I am so mean or because I have so many blonde women in their twenties in my bed?” Richard asked pointedly.

He could not see the similarities between himself and those two men that had just been described in such unflattering terms. He was not prince charming, he was aware of that, but he didn’t appreciate being thrown together with people who sounded like proper scoundrels.

“Because you’re handsome.” Her tone made it very clear that she did not necessarily share that opinion. So…had Victoria called him handsome? Probably not, it was likelier that she had referenced Hiddleston, and Elizabeth had just assumed that he had been included in her assessment.

“It is unfair to her either way. Don’t try to make her meet people she doesn’t appreciate or who scare her.”

“Do you enjoy scaring women?” Elizabeth asked and he bristled. Naturally, he didn’t.

“In that case, I have done you both wrong it seems. If I had given her time to prepare and not sprung this on her, she might have been less panicked.” – “Well…yeah, she seemed terrified just now.”

Elizabeth had thought about that as well and would need to ponder this situation again, at home, with Angie.

There had been shock, that much was clear, but she had also read something else in the demeanour of her friend. She had not been completely wrong in her appraisal of Vic’s taste; she seemed clearly impressed.

“She has not expected you, that’s all. Neither did I, by the way.” Slowly, Elizabeth seemed to get her bearings again.

One never quite knew when that scheming glint would return to her eyes, but Richard was smart enough to be wary of her quick wit. She had not been handed her career on a silver platter; no, she had a particular skill when it came to the visualisation of a storyline. And Elizabeth was ruthless when it came to getting things done.

“I just came to advocate for her as she seems unaware of your plot. She’s your friend, don’t do this to her.” He pleaded softly, hoping that she would not pick up on his own hurt in this matter.

“I did not sell my friend. I am not a pimp, Richard. I just tried to coax her into a situation that might make her happy.” Elizabeth corrected him firmly, seemingly reading his mind and all the dark thoughts he was trying to hide.

“You failed; it made her miserable.” His voice was harder now and he cleared his throat to gain some time.

He had not wanted to put it like that, but now that she had spoken the words, he couldn’t deny that this had been part of his thought-process as well. She had literally offered Victoria like a sacrifice on the altar of whatever reason, only known to her.

“I had imagined it differently, that much is true.” Elizabeth nodded slowly. Richard felt attacked; even though Elizabeth had not said anything about her own expectations pertaining to him, his own insecurities were wreaking havoc on his mind since the previous night. Had she hoped that he’d be anywhere near as suave and charming as Hiddleston?

What could he have done differently? She had never directly spoken to him or engaged in a conversation with him. He had not come up with a funny pun or an alternative scenario she could evade into…

“I have been worried about her. I didn’t quite know what to do or say…” He tried to justify himself when he had never been accused of anything. Elizabeth gave him a broad, sly smile in reply to his stammered explanations.

He couldn’t help being a considerate person, he did not have the skill of comforting people easily; especially when he was ill at ease himself, putting others at ease was not always self-evident, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t care.

Victoria had been distressed and he had been very aware that he was part of the reasons why, so of course, he had not forced her to engage with him. His aim had been damage-control; he had tried to limit the harm suffered by that strange woman by not jostling any of the invisible and unintelligible stop signs around her.

“Are you hurt?” Elizabeth blindsided him with that one, he had to admit, and he blinked a few times before uttering a vague grunt to get her to explain what she meant by that. “I told Vic that she had been unkind, and she was afraid that she had hurt people’s feelings.”

Well, she can’t help disliking me, Richard thought, but yes, she might have endeavoured to not show her disapproval quite so plainly. “As I said, I do not rejoice that she finds me loathsome.” He answered evasively.

Somehow, it felt imprudent and indecent to talk about his feelings with this woman he barely knew. That kind of discussion had no place in the workplace, and after the stunt she had pulled, Elizabeth did not strike him as the most reliable and trustworthy of people to confide in either.

“She doesn’t. I can promise you that much. Nobody does.” Elizabeth’s deep eyes were warm now, swirling whiskey, and her voice had the smoky quality of that very same beverage.

“She literally said “It’s you” and “Oh no” not ten minutes ago, must I remind you?” Richard shot back, dismayed at how petulant and vexed that sounded. That was definitely not the way he wanted to deal with this.

“Again, we did not expect you. We both felt a bit caught as we had been talking about you.” Elizabeth conceded.

“Oh, I’ve caught the end of her BEGGING you to keep your, I quote, “old men” away from her. I am not paranoid here, Elizabeth, there are very clear signs that she’d shoot me to the moon just to avoid ever seeing me again.”

“Aah, yes, so…she did hurt your feelings. Well, we did.” Elizabeth murmured in a hushed voice, letting her lids fall slowly to her cheeks in a perfect picture of penitence. Her mind was racing, no doubt, as her fingers tapped the desk in a frantic staccato.

“Let me clear this up.” She said in a business-like tone and typed furiously numbers and combinations into the phone on her desk. Richard thought about how funny it was that she’d still use that relic, but when the ringing tone resounded, his mind snapped back to the present with acuity.

~Victoria~

She was trembling head to toe. Was that man everywhere? Would he haunt her now for real?

It had been less than 24 hours, but she had dreamt about his face and the discreet smell of him seemed to follow her doggedly. He was like some perversion of the bogeyman; she had come to expect and dread him at every corner and behind every closed door.

How ridiculous; he seemed as tall as a tree to her and yet, he had the nasty habit of sneaking up on her, just to stand there, silent, and glorious, like a statue made of flesh and bone. She had talked of dolls made of hard plastic, she had thought of marble, but no comparison really captured the amount of vitality that man carried in his stillness.

Victoria looked at hairdryers with such intensity for such a long time – all the while daydreaming about the way Richard had not even really swayed when she had bumped into him with all the momentum of fleeing prey – that an assistant came to hover at her elbow, afraid that she’d make off with the exposition unit.

Tearing herself from both the blind contemplation of hairdryers and the mental sketching of that scowling face that had hovered too close for comfort for a millisecond, Victoria made her way to the electronics that actually interested her.

The inspiration came quite naturally to her; she would buy a huge TV and a treadmill and watch movies while running in that drawing room she never used. Maybe, she could get a fainting couch just for good measure.

She ended up ordering all the electronics and made her way to a nearby furniture store where she found a beautiful, antique chaise longue with vivid purple upholstery and a bookshelf the movers would have a hard time getting upstairs.

Shrugging, she bought both nonetheless, ignoring the calls that made her whole purse vibrate. Finally, she decided to allow herself the pleasure of roaming a bit in the bookshop as well, to fill that new bookshelf with all the soppy, irrational stories her father loathed so deeply.

First, she had to take that call though, she knew it, but when she read Liza’s name on the display, her heart sank.

“What have I done now?” She asked, defeated, as soon as she had picked up.

“I don’t know, what have you done?” Liza replied with a smile in her voice. “I have bought furniture, a lot of it.” Victoria confessed with a sigh, nodding at the waiter of the small café belonging to the bookshop who wriggled a cup and a bag of tea at her as she sat down on a wrought-iron chair on the sidewalk to talk to Liza.

“What for?” Liza sounded genuinely interested now, and Victoria could imagine her leaning back in her office chair to hear of her newest folly. “To never be unprepared again. I bought another TV, a big one, a treadmill, a DVD player, a bookshelf, and an actual fainting couch.” Victoria laughed. “I intend to binge all of those soppy movies.”

“You wouldn’t? Who is this talking and what have you done to my friend?” Liza exclaimed in mock shock.

“Oh, stop it, you cow! Did you really think that you could introduce me to some of the most shockingly handsome men to ever have walked the face of God’s green earth without me doing my research afterwards?” Vic jeered.

“Most shockingly handsome, yes? Ah, music to my ears. While on the subject, I have Armitage still here with me.”

Stunned silence.

“He is of the opinion that you do not like him well; he looks like a kicked puppy. What have you to say to that?”

Victoria heard the click of the speakerphone being activated and cleared her throat, swallowing all the curses she had been about to loosen on her friend for letting her talk on and on with the very man in the room.

“Good day to you, Sir. I cannot like or dislike him, I’ve hardly spoken to the man.” Vic then replied, addressing her friend again as she was the person she was in a conversation with.

“That might be the reason why he thinks you loathe him.” Liza suggested, which made Vic snort with derision.

“I do not loathe him; how would I loathe someone I don’t even know?” Vic shook her head and took a sip of the scalding tea that had been placed before her a moment earlier.

“Your reactions have been less than positive this far.” Liza objected, watching Richard grow paler by the second. He did not seem familiar with the way women sometimes handled things, especially women as open and impatient as her.

“Well, they were, as you so aptly put it, “reactions”; I have never consciously “acted”. He’s been like that fairy-tale wolf lurking in the shadows, and I had a right to be weary.” Victoria grumbled.

“Does that make you Red Riding Hood, Vic?” Liza purred, imagining Victoria slaying poor, old Richard.

Victoria sighed. What was expected of her?

“Well, it’s too late for all of that now. Tell the man that I bear him no ill-will and let it lie.” Victoria was eager to get into the bookshop now, and she was growing impatient with her friend’s aimless prattling.

“Alright then, he still looks a bit upset. Do you have any nice thing to say to him as a parting gift?” Liza asked with a tone of finality that made Victoria’s heart soar. She would be dismissed soon enough, she only had to be gracious first.

“Erm…” Victoria reviewed her previous interactions with Richard in her mind. “He’s very pleasant and polite.”

Even to her own ears, her words sounded more like a thinly veiled insult than like a compliment, but she didn’t dare backpedal now. It would have to be good enough, he would have to believe that she meant well.

How would he know though? Already, he thought that she disliked him, and her half-arsed compliment wouldn’t convince him otherwise. No doubt, Liza would tell him that she found him beautiful…not that this would make any difference or carry any kind of weight or importance, but at least it was a real compliment.

~Richard~

Victoria did not pick up for a long time and when she did, Elizabeth picked up the receiver and effectively shut him out from the conversation.

He felt increasingly like an unwelcome guest who has not asked to leave because Elizabeth pitied him.

She asked Victoria a series of questions and he could dimly hear Victoria laugh and answer, her words a blur of cheery sounds that made Elizabeth smile sharply.

Someone was called “most shockingly handsome” and that comment was to serve as a bridge to the actual subject of the telephone call. Victoria denied disliking him, mainly advancing her complete ignorance on the subject as the reason, but her greeting was still cold, and she seemed eager to put the whole thing behind her.

He didn’t quite know how he felt about that; between the lines, she was probably saying that she had not yet unearthed the proper reasons to dislike him fully and that, as of now, she was merely weary of him.

Also, she had called him a dangerous predator again. What had he ever done to that woman to make her fear him so?

Pleasant and polite, huh? Stand-offish and cold, those were the words he heard, and they cut deeper than he had imagined. Up to now, he could have chalked her behaviour up to the startling situation, but this comment had been made calmly and after conscientious consideration of her words.

“Buh-bye. See you tonight.” Elizabeth chirped into the phone and pressed the call away.

“See? She doesn’t dislike you…” She turned to him, her face alight and shining, but the glow faded upon seeing his stern brow cloud over with disappointment and hurt.

“If you say so…” Richard grumbled and, for a moment, it looked like Elizabeth would say something more, but her lips tightened. She would not stroke his ego and alleviate the weight crushing his soul.

#richard armitage #fanfiction #fanfic #longfic #rpf #ao3 fanfic #romcom #silliness #miscommunication #story of my heart

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moonlitgleek · 7 years

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I would love to hear all of your book!feelings on book!Ned's teachings about "he man who passes the sentence should swing the sword"! 💕

Oh, you’re kicking my butt into gear here, Lauren. I’ve been planning a post about this very subject but I’ve only gotten to the point of throwing random sentences into my drafts and shaking my fist at the sky. Which surprisingly was not productive at all. Shocker!

But gosh, that scene!! I just love that scene so very much. Bar the prologue, this is the very first chapter of the whole series, the one that gave us the first glimpse of the Starks and started building their characters and the story at large. And the beauty of George’s writing is that that one scene between Ned and Bran perfectly encapsulates the ethos of Ned Stark, the character whose ideology drives the entire narrative whether through his teachings living through his kids, or through the legacy he left behind, or through one of his most defining acts: saving the infant that would grow up to be crucial to the survival of mankind. That scene crystallizes Ned’s characterization in one single conversation, which is one of the reason I find fandom’s tendency to decontextualize the phrase “the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword” and only focus on this one phrase out of the entire scene so minimizing to Ned’s character, in addition to being a misinterpretation of the message he meant to convey.

On its face, and if taken out of context, that phrase can send a contradictory message to its core meaning. Simply saying that the Stark way necessitates that you swing the sword yourself restricts the message to a simplified uber-macho exclamation of “we Starks do our own killing” *slaps chest because masculinity*, which completely loses the entire conversation between Bran and Ned its meaning. Mind you, there is a gendered overlay to the scene because this is Ned having a conversation with his seven-year-old child after said child watched an execution, which carries the idea that this is a rite of passage for Bran, an immersion in a violent culture that glorifies violence and attaches so much weight to men doing violent activities that it becomes the mark for bravery, masculinity and leadership. But I actually think that the true message of this scene defies Westerosi martial mores that glories in violence, because while Ned is essentially instructing Bran to kill by his own hand which is a violent activity, he is actively rejecting such sentiments as “a dead enemy is a thing of beauty” and “a bloody sword is a beautiful thing”. Ned’s intent fights against glorifying violence and against attaching a beautifying veneer to it, and instead calls for facing the actual truth of what taking a life is and demands it be treated as the monumental thing it is. In that scene with Bran, Ned is calling for recognition for the value of life.

“King Robert has a headsman,” [Bran] said, uncertainly. “He does,“ his father admitted. “As did the Targaryen kings before him. Yet our way is the older way. The blood of the First Men still flows in the veins of the Starks, and we hold to the belief that the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man’s life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die. “One day, Bran, you will be Robb’s bannerman, holding a keep of your own for your brother and your king, and justice will fall to you. When that day comes, you must take no pleasure in the task, but neither must you look away. A ruler who hides behind paid executioners soon forgets what death is.”

The lesson here lies in why Ned teaches that “the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword”, not just the physical act itself. If Ned’s lesson was about how killing someone yourself is the definitive mark of a good leader, or a “proper” Stark, he would not have elaborated with the explanation of why the Starks follow the old way or sought to confirm that Bran understood the rationale behind it. Ned’s lesson is far more about taking personal responsibility for your decisions no matter how hard that is and not hiding behind others to do your dirty work than it is about the actual act of swinging the sword. It is about recognizing the value of life and how the decision to take one should never be easy or simple. It is about treating the enormity of taking a life with the respect and consideration it deserves. This is an active refusal to become desensitized to death and to the act of taking a life. And that refusal does not come without a cost. We see the toll taking a life has on Ned as he seeks the quiet and peace of the godswood - seeking an intimately spiritual place where he cleanses his soul as he cleanses his sword from the blood that stains it - in the aftermath of taking a life. But he still chooses to shoulder that responsibility despite the cost to his psyche. It would be so easy for him to pass off that burden to someone else, to spare himself the unease of taking a life. But, well, “don’t look away”. It might be easier but it can and does come with the risk of making one complacent, and of making it easier to run away from or deny the responsibility of their actions. Ned stands against that complacency and against distancing oneself from the reality of what condemning a man to die is. He stands against the detachment that makes ordering death become such an easy thing, abstract to the point of not even registering anymore. That complacency and that detachment can lead a person to cease to see the worth of people’s lives, to see people and instead start seeing them as things: collateral damage to wars, fodder in the quest of personal glory, livestock with no importance or abstract number of casualties on a piece of paper.

Which is why I think “the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword” should be taken more symbolically than literally. Ned did mean for his sons to swing the sword themselves, but the actual physical act, in and of itself, is not the main point. It is only significant as far as being a method for Ned to hold himself accountable for his decisions and that is the honorable lesson he imparts to his sons. But dealing the killing blow is not inherently honorable, neither does it automatically make a person appreciate life or not forget what death is.

Indeed we see evidence of that in Ilyn Payne, someone who swings the sword and thus seemingly fit what Ned says but that’s only if we go by surface reading of Ned’s words. But Payne falls short of the actual meaning of Ned’s lesson as he “cares for naught but killing”, which is why Ned refers to him as a butcher. Now, people might not be dying by Payne’s word but they are dying by his hand which makes him just as responsible for those lives as the person giving the sentence. Ser Ilyn’s attitude regarding his job actually carries shades of dehumanization to the people dying on his sword as they get reduced to being heads for the headsman to cut off. Payne does not care about whether his orders are just or not, right or not; he does not care in the slightest about the lives he is ending. He certainly did not care about Ned and how unjust his execution was when he flung him down to die by his own sword. That’s the complete opposite of what Ned advocating for, despite the physical act seemingly meeting his standards.

Similarly, Jaime Lannister boasts to Catelyn about doing his own killing so he is another who swings the sword and doesn’t get another to do his dirty work for him. But does Jaime take responsibility for the lives he ended? Does he care about them outside of how they might affect his self-image? Daryn Hornwood, the Karstark brothers and the Winterfell guards who were murdered on his orders would beg to differ. Both these men (and Ned’s distaste for them) makes it perfectly clear that the interpretation that swinging the sword is the part that matters in Ned’s teachings, that Ned attaches honor to this simple physical act with no additional qualifiers, is way too simplistic and shallow - swinging the sword means nothing if it is not supported by the lesson about accountability and what is owed to the person getting executed.

Ned’s words are also more than just a call for accountability; they are also a call for compassion, for treating people as people, for treating every single life like it matters regardless of any other consideration. Ned is showing respect, even in executing criminals who legally deserve it, because their existence as human beings demands it. It’s their right as human beings. And Ned, at his core, is a compassionate and merciful man who cares which is why he recognizes the cost of life and agonizes over taking one, which is honestly rare in a society such as Westeros that glorifies violence, and for a guy who has been a part of two bloody wars, saw a lot of death and killed people by his own hand.

In a way, this is a defiant rejection of Westerosi tendency to attribute glory to wars and violent skills. Not a complete one, no, because Ned is still a part of said society and is employing and enforcing the rules it dictates, and that society ties accountability and the rule of the law to capital punishment. So Ned does kill people when he has to since he believes in accountability, the rule of the law and worthy causes, but he does not find it glorifying, he does not take pleasure in it, he does not allow it to take away his humanity or theirs. He faces the bitter reality of what taking a life is and accepts the weight and the mark it leaves on his soul, because he recognizes that ending a life is an enormous act and he will treat it with the due respect and consideration it deserves.

And that is the ethos of Ned Stark, that recognition of common humanity and how that’s deserving of respect no matter what. He lives by that sentiment, not just in how he rules the North or metes out justice, but also in how he treats the people in his household. It’s not for nothing that Ned’s habit of seating one of his servants at the high table and showing genuine care and interest in their work and lives is contrasted by Tywin Lannister’s greatest think-piece “you feed your dog bones under the table, you do not seat him beside you on the high bench.”. Ned refuses that dehumanization in every aspect in his life. He defies the tendency we see from other lords, from Robert Baratheon to Tywin Lannister to Randyll Tarly, to dehumanize people and treat them as insignificant making it so easy to disregard their rights, their suffering and even their very lives. If the lords can’t even recognize the personhood of someone, how can they care about their lives?

Personally, I find Ned’s call for personal accountability and recognition for the value of life and the way he leads by example, holding himself and his sons to it first before expecting it from others, so poignant in a series filled with people trying to evade being held responsible for their own actions and choices. Robert makes it an art form: walking away after ordering Lady killed and letting Mycah get run down fully knowing that Joffrey was lying; putting his abuse of Cersei on Cersei herself, or on the wine, or on random celestial happenings in the sky; seeing Joffrey’s cruelty and entitlement and violence as Cersei’s fault, and Cersei fault alone; using a transparent veneer of being concerned about the realm to mask the cowardice and dishonor of sending an assassin after a pregnant teenager and her unborn child; dehumanizing three innocents and letting their murder go unpunished but liking that he could hold to the illusion of righteousness, etc.

Tywin Lannisters uses plausible deniability to claim clean hands when he is getting toddlers and women and unarmed men butchered on his orders. Theon blames the victims who died as a result of his choices for their own murder in ACoK, keeps thinking of how he has no choice, and continues to try and distance himself from the responsibility in ADWD. Jaime puts the blame of flinging Bran out of a window on Bran’s snooping and on Cersei, and of him potentially storming Riverrun to force a surrender–with what this entails of breaking his vow to Catelyn–on the Blackfish. Barristan Selmy and Arys Oakheart try and excuse their inaction in the face of blatant tyranny by hiding behind vows of obedience and claims of duty and honorable service. There is so much of that in the series, so for Ned’s proclamation of the importance of personal accountability to come in the series’ very first chapter really sets the tone of the narrative, and is the first piece of commentary on an ongoing rejection of the eraser of one’s responsibility for their own actions under any pretense, not oaths of obedience, not corrupt systems, not corrupt institutions or overlords. Ned is at the heart of asoiaf precisely because his is a voice that argues against apathy and passivity in a society rife with them.

That compassion and that regard for life that Ned shows is the make of his legacy not just in terms of his image in the eyes of the Northmen and how it makes them fight in his name, but also in how he passes on these teachings to his children. It’s in Robb’s insistence not to let the murder of Willem Lannister and Tion Frey go unpunished and his refusal of Theon’s torture at Ramsay’s hand. It’s in Sansa’s rejection of the Lannister dehumanizing ideology and instinctive defense of Ser Dontos. It’s in Arya’s fierce protection of Weasel and her refusal to turn a blind eye as people she knows to have committed horrific crimes die a slow agonizing death. It’s in Bran’s attempts to reach out and help a tortured Theon. It’s in Jon’s adamant advocacy for the common humanity of the free folk (”what are these wildlings if not men?” THIS IS EVERYTHING NED HAS BEEN ADVOCATING FOR) and his refusal to abandon them to be trapped prey to the Others.

Those kids care which is why they will make a difference in the fate and future of Westeros, all because Dad taught them not to look away.

#joannalannister #asoiaf #asoiaf meta #ned stark #bran stark #robert baratheon #tywin lannister #jaime lannister #ilyn payne #robb stark #jon snow #sansa stark #arya stark #the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword #ask box #asoiaf themes

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natsubeatsrock · 7 years

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Juvia Lockser: Death and Rebirth

For the uninitiated, let me explain my title.

On March 15, 1997, fans of Neon Genesis Evangelion were greeted to a new movie: Death and Rebirth. Originally, it was meant to be the conclusion to the series that would explain what happened in the final episodes of the television series. What ended up happening is the half the movie being relegated to flashbacking about eight hours of material into one, the second half ending up as the first half of a movie that would be made later called “The End of Evangelion” and an in-movie five-minute intermission in between the two halves. It’s considered by many fans to be the worst anime entry of the NGE franchise.

In the same vein, I’ve gone on record to say that I believe that the worst thing Mashima has done is kill Juvia and bring her back in the way that he did it. There have been a lot of terrible things that have happened before and after I’ve made this declaration that make it hard to continue to affirm this statement. However, I still think this was still a really terrible decision on Mashima’s part and I want to explain why.

If you’re wondering why I’ve decided to wait so long to talk about it, I’ve wanted to wait until I heard everything I needed to from both sides and the controversy about it died down. Needless to say, I think both have happened. (alsoiseemtoenduptalkingaboutjuviadyingonthisdatesoifiguredthisshouldjustbeatrendfromnowon)

I feel that before we even get to the actual moment, it’s important to remember the context that this moment took place.

Two years ago, we just got chapter 453 and, if the title of the previous chapter - “Prelude to the Final Battle” - was any indication, the Alvarez War was just about to start. This chapter was talked about for a lot of reasons at the time. Natsu broke into Lucy’s house again. Wendy made a promise to Erza that I’m not entirely sure was kept. The Gajevy fandom still questions whether or not they slept together.

However, the most relevant thing is from Gray and Juvia’s conversation with each other. There’s this line where Gray says that he’s going to give his answer to Juvia about the way he feels about her. As you can probably guess, this caused a lot of people to talk about whether or not Gray and Juvia would actually mean they would end up getting together.

However, there was another conversation going on. A few pages before, Natsu and Lucy had a talk about death flags. To quote Lucy, “The minute a character starts talking about how happy life, will be after the battle. you just know a tragedy will happen so that future never arrives.”

A lot of people, myself included, were worried that this meant that something was going to happen. And a lot of people, myself included, guessed that meant Juvia would die. I already had a feeling that Juvia would die, but that’s beside the point.

So that’s what this is about? A bit of disappointment that we didn’t get the death we thought we would?

Well, there’s a bit more than that.

As the arc went on, there were a lot of terrible writing decisions. The Spriggan 12 that was supposed to be super threatening ended up being total disappointments, with the exception of Ajeel and DiMaria. The sacrifices of Aquarius and Ultear were argued to have been weakened by their returns. Brandish went from incredibly intimidating to an even bigger disappointment. Natsu managed to get sidelined by what was considered at the time to be “magical cancer”. And this isn’t even everything.

Most notably was the experiences of Gajeel and Mirajane. Both were considered to have died in different situations, however, both managed to stay alive. Gajeel was brought back from death through questionable means and Mirajane’s was a simple fake out with an even flimsier explanation within the same chapter she almost died.

Eventually, we get to the end of chapter 498 and Invel puts Gray and Juvia into a death match. The only way to get out of the match is by killing the opponent. This is a set-up on Invel’s part. He’s doing this in hopes that Gray will kill Juvia, go berserk and destroy E.N.D. And Juvia has no intentions of killing Gray. She plans to kill herself before she loses control.

The story is basically telling you that Juvia is going to die. There’s not really any other way to read it. There is no reason to that she wouldn’t die. That being said, the rest of the arc has shown that Mashima isn’t willing to kill off members of Fairy Tail and hasn’t been handling the rest of the events well.

An easy assumption to make is that Juvia will be another victim of fake deaths. We’ll see Juvia die the next chapter and she’ll eventually come back right as rain as if nothing happened to her in the first place. Even when Juvia died, people were already acting like she was going to come back.

I really believed that Juvia wouldn’t come back. Today last year, I was really confident that Juvia was definitely dead and the fandom and characters would have to move on. I figured it was possible that she could come back, but I knew that it would be a terrible idea.

Sure enough, we got to the landmark chapter 500 and Juvia came back. Now, I’m going to give Mashima credit and say that this wasn’t as bad as I thought a death and resurrection of Juvia could be handled.

It was worse. It was so much worse.

Part 1: Death

I know what a lot of people might have been thinking about my declaration that these moments were terrible: I hate Juvia and I wish that she was dead.

I want to make it clear now that I don’t hate Juvia and I’ve never wanted her dead. In fact, I was torn up about the idea that Juvia could possibly die for the entire time I thought she would die. Interestingly enough, I don’t think Juvia should have died. I talked about this before but nothing about Juvia dying makes sense.

One thing that I can’t believe I didn’t talk about when it happened is Invel’s plan. It’s incredibly counterproductive to have a plan killing E.N.D if that means that Zeref would die. I get that, from an in-universe point, he wouldn’t have probably known that would have been the result. But like what was Mashima thinking about when he did that?

Juvia’s body is made of water. How come she can’t just phase through it? Look, this is nowhere near a consistent part of Juvia’s magic that has mattered in other parts of the manga, like when she almost died in the GMG arc, and that’s an issue in and of itself. Even still, that’s still a thing that’s possible.

And the big thing that everyone I’ve seen talk about this mention: Devil Slaying Magic. Gray has the power to grow stronger by eating ice. The chains he and Juvia were bound by were made by ice. Need I say more?

I can sort of buy into the fact that Gray and/or Juvia are able to will their way out of Invel’s mind control. They care so much about each other that they’re both able to overpower the grip Invel has on them. Heck, this could even be the scene that makes Gruvia clearly canon, as opposed to the ambiguous “I’ll take you seriously” line I’ve seen argued on both ways.

But I’m actually supposed to believe it took less effort for both of them to make their respective weapons and stab themselves than for either one of them to just escape the chains? Why else would it make sense for them to commit literal double suicide?

By the way, let’s talk about the fact that they stabbed themselves. The big thing I saw thrown around about this scene was something akin to “The did the same thing because they feel the same way.’ I could fight this with Gray’s quote later on, but in the spirit of that quote, I’ll take this argument seriously.

I could see that point working in some scenarios, but I don’t think that this is the kind of scenario for this argument. The conceit that Gray and Juvia would both be willing to kill themselves so that they wouldn’t harm the person that they love is, on its own, disturbing and an understandable reason not to like Gruvia.

However, add into that the fact that Juvia has been an advocate for living for the people that you love and that Gray has been taught and reminded to live for his friends at least two different times throughout the series, one time in particular after remembering Juvia, and that he had a scene earlier in the arc where he remembered the people that brought him to where he was, which also included Juvia and-

Why was it a big deal that I joked that Gray would kill himself with Iced Shell again?

You know, even before writing this, I figured that the conceit that this was the moment that caused Gray to go insane was stupid. But, trying to go through the logic of this is making me go crazy and I’m just reading this series.

Intermission

Before we actually get to the talk about Juvia coming back, I want to talk about the other stuff happening at this moment that has nothing really to do with either that or Juvia dying.

After the “double Gruvia suicide”, the chains on them drop. Now, I’ve actually heard an explanation for this. This happened after Invel saw that they “died”, which means that it’s likely that the condition that the chains drop after they die is dependent on Invel seeing them die.

There are two problems with that. The condition that you have to see someone die doesn’t account for the possibility that they’re playing dead. That’s not an egregious error. I can see that being an actual condition that someone’s magic has.

What actually is an egregious error is knowing that and not making sure that Gray and Juvia were actually dead, especially considering that possibility for faking deaths. Why would you not make sure they were dead? And don’t say it’s because he thought he had control over their bodies because that’s the reason they’re supposedly dead in the first place.

And then there’s the issue of Water Make Magic. I’d argue that the issue isn’t that Juvia knows a magic different from her main magic. There are plenty of examples of that in the series and it’s not too different than her main magic. The issue is that this is the way that we’re learning about her magic. We’re learning about this magic relevant to the story as it becomes relevant to the story. If only there was another time where we could have learned about Juvia having magic she didn’t have before the second time skip...

Part 2: Rebirth

So, what makes the fact that Juvia is even back, despite dying in a fake way, even worse? A lot of it has to do with the way this death was presented.

First, consider the big comparison made to this “death”. The one most people have heard was the comparison to Reina from Rave Master, which I did a whole rant about when the chapters dropped. Long story short, it’s a bad comparison, but not an entirely unwarranted (read: unpredictable) comparison for anyone who has read both series and seeing this moment.

And, even though I was just smack-talking Water Make Magic, there is a clear message behind it. She gave up her life to Gray. Mind you, the fact that Juvia sacrificed her life so Gray can live on kind of goes counter the fact that they both just killed themselves in order to not hurt each other. Whatever, the point is that Juvia giving up her life so that Gray can continue to live.

She even says “Juvia lives within your body” and “Juvia’s live is yours”. I don’t care about how you interpret that from a shipping standpoint. The fact of the matter is that the message of this ought to be that Juvia has sacrificed her own life so that Gray can live. Juvia is dead because she thinks it’s more important for Gray to live than for her to live. If anything, that’s the best thing about this death.

But then she comes back. Yeah, she’s just alive now.

And I know what some of you are thinking. I know exactly what some of you are thinking. If you’ve read enough stuff from me, you can tell where this is going. So, let’s just get it out of the way.

When Lisanna “died”, it was portrayed as a tragic accident. Her siblings decide to live for her sake, but not because she lost her life while trying to protect them, especially considering that’s what lead to the accident, to begin with. They live on because they realize they shouldn't be blaming themselves for Lisanna dying and she would want them to be happy.

And by the way, we got an explanation for why Lisanna might be back.

We got an explanation for how Erza survived Etherion.

We got an explanation for how Gajeel survived Bradman sucking him in.

We got an explanation for how Mirajane survived August’s shot to the chest.

Natsu avoided death three times and there was an explanation for why he wasn’t dead each time.

You can go down the list and talk about how each of those non-deaths did or didn’t make sense or could have been handled better. I even plan on doing that for Lisanna and (to a lesser extent) Erza. However, there is in fact reasoning behind all those characters not being dead, no matter how bad it may seem.

What is the in-series explanation for Juvia not being dead?

There is none.

Wendy and Carla say that if they came any later she probably would have died.

Except everything about the last chapter gave the impression that Juvia was dead.

Now, even if Invel couldn’t be bothered to check if Juvia was actually dead, Gray ought to have been able to see if Juvia was dead. He was holding her head. All he had to do was check for a pulse to see whether or not she was actually still alive. This isn’t a tragic accident. This almost feels like the setup for a joke. I mean, Gray...

May or may not have kissed her?

Yeah, that’s a thing Gruvia fans speculate happened based on Juvia’s line after being brought back. You know the fact that any time in chapter 500 was spent on that and not why Juvia wasn’t actually dead is kind of depressing. But if that’s true, that means Gray prioritized kissing what he thought to be a dead body over checking for a pulse via her wrist or neck.

And you know, I’d almost say this would be a good shocking twist. That, if you somehow forgot about the other fake deaths a few chapters ago, we were supposed to come to this moment and feel like Mashima duped us. That, for as clumsy as this may seem, Mashima tried to pull the rug out from under us.

Too bad he decided to include her on the chapter cover. Yeah, that was a thing he did. He killed her off a chapter ago but thought that he should bring her in for the special cover. Thanks for not even letting us consider the possibility that she isn’t coming back, Mashima.

By the way, thanks for also showing Juvia right before Natsu talks about not letting his friends die and Lucy mentions how they’ve beaten the odds before. Yeah, didn’t think anyone would notice? I’m almost shocked no one thought to bring that up.

Epilogue

A while back, I made a post about why I don’t like when people defend a bad decision with “It’s just fiction” and this is one of the best examples of what I was trying to argue against. I have a problem with the fact that Hiro Mashima sat down and thought that this was a good idea to do.

I don’t have as much of a problem with Mashima presenting people as dead only for them to be revealed not to have died as so many other people do. But I do have a problem with Mashima presenting someone as dead and not acting like they died. He couldn’t have been bothered to give an explanation similar to Lisanna’s where it’s likely what happened but it could be something else at play. Even with Mirajane almost dying, there was a near immediate explanation as to how she didn’t die when she was revealed not to have died.

A lot of people have speculated that this was done because of fan backlash to Juvia being killed in the first place. That his original plan was to kill off Juvia but this end result was the fault of too many people complaining.

As cozy as that line of thinking is, I’m wary of that line of thinking. Not because I’m wary of those kinds of theories anyway. Because if that’s the case, I still have to believe that Mashima’s editor was also okay with a sudden change from whatever his original plan was. (Even though ) And, again, it’s not like the death before was all too good anyway.

Now some of you might be wondering how I would fix this. The complex answer where Gruvia may or may not be confirmed as canon would require me to fix Gruvia as a whole. (more rants for later days?)

The simple answer is to just not have the scene. Yeah, just have fight happen a different way. This could have been a regular Gruvia team-up battle against Invel that starts in one chapter, takes up the majority of a second chapter and ends in a third. Almost exactly like the fight against Jacob Lessio (which wasn’t all that good anyway).

At that rate, it probably could have been about as offensive as some of the other fights in this arc. Who knows, this could have beaten out Wendy and Sheria vs DiMaria as the best fight of last year. But, as it happened, this is one of the worst things to happen in both the arc and the entire series.

To be fair, without this death and rebirth, we don’t get the setup for chapter 507, which is my personal favorite chapters of the arc and even series, as a whole. However, I can’t say that getting some of the worst chapters to set it up was really worth it. (The other chapters before it were also bad.)

#anti juvia lockser #fairy tail 499 #fairy tail 500 #i'm back from vacation #from talking about fairy tail

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