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antianakin · 9 months

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Anakin Skywalker and the Semantics of Redemption

So everyone knows that the scene at the end of Return of the Jedi is something of a source of mild controversy. Are we supposed to see Anakin as redeemed because he became a Force Ghost? Is that the intended message behind the story? If it is, does Anakin truly deserve to be redeemed?

My personal take on it is that we are probably supposed to understand Anakin as redeemed, but that it doesn't really feel like a satisfying ending to me because Anakin never really does anything particularly worthy of what I would consider redemption, and that I don't really think Anakin COULD be redeemed even if he had survived.

That take has garnered me some... interesting... responses from people. I've had people tell me that I'm an inhuman monster for refusing to believe Anakin could be redeemed at all. I've had people argue that obviously Lucas thinks he's redeemed, so nothing else matters. I've seen people say that it's ridiculous to think he ISN'T redeemed, that's the entire point of the story and I've missed the whole theme of the saga if I don't get it. The politer responses have included people telling me what THEIR definitions/interpretations of redemption are and how they've made Anakin's ending fit into that.

If you're familiar with me at all, it won't shock you to discover that this sent me digging through the online dictionaries that seemed pretty reputable (for context, I used Merriam-Webster, Encyclopedia Brittanica, dictionary.com, vocabulary.com, and Collins Dictionary) to seek out "the true definition of redemption" to see if I could put the issue to rest in any way. What I ended up discovering there is no "true definition of redemption" to be found, even in the dictionary. I know. Absurd. How dare they.

Instead, once we eliminate the definitions that don't really apply to the situation (things that are more monetary in nature), most of the dictionary definitions fell into one of three categories: theological, internal, and external.

The theological definition appears to say that being redeemed means being completely freed of sin, totally absolved of everything. My assumption is that, given its origins, this generally means forgiveness by your god because you or someone else has done something to cause that complete absolution.

The internal definition is more about making the choice to improve yourself. It doesn't necessarily matter if other people see you differently (though it seems to be an expected side effect), so the redemption is about what's happening internally in how YOU see the world and your place within it.

The external definition is about how other people see you and, most commonly, about atonement and making amends. Now you could make the argument that the definitions could be implying that just the act of TRYING to atone or make amends is enough to count as redemption as opposed to needing to succeed at it in order to count, but generally the definitions seem to be implying that if you've actually MADE amends, THEN you are redeemed.

All of these are perfectly valid definitions of redemption according to these dictionaries. Redemption is a word that can be used to mean more than one thing depending on which definition you tend to associate with it the most or even just depending on the context or the person you're talking about. One person's definition of redemption is not necessarily the one and only way to view redemption. My definition may not be yours and it's definitely not the same as a lot of other people's.

In the case of Anakin, some people are maybe looking at him through a more theological context and if the Force has forgiven him via his own sacrifice or Luke's, he is then freed of sin and completely absolved for all of his crimes, happy endings all around.

Some people see redemption as an internal choice to do better or improve yourself and so Anakin's one good choice to save Luke at the cost of his own life is enough to redeem him in general even if it changes nothing about the evil things he's done.

Some people see redemption as an external thing that happens if you are able to truly atone or make amends for things you've done and change the way people view you and so Anakin can't be considered redeemed because he just dies before he can DO any of those things. Some of us go even farther and say that he'd never be ABLE to do any of those things even if he DID survive due to how much damage he's truly done and how unchangeable some of his choices are, so he'd never truly be able to be redeemed even if he spent the rest of his life making better choices.

Redemption is going to mean so many different things to so many different people. And that obviously is going to impact our views on Anakin and his ending in ROTJ. It'll work for some, and it won't work for others. But what I'm starting to come to terms with is that there's just no one way to view redemption. So someone who sees him as redeemed isn't necessarily WRONG. But in the same vein, someone who DOESN'T see him as redeemed is EQUALLY correct. Lucas himself seems to have said a few different things on the subject and sometimes sees Anakin as saved or redeemed and sometimes doesn't.

Redemption is a complex topic, obviously, but I'm sticking with my personal definition and interpretation because it's what feels right to me. But if someone else wants to go with a different definition because it's the interpretation that feels right to them, I'm not going to contradict them. Just don't try to come onto my blog to tell me that MY interpretation is wrong and that I'm some kind of unfeeling asshole because my definition of redemption is different than yours. I've got the damn dictionary receipts to back me up now.

#star wars #anakin skywalker #anakin critical #anakin skywalker critical #redemption #semantics

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timeagainreviews · 5 months

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Putting the Mid in Midnight: Wild Blue Yonder

If I were to mention the film “The Horror at Party Beach,” no one would blame you for having never heard of it. In the annals of horror history, it left minimal impact on the genre. Why then were audiences asked to sign a “fright waiver,” before being permitted to see the film? Because it was never about the audience dying of fright. It was a dare to the viewer, one almost as old as cinema itself. William Castle used to start his films with a warning to the more delicate members of the audience. Reports of people fainting during “The Exorcist,” or more recently “Terrifier 2,” create a buzz around those films. Can you survive the horror or will you wind up in the hospital? The only way to know for sure is to buy a ticket! This is why when Russell T Davies issued a warning that “Wild Blue Yonder,” was possibly too scary for the kiddies, I saw it for what it was.

While I don’t doubt there was some concern that certain children may be disturbed by the imagery and tone of last night’s episode, it feels more like Davies asking audiences to just go with it. Similarly, Davies also asked us to just go with the idea of David Tennant returning by first introducing us to Ncuti Gatwa. “This isn’t a forever thing or the show moving backwards. Just go it.” After seeing how tumultuous the fandom has been since *checks notes* 1963, it feels like Davies’ tactic to unite the fandom is to encourage them to just go with it. It also feels like Davies is riffing a little, trying new things. “Wild Blue Yonder,” is an engaging exploration of the new while also referencing some of the old. Yet despite all of its experimentation, much of it feels like familiar territory.

First and foremost, I would like to state that I admire the hell out of this episode. On the rad vs trad debate, this puts one giant foot down for rad. With that said and out of the way, we need to talk about that intro. When it comes to the race of Isaac Newton you might say the show should be educational and therefore accurate in its depiction of race. But pretty early on, Doctor Who abandoned all pretence of being educational. And more recent attempts at being educational have left us with Jodie Whittaker spouting off a Wikipedia summary about an asteroid. You could also argue that this is a different type of education. A lesson in what it feels like to see your own people played by someone white. Considering Doctor Who’s history of brownface, I’m gonna say y’all need to chill the fuck out. Just go with it.

My only issue with this scene is much like the issue I had with the Children in Need special. The humour just falls so flat for me. It was a big thud on arrival. From the Kaled anagram sequence to mavity, it just doesn’t work for me. Part of me wonders if this isn’t in part because David Tennant and Catherine Tate were never on set with Nathaniel Curtis. There was no chance of improving with improv. I mentioned last week that some of the representation stuff also felt clunky. It’s weird too because when the show isn’t actively trying to make me laugh or view trans people like myself as valid, it comes off as funny and validating. Sylvia’s tuna masala and or Donna’s love for Rose do such a better job at both, yet they’re the quieter moments of the show thus far. It’s ironic to me that the more powerful moments of the second Davies era have been understated.

It’s easy to write this overstatement off, however. Thinking back to the 50th anniversary special, Clara’s line of turning people into frogs fell flat for me at the time. Now I look back at is as kind of charming. And furthermore, these big events like Children in Need, Christmas, or anniversaries get away with a bit of excess. The humour is more broad because they expect more people to be watching. It’s a time of merriment. It’s also part of why I appreciate “Wild Blue Yonder,” so much. Davies was attempting a weirder “Midnight-esque” episode in the middle of a highly publicised media event. He knew it was a bit of an ask for some audience members. Once again, it feels like an invitation to the rest of the fandom to allow room for exploration. If Doctor Who and the fandom are currently fractured, do we really need to put it back together in the same shape? Does it even need being put back together? Why not just fill the cracks with some seeds and see what grows out of them?

Since “The Star Beast,” aired, I’ve seen some people complaining that the sonic screwdriver has become too OP. Apparently, making sonic barriers is less believable than joining two cut ends of barbed wire. While I do understand that the sonic screwdriver can be a crutch for bad writing, I also understand it to be incredibly cool. Like, I’m sorry, cool beats your need for locked doors any day. If you need absolute realism in what you watch, might I suggest the window? It’s a freaking magic wand, people. Let it be magical. Doctor Who isn’t hard sci-fi. If Doctor Who’s sci-fi were a cheese, it would be brie. It looks hard but it’s gooey at its centre. You can argue that the sonic screwdriver being capable of repairing the TARDIS is too OP, but it’s also the device which removes two major plot conveniences in this episode- the TARDIS and the sonic screwdriver.

The Doctor and Donna are doing this one without a safety net. They’ve both been pared back to who they are as people. I had a feeling going in that this episode was going to have a smaller cast. It feels like Davies taking a stab at a sort of “Heaven Sent,” narrative that dissects the Doctor and Donna. In other ways it feels like an homage to Davies' own pared-back classic “Midnight,” which has gained cult status as one of his best scripts. In the short stories of Robert Aickman, readers are often left unaware when exactly things get strange. His protagonists walk through their worlds unaware of exactly when things turned hostile until they’re in the thick of it. In the same manner, much of the opening scenes of “Wild Blue Yonder,” leave us waiting for the other shoe to drop, and when it does, you may not notice right away.

Coming directly off the tonal whiplash of the Isaac Newton scene to a scenario so dangerous that it set off the H.A.D.S. system, it’s nice that the episode eases into its weirdness. The TARDIS’ eerie recitation of the song “Wild Blue Yonder,” echoes through the air with a reminder from Wilf, via Donna, that the song is not a jolly anthem, but a declaration of war. So we sit in the mystery of this gigantic ship sitting at the edge of the universe with its shifting corridors and its slow robot, as we try to ignore the clanking sound just outside the ship. It feels a bit like Doctor Who doing a haunted house in space, but you’re not exactly sure why. It’s Amityville in Space, but good.

With no sonic or TARDIS at his disposal, the Doctor can’t just point his magic wand. Even worse, the Doctor doesn’t even have the benefit of the TARDIS’ translation circuit. Whatever language this civilization uses on their ship, it’s not one of the 57,000,000,205 languages the Doctor can speak. But one language the Doctor can speak is mathematics. The Doctor may not have his tools, but he still has his mind. Deciphering the base ten of this unknown species, the Doctor can begin piecing together what is going on in this ship. Perhaps if he can figure out why an airlock had been jettisoned in the past, it might give a clue to what is happening. If he can remove the threat from the ship, the TARDIS might return. Otherwise, he and Donna could be forever stranded on this ghost ship hovering over nothingness.

If this ship is haunted, we’re about to meet the ghosts who call this place home. The Not-Things arrive quietly. So quiet that the shot establishing two Doctors and two Donnas in separate rooms initially seemed like a bad edit. When did the two of them get split up? It’s hard to remember. But we’re pretty sure the Doctor who licked the goo on the circuit is the real deal. Tasting things to figure out what they are is a classic Tennant move. The Doctor pretending to have a bad reaction to the goo evoked the Fourth Doctor pretending to go mad with power over the Key to Time. I wonder now if that wasn’t the Doctor testing a theory in the back of his mind because Donna was feeling a bit off. The Doctor has shown in the past that he knows when his companion is compromised in some way. Last week we were given early warning signs that the Doctor was becoming increasingly wary of the Meep.

Having the characters note a fluctuation in the temperature or the line “My arms are too long,” felt right at home with things like “Don’t blink!” or “Hey, who turned out the lights?” Their visible breath as an omen of ill tidings sits comfortably next to having two shadows or marking your skin to remember the Silence. I love how Doctor Who can turn everyday things like statues, shop dummies, or seeing your breath into danger. Those are the moments for the children hiding behind the sofa. One of Doctor Who’s greatest strengths is its ability to use allegory to help children face real fears. These are the modern equivalent of Grimm’s Fairy Tales.

For a brief moment, I worried the Not-Things were going to spend the whole episode with Donkey Kong arms. While an effective and trippy visual, it would have started to look goofy after the initial shock had worn off. Watching “Return to Oz,” as an adult, I’m no longer scared of the Wheelers, but as a child they had me covering my eyes. Seeing the Doctor and Donna in these twisted forms was disturbing and creepy. I can see how this episode will stick with younger members of the audience for years. I also imagine it as future fetish fuel, but that’s unavoidable. In the words of Community’s Dean Pelton- “This better not awaken anything in me.”

Watching the Doctor and Donna drive away from these twisted angry giants reminded me of Leela and K9 fleeing guards in “The Sunmakers,” or even bits from “Terminator 2: Judgement Day.” I also got whiffs of “Sin-Eaters,” from the Titan comics line. While the sharp teeth and asymmetric contortions of the distorted Doctor and Donna do a lot to sell these monsters, it’s the performances of the actors that tip the scale. Other than the times we’re not supposed to know who is who, they feel like different characters. It started tricking my brain into thinking of the Not-Things as completely different actors.

An issue I have seen come up about the Not-Things is their special effects. If you were worried that the Disney+ money was going to make the show look too polished, worry not. While many of the shots in this episode were very good, and I love the continued use of practical effects, some of the effects of the Not-Things were a bit naff. But much like the Power Rangers effects from the acid ocean scene in “The Halloween Apocalypse,” I found it charming. The only one shot from any of these sequences that I would call bad is the shot of the Not-Thing Doctor with his head between his legs. It should have either been cut or reworked.

It’s hard to talk about the plot in this story. Mysteries are looming, but for the most part it’s a series of chases punctuated by “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” paranoia. But that isn’t to say that the screen time is wasted. Davies uses this as an opportunity to explore the Doctor’s emotional state after the events of the Flux. Something which hadn’t seemed to affect the Doctor much since the end of “The Vanquishers.” It’s also interesting to know Davies hasn’t forgotten that half the universe was destroyed by the Flux, as Chibnall seemed to have forgotten immediately after. A friend even texted me today saying how Davies treated the Flux more seriously than Chibnall, and I don’t disagree. I felt like he did a better job explaining what actually happened during the Flux. Perhaps it was bad writing, or perhaps I had already given up hope on the era, but I had no idea that the Flux had anything to do with the Doctor. I’m not even joking. It wasn’t even apparent how much of the universe had been destroyed until last night. I learned more about the Flux from a couple of lines of dialogue than I did from six episodes of “The Flux.”

After the Doctor and Donna suss out who is who, they manage to put a little space between them and the Not-Things first by way of a line of salt and ultimately by a glass door. It was at this point in the episode that I made the strongest connections to “Midnight.” The doppelgangers watching Donna and the Doctor’s every move, reading every thought, to mimic them perfectly was a lot like the creature on the Midnight tour shuttle. In both stories the creatures even reach a point where they begin studying their prey. Noting every minor movement and tic. In both stories, formless creatures are looking to hitch a ride in someone else’s body to wreak untold havoc elsewhere. Because of these similarities, I see this story as a spiritual sequel to “Midnight.” A sort of loving homage to the Tenth Doctor and Donna era.

The Not-Things dwelled in the vast nothingness at the edge of our universe growing to despise our boiling noisy existence. Like the song “Wild Blue Yonder,” their response to our shouting into the void is a declaration of war. They seemingly hate us for our existence. When the mystery ship arrived, they saw it as a perfect vessel to bring destruction to the universe. The Captain of this ship must have figured this out as it was she who set their demise into motion. Realising that the Not-Things have a harder time mimicking or noticing things that move slowly, the Captain set the ship’s robot on a very slow course to set the ship on self-destruct. She then threw herself out of the airlock to prevent the Not-Things from fully taking her form.

The Doctor and Donna’s discovery of the horselike Captain’s body as the source of the clanging against the ship demands a bit of discussion. In yet another clunky attempt at trans inclusion, the Doctor and Donna try and work out the pronouns of the Captain. The Doctor affirms to Donna that the Captain was a she, but gives no basis as to how he arrived at this conclusion. I find this noteworthy simply because it actually plays into a transphobic meme that says when trans people die, archaeologists will misgender us by our bones. Because by what means did the Doctor know the Captain was a she? He couldn’t even read her language. What if she was the first trans masc horse Captain? Are we really not gonna stan a horse king because of how his bones look? Obviously, I’m taking the piss. But I do feel like this illustrates the responsibility one takes on when they aim toward validating representation. A simple line to clear up how the Doctor knows this would help because otherwise, he’s just guessing with no reasoning to back it up.

Another weird aspect of this episode was the aforementioned glass door. If I had a quid for every time a Doctor Who 60th anniversary special ended with characters being separated by a glass door in a spaceship, I’d have two quid. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it’s happened twice. Also weird is that this episode marks the second time since we met the Fourteenth Doctor that the TARDIS enters a location by slamming into a wall. The first time being the Children in Need special “Destination: Skaro.” I would say this feels significant, but the TARDIS does land smoothly next to Cyber Dog at the beginning of “The Star Beast.” Another crash landing which could also mean nothing would be the TARDIS slamming into the tree that drops an apple on Isaac Newton’s head. Speaking of meaning nothing, what even was the point of that scene? Was it all to set up the mavity joke and the Doctor’s queerness? Or did it have a greater meaning? If not, they really should have just cut it all together. Perhaps air it as a minisode the day before “Wild Blue Yonder.” As an episode opener, it sticks out like a sore thumb.

After the Doctor almost escapes with the wrong Donna, the TARDIS gets a chance to show off its new ramps by using them to eject Not-Thing Donna like a middle-aged bowling ball. Our little android friend, now sped-up to real-time pushes the destruct button and takes the ship and Not-Things with it, thus finishing the Horse Captain’s brave mission to save the universe. I was sad we never really got to know the little robot. Its design reminded me a bit of Marvin the Paranoid Android from “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” I was ready to love its personality and then mourn its sacrifice. It’s weird that in some ways, the fan theory that we would see twisted versions of the Doctor did come halfway true. Only in this version, there was no evil Matt Smith or Peter Capaldi. It’s been a bit interesting to see the fan theories come so close yet remain so far away.

Bookending the episode is another scene removed from the main storyline, only this is a book I actually want to read. Returning the TARDIS back to the Cyber Dog location where it was last seen, we get our first glimpse of Wilfred Mott since “The End of Time.” Sadly, it’s also the final time Bernard Cribbins will grace the screen of Doctor Who ever again. This brief cameo was all they were able to film before Cribbins passed away in 2022. I think it’s safe to assume that most of us got a bit teary-eyed seeing ol’ Wilf one last time. As the Fourteenth Doctor said “I loved that man.” I’ve never met a Whovian who didn’t love his character. Seeing Wilf waiting for the Doctor and Donna to return, still believing in the Doctor after all these years, is exactly how you want to remember him. An ever-loyal soldier who doesn’t leave his post. And so shall he never leave our hearts. It was bitter-sweet, but I’m so glad we got to say goodbye.

Ultimately, this episode kept me engaged throughout its entire runtime. But where it falls short of “Midnight,” is in its inability to create the same level of tension. Perhaps it has to do with the special effects revealing so much under bright lighting. There is less left to our imaginations this time around, and therefore the scares are more on the surface. This doesn’t automatically make them uninteresting, only less engaging. It reminded me at times of the special effects from the new “It,” film series. At times it was creepy and at other times it felt like something from a computer. I’m still deeply interested in the dread the Doctor felt after introducing superstition at the edge of the universe, where the rules of reality are less defined. That seems like a bigger plot point that furthers my belief that RTD plans to continue breaking Doctor Who wide open. If I were to compare the quality of “Wild Blue Yonder,” to previous Doctor Who stories, I would go with “The Idiot’s Lantern,” or maybe “Flatline.” Both of these are episodes I enjoy but they aren’t earth-shattering either. As I said in my “Eve of the 60th” article, I would settle for competent and competent was what we got. I'm still very excited for what's to come.

#Doctor Who #Wild Blue Yonder #Fourteenth Doctor #David Tennant #Donna Noble #Catherine Tate #Not-Things #TARDIS #Russell T Davies #Wilfred Mott #Bernard Cribbins #RIP Bernard Cribbins #60th anniversary #Doctor Who 60th Anniversary #Isaac Newton #Nathaniel Curtis #BBC #timeagainreviews

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egg-emperor · 7 months

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Your analysis has been really interesting to read through, but ngl the whole mess around text interpretation has led me to ruminate on the fandom's doings a little. This probably will turn into disjointed ramblings, so please bear with me.

What I think is causing this cognitive dissonance is exactly that cutesy framing of some of Eggman and Sage's moments. Like, I don't believe that Sage was intentionally made to soften Eggman up or something, I believe that he can play the "family" act to keep her loyal to him. However, I won't deny that during my watch of a friend playing it, this specific framing left a slightly weird aftertaste, which I now see is what can easily cause so many misinterpretations of the scenes. Like, for example, the memo with Sage's pronouns. After seeing a lot of talk around the memos in general, what seems to throw people off from thinking that Eggman could be just using this as yet another play into her view of him as her father to keep her loyal is "why does he suddenly care about endearing himself to his own creation when he freely disregarded his previous creations". It can be interpreted in character, but there's just a smidge of off-ness that can be hard to wash out for some.

Not gonna lie, I kinda envy the ability of people like to at least mostly ignore the majority of the fandom's shenanigans and drama, cause I think that also plays a part imo, specifically this weird need to somehow ingratiate Sonic as a series to the mainstream, generally non-fan crowd. Like, the onus obviously should be on the people who misinterpret the text and see what's not there, yet these people also tend to be the loudest. And most non-fans seeing it just assume that's what the fandom as a whole thinks, and that's what the text actually is about. After all, nowadays Sonic is all but advertised as "its a kids game for babies so don't think about the story too much, it doesnt make sense in the end anyway", even by fans trying to genuinely recommend the series sometimes. And you'd think that there'd be pushback against this sort of mentality, but somehow, a majority of the Sonic fandom remains almost... defeatist? Like, either they can't argue to save their lives or just passively accept the misinformation. The people actually doing the analysis and all get disregarded as no-life nerds and are told that "no amount of analysis can make a product worth the money".

It's just... I dunno how or why or when it all started going like this, but at some point, the way people talked about media in general just caused immensely screwed. Discussions only seem to happen when someone wants to further validate their pre-established biases about a thing and it all just feels wrong.

Thank you, I appreciate you taking the time to read and consider my analysis.

We seem to feel quite similarly. I'm not a fan of the cutesy framing of certain moments because it's not my thing and definitely makes it easier for fans to misinterpret. The casual fan, especially if they don't catch all context in the memos and apply them to the scenes to notice the undertones and understand Eggman's side of the dynamic, or if they're the kind who that stuff can appeal to and affect emotionally/they'd rather ignore the more unsettling aspects in discomfort, they're going to get it wrong.

I think the cutscenes mostly have the issue of focusing too much on Sage's side of the dynamic over Eggman's. A bunch of most important details of Eggman's side comes from the memos, which is great from the standpoint of being right from his personal perspective and words, so we get to know exactly how he thinks and feels- but not so great for those who won't listen or piece together what they learned from them with the scenes for needed context.

But Sage wasn't supposed to soften Eggman up. In the story he's still a bad guy wanting to do bad, wishing he could get out of Cyber Space to, and Sage appeals because of what she can do for him, how she's crucial to his survival, supports his desire for world domination and shows undying loyalty. The way some moments are framed as cute doesn't take away from it, a unhealthy dynamic can appear as cute and wholesome with unsettling undertones.

Ian Flynn pretty much describes it that way by saying you're supposed to feel happy for Sage but Eggman is a bad person and warming up to it for all the wrong reasons. It's intentionally more complex than what the loudest people who love and hate it are saying. I can see what Flynn means because all the pieces are there in the actual game for me to point out and analyze. They just could've been emphasized a bit more.

All you need is the memo where he talks about liking how Sage is loyal and efficient and accepting the father role because it can emphasize his genius and the pride he can take as her creator, then apply it to every interaction and you can see it. Eggman can play the act to appeal to Sage's desire for that dynamic and praise her actions as a way to further encourage her for her loyalty and efficiency, all for those selfish benefits.

It's how manipulation works and Eggman absolutely can and will play up the part with these conditions for the benefits, he's done similarly in the past. It's intentionally not done in the common verbal and physical abns!ve way like he does most commonly with his other creations, it's more emotionally manipulative. It makes the most sense for how he wants to further encourage her good work and loyalty, not lose it.

I can get why you felt that way. It's part of why I had the wrong idea of Frontiers Eggman's at first and it ruined my first experience playing it. The cute framing of certain moments, combined with fans taking these scenes and latching onto the misinterpretations from the moment it dropped and drilling into your head how they think we should think and feel while ignoring key details that disprove it, made me believe it for too long.

But had I not seen the misinterpretation and paid attention and did my usual analysis, which I closed my mind to in my first playthrough in ignorance, I would've caught on a lot faster. Just like how knowing what I know now after properly analyzing it then going into Final Horizon and avoiding what fandom was saying, made my experience more pleasant and let me think and interpret for myself. The fandom is still mostly to blame.

Yeah, the cute moments can give the wrong idea when you don't have all the context. But the context is in the game to piece together and understand why it's happening in a way that works for Eggman's character. I also think while he is of course playing the act, it's also framed cute as it is because we're seeing it more from Sage's side in the scenes, as it's a very different vibe in the memos where it's actually Eggman's side.

Maybe always being able to see the worst in Eggman (positively and affectionately lol 🥰💜) helps but I only see the memos as unsettling now. His creation starts to appear as more of a person to him so he thinks about how he can use it to his benefit by taking pride in his impressive scientific ability to create something so life-like as an artificial creation over the unimpressive traditional organic way he scoffs at and expresses aversion to.

He says if he created life it'd be "loyal and perfectly effective", which is fucked up thing to look for in your child, and says it's specifically because he's the genius creator/father, giving himself all credit and taking pride in her accomplishments as a reflection of his genius. It's selfish, egotistical, creepy, everything a parent shouldn't do. I can see what makes it unsettling in all his words. So many things are wrong with him I love it 😋💘

I really don't have much of an issue with that memo. It's one of the most misinterpreted but it's simply where he starts to realize that almost the whole time he's been calling her a "she" instead of an "it" like the program she was created to be. He actually starts just five after first mentioning her, in memo 13. He subconsciously sees her as a person and refers to her like such that fast due to how human and life-like she is.

Three memos after he's like wait why am I calling it a she? And wonders whether to call her an it like the program she was created to be or a she like he's seeing her as instead. Then another three after comes the disturbing memo about him creating life, so him establishing whether he's going to call her "she" or not leads to him thinking about how he can take pride and credit in her by establishing himself as her genius creator/father.

It's another of those cases where if context is removed it's more likely for people to get the wrong idea, especially if they're the type to be blinded by the cuteness factor but when you have the context of before and after and considering the important terms of why he values her at all with the she's an impressive life-like loyal and efficient creation and her dad is a genius memo, again it makes sense and is in character.

The "she's the best" line is one of the only parts I'd change, he's far too egotistical to say that about anyone else. It doesn't make sense because the whole reason he values her is what she does for him and the pride he can take in her, literally because he sees himself as the best person ever lol. Just specifying what she's the best of, like of his creations or something would've worked, not making it sound like he's saying in general.

But guess what? Apparently it was changed in Japanese in the translation I saw, to say she was just doing great or something lol. It's a case where I can make sense of it in English as her being the best in a specific area can again give himself credit as the creator as he's intentionally supposed to but the word choice was poor. But every time I felt a line should've been changed a bit, the Japanese version had me covered. XD

Back to the point- it's also important to consider that he's praising her in this memo with the important preface of saying that Sage has been crucial to his survival in Cyber Space and listing the ways she has served him well. It's on the condition of him getting something out of it every time. And in memo 19 we know he wants to take pride in her skill and accomplishments and take credit as her creator, so any praise is self praise.

So I can't be mad at the game, I think even in moments that had some level of cuteness factor to appeal to those into that which certainly worked on them, there was established context that made it work and in character, enough to piece it together and understand it. But some people's minds go blank with the "aww so cute" reaction and desire for it to be simply pure and wholesome so they don't think about it any more to do so.

I've been learning to avoid it just by stepping back from fandom because I'm less interested the more I see the drama and bad takes. Now I only see things if I'm forcibly subjected through someone else putting it on my dash/it's recommended/etc. A large majority of fandom is anti canon and literally admit it so I feel like I don't belong in it as a huge fan of it that enjoys celebrating it in my fan creations and discussions.

It suffers from the simplification and sanitization that modern fandom tends to do now, so they can fit all characters and stories into certain boxes and use them as bases to project fan character traits and concepts onto instead of celebrating canon. It makes it more appealing and mainstream and easier to consume by the crowd that stuff succeeds in appealing to. It's to the point it replaces people's memory/idea of it.

So of course from the outside looking in especially, non fans are going to believe that's what the text actually contains, especially since they get exposure to the fandom's twisting of canon and it's drilled into their heads how to think and feel about it by them, before they've even seen the games themselves. Then they find it hard to shut that out and look at the games alone for what they are. That happened to me with Frontiers.

Then of course you have people acting like the series "is just for babies and inconsistent and not good anyway you shouldn't think too hard about it", as if Sega JP especially haven't shown themselves to be incredibly passionate about the stories and characters they write. It is supposed to be that deep lol. And thinking that deeply is a good thing, as if it's better than just shutting our minds off and consume product.

That's why I've allowed myself to think as deeply as I want about Frontiers. I love analyzing every moment and line down to the last word and detail. Regardless of opinion on the concepts and how they were executed, it was intended to be thought about. I don't think it should be considered micro analyzing and thinking too hard about something ever. I'm looking at it in ways official writers have described it to be anyway.

The mentality is popular so there isn't much pushback. Plus I'm starting to see it in both people who say they don't like the games and those who say they're fans so I feel alienated for wanting to think deeper and seeing there can be more than meets the eye with characters and scenes. While clarification can be important so things aren't misinterpreted quite as easily, it's nice for there to be stuff to think about.

Nobody really wants to debate and discuss now. A majority intentionally oppose learning more about the media or hearing out other people. They take the challenging of one's perspective or a disagreement as an argument and act like it's intended as hate from the other person when that's not the case. They're like "I don't want to change my opinion, nobody can convince me, let me enjoy things how I want", etc.

I myself was a bit ignorant at first on the topic of Frontiers. I was convinced I didn't like Eggman's portrayal but it was all based on what fandom was telling me it was and how to feel when the actual game was actually way different. When I finally took suggestions of new perspectives, then shut fandom out and focused solely on canon with my mind open and willing to analyze it again, I saw it in a new light and enjoyed it.

Now some certainly think I'm a low life nerd, as I've been told "it's nice to be a fan until it "becomes serious" and by people saying they don't care what I have to say as if I have to do exactly what they want- because it's bad to be passionate and wanting to think deeply about something I guess. :P I'd rather be doing that than shutting it down. Canon is cool, analysis is good, being passionate and thinking about stuff is fun.

You really hit the nail on the head with that. I've always enjoyed being open minded, analyzing media carefully, hearing out different perspectives, and having discussions. But I made the mistake myself at one point with Frontiers and I regret it because as soon as I realized I almost became what I was against and changed it for the better, it became a lot more enjoyable again. It's always good to stay open minded!

#dr eggman #eggman #dr robotnik #dr. eggman #asks #my post #sonic frontiers

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giftedpink · 1 year

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Why Shauna eat Jackie's ear?

I went way overboard on this I'm so sorry

Answer under the cut

Okay so the thing about this question is that there are multiple answers and IMO they are all equally plausible and valid. I don't think in the show they are ever going to explicitly state "Shauna did it for this reason", so it is purposely left open to audience interpretation. Now, some of the people who work on the show have given interviews and given what their answers are to this, so there are some explanations that we know they were thinking of when they wrote and shot the scene. And before you read all this, my own personal opinion is that all of what I'm about to say is part of why she did it.

I'll get into those in a bit, but first I want to start with the simplest and most surface level answer: she ate the ear because she is a pregnant starving teenager, and she was hungry.

Now, do I think this is the real answer? Not really, no. It's probably part of it, but a very very small part. However it is still part of the puzzle of the whole, and I would imagine if someone were ever to find out that Shauna did this, whether in the 90's or in the modern day, this would be what SHAUNA'S answer would be. Not that I think she believes it, but it's what she would tell other people, because its the easiest answer to explain away. I also think it's important to note that for some viewers, this will be the only answer. Not everyone consumes media with a very analytical and critical eye, which is fine! Enjoy your shows however makes you happy. But it does mean that in a situation like this, people who watch shows in that way probably won't bother looking past the surface level. My mother, for example, is someone I watch Yellowjackets with, but she uses TV as a way to turn her brain off, so I imagine for her it really is as simple as Shauna was starving.

Now for the freaks like me, who DO over analyze everything, there are a lot of layers underneath that hunger Shauna was feeling that we can dig into. I'll start with what's a little more textually supported and was spoken about by the showrunners, and then at the end I'll get into some of my own headcanons.

So, lets look at the word hunger. We've already discussed the literal meaning of Shauna's hunger and how it motivated things, but the other definition of the word hunger, the verb version, is applicable here as well. Shauna hungered for Jackie. They were best friends and had this very complicated and twisted friendship, a constant push and pull between desire and love and hate and sharpness. Teenaged girls have these deeply intense friendships that are just so, so complicated sometimes. To quote the showrunners "It’s about this very specific friendship that Jackie and Shauna had, where Shauna loves Jackie, but also was always in her shadow. She adored this friend of hers, but also in some ways, was always wanting to kind of destroy her — maybe that’s going a bridge too far? But I think that is very relatable to a lot of people who are in these intense friendships."

So Shauna loved her, but felt like she was second fiddle to her. To use an overly poetic simile, Jackie was like the sun to Shauna. She was warmth and light and goodness and everyone loved her, but she also cast a huge shadow. You could say Shauna was the moon but I think in reality she was the Earth. The Earth needs the Sun to survive, but at the same time its stuck forever in the Sun's orbit, and eventually the Sun is going to destroy itself and the Earth both. There was probably some jealously on Shauna's part, of wanting to be the sun for once. But that jealously was coming from her OWN view of Jackie, of seeing Jackie as this star popular girl and going "why can't I have that?". And I think Shauna didn't even understand herself in what WAY she wanted that. Did she want to be that or possess it for herself? Regardless, I think this next quote sums up where I'm going with this pretty well:

"And so the next step of that is consumption, right? I literally want to consume this person, because I love them so much — but I also want them no longer to exist in a way. I also want to keep them a part of me for my entire existence. We were playing with that kind of plasticity on a psychological and emotional level, and not just have it be about, 'Oh, I’m gonna eat the ear!'”

So, Shauna loved Jackie, and also she hated her. She wanted to preserve her forever but also wanted to destroy her. So she ate the ear. An act of preservation and destruction in one.

Now for some of my own musings on it. I think grief and guilt may have both played a large part in it. Straight up, people do irrational things when theyre grieving. They have bizarre responses to things when they've experience trauma, and all of these girls are traumatized. Shauna is well WELL down the path to being completely unhinged at this point, so an impulsive decision like this isn't that strange when you think about it. And the guilt part I think is 2 folds: 1, she feels guilty for causing Jackie's death in the first place, and 2, she feels guilty that she broke the ear.

She doesn't want anyone else to know that she's been moving the body around in there. She also doesn't want to feel like she's commiting MORE violence against Jackie. And she really doesn't want her illusion of the whole situation shattered. So when the ear breaks off, shes confronted very starkly with a dead body in front of her again, she realizes she harmed this body again, and she realizes if anyone else comes into the shed and sees it, theyll know she isn't just talking to the body. We see that she tries to reattach the ear and fails, so in my opinion I think part of her eating it was a knot of not wanting anyone else to find out about it, and also not being able to just GET RID OF a piece of Jackie. I mean she already killed her, now shes just supposed to throw away a literal chunk of her and not feel guilty about it? So it just ends up in her pocket.

She can't bury it because the ground is frozen, she can't toss it away because of the guilt, and she can't just leave it lying around. So she eats it. She consumes this part of Jackie so that it will always be hers, it will always be a part of her. Everywhere she goes, Jackie is now literally part of her. Shauna gets to have this ownership of Jackie through her consumption, while also preserving her forever in a very fucked up way.

Now the last piece of all of this for me is, of course, the homoerotic subtext of Jackie and Shauna's entire relationship. They were completely obsessed with each other. Jackie wanted to control Shauna's life to make sure she didn't leave her side. Shauna wanted to fuck Jackie's boyfriend because it was the closest she could be to Jackie. Both the closest she could be to BEING her and the closest she could be to her in this physical, intimate way that (I personally believe) they both wanted but had no way to articulate. And their desire for each other was buried inside of them, and complicated by all the other stuff going on in their lives, including just the horrors of being a teenaged girl, so it became this razor sharp thing that hurt both of them. They cut each other so, so deeply because they felt for each other so, so deeply. And then Shauna loses all of that, and it's her own fault, and she's also losing her mind, and now shes broken a piece of Jackie off and she just- she just needs to have this piece of Jackie for herself. To have it for just herself forever and to get to say "Jackie was MINE. She was mine and now I've proven it because this piece of her is now a piece of me". She loved her, and she lost her, but in this way she will never, ever lose her again.

And jesus fuck I really did write an essay, I am so sorry for completely going off when you were probably just looking for a meme answer like "nomnomnom" or something LMAO but thanks for giving me this opportunity to word vomit all over the place.

#yellowjackets #shauna shipman #jackie taylor #yellowjackets spoilers #this is literally an essay so #if u read this thanks i guess

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tordenvejr · 7 months

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Hi Vic, I hope this message finds you having a soft summer day. I wanted to know if you had any advice about feeling beautiful; I spent my teenage years in survival mode, very isolated, and it's like I missed out on the "femininity initiation" that other girls go through. Now I'm almost 26, I know I'm attractive (men do stare sometimes, and I've got a very loving boyfriend) but I still feel very unadorned and dull compared to other women. I'm often ashamed of it, for instance I never learned how to apply makeup and I feel very helpless and inadequate, which then makes me think cruel thoughts about myself. There's a part of me, however, that doesn't want to conform to "femininity", like I would be enslaved if I applied makeup or wore too feminine clothes. But there's another part of me, that wants to play, to feel beautiful, confident and magical. I do like to take care of my body already, even though I could do better (I'm a very mental kind of person): I drink matcha every morning, I put oils in my hair, on my skin.. but these are "health" practices that don't really change my image. I admire your confidence in your looks, how you share your beauty with others. I'm sorry this ask is a bit all over the place, I guess I'm asking for advice about 1) exploring the realm of appearance without feeling too "behind" or clumsy 2) getting in touch with my own beauty instead of berating myself and comparing to other people. Thank you if you ever answer these questions, have a nice day <3

hello 🐌🍁🧡🫖 it has found me on a beautiful autumn morning! i will do my best to help (-:

you begin by accounting for your beauty by naming others who see it and that can feel really validating, but the first fun thing i'd recommend you do is look at yourself and find all the romantic bits. if your eyes are big, maybe they're also honest. if they're sort of half shut, maybe they're dreamy. if your cheeks are full, maybe they're endearing. the hue of your lips - maybe it's inviting. your hair might be black, then does it not look like the most embracing night? is it a dusty brown, maybe it feels gentle. go on, go on.

you then mention feeling unadorned, that may be the core of a feminine expression for you, so start there (-: i don't know the first thing about makeup, but if i wanted to i'd watch people that are close in style essence to what i wanted to express for myself, and see how they do it. and maybe incorporating one thing at a time, seeing how that feels. for jewelry! here i can really help you because this is one of my favorite ways to feel beautiful!!! what sort of essence would you describe yourself as? for me it's thunder, old trees, chamomile and stars. to me that means i like simply and striking, strong, gentle and intricate, and pieces with a bit of a magical feel to them. what do you like? what elements make you feel like you? you mention beautiful, confident and magical - so that might be pearly and blushy hues of clothing and makeup, bold colors within your palette, and shimmers and delicate jewelry. sometimes the best way is to explore scents, body washes, shampoos, perfumes. if that's too harsh for you then an alternative might be gentle essential oils at home that will infuse your clothes with a light air.

look at your reasons for wanting to explore this, is it at its core to gain attraction from others or is it to feel beautiful and you?

i absolutely think taking care of your body is a way to feel beautiful, and to be in that energy! pouring love and care into it, emits.

and i appreciate your view on my expression, but please remember that you don't necessarily witness me when i feel insecure or ugly. i'm by no means always confident.

for your last comment, i think thinking of exploring beauty as discovering a truth and an essence that is truthful and personal to you is more beneficial than thinking of it as a skill in femininity that has one answer and that you're behind on. you're just learning your own beauty 🌟🌙

wishing you a lovely day as well!

#answered

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hostiae · 11 months

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↪ joseph seed religious headcanons

if we're mutuals on john, you might already know my feelings towards religion and eden's gate, but joseph gives me a reason to dive in a little deeper. and to dive into specifically how joseph feels, because it's far more relevant to this blog.

in my portrayal of joseph, eden's gate is a syncretic religion. joseph first heard the voice as a child, but he doesn't see it as the voice of the god his father preached about. it isn't the abrahamic god. following the death of his wife, joseph spent years studying religion, seeking answers not only to the world's questions, but to his own. i view his wife's death as a trigger for a return of his delusions, a return of the voice, so to speak. joseph is prone to hallucinations in times of stress and trauma and his happen to be religious delusions.

that isn't to say that he wouldn't have sunk into his delusions if she hadn't died, but i highly doubt eden's gate would've happened. he needed a catalyst.

joseph searches for common themes amongst religious texts. he's extremely interested in apocalypticism, because it reaffirms the voice and it supports his anger with the world. joseph wants there to be a reckoning. he wants the world to fall because of all its done to him and to his family. he understands that for his project to succeed, there has to be rules in place, he has to have control or else it's a free-for-all that won't survive the collapse. he believes in twisting and exaggerating tales for the sake of his project. he's a firm believer in the effectiveness of hyperbole, but he'll never tell his followers that.

joseph does believe in the project. he believes that he really does hear the voice of god and that he's doing his work. none of this is an excuse for all the atrocities he commits in the project's name. nor does it change that he does enjoy the power and validation.

the fact that he believes is what makes him impossible to reason with.

#jo. seed // headcanons #religion tw #cult tw

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compassionatereminders · 2 years

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Hey Kate I hope you feel better soon 🧡

I guess just a vent post, validation for these emotions i have.

probably last year I realised how bad my loneliness is. Being someone who was always surrounded by people, having things happening that I didn't realise until now. I haven't ever been in a relationship for 25 years. To be fair it never bothered me much until now? I realised how badly I also want to be seen as a priority for someone. Just once. I used to put people, friends as a priority but I wasn't ever happy with how much I got back. I learned and grew some harsh lessons. My only friends I dont really see much at all now because everyone is busy in their life, mostly have their romantic relationships or so.

It sucks because I noticed a change, things ain't the same anymore. I miss how times were like before. It made me realise how much I also crave to be wanted romantically (I always had but never felt the urge?) Until now. Its to the point where I feel resentment with people. I know I feel spiteful, probably because of my lack of ever knowing how it feels to be loved pursued and wanted romantically.

Sometimes I've had comments from friends which made me feel it more, like people almost think somethings wrong with me. I remember a friend mentioned how idk how you survive without anyone, which, I was taken aback by. I have no issues being with my self, I can be content with my own company. Its just the lifelong loneliness that people like me have who never got to experience "love". Its hard to explain to people bc truthfully they don't get it, not when they can't last being single. Ugh lol idk I guess it just hits when you think of everything combined, comments and it really makes you think. I had to stop speaking to a friend during my mental health not being the greatest, I just couldnt stay in contact all the time, it felt draining. Which I expressed truthfully and she respected it. But she had gotten into a relationship and it felt like I heard less about her anyways since. Its like the same cycle with people around me, I truly feel friendships are just as important as other relationships. Because of all different things happening, plus this, I just grew resentment. I acknowledge its not the most healthy thing, but for once I'm allowing myself to feel something negative? No one talks about how feeling jealously is really like, its still an emotion. But viewed negatively. I wish people spoke more on it so I could feel less bad about the way I feel, so I dont keep pushing people away afraid of my own feelings.

Whew. Idk if I'll get a response back but it felt good releasing it. Thank you for giving the space

To be honest I totally get the frustration you describe and I honestly don't blame you for struggling with this situation. Feeling unloved and like no one you care about is prioritizing you is really fucking painful and there's no shame in that. I don't have an obvious solution for you, but I get it and I'm sending all my love.

#chat with kat

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repairingangelsworld · 7 months

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Dark Ecology By Timothy Morton

Why do you think Morton wrote this when he did? 2018

Because it's more relevant to the world now, in relation to disasters and climate change, humans accelerating change faster

What else do other thinkers and writers say about Dark Ecology?

Paul Kingsnorth is a writer and an environmentalist who advocates for Dark Ecology. He believes that it's important to preserve non-human life. Kingsnorth wants to live life sustainably by moving out into the countryside and building things such as compost toilets and planting trees.

Kingsnorth states “If you don’t feel despair, in times like these, you are not fully alive. But there has to be something beyond despair too; or rather, something that accompanies it, like a companion on the road. This is my approach, right now. It is, I suppose, the development of a personal philosophy for a dark time: a dark ecology. None of it is going to save the world—but then there is no saving the world, and the ones who say there is are the ones you need to save it from.”

Paul Kingsnorth

We can separate ourselves from people but we cannot separate ourselves from the climate

Hyperobjects are nonlocal,

What else does Morton write about in his other texts and how could it relate to this too?

How does this relate to the climate crisis? To artmaking? To your studio practice?

Dark Ecology is about ecological awareness, it's dark-depressing and dark uncanny. Ecological awareness is strange because it has a twisted looping form. Our ecological crisis is in fact never ending because of human interference. The Anthropocene is the most recent time period on earth which explains how humanities interference started to have an impact on our planet's ecosystems and climate. Morton explains that our impact towards the planet has caused a crisis such as climate change. Climate change is a hyperobject because it's too big for humans to understand. Although humans can see the evidence of a hyperobject such as a hurricane, looking deeply into it would be like going through the looping form again. Morton states “Hyperobjects emerge only in fragments and patches that do not always seem to connect up from our view on the ground.” For me, climate change and an apocalypse is too big to understand, so through my work I am trying to understand big ideas and processing how complex it is. I know that there isn’t a complete answer to what climate change and an apocalypse is. However, maybe in my worldbuilding of Dark Nature, I can try to solve some of these things.

Hyperobject is a topic that Morton talks about in Dark Ecology, he explains that it is something that is too big for people to understand. For me, climate change and an apocalypse is too big to fully understand. Through creating my artwork I am trying slowly process the complexity of these big ideas because no matter how hard I try to understand everything, there isn’t an answer.

“By dark Taylor means that humans are capable of committing to an idea that the nonhuman has validity and power and significance all its own, without us. And that we humans, as in Dark Ecology’s upgrade of the concept of species, are also on “that side, “without us” in the sense that we perceive we are woven in among the nonhumans in a fabric we didn’t manufacture…”.

Morton explains how nonhumans, which is everything except humans, hold a power on its own without us. Nature has survived way before humans even existed, which proves the intelligence of nature is beyond humanity. This connects to my installation by the way my Dark Angel and Giant Mosquito soft sculpture look because the creatures are standing alone and have been birthed without humans. The tiles are like crumbling buildings from disaster and nature is taking over again.

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psychdeliks · 1 year

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VI. My Mother's Love is Choking Me Part 1

Prologue

Even in writing this, I feel truly guilty. The most painful thing about this is that I exist because of you, yet I am writing this about the pains that you have caused me, Mom. It is truly painful to write this as there are two sides of me in conflict. One that shushes the other, saying that I am so lucky to have a mother like you, that all my tears and heartbreaks amount to nothing, that my memories of crying so deeply into a pillow never existed, and that my anxieties of your distant footsteps outside my bedroom door were mistaken feelings. That these emotions that I feel must not be validated, for it is a sin to think impurely of a mother's genuine love. This part of me sides with you as it sees you as an obvious victim to society's standards, because to survive, you had to compromise your very own core and soul to appease this world. And ingrained within you, is the belief that for my own survival, I must live in accordance to these standards as well, even if they are soul crushing to me. The other side of me screams as it is filled with hostility towards you. The very sight of your resemblance in my face when I look at the mirror brings discomfort. When my friends and relatives tell me that I look exactly like you, it's weird how my stomach curls a little, like the supposed compliment left a bad taste in my mouth. Isn't it so horrible that these are the things that I would feel towards someone who birthed me and nursed me throughout my entire childhood?

Dear Mom,

There were many instances where I felt hurt and uncomfortable around you, but this one really stood out to me. Although it has been quite a while, the memory remains vivid in my mind.

I am an individual who moves on pretty quickly. I do not really hold grudged or even remember the wrongs done to me. Actually I do not despise you, I love you truly, but I feel that this specific circumstance really changed the way I view you and myself.

I remember when my kuya brought a delivered Mango Torte from the gate, saying there was a delivery. There was a note written on top. My friend sent me a cake just to show her love, the cake was specifically a Mango Torte from Dulcelin. I decided to get a slice of the cake, but I wanted to do it in a furtive manner to prevent from being caught by you. I was able to secure a slice, but I suddenly heard my your stern voice. You said that I should remove the cream from the cake. At that time, I was in a stubborn mood because I really wanted to enjoy the cake with all of its toppings. Although I had eventually followed and removed the cream on the sides. You did not seem that angry, just a little bit annoyed that I did not follow your instructions immediately. I hurriedly ran to my room to eat the cake, so that I could finish it in peace. I decided to lock the door because I always feel safer and more secured when my door is locked. As I started to enjoy the Mango Torte, I suddenly heard a bang at the door. My heart jumped a little bit, starting to be filled with anxiety. Of course, the door was locked, so the handle of the door started twisting and turning in an aggressive manner. The vibration of your fists on the door started to rumble the door. I quickly ran to the door to open as I did not want you to get angry any longer. I really cannot forget your face at this very moment. Once I opened the door, you were holding the entire Mango Torte in your hands. This cake had a pretty big diameter as it was a tart, I would say it was 2 feet in diameter. You were holding it, and once you had slightly entered my room. You threw the entire Mango Torte to the ground. The bits of mango, cream, and crust splattered everywhere. You were shouting about how I should just eat this all because I am so matakaw. You started to say many words that really hurt me, about how I have no discipline, no self-control, that I should eat all of this cake, all of which was splattered at the floor. You said I was a whale and that I was so fat. I don't really recall anymore the other things that you said, but you just kept repeating these painful words. At the time, I was so filled with anger and rage that I stared to cry and tear up. You were asking me why I was crying when I did this to myself. I had mentioned previously that I wanted to try to live alone and move out, at this time we were talking normally and peacefully. I think it is a normal conversation to have with parents. You had mentioned it again at that time, saying that I should go and move out right now. You said, "Gusto mo nang umalis diba? Edi umalis ka na, layas ka na!" I did not expect you to understand what I said in such a bitter way. I wanted to experience living alone for my own personal growth, so that I would be able to learn more about adulting as I was 17 years old at this time. You started to hand me tissues, saying that I should clean the messed cake that splattered to my entire room. While I was wiping down the floor, you continued to mess it up while I was cleaning it up. You just kept repeating insulting words towards my body and my personality, that I looked so fat, that I am stupid because I don't understand how to follow instructions, and many other things that I don't recall anymore. While I was trying to clean every bit of Mango Torte, you went out for a while. The moment you went out, I just felt numb. I stopped crying and just continued to clean the floor with tissues and alcohol. After a while, you went back to my room with big black trash bags. You went to my closet and started to get my clothes and throw them in the floor. They became dirtied with the bits of Mango Torte, then you told me to put them in the bags, so that I could leave the house already. Back then, I had mentioned to you that you shouldn't buy me so many clothes because they do not fit my closet anymore. My mother has a hobby of buying me clothes in which I am truly grateful for. At this moment, you said that I did not like the clothes, so I should just throw them away.

Continuation in Next Post...

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warmthpdf · 3 years

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if i don’t write down all my thoughts about surviving this summer sometime soon i think i will explode !

#'surviving' to begin with feels like such a strong word to apply to this summer but survival is SO intensely woven into how i've been living #how ive been living these past few months has been based around just surviving the next hour the next day the next week #and not being sure if i was able to do that or if doing that was worth it #for the first time in years i didnt wanna wake up. but for the first time in years i also wanted to live authentically and unabashedly #theres a lot i want to say about that? probably not all of it on tumblr. i feel like im already sharing way too much #but my point is that despite nothing life altering or world shattering or something that could be 'big trauma' this was something i survived #and i want to feel a little proud of that #and i think to be proud of that i have to put that into words and really really look at it as if this was someone else #to feel validated in my own survival i have to ?? view it as if its someone else. bc i think im the one exception to deserving to heal ig #but it helps to put things in perspective #im rly holding back a lot of feelings rn i think and i need an outlettttt #gonna journal tomorrow night i think #sleepover on monday. a lot of feelings about that :') first day back at college on wednesday. seeing the big group of friends on friday #things are happening and im trying to hold my life in my hands again and say its enough to keep living for #mine #thats all ! its 4am nini #sorry my tags are so. like this lmaooooo i forget other people might actually SEE what i post #im not a writer by any means but ppl on my uquiz have said my writing is very nice :') so thats been encouraging me to ramble more i think #okay GOODNIGHTGOODNIGHT

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d3nt4l-d4m4g3 · 3 years

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A few days ago, I emailed my former professor about a paper on women’s food practices in the middle ages. At least, that’s what I told him it was about, initially.

But actually, I wanted to discuss heresy. This professor teaches a women’s rights course every year. Every year at the beginning of the class, he calls attention to why he, a man, is talking about women’s rights. He looks us in the eyes and says, no one else is doing it, and I’m sorry it’s me.

This man made us read the SCUM manifesto, Gerda Lerner, Maria Mies. He grazed the subject of the Lesbian Sex Wars, delicately, so gingerly, posing the question: “Can sex work ever be just work?” And my (all woman) classmates, generally mute—in a Women’s Rights class, they all seemed averse to saying the word “woman,” at all. Then one woman raised her hand. and she said, “Sex work is real work.” A statement that, as I hope you know, is a deflection and a discussion killer.

At the time I was non-binary. Hah. I submitted a comic at the end of the year of my final project. My thesis for that project was this: the very language female people have to use for themselves was constructed by the patriarchy. for example, the english word “vagina” comes from the latin word for “sheath”. so the vagina invokes the act of penetration upon its utterance. Whereas the word “penis” has no clear etymological root, implying that it is original while the vagina is constructed for him. Why should I carry the fact that I will always be a tool, the hole, of the human that is man? My solution, at the end of the comic, was to continue using they/them pronouns, to shield myself from the horror of being a wo-man, a s-he—an appendage of Him.

I got a good grade. A stellar report. And it wasn’t a bad comic, for what I knew then. For my condition of blindness and deafness. I made a compelling argument, using sources from class. But oh, how much older I feel now. I’ve always felt old but now I feel almost like I’m dying. Like I don’t have enough time to fix the world before I disappear. And women’s stories never survive. They are not surviving. networks spring up like mycelium and then every century at least they are burned. Witchcraft is in the air shared by women in a room of their own, and witchcraft is doused in gasoline.

I don’t have enough time to explain how the veil lifted for me. Maybe I forget the big moment. the days after were a blur of searching the no-no tags like radical feminist, GNC, gender critical. Amazed at the wealth of journals that these women linked to with real statistics showing that children are being sterilized for no reason. Mostly gay children. like me, a lesbian, who now lives in a house with three “non-binary afabs”. This summer, one of these women, who I have known since freshman year, will start taking testosterone, a procedure I took up for three turbulent months during my freshman year of college. I get to watch her become what I turned away from, knowing the experience fractured my sense of self to a point of terror and estrangement. I get to watch her hide from her problems and cut herself off from womanhood the way I did for 3 years. I am not a woman, so do I not feel Woman’s pain, she is telling me, I told myself, when I was in a dream. She has so many problems, she laughs. But trans is a separate problem that has nothing to do with those other problems. A coincidence.

(For any trans people reading this, you may think: This transtrender fake-trans never-was-trans woman is treating these nonbinary people as if they were dead! as if they weren’t happy people finally living their truth! —well. I put my mom through the process of trying to convince her that I should have always been a man. and I did lose her, for months. For her it was the height of cognitive dissonance that I should want to go on a life-altering hormone to cure my lifelong social awkwardness and self-hatred and self-harm and depression. And I blamed her for not accepting my real self. I was basically made to shun her and my family because of transphobia.. It is disrespectful to anyone’s sanity and integrity for me to perpetuate that cognitive dissonance in this post.)

So I eventually got through to the professor. I knew because of the texts he had us to read for class. He is gay. He has read all the theory, and lives by it. And no (woman) student wants to speak to him. To bring the theory alive. They cannot breathe into it and it sits dead in his mouth.

Maybe it is because he is a man. because the presence of one man in a space of all women immediately sends up alerts. lockdown. Certainly that is the case. Radical Feminists here: I know he’s a man. But I don’t have a woman. And I felt on the strength of the texts he’d given us that he would be my best bet. Maybe somewhere in the corrupted, rotting heart of my college there was a person who knew about thoughtcrimes and was thinking them anyway.

My professor starts with diversion. He starts by talking about my paper. I find it disconcerting that he starts that way. I worry that he won’t want to refer to my email. Where I say: I have woken up from a dream to the apocalypse—Does this man think I’m crazy? Chipper and kind of frantically, he lists off primary sources of medieval nuns and women saints. for my paper. Does this man think I’ve turned into a bigot? Am I confessing lunacy, like a flat-earther?

But I steer the conversation to the meat at his first tentative encouragement. I tell him something like: “children, mostly gay children, a whole generation of gay children, are being sterilized. Porn is a symptom of late-stage capitalism—men’s ownership of women’s bodies. trans is an extension of this. I was part of this. I was in a cult.” I was shaking a bit. I don’t think I’d uttered those words out loud. They sound crazy. Some of the things I said did sound far-fetched. disorganized, remote. But I prayed that my professor would believe some of it, any of it.

What I will say is that he believes me. Thank fuck, right?

He tells me something along the lines of this, vocalizing my fears:

that all of academia is being scrubbed of anything that doesn’t support Trans.

And it is trans-identified female students and women who are reporting him to Title IX, who spend all their time in his classes fuming at the lack of validation for trans women in the history of women. My sisters, footsoldiers for the cause. What cruel irony. This man is holding onto this class by his fingernails, speaking through his teeth, hoping any of the twenty young adult women staring blankly or angrily at him will hear him and listen.

Looking back, the professor’s responses to my emails are vague, completely refusing to acknowledge a point of view other than “WOW. I look forward to discussing this.” I think he thinks he could be blackmailed. Anything he says on gmail dot com can and would be used against him. It’s like, really, really, really that bad.

No ideology should involve a cultural cleaning of women’s history feat. witch hunts.

I will end here with an excerpt from my first email to this professor:

I'm sure you know what a total bummer it is to realize this.

#detransition #tra #gender critical #radical feminism #radfem #radblr #feminism #academia

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attemptsonherlifepdf · 3 years

Text

fantastic mr fox: humanising animals, animalising men, and an exploration of masculine identity

‘this story is too predictable.’ / ‘predictable? really? what happens in the end?’ / ‘in the end, we all die. unless you change.’

mr fox, the titular character of wes anderson’s 2009 stop-motion adaptation of roald dahl’s children’s book, is a portrait of two conflicting manifestations of masculinity. he is built to demonstrate the crossover between tradition and modernity, between wild and civilised. characterised as a charming gentleman, almost renowned for his recklessness, mr fox combines his undomesticated instincts with a carefully crafted domestic life. he appears to spend more time manufacturing a perfect home and family than he does actually participating in it. the events of the movie serve to strip away his facade and present both the audience and protagonist with a harsh reality to deal with: the juxtaposing aspects of his identity that he must contend with in order to survive his situation. these aspects are demonstrated through the use of anthropomorphic animals. in essence, the text attempts to convey the message that while you can associate your actions with animal or human traits in order to characterise and frame them, you cannot change their value and their consequences. it serves as a critique of how the nature of male identity is exploited to shunt responsibility, and the movie specifically promotes a more collectivist mentality.

there are four key scenes that mark mr fox’s journey in terms of his identity. initially, we first see his identity openly questioned once he has moved into a new home (a large and expensive tree), just prior to him revealing his ‘master plan’ to kylie, who becomes his assistant of sorts. he asks, ‘why a fox? why not a horse, or a beetle, or a bald eagle? i’m saying this more as, like, existentialism, you know? who am i? and how can a fox ever be happy without, you’ll forgive the expression, a chicken in its teeth?’ he attributes his identity with the ability to fulfil his base desires, like he could in his youth. aspects of his later life such as employment, family, and safety restrict his ability and leaves him feeling untethered from himself. the movie opens with his youthful vibrance and recklessness, and is quickly contrasted with his dissatisfaction with his job, home, and life in general.

MR FOX

i dont want to live in a hole anymore. it makes me feel poor.

MRS FOX

we are poor, but we’re happy.

MR FOX

comme ci, come ca...

does anyone actually read my column?

having been moved out of the hole and into an expensive tree, mrs fox asks her husband:

MRS FOX

do you still feel poor?

MR FOX

less so.

constructing the ideal domestic space for himself and his family does not satisfy mr fox and he yearns for more, which is where is existentialism and ‘master plan’ come into play. domesticity was never going to satisfy mr fox, as he yearns for something youthful and risky and dazzling, adjectives not usually applied to a quiet and content home life. the consequences of this dissatisfaction are drastic and almost immediate.

soon, having been forced out of his new home and underground by an attack from the farmers, mr fox is faced with a situation he cannot charm his way out of. he attempts to apologise to his son and recite a speech to raise the morale of his family, and both of these attempts are shut down by those around him. the facade of his elaborate home, his monologues, even his suits, are abruptly stripped away leaving him with only his actions which he cannot charm his way out of. the reality is that he and his family, his neighbourhood, is stuck underground with no means of food as a result of his selfish actions. this prompts yet another key scene; his argument with felicity, which begins with her viciously hissing and scratching his face.

MRS FOX

why did you lie to me?

MR FOX

because im a wild animal.

MRS FOX

you are also a husband, and a father.

MR FOX

im trying to tell you the truth about myself.

MRS FOX

i dont care about the truth about yourself. this story is too predictable.

MR FOX

predictable? really? what happens in the end?

MRS FOX

in the end, we all die. unless you change.

mrs fox’s physical attack on her husbands face serves as a display of genuine animal ferocity, making mr fox’s claim to being a ‘wild animal’ appear as a flimsy excuse for his behaviour. his chicken theft, which he was insistent upon regardless of the consequences, was motivated not by animal instincts but a selfish desire to feel a particular version of his own masculinity. disregarding the safety of his family actually seems like a natural byproduct of his master plans because he is trying to reclaim his masculinity from a time before his family existed, and in his eyes, restricted him. the very recent loss of his tail, combined with this conversation with his wife, is a harsh reality check for mr fox in terms of the dangers of his masculinity.

the audience sees the outcome of this conversation later on, in the waterfall scene. here mr fox admits to his insecurities and suggests sacrificing himself to the farmers to save the local community.

MR FOX

darling, maybe they’ll let everyone else live!

…

MR FOX

foxes traditionally like to court danger, hunt prey and outsmart predators, and that’s what im actually good at…i guess at the end of the day im just-

MRS FOX

i know. we’re wild animals.

the difference between this admission to animalism and the one from his argument with felicity is that here, both parties gain some acceptance of their animalism without using it as an excuse for their behaviour. the inclusion of others in animalism – ‘we’re’ wild animals, rather than ‘i am’ a wild animal – contributes to illustrate how wildness is not specific to masculinity. it is not femininity vs masculinity but animals vs man.

the movie also questions the nature of an animal in the final key scene known as ‘canis lupus.’ wes Anderson referred to this scene as ‘the reason im making this movie.’ throughout the movie, mr fox alludes to his ‘phobia of wolves’ and shuts down any conversation surrounding them:

MR FOX

scared? no, i have a phobia of them!...a wolf? what’s with all the wolf talk? can we give it a rest for once?

arguably, these reactions are representative of mr fox’s aversion to competitive masculinity. he shuts down any opportunity for those around him to discuss something he sees as more masculine than himself in order to feel secure in his own masculinity. critic shana mlawski argues that ‘the wolf is described as the wildest, most frightening, and yet most beautiful creature in the world. mr fox fears the wolf and yet wants to be exactly like him. we can thus say that mr fox fears pure, wild masculinity yet also yearns to own it himself.’ the scene holds an eerie familiarity to it; mr fox is recognising something that he thought would be a reflection of himself, but the wild animal is no longer familiar to him anymore. he now accepts his role as a husband and a father and no longer fights to overtly express his animalism in the same way as the wolf. the most he can offer the wolf is raising his fist in solidarity. he calls out to the wolf, ‘i have a phobia of wolves!’, which is an interesting moment to admit this in. it’s his acceptance that allows him to admit this. the scene is entirely compromised of male characters: mr fox, kristofferson, ash, kylie and the wolf. mr fox’s admission to his fear allows him to be vulnerable in front of these people he cares about, and to use this as a teaching moment for the young boys.

MR FOX

what a beautiful creature. wish him luck out there, boys.

here mr fox openly admits his admiration for someone else’s masculinity in front of others without showing signs of his own insecurity. he can admire the wolf for what he is without seeing him as competition. the scene allows the audience to see and directly compare two forms of masculinity and animalism, and to understand that there is no one true expression of either of those traits. the wolf has connotations of violence and ferocity, whereas mr fox and his suit and display of multilingualism are entirely modern, but both are masculine animals who are valid in their own right. either way, both animals rely on violence for survival at times.

kupfer frames violence in three ways: symbolically, structurally and as a narrative essential. there are various forms of violence within this narrative, namely mr fox killing chickens and squabs, and the three farmers’ attack on the animal community. symbolically, mr fox’s chicken theft is attributed to his masculinity. while it is often presented as thought-out ‘master plans’, his desire to enact this violence in the first place supposedly stems from his ‘wild animal’ instincts. he associates a time where he felt secure in his masculinity with his actions at the time (violence). structurally, we see the potential for this violence in the opening scene, where mr fox takes his wife chicken-stealing and they become trapped. he is stuck in a fox trap with his wife when he receives the news of his impending fatherhood, a relatively obvious symbol for his view of fatherhood in general. the news of his wife’s pregnancy disrupts his ability to continue stealing chickens, not just on this specific occasion but through the coming years as well. mr fox appears to view family life as an unfulfilling, less raw expression of his masculinity, and is shown to be wholly dissatisfied with his life.

the violence on the farmers’ behalf is almost always in reaction to mr fox’s violence, already giving it a structural framing. boggis, bunch and bean are referred to early on in the film as the ‘meanest, nastiest and ugliest farmers on the side of the river.’ their violence against mr fox and subsequently the local animal community is an attempt to gain back power and status. mr fox’s actions are “humiliating’ and the local news coverage of this exchange between the farmers and animals raises the stakes as now the reputation of these farmers is on the line as well as their power. violence here serves as a narrative essential because it drives mr fox into a situation that forces him to confront his issues with masculinity and splitting between his animal and human traits, giving the text/movie a fulfilling arc. violence is

introduced as inherently masculine, but is decoupled from masculinity by the ending. mrs fox also plays a small but significant role in this; at various moments in the movie she exhibits her own displays of aggression equal in intensity to the men around her, suggesting to the audience that forms of violence should be categorised as human vs animal rather than male vs female. examples of this behaviour include her clawing at her husband’s face, and a parallel between her and a male human character wherein they both connect two wires and shout ‘contact!’, causing an explosion. while this moment is brief, it highlights a distinct difference between animals being violent and men. humans’ aggression is driven by the need for power, whereas that of animals is driven by the need for survival. the man paralleled with felicity only sparked the explosion to destroy mr fox’s home and assert the dominance of the three farmers, while mrs fox used the same form of violence to enact a plan to save her nephew’s life. petey’s song even alludes to this sentiment: ‘well he stole, and he cheated, and he lied just to survive.’

mr fox’s tail becomes a symbol of power; bean wears it as a necktie, and mr fox feels emasculated by his loss.

MR FOX

one of those slovenly farmers is probably wearing my tail as a necktie right now.

…

BADGER

i cant even imagine how painful, even just emotionally, that must be for you… oh but foxy how humiliating, having your tail blown clean off by-

MR FOX

can we drop it?

the use of the tail as a necktie is a symbol of the power that mr fox and the farmers end up jostling to achieve: at first it belongs to mr fox, then to the farmers, and is eventually reclaimed once more by the fox.

MR FOX

you shot off my tail.

[through gritted teeth] i’m not leaving here without that necktie.

when he reclaims his tail towards the end of the movie, it has been torn to shreds and needs ‘dry cleaning twice a week’ to maintain itself. this can be interpreted as a symbol for his evolved definitions of masculinity and power: his masculinity is no longer defined by impressing people or stealing or killing chickens, but in the quiet satisfaction of having a family. the final scene reveals that mrs fox is pregnant again, and instead of her glowing and her husband giving an awkward grin like in the opening scene, both of the spouses ‘glow.’ the structural framing of these pregnancy reveals bookending the events of the movie allows anderson to demonstrate mr fox’s growth and change in his priorities. the domestic life appears to be enough for him, and he no longer seems to find it emasculating,

what stands out as particularly modern about mr fox is how he unconsciously separates himself from both his wildness and his suburban self in his effort to combine them. he uses his ‘wildness’ as an excuse for his violence and selfishness, but is ultimately not willing to participate in truly wild forms of violence and selfishness, such has hunting. his chicken thefts always include infiltrating a human site, like boggis, bunce and bean’s farms, and the fun of it is in outsmarting them, rather than finding those animals himself out in the wild. the local animal community essentially functions as we would expect a rural village occupied by humans to function: everyone knows everyone, there is one local school and various small and quaint homes. while the setting reflects anderson’s signature style, it is also reflective of dahl’s framing of the community in the original text.

mr fox comes across as an individual who believes himself to be above the somewhat backward mentality of his village, that he is the most civilised and dazzling and original, and he exaggerates these traits in himself out of insecurity: ‘if they arent dazzled and blown away and kind of intimidated by me, then i dont feel good about myself.’this is also reflected in his consistent ‘trademark’, his whistle-and-click combination that he uses to set himself apart from other foxes. his home is also a reflection of this:

MRS FOX

you know, foxes live in holes for a reason.

MR FOX

[grunts and tilts head in disagreement]

yes and no.

this insecurity and desire for outsider approval and individuality is inherently human, a quality of his that cannot really be associated with his animalised parts. this precarious sense of identity and self doubt separates him from his ‘wildness’ as it stands, which is only intensified by the fact that he compensates by exaggerating his human traits in order to be liked and feel worthy, as those are the traits he believes have the most value. towards the end of mr fox’s character arc, he is forced to admit that his need for external validation is flawed and unsustainable. when the façade of carefully constructed grandeur is literally washed away by bean, he is left with nothing but his actions and their implications for those around him. foxy reconciles with the relative insignificance of an identity based on other’s perceptions of you when rat dies soon after, reacting to the suggestion that he redeemed himself last minute by revealing ash’s location:

MR FOX

redemption? sure. but in the end, he’s just another dead rat in a garbage pail behind a chinese restaurant.

this moment is also used to inadvertently allow the audience to evaluate the significance of motivation and intention to the value of an action. although rat did reveal useful information to aid the group in saving Kristofferson, mr fox recognises that he only did so because he realised he could not win this fight.

MR FOX

would you have told me if i didn’t kill you first?

RAT

never.

mr fox’s own motivations throughout the movie have devalued his actions as they have mostly been self-serving. as his motivations evolve to centre around his family, he gains the perspective to understand why one’s intentions are so important. while intention does not entirely dictate how good one’s actions are, they certainly characterise the person who’s action it is. your actions have value and consequences as they are, and that cannot be changed by dressing them up or animalising them to distance yourself.

in essence, fantastic mr fox is a lesson in the value of including those around you in your mentality and worldview. it paints masculinity as something that is inherent and complex in nature, but promotes the idea that it is not stuck with its traditional connotations of violence and egoism. mr fox’s emotional development throughout the text mostly centres around his own insecurities surrounding his masculinity and how that causes him to overcompensate in ways that harm those around him. by the end he recognises that more tame and domestic forms of masculinity are just as valid, and that basing his self-worth on how ‘dazzled’ his peers are by him is immature and not constructive. his family now liberates him and allows him to be vulnerable rather than restricting how he feels he can express himself, and as a unit the animals beat the farmers in their game of power-seeking. mr fox recognises and appreciates both his human and animal traits, without using them as a means to excuse his behaviour or to feel bad about his worth.

MR FOX

i guess my point is, we’ll eat tonight, and we’ll eat together. and even in this not particularly flattering light, you are without a doubt the five and a half most wonderful wild animals ive ever met in my life. so let’s raise our boxes – to our survival.

i.k.b

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pet-genius · 3 years

Text

A complex and many-layered thing

But Harry’s anger at Snape continued to pound through his veins like venom. Let go of his anger? He could as easily detach his legs. . . .

This is the first Occlumency lesson. Harry is right, of course. Feelings don’t go away because you want them to. To let go of them when they’ve not been addressed or validated can be as hard as detaching a leg. And yet, it’s what Dumbledore asked Snape to do, and it’s what Snape had to do to survive the first war as Dumbledore’s spy. You have to ask yourself… how?

Trapped animals chew off their own legs to escape. It’s a sacrifice they make to survive.

If there’s one thing in a fic that turns me off it, it’s the idea that Occlumency shields are a thing, that Severus was so gifted at it because he’s got some power like Second Sight or being a metamorphagus. I always preferred to think of Occlumency and Legilimency as skills that can be learned, even if some have more aptitude for it than others.

Severus entered Hogwarts with the kind of life experience that primed him for developing these skills, and left it with even more. Occlumency is magical dissociation, a post-traumatic coping mechanism, and Severus has C/PTSD. More under the cut; tw: just general angst.

To survive, he would have had to develop a knack for telling how explosive and unpredictable people feel. Over his life, he faced at least two egregious examples of what Pete Walker, author of “Complex PTSD” calls “the Charming Bully”.

Especially devolved fight types can become sociopathic. Sociopathy can range along a continuum that stretches from corrupt politician to vicious criminal. A particularly nasty sociopath, who I call the charming bully, probably falls somewhere around the middle of this continuum. The charming bully behaves in a friendly manner some of the time. He can even occasionally listen and be helpful in small amounts, but he still uses his contempt to overpower and control others. This type typically relies on scapegoats for the dumping of his vitriol. These unfortunate scapegoats are typically weaker than him. […] He generally spares his favorites from this behavior, unless they get out of line. If the charming bully is charismatic enough, those close to him will often fail to register the unconscionable meanness of his scapegoating. The bully’s favorites often slip into denial, relieved that they are not the target. Especially charismatic bullies may even be admired and seen as great.

These would be James Potter and Tom Riddle, who are distantly related, I might add. Harry inherited the tendency to default to the fight response, but since he grew up the scapegoat and not the golden child, he never becomes quite as appalling, and after all, a fight response is normal when they are after you. Even so, Harry, who has both James and Voldemort inside him, triggers Severus to no end. It’s not a coincidence that the memories Harry sees when he is with him are largely horrible, and vice versa. There had to be happy or at least neutral or even boring moments, but these two detest each other, and they know they detest each other. Negative emotions and associated memories are so close to the surface they can’t be contained. This is the purpose of the Pensieve in this context - to contain the emotions. Since Severus knew what was in there when he pulled Harry out, my theory is that you don’t suddenly forget the memories you placed there, but rather you make them less fraught with emotions.

“Get up!” said Snape sharply. “Get up! You are not trying, you are making no effort, you are allowing me access to memories you fear, handing me weapons!”

Harry stood up again, his heart thumping wildly as though he had really just seen Cedric dead in the graveyard. Snape looked paler than usual, and angrier, though not nearly as angry as Harry was. “I — am — making — an — effort,” he said through clenched teeth.

“I told you to empty yourself of emotion!”

“Yeah? Well, I’m finding that hard at the moment,” Harry snarled.

“Then you will find yourself easy prey for the Dark Lord!” said Snape savagely. “Fools who wear their hearts proudly on their sleeves, who cannot control their emotions, who wallow in sad memories and allow themselves to be provoked this easily — weak people, in other words — they stand no chance against his powers! He will penetrate your mind with absurd ease, Potter!”

A lot to unpack here.

“Memories you fear,” “weapons”, “easy prey”.

Fearing your own memories, viewing your own lived experiences as weapons to be used against you, being easy prey… Severus could not be speaking louder of himself here. He is the one whose mind had been penetrated with absurd ease, he is the one who handed weapons to Voldemort, and he is the one who had to do the psychological equivalent of detaching his own leg – again and again – to survive.

I’ll argue that Severus developed a fawn response and a flight response, as fighting had never really worked out for him if it was possible at all. He had at least two more people I’d describe as bullies in his life, Tobias and Lucius.

Again from Pete Walker:

These [fawn] response patterns are so deeply set in the psyche, that as adults, many codependents automatically respond to threat like dogs, symbolically rolling over on their backs, wagging their tails, hoping for a little mercy and an occasional scrap. Webster’s second entry for fawn is: “to show friendliness by licking hands, wagging its tail, etc.: said of a dog.” I find it tragic that some codependents are as loyal as dogs to even the worst “masters”.

Remember what Sirius called him? Lucius’s lapdog. Bellatrix called him Dumbledore’s pet, Dumbledore said he dangles on Voldemort’s arm, the narrative compares Snape to a rabbit in SWM and Harry compares the Half Blood Prince to a beloved pet who had gone feral (yes, this does mean a lot to me on a personal level, yes my username is not a coincidence).

His unconscious fawn response might have been his undoing, drawn as he was to figures like Lucius and Voldemort. As an adult, I think he utilized the skills he had developed to survive in order to stitch these people up, and involuntary dissociation and fawning became Occlumency, which to me, is his signature magic. Harry needed only to banish Voldemort from his mind; Severus could not settle for this. He had to give Voldemort something, and knowing how to fawn meant knowing what to give him and how to draw himself in such a light that Voldemort would believe it. We see how he wanted to be seen by the Death Eaters: a self-serving coward who sought to hide behind Dumbledore’s apron, playing his pet. But that’s Pettigrew, not Snape. Imagine the self-immolation, the self-violation, it must have taken to convince everyone that you’re an ersatz Wormtail! Snape is a man and a prince, and the text recognizes this as Harry calls him, in the end, Dumbledore’s man, the bravest man, and as that chapter is called “The Prince’s Tale”. Voldemort thought Snape was nothing more than a “good and faithful servant,” and that his last words were “My Lord”.

But Severus had an unequaled gift for Occlumency, specifically against Voldemort, because Voldemort could not legilimens what he couldn’t feel; and he couldn’t feel love, grief, guilt, and remorse. This was Severus’s secret weapon, which would not have worked against Harry - who can feel these things, and who is also Lily’s son. I can prove it. The first time Harry gets the hang of Occlumency is after Dobby dies:

His scar burned, but he was master of the pain; he felt it, yet was apart from it. He had learned control at last, learned to shut his mind to Voldemort, the very thing Dumbledore had wanted him to learn from Snape. Just as Voldemort had not been able to possess Harry while Harry was consumed with grief for Sirius, so his thoughts could not penetrate Harry now, while he mourned Dobby. Grief, it seemed, drove Voldemort out . . . though Dumbledore, of course, would have said that it was love. . . .

Harry learned to dissociate, though fortunately in a healthier way than many of us ever get to.

Of course, Snape was a good and faithful servant… to Dumbledore, which brings us to the flight response. The chapter wherein he escapes after killing Dumbledore is called “Flight of the Prince”. He should be fighting, he had just proven that he can cast a killing curse, and yet he flees. He can literally fly, in fact: He, Lily, and Voldemort are the only ones we see pulling this off.

As a child, we see this too: He copes with his home situation by reminding himself “it won’t be long and I’ll be gone.” He is thrilled when he imagines Hogwarts, his escape; he follows Lily out of the carriage instead of confronting James and Sirius head-on (which might have saved them all a lot of pain eventually). But this doesn’t work out, we see that in terrifying detail. The next attempt at an escape is joining the Death Eaters, but this too doesn’t work out.

He can’t flee anymore.

“Severus, you cannot pretend this isn’t happening!” Karkaroff’s voice sounded anxious and hushed, as though keen not to be overheard. “It’s been getting clearer and clearer for months. I am becoming seriously concerned, I can’t deny it —”

“Then flee,” said Snape’s voice curtly. “Flee — I will make your excuses. I, however, am remaining at Hogwarts.”

Shortly thereafter:

“Severus,” said Dumbledore, turning to Snape, “you know what I must ask you to do. If you are ready . . . if you are prepared . . .”

“I am,” said Snape.

He looked slightly paler than usual, and his cold, black eyes glittered strangely.

He was ready, and he was prepared. He didn’t fly; he walked toward what might well have been his end with open eyes, armed only with the strength of his mind. Before Voldemort killed him, he looked pale, again, and terrified.

“I sought a third wand, Severus. The Elder Wand, the Wand of Destiny, the Deathstick. I took it from its previous master. I took it from the grave of Albus Dumbledore.”

And now Snape looked at Voldemort, and Snape’s face was like a death mask. It was marble white and so still that when he spoke, it was a shock to see that anyone lived behind the blank eyes.

I ask myself if this was the moment he realized he had been betrayed, that by giving Dumbledore a painless death he had secured his own. Maybe he wasn’t pale because he was scared; maybe he was pale because he was shocked. He was at his absolute limit, Occluding with all his might when he could have easily saved himself. The dam is about to break. All the memories he feared, all the weapons, the entire content of his heart is about to spill through - literally.

He fawned for Voldemort, the worst of all possible masters, but in the end, he was Voldemort’s undoing. All the ways in which he was weak and powerless against Tobias, James, Lucius, et al., proved to be part of goodness and source of his power. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that Snape is so loved. I’ve never actually seen such love for any other fictional character. He represents a kind of courage that many of us need to get by, lest we simply become evil or give the fuck up (“I wish I was dead”). A kind of courage rarely celebrated. The more time I’ve spent in the fandom in general and in the Snapedom in particular, the more I am convinced of this.

#pro severus snape #snapedom #snape meta #snape love #severus snape #psychology #complex ptsd #I'm not qualified to diagnose anyone #But like #come on #sometimes JKR writes brilliance she doesn't seem to comprehend #snape #occlumency #harry potter

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spice-chan · 3 years

Text

Ethereal

Yan!Dragon King!Bakugou Katsuki x Water Nymph!f!reader

The water nymphs send an unusual peace offering this year...

Warnings: Reader sent as a peace offering so feelings of objectification are present. Yandere themes. Possessiveness. Yandere bakugou but only becomes outwardly yandere towards the end. Death (killing). Not too descriptive about wounds though, although they are mentioned (not inflicted on reader). Bakugou is a bit of a douchebag at the start.

wordcount: 4.5 k

tags: @angie-1306 (your ask got deleted but thank god you werent on anon) @axther @reddriot

A bundled-up body was dropped under his throne, the body writhing and trying to get muffled screams to be heard.

“My king, the water nymphs made a peace offering. She was dropped off in front of the castle entrance.”

Bakugou’s rich red eyes calculatedly glanced down, breath hitching for a second at the beauty of the roped female—a water nymph. An offering to him. His eyes made contact with yours, seeing the clear defiance and disdain in them, but he knows this look, behind made walls of resistance and will of steel is a petrified woman afraid of her fate. How unfortunate for you. Your eyes were wide and glassy, cute in their attempt at conveying anger, brows furrowed in a glare that merely made Bakugou smirk in amusement. Your mouth, even with the rope muffling every sound you made, clearly showcased a pair of sweet and kissable lips.

The nymphs who sacrificed you did you no favour as well, for they left you scantily dressed, leaving you exposed to the hungry eyes of dragons around you, irking Bakugou slightly that others are looking at his prize.

He left his throne, languidly walking up to you before crouching down to inspect you, to see what’s so special about you. The water nymphs never usually offered one of their own in their attempt at maintaining neutral peace. This ritual which they adopted since ancient times became nothing more than a nicety, they usually offered rare fish, nuts, never a full-fledged nymph, and an attractive one at that. Perhaps the fact that Bakugou, the most renowned dragon shifter finally claimed the throne made them feel unsettled. For his savage and bloodthirsty need to be the absolute best was second to none.

His calloused palms took a hold of your face, ignoring your attempts at deflecting his hold as his massive palm dwarfed your face and made it plenty clear he can easily crush you. He inspected your face from different angles, seeing nothing extraordinary. He took this opportunity to feel up your soft skin which had been tempting him ever since he noticed you laying helplessly on the floor. He then confirmed the validity of the rumours that claimed water nymphs had skin supple and silky as water. It felt like he was running his finger across the surface of a ripple, a mere dip of his finger could breach the surface.

Heh, you’re kinda pretty. So very different from draconian women, who had thick builds paired with excellent survival skills and shifting abilities, but you...he bets it was so easy to overpower you and wrap you up nicely for him to unpack his gift.

He lifts you, his muscles bulging and tensing, proving that carrying you was not a struggle to him in the slightest.

He ignores your useless thrashing, kicking and resisting like a wild bird held in a tyrant's hand. Its wings contained and nails not doing any damage, freedom seeming further and further away. He walks with you on his shoulders, his massive, hulking shoulders.

Soon enough, the rowdy chatter of the men becomes scarce, and their figures even more so, making you double your efforts in trying to escape the tyrant lumping you on his shoulders like a sack of potatoes.

“Tsk, keep bein’ a brat and I’ll have to tie your shitty hands.” He turned his head to look at you as he said this, cementing his statement with a fiery glare that only infuriated you further.

He ignored any protest you made after that, walking with you and entering a wing that looked to be heaven-sent from the sheer luxury, gold highlights emphasized in every corner, treasures and artefacts littered around the corridor in a painfully tidy and organised to the very centimetre, clearly they got shined twice a day. However, the further he ventured, the more the previous shine lost its glory, it appeared clean, however, the stark contrast to the speckless shine from before was clear.

Bakugou stopped in front of the grandest door, he twisted the golden doorknob, finally appreciating your quietness. You couldn’t help it, you weren’t particularly rich back home, so to see this reincarnation of decadence really has your eyes glassing, bright in some semblance of joy, you forgot your situation for a second.

You were rudely reminded when you were dumped down on a hard surface.

“OUCH, YOU ASSHOLE.”

When you looked down, however, every profanity disappeared from your tongue as it twisted in awe. You were thrown on a pile of fucking treasure. A huge, mountainous pile of glittering gold and brandished silver, rubies, and every single gem one could imagine.

Bakugou narrowed his eyes, scowling at how much he liked the view of you on top of his hoard. He smirked, feeling prideful and accomplished until he noticed that the walls of fury and fire you built up ever since he saw broke in the worst way possible. Your face was scrunched, it felt like your cheeks were lit aflame in humiliation as tears streaked down your adorable face.

Bakugou felt like the biggest douchebag to walk the earth.

You brought your knees closer and hid your face behind them, body shaking as you sobbed. Your tribe sent you as a peace offering, not caring for the slightest about your well being and fate, and now you're stuck here with a brute of a king who has no qualms with treating you like a glorified piece of jewellery. You didn’t want him to see this side of you this soon, you didn’t want him to see how petrified you are, how weak and defenceless you are compared to him. You wanted to rivers of anguish gushing from your eyes to stop, but they wouldn’t.

“Hey…” he tried to console you. It was a poor attempt from an unpractised dragon.

You tried to speak, navigate around that lump in your throat to shout at him, tell him to leave you alone, but your voice failed you just like everything tends to.

You felt him clumsily try to lift your head in a gesture that fell between a forceful demand and a soothing touch. What is up with him now?

You relented and showed him your puffy eyes, glistening eyes, looking at him with trembling lips.

“Tch, stop crying! You—you’ll get snot and tears all over my hoard.”

It was the wrong thing to say, because a fresh batch of tears came, staining the apples of your cheeks.

“Fuck—no. I didn’t mean that.” Your sniffling was reduced to mere hiccups, break down halting at the sight of the most feared man on the earth, the legendary dragon king bakugou, most hardened warrior and skilled shifter, attempting to apologise.

“Shit—I wouldn’t have to be so rough if I knew it bothered you this much.” He pouted, cheeks turning a shade of red that seems almost adorable, turning away from you to scowl at the floor.

Fuck, his mother taught him better, yet the sight of you made him forget any semblance of manners, eager to get his hands on you and away from the prying eyes of people to who you didn’t belong.

An innate sense of possessiveness engulfed him, one that can only be appeased with you sitting on the one place most intimate and guarded by him: his hoard.

But, he’ll tone it down until he gets you more pliant and accepting.

“Stay where you are.” He simply commanded before walking off.

You stayed there, mind urging you to run away, a foolish choice your pride keeps urging you to make. Runaway, in a castle heavily guarded, without having the slightest clue how to get to the exit.

Yeah, bad idea. You’re sure you aren’t welcome back ‘home’ anyway. The thought feels like a sharp dagger slicing your heart, taking its time carving the pain into you.

Soon enough, Bakugou is back, trying to tone down his intimidating aura, but to no avail, for he noticed you shrinking at the sight of his hulking figure. It stung him a little, making his frown a little tighter.

“Come with me,” he said curtly, then walked swiftly out, his cape swishing behind him, making you scramble to follow him, struggling to keep up with his fast steps, frustration slowly rising like bile up your throat and making it harder to stay silent and compliant.

He took you out of the castle, ignoring the curious looks to the best of his ability, but before he could step a foot outside the gate, he grits his teeth in anger and took off his cape. He bundled you in it and lifted you, once again, like a sack of potatoes. But you were too busy feeling like you were lit on fire as you realised that you were walking around in the outfit you were donned in or lack thereof. You buried your face in the fabric, unintentionally making a sound that’s caught between a groan and a whimper.

He walked behind the castle, climbing places with you on his back until he got to where he needed to be

When you arrived, however, you are almost glad you didn’t voice your woos. The sight before you was breathtaking, so much so that your previous plights evaporated even if for a minute.

The scenery was breathtaking, it was a cave, and in the corner, if it was a treasure pile, except merely saying it's a pile was an understatement as it was a mountain in its own right. The hoard you saw back at the castle was incomparable. But that’s not what truly captured you. As he led you further in, you realised the true purpose of this journey.

There was a medium-sized pool, wide enough to fit comfortably in the cave without hogging up all the space, but deep enough that even Bakugou with his stature could enjoy a swim in it. It was clear too, so clear you felt like you could dip your leg in it and see through your very own flesh, that it would make your skin translucent. It was a shade of blue one could only dream of seeing, and after doing so would live their life content.

Perhaps you were biased, seeing that it’s in your very nature as a water nymph to be needing close contact with water, and to be enamoured with it.

All rationale left you though, needing for the water to cleanse you of all your stress and pain, and so bakugou’s cape slipped off your shoulders and hit the floor, your figure leaving it behind as you approached the water and slipped inside. You felt a rush of dopamine override all the negativity inside of you, feeling the water hug you, surround you, shield you.

“So it's true, huh?”

You almost forgot he was here, but Bakugou didn’t forget about you, not even for a second. He was watching you, fascination swirling in his pupils as your expression melted to one of near happiness, heart lurching with every cute expression you made, that *he* caused.

“What is?” You replied, turning in the water to face him.

“That water nymphs live such carefree lives because they spend them inside ponds and lakes.”

You scrunch your nose at that, unable to fathom the exact meaning of his words but having an idea. “We don’t live carefree lives. Not all are given that luxury, at least not me.” You said, giving him a once over with a glare to signify that he’s the problem. He’s the root cause of your misery, Bakugou doesn’t know how to feel about that. It’s quite unfortunate really.

He shrugs his shoulders and reverts to his default face, feigning nonchalance.

“Well, it doesn’t seem like much goes on in your ditzy head.”

You felt your face warm, could very well hear the aggressive thrumming of your blood as you gritted your teeth in anger. And you were about to unleash the full force of your fury until you heard wings flapping outside.

You turned your head, trying to take a glance at the disturbance, but your view was shielded by Bakugou, who moved unnaturally fast for someone who made it clear how nothing phases him. And not fast enough for you to think it’s a real threat.

He came back moments later with an attire you regretfully recognized.

No, scratch that, he brought several. Pale, light flowy dresses that are often worn by your people. Light enough that they wouldn’t mind an occasional soak in water.

Your anger dissipated, melting into confusion, then quickly becoming embarrassment as you realised you were comfortably standing in front of him in your underwear.

You should feel happy, but bile rose up your throat, the taste of humiliation clear on your tongue as you realised with distaste that he was indeed right, you did live carefreely. You also realised you won’t be able to live like that ever again, and that very realisation brought tears to your eyes once again.

“Tch, just take one and wear it. I don’t need you crying again.”

Your face fell, and Bakugou felt his heart twinge a little when you responded with silence, looking at your sad face made him feel oddly protective. It’s probably because you were his treasure. Like his hoard right? He always needs his treasure to be kept in optimum conditions.

Having justified that to himself, he didn’t feel as weird now regarding what he was about to do.

While you changed into one of the outfits he got you, he dug through his hoard, knowing exactly what item he wanted to dig out. His fingers slithered through countless gold pieces, shining enough to cure a greedy man’s blindness. He finally found it, a delicate golden chain, but what demands attention is the ruby hanging from it. He brings a thumb to it, rubbing the rock appreciatively, liking the semblance of the colour to his eyes.

You coughed, signaling you you were done, snapping away his wondrous gaze from the necklace.

You looked really pretty in the dress, he’s got to thank Kiri for the speed run to the shops that he did. The light material hugs your skin, looking stretchy, yet form fitting that it hugged your body in a way that made Bakugou jealous.

You looked in your element now, but somehow the awkwardness still lingered in the air as you avoided his gaze.

Bakugo didn’t try to be subtle when checking you out, in his eyes, you were *his* whether or not that’s what he chose so he can at least check what he has right?

Bakugou didn’t pay heed to the slow spiral of his morals, of the things he worked so hard to uphold. His justifications were slowly manifesting into delusions.

He approached you, ignoring the way you tensed when he went behind you, turning around to question him, but he was quickly done. Your eyes caught the glistening red ruby hanging from your neck, the colour rich and deep like red wine. You didn’t hate it, but confusion swirled in your veins at his actions.

“Looks good on you.” The colour looks like my eyes, it reminds me that you’re mine.

Bakugo wasn’t sure why he held off on telling you what’s on his mind, he usually doesn’t hesitate once to tell the truth.

Your wide, glittery eyes stared up at him, trying but failing to hide their awe. The anger and resentment took a backseat to intrigue, so did he pick this out for you because he thought it would look nice on you? How strange of him.

He lifted a calloused finger up, face now cleared and relaxed that he looked pretty, not intimidating, not barbaric, but pretty. He caressed your cheek, smiling slightly when he felt how warm it was. It slipped off his face all too soon when he took the reins back. He squished your cheek, lips once again taking the shape of a sadistic smile.

“You look dumb”

Your features hardened, gaze narrowed in anger and hatred that it made Bakugou surprised. Surprised by how much he hated it, or by the sheer intensity? He didn’t have much time to dwell on his thoughts though, because a dainty hand flew his way and slapped his hand away.

“You-“ you nearly growled in anger, tears once again coating your eyes because of him. “You rude, barbaric, selfish, egoistical “jerk!” You shouted at him. Why were you this angry?

“Just when I think you might be a decent person.” You rub furiously at your eyes, shoulders slouched in disappointment as you disappeared deeper into the cave and out of his sight. You were always so naive and easy to fool.

Bakugou felt the full weight of your words weighing down on him, but he tried to shrug it off. He walked out, silently brooding with his thoughts until a servant came and delivered dinner.

He stood up, walking to you with tje food in his arms, hoping he could butter you up with it. He found you in the deepest part of the cave, face hidden behind your knees, unmoving.

You were sleeping.

He set the food down, bending down to try and confirm his observation, only for a remorse to hit him like a truckload after he saw the semi dried tear tracks. He didn’t have to be that mean to you. Maybe his dragon subjects can handle it because they have thicker skin, naturally, and they’re used to him. But you were just thrust into his life today and he’d been laying it thick on you. He’s coming to terms with his attraction to you and he doesn’t know how to deal with it.

He nudged your shoulder, not wanting to test his voice right now, afraid it might be too gentle.

You stirred awake, your face relaxed and serene as you blinked blearily.

“Hm?” You rubbed your eyes, looking at your surroundings with confusion. Your eyes were red.

He wondered how much you cried.

He mumbled something unintelligible, you turned your gaze to him, the sleepiness now almost all gone.

“What? I can’t hear you.” Your tone was sharp and cutting, and your gaze, now devoid of all confusion, was similarly icy.

“‘didn’t mean to make ya’ cry.” You nearly believed him, nearly.

“What’s this? Another act to make me lower my guard? Well you don’t need to, I’m at your mercy. You can skip the pleasantries and just laugh at how pathetic I am.”

He stared at the floor, well, *glared*.

“You’re not pathetic.” He simply said, glaring at you in a way that dared you to challenge him”-and I’m not going to laugh at you.”

He could speculate about his feelings all day, drown in this euphoria of infatuation, hate you for making him weak but one thing he knows for sure is that he doesn’t want you to hate him. He wants your eyes to look at him in wonder again, to admire him and fill him with endless pride, to maybe smile at him, he hasn’t seen you smile yet but he bets it’ll be gorgeous.

It’s only because he wants his treasure to be in optimum condition, nothing more, nothing less.

“Then why do you go out of your way to demean me?” You questioned accusingly.

“I don’t, that’s just how I am, you’re going to have to accept it because you’re not going anywhere.” Dread filled you, knowing your days would be filled with humiliation, mocking words echoing in your head like an endless loop.

You stayed silent, accepting your fate because what else could you do? At least you got your greatest companion to keep away the loneliness; water. He once again waited for a response that never came, and he stood up with a sigh, stretching his limbs.

“Just eat your food. I guarantee you’ll like it.”

He said, hanging his cape around him once again, reminding you just who he is, making it flutter behind him as he left you all alone.

He was back early the next day, he found you asleep inside the pool, your head resting on your folded hands on the ledge. The sight had his worry spike so much that a vein was visible on his forehead. He woke you up and scolded you.

And then he proceeds to lay food in front of you, climbing up to sit on top of his hoard to watch you while you eat, not minding the fact that his gaze was sealed on you for minutes, nor the fact that at some point you scolded him for making you uncomfortable.

You didn’t like the glint in his eyes.

In the afternoon he was back with blankets, pillows and other gifts, hoping to sooth the raging waves of your ire. Trying to convince you that he isn’t that bad.

After a while, his daily visits, gifts…reluctant kindness was all you knew. You were starting to let the memories of your home slip, you were accepting the fact that the previous bonds you forged were inevitably breaking. You were accepting the fact that you’re now stuck in a cave as glorified treasure.

And it showed, the sadness on your face would linger, numbness in your tone. Even the water was suffocating.

“CAN YOU STOP ACTING SOULLESS?” And Bakugou eventually couldn’t take it anymore.

You turned to him, no longer was there a fire raging in your eyes. He’s losing the girl he met in his throne room on a fateful day. He no longer cares whether he has to bare his raw feelings to you, the intimidate, gushy, soft, mushy feelings he feels every time he sees you. He wants to hold you everyday, not like you’re an exotic treasure, *but his* treasure. He wants you have his hatchlings with you, and he wants to see you smile at him.

“Why should I?” You replied with dullness, not particularly moved.

“Because…” he looked constipated, his lips clamped together while his cheeks were dusted a cherry red.

“Because?” You didn’t get it. You’re just like a piece of jewelry right? Why does it matter if you become quiet and compliant?

“Because I love you.” He said softly, too softly for someone who looks as rugged and rough as him. Now that broke your composure. Your eyes widened, surprise painting your features as the dragon king Bakugou Katsuki just confessed to you. The greatest soldier in the land, the most terrifying shifter.

He cupped your cheeks, softly stroking the skin, appreciating the soft texture against his scarred hand. His face was so red, even his ears but he was smiling. He was smiling so hard that you wondered whether this was the same person. “I love you, I want you to be happy.” He said, now louder, prouder and more confident in his honeyed words.

You slapped his hand away.

“I don’t believe you.” You cruelly stomped on his confession, making his smile fall.

“But why? Have I not treated you well? I’ve never cared about someone as much as you”

“Prove you love me.” You challenged, staring him in the eye before adding.

“I’m pretty sure you can’t though.”

You turned around and walked away from him, but he decided that wasn’t the end of the conversation and he grabbed your wrist.

“How?!” Frustration was evident in his voice, but so was desperation. He was genuine about wanting to prove his love to you, what would people think if they saw the great dragon king behaving like this over a woman?

You ripped yourself from his hold and spat “figure it out.”

He came back at the dead of night, grunting, laughing and calling your name. You stirred from slumber, eyes fluttering open and peaking out from the blanket you cocooned yourself in. Yoy felt a hand brushing the hair away from your face, lips pressing to your forehead before the fog cleared away to reveal a bloodied Bakugou.

You screamed, scrambling to move away from him, but he held you back, keeping your supine form in place. With his arms on either side of you, not only holding your arms in place but also supporting his weight above you as he stared down at you like some sort of predator.

He laughed heartily, and if he wasn’t drenched in blood you’d find it kind of cute.

“What? Ya’ scared of a little blood? That’s cute.” You swallowed the lump in your throat, asking shakily whose blood it is.

His eyebrows rose, humming at your question before a cocky smirk took over.

“You’ll see. This will show you for sure that I love your bratty ass.” He got off you, walking towards the entrance of the cave, dragging a lifeless figure with him before discarding it carelessly in front of you.

It was the chief of water nymphs. Her old and withered frame looked pale and lifeless, yet brutal gashes littered her body.

“She was the one who sent you here, right?”

You wordlessly nodded, eyes glued to the corpse in front of you.

“I couldn’t set you free, ‘cuz I loved you, I won’t stand to have you around. But she hurt you a lot didn’t she? If she didn’t send you here as simply a peace offering, I would have found my way to you eventually and fell in love with you anyway. I don’t keep you because you’re another treasure on my hoard.” Despite the flaw in his justifications, his manic ramblings and his lovesick eyes, you weren’t repulsed, you weren’t mourning the death of the monster who sent you as a peace offering for objecting to her new rules.

No. Maybe you’re as fucked up as he is, but in a moment of pettiness, you turned to him and smiled.

You weren’t sure whether the redness on his cheeks were blood or a blush. But his eyes were looking at you like you were a miracle, a shining star, it’s like he had heart for eyes but who can blame him? Who can blame the wild thumping of his heart, that’s hammering against his ribcage like a woodpecker does to a tree? He finally got to see you smile.

“Do you believe me now?” He said, leaning closer to you, his eyes looking misty, glistening like the ruby on your neck.

“I do, Katsuki.” You replied, letting your eyes hold his own as you also moved closer to him, cupping his cheek, hand tangling in his surprisingly soft hair.

He was mesmerised, breath lost at your soft touch. The only physical contact he’s had before was when he was out in the field slaughtering enemies, hurting, grabbing. Not being caressed, because that’s soft and he’s never done soft until he met you.

You pecked him softly, lovingly. But you soon moved towards his ear, whispering carelessly.

“You know this could cause war with the forest creatures, right? You broke a centuries long treaty.”

He growled, giving you a bloodied grin. “Whatever those shitty extras throw at me, I can handle it. They wouldn’t pick a fight with me if they are smart.”

You squeezed his bicep, marvelling at how hard it was, he’s not infamous for nothing.

Is that all it takes to win you over?

You looked down at the chief, or ex-chief. You could still remember her cold, cruel grin as she saddled you up, to make an example out of you. No one questions her rule, no one has the right to, even if she endangers them, even if she takes the land that they always freely enjoyed.

Yeah, maybe that’s enough, you believed him. Or maybe you’re picking your own poison.

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