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saltypiss · 5 months

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"Aw man, I hate when Windows auto updates"

You fucking dipshit, using such HARMFUL dialogue like "auto update" anyone who's not hateful or bigotted knows to call it "Eventual Updates" and the fact you'd so WILLINGLY and NATURALLY say it shows just how much you hate windows people and how UNWILLING you are to learn all our intricate Bible Long Philosophy. As you know, anything less than full devotion is frowned upon with cancellation.

That's what it feels like when you say anything mildly related to trans people. Ignorance is treated as malice. And not one fucking soul is going to learn something that feels so cult-ish and Insider Knowledge driven.

Ya'll aren't special. Nothing but love from communities and protections online, nothing but positivity and inside joke labels, it's impossible, to learn anything, about you fuckers when you make it feel like a furry fanbase with codewords and shit. Doesn't help that most of it causes people disgust, whether dipshitted or personal, but my god man. Nothing. Is easy about trans people.

If you can't explain to a grandma who's actually listening, then you cannot explain it to anyone. Instead, ya'll explain shit like they should just KNOW and not knowing is a sin.

Trans people online REALLY are dedicated to giving themselves a bad image and then being mad when people aren't on the 7th level of hell in their ideology.

Like, man, nobody is going to accept the kid that demands to be called superman but is a violent little shit that gets mad at the pronunciation of "super man" and the colors being mildly off. Not one soul.

Consciously done or not, god damn everytime someone talks about ya'll, it's out of fear. I've got shit going on in my life, so my trans identity is in the backburner of all mental disorders, but my FUCKING god, the FEAR to just say shit around me like, buddy, most of what trans people say matters deeply to them, matters only deeply to THEM, not all of them. Not even remotely someone rational like me.

Lemme put it to you this way: People Want To Be Good.

You make it actually impossible to find reason or patience to talk to you. People should NEVER tip toe around you, you fucking narccissist. But that's what ya'll have decided to foster. Fear. Not knowledge. Unless you're trans and fully commited, you're "bad"

Seriously, your problems are your problems. And I think Trans people are gonna have to have that lesson crammed into them, because before I hear about cancer research, or a cure for Aids, before I hear any news about politics or anything art, before I get an update notification for my online order, I hear about trans people.

And it's always. Always. The dumbest shit.

You have dysphoria. Congrats. I know someone who's married to an insane person that tried to kill them, but stays solely to keep their kid safe and the systems aren't working because it's America, he's the only one who works, and he's clearly, only ever suffering. Everyday is work, everyday is anxiety, everyday is pain. Everyday is taking care of a kid by himself.

But please, let's not take time to hear their problems, tell me how MatPat personally bullied you. Tell me how someone clueless didn't label you right and it stuck with you alllll week. Please tell me how your problems are worse than anything else in america. Oh boo hoo. Boo hoo hoo. Woe is the trans person, again, again again, again.

Oh please, do put trigger warnings on everything, because everyone is as sheltered and healthy as you are, we have to put warning labels on words on the internet because god forbid people block tags or grow the fuck up. God forbid we say suicide instead of "unalive" or some pathetic shit.

Seriously outside of republican politics, trans people really have it better than any ANY other minority out there. You aren't hated for your looks, you hate your looks, and now, that's EVERYONE'S problem because the special prodigy minority stepped into the room. Make way, make room, Everyone Else, the trans person was mislabeled on an anonymous forum, every coddle them!

But by the sounds of things, you'd think we're back in the 50s and the blacks are trans. But uh, as far as I see, Florida is a shithole as always, and everywhere else is incapable of learning or normalizing because trans people accept NOTHING less than 250% maximum attention, affection, and knowledge.

Christ alive man. Just grow the fuck up and recognize the world doesn't fucking revolve around us. I hope to god this trans shit is a fad for most of you, because fuck me, trans people suck. They just do, and it's because you LOUDLY exclaim yourself to represent all, but you hardly represent anything but your own bigotry. Please. Just shut the fuck up, stop causing harm, and focus on literally anyone but MatPat ffs, the most frail, sick, dying kitten of a personality to attack over your shitty cult ideology.

Let's focus on the people causing harm, not people that mildly offended you out of their own ignorance you CHOSE to percieve as Vitriolic Hate.

#trans #bro the worst is your roommate walking on eggshells just discussing the latest trans insanity #like buddy I know #I'm broken in the same way as them just not the same ways #it's like trans people make all of their problems into a trans specific issue #and like understand your problems are never mine and I don't care about you #i care about a lot of people #but I have no patience for narcissists #which is most of the fanbase at this point due to people coddling the fuck out of them #like the thing that gets me is even if they were right about bigotry most of the time #it's so personal and/or mild I can't help but be embarrassed for the entire base #sorry but unfortunately not everyone can be online 24/7 and informed as you #maybe #you could try just discussing it #instead of trying to cancel them #maybe then #people won't be pissy towards trans people #but as it stands #on the internet Trans People are allowed to bully people for being ignorant #no one else is allowed #seriously go look at some forums and posts on other sites #just fucked up

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vero-niche · 1 year

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can i just say how much i adore how Nao-chan's gender is treated so casually in skip to loafer

like, as a white cis woman who is also quite tall and havent read the manga i didnt even realize she was trans until this scene in ep2:

and i didnt even have the time to get nervous how they would handle this as they already moved on, ignoring the comments (just like queer people learn to do so) except for Mitsumi's comforting touch (implying she also heard the comments):

and there were no sad words or anything about this either, it was just handled so.... normally. which should not be something worth highlighting, but, well, you know. also on that note, special shoutout to P.A. Works for casting a woman as her voice actor as well.

she's shown being the supportive and lively aunt and like seconds later in this scene she's back to being her usual self again:

in conclusion

#im an anime only so i pray this post wont age like milk but i honestly dont think it will #maybe they will discuss something about it when/if mitsumi will be asking for an advice at some point but #judging by Theatre Kid in high heels not being ridiculed i think they will stay respectful and chill #i wish i could say more and in a better way but alas. i hope this will suffice #i just havent seen any posts about it in the tags and i was eager to rb something on it #anyway give this anime a try if you can <33 #skip to loafer #skip and loafer #trans #EDIT: i have been informed in the notes that this post will NOT age like milk. godbless <3

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rebellum · 1 year

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I feel like... Perhaps... Arguing that transphobia is defined by murder and that anything other than murder doesn't even matter... May NOT be conducive to fighting for trans rights.

Like... people want the right to exist as they are. They want to have access to hrt and surgeries and prosthetics. People want access to clothes that fit them and reflect how they want to be seen. People want access to medical care (eg. Getting screened and treated for sex-based forms of cancer can be impossible if you have the "wrong" sex listed to receive those tests). People want to be respected and treated well. People want to not be sexually assaulted and beaten and abused. People want to have access to housing and jobs, and the protection to not lose those things for being trans. People want access to shelters for homeless people or survivors of domestic abuse. People want name changes.

Acting like all of those things don't matter because at least they weren't murderered by an individual (and instead die of suicide or state violence, or survive and suffer) isn't okay.

#'hey people are forcibly detransitioning you and raping and beating you and you lost your job and are going to be homeless and #probably die of infection from being stabbed for trying to go to the bathroom. but at least you arent part of a demographic that has a #higher murder victim rate! shhh just ignore that we dont actually have data on the murder rate of your group.'#do ppl like. forget state based violence exists. and that thats most violence minorities face.#idk man im just. mad about people on here acting like youre only oppressed if youre a perisex trans woman who was AMAB.#cause i exist at the intersection of multiple minorities and being told hey u experience violence but at least you wont be murdered by an #individual feels like a slap in the face.#like it doesnt matter if i have to mask my neurodivergent behaviour bc if people see they could assume im on drugs and call the police and #i could potentially be really hurt but not die but hey at least i wont die just be horrifically traumatized by police brutality!#there are millions of people with mental illnesses similar to my own around the world who are institutionalized and forcibly medicated or #living on the streets or dependant on horrifically abusive caregivers #but hey at least they arent being murdered!#like. the way the transphobia discussion on tumblr rn discusses (and doesnt discuss) race and ability and class and health makes me #feel very invisible.#like if people had to choose who to believe about my experiences between listening to me a black/mixed mentally ill maybe disabled (used to #be disabled) hella nd trans nonbinary person #or listen to a white middle class trans woman's take on my experiences that theyd choose her. its such a weird weird microcosm.#its like a monkeys paw like people are finally listening to trans fems and finally recognising the violence they experience and finally #actually caring about them but for some reason decide that in order to do that its necessary to throw every other minority under the bus #like fuck man have you seen how 'anti transandrophobia truthers' discuss race? its NOT okay #we all matter we all are so similar and are part of the same groups and same communities we need to stick together #stop using trans fems as a battering ram to hurt other minorities challenge #cause like. yes its some trans fems. but its mostly NOT?#like its non trans fems telling other non trans fems that they arent oppressed #and even when many trans fems are like what the fuck dude of course other trans ppl matter whats wrong with you #the group of like 80% non trans fems 20% trans fems are like 'hmm if you are defending other trans people you must not really be trans fem'#like. denying trans fems their identity bc they disagree with them?? dude someone doesnt stop being a trans fem cause they recognise #people other than trans fems matter and exist #its just all so WEIRD its a weird little tumblr microcosm #i wanna stress. for those of you who dont have access to other lgbtq+ communities. how much it seems to be primarily a tumblr thing. to

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sylvies-kablooie · 3 months

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rules of loki's conjuration magic

what can and can't he conjure up?

we know he can conjure fireworks, we see kid loki conjure up a sword, and loki summons that blanket him and sylvie cuddle under. but when it comes to conjuring the tickets for the train on lamentis, he couldn't do it.

my interpretation has always been "he can conjure stuff that he can picture" which SOUNDS pretty solid in theory- after all, a blanket and fireworks are pretty easy to imagine, and he never saw the tickets, so there's no way for him to know what they look like

but also that opens the door to the same problem that people encounter when trying to draw a duck from memory, which is that it turns out ducks are kinda hard to remember all the details of, and he would end up with a weird sort of duck creature but not quite an actual one

(although i used duck for this example just because it is the first thing that came to mind, conjuring up living things seems like it would be its own kind of power akin to wanda's children- we never see loki conjure anything living beyond duplication casting, which is its own separate thing, so i don't THINK he could conjure a duck, but just walk with my example here. you think you know what a Thing looks like until you realize you don't.)

does the ability to conjure something come from visualizing it? or using it beforehand? had he known that blanket and therefore it was easy to summon up? where is it coming from? are the fireworks actually an illusion but the blanket and sword were Very Real?

is there a consensus or is this another topic of highly academic debate in the loki world?

#it doesn't matter it literally does not matter but i want to ponder sometimes #thought prompted by wondering if him and sylvie can just conjure cash to order takeout with #i do believe neither of them would be able to cook but then what about the serial numbers of the money?#could he replicate the same dollar bill over and over again? or would they automatically generate new numbers?#you see THIS is why i come to tumblr!!! to ask the pressing questions!!!#i could dive into the wikis and try to figure out what the pros have to say but it's more fun to discuss like a socratic seminar #with the mutuals who have written fic and had to encounter these problems on their own #loki series #loki #loki laufeyson #mcu

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exvangelical · 1 year

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while everyone has the right to raise their child with the ethics they so desire, i do think it’s hilarious when xtians INSIST they aren’t indoctrinating or brainwashing their kids but also refuse to put them in public school (or even private xtian school), only socialize them within xtian circles like youth group or their church’s homeschool co-op, and rigorously vet any secular media so their kids doesn’t “reject the faith.” like uh. if your faith is so weak you have to hide your kids away from anybody on the outside so they never even think to question it…….. it doesn’t exactly sound legit

#text #like god forbid i ever have kids but if i did and they wanted to go to church i’d probably let them #if for no other reason just to show them how boring it is 9/10 lol #like if their friend invited them to youth group i’d be like ‘listen dude if you want to go you can #but it’s mostly just gonna be some out of touch conservative trying to guilt you for being a human being’#‘like you might get to play a game or have snacks. maybe. depending in how cool the youth pastor is.’#and if they did go we’d just have a conversation later about what they learned and we could discuss it critically #i would never intentionally isolate my child (especially older kids and teenagers) from opposing viewpoints #i would just hope i taught them enough critical thinking to not fall for emotional manipulation #ex christian #religious trauma

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impossibledial · 1 month

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i’m so intrigued by dannyclara despite not shipping them. i think that relationship is an interesting addition to clara’s character arc and i’m still trying to to figure out it’s purpose.

#read tags #doctor who #doctor who meta #clara oswald #clara oswald meta #danny pink #twelfth doctor #discussion #tagging pinkswald but let it be known i don’t ship them.#i think they were cute for what they were though.#it’s hard for me to view their relationship without being blinded by twelveclara but i’m trying.#my reason for not shipping them is due to clara’s treatment of him which i feel people don’t bring up often enough.#the only thing danny ever asked of clara was to stop lying.#twelveclaras tend to act as if he was possessive or territorial or demanding but he wasn’t.#he wasn’t insanely jealous in the caretaker. twelve was. he just wanted to know what was going on.#even in motoe he checked in to ask clara if she’s really sure she wants to stop travelling. she had no need to lie.#in the flatline script he says ‘if you’re back with the doctor it’s okay. you don’t have to lie to me.’#yet time and time again clara does.#clara may have loved danny but there was no trust.#she continually broke his trust. she never felt like she could confide him.#despite this i still view clara as a fundamentally selfless character.#i now think this is why she was willing to die to be with him dark water. she felt that was the least she could to make up for her lies.#i hesitate referring to it as a punishment because being with danny could never be that for her but i do think it was because of guilt.#it’s that lack of trust that makes her hang up in a sense.

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mulletmitsuya · 2 months

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random tokrev rant ahead !!

when i first started this blog it was going to be for random shitposts, groupchats once in a while, and mostly tokrev analysis but i was so scared of discourse that i just chose to do the funnier stuff 😭. when tokrev was at it's peak i'd be reading 20k+ words of analysis and it was so fun!! but i felt like i couldn't word what i wanted to say properly so that discouraged me but i wish i'd ignored that because there would have been at least one person who understood what i was saying yk?

#anyway #i used to have a tagging system but i forgot so that's my bad #and the thing about discourse is that you could give a person all the canonical facts of the story and they'll still find a way to pretend #that they're right and i personally cannot handle that #i take things very seriously and someone thinking they won a argument when they didn't would make me rip my hair out #so maybe my blog not going into that direction was good for my metal health #i feel like fandom interactions always end up as fights for some reason #why can't two opinions co-exist #let's discuss and have fun why we gotta tell each other to kill ourselves😭#like i saw a very well thought out and written theory about sanzu having autism or something along those lines #and a comment was like “stop trying to give him excuses he's a terrible villain and he's just crazy blah blah blah”#whole time this person's an izana apologist #like😐#i love both these characters but a lot of characters in tokrev are more complicated than just a “crazy villain”#and it seems like they understand that about izana so????#ok i'm done now i hope you guys get what i mean #tokyo revengers #tokyo revengers manga #tokrev

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vimbry · 4 months

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just honest to god adore those deconstructed concepts in the lyrics like "glass of milk, standing in-between extinction in the cold" as a descriptor for mammals and the function they're named for, "flammable undiagrammable sentiments pass between animal beings" to mean sparks fly during romantic chemistry, and "newborn citizenship of the micronations" referring to reproducing and new offspring, like. like! like!!!

#tmbg #the line from nanobots is oddly adorable #so is ''their names are called. they raise a paw'' from mammal actually #if I were half as articulate I could express something beyond just yelling like??? like!!! into the void to illustrate my point here lmao #I swear there's a word/concept for when a familiar observation of something is reworded to come across as an unfamiliar concept #it's interesting that linnell described some of his songwriting as being ''stripped of emotions''#because I think even in songs with this almost academic formality such as ''mammal''#there's an underlying appreciation and fascination rather than detatchment #did I post this recently I feel like I already said this not long ago #bears repeating anyway #I'm trying to think if flansburgh writes like this but I think he leans more. poetically metaphorical? little more deceptively emotional #like you Think it's heart-on-sleeve songwriting but the more you think about it they're sort of impenetrable #that Is why the tmbw interps tab spawn so much discussion lmao

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filigreefarm · 2 months

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i drew alex and sam from this post :)

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fisheito · 6 months

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SCREMS my snautsticic child he is trying ok!!!!!! one tiny snake human hybrid built from the cave-ground-up, , attempting to learn all the implicit rules of humanness?! as if it isn't already tough enough out here!!!!

#ALL he has to work off of is the Great Serpent's memories? fuzzy clips of ppl he might have seen or interacted with??#depending on the kind of snake he was he could have a variety of defense mechanisms #he could have had to suppress his hissing instinct. or maybe he contorted his body in that adorably vertical corn snake way when he scared #big baby eyes trying to mimic the ppl around him but they are busy being judgemental #so many stupid little human things that villagers try to explain to him as “that's just the way it is” or “never really thought about why”#and yakumo just stares in disbelief bc how could u have never thought about the concept of goosebumps #you're telling me ur skin turns into plucked-bird-skin when you're cold or frightened and that is completely mundane?#you're telling me that when ppl try to hug you it is NOT because they want to strangle u to death and eat u????#how much strength am i supposed to put into a hug then. NOT bone crushimg??????#WHAT EMOTION IS THIS GESTURE SUPPOSED TO CONVEY #the tags tho #now imagining blade and yakumo shaking hands and discussing “why are humans such funky lil guys and why do they do the things they do”#several of the non-humans gather in a monthly meeting like:#on today's agenda: WTF is kissing. why are they smashing their food holes together.#one week they bring in a guest human (edmond?) and ask him all of humanity's big questions from non-human POV #and edmond's just like ??? i don't know???!?!??#and eberyone throws up their arms in frustration bc if humans don't make sense to the humans then what are we supposed 2do #nu carnival yakumo

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threewaysdivided · 12 days

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The Shaper of Minds and its possible consequences for a certain character

I have finally joined the rest of the internet in losing my mind over a D&D Podcast - in my case, the wonderful Dan Jones & Dragons. With Episode 26 due to stream on Dan’s Twitch this week, I really want to talk about some of the stuff that came up across the just-finished Gala sessions because the fallout from that has the potential to be incredibly fraught.

THE SHAPER OF MINDS

The relic the Flower Crowns were going after this mission – The Shaper of Minds – is a potentially fascinating narrative device that might as well have been lab-engineered to be my exact brand of personal nightmare fuel. It’s a small, ornate brass key that can alter any part of the target’s mental faculties/thoughts/memories at will should the wielder touch it to any part of their victim’s skin.

Now, on one hand, there are a heap of interesting (and even benevolent) applications for a tool like that. It could instantly grant access to skills, languages and knowledge that would otherwise take a person years of study to learn. It could be used to sort through and resolve memories that had been faded by time, muddied by trauma or forcibly supressed by magical/medical means. But on the other…

As described and used in campaign so far, the primary function of the Mindshaper is to alter memories (and the attendant personality) with the target having no awareness that their mind has been changed. It’s basically gaslighting on steroids, except that where a gaslighting victim still retains their original recollection – and has to be manipulated by their abuser into doubting their own perceptions and instead accepting the alternate telling of events (a cognitive dissonance that can eventually lead the person to recognise the manipulation) – the Shaper of Minds entirely replaces the original recollection of events with the version the wielder wants their victim to perceive. There is no internal conflict between accounts, no inconsistencies that could alert the victim that someone has broken into their head and rewritten their perceived reality. The person they reshape you to be is the person you believe you always were. And all it takes is a single touch.

That is a brand of existential horror that had me on edge all throughout Session 24 (basically from the moment it was implied the key was in play). Reality may be objective, but each individual person’s internal reality is governed by their perception – their memories – of the events in their life, no matter how incomplete, biased or otherwise skewed that personal perspective may have been. You have value just by being you because you are not replaceable, but the thing that makes you unique is, in large part, the sum total of those inimitably specific personal memories. No-one else will perceive the world in exactly the same way you do, and even a few minor changes to just a few of those perceptions can flow on to massive differences in ideals, values, priorities and future choices. In that regard, the use of the Mindshaper Key isn’t so much an alteration as an obliteration of the victim’s former self and replacement with someone new; even if that new stranger is largely indistinguishable from the original. And, again, all it takes is a single touch.

[Sidenote: This made Mister Wick an especially effective antagonist to wield the key, since his Galas functionally trap even targets who are aware of the threat within the rules of high-society behavioural expectations. Otherwise-innocuous actions like a handshake or private conversation suddenly become incredibly dangerous, while being nigh-impossible for the Flower Crowns to extract themselves from without committing an atrocious faux pas and potentially tipping Wick off. Perfectly designed stage for a psychological horror-thriller encounter.]

Which of course, brings us to a certain character who fell victim to the key in Episode 24… [put under the cut for spoiler reasons]

MORENTHAL

This poor Drow, he can never catch a break…

Morenthal may not have been the most mechanically dangerous party member to fall victim to Mister Wick’s manipulations although, given that the key was revealed to let its wielder read existing memories during the alteration, and that all of the Flower Crowns were fully briefed on the locations and nature of the Eversteel artefacts, him getting a hand on any of them could have been very bad plot-wise but from a character point of view I think he’s the one who the key’s effects had the potential to be most personally devastating for.

The way things ended up playing out across Session 25 was precisely the nightmare scenario Gamb was fretting about out of game: Mister Wick forcibly implanted Morenthal’s mind with false memories of being his lifelong trusted confidant and supporter, then – before the Flower Crowns could reverse the key’s effect – Morenthal discovered that Mister Wick had been killed in combat with Coil and Preston, leading to the Party having to physically restrain him so they could use the key to undo the damage, thus confronting Morenthal with the realisation that not only was everything he thought he knew about Jonathan a lie, but in actuality Jonathan had committed possibly the most invasive violation he’d ever been subjected to in order to forcibly make Morenthal into one of his loyal tools. That level of emotional and mental whiplash would be rough on any character, but for Morenthal it’s particularly brutal because…

Based on what’s been revealed in-game so far, the core of his character is that Morenthal is an abused child. This most-clearly came up in his conversation with Gelnek in Session 14; he was a child who grew up with nothing, raised by the Bloodletter Mercenaries as a tool instead of a person, and taught to see faces only as targets – with him also mentioning to Hobson in that their “combat training” involved being relentlessly beaten down until he learned to fight back. During his Session 21 visit with the Nightmother, he openly admits that “nowhere feels safe”. From that it’s pretty clear to read that Morenthal has never felt unconditionally loved, safe or respected around other mortals.

(This also helps contextualise why he’s so devoted to the Nightmother. From what little we have seen of his visits to her, Iris is a fond “adult” figure, who does not threaten, does not judge, asks nothing of him aside from his company, and cares equally for all the souls that pass through her domain. For a child “growing up with nothing” but violence, that would have been everything.)

But then, enter Jonathan fucking Wick. And now, just for a short while, Morenthal has all these “memories” of Jonathan being there to confide in, encourage him and support his escape from the Bloodletters. Suddenly he believes someone was there for him and, while the memories might be fake, the feelings of unconditional safety they would have brought were very real. Little wonder that he started acting like a Trilby-level naive goober around Mister Wick to the point of accidentally snitching on the rest of the group. Only, then it turns out to be a lie and those memories are gone.

For me, I think one of the worst things Morenthal might end up dealing with in the aftermath of having his memory fixed isn’t the specific feeling of personal betrayal or the potential shame at having been caught: it’s the realisation that he was always alone. That there was no mortal on the outside who cared or came for him when he needed them – just him and the distant fondness of a Divine. That would be awful beyond words, and yet the Flower Crowns were forced to inadvertently inflict it upon him in order to restore his mind. No wonder he wouldn’t look any of them in the eye before the session closed.

Worse still, the nature of the key makes it incredibly hard not only to trust others, but to trust your own mind. The players and audience above-table know that Morenthal is back to experiencing and remembering reality as it happened, but the question could very well linger for him, bringing with it a hefty dose of paranoia. Sure, Morenthal correctly remembers that Coil is a straightforward, loyal person who wouldn’t be tempted to tamper with his mind beyond undoing Jonathan’s manipulations… but he “remembered” that about Mister Wick too, and wouldn’t that be a beneficial thing for the Party to have him think? To Morenthal, people were already Not Safe™, but now the one person he ever believed might be had actually violated him worse than anyone else in order to force and abuse that trust. How is he supposed to trust anyone if he can’t trust the authenticity of his own recollections. (I get the feeling that Morenthal probably isn't going to be capable of relaxing until the Shaper of Minds is confirmed to either be locked back safely in the Vaults of Eversteel or fully removed from the Mortal Plane by Six).

It makes it really tragic that all of this came directly on the back of Episode 23, where Gamb revealed during the above-table break chat that - even if Morenthal didn’t recognise why – he unconsciously trusted Trilby and Gelnek enough to jump off the airship without checking that his rope was secure, because deep-down he knew they would catch him. To go from that high-point to the whiplash of him first thinking the Flower Crowns had killed the only person he was ever “safe” with, then them inadvertently subjecting him to the most painful realisation he could ever experience and potentially leaving him wondering whether he can even trust his feelings about them is absolutely gutting.

I think the thing that scares me most about how the aftermath could potentially play out is another trait that Gamb and Dan have established for Morenthal: he's a flight-risk. He shies away from letting people get close and, if he feels unsafe enough, he runs. It’s already been mentioned/implied that he’s considered fleeing the group at multiple different points across the sessions. And with him likely not feeling safe even in inside his own mind right now, that risk is probably at an all-time high. The poor lad is staring down the barrel of a potentially-impending multi-level emotional crisis, where a lifetime of instincts will probably be urging him to run hard and fast because People Are Not Safe™.

And the thing is, that instinct isn’t a good one for him either. Morenthal might have gotten by on his own “just living to be” up until Filgrove, but that feels a lot more like surviving out of necessity than having an actual life. It’s pretty obvious that he pushes people away as a defence mechanism: if you don’t care about anyone then you can’t be hurt by them or have those people used against you. But if you don’t let yourself care and feel things, you’re not really living. The truly tragic part of his running being a potential foreseeable outcome is that the Flower Crowns are good for Morenthal. (I doubt Morenthal realises it and can’t speak to Gamb’s above-table thought process but it’s interesting that one potential interpretation of Morenthal’s cynical, faux-apathetic, “stinky” behaviour is that of a former abused child quietly testing the boundaries of whether he’s allowed to exist in a way that’s inconvenient for others, to which the answer from the Party has largely been yes provided he isn’t actively encouraging Trilby to get himself killed, or killing people without explaining himself). He survived alone before because that was all he knew, but I get the feeling he wouldn’t do so well if he tried to go it solo again after being with people (he’s already confessed that the idea of Feyli being gone makes him miss her). That’s not a road to walk on his best day, let alone with his current headspace and tendency towards self-destructive choices.

It reminds me a lot of this article:

“Still, it’s easier for us to keep blaming ourselves because it’s preferable to facing the unthinkable: the fact that our parents don’t love us. … Most people would rather do anything than accept this as the truth. Not only is it painful; it’s humiliating.”

So yeah, suffice to say I am incredibly concerned about how Morenthal’s arc is going to play out over the next session(s). Here’s hoping that Gelnek and/or Coil have enough emotional savvy to keep an eye out, and enough patience to stick to him even if he lashes out in attempt to drive them off. Even if it all works out okay, I get the feeling that this one’s going to be ugly.

Can’t wait to see how everyone chooses to play it ❤️‍🩹

#The Shaper of Minds #An artefact that is absolutely fascinating and whose implications make me PHYSICALLY NAUSEOUS if I contemplate them too much #(So now I must share that nausea with you all)#Session 26 is going to be so rough for the poor guy I feel anxious just thinking about it #I am CONCERNED FOR THE LAD #there is a nonzero chance that he could walk away from the best thing that's ever happened to him and that terrifies me #Also just to say: this is NOT me trying to enforce a certain reading of events or backseat game how Gamb and the cast should play things #I'm just indulgently speculating because I have a personal interest in trauma recovery and character analysis is my great love #child abuse discussed cw #gaslighting discussed cw #existential horror #Dan Jones and Dragons #DJ&D #The Flower Crowns of E'lythia #A Party to Forget #DJ&D Meta #DJ&D Spoilers #Morenthal #Morenthal (Wolfsbane)#Character analysis #(Also for anyone unfamiliar with this campaign: Yes. The villain of this arc WAS named Jon Wick. DJ&D is great)#3WD

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holopossums · 2 months

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okay quick question since i'm surrounded by younger folk who seem to use tumblr very differently than i:

#ok to reblog #this is for the purpose of understanding engagement!#bc i've noticed that younger folk or people from other platforms (like twitter)#feel like they tend to use tumblr replies more like tagging than a direct discussion with the OP? at least that's how it feels anyway #and i could understand how it could be used more like other soc media where you might not expect replies from OP #just very different than how i or some older folk/tumblr veterans use it #so i'm sometimes at a loss of what to say back or if i'm expected to say something ig?#like i genuinely don't know if most are actually trying to strike up a convo or if they're just saying some stuff that i should ignore #hence this poll to help me figure out what's expected #sky sez

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roobylavender · 7 months

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had talia not been character assassinated do you think she and bruce should have gotten back together?

no. i hate to use the word "phase" bc that would seem to diminish the importance of what's between them, which is something that will always persist esp as their continued dedication to the same causes and their respect for each other remains. but i do think realistically bruce should be a phase in talia's life. at least in terms of consummated romances specifically. i do love the idea of them remaining allies, close friends, and co-parents, but i think allowing talia to walk away from ra's and bruce in the first place has to stand for something in the long term. before talia went her own way i think it was easier to imagine a potential future where she ended up with bruce bc it felt like the desirable option. she was in this very debilitating position where she had little to no freedom to act on her own desires and goals, the embodiment of which was none other than bruce. so when you frame her situation pre-tower of babel, obv wanting to be with bruce was appealing. he was as much the love of her life as he was a means of escape and freedom and talia having the scope to then act on her own desires. i think that's what subsequently makes dc #750 (or is it #570. i never get the numbers straight and i'm too lazy to check) a really clever issue, actually, bc it acknowledges that and the fact that bruce once again setting her free bc of his love for her actually gives her the courage to step out on her own where she never has before. the fact that she has the option to go back to gotham with bruce and presumably have everything she's ever wanted with him, but she leaves it anyway, is a really huge deal. it's a statement. she loves him, but not more than she loves herself. and sure, what talia puts herself through during lex corp era certainly begs the question of whether her version of loving herself is really viable or in any way healthy, and i would love to see bruce help her recognize that she's not alone and that she doesn't have to do it alone to prove that she's capable. all of this i agree with. but i don't think that really means she and bruce have to fall back on their once-imagined dream of playing house. even if talia did find methods of going about her work that were mentally healthier i don't really know what'd be in it for her to play house with bruce in gotham. bc that is what it would have to be, for their relationship to work in any way. bruce will never leave gotham and son of the demon didn't need to explore that issue bc it was never going to get there but trust that corny as the line about naming the baby thomas or martha was it was reflective of a reality: gotham is bruce's entire life. no matter where he goes, no matter what he does, no matter who he works with, in the end he will always belong to gotham. and i simply do not think that would ever work for talia bc there is so much more she is capable of. while her vision is aligned with bruce's her scope of access and ability is entirely distinct of his own and there is so much more that she can do aside from relegate herself to gotham (hence why lex corp as an arc makes so much sense, bc it capitalizes on that scope). and yeah every superhero couple is kinda crazy and they have teleportation and shit but idk i don't think it's really a relationship for each party to go on long missions with ill-defined parameters that give them the worst sleep schedules known to man and occasionally they share a bed. it really isn't. and that's something that bruce and talia have to live with. their duty is always going to come first even though they both have a passion for civilian life. for talia to be in a relationship again she would have to stop having the liberty of being able to go wherever the work carries her and for bruce to be in a relationship again he would have to have the equivalent of a robin-wife. neither of these things is ever going to happen. so

#outbox #i realize this sounds somewhat hypocritical bc then it's like. but what about damian! wouldn't the same apply to him!#and idk i don't think it would. your kid is different from your lover #obv i imagine talia would try to be around for damian as much as possible #but as i've discussed a lot of times even that i think would be tricky for her. she was willing to say she lost her baby #bc she thought if she didn't the world would lose batman #she's like. craaaaazy dedicated to her work so yeah i do think she'd try to coparent with whatever capacity she could #and her love would be genuine and overflowing etc etc #but at the end of the day she's not going to settle in gotham solely for the purpose of raising him #or for the purpose of appeasing bruce's notions of pathetic puppy dog romance #her liberty is too impt to her #ironically enough this is funny to talk about in context of that batman & robin panel from yesterday bc like #had they not character assassinated her that's really how it might've gone. at least imo #like it's a shame they had to resort to all of these racist and orientalist tropes about her being an abusive mother #to somehow justify why bruce should be the resident parent instead #when you literally could've just followed the thread of talia valuing her independence #versus bruce being desperate for any remaining semblance of normal civilian life like it's an oxygen tank and he's losing air #not only would that have been realistic it would also have carried nuance and allowed insight into bruce and talia's psyches #and more than anything. it would have been funny #but i DIGRESS. tldr yes talia would coparent but even that would be with certain limitations #i think she's the kind of person / mom who like. leaves her love everywhere but can't necessarily stand where she leaves it. yknow #like i could even bring jason into this #i really do think she'd do everything in her power to try to get jason to break from the red hood persona and heal etc #and she'd have immense affection for him #but she's not going to sit and play house and babysit him once she's free and once she knows he's free too #she's very big on personal accountability #so she'd check up on him and the love would be there but like. the bigger picture would always interfere #anywayyyy. thank you for the question i love to ramble about this stuff LOL

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basket-of-radiants · 8 months

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Proposal for Re-working the Kholins’ Character Arcs - a semi-coherent “essay” by me (feat. @akpaley, thank you for your contributions and for your attempts at editing.)

Hey guys. Different kind of post this time around, compared to my usual brand. It’s time for some fix-it fanfiction masquerading as literary critique. I won’t be using a readmore, I dunno, probably to punish anyone still following this blog or something. So! In this post I’m going to solve the all the issues of racial theming associated with the Kholin family.

I’m often very harsh on the Kholins for benefitting so much from exploitative power structures while doing little to help those below them. But then I’ve also criticized them for actually addressing these very problems in-universe. How can I be upset at them for their inaction and then also be annoyed when Jasnah ends slavery? The short answer to all of this is just that the ways these topics are addressed all feel very inauthentic. For example, in real life history it took over a century of protests, slave revolts, political campaigning, and civil wars to legally end slavery in Europe and America, and abolitionists were met with fierce opposition at every turn. A fictional world need not follow our same historical trajectory, but it still seems a little disingenuous for a monarch to just decide to end it within her first year of power because it doesn’t mesh with her philosophical framework. It’s more like trying to wrap up a subplot than actually address the topic.

Ultimately however, there’s only so far this line of criticism can ever take me because the Kholins are the protagonists and you can’t get rid of them without turning the whole story into something else entirely. And Sanderson shouldn’t have to, these are characters that he created and he’s allowed to tell a story about them. And I actually like a lot of their personalities and arcs and outlooks quite a lot. I do think it’s...unfortunate...to have used slavery and racism as disposable props in a story that ultimately turned out to be about a bunch of royals learning to be better people and saving the world along the way. So I guess what I’m interested in is if there’s a way to keep the premise, keep the characters, keep the general story beats, keep the themes of honor and personal growth, keep the basic structure of everything, and still handle those themes with grace. You know, could this be a compassionate story about addressing racism told from the point of view of nobility? Is such a thing possible?

Well, I’m going to try my best. And I’m going to be imperfect about it, obviously, so if you actually care enough to read all this shit, I welcome discussion and disagreement.

Jasnah is the most obvious example to point to as being indicative of the problem, but I also think she has the easiest character fixes. She’s already been established as an outspoken dissident on many of her society’s deeply ingrained values. Just add to her atheism and feminism that she’s also always been an outspoken abolitionist. Give her ties to an ongoing reformist movement. Have her lecture Shallan about it in Way of Kings. Make that a reason she’s butted heads with her family so much. I do think it’s poor writing to have a ruler end slavery on a whim, but I won’t deny that having the right person in power can make a huge difference. It’s not as cathartic as having Kaladin lead a slave revolt (or as having Moash destroy society <3) but that doesn’t make it inherently bad so long as the topic itself is still treated with weight. Have her moralistic ideology be firmly pre-established so that when she has to explain why she’s abolishing slavery, her reasoning can be purely pragmatic. The reason she’s moving so fast is because this is a historical point of heightened change, and so her reforms are more likely to work, but if she waits too long and things settle back into a new status quo, she may have missed her window. Not to mention, when her nephew comes of age, her own legitimacy as a ruler might be challenged, so she needs to do as much as she can in what may be end up being a short reign. As a character, Jasnah has always been able to girlboss her way past political realities through sheer force of personality, and that’s great and all, but I think it heightens her character’s competence if she does have to deal with real backlash, not just to her but to her policies as well. The narrative doesn’t even need to linger on her opposition, but acknowledging it and acknowledging that she’s simply a member of a preexisting and ongoing movement would have done wonders to portray slavery as a real and prescient issue. Then again, this is a topic which people have fought and continue to fight wars over, so it wouldn’t be unreasonable for her to have receive major backlash either; perhaps when the Kholins hear in Words of Radiance that she was assassinated, the news could come as tragic but not entirely unexpected so as to imply that her opposition has attempted such in the past. All this is to say, I don’t think it’s at all wrong for Jasnah to do what she did. I also don’t think her entire stance on abolitionism should have come down to a comment where she tells her uncle she’s trying to rule according to ethically consistent values. The fact that slavery was insultingly easy to end not only delegitimizes is as a topic worthy of discussion, but also is a really scathing indictment of literally everyone else in the ruling class who didn’t even think to try.

Jasnah done, easy, Dalinar next.

Dalinar is probably the most complicated character for me to discuss and form coherent statements on. He’s just so rife with contradictions down to his core. That’s probably why I continue to like him so much, why he’s still my favorite, even though I still consider him to be a Bad Person over all. I think deep down I’ll always lean a bit too pacifistic ideologically to ever consider a warlord/general to be a good person, no matter how honorable he may be or how much growth he may undergo. Don’t get me wrong, I still do love his growth. Dalinar is characterized by his constant change and forward momentum, even moreso than the rest of the cast. So for discussing him, at what point can I point to him and say “this is Dalinar, this is who he is, this is what he believes and what he cares about”? Of course, during any point in his arc, you’re going to have to grapple with the fact that all of his lofty rhetoric about honor and striving for personal betterment is ultimately going to be pretty useless to all the people whose lives he’s meaninglessly thrown away across his military career. For me personally, when I talk about his character I like to take the end-of-oathbringer approach, where I acknowledge everything he did in the past as Blackthorn, I agree that it was pretty fucked up, and I forgive him and grant him a clean slate. All this to say that even if I’m judging him purely by his behavior as the current Dalinar within the present day continuity of the books, he’s still a massive hypocrite with horrific amounts of blood on his hands which he’s never even bothered to consider. I dunno, when I first read Way of Kings and I first got to meet this general who’s leading an army in a literal genocide campaign, I sort of figured he’d get some kind of “wait am I the bad guy” moment at some point in the future. And he did get a moment in Oathbringer where he has to fully confront his guilt over past actions, it was great, I really really loved it! But it was also all about actions he took before the series even started, so I guess wiping out the listeners wasn’t a sin he thought needed any atonement. I’m not going to get into the narrative’s treatment of singers and listeners on this post (for no other reason than because I have waaaaaaay too much to say there) but the point I’m getting at is that however good Dalinar’s growth is and whatever direction it takes, it’s always going to have poisonous roots to me. And his treatment of class/racial issues is no different.

Fixing Dalinar is going to take a lot of what Dalinar does best: introspection. In Way of Kings, Dalinar dislikes how Sadeas treats his bridgemen because he believes it to be dishonorable, because he believes Sadeas is forcing others into a situation that he himself would never put himself into. He also has various sympathetic reflections here and there about how sad it is when soldiers die, and about how without the benefit of the Thrill, violence is actually kind of bad. You know how it goes. But I don’t think he ever put himself at risk to actually help or protect any of the people who are dying. Whether he wants to end the war or not, he still continues to participate in it. And he’s still willing to set aside the lives of literally everyone beneath him so he can pursue his dream of unity. The book ends with Kaladin and the rest of bridge four saving him and Adolin, and in gratitude, he purchases their freedom and gives them honored positions in his household. You know, because he’s so honorable. Everyone loves this scene, so I’m going to make it the catalyst for Dalinar’s new and improved character development. The problem with saying Kaladin helped Dalinar so Dalinar helped Kaladin is that when I’m being reductive and uncharitable (like I’m being right now), I can argue that their relationship basically started as a quid pro quo. This scene is meant to prove that Dalinar really is the most honorable person in Alethkar, just as Syl thought, only it doesn’t actually do that. See I don’t actually want Dalinar to start treating Kaladin as an equal. I want Dalinar to, in that moment, realize that Kaladin is better than him. That for all of his pontificating about honor, he would have never even considered risking his own life and the lives of his own family to rescue a bunch of bridgemen. I want him to see Kaladin’s honor, and rather than be validated in his beliefs, I want him to be thoroughly humbled. Let him spend all next book reflecting on all the lives of darkeyes he’s destroyed. Let it shame him, as Evi’s death shamed him. He already flirts with these lines of thought, and he already has an arc about confronting his past actions. Let the racial injustices he’s participated in be a part of that. Let him abandon his books and traditions instead look to Kaladin to learn what honor truly means. I don’t know how any of this would translate to his actions, because if we’re being honest his ideals are already quite incongruous with his actions, but the fact that he manages to have such strong theming regardless makes me think maybe that’s okay. I guess ultimately it would be enough for me if his character, as someone who symbolizes the ideals of a nation, was able to look at a darkeyes publicly be a follower rather than always trying to lead by his own personal example.

That’s Dalinar. Elhokar next?

I actually don’t think there’s too much wrong with Elhokar’s writing, especially in the first two books where a much greater emphasis on these themes were placed. He’s not a protagonist and we the audience aren’t supposed to endorse his actions. Most of what I’d change about his story is more about Kaladin and Moash than it is about him. I definitely don’t love that he can throw away the lives of his own people by the thousands in the genocide campaign that was the vengeance war, and then have the narrative just ignore all that in favor of him being sad about his own incompetence. If Elhokar is meant to be a sympathetic character, then when he calls himself a bad king, that’s what he should be thinking about, the number of lives he’s wasted over these years. I actually like him a lot more as a less sympathetic character, and I think I would have preferred if in oathbringer the narrative and the other characters would have stopped making so many excuses for him. Back to Kaladin and Moash, those are the two characters defined by their experiences as members of the downtrodden caste, so I personally sort of judge the problematic-ness of the whole story by how they get treated. Everyone loves to talk about how those two are foils. So. In order to strengthen Kaladin and Moash’s characters, either Elhokar needs to be as much of a monster as Amaram, or Amaram needs to be just as sympathetic and conflicted and having-of-a-toddler as Elhokar. Don’t get me wrong, I genuinely love the trope of finding at the end of a revenge quest that the person you hated has changed and grown. But I hate how this means that Moash’s hatred is wrong and unjustified, whereas Kaladin’s is validated at every turn. I don’t actually dislike Elhokar. I mean I think he’s a bad person, but I like a lot of characters who are bad people. I just think that if this story really wants to grapple with class and race (because it sure brings them up a lot for a story that doesn't want to talk about them), then Moash is a much more important character than him, with a lot more to add to that kind of discussion, which is why I think Elhokar’s characterization would have to come second to Moash’s development. (Obviously if this series were being reworked to be better on this topic, Moash would have to be written with a lot more compassion in general, but this post isn’t about him.)

Intermission time. Gavilar.

Gavilar is already perfect, 10/10, great character all around, what a guy, no notes, no wonder he’s so universally beloved among all of the fans, social justice icon.

Okay onto Navani.

I may not be the best person to talk about Navani. She has never been a favorite character of mine, and so compared to the others I haven’t thought as much about her values or the way she thinks or the narrative impacts of her actions. Someone who has more love for her would probably write better criticisms of her. (I’m going to reject any premise that falls along the lines of “Navani isn’t racist because she feels X,” but I’m not wholly confident in my analysis here, and I welcome any good faith critiques both of my own thinking and of her character when come at from other angles.) It’s hard to say where she should have grown from how she starts out viewing darkeyes because I don’t actually know how she starts out viewing darkeyes. I know I’m probably meant to assume she just treats everyone equally because she’s a Good Person on Team Good Guys, but it’s hard to just accept that she had all around good values when she married a warlord and was in love with his more violent brother. I dunno, was her “good guy” status meant to have always been an element of her character, or did she get it secondhand from her association with the new and improved Dalinar? With someone like Adolin, we got to see what shitty values he held at the start of Way of Kings (I’m talking about the Alethi warmongering, not his interest in fashion) but we also got to see how his father gradually won him over throughout the course of the book, and then later on we get to see him develop further on his own. For someone like Navani, I find it strange how she’s always so proactively supportive of Dalinar in everything, even when his own goals and values are in flux. I assume her character is just meant to be super ride or die when it comes to her family, and I do like that in a character, but that also means that she’s been wholly willing to support or at the very least excuse her family’s oppression and exploitation of darkeyes without comment. (See, Lirin is a much better parent than Navani, he would never have let his son start a whole genocidal vengeance war for fun and profit (I say this as if I’m joking but I’m kinda not.)) Some people have reminded me that she was pretty much shut out of the political process by Gavilar and Elhokar, and I agree with that, but I don’t really have any evidence that she would have cared much about darkeyes even if she had been more involved. In general it just seems like the whole topic doesn’t matter much to her. So what I would wish for the narrative would be to lean further into this. Draw attention to her cognitive dissonance and try and make the readers feel conflicted about her as a person. Highlight the fact that she’s willing to overlook the suffering that befalls other families if it means success for her own. I think one of my issues with her is that to me, this is a major (and interesting!) character flaw, but the books never seem to treat it as such. Honestly I think if this were intentional, I’d probably find her character really interesting, but from my reading of the text, I feel that I’m supposed to think of Navani as a generally decent person who’s by and large on the right side of things. The thing is, with the caste system playing such an integral role in their culture, I think she needs to have some sort of feelings about it, or else the fact that she doesn’t should be an issue to overcome. Otherwise she becomes another factor delegitimizing racial oppression as a real and important problem. If she’s a good guy and she doesn’t care about racism, then that’s saying you don’t have to be antiracist to be a good person in this world.

Probably could have done that one better. I dunno. Leave me angry and hateful comments if I’m totally misrepresenting your favorite character. Moving on.

Adolin already has some great character development across the books. And he already has kind of engaged with this stuff in his story. Unfortunately, that’s less used in the “this person was racist but is becoming better sense” and more used in the sense of “Kaladin learns that #NotAllLighteyes are bad” which is pretty unfortunate for a number of reasons. Especially since, if he actually was going to prove he’s different from other lighteyes, out of all the Kholins I think Adolin is the best candidate for being a full on class traitor. I’m serious, looking back over the events of his plotlines, it would suit him shockingly well while disturbing the overall narrative shockingly little.

Adolin’s current plot is loosely as follows: in Way of Kings he likes all the things someone of his station is supposed to like, clothes, violence, dueling, warfare, swords, hangtime with the guys, all the good stuff. At the beginning of the book he doesn’t understand why old, stuck-up Dalinar can’t just let loose and be a relelntless war-monger like everyone else, but by the end of the book he’s come to understand a certain value to honor and thus has begun to become a better person himself. Words of Radiance has him lose his popularity, fall out of favor with all of his friends, grow disillusioned with his society, perform a prison sit-in in solidarity with Kaladin, and murder Sadeas. Most of this is done again, because of his father, and how Adolin now wants to help and support him and his ideals. In Oathbringer he mostly isn’t involved in courtly politics, being away on a mission for much of it, but he does make a pretty big move by rejecting the throne. In Rhythm of War we see the schism that’s formed between him and his father until he leaves on another long-distance mission. Summary over. In general I reject the idea that making the Kholins be individually less racist makes for a better, or more nuanced and compassionate discussion of the topic, but if anyone is primed for a “lighteyes learns racism is wrong” character arc, I think it’s Adolin. Imagine him following a bit less in Dalinar’s footsteps and a bit more in Jasnah’s. You almost don’t even have to change any story beats: in getting to know Kaladin, something clicks in Adolin where he realizes that if he wants to treat Kaladin as his equal, he has to treat all darkeyes as equals, and so he realizes to his horror that he and his entire caste of friends and family are all monsters for treating them the way they do. (Actually, there is one plotline in WoR I’d probably scrap, and that’s his slowburn bromance with Kaladin. I mean I get what Sanderson was going for with the ribbing and then eventual friendship, but Kaladin was an absolute stranger who risked his own life to save Adolin and his father from certain death, and so I feel there should probably have been a bit more overt respect upfront there.) In pushing for his newfound belief in equality, he ends up burning through all of his intracaste goodwill and political capital, causing all of his friends to drop him. When he kills Sadeas, it doesn’t have to be about protecting Dalinar or about personal revenge, it could also be that he’s gotten to know Bridge 4 and learned firsthand about the atrocities they’d gone through, and so there’s no way he’d allow such a pioneer of human rights violations to stay in power. In the following books, maybe he’s become so politically toxic due to challenging the very foundations of his own power, his own family has to send him away on missions so he can’t rock the boat too much at home. Maybe refusing the throne was more of a political statement than a personal one, because he’s come to understand that being a ruler means oppressing thousands of others. Maybe this is another form of hypocrisy he criticizes Dalinar for, how Dalinar might claim to value darkeyes but how he still retains power bought with thousands of their corpses. None of this has to modify actual events very much, it just affects the reasons for them. And it would also meaningfully show why he gets to be a “good lighteyes” if he actually engaged with his status and rejected it, knowing it comes at the expense of others.

Okay, enough about that. Renarin maybe?

I won’t say too much about Renarin here, because I’d probably just end up repeating a lot of the same criticisms of how he’s used as a “good lighteyes.” From a narrative standpoint, all those criticisms hold for him as well. You know, he wants to join Bridge Four, and future-villain Moash doesn’t like the idea because he doesn’t trust lighteyes, but Kaladin reassures him that Renarin is a good boy, so don’t worry about it, and everything works out fine in the end, proving that lighteyes are good people just like you and me. This isn’t a problem with him as a person or character, it’s just more of that general theme of “the caste system is fine so long as nice people are at the top” which I clearly think should be interrogated. Thus far, in contrast to the rest of his family, Renarin is very young and has had much less of a political presence, not to mention fewer POV chapters anyway, so I think delving too much deeper here will feel a bit hollow to me.

Does Shallan count as a Kholin? I’d like to talk about her super briefly.

Unpopular opinion, but I actually think Shallan is one of the better characters on the topic of race insofar as how she’s written, especially compared to the other Kholins. But wait, I hear you say, what about all of her dozens of instances of casual racism? Yes, that’s what I’m referring to. I like how Shallan demonstrates how ingrained these harmful ideologies are in their society. I like how every time she has a distasteful thought, we the audience are reminded that racism still exists and even good people will continue to promote it if they don’t view it critically. I like that Shallan is problematic, because their society has problems! At least with her it doesn’t feel like the story’s trying to sweep the fact under the rug. There are plenty of issues with her writing, plenty of jabs at Kaladin that probably shouldn’t have been treated as cute. She’s actually the main character whose racism and classism I see criticized the most. And I think that’s a good thing! My issue with the Kholins isn’t that I think they should all be less racist, my issue is that their positions are inherently oppressive, and it seems as though the narrative doesn’t think that matters so long as deep down they’re good people. When people critique Shallan in specific instances, I tend to see a fair amount of consensus and agreement there, but when I critique the Kholins people will argue with me by pointing out that Dalinar/Adolin/Navani/whoever actually treats darkeyes as equals, so my arguments are invalid. Purely my own anecdotal experience of course, but it tends to make me think that there’s something in Shallan’s writing that’s working right, something that isn’t working for the other lighteyed characters.

Now obviously with all of this, I’m not saying I want these books to have more racism in them. What I’m arguing is that if the books are going to explore the topic (which they do) then they should treat the topic with an appropriate amount of gravity rather than acting as if it can be solved by having aristocrats become nicer people.

If you’re still here with me, thank you for reading, I love you, I hope you enjoyed yourself through my descent further and further into rambly nonsense. If you just scrolled to the bottom, that’s fair enough, there won't be a tl;dr but you’re welcome for filling your dash with massive text blocks.

#i'm going to be super nice and not put this post in any of the respective character tags #you're so welcome #i don't even know what to tag this as no one actually blocks ''long post''#i could tag it as discourse but my discourse tag is usually reserved for moash posting #also i genuinely am happy to read discussion about any of these points #i can't guarantee i'll reply to all of it but i welcome good faith disagreements (or agreements i suppose.)#except for my points about gavilar #try to argue with me there and i will make fun of you sorry #i should fully reactivate this blog but JUST for gavilar posting #preemptive faq response - q: why is this so long please put this under a cut. a: it's literally your fault for following me.

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