#(and her dad died when i was very little)

[monostardust]

*sighs* Silco, Silco he's, he was a good father to Jinx yeah I mean sure not perfect but he did everything he could to raise and stabilize Jinx's fragile and chaotic mental stability the way he knew how. Silco sees himself in Jinx but he knows she's far more troubled than him. He tries to help her overcome her trauma the only way he knows how by telling her how he overcame his. He's not perfect he's most definitely not the ideal father but for a villain I gotta give credit where it's due. Unlike other villains he actually loved and cared for Jinx. She's his baby, the only one he has a soft spot for. He really loved that little girl, his daughter, the one he trusted the most, his only successor. I also think he was similar to Jinx with how he despised Vi like how Jinx despised Caitlyn. Silco hated Vi thinking she's just like Vander, a traitor, someone who abandoned Jinx. I guess that's why he wanted her dead. In his mind he really thinks Vi is nothing more than that, that she's just someone who'll continue to hurt his kid and that's why she gotta go.

[gemini-queen42]

Batb: Other Than Human - Themes stuff (& why I Called It That)

That's right folks, the self-indulgent "throwing any concept I like at the wall and haphazardly mixing together what sticks" au rewrite Thing has Actual Themes! That kind of happened accidentally but they are so real for that so let's get into it.

The Main Narratives Themes Trio of the story now all also embody expanded themes about being an "Other", when being a person is not enough to be properly considered human- more specifically of a neurodivergent/queer girlhood type flavor.

Summary is that it's called "Other Than Human" because the prominent theming is about being considered something other than human due to not fitting the mold of the 'norm'.

[This is a long one so details & specific character stuff are under the cut<3]

Amalure has the greatest departure from her original counterparts thematic placing, so we'll start with her. Amalure retains Gaston's social standing, reputation, etc. But it's of course not quite the same- because she is a woman, and she is not revered for being the picture of ideal womanhood/femininity. Instead, she excels in masculinity, but remains firm that she is and always will be a woman. So, to justify the desire & awe people have for her, they dehumanize her: She doesn't need to follow the Rules because she is outside of them. Amalure is not a person: she is a symbol, a figure, an object. A legend, a folksong, a modern myth. Her skills are not skills they are blessings, inherent, a mundane magic or supernatural. Despite having grown up in Villeneuve for her entire life, she is considered exotic, and is practically, if not actually, fetishized. And through all of this, the status quo and social order gets to be retained without question, and she gets to exist as the exception that proves the rule, rather than the Undesirable that she'd be marked as otherwise.

Amalure is fine with this, because this dehumanization is her status quo: She doesn't really view herself as a person either, she is defined by her relationship to other people, by who she is to them. Amalure has never been a person to anybody: Growing up she was never just a girl, never just Amalure: She was a girl with a mans brain, an embodiment of her fathers greatest achievements, an embodiment of her mothers worst mistakes, she is her fathers daughter or her mothers daughter, but not her own. (and she never both, it is either or, mother or father, never both, never parents.)

Princess Eve/The Beast is the other end of this, of operating through her dehumanization. Upon being cursed, she adheres to what societies have oft wanted to happen to their Undesirables: Hide away and never be seen by the public again. It is entirely self-inflicted, as most of her suffering truly is. She operates not through others dehumanizing view of her, but her dehumanizing view of herself and its warping of how she believes others view her. Because, well, the servants still view her as a person. I mean, they're still human- under the new object forms. And the separation of humanity that is easy to slip into on matters of royalty is awfully minimal as well; they watched her grow up, and she grew up among them.

The girl's bratty, spoiled, temperamental, and is a ball of horrid consequences of the shallow views and ideals learned from surrounding nobility. But she's also the girl that fell asleep listening to Cogsworth explain the many technicalities to managing servants; because she was stubborn in asserting her authority as the mistress of the castle, and thus she Must have say over its goings ons. But the majordomo's voice can be awfully soothing when he's not high-strung on anxiety, and it's hard to pay attention when you don't understand what's being discussed, so its all going in one ear and out the other. And She's Lumiere's 'Evie', who was so amused when Lumiere would draw on a little mustache when dancing the male roles so the princess could learn some duo dances, or because she didn't look very "waiter-like" (because Eve wasn't entirely sure what a maître d' did, but it seemed to have something to do with waiters), and who got annoyed every time the dance teacher/maître d' would warn her not to hurt her body in her pursuits, because it seemed so silly, why would anyone do that? And she's the girl who dragged Mrs. Potts to have tea with her, because she made the best tea and as princess she would have only the best; and if you're going to have tea you may as well have a tea party, and you can't really have a party of one, but two isn't much of a party either so she's going to drag Babette away from her duties too, since the maid was so elegant and thus would be perfect.

Honestly, the girl probably would've turned out fine if she was raised by just the servants. But they weren't the only forces in her life: she's a princess, so she's got to host and interact with important people and learn how to Be noble which isn't something any of the servants can teach her. And it is under the pressures and eyes of nobility, is in mixing and learning their social rules, that learns the lessons that will lead to her curse: That to be considered human and treated as such, one must look human. And to be such as a woman meant to look beautiful, like the ideal. As a woman, to be worthy is to be beautiful and vice versa. And even if she does not, she must have some way to serve men. Otherwise, she is nothing. Eve met these requirements well, and where she did not yet her authority as princess covered. So when a beggar woman is at her doorstep, the princess turns her away: because she is old, ugly, so long past her 'prime'- there is no worth to her anymore. There is no point caring for her future.

Helene stands as both the middle ground and inverse to the other two. She is an Other by virtue of her mind, she is Objectifiable by virtue of her beauty. She sits on the precipice between Undesirable and Desired, seeming nearly apathetic to where she lands despite popular encouragement to embrace or smother aspects of herself. Helene is quite sure she's a person like anyone else, thank you, and is frankly frustrated and a bit weirded out that others seem to have a hard time getting the memo- she doesn't like or want to assume the worst, though, so maybe she just missed another confusing untold social rule or something. I mean, the local triplets really do seem to be advising in good faith- they really do think of her as one of them to an extent (for reasons Helene is yet to know); they just don't understand her.

When Amalure pursues her, there's an unspoken aspect to the deal of marriage she proposes: Helene will get a secured place on the in of the community, a secure standing the promises people no longer questioning or trying to encourage her to no longer be herself. But Helene just isn't interested in Amalure like that, and she also sees what the real trade-off of that security is; that uncomfortable dehumanization that is exactly what Helene doesn't want to deal with anymore. If Amalure is fine living with it than she is free to do as she pleases, but the huntress doesn't seem to understand what Helene could possibly have a problem with- and it's not like they can discuss it, because it's unspoken, and you're not supposed to speak the unspoken things, because they're unspoken for a reason- even if you don't know what that reason is. Helene knows that rule, at least.

When Helene meets the Beast, she regards her as she does any other. It's plain as day that the Beast has a humanity to her, whether she's really "human" or not- she thinks and she feels, and that's enough for Helene.

Because Helene grew up raised by a single dad who she got most of her brain workings from, and he is a man of compassion and science. Off he'd send his beloved daughter to go and question and figure out the world for herself, to experiment and learn and become whatever she desires. Off to bed he'd send her to tell her fairy tales and have their lessons of love and compassion and humanity understood as she drifted off to sleep. Helene was never Odd with her father, never Other, in fact they were so easily two of a kind. It was so jarring, hearing people imply Tyndare less than sane; his logic paths were so easy to follow- but apparently his voice gruffs enough that others have a hard time understanding what he's saying sometimes, so that's where things seem to get lost in translation she guesses. People became jarring in other ways as she grew up too, because suddenly there seemed to be lots of social things she was supposed to know or be but didn't and wasn't, and it became very apparent very quickly that she was an Other among her village.

Overall: Eve & Helene get to go through these themes through the main plot, and post curse-breaking is when Eve gets to properly deal with the internalized issues and whatnot. Like she's learned beauty doesn't matter when it comes to love, and shouldn't decide whether or not someone should be cared about, and Helene loves her despite her having been beastly and despite her being a failure of a woman- (because she no longer fits the feminine ideal after the curse is broken, and frankly she never will again.) But she's still a Failure Of A Woman and Helene deserves Better Than That! So there's still work to do.

Amalure remains static on this aspect of the narrative until after the battle at the castle, where she does survive! .. barely. and it's later, in an argument with her mother that same night, bleeding out on the kitchen floor, when she asserts that she's her daughter too, not just her fathers. she has always been her daughter, always will be, she is the daughter of both of them, because that's not something that just switches or turns on and off- and it's an entire rant that I will not recite here, but the important part is the assertion that she is, always has been, always will be, the daughter of both her parents at once- that's the first little step for her arc of recognizing her own individual personhood and whatnot.

[barbatos-sama]

i started feeling rly sick suddenly earlier and it's not going away OTL

[guhhhhhhhhhhh]

Oh little people in my phone, we're really in it now 😔😔

[midnightwind]

trying to nail down my Rook's scathing response to Viago chewing her out over the botched Antaam job that boils down to "if you want to act like my dad, go wander into the forest and die like him, too"

but snappier, you know

[ent-is-indecisive]

Yes there were monsters everywhere and an architecture that wanted me dead but at least i got to use my sword and made some ren fair friends

[strifethedestroyer]

my uncle died. hm

this is the first time i've ever reached the tag limit. the last word is meant to be funeral.

[zemnarihah]

man

[woundedheartwithin]

Fuckin rat snake broke into the brooder coop and ate two of my peeps. It had the little maran wrapped up when I ran out there, but I heard her screaming from inside the house and was able to get to her in time. She’s okay, a little banged up and scared, but she’s bright and alert, no pain or heat anywhere in her body, no broken bones, just a pretty big wound where the snake had bitten her. So now she’s in the house, in a tub in the laundry room with the door shut so the cat can’t get her, and that’s where she’ll stay until she’s big enough to go in with the adults

Fuckin snakes, man. Listen, I love snakes, I do, but not when they eat my fucking birds. I don’t even know how it got in either???? Like the coop is all wood and hardware cloth with no gaps, where the fuck did you even get in ya sumbitch :(

[calyptramoths]

FINISHED THE RAVEN KING. spoilers in tags once again

[silverselfshippingchaos]

hmm... let's talk s.oulc.alibur characters

[coleslaww]

Putting this all in the tags cause it's some heavy stuff. TW for drug abuse, assault and suicide.

people with siblings: how do you feel about them?

[itsalwaysdark]

also im so sick of the acne like its so annoying and its such bullshit bc im not on t anymoreee i havent been for months so can we wrap it up I know my hormones r all over the place bc i was on and off t so willynilly for a while but now i have been off t for like. literally a year atp i think. so we should be settled and that means acne you may leave

[oncominggstorm]

Had a shutdown, my sister got made about it like she always does, and decided to tell me she wishes she didn't have to live with me and can't wait til that's a reality one day.

So I was crying & feeling like I didn't want to be alive anymore, and like I NEEDED to get out, so I left, didn't know where to go, so decided to go to my grandma's (A little background: we've been told Grandma won't live past the end of the summer, and my mom lives with her to take care of her)

So I walk in to grandma's house crying and say to my mom "I don't know what to do, I can't do this anymore, I can't live with [my sister] anymore." And literally the first thing mom does is YELL at me and says "Absolutely not, you do NOT get to come in this house crying to me." Which was uh...the last thing one wants to hear when one already is feeling alone and unsupported.

So I lost it, and I said "Fine I'll just go drive into the river instead then like I was originally planning & you can pull my body out tomorrow" and my mom says "Ok good." LIKE?!??! What kind of fucking parent says that when their child says they want to kill themselves?

[the-acid-pear]

Yesterday I had 3 thoughts but I was like I'll remember tomorrow I won't wake up to type them now and I forgot two BUT I remembered one of them so that's huge

[relicsongmel]

Just spent over an hour searching for the static Ho-oh in the overworld and suddenly Ryuji taking literal years to reunite with his family makes sense to me now