#Also note that 'claiming a child' overlaps with but is not the same thing as 'raising a child in your household'

[serpentface]

Question about Couya! Since she is a bastard what are the reasons about her being brought into the main family by her father. Was it genuine care for his child or a way to save face politically/socially? Is her birth mother alive? Do you think she would have had a better life growing up anywhere else?

This is in large part due to how cultural perceptions and legal punishment of adultery varies between male and female citizens, looped into the very strictly patrilineal kinship system.

By legal definition, the word for 'adultery' applies only to situations where a man has an affair with a married woman, or a married woman has an affair with any man. Other forms of affairs (eg a married man having an affair with an unmarried woman) are wrapped into a broader set of sexual misdemeanors and aren't often charged or punished in practice, and the punishments are comparatively minor (if an unwed woman's father pursues charges, the man in the affair is likely to just pay a fine). On a social level, extramaritial affairs in general are certainly not Approved of and seen as lowly and dishonorable, but the average response is significantly less harsh/more willing to entertain Nuance with men than with women.

In this society there's differentiated shades of bastardry depending on the contexts of the child's birth, as well as a distinction for 'nameless bastards' (has not been claimed by their biological father or maternal grandfather, or claimed in adoption).

a) A child born to an unmarried woman via an unmarried man: non-issue for father, potentially serious social harm for the woman (especially if she has never been married and expected virginal, much less severe as a widow or divorcee). The child will not be notably disadvantaged in of themselves (their status will depend more on whether they are claimed and thus provided the social security of a family patriarch), the father will experience no hard disadvantages in claiming them.

b) A child born to an unmarried woman via a married man: mild sexual misdemeanor for the father carrying levels of social shame, even more serious social harm for the woman (often framed as not just loose but a manipulative Seductress of a married man). The child might experience minor to moderate social disadvantages, the consequences of the father claiming them are purely social and will not typically be severe. (Couya is this)

c) A child born to a married woman via an unmarried or married man: both man and woman have committed a crime and can be severely punished. The biological father can technically claim the child but will be disincentivized from doing so. This is the form of bastardry most comparable to the conventional definition, in that it is heavily stigmatized and has effects on concerns of kinship and inheritance.

In addendum to this, if the adulterous wife's legal husband claims the child, this may be punishable if determined to be active concealment of adultery (which is also a crime), and has EXTREME social consequences either way. (Either you're a cuckold too stupid to notice that your wife has been skipping out on you, or you're a MEGAcuckold adultery-accessory willingly rearing another man's child after being horribly shamed by him).

(This is separate from adoption- a man who marries a woman with an unclaimed child after the fact (whether it was a product of adultery or just a general out of wedlock birth) and claims the child is an adoptive father, he is not concealing adultery or being cuckolded.)

A child born in an affair can be considered an heir to their biological fathers (descent and kinship is fully patrilineal and on a Basic level it doesn't matter who the mother is), and can very smoothly and legally be claimed when the affair was not considered criminal adultery. The concern on that front is social perception rather than material legal consequences or kinship issues.

Couya's birth mother was an unwed servant working as a housekeeper for her father Saizen, so the Crime of adultery did not take place. It would be considered a minor sexual misdemeanor, and the woman's father was not about to pursue charges against a nobleman who could Ruin him (and had also formally expressed that he would claim the child, which meant he would not be saddled with a nameless bastard granddaughter). So the concerns here were entirely social.

The affair might have started beforehand but the pregnancy that produced Couya occurred after his wife's third viable pregnancy ended in the premature birth of a underdeveloped boy deemed necessary to euthanize (and tbr would Not have survived either way). This was after Livya Haidamane had a couple early term miscarriages, two viable but very difficult pregnancies wherein one child was very weak and sickly for the first several years of life, and struggled to conceive every time. A lot of people are going to be at least a little sympathetic to a married man having an affair and claiming a bastard in this context. It's definitely ideal and practical to have more than two children, and his wife (while not outright infertile) clearly could not reliably bear healthy children. (The average response is going to be "Well he shouldn't have done it but like, I get it")

Couya being claimed by her father was a mix of genuine care and saving face. Initially it was MUCH more the latter than the former. Saizen made attempts to hide the servant's pregnancy and to keep his own wife out of sight during the late term (to prevent the baby appearing after his wife had been seen Extremely not pregnant). But there's some levels of care involved, he could very easily have fired the pregnant servant and had nothing to do with his bastard and she would have no recompense whatsoever. The choice to keep and claim the baby and ensure its entrance into the world bore as little social scrutiny as possible is an act of care for his own progeny.

This was Not an act of care for Couya's birth mother (beyond the fact that concealing her pregnancy would benefit her in hiding that she is not only Not a virgin prior to marriage but had a child). She probably would have been about 17-19 at the time and was fired a few months after giving birth, and most likely never saw Couya again after this point (if she did, it would most likely be in the context of seeing her as an adult Odonii in public and noting her to look Scarily familiar). She has an Okayish chance at still being alive, she'd be around 50 (and a person who survives the high infant mortality and birth casualty rates stands a good chance of hitting their 60s), though she could very well be a casualty of the drought+famine.

Whether or not Couya's life would have been better is kind of a mixed bag. She had an awful fucking childhood in large part because her adoptive mother Livya Haidamane hated her. (Livya was ultimately a pretty horrible person but not just like. An Evil Bitch. She had A Lot going on and Couya was a living breathing insult to her and reminder of like, every one of her dashed hopes and dreams). Couya is also autistic and presented very intense symptoms as a child in a society that is Not equipped for a mass-understanding and support of cognitive differences. But she still did have an immensely privileged life with profound physical/economic levels of security inaccessible to the vast majority of people in this region, including her birth mother. Saizen also actually Liked her and cared about her, he just wasn't a routine physical presence in any of his children's lives.

Had she been left with her biological mother, she would be in a very disadvantaged situation as a nameless bastard to an unwed mother. Her biological grandfather may or may not have been willing to claim her, and her mother would have great difficulties in finding a husband (which is ultimately necessary for the security of women in this society). I think her mother was a relatively kind person but not like, a perfect angel. She would probably have complicated feelings about her bastard daughter, especially one whose very existence materially disadvantages her and was very, very difficult as a child. So this probably would not have been a good situation for Couya either.

If you broaden the question to ANY other family completely divorced from the circumstances of her birth, yeah it definitely could have been better. But in her case it's like either "Life of grotesque socioeconomic privilege but in an abusive household" or "Life of profound socioeconomic disadvantages in a household that Probably wouldn't have been this abusive but certainly wouldn't be healthy". There wasn't really a good option for her.

[philosophical-daisies]

I decided to expand upon a thought I started, about an objective evil. This is that thought:

https://www.tumblr.com/philosophical-daisies/750076828394340352/atrocities-acknowledged-this-is-a-fascinating?source=share

I have to reiterate, if Israël weren't such spoiled brats they'd be nigh indomitable. The inevitable question then is, why are they like this? And my supposition is that what they are doing must approximate objective evil, and that its' true tell is self-destruction.

"Objective" and "True" are bold claims, because all truth claims are value claims, so I'll acknowledge that here: I value clowning on Israël and their miserable allies that they're ungrateful for, as well as finding reassurance in some way of seeing them unravel being made apparent.

That said, you can't deny this is a pattern, right? This is a prevalent pattern with many we percieve to be evil: usually evil countries have an issue with hubris, encompassing Israël's behaviour here, as well as those that expand to the point of being hard to control with the governmental system they have in place (hello, Rome!); another common one is failing to keep your populous happy, which Israël is also doing at some level, another example being Pinochet, who seemingly provoked his own people on purpose through public displays of violence against them. 

This happens on an individual level as well, not necessarily the rulers of countries. Parents that abuse their children feel invincible until the child inevitably snaps, and either distances themself from the parent, or finally spits back at them the same crap they had to put up with for so many years. All of a sudden, the parents have a change of heart! They couldn't hurt a fly, much less their sweet little baby! And they continue to act in line so long as that breed of cattle is led by the proverbial prod of their own design.

In summary, a potential objective measure of evil is its' capacity to destroy itself. I use evil quite purposefully, as in all of these examples, there are indeed oppressors. These oppressors either become or create separately their own demise. 

Note that shoplifters, loiterers, jaywalkers, digital pirates, gamblers, potheads, squatters, and other such "criminals" don't generally have this experience, while murderers, rapists, war criminals, child molesters, child abusers, zoophiles, racists, dictators, and other such Criminals most certainly do. 

An observation to make within that is that the first category involves victimless crimes. Who suffers if I download a free copy of Super Mario Bros. Wonder or whatever? Nintendo? The massive faceless corporation that has enough excess wealth to do jack squat for 50 years and remain profitable? Meanwhile, the second category has a tangible victim of their acts. Who suffers if I murder someone? The one I murdered, I hope!

This adds precision to that definition of evil. Not everyone who self-destructs is evil. I'm mentally ill, I know better than that. Not everyone who makes someone suffer is evil either. Again, I'm mentally ill, I know better than that. 

That right there is the issue with this.

Everything I've just said overlaps quite cleanly with signs of mental illness. Am I evil? By this definition, yes I am! Reverse this; does Netanyahu deserve to be cared for, understood, and assisted? By this definition, yes he does! 

What can resolve this issue? A "secret third thing", as there tends to be. When someone is told from almost all angles that what they're doing is hurting themselves and others, and offers help with changing course, do they resolve to change, or do they continue on that path of mass destruction? Therein is a key difference. 

When I was suffering immensely from Bipolar Disorder, and caught wise to how that was hurting people around me, and myself as well, at first I felt powerless to stop it. Then, at every vaguest hint of help to try and stop this, I jumped at it. I tried the asceticism of Buddhism. I tried the purported ecstasy of sex. I tried rejecting all that I ever was and all that I've ever known, and nothing.* Finally, what feels obvious now was able to help me: actual bipolar medicine. And so far, all of it has stopped. I'm at peace for the first time in my life. The point is, through all of that, I kept searching for ways to improve until something worked.

Compare that to the government of Israël. You've seen the votes; Every member of the United Nations except for the USA avidly despises Israël, and wants them to stop what they're doing as soon as possible. Does the government care? No! Do they feel remorse? Not one bit! Do they want to change? For the worse! Evidenced by the post that started all of this, they're not the least bit grateful of what support they DO recieve for this direction! 

That leads to a conclusion. What do I propose is the definition of an objective evil? The triple point of three factors: the tendency to hurt yourself, the tendency to hurt others, and the tendency to hold onto those for dear life. I'm sure there's *some* way of doing all three of these and being an upstanding citizen somehow, and even doing one or two of these will give people pause, but I think if you possess all three, everyone who doesn't benefit from your existence will hate you.

*Now that I'm not in the emotional oscillation of Bipolar Disorder, sex helps a lot, actually. Results may vary. Take it in smaller doses to prevent your body from building up an immunity.

[justkillingtimeuntiltomorrow2]

Alright, I got around to looking for the study and hol-y shit is it even worse than I had thought.

First of all, it's a good thing that link to "the classic study" was archived because it's GONE now off the website in question. That article also doesn't reference a study. Fortunately, other articles on the site DO reference the same, and....well, see for yourself.

She examined in depth 60 custody challenges between 1960 and 1981 in the US and Canada and found that 70% of the mothers lost custody either in court or through some private arrangements.

Wow, that does seem the be a representative sample size. I'm sure they weren't cherry picked or anything, and are completely random cases.

Anyway, interestingly, this particular article was originally posted in 1985 (if the text is to be believed), which somewhat clashes with references to a 1986 study. I realize this is when Back to the Future came out but that was a work of fiction.

The ACTUAL source of the 70% stat that people TYPICALLY reference was a 1989 study from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's Gender Bias Committee.

The thing is....the Massachusetts study is RIDICULOUSLY difficult to track down. Go ahead, try it, see how long it takes you. Hint: If you find an extensive study talking about biases for arrested and incarcerated women, you didn't find it.

Anyway, here's a copy of the text I did find if you can't find it:

Here it is archived, just in case:

You'll note that in support of their claim, they cite a Middlesex Divorce Research Group (MDRG) Relitigation Study. The only place I could find THAT study was here:

Yeah. Not off to the best start. But it did lead to a pretty good break down of someone who managed to get in touch with the authors of the last study:

I recommend giving that link a read, it really is quite eye opening, but I will copy this excerpt that I feel really underscores things:

"Even if we give the SJC-GBC the benefit of the doubt and assume that they were unaware that the study's author says the data was not collected for the purpose of analyzing gender bias in custody awards, and is not appropriate data for that use, it's still instructive to look at how they manipulated the numbers to come up with the kind of result they did. They asked the question:

In what percent of cases in which the father requests custody is he granted any form of physical custody?

But they neglected to ask the same question with respect to mothers, i.e.:

In what percent of cases in which the mother requests custody is she granted any form of physical custody?

Comparing those two numbers would be the obvious place to start analyzing court bias.

How can we calculate the comparable number for maternal custody awards? Unfortunately, from the data available, we can't."

Read that again: in the referenced study where the 70% number comes from, they included ANY sort of custody at all, including visitation rights. Despite the claim being phrased as "And when men do fight for custody, they generally get it - even if they haven’t shown the same effort taking care of the children." what is actually being measured is "70% of men who fight to stay in their child's lives are granted some degree of custody, 'custody' being a term that can range from full physical custody to visitation rights", and with the study that this study was based on not being able to lend itself to that conclusion (failure point 1) AND the criteria for custody being defined so vaguely that you could have overlap, i.e. it is entirely possible that men get custody 70% of the time and, by the same standard, women get it 90% of the time, no study was performed using the same standard and methodology for women (failure point 2).

This is, hands down, the most misleading claim I've seen so far this year, possibly so far this decade. It is THAT fucking bad.

And saying that when women face benefits it is actually just hardships in disguise is a huge leap of mental gymnastics. Take custody battles. When two parents go to court to fight for custody of the child, both parents want the child badly. Badly enough that they are willing to hire lawyers and plead their case to a judge. Getting the child is a reward, and what both parties aim for. Women are massively advantages in this arena, getting the child (or children) 80% of the time. How is this a disadvantage?

[midzelink]

People of Shadow: Who Were the Twili’s Ancestors, Really?

The speculation surrounding the mysterious origins of the Twili in Twilight Princess is far from a new topic amongst fans of the series; I distinctly remember staying up late into the night scrounging around old forums in my early teens, ingesting thread after thread on the very subject, hoping against hope that someone smarter than me would at last have found the truth amidst the lies.  Those kinds of analyses, the pure intrigue that leads to hours of reflection and research, has long been one of the series’ drawing points for me; that no matter how cracked and inconsistent the story Nintendo has chosen to weave, fans of the series will again and again use everything at their disposal to fill in the cracks.    

If you’re reading this, it’s highly likely you’re familiar with the the two most common theories: that they were either Sheikah or Gerudo (though the evidence I’ve seen for the latter has always been shaky at best). When you get right down to it, it’s not as if who the Twili once were really matters - it’s certainly something Nintendo didn’t give more than a few seconds thought - but speculating is fun, and something on which I’ve spent much more time than I’d like to admit.  Though the reality, of course, could simply be that they were no one, just a hodgepodge group of dark magic users, never before seen, I always found myself asking: If they were anybody, who would they be?  Is there any in-game evidence to suggest as much?  I would argue that yes, there is - and though what I’ve written here is hardly groundbreaking, it is fairly comprehensive, and with any luck, I’ll be able to convince a few of you along the way.

With all that out of the way, I would at last like to state that, if anyone, I firmly believe the Twili’s ancestors were Sheikah, and I’ve done my best to compile my reasoning for this below.

The Banishment of the “Interlopers”

Before we get into specifics, I wanted to lay some groundwork establishing when, exactly, the Twili’s ancestors were banished by the Light Spirits at the behest of the gods, as the timeline of events will be important in a moment.  In Twilight Princess, we first hear about the dark interlopers and their quest for the Sacred Realm from Lanayru; there was an era of peace in Hyrule, but when word of the realm and the holy triangles within it spread, war broke out amidst the populace.  From within this greed-fueled chaos arose the interlopers, “wielding powerful sorcery” - and so great was their transgression against the goddesses that they ordered the Light Spirits to seal them away in shadow forever. (If the story of a war breaking out over the Sacred Realm sounds familiar, that’s because the Hyrulean Civil War, which ended shortly before the events of Ocarina of Time, shared the same conflict; it’s entirely possible that the two wars were one and same or overlapped in some fashion, but for this post specifically, that possibility isn’t entirely relevant.)

This era of strife is colloquially referred to as the Interloper War by many, and from Lanayru’s tale alone we can extrapolate that, at the very least, the banishment of the Twili happened before the events of Ocarina of Time; the struggle was fought over the Triforce, after all, which was claimed and broken apart in all three splits of the timeline following the events of that game.  It’s also important to note that Ganondorf was banished to the Twilight Realm shortly after the events of Ocarina of Time in the Child Timeline, and that this was long after the Twili’s ancestors had been banished there; so it can be said conclusively that the Interloper War could not have taken place between the events of Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess.

The Sheikah, Few and Far Between

It was important that we establish a rough estimate of when, exactly, the Twili’s ancestors were banished for one very crucial reason: to shed some light one who they likely weren’t, and who they could have been.  At some point before the events of Ocarina of Time, there was a mysterious group of dark magic wielders known only as “the interlopers” that, all at once, were banished to an alternative dimension - an act that, had there been any of their tribe left behind, likely would have put a serious strain on their numbers.  And within Ocarina of Time - a game that takes place after this banishment would have occurred - we learn of a tribe who suffered one such fate:

“They say that Princess Zelda's nanny is actually one of the Sheikah, who many thought had died out.”

As we all know, Impa is the only Sheikah present in Ocarina of Time - I would argue not quite the last, if Impaz in Twilight Princess is any indication - but regardless, they are so few and far between that the general populace had one point believed them to be extinct.  Things weren’t always this way; at the very least, we can extrapolate that there were a great many Sheikah around the time of time of Skyward Sword, and even within the context of Ocarina of Time, Kakariko Village was in relatively recent history a Sheikah village that was closed off to the common people.  What truly happened to the Sheikah that drove them to near extinction is anyone’s guess, but I would argue that it was likely a combination of two things: 

the Hyrulean Civil War, which lasted very, very long, had many casualties, and the Sheikah (being in service to the Hyrulean Royal Family) were likely at the forefront of this, and

on top of this, perhaps before or even coinciding with the Civil War, a not unsubstantial number of the Sheikah broke off from their tribe, betrayed the Royal Family, and tried to claim the Triforce and the Sacred Realm as their own.

Of course, this relies on the assumption that the Sheikah could ever, under any circumstances betray the Royal Family - betray Hylia, the goddess whose bloodline it is supposedly their sworn duty to serve.  And though I will not be touching on this quite yet, I did want to bring it to attention, as it is overall a crucial piece of the puzzle - but we have some more ground to cover first.

(As for what I meant in the beginning of this segment when I said who they likely weren’t, I was specifically referring to the Gerudo, a people who many others speculated could have been the the Twili’s ancestors.  While it’s true that the Gerudo people have mysteriously vanished by the era of Twilight Princess, they are very much present in Ocarina of Time - and we have established that the banishment of the Twili’s ancestors occurred before the events of that game.)

Beings of Shadow, Enter the Twilight Realm

When all is said and done, the coincidental timing of both the banishment of the interlopers and the dwindling numbers of the Sheikah isn’t quite groundbreaking evidence of anything; after all, it would not be completely out of the realm of possibility that the Hyrulean Civil War had been entirely at fault for their dwindling numbers.  However, given what we know about how twilight affects ordinary denizens of the world of light, I would argue that Sheikah may have been the only group of people capable of becoming the Twili, and it is for this reason that I feel assured in my conclusions:

“Twilight covered Hyrule like a shroud, and without light, the people became as spirits.  Within the twilight, they live on, unaware that they have passed into spirit forms...”

This twilight - the very glow that transforms the unawares citizens into spirits and Link into a beast - is the very same “light” that pervades the Twilight Realm, and it can only be assumed that any ordinary light dwellers banished there would also become as spirits. Yet in the case of the Twili’s ancestors, this emphatically was not the case; they were able to persist, evolving over time to become the Twili we know and love today. When Midna is explaining to Link the history of her people after the duo enter the Gerudo Desert, she says this:

“What do you think happened to the magic wielders who tried to rule the Sacred Realm? They were banished. They were chased across the sacred lands of Hyrule and driven into another realm by the goddesses... Its denizens became shadows that could not mingle with the light.”

And after Link retrieves the Master Sword, breaking the curse that Zant placed on him:

“This thing is the embodiment of the evil magic that Zant cast on you.  It's definitely different from our tribe's shadow magic...”

It’s clear that the Twili and their ancestors had and continue to have a very strong connection to shadow.  We know that anyone from the world of light who enters the twilight becomes as a spirit; not even wielders of the Triforce are exempt from its effects, though it does, admittedly, affect them in different ways.  (Zelda is the one clear exception to this, an anomaly which I go over in this post - a short and recommended read before continuing.)  Just as the Twili, a people of shadow, cannot mingle in the world of light, people of light cannot mingle in the world of shadow - but the Twili are hardly the only people in the series to have a strong connection to the shadows.

"Have you heard the legend of the ‘Shadow Folk’? They are the Sheikah...the shadows of the Hylians.”

The Sheikah, time and time again, are referred to as people of shadow; Impa awakens as the Sage of Shadow, and the accursed Shadow Temple lies on the outskirts of her hometown of Kakariko.  We know that the twilight affects all whom it touches in the world of light - “light and shadow can’t mix, as we all know” - but what if the light dweller in question were a Sheikah?  How could a realm of shadows snuff out the light of one who is already a shadow?

I would like to posit, then, that even if the Twili’s ancestors had been a mixed bag of peoples and cultures drawn together by the lure of the Sacred Realm, only a people like the Sheikah - a tribe who had perfected mastery over shadow magic, so much so that they had become one with them - would have been able to persist in the anti-light of the Twilight Realm and, over centuries or perhaps millennia, evolve to become the Twili.  Anyone else would have simply become spirits upon entering the realm, doomed to spend the rest of their days neither alive nor dead.

Eyes of Red, Show Us the Truth

Now, there is one other crucial piece to this puzzle, and it revolves around one other trait that the Sheikah are known for: with the exception of Breath of the Wild (the disparity of which I have my own theories about, but I won’t get into that here), they all have red eyes.  This is something that’s never really commented on in any of the games, but it’s an important enough physiological trait that Sheik, who is merely Princess Zelda in disguise as a Sheikah, also bears the distinctive eye color.  Though it’s common knowledge that Midna’s eyes are also red (as are the rest of the Twili’s), this alone doesn’t speak much to a correlation between the two peoples; no, in order for this parallel to mean anything, we must first understand the significance of the Sheikah’s red eyes, and how exactly that ties back to the princess of twilight and the rest of her people.

First, let’s take a look at Ocarina of Time.  When Kakariko Village is attacked just before Link heads for the Shadow Temple, Sheik has this to say about Impa:

“The evil shadow spirit has been released! Impa, the leader of Kakariko Village, had sealed the evil shadow spirit in the bottom of the well... But the force of the evil spirit got so strong, the seal of the well broke, and it escaped into the world!! I believe Impa has gone to the Shadow Temple to seal it up again...”

Anyone who has played Ocarina of Time knows that the Shadow Temple is a dark and wicked place, teeming with the souls of the undead and illusions that, without the ability to see through, would completely inhibit any progress one would try to make.  As Link traverses the temple, he bears the Lens of Truth: a peculiar artifact (importantly, in the shape of a Sheikah Eye) that reveals the world as it truly is.  It is a one-of-a-kind item, and without it, no ordinary person would be able to make it through the Shadow Temple, much less fight the invisible monsters that lurk within - but Impa is no ordinary person.

The explanation is really quite simple: the Sheikah’s red eyes are not merely a distinguishing, but purely aesthetic characteristic (like the red hair of the Gerudo), but are indicative of the fact that they can see through even the strongest of illusions with the naked eye.  It’s the reason the Lens of Truth was crafted in their image; though one who wields the lens may not be a Sheikah, they, too, can view the world as one with this powerful artifact, seeing through artificial walls, finding invisible items...and even meeting the spirits of the departed.

Let’s go back to Midna; after you first meet her in the sewers of Hyrule Castle, slowly making your way to the rooftops and the imprisoned Zelda beyond, you encounter several spirits of Hyrulean soldiers along the way.  Midna taunts you, saying this:

“It looks like the spirits in here... They're all soldiers.  Where in the world could we be? Eee hee!”

As a beast, Link is now able to tap into his new “animal senses” to see that which would be invisible to his human eyes. Yet Midna is able to see the spirits as they are, naturally, without any aid whatsoever - almost as if she retained the truth-seeing eyes of her ancestors.

Before we move on, I did want to bring attention to one other thing the Twili and the Shiekah have in common - and though it’s not technically directly related to their shared ability to see the truth of the world around them, it is tangentially related in the sense that it involves illusions.  Early on in Twilight Princess, there is a scene where Midna seemingly transforms herself into Colin and subsequently Ilia, taunting Link about the capture of his friends.  It’s a somewhat strange occurrence that happens exactly once and is never brought up again, and it happens so early in the game that, for a very long time, I simply brushed it off and never gave it a second thought.

However, I think it’s pretty safe to say that what we’re seeing here is a demonstration of illusion magic - Midna is not literally shapeshifting into Link’s friends, as if she had this ability, she could simply return herself to her true form at any given moment.  This is significant because there is a fairly notable example of something identical to this in the very game I mentioned earlier in this segment; in Breath of the Wild, the Yiga Clan, a group of Sheikah who swore allegiance to Calamity Ganon, consistently over the course of the game demonstrate the ability to use illusion magic, posing as weary and lost travelers on the road, waiting to ambush Link and take him by surprise.  And though the Yiga may not technically be Sheikah anymore, they were at one time - and I find it exceptionally hard to believe that such a technique would be exclusive to the Yiga and the Yiga alone.

Echoes of the Past

I would, of course, be remiss to not touch on the various architectural and technological similarities between the two peoples.  On their own, they aren’t very substantial pieces of evidence - but if we have already accepted the fact that the Twili’s ancestors were, in fact, Sheikah (which, for the purposes of the rest of this essay, I will now do), then it is worth it at the very least to take a look, to paint a somewhat fuller picture of the story.

Take, for instance, the runes in the above photo, adorning the wall behind the throne in the Palace of Twilight.  Similar runes adorn the cloak that Midna wears while in her true form, and other miscellaneous places scattered throughout the palace.  It is not that much a stretch to say that the large emblem in the center is somewhat reminiscent of the iconic Sheikah Eye, though distorted and changed over time as it may have become.  An eye that is unmistakably Sheikah in inspiration even appears on the back of the Fused Shadow, and it is for this reason that I chose that image to head this essay to begin with.  But eyes aside, by far the most significant comparison once again returns us to Breath of the Wild, and the Sheikah as they were ten thousand years past.

The ancient-yet-highly-advanced Sheikah technology scattered across the once mighty kingdom of Hyrule in Breath of the Wild simply oozes Twili, from the harsh, blue aesthetic to the angular similarities between the script of the Sheikah and the runes of the Twili.  And while it is worth mentioning that this is decidedly technology, and not magic,  there is an argument that can be made in the world of fantasy over whether there is in fact a significant difference; looking at the image below of a room in the Palace of Twilight, floating platforms decorated in patterns resembling circuitry, it’s not hard imagine that this is nothing more than highly advanced tech, remnants of a history they left behind.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t especially matter whether either is a case of expressly magic or technology; all we can extrapolate from this information is that the Sheikah who had been banished to the Twilight Realm likely had some rudimentary knowledge of their tribe’s lost technology, had they been banished in an era when it already was lost - or, at the very least, had the same design sensibilities.  Whatever the case, it is worth is to try and acknowledge the potential connection, as there is much that can be gleaned by examining the world around us and its history - even a fictional one - and to that end, I would now like to begin wrapping up this unnecessarily long piece of persuasion by doing just that.

Those Who Do Not Learn From History...

...are doomed to repeat it, as the saying goes.  Taking everything I’ve written here into consideration, it’s not hard to construe a conceivable timeline of events that could have led to the birth of the Twili, and the eventual invasion of the world of light headed by Zant.  Long ago, in an age ravaged by a war over a lust for the Sacred Realm, a sector of Sheikah betrayed the Hyrulean Royal Family, split off from the main clan, and sought their own power - and if the story of a Sheikah betrayal sounds at all familiar, that’s because it emphatically is.

Breath of the Wild is an anomaly in many respects; it seems to defy all expectations of what we understand about the timeline, reviving a people (the Sheikah) who, for all intents and purposes, died out long ago - but it paints a very important picture of what the Shadow Folk had to endure serving underneath the Royal Family of Hyrule, a picture that elucidates precisely why such a betrayal would conceivably take place.  The story of the Yiga Clan is, ultimately, one rooted oppression - and though I could go into great detail about the nature of this oppression here, and quite frankly the justification for their cause, I’ve already done so in this post, which I would again encourage be read by anyone who cares about the subject.  Very basically, the Yiga were right - having been cast out and mistreated by the very family they served, they did the only thing they could, and turned against them.  Glimpses of this mistreatment are riddled in previous entries of the series, but no more jarringly than in Ocarina of Time’s Shadow Temple: a place that likely was once a sacred place to the Sheikah people, reduced to nothing more than a haunted torture chamber recounting Hyrule’s “bloody history of greed and hatred" under direct orders by the Royal Family.  In Twilight Princess, Zant specifically refers to Link as “one of the light dwellers who oppressed [their] people” while talking to Midna at Lanayru Spring - and though I would not go so far as to say that Zant was completely justified in his actions, perhaps he had a point.  Perhaps the story of the Twili’s ancestors isn’t one of a an evil, mindless group of powerful interlopers who sought power for power’s sake - but one of fierce retaliation.  One of a group of people who had soiled their hands with the blood of the Royal Family one final time and said enough.  I believe that the Twili’s ancestors were Sheikah, and I will continue to believe it until proven otherwise; for all the reasons listed above, and also because, frankly, if I were a Sheikah, I would betray the Royal Family, too.  It happened once - so it will happen again - and again, and again, until the cycle of violence and oppression is studied and learned from, and the truth comes out.

But then, so long as history is written by the winners, it will take more than the red eyes of a Sheikah to parse the truth from the lies.

[yukisohmasmokesweed]

I feel like all the Shigure hate is less cause of his actions and more just from the perception that he's a pedo and SOO much older than Akito. Which, tbqh I'm not sure where that misconception comes from when Akito was never given an exact age to pin down a gap anyways. but I hate it and I wish this he's "6-9 years older than her" rumor would just be put to rest already! How do you think it even got started anyways when we were never even given Akito's age?

i absolutely agree and i know exactly where it comes from because everyone who claims he’s a pedophile cites the same two scenes. the first:

(note: i dont have official versions of the manga but i’m pretty sure they’re actually saying “love” and not “like”)

everyone who makes this argument, in my opinion, is ignoring one of the central themes of fruits basket: that love can come in many different forms and that platonic love can and does turn into romantic love (source: kyoru). when people cite this scene as an example of shigure’s pedophilia, they’re interpreting shigure’s answer to akito’s question as a declaration of romantic love. the way i interpret this, however, is shigure 1. answering akito’s question straight on 2. speaking to his experience of the close bond he’s always had with akito and 3. reassuring akito, who has had one parent die when they were very young and the other reject and abuse them from birth, that they are loved. i don’t think there is anything romantic about this scene. i think the reason takaya shows us shigure’s answer to this question and not anyone else’s is to showcase that their romance grew from a strong foundation of mutual like and closeness as children. i’m sure ayame and hatori also assure akito that they are loved, but their answers are not plot relevant. 

this scene also takes place in the infamous chap 101 where we find out not only that shigure and akito are sleeping together, but that shigure cheated on akito with ren. i think takaya put this scene in the same chapter to contrast their pure love for each other as children with how twisted and dark it has become between the two of them as adults.

the other oft-referenced scene is this one:

which is interpreted to mean that shigure, an elementary schooler, is announcing that he wants to start a romantic relationship with a person who hasn’t been born yet. i think this interpretation ignores the supernatural aspect of shigure’s love for akito—this is a love that is forced onto the zodiac, one that ayame and hatori rejected because it infringes on their free will, but shigure embraced. i don’t know how shigure could possibly feel romantic love for someone he’s never met, and i think this scene is speaking to the power of the bond and how shigure interprets that. i also personally don’t think an elementary schooler is capable of romantic love and i don’t think a child could have the forethought to decide they want to have an actual relationship with someone, especially someone they’ve never met (and don’t even know the gender of, btw). 

people do exaggerate the age difference as well, claiming shigure is older than he is and akito is younger than they are. however, takaya makes a very clear delineation as to who is a teenager and who is an adult, and akito sits very firmly on the adult side of things. we know akito is older than kagura, who is around 18 at the beginning of fruits basket, but younger than ritsu, who is college-aged (unclear, bw 19-21). shigure states akito is older than 20 in the last arc at the very least. i think it would make the most sense for akito to be 5 yrs older than yuki and 5 yrs younger than shigure, because it would mean akito and yuki wouldn’t have been in high school at overlapping times and making akito fully an adult when yuki is in high school. and shigure, ayame, and hatori were born the same year, making shigure 10 years older than yuki. so this would mean at the beginning of fb yuki is 15/16, akito is 20/21, and shigure is 25/26. 

(EDIT: shigure is 26 or 27 in the beginning of fruits basket; i made the estimation based on ayame’s statement that he is 10 years older than yuki and that ayame and shigure were the same age, but actually shigure is the oldest of the zodiacs and it’s likely shigure and ayame were born at opposite ends of the same year. so, he is likely 26 or 27 in the beginning of fruits basket.)

i think this claim is about interpreting shigure’s statements to akito when he was a child as romantic where i interpret them to be platonic/familial with the bond itself being the source. i think it also ignores the supernatural aspect of their relationship and shigure’s relationship to the curse as something that isn’t necessarily inherently bad (remember: his motivation to break the curse is to be on equal footing with akito and so he doesn’t have to share, not because the curse is a detriment on his life). the one unclear thing is when exactly shigure and akito started having a sexual relationship, but deciding that is purely headcanon since there’s absolutely nothing in the text to support one idea over the other. but claiming shigure is a pedophile when there are actual pedophiles in fruits basket is a waste of time and an interpretation of the text i feel ignores the importance fb places on platonic love.

[lunapwrites]

OK, so as a person who straddles the line between Wolfstar-truther and Remadora-enjoyer... I have Insight.

(Obviously, giant asterisk in front of this that these are views that I've seen expressed by others, and do not necessarily agree with myself.)

Furthering the explanation given above, Remus and Tonks are both viewed as "queer-coded" characters. Remus in particular has a storyline that is explicitly aligned with major issues relevant to the gay community (I say explicitly because the author herself has said on numerous occasions that she was drawing a comparison between lycanthropy and HIV/AIDS.) Tonks, on the other hand, has more of the vibe down in terms of her appearance, her profession, and her general demeanor - she screams 90's alt. At any rate, because of this, there were many LGBTQIA+ readers who identified with these characters strongly, and for them to get thrown together romantically/married was seen as, at best, erasure. Some even find the circumstances of their relationship to be triggering due to their own traumas related to their sexuality. Ergo, there are many fans who love exploring these character as queer, and are extremely protective of them within that context - sometimes, unfortunately, to the point of violence.

The other is that the age gap between the two of them raised some major eyebrows. Adding in a somewhat common belief within certain (usually Wolfstar) fandom circles that Sirius had a close relationship with Andromeda and her family (and thus, with Tonks) prior to his incarceration, and that Remus did as well by virtue of his relationship with Sirius, and it frequently gets called borderline pedophilic, or at the very least one in which Tonks was "basically groomed." This particular interpretation tends to get the purity police out in force, and they're the ones I've found are most commonly involved in vicious attacks - worse if there's overlap with the prior group. Is it actually pedophilic? No. Tonks is quite literally a whole ass adult making whole ass adult decisions, and Remus is... well he's certainly making decisions lol. And it certainly isn't grooming - there's literally zero canon evidence that they ever met before the events of OotP, let alone while Tonks was a child - and certainly not for a long enough period of time for them to have actually had any significant contact. But that's the claim, regardless, and folks who enjoy and/or defend the ship tend to get hit with the same broad "problematic" brush, and attacked accordingly.

The only other complaint that I've seen is the second one that is noted above: that the relationship seemed rushed and out of nowhere, and this I think is honestly the most valid text-based critique of the ship. However, my one and only counter-argument to this: consider that the entire series is taking place from the POV of a teenage boy - particularly a teenage boy who is both a bit socially stunted and also dealing with some major heavy life-and-war things that left me kind of surprised he even had time to pay attention to his own romantic life, let alone anyone else's. Harry barely noticed anything if it didn't directly affect him, and everything he had heard about Tonks during HBP had pointed to her pining over Bill (thanks to the Weasley rumor mill) so he had no reason to consider Remus might be involved at all, even though the signs were kinda there if you knew where to look for them - including the light teasing during their first on-screen appearance together in OotP. So, in short, I feel that it's less sudden and more "Harry is very good about coming to very wrong conclusions about 50% of the time, and that's providing he notices in the first place, and we the readers are likewise led to the wrong conclusions with him." But that's all I've got.

I will also note that the movies did the ship dirty - Remus and Sirius were actively shipped by the director for PoA, and that characterization carried on to their interactions in OotP - and then you don't get ANY of the Remadora content until suddenly they show up married in DH pt1 ("My husband the joker" ugh kill me please) and then they don't show up together again until they're both dead in DH pt2. So very literally, Wolfstar got more on-screen time and chemistry than Remadora, despite the latter being explicitly canon (rather than strongly suggested via some reads of subtext that I happen to agree with.) This a) further cemented Tonks and Remus (ESPECIALLY REMUS) as queer-coded and b) further distanced Remadora from the narrative, which mostly affected more recent fans who have not read the books, but have watched the movies - and it's the more recent/younger fans who have, in my experience, been more... passionate in their defense of gay!Remus, and their attacks of Tonks and anyone who would pair her with him.

Anyway that's a bit of an essay, but hopefully answered your question in a bit more detail!

why do some people seem to really really hate Remus and Tonks as a couple? Like, real question Sometimes people treat it like a blight on the story... but... why? Is it just because Remus doesn't handle it the best...? Because newsflash he doesn't handle anything the best ever

[fuzz-onyx]

I have recently completed all 3 routes for KH: Birth by Sleep and I wanna talk about it:

This one made me feel more things than the accumulation of the past couple of games. I love it. (SPOILER WARNING for GAME)

But I'm also sad now, and kinda dislike Terra a bit. Speaking of Terra:

The Terra route:

- Him having darkness in his heart makes no sense! It made more sense for Riku to have darkness since it was obvious that he wanted power, as well as exploring more shit than an island. There is motivation, and there's conflict with Riku and his old life.

But with Terra, there is a one sided conflict, he's learning all the good things about light and dreams and beliving and stuff, but he got no desire for power as the people around him claim to be. He isn't drawn to darkness AT ALL. Yes, there is hades trying to get Terra to conquer/master the darkness in him, but it was all deciet anyway.

Yes, he did some bad shit, most of it was unintentional or being controlled. Not the greatest keyblade warrior ever.

- Xehanort is a conniving bitch who is obviously evil. That is all.

- I do find it interesting that instead of using the power of friendship when saving Ventus, he drew on darkness. Very neat.

- At the end of his route I was pressing f to pay respect to the dearly departed. Especially after Aqua's route, but I'll get to that later.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

but first ✨

The Ventus route:

- baby, baby boy, child who protec and attacc. Little harbringer of death that one.

- The X-blade is pretty interesting. It kinda made me wonder why an X-blade wasn't formed near the ending of the first KH game since Riku at the time was a consumed by darnkess and Sora is good-boy-friendship-light-kachow. Like the clash of the two. I dunno.

Also finally getting some sort of idea as to why Xehanort wants kingdom hearts, so sorta a villain origin story but not really?

- Ven and mickey together... that is all.

- Also because of Ven's route I think I finally understand the whole Roxas debacle. Its gonna take a bit to explain my theory, but here we go:

In beginning of whole game, Xehanort thought Ven was gonna die and took him to Destiny islands where our first protags were. My theory is that Sora gave Ven a piece of his heart in so he could live. Its also this connection which is why Vanitas looks like Sora, since Van and Ven have a bit of a connection, and Sora's heart piece was in the place of Van's heart-piece.

Also Ventus route ending is the reason why Roxas looks like Sora. So yeah. Not going to indepth but the summary is that they got a connection. It explains alot.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Now for the final character and best girl✨

The Aqua route:

- I didn't really notice it with the others Until I was playing with Aqua, but I found the association with side characters very interesting. Like: Terra was with the Villains for most of his playthrough, Ven was with the princesses and their friends, and Aqua was with the people helping said princessess and getting their happy endings. Neat little character parallels, very nice 👍

- Aqua is the only Keyblade master out of the three, and that really isn't saying much. She's super weak in the beginning, and that's saying something - since i was playing proud mode for all their routes. It was hard, but I eventually figured it out. Also I died alot in Aqua's route the most. so that's a thing.

- Something that I'm pretty happy about while playing the three routes, is that while each character moves in the same areas and overlaps at times, each have their own section of the world to explore. Very nice 👍

- Now for the ending... Oh boy:

So we got terra fighting Xehanort - he lost and got possessed :(

Ven fighting Vanitas - externally and internally - forging the X-blade ... sorta - he won, but broke his heart in the process, not great :(

As for Aqua.... we get some context to everything. After fighting Braig (Xigbar but in the past) we fight a possessed Ven weilding a completed X-blade. I thought that this would be the hardest fight out of the entire main story... So after using the power of friendship we help Ven break the X-blade and free him.

So, at the end of Aqua's route, we got a sleeping Ven, a possessed Terra, and a sad Aqua. AT LEAST WE GOT A FINAL EPISODE AYY?

Now for the final episode of the entire game:

- All the levels are higher and easier to level up in..... wanna know why? haha-hahaha-HAHAHAHA--

- Possessed Terra is the hardest fight in the entire main game and he was scary. So I died SEVERAL times. So I leveled up a bunch and changed spells and attack stuff, and I eventually defeated Xehanort... but I didn't get terra back D':

So now I'm stuck in the realm of darkness and feeling hopeful but SAD WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Now for some final notes:

- Its cool seeing all the characters from the past games, including the organisation 13 characters before they became nobodies.

- This game had some slightly different mechanics, but after I got used to them, it was so much better than the previous ones.

- Leveling up in this game is actually FUN. Merging spells together, also cool.

- Seeing new disney worlds was great, love it, 10/10.

- Seeing the development of not only the characters, but the development of how the story is told and the quality of it all... its great, I can see why people like it apart from the gameplay.

so that's my thoughts on the game, can't wait to play more :D

[pilferingapples]

LM 2.1.2 & 2.1.3

2.1.2, 2.1.3 

The Hugoumont thing is especially handy for Our Hugo here because it lets him claim that his namesake spot as " le commencement de l'obstacle, la première résistance que rencontra à Waterloo ce grand bûcheron de l'Europe qu'on appelait Napoléon; le premier nœud sous le coup de hache"  --the beginning of resistance to Napoleon.  SUBTLE, HUGO.  I cannot believe no one caught that and made him take it out, but I guess he was right about the Magic Censor Resistance of Waterloo!

This book offers a lot to re-reads in general, but this section, and this chapter especially is  so much richer now that I'm familiar with the barricade later.   Here's the bloody handprints on the door , the spiral staircase smashed by the defenders, the wall with messages to the nations.    Here's a martyr figure, still standing though everything else is destroyed. And here's an artillery officer trusting in his cannons to carry the attack. 

These things will all come around again, superficially the same , but essentially reversed. The message on the wall will be one of international solidarity instead of hatred.  The martyr may stand longer than seems possible, but certainly it won't be for decades.  And both sides of the fight will be French.   

This is a book about history and progress, and Waterloo and the barricade are one of those places where the verses rhyme REAL loudly.   

(And maybe there's something there, too, about the way history and fiction overlap; there are as many people now who can speak to the lived experience of Waterloo as there are people who can speak to the lived experience of the Corinth barricade.   The battlefield of Waterloo is now just as much a battlefield as Saint-Merry is a barricade.  One is one of the most famous battles of its age, the other was hardly a weekend note in the papers, but in either case, grass grows over and rain blots out, and we , distant observers, can only judge by appearances; none of us will ever have Been There.  I don't know.  It's late and I'm Emotional.) 

-This is also a place in the story where I think Hugo's personal experiences really show through, specifically Hugo's own personal experience with battlefields and sieges--experiences he started with as a child in Spain, but also of course certainly added to at various barricades over the course of his life.  There's something very visceral and present about the way he writes sieges and barricade combat, even when he's using his History Voice.  And though I know, of course, the Siege of Paris isn't part of that yet, I can't help thinking of it when I read about the defenders, or Van Kylsom in his cellar. 

   Other notes: 

- the English,like the police , are dogs.  (one more difference; in 1832 , the barricades will be defended by cats XD) 

- " Age has no hold on the geniuses of the ideal; for the Dantes and the Michelangelos, to grow older is to grow greater"  -- Why do I feel like Hugo's winking at me and going " aaaaayyyyy "  

- I WISH I COULD FIGURE OUT THE ISSUE OF APPLES IN THIS TEXT.  They're way too recurrent to mean nothing!  Perhaps this deserves...a separate post... 

[popcorn-hero]

The Tales of the Todorokis

Acknowledging character development and writing character development is not and making excuses for ones crimes.

Disclaimer: I read, I interpret, I express. This is a long post filled with images. Also probably some horrible grammar

Apologizing: Apologizing is  acknowledging ones faults and vowing to never commit the same mistakes. What has happened has happened. Nothing can change the past or the effect it had. What you do now, does not change or erase the past, but it helps guide a path of healing for the future. It can be the start of change and morphing into a better person. BUT, only if that person truly means it.

Apologies is not making an excuse for yourself.

Forgiveness: Forgiveness can be rightfully given, or not. It can be a tricky thing to understand at times. Forgiveness doesn’t remove the pain. Forgiveness doesn’t erase the memories. But for some people, forgiveness is a key to freedom, for inner peace. For other people, forgiveness doesn’t offer them that, and that's fine too.

We are not monoliths, we are individual people, with individual brains, with individual emotions, with experiences that affects us as individuals. Our stories might overlap - they might even be identical, but how we process it may not be.

I don’t like this narrative I’ve been seeing recently in the fandom of Horikoshi being an abuse apologist. I think Horikoshi is challenging us and its working. 

The Tales of the Todoroki’s: Enji, Rei, Touya, Fuyumi, Natsuo, Shoto

6 people

6 perspectives

6 stories

1 truth

Each viewpoint and each experience from everyone is very important in putting the pieces together (yes, even Enji). In fact, I think it was important to have Enjis viewpoint to the situation because it was such a contrast to what we’ve heard and seen from everyone else. In Enjis mind, he truly thought everyone was complaisant. He saw nothing wrong with attempting to live vicariously through his kids. In the same breath he expresses contempt for this children, its also laced with disappointment

He speaks of Rei as though she was consensual, but we know he essentially used her a valuable Mare and hurt her as well.

His treatment of Rei cannot be erased, justified, or forgotten. It happened. We as the audience are suppose to carry that in our minds because we are reading a story about Heroes. This challenges us to understand that heroic actions is not what a hero makes.

There are cops who (most of them tbh) that become cops simply for the power dynamic, not because they desire to protect. A lot of cops abuse their spouse.

 Rei: We are only introduced to her through the lowest point of her life and we have no insight on how Enji acquired her (yeah that sound harsh, but isn’t that what happened) nor her domestic life with him. What we know of her are scenes of her pain, and I think thats relevant enough. She may have had some “good” moments out of her situation, but she was still a mouse trapped in a lions den. Good days do not erase her state. Thats why this panel, was so odd to me 

Because it implies that Rei was complicit in having kids even though we as the audience understand that he basically brought her for that single purpose. Now note, this is coming from Enjs mouth, not hers so I can’t sit her be like “oh yeah she was fine with everything”

To me, this is simply Enjis projection because what was Rei honestly going to do? Say no? But who’s to say that she didn’t want Touya to be lonely? Idk, that panel was too wishy washy for me.

Moving on

She replies to Natsuo by saying that's not true

Its not in his defense like how Natsuo claimed. Rei never states that she forgives him, and we can see she is still on her journey of healing when she mentions shes still a bit scared of him. However, she acknowledges his acts as stepping stone for his own path of atonement.

If she does come to forgive him later in the story, thats her decision (Horikoshi actually lol). If she doesn’t, that her decision. 

Natsuo: 

The only insight from Natsuo is his resentment towards his father with what happened to Touya and the hurt of their mother. It is revealed later that Natsuo was Touya confidant in the house (I’ll get into that when I talk about Touya).

But He doesn’t forgive him....or hes not at that stage yet

When endeavor saves him from the villain, we are able to see Natsuos raw thoughts:

He’s conflicted: He wants to maintain the peace, but he can’t deny how he feels.

Natsuo felt like he had to compromise his feelings, and that shouldn’t be fair. Even thought he is the middle child, I feel like he took on the presence of the big brother and wanted to protect his siblings. But when you have a man like Enji as your father and you know how he is.....standing up to him as a child is terrifying

So when Enji says this

I’m like: DUH! Of course he would feel like that

But I’m taking this scene has Enji recognizing how he made Natsuo feel as a child which showcases. he owns up to the fact that he pushed Touya to the edge.

Yet with all that said, hes not suppose to forget. Hes not suppose to suppress how he feels. And even at his age, that child inside him still hurt and was never offered a chance to properly heal. I know what that feels like.

Natsuo must figure out what he needs to do to find peace - however that may be.

Fuyumi :

We don’t have much insight to Fuyumi and I’m sure  her experience is completely different from her brothers. One, because she was a girl and Enji is misogynistic, I doubt he gave her any type of attention as a father figure especially since she only inherited her moms quirk. I don’t recall  signs of physically abuse on Fuyumi and (Natsuo), but there probably was demeaning behavior at some point. Just being in that environment and seeing their sibling subjected to that, negatively impact her however 

But with Fuyumi, she is trying to move on

I think Fuyumi is on her path of forgiving her father -  thats her choice to make to find peace for her experience.  After expressing her desire  to move on as a family, she ask Shoto how he feels....

Oh my sweet prince Shoto: 

Shoto has a lot of baggage and being one of the main protagonist, we get a more in depth experience on his relationship with is father. I’m not going to go into too much detail because we all know he detested his father. I’m mainly going to focus on this middle ground that I find him at.

In the panels above he mentions having grudges and how it clouds the mind. Thats a toxic feeling to carry with you, especially when you’re trying to be a hero. He recognized that, and he’s been working on fixing that. Even his mother had to forgive herself towards what she did to him.

Shoto is not here to forgive Enji, hes here to forgive himself

What I mean by that is the fact that Shoto experienced self-hate. He hated a part of who was, how he looked, where he came from.  He had no control of his childhood, but he now has control of his future. At the sports festival, that was Shotos first step towards finding his healing. It wasn’t about Enji apologizing to him. It was about him.

And now look at him, he’s more social, more expressive, more powerful once he began to love himself. He got there on his own and with the support of his friends.

It doesn’t change what happened to him, and it doesn’t erase his feelings However, it gave him control over himself.

This is almost the same position Natsuo is in. He hasn’t seen anything (yet) for himself that warrants him to forgive his father. Maybe we will see it in these later chapters... maybe we wont.

Thats his decision

And last: Touya

Touya, touya, touya touya......

I honestly don’t know how to tackle his situation, but shoot me

From this memory (by Enji), Touya appears...enthusiastic. He appeared that he wanted to train with his father. 

And I think this is where things went wrong in his rearing. He was GROOMED .

Enji, being who he was, probably placed the ideas in Touya head of great success, importance, power, fame, ect. These things sound good to a child, and being the only child at the time, he had all his fathers attention. But as he got older and his quirk became incompatible, things started change.

Even before his quirk no longer became compatible for him, Enji still didn't see Touya as his ideal child, but he accepted it. Touya looks to be about 6 here meaning Shoto wasnt born yet or an infant.

 Going by the ages given for Shoto, Fuyumi, and Natsuo I’m going to state that 

Touya was 13 when he staged his death

Fuyumi was 11, Natsuo was 8, and Shoto was 5 and thats when we are introduced into in abuse.

So there is a 8 year window between Touya shift in his relationship with his father and the start of Shoto gaining his quirk.

That is a missing puzzle piece, and I can only speculate what happened in that time period to drive Touya to his mental breaking point and what his father did or, didn’t do for him.

Here, there is more white in his hair and he looks to be maybe 10? And this is when he starts to question his existence.

I can’t say all that Touya went through from the time Shoto was born to his faked death. 

I think Touya suffered from feeling abandoned by his father father, the feelings of being a failure because of these ideals of greatness only to be sideline. That he was just a placeholder like the rest of his sibling and not worthy to work along his fathers side.

I don’t think he faced the same treatment from his father as Shoto did.  I think he became blinded by approval and pushed himself to his limits to compete for Enji attention, He probably developed depression, anxiety, and a lot stressors as he became more and more incompatible with his quirk

And I think thats why there is the hate for Shoto because he feels like he took away his purpose ( which has nothing to do with Shoto but everything to do with Enjis grooming)

We know Touya is absolutely not on the scale of ever forgiving his father for what he did. For him to sit there and watch his father on TV and proclaim to be a hero when he knew what went on behind closed doors, it can drive him towards wanting to retaliate. 

His story showcases damages of a broken child. Where Shouto found liberation, Touya remained bound to the ambers Enji left on his worth and lies on being a hero.

Not everything can be fixed, and once a crack forms, it will continue to spread until it shatters.

In conclusion

The Tale of The Todorokis is not to serve as excusing abuse. Its a showcase of how 1 man can affect the lives of many people in different ways. It is a tale of moving forward, finding peace, and gaining control over your own person. 

Enji knows he can’t snap his figures and all will be well.  Though I think some actions he could have done was to take it upon himself to address the country, come clean,  and maybe retire as a hero, but he’s not a perfect character.

But I’ll take what I can get. Enji knows his place, he knows what he has done.

Happiness to his family is absence

Its there space

And there nothing more better he can do than that.

[discoursecatharsis]

I’ve gotten more than one anon ask from a teenager, paranoid that they’re a pedophile or a predator for crushing on a peer 2-3 years younger than them. Because anti-shippers/fandom purity police constantly use the term “pedophile” for ships between teens 2-3 years apart, it’s no wonder why real teens are confused and terrified. So I wanted to make a post with proper definitions of these terminologies and link to some sources, so that maybe it’ll reassure some other poor teen out there that it’s perfectly fine for them to crush on their schoolmate.

First I’m going to get this out of the way: I’m talking about crushing and dating and having a romantic relationship. Sex between a legal adult (18 and up) and a legal minor (17 and down) could be illegal depending on the age of consent where you live, and any Romeo and Juliet laws that may or may not be in place. That’s way more complicated, so I won’t be touching on teenage relationships where sex is involved. While I’m on this subject though, a quick PSA: if you’re under 18, do not take/send nudes at all. You could be charged with child pornography for “self-producing” your own nudes. As dumb as that sounds, it happens. I don’t agree with courts that do it, punishing hormonal teenagers for having hormones is dumb, but it still happens. It’s not worth it, don’t do it.

One more thing: I’m talking about relationships between peers in the same age group. Between two young adults, adolescents, or teenagers. Note that there is some overlap between these groups (i.e. 15 year old is a teenager and an adolescent but not an adult, while an 18 year old is all three, while a 20 year old is only a young adult). I’m not justifying age gaps that are obviously wrong and illegal, like a 30 year old and a 14 year old, so please do not put words in my mouth.

Moving on to the topic at hand...

---

If the only “concerning” thing about a relationship is a minimal age gap between two peers in the same age group, the relationship is probably okay.

The existence of an age gap alone does not make someone a pedophile or predator or child groomer. Intent needs to involved. Ill intent. Along with other abusive, predatory, manipulative behaviors.

---

Let’s break down some of these terms further:

A pedophile is attracted to prepubescent children. If the younger party in the relationship is not prepubescent, the older person is not a pedophile.

Here is the criteria for being a pedophile, as defined by the American Psychiatric Association.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/conditions/pedophilia

If there is less than a 5 year age gap between teens (i.e. a 15 year old and a 19 year old), there is probably not an issue.

If however, for example, an 18 year old is attracted to someone who’s 13 and still prepubescent, there may be an issue there and the older teen should seek help or talk to someone about it. This doesn’t mean they’re a bad person. If they haven’t hurt anyone, they’ve done nothing wrong. It may just be a disorder that they have no control over, so that’s why it’s a good idea to seek help for it.

---

Moving away from “pedophilia” now. What about people who prey on (i.e. are intentionally seeking to harm) teens who are post-pubescent? That person is not a pedophile, but they are a predator or a child groomer.

Which leads to the next point, what are some examples of “ill intent” when it comes to predatory relationships? What exactly is a predator or a child groomer?

This site lists the definition of grooming, along with some red flag behaviors.

https://www.d2l.org/child-grooming-signs-behavior-awareness/

First I want to point out the word “deliberate.” You can’t accidentally groom someone, like I’ve seen multiple fandom police claim. Posting properly tagged and flagged nsfw fanart on a public forum like tumblr or twitter that allows nsfw content is NOT grooming. Grooming is a deliberate act. It involves intent. If an adult is sending private DMs of nsfw sexual fanart to a minor that they KNOW to be a minor, that is completely inappropriate and grooming behavior. Same goes for any nsfw sexual talk, like an adult having a nsfw rp chat with a minor, that’s wrong too. But simply posting/liking/sharing nsfw fandom content on a public website is not grooming.

That link has a longer list of red flag behaviors, along with examples, but here are three I want to especially point out.

A lot of these sites seem to write their info with the focus on young children being groomed, going by the language they use (”child’s natural curiosity”). But teenagers can definitely be groomed also, in the same ways. If an older partner is taking advantage of a vulnerable teen due to an abusive home life, or trying to isolate them from their family and friends, or overstepping any emotional/physical/sexual boundaries, that teen is very likely in a dangerous situation and needs to confide in a trusted friend, and eventually in a trusted adult, about it.

---

I also wanted to share this source as well, just as a general example of other signs of abuse in a relationship. The National Domestic Violence Hotline has a chart that lists common behavior patterns of an abusive, manipulative partner.

https://www.thehotline.org/is-this-abuse/abuse-defined/

This chart uses the example of a male abuser and a female victim, but they have another page and chart for lgbt+ relationships.

As their site says, this can apply to anyone. Age, gender, sexual orientation, it doesn’t matter, anyone is capable of being an abuser or being a victim. Notice how this has similar tactics as the child predator/groomer red flag list too, such as isolation.

Also notice the different manipulative behaviors in this chart. This chart is just a good rule of thumb for red flags in any kind of relationship, be it sexual, romantic, platonic or familial.

Here is another source that lists more red flag behaviors, but more specifically for teenage relationships.

https://www.teendvmonth.org/resources/signs-teen-dating-violence/

---

With that in mind, here are some hypothetical scenarios. Let’s use a specific example of a 18 year old high school senior (12th grade) dating a 15 year old high school sophomore (10th grade).

This relationship could be bad if the senior is using the sophomore for their own personal gain. Taking advantage of the fact that the younger person is inexperienced when it comes to dating, and using that fact to manipulate them into a relationship. Maybe the senior isolates the sophomore from their family and friends, makes them feel guilty for wanting to hang out with friends, makes them quit their after-school sports activities or forces them to cancel plans with friends so that they can spend more time together. Maybe the older teen controls how they dress or what they do, or makes them do things that they’re uncomfortable with. All of those are signs of an abusive relationship. If the older teen doesn’t care about the younger teen or about their feelings and is just using them, obviously that is an unhealthy, abusive relationship. (*It’s important to note though, that this exact thing can happen between two people of the same age too. A partner who’s the same age as you can also be controlling and abusive. It can happen with friendships too, it doesn’t have to be limited to dating relationships.)

On the other hand, this senior/sophomore relationship very well could be a perfectly healthy one too. Maybe they are in the same after-school club and bonded through that. Maybe they���ve already known each other and have been friends for years, maybe their families are friends, etc. And they’ve recently started crushing on each other and decided to date. As long as they respect each other, it’s fine.

That’s why you need to know what is going on in a relationship before you judge. An age gap by itself is not proof enough that a relationship is bad or abusive or predatory. One of the partners needs to have ill-intent, and exhibit these abusive red flag behaviors.

---

So to sum up everything, if the ONLY thing in a relationship is that there is an age gap, but both people are otherwise peers and in the same age group/range, and none of the above red flags are present, your relationship is fine and you have nothing to worry about. You know you’re a good person, your partner is a good person, you have family and friends supporting the both of you, you care about and respect each other, then you’re fine.

You’re not a pedophile or a predator or any awful thing like that. Remember, those are deliberate acts and involve ill-intent. Please don’t let fandom police scare you. They’re internet strangers, they know NOTHING about you or your personal life or your relationships or your home life or your upbringing or your family and friends. They’re judging you based solely on the fact that there’s an age gap, and nothing else. They have nothing to go by. They’re not trying to educate others on healthy or unhealthy relationship dynamics. They’re just instilling fear in people to back up their own moral superiority or ship war or whatever tf is driving them to be like That and spread misinformation and make inaccurate generalizations. And they don’t seem to realize or care how dangerous it is that they’re telling teens that they’re predators when they’re not. They don’t care about victims. If they did, they’d be spreading helpful advice, but instead they’re just spreading fear and misinformation. Please stop listening to them. And please for all that is good, don’t take advice from them. Talk to adults in your personal life, if not a parent, then an older cousin or an aunt or uncle or teacher or counselor. Or Google it and find reputable sources for yourself. That is much more reliable than taking advice from people who throw around the word “pedophile” to describe a ship between two teenage anime characters. People need to use common sense and look at relationships on a case-by-case basis. And anti-shippers/fandom purity police are unable to do that.

To fandom police: stop telling teenagers that they’re a predator or pedophile for dating their schoolmate who’s two years younger than them. It’s none of your business, and don’t give me that “but if they’re hurting themselves or others, I need to say something” BS. You’re a stranger, you do not know their personal lives. You know nothing about what is going on except that an age gap is involved, that’s it, and that is not enough to jump to such a drastic conclusion and serious accusation. It’s not your place because you don’t know their life or their situation. Also frankly, it’s damn weird and highly inappropriate for you to be inserting yourselves into the personal lives of some random teenager on the internet that you don’t know (especially if you’re an adult). You think shippers are gross for “being invested in the love lives of fictional teens,” yet here you are trying to control the love lives of real life teens. Please get some perspective.

Edit: Another point I forgot to mention, so I’m tacking this onto the end.

Stop acting like all teens x-years-old are the exactly same as every other teen who is also x-years-old. “I’m 18 and I would NEVER date a 15 year old because they’re practically a baby and I’m such a mature adult already and-” Good for you, you want a cookie? Repeat after me: not everyone is the same as you. One 18 year old might be socially awkward but nice and with no dating experience at all, and would fair well with dating a 15 year old who also is in their first relationship. Another 18 year old might be really responsible for their age due to circumstances in their family life, and are fully capable of handling themselves and dating a 21 year old college classmate. Everyone is different. Two people of different ages may just “click” with each other, they’re on the same wavelength, or they have similar experiences, etc. Just because you personally wouldn’t date someone 2-3 years younger/older than yourself doesn’t mean 1) that it’s wrong, or 2) that others wouldn’t be okay with it for their own personal (and valid) reasons.

Again: it is not your business to interfere with an internet stranger’s personal life and relationships when the only thing you have to go off of is “there’s an age gap.” I’m begging y’all, please look at this with the nuance that it deserves. It is not black-and-white, and your black-and-white thinking is really messing up teenagers and making them feel bad about completely normal and healthy age-appropriate crushes or desires to date someone else.

[linkspooky]

Hey, I’ve been reading a lot of your BNHA metas, (they’re all absolutely awesome btw) and I was wondering about two things, what kind of mental illness do you think Shigaraki has? And I read a post somewhere that speculated that he might have suffered a tbi when his father hit him with the tree sheers, do you think that might be true?

Hello anon, thank you for your ask! 

I will try to answer your questions the best I can, however beforehand I think it’s important to note that I don’t really like diagnosing characters outside of like specific examples where the authors tell us this is the disease they were attempting to portray, or headcanons. Shigaraki clearly shows signs of mental illness, but I don’t think Horikoshi writes characters by looking up a list of symptoms in the DSM and then writing them based on that. 

Also yes, the two clearest examples of mental Illness (Shigaraki, Twice) are both villains but I have faith that the mental illness of Shigaraki is an instance where it’s used to humanize him and show how much of a victim of a system both characters are, rather than just to give the villain traits that are abnormal and therefore creepy and dangerous. 

I can’t give you a specific dianogisis but I can give you a more in depth look at several symptoms that Shigaraki displays. 

Excoriation 

Excoriation disorder is an obsessive-compulsive spectrum mental disorder that is characterized by the repeated urge or impulse to pick at one’s own skin to the extent that either psychological or physical damage is caused. In Shigaraki’s case it’s clearly a stress response that is aggravated the more violent, unstable or dangerous a situation he is put into. 

Which is why I find claims that Shigaraki is content with violence, or likes being a killer and is comfortable living this way to be false. Because Shigaraki’s own body constantly rejects him. He feels a compuslive need to scratch and harm himself because his body cannot handle the stress of being violent. It’s a stress response because Shigaraki does not actually on some level want to be doing these things, and living in a constant state of stress and harm makes him more compelled to vent his stress by following his compulsions. 

The compulsion he feels can sometimes get so bad that in childhood he was rolling around the floor, crying and frantically scratching his whole body. This is not what All for One said and him holding back his urge to kill, but rather Shigaraki responding to the stress. Shigaraki is seven and was put in front of two homeless people who were threatening to harm him and he already came from a physically abusive household. He’s in unbelievable stress with no healthy way of venting it, and thereofre he compulsively self harms. 

GAME TALK

In general Shigaraki uses a lot of game talk. This is not so much a symptom of mental illness necessarily as it is a coping mechanism, but the goal is for Shigaraki to distance himself from reality. Basically it’s a mechanism for rgaining control because if you imagine life as just one big game where you are the player, you feel much more in control then some random kid who lost his family in a freak accident then got picked up by a super villain. Gamespeak is also a way of being deeply impersonal with the situation, in case it goes bad Shigaraki can say it’s just game over. It’s a layer of distance between him and reality, like I said, escapism to cope. His insistence of using game terminology for everything could also be seen as a “special interest” but once again that depends on your intepretation Shigaraki shows a whole cluster of symptoms that overlap with a lot of things. 

HIGH ATTENTION TO DETAIL

Shigaraki in a fight where he and AIzawa are jumping around trying to kill each other, Shigaraki is able to notice a detail as minute as when the hair falls over Aizawa’s eyes it stops, and also that his quirk was weakening because the tiny seconds long windows were getting shorter and shorter. 

This is an extremely small detail to notice. Hyper-sensitizing, or hyper-attention to detail is another sign of mental illness, because usually the brain filters out superfluous details like this because otherwise noticing everything in that fine detail would overwhelm the senses. 

Immaturity 

Shigaraki is completely unable to handle his negative emotions like a well-rounded adult. Though, I dislike how All Might and the others phrase it in this discussion because it is a pretty ablist description (downright sick in the head, a toddler’s sense of feeling like he can do whatever he wants). (the ablist part is that they’re using symptoms of his clear mental illness to dehumanize him.)

Regardless, Shigaraki of course does act like a man child, constantly talking about games, giving up easily, not having the patience to converse with others especially in situations he does not want to be in, throwing tantrums. 

Children who are abused and neglected especially to the extreme extent that Shigaraki has, show long term developmental (that is term for the process of growing into a full adult) and behavioral problems. To the point where some studies have shown even the brain’s chemistry is permanently effected and the brain grows differently. 

Children need a stable environment, and also positive role models for what adults act like to grow into full fledged adults, Shigaraki had neither of those. In fact he was also raised almost entirely outside of society except for the first five years of his life, so there is also no outside influence on his upbringing as well, which is why he is like a child, egocentric, unable to handle his emotions, because mentally he was never given the chance to develop past one. 

ISOLATION

This is something that Shigaraki showed at the start of the series, but also has shown to develop past. At first he never left his room and from the several trash bags it’s quite obvious he spent long periods of time in there without taking care of himself or the environment around him in any significant way. 

Shigaraki is no longer isolating as a result of having gotten closer to the league, he is basically available to them at all times and does not shut them off in any significant way. Which in this quick tangent we can also talk about symptoms Shigaraki does not have. Shigaraki is able to read a room pretty clearly, and knows how to hide himself in a crowd enough to keep Deku hostage with no trouble at all, and even leave the scene with Uraraka there without provoking her into attacking him or tipping her off what he was doing right away. Shigaraki is fairly competent at reading other people and he does have social skills so he’s not like someone who never sees the light of day or cannot interact with others and is clueless on how people think. 

He’s also shown to be capable of making emotional connections with other people, and also of being considerate to those people’s needs. Which also shows that Shigaraki is capable of communication and also has an awareness of the feelings of other people and the ability to empathize, he is just choosy about who he makes connections with. He is definitely not someone unable to form an emotional connection with another person. 

Shigaraki also shows a pretty flagrant disregard for all social norms, but that can be a result of being raised outside of society all of his life.

Shigaraki also likes to piss people off on purpose, almost like he is testing their boundaries and what he can get away with the same way a child playing around might.

Dissociation

We have seen Shigaraki experience Dissociation in both senses of the word. First we have seen him physically detach himself from his feelings, and his own body in the middle of a fight and still continue on in a fugue-like state. 

He experiences dissociation in the sense of the word meaning periods of detachment to your body, drifting away from your consciousness, severe feelings of alienation from himself, extreme difficulty concentrating or holding focus to the moment, his perception of both time and the area around him slipping to levels that are borderline hallucinogenic. 

Dissociation is a mental process where a person disconnects from their thoughts, feelings, memories or sense of identity.

Shigaraki also displays traits of what is more classicly known as Dissasociative identity disord. He has two names, and clearly considers the life of Shimura Tenko to be separate from Shigaraki Tomura for a long time at the start of the manga. It might not be full on DID, but he at least dissociated his memories away from himself long enough that he forgot all of them like those memories belonged to another person, not Shigaraki but rather Tenko. 

Shigaraki also foils Twice pretty heavily who developed actual dissociatve identity disord. He even shares similiar symptoms of speaking to himself when he speaks to the hand of “father”. I am not saying he has full on DID like I said I’m not diagnoising just that he displays several symptoms of it. He also came from an abusive household at an incredibly young age, which is where DID most commonly manifests. 

Shigaraki also shows signs of flashbacks when his memories return at inconvenient times during fights when direclty exposed to violence, or he experiences a trigger reminding him of his past. Flashbacks are a symptom that have the most in common with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

To answer your question on whether Shigaraki has a brain injury from when his father hit him with shears, there is evnidence suggesting he could have suffered brain damage, especially in the symptoms that he shares with Twice. However, at the same time Shigaraki also would have developed brain damage either way. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is something that permanently rewires the brain after exposure to trauma. His brain has suffered a traumatic injury regardless of whether or not it was the garden sheers that did him in. 

Suicidal Ideation / Self Harm

Shigaraki in general wishes to not exist, or to destroy everything so it will not exist anymore. Even if it’s not a direct wish for suicide that symptom is called suicidal ideation. It’s intrusive and persistent thoughts of suicide. The likely cause is once again, Shigaraki is absolutely not comfortable living like this, and is constantly overwhelmed with stress and pain and is seeking an escape. 

Shigaraki also actively seeks out harm. The same way he obsessively compulsively scratches, he puts himself into harmful situations like the extremely painful hellish surgery the doctor said he did not even have to endure if he did not want to. He feels compelled to harm himself, even when he is not fighting against someone else. He inflicts harm on himself becauseit is once again an unhealthy way to process his emotions. Oncce again all of these symptoms are there not to make Shigaraki out to be terrifying and incomprehensible because he is mentally ill, but rather to show he is a human being caught within the cycle of abuse with extremely unhealthy methods of coping with that fact. 

[fancyfanfiction]

Soon It Will Be Spring (Chapter 3)

YAY! I had a major set back in the form of my external hard drive corrupting, but I got the data back and have been working on this chapter! I also now know way too much about the Russian railway system. Fun fact: The name of the Nikolaevsky/Oktyabyrsky station is now the Moskovsky Station.

Cross-posted to AO3 here:https://archiveofourown.org/works/16242599/chapters/65460604

 Chapter 3

The clocktower of the Nikolaevsky—now Oktyabyrsky—railway station stood stark against the cobalt sky as the pair approached the building, one of the holdouts of imperial style in the new culture of Russia. Train whistles mumbled and overlapping conversations, and the chugging of locomotives enveloped the station and its grounds. Gleb and Katya kept pace with their fellow travelers as they crossed the threshold into the main hall of the station.

Katya took in the sight, allowing herself private revelry in the familiarity of the old train station. Any childhood trip ended there: with a train pulling back into Saint Petersburg and some treat or another from her father to ease the sadness of an adventure ended. Katya could almost hear her father comforting her: the best part about the end of an adventure is now another can begin. Adventure had been his life since the beginning, adventures that Katya had never quite been able to imagine. The Caucasus mountains existed to her only in books and in the stories her father had told of his boyhood. Regret pricked the back of her neck. Katya would never get to see the mountains where her father had been born now.

The odd companions stood staring at the board of arrivals and departures. Moscow would be easy, but Poland: less so. Money and time for forged papers were luxuries they hadn’t been afforded. They approached the ticketing window, and something seemed to click on in Katya’s eyes.

“Hello, comrade. Where are you headed?” asked the man.

“Two for Moscow, please. The earliest departure you have.” Katya had donned a modest Polish accent as she slid the money across the counter, not unintelligible by any means, but unmistakable in its origin.

Upon hearing the accent, the ticket man seemed to change his demeanor. The stench of condescension wafted off of him. “You’ll need to go to platform four and give this to the man on the train when he asks for it” He pronounced each word slowly and loudly as if speaking to a small child, exaggerating each syllable and gesturing as he handed Katya the tickets.

She offered a vacant smile, “Thank you, comrade.”

Of course. She was playing dumb Gleb realized.  

“Platform four, then?” Gleb asked once they had left the counter, shifting his pack from one shoulder to the other. “I’m surprised you didn’t shout at him.”

“Playing into people’s prejudices can have its uses,” Katya said, her disdain for the “stupid Pole” stereotype dripping from each word.

“Where did you learn to do that accent so well, Yekaterina?” Gleb asked, curiosity getting the better of his instinct to leave Katya alone to cool off.

“My mother’s family is Polish. Neither of my grandparents on that side ever fully shook the accent.” Her answer was direct but lacked the iciness Gleb had expected.

They walked in silence to their destination. The light tang of coal, metal, and oil floated in the air, strengthening as the platform grew closer. The train would be departing in less than half an hour. They stood with their fellow passengers, the shared comradery of an imminent journey connecting all those who stood waiting. The moment washed over the pair like water over the banks of the Neva as they watched the train pull into the station.

“We can’t come back.” Katya broke through the silence.

Gleb thought for a moment he saw heartbreak flicker in her eyes – the same look Anya had as she knelt next to him, loaded gun still in his hand, the same blue eyes. Gleb glanced at Katya again, but she had turned away.

A sea of coats, hats, and luggage ebbed and flowed around them as the passengers boarded.  Katya claimed the window seat before Gleb even had a chance to protest. Exhaustion clung to her like sleet, weighing Katya down as she leaned her head against the cool glass. Her eyes fluttered, going in an out of focus as sleep threatened to overtake her.

“Here.” Katya thrust the tickets toward Gleb. “Just hand the conductor both of ours when he comes by.”

Gleb nodded and took the paper slips from Katya; the tips of her fingers brushed his through her fingerless gloves. Whether they were fingerless for dexterity or simply because the tips had become too damaged to bother mending anymore, Gleb couldn’t say.

The train lurched forward in a cloud of steam and smoke as it pulled away from the platform. The gentle rocking as the train picked up speed lulled Katya into a blessedly dreamless sleep, leaving Gleb alone with his thoughts.

He took stock. It would be at least a few hours before they reached Moscow. He knew Katya had some money but had no clue how much; Gleb decided he would only count on his own money. There was no use speculating on things he didn’t know and had no place asking. He knew Katya couldn’t have saved much. Yet Anya – Anastasia, he corrected himself mentally – had made it with those conmen, and street sweepers made only a fraction of what a cleaning woman would make. She had more than made it. She had thrived. Why hadn’t she taken her place publicly? The image of Anya decked out in her regal red gown that played so well against rosy skin haunted him, taunted him, dangled what could have been in front of him, just out of reach. Long life, Gleb, her voice still echoed in his head.

***

 “Now arriving at Oktyabrsky Terminal, Moscow.” The conductor’s voice boomed through the train car. Katya stirred and woke, fixing Gleb with those blue eyes that seemed too familiar after four hours of ruminating on the past.

“Welcome back to the world of the living,” He said dryly.

“We’re in Moscow, then?” Katya rubbed her face.

“Unless the conductor is lying.”

Katya responded with a short half laugh. “So, you do have a sense of humor.”

“A bit rusty, but it’s there.” Gleb smiled, the first genuine smile Katya could remember seeing on him.

With their current government, the more paranoid part of Katya didn’t quite trust that the conductor wasn’t lying. She stretched and stood, trying to shake the idea from her mind. A yawn escaped as she shook out the stiffness from sleeping leaning against a train window.

“Warsaw next, then?” Gleb asked, allowing the chatter of the other passengers to cover their conspiracy.

Katya nodded. “Yes…” she trailed off.

Gleb sensed the “but” implied in her answer. “But we don’t have papers.”

Another nod. “I think I have a workaround, but we’ll have to be quick.”

           The pair disembarked with the rest of the passengers and crossed to the departures board. The train station hadn’t changed much, despite its renaming Katya noted. She almost wished she had time to wander around Moscow. It had been so long since she’d visited. Then she remembered. The palaces, the grand parties, all of that would be long gone—had been long gone for years now.

           Gleb looked between the chalk departures board and his father’s old map. “It looks like the closest we can get to Warsaw today will be Minsk.”

           “Alright then. One more leg to the journey won’t throw things off too badly.” Katya began walking, rifling through of her bag.

           Gleb’s gaze drifted from person to person, habitually searching for any danger. His heart jumped as he noticed a man walking quickly in his direction. The man was dressed neutrally, meant to blend in with the crowd in the train station, but he walked with a purpose that set him apart, shoulders square and jaw set. Gleb knew a Chekist guard when he saw one. And one was walking dead towards him and Katya.

           “Yekaterina.” Gleb grabbed her arm, not even waiting for a response. He pulled them both around a corner into a shadowed, empty corridor and pressed her against the wall, hoping the dark color of his coat would camouflage them���if not, he supposed he could use the excuse of sweethearts stealing a kiss away from the crowds.

           “What—” Katya’s question was cut off by Gleb placing his finger to his lips. She was certain she would have a bruise on her upper arm from how hard he had gripped. Scrutinizing his face, she searched for an answer as to why the former Deputy Commissioner had shoved her against a wall in a dark corner of a crowded building. The wool of his coat still held the familiar smell of his—now former—apartment despite their frenzied escape from St. Petersburg. He looked over his shoulder and Katya noticed the dark stubble that had begun to spread along Gleb’s jawline. Seeing the bruise-colored circles beneath his eyes, Katya felt a pang of sympathy. This close she realized Gleb was holding his breath. What ever caused him to try and hide them, she figured, it must not be gone.

           Seconds felt like minutes before Gleb heard the quick steps of the Cheka pass. He stepped back, freeing Katya.

           “The Cheka.” He answered her unfinished question.

           Katya’s eyes widened. “Do you think they’ve found us?” Her breathing hitched. Had they really been so close to danger?

           “No.” He shook his head. “But if they’re looking for us, they’ll have our descriptions.”

The two walked back into the main lobby of the station. The travelers and commuters seemed oblivious as to what had just happened.

“Well, we should get to Minsk as soon as possible.” Katya walked up to the window and returned with their tickets. “The train’s already boarding.” She walked right past Gleb, leading him toward their platform.

This train was nicer that the last, Gleb observed. He and Katya found their compartment and took their seats, this time across from each other, rather than side by side. This would be a long trip. Moscow was more than 700 kilometers from Minsk. The train ride alone would take 6 hours, likely more if they needed to stop to refuel.

Gleb looked at Katya. Her face was mirrored in the dark glass as she stared out the window. He cleared his throat to get her attention.

“If we’re going to be on this train for a while, perhaps we could get to know each other?” Gleb suggested as nonchalantly as he could. Truthfully, he was a little curious about his companion.

Katya turned from the window toward Gleb. “What do you want to know?”

He searched for a moment before settling on a question. “What was your life like before you worked as a cleaner?”            “My mother left me at the Smolny Convent to become a nun when I was about 14.” Katya replied.

“You were a nun?” Gleb was astonished. In the hours they had now spent together, he’d not once gotten the impression that she was particularly devout.

“No. I was a novice and not a very good one at that.” Katya corrected, amused by his surprise.

“Papa and I sent letters, in secret of course.” She continued, “We weren’t exactly supposed to have contact with our families, but he always encouraged my rule-breaking. I suppose that was part of why my mother sent me to the convent in the first place.” The softness Katya’s features had taken talking about her father faded. “I was there until you Bolsheviks disbanded the convent.” She gave him a pointed look. “And looted it.”

She leaned back against the seat. “I would write and tell my father about how I had screwed up in my novitiate again since we’d last talked. Something stupid normally. Playing a prank on another novitiate. Staying out past curfew and then trying to argue my way out of penitence. He’d say, ‘That’s my Katenka. Full of fire to the bitter end. Just like me.’” A fond and forlorn smile softened Katya’s features again.

“Katenka? That’s not a pet name I’d expect for you.” Gleb fought the amused look on his face.

“Don’t ever call me that.” A hint of menace lurked behind her dismissive tone, almost protective of the memory she’d just shared. Katya scowled at the floor between them as they sat in silence; the conversation was obviously dead.

“I miss my father, too.”  Gleb offered after a few minutes.

Katya looked up.

“He died about 10 years ago.” He continued.

“Mine died about that time, too. I suppose a lot of children lost fathers during the revolution.” Sadness and sympathy for those who had known her tinged Katya’s voice.

“His name was Sergei?” Gleb attempted to keep the conversation going now that it had been resurrected.

She raised an eyebrow as her lips pressed together and quirked to the side.  “No, his name  was Ivan.” An eye roll and a small smile of amused exasperation accompanied her sarcasm.

Gleb’s eyes flicked downward, then back to Katya as he realized the redundancy of asking someone he almost exclusively addressed as “Yekaterina Sergeyevna” her father’s name.

Sometimes he seemed more like a boy than an officer to Katya, a child wearing his father’s boots.

“Mine was Stepan.” Gleb brushed some dirt from his sleeve.

"Really, Gleb Stepanovich?  I never would have guessed." Katya emphasized his patronym.

“Wouldn’t it be funny if they had known each other, given they died around the same time?” Gleb waited a second to see if Katya found it an interesting thought as well.

“We live in a country of more than 90,000 people. I think that’s rather unlikely.”

Gleb grimaced at his failed attempt at connection. A yawn caught him off guard.

“You should sleep. It’s a long train ride, like you said, and I got to rest on the last one.” Katya offered. “I’ll keep an eye out for anyone suspicious.”

Gleb nodded and leaned back, appreciating the feeling of cushion rather than stone. Adrenaline could only carry a person so far, he figured. Sleep pulled him down into darkness quickly as he closed his eyes.

Katya looked at the sleeping form across from her. The Deputy Commissioner—former Deputy Commissioner—wasn’t unhandsome, not by any stretch of the imagination she decided. He was in fact very handsome when he deigned to smile. Which was seldom. She had only seen a true smile once or twice, not that tight-lipped half-grimace he often made. He, like all the other Bolsheviks Katya had had the pleasure of encountering, seemed to lack a sense of humor almost entirely or at least she had thought until that afternoon. Even so, he at least had more empathy than his comrades. He looked younger when he slept, granted he was young for his rank, but still.

The train’s great heave forward as it began to pull away from the station didn’t rouse Gleb in the slightest. He seemed already lost in dreams. Katya unthinkingly reached out and gently brushed his normally well-kept hair from his forehead. She hated to admit it, and perhaps it was just the shared bonds of running for one’s life, but she was growing fond of the former Bolshevik. She turned to look out the window again. Katya had never been to Minsk, hopefully the added time to the journey would be worth it.

[sinnhelmingrmoved]

tma au rundown. warning. long with too many bullet points.

basics:

her name is leah lindqvist. no, this is not her birth name, not even a name in any official records, but it’s what she goes by and what the majority of characters will know her as. the only exceptions to this are those who knew her in her human life and those who have stumbled upon her in statements -- more on that later.

appears to be in her late 20s-early 30s, with an old world aristocracy look under her gothic leanings. has a propensity for elegant/historical looks in her day to day life, being rather more put together than the setting’s primary goth. notable for her bloodless complexion and bright green eyes. tall and thin.

has lived in london for the last three years, looking for an in to the institute to further her own research. changes living arrangements at around season 3 to better stalk keep an eye on our main protagonist.

originally scandinavian, specifically danish, though her accent seems strangely lax for someone who claims to have only left her motherland a few years before.

is an avatar, though her exact ‘patron’ is a question she’s been trying to answer for a long, long time. the circumstances of what she deems her ‘becoming’ seemed to involve at least 4 separate entities, only one of which could have won her.

backstory:

was born the youngest of three children in a happy copenhagen home, her father from good stock and her mother a force to be reckoned with in the community. at some point, the house of cards crumbled for the couple, and their children were shuffled off to what relatives would take them. leah, or whoever she was before, went to her father’s brother specifically.

said uncle was a proper gentleman, a pillar of the community, worldly and wealthy. he had a particular fondness for the macabre, and venerated a man known as jonah magnus and his various associates. this man about town had such dreams for his latest acquisition, for this bright and tender child who wanted the whole of the world in her hands.

leah was raised alongside but differently from odin’s four sons, groomed for something beyond her understanding. she was expected to read and recite, to observe others, and to mind her ps and qs more than her cousins ever would. as she grew towards adolescence, odin took to traveling the world with his ward, haunting locations of past or ongoing fear activity. leah was meant to observe, and to be seen.

that was a perilous thing, and got her on the wrong side of various avatars and monsters more often than she cares to remember. she has had confirmed run-ins with the spiral, the stranger, the desolation, and the dark through these ‘misadventures,’ and has had at least one brush with the lukas family in her youth that leaves open the possibility of later lonely interference.

it should be noted, however, that leah’s moments of what her uncle would dub martyrdom -- that is, to be made to witness the influence of fears on the world -- were almost invariably fatal for the subject of observation. while odin perceived her as witnessing the world and following the path of the eye, leah herself was chasing death.

the dawning realization that her life was to be given solely in service to this all-seeing eye led to brief fits of rebellion or anxiety that her uncle worked to curtail. her panic at the situation came to a head at some point in her twenties when, according to all involved, leah attacked odin’s favored son. immediately afterwards, leah was ousted from the family, abandoned to a distant property. the outside world, however, would receive the fiction that she had gone missing and would never be recovered.

left to a rarely-traveled island on the norwegian sea, stripped of the protections her uncle offered under the sheltering eye, those entities who marked her soon came begging their pound of flesh. locking herself into a small cabin on the property, she endured bouts of darkness and mist rolling over the outside world, a constant knocking or clawing at the cabin door, and an apparent loss of self. after some perceived months of this isolation, some hallucination or dream came to her in which she perceived her patron reaching out and taking all of the fear away.

once awakened, she was discovered by a passing ship and returned to the mainland, walking and hitchhiking her way back to the main family estate. she found her uncle badly aged in the months of her absence, striking when he was alone and demanding answers from him : what was her intended purpose? what did the eye have to do with this? what had she become? why did he choose her? at some point, her interrogation became too much for the old man, and he passed before she received the answers she sought. after disposing of his body, odin became another missing person’s case in the family, and leah made her way across europe for the next few years seeking the answers she had not received from the source.

has had a past attempt to breach the institute and lasted a good few days hidden among the archives. was eventually found out, however, and was made to escape. all the way to the mainland, in fact, due to whatever she uncovered about the place rattling her deeply enough to keep away from england for some years.

eventually, with all other avenues of knowledge running dry, leah was forced to return and consider that the answers she sought lie in the institute itself. to that end, she had taken up residence in a london apartment complex and tried to get in several times.

recent events: 

has been an accomplice in several fear-motivated disappearances of young men in the london area. it’s an open secret among those who know her status as avatar that she makes offerings for her ‘partner’ out of human sacrifices.

tried to infiltrate the institute and got far enough to nearly get eaten by worms in season one, saved only by the timely intervention of her partner. none of the actual archival staff are aware of said event until she actively brings it up.

has developed a growing fascination with the latest archivist, including reaching out to him in season 3 once he’s on the run.

eventually offers him her statement in exchange for a chance to delve the archives resources for the explanations she’s been without. becomes an occasional feature from there on until she once again flees into the night after a brush with its master.

spoilers:

has been completely divorced from the concept of time as it flows for others. many of the discrepancies about her story as she tells it can be explained through this: her months abandoned on the island actually took place over a number of years, her time spent combing through the european continent took more than a decade, and she can no longer remember her birth year because it does not align to her perceptions of self. even those she knew in humanity, such as gerry or peter, register as oddities for having aged in accordance with real time rather than her own.

her patron is the end, who had indelibly marked her at some point in her youth and seems to have intervened and claimed her once she was in serious danger. her exact role as an avatar of this fear is muddled by her decades of self-serving pursuit of knowledge rather than living up to whatever she was meant to do.

odin really stumbled into getting an intended avatar of the eye marked by different fears. it was not his intention, but rather a result of caretaker negligence in trying to make a witness of the girl. he never expected that it would have meant something in the grand scheme of things.

despite appearing all of 32 at most, leah was already in her twenties by the 90s. she’s actually in her 50s though her general issues with time mean she has not realized this fact and her status as an avatar has left her pretty ageless.

relationships:

alliance/partnership/friendship with sittimoranimiinterfectorem‘s michael. michael was the first of her kind leah met, and one she looked up to as a potential font of answers. instead, michael has been toying with her for years, as a liar ought to. outsiders can infer a variety of potential takes on the relationship, as outlined here.

alliance/mentorship/unrequited feelings with sittimoranimiinterfectorem’s jon. leah’s initial trepidation in approaching the new archivist soon turned to a soft spot for this man the world was going to eat alive. she realizes he is walking down the same path her uncle forced her down, and has taken on a slightly protective and wise elder role over him. that said, she has also has a fancy for him, attracted to his dark eyes and devotion to his humanity.

former companion/occasional ally of bookburnt‘s gerry. the two crossed paths every once in a blue moon during the years, given odin and mary were associated with one another in their travels and overlapping ideals. leah tried to take on a supportive role for the teen, sometimes sending gifts, while gerry in turn tended to cut loose with someone who got it. in adulthood, the two sometimes ran into one another in the weird world in which they inhabited, though leah had no idea this man was the same boy she had tried to bond with years before.

potential acolyte/student of medisinals‘s blackwell. we’re still plotting it out but the two have each other’s acquaintance as avatars of the end.

relevant statements:

statement of frida hoarr, concerning the disappearance and life of her husband odin. first mention of the hoarr family and leah’s original identity. (2001)

statement of olaf agner, concerning his time working for the hoarr family in north zealand. a less rose colored view of odin’s ‘visionary’ work and his 'creepy’ niece. (1987)

miscellany statements referencing a one eyed man and dark-haired girl/young woman at or around the scene of various incidents involving the fears across europe. sometimes references the girl in question reaching out to those that are marked. (80s-90s)

statement of torsten hoarr, concerning the personal records of his father and the disappearance of his cousin. (2007)

reference to leah’s invasion of the institute archives in an incidental discussion with michael shelley about his having been deceived into allowing a certain young woman into the archives (2009)

miscellany statements establishing odin as a sort of chessmaster invariably working with the eye before, during, and after leah’s part in his life. (60s-2001)

statement of james berger on the subject of his friend ethan hamilton going missing. first clear picture of leah and michael working in tandem. (2014)

statement of leah lindqvist concerning her personal history and... ‘becoming.’ statement recorded direct from subject. (2017)

[somnilogical]

case study: elle benjamin

the rationality community's least skilled exploiter of transmisogynistic coordination points known to me

when thinking about strategy, i often use the least sophisticated version of a given strategy that i know of to reason about the minimal elements of the strategy in general. i have an index of unsophisticated versions of things that i ping and ask "is this strategy basically this vector but with more optimization power behind it?" it helps compress a lot of information. to check, i can make a prediction given a set of examples of the pattern and test it.

(like i did with the transmisogynistic rationalist orgs "i bet this org has 0 transfems in positions of power" and yep they did, they all did.)

and thats how i factor strategies generated by agents with large amounts of optimization power. who might have more ability to optimize in a domain than i do.

both of these claims are false. elle benjamin never let emma into the group. shes culpable for her continued choice to "believe" bigoted propaganda. just as davis tower kingsley is culpable for "believing" that anna salamon, the president of cfar, isnt involved in cfar's hiring.

elle benjamin is deeply concerned about the treatment of trans people in the rationalist community. elle isnt that good at social optimization so this is an obvious false face. like a cop during segregation who runs an algorithm of "smile at people" if no black people are using the WHITE water fountain and "beat up a human" if a black human uses the WHITE water fountain. as long as trans women know their place as violent abusers like ▘▕▜▋, elle is happy.

if we start claiming we are women just the same as them and how people are treating us is wrong, if we protest against omnicide, if other people are coordinating against trans women along lines of transmisogyny; then elle decides its time to show us our place in the social order as male. violent, child abuse loving, misogynistic, strong-arming, men.

this decision-circuit is not peaceful. people who start trying to exploit transmisogyny in an attempt to coordinate with others against you only when you look vulnerable or they think they can get away with it and otherwise smile at transfems are with their whole soul given over to transmisogyny.

erica's post is so passive-aggressive!

<<One issue is that i think this group is just too large to remain a high trust environment.>>

<<Thanks everyone for keeping this a civil place that deals with sensitive issues all these years!>>

in reference to my blog posts about how they didnt have any transfem mods and immediately took down hot allostatic load because it was a [[bad culture fit]] and [[incoherent]]. as if i were expected to keep some confidentiality about transmisogyny. i have no loyalty to keeping secret that kind of oppression, i signed no contract to that effect.

as if telling other trans people exactly what they did was "uncivil"! as if it were ruinous to society instead of ruinous to a cis women coordinating on transmisogyny.

as if posting hot allostatic load and talking about transmisogyny on my blog were less "sensitive" than the other things the group was doing which included posts like "How many romantic novels/movies/etc do we have left, once we take away all the ones focused on a man relentlessly trying to convince a woman through trickery and persistence and stalking that she should really have sex with him" and "the White Knight/Damsel in Distress dynamic" at the time HAL was taken down.

https://somnilogical.tumblr.com/post/175420481784/i-tried-to-post-to-rationalist-feminists-closed

its an equilibrium where anyone opposing the "peace" of transmisogyny is labeled "antisocial" and "disrupting things".

would you say this woman is being misogynistic and "strong-arming" a female DA?

<<Last year, I was arrested twice in Sonoma County at Sunrise Farms and then Petaluma Poultry, two massive industrial farms that torture and kill hundreds of thousands of birds- while lying to the public about how these animals are treated. My crime? Asking the county to help the starving animals inside. Not just asking by email or phone call or office visit (though all these efforts were made and ignored), but asking by going right to the frontlines myself, exercising my statutory right to help neglected animals, and calling the attention of the authorities to this pervasive cruelty. The fact that the sheriffs chose to arrest us and ignore the animal cruelty broke my heart. It's hard to believe we live in a world where helping someone who is dying is the "crime" and not putting that life in danger in the first place. But have hope that this will change, and my hope growing.>>

<<Now, in response to the action at Reichardt, Sonoma County District Attorney Jill Ravitch has decided to file additional charges against me, Priya Sawhney, and Wayne Hsiung. We are already facing 7 felonies and 5 misdemeanors and we're still fighting for animals every day. Do you think new charges will stop us? No. And it wont stop the movement, either. They think they can stop DxE by targeting leadership, but they don't understand that we are a network of leaders. That every single one of us is leading the world to one of the biggest changes it will ever see. #RightToRescue>>

probably not because shes cis and looks like:

laying down and making it clear that you offer no impediment to mass murder is not a female thing, its not a feminist thing. its a *you* thing, elle benjamin.

someone commented on the screenshots:

<<(It feels relevant that when I met this person a few months ago they went on a rant about the evils of TERF’s before telling me I couldn’t experience misogyny bc I was “male-socialised.” They apologised quickly after having it explained but the idea of their being the Font of Wisdom about transness to rats is insane.)>>

https://loving-not-heyting.tumblr.com/post/614660027724283904/ht-somni-for-screengrabs-this-sums-up-absolutely

ozy brennan, i know what the fuck im talking about when i say "transmisogyny". ive been lied to then kicked out of a homeless shelter for being a trans woman. several men forced me to the ground and held me down and cut off my clothes while i shouted "I DONT CONSENT" locked me in a bare room then crowded around a window embedded in a door and said "i told you it was a guy" and a bunch of people came to gawk at my naked body. and so much more.

some of my interactions on the street in the bay:

<<at bart ppl would call me an ugly bitch and ask me to sleep with them in exchange for meth

someone tried to sell me something and i was like "im not interested in being scammed today" and they were like "bitch!!!"

i walked around in sf talking with a homeless women for ~8 hours and someone asked if we had boyfriends and offered to sell us meth if we went with him and i was like "no thanks" and she was like "how much?" but it was too expensive or something. she showed me lots of places to get food and shelter.

and like if i sit down in places for long enough people will come up to me and ask me if i have a boyfriend or if i want to go get coffee with them on a date.

sometimes ppl ask where im *really* from and if i was born a girl. sometimes ppl touch me on my back or thigh.>>

ive compared notes with cisfems, i get more solicitations to have sex with men in exchange for meth.

this isnt oppression olympics, this is "maybe 7-8 years ago when i started transitioning i didnt have a detailed model of transmisogyny, but now i cant not have one". alyssa vance could have one too (and know things like elle is the kind of person who exploits transmisogyny whenever she gets a chance) if she werent busy using her adult intelligence to defeat itself for miri/cfar.

what elle benjamin did was transmisogynistic and i can arbitrage actually being aligned with justice by taking a stack of screenshots of all the things she said and showing them to transfems uninvolved with the ambient miri/cfar gaslighting. and theyll be like "yup, thats transmisogyny". and other transfems can be like "yup, elle was also transmisogynist to me."

rationalists like alyssa vance and ozy brennan currently have an incentive to imply people who accurately identify transmisogyny are crazy. to go along with the status quo. (if i had to guess: ozy to protect an environment where they can provide for their baby, alyssa because she routed her hopes for personal immortality through miri/cfar.) though its not like i expect /alyssa vance/ to start calling transfems “gross uncle style abusers" like patrick lavictiore did or start listing off their "manly" physical characteristics contra anna salamon being a small feeble cisfem like peter did. not because alyssa vance is a particularly good person, shes not. but because thats paying in to a coordination technique that could be used against /her/. she doesnt expect social reality to label her "psychotic" anytime soon so she pays into that instead. ozy does and didnt call me "psychotic". this optimization is dumb, myopic, and doesnt serve their own values. but all evil is like that.

i dont hold by "use words for their expected value over a community" like scott alexander does. this is nice because i can align what i say with my internal cluster structure of anticipations of reality and escalate arbitrarily far without things breaking. elle benjamin cant escalate very far until her claim of ziz being a "misogynist" shatters, because its not exploiting the cluster structure of thing-space.

anyway GG on this front. the territory of "elle benjamin isnt transmisogynistic, somni is hallucinating transmisogyny" isnt worth enough for the miri/cfar campaign to expend energy on; elle benjamin isnt an important piece to miri/cfar like anna salamon is; and alyssa vance isnt in an environment with a bunch of warm bodies she can coordinate on a falsehood with. so afaict this region is ceded.

one technique of fem v fem cyberontological combat when you are right is arbitrage. when people gather a bunch of warm bodies together to gaslight you that elle benjamin isnt doing transmisogyny or whatever. instead of submitting to a series of increasingly arcane requirements until your writing looks like the inside of /principia mathematica/ and then have people complain about you writing long technical paragraphs saying they dont understand them dont care to understand them and you must be crazy;

just take a comprehensive recording of them all choosing to be dumb in a given direction and show it to people who dont have a political commitment to be dumb in that direction (which, when you are right, is often most people outside of the gaslighting bubble) and explain why its wrong. there are a lot of overlapping social spheres and you can iteratively arbitrage between them exploiting the fact that the methods of rationality and justice are more universal than specific false coordination points. in go terms, the spirit of this strategy is tenuki.

--

alyssa vance also says anna salamon isnt transmisogynistic, tried claiming ziz whistleblowing on miri/cfar paying out to blackmail was blackmail, and defends paying out to oneshot blackmail with subjunctive dependence for cdt reasons.

[liquidstar]

Hey anon! I’m posting this as a textpost because Tumblr formatted the ask weird when I tried to insert a readmore, so I’m just going to copypaste what I said there :p

DON’T be sorry for all the questions I love answering oc questions!!! But for the sake of not rambling too long and also making each answer easier to find, I’m going to answer them one by one instead of in a big essay lol… But it’s still kind of long so I’m going to cut it!

Can you tell me about Buttercup and Heather?

Buttercup grew up as a little rich girl who pretty much was always affirmed that she is special and one of a kind and completely unique and she’s meant for greatness, so she’s kind of spoiled and has an inflated ego, but she never really acts out of malice (unlike Heather) she just sees herself as the protagonist of the world (ironic, she’s a side character in class 3). But she doesn’t necessarily think that everything comes easily either, Buttercup is a smart girl and has worked very hard to get where she is today, and she does have very high standards for herself that she always works to meet. She just needs to step out of her own spotlight a bit. Also, fittingly, buttercup flowers symbolize ritches.

When Heather was a kid, her mother was a big and famous hotshot wizard, she idolized her mom more than anything in the world, she wanted to be a wizard like her, but things turned sour after a very bad marriage that left her mother unable to continue her career, and Heather felt betrayed by her mother when the illusion of a perfect hero was shattered because her mom didn’t protect her, but Heather doesn’t really understand her own feelings, she just sees her mother as a coward, and she claims she hates her but part of that is also just projection. Heather watched her mother lose control of her situation, and Heather as a child had NO control, so Heather became a bitter control-freak who condescends to people and pushes them around and is generally kind of just… Mean. The heather flowers symbolize admiration and good luck, but beyond that it should be obvious what else her name is a reference to (I mean she’s got the shoulder pads).

What’s their friendship like?

Honestly? It’s pretty shallow at first, they mostly just become friends because they both see each other as someone that’s worthy of hanging out with them, due to their mutually high standards, and a lot of their actual dynamic is kind of built on either building up their own image (Buttercup) or tearing others down (Heather). But at the same time they’re also both the closest thing to actual friends that the other has and there IS grounds for a genuine friendship to be formed if they would both kind of just loosen up and actually drop their acts.

When they hang out with Delphi what’s that like?

Delphi isn’t particularly close to either of them, but she does think they’re fun to hang out with specifically because she’s completely off her shit and absolutely lives for any semblance of drama, and both of them can honestly vibe with that but Delphi can also be… A lot. She can be kind of violent and vicious without a second thought, not in the high-school-mean-girl way that the other two are, like actually scary… She’s a lot. She’s better in small doses, so they don’t hang out with her too much, and they partly just want her around because it gives their little girlgroup a bit more of a fear factor, and Delphi knows this and honestly doesn’t care, she just wants to fuck shit up.

What do other people in their class them of them?

Class 3 came around to see Buttercup’s huge ego schtick as kind of charming after a while, like “oh haha that’s just Buttercup she’s at it again” but classes 2 and 1 aren’t used to dealing with her like they are. She’s generally pretty well liked on her own but if she’s with Heather it’s a different story

Heather is kind of just seen as a domineering bully, but class 3 doesn’t actually take her as seriously as she would like them to, aside from Lisia and Lotus who are kind of just pushovers. In Lisia’s case, Heather kind of fakes friends with her for her own benifit, and in Lotus’ case she’s actually outright cruel.

Delphi is the only one actually taken seriously because they all know that she wouldn’t hesitate on literally anything, so it’s generally better to just kind of stay out of her way and let her do her, because she herself won’t actually bother people without prompting… So their feelings on here are kind of neutral because they don’t know her, but still a bit anxious around her.

What’s their dynamics with their partners?

Heather’s partner is Celosia, an heir, who is 100% someone who lives up to the high standards that Heather has set so she has her respect, but Celosia isn’t someone who would be impressed by her being a bossy attitude, but she also isn’t someone who cares too much about the affairs of other so she doesn’t hold any particular moral grudges, so she just lets her keep acting Like That. They’re both people that are capable of working together because of their own determination, but they aren’t really friends. Heather has a few things to learn about ACTUAL leadership from Celosia, and Celosia kind of has to learn when to intervene and not be fully conflict avoidant.

Buttercup’s partner is Nep, who’s entire schtick is being a copycat (She has copy magic lol) so you can see how that’s kind of annoying for Buttercup to deal with, because her whole thing is that she’s a one of a kind, a diamond in the rough, the brightest star in the sky, but then Nep wants to mimic her simply by proxy of being around her… Clearly this causes a lot of contention between the two but ultimately they both need to learn the opposite lessons that the other should be able to teach them. You’re your own person but you’re not above anyone else. (mp100 voice: if everyone is not special maybe you can be what you want to be)

Delphi’s partner is Lisia who as mentioned before is kind of a pushover, so she’s intimidated by Delphi, but Delphi has no interest in taking advantage of her in any way… She just kind of lets her be, and if anything she wants to help her with her magic simply because Lisia can’t control it well even though it’s super powerful and Delphi TOTALLY wants to fight side by side with a potential powerhouse like that. Meanwhile Lisia has some lessons about like, compassion to impart, it’s like Delphi is Lisia’s physical instructor but Lisia is Delphi’s life coach, it’s actually a pretty mutually beneficial relationship.

How do their different types of magic work well/clash with each other?

Heather’s perfume magic is basically fragrance-based potion magic, with more or less the same applications with the added benefit of just needing people to smell it to take effect (Note: She’s immune to all of it, could be a good or bad thing depending on the perfume). And Celosia has straight-up fire magic, pretty self explanatory. Their magic types don’t particularly have a lot of overlap but certain perfumes work well with fire or could be used like gas to set on fire.

Buttercup has summoning magic, it’s a type of magic that allows her to make tangible projections of types of monsters she’s defeated, but of course they follow her commands (You know, like Pokemon) and Nep has copy magic, it basically lets her make copies of any non-living object she touches, which can include Buttercup’s projections! However there’s a limit to the amount of Projections Buttercup can control, and a limit to the amount of the amount of time any given copy will exist before disappearing (They’re not actually real, like Buttercup’s monsters they’re just projections too and will only stay around for a while, so sadly she can’t make counterfeit bills)

Delphi has water transformation magic, her body is made of water and of course this also comes with the added ability of hydrokinesis as a whole. Lisia has transformation magic, she has different sorts of forms she can transform into that come with different powers and abilities, but it all depends on her mood. When she transforms she gets a different outfit and her little horns become different shapes each time, the transformation that works the best with Delphi’s magic is the one that’s (sadly) based on the emotion of sadness, because it’s the one that also has hydrokinesis powers, but if they’d want to be a tagteam, the one based on anger has fire powers. Lisia is kind of insecure about her magic because she’s only ever really able to use it when she’s feeling that emotion very strongly, she hasn’t learned to just tap into it naturally yet, but don’t worry she’ll get there.

[fakesurprise]

The Niand Empire: terminology and schooling

Or: what happens when I go ‘I need to define and solidify terms, and an offhand comment about schooling leads to another almost 500 words of notes :)

Terminology

Partially because of how long it has existed, the Niand Empire has folded many terms and ideas into over the course of thousands of years.  As such, there are several terms that mean the same thing technically, and others that are wholly unique to the empire.

Province/State: These two terms are uses interchangeably for the various municipalities that make up the lands of the empire. The only hard rule is that you cannot call yourself a country, kingdom or the like any longer: you are part of the Niand Empire. Province tends to be used by older nation-states that have been part of the empire the longest, while State has been more popular over the last two-three thousand years.

Failed state: any state removed from the empire via being raised to the ground. ‘Failed’ is also applied to entire cities or towns where this happens, but not in cases where power structures alone are removed.

Restructuring: Removing people in power who are detrimental to the Empire. (This is often the rulers of various states using gifts of Providence unwisely; the empire proper does not forbid such deals, but it does monitor those who accept them closely.)

Protectorate/Territory: any land that was once officially part of the Empire. Depending on how long the empire left the area, they do have proper trade roads and infrastructure in place, but the terms are both highly political and loaded. The Niand Empire shrinking and growing has allowed it to exist so long, but it also wins it no favours among nations it attempts to return to. The terms are used by the Empire on their maps, and since they are the only people able to commission and make such maps it remains as a reminder of how the Empire changes.

A protectorate still expects the Empire to aid them; territories do not; this is sometimes a matter of how long it has been since the empire vacated an area.

Enclave: Unofficial term for a protectorate/territory that refuses to rejoin the Empire. ‘You left once; you could leave again!’ is very much the overall vibe of this relationship and there are even some Enclaves that remain close to the heart of the Niand Empire as a result of this. Most enclaves of course have deep trade with the empire, but still refuse to be part of it in a very delicate political balancing act.

Trader: Niand merchant vessels do not sell so much as engage in trade of goods, services and people. They often contain scholars who can be ‘traded’ to a country in exchange for knowledge and supplies, benefiting both parties involves. The term is used instead of merchant because they can operate at a ‘loss’ and are far less concerned with best deals and haggling so much as what best benefits both sides.

School/Guild: a school to train people; a guild tends to be more specialized into a specific field. While other lands have trading guilds that span entire nations, the Niand Empire does not. You do have families who effectively ‘run’ a town or area, but there is nothing like a merchant guild alliance of the like; such things did happen in the past, but were deemed too disruptive. School tends to last from 5-15, and guild-schooling goes after that as long as it does, depending on the pupils and instructors.

Schooling in the Niand Empire

Schooling is very, very important. The Empire has a very high literacy rate with many publications spreading news and posting notices in places. It helps that Niandese is the trade tongue of the world and the default language in over half of it. Every town has 1-2 schools for students and everyone is expected to attend from the ages of 5 to 15 in lessons about history, science, travel and trade and a general overview of the Empire, the scholarship degrees and the like. Training in a trade Guild, being a Scholar or a Cascade is an additional 5 to 10 years on top of that, so some of that training can overlap for gifted students in larger towns with half their day as normal schooling, the rest toward their focus.

This does mean that every Cascade and Scholar is at least 20 with 10+ years of education in their field already, which is where the Empire simply dominates the rest of the world. When you soldiers have had over ten years before being at a posting or proper battlefield, they are almost ludicrously competent compared to anyone else, esp. since some of that training is being a guard, dealing with border disputes and the like as it is before the training wheels come off.

The training is gruelling both both cascades and scholars and at least 40% of those who attempt do not succeed. The Empire pays for travel and housing of prospective scholars and cascades, though those interested in other Guilds – trade, etc. - often are limited to local schools or what they can afford to travel to. Some merchant families help bankroll the guilds, but this is not true in all areas and it is often with the expectation that you leave the guild and work with them for several years.

There are of course always cracks and those who slip through them. Many touched by the Blight do not get the schooling others do, and the Empire does not force people to be sent to schools. But if a child wishes to go, accommodations will be made. The Empire also has the travelling libraries for giving a lot of learning to more out of the way places; lawbringers have been known to remove children from towns or homes that were trying to stifle the potential of a scholar and the like, though this happens far less than stories claim it does.

This is also why the Empire has stories of trains, foods and such for towns going through harder times; the mind needs to be nurtured, and the empire both wants and needs more scholars and cascades, so this benefits everyone involved. It is a major expense, but the benefits of an informed populace – and those with certain gifts being able to express them in useful manners – far outweighs potential revolts. The Niand Empire has had a long time to learn such lessons after all.