#I have more questions than answers

[f0point5]

Hold on a minute.

Are Apex GP or whatever going to win the championship? Because in what world does a car “built for combat” win over straight line speed over 24 races when the cars are so big that on half the tracks combat isn’t even possible?

And Sonny Hayes is like 60.

So…where are we actually going with this?

[the-summ0ning]

I’m gonna be goodbye friend by the time bad omens says whatever they need to say atp

[dragonsfromthemoon]

Disclaimer 1: This is a book (Fire & Blood) discussion only. I am not taking into account House of the Dragon and its portrayal of Daemon. Disclaimer 2: Do not accuse me of trying to whitewash Daemon’s actions or whatever nonsense antis might come up with. My goal here will be to have a nuanced discussion about his character and his mindset, considering his in-universe context and reality. Disclaimer 3: This is a follow up of Disclaimer 2. Do not screech about Blood and Cheese, your reblog/comment will be deleted and you will be promptly blocked. Why? Am I a tyrant, after all? No, I just do not wish to engage with people incapable of having a nuanced approach to a character. And here I do not really want to discuss B&C; it is not the objective of the post.

That being said, there has been something on my mind. Everyone can agree Daemon was an ambitious man. He is not different from princes and lords that came before and after him in that regard; it would be unwise and illiterate of me to think otherwise. To sum it up, Daemon did wish to amass power and wealth. However, I feel obligated to question his supposed lust for the Iron Throne. Both in-universe sources and fans take that for granted. After all, would it be realistic he even entertain the idea of one day being the king? First. He was a second son. That alone would put him behind any of Viserys I’s heirs. Second. Viserys I was a young and jovial man. As he had had Rhaenyra, no one could argue Aemma and he could not conceive. It was natural to believe he would have a heir sooner or later. Third. When Aemma died, Viserys I was only 28. Sooner or later, he, as the king, would be pressured into another marriage for political gains and heirs. Well, that did happen when he married Alicent (though she was his bride of choice). And they proved to be a fertile couple.

Unless Daemon 1) planned to get rid of his nephews or 2) was extremely delusional, to the point of not believing Viserys I would have a heir of his own; I cannot take as granted he lusted for the Iron Throne. It would be nonsensical of him, quite out of touch with his reality. By the way, 1) is highly unlikely. Kinslaying and kingslaying are the greatest Westerosi taboos. In normal circumstances, he already had his political rivals, such as Otto Hightower. I do not believe a kinslayer would have gathered much support to be the Prince of Dragonstone and the next king. B&C happened under a specific context of war, so I do not take it as a measure of how far Daemon would be willing to go under normal circumstances.

Here I am making questions, but there is not a right answer. You could very well claim Daemon luster after the Iron Throne and I would have to accept it, for we do not have his POV to dissect and discuss in depth; we only have third-party accounts of his character. I am merely approaching a new perspective on the subject.

[carrs-universe-writes]

It's not a cult. It's the baby stages of a revolution. I know the person behind that blog and I'm looking for people in some of the relevant tags that might be interested. Your recent post popped up when I was under the most recent posts for "#trans genocide" and the way you spoke made me think you might be interested. Even if all you do is get eyes on the blog.

@toolsforfreedom

This is cult behavior 👀 I'm intrigued...

[hergan416]

Trafalgar Square, Bloody Sunday, Rebellion, Moriarty the Patriot, and The Phantom of Whitechapel

Ok. I think I have finally figured out Bloody Sunday. The wikipedia article is honestly kind of atrocious. I want to update it to be honest. Maybe I'll try when I get done with this 🤷‍♂️

(Long post, etc)

Part 1: Historical Context & Sources

The good source is JSTOR (not the one by Theresa Moriarty, that ended up only really mentioning Bloody Sunday in passing as it related to someone's biography, although I will add it to the list.) Here... have MLA I don't care, you probably really want the link.

Andy Love. “Centenary of Bloody Sunday.” History Workshop, no. 26, 1988, pp. 211–12. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4288877. Accessed 12 Mar. 2023.

If you don't have access to JSTOR this website says similar things, and also claims to cite primary sources. I'm not familiar with the domain though, so take that as you will: https://spartacus-educational.com/TUbloody.htm

Moriarty, Theresa. “Labour Lives, No. 13: May (Abraham) Tennant, 1869-1946.” Saothar, vol. 36, 2011, pp. 99–101. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23200051. Accessed 12 Mar. 2023.

Alright, that out of the way, basically, Bloody Sunday and Trafalgar Square refer to a mass protest by laborers that was met with (brutal) police and military suppression, resulting in continued protests. A group of aligned labor groups had chosen the square, symbolic of the meeting of London's East and West Ends, as a place to protest poor working conditions and low wages.

In addition to the Socialist Democratic Federation, which is discussed at length in (2), the following organizations were present/organizing the attendees at the square: The Socialist League and the unemployed, the Trade Union, and "radical groups." (1) A march was planned, where speakers would address the crowd, and they would make demands. The crowd instead was met by both the military and the police, who fought back brutally, at least according to one of the leaders of the movement, Williams Morris.

Following the events in the square, another prominent leader of the labor rights movement that hadn't been present at the march was run down and killed, sparking further protest over his funeral.

Finally, I want to quote this paragraph from (3) about Bloody Sunday, tying the Jack the Ripper murders to a larger sociopolitical labor rights movement:

"Police brutality in Trafalgar Square in November 1887 brought out thousands to the funeral parades that followed, and embedded 'Bloody Sunday' into the language of public political protest. In the summer of 1888, young Bryant & May women match workers in east London brought their defiant solidarity against their low pay and their hazardous work to the pavements of Westminster. By autumn Whitechapel women walked their neighborhood in fear and public fascination, when 'Jack the Ripper' exposed the lives of their sisters in poverty. London's political culture was being transformed through social concern and sensation..." (3)

Essentially, because of the Jack the Ripper killings, prostitutes now had a reason to join with other women laborers in solidarity-- or at least their concerns have academically been connected; I'm definitely not an expert and I feel like I've done more than enough academic research for someone who is months away from having graduated college 10 years ago and works in fucking retail.

Hopefully that's enough context.

Now, how does this inform my reading of The Phantom of Whitechapel and Moriarty the Patriot?

Part 2: Moriarty the Patriot's Plot

So, remember, in Moriarty the Patriot, the Jack the Ripper killings were being done by organized criminals to spur on a revolution. They want the proletariat to rise up and they aren't afraid to use people they view as inhuman to trigger it.

William sees this right away. After all, other than the fact that he (mostly) doesn't use the underprivileged as bait and pawns, he's doing the same thing. The sensational murders are just somebody else's play.

But, what's truly interesting is the bottom panel, where William brings up something that the Yard had been concerned about earlier:

The Yard might think the Vigilance Committee is the mastermind, instead of this unnamed criminal force, but regardless, William and the Yard are indeed thinking along the same lines. The clash between poor citizens and the police is bringing back memories of another recent clash. It's happening again.

Clearly, the Yard doesn't want to deal with armed rebellion. Their job is to stop it. And the politicians of the time (real life too...(1) and (2)) are exactly with the Yard. They don't want to make concessions or make leeway for commoners, they don't care if conditions improve, and they don't care if they prevent the right to protest in the meanwhile.

Lestrade is right about there being forces above the Yard breathing down the commissioner's neck.

But William... what he's looking at is the way the agitation is taking place. The murders are public, with letters to the press, etc, to create hysteria, and to create the conditions where the people of Whitechapel are confronted with the fact that the people in power are not caring for them. The Yard doesn't care how many prostitutes die. How many citizens in Whitechapel die. They've specifically made disarming the Vigilance Committee their goal.

That's true regardless, and by killing people that are powerless, it becomes exceptionally clear to the populace. They will rise up against the police that fight them instead of protecting them. The revolution will happen.

I want to claim that this cell of agitators is acting disingenuously, but it's only apparent from the text that they don't value all people evenly.

Whatever reason it is they seek proletariat revolution, it's clear they are not ideologically Marxists.

"Dregs of society" "All we did was eliminate some whores." "Society's rubbish." "With coin they'll follow you anywhere." "Worthless." "Meager."

How can anyone leading a proletariat revolution say or believe these things?

"The strong devour the weak" is Machiavellian, not Marxist.

To make it even more personal, William and Louis grew up in Whitechapel. The abandoned library has been taken down, but it was fucking RIGHT HERE.

This group must be culled.

Part 3: My Conclusions

Personally, I read that these men are trying to stir up revolution as a way to gain power. Right now they don't have a lot, and if they control when and how a revolution happens, they can come out on top in the end.

it's clear that they aren't interested in actually changing the status quo, with the strong on top and the weak on bottom. They also aren't actually interested in people's fates.

What does that mean for the plotline and what is being said about Bloody Sunday?

So, obviously this isn't in alignment to the Moriarty Plan, because outside of the one man that Lord Enders murdered and ended up being the centerfold of the act on the Noahtic, we don't really see William using anyone who hasn't already pledged their life to his ideals (and he even tries to respect the dead bodies he uses to the best of his ability). We get a strong stance against it, while having a more "pure" movement being put forward by William et al.

The differences I see are namely: a) consent: most people dying for William's plan have chosen to give their lives to the cause b) respect: William views all people as people and c) punching up instead of down: the people who don't consent to dying for William's plan deserved it. They weren't just stupid, or worthless, or the dredges of society. They were committing crimes against humanity and getting away with it.

But... if these people did do this, and it did incite revolution, and William hadn't stopped it... would it be so bad?

William wouldn't join hands with them. But in a thought experiment where he did, or he didn't exist, what would happen?

A story on NPR recently was talking about how to predict when a populist uprising will happen, and how to tell how successful it will be. This kind of cell, the kind of cell that will gain power from the revolt, the kind of politicians that are the voices of protest, regardless of how corrupt they are... the positioning of these people is basically the strongest predictor of a revolt's success.

So sure, these guys are assholes. But they probably would have succeeded. They would have used the few to create revolution, just as Moriarty does.

To what extent would our world care about the methodology used? To what extent do those differences make a difference? Are the few still not sacrificed for the many? Are the remaining people not better off in the end?

The most informative article about Bloody Sunday was a commemoration of the centennial of the protest. Nothing in the sources I found looked back poorly upon the agitators fighting for labor rights at the time.

I don't think that would change even if these events actually had happened.

And, since William plans to die at the end, take his whole cell with him... what is to say that that someone like this group couldn't still take advantage of his plan to gain power?

Sure, these guys are dead now. But surely they aren't the only ones?

[ryctone]

Sometimes I forget Espresso is from the Lower City of the Creme Republic because I'm more focused on the Coffee Tribe in the Cacao Kingdom and how Espresso interacts with the remains if you have him on your party and like-

What's the truth Devs? Where was he born??

[uglypastels]

are they gay

Why woukd you ask me, a narnia blog, this

[dollysdaggers]

i know that I’ll never get the answers I want but I have to ask

where are angelica and vittorio’s parent?

[fallintomyeyes]

Read about half a Wikipedia article before realizing it wasn’t in English. Which explains why there were so many typos. My apologies to the Scots language Wikipedia editors. You’re doing a great job. I think. Idk I don’t speak Scots.

[rottackk]

Is her mom okay, though..?

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

I am incredibly serious right now when I beg you all, please, and if you have Twitter or Tiktok or whatever to please spread the word: click on an author's profile on Ao3.

You want to know if an author has written more? Want to know if they're still writing? Want to see more from them? Want to know if they've written a trope or kink or sex scenario you enjoy?

Click on their name. And look at their profile.

I cannot tell you how many times in the last six months someone has read a new or newer fic of mine and said they (a new reader who has read nothing else I've done) "can't wait to see what you do next!" I've written 50+ fics and over a million words already.

"I don't know if you're still writing..." click on my profile. I am. I literally wrote a 128k+ fic for that ship last month.

"Would you ever do X?" "Please do Y!" I already did. Click on my name and look at my works.

Archive of our Own is a library. It's an archive. Not social media. It is your responsibility to fight back against the laziness that corporate algorithms have trained into you.

Click my author name. Just click it. Just click it.

Before you demand more, or ask if a writer will do XYZ, or wonder if the author still writing, or anything - click on their profile. Click on the author's profile.

I'm not trying to be mean or condescending or anything like that. I'm just exhausted. It's disheartening and frustrating to repeat myself ad nauseam, because someone couldn't take thirty seconds to do the tiniest bit of work to see if I've written lately, if I've written more for their ship, or scan my works to see if I've written what they're asking for. Please. Please. I'm begging.

Click the author's name, and explore before you ask.

[uncanny-tranny]

The leftism/anticapitalism leaving people's bodies the zeptosecond you imply that disabled people who aren't "productive" still matter in society and need to be treated like intrinsic equals who have a place in this world:

[cherryfennec]

Summer Times

Hi! I'm finally back from my two week abroad trip!

[mylittleredgirl]

oh ho ho i have looked up the massachusetts ballot questions and i am so personally excited to vote against the MCAS, the high school standardized test students must pass to graduate. it never impacted my own education because i was in the very last class not to have to take it (late 90s), but i was selected for the pool of beta testers the year before it was universally implemented.

i had a great time actually—get out of class for two days for a test that doesn’t even matter? i enjoyed the process of taking standardized tests (when they didn’t matter) because i had spent most of my pre-high-school days in a homeschool environment without grades, so they reminded of the trivia workbook pages that were rationed out and treated as rewards (in a one room schoolhouse with 5 kids, you take the thrills you could get—public school education was pretty amazing after that).

the most memorable part of it for me was that we got little boxes of raisins as a snack and mine had an inchworm in it. but even then as a dumbass teenager i remember giving feedback that this would be demoralizing and unfair if imposed on everyone. schools chose who would put in the test group, and every one was an A student! what kind of sample was that?

the MCAS wouldn’t become a compulsory requirement for graduation until no child left behind, but it still immediately changed things. my sister was one year behind me, and her experience in the same classes i had taken the year before was so much less inspiring. history and civics teachers who had been painstakingly gathering copies of real articles for decades about historical events had to teach from state approved textbooks. the cross-disciplinary fun projects for multiple subjects were cancelled. older teachers started phoning it in and planned their retirement.

anyway, one of the things i have always felt most grateful for in my life is that i squeaked through my public education before state testing choked it. it was a small rural public school (pretty well funded though, there are a lot of fancy summer homes in property taxing distance), and had very passionate teachers who were having extra creative fun squeezing out the last of their independence, knowing that testing was coming. i was one of the canaries in the coal mine and i will take great pleasure if my vote helps shut it down.

[crimeronan]

i've seen a couple people in the notes of this very good post about fictional polyamory by @thebibliosphere say things along the lines of "oh, i've been doing it wrong :(" or "how do i know if i did this right??" or "i should probably give up and start over, i wrote this badly :(" and. no!!!!

(i AM seeing far MORE people say "oh, this clarified and helped me so much, i think i know how to fix issues i've been having with my own story" which. YES!!!!)

listen. if you're a monogamous person who's writing a polyamorous relationship, and you've been focusing mainly on The Triad and All Three Together All The Time as the endgame, that's literally fine. that's a perfectly acceptable and strong starting point for your plotting, imo. you do not need to give up on a story that you've started like this.

but the things discussed in the post Can and Should improve your execution!

you can keep the same plot beats and overall relationship arc 100%. polyamorous relationships are infinite in their formations, every one is unique. "basically a monogamous romance but with three people" Does exist, as a relationship type. you're not hashtag Misrepresenting (TM) poly people with it

BUT i do think it will help to read up on some poly people talking about how their relationships Differ from monogamous ones.

so i have outlined some basic important concepts about polyamory.

MORE IMPORTANTLY though, i've broken down some questions that you can answer throughout the writing process to strengthen your individual dyad relationships, your individual characterization, & your characters' individual feelings/experiences. this is a writing resource have fun

future kitkat butting in to say i spent over two hours writing this and it definitely needs a readmore. it is also NOT comprehensive. but everything should be pretty simple to follow! feel free to reblog if you find it helpful yourself or just want to reward me for how gotdan long this took KSLDKFJKDL.

i've grabbed quick links for a couple of the important concepts, some have SEO pitches in them but the info largely seems to be good. (if i missed anything Egregiously Gross on these sites i should be able to update the links with better ones later, since they're under the readmore.)

sidenote: this is NOT meant to be overwhelming, despite the length. if you can't read all of this, that's Okay. you do not need to give up on your writing.

here we go:

compersion!

compersion is a BIG thing in a lot of polyamorous relationships. it's joy derived from seeing two (or more) of your partners happy together, or joy derived from seeing your partner happy with someone else.

compersion is really important as a concept because it highlights that every individual relationship within a polycule is different -- and that that's a GOOD thing. it's sort of the inverse of jealousy.

by the "inverse of jealousy," i mean that instead of feeling left out and upset and possessive, you feel happy/joyous/content.

i can use personal experience as an example: it's a Relief for me when my partners receive joy/support/sex/romance/etc that i can't (or prefer not to) give them. and i love seeing my partners make each other laugh and be silly together.

it's 100% okay for a poly triad not to be together 100% of the time, it doesn't mean that the third member is being left out or not treated equally when two people do things alone together.

(i have individual dates with my partners all the time! PLUS larger 3-and-4-person date nights.)

if the third member DOES feel jealous or left out, then the polycule can have a conversation to figure out what needs/wants aren't being met, and solve that. this happens semi-regularly in my polycule, as it will happen in any relationship (including monogamous ones)! it's just part of being an adult, sometimes you have to talk about feelings.

metamours!

a metamour is someone who is dating your partner, but ISN'T dating you. this may not be relevant for people writing closed three-person romantic sexual triads, but it's a super helpful term to know.

the linked article also lists different types of metamour relationships with some fun phrasing i hadn't heard before. the tl;dr is: sometimes you'll be domestic cohabitation friends, sometimes you'll be buddies with your own friendship, sometimes you might not interact much outside of parties, every relationship is different.

there's no one-size-fits-all requirement for metamour relationships. sometimes polyamorous people will end up dating their metamour after a while (has happened to me), sometimes polyamorous people will break up with one partner for normal life reasons, but remain friendly metamours.

the goal of polyamory is NOT for EVERYONE to fall in love. it is 100% okay if this happens in your story, it happens in real life too! but it is also 100% okay for characters to be metamours without ever becoming "more than friends."

(sidenote: try to kill any internalized "more than" that you have when it comes to friendship. friends are just as important and special and vital as partners.)

of course there are a million ways for messiness to occur with metamours within a complex polycule, exactly like with close-knit platonic friend groups. however this post is not about that! there's enough "here's how polyamory can go wrong" stuff out there already, so i'm focusing on the positives here :)

open versus closed polyamorous relationships!

i'm struggling to find an online article that reflects my experience without directly contradicting at least SOME stuff. so i'll give a quick rundown

google has a bunch of conflicting definitions of open relationships and whether open relationships are different from polyamory. the general consensus seems to be that an open relationship prioritizes one partnership (often a marriage), but that each partner can have extraneous flings or long-term commitments (most often sexual in nature).

this is not typically how i use the term wrt polyamory. the poly concept is pretty simple. a closed polyamorous relationship is one with boundaries like a monogamous one. there are multiple partners in the polycule, but they are not interested in having anybody new join said polycule.

an open polyamorous relationship tends to be more flexible -- it just means that IF someone in the polycule develops mutual feelings for a new person, it's fine for them to become part of said polycule if they want to! the relationship/person is open to newcomers.

some groups will need to negotiate this all together, others will just go "haha, you kids have fun." just depends on the individuals!

with open AND closed polyamorous relationships, the most important thing is making sure that there's respectful communication and that everyone is on the same page. but there's no one-size-fits-all way to do that.

i wish i could give you guys a prescriptive "You Must Do It This Way" guide, but that's.... basically the opposite of what polyamory is about, HAHA.

feelings for multiple people!

i was gonna tack this on to the previous section but decided it warranted its own lil bit.

a defining feature (....i'm told?) of monogamous relationships is that a monogamous person only has feelings for One individual at a time. they only want a relationship with one individual at a time. or, if they DO have feelings for multiple people simultaneously, they're still only comfortable dating one person at a time & being exclusive with that one person.

this is perfectly fine!

the poly experience is generally different from this. but once again..... polyamorous people all have different individual perspectives on this.

for me, i have never been able to draw hard boxes around romantic vs sexual vs platonic relationships, & i love many people at once. my personal polycule lacks many strict definitions beyond "these are my chosen people, i want to forge a life with them indefinitely, whatever shape that life takes"

some poly people feel explicit romantic or sexual attraction to multiple people at once, some poly people feel almost no romantic or sexual attraction at all. i'd say that MOST poly people feel different things for different partners, which is not a bad thing!

some poly people are even monogamous-leaning -- they have just chosen one romantic partner who is themselves part of a larger polycule. (so this monogamous-leaning person has at least one metamour!)

or alternatively, they might have one romantic partner AND a qpr, or other ways of defining relationships. (this is a factor in my own polycule!)

i made this its own point because if you're writing a straightforward triad, this is unlikely to come up in the story itself -- but it's worth thinking about how your characters develop/handle feelings outside of their partnerships.

like, is this sort of a soulmateship, 'these are the only ones for me' type deal? in which they won't fall in love with anyone else, and can be fairly certain of that?

that's pretty close to typical monogamous standards but you Can make it work. just be thoughtful with it

alternatively, can you see any of these characters falling in love Again after the happily-ever-after? and how would the triad approach it, if so? what would they all need to talk about beforehand, and what feelings would everybody have about the situation?

it's worth considering these questions even if the hypothetical will never feature in your actual canon, because knowing the answers to these questions will help you understand all of the individuals & their relationship(s) MUCH better.

i've been typing this for nearly two hours and there's a lot more i COULD say because... there's just a lot to say. i'll close out with some quick questions that you can ask yourself when developing the dyad dynamics within your triad

first, take a page and create a separate section for each individual dyad. then answer these questions for every pair:

how does each pair act when alone?

how do they act differently alone compared to when they're with their third partner?

are there any elements of this dyad (romantic, sexual, financial, domestic, etc) that these two people DON'T have with the third partner?

if so, what are they?

are there any boundaries or hard limits within this dyad that aren't shared with the third partner?

if so, what are they?

partner 3 goes out of town alone for a few weeks. what are the remaining two doing in their absence?

(doesn't have to be anything special, it's just to get a sense of how the two interact on a day-by-day basis without the third there)

what is something that each partner in the dyad admires about the other -- that they DON'T necessarily see in the third partner?

what problem do These Two Specifically need to solve in the story before their relationship will work?

how is that problem DIFFERENT from the problems being solved within the other two dyads?

doing this for ALL THREE dyads is VITAL imo. that way, you develop complex and nuanced and different relationships that all have unique dynamics.

those questions should be enough to get you started, i hope

then After you've charted the differences in relationships, you can start to jot down similarities in the overarching triad. what does one person admire in Both of their partners? what are activities that all three like to do together? what are boundaries or discussions that all three share?

but the main goal is to figure out how to Differentiate each relationship!

a polycule is only as strong as the individual relationships within it. if two people are struggling with their own relationship, adding a third person won't fix that.

(UNLESS the third person is the catalyst for those two to, like, Actually Communicate And Work Their Shit Out. i just mean that the old adage of "maybe if we just add a third-" works about as well to fix a miserable non-communicative marriage as, uh, "maybe if we have a baby-")

AND FINALLY.

if you're not sure whether your poly romance reads organically to poly people, you can hire a sensitivity reader with poly experience. if you can't afford that, you can read up on polyamorous resources like a glossary of terms & articles actually written by poly people. (and stories written by poly people!)

you can also just.... ask poly people questions, if they're open to it. i like talking about polyamory and my own relationships so you're welcome to send asks if u want, i just can't guarantee i'll answer bc my energy levels fluctuate a lot and i don't always have time.

polyamorous people are in an uphill battle for positive representation right now & so the LAST thing i want to see is authors giving up on their stories bc they're worried about getting things Wrong. well-meaning and positive stories that treat this kind of love as normal, healthy, & aspirational are So So So Needed. even if you guys end up with some funky-feeling details.

seriously, if you're monogamous then you probably don't have a full idea of Just How Nasty a lot of people can get about polyamory. i wish it DIDN'T mean so much for you guys to want to write nice stories about us, but it does mean a lot. and it means a lot that you want to do it WELL.

in conclusion. this is not a prescriptive guide, it's just a way to raise questions. and also, you all are doing FINE.