#I understand you want to talk about whatever psychosexual obsession

[littleguy-pi]

soldier you must stay strong don’t do this. Now is a time where yaoi is plentiful you don’t have to ship Curly and Jimmy. It doesn’t have to be this way

[liulith]

Why Vox’ one-sided psychosexual obsession with Alastor is PERFECT for a #radiostatic QPR

This fanwork is an edited version of a comment I wrote for a fic from the 666: Live on Air! Series by @prince-liest You don’t need to know the fic to understand it, though! Just keep in mind that those are headcanons based on a hypothetical established relationship between Alastor and Vox, in which Vox’s obsession for Alastor has changed flavors from hatred to love, and Alastor doesn’t return his feelings but finds his pathetic obsession entertaining, flattering and somewhat cute. (Also, this doesn’t address the past friendship (?) between them that is being hinted at by the photo in S1 finale, since we have zero context for that at the moment)

Why Vox is Like That

My headcanon is that Vox has always been the type to strive for power and recognition, always reaching for the top of the heap. The problem is that he’s too good at it.

Once he gets into whatever position of power he wanted, he gets bored because what he truly likes is fighting his way to the top. Whatever comes after can be enjoyable but it never compares to the “fight” itself – and thus Vox is always left unsatisfied, setting new goals to become even more powerful because *surely*, that’s what will finally bring him the sense of fulfillment he wants.

(We can kinda see it in his introduction. The man looks bored to tears before Alastor waltzes back into his life and turns him into a manic mess! Here’s a tumblr post about it)

This is precisely why I think Hell gave Vox hypnosis powers: the same reason it gave Alastor the body of a prey animal. It’s torture! With those powers, Vox can get almost anything he wants and he hates it. On Earth, people were a challenge; not everyone can be bought, and he had to rely on his skills.

Sure, he still has those skills in Hell; but in Hell, where every sinner is a potential enemy and the exorcists come down once a year, power is key to his survival and he has to take any victory he can get; meaning, he’ll never be able to *not* use his hypnosis powers, not as long as he wants to survive, even if that makes the fight to the top lose its appeal.

[Insert non-existent tangent on how Val not being affected by the hypnosis – because he’s half blind – is a key factor in Vox’ attraction to him]

Why Vox can’t NOT be obsessed with Alastor:

Alastor is powerful enough to resist his mind-control powers. Alastor can’t be swayed by Vox’ influence, his connections, his power, his money. In short, he’s a challenge. Vox needs to earn his attention, needs to work for it.

Thankfully for him, there *is* something Alastor is interested in: his genuine, unguarded, desperate self: the one that has a full manic episode/mental breakdown when he learns Alastor is back in town. The side of him he always hides under layers and layers of confidence, bravado and corporate talk!

And, deep down, that desperate side of him is exactly why he strives for power so hard in the first place. This man is full of insecurities and he NEEDS to be the biggest fish (shark) in the tank.

This means that Alastor is the embodiment of his deepest fears! He sees through all his bullshit, makes him lose all his composure, and is able to destroy him in EVERY WAY that matters. And yet, he doesn’t. Because, he tolerates (likes) him (in the context of this AU) just as he is, patheticness and all :3  I think there’s something very liberating about that.

Plus, Vox is a simp. He’s a manic sado-masochist who gets off on seeing Alastor humiliated and being humiliated himself, he wants Alastor helpless under his claws, wants Alastor to step on him and tear his heart out if that’s the only way Alastor would touch him, wants to have a cutesy dance-off with and make him laugh until his face hurts.

Oh Vox, we’re really in it now

He’s obsessed with Alastor and wants him in any way he can have him – and I think he’d be ready to give himself over to Alastor in any way Alastor wants to have him as well, because as long as it means Alastor wants something *from him*, it’s worth it. Even if it destroys him.

So, in a context where he has experienced Alastor being on friendly terms with him, where Alastor he has seen Alastor’s genuinely smiling at him and handing him the smallest crumb of affection, there’s just no turning back. Yes, he *could* still get off on seeing Alastor hurt because he’s deranged like that, but he doesn’t want it anymore.

or, well. the vicious, demonic part of him does still want to hurt him, but not exactly for the same reasons as before. It’s more of his caged beast of a heart wanting to make its predator pay for ruining it, in a desperate attempt to reduce his pain (at Alastor’s perceived “indifference”), to force Alastor to SEE him (not that he can. Lol).

BUT! he doesn’t need to do that now! Not when there is so much he would have to give up! So many other emotions, reactions he can get out of Alastor, knowing that HE did that!! To Alastor!! Him!! He cares so, so much. He’s the biggest shark in the tank but Alastor is the water around him. I suck at metaphors.

FML: Alastor edition

Hell turned Alastor into a prey animal because he has always felt like one. I think that at his core, he’s never going to get rid of his instinctual mistrust of others and fear of having any exposed vulnerability turned against him, because it’s part of a defense mechanism he developed since childhood.

He grew in Louisiana as a mixed-race* boy (*it's a bit more complicated than that since "Louisiana Creole" is not a racial designation but let's say Alastor is 100% mixed-race with a POC mom in this context), in an era of widespread lynching and racial segregation, at a time where millions of Black Americans migrated to the North because of the horrible socio-economic conditions of the South. Hell, he was alive during the great Mississippi flood of 1927 – the most destructive river flood of the entire history of the US – and he SAW the government refuse to prioritize the safety of the POC who were 75% of the population (literally; “The refugee camps also dealt with extreme racial inequality, as supplies and means of evacuation after flooding were given strictly to white citizens, with Blacks receiving only leftovers. African Americans also did not receive supplies without providing the name of their white employer or voucher from a white person. In order to fully exploit black labor, Blacks were frequently forced to work against their will, and were not permitted to leave the camps.”)

We don’t know if he was white-passing or visibly mixed, or if his white dad was in the picture, but since he only mentions his mother in canon I’m gonna run with the idea that she raised him alone. He seems to have had a positive relationship with her, which may have impacted his relationships with women in general. However, as a Creole woman, his mom couldn’t guarantee his safety in a society that was rigged against her.

So, he grew up learning the world was out to get him, that no one had his back, and that *performance* was key to his continued safety and survival. By performance, I mean learning how to act around white people to appear non-threatening/avoid being reduced to his ancestry/manage to “pass” well enough. But passing too well would also exclude him from his own community, as mixed people often are.

He also learned that despite his best efforts, no matter how competent he could become, some things would always be unfairly inaccessible to him for reasons outside of his control, and he couldn’t stand for it. The quiet rage, the humiliation, he took out on people by becoming a serial killer: permanently excluding “unworthy” people from society, and consuming them to assert his absolute dominance over them.

FML: Alastor edition. Why he would like Vox:

As the Radio Demon, Alastor has more power than he ever craved in his human life. He’s also vulnerable to the exorcists (Adam), to higher demonic powers (Lucifer, etc.) and was put on a leash by a mysterious character (Lilith? Eve? Roo?).

He’s more desperate for control than ever. It’s not that hard in his daily life, since most people (besides Husk and..? idk) don’t know he made a deal, and he can act like his usual confident self. However, it’s a control that is not unconditional, never absolute nor freely given.

And Vox? He’s hopelessly devoted to Alastor. Alastor has the upper hand on him in terms of raw power, but he also has the absolute psychological and emotional upper hand here. Vox is putting his heart and everything he has on the line in a way Alastor would never do in his worst nightmares. Vox is probably the only person who ever *let* Alastor have this much power over them, and Alastor loves to see it.

This, in turn, makes Alastor more willing to show his more vulnerable side, in a way he would never do if he were also in love with Vox imo. Because Vox is “only Vox” to him, and losing Vox wouldn’t destroy him the way it would if he returned Vox’ feelings, he’s paradoxically more likely to get closer to him. Being in love with Vox would make him too vulnerable and I honestly think that if he became that desperately attached, he would kill him in a fit of panicked narcissistic self-preservatory rage, to prove he’s stronger than this. He’d be too scared to have his feelings taken advantage of, and his brained is wired to kill anything that gets in his way.

Having Vox as a friend, however, is just perfect for him! Just the right amount of closeness and connection that enables him to give him his trust, without fearing he’s being blinded by feelings outside of his control. And knowing that Vox wants him *that* desperately but accepts Alastor’s inability and unwillingness to return this love, and is content to be given anything Alastor allows… Well, that’s heartwarming in its own right, isn’t it?

And THIS is why RadioStatic as a qpr/fucked up friendship with benefits has so much potential, to me! <3

[woundlingus]

⠀ Here to have a good time, not a canon time.

You can call me Sona, you can use any pronouns for me but she/they are always 👍

This blog will contain explicit content and crude humour, 18+ and follow at your own discretion.

This blog is hugely about Supernatural, but I do post The X Files, Death Note, Helluva Boss, and whatever I happen to be losing my shit over at any current moment.

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This is mostly a supernatural blog and I am an archangel girlie!!!! Be prepared, 90% of my content is geared toward them. I would say I’m a Michaelcoded Deangirl which is soooo funny of me I’m just like the real guy lol.

I’ll mention Wincest and Destiel because they’re so divisive and everyone wants to know where everyone stands, so my stance is “It’s Not That Serious”. I guess you could say I’m destiel positive, wincest positive, and a heller crit. You may see content skewed to both, and though I don’t post explicit Wincest I do crack jokes and post memes. But I don’t talk about either of them much though because—

—We’re busy talking ‘bout Sabriel and Lokiel ‘round these parts! All the Gabriel ships really. All of them are welcome because I’m obsessed with that little tramp ❤️

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ I love him,

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Understanding my tagging system;

For the most part my tags are self explanatory, but I have a few special ones

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>Formatting looks strange? I’m formatted for mobile! Sorry :/

[charmcoindied]

can you infodump about wrestling for those of us who would like to understand what you are talking about in the coming days. wrestling is like comics to me. how and where do i even start to understand whats going on

the way i rose from my bed to make this post like a zombie from the grave . i love u

i made a post earlier about capital collision & bash in berlin those are the two big events going on this weekend. capital collision is a show from new japan pro wrestling which obviously is from japan but they occasionally do shows in the us under the new japan STRONG branding so this one is happening in washington dc tonight. it's actually a really interesting time for njpw because they just had their big summer tournament finish up where the winner gets a shot for their big championship belt at wrestle kingdom (kind of like their wrestlemania). it happens in january so a lot of the stuff happening in njpw for the next couple months will be setting up for that. i don't Actually know how much i'm gonna post about this one but i might talk about it a little cause there are a couple guys i like wrestling tonight Yayyy. i'm not as interested in the stories going on here i just think tussling is fun

i don't actually follow wwe that much (i usually just watch the big shows at this point instead of watching raw/smackdown every week) so i'm not 100% sure of all the details of what's going on but bash in berlin is a ple happening tomorrow afternoon. the main thing i know is that cm punk and drew mcintyre are going to be in a strap match where they're tied together and beating each other with a leather strap. how punk keeps getting himself into situations like this i'll never know. the tl;dr on this one is genuinely just that they've been psychosexually obsessed with each other for months and beating each other up over it idk what else to say. cody rhodes and kevin owens are also fighting for the big title which i have no idea really what led to that happening but i like both of those guys so yayyyyy i hope they have fun.

aew collision is also happening tomorrow night they just had their biggest show of the year in london last weekend and a lot of things happened. it was a preddy good show but it also tied up a lot of storylines so they're having to set new ones up pretty quickly since their next ppv is like september 7th or something. i don't know if they announced any matches for this week yet or not but whatever happens will probably be kind of wild though idk if it will be as wild as wednesday's dynamite (their main weekly show)

as for actually getting into wrestling i think you do it the same way you get into comics you find a guy you really want to fuck (or who has a lot of psychological problems that you want to study) and you watch every match they've ever had. and by doing that you probably will meet some other guys you think are neat and watch things they're doing. i think now is a really good time to start watching aew (my Personal favorite wrestling promotion atm) because they just wrapped up such a big show but honestly you don't need to jump into current stuff / watching weekly tv right away because there is just so much wrestling out there you can always come back to. just pick a guy who you want to shake really hard and the rest kind of falls into place

[essentialthyme]

My hottest take is that Cait is an interesting character but she becomes infinitely more interesting when I think of her having a psychosexual hate/love obsession with Jinx. Like they'd tear each other apart but Season 2 really wants us to see the two of them as mirrors to each other. Like Caitlyn's moment of frustration in Jinx's lair when she shoots that cutout? You can see Cait's eyes do this haunting flash of black and white for a split second. It's like when Jinx's shimmer kicks in and her eyes leave these trails of light behind her. It's so good.

I'm not loving Vi this season so far, I understand her motives I just think the writing around her is rather weak, which is more of a result of having to keep Arcane somewhat aligned with League's lore. Like Vi is obviously going to be an Enforcer because she's an Enforcer in the game, one of the most famous Enforcers to ever exist and one half of Piltover's Finest. Like she is predestined to be a cop, but her journey to getting there is one I'm not too happy with simply because the path didn't offer a lot of growth or regression, her decision to join the Enforcers is one thing, but her gassing her neighbors is a whole problem in itself.

I would be surprised if a lot of them end up turning on her, simply because she was gone for upwards of ten years, comes back with THEE Enforcer princess Caitlyn Kiramman, is somewhat involved with taking down Silco's gang-- one of the major players in the advancement of Zaunites--then comes back again with a strike force of Enforcers and a toxic gas to choke out her neighbors. Like from their perspective Vi must seem like a total traitor.

Caitlyn is...my baby girl like I adore her so much but girl is taking that steep decline into fascism. Which is colored by both her grief, rage, frustration, and fear; similar to Jinx in act 2 of season 1, she feels betrayed and the people she thought she could count on are failing her. I'm sad she's going through it this season, even though I completely stand with whatever Jinx does to Piltover, but it's a little upsetting that people are either "she's totally evil" or "she's innocent" about her this season. Like I hate what she's doing but I love her character, I love messy characters, I love it when women are angry and violent and evil.

This is ranty, I forgot the main point of this ask was to spread my CaitJinx toxic lesbianisim agenda

There has always been a link between Caitlyn and Jinx, and I can't exactly articulate it well, or better than other people have already done, but yeah, I love that Caitlyn is affected by everything that has happened to her, that she reacts so viscerally to Jinx. I always liked the human element of Arcane's storytelling, and this is no different.

Now about Vi, I don't get the issue many people are seeing. Not only I felt it was shown that the strike team used the gas tactically against the their targets, we're also talking about the same Vi who stormed a factory in season one without knowing who was inside and tried to convince Jayce to keep going after he killed a kid. I'm going to see if I find the post again, but someone talked about how Ekko is the character people think Vi is, and I'm seeing it a lot in fandom rn. I saw someone say Vi was horrified by Caitlyn's questioning, and I just don't see it: Vi has punched first and asked questions later, if at all. I think she is worried. This season Vi is not the focus, just as Caitlyn wasn't in the first season, but we can see three things about her: she is wracked with guilt and grief (which is the driving force of her joining the enforces, "righting her wrongs"), she is worried about Caitlyn, and finally, at the end, she is hurt. The next episodes seem to focus on her, so I'm hopeful!

Ultimately, I think I'm really going to enjoy the season, if the first arc is anything to go by. Caitlyn falling down into this dictatorial path is tragic, but that's the thing about Arcane, there's so many preventable tragic shit happening because of how things play out, of how characters react to things, because of the emotions they feel and can't deal with. I felt the same way watching Caitlyn hit Vi as I did watching Vi hit Jinx. I anguished at Vi ending up in prison in the aftermath, and I despaired when Caitlyn stepped up into Ambessa's play. I think stories like these have the potential to be incredible, and I hope they can stick the landing. Idk lol I'm enjoying it.

But yeah, even though I am a simp for Vi and Cait's relationship, I can see the CaitJinx appeal: toxic yuri rise!

[actualclownfucker]

ughhhghhghhgggggg book quotes about barty, literally choking on my love rn

i rly went off w this one, apologies… if there’s anyway i can make it more organized or easier to read, lmk

YES! omg okay!! i thought there was a line where barty said smthn about seeing voldemort as a father figure but i hadn’t had time to go back through my screenshots from GoF yet and remember and i was NOT about to misquote my son !! isn’t it so fucking good? there’s so much to overanalyze and god, i’m so ready to do it

your hc about barty also having a psychosexual obsession over daddymort? correct. voldemort is everything he wants in a father figure, everything he wants in everything. and barty, having grown up with bcsr, doesn’t have a good sense of where to draw the line. where wanting to be voldemort’s son ends and wanting to be fucked raw by the man starts LOL it’s all one blur of craving affection for him (which we also see in his relationship with his father, mother and sirius, sexual attention is easy for him to understand)

and voldemort has no interest in any sort of relationship with barty outside of Leader/Follower and a bitch to do his bidding. but he’s smart and if letting barty sit next to him sometimes, saying “i’m disappointed in you…” and just giving him a small sliver of attention from time to time is what he can use to make barty even more loyal to him, he’ll do that. because barty is undeniably valuable to him (12 owls, after all!)

and this is enough for barty to convince himself that voldemort feels the same way about him. voldemort is far too busy to spend too much time with him after all, but look at everything he does do! it’s more than bcsr would’ve ever dreamed of! and oddly enough, for the first time in barty’s life, being voldemort’s bitch, he’s happy. he’s useful, hell, to voldemort? he’s even good! and that parental approval he’s been looking for, for so long is finally fulfilled

also “closer than a son” tf is that, barty? lovers???

(and yeah lol, barty has like, the most obvious oedipus complex i’ve ever seen)

that’s such a valid point! there’s no way anyone would know about voldemort’s past, unless voldemort explicitly wants them to know. so there had to be a way to use this against barty and i think it’s exactly as it seems. voldemort knows that barty isnt going to tell anyone, that he’s going to treasure being the only one that voldemort “opened up to” and would talk about his life to, it creates this idea in barty’s head that “i’m special!!!” so voldemort tells barty about where he comes from under the pretense of making barty think that they’re close, that voldemort does love him too. because why else would voldemort be willing to give up such valuable information? it’s the only symbol of trust and love that voldemort is actually willing to offer barty, but it is more than enough

(i mean unless voldemort’s gonna let bcj suck his dick or smthn, bc god knows barty would love that

also lol barty accidentally calling voldemort “daddy” in front of all the other death eaters fucking thrills me LOL)

barty likely definitely would’ve become a blood purist after getting to hogwarts, hearing about voldemort and deciding that voldemort is what he wants to dedicate his life to. i just think the fact that he never mentions blood purity makes is obvious where his loyalty lies. i think if he was a blood purist first, he would’ve mentioned it mattering to him, but the fact that he didn’t is more telling that it’s just voldemort that matters. whatever voldemort believed in, barty would’ve said, “yep. me too!” and it all definitely does go back to his mental illness

so absolutely in a world where he’d gotten help and support for whatever was going on in his head, he never would’ve started following voldemort. he still never could’ve made his father proud, but he could’ve learned to cope with that better

sirius mentions in his dialogue about barty that it came as such a shock to everyone barty turned out to be a death eater. ik the wizarding world is stupid, but i really think it’s because he kept his crazy behind closed doors. where only the people who really knew him would’ve seen it

honestly, other people probably saw him as a bit of a crybaby. if you asked his classmates about him, i think they’d say, “i always thought he was the kind of guy to hurt himself, not somebody else”

ohhhhh, yes! i totally agree!!! outside of blood purity and just talking about parenting techniques??? no, bcsr doesn’t see anything wrong with the way walburga treats sirius

but he would never, ever say that to sirius, because sirius needs to hear that bcsr understands and loves him. bcsr needs to be someone that sirius can complain about walburga to, so that bcsr can use that information and know how to manipulate sirius into believing that he’s so much better and he’ll always be there to take care of sirius

and yes, that’s so real. james just doesn’t know what he’s talking about when he says how bcsr treated sirius wasn’t right. because james was raised in a place of nothing but love, he doesn’t actually know what’s bad and what’s not. he’s just being dramatic and overestimating it, sirius knows the difference between bad and good, love and hate, and obv bcsr loves him, so it’s all okay!! (there is something, in the back of his mind, that tells him that it’s not. that he doesn’t want to be hit, but he can’t let himself actually think about it without feeling guilty bc how dare he when bcsr has done so much for him?!)

bcsr is like orion and walburga all wrapped up in one parent LOL he’s got all the emotional and physical abuse, the manipulation and expectations of walburga and then the cold distance and working too much of orion, but sirius doesn’t see that side, bc bcsr always has time for him. i think that’s really what makes it so easy for sirius to accept him as a father figure, it feels like exactly what he needs. and even tho he’s so similar to walburga for sirius (sirius doesn’t actually see it, of course) he’s nothing like that bastard of a man orion. and bcsr is happy to tell sirius orion is a terrible, terrible father

absolutely, the potters would NOT let sirius go see bcsr after everything they’ve heard about him. and that would make sirius feel sososo guilty, because bcsr is probably so lonely without him around. he probably misses sirius so much and sirius misses him too, but the potters are really trying to get into sirius’s head that it’s. not. okay. the amount of damage they have to work on undoing with sirius is wild

ugggggh, yes!!! you’re so right that when sirius first shows up, mrs crouch might honestly feel a little relieved since bcsr is calmer and less volatile towards their son, but she quickly learns that it’s actually for the worst and not for the best, because what she actually wants is to mend her family. not further separate it

but of course, barty is barty and reacts to everything, so he’s not just going to sit there and let his daddy be stolen from him. the one bit of attention bcj got from his father was beatings and now with sirius around, bcj doesn’t even get that anymore? all he gets is “be more like sirius, bartemius”? he can’t stand for that, so he takes it right to his father and says “fuck you, fuck sirius” any insult that he can think of to direct towards sirius and barty feels elated when the anger spreads across bcsr’s face and he knows he’s about to be beat

and everything just gets worse. bc now barty is going out of his way to cause trouble for attention more than ever. and mrs crouch knows the only way to try getting her family back on track is to get rid of sirius…..

(not kill him but it makes me giggle to imply it anyways)

and OMG i looooove barty seeing himself and sirius as if they’re in a competition for bcsr’s attention, so being beaten by bcsr in front of sirius, just thrills him so much!!! and i think honestly sirius just tries to look away bc yes crouch sr smacks and hits sirius a few times, but it’s never a proper beating like that and it’s rly when his pity for barty comes in

YESSS. sirius being his little doll that he can build and shape into what he needs him to be is bcsr’s wet dream!!!! it’s exactly what he actually wanted in a son and it’s so interesting that sirius spent all this time fighting against his own family, their ideals and what they wanted him to be, meanwhile bc bcsr does it with love and hides his manipulation a little better, sirius falls for it easier

and him telling sirius he can cry occasionally is sooo good. sirius never does, just like bcsr knew he wouldn’t, but it makes sirius’s heart swell with happiness just from being told that he can for the first time in his life

omfg,,,,,, bcsr sending sirius home when he’s in a depressive episode???

bc that’s the exact kind of overdramatic shit bcsr doesn’t want to deal with. these kids need to “get over it” and act right. bcsr is not going to deal with them acting up and sirius in a manic episode probably reminds him too much of bcj, and that’s not what bcsr wants from sirius. “you’re supposed to be better than him, sirius, i’m disappointed in you” so sirius does everything he can to not disappoint him again, getting the potions from lily is perfect and bcsr is just “so glad to see you’re back to normal, son” and even gives him a pat on the back. so affectionate and wonderful, amirite?

barty and ocd ♥️♥️♥️ he has harm OCD absolutely. he wants to hurt himself and others, anyway, as often as he can. he has panic attacks that last for hours at a time some days, crying, screaming, hitting himself against walls, banging his head and wrists on things. because on top of all these bad feelings, he has this energy and need to get them out and he just can’t and it’s frustrating and he’s sobbing, because he doesn’t know what to do, bcsr won’t help him, and as much as his mother wants to, she can’t either

and then on top of it, he’s clumsy, ungrateful and falls over all the time LOL drops and breaks stuff, which pisses crouch sr off to no end, runs into things and walls. and it’s never “are you okay?” but always “what did you do now, you idiot child?!” can’t beat the clumsiness or mental illness out of him unfortunately

barty opening up to walburga and her not giving a shit is the funniest thing ever to me LOL he rly thought he was gonna get sirius with that one, but fr. why would walburga want bcj over sirius? perfect, beautiful, looks just like her, sirius? everyone likes sirius better, even bcsr!!! thank god for daddymort entering the picture!

im gonna see if i can’t find the chapter regulus’s age might be mentioned in, bc sirius’s exact words about barty were “he can’t have been more than 19” that doesn’t mean he is 19, he could’ve been younger, anywhere from like 17-19, i’d say. so i’d just like to see the wording on regulus’s age exactly

(i’m a pro-shipper and all, but the ship that irritates me most is j/egulus NGL)

LOL i’ll gladly accept my award for it, ty, ty!!! it’s the perfect way to describe barty’s obsession with sirius. it’s not love, it’s barely any real genuine feelings outside of hate, tbh.

barty sees this guy who his dad is all over and barty wants to be with him, wants to be him, wants to kill him and be killed by him all at the same time

he’d go out of his way to start fights with sirius whenever bcsr isn’t around (it’s fine when he is around too, but that’s more about fighting bcsr than sirius)

and i think sirius would do his best not to fight back, because he thinks he understands barty. he gets that he’s upset and why, so he does his best not to engage with it beyond defending himself

but sirius WILL defend himself. and ohhhh when he does??? bcj just about creams his pants from it, it’s the hottest thing in the world and i think he’d just grab sirius by the back of the neck, sirius prepares for an actual physical fight, but suddenly bcj is kissing him instead???

and it’s messy, their teeth keep clacking against one another’s, their lips press too hard together and it really shouldn’t feel good, but it does???

and sirius knows better than to get involved with him, he really does, but he pities barty and figures “well, fine, if fucking him gets him to chill out, let’s fuck”

also idk how you see barty’s looks, but i don’t see him as being all that attractive? like he looks fine, but he’s got pale yellowish skin, looks like he’s gonna throw up and start crying constantly, freckles and a bit of a baby face in my head and is sooo thin in a sickly way. it’s sorta just his manic personality that makes him hot and i love the idea that it doesn’t actually match his face. at all

also, nothing makes me uncomfortable. the more toxic and fucked up it is, the more i’m gonna like it. the whole time we’ve been getting into this, in the back of my mind, i’ve been like, “okay,,,,, what if bcsr and sirius fucked tho?” i tried to hold it back, but you’ve unleashed me

(you can also tell me if i go too far here but i just love fucked up shit)

barty would be crushed to know his daddy is fucking sirius. that should be him. he should be the one with all of daddy’s attention and getting “i love yous” whispered in his ear, he should be the one that gets told he’s doing a good job when he gives his daddy head

the idea of him just standing in the doorway, looking in thru a crack while he watches bcsr fuck sirius is everrrrything to me

and this doesn’t at all help his psychosexual attraction to sirius either, because he’s jealous of him and wants to be him, but he also wants to be with him???

and on sirius’s end, i could totally bcsr grooming sirius into them sleeping together, being jealous of anyone else Sirius seems to like, because what is he going to do if sirius finds someone he likes better than bcsr and stops spending time with him? no. that’s not okay, he doesn’t want that.

so bcsr has to be everything for sirius. he has to be there for emotional support (not that sirius would complain too much, bc he doesn’t want to be a burden), he has to be his father, he has to love him, raise him and teach him what to be in life, but he also has to be his lover, because he can’t stand the idea of sirius having anyone else for anything

and as long as bcsr loves sirius, sirius would give him anything. as long as it keeps bcsr’s attention on him and he keeps praising him and sirius just keeps making him sosososo proud and doing so well??? sirius would get addicted to that praise. whatever it takes to get it, he wants it, whatever bcsr tells him to do, he does it

but!!! bcsr not wanting sirius in that way is also so interesting bc of how rejected it would make sirius feel from bcsr for the first time so far. yes, he’s disappointed bcsr before and yes hes made him mad and gotten hit, but bcsr has never really told him no before??? that would be so jarring and upsetting to sirius, he just might have to go sleep with bcj (LOL)

do you mean barty crouch sr by bcsr??? because omg plz tell me what you think about sirius’s relationship w him, i find the crouches so interesting, i would love to hear about that

YESS i LOVE you !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i dont actually know how much of what i imagine for them can be fit into canon/is canon but like sglkfd.

so barty jr and sirius probably met during their childhood i think, bcjr was intelligent and well mannered and a respectable kid in sirius' age range, and ofc there's the hc that he was close friends w regulus, too. i hc he was pretty distant w bcjr himself but i just knoww sirius 'daddy issues' black needed everyone's parents' approval. orion was a negligent asshole sawr i think its a pretty valid course of action yk

and ofc bcsr loved him !! he was intelligent, he was quick, he was charming, well mannered, all the shit he wishes his bastard of a son was. and barty sr is a bit manipulative too yk he would definitely try to steal sirius away from his family and friends because he knows what sirius needs.

and like !! bcsr. he knows his son is death eater, he does use sirius as a replacement. he doesnt hide it, either, which he thinks justifies using a very obviously traumatized young boy to forget about the guilt in his heart about abusing, traumatizing and neglecting his own son. that being said, he gives sirius the watered down version of abuse his parents do - which sirius has grown comfortable enough with. that being said, the main reason sirius ran away isnt there: he's not a supporter of voldemort. he's actively fighting against him. (also hehe i hc walburga as bipolar so sirius is just happy he doesnt have a timebomb in the house 24/7) (or at least the timebomb doesnt explode around him !!). bcsr still mentions who sirius should associate himself with, still is disappointed when he doesnt get a good grade (an E instead of an O), he yells at sirius, maybe he raises a hand at him too - but at the end of the day sirius finds him justified because he's the one who took sirius under his wing, and is helping him, and is nice to him, and this is really what parents do to their children, right?

here is also when the post comes in btw: bcsr feels entitled to sirius' life, his idea of a parent/child relationship is ownership, and unfortunately that's sirius' view of it too, but bcsr is a lot calmer and quieter than walburga, he cares more than orion - to sirius its really the best of both worlds. bcsr wants sirius to go in politics which sirius does not want because he already has whatever career he's chosen for himself, and bcsr feels it necessary that sirius follow his - his own son wont.

bcsr does need sirius, he confides in him, he loves him (in his own fucked up way). sirius moves on, he runs away and gets farther and farther away from everything that reminds him of Before and feels resentment that bcsr (a man who he's considered his strongest father figure for years) doesn't even reach out to him once. bcsr feels that its a child's responsibility to reach out every time - he feels betrayed that sirius didn't runaway to him, that he didnt even know sirius had runaway till someone told him in passing. the letters they exchanged come to an abrupt end and it just feels like everything ended in the middle of it yk. barty crouch sr doesnt see sirius till sirius is arrested, soon after his own bio son is x

(also, yes sirius does still have the potters, but the potters are a completely different world to him. he's not used to that kind of completely unconditional love, he's not used to seeing how they shower their heir son in love. its a little bittersweet, it feels like a fantasy, sirius feels like he's intruding, he fills resentment to james for being raised with parents who love him and ofc he doesnt want that so he finds solace elsewhere. he thinks the potters are angels on earth, his relationship with bcsr is what the normal parent/child relationship. if walburga and orion are a 10 on the scale of what sirius considers to be 'bad parents', euphemia and fleamont are in the negative. bcsr falls somewhere in the middle, like a 2 or 3 to sirius. to bcjr, sirius can recognize, that bcsr is horrible. he yells, may hit, he's permanently disappointed when they do interact. they barely ever do - bcsr is always busy, he makes special time for sirius (which makes sirius giddy bc wowzers am i that important?) which cuts out even more time from bcsr and bcjr to interact. also, bcsr calls sirius son and he doesnt call bcjr son. sirius is lowk a homewrecker i love him.).

[tigerdrop]

Cringe is dead, talk to me about the funny half-life men and their relationship

okay here is my essay. it is titled These Guys Actually Like Each Other, and Gordon Freeman Is Just Kind Of A Dick*

(disclaimer: these are just my 2 cents. dont take me too seriously! im just some guy online who has watched this shit too many times.)

first things first. these guys actually like each other. this is a key aspect of their relationship. benrey, obviously and textually, digs gordon freeman - you dont flirt that heavily with guys you arent into, and so much of what he says and does is geared around making gordon crack up. thats pretty gay.

but the counterpart to this is that gordon freemans pretty fucking gay for benrey, too. you may say, “oh, but word of god says its not requited!” and to you i will say: bull shit. gordon is uniquely obsessed with benrey compared to all the other characters. if gordon didnt like the fucking guy, he wouldnt giggle with him and share in-jokes with him and bring him up every 5 seconds when benreys not around. thats concern, bro. thats worry. thats real shit

but i cant blame people for thinking that gordon freeman genuinely doesnt like benrey. benreys partially responsible for some of the worst things that have happened to him, the Arm Thing among them. and gordons very insistent afterward that he doesnt like benrey. he even goes so far as to try to kill benrey a couple times. to this, i must argue that gordon freeman is just kind of a dick.

lets talk facts here. canon. Lore. from the moment we hop into gordons shoes, we can see that he is a jerk to every npc on his way into black mesa. this is his default: a dude who just runs his mouth and says rude shit. he calls tommy a freak within 5 minutes of meeting him. he infantilizes the guy and barely considers him a real scientist. he doubts that bubby is a real name for like no fuckin reason. in “real life”, this is because its funny, and wayne is trying to make a funny half-life stream. in a textual sense, this is because gordon “hlvrai” freeman is a dick. this is the way he acts, consistently, throughout the series.

(brief aside: this is why the whole “gordon is a nice guy and a great dad” characterization baffles me. the way he actually acts in canon is, in short, bitchy and lacking in self-awareness. and i love that for him, i really do. it makes the moments where he just tries to be a nice guy stand out. but thats the thing: his intermittent moments of decency and kindness are not the whole of his personality! this dude kind of sucks most of the time!)

the way that gordons general asshole attitude extends to benrey is complicated. in fairness, benrey makes it his job to annoy the shit out of gordon as much as possible, and that warrants a negative attitude, but gordons pretty paranoid and ends up blaming benrey for nearly everything that happens to him, regardless of if its warranted. this is a pattern he exhibits both before and after the Arm Thing. its a little bit of a dick move! especially considering that, prior to the whole “betrayal” subplot (which was not exactly planned very far in advance), benrey is no more malicious or annoying than anybody else gordons having to travel with.

(okay, this is kind of a subjective evaluation, but still. my point stands that benrey is not any more of a hindrance to his progress than anybody else in the science crew, and neither is he particularly more violent or murderous. hell, gordon freeman has probably killed more guys than benrey. benrey just tends to get.......special treatment.)

all that said, i am still convinced that gordon really fucking likes benrey. please consider with me the following: it would be remarkably easy for gordon to just ignore him and do what he has to do, but he doesnt. he could stop engaging. he could stop thinking about benrey. he could stop bringing benrey up to the rest of the crew every time benrey leaves to do his own thing for awhile. but he doesnt. and, again, yeah, the extra-textual reason for this is “two guys are doing an improv comedy thing and bouncing off of scorpy is kind of the point”, but within the text it reads to me as gordon not being about to get the dude off his mind.

and this is in addition to all the times we see gordon being genuinely nice and receptive toward benrey! its in the little things: laughing the hardest and longest at benreys jokes. only ever reciprocating that stupid underwater “BBBBB” thing with benrey. trying to catch benrey when he falls, despite his insistence moments earlier that benrey should hop in the wack ass crystal generator and get hypermurdered. fondly remarking that benreys sweet voice sounds beautiful. his sort of flustered responses to most of benreys overt flirting. none of this is the way normal people react to a guy they hate. this is all fuckin gay to me, man.

its this combination of the outward insistence that gordon hates benrey with his inner eagerness to be around him and think about him and engage with him that gives off strong “repression” vibes, to me. for whatever reason - pride, embarrassment, resentment - gordon maintains a front of hating the guy and wanting to kill him for a lot of the series, but it doesnt gel with the way he fucking giggles and plays along half the time that benrey starts fucking with him. its a game, and that game is one of the only ways gordon knows to manifest affection for him.

(remember “oh my god, hes got a knife!”? that was the gayest shit i ever seen in my life. tittering like a schoolgirl while benrey chases him around like “im gonna get you haha”. insanity.)

the cool thing about repression is that you can have it manifest in a lot of ways! and this is where things like “headcanons” and “my own personal affection for repressed bisexual men” come in. a lot of how i characterize their relationship is an extrapolation of a lot of things like gordons canonical insecurity issues/anxiety, gordons whole anti-bootboy thing screaming “internet wokeboy who means well but probably has a lot of repressed baggage” to me, etc.

how do you get massive amounts of sexual repression out of what you see in canon, you might ask? well. if wayne would stop having gordon talking about being jerked off by the suit, or talking about chugging a 40-gal drum of potion and having to hold his piss, or worrying about being eaten by benrey the moment he sees benrey at setscale 10, maybe i would have a higher opinion of gordon “hlvrai” freeman and whatever latent psychosexual issues hes got going on. but here we are

i havent even touched yet upon how benrey feels about gordon. this one is helpfully made a little more plain by the fact that benrey very much wants to suck his dick in canon. (i dont even have to go into details. we all know.) but IMO the best part about this ship isnt just that they dig each other, but how. benrey gets overtly flirtatious in the second half of the series, but IMO his preferred method of flirting is just fucking with gordon: chasing him with knives, shoving him around in a bathroom, trying to get scans of his feet. but all in like a slapstick, giggly, fun-and-games sense, you know? at least when it works.

a lot of the time, though, it doesnt work out that way. he clearly just likes doing it whether or not gordon responds positively. which is, you know, Weird. not very nice. but also in line with the way everybody else treats gordon freeman. gordons kind of the universes chew toy in any given universe, and the same holds true here. hes kind of helpless......subjected to 4 demons attempting to make his life as difficult as possible. in a way its cathartic.

sorry. i got sidetracked. anyway, benrey very much likes to mess with him and unnerve him and demean him and i will be perfectly frank with you: that is hot. i have problems and illnesses and one of them is that i am a masochist who goes crazy for that kind of thing. calling gordon a “dirty lil boy” and telling him to “look at the mess [he] made” is some straight up kink scene shit.

i like to imagine that a lot of this behavior isnt caused just by the guy who played him wanting to be funny and antagonistic, but by benrey as a character not really understanding what constitutes “pushing a joke too far”. hes not human, and whatever he is doesnt have a very normative way of understanding the world around him, full of people who actually get hurt for real and die for real. benrey expresses what seems to be genuine surprise and distress after the Arm Thing, as if he didnt know that his actions would have serious consequences. and it doesnt seem to fully sink in afterward, either.

it reads a lot to me like hes used to video game rules and treating people around him like NPCs. if they get hurt, its no big deal, because its not real. he likes jamming random buttons on gordons interface and seeing what comes out. its probably a lot of fun for him, the same way that seeing a streamer or a youtuber suffer for our amusement is fun. its like, you know, in my opinion, gordons very cute when hes frazzled. hes also cute when hes laughing. pushing gordons buttons has a 50/50 chance of either of these things. and this is how he ultimately flirts with gordon: by pulling his pigtails.

but at the same time, benrey does legit care about gordon and knows some boundaries. benreys the one most often shooting at enemies to protect gordon, and he spent most of the last act trying to convince gordon to turn around and not fight him because they were friends (best friends, to be specific). he just lacks a lot of the emotional intelligence it would take to express the feeling of “he digs gordon and likes seeing his face get all red and sweaty regardless of the cause”. and gordon lacks the emotional intelligence it would take to express the fact that he doesnt know if he likes or hates benrey and hes scared as hell that its the former

because, lets be real. unironic benrey-liking is a sign of problems disorder. just look at all these words ive written about it.

can you imagine? this bizarrely powerful, non-human entity that can shrug off gunfire and grow to the size of a building has decided that youre his new plaything. benreys the bored guy booting up skyrim and fucking around in the console, and gordons the hapless favorite follower that hes taken a liking to. its a really fun dynamic IMO

after all this, its safe to say my title is a little misleading. the asterisk stands for * and So Is Benrey, Actually. they are both kind of awful dudes who thrive off of teasing each other and they deserve each other. and i am crazy about it. thank u for coming to my TED talk

[idreamtofmanderleyagain]

@lamentconfigurati0n some of the stuff you expressed in your tags on a recent reblog you did made me think of something that I kind of wanted to express for a while now but wasn’t sure how to put into words.

(I want to be clear that this is far from any kind of judgement towards any of my friends and acquaintances in the fandom who do in fact find Pinhead directly sexy, and who do enjoy Pinsty in a fluffier romantic context. I really enjoy the content you guys make and I’ve often talked about how much I enjoy the fact that our fandom is open to so many different views and perspectives, and that goes for this topic too. This is more a personal expression of my own perspectives and feelings towards these things, and how that’s reflected in my own content. )

While Pinhead has a sort of vibe to him that is sexy in an abstract way, I don’t exactly outright sexualize him directly. I don’t view him in canon as literally sexual, at least not without justifying it within a narrative. Nor do I necessarily romanticize Pinsty as much as I find that narrative emotionally compelling in a romantic context. It’s kind of a complicated issue and it’s really hard to put it into words.

I feel like Pinhead embodies subconscious, unresolved and psychologically forbidden desire really well, and I respond to that, but when made literal it has a lot of potential to lose some of the mystique, if that makes sense. Not that you can’t depict him as sexual in fanfic (and I intend to), but that it’s a difficult thing to balance in such a way that he maintains that canon mystique. He easily becomes much more humanized, and much less connected to that raw subconscious experience. (I’m not even sure how possible that actually is not to break).

I hope that made sense XD

So, when it comes to Pinsty:

Though some do feel this way, I’ve never actually believed that Kirsty and Pinhead had sexual tension in canon. I actually feel that’s almost completely absent in H1-2, but that it could have been developed in that way past H3. I think the idea of there being this Foe-Yay type of sexual tension between them is something that I think developed in the nostalgia (and the fantasy) of their dynamic. This may be because it’s what we might generally expect of a gothic narrative, and they are the type of characters who could have had that - if those writing the story were aware of how Pinhead and Kirsty’s relationship would be perceived afterwards. Similar to how Pinhead was not expected to become the face of the franchise past H2, and therefore was written to die in H2.

I think it’s that nostalgic idea of them which partially informed the depiction of their relationship in Hellseeker, where he’s deeply obsessed with possessing (and oppressing) her and she’s outwardly rejecting him despite summoning him willingly, all of which was very at odds with what we saw of them the last time they were on screen together.

In my mind, what was actually there was a psychological tension that developed into emotional tension and sudden empathy and connection on both sides. There’s something quite electric in that, which I think is the element that may have been mistaken for sexual tension, for lack of a better way to verbally frame this subconscious thing happening that people recognized. Literal sex was not a part of it, beyond the typically sensually charged language of Pinhead as a character in general and the psychosexual themes of the story itself. I think in a lot of ways, Pinhead represented the voice of her fears and repressed desires regarding men in general. He was very directly confronting her with the shadows inside of her mind. She’s genuinely too frightened to feel anything but that initial fear for the majority of their interactions. I could be more convinced of him having a personal interest in her, but again I think whatever compelled him to be so lenient with her was something more complicated than something so simple.

Everything changes in that moment where she humanizes him. It is in the aftermath of that understanding and connection (and the revelations he’s given) that I believe romantic and sexual tension could be built. It’s just this moment of raw awakening that fully embodies all that electricity, which is unfortunately too quickly over, and ultimately left unexplored.

[arcticdementor]

There’s no nice way to say this: a certain subset of (mostly) white people have lost their minds online. These people wake up to a vast insurrection crossing all racial and national boundaries – and contrive to make this all about themselves. Their affects, their unconsciouses, their moral worthiness. How can I be Not Complicit? How can I be a Better Ally? How do I stop benefiting from white supremacy in my daily life? How do I rid myself of all the bad affects and attitudes? Can I purify my soul in the smelter of a burning police precinct? Occasional ratissages out into mainstream culture (we’re decolonising the Bon Appétit test kitchen!), but mostly what this uprising calls for is an extended bout of navel-gazing. Really get in there, get deep in that clammy lint-filled hole, push one finger into the wound of your separation from the primordial world, and never stop wriggling. Maybe there’s a switch, buried just below the knot, and if you trip it your body will open up like a David Cronenberg nightmare to reveal all its greasy secrets to your eyes. Interrogate yourself! Always yourself, swim deep in the filth of yourself. The world is on fire – but are my hands clean? People are dying – but how can I scrub this ghastly whiteness off my skin?

You could set aside the psychosexual madness of this stuff, maybe, if it actually worked. It does not work. It achieves nothing and helps nobody. Karen and Barbara Fields: ‘Racism is not an emotion or state of mind, such as intolerance, bigotry, hatred, or malevolence. If it were that, it would easily be overwhelmed; most people mean well, most of the time, and in any case are usually busy pursuing other purposes. Racism is first and foremost a social practice.’ Social practices must be confronted on the level of the social. But for people who don’t want to change anything on the level of the social, there’s the Implicit Associations Test. This is the great technological triumph of what passes for anti-racist ideology: sit in front of your computer for a few minutes, click on some buttons, and you can get a number value on exactly how racist you are. Educators and politicians love this thing. Wheel it into offices. Listen up, guys, your boss just wants to take a quick peek into your unconscious mind, just to see how racist you are. How could anyone object to something like that?

…

See, for instance, the form letters: How To Talk To Your Black Friends Right Now. Because I refuse to be told I can’t ever empathise with a black person, I try to imagine what it would be like to receive one of these. Say there’s been a synagogue shooting, or a bunch of swastikas spraypainted in Willesden Jewish Cemetery. Say someone set off a bomb inside Panzer’s in St John’s Wood – and then one of my goy friends sends me something like this:

Hey Sam – I can never understand how you feel right now, but I’m committed to doing the work both personally and in my community to make this world safer for you and for Jewish people everywhere. From the Babylonian Captivity to the Holocaust to today, my people have done reprehensible things to yours – and while my privilege will never let me share your experience, I want you to know that you’re supported right now. I see you. I hear you. I stand with the Jewish community, because you matter. Please give me your PayPal so I can buy you a bagel or some schamltz herring, or some of those little twisty pastries you people like.

How would I respond? I think I would never want to see or hear from this person again. If I saw them in the street, I would spit in their face, covid be damned. I would curse their descendants with an ancient cackling Yiddish curse. These days, I try to choose my actual friends wisely. Most of them tend to engage me with a constant low level of jocular antisemitic micoaggressions, because these things are funny and not particularly serious. But if one of my friends genuinely couldn’t see me past the Jew, and couldn’t see our friendship past the Jewish Question, I would be mortified. Of course, it’s possible that the comparison doesn’t hold. Maybe there are millions of black people I don’t know who love being essentialised and condescended to, who are thrilled by the thought of being nothing more than a shuddering expendable rack for holding up their own skin. But I doubt it. Unless you want me to believe that black people inherently have less dignity than I do, this is an insult.

…

If you want to find the real secret of this stuff, look for the rules, the dos and don’ts, the Guides To Being A Better Ally that blob up everywhere like mushrooms on a rotting bough. You’ve seen them. And you’ve noticed, even if you don’t want to admit it, that these things are always contradictory:

DO the important work of interrogating your own biases and prejudices. DON’T obsess over your white guilt – this isn’t about you! DO use your white privilege as a shield by standing between black folx and the police. DON’T stand at the front of marches – it’s time for you to take a back seat. DO speak out against racism – never expect activists of colour to always perform the emotional labour. DON’T crowd the conversation with your voice – shut up, stay in your lane, and stick to signal boosting melanated voices. DO educate your white community by providing an example of white allyship. DON’T post selfies from a protest – our struggle isn’t a photo-op for riot tourists.

Žižek points out that the language of proverbial wisdom has no content. ‘If one says, “Forget about the afterlife, about the Elsewhere, seize the day, enjoy life fully here and now, it’s the only life you’ve got!” it sounds deep. If one says exactly the opposite (“Do not get trapped in the illusory and vain pleasures of earthly life; money, power, and passions are all destined to vanish into thin air – think about eternity!”), it also sounds deep.’ The same goes here. Whatever you say, it can still sound woke. Why?

…

This stuff is masochism, pleasure-seeking, full of erotic charge – and as Freud saw, the masochist’s desire is always primary and prior; it’s always the submissive partner who’s in charge of any relationship. Masochism is a technology of power. Setting the limits, defining the punishments they’d like to receive, dehumanising and instrumentalising the sadistic partner throughout. The sadist works to humiliate and degrade their partner, to make them feel something – everything for the other! And meanwhile, the masochist luxuriates in their own degradation – everything for myself! You’re just the robotic hand that hits me. When non-white people get involved in these discourses, they’re always at the mercy of their white audiences, the ones for whom they perform, the ones they titillate and entertain. A system for subjecting liberation movements to the fickle desires of the white bourgeoisie. Call it what it is. This is white supremacy; these scolding lists are white supremacist screeds.

But systems of white supremacy have never been in the interests of most whites (‘Labour cannot emancipate itself in the white skin when in the black it is branded’), and they have never really fostered any solidarity between whites. Look at the stories. I had a run-in with the police, you announce, and a black person might have died, but I’m fine, because I’m white. No – you’re fine because you’re white and rich. You’re fine because you look like someone who reviews cartoons for a dying online publication called The Daily Muffin, which is exactly what you are. Bald and covered in cat hair. Frameless glasses cutting a red wedge into the bridge of your nose. The white people who get gunned down by police don’t look like you. Their class position is stamped visibly on their face, and so is yours. And you’ve trained yourself to see any suffering they experience as nothing more than ugly Trump voters getting what they deserve.

Why aren’t there protests when a white person is murdered by police? Answer 1: because, as John Berger points out, ‘demonstrations are essentially urban in character.’ Native Americans are killed by cops at an even higher rate than black people, but this too tends to happen very far away from the cities and the cameras; it becomes invisible. Answer 2: because nobody cares about them. Not the right wing, who only pretend to care as a discursive gotcha when there’s a BLM protest. And definitely not you. Sectors of the white intelligentsia have spent the last decade trying to train you out of fellow-feeling. Cooley et al., 2019: learning about white privilege has no positive effect on empathy towards black people, but it is ‘associated with greater punishment/blame and fewer external attributions for a poor white person’s plight.’ A machine for turning nice socially-conscious liberals into callous free-market conservatives.

The rhetoric of privilege is a weapon, but it’s not pointed at actually (ie, financially) privileged white people. We get off lightly. All we have to do is reflect on our privilege, chase our dreamy reflections through an endlessly mirrored habitus – and that was already our favourite game. You might as well decide that the only cure for white privilege is ice cream. Working-class whites get no such luxuries. But as always, the real brunt falls on non-white people. What happens when you present inequality in terms of privileges bestowed on white people, rather than rights and dignity denied to non-white people? The situation of the oppressed becomes a natural base-state. You end up thinking some very strange things. A few years ago, I was once told that I could only think that the film Black Panther isn’t very good because of my white privilege. Apparently, black people are incapable of aesthetic discernment or critical thought. (Do I need to mention that the person who told me this was white as sin?) This framing is as racist as anything in Carlyle. It could only have been invented by a rich white person.

Give them their due; rich white people are great at inventing terrible new concepts. Look at what’s happening right now: they’re telling each other to read White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo. You should never tell people to read White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo – but we live in an evil world, and it’s stormed to the top of the Amazon bestsellers list. You maniacs, you psychopaths, look what you’ve done. I’m not saying people shouldn’t read the book – I read it, and I don’t get any special dispensations – but you should read it like Dianetics, like the doctrine of a strange and stupid cult.

…

The book is a thrill-ride along a well-paved highway – ‘powerful institutions are controlled by white people;’ true, accurate, well-observed – that quickly takes a dive off the nearest cliff – ‘therefore white people as a whole are in control of powerful institutions.’ Speak for yourself, lady! All a are b, DiAngelo brightly informs us, therefore all b must also be a. She doesn’t advocate for her understanding of the world, she simply assumes it. So it’s not a surprise that the real takeaway from White Fragility is that Robin DiAngelo is not very good at her job.

…

Imagine a devoted cultist of Tengrism, who sometimes gets invited by company bosses to harangue the workforce on how the universe is created by a pure snow-white goose flying over an endless ocean, and how if you don’t make the appropriate ritual honks to this cosmic goose you’re failing in your moral duty. But every time she gives this spiel, she always gets the same questions. Exactly how big is this goose? Surely the goose must have to land sometimes? Geese hatch in litters – what happened to the other goslings? Something must be wrong with these people. Why don’t they just accept the doctrine? Why do they hate the goose? We need a name for their sickness. Call it Goose Reluctance, and next time someone doesn’t jump to attention whenever you speak, you’ll know why. Of course, the comparison is unfair; ideas about eternal geese are beautiful, and DiAngelo’s are not. But the structure is the same. Could it be that Robin DiAngelo is a poor communicator selling a heap of worthless abstractions? No, it’s the workers who are wrong.

(By the way, how did you feel about that phrase, racial humility? I didn’t like it, but her book is full of similar formulations – she also wants us to ‘build our racial stamina’ and ‘attain racial knowledge.’ Now, maybe I’m an oversensitive kike, but I can’t encounter phrases like these and not hear others in the background. Racial spirit. Racial consciousness. Racial hygiene. And somewhere, not close but coming closer, the sound of goosestepping feet.)

I didn’t seek out any of the material I talk about here. It came to me. And it’s making me feel insane. The only social media I use these days is Instagram – because if I’m going to be hand-shaping orecchiette all night, and serving it with salsiccia, rapini, and my own home-pickled fennel, it’s not for my own pleasure, and I demand to receive a decent 12 to 15 likes for my efforts. (I will not be accepting your follow request.) A week ago, on the 2nd of June, my feed was suddenly swarming with white people posting blank black squares. People I’d never known to be remotely political, people whose introduction to politics was clearly coming through the deranged machine of social media. Apparently, that was ‘Blackout Tuesday.’ I don’t know whose clever idea this was, and I don’t want to know, but it came with a threat. If all your friends are posting the square, and you’re not, does it mean you simply don’t care enough about black lives? Around the same time, I was helpfully made aware of a viral Instagram album titled Why The Refusal To Post Online Is Often Inherently Racist. I honestly can’t imagine how terrifying it must be to live like this – always on edge, always trying to be Good, always trying to have your Goodness recognised by other people, in a game where the scores are tracked by what you post on the internet, and the rules are always changing.

[jgroffdaily]

As Emmy nominations approach, Vanity Fair’s HWD team is once again diving deep into how some of this season’s greatest scenes and characters came together. You can read more of these close looks here.

THE CHARACTER: HOLDEN FORD, MINDHUNTER

If you’ve seen classic David Fincher films like Seven, Zodiac, or even The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, you know the infamously exacting director has a type: the obsessive who tries to solve a crime in the library or the archives, nimbly combing through databases and warehouses full of forgotten evidence. The Fincher obsessive starts their work unblemished—but by the end, it has upended their lives.

In the case of Fincher’s 10-episode Netflix series Mindhunter, that obsessive is Holden Ford, played by Tony-nominated actor Jonathan Groff. Holden starts as a textbook Groff character: neat, bookish, pretty, an F.B.I. choirboy who becomes a teacher and researcher after a hostage situation goes wrong. But soon, alongside behavioral scientist Bill Tench (Holt McCallany) and anthropologist Wendy Carr (Anna Torv), Holden falls down the rabbit hole of a new line of thinking about killers, one that brings him a little too close to the murderers themselves.

Mindhunter tracks two things at once: the rise of F.B.I. profiling, and Holden’s own revolution. As his work bleeds into his life—leading to both a sexual awakening and growing megalomania—so too does his ability to understand the likes of real-life killers like Ed Kemper and Richard Speck. It’s a show about criminal minds, and its most exhilarating suggestion—as uncannily and subtly performed by Groff—is that by vicariously understanding them, Boy Scout Holden risks becoming the thing he studies. Mindhunter is implicitly a show about crime shows, one that trains its eye on everything police procedurals take for granted—the concept of criminal profiling, above all, and the ability to crack a case by trying to reconstruct the mind of a killer. Holden is at the vanguard of that new method—and his insights are both its best-case scenario and, as Holden’s megalomania grows, a nightmarish display of everything at risk.

How He Came To Life

According to Groff, everything we see on Mindhunter—from Holden’s plainspoken, unimpeachable professionalism to his sexual and ethical transformation—was present in the script, as early as his audition. “All the ten episodes had been written before we started,” he said. At the audition, he was given scenes from every episode, and told to chart Holden’s emotional and behavioral turns on the spot.

“The scenes that they gave me were these sort of Mormon-y, sort of buttoned up, earnest, milk-drinking FBI agent,” he said. “And then all of a sudden in these other scenes, as it went along, he was mirroring serial killers—like, the tactics in order to get them to open up were him mirroring them, and talking in a slight southern accent.”

Fincher must have been as impressed by what didn’t change in that audition as he was by what did. “He always talks about how he casts people based on the essence that they bring naturally,” said Groff. “It’s just who they are as a person.” He’s also a director known for having his actors perform several takes, doing the same lines over and over until all the artifice is gone and the performance feels natural—because what comes naturally is what will persist through every scene and every take, no matter the conditions. “If we are working late hours and we are tired and whatever,” said Groff, “this quality will still be there. It’s the quality you can’t beat out of someone.”

For Groff—who said he’s never really been a true crime fan himself—that unchangeable quality was natural curiosity. “No matter how tired you are, or whatever take we are on, or whatever month it is during the course of the shoot,” Groff remembered Fincher telling him, “you’re going to have this curiosity about you.”

Groff is also naturally chipper—an element Fincher didn’t love. “Very early on, [Fincher] said, ‘You smile all the time,’” Groff laughed—an understandable affliction. “Actors are very needy and we want people to love us and we’re charming all the time.” But Holden isn’t a smiler. He’s not a charmer, at least as Mindhunter begins; he’s a young agent still figuring out who he is. So throughout the season, the exacting director was on an anti-grin crusade: “[Fincher] would be like, ‘We’re rolling, and Jonathan, stop smiling. And you’re still smiling, you’re still smiling, and action.’” Seems excessive, maybe, but Groff attributed it to the difference between theater and television. “In film and television,” he said, “I feel submissive to the directors of the process.”

Fincher and Groff’s keen sense of the character was key to Mindhunter’s success. Over the course of 10 episodes, Groff had to plausibly transition from educated, upstanding, even boring FBI agent to a man whose confidence morphs into chaotic risk-taking. By mid-season, Holden starts to bend the rules in his interactions with the serial killers he and Tench are interviewing for their study—and starts to involve himself in their psychoses to a dangerous degree, exposing dark nooks in his own personality along the way.

“I was really interested in the change, the turn that he takes,” said Groff. “There’s this one moment where I say to Anna Torv’s character, Dr. Wendy Carr—we’re in the basement at the FBI and I say, ‘I started this.’ And you sort of go, Oh shit. You see his ego blow up a little bit.” Which is to say nothing of the sexual element: “He’s having his eyes opened for the first time, and he’s having this kind of discovery of self while talking psychosexual murders,” added the actor.

For gay viewers who were introduced to Groff through HBO’s Looking, the sex scenes between Holden and his hippie grad student girlfriend Debbie Miltford (Hannah Gross) are especially fun; you start to wonder if Fincher, knowing that a subset of the show’s audience will have this in mind as they watch Mindhunter, meant to add a winking bit of subtext. (A recent New Yorker profile of Ryan Murphy claimed that the show-runner weepily called Groff after seeing Mindhunter and marveled at an openly gay actor getting the chance to perform such “electric and real” straight sex scenes.)

For Groff, meanwhile, the real fun wasn’t starring in Mindhunter: it was getting to watch everyone else—particularly during those long, theatrical interview scenes with serial killers. “It’s kind of meta in a way,” he said. “You’re going in as an actor onto this set to watch someone kind of do these performances. They are playing these, in certain cases, iconic killers and iconic people.”

“I’ve always been a watcher in life,” he added later. “I learned a lot back in the day from just getting in the wings of theaters and watching people act. There’s a reminiscent quality of that in this show.”