#a few actually said it was human and I'm inclined to think because the post actually makes sense it might at least have some oversight

[gotta-bail-my-quails]

im not sure if it is meta or deeply ironic that a person would use AI for an assignment in a Critical AI course...

[thewertsearch]

We're got a couple of assorted asks about quadrant dynamics here. Since they're all related, I'll answer them as a single post.

@galaxa-13 asked: I personally never saw Feferi being annoyed by Eridan talking about feelings with Karkat because he was only supposed to talk about them with her, but rather because he ONLY talked about them with Karkat. She had to do all the heavy lifting in their relationship by making sure he didn't commit genocide, and then didn't get to unwind with some romantic gossip. If my platonic boyfriend never talked to me, but did with others, I'd question him too. @lilietsblog asked: I never read Feferi as being jealous of Karkat in a violating relationship exclusivity / cheating on her way. I read it as a playful "why aren't you talking about stuff with me? is it because you've already talked it all out?" where Eridan was very much supposed to read between the lines and undersatnd that she just wanted him to tell her about his red crushes (awkward, that…) While I'm sure there are specific rituals trolls /only/ do with their moirails, my overall impression is that trolls normally just… don't form relationships close and trusting enough for emotional support like that. The quadrants help by making it semi-mandatory to find SOMEONE. (Also I'm actually sure that a healthy moirallegiance would be reciprocal with both partners pacifying each other, it's just the hemospectrum version of gender roles)

You may have a point. Eridan was clearly a poor moirail from the start - probably because he never actually wanted to be Feferi's moirail. To him, the quadrant was clearly just a stepping stone to matespritship, so he wasn't invested in its dynamics. Feferi's not really angry about Karkat, here - she's just a little frustrated about how one-sided their moirallegence has turned out to be.

That said, I do still believe that quadrants would work better if they were polyamorous - even if this particular scenario doesn't illustrate my point as well as I thought it did.

@morganwick asked: I mean, some would argue that placing undue emphasis on monogamy beyond what's actually healthy or natural is true of human romance as well. But part of what might be going on here is that on Alternia, it's not a good idea to let knowledge of your fears, doubts, and weaknesses spread too far, lest it mark you for culling. Best to vent to a single person who won't tell another soul. (See also how Vriska is saying things to John she wouldn't tell any other troll.) @bladekindeyewear asked: "At the end of the day, I do think moirallegiance is a good idea. I just don’t think it really works if moirails can’t be poly." What if they CAN be? People with naturally polyamorous inclinations are few and marginalized on present-day Earth, and Alternian society seems set up to STOMP OUT the marginalized. Quadrants certainly exist, but how much of their rigidity and the pervasive troll view that you only have "one true fated partner(s)" for each quadrant might just be cultural?

I think a monogamous system of moirallegence is probably all that Alternia could handle. Sustaining a polyamorous quadrant system would require a level of emotional maturity that the average troll simply isn't going to have - and, like you said, it might be dangerous to widen your circle more than is actually necessary.

I still think the trolls would benefit from such a system, though. On Alternia, it simply wasn't to be - but the Alternian Players now have the chance to build an entirely new culture. Who knows what new dynamics they might discover?

@lilietsblog asked: I don't think Hussie "jumped the gun". I think Hussie was messing around with the very idea of "what romance should be like". Trolls don't care about what gender their partners are, and have a different system of confusing rigid rules that no two people understand quite the same and that don't work out in practice that way anyway, instead. The quadrant system was never intended to be a serious worldbuilding project any more than Troll Will Smith

See, I get what you're saying - but the difference, in my opinion, is that that Troll Will Smith was a one-panel joke, whereas the quadrant system has informed our understanding of troll relationships for the entirety of Act 5. Unlike Will, quadrants have stayed relevant, and they've been critical to understanding many of the Alternians' key character moments.

That's not to say that quadrants aren't partially a joke. Frankly, I don't think any of Homestuck is entirely serious - but I do think quadrants are 'real' in the context of the story, and should be analyzed as a legitimate part of its world.

@bladekindeyewear asked: One last bout moirails-- Andrew in his asks has said that the idea behind each of the Quadrants IS supposed to match up with real human relationship and friend dynamics we already understand, making them relatable but w/ a romantic drive that isn't quite human-analogous. Trolls biologically compelled to enter them before understanding them, a challenge "particularly tortuous for young trolls" (p2393), plus the 600 hour session makes sense of Eq/Nep's relationship's drastic evolution to me.

I've always been a little skeptical about this whole 'biological drive' angle for the quadrants - mostly because there are plenty of human biological drives that are either overstated, misinterpreted, or outright fabricated.

That's not to say that the trolls don't have some sort of compulsion to seek out quadrants. If it does exist, though, I hope it slowly fades, now that the trolls have left their planet and its expectations behind.

[themsource]

Life Update 7/13/2024

I'm alive.

There's a lot that's gone on and is going on but I'm here. There's of course a lot going on in my life and has been going on that has once again kept me away. I will not divulge or explain, because I don't wish to. It was a lot, still is a lot, and is extremely personal.

I'm not leaving the undertale fandom as a creative, however, I will be leaving the fandom as a social participant. There's too much corruption and bitterness, too much drama and judgement in the social side of the fandom that I choose not to tolerate anymore.

There are too many people that would rather lie about who they are and what they believe as well as abuse or cut off people that have done them no harm in order to be liked and to gain approval. Acting as if life is one long extended episode of black mirror where your social ranking matters more than empathy to a fellow human, where the echo chamber is god and what's logically right and wrong doesn't matter in the face of personal opinion and paranoia.

I'm too old, and too tired.

Fandom is supposed to be fun, not a nightmare of walking on broken glass and eggshells. I have my small handful of friends that have proven that they are genuine people that legitimately don't care about the nonsense that goes around and imaginary pitchforks that can make them more popular or gain them more friends if they were to follow abusive hate trends and ignorant accusation posts lacking concrete evidence. I feel safe with them and will keep to them, always.

I no longer have time to deal with the "misunderstandings" or "confusion" that happens so often in large groups playing telephone or with those that try to fit words to their own narrative and understanding without attempting to think outside their own preverbal box of preconceived notions and bias, and don't care to do so.

I will no longer attempt to clear up anything or try to be understood by those that honestly don't know me and don't wish to, and who clearly only seek a thrill in causing pain and taking their own projected hurts and frustrations out on someone.

There will be no conversations. Every single online stranger reading this now is free to think what they want about me, even the untruths if they're so inclined.

I'm done trying.

The internet is where the hateful and cruel strive behind an anonymous mask—one often disguised in kindness and supposed acceptance—and of which is the whole of their life and meaning. But it is not mine.

Them, and the internet at large, is not worth my time, health, or life.

When I joined this fandom after my mother's death a few years ago I signed up for an experience that could bring a smile to my face while I gave one in turn to others while I dealt with my grief. Not to be shoved into situations where uneducated youths and adults in their 30s-40 with the maturity of previously said youths go rampart with the need to harm others, either to get ahead or for their own benefit in manipulation to get something out of others.

I have steadily been pulling away more and more over the years because of this. Struggling with the overflow of depression and stress that it has caused me, in turn making me push away and withdraw from people who didn't deserve it in many instances because my own value and self-worth tanked due to the self-deprecating thoughts it caused me.

I am not a saint.

I've done my fair share of wrongs, some of which I will never personally feel I have accounted for properly. I stood silent out of fear of being attacked when I should have said something to help someone wrongly accused by supposed friends and mutuals, I hid in the shadows and didn't think to lend a hand to people I saw were clearly in need because I didn't feel worthy of doing so, and probably many other things that I am unfortunately not aware of because they were never brought to my attention.

Because most people online don't believe in actual conversation but rather in blocking and spreading misinformed assumptions, and in dreaded call out posts so as to earn brownie points for "exposing" (or the nicer form of saying it, but is still just as cruel because the posters know that it WILL lead to harassment regardless of evidence or truth no matter if spread in public or private, but wish to play ignorant anyways — "spreading awareness") of someone. Granted these wrongs were for the most part carried out in my early fandom days that doesn't excuse the fact that they happened.

I still did the exact same thing that was done to me. I unknowingly perpetuated a never ending cycle of hurt, both out of fear and ignorance and out of a naïve want to be loved and accepted.

But I refuse to let myself be a victim or to think of myself as one out of guilt for those wrongs and loneliness anymore, and I refuse to witness others be abused and forced to feel the same way I did over the most menial and redundant bullshit that goes around and is somehow supposed to define your character to the dumbed digital masses.

I'm done.

Plain and simple.

I will be permanently turning off asks and no longer responding to any form of DM unless it is from someone I have initiated a conversation with, have engaged with before, or shares a mutual friend with me that can assure me that they're a decent person, and that I feel comfortable with. I will still on occasion post about updates or share something for the few that may want to keep following, but my personal accounts will largely be silent.

Just because I'm silent won't mean that I'm gone though.

It just means I'm not willing to be poisoned any longer, and am content at looking in from afar, if even that.

There's a lot of good people in this space, I know that, and it saddens me the possibilities I will miss out on in getting to meet or know any of them beyond the ones I know already, but I only get one life to live before I go six feet under, and I choose to put me first.

[billys-pretty-babe]

Hi Em 💙

I want you to know that the stories you create are beautiful, really. You deserve much more recognition, you really have a talent for writing : not only on the technical level (grammar, plot build up, causes and consequences of each action on the plot, etc), but also on the ... um... empathetic (?) level as well. (I'm not sure I've phrased that correctly but I think you know what I mean). I mean, when reading your stories, we can all feel the empathy and compassion you put into your writing for your characters. It's beautiful, really.

But please, don't force yourself to write when you are too tired, busy or just don't feel like it. I know you feel guilty about not posting stories every week, please don't set such an inflexible pace for yourself.

I don't want to assume anything, so if this makes you uncomfortable in any way please let me know or feel free to ignore this :

Maybe writing is a form of therapy for you, and maybe that's why you like writing fics so much. If that's the case, I totally understand your inclination to want to write that much. I often find myself eventually turning a healthy coping mechanism or hobby into an obligation by setting very harsh expectations for myself, without actually meaning to. I know what it's like not to see your limits when it comes to work or passions/hobbies. I deal with the same thing too. So maybe I'm hardly in a position to give advice on that... But I still need you to know that you don't have to feel guilty for not being as active on your blog as you would like. I know, easier said than done...

I know it's hard to ignore the feelings of guilt or inadequacy that one might feel in this kind of case. But those feelings, while real, don't define your worth, believe me. They don't.

You have the right to rest, to take time for yourself, and to do something other than writing if you feel like it.

Please don't be so hard on yourself, please don't set such harsh expectations for you, let yourself work and enjoy things at your own pace.

All your readers love your stories, me first. When I see a notification from your blog I jump on it because I know in advance that I'm going to like it. But you are more important than our reading desires. Your rest and well-being are a million times more important. Please don't apologize if you haven't been posting as much as you used to, it's totally normal Em. I promise. 💙

Please take care of yourself. 🤍

Sending you lots of hugs 🫂❤️

I've read this a few times to figure out how I was going to respond and honestly there are no amounts of words that can ever express how much I appreciate you and everyone that reads anything I put out. I use fic writing as a distraction from the real world and unfortunately there are days where I'm drained but I still feel like I have to write as a way for me to cope and essentially heal from what I went through as a child up until I was able to leave my home for college.

At times I have to remember that I am in fact human and I can't always pump out fics like I would like to but at the end of the day, I also know that these make people's days better. I use these as an escape because it lets me forget everything and focus on giving everyone a happy ending.

Thank you for making me feel seen 💜

[harleiquina]

First of all, to all of you saying "is the Publisher's job to do it"... as a Publicist that worked as a Community Manager for some people... is not that easy. Well, at least not by going with my approach (so, trying to sound and talk like my Client) because you need to know you Client very, very, very well in order for the posts to feel like they were done by one person and not two (or a publicity team). But I'm a weirdo by doing so, so what do I know (As an audience member myself, I never liked the "robotic" or "impersonal" posts usually done by someone else but the person I'm following... it takes away any kind of humanity away and that's the main reason to follow anyone on social media: to have a sneek peak of their true self. But then again I'm weird)

Now... as Publicist (that rejects her own field) I'll say to stick to wherever your audience has a chance to grow... and I don't think that Twitter is the kind of place where your audience spends most of their time.

Like... yeah, you have 10k on Twitter and it is your biggest platform... but how many Likes/Retweets or even Tweets you get out of 10k? The main point is to have interaction. If only a limited (and consistent) number of people interacts/interacted with you on a web site instead of everyone that follows you... I don't see much of a point to devote so much effort on it. As many said, you can just link Twitter to whatever social you feel more inclined to and whenever you post something there, it'll automatically share it on Twitter. You won't even need to log in every time.

People tends to think that Advertising is just plaster your face all over the place... but actually is a lot more nuanced than that: it is carefully planned and targeted to who you want to go and buy your stuff (and this isn't always a product or service, but a person as well -like politicians do, you know? One of the reasons why I decided not to go on on this field-).

As a aspiring author myself, Advertising did taught me a lot of stuff that can help to get all cards on the table (and a few things that I do apply on my writing <- of course I'll plug in something I wrote. In my country is called "auto-bombo" -beating your own drum- AKA shameless promotion) and one of those things is The Brief.

The Brief is a document that could be compared to an extended CV/Resume. It is vital to start your Ad Campaing and I strongly suggest to have one for you as a person and one for your product -in this case your book-. That's how companies usually present themselves.

Its a secret document that goes over your life story (the relevant points on your career), your audience (hard data: age, gender, economical level + soft data: favourite authors, music, brands, TV shows and so on), your goals, your TOWS (threats, opportunities, weaknesses and strenghts) and other relevant information. I could write a lot about the brief but I'm trying to keep it short for time's sake.

Usually the Brief is what you'll show your Publicist so they get to know you better... because you know everything about yourself so you just ignore tons of very important information because you don't even considerate it. I'll always stick to a line that Mr. Sheffield told Fran in The Nanny "I know everything makes sense in there *pointing at her head* but I'm out here"

Still knowing your audience is THE THING™️ visualizing the people that will buy your book as actual people instead of a mindless mob walking on a bookstore is what is going to help your sales.

Lets say that this is like having a type... like for a romantic partner. You know how you want them to look like, what kind of hobbies they do, what movies they like... is the same thing... but for your book. Do they like suspense? Horror? Romance? Historical? What authors do they like? Are there conventions about that? What platforms do they use? What kind of social groups (virtual or not) do they attend? And then BAM! you'll know where you need to start showing up and talk about your book.

You can even get creative and taylor content to that kind of people to attract more views.

It doesn't sound like much, but it is a LOT of work so it can be discouraging when it doesn't pick up the pace at once. But this is not a race but a marathon... you just have to keep on going.

And you can ask me anything (public or private), I won't charge you. The main reason why I studied Advertising was because mom wanted me to go to College... I wanted to be a writer and I thought that Advertising would give me a boost but it didn't... so here I am stuck in a job I hate and too tired to write anything (but my imagination is unstoppable. In my mind I finished at least 2 novels 😝)

I do not want to be on twitter. I left months ago, but kept the profile for fear someone might impersonate me (which happened once before). But with the book launching, my publisher has asked me to be active again posting info. I’ve seen some authors keep it going by having a disclaimer about ‘news’ vs ‘live’ ( @neil-gaiman has this—see below. I’ve posted mine plus the pinned post, too if y’all have thoughts/edits). I am a little stuck by 1) not having more than 10k followers and 2) not having anyone dedicated to my media on my behalf. Every time I go there I feel icky. Any advice, authors of tumblr?

[haleigh-sloth]

I read a post that suggested maybe the reason this info has only been talked about in a heteromorph-centered chapter is because the subject isn't talked about at all with the human characters

Like, what if hero society just doesn't talk about these things?

And so, in a heteromorph-centered chapter, the incidents mentioned are only remembered, and considered more crucial, to those who still suffer from the discrimination in the present

I agree that maybe these incidents should have been touched on, or at least mentioned, in the story at some point, but I wonder if this could be part of it too. That hero society just doesn't talk about it

Plus, the setting of the entire story has been in cities or in UA, places that are said to have more acceptance towards heteromorphs by being exposed to them earlier on in life and therefore taught more about diversity. (Also, UA's classrooms have those big doors, remember? To accommodate for heteromorphs, any student at all. A few of the teachers are heteromorphs, including the principal)

So, it's kind of a reach, but maybe that's why the subject hasn't been talked about either? Because it's already accepted enough in a place that already shows acceptance, and we've usually always centered around UA?

What are your thoughts on this?

Ehh...maybe.

I can't say that's not a possibility, but I'm more inclined to think it's just a flaw in the story's balance of its plot points.

I think this take WOULD make more sense to me if the story was very strictly told from Izuku's POV. And I mean strictly--like everything WE see, Izuku is seeing and narrating. But that's not how the story is told. We see things happening on screen that Izuku isn't there to witness in canon. All of MVA for example, but also just, a great portion of the story happens without him, too many to list actually.

So because it's set up this way, imo it very easily could have been touched on more than it was. Because it's set up in a way where it doesn't have to be from a certain person's POV to be seen on screen, if that makes sense.

The other thing is Shouji as a character. It's not particularly a huge complaint of mine that he's suddenly important. I got over that issue BNHA has a while ago. But just the fact that Shouji was SUCH a very very background character for so long, but now is representing the other half of the fight that is posing as the build up and pay off of this plot point, kind of feeds into how unbalanced it is.

But on the other hand--Horikoshi's writing is just really weird like that sometimes. I agree when people say he's a slow burn writer and that we have to wait for things to pay off--BUT, I still think in comparison to some of the other slow burn things, Shouji's build up isn't nearly on par with say, the Touya reveal or Aoyama's reveal. There were hints dropped and things in the story that fed into those two characters becoming important later on. Shouji I think has some moments, but not nearly enough for me to put it in the "bnha slow burn" pile.

Then again I can't deny that it may be because I personally didn't look too hard at Shouji throughout the story. Maybe I need to go back and re-read some parts. I've seen people point out moments here in there, but I still think that in comparison to the rest, this plot point as a whole, along with Shouji's prominent role feels kind of thrown at us.

The most well writtern and consistent part of this plot point is Spinner's character. He himself is a great character, and him rejecting the idea that the movement he is the face of is important to him because he didn't set out to BE the face of anything is a pretty good personal challenge to navigate. That on top of his self-worth (lack thereof), his faulty loyalty to Shigaraki, and the effects that the discrimination he's faced has had on him but he ignores it, all make for a really good challenge to see him work through, which I'm excited for.

I just....I agree with the complaints that it was all just shoe horned into one section of the story. I see what they mean.

Then on the other side of it, I have pretty much always thought that as much as BNHA tries to make the "we live in a society" message a big part of the endgame conflict, it just isn't able to. I've said it before, but Shigaraki, Touya, and Toga may all have issues with the world they live in and how it's run, but the story very very blatantly puts their personal demons in the forefront. Explaining all of that would be its own post so I won't dive into that here. But idk if it needs to be explained how, yeah even though Touya and Shigaraki talk about society and heroes failing and all that, "society" isn't their biggest obstacle. Society isn't what is holding back the main 3 villains from salvation. And "fixing society" isn't the answer to saving those three either. That much is also clear.

So idk, I'm open to it being because of perspective not focusing there. I can definitely see that. I can definitely see a topic that is swept under the rug in the greater public--like in big cities and stuff. But at the same time--this is a story with multiple perspectives and the capability of showing them. So I am personally more inclined to think it's just unbalanced, a flaw. Which is okay. For me it's not a make or break type of thing. I just agree with the criticisms of how it's been handled.

[thehomothings]

Analysis of Kite's conflicting moralities, relationship with death, and the toll reincarnation may take on one's psyche

So, today I decided to compile all the thoughts I have had about Kite's interesting worldview since the first time I saw him into one post, mostly for my own sake, really. If you're familiar with the few posts I've made, you know it's gonna be a mess, but hopefully a comprehensible mess.

A heads up, this is going to be spoiler-heavy, and very much deal with subjects of death and dying as a whole. Also, some of these conclusions are drawn from my own experiences and close brushes with death, I'm not going to go into much detail but it might get personal and definitely dark. I'm not even sure if I can call this a meta-analysis, and I'm obviously no expert, so mayhaps take all of this with a grain of salt.

Been getting into drawing lately, and during the more simple and mindless part of the painstaking process of dotting every single star in this, I let my thoughts wander through the latest part of the fic I'm writing, and I got a better grasp on what exactly made Kite such an elusive character to me.

I'm not quite sure why I got so attached to Kite. Perhaps it was the air of tragedy surrounding him, how despite his sordid past he remained still open and gentle even if outlined by a healthy dose of cynicism.

But sometimes, I think it's the fact that he is so paradoxical. He's brave, yet fears death to such a degree that creates a whole Nen ability around it, is a pacifist yet will not hesitate to spill blood for his own sake or someone else's. Despite the many ultimatums and warnings of 'I will not protect you', he gave his arm and then his life to save Gon and Killua. He approaches each hunt and battle with a clear plan of action in mind, but his Hatsu takes the form of a roulette that gives him random weapons which are never what he wants, but what he seems to need for that exact situation, which he cannot dispel without using. When he draws a weapon, the decision is locked in and his or his opponent's fate is sealed. That's why each time he dubbs his weapon a bad roll. Every time he has to gamble, he sees himself as having run out of luck. When it comes to having to choose between himself and somebody else...well, there had never been a choice. In fact his aversion to using it may feed into its sheer power that we, unfortunately, saw too little of.

Let's go over his very first appearance when he saves Gon from the mother Foxbear.

It's not hard to see the strain searching for Ging has put on him; he's rash, prone to anger and punching a child for daring to get into trouble. In his mind, he's failing at his most important task, has not yet earned the right to call himself a hunter despite being in possession of his very own hunter license.

After killing the mother Foxbear and raging about having done so, he says this interesting line:

So yes, he finds killing for any reason rather irksome as most would do, yet I think something deeper caused him to absolutely lose it in this scene:

He had not been aware of Gon's identity, and despite being an animal lover and a naturalist, he made a choice to save the human instead of allowing nature to run its course. In fact, he says: 'No beast that harms a human must be allowed to live.'

How does one weight one life against another? How is the worth of it determined? The value of life... an impossible choice he's faced with and a choice which he seems to regret to some degree.

The Foxbear cub.

Here, he's speaking from experience, a tangible loss he has felt himself, and a hard and bitter life he does not want to impose on the cub.

His backstory is exclusive to the 2011 anime adaptation but there are hints alluding to it in the manga, for example, the fact that he does not seem to know his birthplace, or:

The choice of words is chilling.

Reading between the lines, one could draw the conclusion that he is an orphan. Something supporting this hypothesis is how he visibly deflates after Gon tells him his parents have (presumably) died.

So we see he is willing to go against his own moral code of not killing as to not doom another living being to the life he led, a lonely, hopeless existence that could barely be called one. He saw it best to put down the cub rather than leave it to die a painful, slow death.

The reason Kite himself isn't as cynical and cold-hearted as one would be after witnessing cruelty in its rawest form is those small crumbs of human kindness which he may have found in Ging.

It was not only a chance at an honorable life being Ging's apprentice gave him, but it also 'saved' him from being broken and twisted into what he hated and worst of all, death.

If we take that one minute of backstory as canon to his character-which I find myself inclined to do- these quirks of his make much more sense. He lived on the run. He lived on the knife's edge between giving up or pushing forwards. He lived as so a wrong move could be the difference between survival and the end.

Between rock and a hard place creates a mentality of black and white, absolute good or extreme evil, this or that. Except in reality, it's much harder than that. Deciding who to save and who to strike down is a heavy burden to bear.

It's almost easy to see how struggling to keep surviving could lend itself to a crippling fear of death and subsequently developing a Nen ability which once more goes against his own moral code in order to give himself a second chance...yet something about it strikes me as unlikely when I look at it this way.

Living life knowing it could end at any moment has the opposite effect, at least for me it did. One comes to accept that it is fleeting and while not eager to let it go, when death eventually and inevitably does come, there is no fighting it.

Especially when there is no hope that tomorrow will be a better day than this one.

Frequent near-death experiences numb one's fear in a way, even if it drives them to take precautions that render it unlikely to happen again and results in c-PTSD, but still, it does. It sparks a certain nihilistic view of 'if it all can end so easily, then what's the point of it all?'

Unless there are things to live for, a sure promise of a better future, and Ging gave Kite that. When he faced the threat of losing his second chance at life:

Really, what else could lead someone to develop the ability of 'the hell I'm going to die like this'?

I think a separate event, an even more brutal near-death experience that almost cost him his life as the hunter he so strived to be set him off to develop the secret roll of Crazy Slots, what I call Roll No.0, Ars moriendi. Unlike other weapons, it cannot come up in random and is directly summoned by him, or better said, summon by his overwhelming will to keep going and hopelessness of fighting a losing battle. I don't believe roll No.3 was the weapon that allowed him to reincarnate. I've named that one Wand of Fortune, a sort of armor instead of an offensive weapon since I find it hard to believe Kite, a Conjurer, would not focus on defences as well, and I will go into both mechanisms of these weapons hopefully in his backstory.

Despite knowing this battle to be a pointless one and being acutely aware of his soon to be demise, he did not immediately draw Ars moriendi, no, he stayed back and fought for the sake of the boys, kept Neferpitou occupied until they could reach safety. We can see evidence of this in the aftermath of the battle that seemed to have gone on until dawn, a torn apart landscape only signaling a fraction of the devastation that was Kite's power unleashed. It still wasn't enough.

In the anime sub I watched, when Gon apologizes to Ging about Kite's death, Ging said a sentence that infuriated me, because it belittled the utter suffering of the NGL trio.

"He would not die in your place." (No screenshot, sorry)

And I remember practically shouting at the screen, screaming 'how could you possibly say that? Of course he did. He absolutely did die in their place. How could you not know your own apprentice? Why-'

It was only last night that it hit me why Ging would say that.

Once upon a time, maybe Kite would not have given his life for anybody under any circumstances, even if he had a way out of it all. He would still need to die to come back to life.

His Thanatophobia could be attributed to the (possibly untreated) PTSD of the near-death experience in his later life, being so certain of dying that finding himself alive afterwards drove him to never want to go through that again. He quieted his fear by creating a sort of a loophole, that even if he lost the battle he would remain. Ging remembered that, but as evidence shows, something changed. Maybe he healed a bit, perhaps growing up dulled his fear to a certain degree, but eventually when it came down to his life or another's, he didn't choose himself.

Now, I can hear you saying 'but he didn't die, so what are you going on about??' And so I reply: Yes, he is alive, but he did die. He experienced that painful, horrible moment of staring death in the eyes and thinking 'This is it, this is the end', went through the actual process of having his soul removed from his body. And that moment stretches into infinity, ten lifetimes condensed into the mere seconds before oblivion.

Dying isn't so hard if one stays dead.

It's not so easy to open one's eyes and find oneself alive again after that, no matter how much that is the heart's desire. It's difficult, nigh-impossible to reconcile with life and walk amongst the living when everything had been so final, when death had been accepted to its fullest.

So Kite awakens, the twin of Meruem and back from the dead, his mind and identity both intact and fractured. In that he is Kite is no mistaking, yet he is not the same gentle pacifist whose first reaction upon sensing a monster's aura was to shield two kids from it at the cost of his arm.

I don't think many of you are familiar with Zoroastrian ideology, but Togashi is known for loving his religious imagery, and it's not only Christianism he derives inspiration from (evidence of which can be seen all over Kite's character and resurrection).

In Zurvanism-a branch of Zoroastrianism- there is talk of the twin spirits: Ahura Mazda -epitome of all that is good- and Ahriman -epitome of all that is evil-, the parent god Zurvin decides that the firstborn may rule in order to bring "heaven, hell, and everything in between."

Upon becoming aware of this fact, Ahriman forcibly tears through the womb to emerge first. Sounding familiar yet?

Zurvan relents to this turn of events only on one condition: Ahriman is given kingship for 9000 years, and then Ahura Mazda may rule for eternity.

Meruem ruled for 40 days, his death leaving the throne vacant for ant Kite, wearing a dead girl's face and seeming to be brewing some nefarious plan. No more is there any sign of that unrelenting pacifism and the sanctity of life he held so high, losing his own may have only served to show him how meaningless the pain and suffering he went through had been, dying only to be reborn as a member of the species that killed him. It may be that he has no desire to rule over the remaining Chimera ants or create an army of his own-

Yet I dread to think what a broken mind possessing limitless power might do to the world.

And that's it. If you made it this far, thank you for reading! If you found it interesting, stay tuned, as I think a lot and I will make it your problem.

[ravysu]

Sannin headcanons and thoughts

The last thing I would like to post for the sannin week. It is still 24.04 here! :D @sannin-central

This is long. Spoiler alert. Mostly Orochimaru, some Tsunade, a little of Jiraiya (because his story is pretty clear and spoken and idk what I can add). Also I recommend to read this meta about Orochimaru, it has influenced me a lot and has some good points. Sorry for any posible grammar mistakes. Also I really should put here a lot of references to the manga or anime but it was something that was piling up for a year and I'm soooooooo lazy. After all, those are just headcanons. Also: Im not excusing Oro's bad stuff here, Im trying to understand the reasons.

Ive already posted some hcs, here, here and here.

1. First if all, the chronology pic of sannin lifetime based on the info i found on naruto wiki and also some statements about wars from this post. It was tough considering what a mess naruto’s chronology is.

2. Sannin story shows what it cost to be a legend. They're like Team 7 but more realistic. Tsunade literally carried the war but left with nothing and developed a ptsd and have problems to just live on. Also anger control issues. I think she can be pretty bossy and stubborn which is not always nice. Jiraiya is the hero of the day but also very idealistic and can ignore some important details in the real word whether its the fight (he always injured during flashbacks maybe because each time he took too much to handle and on the one hand it's heroistic but on the other is a mistake that can lead your team to situations like in that Iwa cave) or your friends issues (I bet he saw what's going on but thought it's fine until Oro actually got red handed and left). He lives in his world and may have problems to get out to see it through someone else's shoes. As for Orochimaru, it seems like he was a normal guy for 20+ years (I mean, he didn't do crazy criminal shit and had something good in him and it was stated somewhere that it was his teammates influence. It is obvious they considered him as a friend, I don't thinks it was for nothing) but we mostly know his darkest side. Despite being a moster he is a human that have empathy and some ordinary human traits (man just decorates every bit of an environment he is in lol).

3. Tsunade was the leader of team Hiruzen.

4. Tsunade sometimes hit Jiraiya for some stupid things he did or said but never touches Orochimaru even if he did something same. Jiraiya complained about it once and almost got another hit.

5. Jiraiya had problematic parents that didn't care about him much and a lot of time he was wandering in the streets.

6. Judging by the look of Oro bangs and hair, he sometimes cut it off. A stress relief huh? And the fact that he doesn't do it now in Boruto..

7. It was shown that Tsunade and Orochimaru was acknowledged before they become a team. Maybe they did just before, or maybe some longer time before. I prefer the second option and hc that they met because both had no real friends - Orochimaru seemed weird and scary for everyone and Tsunade was Senju so everyone wanted to hang out with her but didn't really care. They weren't seen as what they were - people put the labels on them. But they didn't care about each other's labels and actually saw each other in true lights.

8. Tsunade knew it was an accident and it's not right but still she blamed Orochimaru for Nawaki's death for some time. It was something that seriously damaged their friendship and the team. Orochimaru was mad but also guilty, after all, he was responsible at least as a shinobi since Nawaki was under his watch. So he started to act cold and emotionless and was trying to distance himself from his teammates.

9. Jiraiya was in Ame while Dan died.

10. The whole his orphans mission was a bit irresponsible tbh. They already fought Hanzo and as he stated the conflict between Konoha and Ame is going to an end with Konoha's win. It's weird to stay here for three years in the middle of the war while there were other lands to fight. He left his teammates for some idea. Maybe that caused another crack in their team friendship.

11. If Tsunade would have find a way to live on with her trauma and follow the will of fire and stuff it would affect Orochimaru as well just as her grief affected him. It's like he would get an example that you can live on with this pain. So death isn't above human capability and we are not just the slaves of mortality (sounds stupid but i dont know how else to describe sorry). But as we know what he actually saw is that it broke her crucially to the point she couldnt be herself again. And so the death is above everything.

12. Oro wasn’t just acting as a cold pragmatic bitch in that cave but also tried to save Tsunade. Jiraiya knew it and that’s why he showed this sign to him like "I see what youre doing here" and that stunned Oro because he would prefer to look rather like a cold pragmatic bitch hehe

13. Just a thought. People in the village probably treated Oro as a foreigner or just wouldnt accept him because he looked so differently and had a weird attitude. That's why he sometimes didn't feel that Konoha is his home. After the wars where people were treated as means and tools, even the children, he himself developed this view on people - he dehumanized them and used as the means to his goals, just as his village did. Funny thing some people were straightly dehumanizing him too like Ibiki thought that he was a demon (tho he was a child). And he probably weren't the only one. Anyways the point is that it's logical that Orochimaru don't care about anybody but some few people, he's the product of his era. He's like Naruto that would chose the hatred way. But naruto had some good and understanding people around him and.. Orochimaru had them too, but match how Iruka treated Naruto and this Hiruzen's "I sAw tHe mAliCe in This cHiLd fRoM tHe BegGinNinG". And oro didn't even have a big ass evil fox in him. sry i hate hiruzen

ANYWAYS the moral of the story is not "go criminal if they hurt you" but always treat people like people. Waving my hand to Kant.

14. The reason why Orochimaru didn't pick some good morals to stick with through the hard times no matter what (like, idk, Jiraiya or Naruto) is because 1) I think he is/was pretty depending on people around him 2) the war fucked him and his friends up too much (Nawaki incident + Tsunade) 3) twisted addictions (though I don't think he's that sadistic, we never saw him torturing randoms just for fun, it was always some science experimental shit. He tends to get fun out of cruelty only when it's personal) that maybe developed as a way to sublimate anger and sadness caused by his parents loss (that's what they share with sasuke - unlicke naruto, they knew their parents and it's other kind of pain. Sasuke developed a revenge issue and Orochimaru - cruelty pleasure which... is kinda the same but less epic and more occasional lol).

15. Speaking of that, Orochimaru cared for Sasuke because he saw himself in him.

16. Oro hold grudges against Hiruzen for not choosing him to be Hokage not only because he was ambitious and/or egoistic, but also because Hiruzen was some kind of a father figure for him and his approval was important tho i doubt he was aware of that. He also probably could tell that Hiruzen was suspicios about him when he was a child and that led to many conflicts and was hurting as well.

17. Tsunade knew things weren't pretty with Orochimaru after the wars but she never expected them to be this bad. During the week that she was given in her arc she thought not only about how much she wants to see Nawaki and Dan again despite how wrong would it be but also was trying to bury all the good memories she had left of Orochimaru so it would be easier to kill him.

18. She poisoned Jiraiya exactly because she knew he would not let her do it. Jiraiya was always hesitant to kill and inclined to forgiveness, while Tsunade, as mentioned by Orochimaru, could be merciless (so much so that he was not surprised when Kabuto suggested that she wanted to use Jira for Edo Tensei).

19. That was one of her traits that scared Jiraiya and fascinated Orochimaru.

20. Remember how Oro grabbed Jiraiya's neck when the latter was trying to cover with hair jutsu? On the snake, in Tsnade's arc. Orochimaru could have easily kill Jiraiya by pulling the sword out of the mouth (arteries are right there) but he didn't. As well as he could kill Tsunade when she was still shaking - just aim for the neck or the heart. Instead, he just injured her lung and kicked her which is not a big deal for the kind of shinoby like her at all.. Also he helped Anko not accidentally kill herself but it would be way much profitable to let her do it. "Orochimaru has no feelings".

21. The reason he suddenly wanted to kill Tsunade instead of forcing her to heal his arms as it was planned (which is weird since it will not going to get him heals and he kinda said that he wouldn't want to kill her just minutes ago) is that not only she refused to help him (he thought he could work it out) but she also prefered the village over him (from his point of view). Out if everyone she was the closest to being able to understand him since the village caused her painful losses too but nevertheless she agreed to be on it's side.

22. He wasn't fighting her back in the end partly because he thought he deserved that. Somewhere deep inside hahah.

23. Tsunade got a fear to develop deep bonds so they probably weren't very close with Shizune (also the way she knocked her down in this hotel.. oh).

24. Orochimaru will be here when she'll die.

25. Orochimaru's eng dub to Tsunade: "I often wondered what it would be like to ring that pretty neck yours". No comments.

26. Orochimaru is either bi/pan or ace. Anything or nothing lmao

27. Hiruzen knew about at least some of the Oro’s illegal experiments and was okay just as he was okay with the Foundation all the time. Because it’s useful. Then he has discovered he went too far OR he knew everything and oro just became too inconvenient because of his methods. The way Orochimaru tells Sasuke about reasons they are well treated as the criminals is based on in his experience with Hiruzen.

28. As you may know the lyrics in Orochimaru’s music theme goes “don’t talk with the silence of the heart”. It was taken from one Indian song that also had lines like “don’t question life too much”, ”pain arose somewhere in the chest”, “don’t speak to the wounds of the heart”. Though I’m not sure 100% because I was translating it with some hindi dictionary with like zero knowledge of hindi

29. I like to think that this “silence of the heart” theme and the fact that he called his village a hidden sound village are somehow connected. The hidden sound is the possible explanation of all things waiting to be listened to but the truth is silent and you know it deep in your heart and it bothers you. The world is silent just like the life is meaningless but people can only hear. *Sigh* anyways

30. Orochimaru’s journey is the one about accepting death. When he saw Karin released her chains while was trying to get to Sasuke he understood that the death is a part of human’s strength.

Can’t wait to feel that everything I wrote is wrong or not enough or stupid and obvious lol. Anyways, it’s something that I wanted to share until I move to some other fandom.

[cosmicjoke]

Just wanted to add a few more thoughts, based on a conversation I've been having with @vampirelladarkness.

I think Levi, really DESPITE the circumstances of his life, does still hold a kind of miraculous idealism. He still believes in the worth of living and the worth of humanity as a whole, despite having experienced again and again the absolute worst it has to offer. That Levi still thinks humanity is worth fighting for and saving shows a persevering optimism. As I say in my initial post here, I don't think the circumstances of Levi's birth really had an affect on who he is deep down, which is something I've talked about before, how I think AoT really pushes this idea of nature over nurture. I think, whether Levi had been born into poverty and desperation, or into wealth and privilege, he would always have been a good man.

However, just to elaborate a little more on what I said in my initial post, I think, if Levi had been born into better circumstances in life, he WOULDN'T have been violent at all. That's kind of the heart of what I'm saying in my analysis of the first few pages of "Bad Boy". Levi became violent because he was forced to. I don't think violence is innate to his personality at all. I don't think he's naturally inclined toward it.

I say in my post that Eren is a natural fighter, and Levi isn't. That's ironic, because Levi is the strongest, right? He's the best fighter, the most bad-ass character, etc… Nobody's as good at killing as Levi.

But his talent in those things is actually antithetical to who he is as a person. He's a deeply kind, compassionate and caring man. He wants to help people, not hurt them. So it's almost like a curse, that he's so good at this thing that he doesn't want to do, or be.

Eren, by contrast, has no real talent as a fighter. He's kind of like a bumbling idiot. He's not very good at anything when it comes to violence. But he's naturally inclined toward it. He's violent even when he doesn't have to be, because he WANTS to be.

It's incredibly tragic that Levi had to become violent in order to survive, because it's not who he is at all. It's not who he is in his heart and soul.

It's really yet another way in which the circumstances of Levi's life robbed him. Another example of what he was denied and what he lost, through no fault of his own, but simply by dint of his birth.

Levi and Eren: Learned violence vs Innate violence

I was thinking again about the recent preview pages we got from the upcoming story about Levi’s childhood, “Bad Boy”, and thinking about the title too, and how I think it’s meant to be interpreted as ironic, in a way, or even misleading. Levi, of course, has the appearance of a “bad boy”. He’s a former criminal from the Underground, known to be very stoic and seemingly unemotive. Known, also, to be violent when he has to be. Levi and violence, and his relationship with violence, is an intrinsic part of his character, and understanding his character necessitates examining this relationship.

I’ve spoken a lot about how Levi’s violence is a direct result of his upbringing, and the environment and circumstances of his childhood and young adulthood. About how Levi’s violence was never something inherent or innate to him, but rather something learned, both through the desperation of his circumstances and through necessity.

Looking at the preview pages of the upcoming story, and I was most struck by the unmistakable parallel in circumstances to the early pages we get of Eren’s childhood, when he kills Mikasa’s kidnappers, and how sharply contrasted the situations and, particularly, both Levi’s and Eren’s responses to the situations are.

Both Levi and Eren are the most violent characters in AoT, but the nature of their violence couldn’t be more different. And I think that difference is powerfully demonstrated by comparing the two, above mentioned scenes.

Eren kills Mikasa’s kidnappers, and he does so with brutal violence. Now, it’s important to remember here that this is, as far as we know, the first time Eren has ever engaged in, and even been EXPOSED to violence. As far as we know, up to this point, he’s lived a sheltered and safe existence. And yet, upon encountering these men, his first instinct, and indeed, his unhesitating reaction, is to murder them. To violently attack and kill them. And he does so with shocking ease for someone who has no experience in it. Compare this to Mikasa, who’s lying on the floor in a catatonic state of acceptance. The sort of response you would expect from any normal child who’s grown up in a loving and provided for household.

And then there’s the scene we got a preview of from “Bad Boy”. The parallel to the circumstances of Eren’s scene is obvious. Only Levi is the one being attacked in this scene, his role more similar to Mikasa than Eren. Levi in fact is being threatened with the exact same horror that Mikasa was. That is, being sold into a child sex trafficking ring. We see Levi being beaten up by these men and offering no resistance to their mistreatment of him. He’s a passive and undeniable victim of their cruelty and violence.

What’s really interesting to consider, though, is that this most assuredly is NOT Levi’s first encounter with or exposure to violence. Unlike Eren, Levi was born in a place where violence is a daily part of one’s existence. A place where violence and brutality are normal and even encouraged by the environment. Further, by this time, we know he’s been taken under Kenny’s wing. Kenny, who himself is a violent man, a serial killer, who made no secret of the ways in which he taught Levi violence and how to kill others.

And yet, in this scene, when Levi is being directly threatened, attacked and physically hurt, we see him reacting passively, cringing away and curling in on himself, even cowering away from these men. Levi doesn’t initiate the violence. He’s simply a victim of it.

This is a marked contrast, then, between his response and Eren’s.

Eren isn’t the one being attacked. He in fact seeks these men out specifically to confront them. His father had told him to wait for him to contact the proper authorities, but instead he strikes out on his own with the sole intention of killing these men. His natural instinct is to do the attacking. His natural instinct is to kill.

Levi, by contrast, isn’t seeking out the men who attack him, isn’t looking to get into a fight, but is simply trying to get back an object that belonged to his mother. He gets hurt because he misses his mom.

The natural assumption, based on both Levi’s and Eren’s respective circumstances growing up, is that it would be Levi who’s first instinct is to attack, and Eren who’s first instinct is to cower away.

But it’s the opposite.

Eren is instinctively and naturally inclined toward violence, while Levi’s natural inclination, as shown here, is passivity.

I think this is a brilliant and deeply revealing parallel, because it gives us a look at the two most violent characters in AoT as children. It gives us a look at them in their most uninfluenced states. And it draws a sharp contrast between them.

The title “Bad Boy” would suggest Levi to be just that. A “bad boy”. But we see in the very opening pages that Levi is no such thing. He misses his mother and wants to retrieve an object of hers as a means to remember her by, and for this, he’s brutally attacked and beaten up.

And indeed, we see throughout AoT that Levi is no such thing. That, indeed, he’s actually a most deeply compassionate and kind man.

Eren, by contrast, very much is a “bad boy”. A boy and a man who purposefully seeks out violent confrontation. A boy and a man who very much wants to hurt others, and eventually does so on a mass scale.

Eren is a natural fighter.

Levi is not.

It’s ironic, then, that Levi was born into a world in which he was forced to become a fighter, ironically the best fighter, humanities strongest. It's ironic that he was forced to become violent in order to survive, while Eren was born into a world of safety and peace, yet naturally sought out violence and confrontation, unsatisfied with the boring ease of his existence.

It’s also deeply tragic, for the way it demonstrates how our circumstances in life can force us to action and behavior which isn’t at all natural to us. That’s demonstrated through Levi. While what’s demonstrated through both of them is how our circumstances in life don’t, ultimately, determine or affect our natures, what’s in our hearts, or who we are deep down inside.

We see who Levi really is, at the end of the anime, when we're left with that final image of him, handing out candy to children. That's who Levi really is. A gentle man who wants to help others. We see it throughout the story, in moments between the fighting and violence, when Levi demonstrates again and again a selflessness, gentility and kindness that is simply unique to him.

I think “Bad Boy” is going to really emphasize the tragedy of Levi’s life by showing us how he was always, at his core, a gentle and passive man, forced to become a violent man by circumstances out of his control. By showing us how Levi was never a bad boy at all, but instead a good boy who’s life forced him to take on the role of someone and some thing that isn't at all reflective of who he truly is.

[captnjacksparrow]

So I'm aware of Haku loving Zabuza. But was Zabuza written to reciprocate that same love? Because if I'm remembering correctly, Haku loved Z romantically.

I'll be honest their relationship made me uncomfortable and it was also pretty toxic since Z was just using Haku. I wish Haku had a happier ending.

I also wish that people didn't ship a fucking 15 year old with some dude in his 20s/early 30s that treated him poorly. 🤢🤮

Alright, before Answering this...... I must say.... 

I AM NOT SHIPPING THIS COUPLE.... 

[[Disclaimer: Pedophilic Warning... If you are not comfortable with Haku and Zabuza content... Please don't read this post.]]

So... Even though I don't ship them, their relationship seemed 'odd' for sure... But it's not uncomfortable or disgusting, atleast for me, unlike many Naruto fans and I'll say why. And I thoroughly understand why they feel that way.

I'll be honest their relationship made me uncomfortable and it was also pretty toxic since Z was just using Haku.

I really don't think Z mistreated Haku or used him like a tool. It has been implied few times.

First off..

Zabuza's nickname was 'Demon' because he killed 100's of his fellow classmates to graduate the Hidden Mist Exam. And Zabuza said, "That sure was Fun".....

Now, a person who killed other people for fun immediately started to tear up after Naruto tapped into his heart and stirred up his real feelings. I don't think he could cry if his feelings weren't real.

Here he finally agrees, "A Shinobi is still a human... We many not be able to become emotion-less tools... I've lost"....

So, he is accepting the fact that he had emotions and feelings all along...

This is where Zabuza reveals the true motivations of Haku that he never wanted to hurt Naruto or Sasuke. Well, if Zabuza just used him as a tool without understanding Haku's feelings... how could he know how Haku felt about these boys????

So, Zabuza is very aware of how Haku behaves and what he feels.

And finally, to get a perfect closure....

Kakashi himself openly conveyed the real feelings of Z to Haku, "He didn't just view you as a Tool"....

And Narrative-wise, if Haku died as someone without any reciprocation of the Feelings.... it won't do any justice to his death. In this series, people dying together were usually shown with mutual feelings all the time. Say, Minato and Kushina??? They both died protecting their Son and the Village. They both shared similar feelings. Same case with Fugaku and Mikoto.

So, I don't think Zabuza just used him as a Tool even though that's how he wants to project himself to be.

So I'm aware of Haku loving Zabuza. But was Zabuza written to reciprocate that same love? Because if I'm remembering correctly, Haku loved Z romantically.

I think it's very difficult to predict how exactly Z felt about Haku. But I'm inclined to think Zabuza loved Haku in some way. Whether it's romantic or not.... That's where the ambiguousness lies. And this panel actually screams, 'romantic' or 'unusual'.....

Here both Zabuza's and Haku's lips were drawn in a certain angle to touch implicitly.... Like they are not actually kissing.... But it was implied to be. Usually people don't pay attention to such panels, since most of them were too young to even have such visual perception and hence it's easily ignored. But this is definitely not an angle to draw, if the author just wants their relationship to be purely platonic. I checked the Anime version and they too portrayed this scene suggestively.

And their relationship is a clear parallel to the bond of SNS and that's what Kishimoto wanted to convey in the very first Arc of the series. That is, just like how the bond between Haku and Zabuza is Unusual... Naruto and Sasuke also shares the same Unuusual bond between them.

With Haku being a clear parallel to Sasuke.... they both gave up their life for Z and N respectively. And Z and N being so proud or Tsundere for some reason unknown, they couldn't reveal what they felt all along. And much much later, Naruto revealed in VoTE1 that how he felt about Sasuke all along when he was young....

"I was happy... From first glance, I wanted to know you..."

And I think this panel wanted to convey the true feelings of Zabuza. But anyways, whether it is romantic or not... it's too vague to predict but I believe it must be bordered on Romantic feelings because of that 'weird' angle to show an implicit kiss. And also it was 'Snowing' in this scene. Snow usually represents Love and Purity....

Not to mention, THEY DIED TOGETHER.... Like I said in many posts, Double suicide (Shinju) is a concept which allows two lovers to unite together atleast in the afterlife... And Zabuza is hinting that he wants to go the same place as Haku...

This is a total foreshadowing of Naruto’s Promise under the bridge.

Considering all these facts... I believe some form of love is reciprocated. That's for sure. It's not one-sided.

I also wish that people didn't ship a fucking 15 year old with some dude in his 20s/early 30s that treated him poorly. 🤢🤮

I understand why you feel this way., Anon...

But can I say I just got used to this kind of story to the point of becoming immune to it??? Again, I am not justifying or anything. This relationship is very similar to the one where a 12 year old Natalie Portman had a crush on a 30+ year old man in a movie called Leon: The Professional.

And this is a very common theme in Chinese Novels as well. Where a student falls in love with their Master. I've read atleast 15 Chinese Novels so far and this theme was a regular in atleast 6 of those.

And I decided to dig deeper as to why this is such a common theme and was widely accepted by their audience. And why Kishimoto also tried to employ this theme?? I wasn't weirded out, tbh but was just curious... Because my culture also has old literatures based on such themes.

And I found this interesting article... [Link]... It’s a good one... And I suspect that Sasuke’s appearance might have been inspired from Japanese Kabuki actors who has this Androgynous looks with a manly character ... (I mean they look appealing to both men and women alike)... This article somehow gave me that vibe because Kishi created Sasuke as a manly character but gave him an heroine status and was referenced with femininity many times.

But anyways,

This article was all about Homosexual Samurai Love in Edo Japan [1603AD-1867AD]. And I'm just going to reiterate the important parts here.

"Nanshoku (男色, literally “male colors”) While nanshoku as a term has been used to refer to male homosexuality (for example in works like Nanshoku Okagami by Ihara Saikaku, translated into English as The Great Mirror of Male Love) between a older man and a young boy, the origin of the term is found in religion. Nanshoku was imported from China into Japan from monks who had studied Buddhism in China, and it referred to a relationship between two monks. In nanshoku, a younger, usually pre-pubescent, monk (called chigo) would come to be under the wing of an older monk (called nenja).

One point favoring nanshoku was the absence of women. During war periods, samurai would be out on the road fighting without many women in sight. Even with the peace of the 1600s, samurai tended to be concentrated in castle cities, where the opposite sex was a rare sight.

A second point was that nanshoku went along very well with some of the concepts and ideals of the samurai life. In a very strict hierarchical world, where younger members would obey and serve older members while being educated and supported in exchange, a relationship between an older samurai and a young samurai would instantly appear advantageous to both. The younger samurai would receive education and abide by the centuries-old values of respect to the elderly and feudal deference, while the older samurai would receive unquestionable loyalty (also in honor-related quests, like duels and fights)… and some other extra favors."

So, I am not trying to justify this ship or anything... Am just presenting the facts here... So, this kind of Haku and Zabuza relationship was very common in the feudal Japan and this culture was imported from China. And that's why I believe I found lots of Novels with stories based on Ancient Era has this kind of themes. Whereas the Novels based on Modern Time Period has nothing like this. They were all portrayed according to the modern standards.

I must appreciate Kishimoto for handling such a bold theme in a much refined way where not many people will find this extremely awkward and they continue to watch the series without even realizing it... because it's so subtle and layered.

And Now I know why he went with a Mid-Aged man and Young Boy dynamics. Because, if only Haku acted around like this with another boy of his same age, then it would give off the obvious homosexual vibes.

But somehow Kishimoto wanted to create a parallel bond which should resemble Naruto and Sasuke in a subtle way as possible. And that's why he went with this couple with such an age difference where only perceptive viewers can find the hidden meaning behind his choice. It's kind of like a foreshadowing for the viewers... that is, "This is the kind of bond you are going to see between Naruto and Sasuke... (an indirect indication of Homosexual feelings)... If you pick up the hints, then you can really understand why Naruto and Sasuke behave 'weird'... Or Else, all you will get is the shallow understanding of their bond and say things like Shikamaru was Naruto’s best friend... And that’s why Chapter 3 'Accidental' Kiss was intentional from Kishimoto's part.. LOL"....

That's why I don't demonize the people who ship them even though I don't ship this couple actively... Because the author wrote both of them in a Romantic way... And such dynamics really existed few centuries ago and even practiced as a cultural thing. 

[p-redux]

I am super confused at why there is so much infighting in the Outlander tumblr world. Is it because people have different opinions about Sam and Cait relationship or what is it exactly? It's very weird...

Oh, Anon...how much time do you have? Actually, it's me, I don't have the time, energy, or inclination to give you a detailed answer. This fandom is exhausting. So, let me try to give you some history but I can't promise it will be comprehensive.

Outlander has different groups of fans and within those groups, there are subgroups. These are the groups I can think of off the top of my head: original Outlander book fans, Outlander TV show fans, Outlander book and TV show fans, Wishful Shippers, Lalalala head in the clouds everything is fine Shippers, Extreme Shippers, Tinhat Shippers, Money Grubbing Shippers, Pretend Shippers with ulterior motives, Shippers with expendable incomes, mostly retirees, Shipper Sympathizers, Non-Shippers, Truthers, NSTs (Non-Shipper Truthers), Mean Girls, Haters, Trolls, Cait onlys, Sam onlys, Tobias onlys, Rik onlys, etc.

The main fighting has always been between SamCait Shippers and their subgroups, and ANYONE who accepted the TRUTH/REALITY, that there is no real SamCait.

Back in the day it was ALL of the Shippers and their subgroups against ME because I was the first to post insider source info confirming Sam and Cait weren't dating in real life. After that, I became persona non grata and there was a relentless witchhunt against me conducted by all the shippers. Luckily as time went by and as it became CLEAR I had been telling the truth, more and more people were willing to speak out publicly against shippers and their attacks on anyone who got in the way of the ship. Prior to that, they wouldn't do so publicly, because they had seen the level of daily harassment I received, and they were understandably afraid.

Extreme Shippers still like to propagate the legend of OmniPurv, that I am every account and I am everywhere. But the reality is that there are now MANY people who are fed up with Extreme Shippers' bad behavior, and they're no longer afraid to speak out.

As I said in a previous post, the current Sam and Cait haters are mostly disgruntled ex-shippers or shipper sympathizers, and the few existing shippers ban together with them. Because the mean girls have support from ex-shippers and current shippers, the natural enemy is still me and other non-shippers, hence fighting continues. Also, mean girls like to provoke fights just for shits and giggles, they're always fanning the flames--they seem to get some sick thrill from it.

So, the fight is STILL between shippers and non-shippers, but as is human nature, familiarity breeds contempt, and there is the inevitable INFIGHTING within each main group.

Shippers have had fights among themselves, with even more subgroups forming. The great shipper diaspora occurred years ago when the ex-shipper queen, Jess finally figured out Puffy was a faux shipper with ulterior motives and banned her from the shipdom. Puffy took her lackey, Amanda and they descended to Hades to a life of crime, which is extremely reckless, given that Amanda works for a government agency and Puffy gave herself away. But I digress... 

On the non-shipper side, we also had our infighting, mainly due to one person, but most non-shippers figured out what was what, and that infighting is over. It's been peaceful on this side ever since certain people got some sense served to them and they left us alone.

Soooo, Anon, I guess that was my attempt at "long story short," which for me is usually "long story longer" 😅. I'm sure I missed some stuff, but, oh well.

Hope that explained a few things and was helpful in understanding some of the dynamics on Tumblr. Thanks for stopping by, Anon! And welcome to the shitshow!

[peterrparrkerr]

So I was looking through my docs and I found the original story for Careful, He Bites and He Bites series.

I got most of the way finished with it when I decided to take a different direction. But I figured I'd post this anyway for fun!

*-*

Tony still didn't like the thought of them being in the compound. But there was nothing he could do to get them out. It's not like he owns the building or anything.

It all started with Steve and his long lost best friend. After Steve and Natasha were attacked by the Winter Soldier -who was said best friend from 70 years ago- a manhunt ensued.

Tony stayed out of it. If Steve wanted to risk his life for the Winter Soldier, he could.

What Tony didn't expect was for Steve to actually find Bucky. Or bring along someone else.

Tony tried to steer clear of them. He let Banner and Steve and Natasha and whoever the fuck else handle the two supersoldiers currently living in the basement.

That is until someone came up from said basement with a nasty bite. The agent died before Banner found an anti-venom.

Thats when Tony decides to get involved. He doesn't know much about anti-venoms or biology, but he's a scientist and an inventor.

His first trip down to the basement is like stepping into a horror movie. The lights are dim, and there's soft classical music playing on a record Steve brought down.

There are two cells, built strong enough to keep Banner in. In the left, was the Winter Soldier. He was sitting on the floor, back to the wall, one leg stretched out in front of him, and the other bent to support his elbow.

His steely blue eyes flickered up to Tony and Banner, then drifted to Steve, who was smiling at him.

The cage to the right made Tony shiver. The right had spiderwebs on the ceiling, connected to the walls and bars. He could faintly make out the other super soldier laying on the webs like one would a hammock.

Neither soldier moved.

"Hey, Buck," Steve greeted, walking right up to the cage. "Wanted to introduce you to a friend of mine."

Bucky's eyes move from Steve to Tony silently. It makes Tony want to turn around and run back upstairs.

"This is Tony Stark."

Tony manages to dip his chin in a single nod.

"I know who he is," Bucky said, turning his attention back to Steve. "You think he can get rid of it?"

Tony wonders if 'it' is the other on the cage beside him. But he doesn't say anything.

"No, Tony's here to see the kid," Steve confessed. "But I've been talking with someone from Wakanda who said she'd be willing to take a look."

Tony understands now. The coding HYDRA had tortured into Bucky's head. Trigger words to bring the assassin to the surface. Steve had been talking with Princess Shuri.

"How long?" Bucky asked. Tony doesn't listen to Steve's reply, because there's movement coming from the other cell.

Tony steps a bit to the side as the other -hes barely a teenager- makes his way out of the sanctum of his webs.

He's wearing the same outfit as Bucky, tan and baggy with a zipper on the front. Hes small, and moves with all the grace of a spider who knows his way around a web.

He doesn't take his eyes off Tony as he crawls across the ceiling. Banner says something under his breath that sounds frightened and Tony's inclined to agree with him.

The boy drops his feet until he's hanging by just his fingers, and then he -somehow- lets go of the ceiling and lands on silent feet to the floor.

"Вы помните доктора Бэннера?" (Do you remember Dr. Banner?) Bucky spoke in perfect Russian.

Tony watched wide brown eyes flicker to Banner, then return to Tony. Its eery. Its saying something when Tony Stark feels uncomfortable with the attention.

"кто он?" (Who is he?) The boy asked, tilting his head slowly to the side. He does so chin first, making him seem less human and more demonic horror movie villain.

"Тони Старк.  Железный человек," (Tony Stark. The Ironman)

Whatever Bucky responds with has the boy smiling, and Tony finally gets a decent look at a pair of finely pointed fangs.

"Он симпатичный," (He's pretty) he responds.

Bucky rolls his eyes. "His name is Peter," he says, finally looking at Tony. "Don't get too close, he bites."

Peter grins before pressing against the bars of the cage, arms resting through the slats between.

"You ruin my fun, Winter," Peter hums, and Tony wasn't sure why he was expecting the boy to have a Russian or German accent. He sounded like Bucky and Steve. New Yorker.

Those dark brown eyes move back to Tony, bright with mischief.

"You're here to see me?" He asked, the picture of innocence, even as he licks at his teeth, tongue rolling over the two points of his fangs.

They protrude just enough to be noticeable, but they're small, dainty and unassuming. Tony knew not to underestimate their punch.

"You put one of my guys in the ground," Tony said after clearing his throat.

Instantly, the smile dropped, and all innocence left the boy, leaving him looking cold and dangerous.

"Oh you can't be upset about that, Mr. Stark," Peter sighs, and Tony tries very hard to ignore how Peter calling him Mr. Stark does things to him.

But the boy's eyes are shining in amusement. Tony clears his throat.

"I can, actually," Tony said. "I'd like to get a few samples from you, run a few tests."

"Они такие же, как HYDRA," (they're just like HYDRA) Peter sneers, features darkening as he spins around, turning his back to Tony and Banner.

"ты убил одного из них," (you did kill one of them) Bucky responds. "что вы ожидали?" (What did you expect?)

Peter doesn't respond, just climbs the wall -cause thats normal- and disappears into his webbed cocoon.

"What was that about?" Banner asked, making his way to Bucky's side of the room quickly.

Bucky sighed and ran a hand through his dark hair.

"HYDRA isn't a nice place for people like Peter," was all he said.

Tony sighed and glanced at Banner. Silent communication was their thing, and it wasn't long before they were both on the same page.

If they couldn't run tests and get an anti-venom, they'd have to just remove the venom entirely.

It took three days of Tony and Banner researching the surgical procedure of removing venomous glands from snakes and spiders. Tony did some digging on tonsil removal -they still didn't know where the glands were, but between the two of them, Tony was confident they could perform the surgery successfully.

Two days before the surgery, Bucky was taken to Wakanda to undergo his own corrective surgery of sorts.

Peter had a tantrum.

Tony could hear Peter all the way from his lab, and after an hour he finally dropped what he was doing and stormed down stairs.

Peter was glaring, his eyes were shining with unshed tears and his arms were bleeding from self inflicted bite marks.

"Bring him back," Peter demanded, voice raw from the shouting and threatening. "Bring him back, right now!"

"Thats not going to happen, Peter," Tony said, shaking his head. Peter slammed his palm against the metal bars on a shout that nearly made Tony take a step back.

Peter spun around, fisting at his hair. Tony frowned at how Peter paced the cage, agitated and angry.

"Where did you take him."

"Steve took him to Wakanda-"

"Dont fucking lie to me," Peter snapped, spinning back around to face him. His upper lip was pulled back in a snarl, showing off glinting fangs. He snapped his teeth together once before pacing again.

"I'm not lying," Tony said, wincing when Peter bit into the meat of his own thumb.

"Bring him back."

"Hes already on a plane," Tony sighed. "This is good for him, Peter. He needs this."

Peter bit down on his hand again. Tony sighed. "You're going to hurt yourself."

"I'll heal," Peter growled. "I want Winter."

"He'll come back when his mind is free from whatever it is HYDRA did to him."

Peter sets his jaw and glares.

[mentalisttraceur-incomplete]

One important ramification of this is that I didn't even realize that "incompatible" is also a valid boundary to have in many situations - it doesn't have to just be hurt/harm which must be validly stronger than the other person's negative experience for not getting what they want. No one taught me that

"hey, I find that personally unacceptable (you're welcome to do it with people who are fine with it, but not with me)" is something I should stand up for, or that

"I had an unpleasant reaction to that" / "I don't like that" in response to behavior is a good and healthy thing to bring up as soon as I feel it (as opposed to holding back because think about how that makes them feel)!

I'm sure my parents said words to that effect at some point, but that doesn't really work if you emotionally trample it whenever it actually happens with you.

I'm even happy to suppose that part of this is me being autistically prone to systematizing, turning everything into logical rules with as much coverage as possible, and only then iteratively learning to refine/caveat/compose rules to handle the subtleties/complexities/differences, so I may have generalized admonitions too much. I am also happy to blame this partly on me being atypically sensitive or maybe even "online" as a mind earlier than normal, so what would've been a harmless admonition to a typical small child might have been a badly memorable and impactful one for me - similarly, maybe the entire spectrum of negative experiences in life was more impactful to me.

But still, the result remains the same.

I have tolerated so much unpleasant and incompatible behavior over the course of my life from basically anyone around me. The earliest times I can remember acting on my natural inclination to tell people that something didn't work for me or was unpleasant for me, my parents gave me shit for it - especially on the grounds of how I was making those other people feel. That's putting aside how any serious defiance or anger against them in (sufficiently) private situations was punished.

I'm here coming up on 33 years old in a few months, still rediscovering more of my natural inclinations to act in ways that would organically make me a human with very strong boundaries. For much of my life I have sustained myself to a large extent with artificially philosophized boundaries which were engineered at significant intellectual cost and which required hypervigilance and unusually high interpersonally oppositional emotions to enforce - and it was still a consistently bad approximation at best, with big unnatural consequential latencies between transgression and reaction.

Enforcing my boundaries is a profoundly uncomfortable experience for me because it kicks my brain into like ... not fight or flight yet, necessarily, but at least vigilance for it. I can't really relax or think about much besides my awareness of what the person is doing or what might be going on in their mind until they exit the interaction.

[one thing I find dissatisfying about this post which caused me to abandon it is that I don't want to make it seem like the blame is entirely or even majority on my parents. I think they probably get a plurality of the credit - that they are the strongest single influence towards this problem... but I can see other (potential) factors]

My parents tried to teach me, verbally, to stand up for myself, to push back against mistreatment, to assert boundaries....

But then they utterly undermined it at the level of my actual emotions and motivations, by the way they reacted any time I naturally did that against mistreatment from them.

By the time I needed to do it against anyone else, standing up for myself was no longer a natural act - the natural move was to wait and see, do my best charitable idea-fitting, and always err on the side of treating the person as having the best intentions.

When I first started trying to do it against anyone besides my parents, it was something I had to consciously and artificially force out despite fear or empathy, and something I could only see as justified after I had already charitably let several hurtful/harmful transgressions (or just incompatible actions) slide. (With my parents, it wasn't even something I was ever taught to mentally label as "standing up for myself", and it was always lashing out once I hit some internal limit.)

[mutant-chain-reaction]

Love Language Fic -- Part 1

Felt like writing a little something based off of my Love Language Headcanon post for the 2k3 turtles. The fic itself is pretty general and focuses on platonic feelings, staring Donatello.

You weren't quite sure how it happened. New York City was known for crazy encounters and conspiracy theories, of course, and with the rather exciting -- to put it mildly -- event of actual aliens invading the earth about a month ago, you were sure nothing much could surprise you.

You were proven wrong when your small dog followed his nose to the end of the apartment complex's side yard.

"Moose, leave whatever it is alone," you said to your mutt, shining your flashlight in his direction, figuring that Moose found a squirrel right by the landlord's dilapidating shed. "It's probably bigger than you..."

An understatement.

Your flashlight dropped to the ground as you gaped at a giant... turtle? Yes, you believed that was a shell and the skin was some shade of green in the low light of the closest street lamp on the other side of the apartment building's fence. The turtle had paused in trying to shoo Moose away, spotting you from behind its dark mask and freezing in place.

In fact, the only one moving was Moose, who for some strange reason was looking up at the turtle and wagging his tail.

The turtle spoke first with an obvious wince. "Please don't scream."

You weren't sure if your words would work, to be honest. There was an actual crack in your voice when you thought to ask, "Are you an alien?"

"N-No, I'm... No." The turtle's voice was masculine and he shifted to get a better grip on the stick he was leaning against to stay upright. You noticed Moose had gone back to sniffing the creature, the short furs on the back of his neck standing up as his snout got closer to the turtle's left calf. Your attention was snapped back to the turtle as he added, "Technically I was raised here in New York..."

"Moose, come," you said, and your little dog turned to you with his head tilted.

"Go ahead," the turtle coaxed your dog. To you, the turtle said, "I promise, I won't come around here again. Please don't tell anyone about... me."

Honestly, who would believe you if you did tell others? Well, okay, after seeing alien dinosaurs take out some of the buildings in the city, maybe there would be people more inclined to believe in giant turtles at this time.

Still, you said, "I won't... But do you need help?" Gesturing to his leg, you realized what Moose had been inspecting. The turtle seemed to have a bit of a gash, a cut that was bleeding slowly. "You should put some antiseptic on that."

"I will," he said. "But don't worry about it. I'll bandage it when I get home."

"You're leaning against a stick," you deadpanned. "It'd be easier and more comfortable to move if we bandage your cut here and now." Glancing up at your apartment building, you added, "The few other residents are old people who are probably already in bed. It'd be simple enough to get up to my place. Or I can bring the first aid kit out here."

"I... Uh, why?" was the question that tumbled out of the turtle's mouth. "I would think you'd be... I dunno, a bit more freaked out?"

"Buddy, I'm currently freelancing because my previous job exploded from alien dinosaurs." You shrugged. "You at least have been polite, haven't kicked my dog away from you yet, and I'd like to think that I'm a decent human being willing to help out someone who is hurt."

It took another few minutes of coaxing -- or perhaps the pain was getting uncomfortable for the turtle -- but the pair of you and Moose made it back up to your apartment. The turtle apologized for getting blood on your loveseat after you instructed him to sit down, and you waved the apology away as you found the first aid kit.

"Thank you," he said softly as you wrapped the cut with a bandage. "I'm Donatello."

You smiled up at him and introduced yourself, finding out that he had a few brothers and made sure he was able to get back to street level just fine so he could meet up with them. You thought it would just be a one-time encounter and were okay with that. As fascinating as Donatello and his brothers seemed, you could understand why they would keep to themselves and hide their lives away.

Besides, it was New York. It was easy to meet people once and never again in the giant city.

Yet, it was about a week later that there was a gift sitting on your windowsill by the fire escape. The handwriting was a little messy, a scrawl that reminded you of a middle schooler that was still figuring out their signature, and it seemed fitting for a giant turtle with three fingers.

Your musings about Donatello's education went out the window when you opened the little box and found a collar attachment for Moose. It was simple, lightweight, and it didn't take long to figure out the settings for the LED lights on the device. The note mentioned that Donatello guessed it would be easier to see Moose at night with a light-up collar rather than a flashlight. It was a thoughtful thank-you gift, even if Moose was a bit bewildered at the new attachment.

In hindsight, it was silly of you to think that would be it.

Donatello showed up on your fire escape not too long after, under the pretense of making sure you had received the gift. You made small talk, thank-yous going around in circles during his brief visit that eventually turned into multiple visits. A shell-cell was the next gift that was given to you, the little device a marvel in your eyes.

"If you want it," he said, sounding apprehensive. "I don't want to presume anything, but it'd be easier for us to keep in touch..."

His words trailed off into a question but he smiled when you said, "This is wonderful. Now I won't have to worry about you so much."

Donatello explained how it worked -- it was simple enough, but it was clear he enjoyed babbling about his work and you were happy to let him -- and it became normal for you guys to check in with each other once in a while. He always asked about Moose and how your freelancing was going, and you always asked what was cooking up in his lab. Your conversations were never too long, not until after you met the rest of his brothers, but just a few minutes of talking with a friend was always nice.

At one point down the line, he was lounging on your windowsill with his duffle bag at his feet. His tongue was poking out of his mouth as he unscrewed the covering of the shell-cell, some dirt encased in the grooves of its design from its adventure of nearly being buried in the yard by Moose. While you had still been able to call Donatello on it, he offered to drop by and clean it out.

Throughout that time, you noticed how ancient some of his tools seemed to be.

Considering Donatello wasn't the type to be able to walk into a hardware store himself, you decided on getting a gift for him for a change. The next time you had some spare money, you bought a decent, new set of tools for him. It was a standard set, nothing too fancy, but there was an array of screwdrivers, pliers, a hammer, a couple of wrenches, just to name a few tools.

While you figured Donatello would appreciate the gift, you were woefully unprepared for how his face lit up at seeing the toolkit.

In fact, initially, he gaped at the toolkit, his expression slack-jawed in such a way that you thought you made a mistake. "If these don't work for you, I do still have the receipt--"

"What--No, no!" Donatello reached for the kit and you realized he was restraining himself from yanking it out of your arms. A grin plastered itself on his face and the mask around his eyes crinkled as he smiled. "This is amazing. It's the nicest thing I've ever gotten! ... Are you sure?"

It was your turn to laugh. "I'm sure," you said. "Compared to what you've gotten me, it's not much, really."

"No, it is," he insisted. "This is wonderful. Thank you."

"You're very welcome." Honestly, if Donatello was this enthusiastic about gifts, you could picture yourself not saving as much money in order to make your new friend happy.

[fibrowarriorgirl]

Toxic positivity & chronic illness

This post is aimed mainly for the people who aren't chronically ill themselves, but for those who know someone dear to them is chronically ill. Although I think a lot of chronically ill peeps will be able to relate to this post.

"Stay positive." It's something that pretty much everyone hears in their life. In our darkest moments, we will always have someone telling us to be as happy as possible. Remember the last time you were upset, and someone told you something like this. How much did you appreciate this?

Sure, it can definitely help under certain circumstances. Let's say you failed a test at school. Your parents telling you "it's okay, better luck next time!" could actually cheer you up. But what if it wasn't just any test, but an important exam you failed. "Better luck next time!" is a lot less pleasing to hear. You failed your exam, you won't be able to go to your next year, all your friends did pass so you won't be in their class any more, and the next time you do the exam will be over a year from now. The phrase "better luck next time" sounds bitter more than anything. And definitely isn't appreciated.

We as humans often feel inclined to turn anything bad into something positive. It's a natural response. You see someone you love in pain, you want to be able to say something that will make it better. But we have to be realistic, there will be times when someone is in pain (physically, mentally or both), and there is nothing to say to make it better. And you trying to make it better, only makes it worse.

I've only had my fibromyalgia diagnosis for almost a month, but I've had episodic pain for over a year now and constant pain for almost 5 months now. Especially this last month has been rough with toxic positivity.

Receiving the fibromyalgia diagnosis was hard. At the time of being diagnosed, I didn't know too much about it. I had read about a few symptoms, but I honesty didn't think I could have it. So once I did some research, I was devastated with my diagnosis. And something I noticed, is that a lot of people were trying to help me by saying uplifting things.

"But Elke, what's so bad about that?" What bothered me the most, was that I wasn't even diagnosed for a week and people were telling me to cheer up. Telling me it could be worse, telling me what has helped them when they had pain once, it will get better, it will pass. And I always had the same response: "Let me be sad for a while."

I had just heard I had chronic pain. I have a very frustrating diagnosis. Doctors can't tell me what it is in my body that is causing all of my symptoms. There is no medication. I need mobility aids to get around. I will need a very intense form of rehabilitation. So yes, I was pretty depressed for a few days. The last thing I needed, was to hear it could be worse. I was grieving, grieving the life I once lived. I was in denial of the life I was forced to start living.

Maybe you're thinking that even though your positivity isn't welcome, but it can't hurt, right? Unfortunately, you're wrong. Being told that something could be worse, tells me I am bothering you, that my pain isn't severe enough to be upset about. Maybe that isn't your intention at all, but it is somewhat implied. We also internalise this way of thinking. I tell myself "it could be worse" so I can't feel bad. Even though my head can be pounding, my joints burning, with no energy in my body to do even the simplest of tasks, I'm still not allowing myself to feel bad. Because there is someone out there who has it worse.

Not only does this phrase negatively impact me, it impacts my surroundings. Let me take a friend of mine, who I will call Jane Doe for the sake of anonymity. Jane suffers from an undiagnosed eating disorder and body dysmorphia. And a few weeks ago, she told me she felt bad whenever she talked about her struggles with her body to me. "You're actually in constant pain, you have it so much worse." Do you know how heartbreaking it is to hear that? She is struggling with something I know can be so challenging. She is in (mental) pain, but "it could be worse." I am still here for Jane, I don't think of her pain as less or not as important as mine. I don't want her to feel like that.

Of course, there are many things chronically ill people are frequently told that do more damage than good. "I had pain here once, so I did x and y and it went away." We already tried x and y. We tried the whole alphabet. "It will pass." No, it's a chronic illness. It can get better, maybe. I could go on and on.

Discussing toxic positivity is awkward. Because I realise all of these things are said with love, with the intention to help, to put a smile on my face. So I don't want to point out that you're actually hurting me by saying this. I often will just smile and nod through it. And I get it, I really do. I too have done this in the past, I probably still do without even noticing. And I also understand that my loved ones also have to adapt to my new life. You don't get a handbook on how to deal with your chronically ill daughter/partner/friend/etc. So that's why I'm posting this, to educate.

Instagram account @unchartedmalady posted a quote a few days ago that inspired me to write this post. "We don't seek solutions or treatments from friends or family. That is what medical professionals are for. We want support, understanding and empathy." This perfectly describes how I feel about this.

I'm in pain, every day. Some days, I get a lot done. Maybe I'm in a little less pain, but that isn't necessarily the reason. I could be excited to do something, I could have rested a lot the days beforehand, maybe I just somehow woke up with more spoons than usual. There are also days where I am not able to do much. There are even days that I can only get out of bed to use the toilet. Maybe this is a really bad pain, but that also isn't necessarily the reason. I could have received bad news, I have just done something 'big' the days before and need to rest, maybe I just woke up with less spoons.

On my good days, I don't need much support. But on those bad days, I need you. And I don't need you to help me. I need to be able to tell you "today fucking sucks, this is why" and for you to listen. Seeing your loved one is in pain is uncomfortable, you will feel the need to say something positive to cheer them up. This might sound blunt, but learn to deal with that uncomfortable feeling. Some appropriate responses could be:

"Do you know what to do on days like this?"

"Have you been able to discuss this with (medical professional)?"

"I am here for you."

"I'm sorry you're going through this."

"Can I help you with anything?"

Something that I personally think is a great alternative to saying something positive is: "I wish there was something I could say to make you feel better." This acknowledges that you want to say something to help, but that you realise there is nothing you can say to help. And also, be honest if you don't know what to say. "That sounds awful, I genuinely don't know what to say." There is nothing wrong with being honest about that.

And to finish this post off, I am not here raging against everyone who has every said something 'toxically positive.' I am here educating about this. It's okay to make mistakes, especially if you didn't know about this. And maybe you will still make this mistake every now and again, that's okay. As long as you're trying. We're all human, we all make mistakes. If you're ever not completely sure how to handle a situation with your chronically ill loved one, please just ask (respectfully).

(Credit for image goes to uncharted malady on instagram. Click here to visit their profile)

[princess-stabbity]

technically speaking, "getting the people to revolt" is one of the lower order of effects those sanctions are trying to implement

like i'm not saying they're definitely gonna work. this conflict is too volatile for me to feel comfortable making almost any predictions, to be quite blunt. and even if they do work, whether the ukrainian people saved are worth the russian people hurt is a subjective moral call. (though--and i don't want to minimize the suffering inherent in economic collapse--it's worth considering that sanctions can be lifted but people cannot be unshot.)

but if these sanctions lead to putin losing his grasp on power, it will likely be because of the effect on the oligarchs and high-ranking officials. they have much more leverage, here, and they've been personally sanctioned and had their assets targeted. which, to be petty for a minute, is one of the few enjoyable things about this whole horrible situation. imagine how funny it would be to see that happen to bezos and musk. and while i don't have too much hope of that, there have already been some cracks. that said, if pressure on the oligarchs does work, it will most likely result simply in putin finally agreeing to some sort of face-saving peace agreement, not regime change (i've been imagining something akin to the end of the winter war, which would mean letting them take crimea+donbas but leave ukrainian sovereignty intact--tho it sounds like the ukrainians are not willing to give up territory, so who knows). i've seen no indication they're holding out for regime change. just withdrawal.

another goal of these sanctions, tho, is to empty out the war chest. war takes money and resources, and if putin can't get those (eg, can't get new parts to repair planes, sources of munitions limited, ability to pay mercenaries restricted), that's another pressure on him to withdraw. from my perspective, this is simultaneously the most important and probably least understood goal of these sanctions. i haven't been sharing posts about developments on the ground because--between the unpredictability of the situation, the fog of war, and both rus & ukr propaganda--i think it difficult to tell what's truly happening and i don't want to contribute to disinfo. however, i'm inclined to believe that reports of poor russian supplies/logistics are probably correct (if perhaps exaggerated). i read a prewar article over a week ago about the wagner group (basically the kremlin's blackwater but with more othalas) that suggested even they struggle with this. point being, if this is not abnormal for russian military forces, having their entire economy flushed down the toilet will not make these problems better, and russian disorganization and low morale seem to be large parts of what have been keeping the ukrainians in the fight. plus, the worse the ground offensive goes, the more likely putin will finally receive some form of pushback from within the govt.

obviously these sanctions could backfire. putin will try to stir up national resentment, play the strong man as usual, "the west is trying to destroy us and i alone can stop them!" etc and it may work. but the whole situation is a lot more complicated than "sanctions are for hurting the common people so they revolt." i'm against the idea that academic bona fides are the be-all end-all of knowledge, but i do get frustrated seeing people present themselves as experts on a topic i've actually studied, just because twitter's algorithm favors the most vehement and radical takes, you know? wish i could go back to when the worst social media takes on things i studied were mostly about "death of the author."

and all this is without getting into any of the bigger picture concepts and questions at play, like: -"should outside states intervene in situations like invasion and genocide?" at this point in my life, my feeling is that human beings have a duty to one another to try to help. but the geopolitics of the last, oh, let's say 20 years at least, should make us extremely cautious about that. even if the intentions are truly just altruistic (hard to imagine, but for the sake of argument), that doesn't mean the attempted help will be effective, or that it won't solve the immediate problem but cause others down the road. -"if so, by what means?" if you take away military intervention and all economic sanctions, there aren't many mechanisms left to effect change (tho i think that some that remain should be used much more often, like refugee settlement within your own borders) -"if so, how do we avoid this international mechanism being used to cynical ends?" recent u.s. history speaks for itself. those concerned about the question of "who gets to decide what country is cut off from the world economy?" are right to worry, tho they're slightly off-base in thinking the u.s. alone holds this power (not wholly off-base, because the u.s. has a lot of both hard and soft power to throw around to influence votes in the un, but this is not something the u.s. could have done unilaterally and even states more in russia or china's "sphere" were willing to coordinate on this). that said...setting aside the likelihood of the u.s. getting punished for violating international law, i'm inclined to think things would be better if we were? weird to me, seeing people go "well, the u.s. didn't face consequences for [x]" like yeah maybe some sort of international precedent should be set. maybe we wouldn't be at this point globally if international orgs had some real teeth. this whole situation could have cascading negative effects in the future, but for now i think seeing a superpower get reined in is maybe a good thing. finally, it's worth remembering that inaction is, itself, an action, with potentially disastrous consequences. how many times have the permanent members of the unsc been effectively allowed to do whatever they want without consequence? where has that gotten us? -"if not, should a non-state entity be the one to intervene?" great concept, big fan, but many potential issues bubble from this one: who runs it, how is it funded, from what or whom does it derive authority and credibility, does it actually have the capacity to enact change, who watches this watchman, etc. these questions are not insurmountable, in my opinion, but they're not easy, either -"if non-state actors instead, how do we avoid having them run into the same pitfalls a state would?" i think humans have a history of saying "this thing is bad, let's make a new version" and then the new version has the same problems all over again. i think dan olson put it well, when describing the problems with treating crypto as a way of eliminating banks: "this is a really important point to stress: cryptocurrency does nothing to address 99% of the problems with the banking industry, because those problems are patterns of human behavior. they’re incentives, they’re social structures, they’re modalities. the problem is what people are doing to others, not that the building they’re doing it in has the word 'bank' on the outside." in other words, i think people often correctly identify problems with an organization, only to replace it with a new one with the same corrupting incentives and social structures that led to problems with the prior one. states are basically organizations of people. a non-state actor is presumably also an organization of people. how do you structure it to be better suited to this task?

my point (or my overarching one, anyway, i'm having a hard time structuring them all into coherency) is that life is actually very complicated. i'm tired of the twitterized approach to everything, where centuries of history and debate and scholarship are treated as tho they can be condensed down to 280 characters without losing a lot of important context and nuance. the stakes are too high. they've always been too high.

anyway now that i've finally got this rant out of my system i'm back to, once again, haranguing my elected officials to let in more refugees. it's infuriating to think about how much more likely it is to gain traction this time.