#and they are these violent people whose culture is violence

[skymagpie]

Horde-side at least, alot of people dislike Mists of Pandaria due to its black and white morality as well as usage of racist writing cliches.

That's why I said that this is based on reddit and tumblr, where some are from reddit if I didn't have the tumblr data.

Also this is World of Warcraft, the game is absolutely littered with racist writing cliches, I would go as far to say that the game is based on a foundation of racist writing cliches and Blizzard is currently trying to somewhat mend them, but they cannot escape that foundation that was set up for them 20 and even 10 years ago. It's sad, but you will find the racism in every expac in some degree.

Always remembering this post whenever Blizzard and WoW's racism is brought up, when someone was "Blizzard has potent orientalism that is 10 years behind everyone else's" and yeah, pretty much.

[nervoustragedyluminary]

Reductress is just spreading terf rhetoric now

The "joke" is that nonbinary people are somehow escaping from violence by being trans that we can opt out of fearing violence and don't fear violence when walking at night....

Like just yuck as a transmasc nonbinary survivor whose actually aware of the stats of violence against nonbinary people this just disgusts me...

Also I'm betting they have talked to zero Black trans enbies or men or women of colour about how being seen as "scary" puts them in danger from racist white people & or they're just assuming all enbies are white idk it's disgusting... There's just so many layers to the bigotry and white fauxminism of this "joke"

They've previously made posts like this so idk if they've got terfs on staff who keep trying to slip this in to pipeline people or people who think certain trans people they dislike facing violence including sexual violence is funny and that those trans survivors are lying and shouldn't be beleived.

They're priming their audience to disbelieve and mock nonbinary trans survivors. They're literally pushing the "people transition to escape/opt out of patriarchal violence like a fun game" terf talking point which isn't reflected in the stats of violence against trans people who face higher rates of physical sexual and domestic violence than cis people

Just "it's a coin toss!"

As a survivor fuck you

Like the comments section is full of transphobia and people going "har har they think they're in danger they're delusional " or spouting transphobic BS and a trans man whose talking about how he fears violence walking at night being called 'female' and misgendered like well done you've curated a comment section full of transphobes and people who think trans people aren't who we say we are fucking yikes

None of the transphobic comments have been deleted reductress seems happy to leave up comments calling trans men "female" and saying that trans people are a danger to children

[sunderwight]

Thinking about SV demon culture as one struggling under the weight of imperialism, a violent ruling class with a might-makes-right mindset, and a lot of warfare.

I really don't like fics that imply that Luo Binghe's conquest of the demon realms just automatically improved living conditions there. I think both versions believed that they could conquer things, establish a new regime, and fix a lot of political issues in the process, I just don't think that would actually be the result of a violent takeover on the part of a cultural outsider with a patchy understanding of the actual multitude of demon cultures involved, whose only asset was an extreme capacity for physical violence and resilience against death.

Like, no wonder Bingge was always putting down uprisings and "rivals" for power -- a lot of his empire was probably actually being run by the demon wives or families of the demon wives he favored most, like Sha Hualing, or by preferred subordinates like Mobei Jun, who very probably pursued their own interests just as doggedly as they had prior to his rule. Only, this time they'd have been doing so with the added leverage of Luo Binghe's violence answering anyone who "rebelled" against "his" authority.

Demons in SV have myriad subtypes and subcultures. It seems really likely that a lot of them have been persecuted by others, that there are demon communities who have been subjugated, muscled out of ancestral homes, enslaved, wiped out, etc. This would probably even explain some "invasions" by demons into the human realm -- I'd imagine numerous cases across history of refugees being taken for (or described as) marauders by cultivation sects, or human communities unprepared or unwilling to deal fairly with visibly inhuman "monsters" and answering their approach with violence, or even displaced demons who did in fact become bandits and such in the fallout of various conflicts causing problems.

But there also would probably have been demons that succeeded in making their way in the human realm, and disguising what they were well enough that the sects never even knew. After all, most of the methods for alerting the sects to the presence of demons involve demons doing something violent (like the Skinner demon) or people seeing demons and going "ahhh!" about it. A demon or a family of demons uninterested in serial killing and only looking to get by and avoid the violence would likely not attract that kind of attention, just so long as they could pass as human too.

I do wonder if the reverse has ever happened as well. Human wars driving humans to seek refuge in the demon realms. It would conversely seem a lot more dangerous (demons are physically tougher than humans, and the demon realms are notoriously harsh), but in some cases it was probably like, well, life is hell already, at least the things trying to kill us in the demon realm are straightforward about it?

There are probably way more half-demons out there than just Luo Binghe, and even more demons with human ancestry or humans with demon ancestry. I wouldn't be surprised if demon ancestry actually played a roll in some humans being cultivation prodigies compared to others -- demons seem to have a natural physical power that most humans don't, and while their cultivation uses different energy, it would make sense of some aspects of things like a physical inclination to store, accrue, or manipulate energy in general could benefit even predominately human descendants of mixed blood.

But anyway, back to politics.

Tianlang Jun didn't seem to be a terribly proactive ruler either. Which on the one hand can be a good thing (he wasn't a tyrant, wasn't interested in waging wars or conquering others, didn't much care to throw his weight around), but someone was actually ruling in his absence. Conflicts were still happening, and being resolved. Tributes or taxes were still being paid to him, for him to live any kind of lavish lifestyle, which means they were being collected, rates were being determined, enforced, etc, which does beg the question of who was doing it. Not Zhuzhi Lang, certainly.

In Bingmei's time, the person actually running things is Shang Qinghua, which means also Mobei Jun is actually running things to some extent too. Shen Qingqiu loves demonic beasts but doesn't seem like he could care less about politics, and Luo Binghe only got this job in the first place because he was trying to impress him, and the post-canon extras would seem to indicate that they check out of the process as often as possible.

Mobei Jun and Shang Qinghua's rule probably makes things pretty hard for the southern demons who are traditionally loyal to the Heavenly Demons. I mean, apart from not being able to beat Luo Binghe in a fight, self-serving ambition would definitely be a motive for Mobei Jun to throw his lot in with him as soon as possible, right? "Give" the emperor your palace, your service, your resources, etc, and the emperor basically becomes Mobei's own tool to reinforce his sovereignty. In PIDW he even uses him to do that in a more immediate sense by bringing him to the fight with his uncle. In SV he decides Shang Qinghua is more suitable, which, symbolically, is even true. The cost of wielding Luo Binghe's authority is having to submit to it, but Shang Qinghua has elevated Mobei Jun even without that.

No wonder the southern demons couldn't get on Tianlang Jun's side fast enough when he reappeared. Given both Mobei Jun and Shang Qinghua's bias, the North has probably been running rampant with their own interests while the South gets hamstrung and dealt crumbs by comparison. Sha Hualing's clearly been trying to get on Luo Binghe's good side with minimal success ever since he got out of the Abyss. Unlike in PIDW, where she's a major player, here she's just an underling desperately playing catch-up and accidentally offending him all the time.

I wonder how that's impacting the complex arrangement of political alliances, cultures, and conflicts among the various factions in the demon realm. It'd probably be like if the remote and somewhat isolated North and Winterfell in ASOIAF/Game of Thrones suddenly became the new capital of the empire, and White Harbor became the main trade hub, while all the southern lords struggled to even get a foot in the door with the new king and kept pissing him off all the time. And every time they try to break free or rebel or kill him, it doesn't work and they get personally murdered by him. Meanwhile the northern lords are making off like bandits, with the current Lord Stark gay married to some inhuman warlock who does all his paperwork and somehow knows all your embarrassing secrets.

...That comparison got away from me. But I mean, it's kind of fascinating? A huge mess and likely miserable for a lot of demons, but still. The implications...

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

There are two related things I've noticed coming from the left that I really want people to examine deeply in themselves, because it's a major problem that I see happening over and over again. The whole I/P issue is the most currently salient example, but it is one of many.

1. There's this tendency towards retributive justice, wherein the solutions proposed fail to take into account whether the proposed punishment is at all proportional to the alleged crime, but rather is just treated as the natural consequence of that action.

2. This same principle is also extended backwards in time and used to excuse violence post hoc that they might not have chosen as an ideal punishment but have nevertheless decided was deserved because that person [allegedly] did something bad.

Both betray an underlying punitive or retributive justice mentality, where the goal is not restoration or reconciliation + accountability, but rather punishment. (There are some interesting religious and cultural aspects to this I could get into but don't want to derail this post.)

This untethering of crime to punishment in terms of (a) due process, (b) proportionality of punishment to the crime, and (c) a failure to consider restorative justice, reconciliation, and teshuva processes instead of retribution leads to monstrous and morally bankrupt results.

Put another (blunter, crasser) way: the left's longstanding hard-on for vigilante violence is a critical failure that undermines the entire movement.

You cannot base your politics on humanism, compassion, and due process out one side of your mouth and then cheer on vigilante violence, cruel and unusual punishment, and mob mentality out the other. It doesn't work like that.

Now I understand that sometimes armed resistance is necessary. People living under authoritarian and inhumane conditions may, out of necessity, turn to guerrilla warfare and unofficial armed resistance in self-defense. But even that has limits. When leftists fantasize about death by curb stomping or slitting someone's throat as a good thing, they are imagining this happening to armed fascists, Nazis, white supremacists, or possibly other categories of irredeemable people such as domestic abusers who maim or kill their partner &/or children, pedophiles, human traffickers, etc.

What they aren't imagining is the other side of that coin, which is the alt-righter who murdered Heather Heyer with his car, abortion clinic bombers, violent Q-anoners or terrorists. Each of those people also believe in the justice of their actions and their entitlement to act as arresting officer, judge, jury, and executioner.

"But those people are wrong!"

So? Why do you get to decide that for everyone? What about the people who think YOU are wrong?

There's a reason courts and due process exist. It's the same reason why "free speech" protects the speech you hate, why freedom of the press protects that rag whose opinions you hate, and why free exercise of religion protects shitty religious groups you wish to see gone. It's because we live in a society and you aren't the arbiter of justice for everyone. If you give in to that mentality, you will inevitably end up in a "might makes right" society, which never ends well, particularly for marginalized people.

If you wouldn't accept l'chatchila a certain punishment being administrated by a court of law without outcry and protest for human rights abuses, then don't cheer it on b'dievad. Either rape is unacceptable or it's not. Either torture is unjustifiable or it isn't. Either maiming is an acceptable punishment for certain crimes or it isn't. You either support the death penalty by certain methods (beheading, burned alive, strangled, hacked apart, stoning, hanging, etc.) or you don't. Collective punishment is either acceptable or it isn't. Vicarious punishment is either acceptable or it isn't.

All of those things are either human rights abuses, or they aren't. All of them fall outside even the rules that might permit self-defense or guerrilla warfare or other uprisings of the oppressed.

Due process is the same - either you believe in due process and the right to a fair and timely trial, or you don't. The moment you support one extrajudicial punitive killing, you have opened the door to the justification of murder, provided the killer has sufficient justification.

It's true that the rules of armed conflict and war are different, but that they exist at all is relevant here too. The reason they exist is to minimize suffering during an event that is guaranteed to cause great suffering. It's the same reason why the laws of self-defense are different than the laws of intentional murder.

The truth is that in order to live in a just and civilized society, there must be specific rules that govern the administration of conflict resolution and harm. These rules must be enforced consistently and equally, and the decider of fact must have reasonable access to the evidence that exists. The state or any court of law or other tribunal must render its decision in the most impartial way possible, even for the worst, most obviously guilty people. Even those that commit heinous crimes must be given those same rights. Without those safeguards, you create the opportunity for bad faith actors to label their undesirable groups or individuals as whatever category people find so despicable that they fall out of being considered human and lose their claim to human rights protections. It must therefore be impossible to forfeit your right to due process and freedom from vigilantes and mobs.

[queerly-autistic]

You really can't engage meaningfully with Ed's story in S2 without firmly centring his mental illness and suicidality, because that's inherently what the story is: it's the story of a man having a severe mental breakdown and going to increasingly erratic extremes in order to achieve his end goal, which is to not be alive anymore...and then it's the story of his recovery from that.

And so much of my frustration with the way I see this being talked about (or, in many cases, not being talked about) reflects my more general frustration with how we talk about mental illness and neurodivergence, so buckle in because this got long (also I am going to be discussing suicide here, as well as very brief mentions of psychosis and ocd, so please take care). There's this trend when we talk about mental health: we go 'oh mental illness isn't an excuse' or 'mental illness doesn't make you do bad things' or variations thereof. These are, in my opinion, some of the worst things to ever happen to the discourse around mental illness. It's reductive. Absolutely mental illness can lead you to do things that you would not have otherwise done, even things that you would be absolutely appalled by, if you were mentally well. What do you think mental illness is if it's not something that impacts your brain and how your brain functions? If your mental illness doesn't directly lead to problematic behaviour, then that's fantastic, but that experience is not universal. It's not an 'excuse' - it's an explanation for certain behaviours that's vitally important to acknowledge and understand in order to try and mitigate harm.

There's also this thing that happens with discourse around mental illness where we assume that what you do in the grips of mental illness is reflective of something that's innate inside you. You were violent whilst in the middle of psychosis? Oh, it's because you're an innately abusive person and this just reveals who you really are. You have Tourette's and one of your tics is a racial slur? Oh, it's because you're an innately racist person and this just reveals who you really are. Your OCD is rooted in a fear that you're going to murder your family? Oh, it's because you inherently do want to murder your family and this just reveals who you really are. It's bullshit. What you do in your mentally ill state is not some deep philosophical reflection of your true character, and the idea that it is is something that causes really deep, dangerous harm to mentally ill and neurodivergent people.

So, now that that's over with, back to Ed.

Ed was behaving in ways that were acknowledged in canon as being extremely out of character whilst in the midst of a severe breakdown. Fang himself said that he'd 'never' seen Ed behave this way; even Izzy, who actively pushed for Ed to embody the extremes of his Blackbeard persona, ended up concerned because it became so extreme and out of character that it was impossible not to be concerned by it. The crew who mutinied on Izzy within a day didn't mutiny on him for months, not until their lives literally depended on it, because it's heavily insinuated that they were hoping he would get better. Because this wasn't the Ed that they knew (the Ed that we came to know in S1 - an inherently soft man who is caught in a culture of violence and is tired of it).

The show wasn't subtle about this. It didn't bury the lead. As well as the constant reminders that he was acting out of character in increasingly alarming ways, this was very clearly depicted as a breakdown, an almost total collapse of Ed's mental health. We saw Ed detached and numb and completely dissociated from the world around him. We saw him in private moments of despair, breaking down. We saw him behaving erratically in the grips of mania. We saw him display absolutely textbook warning signs of someone whose made the decision to die by suicide. We saw him smile and say 'finally' at the moment when he knew he was going to die.

The show basically painted a giant neon sign over his head flashing 'THIS MAN IS EXTREMELY UNWELL' in bright lights, and if you miss that, then it's because you're deliberately avoiding looking properly.

(And, important to note, that most of the people that I've watched the show with outside of fandom discourse absolutely took away from these episodes what the show was intending - they saw how unwell Ed was, they were devastated for him, and they desperately wanted him to get better.)

When Ed steered the ship into the storm, and threatened to put a cannonball through the mast, his clear goal was to create a situation where the crew had no choice but to kill him. I've seen people describe this scene as Ed 'trying to hurt the crew', and I think that's very much a misrepresentation of what the show was depicting. It was very blatantly a suicide attempt. He wanted to die, and he didn't care what he had to do in order for him to achieve that goal. That doesn't make it good behaviour, and it doesn't mean people didn't get hurt, but it does make it a very different situation than if causing harm had been his main intent.

There is a fundamental difference between 'he is doing this because he explicitly wants to cause harm to the people around him' and 'he's doing this because he's suicidal and beyond the point of being able to rationally consider who might be getting hurt in the process of ensuring that he ends up dead'. One of those is a bad person who enjoys causing pain - and the other is a deeply unwell person who can be supported and helped to recover and be better (and should be, for the good of themselves and the people around them).

And on that note, the failure to engage with this as a mental health story is also, I think, why I've seen some people get so upset about the show not doing Ed's redemption arc 'right' - because this isn't a redemption arc, and it's not trying to be. One day I'll do a separate post about how much I love that the show explicitly rejected a carceral approach, opting to essentially put him through community rehabilitation rather than punishing him, and even mocking punitive prescriptive measures (that rubbish youtuber apology speech was supposed to be rubbish and unhelpful), but that's one for another day.

The fact is that the show is telling a story about mental illness, and that inherently means that Ed's arc is a recovery arc, not a redemption arc. And if you're expecting a redemption arc, then you've fundamentally misunderstood the story that they're telling (and the revolutionary kindness at the heart of the show).

I have a lot of feelings about this because I genuinely believe that it was one of the best depictions of mental illness and suicidality that I've ever seen. Within the confines of it being a half hour, eight episode comedy show, they told a story about mental illness that was surprisingly realistic (with the obvious fantastical over the top elements of it being a pirate show - and piracy is explicitly depicted as a culture where violence is heavily normalised), and that didn't shy away from the messier, darker, more complex elements of mental illness (particularly of being suicidal).

And then, most importantly, after all that, the show took me gently by the hand said 'you are not defined by what you do in your lowest moment - you can make amends, you can recover, you are still loved, and you are worth saving'.

[604to647]

Scherzo (a Barón Tovar Takes a Wife one-shot)

3.1K / Bridgerton AU Regency!Pero Tovar x fem!reader

Scherzo - a short composition – sometimes a movement from a larger work such as a symphony or a sonata

Summary: Your husband takes care of you when you get hurt during your travels.

Warnings: None! All fluff, though reader gets cheeky with her husband cause I mean, it's Pero? Protective!Pero, Soft Husband!Pero (I NEED HIM). A little bit of violence is described where reader gets physically hurt, nothing graphic.

A/N: This was written for @morallyinept's Flora & Fauna challenge; please see #jettsflora&faunachallenge for all the other amazing works by some wonderful authors (I didn't do much with the meanings of the flowers, was just going for ✨vibes✨ - hope it's okay!). I tend to always miss my babies after I complete their series, and can't help but write little one-shots for them to see what they're up to. This is our Regency couple from Barón Tovar Takes a Wife, but you don't need to read it (although it would be cool if you did - I'm kind of proud of this one 😭) - just know our happy Barón and Baronesa are doing what they love the most, which is travelling on the high seas together.

Beautiful Bridgerton inspired dividers by @saradika-graphics 🥰

Truth be told, Naples is not one of Pero’s favourite places to visit in Italy; the Barón much preferred the rolling vineyards of Tuscany or the cultural diversity of Milan.  At least it will be a short stay, too short to even arrange for lodging in the city; it was much easier for everyone on the ship to remain staying in their onboard quarters while he oversaw some Royal fleet business with the Italians.  It would be just three short weeks before they're set to raise the sails again, this time charting a course up the western Italian coast to the Civitavecchia Port of Rome.  He realizes the last time the two of you were in Rome had been when you said your final goodbyes in his youth, parting ways and not meeting again for over ten years; Pero looks forward to strolling the cobblestone streets together once more, this time with you as his bride.

In the meantime, he would try to expedite the matter before him – if the Italian dignitary sitting across from him would acquiesce, perhaps he can still save enough of the day to take you to do some sightseeing before nightfall.  Just as the stout man’s mustache twitches at something he’s read on the document Pero gave him, someone bursts into the office, violently banging open the door.

Recognizing one of his trusted footmen, Pero exclaims, “Miguel, could this wait?  Signor Romano and I are in the middle of something.”

“No!” cries Miguel, alarmingly, “My apologies, Barón!  It is the Baronesa...”

Pero reacts with blinding speed, his chair knocked to the ground from the force with which he stands, “What has happened?!”

“There was a commotion in the square, my lord.  Your wife was hur-”

Pero is already out the door, running as fast as he can towards the city square where he knows you and your lady's maid, Lucia, had planned to do some exploring while he was away at meetings.  Wind rushing past his ears, he can hear behind him the faint thundering footsteps of Miguel the footman trying to keep up with his master.

When he gets to the square, Pero is stunned to find it in a mild state of chaos – several shops have been vandalized and an overwhelming number people seem to be in a state of mild panic, crying.  He scans the crowd and when he finally spots you, he nearly falls to his knees.  You’re sitting on the ground next to Lucia who is crying loudly, comforting her the best you can; and while Lucia is clearly emotionally distraught, she appears to be physically unharmed - the same cannot be said for you.  Your dress is torn in several places and covered in blood; whose blood Pero does not know, but he realizes, stomach dropping, that some of it at least must be yours when he sees the long bleeding cut down your left forearm.  Your beautiful face has at least one messy scrape across your cheek that he can see even at this distance and your lip looks like it’s starting to discolour and swell.

You spot Pero when he is a but few steps away and instantly feel a wave of relief wash over you at the sight of your strong, handsome husband (though you do hate to see the look of panic and terror on his face).  Dropping down to your side, Pero immediately cups your face in his warm, bear paw hands, careful not to disturb any of your injuries, “Dulce!  How are you?”

You don’t want to tell Pero that your heart is still beating fast from how scared you had felt during the stampede, or how the cuts on your arm and face sting and that your sides and back have started to ache.  You know that doing so will only make him feel worse - but you’ve never lied to your husband in all the years you’ve known him so you simply say, truthfully, “Better now that you’re here, Pero.”  Melting into the soft tender kiss he presses to your mouth, you try not wince when his soft lips meet your bruised ones but fail miserably.  Trying not to shatter in front of you when he hears your pained whimper, Pero wills himself to pull back with a silent reminder to handle you with more care; as he starts to check over your injuries, he asks delicately, “What happened, mi amor?”

One of the sailors who had joined the footmen in accompanying you and Lucia starts to explain before he’s silenced by a glowering look from your husband; Baronesa Tovar is not a woman who needs others to speak for her.

You give the poor sailor a reassuring smile before drawing Pero’s attention back to you and recount for him what happened in the square earlier.  Noticing that the Barón's hands have been cold in the mornings as of late, you had headed out today with a mission to purchase your husband some gloves made with the fine leather craftsmanship that the Italians are known for.  While admiring the buttery softness of a pair of large leather gloves handed to you by a lovely stall merchant, a fight had broken out across the square between a mob of over twenty large and angry Italian men.  The fighting horde continued their bout while moving across the square, barreling into families and unsuspecting people just trying to go about their day.  Caught unawares, the pedestrians scattered and ran panicked in an effort to get out the way of the oncoming melee.  The fleeing crowd had ran in your direction and you and Lucia could not get out of the way fast enough – pushed down to the ground, in your attempt to shield Lucia as the two of you tried to crawl to the side of the street and away from the mob, your dress had been torn by the flurry of feet as runners stampeded, your body kicked more than once.  At one point, someone had produced a pistol and shot at several buildings; and while that effectively ended the fight, several windows had shattered and some of the errant glass had fallen and cut your arm.

Pero feels absolutely sick at the picture his mind conjures of you being physically pushed and kicked, imagining how scared you must have been; he wants nothing more than to sweep you into his arms and comfort you, but without knowing the extent of your injuries, he settles for pressing his forehead to yours and whispering that everything will be okay now.  You believe him.

With some difficulty, Pero helps you stand and brings you back to the ship; both of you agreeing that when the doctor is called, it should be to the safety and comfort of your own quarters.  Though ever gentle with you, the fearsome scowl on Pero’s face clears a path from the square down to the docks – the deep furrow of his brow accentuating the faded scar over his left eye, as if to challenge anyone who would get between his wife and her safe haven.  Calling out for medical supplies and hot water as soon as he’s onboard, Pero leads you to your chambers and sits you on your shared bed before falling to his knees in front of you.  Slumping, tension in his strong frame finally dissolving, Pero lays his head in your lap and lets a few tears fall at the relief of finally getting you back home, safe.  You stroke your husband’s soft curls lovingly, understanding all of him and letting his devotion wash over you - it brings you a calm that you haven’t felt for several hours now.

In silence, you let Pero tend to your cuts and scrapes, eyes never leaving his handsome face as you watch him concentrate on being gentle with his big, sometimes clumsy hands.  Pero washes your face and hands, wiping away all evidence of the time you spent on the hard stone streets of the square, then takes care to thoroughly clean your injuries.  When you hiss at the sting from the salve he applies to the cut on your arm, Pero murmurs, “Be good for me, Baronesa,” and distracts you momentarily from the pain with that sweet smile of his that he knows makes you melt.

Finally comes the point that Pero has been dreading; he undresses you carefully to tend to the injuries on your body, hoping none will be too serious.  Once he has you stripped to the barest of your undergarments, he takes in the bruising that’s starting to show on your legs, hips and back and thinks he might cry again; his beautiful wife, so brave and strong – he cannot believe you sustained these injuries and still allowed him to move you about as he has without complaint.  As if reading his mind, you run a finger through your husband’s scruff that you love so much and try to lighten his mood; nodding towards your discarded dress on the floor, you joke, “I do not think I will be wearing that dress again.”

Half serious, Pero replies, “I think I will bring it to the Polizia tomorrow, when I demand answers for how they allowed what happened in the square to transpire.”

“Pero.”

“Or we throw it over the side of the ship,” he shrugs, a little bit a light returning back to his eyes when he sees your good humour is unscathed; permitting himself to hold you close, Pero breathes his first calm breath since Miguel interrupted his meeting, inhaling your soft perfume.  Seeing Pero in a better mood instantly lifts your spirits, and while in the safety of his loving arms, you give him a playful little wiggle and press your barely clad body to his. 

“Dulce,” he warns, voice dipping low at your giggles.  To show him it’s just a little bit of teasing, you straighten up immediately and allow Pero to run the warm cloth over your body and finish cleaning you up before dressing in your most modest nightgown without any more shenanigans. 

The doctor who is called leaves a short while later, declaring that both you and Lucia will be fine and that a few weeks of lightened activity and rest should heal your injuries without issue.  It’s not something you’re looking forward to, but you agree with Pero that for the remainder of your time in Naples, it would be better if you recovered from the safety of the ship.

For the first few days, you enjoy the calm and quiet of your vessel, many of the sailors and staff taking the opportunity to enjoy some leave while docked.  But as the days go on, with Pero away for most of the day on business, you find yourself getting restless.  You read your books and write your letters.  You play your piano and even entreat Lucia and whomever remains onboard to play cards with you.  From the ship’s deck you can still see much of the city, and even though you have no particular wish to return on this trip (your experience in the square still too fresh), it unfairly beckons to you like a siren.  You’re bored.  And despite loving your ship, you’re starting to feel cooped up.

Pero does his best each day to finish up his work as quickly as possible so he can return to you, enjoying the warmth of your company and checking for himself that you’re recovering properly.  The Barón brings home delicious treats and pretty trinkets for his wife everyday, leaving no doubt that you’re ever on his mind even when apart.  And while you love your husband dearly for his thoughtfulness, you cannot help, while enjoying his gifts from within the boundaries of a ship that once represented freedom to you, feeling a bit envious at being unable to go out and procure them for yourself.  Pero can tell that you’re feeling a bit out of sorts, not your usual cheerful self; he so hates to see the wings of his pretty dove clipped – it saddens him just as much to see you try to hide your melancholy from him.  And although he cannot agree to lift the current restrictions on your movements, he deeply wishes for a way to make your so-called confinement as pleasant as possible.

The morning that marks the start of your last week in Naples, you wake to an absolute ruckus coming from the ship deck; for a moment you feel a stab of fear, unused to such loud noises and voices without having been given some forewarning.  You must still be feeling some effects of your recent scare, you think; upon listening a bit more carefully, you relax to the realization that the voices are primarily instructive and even calm.  But it’s still much too early for this level of activity from the deck – the footsteps and voices you hear must be from at least double the amount of people you would normally expect to be up at this time of day.  Also unusual is that you’ve woken up to an empty bed; every day following the incident in the square, you’ve woken up to your husband curled around you, arms and legs thrown over your body like protective amour.  You don’t think you particularly like today’s change, but it makes sense – you can’t imagine whatever is going on outside to be taking place without your Pero’s permission.  Not especially looking forward to another day of doing the same things again within the same confines of the ship, you lay in bed for a while longer, at least until the noises start to die down and your curiosity gets the better of you.

The sight that greets you as you open the door to the deck nearly knocks you off your feet.  Somehow, it’s not a wooden ship’s deck that you’re now gazing upon, but a colourful and enchantingly idyllic scene, something that could have been painted by a great master of the arts.  For a moment, you have to pinch yourself, is this a dream? 

You step through the doorway from the ship’s hold into an ethereal garden – blooming flowers have overtaken every inch of the ship’s deck: thick braided garlands of roses, violets, and peonies wrap wondrously around every one of the ship’s railings, big bright pots of lilacs, azaleas and irises line the sides of the ship and surround a makeshift sitting area where some garden furniture you’ve never seen before has been arranged.  Even the mast has been decorated to look like a spring maypole, intertwining vines of clematis and jasmine crisscross all the way down from the crow’s nest so tightly you can barely see any of the dark wood that normally centres your great vessel.  Every bow is positively dripping with wisterias, reminding you for a moment of your beloved Bridgerton House.  You walk slowly through the dreamlike scene, weaving between the lush plants and the fresh, bold flowers.   Brushing your hand over the railing as you meander, your fingertips flutter at the soft feel of the blooming petals and your eyes brighten at the rainbow hues that paint every perimeter inch of the ship.  Your nose breathes in the sweet and intoxicating floral scent that now dances lightly in the air.  You close your eyes and inhale.  Your eyes open again with a soft exhale.  Repeat.

You’re turning around slowly, trying to take in the entirety of your magical surroundings when your eyes land on your beaming husband, standing like a handsome faerie king holding an exquisite bouquet of your favourite peonies in his hand, waiting for his pretty queen to take in all his hard work.  Despite the residual pain you still feel a bit in your sides, you launch yourself into Pero’s arms, throwing your own around his neck and passionately press your lips to his.  Mouth opening, you let Pero lick in and explore, before pulling yourself up onto your toes and suck on his tongue eagerly.  Pero pulls you in tightly and when he feels your tongue stroke behind his teeth, lets loose a deep vibrating hum of want that reverberates through you, straight to your core.  With a quick nibble to your bottom lip and a few chasing flutter kisses, Pero reluctantly pulls away; he’s sure there are curious eyes all over the ship deck, even if they are currently concealed by the splendid greenery that’s overtaken the space.

When he steps back look at you, the expression on your face almost gives Pero enough reason to throw modesty and decorum out the window, grab at your enticing curves and throw you down amidst the lush fauna he’s brought onto the ship to have his way with you.  Almost.  Your eyes shine bright and twinkle, there’s a fresh glow to your cheeks, and your smile is the widest that he’s seen in weeks: you’re alive again.

“Pero,” you cry in bliss, “what is all this?”

The Barón gently cradles your head in his hand and reverently strokes the soft hair of his beloved Baronesa, “Mi amor, I could tell that staying confined to the ship has not been agreeing with you.  If you cannot go out to explore and play in the wide world, then I will do my best to bring the wide world to you.  Now, instead of a cold, dreary ship deck, I hope you will enjoy the remainder of the week before we set sail in your own private garden.”

You could cry – what did you ever do to deserve the love and devotion of your perfect husband?  He forever thinks of your comfort and the wellness of your heart – but he does so much more than just take care of you or do things that make you happy, he’s the reason for your joy, for your very being.  You cannot stop murmuring, Thank you thank you thank you, into his chest as he holds you close, not only to him but for him.

The flowers last a week which is precisely how long you need them to last.  During those final days before your fleet sets sail, you find yourself soothed every time you enter or sit in your personal secret garden; second, by the tranquility and peacefulness of your botanical hideaway, and first, by the knowledge that you have the love of the kindest, sweetest man on earth.

Leaning now along the once again bare wood railing, with the salty sea wind blowing through your hair, you feel a pair of strong arms wrap around your waist.  The patchy facial hair of your husband tickles your cheek as he presses a sweet kiss to your temple and whispers in your ear, “Happy to be on our way, Dulce?”

Turning in his arms, you snuggle into his safe hold; tucking yourself under his chin, you sigh into Pero’s neck, “Just happy, mi amor.”

[spite-and-waffles]

If I see one more fic where the Bats absolutely refuse to take any painkillers even though they're in agony because "they need their head clear", I am actively going to wish you suffer debilitating, chronic, inescapable pain just once in your life so you can see what kind of blithering moron you sound like, and can imagine what life is like for those of us who have to live and work with chronic pain. See how fucking clear your head is working through the fire alarm in your brain screaming.

Making painkillers and sleeping pills bogeymen adds to a pervasive stigma that is violent and oppressive to disabled and chronically ill people. Not being in pain is not an addiction! Restricting access to pain medication destroys more lives than addiction ever does! Substance abuse is a consequence of depression, stress and systemic issues!

And don't even get me started about them refusing to use crutches or canes because they "don't want it to become a crutch" (???? THAT'S WHAT THEY'RE FOR). Do you know what happens when you don't use your mobility aid?? You aggravate your injuries, increase the abnormal stress on your muscles and joints, do terrible long-term damage to your body and oh yeah, subject you to a WORLD OF PAIN. Do you know how many people, whose quality of life would massively improve with mobility aids, are too ashamed to freely use them because of exactly this kind of rhetoric??

If you want to make your heroes self-harming paragons of toxic masculinity and hustle culture (having needs is weak, suffering is a virtue, subjecting yourself to useless tests of endurance is the triumph of mind over matter) that's your own lookout. Personally I think having the discipline to force down food, sleep even when you're stressed and giving your body the care owed to your primary weapon and tool is much more impressive form of ruthless utilitarianism. But reinforcing this ableist narrative around aids and painkillers is a very real systemic violence. Please trash these tropes and write with more imagination.

[butchered-icarian]

butchered tongue is a shout out to all of the people whose cultures were ripped away from them, whose languages were maimed and are now either dead or gravely wounded; a shout out to all the immigrants who are now living on foreign land, who have to fight tooth and nail and everything they have to adapt to a new culture, learn a new language in order to get by and survive; a shout out to folks who aren't allowed to come home, wherever "home" is - because after all: what is more violent than the crime against the roots of the people, to deny one of their heritage, their rights to speak their mother tongue, after all, that is the violence that weakened the connection between people, because language in all forms is so beautiful and important, and yes butchered tongue represents the circle of violence because the song itself stands for the vulnerability and desperation to preserve whatever left of the brutality aftermath.

[anarchywoofwoof]

What's an anarchist solution to mass shootings? I'm a baby anarchist and gun control is the only issue I'm unsure about.

this is a loaded topic that i will try to answer the best that i can.

addressing mass shootings from an anarchist perspective requires understanding the societal roots of such violence.

things like mass shootings often stem from a blend of white supremacy, patriarchal values, and social alienation, particularly evident in capitalist societies like the united states.

by dismantling oppressive hierarchies like these, we would aim to address the root causes of these violent acts, moving beyond mere symptom treatment like gun control.

central to any anarchist solution is the forming of strong, independent and supportive communities. by advocating for mutual aid and communal support, anarchism aims to reduce social alienation in a way that capitalism cannot. when individuals feel integrated and valued within their communities, the likelihood of them becoming violent decreases.

also, the fact that many mass shooters have histories of domestic violence or animal cruelty, but often lack criminal records, highlights the state's repeated failure in addressing violence. an anarchist approach would lean towards community-based justice and rehabilitation, focusing on preventing violence at its roots.

in educational and other public settings, factors like class discrimination, mental health neglect, and overwhelming stress contribute to mass shootings. anarchist solutions involve creating inclusive and supportive environments that address these issues.

while gun regulation might seem beneficial, gun control alone doesn't tackle the underlying motivations behind such violence. additionally, guns are so deeply embedded in cultures such as the u.s., that any attempts at a formative gun buy-back plan or anything of the ilk would leave weapons in the hands of those least likely to comply. not a great solution.

therefore, the focus should be on building a society where people are less likely to resort to violence, by understanding and alleviating the deeper causes that drive such actions.

that being said, i do not believe whatsoever in weapon fetishization. guns and weapons like them are tools whose use arises out of unfortunate circumstances, and i do not believe we should valorize their use.

[txttletale]

I am curious as to why you say that the idea of a dungeon is inherently tied to settler-colonialism. Of course, I see how this is often the case, but I don't get why it has to be? (That is, insofar as dungeons are defined as old, dangerous structures filled with monsters and forgotten artifacts.)

I feel like there is something to the idea of dungeons not as foreign curiosities, but concealed outgrowths of the dominant culture. Castles, tombs, and literal dungeons built by dead kings whose legacies provide the foundation for the society which PCs are born into.

In my own half-narrative half-OSR game, I like to use dungeons as metaphorical representations of the unacknowledged cruelties which kingdoms are built on--a prison is such an inherently violent idea that even after the empire who built it dies, the violence lingers in the form of monsters and ghosts, persistently reinvigorated by a succession of monarchs who take the old empire as the inspiration for their works. The "loot" which heroes emerge with are here artifacts of the oppressed cultures which regain their power when brought back into the light!

yeah, i mean -- the definition of dungeon that you're giving here obviously does not have to be tied back to settler-colonialism. but i think it is broader--and perhaps descriptive of the aspects that i think are less important--of what a 'dungeon' is in TTRPGs. i think a more accurate definition of 'the dungeon' is that it's specifically a site of colonial extraction--you 'venture into' it, it's usually defined mechanically in opposition to the safe 'town', and its mechanical and narrative purpose is 'as a place full of people whom it is okay and even heroic to kill and things that it is okay and even heroic to take'.

i think your take on dungeons sounds really interesting ! but i also think what you're describing is like an active interrogation and to some extent a pushback and a counteropint to the traditional 'dungeon'. think of the archetypal 'dungeons' -- the tomb of horrors, the temple of elemental evil, the lost mines of phandelver -- none of these are actually literal prisons nor interested in what they allegedly are as anything other than a vehicle for sanctioned killing and looting, and that's what, as a baseline, the 'dungeon' is

(recommended reading: power fantasies pt. 2 by split/party)

[aspho-bell]

Dallis' tragedy

Dallis is the tragic villain of DOS:2. She's the classical trope of "i'm a villain because i've been hurt and y'all gonna suffer for it".

And the tragedy is. The other way was just right there. She didn't meet the right persons, thus she was denied of it. She cannot evolve past her Eternal point of view - and we know how Eternals may think of mortals, see Fane, see the whole "let the Eternals come back" ending. She sees mortals as vermin, and she's ready to wipe them out if necessary ( the battle on Lady Vengeance where she let Vredeman kill grusomely most of the Seekers is a good example ). She hates the Eternals, she hates the God King, but she's still a product of this culture.

While Fane. Fane who is an Eternal all the same. Fane who, when we first met him, wanted to bring his people back so they may "have [their] world again", who sees you as an useless and retarded creature. This same Fane who, much later on, can't bring himself to doom this world so his own can come back. This same Fane who sees now the beauty of this world, and that it is worth living. This is because of the Godwoken. Because Fane met the Godwoken at the most convenient time, and this band of heroic losers show him, in their own way, how beautiful this world can be, even in this void-tainted state.

Who does Dallis meet, when she's free from her prison ? A poor woman whom she steals the face, and then - Lucian. A man whose motto is probably "the ends justify the means", the one responsible of a genocide for the "greater good", the one that wasn't afraid to kill tens of Godwoken to achieve his goal. So, at his contact, Dallis learnt nothing - how could she learn the value of mortal life when the very Divine saw those as disposable ? And she may think she was equal to him, but she was another tool of violence in the Divine's hands. Hence the way he talks to her :

Dallis, control yourself. Our purpose transcends your personal wounds.

Her only motivation, vengeance, is depicted by Lucian as lesser and, i can also note the AUDACITY of resuming thousands years of prison and the destruction of her own world as mere "personal wounds". And she obeyed. She obeyed him ! Anger is a violent feeling, and one can be manipulable when this anger became wrath, and Dallis seems to be consumed by it. Lucian was here to offer her vengeance, he was the promise to satiate her rage and so, she strode all Rivellon in his name to kill the ones coming through his way.

Lucian lost his lapdog when Ifan became a Lone Wolf, he'd found another in Dallis.

And this is very unfair, because in the end, Dallis was just a scared little girl, who was left to rot in a tomb, because dad thought knowledge was better than his family's safety. And he was gifted another chance - he met the godwoken, and he saw the mortal world as a place of beauty and wonder. Not Dallis : Dallis, wrongly imprisoned only saw the world through Lucian's eyes : filled with violence and death.

[centrally-unplanned]

“And this is in fact a sociological change by the way - this doesn't describe 1960's radicals. They were weird but not mentally unwell. Its a modern phenomenon, due to how modern society functions (which is its whole deep topic). This is a "type", a social phenomenon. “

What is the evidence for this, and do we know why it happened?

Its gonna be subjective in the end like anything is in this space, but overall the 60's radical factions are very well-documented. We have like hours of interview footage with the Weatherman Underground, Red Army Faction, Black Panthers etc, diaries and contemporaneous accounts. Most of them lived, and weirdly in a lot of cases, became normal members of society - mainly due to the FBI breaking every law on the books investigating them. Bill Ayers co-founded the Weatherman Underground! He is an Education Professor of at the University Illinois, he helped Obama in his early days which fueled mountains of republican conspiracy drivel. If you want to know if he is mentally unwell, just go to his office hours! He co-founded it with his wife, who is a law professor now!

Its not every group of course - the Japanese Red Army definitely had leadership that you can see pathology in, but in the main I think this trend holds.

The reason for this is ofc one million things, but I see the main things as being that the first half of the 20th century was just a maelstorm of social change. The US is one of a handful of governing regimes that survived from 1900 to 1960 (setting Latin America aside at least), radical social experimentation just seemed like the order of the day. It made the idea of like actually being able to overthrow governments seem pretty reasonable, it wasn't weird to believe that it didn't require crazy oddball beliefs to buy into. That isn't true today, the world of developed countries is in fact extremely stable, no major country has gone through a true revolution in decades (this doesn't mean they havent changed, we talking about revolutionary groups here). And its deeper than a rational calculation or strength or w/e, the "accepted space of action" for people is more restricted now. The US *was* radically changing at that time, after all. Whose to say when that had to stop?

It was also a more violent time? Huge swathes of the population had been in the military at some point. Many of the radicals were veterans, or knew veterans, who knew how to do things like make bombs and such. Culture was different to, every level of society was less controlled, more violent or at least physical. The details ofc are deeper but I think you can see the trend - it just isn't a hard sell to someone who sees the world as inherently violent to like bomb a building. It was normal then in a way that is very hard to conceive of now (even if ofc that level of organization to the violence was exceptional, most people still never did).

"Why the 1960'/70's radicalism happened" is both worthy of and the subject of dozens of books, there is so much more than this. The fact that it was a mass movement that spanned dozens of countries and lasted around a decade for it to fully trail off I think shows that it was a structural force in society.

[sasheneskywalker]

batfamily fic recs where the main character is asexual or aromantic

Unsteady by withthekeyisking

Dick grew up watching Bruce take countless women to bed for the sake of the mission, and to get what he needed from different people. He watched, and he learned.

And maybe he doesn't feel the same things the people around him feel, maybe he doesn't really like sex, but it doesn't really matter. Because if sex makes people happy, then why does his opinion on everything matter? It's not their fault he's broken.

M | Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings | Dick Grayson/Various, Dick Grayson & Jason Todd

10 Things I Hate About Sex by blueyeti

Damian felt like this obsession with sex and romance was some long con being played on him by the entire school, and he was reaching an untenable level of frustration with the irrational behaviour of his supposed 'peers'.

On a Bat Family movie night, Damian finally figured out the right question to ask, to finally get answers to why all the other teenage boys at Gotham Academy were obsessed with sex.

T | No Archive Warnings Apply | Stephanie Brown/Cassandra Cain, Tim Drake/Jason Todd, Dick Grayson & Damian Wayne, Jason Todd & Damian Wayne

Nothing Personal by firefright, Skalidra

Jason's never been that interested in sex, except as a tool to help him get what he wants and a way to please the people around him. What he does enjoy, however, is the part that comes before it (especially being treated with a firm hand). Finding someone willing to understand and respect both those aspects of himself has always seemed impossible, though. That is, until Slade comes along.

M | Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings | Jason Todd/Slade Wilson

Kerosene and Flame by Sohotthateveryonedied

Jason chews his cheek. How is he supposed to explain his sexuality to an alien whose first language is touch? Part of Kori’s culture revolves around physical intimacy, sharing oneself with another as a means of connection.

“I don’t exactly…feel things the way you do, Kori,” he starts. “You’re a very tactile person. You like skin contact and connection and…you know, sex.” He blushes just saying the word. He pushes through. “But it’s not like that for me. I don’t feel sexual attraction the way you do.” He takes a breath. “I’m asexual.”

T | No Archive Warnings Apply | Koriand'r & Jason Todd

enough by sparkycap

After trying to make his son relive his violent death in Ethiopia in hopes of bringing his other son back to life, it occurs to Bruce that he might, possibly, have made a questionable decision in his grief. Again. For once, he'd like to try to fix it before it's too late. Jason may have run away again, but he's still alive, so Bruce has to believe it's not too late. He goes to find him.

Finding him in bed with Roy Harper and Princess Koriand'r of Tamaran is an unexpected distraction

M | No Archive Warnings Apply | Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne, Roy Harper/Koriand'r/Jason Todd

Reciprocation (or: Sex as Violence) by Honorable_mention

Sex was a lot like violence. It was all about who held the power.

---

Or: Jason's always had a complicated relationship with sex. Despite his best efforts, it might finally be time to explore it.

M | Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings | Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Tim Drake & Jason Todd, Jason Todd & Damian Wayne, Roy Harper/Jason Todd, Roy Harper & Jason Todd

Hot Chocolate and Fruitcake by HermesDay

"Tim," Barbara said. "Do you know what asexual means?"

"Immaculate conception," Tim replied. "Fact: the Virgin Mary was an amoeba."

G | No Archive Warnings Apply | Barbara Gordon/Dick Grayson

A Thin Line to Thaw by Terminallydepraved

The sound of a chamber sliding into place shouldn’t have been a soothing sound, but in the quiet stillness of the shitty motel room, Jason found it just that.

E | Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings | Jason Todd/Slade Wilson

Your Name Carved in Stone by Cirth

“Think clean thoughts, Robin.”

It was an outrageously old-fashioned choice of words, and it took Damian a few moments to realise, with creeping embarrassment, what his father meant.

T | Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings | Jonathan Kent/Damian Wayne, Dick Grayson & Damian Wayne

Think of Me by Luvo

“Any…life updates?” Bruce asks hopefully.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Do you maybe…is there a girl?”

Jason feels his face heat. He does his best to ignore Tim, Steph, and Cass snickering as he asks, “Seriously?”

Bruce looks down. He looks back up.

“A boy?” he tries.

Jason’s fork clatters to his plate. “Dad!” he hisses.

T | No Archive Warnings Apply | Connor Hawke & Jason Todd, Cassandra Cain & Jason Todd, Tim Drake & Jason Todd

we show off our different scarlet letters (trust me mine is better) by lostandlonelybirds (RUNNFROMTHEAK)

He gets called things, sometimes. Slut when Mirage tricks him. Cheater when Barbara tells others about her suspicions, her doubts and feelings. Whore when it’s a villain pissed he took out their goons and they’re aiming below the belt. Playboy by magazines, and bicycle by the younger generation because “everyone gets a ride”. They hurt the way most things do, and they each hurt in a different way because he’s broken and he’s tattered and he loves but not the way you’re meant to, because it’s not nature or an inferno or something out of a Greek myth. It’s not possession or jealousy or the need to lock it down.

It’s different. It’s not supposed to be.

M | Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings | Dick Grayson/Jason Todd, Dick Grayson/Other(s)

break your throne, cut your hair by dukeaubergine

Ra’s thought he could force Tim into marriage with an ancient magical artifact. He didn’t account for the magic recognizing his daughter’s protégé as a potential alternate groom.

Tim and Jason just have to survive the one-month engagement period without getting kidnapped, killed, or outed as fakers to the press. Then survive any assassins gate-crashing the wedding. Piece of cake, right?

…This might be easier if they’d actually tell the rest of the Bats what’s really going on.

E | Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings | Tim Drake/Jason Todd, Batfamily Members & Tim Drake, Batfamily Members & Jason Todd

[haveyoureadthistransbook]

Daughters of the Deer by Danielle Daniel

goodreads

In this haunting, groundbreaking, historical novel, Danielle Daniel imagines the lives of her ancestors in the Algonquin territories of the 1600s, a story inspired by her family link to a girl murdered near Trois-Rivières in the early days of French settlement. Marie, an Algonquin woman of the Weskarini Deer Clan, lost her first husband and her children to an Iroquois raid. In the aftermath of another lethal attack, her chief begs her to remarry for the sake of the clan. Marie is a healer who honours the ways of her people, and Pierre, the green-eyed ex-soldier from France who wants her for his bride, is not the man she would choose. But her people are dwindling, wracked by white men's diseases and nearly starving every winter as the game retreats away from the white settlements. If her chief believes such a marriage will cement their alliance with the French against the Iroquois and the British, she feels she has no choice. Though she does it reluctantly, and with some fear--Marie is trading the memory of the man she loved for a man she doesn't understand at all, and whose devout Catholicism blinds him to the ways of her people. This beautiful, powerful novel brings to life women who have literally fallen through the cracks of settler histories. Especially Jeanne, the first child born of the new marriage, neither white nor Weskarini, but caught between worlds. As she reaches adolescence, it becomes clear she is two-spirited. In her mother's culture, she would have been considered blessed, her nature a sign of special wisdom. But to the settlers of New France, and even to her own father, Jeanne is unnatural, sinful--a woman to be shunned, and worse. And so, with the poignant story of Jeanne, Danielle Daniel imagines her way into the heart and mind of a woman at the origin of the long history of violence against Indigenous women and the deliberate, equally violent, disruption of First Nations culture--opening a door long jammed shut, so all of us can enter.

Mod opinion: I haven't gotten around to reading this book yet, but it sounds really interesting!

[librarycards]

please don’t feel pressured at all to answer this because i know it’s a complicated + sensitive question, but i’m very new to all this and have learned a lot from your antipsych resources etc and thought you’d be a good person to ask. how are you able to internally reconcile anti-fatphobia and it’s values with having an eating disorder that centers around weight, and wanting to lose/maintain a lower weight? i’ve found this to be incredibly hard to reconcile, knowing that i want to be thinner for a variety of reasons including my own internalized fatphobia, beliefs i haven’t unlearned about body, beauty, etc, as well as my own knowledge of how i will materially exist in the world if i am not a thin person? i do not want to be fatphobic yet to fully embody a liberationist view would also require giving up my ed, which is opposite to my own internal views but also is something that is very entrenched in my life. it feels very hard and impossible, especially because i’m just not ready for recovery yet. sorry if this isn’t a message you want to post/discuss :(

Firstly - I have a piece in @trans-axolotl's antipsychiatry zine that discusses thin anorexic/ed accompliceship in fat liberation politics - as soon as that's up I can add it to this message/send it to whoever wants it!

-

oh anon, i feel this so hard. you're not alone - i think pretty much everyone with a restrictive ed/bdd who has a radical left/body liberationist politic ends up feeling this way, and, of course, feeling an immense degree of shame and frustration that our most visceral lived experiences are at odds with our political commitments. i think about it every day. i will likely continue to, because the desire to be thin at all costs is irreconcilable with liberation for all people, including fat people. so, let's sit with the irreconcilability for a moment.

here is the reality: there is no good, "innocent," or morally "pure" answer here. we cannot and should not be obligated to "fix" our Mad relationships with food/embodiment for the sake of others. neither are fat people obligated to tolerate individual / collective / structural manifestations of antifatness, including those enacted by people whose food/body relationships are psychiatrized (that is to say, if i start talking about how i as an anorexic person "feel fat" around an actual fat person, they'd have every right to smack me upside the head). but part of being in community with other imperfect people under conditions of genocidal violence (against fat / Mad people and intersections therein) is learning about which allowances we can make, which actions we can take, in order to mitigate the harm we do to the people we care about. to employ a tired recovery cliche, the point is progress, not perfection.

here is another truth: every single person mired in a culture of fatphobia has shit to unlearn. for people who are not fat, the stakes of unlearning are even higher, given the structural rewards we reap from antifatness. this is true for any system of oppression. having an antipsych orientation to the idea of "disordered/disorderly eating", i think, has the potential to aid in that unlearning process, not because it means you'll magically "get better" in terms of your own relationship with food, but because it's a bit easier to notice the discourses of disorder that also violently impact fat people. the violence we face in the name of "restoration" and "recovery" increasingly impacts fat people as so-called "ob*sity" is framed as a biopsychological medical condition that must be "cured" via eugenics. shared disorderliness, even allowing for differences in privilege and access, can serve as a site of solidarity - even when our own experiences of disorder are fueled by an erroneous fear of "fat". there is also the important corollary that fat people with restrictive eating disorders, fat people who are terrified of fatness, also exist, and that a radical commitment to imperfection and partiality also benefits people who live in these seemingly-contradictory positions.

to sum, you/i/we don't ever have to recover. however, we can, should, and must fight for a world in which we and others could repair their relationship to food and embodiment if and when we so choose, on our own terms, in our own time, without medical paternalism. this world - a world in which we can eat or not eat what and when we want - is only possible under a paradigm of body/fat liberation. after all, the same systems that seek to eliminate fat people are the ones that seek to eliminate body Madness, to "fix" restrictive eaters through governing how we eat/move our bodies. on the days that it's difficult to imagine yourself as a direct beneficiary of fat liberation (as a fat person or potential fat person) think about the ways fat liberation is simply necessary to all other forms of liberation, including for Mad eaters. likewise, remember that your own personal feelings are in many ways irrelevant to that liberatory fight: what you do, who your accomplices are, and what we can collectively dream, outweigh (lmao) the painful thoughts we experience.

these thoughts, our bodymind relationships, our fears of food and fat, don't define us, even if they take up an outsized portion of our lives. there is always time and space to find community and fight for total liberation as our imperfect selves - everyone else is coming as an imperfect self, too. i think you'll find, as you enter more conversations with people doing this work, that even the "best" advocates share your/our ambivalences and fears, and may desire things that they'd never outwardly advocate for. people are complicated, and we're living in a world that makes living in a body horrifically painful. give yourself the grace to sit with your feelings, and give yourself permission to fight on another day without feeling obligated to "get better." what matters most is the care you're able to share with the people you surround yourself with, and the care you allow yourself to receive by people who love all of you - not just the polished, good-activist parts.

[literary-illuminati]

Book Review 27 – The Word for World is Forest by Ursula LeGuin

I’ve meant to read more LeGuin for a long time – I read Wizard of Earthsea in elementary school, the Dispossessed a few years back, and several volumes worth of Omelas discourse, but that’s about it – but I’ll be honest; I only grabbed this because I was desperately sprinting through shorter books to catch up to my reading goal and someone recommended it as being reasonably-sized. That said, I’m really incredibly glad I’m did.

The book tells the story of a stable, peaceful world being violently colonized by foreigners with a sharply limited understanding of its ecology and an (at best0 utterly condescending and dismissive attitude towards the native inhabitants. Eventually, all the atrocities give rise to a violent resistance movement among the colonized and, after a dramatic change in metropolitan politics destabilizes the colonial apparatus and several massacres, they force the (surviving) colonists to surrender and leave the world behind. The book ends on a mournful note, with the idea that the violence necessary to defeat the colonists has permanently tainted indigenous society, and the near-utopian idyll of their prior lives is now lost forever.

So! Can you guess that this book was written by an American in the early ‘70s?

But actually it was a fascinating read, if as much as a cultural artifact as as a narrative.

At it’s most basic – one of the two inciting incidents of the book is the Terran government the colonists answer to imposing a bunch of liberal reforms (ending slave labour and punitive expeditions and institutionalized rape, that sort of thing), and then ending up with the colonial establishment being split between a) those who seem honestly confused with why any of the natives have any issues with the continuing colonization, they’re being humane about it now! And b) the ones going full Rhodesian and treating being told to stop massacring people as the greatest tyranny inflicted in the history of mankind. All very authentically late-20th century.

The representation of Terran culture was an intriguing mix of futuristic and totally unchanged, as well. Earth was apparently entirely ecologically fucked and in dire need of organic materials (hence the desperate colonization drive), a prediction that hasn’t aged a day. Race exists, but the categories have gotten scrambled and rearranged, and is only at all salient in the mind of the local bloodthirsty ultracolonialist fanatic, whose sense of terran solidarity lasts exactly up until he needs people to blame (and, given the callouts to the Vietnam war that abound through the thing, not accidental that his intra-terran racism is all directed towards Asians).

Though there’s something to be said for how viscerally unpleasant the head of the villain is to be in. Closest comparison that comes to mind is the Victorian chapters of A Song of Ice and Fire? He’s a real piece of shit.

Something very modern about the conceit that men of all creeds and colours will unite around a grand shared enterprise of brutally oppressing and exploiting ET instead.

Men, specifically, because the Terran colony as we see it is basically drowning in machismo. The only women involved in the enterprise are either mail order brides or sex workers, and I don’t believe any one of them gets a name or more than a line of perfunctory dialogue anywhere in the book. Their whole purpose is, basically, to represent the possible entrenchment of colonialism by the establishment of a self-sustaining population, and then to be massacred to a woman by the Athsheans to avert just that possibility. (The book’s portrayal of warfare is pretty thoroughly unsentimental like that on all sides).

Also an interesting cultural artifact – the fact that the multiple intelligent humanoid species are explained as all actually being human, the result of some prehistoric precusor species spreading the species around different worlds who would then reunite with each other as they reach the stars. I have the strong impression that this was a pretty common trope back then, but it’s one you essentially never see in modern sci fi. Not a clue why, but interesting way tastes have changed.

The Athsheans themselves are interesting as an invented culture, with their mystical and constant dreaming and their odd gender roles, but they also are very nearly the platonic ideal of the whole ‘morally pure noble savage’ archetype. On the one hand, they – with the exception of a few very rare forms of mental illness – even have a concept of why someone might consciously choose to kill another human. They resolve most interpersonal disputes by singing at each other. They live carefully in tune with their natural surroundings, and have no need for plantations or mines or factories. And so on.

And on the other hand – they have no history. The way everyone does things and the way society is structured stretches back beyond the bounds of memory, and the entire world has basically one more-or-less-homogenus culture where every band has the same basic socio-political organization and the same theology. The one sympathetically-portrayed colonial anthropologist call them perfectly evolved for their environment and so stagnant, and one rather gets the sense that he’s supposed to be right about everything except the value judgment. And so the greatest tragedy of colonialism is shown to be the moral corruption of the Athsheans, brutalized out of their prelapsarian dream and forced to become murderous to regain their freedom. It is, honestly, a trope I don’t much care for.

(It’s an idle thought I don’t really know what to do with, but the Athshean concept of gods – dreamers who bring ideas and concepts from the dream and incarnate them in the material world – also kind of reminds me of the Innocences in Disco Elysium?)

Anyway, LeGuin still is a great writer, and this really was a fascinating read.