#because i can't stand the majority of what people have to say about these characters

[cfyslvr]

General smut headcanons

→ author's note: honestly I have no idea where this came from, I started a baji × reader fic but uhh.. I got bored of it :) my apologies I promise I'll finish it asap. honestly writing this was a little tricky for me bc I've never looked at chifuyu this way but I also had a few ideas and wanted to put them out there + I'm lacking when it comes to activity and headcanons are much easier to write than a whole ass fic so- here it is ^^ lmk if y'all want any other characters and I'll do my best to write them asap !!

→ warnings: smut, 18+, timeskip chifuyu (you'll never see me sexualizing by little blond baby), fem!reader, I would say minors pls don't interact but I know that y'all will read it anyway so 🤷🏻‍♀️ i wrote this in like 15 minutes so it might not be the best

Y'ALL idk why but my stupid ass tumblr won't let me put three pictures like I usually do 😭 I've been trying for like 10 minutes now and it won't work so just deal with the one picture (I'm gonna kms)

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- depending on when you two started dating, there's like a 90% percent chance you were his first.

- i feel like he would respect your decision on whether you want to wait till marriage or not, he's okay with either.

- i saw some people making headcanons that he used to watch porn as a teenager, but tbh he doesn't really seem like that type of person to me so I'll say he didn't do that.

- although he most definitely did see some interesting stuff from takemichi's gang and their nasty ass comics 💀

- i can also say that he probably has visited porn sites, not bc he's a porn addict or anything but bc he was genuinely curious (like most of us are).

- i also saw some people saying he'd be into one night stands, but once again I'd have to disagree

- to me personally, he seems like someone who would want to build a relationship with someone before engaging in something so intimate as sex.

- I also feel like he would wait for at least a year or maybe even longer to do it, especially if it's both of yours first times.

- as I said before, he has visited porn sites and saw makoto & yamagishi's 18+ comics, so I wouldn't say he's ENTIRELY clueless, but definitely not experienced

- that's okay, you can just teach him what to do if it's not your first time

- or even better, you can learn together!

- he may not be experienced, but WHEN I TELL YOU he's 100% a fast learner

- he's great with oral, like when he first dove into u you almost couldn't believe it's his first time !!

- when it comes to his length, I feel like he'd be a little bit smaller than the others, but that doesn't mean he can't make you see stars if you ask him to ^^

- he's VERY gentle at first, almost too gentle (if that's possible)

- I feel like that'd be because he's nervous, it's (most likely) his first time and he doesn't want to hurt his precious girl 😔

- once he's fully inside of you, it might take him more time to adjust than you 💀 buuut once he starts moving it's heaven

- would be very slow at first, you'd have to straight up tell him if you want it rough

- he usually takes intimacy very seriously and despite being inexperienced somehow manages to find the PERFECT center of rough and gentle to make you feel amazing!!

- he's into petnames, both giving and receiving them

- I feel like his petnames would be very sweet, some stuff like "angel", "honey", "love" etc.

- I can imagine him being a bit uncomfortable with degrading you, would avoid calling you "slut" or anything similar unless you're REALLY into it

- even if he doesn't like calling you degrading nicknames, I feel like he wouldn't mind being called those petnames when you're on top

- speaking of top, he's a major switch

- can rock your world if you ask him to, but can also whine like a needy baby when you're on top

- absolutely ADORES when you ride him

- I feel like he would let out whimpers and soft moans when you take control, might be a bit embarrassed about it so you'll have to reassure him that you enjoy hearing those precious sounds

- he's not good with dirty talk when he doesn't it intentionally, but I feel like he somehow manages to get you all riled out by accident when he just says what's on his mind

- he's more of a thigh or boob type of guy, but wouldn't touch you without your permission

- once you give him the go, he'll suck the shii out of your tits (it might be a bit harder to pull him off them)

- he's favorite positions are any of the more intimate ones, but I feel like he'd usually go for the classic missionary one

- he may not be able to last a million rounds, maybe three or four at best, but those 3-4 rounds are enough to have you feeling completely used, but also extremely satisfied

- puts your satisfaction before his own

- I honestly have a hard time thinking of his kinks 💀 I imagine him more on the vanilla side but I feel like he'd enjoy having his hair pulled and doing the same to you if you're comfortable with it

- also likes marking and biting

- he prefers being the one receiving the little bite marks and hickeys, although he LOVES seeing your neck and thighs covered in small purple and red spots 🫶🏻

- he also loves it when you give him head, but couldn't force you to do it if you're not into it

- he's the KING of aftercare

- he'll wash you, dress you up, make the bed all warm and cozy, bring you water, he'll even cook for you if you ask him to

- refuses to go to sleep until he's 110% sure you're satisfied and he thinks he's done a good job at making you feel loved afterwards

- loves cuddling and falling asleep together after a session

- honestly I don't imagine him having a very high sex drive, he can live perfectly fine without doing it often, sometimes you'll even have to do specific things in order to turn him on

- will buy lingerie for you only if you're comfortable with it

- i think he isn't the type to jerk off way too much, but it definitely does happen here and there

- the first time he jerked off with you in his mind, he was probably looking through photos of you that he took of you while letting out the smallest whimpers of your name

- will be extremely ashamed after it and would act like he committed 500+ war crimes when he finally admits it to you

- feels extremely relieved when you say you don't mind it

- idk about you but I'd ask him to send whimpering audios when he's at it 🤷🏻‍♀️ (I can't help it his voice is so attractive)

- overall a great lover, intimacy with him is amazing !!

[raviollies]

I had a lot of things to say but I've seen the same points re-iterated so I don't see the need to throw my hat into that ring BUT a point I haven't seen talked about that profoundly bugs me! Spoilers ahoy

The Varric reveal and how it's a symptom of the writings, in my opinion, greatest flaw.

The writing of Veilguard expects you to care about characters without giving the CHARACTER a reason to care. The game assumes you the player care, which is usually the case, so they just skip the necessary build up for it to work in character.

Varric and Rook have no introduction to each other. We start the game, launched into "they're friends". Rook cares about Varric but I don't know why. I didn't get to see them be friends. It's like i got launched into Inquisition at Skyhold, with my character already knowing these characters and having developed a relationship with them.

I love RP, you guys know this, so I engage with the RP elements to the best of my ability, making a character and trying to approach from different angles. I just didn't feel like I got that opportunity. Rook was already there, they already have a task, an end goal. They're already part of the greater plot without me. Other characters remark on their personality and deeds.

Other games in the series have done this but at least you got a little grace period to get to know them or shortcuts regarding establishing their relationship like them being a sibling ; and the game didn't hinge so much on them. DAO didn't hinge on Shani. DA2 didn't hinge on the lost sibling. They were aspects of the story but they are a small fragment of the plot as a hole. Varric ends up being a MAJOR cog in the story that our character grapples with and it rings hollow because I never saw them show why they care for one another.

If anyone should be mad it should be the inquisitor! Or Isabella! Or Dorian! They KNEW varric, we were THERE for that. We SAW that! But none acknowledge it. No one says anything about how this impacted them. Varric and Dorian have LETTERS back and forth. MAEVARIS IS HIS COUSIN.

Characters that SHOULD care don't. Characters that should care less, care a lot. It feels like the game assumes that the player loves Varric, and moves on. And it does this with a lot of Characters. You don't get to talk to the characters as much in this game, ask their opinion, get to know them, become friends. It's implied this all happened off screen. The characters are nice to you at the start and they're nice to you at the end. I barely saw any disapproval. Rook is one of 3 flavors of nice, and thus the characters are never challenged. I know people are quite critical of DAI but you could get to know the characters views - you could ask everyone on how they view the circles, the templars etc. I feel like I don't know this about Veilguard characters. I don't know where they stand on really anything, outside of being "good people". My Inquisitor didn't end up being friends with everyone but the game left room for that. Some companions did NOT like each other at all and the game accepted that, every game did - the conflict was PART of it. But in Veilguard, everyone is holding hands by the power of friendship.

The game just assumes you all care for one another without earning it, and it feels sad to me, as an RPer. After everything is done I can't even go talk to them and ask what they're going to do now. How they're faring. It's fade to black, and once again, the development is off screen and I am not part of it.

[nezoriy]

List of "normal" things that always baffled me as a person on the aro/ace spectrum:

Disclaimer: A lot of this is based on the feelings and perception of my teenage self when I started to feel people around me were weird but didn't have the language or concept yet to understand what was wrong. So, give me a break if it sounds edgy sometimes. I don’t have the energy to sugarcoat every statement so it doesn’t offend anyone. If you're part of the mainstream and feel attacked by a random dude on the internet questioning things you find "normal," maybe ask yourself why you’re upset instead of coming for me.

1. "Love at first sight."

Even as a kid, this felt like a scam. I get friendship, and I can imagine love developing out of it. But for that, you need to know the person. You can't know someone instantly. So how on earth is this supposed to work? (The answer is, most ppl can feel sexual attraction instantaneously and it gets sold as love for the kids.)

2. Finding someone "attractive" = you’d like to fuck them.

I honestly was like 20something when I realized that actually yes, when ppl talk about someone, even celebs, being "attractive," they do mean they’d like to have sex with them and not just compliment them on their looks.

Like, I can honestly say that many of my friends, Cate Blanchett, and Hugh Jackman are "attractive." But to me, that’s like talking about a painting. Like, sure, Singer Sargent's Madame X is "attractive," but no one's trying to, uh, get it on with the painting… right?

3. The whole concept of dating (to find a romantic partner.)

So, you’re telling me people meet up specifically to see if they might develop feelings for each other when they don't have those feelings yet? 

Like, what even makes you say yes to a date if you don't know a person at all? (The answer is: once again, sexual attraction, obviously.) 

On the other hand, if you’re already friends with someone and just wanna see where it goes, why bring the flowers and fancy dinners into the equation?

4. Why people (especially women) would even risk sex back when it could have had major consequences for them

The list includes (but isn’t limited to):

Women before reliable contraception in societies where an unplanned pregnancy could be socially catastrophic;

Brothel visitors once STDs were known;

(Here’s the tricky one bc I myself kinda feel guilty for not being empathetic enough) gay people, especially men, in times and places where they could literally be imprisoned or executed for having sex

I need to be very clear here, this isn’t about moral superiority as I'm not feeling any, it’s about survival. Like, if sex could legit mess up your life, why not just… not do it? 

Yeah it's basically rip to “fallen” women but I’m different.

5. The culture of one-night stands, cruising, club hookups, etc.

This is still a bit uncomfortable in my head because this is a very prominent part of gay culture specifically, and I’ve always felt incredibly disconnected from it. But I can't edit it out.

Okay, so someone’s hot. I can maybe get that there’s a spark. But if you don’t know them… what if they open their mouth mid-action and reveal they voted for trump? Instant deal-breaker, my genitals are shriveling in terror.

6. The need to have a partner / actively searching for one.

I give it to you, if you vibe with someone, getting into a relationship may make sense. But actually, putting in effort to find one? For what? There’s so much other cool stuff in life!

7. "I haven’t had sex in five minutes/a month/half a year 😱😭" / jokes about dry spells.

Do you actually keep track of the timelines? So what if you haven’t? I get it, orgasm is great and all, but your hand still works, right? Why do you need another person for that? 

8. Imagining yourself in place of a person/character in sex scenes.

This mostly applies to fanfics but also “regular” porn. Even if the scene is hot, I don’t picture myself as any of the characters involved. Even if I'm aroused, I like it precisely for the characters in a specific scenario, I would only be a third wheel there. 

9. Sexual fantasies with yourself as a participant.

I really don't want to imagine myself in any sexual scenarios, neither with fictional characters nor with real people, even if I might have a crush on them. 

10. Cheating in relationships/marriage.

I’m not even talking about the moral aspect of breaking trust/violating the negotiated agreements; it’s the fact that someone "just couldn’t help themselves," “accidentally” had sex. Like, you’re willing to break an agreement, feel all the guilt, and go all secret agent-level to hide the thing because you… what, couldn’t keep it in your pants?

11. Extreme jealousy over sex.

Alongside the last point, I don’t really get why people make such a big deal about someone sleeping with someone else. Sure, it’s not cool to break agreements, and it’s a valid reason to re-evaluate the relationship. But just because they hooked up with someone else? Why is it such a dramatic deal?

(Spoiler alert: I’ve grown up to be poly now, who’s surprised xD)

12. The sexualization of women in media, ads, and the outrage from cishet guys about female characters wearing realistic armor instead of metal bikinis in their games now.

What do you mean, people actually like this and it works on them? Do people actually appreciate having half-naked women in their media? Seriously?

13. The priority of romantic relationships over friendships and every other kind of relationship.

From "got a partner, disappeared for two months from their friend group" to the whole idea that romance is inherently more "serious" or "important" than friendship. Why? Who made that a rule?

Okay, that’s it off the top of my head. Might add something later. 

[yomigaere]

fandom please stop having bad takes about Shiori and Juri challenge (BLOODY IMPOSSIBLE)

[nachosncheezies]

In defense of late-canon x files (including the revivals)

I was thinking about this poll after I commented on it, and I kinda want to be brave and say more.

Short answer to the poll's question before I go any further: If you're a new fan and a sensitive sort who thinks you'll struggle with your blorbos Really Going Through It and you really need a happy ending, I suggest you stop at the end of season 8. Do not pass go, do not look at spoilers. Disregard this post entirely, close the internet, and go look at something that makes you happy. (Also fuck every part of society that characterizes sensitivity as inherently weak and bad and some kind of personal failing, you are valid.)

That said, "quality" as a concept is entirely subjective, and the question of whether or not there's a decline in quality for any story is wholly subjective, too. In the case of x files? I'm not convinced there is a decline. I am going to be upfront that I haven't yet watched past season 8, though I am almost completely spoiled on events after that - and the reason I haven't watched yet is not because of how I know events are going to unfold, but simply because I don't want it to end!!! Ohh, the tension between "I CAN'T WAIT!!!" and "Nooo don't be over D:"

When I first came to txf fandom on tumblr and gradually became spoiled about what happens in late canon though, I was often left uncomfortable and tbh kinda queasy about it. As I said in my comment on the poll, the hate for especially the revival and IWTB, or to a lesser extent even seasons 8 & 9, is very well documented. But! There are other takes to be found here on tumblr if you figure out where to look, and my feelings have changed!

The thing is, I have yet to find myself in any fandom where there isn't a vocal subset of fans who dislike the story after a certain point. I am not joking when I say that no one hates the things they love as passionately as sci-fi and fantasy fans. In my experience, it often hinges on the extent to which a viewer has strong notions on where they would like the characters to end up. In particular with series where shipping is a dominant component for the bulk of a fandom, I have almost universally found that there comes some turning point in the story where "let them be happy you cowards" is the dominant view, and things that compromise the attainment of a degree of romantic stability and/or domesticity are, to many fans, annoying at best and despicable at worst. But! As one tagset on the linked poll said:

and I think for any fandom, that last tag especially is so so so important. (I think that's harder for people watching a weekly series live, bc you have so much time to analyze and speculate and dream before the next breadcrumb drops, but I digress.)

So why am I saying this and how do I apply it to x files? Well, I eventually found that there are also a subset of fans who find redeeming things right up to the very end and actually quite like the whole thing! The things that I had seen people rage and ventpost so much about honestly never quite sounded to me as "out of character" or "untrue to the story" etc as those same ventposts made them sound. And I've discovered I'm not the only one who felt that way. Do I love that the spooky squad had to go through all of those things? No, those poor guys D: Life is hard and they have been through so much trauma. But do those events and their choices make sense to me in light of everything that came before? Yes! And I honestly can't wait to see them fight to overcome those things, breaking, healing, always learning, always growing, always getting better.

So if you're wondering "where does it go wrong"... well, I'm a completionist, as many people who've answered that post are, but also my personal opinion is that I don't think it does go wrong. If you're new and interested in exploring why I've gone from "vaguely queasy" to "excited" about the whole thing, or want to maybe balance out the impressions you're getting about the later seasons before deciding whether or not you want to see the whole thing, I'll put a few blog names in the comments.

Final admission: even once I started feeling a little more confident in the possibility that "actually ok maybe I'm not crazy, maybe this all kind of is in character and does make sense", there was one big plot point that I was NOT looking forward to and I thought I would never be comfortable about. In hindsight, I think my discomfort came from the negative responses being SO seemingly universal that I hadn't stopped to let myself truly consider other possible interpretations on that point. (I mean my initial instinct when I first read about it was, why are we mad about this?? CSM is literally the most unreliable narrator in history???? it's obviously fake news?????? this must be either a fever dream someone's having or it's a misdirection ploy against whatever shadowy forces might still be lurking?????????????? but for whatever reason I guess I had halfway written that off.) Happily, just last month there's a new post-s11 novel out, and although reviews for the book as a whole are mixed, it seems to have laid the groundwork for resolving that plot issue in a way I think most fans would be broadly happy with. If you're interested in being spoiled about that and seeing how, I recommend searching #perihelion on @agent-troi who liveblogged reading it with receipts, scroll back chronological-style to the first post on the subject and see how it unfolded. (And never forget that Dana Katherine Scully is the queen of denial as a coping mechanism lol)

Everyone's mileage will vary. Each person can feel however they want! But for anyone new, I wanted you to know that the very many ventposts you might be seeing are not all there is to this show or its fandom. Some of us love it despite - or even because of - all the things that went "wrong". I think we just don't talk about it as much.

[icewindandboringhorror]

The evil slow creep of it being like "haha these will just be quick little side quests, not much effort at all!" and then noticing each one is getting progressively longer than the last, thus no longer being minimal effort.. auGh....

[thatneoncrisis]

i wrote a big long essay talking about tlt and how it engages with describing the skintones of brown characters its under a read more bc it is so long.

I already left a long comment about this on someone else post but I wish I could study tazmuirs odd little habit of dancing around the fact that Gideon and Harrow are women of color when she describes them, and how this kind of extends to other brown characters

We get a million descriptions for how sickly pale ianthe Silas and cytherea are, what a lovely golden tan corona has, the odd tannish yellow hue of colum, all imagined by her, in her own words, to be white. Then when it comes to Marta and Judith they're called dark like Once in the text. I don't think it's even mentioned for Jeannemary and magnus in the entirety of gtn though I will gladly stand corrected if I missed something. It's such a non factor for them, which normally I would overlook if it wasn't for the aforementioned specificity of how white characters are described on Top of one of the major themes of the book being how John, a Maori man, resurrected a largely Polynesian population and then proceed to rule them using the exact same methods that actively colonized new zealand. Like I just think it's really interesting that in many ways, the story is about two young Maori women completely stripped of cultural heritage, they can't even speak te reo maori they cannot even conceptualize the scale of that kind of loss. Theyve been to earth once and during her brief time there Gideon literally died on it's soil it feels so poignant

Back to them specifically being Not Pale, this is not me saying they would be "less" maori if they were light-skinned that's total bullshit and the entire paradigm exists as a product of European bullshit. My fascination is more with the fact that tamsyn has clearly thought of them as midtoned to dark skinned. I'm going to be really generous and disregard the Tommy Arnold covers- he is a talented artist but he's not the author and Taz stated in an interview that she didn't envision Gideon with an undercut either so he clearly has little liberties he can take and I'm fine with that get your coin dude. For these two I'm going to have to focus on Nona the Ninth, bc for the entirety of gtn, harrow is described as grey, and while I understand that's bc she's constantly under a mountain of white and black facepaint, we basically never get an objective description for either of them. Gideon stand out features are her build, hair and eyes, like a lot of characters, but it could have been pretty easy to throw in a line about how she seems less desaturated than what one might expect from a ninth cavalier, like a rich warm brown, possibly hinting to other characters that she isn't a ninth native

Htn also gives very little to work with, again harrows primary colors are the blacks whites and greys of facepaint and her hair and the reds of constantly sweating blood. The character who's darker skintone is Most remarked upon (also one of the few ever constantly headcanoned) as black, is g1deon. I've actually spoken to a few people about this and there seems to be some actual Mandela effect shit going on where people remember Taz saying he's black despite me never once finding evidence for this. However, this is not a case where I'd be overjoyed to be proven wrong, because g1deon being the one black guy in this entire cast, the one who's dark skintone is commented on the most, being the guy who barely speaks, tries killing harrow with a spear 14 times and then dies offscreen. Not good. Bad, actually

Finally onto ntn, in the beginning chapters Nona remarks her (harrows) skintone is the color of an egg carton. I assume she means the light tan, desaturated brown of the cardboard used in certain cartons, which is fitting for harrow, girls lived in an ice cave for 17 years. This is basically the only word we get on it. I believe a few times the text will say something about pyrrha's (g1deon's) brown Everything; brown skin, russet brown hair, rich brown eyes. that character gets to be viewed and constantly affirmed as a brown character in teh way gideon and harrow arent, it kind of others pyrrha. to contrast camillas hands are called tanned way at the beginning while recording nona's dream, then at the way end it says, "Her face still looked grey beneath its nice normal olive," olive being used to describe her once before in gtn as far as i can see. pyrrha's (g1deon's) skintone is one of her most notable features, its brought up to a noticeable agree the text wants you to keep it in your mind when you think of the saint of duty; "Most of Pyrrha was the colours of the building site: deep dried-out browns, dusty hunks of clay, rusted metal." "Pyrrha wouldn’t burn any colour other than her deep cool brown." "Nona took the water from Pyrrha’s brown, work-chapped hand and even sipped it" "Pyrrha had carried Camilla to bed in her big brown arms like Cam weighed nothing" "Pyrrha said, “Thanks, Nums,” and drained the whole thing. Nona,fascinated, watched the brown column of her throat move as she swallowed." its just notable to me when alternatively with nona you'll get a line like "Camilla didn’t say anything to that either, only rubbed her wrists where the tape had been. Nona’s skin was already back to its nice normal colour." like just the vagueness in nice normal color, we get one line about what shes supposed to look like in the beginning and thats it

towards the end during the broadcast, nona gets her first clear look at kiriona, described as: "warm-coloured skin that should have been a similar brown hue to Nona’s, except that there was something wrong with it." break out the champagne its official

Obviously, dying takes some color from you. If anything, gideons desaturation should make them More comparable given the egg carton comment and harrows general state of constant anemia. Has Nona gotten darker during her time on new rho? Was Gideon lighter than the cover led us to believe? We don't know. We well never know, which is odd, bc these books fucking love purple prose about people's appearances. We have like seven different synonyms for the shade of ianthes hair. New words for black have to be invented in order to convey harrows eyes which are Black, not the dark muddy brown of someone like ortus. It's less that I'm bothered by the text not hyperfocusing on their skin and more it picking and choosing when it will laser focus on a detail like that, and how often it's skipped over to the point that I like, constantly see people draw harrow as incredibly pale, which is very different from being light-skinned

Finally, I know people can dismiss this as like an audience interpretation thing. I know I actively draw harrow darker than Gideon which I know isn't canon. But this is less about Fandom response to the text and more the text itself and how it's like. Afraid to say brown. near the end of ntn i found One instance of it referring to gideons "slim brown hand" on nonas cheek and that is direct as it gets. even her other like, strongly non european traits are sort of danced around. her nose is "a nose that was the complete opposite of Nona’s nose, one that put her in mind of those big poison desert cats Born in the Morning was crazy about." a very fanciful description, you have to infer that nona means that its probably flat and wide, also giving us the information that harrows is most likely narrow and straight, possibly downturned. im not opposed to this, especially given the character talking about her is nona, but then you get the following paragraph:

"Her skin was very much dead-person skin, ashen and tinted the wrong colour around the nostrils and the mouth. But even if she hadn’t been dead, Nona was critical. Her eyelashes were very dark, but short and curly, whereas Nona thought all eyelashes should be long and straight (her own eyelashes were long and straight). The corpse had too much mouth and a dimple (nobody in her home had a dimple). You could not, at least, see the veins in her eyelids, which were heavy and cold and deep-set. But Nona thought it was going to be a shame to go from being so lovely as she was to being so—redheaded."

its a very frank description. dimple, curly lashes, red head, dead skin, probably a wide mouth. her nose is contrasted against nonas nose, which is also never directly described, and then compared to a fantasy animal we have never heard of until right now

kicks rocks. there isnt a point to this. the series is almost over, there is zero reason to like, knock on taz's door and ask why she did this or that. it doesnt stop me from loving the series, and the insinuation that noticing this means i must dislike the series is frankly insane (real thing that happened). if someone got the impression that harrow was white given how shes described i wouldnt blame them honestly, its most apparent she isnt in the third book (with the cover art being incredibly ambiguous) and a single blog post from taz mentioning shes maori, immediately followed by an "oh i dont care how you see the characters" addendum, which i think is like. an odd thing to tack on bc them descended from kiwis is like, very integral to the story, and gideon being the daughter of the maori man who took everything from her she didnt even know she could have and the (presumably, given her name and a very brief description) maori woman fighting to get that world back its like. damn. it feels a little important. that the audience knows theyre maori. like a little. it feels intertwined with the whole thing about john using european standards of imperialism and general aesthetics to hurt his own kid. actually.

[transhitman]

Ok I posted about this in anger a while back but I'm gonna say it more intelligently and actually tag it because I think it's something people need to hear. Something that bugs me about how people talk about the morality of the men in this game is that a lot of analysis totally glosses over Anya's motives and what she actually asks of people, and in doing so once again strips her of agency. Like. The reason Curly sucks isn't because he failed to properly punish Jimmy, it's because he ignored Anya in favor of her abuser. He didn't listen to her regarding how to move forward, he didn't give her a way to protect herself. No matter what he would have done to Jimmy, Anya is still traumatized and in danger, and that's the most important point of failure.

I think a lot of people are projecting a revenge fantasy on Anya, and while I'm not gonna argue about the validity of revenge here, for Anya specifically I think that's a major mischaracterization. She's the one who says that our worst moments don't make us monsters. And while yes, this could just be her trying to appease her abusers, she still doesn't strike me as a particularly vindictive person. She's a nurse, symbolically in a role associated with care and healing. Before the crash, she seems like a very soft-spoken and restrained person. Hell, she can't stand giving Curly his meds because she feels so bad for him. There isn't really a point in the game where she calls for violence at all. And even if punishing Jimmy or Curly is morally correct (subjective), saying that it's what anyone Should have done still glosses over Anya's wants and needs. It still centers the abuser, even in vitriol.

It's especially weird to see people judge Swansea on these grounds, because like... We don't know what his dynamic with Anya was like. We don't actually know what she said to him, if she even confided about her pregnancy or the SA at all! I honestly think Swansea's actions give more credence to the idea that Anya herself wanted a peaceful resolution. The whole "Oh, I'm holding it together" thing, him becoming more hostile after speaking with Anya... He waits until Daisuke AND ANYA are dead before trying to kill Jimmy. I think the obvious reading is that he wants Jimmy dead, but Anya asked him not to do anything crazy. Genuinely, I think Anya just wanted to be safe. She wanted out above everything. She didn't want more violence. The only violence she commits is against herself in the end, in order to escape this hell her coworkers made for her.

And like. Swansea is kind of the only one who actually did try to protect Anya in a meaningful way. I won't say that he couldn't have done more for her - all of the men on that ship failed her in some regard - but Swansea intentionally keeps the axe out of Jimmy's hands. He keeps the pod a secret, probably to give to Daisuke, but we can't say anything for sure. I joke that Swansea should have killed Jimmy from the start, but if we're being real that would have been an insane thing to do given what the characters know. But Swansea isn't the point of this post. Like. Idk I just think it's really bizarre that when people discuss Anya's assault, they still do it from the perspective of the men involved. It's weird and I don't like it. Like people have said before me: it's not enough to hate abusers, you have to love victims.

[kneelingshadowsalome]

I Never Missed You 1/3 (Bodyguard!Ghost x F!Reader)

Word count: 3.5 k

Tags/warnings: 18+ only. Romance, eventual smut, fluff, light angst, banter, pining, flirting, minor injuries, major character death, HFN ending. Lady/Knight dynamic. Unequal pairing trope. Bodyguard AU. Reader is a rich bitch (how else could she afford a PPO?)

Summary: 1/3 You hire a bodyguard to protect you and hunt down the one who's been sent to take your life. This man was your lawyer's first recommendation, and you never even looked through his file because you had better things to do. But it soon turns out that this man – this Simon Riley – is very talented... Talented in driving you crazy.

A/N: A three part fic based on this request. The first chapter features banter and pining. If you're here for smut, stay tuned. There is an entire chapter of it coming right up.

Your lawyer says it would be a good idea. He even dares to look at you from under his brow like you're a child who doesn't know what's good for her.

And you don't.

Because that's exactly how you feel like: a grown woman who's stunted to a kid, now being supervised by adults. 

The bodyguard they assigned you - the one you accepted because he was your lawyer's first choice - is exactly the broad, brooding type you have always imagined bodyguards to be like.

But he's not wearing sunglasses, and he's not wearing a suit. He says the point of a bodyguard is that they don't look like a bodyguard. 

The first thing you actually pay attention to is the milky-white eyelashes. Only days after you hear that this man rarely shows his face. You were given a file on him, but you never peeked inside it because you were pissed that such drastic measures had to be taken in the first place. You just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Now you pry it from the pile of papers you buried it into, open it, and the first - and only - photo you see is a perfect portrayal of what Death looks like. 

He's the Reaper himself when adorned with that human skull. Keen but emotionless eyes stare from the pits of the sockets to somewhere in the distance, but that look is a stare into the past. The photo raises thousands of questions, and not only the need to know why this man prefers to wear human bones when he's shooting people.

Because apparently, that’s what he used to do before he became a bodyguard. He's buff, that you already know. But in that picture, he looks even more packed, with what you suppose is a bullet vest beneath that blouse. He’s holding an ugly-looking gun – not a pistol, but a rifle of some sort. The gear on him no doubt weighs something close to 60 pounds. His sleeves are rolled up and expose the crisscross veins on his forearms along with war-ugly, crude tattoos, and you swallow. 

Were you really looking at a picture of a barbaric soldier like it was some peculiar soft porn now?

You flip the file closed and toss it on the table, rather disgusted with yourself.

The next time you see him, you look into those brown eyes a moment longer. That stoic stare is the only thing you recognize as that of the man in the picture. That, along with his size, although photos really can't convey how this brooding grunt makes you feel: small and insignificant. Nor do they illustrate how the man looks like he’s the most graceful bull in a china shop when moving inside your house.

You suppose he grew up poor, the way he looks at your furniture, your half-a-mile bookshelf, and the latest art piece you got last month in your living room. He's judging you. 

You're posh. And clueless. And a child.

And this brute lives with you, for now. He's placed downstairs until the target is neutralized. And he's not just a bodyguard: he's hunting the hunter while you're the bait.

It should give you a thrill; your friend giggles when you two gossip about him over a lunch while he's standing only a few feet away. But this situation does not give you a thrill. It just makes you pissed.

And it's not just the situation, it's this... Simon Riley who makes you pissed.

Couldn't they teach manners, some conversation skills at the bodyguard school or wherever the hell this pale, emotionless Hulk came from?

You recheck his file and snoop some more details about his past. He didn't go to bodyguard school (of course he didn't); he used to work for some PMC. The brute's a cold-blooded, cold-hearted mercenary. To put it more eloquently, he's an elite soldier of some tactical unit. But all of that is classified, as is almost every other detail about him. The only thing you are left with is that he's British through and through, but you can already tell that by his accent - the thick Mancunian that makes your stomach and heart flip.

It's gruff – of course it's gruff – and sometimes chafes your ears like they were being grated with the softest grater. You find yourself thinking about him while you're in the shower, when your fingers start to drift and wander.

And for the love of god, you are not thinking about that accent and those eyes while you're masturbating. You're not going to mourn the fact that he never rolls his sleeves when he's with you. When he's at work.

"I saw your file," you start to chitchat over breakfast one day.

"I reckon."

He won't even touch the coffee you poured him but proceeds to drink almost all the tea. The delicate china looks miniature in his hands as he pours the Earl Grey into his cup. The cups are dainty, too – this savage would prefer a large, black mug, perhaps, from which to gulp his tea.

"So. What made you become a soldier?"

"Joined the SAS when I was 17."

And another thing he won't do is look at you when you speak. No manners at all in this man, only rough, sharp edges. He sits as far from you as he can, at the other end of the table, as if you were in a meeting. Or a war council.

"That's not what I asked."

"I know."

You roll your eyes. Conversation skills, god. Just give this man at least some charm…

"I'm going to do some shopping," you declare. "You can stay here."

Finally, he raises his stare. It's full of tired distaste.

"Nah. That's not how this works."

You rise from the table, gracefully and with a neutral face, indicating that you are an adult and won't be needing a babysitter at a store.

"Lady." 

The command is dark and stops you before you have taken one step from the table. It's a slur, almost.

He rises from the table too, and you almost feel sorry, noticing he hasn't yet finished his toast.

"You hired me. And I'm gonna do my job."

He looks big and broad, like a beautiful storm, with that piercing stare and the most alluring lashes you have ever seen on a man. Your voice turns into a meek, pitched attempt to reason with a giant.

"...I'm just going shopping."

His head tilts with a mock: you're only a child in his eyes. 

"Then let's go shopping."

…......…......

Sitting next to this giant in a taxi must be a hilarious-looking scene. A charming, vibrant lady and a sullen, intimidating Theseus – what a pair.

You've also never been this close to him. The man always sits with a wide spread. One heavy thigh almost touches your knees, which you have turned towards him for some unfathomable reason. You were taught to sit with knees closely set together, and that’s what you’re trying to do now: make yourself as small and feminine as possible. It only accentuates this man's size compared to yours. There's a pile of shopping bags between you two, and your gaze is directed outside the window, but you can feel his presence like there's a thrumming monolith beside you.

And he's always dressed in black. You kind of enjoyed how you two looked at the store: you in your heels and a pearl white suit, he in black, tactical ripstop and boots. You wouldn't define the man well-dressed… but he is sharply dressed in his own field, that's for sure. Even a commoner like you could see that.

He had complained about your clothes. White draws too much attention and makes for a bigger target. You had brushed him off with a scoff. You’re not going to change the way you dress because of this.

"You're from Manchester, right?"

You're only trying to make the journey home more enjoyable, but feel like you're snooping again, this time from the man himself. The less you know about Simon Riley, the more you want to learn who he is. It is only natural to get a little curious when his file barely had two paragraphs and a photo. You suppose even that single picture was taken and given forward with reluctance. 

And the only thing you learn is that small talk is a completely foreign concept to this man.

"You're quite the Sherlock," he mutters with that fat accent that gave him away the minute you two shook hands. You Sherlock about some more, look at the left hand that rests on his thigh.

There's no ring. Not even a tan line. He must be lonely: no relationship could stand working hours like these.

"Do you still live there?"

"...No."

"Do you miss the place?"

"No."

The short answers are guttural and spoken from the back of his throat. You don't know if he's doing it on purpose, or if this Simon is like this with everyone. He's not annoyed, though, not the way you're beginning to be.

"Aren't you a chatty one…" you mumble while watching cloudy London pass by. You figured he might hear it, and perhaps that was your purpose, even if your voice was barely a whisper.

"I'm not here to talk. Ma'am."

…......…......

You are told to stay away from the windows. The dinner table is moved so no one can aim at your head through a glass. And even then, most curtains must be closed at all times. 

He goes through doors first, and advises against going out at all. You get a list of things you should take into consideration if you do go out.

And you’re not going to give in to fear.

You simply take different routes to your friends and family, have lunches at different restaurants than usual. He says you should get an armored car, but you don’t have a license. Of course your brooding bodyguard could drive, but what will you do with some armored tank after you're finally through this thing?

What's far more interesting is that it turns out this Simon Riley is a smoker.

Disgusting, you think at first, then think about him all sweaty and grimy after some gunfight, reaching for a cig, curling those thick fingers around a pure-white coffin nail. No, wait – he had gloves in that picture; he wouldn't bother to take them off before he smoked, he would just lean on his gun and on some crumbling wall and sigh from the joy of being alive, of being bloodied and dirty and victorious before taking a long drag from his cigarette.

Ugh.

Reluctantly you agree that perhaps there is an odd charm to this man after all. Either that, or then you are in need of some serious therapy.

Breakfasts are torturingly quiet with Simon, and you can hear the slow roll of eyes every time you make plans to go to a party or an art gallery.

Once, a zipper gets stuck and you have to ask him for help. It’s mortifying, and he doesn’t say a word, only mocks you with his eyes as you turn around for him to place a warm hand on your hip and another on your back to pull up the zipper you had fought to reach and drag up by yourself for at least 10 minutes.

A week passes, and he’s buried in work, not only because he’s guarding your body 24/7, but because he’s trying to locate the hitman. The fact that Simon Riley is technically speaking a hitman too - to think that you have hired a killer - is something you don’t have the mental strength to delve into right now.

"Found the one who's hunting you."

Another file is dropped before you at the end of the week. The man marches into your office like there's no door there at all. Doesn't even bother to knock. 

This isn't what you meant when you politely told him to make himself home…

You roll the glass of water on your temple and sigh. The file reveals another photo, this time of a man who looks like an executioner.

"Goes by the name König," he says and clasps his hands over his crotch while taking a wide stance in front of your desk. "Austrian war criminal. Skilled with knives… Likes to torture people first."

Nice. More brutes.

"Why are you telling me this?" 

You're tired, there's a headache approaching, and you really don't care to go over some details about a professional lunatic killer right now. But Simon Riley - codenamed Ghost, you’ve lately learned - looks down at you like a storm cloud over a carefree meadow.

"Because you clearly don't understand the danger you're in." 

He adds "Ma'am" as a footnote. Purposely forgotten...

And you wish he would forget that silly, overly courteous term.

"Well–" you sigh your frustration in the air between you two, then realize that perhaps you're being treated like a child because you behave like one. "What are you going to do about this man...?"

"Gonna kill him," he simply shrugs, the eternal, distant look in those eyes gaining a smug tone to them. 

He enjoys this. Enjoys killing, but what's even worse, enjoys seeing how his ruthlessness makes you shift uncomfortably in your chair. Or perhaps he just likes shocking you with that file with an image of a lyncher in it. You know perfectly well that you're in trouble and under threat. That's what you've tried to forget, but no one lets you forget.

Simon takes a deep breath before placing his humble petition before you.

"Ma’am. I'm gonna need your help."

And nothing in this man is humble. Even though he rarely speaks and never shows his talents, not to talk of showing off, he reeks of pride and testosterone.

You set the glass on the table and straighten the file to align with the leather pad on your desk. Your fingers are not trembling. Yet.

"What do you mean?" 

He gives a hoarse laugh. The sound drills straight to your core and starts to bloom there. You realize you have never seen him smile before. And he's not smiling now: the short laugh is just a dark chuckle that mainly stays inside his chest; it only makes those stocky shoulders rise and fall.

"Not like that," he looks down at you with a tad of mercy. "You're gonna serve as bait."

"Isn't… that what I've been the whole time?"

"Yeah. But this time, we're gonna lure him in."

The way he talks makes your thighs rub together without your consent. You wonder what it would feel like if you were trapped between that solid chest and a wall, what it would be like if those hands woke you up with a calloused caress of a thigh.

You don't quite understand the difference between bait and a lure but find yourself willing to do whatever you can to help him. Help Simon…

"Sure... I'll help you," you say as if this man wasn't on your payroll.

"That's the least you could do."

That barely hidden bite in his dry retort doesn't escape you. This man's audacity buries whatever odd want you have started to feel for him and replaces it with searing, womanly fury. 

He could be a little more sensitive.

You're the one who has a target on their back. You're the one who fears going to sleep at night and feels lucky they're alive come dawn. If he wasn't so crude and uncaring, you would've asked him to sleep in the same room with you from the start. But he has to be a brute, has to follow and mock you with those ink blot eyes at every turn.

You rise from the chair when he turns and walks toward the door. It's almost a snappy jump, an attempt to reclaim your power. You're sore and thoroughly peeved.

"I never wanted this," you tell him with an annoying timbre in your tone. He stops right before the door but doesn't turn.

"Neither did I."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Could be somewhere warmer with no damsels giving me their cheek."

The BDU blouse you saw in that picture was yellow, burnt yellow. Desert wear… He wants to be in a hot desert with a cold gun in his hand. Dropped straight from some plane, working alone, in a place where damsels aren't giving him their cheek. Where there are no damsels at all. 

You're relatively sure there is no Mrs. Riley. No woman could stand this man.

"Then go somewhere warmer," you snap, almost stomp your heel on the soft carpet. This man is simply intolerable. The way he never reacts to anything makes you want to throw things at him. 

He must be trained to be so calm, but you're not. You're used to making men a little stupid and flustered. You're used to men eating out of your hand. He's not behaving at all like he's supposed to. Simon Riley is just a mountain without emotion.

He turns with that eternal, downgrading look in his eyes. There's a flash of amusement there, too.

Soddy bastard…

"Nah. Not until I've done my job."

His voice is warm now; the gruff and gravel make way to a smoothness that goes directly to your knees. Your lips part, and his eyes fall on your mouth just before he lifts his chin a hair of an inch.

"Your job…" you breathe, too furious to even rage or shout. 

Your fucking job.

Why did you even want this job if it's so–

"Yeah. My job. Some people got one."

You have to take support from the table with your fingertips. 

"Excuse me?"

There's the tiniest curve at the corner of his mouth before he takes his leave.

"Good night, ma'am."

…......…......

The next day, you start the breakfast by apologizing. 

You barely slept that night, first because of this man's utter nerve, then because your wrath eventually cooled down into a bleeding consciousness of how you must look in his eyes. 

He has accepted this job, something different from what he usually does, for reasons unknown to you. He might not be on some faraway battlefield where bullets fly past, but this is no less risky. The picture he showed you, the file on König, haunted your restless sleep last night – when you finally did get some sleep. 

You have been running around like everything’s normal when it’s not. The man’s just trying to do his job. 

And you're the one who hired him. Not your lawyer.

"I want to make peace," you coo while spreading some jam on toast. You expect Simon to finally melt a little. You might even get a smile. You secretly hope your reward is that this brute turns into a tamed lap dog you can feed some treats every now and then. 

The situation is thrilling: the beefiest man you have ever seen is going to kill someone for you. Even if he's being paid to do so, he is prepared to die for you. There's something incredibly sexy about that.

But there is silence at the other end of the table. Only the crunchy sounds of toast getting sugar on top can be heard.

"That so?" 

He doesn't sound like he's melting. He doesn't sound at all domesticated. He only sounds more and more amused.

"Yes. I'm happy that you're here," you put the toast down and turn to look at him with angel eyes.

He laughs. When he stops, he looks you up and down, then laughs some more, a silent, shoulder-shaking chuckle.

"I'm… I'm serious," you hurry to add. "I mean it. I haven't been treating you the way I should–"

"That's for sure."

You see more warmth in those eyes. But it's not because of your humble apology.

His eyes are trekking down the neckline of your blouse, and to your horror, you notice – feel – how one of the top buttons has opened, revealing much more than just some skin. You're pretty sure he gets an ample view of the fuchsia bra you're wearing underneath.

If you reach for that button now, you underline that he's not supposed to look, even if it's your mistake that you're so obscenely exposed. If you close it now, you tell him he's not allowed to look. And that's not entirely true.

"Will you forgive me?"

You feel like you're offering peace, or at least a truce, with more than just that peepy question. Because your breasts swell inside that blouse. They rise and fall with your breaths, your nipples grow hard from that look that stays down a bit longer before drifting back up. 

"There's nothing to forgive," he says, voice dropping a note or two. 

"Good," you swallow. The following sentence comes out so weakly that it's almost a whisper. "After all, I hired you."

"Ain't that the truth."

The dim glint in those eyes still holds you as a prisoner, and his tea is growing cold.

"Are we going shopping today?"

"No," you utter, dreading the next inevitable question.

"What then?"

"I… I have a yoga class."

"Of course you do."

…......…......

Taglist: @cumikering

[bettsfic]

I have this thing where what I'm writing is absolutely not what I'm about in real life. I like complexity and depth in what I read. But the things I care about make only vague appearances in my writing, I don't know how to fully explain it. I have a lot of passion in life and I'm ~relatively emotionally intelligent. I'm curious about emotions, anyway, but what comes out in my writing is just cookie cutter.... Bland..... Zero complexity or emotional exploration. It's like I'm on autopilot when I write and I can't shake it.

i'm about to present to you yet another writing spectrum: director-writers and actor-writers.

a director-writer creates stories by writing discrete scenes that they see in their mind. like a film, a scene begins, something happens, a scene ends. we move on to the next scene. i would venture to say a majority of writers today are director-writers, because what's been en vogue in the 21st century is very much influenced by our visual media. we watch visual media. a great many writers like to render their prose such that it feels like a reader is watching the story play out. these director-writers are standing on the outside looking in, manipulating and moving all the pieces of their story to create the desired end result.

director-writing is so common that i meet many, many writers who trap themselves in scenic prose because they assume that's what "good writing" is. these writers are not actually directors. they don't want to be standing behind the camera; they want to be in the mind of the characters. and those people are actor-writers.

an actor-writer's prose doesn't necessarily prioritize scenes one after the next, but develops a compelling narrative voice. actor-writing is about learning to be someone who isn't you. i think the moment you abandon the forced witness of the camera and instead dive into the mind, experiencing the story instead of rendering the story, you unlock the path of that complex emotional exploration you feel is missing in your work. and you will probably never go back.

here's an activity to try:

whatever you're working on right now, open a new doc, take your main character and, in your mind's eye, trap them in an interrogation room. sit them across from you. ask them, "what is your deal?" write down their answer.

in this activity, you're looking for a few things:

what is their story? why does it matter to them? (this is probably the biggest problem i have with the pitfalls of director-writing: nothing matters. everything is just...happening. as a reader, i'm always looking for what i'm being asked to love. maybe that love is awful, toxic, contradictory, ambivalent, whatever. the point is, it matters. a huge percentage of the things i read never ask me to love anything.)

are they trying to convince or persuade you of something, making their testimonial unreliable? or are they confessing to you things they'd never admit to anyone else?

what is at stake for them? what is their deepest desire and their greatest fear? in what way is their deepest desire flawed? how is their greatest fear irrational? how have the events of their story influenced or distorted their perception?

close narration offers us the greatest possible access to the interiority of the narrator. first person is really just a monologue, an explanation, an excuse, a confession, a plea, a prayer. so so so many writers get blocked because they're trying to See the story instead of Listen to it. they force themselves into this elastic third person where the reader remains a distant witness with the occasional thought, insight, or feeling, but that comes second to what i call Bodies in Space. if i never read another "he strode across the room" again it'll be too soon. imagery is wonderful, don't get me wrong, but i would always, always rather get insight into what a character is feeling, thinking, grieving, dreaming than the knowledge that they are sitting in a chair.

i'm not saying switch to first person. you can create the effect of first person with very close third, and you can create the effect of third person with very distant first. pronouns don't really matter. what's important is voice over vision.

i say this a lot, but if i want to watch a story, i'll turn on my tv. prose is the only art form that allows us to fully explore human consciousness. let it do the thing it was invented to do.

my theory of director-writers and actor-writers is adapted from Percy Lubbock's The Craft of Fiction, in which he defines "picture" vs. "drama" writing. however i found that terminology confusing and poorly articulated, so i flipped it into a process-based approach with what i hope is more accessible phrasing. also, prose = consciousness is from 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel by Jane Smiley.

[fairuzfan]

im trying to ask all different kids of accounts bc i can't get one solid answer - how would u specifically define zionist? do you think the people who are currently israelis (and are not west bank settlers, may they all be tried for their crimes) should be able to live in a decolonized palestine?

I had to take a couple of days mostly because I was trying to find a single concise answer for you in a citation. Before I give you a definition of a Zionist, I must first describe what Zionism and it's implications are. Here is Ismail Zayid's "Zionism, the myth and the reality" (click).

The very first couple of paragraphs of the book, he says:

Zionism, as a modern political creed, grew in close association with three interacting major forces which exercised a profound influence on the character and nature of the Zionist movement, resulting in three basic qualities characterizing this movement, namely: settler colonialism, expansionism and racism.

The first of the three major forces was the growth, in the nineteenth century, of European colonialism and imperialism and the expansion of the colonial settler regimes. The alliance made between Zionism and European colonialism is clearly attested to by both sides, identifying reciprocal benefits in the alliance. Herzl, in his "Der Judenstat," expressed clearly both the racist nature of Zionism as well as its role as a settler colonial outpost: "We should, there, form a portion of the rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism. We should, as a neutral state, remain in contact with all Europe, which would have to guarantee our existence."

There's more in the book that I can't type up lol, but in essence a Zionist subscribes to the idea of Zionism itself, and insists on the establishment of a settler colonial entity whether passively or actively.

Zionism is a settler colonialist movement, as stated by the founder of the movement for Zionism, Theodore Herzel (quoted above in the smalltext). It modeled itself after much of the European colonialist strategies, enforcing borders and nationalities on a previously border-lose world. I mention the making of borders as a fundamental part of colonialism because by rejection of those borders as a concept, we start to imagine the world in a post-colonial universe. Sherene Seikaly makes this point in her book "Men of Capital" in the introductory chapter:

But in such a search, it is almost inevitable that nationalism—its “lack,” its “strength,” or its “weakness”—will stand as a metonym for politics. In some renditions, the weakness of normative nationalism—a “political deficiency” and a lack of a national “spirit”—resulted in, as the leading historian of collaboration continues to argue, the catastrophe of 1948. In response, scholars have documented a national project among the Palestinians. This work is invaluable and has shifted the terms of debate as well as our understanding of the social and cultural geography of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Palestine. However, to continue reveling in the marriage between national consciousness and politics reifies colonial epistemologies. Moving beyond nationalism as both the means and ends of politics is long overdue. Certainly, nationalism was one aspect of subjectivity formation, but it was not the only way to make politics. What I seek to destabilize here is not whether Palestinians were sufficiently national, but to ask why that sufficiency and/or its lack continues to be the measuring stick for whether people can remain on the land they resided on for centuries. Must people’s investment in the random and shifting borders that imperial and colonial officials drew determine their status? Are there other ways to think about politics outside, beside, underneath, and alongside this national prism?

I've said this multiple times before on this blog in different ways, but I'll state outright: I reject the notion of nationalism as a way for us to authenticate Palestinians' claim to the land they've lived on for centuries, as Seikaly mentions. Zionism's core goal is the establishment of such borders is aligned with European colonialism's core goals: division of the world so that they may categorize itself within the world's hierarchy.

Now, the core saying in the Free Palestine movement you often hear is "From the River to the Sea." This, basically, is a rejection of the establishment of those borders as a necessity for the Palestinians to be recognized. Zionism relies on border-making for it to be an actual thing. Without borders, Zionism would not exist. Which is why the "Balfour Declaration," that had essentially districted and redistributed Palestine is often referenced by both Zionists and antiZionists. Balfour, a well known racist and antisemite, had advocated for the establishment of a "Jewish State" not because he really cared what happened to either party — but specifically so that he could get the Jewish people of Europe.... out of Europe.

Seikaly mentions this in "Men of Capital":

However, we should qualify its meaning to get at the specific condition of Palestinian invisibility in colonial epistemologies. Zionists of the late nineteenth century did not imagine that there were no people on the land of Palestine, but rather that they were not a people. Theodor Herzl described a set of caricatures that inhabited what he called the land of Israel: the wealthy effendis who could be had for a price and the remaining impoverished peasants who could be smoothly removed without incident. These people were a motley crew without anything defining or unifying them. Zionists from various political leanings did not share Herzl’s confidence that the people who lived in Palestine would not be attached enough to its land to resist their displacement.  However, the Zionist emphasis on the lack of a politically coherent and distinct people in Palestine who deserved to make claims to the land on which they had resided for hundreds of years would continue apace. The caricatures of the effendi and the peasant, as well as the depiction of the Palestinians as insufficiently rooted, continue to have currency. In the meantime, Zionists were hard at work shaping a cohesive settlement community around a new ethno-national understanding of what it meant to be Jewish. They called themselves the Yishuv. Zionism promised Jews who had suffered religious, political, and racial persecution for centuries in Europe that they could finally become European but only by leaving Europe. Anti-Semitism and Zionism had one thing in common: the belief that Jews could never assimilate in Europe. The process of becoming European by realizing a settler colony would be an abundant source of persecution: For the Palestinians it entails ongoing erasure; for the eastern (Mizrahi) Jews who did not fit the Ashkenazi (European) mold, it has meant decades of marginalization; and for the Ashkenazi, it required killing centuries of tradition, language, and culture to fit the template of the new Jew.

So now you know that Zionism is, at it's core the establishment of borders to reinforce itself as a colonialist entity — thereby enforcing a separation between the colonized and the colonizer that can seem material, but is, in fact, immaterial. Zionists are people who ascribe to the ideology that a Settler Colonial "Jewish State" must exist, and that its establishment is necessary for whatever reason, thereby enacting those borders and displacing the indigenous populations. But what does a post-colonialist society look like if we no longer have these regional borders and nationalism as we've come to understand it?

Palestinians argue for the Right to Return to their homes. I have family members that cannot see the places they were born in because they were kicked out and not allowed to return. I think, for these people especially, it's only natural that they be allowed to return.

You ask if people who are currently live in Israel should be able to live in a decolonized Palestine. Short answer: yes. Of course. There is no reason to reject these people who are willing to live in a decolonized Palestine.

Long answer: still yes but I'm going to re contextualize it a little.

We've established that a decolonized Palestine is one in which borders are irrelevant, as is the current version of nationalism, and no need for categorization. In a decolonized Palestine, as long as you are not a perpetrator of a "crime" (I put that in quotations because of the current colonial implications, but I lack a better word for it) that makes you — and not your grandparent/parent — directly responsible for colonization — like as you mention, settlers who violently expelled Palestinians — and willing to participate in a Palestinian society in which there is equality of all peoples regardless of race, ethnicity, economic status, or religion, then it is possible to become Palestinian.

Israelis are all, to a certain extent, culpable in colonization. There are antiZionist Israelis, but nevertheless, it doesn't change the fact that they are settled on land that was acquired violently. Of course, the same can be said for many USAmericans. To a certain extent, I am a settler in Turtle Island despite being a refugee. I willingly participate in a colony, whether I actually agree with it or not.

I think from hereon, to live in Decolonized Palestine as well as a Decolonized Turtle Island, we must make the reparations necessary to the communities who have suffered systematic violence at the hands of the colonial entity to truly live in a post-colonial world. You might be asking how I think that's going to be conducted — I am not sure. But what I do know is that living without borders — or in other words living without colonialist labels and all sorts hierarchies that arise — will require a reframing of the understanding of our world as well as how we interact with each other in it.

[thesovereignsring-if]

Major Update: To move forward is to take a step back.

Hello everyone, it's been a while. I hope you're all doing well. I'd ask that you read this to the end because some major changes will be in the upcoming update.

TLDR: You will need to start a new save file for new update (this weekend) otherwise there will be very noticable issues down the line.

I can't recall the last time I made a post or an update like this and frankly i'm scared to check . I've been struggling with writers block with the end of Chapter 1 and my small bouts of depression did not help one bit, so I had to take a step back and re-examine the narrative. If you ask me what the problem was, i'd say that perhaps I rushed too quickly into the main story, when I needed a little more foundation to stand on. After a few months of deliberation, a solution has been found. And I think everyone will like it. There will be no major rewrite of any sort, I think I would cry if that were the case.

Instead we going going to have a second prologue. This means that Chapter 1 will be inaccessible until the second prologue is complete. I'm very sorry that things have to be this way, but I do no see any other option for the story to continue forward in a satisfying way.

The second prologue will take place a few months after the first prologue during the Grand Festival of Eostre. This will be the first year you'll celebrate without your mother, at the very least you will have your friends and family with you at the time.

What to expect in the first half of Prologue 2:

Up to 13k words of new content.

Spend some time with your family.

Looooreeee & tea.

Meet Lior the Grand Cardinal of the Church of Eostre. The leading religion in Nibelheim.

Choose how to spend your free time at the festival in 2/4 possible routes. Route A: Alberich & Finny, Route B: Sieghardt & Thea.

(The last two routes will be added in the next update: Route C: Lynnette, Erik & Daria/Darius, and Route D: The Empress, King Lugh & Duchess Neaera)

Erik has a younger bastard half-sibling named Daria(f)/Darius(m). ( I will address them as Dara for short.) The final romantic interest, gender selectable. Even if you do not choose Route C, you will meet them later on in the second half of the update.

Fixes + Updates:

Character Creation has been updated and streamlined. (Gender/Pronouns and Sex are separate categories for both adult and child character creations. Attributes chosen during Child Character Creation will be stored as different variables in the event I choose to do anymore flashbacks later on in the story.)

Please note, that choosing after your sex (as an adult) I will assume your character will have the corresponding equipment down there.

Music Credits have been updated.

Minor adjustments to the colour of the UI, if people have any sort of colour theme they wish to see, I'll be more than happy to add them.

That is all for now. I hope the year has been kind to everyone so far. I haven't gone through my inbox yet, but I've seen glimpse of people's support it goes a long way. I sincerely do no think I'd come back if it weren't for the fact that I'd feel like I'd let everyone down. I will be making a patreon post after the first update goes live to talk about the new update and exclusives later.

Thank you for reading and enjoying TSR over the past year. It's means a lot to me and let's hope things will be better moving forward.

See you <3

Lili

[sapphic-agent]

I'm still mad about this so I'm going to rip it apart by section now that I have the energy :)

This is probably the only part of the diagram that's kind of accurate. But it's actively ignoring one crucial detail: there are no "people" in this context. Most people just ignore Bakugou at this point. He's directly and deliberately harming one person: Izuku. It also feels like this understates that Bakugou doesn't just "suck," he's been targeting, harassing, and abusing a minority for the better part of a decade

Bakugou has always put more energy into his goals. That's the only thing that's stayed consistent about his character because it's the only thing he's ever cared about. He doesn't get brownie points for sucking a little less (which isn't even really true, his victim began to step out of a victim role and he didn't know how to deal with that) just because he's goal-oriented now. There's also something to be said about the people around him not being able to be spoken over or told what to do. While 1A doesn't stand up to Bakugou, he isn't able to really push them around. So of course his behavior lessened; it's not getting him what he wants anymore

This is literally one of the major problems with this arc. Bakugou only "changed" because everyone else made it easy for him. Everyone else had to put in work for him to become even halfway decent. Every lesson he's ever "learned" were good people having to either give him every concession OR- in Izuku's case- sacrifice their own well-being and agency to validate his insecurities. Not once did Bakugou ever have to put in the work himself, it's always been the people around him coddling him. Hell, it's to the point that All Might had to make Bakugou's goals align with protecting people to make him somewhat decent, the dumb idiot couldn't even realize that on his own. This is more like enabling than being a positive influence. An actual positive influence would be someone holding him accountable for his behavior and the only person who even attempts that is Best Jeanist

What's the difference between "flawed" and "still doing the same things only they're funny now?" Because you can't insist to me that Bakugou has changed when he continues to act the same way he always has. He still yells at, insults, and assaults Izuku. The only difference is that it's played for comedy instead of actually taken seriously. So he can still say and do what he wants with no repercussions. And even in the moments that the narrative tries to seriously develop him, it still falls flat because he's never forced to make actual changes to himself. For fuck's sake, we're in the last chapter and he still sucks to the point that he dropped in the hero rankings

How can you tell me that Bakugou's character arc amounts to anything with a straight face?

[sunoorintarou]

Catharsis: Christmas Special

Phos!Reader x Teen!Gojo Satoru and Teen!Geto Suguru

Warnings: Gojo - centric, usual angst, fluff if you squint, major character death, dead bodies, set in 2006, lots of talks of politics, death, murder, trauma, morals, etc, borderline bullying? (Satoru is a jerk), self - blaming, grief, and all it's stages, trouble processing and understanding emotions, Gojo is seriously just his own warning

Notes: Merry Christmas!!!

"You're weak. Why do you bother being a sorceror?"

Satoru's words make you freeze, eyes widening at their bluntness. He doesn't react, however, because in his mind, he's simply telling you the truth.

You're weak. He's known that from the moment you set foot in this classroom almost three months ago.

He doesn't understand why Suguru and Shoko seem so fond of you. All you do is get into trouble, injure yourself, and make it everyone's problem to save you. You can't fight, your Cursed Technique is subpar, not to mention that you're annoying.

Stepping into battle like some sort of self-righteous hero knowing full well that if a curse so much as touches you, you'll crumble. Literally. That's another thing he finds annoying about you. How easily your skin chips and cracks like porcelain revealing an ocean of Phosphophyllite underneath.

You can't lift anything heavy, you can't fight, you can't help out without injuring yourself, you're clumsy, you're annoying, and the list could go on.

What he finds the most annoying about you, however, is your soft voice going, "Gojo - san, are you alright? You look tired", "Gojo - san, you should rest, you don't need to use your technique so often", "Gojo - san, you haven't eaten yet, so I brought you this, I hope you don't mind".

Gojo - san this, Gojo - san that, God. You drive him crazy. How do you manage to see through every front he puts up? Every act? Even Shoko and Suguru can't see through it, and yet you have the audacity to call him out.

You're a liability in battle, and you're practically useless, more like the team's overglorified mascot. So, for the life of him, Satoru doesn't understand why everyone likes you so much. Even Nanami, his grouchy underclassman, doesn't seem to mind you.

What annoys Satoru the most, however, is the tug his heart feels when he looks at you. Because no matter how he tries to deny it, you're growing on him like a parasite, and a part of him wishes he was as close to you as they were.

"I am weak." You agree, seemingly taking no offence to Satoru's question. It's just you and him in the classroom. You're standing at your desk, bag still in hand, and he's sitting a desk, two desks behind yours. Shoko and Suguru are still on their way, and he's taken this opportunity to ask you what he's been dying to.

Satoru's eyes widen at your response.

"If you know you're weak, why do you try so hard? It's kind of pathetic, you know." His brows furrow, glasses sliding down his nose bridge as he tilts his head.

"I- because, I'm selfish, I guess." You say softly.

There it is again. That annoying soft tone of voice that makes his chest hurt whenever he hears it.

"I know I'm weak, but I want to keep trying. I want to fight. One day, I want to be able to repay everyone for everything they've done for me. Yaga - sensei, Shoko, Suguru, Ken, Yuu. Even you, Gojo - san. I want you to be able to rely on me. I want to be able to protect innocent people like you guys do. So I hope you can bear with me for a little more, Gojo - san. I'm sorry for being such a burden, but I promise I'll pay you back." You say earnestly, looking Gojo in the eye.

Satoru's eyes widen, and he's silent for a moment. Before he bursts out laughing.

You suddenly feel embarrassed. You were being serious and heartfelt, and all Gojo does in response is laugh.

"What's with that? Did you quote that from an anime?" He cackles, hitting the desk with one hand and holding his stomach with the other.

"I- I did not! I was being honest!" You defend, feeling the heat tinting your cheeks.

"If- if you really want to repay me, buy me something sweet from the vending machine." Satoru stutters between fits of giggles.

"OK, I'm on it." You nod, turning on your tail to leave the class. A hand grabs your shoulder, stopping you.

"Where are you going?" Satoru asks, leaning down to look you in the eye.

"The vending machine?" You reply, brows furrowed in confusion.

"You're going now?"

"Yeah? I'll be back really quickly."

Satoru scoffs, but there's a smile on his face nonetheless.

"Really? I'll time you then. You have 5 minutes." He challenges, smirking as he tilts his head at you.

"5- 5 minutes?" You stutter, eyes wide. The vending machine was on the other side of the school. There's no way you'd make it back in 5 minutes.

"Yeah. The clock is ticking. Didn't you say you'd pay me for saving your butt all those times?" He mocks.

Satoru's eyes widen as you put down your bag, determination clear on your face.

"I did. I might not be back in 5 minutes, but I'll be back in less than 10!"

"Hey, wait-"

And with that, you've rushed out the classroom, leaving Satoru absolutely bewildered. As he sticks his head out the door, watching you run and almost slip multiple times, Satoru thinks he's figured it out. He understands why Shoko and Suguru keep you around.

You're amusing. And he wants to get closer to you.

Unfortunately, things never go as planned. And if Satoru had known the outcome before, he would have tried to get to know you much sooner.

Things change quickly when you're a Jujutsu Sorceror. People come and go, live, and die. They change, they evolve. People grow apart, and people grow closer.

Regardless, it's not a pleasant feeling when you lose someone close to you. 

Gojo Satoru had never thought the day would come when he'd feel regret. He was the strongest, after all. Everything he wanted he got. The world was his oyster. Money, power, good looks, everything. So it's safe to say that loss was also a new concept to him.

A feeling he decided he'd prefer to live without.

It hurt in a way he couldn't explain. He felt as if he couldn't breathe, as if there were something heavy on his chest. Almost as if he were having an out of body experience but could feel whatever the stranger he saw when he looked in the mirror felt. Pain. Anger. Despair.

Cold and light. That's how your body felt in his arms. He couldn't bear to look at the white cloth covering it. This, this couldn't be you. This body in his arms, the broken shards of its head cutting into the cloth.

Yet it was still vivid. Amanai Riko running out and finding him, letting him know that you had died saving her. A bullet straight to the head. Pushing her into Suguru's arms and telling him to run with your last breath. Riko's tear filled face as she begged for him to help Suguru because she couldn't bear to have anyone else die because of her.

Since then, he's felt numb. It hasn't faded. The coldness in his skin, the haze of his reality, brain clouded as it was forced to process the events that had taken place.

"Suguru... should we kill them all? I probably wouldn't feel anything right now."

Did he say something? The words don't register in his mind. Was that his voice? Raw and soft.

Them. The higher-ups. If only he had known earlier that they were supportive of your death. That there was a bounty for your head somewhere.

He didn't know why. He didn't know anything. You had kept so much to yourself. Just what were you dealing with alone? All this time, smiling wide, eyes always sparkling, hiding everything behind your carefree, happy - go - lucky persona.

You didn't deserve this. You of all people. You weren't weak. You were sweet, kind, caring, and selfless to a fault.

This was not you. Lifeless in his arms. You were never this cold.

He remembered it, how warm your hands were all those time your fingers brushed his forehead to check if he was well, when your fingers brushed his whenever you handed him something, how warm they were when you held his face in your hands and scolded him for being reckless. He remembered it vividly.

What would you say if you saw him now? The exhaustion in his face, the blankness in his eyes, the way his- his hands were... trembling?

He could hear your voice, clear as day.

"Gojo - san! What happened to you!"

"You should really take care of yourself more, what were you thinking?"

"I don't care if you're one of the strongest! You're a teenager. Right now, you're just Satoru, and you're going to learn to be kinder to yourself. You- you don't deserve this."

What did Satoru deserve? Was it really kindness? Care? Gentleness? Love? He had messed up. If he had been stronger, he could have saved you. If he had been stronger, you wouldn't be dead in his arms.

What was the point of awakening his powers when they weren't there when it mattered? What was the point of being the strongest if he couldn't protect the people he cared about? The people he loved?

What made matters worse was finding out the higher-ups were happy you were gone. The people that had singlehandedly been the cause for his suffering. His. Suguru's. Shoko's. Yours. Those filthy old bags who only thought of themselves.

What would really happened if he killed them all? Would it really be such a bad thing? Weren't they supposed to be the pillars of the Jujutsu world? The elders for people to look up to and learn from. A symbol of hope, something, anything even remotely positive, beneficial to the future of the young next generation of Jujutsu Sorcerors?

All they had done was applaud the death of someone innocent. A teenager. A child. How dare these self-righteous ba-

Your hand falls from the covers of the white sheet, hanging limply.

Satoru's brain goes blank. A pale arm, an empty hand, and familiar phosphophyllite fingernails.

"No need. It's meaningless." Suguru's voice is low, as if the reality that you're gone hasn't hit him yet. His eyes linger on your hand. The palm that patted his back, the fingers that ran through his hair, the hand that was so warm in his.

Before he can stop himself, he finds his own hand grasping it. It's cold. He drops it like the contact physically hurt him.

"Without the higher-ups, the Jujutsu world will go up in flames. And even if they die, there's the possibility even worse people will come into power. Killing them won't bring her back either."

His words don't make sense, even to him, but Suguru utters them nonetheless. The look in Satoru's eye is enough to tell him that if he doesn't do anything, today will mark the beginning of a massacre. And although he feels the same anger Satoru does, Suguru's moral compass, as well as his understanding of the type of person you are... stops him.

"Meaning... huh?" Satoru repeats.

The Satoru in front of him is not the Satoru Suguru knows. The playful, snarky, overburdened boy replaced by something else. Something unfamiliar. Something... cold.

"Do we need that?"

Suguru hesitates for a split second. The girl in Satoru's arms is just as unfamiliar. A bubbly, bright, kind girl replaced by something else. Something unfamiliar. Something... almost sinful. A shell. An empty shell. The existence it harboured long gone. A disgrace to the being it had once been.

"Yeah. It's very important... for sorcerors."

Your corpse wouldn't decompose. The crystallisation forming a perfect seal to your body, and perhaps that's why they can't bring themselves to immediately bury you.

Clinging onto the false hope that perhaps you'd wake up, bounce back like always. Familiar head of teal hair poking over Suguru's shoulder, a second softer set of footsteps padding behind Satoru's, a warm hand flinching at the touch of Shoko's cold ones.

It's sickening. How quiet everything has become in your absence. How the shadows seem darker due to the absence of your light.

Perhaps you wouldn't know it, but your death was beneficial in a way. Suguru spiralled into depression but your words of the past kept him strong, and somehow, he managed to graduate with Satoru and Shoko.

They left an empty seat between them at graduation. Your certificate is still in Shoko's office to this day.

Your warnings and nagging that reminded everyone of their mother saved Haibara's life. You had always told them to never accept missions alone, and it was thanks to your words ringing in his head that Nanami became paranoid while Haibara was out on a mission. This led to him going out to check on Haibara and ended in him saving his life.

It was almost idealistic how almost everyone graduated that year. A rare thing in the Jujutsu World to have so many young people survive.

Satoru jokes its because you took on the unwanted burden and closed the gates of Heaven yourself. You always did. Eating the bitter parts of his food that he didn't like, letting everyone choose first when Yaga gave you rewards, not touching your food until everyone had started eating. You always took on the unpleasantries so that everyone else could live without knowing suffering.

Why did everyone deserve happiness except for you?

Why did everyone deserve to live except for you?

"Gojo - Sensei."

"So even Sensei sleeps, huh?"

"Of course he does. What kind of nonsense is that?"

Satoru's eyelids flutter. He pulls up his blindfold, his vision coming into focus as he sees a blurry image of his students.

For a split moment, he's in high school again. He's in his second year, and he's sleeping before class. He hears soft footsteps approach him. Feels someone lean down near him, but he's not scared. Not even annoyed.

Rather, he plays dumb and waits in anticipation. There's butterflies bursting in his chest, a smile pulling at his face that's hidden in his arms. Smirking at the familiar scent of yuzu and caramel engulfing his senses. He'd chosen it, after all.

"Gojo - san? Wake up, class is about to start."

"Gojo - sensei!"

But when his visions focuses fully, he realises it's been 12 years and his beloved students have visited his office.

"Oh, he's awake!"

There's a red rim to Satoru's eyes, but it's almost unnoticeable. He smiles before pulling his blindfold back down.

"Please don't fall asleep after summoning us all here." Megumi states.

Satoru stands up, and Yuji and Nobara are quick to fight over who gets to sit on his chair.

"What are you smiling about?"

It's today. By 4 that morning, Satoru had found himself sat in front of a familiar grave. He was always the first to visit. He brings a bouquet of white heliotrope and places it on the grave. He crouches in front of it, his blindfold tucked away in his pocket.

"Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy Birthday, dear Y/n. Happy Birthday to you."

If there's one thing Satoru wishes, it's that he was able to tell you his feelings truthfully while you were still alive. It's unhealthy, but he finds himself uttering the same three words on every occasion to a stone in the ground.

If only he could have seen your pretty face while he uttered them in person.

Satoru doesn't know if he believes in the afterlife, but he hopes you're listening. And maybe, just maybe, you're screaming at the top of your lungs, repeating the words in hopes he'd somehow hear.

"It's nothing."

A lie. Because deep down, Satoru knows he's thinking about a certain place, a certain person.

Maybe in his next life, he can finally go home to you.

[snapscube]

In Dawntrail did you enjoy a different character playing the main role, or do you prefer when the player character is leading the narrative?

this is definitely a major point of contention in the fanbase rn and i can generally see valid feelings/criticism on both ends of the spectrum. i myself do fall somewhere in between the most extreme takes on this. i won't go into too much detail about actual events but ill tag this as spoilers anyway just in case. ok so my thoughts are:

firstly, i like Wuk Lamat a lot. i don't think she deserves even half of the pure unfiltered ire that she is receiving from a large subset of the community rn. the amount of people who have already turned being a wuk lamat hater into an advertised personality trait really frustrates me. i really enjoyed seeing her personal journey through the story and i was overall very satisfied by her inclusion. however, i do not think the story was perfectly paced or balanced, and i definitely do understand where people are coming from when they say that they could have used a little less of her in the forefront. honestly it did kind of ultimately disappoint me that we missed out on a lot of potential interaction/development with someone like Krile, who in spite of being promised a big breakout role in this expansion still somewhat felt like a SLIGHT (i have to stress slight) afterthought. she did get some notable moments of development and emotion, but i feel like there could have been more.

okay but, your question is about our role as a player in the narrative. i hold the opinion that for THIS EXPANSION SPECIFICALLY, the warrior of light taking somewhat of a narrative backseat actually made a ton of sense and fit the themes of the narrative as well as the promise of a somewhat breezy summer vacation for our heroes. now, i will say this: i really do not agree with the idea that the WoL should be in a mentor role indefinitely because our story is done developing and we need to give the spotlight to "the next generation" of heroes in the world. i appreciate the SENTIMENT of this, but like for me personally.... i don't want Pella's story to be done, yknow? i definitely would be disappointed if this was the DE FACTO role she played in every expansion past this. but i don't even think that is factually what's going to happen. we're currently in a setup phase! and, again, bringing it back to this narrative and the themes within, a lot of Dawntrail about the experience of entering unfamiliar places and learning about the customs and the traditions of people already within it to best help them without unwelcomely trampling on their culture in the process. i think a story like that is the PERFECT time for the WoL to take a bit of a backseat. wuk lamat is also somewhat unfamilar like us yes, but Tural is still her home and she is about to be tasked with leading it. i feel like centering our character in that equation would feel.... really disingenuous? it was kinda frustrating sometimes when it felt like hey.... there's a situation happening right now that can be solved by skilled combat and you have a literally god killer standing right here doing a frown emote, but at a certain point i could chalk it up to growing pains or necessary suspension of disbelief in the interest of the overall emotional hook of the narrative. a lot of those moments could be explained away with enough thought about the character motivations and culture at play, though sometimes it does feel like a stretch. again, far from a perfectly written MSQ. it starts slow and it's messy and it throws a LOT of stuff at you that doesn't always pay off like you expect or want. but i dunno! i think we're gonna see some really interesting stuff come to the forefront in the future, and i think especially now knowing that much of the playerbase thought we took TOO much of a backseat here CS3 will probably adjust their focus accordingly next time. so i can't be too upset really about the stuff i wasn't into. the rest of it was great imo!

[anachronistic-falsehood]

Vash and Femininity: Trigun Stampede and its Themes of Bodily Autonomy, Exploitation, and Vague Gender Fuckery

alright sit the fuck down. we're gonna talk about THEMES

I was on Twitter- terrible idea usually, but a couple people I follow made some tweets that got me thinking about Trigun's overall themes, and here we are. So let's talk about some themes in Tristamp! And I'll take a couple looks at Trimax as well, just for fun :3

Let's look at how the showrunners utilize gender roles and exploitation of feminine characters to show how unhealthy Knives' obsession with his ideal of Vash is, and how horrific his exploitation of Vash and the Plants is.

Vash, from the beginning of Tristamp, is someone who cares about people's choices. When people kill others in front of him, he reiterates that whether someone lives or dies is not another person's choice to make. This is something he learned from Rem (a prominent female figure in his life). He refuses to kill people because that is not his choice to make. To kill someone is the ultimate removal of their bodily autonomy. They can no longer make any choices at all; they're dead.

Vash is also someone who has almost no choice in what path his life takes. He's constantly dragged around by outside forces, namely situations that are caused by Knives (which we'll get into later). Vash doesn't make things happen, things happen to Vash. The majority of events that occur are not his fault. He's pushed and pulled in a thousand different directions. His entire life is completely out of his control.

This can be seen as early on in his life as the Fall, something he had no control over and had no idea he even had a part in. Even later, in the ship with Luida and Brad, after he's been rescued from the desert, he's kept in handcuffs right up until he's shown to be of use to them and the Plant on their ship. After that, he could theoretically say "no, I don't want to go to other ships and heal their plants," but he doesn't. He's Vash. He's helpful and nurturing at his core, and these people have done so much for him just by letting him stay, so he'll do whatever they ask, no question.

This carries over into his adulthood. At Jeneora Rock, he goes to look at their Plant at one simple request, doesn't protest when he's dragged into a duel-- he doesn't take initiative unless someone's life is immediately at stake. He lets people tell him what to do and lets himself get dragged around by the wrist. He doesn't even pretend to have control over his life like Trimax Vash does, which I mean. Fair. Why pretend to have a grip on your existence when it's impossible to do anything without a gun pointed at your head?

Vash is a very passive character. He's nurturing, kind, gentle- he's a guy that fits a lot of very typical feminine character stereotypes. If you wrote this same story but made him a woman, I wouldn't bat an eye (but I would definitely be looking at it a lot more critically, what with the amount of stereotypically nurturing/motherly female characters in media already.)

This contrasts directly with Knives. He makes a decision and carries through no matter what stands in his way. He takes initiative. If Vash is a passive character, Knives is an active character. Wherever he goes, he leaves a lasting imprint. He makes shit happen! If outside forces make things happen to him, he'll go out of his way to make sure that particular force doesn't affect him again.

These two tweets I saw are what got me thinking about this originally. I just feel like here's a good place to put them as a segue into talking about episode 11.

Episode 11 is where a lot of this feminine imagery really just. Explodes in your face. IT'S RIGHT THERE. You can't dance around it if you try. And it kind of reaches a peak when the connection reaches 100%, the gate opens, and. well. THIS happens to the Plants.

Plants, in both Trimax and Tristamp, are almost always typically feminine-looking. Knives and Vash are the only two who are male or even masculine at all. Knives, as the most masculine out of all of them, is the one trying to take charge, and mould the world as he sees fit, to a degree that is detrimental to both him and everyone else. And Vash-- passive, feminine, kind and nurturing, whose Angel Arm in the manga always sprouts decidedly feminine-looking Plant parts-- is the one being exploited for Knives' plans. It's no mistake that they made the giant plant formation at the end of ep 11 look like a giant woman that almost resembles Rem.

Vash wants people to make their own choices and keep their autonomy when it comes to their bodies and lives. Knives is the exact opposite. He wants all Plants to become independent and he uses Vash to achieve that goal, without asking what Vash wants or even knowing what the Plants themselves would prefer. He exploits Vash for the soul purpose of trying to make these Plants have Independent Plant babies. He's completely incapable of seeing that his choices are not for the greater good! He thinks he's saving them, but none of his actions are for the good of anyone but himself. He’s just violating them for his own gain.

They're really leaning into gender roles for these guys, but in a way that screams "HEY, LOOK AT THIS! ISN'T IT FUCKED UP? LOOK AT HOW FUCKED UP THAT IS. LOOK AT THIS, AND BE UNCOMFORTABLE, AND KNOW THAT IT IS FUCKED UP."

Because it is! It's so extremely fucked up. They're using this imagery and these roles, something that makes most of us intrinsically uncomfortable, to drive home how unhealthy Knives relationship with his ideal of Vash is. That's the point. We're supposed to be uncomfortable with this.

Now of course there's some nuance to it. Like, you could see Knives as somewhat of a feminine and/or queer-coded figure as well, ESPECIALLY if you look at some of his panels in the manga, which could in turn lead to themes about infighting and control within marginalized communities, but that might be something for another post. :3

And there's definitely different ways you could take this! Vash, with all this feminine imagery, could be either transfem or transmasc coded, depending on what way you'd rather see it, which could lead into themes of how people outside the norm constantly face a lack of bodily autonomy and are exploited for purposes outside their boundaries. We could also look at Wolfwood and his lack of choice over joining the Eye of Michael and becoming the Punisher, and how masculine men (particularly men of colour) are often forced into violent roles against their will. If we look at Trimax, the exact same could be said for Livio/Razlo and people with disorders such as DID/OSDD.

There are many different ways you could spin these themes, some of which I don't feel personally qualified to discuss. If anyone who is qualified to talk about Wolfwood or Livio/Razlo or even other characters related to these themes, then god PLEASE add onto this post or make a post and tag me or something. I would love to read it!

Anyway, in conclusion: Vash is a feminine figure constantly taken advantage of and exploited and and he's so incredibly trans/nonbinary-coded that it drives me insane. Thank you