#but especially that aspect

[uncanny-tranny]

This might seem like an "old man yells at cloud" situation, but it's just wild growing up and being told how dangerous distracted driving is - how, at highway speeds, you can traverse the length of a football field (100 yards, 91 meters) in a matter of seconds - how one split second sending a text while driving could result in a potential fatal crash, and then getting on the road as a driver and being surrounded by billboards. Their entire purpose is to catch one's attention, so they're lining major roads, which tend to be highways. How is it that you're told how important it is to never be distracted while driving, but still being advertised to?

At best, this type of advertising is an eyesore to pedestrians and motorists and a general waste of electricity to light it, and at worst, it is an active danger considering they are there to advertise and therefore, must catch people's attention.

I'm not even against advertising in theory, but this particular mode bothers me so much and I hate how pervasive it is - especially in large cities or highways.

[hyacinthsdiamonds]

I'm sorry but the irony of Nico calling Max unprofessional is sending me so bad like sir there's an entire garage full of people, who were literally in the trenches trying to survive the Brocedes fallout while just doing their jobs, who might have a few things to say about your (& Lewis') level of professionalism at that time 😭✋️

[bumblingbabooshka]

Thinking about marriage/women's rights on Vulcan Some may think that T'Pring not being allowed to divorce Spock was because he was going through the pon farr but if she were allowed to divorce him at all she probably would have done that a long time ago, confirmed by T'Pol when she's speaking with Koss, who isn't suffering from the pon farr. She says that he can choose another mate (without invoking a fight it seems: note the difference between a 'mate' and a 'challenger') and after he makes it clear that nothing she says will change his mind about marrying her, she finally threatens to declare a kal-if-fee. It's clear that Vulcan women cannot divorce/refuse to marry a man they've been betrothed to under any circumstances if A) He himself doesn't consent to ending their marriage or B) She doesn't have someone else waiting in the wings to be given to in his stead. Though, if the challenger she selects fails to win the fight, she'll have to marry her betrothed anyway unless (again) he decides he doesn't want her after the challenge. That seems like an incredibly unfair system, heavily biased towards men. SNW is an alternate universe in many obvious respects but most egregiously in that T'Pring has a lot of non-canonical agency over her relationship with Spock. It's interesting to me that Vulcan society has women in many positions of power and treats women as equal to men from what I've seen despite these laws. We don't really see Vulcans exhibiting a misogynistic attitude towards women in general but in TOS (perhaps because of its general writing style but it's still interesting to note) both Sarek and Spock take on patriarchal attitudes specifically regarding wives. Amanda says that 'of course' Sarek commands her because "he is a Vulcan and I am his wife." It's worthwhile in my eyes to note that she specifies 'wife' instead of attributing this attitude to women as a whole. Again, with TOS' writing style it wouldn't be out of place for her to say "he is a man and I am a woman." Spock, while in a pon farr induced irritation, states that it's "undignified for a woman to play servant to a man that isn't hers" - again implying that there's something specific about being a Wife in Vulcan society which is different from being a woman in general and demands subservience to a husband. This could perhaps stem from the extreme sense of ownership that Vulcan law has permitted men to have over women. A woman legally cannot point blank refuse marriage. There is no option which guarantees she won't have to marry her betrothed other than death. When T'Pau speaks of T'Pring she refers to her as being 'property' and Stonn, before being interrupted, states he's made 'the ancient claim' - we don't know what this is because he gets cut off but it's obvious they're both using the language of Vulcan law. Men are permitted true freedom to choose. If a woman wants to choose someone else to be with there is no option available to her other than the kal-if-fee which might result in the death of the one she wants to be with. And, if her lover fails, her husband can still just decide he wants to marry her and she'll be forced to. T'Pring gives two scenarios: One where Spock 'frees' her and one where he doesn't - it's still ultimately his decision which is clear when he ends the conversation with "Stonn, she is yours." This again isn't just because of the pon farr as T'Pol also goes through this. Koss can choose another mate and when the option is talked about there's no implication that this would result in any sort of fight (both by the casualness of its mention and by the fact that there's no formal word for it unlike the kal-if-fee.) Also, the fact that Koss does eventually grant T'Pol a divorce and it's all fine means that T'Pol isn't lawfully required to have another man waiting if her HUSBAND doesn't want her. It's ONLY required if SHE doesn't want her husband. Tradition must take precedence over individual desire UNLESS!!! You're a man. Then it's fine. Like, your parents might not be happy but legally you're golden.

[afsosville]

This is just an /opinion/ and I'm just tryna find ppl that agree with me.

I do not think having kids could quote on quote "fix" Shen Jiu, biological or otherwise. 1) A kid should not bear the responsibility to be that emotionally invested in the shit mental health of their caregiver. Don't make any child go through that. And 2) Nothing about any child could make Shen Jiu be a decent caregiver out of his own volition (sure, he was nice to NYY and probably did care for her, but that's about how far it went ejrrjf tho I'll gladly eat up AUs where he does treat her like a daughter when he knows how to care for a kid properly).

Good luck trying to make Shen Jiu get his shit together unless you're actually changing things about his past. The easiest "fix" imo is to give Shen Jiu an ADULT, heavy emphasis on this, an ADULT that could invest in his mental/emotional wellbeing when Shen Jiu is still a kid or a teen. How else do you expect Shen Jiu to be a responsible adult around kids when he's never had a responsible adult to care for him at all?

There's not a single authority figure in Shen Jiu's life that's ever done him good, not QJL, not WY, and SJ's own shizun, the prev. QJPL is up for debate but I have reasons to believe why they ain't shit too. And like hear me out, YQY doesn't count either coz SJ *thinks* YQY is another caregiver that gave up on him and didn't take responsibility for him. And obviously that's not true, but that's just how it is from his perspective sadly.

I still really like Shen Jiu's dark backstory, coz there's no Shen Jiu without it, buuuuuuuut if you really want a version of him that doesn't take that bullshit out on his disciples, do give him an ADULT, coz never a kid, give him and adult first, before you give him any kids, so he can LEARN HOW TO BE AN ADULT.

Ykwim???

Anyways, this is why older SY/ younger SJ is best Shen Bros dynamic don't try to change my mind.

Here's some Shen Bros fics that are like that >>

Locked and Loaded by Hellister

These Gentle Hands Will by anorangecarrot

Reversal of Fortune by Grace_Youya

The Shadows that Raised Me by Lbhs_left_tiddie

[dykedvonte]

You ever just see a Mouthwashing take that makes you want to bang your head into a wall? I literally just saw someone claim Curly couldn't have been emotionally abused by Jimmy before the crash because he was in a higher position of power than Jimmy.

-Shrimp Anon

The mouthwashing fandom has shown me that people genuinely do believe that certain types of abuse are not as detrimental as other types especially when they deem those immune/resistant, ergo, believing one is objectively worse no matter how it affects the person nor the intersections of power, history and dynamics at play.

Get ready cause this is a yap session:

Cause like it's heavily implied that Curly and Jimmy's friendship was toxic and abusive, pointedly in the direction of how Jimmy uses Curly's belief/comfort in him. Curly wasn't forced to enable Jimmy but he was emotional and mentally on edge around him in almost every scene in some way. Mental and emotional abuse are not contingent on what positions you have at work. Yeah, he's Jimmy's boss but he was Jimmy's friend first and it's like getting into Psych discussion to talk about how social power tends to overshadow any perceived organizational power in the human mind. People are concerned about their jobs ofc but they tend to hang onto and put more value/investment into their personal relationships, hence why there tends to be laws and restrictions around mixing the two.

I always see the sentiments that "Curly is a grown ass man", "Curly is bigger than Jimmy", "Curly is Jimmy's boss", "He just needed a backbone" as criticisms of Curly and while I do agree that on the surface level all of these to be true and viable ways Curly could've taken more control of the situation, I often look at the parallels of Anya and Curly as victims of Jimmy pre/post crash.

The way Jimmy talks to Anya post crash is how he talked to Curly in the pre-crash segments. It's hard to pin-point mainly because we know he hates and wants nothing to do with Anya compared to his contrary but similarly handled obsessions with Curly. It's a weird sort of "honey-moon" effect of abuse Jimmy does in terms of emotional and mental victimization. He is always horrid to Anya, always talking down or questioning her abilities and thoughts in a situation, this of course includes the harassment and assault. However, he has a moment of attempted gentleness/conditioning when he question her about the mouthwash when she's contemplating drinking it at the table. The key difference is he has no personal investment in Jimmy outside wanting nothing to do with him, meaning there is no sort of romanticized version of him that he can condition her off of. He knows this, hence, why he always reverts to trying to make her to scared to oppose him.

This sort of give and take of "kindness" doesn't work on her because she knows he is just doing it to take more from her than whatever he could possibly give but it reflects even the "softer" scenes between him and Curly where he always rewords or rephrases Curly's sentiments and concerns to sound more shallow. He is feigning a deeper understanding by reworking Curly's emotions into something bad and needing to be hidden. Everything is laced with envy and resentment, an outburst just around the corner, I mean he even slams the table in the birthday party scene, a tactic in emotional manipulation to set the victim on edge and cloud their ability to respond. Even if Curly knows Jimmy won't get physical in that moment, the physical actions is intended to make him back down in the confrontation in case it does. This is something that is just not person specific. It ingrains itself into how you interact with the world and life and it shows in major and minor ways with Curly.

Post-crash, the abusive nature is more in tandem to the physical victimization Anya went through and the stripping of voice and autonomy we see take place. Like the parasite in HFIM, Jimmy speaks for Curly most of the time and puts words in his mouth, similarly to how he takes Anya's plans as his own. He very commonly, with the both of them mind you, supplements the worst aspects of himself into them; pettiness, selfishness, lack of understanding... And tries to cover himself with their best qualities; kindness, planning, initiative, etc...

These parallel are just to say that positional power has little to do with if a person can be abused and how it can even be flipped to further the abuse. There is no doubt that Curly could've picked up on Jimmy's envy of his position hence another reason he never confronted him as a Captain but as a friend as doing so would immediately put Jimmy in a space to be confrontational/combative.

I think the disdain some people have when they talk about the heavily implied if not implicitly stated emotional/mental abuse Curly experienced being Jimmy's friend is when treating it as an excuse to why he didn't do more. I can understand that completely because it is not an excuse to why he didn't do more but is a very real reason people in his position in these scenarios can experience whether in the context of a work or social environment. However, I also think the way people talk about it really does demonstrate a bigger problem when talking about abuse when somehow who is/was abused is either part of the issue or enabled it.

Harkening back to the sentiments about Curly's inaction regarding Jimmy, I think the exact phrases I used/have seen show how there is an inherent belief that it is easier to overpower the effects of emotional/mental abuse that go in tandem with the perception of Curly as someone who should be able to. There is not an age you suddenly stop being susceptible to abuse nor a set point or low where you realize how it has affected you. You don't suddenly know to stand up or put a face on to face your abuser nor admit that you inadvertently enabled them to subjugate someone else to the same treatment. Maybe it's my psych brain but their is this growing belief that direct action is somehow easy or always the best method with the game shows you instances where it is not always the case. In real life that rings true too. He should have done more, but it's not impossible to see why he struggled to find a way or didn't even if it makes us mad.

It's not easy to suddenly gain a "back-bone". You don't immediately want to resort to aggression, especially if it mirrors the type you were a victim to. You don't want to believe you allowed yourself to be treated this bad, let it get that bad or allowed something bad to happen to someone else. It is easy to be in denial, to retreat to your thoughts or make excuses to avoid the painful truth. It's frustrating but in a way we know is relatable. It why we both hate and love Curly for it. We know we'd be better, we think we'd be better, we like to think we wouldn't falter in the same ways but it's always easier to say that from the outside looking in. It's easy to see what he was doing wrong because we are seeing it, not him, but the game really does make you picture what you would do if this was your raw reality and it's why this debate about Curly seems so never ending/contradictory. We can all say what we'd do but bottom line is that's much different when you're in the moment with all the emotions and human feelings attached.

I personally think Mouthwashing tackles the themes of rape culture, enabling, toxic masculinity, types of abuse and patriarchy in ways that are meant to deconstruct the typical straightforward views we mostly have of these concepts and how little subtilities of them are just as, if not more, detrimental than the overt/obvious parts. The game deals with the idea of little details and bigger picture in a way to show that sometimes the bigger picture is not the issue but the little details that make it up. It's why I have a personal dislike of depictions of Jimmy as the typical horrible person who would of course do something like this because the game is about noticing the little warning signs, the foreshadowing and foresight.

It's why I dislike the typical discussion of "bro code" and "boys will be boys" for the game because the game makes a point to avoid the standard depictions of such. It is about the type of men who still enable despite not condoning, agreeing or even perpetuating harmful beliefs because they can't see the little details or the ways it seeps into their everyday. The severity is not obvious to them as it was not obvious to Curly, Swansea or even Daisuke the way it was to a woman like Anya. There are little details about Jimmy that should ring alarms but if you are too naive like Daisuke, too distant like Swansea or too conditioned like Curly, they are just off markers.

There is 100% more constructive/concise ways to say "Curly was a victim of Jimmy's abuse on an emotional and mental aspect that clouded his judgements and perceptions in the scenario" while also critiquing on the side of "Curly still had a responsibility to protect Anya as a crew mate and Captain that he failed to do due to biases and stigma's he failed to surpass" without the weird condemnation people give him about should've knowing better than to let himself be manipulated by a person he considered a close, if not family/best-friend and had his own reasons to trust initially. Also stop being weird about victims of abuse in general with this fandom, like sorry not everyone has a like social epiphany the moment someone's nasty to them. People are treating it like you immediately know when you are in a toxic relationship immediately or comprehend when a person is actively dangerous and either it's your fault for not knowing how to leave/cut them off or you deserve it. Like the hypocrisy of people believing how certain fans treat the story reflect their irl views but not their own is crazy.

End statement is: I honestly don't even know man, I've been writing this too long and just like no man on that ship was perfect or really helped Anya when it mattered and I feel like pitting them against each other in discussion on who did the least or most or how it was justified sucks cause in the end Anya always did the most and best thing for herself.

[bugflies00]

sorry this is referencing a few month old post/s you made about the dream situation and a question you’d asked about dream stans, you can delete this msg if you want since it’s not as relevant anymore. Again I’m sorry if this is weird or you don’t gaf (that’s fair bc who does lol)

TW for grooming and dream being fucking gross. You can just scroll fast and delete if you don’t want to read or deal with this, I understand that

-

To preface Im about Tommy’s age now, when I was 15-17, used to be a huge dream stan, and I was very vocal about defending him online. —I was extremely parasocial and weird, and looking back on it I really regret how I acted.

So. Idk how much people who weren’t stans of his saw, but dream- as stupid as it sounds- was our friend.

He had bath calls with us, sleep calls with us, he told us in depth about his personal life and his health issues and his trauma and his moods and his habits and just basically everything. Most of his interactions with us was through his discord, and then someone in the fandom would stream his discord calls for people who weren’t there. A running joke was that dream had a parasocial relationship with us. there was absolutely no gap between creator and fan, he followed me more than once, he brought fans onto his discord streams and talked with them and he knew a good amount of us by name. He called us cute and talked about how much we all (as individuals) meant to him,

when drama happened he’d usually either do a space/call or go on his private and vent to us, there were I think two separate times he’d have full panic attacks over drama happening, and we’d have to talk him down. He also would, when responding to callouts or accusations, use arguments that his fans were making.

He did this during almost all his pitfalls, including the grooming allegations, his wording was often taken word for word from tweets by people I was friends with. I dropped him after the initial allegations, but for a while after i still checked in bc i was really hoping he’d be innocent (he wasn’t) and i can confirm he still does this. He also regularly dmed his fans, mostly his black fans, to ask for “help” on being less racist.

I don’t use the word “grooming” lightly, but dream was and is absolutely grooming his audience. Thats why dream stans seem so cult-like these days. The amount of guiltripping, lying, forcing an us vs them mentality, and manipulation I saw this man pull was actually sick. He’d frequently, privately, to us, vent about tommy or quackity, and about how “all his friends hated him” and “we were all he had left” (legit, not joking). He is extremely good at emotional blackmail, he is good at making his fans hate other creators and turn on them, he is very good at utilizing his tears and using wording that he knows will make his mostly teenage fanbase think he’s a good kind person.

He wants to impress on his fans that he really was just a kind person, the only kind person and the only voice of reason. That’s why when the Cantu thing happened, he started posting “messages” of him being so kind to the Uber driver. He needs his fans to think he’s a kind and loving person, and that Tommy and quackity and literally everyone who’s pulled away from him was just a fake friend who couldn’t be trusted. He somehow was always, always the one being fucked over.

I remember when I told my friend about dream (this friend had a completely neutral opinion on him and barely knew the guy beyond his manhunts) and he told me that sounded like grooming.

He gradually isolated his (primarily young, female) fanbase using private accounts, discord calls, Snapchat, and whatever else. He got extremely personal with us far beyond the level any creator should be, he used kindness and flattery (like calling us “mature”. Also legit) to make us feel genuinely loved by him, again, NOT in the way a creator loves their fans. In the way a friend loves their friends, even in the way a partner loves their partner. He lashed out at us and had panic attacks when we did criticize him, he used tactics to make us think he was always right and good, and more than that, make all his detractors seem like terrible people out to get him AND us, he played himself out to be the perpetual victim and used carefully cut clips and emotional manipulation (like how he brought up his ~poor innocent family~ when harassing quackity. Weaponizing trauma like that was something he did ALL THE TIME to us whenever he was criticized.) in order to use us against people he didn’t like, making us take the bullet for him.

He uses his kindness and supposed goodness as a weapon, he used Tommy’s own trauma around doxxing against him when Tommy dared to criticize him (“I supported you when you were getting doxxed, yet you won’t do the same for me?”)

He used trauma to relate to his audience, making us feel like he was the only person who got it.

It’ll sound stupid, but it was genuinely really scarring. The way he made me and my friends feel was so confusing. I often found myself feeling used and violated, but also like I was in debt to him. I dreaded when he’d have fans on call, I dreaded him but also he felt like all I had. The tone of him and the fandom was that “we have to defend him at all costs, they’re out to get him and we’re the last line of support he has”. It was embarrassing, it was stressful, it was horrible. I wasted so much fucking time and energy on him.

it was really traumatic and distressing, especially as a teenager who’d already been at a vulnerable point and used him as an escape originally. I know that sounds melodramatic but I mean it.

He is a groomer through and through. He’s barely getting any new fans, but he’s barely losing any either bc the grasp he has on them is so tight.

Worst of all, if you leave the fandom, you’ll lose your friends and become an enemy. He encourages that behaviour and that mentality. He encourages harassment of his ex-friends, he encourages harassment of anyone who doesn’t like him. He wants you to feel like he’s the only good person, and like he’s the only one who will care about you. And I know at least in my experience that the way I acted when I was a fan of his did genuinely cause me to feel alienated in my social life. I lost friends, I felt like I couldn’t talk to anyone “safely”. That’s how he wants his fans to feel, because at some point he really is all you have.

And that’s why dream stans are still sticking around. It’s at the point where the only way they’ll leave is on their own volition, and the more publicly fucked shit he does, the less hope I have that they’ll do that.

i don’t have much to add but i agree, and several people i know who used to be big dream fans also agreed that there was a heavily insidious ‘us vs them’ atmosphere

[tooturtly]

Daily reminder that Alecto didn’t have to be a woman*. John could have made any body to shove the soul of the earth into. He could have picked a man, or a child, or literally anything. But he chose a woman.

And not just any woman! He specifically chose a barbie doll. An object. An object with heavy sexual and white beauty connotations. A doll which holds so much cultural weight and meaning for so many different people.

He could have chosen his mother or grandmother!!!!He could have depicted her as an actor or other real living person. But he chose a doll which had been part of his childhood expression (in both the complicated gender, sexuality, and power hierarchy meanings of that).

Which is so fascinating! It says so much about John as a person that in a moment which he himself describes as a level of insanity, he chose Barbie.

And I think we can say multiple things about that: he was physically manifesting his own complex relationships to gender by turning part of himself into a female form; he was upholding traditional gender norms by making her a woman; he was upholding white beauty standards of womanhood by picking Barbie; he recreated aspects of Christian creationism; he was insane and returned to the things he had been taught most basically.

And all of those different interpretations can be simultaneous! What John thinks he was doing (what he tells himself), what others think he was doing (how Harrow interprets it), what the reader interprets him as doing (see above), and the potential experience on Alectos part can all be different and bring new perspectives to the scene without there existing an “objective truth”.

What Johns experience says about himself, the reader, and our world that we live in is so fascinating. (The fact that he chose a human figure at all says a lot about how we as a collective value humans above all else) And I find him such an interesting character to analyse.

*I’m sidestepping the issue of defining woman, pls don’t ask me. It’s so complicated I couldn’t even begin.

[turtleblogatlast]

Imo the most impressive thing Leo’s done is hold this pose for as long as he did while covered head to toe in gold paint:

[ladyverdance]

I guess I'm starting to understand why there's no ancient prophecy about a chosen one and her friends.

The Sharing of Power in Buffy the Vampire Slayer — The Yoko Factor & Primeval (4.20 & 4.21) — Touched & Chosen (7.20 & 7.22)

[tired-biscuit]

fucking your best friend for the first time, who prides himself on knowing your every secret, pet peeve, like, dislike, all your past and current crushes, kinks and daydreams, but who also becomes literally clueless as soon as it comes to your naked body

[grassbreads]

On a scale of Chang Geng to Luo Binghe, how well does your teenage protagonist cope with the realization that he has a massive thing for the guy that's basically raising him?

[fascinationstreetmp3]

there are sooo many problems in armand and daniel's relationship, but this exchange highlights a big one imo: no matter what daniel says, thinks, or tells him, armand rarely believes daniel is telling the truth. armand spent years assuming daniel thought he was lying when he confessed he's never made another vampire, when daniel has believed him the whole time.

armand is told and shown one thing by daniel, but believes another.

he thinks daniel resents him for turning him into a killer, when daniel gets a rush from killing. even if he has trouble disposing of bodies afterwards, he enjoys the act of taking human life, and he wants to stay with armand and keep doing it forever.

armand thinks daniel has never understood or wanted to understand what being a vampire really means, when that's all daniel has ever wanted; he falls in love with the monstrous part of armand, it gives him a thrill to imagine what he does to sate his hunger, he loves knowing that he's killed someone recently, and he asks armand if he can watch him hunt— which armand refuses.

it's why i think when armand says sybelle is the first mortal to ever tell him "i love you", it might not entirely be true...

... or at least, even if he's never said it aloud, daniel must've thought "i love you" over and over during their years together. except armand never believed daniel really loved him, he only loved his blood and his power and wanted it for himself. maybe he believed daniel simply thought he loved him, because he had nothing else. maybe daniel only ever really told him he loved him when he was given the blood, and that confirmed what armand believed. whatever it was, any love that daniel felt was not real in armand's eyes, especially as it began to be eclipsed by a form of hatred, which was partly borne from daniel's frustration at being treated like nothing but a toy and doubting that he meant anything to armand at all.

armand felt he was never truly honest with daniel and his love was possessive and complicated, so he couldn't understand that daniel's obsession with immortality had long ago evolved into wanting immortality specifically by armand's side.

daniel wanted to live forever with armand because he really truly did love him, to the point that it ruined him. but armand could never believe it. and riddled with guilt after turning him, he believed there was no chance daniel would ever really love him now.

[tourettesdog]

DP x DC prompt where, somehow, Danny winds up in a thermos. Somehow, that thermos winds up locked away in one of the Justice League's vaults.

The energy that radiates off of it is powerful-- dangerous, dark, twisted, and dead. The magic users that interact with the thermos deem it unsafe to handle. They store it away, until they can better understand what they are handling-- but later never really comes.

It just sits, collecting dust, and the world outside moves on.

Years later, following in her original's footsteps, Dani becomes a hero. It's been years now since Danny disappeared and she's given up hope of ever finding him. The portal was shut down when the ghosts became too much to handle in Danny's absence. Amity has been quieter than it ever was, somehow feeling deader without the ghosts that used to haunt it so frequently.

Dani moves on-- all of Team Phantom does, with nothing left to anchor them to Amity Park. Even the Fenton parents shy away from it all, for once setting down their work, a little too late to fix what they missed.

Dani winds up on the Justice League. She doesn't talk much about Danny, if at all. It's easier to focus on the now, which Dani's always been good at. It's easier to keep moving forward than it is to think about what all she's suffered and lost.

Even without the Fenton portal, however, the ghosts of the Zone make themselves heard again. A large natural portal opens in Gotham and Dani finds herself the best equipped for the job. She never saw much use in explaining ghost weapons to the League before, always a little worried that it would endanger herself, but now the threat demands more firepower than she can give by herself.

Dani talks about the sort of weapons they used to use on the ghosts, recounting the Fenton thermos and how useful it was for capturing ghosts.

Someone remembers a thermos. Someone pulls it from the vault, and Dani takes it with shaking hands. It's the first time she's held one in years.

There's a familiar energy coursing through it and Dani feels like she might be sick.

She feels relief and anger in equal measure when Danny is at last freed from the thermos.

[kate-apologist]

hey disney what the fuck do you mean ncuti's second season will also only have 8 episodes and a christmas special i'm holding a fucking gun to your head

[akeedia]

li tianchen & the death of a sister

Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, Jewish Literacy / Steven Berkoff, The Fall of the House of Usher / Michael Dickman, Killing Flies / Dustin Pearson, The World at its Beginning / Anne Carson, Antigonick

[nyehilismwriting]

Have you seen the recent comment made by Jelly Fish Field on your itch page for Project Hadea. I just read it, and found their view really interesting and extremely important criticism on how you've decided to write certain reactions. I love your writing a lot, so it was extremely eye opening what they wrote. What i'm getting at is, I would just like to hear your feedback on that specific comment! all love, and I do hope this won't be taken the wrong way!

I've seen it, yeah. and... okay, I've discussed my reasons for not using rape as a content warning before, and I stand by them; I'm not revisiting any discussion on what does and does not constitute rape. the content is warned for, by specifics of what occurs in the text, to give people the chance to make the most informed decision they can about whether to play. that's it.

as for the rest of it... there's things in there that I understand. I get being frustrated that you can't fully explore the extent of the operative's trauma, yet; I get feeling like the rest of the crew don't trust you, or like rohan is a bitch. they don't, and xe is.

the thing that I find disagreeable about a lot of these criticisms (and similar ones) is that I think they betray a fundamental misreading of the text: the operative is a war criminal. they are heavily armed, unstable, and trapped on a ship with civilians. they kill multiple civilians in chapter one; they might well attempt to kill rohan in front of everyone, and later succeed in doing so. they are a confirmed murderer, who by and large refuses to tell the civilians why they are so angry with rohan. this is by design.the focus of this story is very much about coming to terms with your trauma - from long before you meet rohan! you've been medically experimented on, had your personhood denied for a long time, and had any kind of human empathy stamped out of you. part of the point of the game is for me to explore how trauma can be expressed in ways that are deeply unpalatable - the operative is not a "perfect victim" (a phrase I loathe) and their trauma impacts the way they move through the world, drawing out reactions that aren't wholly sympathetic or empathetic, because their actions are often unjustified and cause real harm, or seem that way to those who don't have full context.

this is why joia is important, this is why your relationships with the crew are important. the crew aren't intended to be author voices, they're not the moral compass here or audience stand-ins: they aren't supposed to represent the "correct" approach to dealing with other people's trauma. no character in this situation is intended to be seen as perfect, but as a way to shine light on different facets of the story.

the operative is built a very specific way, for very specific reasons: this is intentional. they are a person who has been deliberately dehumanised, used as a weapon, who volunteered and fought for the right to be a scientific guinea pig for the war crimes company, in order to be of greater use to said company. they have had their bodily autonomy violated so habitually, for their whole career - they have been coercively used as a test subject by their employer - that they can't see it as an abnormal violation. this isn't to say it is justified, or to diminish the traumatic impact rohan has, but... it's not the operative's first rodeo here, even if it's the player's.

they're bad at processing their emotions. the operative Does Not Cry: this is a character choice I have made. this is because they have had that emotional response beaten out of them. the operative isn't capable of taking their own trauma seriously, because they're not equipped to deal with it. they can't look at it head-on.

likewise, nash isn't capable of being a gentle, reassuring, sympathetic person, much as they might want to; a big part of that relationship is the idea that the pair of you have to relearn to how to relate to one another in your new contexts, and that isn't a smooth process. nash also has reasons to be reticent with you that are yet to be explored - this relationship is undergoing development, with both of you as violent people who commit violent acts, and who relate through violence. your relationship is built on your capacity to commit violence together. they are not equipped to deal with violence affecting you in the way it might someone else, because you've both spent the last ten years being conditioned and trained to assault other people. part of the theme of this game is to explore the way these people might experience a uniquely traumatic violent event, and the effect this might have on their own capacity to endure and process violence again themself.

I understand that it might not be the way people want to play their characters, but it's the way the character is written, and I am doing that on purpose. all I'm asking is that you trust me when I say that this is not going to be swept under the rug, even in the least volatile relationship you can have with rohan. if that's not possible for you - if you can't trust me to do this - then you're welcome to stop playing.