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the-littlest-goblin · 4 years ago

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ooooooooh for fic prompts, could i request: essek interacting with Frumpkin, specifically playing with him (so as to impress Caleb and earn his favor a bit), but our favorite hot boi most likely did not have pets growing up and is at a bit of a loss with what to do. (bonus: Caleb sees this and thinks it's incredibly endearing)

I think you got everything you wanted. ft. my personal 'here’s how Frumpkin can still win’ headcanon.

----

This was not how familiars were supposed to work.

Essek may not have summoned one before (he’d never really understood the use of an assistant with no opposable thumbs), but he had read enough about the spell to know that this was not how familiars were supposed to behave.

Maybe that was because Frumpkin didn’t technically count as a familiar anymore.

No one knew exactly what had happened, or why. Essek and Caleb had exchanged a number of theories on the matter, but so far the best explanation still went to Beau’s conclusion: “weird fey shit.”

After Aeor and the Somnovem, when they had all finally gotten a chance to breathe again, Caleb had done some sort of ritual to more permanently banish his familiar. Essek hadn’t gotten the full context at the time, but it had something to do with symbolic closure and moving on. The cat was already gone from the Material Plane at that point, but Caleb had wanted to remove the temptation to summon him again, and so devised a sort of reversal of the Find Familiar spell.

However, upon performing the anti-summoning ritual, the cat had appeared in the ritual circle as if Caleb had cast the spell as usual. Only instead of going to his master’s side, Frumpkin had sauntered away from Caleb with a swish of his tail and gone to sit directly at Essek’s feet.

“Hmm,” Caleb had muttered, the hint of a grin twitching at the corner of his mouth. “It looks like he has made a choice.”

Ever since, Caleb had been unable to banish Frumpkin, or communicate with him, or give him orders. He had seemingly lost his magical connection to, and mastery over, the cat—Frumpkin was no longer his familiar, as had been the intention. It was just that Frumpkin apparently liked the Material Plane better than the Feywild, and so refused to leave. And since Caleb had let him go, he chose a new wizard to keep him company. For the next several days they had spent recuperating and planning their next moves, Frumpkin stuck with Essek, never straying from his side for long.

But, crucially, he did not become Essek’s familiar, a lesson they had learned quickly enough. Essek didn’t even have Find Familiar in his spellbook. He couldn’t banish Frumpkin, he couldn’t communicate telepathically with him, and he certainly couldn’t give him orders.

So, Essek just had a pet cat now, one which happened to be fey in nature. Stranger things had happened—much, much stranger—so for Essek’s part, it had seemed easiest to just accept this development in stride. At times, he was even grateful for the cat’s presence.

But right now, he was very much not. At least familiars were obedient.

Essek winced against the sound of shattering glass—a sound which was becoming somewhat routine since taking up residence in these new, temporary lodgings with Frumpkin as his roommate.

Essek closed his eyes and took one deep breath before looking up from his notes to survey the damage. His gaze met Frumpkin’s round, amber eyes across the room, looking impossibly innocent where he sat primly on one of the tables which Essek had set up to house his research. His tail swished back and forth where it hung over the edge, acting like a flashing signal to point Essek’s attention down towards the starburst of broken glass glittering directly beneath him.

Mercifully, the beaker which Frumpkin had marked for termination had been holding a harmless and easily replaceable solvent, rather than any of the more valuable or dangerous liquids Essek had lying around in his provisional lab. His fingers curled protectively around the precious vial of liquid dunamis sitting next to him.

“Why?” He let the single syllable of the word stretch out into a long, bone-deep groan lasting several seconds. The question was aimed both at Frumpkin and at himself, and covered a variety of curiosities he had about the situation. Why did Frumpkin feel such a persistent desire to destroy Essek’s belongings? Why had he chosen to adhere himself to Essek in the first place, when he seemed to hold a deep disdain for everything Essek owned or did? Why was Essek incapable of learning the very simple lesson of locking the door to this makeshift lab? Why had he promised Caleb that he would take care of Frumpkin while the Mighty Nein dealt with the Assembly, instead of throwing the mangy beast out onto the streets of Port Dumali as soon as they had arrived at the safe house?

None of these were questions to which Essek was about to get any answers, so he tried another one.

“What do you want from me?”

Frumpkin blinked.

“You are still a fey being. You don’t need food or water, and as far as I understand, providing those two things are the pillars of caring for a pet. So, what else could you possibly need that requires my attention?”

Frumpkin flicked his ears.

Caleb had given Essek a brief overview of what to expect in terms of cat-care, but either he had chosen to leave out a lot of unsavory details, or decoupling from their arcane connection had put Frumpkin through a drastic personality change, because Essek had received no instructions about how to handle the kind of stalemate in which he currently found himself.

“You have my sincerest apologies, but unlike your previous master, I cannot read your thoughts, and your current methods of communication are lacking in clarity.”

Frumpkin’s tail began swishing faster. He broke eye contact with Essek to gaze intently at the row of jars lining the next table over. These were full of various concoctions, including some potentially dangerous acids, the results of Essek’s increasing boredom as he stayed hunkered down in his safe house day after day. He only ever went out for the duration of a Disguise Self to buy food or other necessary supplies; he was too noticeable to amble around the city for leisure, on the slim but ever-present risk that word of a strange drow in Port Dumali would reach the ears of Ikithon or his servants. Essek was under strict instructions to stay as hidden as possible until he got the all-clear from the Mighty Nein. With only the materials to continue his most basic experiments with dunamis, he was growing bored out of his mind.

Essek heaved another deep sigh before reluctantly abandoning his notes and gliding over to where Frumpkin had stationed himself. With a short wave of his hands, the spill vanished and the broken shards of glass floated gently into the trash bin. Then, Essek unceremoniously lifted the cat into his arms before he had the chance to wreak any more havoc, and deposited him outside the door.

Distraction removed, Essek made to turn around and return to his research, this time intending to lock the door to prevent further feline interruptions. But before he could do so, he made the mistake of looking into Frumpkin’s eyes again. The cat’s pupils gleamed, impossibly wide and round, and his tail was still swishing back and forth in an incomprehensible pattern, like some sort of code. A mixture of affection and guilt welled up in Essek, rooting to the spot.

Godsdammit, but he had promised Caleb he was going to take care of his cat, and that meant not ignoring Frumpkin when he was clearly trying to tell him something. Because even if Caleb no longer wanted a familiar to travel around with him, he still loved this damned cat, and also Essek was trying to be less callous and heartless in general.

He thought back to Caleb’s instructions with a fair bit of desperation, searching for some hint of what would make Frumpkin happy. All he came up with was a faint recollection, something about enjoying being scratched behind the ears.

“Is that all you want? Is that what you interrupted me for?” Fighting not to roll his eyes, Essek reached down for a pet.

As soon as he got close enough, Frumpkin lunged.

“Gah!” Essek snatched his hand back, nursing the sting of pain from Frumpkin’s bite. There was no blood; the little demons’s fangs hadn’t managed to break the skin. It could barely count as an injury, but the shock of betrayal hurt more than the scratch.

“What in the Nine Hells was that for?” Essek glared at Frumpkin, then noticed just in time that the cat was poised to strike again. This time, he only had to turn slightly to keep his hands out of harm's way, but Frumpkin wasn’t aiming for the exposed skin. There was a loose thread dangling from the hem of Essek’s sleeve, apparently caught by the previous attack. Frumpkin was intent on it. He flung himself at the thread, grabbing at it with his clumsy paws. It slipped through his grip, and he lunged again without hesitation.

Experimentally, Essek lifted his arm so the thread dangled higher off the ground. Frumpkin took the challenge to heart, leaping to grab it in his teeth before it slipped out of his grasp again, and he landed on the floor in defeat. Essek moved his arm over to one side, and Frumpkin followed with enthusiasm, this time managing to get the thread around one claw. The split second of resistance was enough to tear it from Essek’s sleeve. Frumpkin rolled over onto his back, victorious, batting his prize around in euphoric glee.

A grin spread across Essek’s face as he watched this display of simple delight.

“I suppose you were just bored, too. Was that it?”

Frumpkin responded by biting the string with a vengeance.

An idea began forming in the corner of his mind as he watched Frumpkin playing. Absentmindedly, Essek twisted his fingers and summoned a trace thread of dunamis into his hand, shaping and stretching it into a longer and longer cord of greyish, glowing energy, which he then dangled tantalizingly over Frumpkin’s head. The boring, non-magical string was immediately forgotten and discarded as Frumpkin caught sight of the dunamis toy. His whole body wiggling in excitement, he lunged at the cord again and again, pulling a genuine laugh out of Essek as he bobbed and weaved the magic around, dancing it out of Frumpkin’s grasp. He needed a break from his lab anyway, and this was shockingly entertaining.

---

“Well? How are they?” Just a hint of nerves colored Caleb’s voice, as it did every time they checked in on Essek. The fear that this time, the scry would reveal him not safe and sound on the Coast, far from the Trent’s reach, but somewhere cold and dark and threatening.

The faint glow faded from Jester’s eyes as the spell ended. Looking up at Caleb with a smile, she said, “You’re not going to believe this Caleb, it’s the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen.”

Caleb grinned back at her.

#critrole #critical role #my writing #fic prompts #the pedant in me needs to point out that Essek would definitely be wearing his anti-scrying necklace but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯#Anonymous

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johannas-motivational-insults · 5 years ago

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“Friendship” in the Horde

Season 4 raised some interesting questions about how people who grew up in the Horde define friendship. Kyle claimed that his squadmates were his friends, despite how we've seen them bully him, and Scorpia admitted she didn’t even know how to be a good friend. We also saw further developments in Catra and Lonnie’s dynamic that have some interesting implications about their bond, both past and present. However, while these themes became more explicit this season, they are hardly new. The Horde worldbuilding is really quite brilliant, as the writers have been laying the foundation for these revelations by showcasing certain patterns since season one.

This got a little lengthy on me, but there was a lot to consider. The lack of healthy emotional expression and relationship modelling is one obvious problem in the Horde, but the hostile environment has also led to some very specific power dynamics and social structures. These structures, while potentially helpful in hostile environments, are maladaptive in terms of fostering healthy relationships. Ultimately, every character who grew up in the Horde is emotionally crippled. (I’m not even going into Adora, an excellent example, because her repression and communication problems are well-documented and I wanted to focus on characters still in this environment.)

Scorpia

Let’s start with Scorpia. Her revelation that she doesn’t understand what friendship is was a big moment for her, but for those of us who have been watching closely, it’s no big surprise. Scorpia was so desperate for a meaningful connection that she latched onto the first person who showed any signs of considering her a friend, ignoring all the red flags indicating that the relationship was not healthy. Actually, she didn’t ignore them so much as not recognize them, because she didn’t even know what a healthy relationship looks like. To her, the fact that Catra invited her to her room and chose her to accompany her on a mission was enough for her to dub them the Superpal Duo.

Of course, we all know how that went for her. She continued to support Catra unconditionally despite the latter’s tendency to use Scorpia as her emotional punching bag. They did settle into a somewhat more reciprocal and caring relationship after Scorpia saved Catra against her orders during 2x05, proving that Catra was more important to her than the mission (even if that wasn’t what Catra thought she wanted). It’s sad when you think about it, because that was probably the first time Catra ever experienced her wellbeing being prioritized above all else.

Unfortunately, the revelation that Shadow Weaver had gone running back to Adora after betraying her triggered a trauma response and made her clam up again, lashing out at Scorpia and shutting her out even though she had done nothing to betray her trust. It took Catra blatantly attacking and insulting Scorpia when she failed to bring back Entrapta’s recordings (and some well timed reality checks from Emily) for Scorpia to realize that Catra was being a bad friend and she couldn’t win her over by being a good friend.

And actually, Scorpia’s confession in 4x10 that she “thought” she was being a good friend to Catra implies that she had since realized that she wasn’t actually being a good friend to Catra either. She knows the scorpions were a loyal people and she ascribes to that ideal, and she has so much love to give and always tries so hard to be positive, but not setting boundaries with people or demanding a measure of basic respect does nothing for them or you. Also, you can’t ignore the fact that Scorpia forced her affections on Catra, inserting herself into Catra’s life in a way that made her uncomfortable, and continued to ignore Catra’s attempts at setting boundaries with her (which is also very disrespectful). While Catra was certainly the aggressor, she was not the only one who failed in this partnership.

Let’s go back for a moment to Scorpia’s earliest indication that Catra might want to be her friend, when she confides in her and enlists her help coming up with and then executing a plan. Being chosen as Catra’s wingman seems to be important here, and perhaps she was wilfully ignoring how she was the only person who could make Catra’s plan work, but being confided in and trusted was huge to her. And since Horde soldiers are so used to being used, they don’t see it as a red flag. Catra actually flat out said Scorpia was the only person she could trust. How could a lonely gay not interpret that as a sign of being special to someone?

The squad

The importance of trust also becomes evident when considering the interactions among the main squad. Loyalty seems to be paramount in the Horde, not just the scorpion kingdom. Adora defecting to the Rebellion and leaving her squad behind was seen as a huge betrayal, and not just by Catra. Did anyone else want to cry when Lonnie struck back at Adora with “we were your friends” in 1x09? Lonnie was deeply hurt by Adora’s abandonment, feeding into her disillusionment with the Horde. Similarly, when Double Trouble revealed they had double-crossed Catra, her devastated reaction was not that her plans were ruined, but that they had betrayed her. That no doubt was also related to her previous betrayals, but also serves to highlight the importance of loyalty in their subculture.

While all the Horde characters were interesting to watch this season when it came to the themes of friendship, the arc was most pronounced in Lonnie. As I’ve mentioned previously, Scorpia had a short arc over one episode where her rosy worldview was destroyed, causing her to leave (much like Adora), while Lonnie was already a cynic who was aware of the Horde’s imperfections and had to go through more extreme hardships to detach from this unhappy but familiar environment (much like Catra, we hope).

Though she and the boys didn’t leave the Horde until the finale, her disillusionment was already evident in her first episode this season. After Catra berated them for something that wasn’t their fault and demanded they risk their lives to fix it (big Hordak energy), she had her first big revelation: “Catra doesn’t care about us, Adora left us. Everything they taught us in the Horde about loyalty is meaningless. It’s everyone for themselves.” In the next episode, she was frustrated by Scorpia’s naïve enthusiasm and trust in Catra, but it took a big blow up between her and Catra for her to finally decide she was done with her, done with the Horde in general.

Kyle represents a sort of middle ground between Lonnie and Scorpia in terms of outlook. He was not treated well in the Horde, but still believed in the ideals of loyalty and squad unity. He wanted to believe Catra had sent them out on a mission into the Whispering Woods because she trusted them and wanted it to be a team-building exercise. His take on it was: “She may be mean, but we’ve always had each other’s backs. Ever since we were kids.” He saw the squad as his family, including Catra (and previously Adora). It took Catra baring her claws and threatening to attack Lonnie outside of a battle sim for him to lose faith in her.

Bullying, the pecking order, and squad unity

As is clear by this point, the Horde defections this season were driven by Catra mistreating the others, but we can’t lose sight of how mistreatment is a fact of daily life in the Horde. And as I mentioned above with Lonnie, it’s those who were most aware of and desensitized to the mistreatment who had the hardest time naming it and leaving the toxic environment. Call it Stockholm Syndrome, call it the sunk cost fallacy, but either way once you’ve submitted to a system that dehumanizes you, it’s hard to admit that that system is wrong and leave it for a better life. Scorpia and Adora grew up somewhat privileged in the Horde in that they were destined for greatness, so they were never abused overtly and they had a level of protection from power-hungry cadets looking to claw their way to the top of the heap. They were already at the top and couldn’t be taken down, so they didn’t have to bully or be bullied.

The importance of pecking order is much more evident when considering people like Kyle, Catra, and Lonnie. Within their squad, Kyle is obviously the omega of the gang (get your heads out of the gutter, that is not what I mean), the one who gets blamed for everything that goes wrong and is constantly getting picked on. Lonnie shits on him, Catra shits on him, and even Rogelio gives him shit and goes along with the blame game. Despite all this, Kyle considers them his friends, his family.

This starts to make sense when you consider it in terms of intra vs. extra squad relations. Maybe the squad didn’t show Kyle any respect or treat him with kindness, but they did protect him in battle sims (sometimes lol) and rescue him from the spore storm. You also kind of get the impression that although they bullied him and asserted their dominance on the regs, they would protect him if other people tried to hurt him. You might say he’s the pet of the gang – he has no power within the structure and it may not be pleasant, but the structure still offers advantages. Having allies was still good for him even if he was at the bottom of the pecking order within the alliance.

Through a sociology lens, you might say the squad (and the Horde in general, given it’s a military society) follows the stereotypical male model of friend groups with clear pecking orders that everyone buys into (with exceptions for blatant power struggles), as opposed to the stereotypical female model that appears less hostile and more cooperative outwardly but involves a lot of underhanded infighting. (Obviously those are broad generalizations and it can be argued how much of it is nature vs. nurture, but they are observable patterns that boys and girls are socialized into in many human societies.) This ties in interestingly to @jaelav3‘s observations about masculinity equating to strength and femininity equating to power in the Horde (a meta she really needs to write, because it’s brilliant). The hostility of the Horde forces soldiers into these rigid pecking orders in order to find protection in a dangerous place. When everyone knows and accepts their role, it is easier for the squad to function in a unified manner and protect each other, even if it’s at the cost of their mental and emotional health.

Now, when not everybody buys into the pecking order or it’s ambiguous, and/or if there’s a sudden power vacuum, that’s when things get interesting…

Catra and Lonnie, the perfect case study

Catra also suffered a lot of bullying and abuse in the Horde, but in a very different way than Kyle. She was in a unique and kind of contradictory position where she was somewhat protected by her close friendship with Adora, but she was also Shadow Weaver’s favourite chew toy and everyone knew it, which made her a target as well. If Shadow Weaver abused her, she wasn’t going to care if the other cadets abused her as well. Catra’s defensive body language and general distrustfulness and hostility gives the impression that she was bullied behind Adora’s back and Shadow Weaver turned a blind eye, perhaps even encouraged it.

This was all illustrated in 1x03, when Catra and Lonnie butted heads and Catra was forced to back down when two other cadets backed up Lonnie, then Lonnie told her to watch it because Adora wasn’t around to protect her anymore. That one line alone told so much of their story. This was also one of the few times we saw cadets using people from other squads to affect their own squad’s dynamics, as – like I said – that seems to be kept mostly in-house. It may have had something to do with Lonnie’s overall standing among the cadets or how Kyle and Rogelio rank lower in their little hierarchy and seem uninterested in getting involved with the power politics, but I digress.

The argument itself was meaningless, really - the whole thing was a pissing contest, an attempt to assert dominance within their squad’s sudden power vacuum. Lonnie fancied herself the new leader of the squad, and she ended up getting her wish in a backwards way when Catra was promoted out of the squad and given official power over her. Catra, of course, took every opportunity to rub this in Lonnie’s face, perpetuating the cycle of abuse she’d fallen victim to.

The reason they had a power struggle in the first place wasn’t just because Adora left, it was because their pecking order was previously unclear. Catra wasn’t very cooperative and tended to go rogue, so she didn’t slot nicely into the power structure. She was also perceived as lazy, as she had adopted an air of nonchalance once she realized she’d never get the recognition or praise so easily heaped on Adora. (Why try when failing hurts so much?) That being said, she was Adora’s best friend and basically her sidekick, so in a way that made her second-in-command of the squad.

On the other hand, Lonnie was devoted to the squad and was always around to provide tangible support, so she was also kind of Adora’s second-in-command. Combined with her harder work ethic, this also gave her a very legitimate claim to the throne. She was obviously pissed when her teammate she saw as a lazy asshat got promoted, but to her credit she lived up to her own personal ethics, buying in and not pushing back against Catra’s authority until late in season 4.

Despite the power struggle, however, Catra and Lonnie do seem to have a bond. Even if they don’t like each other, they have a certain level of trust in each other. When the princesses invaded the Fright Zone in 3x04 and shit started to go sideways, the first person Catra was looking for to try to get support and/or answers was Lonnie. Then in 4x10 when she was starting to lose her mind amid a lack of sleep and Scorpia’s defection, she pulled Lonnie aside and demanded to know what was going on among the soldiers, what they thought of her.

This was an incredibly interesting scene with some deep implications. Because while it was on one hand an expression of trust in Lonnie, it was also an acknowledgement that Lonnie was one of her bullies and held clout among the people who have demeaned and abused her in the past. It also showed that Catra still has social anxiety and her sense of social power (as opposed to power in terms of rank) is very fragile, which is extremely characteristic of a bullying victim. Also, the fact that Catra said, “Just leave. Like everybody else.” implied that Lonnie leaving would hurt her emotionally, which is rather illuminating.

As for Lonnie, her loyalty meant she bought into the system and expected to Catra to do her job running the place, taking care of the Horde. And Catra certainly succeeded early on, taking territory and increasing productivity. In return, Lonnie was a loyal and obedient soldier, even if she never hesitated to give Catra a bit of attitude. But she became frustrated in season 4 when Catra went on her sunk cost fallacy spiral and ended up making things worse for everyone else as well as herself. This failure was a huge betrayal to Lonnie, and it’s important to note that she wouldn’t feel betrayed or disappointed if she had expected nothing of Catra in the first place. It’s one thing to be kind of a dick about your superior rank, another entirely to endanger your squad/friends (or anyone you are responsible for, really) and run them into the ground as a remedy for your own anxiety.

The breaking point of course was the scene in the locker room in 4x12, when a lonely Catra tried to be “friends” with the squad again and was briefly successful in mending fences a little until she snapped at Kyle and then at Lonnie, calling them pathetic. This prompted Lonnie to shove her, which in turn made Catra bare her claws and rush Lonnie. There was really no coming back from that, even though Kyle intervened before anyone got hurt.

As an aside, Kyle stepping up in this scene was amazing - this season in general was everything I wanted for him. And it’s important that it was him who intervened, because he was really the only one who could ask Catra, “We used to be your friends, why are you treating us like this?” It makes perfect sense for Catra to push back at Lonnie given their history, but Kyle doesn’t have a history of bullying Catra (quite the opposite). And wow, it had an impact on Catra. You could just see the confusion and regret on her face before she brings back the façade of anger and kicks them out.

When the squad left the Horde, Lonnie said that they were done protecting Catra. This assertion is interesting, given their checkered past – since when was anyone protecting Catra? Lonnie bullied her, and none of them protected Catra from Shadow Weaver, not even Adora (though bless her heart, she tried). But this does make some sense when you consider how much of the idea of friendship is based on loyalty, and how important that adherence to the structure is for protection. In Lonnie’s mind, even if Catra was now their commander, they were still a unit in a way. And she saw standing by and obeying Catra to be a form of protection, helping her stay respected and carry out her plans. Lonnie is a good support person, and by removing her support, she was in a way removing her protection as well.

(After the series is over I might just go all out and do a huge-ass meta about Catra and Lonnie through the seasons. I am absolutely fascinated by this relationship, if you can’t tell.)

Allyship

Overall, you can’t help but get the impression that the Horde’s version of friendship is more akin to allyship. It’s protection, unity, loyalty. However, that doesn’t mean they don’t get emotionally attached, it’s more that how you feel about someone is less important than what that relationship can do for you. That’s why Scorpia doesn’t even understand what friendship is. That’s why Catra tolerates “friends” who annoy her, because they’re useful to her (not that she doesn’t get attached in time, but that’s not why she tolerates them in the first place).

Catra’s one of the few people in the Horde who has experienced real friendship, as her bond with Adora was much more emotional than practical (even if it was both). And that explains why she eventually lashed out at Scorpia and said they were not friends when clearly they were by the Horde’s definition. Her and Adora really had taken the friends thing to a different level, and she was missing that dearly.

It will be interesting to watch the interactions between the Horde characters when they are thrown back together in new circumstances, out of the Horde’s rigid power structure. Honestly, the redefining of these alliances and friendships is one of the things I am most looking forward to in the final season.

#spop #she-ra #she ra #meta #the horde #catralonnie #scorptra #catradora #horde squad #catra #scorpia #lonnie #kyle #rogelio #adora #bullying #abuse #sociology

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lady-charinette · 4 years ago

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Adrien Agreste =/= Sociopath - About Adrien Salt

I've seen a lot of posts going around about Adrien being a sociopath or the other (harasser, abuser...etc.)

What I find most of those posts lacking is looking at the big picture, or just zeroing in on certain moments of the show and even disregarding the context of those selected moments to unfairly rule judgement on a child (in canon) no less.

Definition of sociopath: A sociopath is a term used to describe someone who has antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). People with ASPD can’t understand others’ feelings. They’ll often break rules or make impulsive decisions without feeling guilty for the harm they cause.

People with ASPD may also use “mind games” to control friends, family members, co-workers, and even strangers. They may also be perceived as charismatic or charming.

We have to analyze the context and the surroundings Adrien is in.

Family, social life, relationships (platonic and romantic), personality, age, environment...etc.

Family:

We know Adrien has a father who is controlling, preferring to micro-manage every aspect of his son's life to continue to have a semblance of control at all times. We assume (heavily implied in the show), that his mother was kind, warm and emotional (whether that emotional is the "out-there" kind her twin sister has, it remains to be seen.)

According to a snippet from "Simon Says", Adrien also has "Quite a temper, you remind me of someone" according to Gabriel's own words, we can assume the "someone" is Emilie, Gabriel says this when Chat Noir refused to follow his orders and told him to basically "get off his high horse". In this context, anyone who defies Gabriel in such a way would either be branded as "disobedient" or to "have quite a temper".

According to Adrien himself in "Adrien's Double Life" (from Miraculous Secrets) he describes being Chat Noir as "...I can finally do whatever I want to do, say whatever comes to mind." He doesnt feel as restricted and controlled since that's the one aspect of his life his father has no knowledge of.

Social life:

Adrien has had no or very little interaction with peers.

Evidence: Chloe being his childhood friend. Felix commenting on Chloe's appearance in the video she sent for Adrien's birthday, saying "Chloe. Just as annoying as usual." suggests he knows her from before, maybe even as early on as their childhood days.

This makes Felix and Chloe the only kids, of spoiled and rich background, with whom Adrien interacted.

Felix is shown to be good at manipulating people and keeping up appearances (potentially connected to insecurities within the family? Not confirmed), Chloe is openly mean and bullies others (with underlying insecurities also connected to her parents).

The only positive adult (if Gorilla isn't as involved and Nathalie had been solely Gabriel's secretary and not Adrien's caretaker since there was Emilie) in Adrien's life would be his mother, who also fell into a coma during Adrien's formative years (and still during a time where he's figuring himself and his emotions out: puberty), leaving him with his father.

Moving on, even if the writer's sometimes may not always successfully show Adrien being awkward in social interactions, it doesnt mean they dont exist.

This interaction between him and Marinette, asking for her autograph, very formal in his question, awkward in posture:

He's picked up on some speech patterns from his frequent interactions with Nino ("dude", "Hey man." "Totally dude.") showing he's, like many people, mimicking his friend's behavior and speech to grow more favorably in their eyes.

The same pattern can be observed with Gabriel and Adrien: Adrien adopts his father's formal speech whenever talking to him, since that appeases him.

Adrien has had very limited friendly interactions with his peers, romantic interactions are basically non-existent. The scenes where Adrien is being chased by his fans, who obsessively adore him, cant be linked to Adrien experiencing healthy romantic contact (Lila doesn't count since she only uses Adrien to further her goals). Marinette doesn't count since Adrien's isn't even aware of her romantic feelings for him. (Again, difficulties picking up social cues due to only ever being homeschooled > limited social contact with peers)

So no, in my humble opinion, Adrien sometimes doesn't understand other people's feelings not because he's a sociopath, but because he's an awkward kid with very little experience about making friends and having healthy relationships with them.

Relationships:

Let's be direct here: Gabriel is an abusive as*hole.

If the writer's wanted to show Gabriel struggling or having remorse for his actions being Hawkmoth and putting his son through danger, well... They blew it. "Gorizilla" was a 5 second reaction of Hawkmoth showing concern after letting Adrien fall from a skyscraper. Applause. After that? Not much.

Nathalie: Adrien likes, she takes care of him, his schedule, was the one to convince Gabriel to let him attend public school. There are moments in the show where she softens up towards Adrien, but always carries that air of professionalism on her to (possibly, assumption) not grow too close. Gorilla is...Gorilla, but at least the man tries with his nonverbal support and affectionate grunts. Lol.

Gabriel: He loves his father. It's his parent, after all. However, Adrien's reactions to him are vastly different than to how he reacts when thinking of his mother. He shows signs of fear (tensing up, growing obedient...etc.), he excuses his father's excessive controlling tendencies to just be "he's just worried about me", "that's the way he always was", "father cares and protects me". Adrien shows to be frequently disappointed with Gabriel, one of the first scenes being that Gabriel couldn't attend parent's day at school, Adrien was talking on the phone alone in the school hallway. He was genuinely surprised by the blue scarf his father gifted him (not knowing it was Marinette), since all he used to get were pens (again, not even from Gabriel, but Nathalie). This is my assumption but: Adrien has previously begged his father to go outside more or attend public school, but this time it worked only because Nathalie managed to convince him.

Friends from school: Nino is his best friend, Adrien seems to be good friends with Alya too, basically everyone in class, with varying degrees of closeness. Chloe is a childhood friend whom Adrien is fond of but also grows exasperated with and corrects her behavior if she's too harsh.

Marinette: likes and respects her, but can't read her well or at least when he thinks he's got her figured out, she claims the opposite. Marinette has been sending mixed signals, on one hand even making Adrien believe (and fear) they weren't friends. "Chat Blanc" contrary to popular belief, showed that Adrien is delighted at the prospect of Marinette being Ladybug (he'd severe doubts when Chloe or anyone else was brought up as a possible option).

Kagami: likes her, respects her, admires her fencing skills, learned to have fun hanging out with her and playing as kids usually do since she also has a controlling parent and they both know some ways/tricks around their boundaries to sneak off and meet their friends. Adrien and Kagami have similarities in that respect, Gabriel pushing Adrien to be a model, Mrs. Tsurugi pushing Kagami to be a master fencer.

Lila: At first defended her, was friendly towards her since she was a new student from overseas he sympathized because surely it would be lonely? The new girl would need a friend who supported her through all this things that were new for him too. However, as soon as he caught wind of Lila's schemes, he changes his tune. He feels uncomfortable around her overstepping his boundaries, expresses anger when Lila accused Marinette of crimes she didn't commit and even makes a deal with her to not bother Marinette again (but use him instead, doing photoshoots together...etc.) to keep her safe.

Age:

A 14-15 year old, having lost his mother, the only positive, healthy relationship in his life. Surrounded by a controlling father, not much free time, many extracurricular activities and being a superhero alongside Ladybug.

Some of the signs of being a sociopath include: Breaking rules and being impulsive.... Didn't Ladybug do those too?

Breaking the rules: (since LB and Marinette are the same) stealing phones, sneaking into places where she shouldn't, using the miraculous for personal gain (latest example: getting Kagami away from Adrien), giving Adrien the snake miraculous due to personal preference instead of drawing logical conclusions. Sneaked into the Agreste mansion.

Impulsiveness: Marinette's daily fantasies (sharing a future life with Adrien and their hamster-who-must-not-be-named), when Lila's "precious family heirloom necklace" was "stolen", Marinette was quick to include her classmates in the list of potential perpetrators for it (without ill intent, but still..)

You know who the real potential sociopath in the show is?

Gabriel

Some of you might include Lila too (since she fits all the criteria for being a sociopath), but the key difference is: Lila is still just a kid.

We don't know much about her family life. Just that her mother is busy with work, we don't know where her father is, who her friends were/if she even had them. She might be lying and manipulating people to follow her own agenda, but she thrives in attention, when people notice and praise her. In some aspects, that could've been Adrien. With one neglectful parent, a missing parent, no friends (prior to going to school)...etc. There is also a lot we don't know about her.

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iluxia · 4 years ago

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Unsolicited writing advice???

A ton of you have commented with such kind and complimentary words about my Naruto fic Hiding in the Leaves and its characterization through the shifting POVs. Thank you all! I’m gratified to hear that you’re enjoying it. Some are asking how I shift perspectives and still manage to keep the characters in line. Actually, a fair number of readers have asked for actual advice, so here we go. This is a lot of writing babble, I hope it makes sense but feel free to drop me an ask if anything is unclear!

(1) I read a lot. I read all the time. Easily a book a day, maybe two days. And when I do, I practice critical reading—or as they say, reading like an editor, so I can pick at techniques other writers use. Writing is an art you learn largely by example. A lot of what I read influences what and how I write, so when I need to change my tone or voice to fit a different character, I usually read something that matches what I want my prose to sound like, on top of using techniques like changing tenses and playing with vocabulary choices.

I recently had the chance to flex these writing muscles because I went from writing two very distinct human voices (Tony Stark & Stephen Strange) to writing an alien voice (Loki). It was fucking hard; those in the Marvel fandom might know what I mean. Tony and Stephen are both human, born and raised in America, with specific life experiences that inform their daily decisions and personalities. Loki, on the other hand, is an alien: raised in Asgard, stolen from Jotunheim, well-traveled throughout the Nine Realms, and moreover raised as a prince. Just stop and think about that. When your characters do not have the same experiences that you do, they’re bound to not have the same earthbound concerns that you do. Anthropomorphizing non-human (or even non-living) beings is an age-old practice, but to be faithful to his character, I tried my best to twist my writing voice into a different shape—a shape that more befits the prince of a realm that is somewhat humanoid but very different from what we know on Earth. And in order to do that, I did four things:

I changed my prose from past to present tense; it sounds more immediate and assertive

I read three books, written in present tense, where the prose mimics what I imagine Loki would sound like in his own head

I made a huge spread of everything about Loki (both canon and my own orginal additions) that would inform his motivations, internal concerns, emotional responses, and decision-making processes

I drowned myself in Loki fanwork

Immersion is key! If you saturate your brain in a specific type of rhetoric or style, that’s what’s likeliest to come out of your productive process at the end. So controlling what you read/watch/listen to will help control your writing style too.

(2) This further breaks down what I just said in the third bullet point above. Before I start writing from a specific character’s perspective, I’ll take the time to brainstorm and build that character from the ground up. This might take a day or two and includes a staggering amount of detail—just as much detail as mine or your life might comprise. Silly little things like favorite colors and foods, hobbies, dislikes. Oftentimes, if you’re a fic writer, this is easier because canon gives it to you. Those amazing wiki-pages exist to make your life easier in this regard. (Bless.) What canon doesn’t give you is where you can dig in. Go deeper. Pin your character down. Think about more serious considerations like emotional triggers, conscious motivations, subconscious motivations, coping and defense mechanisms. When hurt or under stress, are they the type to lash out or curl in? Are they the type to hold on to a grudge, or do they prefer to forgive and forget? Do they get hurt easily or do they have a thick skin? I imagine the character’s relationships in life, I rank them and network them in my head. Who do they run to when they need advice? Who do they like hanging out with when they’re happy? Who annoys them, who inspires them, who scares them, who do they want to be like? Even if these questions aren’t necessarily things you might discuss in your fic, it helps inform this person you’re writing about, so it helps you keep a clearer and more consistent mental picture of them as you go.

But most critical of all, I sit and imagine myself in their shoes and think of how they perceive themselves. That is a major factor when writing, because that’s what their head-voice will sound like. And if the story is written from their perspective, then that means you, writer, are writing in that head-voice!

Here’s a more HITL-specific example (I’ll try not to spoil too much lol):

Sasuke

How he sees himself:

Ordinary; not very impressive as a shinobi, but not absolutely terrible either – just ordinary

Average looking

A slow, impatient learner

Awkward with people, but polite and with good intentions

Emotionally stable

A good reader and listener

How he actually is from someone else’s POV:

Incredibly skilled for his age and level as a shinobi

Actually quite handsome

An intuitive learner, very tenacious and will keep at a task forever until he gets it just right; perfectionist much

Quiet, polite, notices a lot about how others act

Absolutely does not handle emotions well

Selective listener; sometimes only hears what he wants to hear

Rationales:

He’s surrounded by a clan of perfectionists and overachievers who constantly laud his aniki for being a genius while paying him no attention. Of course he thinks he’s ordinary.

No one ever compliments him for his looks in the clan compound, and what he sees in the mirror looks just like a younger version of everyone around him. Of course he thinks he’s average, even though he actually has looks.

Because he’s largely self-taught (except for when Obaa-sama teaches him), he thinks he’s slow. (Ever learned a new skill or maybe even a new language by yourself? I have. I can tell you that my perception of how much time I spent learning ‘basics’ was skewed.) He also holds himself to a higher than normal standard because that’s what gets him positive attention (or attention at all) within his family. Add the fact that Itachi was there blazing through everything before him, and it’s suddenly easy to understand why Sasuke thinks the worst of himself as a student. But he (and Naruto) are actually fast learners—we see this even in canon—and both of them boast high levels of natural intuition, or as I (the neuroscientist) likes to call it, pattern recognition. Some people are naturally better at this than others; there have been extensive tests done to show it. But we also know intuition can be trained, so the more Sasuke works at something, the better he gets, and the faster he learns the next skill—as long as the learning is patterned. Which is why Orochimaru, who has picked up on this trait, walks them through learning each jutsu in a stepwise manner every time.

Sasuke doesn’t have a lot of social interaction outside of his family. The Uchiha clan in this fic is very segregated from the rest of the village, so if you’re not active as a shinobi, you probably don’t get out of the compound much. Interacting with people probably intimidates Sasuke a lot so he feels awkward about it and reverts back to habits of politeness and silence that he was taught from childhood. That doesn’t mean that he’s not paying attention, however; Sasuke is naturally observant and remembers a lot about how people act (and not so much what they say). I have a theory about this related to the Sharingan but I won’t go into too much here because it would be a straight-up spoiler, sorry. :D

He thinks he’s emotionally stable because he doesn’t remember many incidents of severe emotional upheaval in his life. That’s because he hasn’t had them; apart from the whole thing with Itachi, he’s been fairly sheltered his whole life. But he actually doesn’t handle emotions well—something he’s about to find out soon enough—and for the same reason! He hasn’t been exposed to an extensive range of it.

Because he’s largely self-taught, he has confidence in his reading skills. He also remembers all of Obaa-sama’s stories so he thinks he’s a good listener. Well, he is—to an extent. If he wants to listen, he will. If he doesn’t, he’s just as proficient as Naruto at pigheadedness. (I think it’s an Uchiha trait too lmao.)

That was a lot, right? But you can see that if I’m writing from Sasuke’s POV, I have to keep a different set of pointers than if I’m writing from Naruto’s POV about Sasuke. The way I think of it is like changing lenses or shades depending on the light outside.

A few more techniques/guidelines I use:

Stay consistent with vocabulary. Orochimaru is far more verbose than the rest of them, Shikamaru right behind him, and Naruto uses shorter, simpler words. You can even assign particular words to a character, a word only they would use when referring to something. This applies to how your character addresses other people too, i.e. Orochimaru calls them ‘little ones’; Shikamaru calls his dad ‘oyaji’ in front of his peers but ‘otou-san’ in front of his sensei; Naruto is quick to give people nicknames and most of the time it sticks.

Watch the adjectives; different people describe things differently. Orochimaru uses more nuanced words that can mean different things depending on the situation and mood; Naruto thinks in terms of emotions, a lot of how does this make me feel; Sasuke is very visual and notices a lot of colors.

Use speech habits wisely; how your character talks should reflect their life. Just like accents, speech habits can tell a lot about a person. Sasuke always speaks politely because it’s how he’s supposed to talk at home, otherwise there’d be trouble. Naruto grew up in a poorer district and had no one to really teach him how to talk politely, so he’s very casual. Shikamaru cusses at age eleven because his parents and family are incredibly laissez-faire and honest around him, so he thinks it’s acceptable and normal (and he was never reprimanded for it).

Play with your tenses. Writing in past tense sounds and feels very different from writing in present tense. Depending on your character, one or the other might sound more appropriate. There are some expressions and figures of speech that sound fine when written in past tense but awkward when written in present tense, so that will end up inadvertently changing your prose a bit, which can be useful.

Read your work out loud. Cardinal rule of prose-writing. What looks good on paper doesn’t always sound good when read out loud. If you read it and it doesn’t sound like how your character talks, time for a vibe check. You might need to change a few words and move sentences around, or you might need a complete overhaul… an editor (and I mean an editor, not just a beta-reader) can usually help you out.

A note about editors vs beta-readers:

There is a cardinal difference! A beta-reader is usually not professionally trained but should be experienced enough to point out things that aren’t right. In fandom, I’ve found that beta-readers mostly focus on a story’s general feel, flow and readability, sometimes character consistency, sometimes they point out typos and mistakes. An editor goes further than that. I’m fortunate to have Tria (aventria) who has edited my work for, gosh, 14 years now, fuck, we’re old! I call her my editor because when she goes through a piece, she will fix everything and make my draft bleed and I love it. (I actually get a little upset when she doesn’t fix anything, even if that means everything was good.) As an editor, she does a vibe check and looks for typos/errors, yes, but she also critiques the prose extensively. She can rearrange phrases or entire paragraphs for better flow. She will cut out entire scenes or make me rewrite them if they’re that bad. Like a copy editor, she looks at stylistic inconsistencies, grammar errors, and iffy word use. She’ll usually suggest or replace the offending word altogether. She has a lot of freedom with the work and can actually kick a piece to the curb if it’s really that shitty. She also questions plot progression, character development, and the relevance of a scene. (She’s made me cut out many, many scenes.) – That all being said, it’s not easy finding an editor, much less a good one. It also has to be someone you trust to have this much power over your work. It’s worth it, however, and my writing has gotten so much better because of the help.

If you’ve read this far, wow, thanks! You’re also probably thinking, “Shit, she takes this too seriously. It’s just a fic.”

I have… gotten into fights in the past before because of this. I feel strongly about the stuff I write. Just because it’s fanfiction doesn’t mean it isn’t a labor of love. I’m a perfectionist by nature, so that’s why I put so much time and effort into what amounts to ‘just a fic.’ And you know what? At the end of the day, writing it gives me satisfaction and happiness, so I will keep pouring into it as much as I can. It’s just a bonus to hear that other people are enjoying it too. (Yes, I’m one of those weirdos who intensely enjoy reading my own work…)

Aaand the final point:

(3) I double-majored in psychology for undergrad and have by now accumulated thousands of hours of clinical hours spent using the theories and techniques I learned from those classes on real people. I’m also specializing in neuroscience, so a portion of my time is spent in psychiatry. Characterization was actually not one of my writing strengths at first, but I definitely noticed leaps in improvement after my clinical rotation started. People skills are just that: skills which are honed with practice. It’s amazing how much you learn about how people think and what make them tick when you interact with a whole spectrum of examples: from your neurotypical everyday well-adjusted person, to high-functioning neurotics and obsessives, to patients who have suffered complex stroke syndromes, to encephalitic brains burning under septic fevers, to druggies stoned so high they’ve breached the atmosphere, to patients whose brains are growing insidious tumors, to schizophrenics and catatonics and the depressed. My job also allows me the rare opportunity to interact with people from all walks of life. All I need to do if I wanted insight about how life is for soldiers who served in an active warzone, for example, is to hit up Bill at the ICU and ask for stories about Korea and the Gulf and Vietnam. Or if I wanted to know about how to survive the Rwandan genocide, I could sit down with Amida, who survived it as a barely-teenager with her brother and sister in tow while only “losing my innocence and an eye.” Or I could talk to Heather, who is building a life with her husband and two rambunctious children, for a perspective on the daily concerns and delights of a ‘perfectly normal and ordinary’ working mother. (Her words, not mine; Heather is amazing even if she eats the doctor’s lounge out of Tita Annabel’s cookies.) Anyway, you get my point. When I write, I almost always write about people, so it makes sense that a lot of my inspiration comes from people too. A lot of my original characters—and even some that are not—often speak with the voices and inflections of people I know in real life. You probably have people with interesting stories to tell in your life; you just have to work up the courage to ask and take the time to listen. You’d be surprised at what you learn!

A few helpful writing resources: (most of these are classics)

The Elements of Style by Strunk & White

The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman

How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler and Charles van Doren

And more books that helped me get into people’s heads:

Hallucinations by Dr. Oliver Sacks

The Noonday Demon by Andrew Solomon

Far From the Tree by Andrew Solomon

The Lucifer Effect by Philip Zimbardo

Admirable Evasions by Theodore Dalrymple

I hope you got something out of that. Again, feel free to drop me an ask if you have any questions or want to chat!

#fanfic #on writing #fandom: naruto #answers

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treeni · 4 years ago

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Sanders Sides Theory, The Sides That Aren't Pt 1: Remy and Emile

Theories Master Post

So my sick and feverish brain had an epiphany when researching a theory on Roman and Remus (two epiphanies actually) that involved revitalizing a scrapped idea and latching onto something that initially started as a joke and then accidentally found evidence for. So let’s talk about that.

So let’s start with that scrapped idea here in part 1.

Let’s talk Remy and Emile.

These are two characters who are constantly associated with the sides in fandom in various interactions and ways, and yet why? Shouldn’t they be dismissed as just two random characters that Thomas and co made in the seemingly endless number of videos they’ve created? I mean, the two supposedly live in an entirely different universe than the sides. So we shouldn’t be “reading” them as sides, logically speaking.

So why such a big part of the fandom is latching onto these characters as sides (or equivalent to sides) despite the fact that they don’t actually appear in Sanders Sides (or at least haven’t yet, but we’ll get to that)?

Well, that answer is a bit layered.

The first and obvious answer is color theory, which I talked about in my Orange side theory. Essentially the audience knew for certain the sides were following color patterns from the moment Janus made his appearance with his bright yellow gloves. Patton and Logan’s colors existing independently of each other was what brought initial hesitation to that model because they were both blue, but they aren’t exactly, instead both primary color sets (Red, Blue, Yellow) and (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow) are being employed as well as the secondary color set (Green, Purple, Orange). (Yes, yellow is included in both primaries, which is part of the brilliance of it being used for Janus because it only adds to his character as existing in binaries.) You’ll notice however, that to complete the (CMY) model, you need the Magenta. Visually speaking, it’s easy to pick out the pink tied Emile to fill that role.

As I’ve already stated, I’m not the only one who thinks Emile’s the perfect slot for that ideology, there’s a reason why he keeps appearing in fan art and fiction related to the sides. Is it his tie alone though that pushes the audience into placing him into that role? No. If it were that simple, I would simply point out that c!Thomas is also often slotted into the “pink spot” and leave it at that because c!Thomas is clearly already included in the Sanders Sides as we see him there. No, instead I’m here to tell you that assigning pink to c!Thomas is a mischaracterization.

But again, the answer of how and why is a bit layered, so let’s move onto Remy for the moment and circle back to Emile.

Going back to color theory for a moment, (CMY) is actually an incomplete version of that primary model. It’s actually (CMYK), with the K standing for Black. So in truth, to fulfill that model we actually need both a Magenta and a Black side. You are likely already predicting what I’m going to say, but Remy is indeed the perfect fit for that role and not simply because of his outfit choice.

To start off by defining why Remy is a side, we need to understand what the sides are and what differentiates them from the “shorts sides”.

For those of you who are unaware, the Sanders Shorts has a set of characters (Teacher, Anxiety, etc.) who have their own names that call back to their roles in a simplified, easy to remember way (Teacher=Teal, Anxiety=Andy, Dad=Dyad, and Prince=Pryce). These four in particular are characters that the audience immediately connects with the main four sides from Sanders sides, but can also immediately recognize a dissonance between them.

For example, Virgil and Andy are not at all synonymous with one another. Andy wears Virgil’s old jacket, it’s true, but he also has a very relaxed attitude whenever he’s not specifically “giving” anxiety. He also is different than Virgil because he clearly does not suffer from the symptoms of anxiety he gives. Instead, he simply turns up, does his job and is satisfied in that accomplishment. Andy is more like what Virgil tried to be in the first season, but failed because he simply cared too much.

Andy is more of a one dimensional character who fulfills a single role, he isn’t shown to have specific likes, dislikes, hopes, wants, dreams, or fears like Virgil is. Virgil is a complicated, multi-faceted character who cares, quite a bit. He has as much, if not more anxiety than he gives because he cares about the result of c!Thomas’ actions. He wants to protect c!Thomas and the other sides, he likes the color purple and MCR, he dislikes being patronized, but he yearns for love and acceptance as who he is.

What ultimately differentiates the Sanders Sides, from the Sanders Shorts sides is their dimension. The Sanders Sides are characters with layers, depth and personality, while the Sanders Shorts sides are flat characters in comparison.

So what does that have to do with Remy?

Remy is a multi-dimensional character. He’s defiant and rebellious, he likes to stay out late and party, he likes lavender, loud music, pumpkin spice, layered clothing, autumn. He’s over dramatic sometimes and funny. He stands out from the one dimensional characters in the Sanders Shorts because he is much more layered than them.

However, Remy’s stuck in the Sanders Shorts videos because of how c!Thomas sees him, as Sleep. How is a character who represents Sleep meant to help c!Thomas in his everyday life afterall? Except, c!Thomas historically simplifies and misunderstands his own sides. Patton is more than morality, he’s at the center of a whole range of emotions, he’s the heart. Logan isn’t just simple logic, he tries to be considerate of the others, he’s hopeful and has a deep understanding on a whole range of subjects that often go outside the bounds of simple, logical knowledge. Saying that Patton is Morality or Logan is Logic is an oversimplification of what the characters represent, that was done specifically by c!Thomas. Then, understanding Janus as Deceit was in many ways a flat out misunderstanding of what the character represented. Patton told the audience from the beginning that Janus is self-preservation. Lying is one of the tools Janus uses to achieve that end. (More on that in another theory.)

I believe that Remy being labeled as Sleep is a misunderstanding of him by c!Thomas. (I also believe that this is an intentional move made by Thomas & co.)

So, if not Sleep, then what is Remy? Well, as I’ve stated, that answer is complicated because all of the Sides are an array of things. They’re complex characters who can’t really be simplified to a single term and doing such is a fallacy, but as it helps audience understanding I’m going to do it anyway.

In simplest terms, Remy is Apathy. Consider for a moment that at his baseline c!Thomas is someone who cares a lot, like a lot about everything. The whole nature of Sanders Sides as a show is literally how much he cares. However, caring too much can be a problem, leading to emotional over-exertion. People need a certain level of apathy to be able to sleep, to push all their problems away for a little while and take time to decompress and recharge. This would be why Remy is associated with sleep. He gives c!Thomas the mindset to be able to sleep, rather than being the function itself.

We can also see evidence that Remy is apathy in the character itself. Remy lives a very “in the moment” kind of life. He parties, constantly drinks coffee, and generally seems to do what he wants, even when it gets him into trouble. (Like getting completely lost.) He plays on his phone when people talk to him too long, he gets bored with being chastised, and essentially shrugs off criticism. It’s because he’s apathetic. He is essentially the embodiment of “fuck it” behavior. In real life it’s the often people who party most nights that care the least about their lives because they’re unhappy and a little dead inside. The partying “in the moment” behavior acts as a distraction from the nothingness. Sort of like simulating emotions with physical rushes (high amounts of caffeine or alcohol, loud music, crowds, essentially anything to drown out the “nothingness”). On top of that, Remy also embodies some gay stereotypes in a way that many of Thomas’ characters don’t. Again, it’s because he doesn’t care about being stereotyped. He’ll say want he wants, act how he wants, and live how he wants.

Even his name is evidence. While we might be drawn to the conclusion that Remy is a play on the Rem-cycle (and that is almost certainly part of it given the Sleep connotation, though the Rem-cycle is actually the point at sleep where the brain is most active and a person is easiest to wake from sleep) You should also be aware that it’s a nickname for the name Remington. Remington is derived from the old English word ��hremm” that meant both “raven” and “settlement”. While a raven is the perfect association for the black color-scheme and some of his personality traits, the literal and metaphorical meanings of the term “settlement” I think is the perfect idea to associate with what I believe Remy is meant to embody. Both the literal place to stop and rest, a safe place, but also the settlement of the mind, being able to push all of the emotional and literal fatigue of the day away. The fact that Remy is gone so often is very telling in the stressed and emotional state that c!Thomas is in.

Also in regards to names, Remy and Emile are intrinsically connected. While both have name meanings that are very important to their characters, they’re also the names of the brothers from Ratatouille. (A movie basically about pursuing your dreams when the world and even your family are against you.) Their names and the connection between their names is evidence that the two characters were designed together as a tribute.

So let’s get back to Emile for a bit. Like Remy we know he’s more complicated than many of the characters from the shorts. For example, we know he loves cartoons, references, and jokes. He’s generally seems to be a happy person and is a therapist (or at least plays one). So, what exactly is he if he’s a side? Well, as I’ve said none of the sides are so simple as to signify one single thing. On top of that, I think his lack of appearance in almost anything besides Cartoon Therapy is evidence to the fact that c!Thomas doesn’t understand him. Like, I think he has some grasp on Remy, despite misunderstanding him, however I think he simply has no connection or understanding of what Emile does/represents. Yet, if I had to label him with a single trait for simplicity sake, it would be Acceptance, essentially the other reason why Sanders Sides exists (or at least has conflict).

There is so much that c!Thomas hasn’t accepted about his life, his career, but most importantly about himself. It’s why the debates go on with each new episode and why the sides struggle to accept each other. It is also why Emile would not have yet made an actual appearance yet in Sanders Sides, I would consider him to be a rejected and repressed light side. Also, embodying acceptance, it would be his job above all else to listen to the other sides. A good therapist does not add their own voice and opinion into the mix until their client is ready to hear it. They need time to get through it all and process. That is exactly what Sanders Sides is already doing for c!Thomas.

Let’s get back to names for a moment, as I said, Emile’s name meaning is also incredibly fitting for what I believe that he represents as a Side. Emile literally means “coming from the Aemilian family” which is in turn derived from the Latin word “aemulus” meaning complete.

My theory is essentially that Emile is going to be our last surprise, maybe coupled with Remy or maybe directly after Remy. Remy, the “darkside” who is often AWOL because he’s self aware of how dangerous he can be in too high of doses and Emile, the “lightside” who is repressed. Essentially, Apathy, reminding him that it’s okay to let go of things for a while and Acceptance, teaching him how to accept himself above all things.

I had initially scrapped this theory because a friend told me Thomas and co had already denied that Remy and Emile are in the Sanders sides universe and I have a little bit more to say about that in particular in part 2 (which should be coming out in the next couple days, so keep an eye out) but also I want to just set a reminder that you shouldn’t believe much about what a creator denies about their work. Of course they aren’t going to reveal secrets or surprises to you early. Do I know for a fact that Remy and Emile are Sides? Absolutely not, all I can do is align the evidence and present to you my findings.

(Also general shout out to @candied-peach for listening to all of my insanity to get me to this point. Seriously, thank you.)

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scripttorture · 4 years ago

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My question is basically: in the scenario I describe, do you think I should go with or without torture as a referenced thing that happened? The situation is this- my character’s father has been dead for seven years, but I thought that what if, instead of being killed by the monster he was faced with at the time, he was injured by it and then captured by a group of bad guys. This is set in the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild universe and the bad guys in question are the Yiga Clan, (1/9)

who alternate between a comical and threatening presence in the game. They are presented as a tribe of assassins, but the reason why they decide to take my character’s father alive is that they saw him using a rare kind of magic and either want him to teach it to them or want to get him to use it for them. (It’s hereditary so he can’t teach it to anyone but his daughter, but they don’t know that and he will neglect to inform them that anyone else has the same abilities.) (2/9) Most likely they want him to do something with his magic when their idol (Ganon, The Big Bad) returns or possibly something that they think would help him return. Where the question of torture comes in is, I need him to still be alive and capable of going with an escape attempt after seven years. So, whether or not they get the notion to try torturing at any point, it obviously can’t be super regular or prolonged over this period. I thought maybe one or two incidents toward the beginning (3/9) of his captivity, which were ordered to stop when they realized they would have to keep him alive for an undetermined amount of time and that’s easier when you aren’t treating extra injuries, but I’m not sure that would really add anything other than acknowledging the fact that someone in there probably got the notion to go “hey if he won’t teach us that magic what if we punch him and ask again” and may not have been turned down. Or they may have, (4/9) or they may not have brought it up at all because the Leader didn’t ask them to. Alternately, I could lean into their comical side and say that, while they got the idea to try “torturing” they don’t actually know how to do that. They’re assassins, they usually just kill, they don’t really know what to do with prisoners, it’s been a long time since they split off from another group that may have known torture techniques in the service of the now-destroyed kingdom. In which case it would be (5/9) things like “ohoho what if we give him his food... WITHOUT ANY bananas? he’ll be MISERABLE” (they are obsessed with bananas) played for a weird kind of humor. On the other hand I don’t want to imply that if they’d tried “REAL” torture it might have worked. Possibly the punching and asking again was tried once toward the beginning, then the comical “no bananas” one was tried later and neither one accomplished anything? I don’t want to say he spent seven years underground (6/9) surrounded by a comical murderous weirdo cult and “nothing really happened” in that time until his rescue but I don’t want to shoe in something like Actual Torture Attempts when it isn’t necessary. I could fill his time with escape attempts and/or trying to get information. Final thing: his daughter is going to break him out with the help of the Hero and a friend who defected from the Yiga Clan. This friend’s mother is going to take leadership of the clan but is meant to reform somewhat. (7/9) My character (the one whose father is imprisoned) could funnel her anger at his imprisonment towards the previous leader but if she finds out he was tortured (or weird attempts were made at it) she could have more trouble coming to a grudging, still pretty angry acceptance that her friend’s mother exists and is the way she is and probably shouldn’t be magically lit on fire. Or she could compartmentalize and say the friend’s mother never ordered anything like that, or may have even (8/9) turned a blind eye to her father’s final escape. This was a lot of detail but again the main questions are: does that seem like torture attempts would add or detract, and would it be in poor taste to include something like the “no bananas” scene? (9/9)

While I’d never played a Zelda game when I got this ask I am now one of Those People who got a switch in response to not being able to go outside. (They had pokemon, I was weak). And I’ve put a lot of hours into Breath of the Wild since. It’s a beautifully realised setting and I can see the appeal of writing something set in that world.

Humour is a very subjective thing. Whatever we do there are always going to be people that the jokes don’t land for. I’ve (mostly) got positive responses to my humour but I have had incidents both here and on my AO3 page where people took exception to it. And that’s a lot more likely to happen when we’re dealing with serious topics.

That said, I do think that we need humour about the things that scare us. There’s nothing quite as potent and satisfying as making our fears ridiculous.

If you’re considering using humour in a torture/kidnap/POW situation (whatever you decide re torture the story definitely contains some of these elements) then the main thing to consider is this: what are we actually laughing at?

This kind of humour is mostly likely to backfire or be outright hurtful when it can be interpreted as laughing at the victims. Or at the existence of traumatic events. And it’s most likely to work consistently when it’s aimed at the abusers.

From the way you’ve described this it sounds like the joke is on the Yiga clan. As it is in the game itself. (I have enjoyed the assassination attempts by enraged ‘banana salesmen’.) If you wanted to continue the pattern the game set I think a lot of fellow fans would enjoy this humour.

But the main question here is about when we should use torture in a story. And how we judge whether it’s adding anything.

Personally I start by thinking about the tone and themes of the story. The kind of atmosphere I want to capture and kinds of character interactions I want to write.

Then I try to think through the impact torture would have on the narrative in terms of knock on effects. So, symptoms in victims/survivors, witnesses and torturers but also effects on culture, community and organisations.

It would probably be easiest for me to break this down with an example or two.

I’ve talked briefly about both of these stories before. One of them takes place about two decades after a military coup ousted an absolute monarchy. Ilāra, one of the major characters, was embedded in the old regime and tortured people. They were also tortured by the regime and helped make the coup successful.

And part of the impact torture has on the story is in Ilāra's symptoms. But it’s also in the way other characters relate to them. Normal people are afraid of them or disgusted/enraged at the sight of them. They’re ostracised by their own community and treated with contempt by their military superiors.

One of the major themes running through the story is the question of how we deal with people we love when they’ve done horrific things. And how countries, cultures, move on from atrocities.

Most of the major characters aren’t Ilāra's generation, they’re the kids who came afterwards. The people who just about remember the Revolt but grew up in a world without the monarchy. They’re navigating a legacy of blood and bitterness, things that aren’t their fault but nevertheless have shaped the world they live in.

Part of it is about how the children Ilāra helped raise respond to this personal (and national) history. How they try to square the fact that this person was good (and in some ways defining) for them, while being monstrous to others.

I felt that torture would add to this story because the point of it is those fault lines. In society at large and in personal relationships. It’s about exploring how we try to bridge or heal those fault lines and how, sometimes, we make them deeper.

Torture (and indeed the other atrocities that are part of the country’s legacy) serve to raise the stakes. They deepen that initial emotional trench between the characters. And they also… Pull the camera back I suppose? The story may be about a single family but it isn’t an individual story. It’s about how larger patterns of abuse effect everyone in a society. Torture serves to make it about the culture, the country, instead of just the individuals within it.

There are similar ideas in the other story I’m working on, societal divides and how we bridge them, but I think there’s a slightly different focus.

Both of these stories are fantasy stories, but while Ilāra's story is in a sort of circa 1900s past Kibwe’s is in the future. It’s extrapolating the political oppression and systems from the places I’m interested in (in this case India, the Philippines, Kenya and Nigeria.)

The story takes place across generations starting when Kibwe was a teenager but continuing to his daughter’s formative years and into his children becoming independent adults.

And there’s torture in this story because the entire family is involved in politics. Because I grew up knowing that the natural consequence of acting for major political reform/justice was arrest and torture.

The story is about trying to change unjust systems and generational violence. It’s also about the unhealthy ways people can engage in activism, putting the theoretical good of the community above their health and their families/friends.

I didn’t really have to think about including torture in any depth, it was a natural fit. In fact I’m not sure I could talk about politics in any meaningful way without talking about torture.

So some more specific questions that might help with your story. Is the structure of the Yiga clan important to the story? Is the effect they have on society at large important to the story? Is this primarily an individual/personal story or one with a wider focus?

There aren’t ‘wrong’ answers to those questions, it’s about what you want to write.

Do you want a more personal focus with the relationships between the major characters being more important then the world at large? I think of this as a character focused (as opposed to a character driven) story.

For instance in the Lord of the Rings trilogy while we care about every member of the fellowship the important thing throughout, the focus, is the destruction of the ring and the systems that are harming all of Middle Earth. By contrast in Howl’s Moving Castle we care about the war and the fate of the missing Prince, but the important thing is what happens to the girls from the hat shop.

Both of these approaches to a story can include torture in a meaningful way. It can add to both kinds of stories. But it’s generally adding different things.

In a character focused story (with the kind of plot you’re writing) torture is mostly adding a sudden change to all of the relationships a character has. There might be focus on symptoms, a recovery arc, character development etc but the first and most obvious thing it’s adding is a major change to how these characters interact.

In a story that’s more focused on the big picture of the world torture can add world building elements and it can be used to map out divisions and allegiances in the societies you write.

Part of the reason I’m making this distinction is that in this scenario you can very easily tell a character focused story with trauma-recovery and not have torture. Kidnap and seven years imprisonment is enough to be traumatising.

That doesn’t mean torture couldn’t/wouldn’t add anything to that story. But it might not be necessary for the story you want to tell and the focus you want it to have.

On the other hand if this is primarily a broader story about communities and cultures growing and changing, the decision of whether or not to include torture has much more potential to direct the plot. It could create opposition to reforming the Yiga clan, both inside the clan (wanting to stick with how things are) and outside it (with people wanting it utterly destroyed).

Different factions and cultures might band together on the basis of shared opposition to the Yiga clan. And the clan’s reformation could effect those allegiances.

There could also be knock on effects based on where the clan operates: cultures that have been targetted by them in the past might not want this new ‘reformed’ (and more obvious) Yiga clan on their lands. And that in turn could stir up trouble within the clan because hey they’ve been here for generations it’s their home too!

There are lots of ways torture could add to this plot and these characters. It could also feed in to broader themes.

For instance the main character and her father haven’t seen each other for seven years. The difference between how we remember or idolise someone and the way they actually are is a theme you could add to here. The Yiga clan is going to end up reformed: what does it take for people to accept that reformation and forgive? The main character is friends with a former Yiga assassin: how do we process the fact people we care about might have hurt others?

That isn’t an exhaustive list, I’m just throwing out ideas to see if anything interests you.

In terms of timing and character being physically able to escape I think you’re already hit on a pretty good idea.

Torturers don’t tend to stop when ordered to. Part of the reason a lot of organisations reject torturers is because they… tend to disobey orders. A lot.

So if you wanted to write a scenario where this character is initially tortured and then held for a much longer time without torture the realistic way to do that is to have the character transferred from the ‘care’ of one group of Yigas to another. Torturers tend to exist in groups as sub-cultures within larger organisations. Which means that their presence in an organisation does not necessarily indicate that everyone in the organisation supports/carries out torture.

You could even have the Yiga’s take a (perhaps half-hearted) anti-torture stance and have them punish the torturers.

Wrapping up, the decision of whether or not to include torture is up to you. I can see ways it could add to your story but the points and themes I’ve spoken about might not be things you’re interested in.

Just because an element could add to a story doesn’t necessarily mean it’s adding something you want. There’s nothing wrong with deciding that an element doesn’t interest you, takes the story in a direction you like less or causes more stress then you want as you write it.

Ultimately the question is whether you want to write torture. And there’s no wrong answer to that question.

I hope that helps. :)

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#lia-wild-english #writing advice #tw torture #tw kidnap #writing survivors #writing torturers #effects of torture #effects of torture on society #worldbuilding #fantasy ask #torture survivors and relationships

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regrettablewritings · 5 years ago

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May I ask for 11, 14, 22 and 28 for Benoit Blanc if you don’t mind?

Certainly! Stuff below the cut!

Disclaimer: I personally headcanon Benoit’s s/o as being somewhere on the spectrum. I know not everyone identifies with this so I’ll also be including snippets of otherwise when I deem it necessary for accessibility. Happy reading!

11. What do they hide from one another?: Benoit isn’t really secretive about himself. He may avoid being upfront about his intentions (most often with regards to a case), but even then he tends to come out with the truth eventually, and with such a sense of calm that it’s more like he simply went along with peoples’ assumptions of him. But when you two start seeing each other more seriously, he does feel a tiny bit embarrassed of the fact that he may not be as up to date on all manners of slang, pop culture, etc as he would like to be. It’s not a hidden thing, really; it was a given there would be a bit of a gap there, what with the slight age difference going on. But he’s supposed to be one of the greatest detectives out there, isn’t he? He may not take the title seriously but he surely has some vagueness of an image to uphold, right? He has to have tabs on everything. Besides, deep down, he wants to seem impressive to you. Like I said, it’s not so much hidden . . . but the tab to Urban Dictionary sort of is. You hadn’t even meant to find it, you just needed to use his laptop for a quick moment when -- “. . . Ben? What, uh . . . what’s up with --. . . Why do you need to know what ‘guap’ is?” “It’s for a case, darlin’!” He has since become a little less afraid of asking you what certain terms mean. You, on the other hand, aren’t exactly as candid as your other half . . . (Spectrum Option) You weren’t exactly sure what possessed you enough to think you could skirt by without him noticing. The man was a detective after all; surely he would’ve noticed at some point that there were some things . . . amiss about you. Sure, he could chalk up your difficulty holding eye contact to shyness; everyone used fidgeting devices now, so that you had quite a few on your desk as well as on your person wasn’t anything spectacular. But surely he noticed that whenever things got too loud or rowdy at the station you disappeared; that you seemed to get particularly upset when your system was thrown off; how certain textures were enough to completely rattle you; that you had a speech pattern that could, in a word, be described as . . . “unique.” Besides that, you knew it was silly to hide the fact that you were autistic: It was nothing to be ashamed of! It was simply how your mind worked and you were doing the best you could with it. And you wanted to say you were doing pretty well in most regards, but past social experiences had a way of convincing you otherwise. Particularly in the romance department. Potential date mates would get thrown off by your seemingly stony expression or occasionally flattened tones; they didn’t always find themselves impressed by your preference of going slow; sometimes your methods of stimming threw them off; and that was if they could even get you to stop being so anxious about certain social interactions. You knew deep down that Benoit wouldn’t be like that; he was far too kind to. But also, what if?! Eventually, before the courting got too, too serious, you felt it would just be better to be honest and open with him about it. You owed yourself that much. Thankfully, you never really needed to know what the “what-if” could be, as it turned out that you were right: Benoit already kind of knew you were somewhere on the spectrum after his first few interactions with you. Having more intimate encounters during your courtship honestly all but confirmed it. This isn’t his first, fifth, or even tenth rodeo wherein he’s encountered and befriended someone who’s neurodivergent, after all. He understands to a point why you wouldn’t necessarily jump to telling him, however, though he’s glad you felt comfortable enough with him to confide that. (Non-Spectrum Option) Honestly, it’s hard to hide anything from the last of the Gentleman Sleuths. He’s so perceptive that even if it meant hiding snacks from him, you’d eventually come back to your desk to find him eating your stash of Craisins. The one thing you have managed to keep a secret, though? Your old fanfiction identity. In your teens, you were scribbling down fics anywhere you could get them: Fanfiction.net, Quizilla, Blogspot . . . On one hand, you thank the experience for giving you practice with proper writing skills, which is part of what earned you the job you have. But on the other . . . they just weren’t the greatest showcase of who you were, young or not. And Benoit does not need to know about the shipping wars you started on accident. Thankfully, Quizilla is gone and nobody really uses Blogspot anymore . . . But sometimes he asks you if you’d ever read or watched books and movies you just so happened to specialize in, or what your thoughts were, and you can’t help but wonder if that blond bastard is on to you.

14. When one has a cold, what does the other do?: The moment you appear to be under the weather, Benoit’s already activating Mother Hen Mode. He summons the Mama Blanc in him and already has you laying down in bed or propped up on the couch with some quiet music playing or a court procedural drama playing while he’s in the kitchen making homemade chicken soup. If you put up a struggle eating or are too tired to feed yourself, he’s not above feeding you. He’s going to make sure that you eat at least enough to be able to take half a zinc tablet without getting sick, and make sure you drink plenty of water and vitamin C. And God help you if you think you can just do work from home because even if you’re not experiencing the worst cold, he’s not convinced you should be up and about instead of resting. At most, he’ll let you sit on the couch instead of staying cooped up in your room all day. He’ll even join you, often times sitting next to you and reading through files he brought home from his own casework. He doesn’t really mind the close contact in spite of your protests. Which is annoying because when he inevitably catches your cold, he’s more fussy than you are. Not in the man flu fashion, but he’s a lot more stubborn about resting. He knows it’s what’s best, but he’s so used to handling himself over the years that he’s gotten into the habit of doing as much work as he can before dropping, with self-care just happening to take place between his illness naps. You have to actually scold him and hide his files for a bit until he eventually falls asleep thanks to his exhaustion and the medicine you make sure he takes. Because of this, you’re more task-oriented when Benoit is sick. Certainly, you make sure that he’s eating the proper things and taking the right vitamins and medication and getting enough rest, but between all that you’re also making sure that he has less to worry about. You quietly clean around the house, you do the laundry, you run as many errands for him as you can (groceries, dry cleaning, etc), you even meal prep. That way when he gets better, he’s better in a cleaner house with next to nothing to worry about besides the paperwork he’d had taken away from him earlier. As much of a fight as he puts up at first, he truly does appreciate your generosity and kindness. He’d kiss you if it weren’t for the fact that he’s still a bit sniffily.

22. Where does their first kiss happen?: In the filing room. Sexy, right? You were technically still courting at this point but it was undoubtedly clear that things were getting serious. Nobody said anything about it, though. After all, was now, in the middle of a potential scandal, really the best time to talk about going steady? Probably not. Though you’d be lying if you said the thought didn’t buzz around in your head all day and all night. You had to be professional about this. Just as Benoit is, you reminded yourself as you watch him reading through the files you’d given him moments earlier. His brow furrowed before slapping the manila folder shut. “Well, that’s a crock of shit,” he muttered. “Hm?” you questioned, perking up. Maybe he needed input? He certainly seemed to be seeking yours more often as of late. You tried not to shiver when he focused those icy blue eyes of his on you. “This doesn’t make any sense,” Benoit explained, giving the file in his hand a gentle flap. “Carters doesn’t even have a history of violence; I sincerely doubt he suddenly became overwhelmed with the temptation to attempt fratricide all over some rather tacky jewelry. Which therefore begs the question. . .” He paused dramatically. “What do you suppose would cause a man to jump from petty theft in high school to murder in his mid-thirties?” You shrugged. “Bad friends,” you half-joked. It gave Benoit further pause. “. . . What ever happened to that accomplice of his? From the petty theft?” he questioned. Obviously, you didn’t have the answers; but the department filing room most likely did. Somewhere amongst the many boxes and cabinets, lined up in crammed and musty-smelling aisles, lay the answer. And, to your dismay, it appeared to be on a shelf a little higher than you were tall, serving as a load-bearing wall against other boxes of files. You grimaced as you arched your feet once more, attempting yet another lurch forward to reach. You weren’t sure who let this section of the filing room get this bad but whoever it was (you were sure it was Debbie; it was probably freaking Debbie), you were going to wring their neck. “(Y/N), really, I insist --” Benoit began, but you were quick to cut him off. “No, no, Mr. Blanc,” you insisted. “I got this.” You couldn’t see him press his lips into a thin line. “You know, it’s perfectly fine to call me by my name,” he said. “Mhm,” you grunted. “’M just . . .keeping it professional.” Dammit! Your fingers had just brushed the edge! Just a bit more -- “This isn’t a situation for HR, I technically don’t really work here,” you heard him chuckle. “And anyway, stop being so stubborn, and let me help.” “It’s fine!” Really, it was: You managed to nudge the box closer. “(Y/N), be reasonable.” You suddenly felt warmth against your back. Oh. Oh, God. He was pressing up against you as he leaned forward. You felt your cheeks burn at the stimuli. With far more ease, he nudged the box close enough to the edge to where it could easily fall into your waiting hands. Unfortunately, any relief was short-lived: Truly, the box was load-bearing. You yelped as the threat of musty cardboard and decades worth of paperwork threatened to fall on you . . . only for it not to actually be carried out. You glanced upward to find Benoit, once again, leaning forward. Just enough to shove the materials further on the shelf. You hear him huff and chuckle. “See? I bet you’re real happy now that I came along, aren’t you?” You turned just enough to glare at him. It didn’t last: Nobody can really find themselves glaring at Benoit Blanc for long whenever he had a smile on his face. At the very least, you couldn’t. He had that effect on you and you wanted to despise it so dearly, at the very least now you did. But you just couldn’t. Nor could you bring yourself to turn your face away as you noticed him leaning in closer. You had to be honest: You never took Benoit for the sort of man capable of performing such a strong liplock. Strong, warm, yet sweet and enticing -- “BLANC!” The sudden cry was more than enough to make you part. There, in the threshold, stood your less than amused superior, arms crossed and glowering. “Do you really think that this is the place to be making out?” Lt. Elliot demanded. You whimpered, hiding your blushing face behind the box still in your arms. He didn’t wait for a response. Instead, he scoffed and stormed off, feeling his point had been made. As you began your walk of shame out of the room, you hissed at your newly acquired boyfriend, “This is why I wanted to keep things professional!” To your dismay (and deeply hidden amusement), however, Benoit appeared to be unfazed. If anything, he seemed quite pleased with himself. He chuckled as he placed an arm about your lower back. “Oh, admit it: You didn’t mind being a little unprofessional.” He didn’t need to use his smarts to deduce that, and you hated that.

28. Why do they get jealous?: Benoit rarely gets jealous. He trusts you enough, and he trusts the bond you two share a great deal. But on the rare occasion he exhibits what would be called jealousy, it’s usually because of one of two things: Either A) someone manages to best him at wits or glamor and it appears to impress you, or B) someone younger (and hungrier) than he approaches you. The reasons why these are rare occasions, though, are simple. For the first bit, Benoit is mighty smart. He won’t go as far as to consider himself a downright genius, but he’s aware enough to know that his mind thinks a bit more broadly and rapidly than the average person’s. Sometimes, though, the lifestyle he runs brings him to circles where he must interact with great minds. And sometimes, as you are often his companion for certain circumstances, you may meet, say, an Ivy League alumnus who isn’t afraid to kiss you on the hand as a greeting or give you a grand tour of their vast estate while Benoit has to hold interviews. And as for the second bit, Benoit knows and accepts he’s no spring chicken. He also knows he may not be fast and furious in terms of romance, and some younger folk may find that tedious. The worst case is if that Yale graduate with the big fancy mansion is also around your age. But he also knows you. In the end, any insecurities he might have about his lifestyle or age are squashed because he knows you’re not the sort to just grab onto anyone just because they’re rich, shiny, and new. You’re honest and know what you do and don’t want, and he also knows that even if you’re having internal battles with your thoughts and feelings, you eventually come out with them. That’s how he knows you thought that one heir to the Havington Spa empire was a bit of a pompous douchebag, or why you were bored listening to that one poet who many saw as a prospective Nobel Prize winnter. You try not to get jealous yourself. Maybe you put him on a pedestal, but you certainly see a lot of value and endearment in the likes of Benoit: He’s smart, handsome, understanding, kind . . . Maybe a bit ambitious and odd, but nothing too terrible. He was, without a doubt, one of your favorite people to be around. But sometimes, you worried if he could potentially be another’s favorite as well. There had been the occasional case where his gentleman charm appealed to a woman involved, usually suspects but occasionally they were just vaguely related the the situation and decided to throw their two cents in, if only to have more of a chance to be around Benoit. You couldn’t tell if maybe you were reading too into it, or if Benoit was ignoring them or even flat out oblivious to their efforts, but come on: There’s only so much ignoring a man can do when a lady has her bust pressed up against his arm! But what really drove you nuts was whenever she’d initiate banter with him. One of the best ways to the detective’s heart was wit. And sometimes, to your dismay, these cases would include women who could make hogwash sound like Shakespeare. And that they made it look so easy drove you insane! But luckily, that was about as far as the women would get: The best way to Benoit’s heart was embracing the unusual, which was startling against the backdrop of a prim and proper gentleman they assumed him to be. They’d quirk a brow when he found himself making odd little rhymes, stand by awkwardly as he monologued to himself, and assume he was joking whenever they came upon him singing showtunes or making references to musicals. You, however, responded accordingly: You’d echo his limericks to feel them for yourself, listen and take notes of his allegories so you could contribute your own thoughts, and joined in on whatever song he brought up. In the end, you needn’t really be jealous because he’s already made up his mind: You’re his favorite person. And there isn’t a pair of doe eyes and a thesaurus mouth that’s going to change it. But still: You’d rather not take that risk!

I got carried away in some areas I think . . . But hopefully it turned out okay!

Character Ship Headcanons

#benoit blanc x reader #benoit blanc #benoit blanc imagine #benoit blanc imagines #regrettablewritings #character ship headcanons #character ship meme #it has occurred to me i have a tendency of switching tenses...#hm...don't like that much #but i also don't like having to go back and fix everything...

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aqvarius · 5 years ago

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[WALKTHROUGH + REVIEW] Her Love in the Force: Ayumu Shinonome: S3 Love’s Battlefield + His PoV

Honestly, I think this route is one that I went into almost completely blind. With some other routes (particularly Ishigami’s and Soma’s), I kind of had expectations going in. But with this one, I basically had no idea what was going to happen.

Ayumu’s Love’s Battlefield is another example of how the quality of Her Love in the Force just keeps improving. I have been so impressed by every single route that’s come out this season in particular. It was heartwrenching and frustrating and some things are still unresolved, but I’m excited for the future. Ayumu’s routes have a knack of setting up the premise for the next part so well that I’m just left impatient for the second half of the season.

With the walkthrough, please bear in mind that there is no good-happy ending meter in this route for some reason so I’m not sure if all answers will take you to the Happy Ending, but these are the answers I chose that brought me to the HE.

Walkthrough:

Ep 1: "His sharp tongue." "That's not the plan."

Ep 2: "I miss fried shrimp." "Kaga trusts you."

Ep 3: "Is that sarcasm?" Explain

Ep 4: Stay silent. "I meant it."

Ep 5: "What's your name?" Abstain.

Ep 6: "Move, please." (gives all options) Don't check.

Ep 7: It's Ayumu. Hug him. (one of the potential options is give him the finger? lol?)

Ep 8: "I prefer black tigers." "No thanks."

Ep 9: Don't answer. "It's panties."

I don’t have much else to say in terms of expectations or even as an intro, so click on through to read my thoughts about this route and his PoV, character and relationship development, my analysis on Ayumu and his MC’s dynamic vs her dynamic with Tsugaru, and my screenshot of the GREATEST BACKGROUND that Voltage has ever gifted us. Here, I have basically tried to keep major plot details to a minimum but beware of minor spoilers.

Reality:

Ayumu is the person who had maintained strict boundaries the whole time during her time in the academy, so naturally it makes sense that he’s the one who finds it the hardest to detach from these roles and the dynamics that it causes. This is expressed beautifully in his PoV, which I highly enjoyed and definitely recommend. I’ve been thinking that with this new season in particular, the PoVs don’t cover all the key moments in the MS, but rather they complement them with new scenes that really wonderfully paint a broader picture of these two sides to the relationships. Despite the fact that he doesn’t quite yet know how to break away from these roles, Ayumu’s relationship with his MC changes a lot outside of the Academy. He’s a lot more open about wanting to help her. His hints to her are so obvious that even she gets it. I never imagined we would ever hear our favourite sour patch kid Ayumu straight up say “I’d do whatever it is she wanted if only she’d say something to me”?! Three times over, he practically begs her to open up to him and let him help her, and she’s the one pulling away and keeping secrets this time. I understood why she did it but dear God, I felt so frustrated for Ayumu.

This route is full of super heartwarming scenes where you can feel just how much Ayumu cares about supporting his MC, to the point where he almost breaks rank just to set her up in a good position. Ayumu is someone who, before now, hadn’t yet challenged the bureaucracy of the National Police Agency (unlike Kaga and Soma) and barely even ever goes against the orders of his own boss Kaga, but this route places him in a position where he almost commits insubordination for his MC. I love that we first get to see him deal with things when he acts out in a frustrated way, and then again when he’s calmed down and had a think, and that leads to that scene in the park in episode 7, which is one of my favourite scenes in the whole route. His PoV is (naturally) more enjoyable for seeing his own anxieties and frustrations about the situation. This route reminded me again that Ayumu is totally a one-woman man, and when he falls in love, he falls so hard.

Something that I find interesting and different about this route is thinking about Ayumu’s position now that they are both working in the same division. Ayumu is someone who has spent two whole years watching his MC and setting up the chess board for her behind the scenes so she can make the most of her abilities and execute the perfect checkmate. But now that he doesn’t have the position or ability to set the board up for her, we get to see his frustration at wanting so desperately to help and yet being unable to do anything. At the academy, he had a position of authority as a special instructor. But at HQ, he’s just another lieutenant. Sure, he’s a genius and a specialist unlike anyone else, but ranking-wise, he’s in the same position as Goto or even Kurosawa. That’s something that you also feel with Goto’s route – the inability to affect change in the same way that they could within the setting of the academy. In this new context, Ayumu isn’t like Kaga or Ishigami, who can stand on their own against Tsugaru. Soma too has a higher rank so the issue of power and bureaucracy isn’t something that needs to be explored as much (and also he’s kind of a wild card even within Ishigami’s team and has always done his own thing, including a lot of independent investigations, which is why in his route the main dynamic between Team Tsugaru and Soma is Tsugaru getting Momo and MC to spy on Soma).

I saw a couple of comments about how awful Tsugaru is in this route and one on hand I do think that he is a lot more fun to the MC in other people’s routes (mostly Ishigami’s, then Goto’s, then Kaga’s), but on the other I think that if you hate him here, you’re gonna despise him in his own route. I’ve said it a couple times here and there, but I really feel like the version of Tsugaru in Ayumu’s route is the closest to his true personality. Tsugaru’s own profile calls him the worst boss and the most malicious person. Even Momo calls him 天邪鬼, basically calling him someone who messes with people just for shits and giggles (the term used for a demon who is deliberately contrarian). If you don’t like how little Tsugaru respects the MC in this route, oh boy you are gonna be in for a ride when you see how he treats her in his own. There’s a reason she comes to loathe that smile of his. Weirdly enough, in the Good End, the Tsugaru Squad dynamics seem to get to about the same level as they are in the other routes. There’s even a cute scene in the Good End where Momose actually kind of attempts to console the MC when Misato screams at her, and the Special Story from the Ending Set also shows them interacting in about the same way as they do in other LIs’ routes, with the three of them working as a team. I wish there was more sense of development in terms of building that team relationship (and I will expand on this later too).

I don’t know if any of you have watched Agents of SHIELD but this need-to-know basis (and feeling like there are clearance levels for information) thing gave me severe AoS vibes. At the same time, you do understand why an institution such as Public Safety would need to isolate information, for security purposes. It would be no good to have someone, especially a rash new detective, get caught and tortured and spill all the beans, right? And the thing is, this need-to-know thing is not new to Ayumu’s MC at all. You only have to look at his Sequel and Graduation routes to see her being left in the dark by Ayumu himself in two consecutive seasons. The big difference here is that whenever Ayumu acts, he always keeps her abilities and strengths in mind, with the plan always taking advantage of the things only she can do (such as having an eidetic memory). So she doesn’t need to follow instructions (although he always leaves her clues), but the plan is already designed to work with her usual attack patterns and abilities. With Tsugaru, however, they don’t know each other. She doesn’t know how Tsugaru thinks (nor does anyone except Momo), and while Tsugaru may know what she thinks, he probably sees her as volatile and unpredictable. If she were working under Ayumu in this case, he may have taken into account the fact that his MC might have tried to accost Misato’s assailers in the basement, but Tsugaru (rightfully, tbh) expects people to trust him and follow his orders since he always has a reason for doing the things he does, even when no one (except Momo) understands what they are.

I’ve previously touched on my opinion that Soma is probably the closest OG character to Tsugaru, which I’ll expand on here too. Actually, let me rectify that statement: Tsugaru is probably the most similar to Soma and Kurosawa – I would say his character maybe sits in the middle of their personalities. The common factor here is not just their enigmaticness, but the way they keep a friendly mask on while they use people as tools without remorse while keeping their plans hidden, or only understood by a select few people who get it without words (which is actually similar to how Kaga does things too). This is why he needs a Momo 2.0, to be able to have a similar sense of foresight and understand why they need to enact certain plans. He needs more pawns like Momo, who allow themselves to be used because they understand the bigger picture, even if, on the surface, the steps towards justice seem unethical. And sometimes they really may be unethical, but this is Public Safety so what do you expect lol.

So even though it’s totally legitimate to complain about Tsugaru in this route, it was necessary for him to be like this in order to demonstrate the shifting dynamic between Ayumu/MC and MC/her new superior in a new context. It’s important to note that both Ayumu and Tsugaru start out by giving the MC seemingly inane errands to do. Because she’s gotten used to the idea that all the small, seemingly useless things that Ayumu makes her do are for her own developmental benefit, she expects the same of Tsugaru. But frankly, Tsugaru doesn’t have the time to do stuff like this. He’s a captain, she’s a working detective, and she needs to start being responsible for her own growth, so when she finally gets it into her head that he isn’t going out of his way for her, she becomes despondent first and then insistent on doing things her own way.

What then happens is an obvious lack of trust between senior/junior between Tsugaru and MC. It’s something that we see her gradually develop over her years at the academy, but she hasn’t yet learnt to rely and trust on people other than Shinonome when they aren’t tailoring everything behind the scenes for her benefit because this is what he has always done. It isn’t said explicitly but this is what he (and Kaga and Tsugaru [and Namba lol?]) are talking about in His PoV when they talk about smothering bunnies, especially when they are in a new family. Because Ayumu has always gone above and beyond to pave the way for her to follow her own sense of justice and still have everything work out, she hasn’t yet learnt to develop trust in other people’s senses of foresight and that acting independently according to her own sense of justice isn’t always the right thing to do, especially when the plan isn’t set up for her sake. Ayumu sets everything up for her because that’s the way he shows his care for her as his mentee and then girlfriend (and we LOVE that about him!), but Tsugaru has no reason to do so at all.

The MC in this route was different. To be honest, I got flashbacks to Kaga’s first season routes, especially when she was just gonna pack up and go back to Nagano. It’s quite a different reaction from Ishigami and Soma’s MCs, who just naturally hone in on work and basically become workaholics when faced with adversity and heartbreak. If Ishigami’s MC’s defining trait is being a workaholic, Goto’s is sweetness , Soma’s is actually being able to do her job well without messing up dependence, Kaga’s is insecurity, and Shinonome’s is how chipper she is. Obviously this is an extreme dilution of her character (and I could write a whole piece just on her characterisation) and she embodies all of those traits listed above and more. But more than anyone else, Ayumu’s MC is the most upbeat and stubbornly optimistic, so seeing a more insecure and pessimistic side of her definitely felt different and a bit odd. In the past, even when she’s een down, she continues to just do her job. The reason why she gave me Kaga S1 MC vibes is because of that insecurity and pessimism. Kaga’s MC is someone who was initially prone to giving up because her sense of morals and justice does not align with what Kaga is willing to do for Public Safety. You get a sense of that with Soma’s MC at the beginning as well, but Soma is gentle enough on the surface and just encouraging enough at the right moments that she doesn’t give up. The relationship between Kaga and his MC at the beginning is similar to the relationship between Tsugaru and Ayumu’s MC in this route, since Kaga is also someone who acts on his intuition and expects others to be able to understand him without a single explanation.

In this route, the MC starts to break away from Ayumu’s protection and act on her own. This is well and good, but what I would have liked to see is her starting to be able to work with her team and prove herself as someone who is compatible with them and not just capable as an independent agent. I loved the silly Eiji cameo (with his yamato nadeshiko tshirt, naturally) but I think that sense of development could have been built up a bit more had she been able to work with Momose. And no I am not just saying this because I love the concept of bodyguard Momo lol, but because then we would get to see her demonstrate her individual capabilities and slowly earn Momo’s trust and respect (and by proxy, Tsugaru’s, since Momo is his dog). We know she is more than capable in terms of technique. In the Happy Ending, Tsugaru even acknowledges that he knows that MC’s specialty is hacking without being traced, so I kind of wish that they had let MC prove her abilities individually but also learn how to work in a new team that does things a different way. Essentially, I want her to get to a point where she can adapt to working under difficult people in the same way that Kaga’s MC understands exactly what he needs even if he just says “file”, or know what his strategy is with one clue, or know what she needs to do when he says the word “jailer” a particular way even when he’s pretending to sell her off to a rich millionaire.

(Once I saw the name Mr Hattori I was like.... this is a ninja name... it could only be ONE PERSON)

Personally, I think that in the Happy End scene where MC and Tsugaru are talking, what Tsugaru wanted to hear from MC was an apology not just for acting on her own but for not trusting him and just running off and doing her own thing. A big part of this route was about MC needing to prove the academy’s, Shinonome’s, and her own worth to Tsugaru and I don’t feel like this was necessarily successful, since the one thing she should have been able to demonstrate to earn Tsugaru’s acknowledgement is that she can adapt and make herself useful to him. Anyway, in the next part of the season, I really hope we get to see her begin to learn how to work in a new team. The unity between the three of them that we see in Goto’s route is incredible, and we even see the moments in Goto’s and Soma’s routes where Momo comes to respect her abilities. I think the best way to show off Ayumu’s effect on her life and value as an academy instructor would be to show off the techniques that he specifically taught her in order to help Team Tsugaru and prove her place on their squad as an IT specialist, instead of acting on her own.

On a personal note, I also just really wanted more Momose. We’ve seen in other routes (particularly Soma’s) how kind he actually is and how much he cares. In Soma’s route, he even defies Tsugaru to support you. One of my favourite parts about the SS3 routes is seeing Momo gradually warm up to you. I’ve mentioned the little bit in the Good Ending, but it would have been nice if there were a few more subtle moments like that to show how the MC starts to prove herself to her team.

I don’t want to spoil too much about the plot, so I will say that HLITF always knows how to write a compelling mystery, and I enjoyed that they kept us in suspense even when MC cracked the case so as to preserve the element of surprise. I also enjoyed the last couple chapters as well, and what happens just when you think everything is sorted… Of all of the SS3 routes, Shinonome’s sets up the most clearly not only for his Episode 0, but also for the second half of the season.

I did find the pacing a bit odd and not as tight as Soma’s, Goto’s, or Kaga’s (Ishigami’s was……. Wild……) but it wasn’t too confusing to follow, although I would struggle if I had to draw out a timeline since there are so many small ups and downs that it’s hard to pinpoint a specific narrative structure with clearly defined acts.

Aside from that, there were so many little moments I loved. The dinosaur planetarium date, MC being thirsty for Ayumu so many times (what’s new), MOMOSE IN A VINTAGE ROARING TIGER SUKAJAN AND SUPREME T-SHIRT LIKE THE ABSOLUTE HYPEBEAST HE IS, Ayumu’s desperation during the climax, and that one line where she says “Ow! That hoppity hurts, kids!” Let me know what little details you most enjoyed about the route too!

Edit: Can’t believe I forgot to mention this but that ONE SCENE WHERE HE’S ALL EXHAUSTED LIKE “BUY.... ME.... NECTAR” AND SOMA IS JUST STANDING THERE LIKE “WHAT NECTAR DO YOU WANT ME TO BUY FOR YOU” LMALSDKFSLSFDK LIKE AYUMU JUST ACCIDENTALLY ASKED HIS SUPERIOR TO RUN A PEACH NECTAR ERRAND.

The CGs were stunning too – I have absolutely nothing bad to say about them. The kabedon CG and the Happy Ending CG are my favourites in particular.

The appearance of the RMD doctors is definitely… gratuitous lol but I didn’t mind it. I thought they would at least play a bigger role (with maybe Sen in paediatrics at least). I so desperately wanted MC to acknowledge that Sen seems really similar to Ayumu?! But the appearance of the RMD MC in Ayumu’s PoV was even more gratuitous and I HATED IT LOL!!

I wondered if the translation and coding of this route was maybe a bit of a rush job? Or at least affected by the work from home situation. Firstly, there was no good – happy ending meter, which in one sense was quite nice because I got to read the whole thing in one go and just pick the options I thought would work without worrying about the meter not going up. It reminded me of old school Voltage games. Secondly, in episode 6, there’s an error with the option selection during the CG scene. If you select the first option (“Move, please”), it actually gives you the dialogue for all three options one after the other. Thirdly, in the Happy Ending chapter, after the HE end card goes up, there’s an extra scene which is actually a few slides from the ending of the Good End (re: Naru). I’m not sure if this is an error or just needed to give the context to set up for the second half of the season. In his PoV, they also left in a card from the JP version, which is delightfully, painfully heartwrenching to read but was left untranslated.

In Kaga’s, Ishigami’s and Soma’s routes, my heart hurt for their MCs. But in this route, my heart ached the most for Ayumu. I honestly feel that Ayumu’s Love’s Battlefield gave him more character development than his MC, which… I don’t mind, actually. This route was delightfully frustrating to read, actually made me cry once (but not as much as Ishigami’s or Soma’s; the latter made me have to take a break to sob for a good while), and also really hyped me up for his Love’s Trial route (愛の試練編). The special story in the ending set is WONDERFUL and I would highly recommend getting it if you can (although I’m still mad that we need to purchase these stories instead of getting them as a bonus for unlocking both endings like it used to be in the standalone app). Finally, it gave us this absolute gem of a background. Even if the route had been complete trash, it would have all been okay because of this one background.

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somnilogical · 5 years ago

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case study: elle benjamin

the rationality community's least skilled exploiter of transmisogynistic coordination points known to me

when thinking about strategy, i often use the least sophisticated version of a given strategy that i know of to reason about the minimal elements of the strategy in general. i have an index of unsophisticated versions of things that i ping and ask "is this strategy basically this vector but with more optimization power behind it?" it helps compress a lot of information. to check, i can make a prediction given a set of examples of the pattern and test it.

(like i did with the transmisogynistic rationalist orgs "i bet this org has 0 transfems in positions of power" and yep they did, they all did.)

and thats how i factor strategies generated by agents with large amounts of optimization power. who might have more ability to optimize in a domain than i do.

both of these claims are false. elle benjamin never let emma into the group. shes culpable for her continued choice to "believe" bigoted propaganda. just as davis tower kingsley is culpable for "believing" that anna salamon, the president of cfar, isnt involved in cfar's hiring.

elle benjamin is deeply concerned about the treatment of trans people in the rationalist community. elle isnt that good at social optimization so this is an obvious false face. like a cop during segregation who runs an algorithm of "smile at people" if no black people are using the WHITE water fountain and "beat up a human" if a black human uses the WHITE water fountain. as long as trans women know their place as violent abusers like ▘▕▜▋, elle is happy.

if we start claiming we are women just the same as them and how people are treating us is wrong, if we protest against omnicide, if other people are coordinating against trans women along lines of transmisogyny; then elle decides its time to show us our place in the social order as male. violent, child abuse loving, misogynistic, strong-arming, men.

this decision-circuit is not peaceful. people who start trying to exploit transmisogyny in an attempt to coordinate with others against you only when you look vulnerable or they think they can get away with it and otherwise smile at transfems are with their whole soul given over to transmisogyny.

erica's post is so passive-aggressive!

<<One issue is that i think this group is just too large to remain a high trust environment.>>

<<Thanks everyone for keeping this a civil place that deals with sensitive issues all these years!>>

in reference to my blog posts about how they didnt have any transfem mods and immediately took down hot allostatic load because it was a [[bad culture fit]] and [[incoherent]]. as if i were expected to keep some confidentiality about transmisogyny. i have no loyalty to keeping secret that kind of oppression, i signed no contract to that effect.

as if telling other trans people exactly what they did was "uncivil"! as if it were ruinous to society instead of ruinous to a cis women coordinating on transmisogyny.

as if posting hot allostatic load and talking about transmisogyny on my blog were less "sensitive" than the other things the group was doing which included posts like "How many romantic novels/movies/etc do we have left, once we take away all the ones focused on a man relentlessly trying to convince a woman through trickery and persistence and stalking that she should really have sex with him" and "the White Knight/Damsel in Distress dynamic" at the time HAL was taken down.

https://somnilogical.tumblr.com/post/175420481784/i-tried-to-post-to-rationalist-feminists-closed

its an equilibrium where anyone opposing the "peace" of transmisogyny is labeled "antisocial" and "disrupting things".

would you say this woman is being misogynistic and "strong-arming" a female DA?

<<Last year, I was arrested twice in Sonoma County at Sunrise Farms and then Petaluma Poultry, two massive industrial farms that torture and kill hundreds of thousands of birds- while lying to the public about how these animals are treated. My crime? Asking the county to help the starving animals inside. Not just asking by email or phone call or office visit (though all these efforts were made and ignored), but asking by going right to the frontlines myself, exercising my statutory right to help neglected animals, and calling the attention of the authorities to this pervasive cruelty. The fact that the sheriffs chose to arrest us and ignore the animal cruelty broke my heart. It's hard to believe we live in a world where helping someone who is dying is the "crime" and not putting that life in danger in the first place. But have hope that this will change, and my hope growing.>>

<<Now, in response to the action at Reichardt, Sonoma County District Attorney Jill Ravitch has decided to file additional charges against me, Priya Sawhney, and Wayne Hsiung. We are already facing 7 felonies and 5 misdemeanors and we're still fighting for animals every day. Do you think new charges will stop us? No. And it wont stop the movement, either. They think they can stop DxE by targeting leadership, but they don't understand that we are a network of leaders. That every single one of us is leading the world to one of the biggest changes it will ever see. #RightToRescue>>

probably not because shes cis and looks like:

laying down and making it clear that you offer no impediment to mass murder is not a female thing, its not a feminist thing. its a *you* thing, elle benjamin.

someone commented on the screenshots:

<<(It feels relevant that when I met this person a few months ago they went on a rant about the evils of TERF’s before telling me I couldn’t experience misogyny bc I was “male-socialised.” They apologised quickly after having it explained but the idea of their being the Font of Wisdom about transness to rats is insane.)>>

https://loving-not-heyting.tumblr.com/post/614660027724283904/ht-somni-for-screengrabs-this-sums-up-absolutely

ozy brennan, i know what the fuck im talking about when i say "transmisogyny". ive been lied to then kicked out of a homeless shelter for being a trans woman. several men forced me to the ground and held me down and cut off my clothes while i shouted "I DONT CONSENT" locked me in a bare room then crowded around a window embedded in a door and said "i told you it was a guy" and a bunch of people came to gawk at my naked body. and so much more.

some of my interactions on the street in the bay:

<<at bart ppl would call me an ugly bitch and ask me to sleep with them in exchange for meth

someone tried to sell me something and i was like "im not interested in being scammed today" and they were like "bitch!!!"

i walked around in sf talking with a homeless women for ~8 hours and someone asked if we had boyfriends and offered to sell us meth if we went with him and i was like "no thanks" and she was like "how much?" but it was too expensive or something. she showed me lots of places to get food and shelter.

and like if i sit down in places for long enough people will come up to me and ask me if i have a boyfriend or if i want to go get coffee with them on a date.

sometimes ppl ask where im *really* from and if i was born a girl. sometimes ppl touch me on my back or thigh.>>

ive compared notes with cisfems, i get more solicitations to have sex with men in exchange for meth.

this isnt oppression olympics, this is "maybe 7-8 years ago when i started transitioning i didnt have a detailed model of transmisogyny, but now i cant not have one". alyssa vance could have one too (and know things like elle is the kind of person who exploits transmisogyny whenever she gets a chance) if she werent busy using her adult intelligence to defeat itself for miri/cfar.

what elle benjamin did was transmisogynistic and i can arbitrage actually being aligned with justice by taking a stack of screenshots of all the things she said and showing them to transfems uninvolved with the ambient miri/cfar gaslighting. and theyll be like "yup, thats transmisogyny". and other transfems can be like "yup, elle was also transmisogynist to me."

rationalists like alyssa vance and ozy brennan currently have an incentive to imply people who accurately identify transmisogyny are crazy. to go along with the status quo. (if i had to guess: ozy to protect an environment where they can provide for their baby, alyssa because she routed her hopes for personal immortality through miri/cfar.) though its not like i expect /alyssa vance/ to start calling transfems “gross uncle style abusers" like patrick lavictiore did or start listing off their "manly" physical characteristics contra anna salamon being a small feeble cisfem like peter did. not because alyssa vance is a particularly good person, shes not. but because thats paying in to a coordination technique that could be used against /her/. she doesnt expect social reality to label her "psychotic" anytime soon so she pays into that instead. ozy does and didnt call me "psychotic". this optimization is dumb, myopic, and doesnt serve their own values. but all evil is like that.

i dont hold by "use words for their expected value over a community" like scott alexander does. this is nice because i can align what i say with my internal cluster structure of anticipations of reality and escalate arbitrarily far without things breaking. elle benjamin cant escalate very far until her claim of ziz being a "misogynist" shatters, because its not exploiting the cluster structure of thing-space.

anyway GG on this front. the territory of "elle benjamin isnt transmisogynistic, somni is hallucinating transmisogyny" isnt worth enough for the miri/cfar campaign to expend energy on; elle benjamin isnt an important piece to miri/cfar like anna salamon is; and alyssa vance isnt in an environment with a bunch of warm bodies she can coordinate on a falsehood with. so afaict this region is ceded.

one technique of fem v fem cyberontological combat when you are right is arbitrage. when people gather a bunch of warm bodies together to gaslight you that elle benjamin isnt doing transmisogyny or whatever. instead of submitting to a series of increasingly arcane requirements until your writing looks like the inside of /principia mathematica/ and then have people complain about you writing long technical paragraphs saying they dont understand them dont care to understand them and you must be crazy;

just take a comprehensive recording of them all choosing to be dumb in a given direction and show it to people who dont have a political commitment to be dumb in that direction (which, when you are right, is often most people outside of the gaslighting bubble) and explain why its wrong. there are a lot of overlapping social spheres and you can iteratively arbitrage between them exploiting the fact that the methods of rationality and justice are more universal than specific false coordination points. in go terms, the spirit of this strategy is tenuki.

alyssa vance also says anna salamon isnt transmisogynistic, tried claiming ziz whistleblowing on miri/cfar paying out to blackmail was blackmail, and defends paying out to oneshot blackmail with subjunctive dependence for cdt reasons.

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danwhobrowses · 5 years ago

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Valentines 2020: A Celebration of My Ships

So it’s valentine’s day again, and...yeah it’s not too great when you’re single is it? Considering that I’ve already gone through a tub of ice cream...

But, it doesn’t mean I’m a cynic, quite the opposite. Most of my fandoms involves a ship in some shape or form, hell I shipped before I even knew what shipping was, so I’m gonna talk about some of them...the ones that still make me happy and didn’t crash and burn in heartbreaking and frankly insulting fashion (looking at you Homestuck ¬_¬), gotta mention that these are not all the ships I ship, they’re just some of the ones I’m quite consistently high on

New Entries So with new fandoms come new ships...as is the usual formula anyway, though my pattern of watching things is usually with some delay, I only watched Rurouni Kenshin and started My Hero Academia in 2019, I still hold off on Attack on Titan and My Hero Season 4 because if I get in, I get IN. So these fandoms may not be new, but they are new to me Steven Universe is very new to me, I’ve been aware of how good it is and their concepts like Fusion. I like it, particularly Lapis Lazuli I really relate to her, but ship wise the two I really like are the obvious ones; Steven x Connie and Ruby x Sapphire (Garnet)

Garnet is badass and chill at the same time, but when she unfuses we see the stuff that makes me smile, the pda between Ruby and Sapphire is adorable, the little pecks and whatnot softens me up like no man’s business. Steven and Connie also have the mushy dynamic with both of them deeply into each other but still being strong individuals. The love for each other is equally platonic as it is romantic as they gel together, both being strong willed in different ways. The laughter probably gets me the most with both of them, the genuine laughter is so sweet and so realistic it’s hard not to love. My Hero Academia seems to be our next wave of shonen anime and for good reason, it does high notes so well and the cast of characters are vibrant and exciting. I haven’t hit Season 4 yet since I’m waiting till it’s all done to binge so I may be a little behind on some stuff (sadly it’s hard to avoid spoilers, I know about Infinity and Unbreakable). While I do like Deku x Uraraka, Tetsutetsu x Kendo and Eraserjoke but the two that I find most enjoyable are Todomomo and Kamijirou

(artist nonoko135 btw, bit tough to find a single image with both ships) Fairly popular ships in their own right, Todomomo doesn’t get many hints but they are sweet, naive rich kids with their own confidence issues, it also feels like they look out for each other especially after the final exam they did together. With Kamijirou though it’s probably one I favour if I had to choose between the two, simply because it’s a dynamic I really like; she busts on him so hard to mask her enjoyment of his company and he takes it because he feels at ease around her, the best part is when Kaminari goes 0 volts, he makes her laugh and that’s kinda big for Jirou given how self-conscious and stoic she can be. Rurouni Kenshin was always on my list, I have often heard about the Swordsman with a blade that cuts no-one. The anime is a bit up and down, after Shishio it’s just filler, but as documented in my Redemption Arc post it is at its core a great story of redemption for the main character, and the driving force for Kenshin’s redemption is his love for Kaoru

While Sano and Megumi have a unique dynamic hinted to be romantic at times, nothing can really beat Kenshin and Kaoru, she literally became Kenshin’s conscience, a representation of his hope to be a good man away from the shadow of Battousai the Manslayer. It may be your traditional romance of the two wanting to be by each other’s side in danger but it works so well given the kind of danger Kenshin is often in. Kaoru still strives to protect herself and aid Kenshin in a way that doesn’t make her continuously wonder about being a burden and Kenshin does everything in his power to keep Kaoru from pain, physical and emotional, even if it meant leaving to keep her safe. The main part of what makes this lovely is the fact that not only did Kaoru’s influence make Kenshin value his own life once more but after continual torment in his past she still saw him as the person he wanted to be, and welcomed in a new home, a new family he was able to live a life he never imagined he could deserve. The Regulars Our Regulars are the ships I still consistently ship, they’re not very old but they’re still pretty great and they still stand the test of time. Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has quite a few ships over its 6 (coming up 7) season lifespan, being the longest surviving MCU tv series and one of the most consistently great shows MCU offered - especially Season 4, some of the best TV was on Season 4. But while Philinda is close, Mack and Yoyo or even Piper and Davis (don’t, I don’t care if you believe she’s a lesbian with the hots for May these are my ships) there is one one ship in Shield you can all rally behind, Fitzsimmons

Even when canon it is a consistent emotional rollercoaster. One of those ships where the writers know you love it and decide to put you through as much pain and emotional torment as humanely possible. But you endure it, because these two smart kids are worth it. They have sweet moments, badass moments, emotional moments and even though they get brought apart time and time again, they still find each other, the universe cannot stop them - and it better end happily for them come next season. Overwatch was a phenomenon when it came out a few years ago, Blizzard may have caused it to have some heavily bad rep but I still look forward to its sequel coming out. Given its large roster and most of the characters’ sexuality and relationship status up in the air, it leaves a lot of room for shipping. I do still love Anahardt, Mercy76 kinda falling due to 76 being gay but I like Gency too, my rarepairs include McPharah and Symmzo but my favourite is actually Meihem.

Now I know, Mei’s only voice lines towards Junkrat are cold, they have differing views in terms of omnics and...due process of the law. But there’s a lot they do have in common; both are quite intelligent engineers having made their weapons by hand, both endured trauma and both love their puns. But even the stuff that make them different can compliment one another. You don’t have to like it, but I do, I enjoy the dynamic of Jamison being so head over heels that he embarrasses himself to try and get Mei’s attention, while Mei softens to the fact that his very nature is warped by his lawless upbringing and that deep down he is an exciting and in his own way sweet guy. Back to anime, because what else do I do with my day, getting into One Piece was always going to be a long effort, keeping tabs on the Manga does make it easier and I’ve been able to catch up quickly. Ships are shaky territory with One Piece because Oda does make a point of not having romance happen a lot, not to existing living characters at least. But I still have the ones I like; Shanks x Makino, Sabo x Koala, Franky x Robin, Sanji x Pudding, Rebecca x Koby, the list goes on, but my favourite has to be Zoro x Tashigi

May not be up there with the ‘big ships’ of One Piece but I do enjoy them the most. Individually the two are characters I have deep interest in; Zoro is well Roronoa Fucking Zoro, santoryu swordsman extraordinaire, master of nothing happening and will cut you 8 ways to Sunday, but Tashigi is a character I like because she also tries, unlike Zoro she isn’t blessed with 2 years training with Mihawk and she’s at constant arms with this self doubt that as a Woman she won’t be as strong (and probably whoever of influence to her made her believe such a thing), people may get on her back for never winning a fight but she fights strong people without a second thought. But back to the pairing, they have an interesting dynamic; two very similar people on different sides of the law, I don’t think Tashigi continues to chase him simply because he refused to cut her in their fight and I don’t think it’s just her former resemblance to Kuina that gets Zoro so riled up about her, I mean Zoro is usually so chill to side characters to the point where he’s ready to throw down but with Tashigi, it’s different, they bicker but he also came to her aid. I still continue to hope that Tashigi shows in Wano for more Zoro interaction, and to prove herself to fans and to Zoro that she is strong and capable. One of my favourite anime of all time is Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, a combination of laughter, tears and deep philosophical character journeys in a 20th century world with the alchemy fantasy element drawn from actual legit alchemical sources. It just hits all the right notes for me, and ships hit right too; I love most of the ships from EdWin, AlMay and LingFan, but like Fitzsimmons there is one ship that stands above even the main characters, Royai.

Mustang and Hawkeye right from the bat have that connection that needs no dancing around, they care for each other but they work together. Like the rest of the ships they banter, argue but always have each other’s backs, to the point that they go into an insane rage at even the threat of the other being hurt. I don’t think anyone can not ship these two, that’s how strong their chemistry is, even if they can’t officially label it as a relationship because of their jobs it’s that line in the sand that everyone knows it, because it’s impossible to ignore. The Old Guard So we get to the oldest ships in my catalogue, the fact that they could stand the test of time is for a long time what shaped me as a shipper. I still ship these to this day so I ship them pretty hardcore Comics is probably the hardest place to ship something, because different writers will try different pairings at the drop of a hat. Even consistent pairings like Spiderman and Mary Jane, Batman and Catwoman, Beat Boy and Raven, Superman and Lois and more can end up being split in favour of Cindy Moon (I do love Silk), Wonder Woman and others. But I can’t ignore the fact that I’ve always loved Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon

I may’ve liked Teen Titans, but I was never on Team Starfire, it’s fine if you are but to me I have always been in with Dick and Babs. Not only do they have excellent banter but they gel well on and off of crime fighting, no matter how many times DC break them apart (like seriously, how many times do you have to try Bruce and Barbara until you realise that it creeps people out?) they always find each other again someway down the line, they are one of DC’s best couples and while they may never get a definitive ending because of the nature of comics, I still love that there’s a relationship of two strong individuals who can stand as equals and continue to keep their charm and wit after years of being together. When I was young, decades ago as it pains me to type, Digimon was the prime competitor against Pokémon’s tidal wave. Its anime had an awesome opening, more characters with some deeper themes and a quicker pacing. While many could quickly connect to Tai or Matt for their leaderlike attitude or Joe and Izzy for their intelligence or Mimi and Sora for their determination, I gravitated towards TK, a child who had room to grow and the greatest of potential, so when the Dark Masters came in we saw one of my oldest ships take form, Takari

TK and Kari’s pairing was popular that it managed to carry on into Adventure 02 and we got plenty of lovely moments in TRI (though they shorthanded both by having Ophanimon quickly fused and Seraphimon - one of the strongest Digimon - digivolve as backup in a Sora episode). 02′s epilogue is of course a sore spot we can hope Kizuna retcons because these two have been through thick and thin and their bond is clear. Even as they reach their late teens and TK has become master of hats and joined Matt’s band, they still hang out, banter and tease but they still are comfortable to hold each other’s hand and be vulnerable with one another too. Digimon may’ve been a contender, but Pokémon was still the clear winner, even to this day it is one of the most popular franchises in the world. The anime may be an up and down slope (current series seems a tad boring, 10 episodes before Ash caught a Pokémon, plus I don’t like that Ash won in Alola and now thinks he doesn’t have to try) but you can never take away the nostalgia, or the ships. I’ve shipped many in Pokémon in various media; Mallow x Lillie and Jessie x James in the anime, Ruby x Sapphire in the Manga, Looker x Anabel in the games (with Emma being their adoptive daughter dammit Looker you could’ve taken her with) among others and from Pokémon comes the oldest ship I’ve ever shipped, Pokéshipping

Before I even knew what Shipping was I shipped this, Misty may also be mostly the reason for my attraction to redheads but that’s neither here nor there. People may not like it, may prefer some of the softer spoken female (or male) companions Ash has had or feel they’ve grown out of it, but not me. I loved Misty’s feistiness and determination but also the fact that she could reign Ash in (sometimes) to make him think things through, as much as Misty was a companion to Ash she was a rival, a teacher and a supporter of his goal, but she also had her own goals which she fought for as well. They may bicker but they have also had tender moments as well and even with Misty’s return in the excellent Sun and Moon episodes they had their chemistry is palpable. To me, Ash and Misty were kindred spirits and the feeling has never changed since. So with another year of Valentine’s Day going the way it usually does, I’d like a moment to thank these ships, and all my other ships I didn’t have the space to mention, for being something that brings out happiness and a soft joy deep within my being, and for all the fanartists and fanfic writers that bring that love to life Happy Valentine’s Day

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csa-survivor-confessions · 4 years ago

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(1/2)🐛? (on mobile cant find your faq sorry) My mom raped me for years and i recently escaped now that im 18. I didnt remember the sexual abuse when i made the decision to leave but i randomly realized it a few months later. I have found little support and therapy for an hour a week is all i can afford but is not enough. I am at the end of my rope with my trauma and DID and i dont know what to do. The biggest issue is the overwhelming shame, and feeling like i deserved it.

(2/2)🐛 I keep falling into saying it didn't happen/wasn't that bad/others had it worse to the point I get sick when I deny it too much. An alter keeps saying the rest of us are lying and mom is a good person and we should go back. I feel like I made everything up because I read a lot of noncon fic to try to punish myself. Every grounding technique I have tried has failed. Sorry, I know this is a lot. Any resources for female survivors of maternal incest? Or any advice at all? I feel so alone.

Hello,

I’ll separate this into parts to hopefully help with converting clear information.

Denial, believing it’s fake.

Fake memories, or just “made up” memories do not happen commonly, [information here The False Memory Myth & Memory Repression]. there is nothing wrong with feeling that way however, self-denial and downplaying of our one trauma is really common.

Having “denial of parts/alters” is really common. I personally have DID as well and we have alters who deny our abuse, blame our abuse or have a deep attachment to our abusers. That is so normal! You are not alone, In this struggle. If you have any internal communication you can talk to the other alters who share this trauma for support these internal connection are god for recovery.

If you have the stability or any parts wh are good at working with there might also am them why they feel the need to defend the mother. communicating can also help ease your feeling of overwhelming and denial.

One key way to help with downplaying of abuse is to imagine a friend came to you and told you what happened to you happened to them. And think about what you would tell them, I bet it’s not. “it wasn’t bad” or “well other people got it worse”.

When you have worked out the kind of compassionate language, start picture the little girl inside you who went through the trauma. This can include talking to some of your young alters if you have any communication methods with them. Sometimes pulling them forward through focusing on your internal child might happen and sometimes those with DID can access the internal child through more basic IFS (internal family system) and Part Work methods. And offer them compassion for what they are going through.

Shame

When you find thoughts of shame start to spiral, not the thoughts and the feelings in your body. But then take a long breath and work to not identify with that thought. The emotion and thoughts exist but you don’t have t push yourself to think about it r feel it. Picture the emotion and try and let it pass.

Working towards self neutrality is also a good goal. Refraimging the language you use to talk about yourself, and in your case, your alters, to something that lacks overly negative connotation ill help change the schemas of shame. Coping Skills: Ditch Value judgments

Those words of compassion we talked about early when you find yourself starting to feel so down on yourself and shameful try saying these words to yourself. Along with some positive self aspirational mantras, you can help start to reshape the patterns your neurology follows. You won’t believe them at first but saying these will help with healing.

Practising good self-care can be super important. When we can treat our body with honesty and respect that helps shape our internal sense of being respected and being care for. It’s also just good for general depression and health. [Coping Skills Masterposts: Self-Care]

I know how hard things like showers can be but starting with just tooth brushing and face washing can be important. If brushing of teeth is a trigger I suggest buying a smaller toothbrush like a kids size and changing toothpaste to one tat either foams less, is another colour or if the taste carries. Using baby whips or a wet cloth to areas like the groin, armpits, under breasts and behind knees would be another important step towards overall health.

Keeping the living space as neat as possible also counteracts feelings of overwhelming shame and self-esteem issues.

The use of sexual material to cope

When we struggling to deal our tendency to self-harm is very common as it’s a maladaptive attempt to cope. Using the stories as a way to in your words punish is a form of self-injurious behaviour. Factors like lack of regulation, compulsive behaviour, intrusive thoughts and being manipulated by users to believing this is a reaction to perceived threats. [Coping Skills: Combating Self-Harm Urges]

This doesn’t invalidate abuse as having been abused is not contingent in never interacting with sexual content, up to and including having sex, afterwards. CSA often predates other unhealthy sexual behaviours as a reaction to our sexual traumas. No way our trauma reactions show mean our abuse didn’t happen or didn’t hurt us deeply.

Coping Skills

It makes sense a lot of the mainstream grounding is hard and lack effectiveness. Much of the meditative type skills intensify dissociation. We also often struggle with our automatic nervous systems being even more fractured than those with PTSD. Our neurological behaviour will also be more likely to take any stress or confusion and push us to dissociate. Visualization also tends to work poorly for many of us with dissociative disorders for the same issue of a tendency to dissociate. Focusing on a singular self to ground into can also become hard for us too and trigger depersonalization.

If there are skills you liked in theory and didn’t have direct negative effects it might be worth trying them again. I do understand the frustration I really really do but it can be worth it. especially as you learn what coping skills can work with different somatic sensations and cognitive distortions.

I would suggest using some of the most basic coping methods of deep breathing. I would guess this already takes a lot of brainpower as even basic things like breathing regularly can be hard for those who have extreme dissociation. So it takes a huge amount of practice for us and time for it to be effective but it’s so very important.

I would suggest still trying to practice focusing on our body sensations even if we don’t add the subsequent suggestions for grounding. Knowing what sensations tend to present themselves when certain stimuli and thoughts are present is really important for coping. It can be true that the coping skill you are working at isn’t addressing where you are. For examples, our nervous system can be in hyperarousal but many grounding skills counteract hyperarousal. So try and look for engagement over relaxation or visa versus.

I am a big believer in the body-mind connection and import of the brain-body connection and coping that is body focused. Cogntive skills like thought stopping and replacing can be truly helpful in the short term for trauma survivors.

Talk to your alters as well, coping can be influenced by the emotions land somatic states trauma we are carrying along with the ones within our consciousness. They might also just have opinions on what you ought to do. This can be done internally or through other means like writing notes.

Mother-daughter incest

I have found very little survivor orientated material that could be helpful, I found mostly news sources about how it exists and academic texts.

If any of our community knows of survivor focused materials for survivors of mother-daughter incest please reply or submit them.

We do have a discord that you could join and we have an incest support channel we are still growing the members of the server but it might be a place to have peer support.

Be Blessed,

-Admin 2

#ask #advice #coping skills #dissociative identity disorder #did #dissociation #incest cw #mother mention #rape cw #noncon mention #Anonymous

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canyouhearthelight · 5 years ago

Text

The Miys, Ch. 48

This chapter got away from me a bit, but I brought it back and I kinda like it!

If you haven’t seen your fave characters recently, don’t despair. There is so much going on now in the story that I’m having to be careful to pace myself.

Mentions of food and alcoholic beverages. Mentions of dom/sub culture. Lots and lots of fluff, plus one insane cat.

After trying a belly-aching amount of chocolate, our new friends decided to leave for the night. I was sad to see them go – I found myself really liking Charly – but when she explained that several hours in the packed crowd had left her drained, I couldn’t argue. I get peopled out, too, I had explained. She was delighted by my and Tyche’s term, testing it out and finding it the perfect way to describe what she felt.

Once we waved them off, my two chaperones and I decided to tackle the last item on our list. We carefully weaved our way through the crowd, Conor wordlessly going in the front to break through the crowd and Maverick behind me to bring up the rear. With surprisingly little difficulty, we managed to reach our destination: The Undine, Sebastian Reed’s new pub. Like most areas on the Ark, the outside was nothing out of the ordinary, although I knew the door had been replaced with one whose sweeps and swirls of texture translated to Noah. At first, the Hujylsogox method of marking doors and corridors had meant nothing to any of the humans on board, but after this long it held a kind of eerie beauty and even I could see that the pattern here was new and unique, even if I didn’t know what exactly it said.

The inside was a completely different story, however. Originally a little-used lounge area, the space had been transformed into a crisp, high-end restaurant that nonetheless invoked the feeling of standing in a low-heeled but well-maintained pub. Even the ever-energetic Conor had to just stop and take it in for a few moments. “This is incredible,” he breathed in awe, eyes closed.

“Mmmhmm,” was the only reply I could muster as Maverick watched us both with a small grin before he gently tugged on both our elbows.

“Sebastian’s coming,” he murmured before gesturing with his head.

Sure enough, as soon as we turned, there was the owner himself. “Welcome to The Undine,” he greeted us warmly, reaching to shake my hand. “Councillor Reid, it is wonderful to finally meet you.”

“Sebastian Reed,” I nodded my head toward him. “This is Conor MacMaoilir and Maverick Okima.”

“Bastian and I go back a bit,” Conor assured me, clasping the man’s hand and clapping his shoulder roughly. “Same therapy group, ‘bout since we came on the ship.”

The bar owner nodded before turning to Maverick. “Lieutenant Okima. Thank you. It’s an absolute pleasure to tell you that in person.”

“I’m not a lieutenant anymore,” Maverick tried to correct him uncomfortably. “Just Maverick is fine.”

“Well, just-Maverick, thank you all the same. Without you, we may still be mining ore, and I probably wouldn’t have this,” Sebastian gestured at the crowded pub. “Let’s get the three of you seated.”

I gently reached down and squeezed Maverick’s hand. He glanced down and flashed me a quick smile, squeezing my hand back. The tall pilot was still adjusting to the idea that people appreciated the things he did, and being shown gratitude left him in uncharted territory as far as social interactions went. With as much time as he spent with me and Conor, we had both quickly noticed that it helped if he just had one of us to ground him. Nonetheless, he was still holding on to my hand as we were ushered to a table in the back corner.

“Surprise!” Tyche grinned as she stood to give me a hug. She didn’t even try to dislodge Maverick’s hand and just included him in the squeezing. When she stepped back, I noticed that, instead of her usual flowing cardigan, she had on a sharp black bomber-style jacket that I had never seen before, and made a note to mention it when I had a chance.

“VIP treatment?” I joked, cocking an eyebrow at Sebastian. “Other people will get very jealous.”

He waved the comment away. “Councillor Reid – “

“Sophia” the four of us corrected him as I heard Antoine start chuckling in the background.

“Sophia,” he grinned, “It was your suggestion that this place even exist. Antoine supported me completely when I mentioned my hesitation to him, and your sister was incredibly insistent. Add to that Maverick and Conor, and I really can’t think of anyone who better deserves a reserved table during the grand opening. So, have a seat, and I’ll bring out drinks in a blip.” Before I could even make a token argument, he vanished into the crowd.

“I already told him our orders,” my sister explained, drawing my attention back to her.

I nodded before gesturing with both hands. “I’m loving this jacket, woman! Where did it come from?”

Instead of answering, she gave a pointed look at Maverick. “It’s tradition,” he explained hesitantly while rubbing his neck, a gesture he had picked up from Conor. “She completed about six pilot certifications on the same day, so it felt right to give her the jacket. It’s like a graduation present.” Nervously, he glanced at me.

Tugging his arm down, I held on to his elbow. “Hey, it’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong, I swear. I was just curious because I’d never seen it before… wait.” I jerked my head to look at my sister before turning back to Maverick, wide-eyed. “Did you say six certifications? On the same day?” Biting her lip, Tyche nodded and turned pink with the laughter I knew she was holding back. Maverick nodded emphatically in agreement. “Holy rabies! That’s amazing!” I squealed and practically tackled my sister in excitement.

To my utter shock, her jacket attacked me. The black-furred collar started squirming, sharp claws hooking into my shoulder in its attempt to get away. Before I could step back, it pried itself out from between me and Tyche before shooting itself behind me to attack Conor. I whirled around, panicking, only to see Conor neatly catch the disgruntled collar as it yowled in a plaintive and familiar tone.

Throwing my hands up in exasperation as Mac glared at me and Conor tried not to die of laughter, I groaned. “I’m done. That’s it. My sister is a pilot, has a snazzy jacket, and the collar turned out to be a cat. My life is officially a cartoon.”

Antoine took his chance to jump in the conversation. “At least sit down and have a drink with us,” he gestured with a grin toward the empty chairs. Conor was the first to claim one, Mac still taking shelter with the giant of a man. Before I could take a seat, Maverick slid into one and tugged me onto his lap by my wrist, laughing at my disgruntled expression. As she sat down, Tyche gave the three of us an odd look before glancing at Antoine, who just shrugged.

Once our drinks arrived – I was delighted to find out that I had, indeed been given the Bloody Mary I hoped for – we shared our experiences with the festival so far. Tyche had not found the chocolatier on either of her visits, but very smugly gushed about the patisserie that I had searched for in vain. The tiny ramen bowls had been a universally huge hit, it turned out, as had the kosher, halal, and Jainist vendors.

When we got to the point where we bumped into Charly and Coffee, Maverick threw his hands out to interrupt. “Hang on, someone explain the collar to me please? You promised you would.” He looked at me pointedly.

With a sigh, I glanced around the table. “Anyone else want to tackle this first?” When no one spoke up, and all three of them smirked, I shook my head. “Traitors,” I muttered before turning to Maverick. “It’s a sign of serious commitment in dom and sub culture. And I mean serious.”

“You know,” Tyche chimed in, tapping her nails on the table. “That’s something that hasn’t really come up a lot, at least that I’m aware of. I know it’s barely been a year, but not even the Council has said anything about how marriage is going to work now.”

I furrowed my brows as I thought about it, realizing she was right. Conor nodded, eyes wide, but Maverick looked confused. “What do you mean? Wouldn’t something like that work the way it always has?”

“That’s the problem,” Antoine pointed out. “There is no ‘way it always has’ for something like that. Before the End, there had to be some sort of legal process for a marriage to be recognized, and even then, it wasn’t recognized everywhere. Polygamy, for example, was widely not recognized, and there were even still a few small regions that did not recognize same-sex marriage.”

“Wait, polygamy?” Maverick asked, shaking his head. “But Councillor Hodenson’s parents – “

“Were only recognized within their sect,” Conor pointed out. “But in a legal sense, they had no standing.”

“Can we please table this?” I asked, resting my chin on my folded hands. Maverick was drumming his thumb on my hip in agitation. “Let’s enjoy the rest of tonight and save the major issues for… next week. I agree this needs to be addressed before it comes up and there’s a huge mess, but right now I want to enjoy time with my family.”

I felt Maverick stiffen behind me, his fingers digging painfully into my hip. The next thing I knew, Conor dumped Mac unceremoniously into Tyche’s lap and made his way around the table in two ground-eating strides. Gently, but firmly, he wrapped his arms around both me and Maverick, ignoring the confused looks he got from Tyche and Antoine.

“Hey hey hey,” he chanted softly into Maverick’s hair. “It’s okay. That means you, too, man. That means you, too. You’re family. You stay. She meant you, too. You’re family, Maverick.”

Leaning back into the both of them, I dug Maverick’s hand from my hip and wound my fingers into his. Something wet trickled down my cheek, and I realized that Maverick was crying. I felt terrible. I never meant to make him think he had to go. Reaching one hand back to hug him the best I could, I realized Conor’s head was still buried in his hair, and tracing back further found Maverick holding onto Conor as desperately as he was holding on to me.

After a few minutes of us just sitting there like that, Tyche finally broke the silence. “Why do I feel like I shouldn’t be watching this?” she asked Antoine in a loud mutter.

It was just enough to break the tension, and the three of us started to laugh. “I must look awful,” Maverick chuckled, pulling his hands away so he could wipe his face and try to fix his hair. Hopping off his lap, I let him stand up.

“Come on,” Conor smiled, eyes red. “Let’s get you cleaned up, man.”

I must have watched them walk away for a bit too long, because I heard my sister clear her throat. Like a deer in the headlights, I turned to face her.

“Mind telling me what that was?” she grinned evilly.

I was in so much trouble.

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#the miys #humans are weird #human are space orcs #science fiction #sci fi #found family #aliens #earth is space australia

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normal-thoughts-official · 5 years ago

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*breakdances softly* Thoughts on florist Magnus and tattoo artist Alec?

*waltzes aggressively* well i definitely do now

okay so like i am vaguely aware that you probably wanted me to actually create a story like i did for the other asks;

because listen, florist Magnus???????? i had never thought about it before, but that shit is THE BOMB

in indonesia, particularly Bali, flowers hold special significance both in the social and religious sense; they have meaning, they have history, and they have everyday uses and are a part of everyday life; people grow flowers at home, give them as gifts, have entire markets entirely dedicated to the trade of flowers. and yes, i know magnus is javanese, but this applies to pretty much all of Indonesia, including Java, and Jakarta has its own traditional flower market with flowers from all over the world and some of the sellers being in the business since the 60s, not to mention that many balinese ppl immigrated to Java and the two islands' histories are deeply connected. so nothing is even stopping me from believing that magnus' mom was a balinese migrant living in Java. which is exactly what im gonna do in this specific AU at least

So Magnus was actually born in Indonesia, where he lived for most of his childhood; until his mom suddenly died of a terrible disease and he was kind of thrown into living with his father, who, despite having him registered and being his legal guardian, had never so much as bothered to meet Magnus before this point

His father was also Indonesian but had long since moved to the US, so magnus' life was completely turned upside down. And despite providing financially for everything Magnus needed, asmodeus never really bothered with him beyond the basics; Magnus was pretty much self-raised

So for the whole time he lived with him, he ached with memories of his mom and his country. And what he remembered best about her was the flowers. The jasmines she used to grow at home, the unique smell they left on the water she used to wash his hair; the offerings of frangipani she would leave by their doorstep everyday, intricately sewn together and leaving the smell of both the flowers and the incense with them as they left to the ports; the flower boards she would give him on his birthday, different patterns every year, and somehow she would always find plywood and tahi cotok to make them the traditional way instead of the modern with styrofoam

Magnus refuses to let any of these traditions die; once he finally graduates and leaves his father's home (forever disappointing him in his refusal to take over his business) he dedicates almost all of the space in his home to a greenhouse where he can grow all of the indigenous indonesian flower species without worrying that they will die in the distinctly not-tropical climate of New York; he leaves offerings in his doorstep everyday, facing North for Vishnu, so as to bring harmony not only in his life but in his whole community as well. And he's a florist.

He knows both traditional indonesian flower meanings, and western flower language, and often mixes the two since the flowers in these cultures are so different. He makes bouquets, arrangements, and flower boards, keeping the tradition alive even when he's far away from home. This way he feels like he belongs, like he carries a piece of his mother with him everyday, and reminds himself that, even if he's been taken away from his home, it won't be taken away from him

It's pretty much only him in his shop, but his friend Dot also makes deliveries and helps him keep the shop running. He has a few regulars and all in all he lives a stable, happy life.

He meets Alec when he decides to make his first tattoo - a string of jasmines around his elbow, the national flowers of indonesia and also his mom's favorite. He chooses Alec both because of his mesmerising drawing style and his history of working and good recommendations from other dark-skinned people; his friend Catarina also tattooed at his shop, although with his sister, Izzy, who was the one who actually ran the shop

Alec is impressed by how well Magnus handles the pain; it's his very first tattoo and elbows are a bitch. Magnus doesn't tell him that after living with his father for so long he's used to the pain, but he does tell him about the meaning of the tattoo, the flowers, and his mom. He's surprised by how much he's saying to this guy he barely knows, but there's something about wanting to be distracted from the sting and having to be alone with this guy for who knows how many hours that keeps him talking. Alec listens to it quietly, focused on his work, and Magnus isn't even sure if he's actually listening, which kind of also works if he's being honest. Of course, Alec is; listening to Magnus talk is very nice, his voice is soothing and the way he talks about his mom and his passion for flowers is really touching, not to mention Magnus is just interesting; alluring, if you will. But he doesn't have much to add, so he listens

A few days later, Alec shows up at Magnus' shop, all private smiles and wandering eyes, and asks him for help with a birthday present for Izzy. He wants to make her something special, to thank her for her support when he came out and just support in general. It surprises Magnus, but Alec says that Izzy has always liked flowers and from the way Magnus was talking about it the other day, well, he seemed like a good person to help him with this present. He really wanted something to convey his gratitude

Magnus is pleasantly surprised that Alec remembers so much of what he said; even more so when he's careful not to step on Magnus' canang sari at the doorstep, with the incense still burning; and he's absolutely delighted when Alec says he wants Magnus to help him make an arrangement, not just make himself, and that he's willing to pay extra for his consulting (Magnus has never charged extra for consulting, because he really downplays his talent and work and loves sharing his knowledge; but it does feel nice to be valued and have his work acknowledged). So Magnus runs all of his ideas by him, shows him the flowers, and Alec carefully handles and smells them and listens to Magnus' suggestions and slowly makes his own based on what Magnus has been saying. Alec shows respect to the flowers and it's cute to see this big, buffy guy covered in weird tattoos and wearing a leather jacket going around and carefully handling the flowers Magnus grows.

Alec, on the other hand, is just fascinated by everything Magnus says and shows him, and his burning passion for what he does, and how clearly he likes to help people even if it means downplaying his own work

Wow this is actually starting to resemble a plot??? I'm shook

Anyway it takes them a long while to figure out what they want to do, and Alec actually ends up deciding on making izzy a flower board once Magnus mentions them offhandedly. Once Magnus assures him it's not offensive if he makes them with the proper care and respect for its meaning, they settle on working on that.

Listen I need excuses for them to interact okay. Also the idea of Magnus teaching Alec how to sew flowers???? Beautiful

Cue some gay shit, at least once Alec puts a flower behind Magnus' ear and tells him that it suits him, more often than not they find themselves having a lot of fun - Magnus teases him mercilessly over how bad at sewing he is, and Alec is deeply offended (except not really)

Once he even tries to challenge Magnus at doing something from Alec's element and see how well he does, only to be sent into the deepest despair when it turns out magnus is excellent at drawing

Magnus thinks he hears a muttered "of course" but he cant be too sure

Anyway they fall in love

Alec asks him out by making him a bouquet of magnus' favorite flowers, plus flowers that symbolize everything he loves the most about him (his uniqueness, his kindness, his fierceness, his determination in doing what he thinks is right, the joy he brings for everyone around him, his dedication to others, etc). Magnus all but swoons he is very charmed

They get married idk it always ends with them getting married when i have a say in it. Bonus points they get to be showered in flowers like in traditional indonesian weddings, which sends a very happy, very giggly magnus with petals still on his hair into absolute delight. Alec carries him bridal style to the bed and carefully takes the flowers off his hair and kisses him tenderly on their honeymoon and gggggggggggggggg.

Im gay and cant do this anymore im gonna get into a coma

Also, I will take this opportunity to just let it be known that y'all should feel absolutely free to take any and all of my posts as writing prompts; you dont need to ask for my permission to use the ideas, theres no way ill actually do them all and even if i do i dont mind that there are different versions of it going around; hell, i think that's amazing and exactly what fandom is for. Just link the post and if possible send me the fic because i'd be delighted to read it! What I'm trying to say here is, someone should write this

Also, I'm not hindu, so if any terms I've used are offensive or incorrect please let me know and I'll change it accordingly

#ask #cap-mars #sh #shadowhunters #magnus bane #alec lightwood #malec #malec fic #malec au #fic #overflowing trashcan #long post #florist au

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spirit-of-the-void · 6 years ago

Text

Ebony and Ivory (V x Reader Fanfic) Chapter 15

Author’s notes: Sorry this chapter was late! I’m a mess of a person with a messy life and zero excuses.

Chapter 15

The sky was forgiving that day, at least for a little while.

Within an hour or so of walking, the sun was up and shining. It was cooler for a day in June, but it was perfect for the walking you needed to do with the poet. Something about the light glinting off his hair made you feel weak in the knees, but your steps didn’t falter. Focused, you reminded yourself. Focus first, fun later when the job was done. You had no idea what this so-called Devil Sword looked like or where it could possibly be, but V seemed to know where he was going. Eyes ever forward, driven once again once you departed from the broken town. It was hard to describe where you were now, especially with the absolutely convoluted landscape. It felt like you were walking through a valley, but upon further inspection you could tell it was just the earth rising and following with the damage done. This was the base of the tree, where all the roots were.

And there were a lot of them. Roots extended above, weaving through the dirt and stone. Christ, this place was a mess. Barely any buildings, most structures torn apart by the demon tree and flung in various directions. Everything seemed lifeless, grey. Even more so once the clouds came back, casting a discolored feeling all over the dead plants and stony ground beneath your feet. Despite the pallor of the world around, you were keeping yourself in high spirits. Walking alongside the poet and keeping up conversation with him, making sure to keep an eye on his condition. You had eaten breakfast with him, summoning some minor food for everyone including meat for the familiars. All in all, you were prepared for anything and everything.

Another day of travel and fighting, it would seem.

You didn’t mind, per se. But this area was full of baddies you weren’t particularly fond of. You passed graveyards, fighting the typical rough and tumble variety demons with the usual ease you had with V. You were getting your momentum back energy wise, testing your limits a bit more with each hour to see what could stick. No Void walking yet, but soon. You could feel that. Along this path you tried to keep your eyes out for shrines of any sort, since it was areas like these that would hide them. But you found none, and that made you sigh. This felt similar to when a parent was mad at you, that you were sure of. You couldn’t quite decide whether you saw the Deity as a father or not, or a mother for that matter. But you doubted it mattered.

At some point V stopped at a cliff side, staring out at a different piece of land in the distance. He held out his arm, Griffon summoning on it before launching out over the crevice. Scouting ahead, it would seem. You could barely make out a building with a broken dome ceiling, what looked to be demons around it moving sporadically. Were they...dancing? Sure looked like it, in their own creepy, demonic way. You crouched down by the cliff, warily eyeing the abyss below with a frown. You hoped that once the tree righted itself the earth would settle accordingly and become full of life again. The Qliphoth seemed to kill anything within a certain radius, which made you fear for innocent creatures and animals caught in the crossfire. Would it kill them as well? You hadn’t seen a single squirrel or anything since arriving in this area, not even a stray cat. Mind you, human death was still just as awful and important. It just all seemed...wrong.

In the meantime, Griffon came soaring back. He looked a bit huffy and confused, shaking out his feathers with a concerned trill as he landed back on the poet’s arm.

“What’s good, bird?” You asked, standing up and stretching a bit.

He let out a low squawk, eyeing you and the poet with concern and hesitation in his gaze.

V let out a light hum, furthering prompting the demonic bird as he added to your question in that smooth purr, “Did you find it?”

It. The Devil Sword Sparda, surely.

“Uhhh well,” Griffon said in a hesitant tone, flapping his wings a bit and sending a couple feathers dropping down, “I don’t know what I found, but...I think I saw demons dancing...?” The way he trailed off made the reply sound like a question despite him being the only one who saw the spectacle up close.

That made V smile, his expression bemused and slightly satisfied with this answer, “Well, then I guess we keep going,” He lifted his cane, catching the base of it firmly in his hand as he continued, "The Devil Sword Sparda is nearby.”

Could he sense the sword’s presence? You weren’t getting anything. Sensing demonic energy at its root wasn’t something you could do. Danger and hidden enemies? That you could definitely get a read on due to the Foresight. For whatever reason, when it came to the Devil Sword it got...nothing. Like there was interference, static. It made you wonder what kind of creature Sparda was, and what kind of power this sword had. According to V, Dante was able to wield it, but he sounded hesitant about himself. Griffon mentioned as you walked something about being “strong in mind and body”, which he was convinced V was not. Why was that? V seemed pretty strong willed to you at least, but there was always this sense of guilt and tiredness to him as well. He still moved forward, still seemed set on the task.

Regardless.

You walked alongside the poet, spinning one of Griffon’s blue feathers in your fingers as you did so.

“I can’t get a read on that sword at all,” You said to him, tone a little wistful, “Who was this person anyway? The one the sword is named for.”

V let out a low hum at your question, giving his cane a spin and eyes staring forward, “Sparda, the demon lord,” His tone was a smooth purr, but there was a far-away look in his eyes, “He was a powerful creature. Rumored to be closer to a God in terms of power than a demon.”

You let out a little huff, a bit of clarity reaching you, “Might be why I can’t sense it. Some God power and Deity powers don’t mesh with others.” You knew your Deity was notorious for not playing well with others. He wasn’t viewed as an official god in any capacity, a creature that existed on neither end of the spectrum. It unsettled a lot of higher ups, not to mention the Void was a place no one understood. They would not interact, that was for certain.

V let out a low hum, side-eyeing you with a quirk of his lovely mouth, “Perhaps. Although, you are no demon. And I can just barely sense it.”

You nodded, giving him a light smile as you both continued forward. You were hoping to at least see the sword, though you still felt a little uneasy considering everyone’s warnings about it. You tried to shake that feeling, trudging into the new area and making sure to focus on your surroundings a bit more.

The landscape just became more and more warped as you went along, slabs of stone and rock dotting the path like it was nothing. You and the poet had to stop and fight something big and ugly along the way, watching it knock a stone bridge and coming to a sliding halt. It had looked like a monster wrapped in chains, and upon braking the chains two huge, tongue-like appendages had come out of its mouth. Well, that wasn't the strangest thing you had ever seen, right? It had been an annoying fight, one that had lasted longer than you liked. Too much jumping around, too much dodging. The thing was fast and you didn’t want to risk anyone getting slammed with its tongues. But your group managed, and V killed it with his usual flourish as he hoped off its back.

“Guys,” You sighed, rotating one shoulder and stretching the next instant, “I’ve decided this area is not fun.”

Griffon let out a loud snort, flying around and landing on your shoulders in his usual way, “This area? You said that about the last few.”

“Now you’re catching on,” You smirked, patting Griffon on the side of the beak, “Use that big brain, Griffon. Seeing a pattern yet?”

“Hardy har. Shucks, one would think you hate fighting demons!” Griffon rolled his strange eyes, tone heavy with sarcasm.

V chuckled lightly at your banter, tapping his silver cane on the ground as his jade gaze met yours. He looked a bit tired, but he told you along the way not to expend the energy to help him unless absolutely necessary. You wanted to respect that, but it made you nervous.

“I’d have to agree,” He hummed, a slight breeze making his hair wave around his face, “The demons in this area are less than satisfactory.”

You walked up to him, brushing some dust off his shoulders with a light sigh.

“We’re at the bottom of the tree, so it makes sense,” You shrugged, eyes tilting up to gaze at the ugly monstrosity filling the sky, “It’s going to be even worse in there, so we had better be prepared.”

V nodded once in agreement. One of his hands lifted to stroke your face, thumb sliding over your cheekbone. The action made you flush a bit.

“And what of you, Sparrow?” He murmured, looking at you from under his long lashes, “How are you feeling after such...vigorous activities?” Did he mean the sex at night, or the demons? The mystery alone was scandalous and sexy

That made you smile ruefully, taking his hand and giving it a light kiss. You thought you heard Griffon fake a gag, but you ignored him. He could tease all he wanted now, that cat was out of the bag. So why should you hesitate to do anything you wanted? Shadow didn’t seem to mind your actions, sitting at your feet with their bright red eyes looking between you and V. Sometimes you were glad that Shadow was a silent familiar, you couldn’t imagine taking the banter from both sides. Griffon was your friend and you loved him, but he was just enough for you to put up with. As for nightmare? You didn’t talk to the creature enough to form an opinion on him. Which was a shame, you liked seeing Nightmare fight in battle.

Shaking your wandering thoughts, you looked back at V.

“I’m doing better,” You replied, holding his slender fingers between your own, “Each time we fight my resistance grows. My power is like a muscle I have to stretch, so the more I stretch it the more I can take.”

That made him look curious, his eyes drifting over your form.

“Are you able to do more than we’ve seen?” He asked, “More of the incident with the black crystal.”

You winced at mention of that, but nodded, “In theory, if I trained enough I could do that without summoning my Deity, and without straining myself.”

It was the truth, because you remembered times where you could. Hell, one of your missions after learning the way your power worked, you became an absolute power house. The longer the mission, the better you got. The Deity definitely laid things out like that, making it so that you had a higher rate of success the longer it took. You didn’t know how you felt about that, but something about having that much power had always left a strange feeling of unease inside you. Like you were too connected with the Void. It left a disconnect in your body, like instead of a person you were a vessel for something...bigger. You never liked the feeling, and generally let that sensation die for a month or so to not get swallowed up. In retrospect...you wondered if that’s what the Deity went through to become so in tune with the Void?

Some mysteries couldn’t be answered by mere theorizing.

“I’m going to assume it comes with downsides,” V said with a low grunt, eyeing you with a wary gaze. Yeah, he still wasn’t over the incident from before, that was for sure, “And I expect you will inform me of them.”

You smiled brightly, but inside you were practically screaming. If only he knew that your power was one hundred percent downsides all the time. Oh yes, there was a turmoil inside you now, face luckily not betraying the raging knowledge that you were withholding things from him, which was bad after agreeing not to. If he knew that every time you flared the energy it was painful, borderline excruciating, he would never let you use it again. You were used to the pain, so you weren’t going to stop using it. It took god damn years to cultivate the energy of the Void, and the sacrifices for it were more than worth it in regards to keeping people safe. Pain was such a strange thing to you, something you just dealt with and normalized. Never talking about it, chin up and eyes forward. Minus when facing those punishments from deals made with the Deity, because that...was on another level.

Regardless.

“Don’t worry, building up power is safer for me than staying weak,” You replied to him, even knowing your previous doubts, “Less chances of exertion.”

He gave a light nod, leaning forward to press a light kiss to yours. Your heart immediately set off in a frenzy, cheeks flushed and warm. Being able to kiss each other when you wanted felt so nice, natural. Like you two were just a romantic couple on a stroll for the day. Unfortunately, you had an audience, one who was perched on you as a matter of fact. Griffon made another disgusted sound, hopping off your shoulders to put some distance between himself and the public display of affection. But you were sure he chuckled a little too, mischief in his tone as he swept around and eyed the two of you. Did he look pleased? You were almost positive there was satisfaction in his avian features.

V sighed at his reaction, pulling back with a rueful expression on his face. He stared at you for a moment, making you blink as you tried to get a read on his gaze. What...was that emotion? It flickered by so fast, but the poet was turning before you had a chance to ask him. You paused, mouth opening a bit as he started forward again, cane in hand. Driven once more. But you had seen something there in his gaze, something that made you uneasy. It...had looked like pain, something agonizing. Akin to realization, but not quite that either, closer to desperation. It made your heart pound, a worried sensation settling over you, one that you couldn’t push away. There couldn’t be something wrong, the Foresight would have warned you. It was calm, giving no indication of things heading down the wrong path. It was how it should be.

Right?

You swallowed the sensation and followed after him. Maybe you were just anxious, seeing things that weren’t there. After all, V grasped your hand as soon as you caught up. No hesitation, his hand so warm and skin smooth. You looked at him from the corner of your eye, but he wore that neutral, bemused smile again. He was so hard to read, his handsome face full of secrets that you didn’t understand. Things he would hopefully share as you went along. You tried to shake the feeling, the nagging part of your brain that had read something that wasn’t there. You were there with him, that was what mattered. He still replied when you spoke, discussing things along the way and filling you in on all that you had missed. The gaps in Nero’s story.

You were curious about Dante, the infamous demon hunter everyone was so fixated on. Griffon and V were debating on if he had survived or not—he was apparently a half-demon himself. Absolutely wild. If Urizen had killed him, no one was really sure what they should do, but V seemed convinced Nero was the answer. He brought up the boy several times, referring to him as exactly that. “The boy”, like he was somehow older and wiser. It confused you, especially since V seemed pretty young himself. It made you kind of feel bad for looking at Nero as a kid too, there was just something young and boyish about him. The part of you that liked taking care of people worried about the guy, especially since he grew up without parents or family. Everyone needed somebody, right?

“You really think Nero will be able to kill Urizen?” You asked, hoping into what looked to be a broken series of catacombs. It made you wince, mind flashing back to the sewers at the sight of the dank, dreary walls, “I don’t doubt him, but that’s a lot of danger to put one guy through.”

“Nero should be able to wield the Devil Sword,” V replied, jade eyes dark in the new area as he stared forward, “He was always my insurance policy, the one to rely on when Dante failed. I had hoped that I wouldn’t have to do so, but Urizen is...far worse than we imagined.”

His response made you sigh, nose scrunching up as you passed skulls built into the walls.

“I get that,” You hummed in reply, but you still didn’t know how to feel about it, “Just remember his safety comes first. Everyone’s safety comes first, including yours.”

“And yours.” Griffon and V quipped at the same time, exchanging a glance with each other. Wow. That had to be the first time you had seen them that in sync, which was hilarious in your opinion. Their concern was appreciated, and you had to admit to yourself that you would always put their safety before your own, no matter what. Not that you’d ever say that out loud. What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them, yeah? You chuckled, giving V’s hand a firm squeeze and entwining your fingers as you banished the misbehaving thought.

“I appreciate the support, boys,” You smiled, eyes bright and cheerful now as V’s gaze met yours, “I’ll make sure to focus on my safety.” It wasn’t entirely a lie, right? At least you hoped so.

V let out a pleased sound, leaning down to press his lips to your silken hair. His breath was warm, brushing over you as he kissed the top of your head. Christ, you felt like you could faint when he did things like that, on the brink of swooning. Somehow this made you flush more than the lewd things, your cheeks warm and heart fluttering like a caged bird. A sparrow, if you wanted to get super specific. You sighed in contentment, bringing his fingers to your lips as you kissed them again. How you wished the two of you could find somewhere safe and warm to just...rest. No worries, no demons to fight. A day where you could wake up in a bed, and lie there till noon. Domestic things, ones you used to take for granted.

Griffon gagged again at your actions, swooping by and saying loudly, “Get a room, lovebirds. You’re killing me with this kissy, touchy shit. I fear for my virgin eyes.”

“Virgin eyes?” You and V chorused together in disbelieving tones, you turning to raise a brow at the loud-mouthed bird.

Griffon landed on a nearby piece of rubble, huffing lightly as he narrowed his golden eyes on you.

“You’re missing the point here,” He said in a haughty tone, raising his demonic beak in the air as he continued, “You and Shakespeare can’t keep your hands off each other. What will the humans think?”

Humans—he had to be referring to Nero, Nico, and Lady.

You crossed your arms, hearing V let out a low, deep sigh as he gave you a long-suffering look. You shared the sentiment, but in a way the bird had a point. You and V weren’t on your best behavior, that was for sure. Emotions were high and heady, unable to be ignored. The idea of Nico and the others seeing V kissing you and holding your hand...well, you had no idea what they would think, or what they would say. Maybe that the apocalypse was neither the time nor place for romance? They would be right if that was the case, but Nero was a guy in love. You hoped he would at least partially understand, and you had fuzzy memories of Nico saying V needed to get laid. And Lady threatening to kill him if he hurt you. To be honest, those details were a bit sketchy considering the alcohol.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we reach it,” V replied before you could, passing by the bird with a light tilt of his mouth, “Do you intend to sit there all day? We do have a sword to find.”

Griffon rolled his eyes, flapping his wings and soaring ahead as he grumbled, “Calm your tits, Shakespeare. I’m not the one stopping to smooch every five minutes.”

You smiled brightly, walking alongside V and Shadow as you called to him, “I can kiss and walk.”

“Can you suck cock and walk too?” Griffon’s voice echoed back, tone heavily sarcastic, “Then I’d be really impressed.”

“Is that a challenge?” You clasped your hands behind your back, smiling mischievously when V cleared his throat. He was looking a little hot around the collar at the topic. He was so easy to make flustered, which was incredibly adorable. It was too dark to tell, but you were sure there was color in those cheeks of his. Teasing him was so fun, though you were certain you wouldn’t be sucking his dick in these catacombs—you refused to do anything sexual in such a disgusting place. There were dead bodies and skulls everywhere, so it wasn’t really your ideal place for romance. In fact, you couldn’t wait to leave.

“Live in mystery,” V said simply, a bit of a warning in his tone as his jade eyes glanced at you. Though you could tell he was fighting amusement. Those full lips of his were having a hard time holding that displeased look even as he added, “We have ground to cover.”

You blew him a kiss, skipping forward and pinching his butt as you passed by. It made him jolt a bit, a surprised grunt escaping him and face flushing a lot more noticeably now.

“Yes sir.” You purred at him, turning back to give him a sweet smile. Something about calling him “sir" felt very scandalous, and he wasn’t oblivious to that. His eyes narrowed at you, a bit of hunger in his gaze as he eyed you in the dark. Was he gripping that cane tighter? Looked like it.

Still, you all pressed forward. The journey through the catacombs? Less than stellar, that was for sure. It was crawling with demons, as was all things around the Qliphoth tree. This area brought forth a new demon type, one that quite frankly set your teeth on edge. Spectral creatures with giant scissors, lunging with attacks that could easily cut you in half, which wasn’t ideal in the slightest. How did these demons come up with their attacks and weapons of choice? Despite the danger, attacking like they did was highly impractical. You managed to wrap your tendrils around the scissors when they lunged, snapping them closed and leaving them defenseless. It was up to V and the others to pummel them into submission and eventual death. Even so, traveling through took much longer than expected when you had to stop and fight every few minutes.

“Hey V?” You asked in between the fighting, letting out a low huff as the Void energy settled inside, “Can I ask you a few things?”

He was in the process of putting his book away as you spoke, a hint of surprise in those jade eyes as he met your gaze.

“...Certainly, Sparrow.” He murmured after some pause, gripping the head of his cane and leaning his weight on it. He seemed a bit tired, but he hadn’t said anything to you yet.

Frustrating, but you kept walking with him.

V seemed to want to keep up the momentum, but he seemed oddly...torn. Contradictory. Driven one second then stopping the next to hold your hand, resting on a piece of rubble and talking in that low voice of his. You talked about his home town that you were, technically, still walking through. He seemed a lot less reluctant to open up today, which made you feel warmer already. You were devastated to find out how young he was when his mother died—just eight years old. Too young to go through something that traumatic. He wouldn’t tell you all that had happened, you could tell he was omitting things. That was fine, he wasn’t required to tell you all he had been through. That was his choice to make. Through it all you listened and watched his face, still holding his hand and squeezing it when he paused, unable to find his words.

“What happened...when your mother died? Where did you go?” You asked him softly, pulling your legs up and crossing them. Griffon landed on your shoulders as you did so, Shadow putting their head between your legs and V’s. The bird was listening quietly, but he didn’t seem surprised, like he knew of this story and all it entailed. How long had V been with the three familiars? It would have made you feel better if you knew V had the trio looking out for him as a child, it was at least something. Still, growing up without parents was just...unfair. Where was V’s father, and who was he? That was the one detail V left out, he seemed pretty focused on his mother over all. You could tell that he felt guilty about her death, it was plain on his face. But his father...where was he?

“I...” V let out a sigh, running a hand through his hair, “I did what I had to survive. I learned. I trained.”

He kept it very vague. You could understand why.

You nodded along with his words, watching Shadow’s tail sway back and forth, “Desperate times call for desperate measures I suppose,” A sad smile graced your lips, eyes darting up to meet his, “What was your mother’s name?”

V let out a low hum, gripping the head of his cane with his free hand and tracing lines on your palm with the other, “...Eva. Her name was Eva,” He closed his eyes in thought, a soft huff leaving him as he added, “She would have loved you. That, I’m sure of. “

That made your heart pound, like you were held in high regard.

“What was she like?” You asked, trying to hide how good his compliment felt. You wanted to know who this woman was, a person who gave birth to someone so important to you.

“Kind...thoughtful. A good mother.” He said simply, though you could see his face was hiding something. It made you blink, eyes going soft as you tried to decipher his emotions a bit. No luck this time, there was no cracking that poker face. He seemed attached to his mother, you could tell that much, so why did that sentence sound so...hesitant? Like he was unsure, or lonely sounding?

“She sounds like a good person,” You murmured, rubbing the toe of your boot into the ground when you stretched out your legs, “Though I have to ask, where is your father? Or did he pass away too?”

V’s mouth tilted in a small smirk, a faraway look in his eyes as he scoffed, “Something like that.”

You opened your mouth to question what he meant when the catacombs shook a bit, some rubble settling nearby. It made V grunt, pulling himself to his feet and gripping his cane. You immediately did the same, shaking off some dust and staring at him with concern. The way his tone sounded when he said that little quip was strange, and you couldn’t understand what he meant. Something like that. Maybe his father was absent, or maybe he didn’t know the guy at all? Both were pretty awful things to deal with, but there was something else there was well in his gaze. A... wistfulness. Regret. Reverence. It didn’t look like he was entirely without knowledge, like there was a joke in that comment you were missing. There was history here, something that you weren’t a part of.

But V didn’t seem in the mood to elaborate anymore. He gestured with his cane to you, starting forward again and leisurely brushing a bit of dust of his shoulder. You stifled a sigh, hurriedly following after and just tucking the question away for later. Quick as he opened up, closed just as quick. You told yourself that there was no need to push things, especially when opening up seemed hard for him to do already. Taking things easy, letting it come slow. The connection between you two was still a tender thing, but it still felt strong and steady. You doubted V let just anyone in or close, so that alone made you grateful to get those small bits of info. So, you bit your tongue, letting out a low huff and watching his back shift and move as he walked. There was always more time to talk, right? You weren’t going anywhere even when the god damn tree was gone. There were so many things to learn, so much to discover about each other.

Griffon seemed to sense your exasperation, letting out a light trill in your ear as he shook off some of your hair.

“Don’t mind Shakespeare, he’s a closed book,” He hissed lightly, just loud enough for you to hear, “Mommy dearest is a touchy subject. Shocked he even said anything.”

You sighed a bit, wrapping your fingers around his talons and squeezing a bit.

“Don’t worry, I’m patient,” You told him quietly, eyeing the poet with some fondness, “Besides, we’ve got plenty of time to figure things out.”

Griffon went quiet at that, which was pretty uncharacteristic of him. You blinked, that little anxious voice in the back of your head screaming to life in an instant. Something wasn’t right. But that didn’t make any sense, at least you hoped? Your Foresight was calm, swirling inside and not hinting at anything bad. But...something wasn’t adding up in your head. You stared at the bird from the Corner of your eye, but he still said nothing. There was something in his gaze—a meaningful stare, a nervous one. Like he wanted to tell you something, but couldn’t. And that only added to the foreboding feeling. There was no way the Deity wouldn’t inform you if something was wrong, that you were sure of. So, you tried to chalk it up to anxiety, maybe miscommunication? But you would be observant as always, on your toes and ready for anything.

There was still so much to do, and so much to focus on. Your group made it out of the catacombs within the hour, the earth still just as broken and desolate as you remembered it. Yikes, that tree looked even uglier the closer you got to it. Broken, shattered buildings were everywhere, the Qliphoth roots woven through out. Your Foresight was already warning you of demons in this area, and you could see some in the distance even as it swirled inside. That dome building was coming ever closer, giant, menacing thorn brambles plowing through it and meeting at a bundle of red, bulbous buds. Another thing to be destroyed. These demons were new too, gangling creatures with misshapen bodies and bulbous eyes attached to limbs. You winced at the sight of them, your Foresight curling into a burning ball in your chest and spider-webbing out in heavy pain. Yikes, those didn’t look fun.

V put his cane out to stop everyone, eyeing the creatures with a slightly bemused look as they continued their little dance. You saw his jade gaze traveling upwards, and followed with it. There, sticking out of the building.

Your eyes widened at what had to be the Devil Sword Sparda. A massive blade, woven with what looked to be demonic flesh with a long hilt. It was curved, glinting menacingly even in the grey light of the clouds. There was no mistaking that. It had “Devil Sword” written all over it, and it explained why the demons were acting sporadically. Dancing under the blade, like they were worshiping it. V’s words of Sparda being closer to a god seemed a lot more solid now, since these creatures certainly seemed to think so. You tried to get a feel for the energy of the blade, eyeing it with curiosity and wariness. The Void power swirled a bit when you did, definitely not liking your actions.

You couldn’t help but wonder if your Deity ever met Sparda? The man definitely liked meeting other higher beings, seeing how they reacted to him. But you doubted you could ever ask for that kind of information.

“Is that the sword?” You asked V for confirmation, crouching down behind a piece of debris while he leaned against the wall, “It definitely looks like a devil sword.”

“Sure fucking is,” Griffon hissed before V could open his mouth, eyes alight with interest as he eyed the hefty blade, “I’ll be damned. Flung all the way down the Qliphoth to here, landing nice and neat.”

V let out a low hum of agreement, gripping his cane tighter as he pushed off from the wall. You immediately blinked at his confident gait forward, ignoring all the danger with those eyes set on the prize. God damn it, not again. When he went into focused mode, there was no stopping him. You just hoped this time things wouldn’t turn out like the horseman incident; your heart definitely couldn’t take it. So, you stood as well, rushing to catch up with him and summoning the power of the Void. It burned in your lungs, releasing a cold cloud of icy breath into the air as your tendrils snuck into the ground around the creatures. You at least wanted to be somewhat tactical, if no one else was.

“You’re lucky you’re a pretty boy,” You muttered under your breath to V as he hopped up some rubble, eyeing the creatures with a bemused stare, “Because this reckless shit you do would usually earn you a spanking.”

That made his mouth quirk into a grin, the poet in good spirits now as he tilted that tantalizing gaze onto you, “Now now, Sparrow. Don’t make promises you won’t keep.”

That made you pop a brow up, steps faltering a bit as you stared at him, “Did you just admit a kink to me?”

“Guess you’ll have to find out,” He chuckled mischievously, “Let’s take that as motivation to not die, shall we?”

You were simply flabbergasted, blinking at him with a mixture of surprise and intrigue on your face. What could you even say to that?

Griffon flew by you, letting out an annoyed groan. You forgot he was there for a moment, but he most certainly heard that whole exchange. He threw you a disgusted look your way, rolling his eyes back into skull as he whooshed by you.

“Can you two can the flirting for five minutes so we can get the god damn sword?” He hissed, approaching the demons with Shadow prowling behind him.

You hated to say it. But Griffon was, once again, correct.

Read on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18136193/chapters/43584827

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Tagged: @silentwhispofhope @nightshadow4713 @slightlylunatic @just-call-me-no-name @efiicitia @raven-huntress

#devil may cry v #devil may cry #dmc v #dmc5 #dmcv #V dmc #V x reader #v x self insert #fanfic #chapter 15 #Ebony and Ivory #Ebony and Ivory chapter 15

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