#but it feels like the whole situation is being framed as bad faith as possible by the community like all other hot button topics like this

[puppytoast]

To be fair weren't they just stealing/bot crawling our blog content through google/other search results before anyway? At least we have a way to say no now

[nothorses]

what are your thoughts on the NYT/transbucket situation?

the nyt published an article namedropping transbucket as a place to see trans genitals and genital confirmation surgery results. the site is down and I’ve seen some people saying it was brigaded by white supremacists, but I haven’t confirmed. in any case that site was by and for trans people and (even unintentionally) directing thousands of cis readers to vulnerable people’s pictures to gawk at and redistribute is a huge breach of ethics. the author was trans, and should have known better.

someone else mentioned some really good points on the content as well:

“I agree that there’s a lot in the article that’s fine or even good. Honestly, what I take most issue with is the coy mentions of how bottom surgery seems like a contradiction in the face of trans advocacy (IIRC it explicitly mentions “men can have vaginas and women can have penises” as a point of friction with bottom surgery), and likens phallo groups to frats. There’s a whole bit on the phallus as a force of violence in philosophy/culture and phallic anxiety, and ends in Ben calling himself a “bad trans” for getting bottom surgery.

I honestly find these discussions interesting and in some ways important, as someone who sees a lot of stress in trans circles to define when we are our genders and what being trans means, and as someone constantly unpacking guilt for being a binary trans man and my role in patriarchy. But this conversation does not belong in cis hands (not the author, but the audience). Especially in the political climate of famous authors being loud TERFs, restriction of trans health care, and attacks on bodily autonomy in a sea of misogyny and gendered violence—now is the worst possible time to write an article that frames bottom surgery as gender essentialist and, in the case of trans men, patriarchal.”

here’s an example quote from the article on this:

“This narrative unfolds within a mass cultural one, in which America, at a larger scale than ever, tries to come to terms with what defines a man or a woman. In this context, phalloplasty occupies an impossible position, seemingly upholding both the malleability of sex and the essentialist claim that the penis makes the man.”

I read through the article, and it seems incredible well-intentioned and, honestly, I don't see the "phallo bad" type comments you're describing either. If anything, the article seems to be working to fight those narratives.

There are several mentions of the friction between the gender-affirming aspects and the "but feminism" aspects of phallo, but these seem to be explicitly calling attention to the problems as not the fault of transmascs.

i.e. it discusses phallo as "seemingly upholding both the malleability of sex and the essentialist claim that the penis makes the man" not as a criticism of phallo, but as a criticism transphobic society has of phallo. The passage you quoted is from a section in the article where they're discussing how and why transmascs are discouraged from getting phallo, the historical marginalization of the surgery, and the societal response to knowing about it: can men really be made? Do they need to have a penis? Isn't it misogynistic to want a penis? Isn't it transphobic to think you need one?

Ultimately, the article sides with phallo: it's a validating and even life-saving procedure. It makes people feel happy with themselves and at peace with their bodies. Dysphoria is not a social commentary, and wanting a penis means nothing about how you consider women.

Even the "bad trans" comment is presented in a really bad-faith light. Here's the context:

He reflected on how surgery had changed him. The whole thing had taken just over four years, and in that time, his confidence improved. His relationship with his family had changed. His penis had improved his relationship to manhood, allowing him to inhabit the role with much less friction. He had told me in another conversation that this made sense for a small-town guy like him, but half-joked that it made him “a bad trans.”

Transmascs face self-doubt and come under scrutiny, internal and external, while considering and getting phallo. We are very, very often called "bad trans" for wanting to be men, for wanting to change our bodies to be like men, or just for wanting to change our bodies at all. Many of us internalize those feelings, even if we know they're silly.

That's something we need to recognize in order to unpack and, hopefully, change within society as a whole.

As far as linking transbucket goes, it seems like a well-intentioned mistake. The author likely included it in an effort to bring more resources to trans people who need them, and didn't consider that it might come under fire as a result. That sucks, but they've also removed it already at the request of transbucket. Hopefully they know better now, and it doesn't happen again. The real blame for attacks on tranbucket should fall to the people attacking.

Honestly, the article seems really informational and helpful. Phalloplasty is under-discussed and even generally reviled by a lot of people, including the trans community. More information, better information, and insight into the experience is a good way to fight that, even if it just starts with changing the minds of transmascs ourselves.

[joyliiejolly]

Future Spouse Reading - ENHYPEN's Sunghoon (spread by @bluerabb)

Disclaimer: This reading is for entertainment purpose only, so please take it as a grain of salt and live laugh love all the way besties!!

This reading is done by one of my dearest friends @bluerabb (biggest shout out to her!!). She also gave me permission to post it here. I took note during her reading and added some of my own thoughts along.

Without futher ado, enjoy the reading!

This reading focuses more on the current energy of Sunghoon's future spouse. Their energy will/might change in the future, since we as human being are always on the go.

They are creative, it's one of their most standout traits and they have many potentials to achieve well in the creative field. They have a lot within themselves and they know it.

They know that they are good, they see their own possibilities and what they can do, how far they can reach. They're not cocky about it though, they just have a certain level of faith in themselves (as they should!). Sometimes, they might think that they're a little bit delusional about their abilities, but they aren't, they really really can achieve that much if they try. And the fact that they are not at their limits yet (do they even have one?!?!). They are still growing, they can still get better. There're still more rooms for development, more rooms to unlock. So much will power, and so much patience at the same time. They will be one hell of a successful individual later on in life (what a goal).

They have the tendency to plan things out, a future-focus person. They expect a lot about their future. But the funny thing is, they just like to make plan, they don't want act on it :D A planner, not a do-er. This explains why they are in a delay mode at the moment, and why they are not the best version of themselves yet. They're still waiting for something, a chance, an opportunity, but the truth that they don’t really need it. They already have more than enough to be successful, they just need to act on it. And again, they know this. They know that they should do something about it, hell they might even have all their goals figured out, they just don't know what to do first, what should be their priorities.

Another reason why they are not in their best elements yet is because they restricted themselves. They might have grown up in a strict household/environment. They feel that a part of them is really stiff, rigid from all the strictness they've gone through, they worry that it will take over their whole personality once they let loose and they will become a bossy person to others. They know how bad it feels to be bossed around, to feel stuck, and they don't want other to go through it like them. Their mind is so strong, so logical. It keeps their bad side down so well, too well that some of their good sides are undercover, too :D They're trapped by their own mind. This makes it their biggest enemy for now. They know that they have to change, but the thought of changing frightens them, they don't see themselves being able to adapt. There is a frame, an image that they desperately want to keep. But the truth is, they're already more than that image, their own selves have out grown the frame they put on, they can actually go with the flow real quick. I think that they need to do some shadow works to deal with all of these childhood traumas, and some moving, too. Where they are living now is definitely not a good place for them to grow.

They're a problem solver. They prone to think logically in most situation, even in emotion matters. If you come to them, talking about your struggles, the first thing that they'll do is not to ease you, but to analyze your problems, go down to the core of your problems and find a way to resolve it (big INTJ vibe from here). This make them great at giving advice to others.

They're definitely more knowledgeable than most. They're intelligent and have a great work ethic. They can learn many different things from different areas, somes even totally opposite from each other, as they have each personality for each subjects. My friend gave an example like this: There is a practical side of them who love science, this side allows them to learn and excel in practical matter like math, physics, biology,…. At the same time, there is a part of them that interested in spirituality, so they enjoy diving in things like tarot, astrology, psychics,…To them, knowledge is knowledge, whatever it is and wherever it comes from.

Bonus: I almost forgot about this 🙇‍♀️, but the whole spread has no cups cards. Relationship is certainly not on their priority list. At present, Sunghoon’s future spouse doesn’t really have room for romance in their life. Or, they do have thoughts about romance, but it’s gonna be about the future, like thinking about their person (in this case, Sunghoon, but they don’t know it yet), how will they met them, how will it be once they’re together,…I get the feelings that even if there’s someone who comes at them with a love offer now, they wouldn’t be able to tell and wouldn’t care much in general 😆. They already got so much on their mind.

Some advices for them from the oracles:

Don't let others stop you from achieving your goals. You’re different from them, and it’s okay. Don’t let their standards tie you down.

Embrace the self. Do whatever you want to do. Be whoever you want to be. You got this!!

[ectonurites]

hey! how knowledgeable are you on stephanie brown? because i got in a bit of an argument with a dc fan on reddit who claims she's all these awful things, but im still relatively new to steph and i want to see what was true and what wasn't. link to screenie right here: https://ibb.co/vh6CYCJ

these may be matters of opinion, but even then, i'd like to know your take. i haven't read her firsthand often enough and i trust your judgement over this random redditor who seems to have some sort of blonde-woman related trauma left untapped.

I'm not necessarily the most knowledgable on her in the world, but I do know a decent amount because she's one of my absolute faves and I love her

But ohhhh boy that screenshot is a lot.

I will say that several of the things this person brings up are based in canon but are taken in the worst faith and framed in the way that makes her look as bad as possible, if that makes sense? It’s ripping things away from any context, because there's a very clear bias against her here.

I'll go through it point by point under the cut

First of all though before digging into this, I want to make it clear she was a 15 year old for the majority of the things this person is talking about. Like just pause for a second and remember she’s a 15 year old victim of abuse. That is something that I think factors into a lot of her behavior! Anyways, I kinda while doing this got into a ranty 'talking at you' format in response to the person who wrote all that, so don't take any of this as me yelling at you who asked the question/you anyone reading this.

"She always acted entitled" - Saying Steph is entitled is absolutely ridiculous to me. Stephanie grew up with a very unstable childhood due to her dad frequently being in prison and her mom dealing with a drug addiction, living in a lower class part of the city. Tim is entitled. I don’t mean that as like a bad thing about him, but he is based on his living situation, she is not. She has wanted life to be better for herself and her mom, and is determined about that, but she is not and does not act entitled.

(Secret Origins 80 Page Giant)

"and stubborn" - I will give you stubborn though, that one is true. She’s stubborn as hell! I don’t really see that as a bad thing though, pretty much every bat is stubborn?

"demanding that Batman and Robin accept her untrained ass" - Steph may have been untrained in fighting but she's shown to have exceptional gymnastics skills from the start, and at one point Bruce even says that with the right training she could be as good if not better than Tim (in Robin #88)! So like... her realizing she enjoys trying to be a hero after she tried it out to deal with her personal business, so she looks to the local experts… and is determined about it… how is that a bad thing? It’s also not like she walked up to them and said ‘im perfect as i am let me in’ what she wanted was a chance to be a hero. But she also wasn't even really looking for approval, either, not having Batman's blessing was never going to stop her. ("So excuse me if I don't jump when you bark, Batman." in Robin #16) Later when Bruce does bring her in to train (and she also gets to train with the BoP) she's excited! She’s stubborn about wanting to be in the hero business, but it’s not like she’s unwilling to work for it.

"advocating leaving criminals to die because they 'deserve it'" - She’s a 15 year old who grew up knowing firsthand how dangerous Gotham criminals can be because of her dad, of course off the bat when they’re in a dangerous situation where any of them could die (because that’s the context here, this is in Robin #35 where they’re trapped in some super dangerous snow) she thinks they shouldn’t go back for another criminal who just tried to kill them and should instead save themselves. But she also literally WITHIN THAT SAME ISSUE then says she realized she learned something after listening to Tim and trying to save the guy! In the same issue! Characters in a story aren’t supposed to be perfect from the start… they learn things along the way???

(Robin #35)

"trying to steal from the shops they just stopped from being burglarized" - She’s 15 and doesn’t have a ton of money. She was gonna take two sodas, and when Tim said not to do it she paid with very little fuss. They stopped people who were robbing the place at gunpoint for prescription drugs. If you can’t understand the difference in severity between those things like… I do not even know where to start. (this situation is in Robin #56 btw)

"forcing physical affection onto Tim despite his visible discomfort and repeated objections (not even stopping when he told her he had a girlfriend)" - This one I will give you because she did cross boundaries with all that! But I do also want to clarify that she didn't start coming onto him until after Tim kissed her first (in Robin #5) while not telling her he had a girlfriend. That doesn’t excuse her later actions but for the first issue that she’s coming onto him from her perspective he expressed interest and she was just returning it! She even specifically says 'Maybe I should pay you back for saving my life the same way you paid me' (in Robin #16) before kissing him. That first time she kissed him unprompted was under essentially the same circumstances he kissed her unprompted, and she literally did not know about Ariana until after the fact. From that point once she knew about Ari she definitely should have backed off and she didn’t, that’s a very fair thing to criticize about her as a character. But Tim lead her on first, and I feel a lot of people like to casually forget that when talking about this situation. The way this is phrased of ‘not even stopping when he told her-‘ implies she was repeatedly doing the bad behavior before he told her, which is not the case. She still did bad things here but don’t misrepresent the situation.

"And lashing out at Tim, her mother, and her classmates in violent fits of anger" - Every comic book character lashes out at other people for the sake of drama like, I dare you to come up with a well-known superhero character who hasn’t done shit like that to a partner/family/friends in a moment of high tension/stress?

"She treated the girls around her like they were stupid bitches" - frankly this ones a little too vague like, I'm not sure off the top of my head exactly what they're talking about? in that era right around her pregnancy and stuff I really don't recall her being mean with other girls? I could be forgetting something I guess but the closest I can think of is a bit after this period of time when she has the confrontation with Greta in Young Justice but that was Greta attacking her first, not the other way around.

"got insanely jealous if Tim so much as expressed concern about another girl" - Steph getting jealous and thinking Tim was cheating isn’t that crazy when STEPHANIE BASICALLY WAS THE OTHER GIRL DURING TIM’S LAST RELATIONSHIP? Tim has cheated a little bit before! Tim cheated on Ari with both Jubilee from Marvel (during a crossover thing where he even mentions Ari specifically so it’s not like this was out of continuity/a setting she wasn't an issue or something) and also with Steph. While most of the kissing between them was Steph coming onto Tim which I wouldn’t count as cheating on his end, he did still kiss her which I would count. Not to mention that the jealousy thing (I imagine they’re talking about the instance with Star, the girl who taught Tim to skateboard, this arc of stuff starts in Robin #80 and continues for a few issues) is happening during the time she’s dating him while she still doesn’t even know his real name. He literally has a whole other life she doesn’t know about, and is someone who has initiated romantic moments with other girls while in a relationship multiple times before! With that in mind I don’t think a 16 (she's def 16 by this point) year old girl being kinda paranoid about how he interacts with girls he might know in his civilian life is that unreasonable? The later big instance with jealousy is the Darla situation- where Steph sees Darla kiss him and gets mad about it (and doesn’t talk to him about it) and thats what prompts her to become Robin. The important thing to remember about Steph in this time frame is that DC decided she had to die and they wanted to make her Robin first to drum up more attention for that death. They were doing ooc things with her to set those pieces in motion, and that needs to be taken into account. I think her getting upset about seeing something like that isn’t even ooc, but her using it as motivation to become Robin and not even saying anything to him about it is. In the earlier instance where she’s upset/jealous about Star, she does communicate to him what’s going on at least a little bit on the rooftop after they’d saved her. She makes it clear the thing she was upset about is that she feels like she can’t trust him because she doesn’t really know him while he knows everything about her, and that’s why she thinks he’s cheating. Her reaction to the Darla thing is not in line with how earlier in canon Steph would have handled the same situation, because they wanted her to die and needed a way to explain her becoming Robin.

"and expressed that jealousy by accusing him of cheating and throwing things at him" - I just addressed the cheating stuff but the throwing things was fucking slapstick oh my god this is a comic book for kids/teens like. ah yes this is horrible abuse in this little funny montage of how Steph wants him to leave her alone because she’s mad at him and he refuses to give her space

(Robin #82)

I don’t think anyone at DC or even in fandom would/should try to argue she’s perfect, because she’s not! And I don’t want her to be because perfect characters are boring. Steph is flawed, Steph has been compared in canon to Robin-era Jason by Cass & Bruce

(Detective Comics #790)

And I think these highlight some of her very real flaws that are an interesting part of her character. These plus her stubbornness and determination are part of what makes her her.

And for fuck's sake the world was mean to her, and to act like it wasn’t is just blatantly ignoring a lot. A criminal father who made her life really difficult (‘when my dad was mad at me he’d lock me in the closet!’), that time she got kidnapped for two weeks and her mom had left her (a 15 year old) alone at home so long she didn't even find out it happened (in text Steph says Crystal was visiting friends, a lot of people interpret that as her mom possibly being in rehab for her addictions again), that whole thing about how one of her dad’s friends tried to sexually assault her as a child, also just how due to her dad's work sometimes criminals would be living in their house (Literally the fucking Riddler at one point!), the fact that we as an audience watched her get tortured for several days because a plan she tried to enact to prove herself backfired since Batman didn’t trust her with important information (something Selina even calls him out on in her internal narration), like… sorry but in what way is all that not the world being mean to her?

She was Robin, she dated Robin, she likes Eggplant (because purple would've looked stupid), and makes jokes. She’s also impulsive, headstrong and determined, and wants to prove to herself and others that she can be more than just the daughter of a shitty criminal, that she can actually be a force to do good in the world.

She’s a complex character, and nobody is required to like her, but to act like she doesn’t have a single redeeming trait is ridiculous. You could write a paragraph like that with the worst moments of basically any character and make them look like shit if that's what you were setting out to do.

[redphlox]

The Todorokis and the Takamis

Hello hello hello! Okay, so the fan translated chapter of BNHA 299 came out and I’m drowning in a downpour of feelings and parallels. So, below this cut, I’ll discuss parallels between Shouto and Hawks, Hawks and Endeavor, the Todoroki siblings and Keigo, and Rei and Tomie. I’ll also comment on the realistic depiction of domestic abuse survivors and dysfunctional family dynamics within the manga. Thanks in advance for reading!

The only hero Shouto probably had been exposed to as a child because he was isolated was his own dad, who abused his family. Shouto didn't want to be a hero because, as he had experienced personally, heroes were bad people who hurt their loved ones. The fire quirk he inherited from his father was something that hurt others. He had no other frame of reference for the fire quirk; his mother, who was kind and loving, had an ice quirk, Natsuo and Fuyumi had an ice quirk, and Touya (if Shouto even has memories of this) was being hurt by his own fire quirk. No wonder five year old Shouto was fearful of his left side and the thought of becoming a hero.

But that changed when Rei introduced him to All Might via a television recording she showed him in secret. Shouto learned that his father wasn’t representative of all heroes. Not all heroes hurt their families, and this meant Shouto’s fire quirk was his to use for good. He realized his dad was, ironically, a bad hero, and that it was okay to want to be a hero because Shouto would be a good one. Even if Shouto forgot this lesson in the years after Rei was hospitalized, the memory was there and rekindled during the sports festival. Shouto truly does believe in heroes because he’s seen proof of it in All Might, who indirectly saved Shouto and his belief in heroes just by being himself on that television show. Shouto also believes in heroes because he believes in himself - he’s a kind person, and he wants to be a kind hero. That’s why he chose his hero name to be his given name: Shouto.

Hawks, like Shouto, was also isolated from the world. He didn't have any interaction with or exposure to heroes except for on television. His father was physically and mentally abusive, and his mother emotionally distant as a result of domestic abuse. When Endeavor, a hero Hawks had a plushie of because his mom had given it to him in secret, indirectly saved him from an abusive household by arresting his father, Hawks started believing in heroes. They were real, and he was proof people could be saved because he hadn’t even been asking for help and Endeavor did it anyway. The plushie his mom had gotten him to play with as a substitute for not being able to go outside, the one Hawks held onto for comfort when he felt sad and alone, came “alive” and saved him. 

But Hawks was still in a bad situation because his mother's mental health wasn't in the best state after years of enduring domestic abuse. Hawks’ mother Tomie learned to view Hawks as the chain between herself and the Thief Takami. She might have been stuck in a "stay together for the kid" situation, coupled with financial instability and, on Takami's part, a begrudging sense of social responsibility to help raise the kid he fathered. Tomie learned to associate Takami’s feathers with pain, and because Hawks has feathers like his father and the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree, she says, “you’re his son, aren’t you?” 

But Hawks soon finds good in the world and good in himself when he saves people during that accident. By saving others, he has saved himself without even intending to. The commission essentially takes him away from his mother who, because to her mental instability due to years of abuse, couldn’t raise him or nurture him. After abandoning his name, Hawks held on to Endeavor as a source of inspiration. Hawks had an idol he could look up to and be like as he trained at the commission. Endeavor was an example of how to stay strong and never lose hope. After all, everyone knew it would be pointless to try and surpass All Might but Endeavor kept trying anyway, despite the impossibilities. Young Hawks admired that because he was stuck in a similar situation - he never even dared to hope his life would get better until Endeavor arrested Takami the Thief. So to this day, Hawks idolizes Endeavor the hero.

Hawks, as an outsider to the Todoroki family, doesn’t know what they have endured. He hasn’t been around Shouto much, but from what he has seen, he thinks Shouto admires Endeavor the hero the same way Hawks does. It’s not an incorrect statement, because Shouto does recognize that Endeavor the hero is great, but it’s not a correct statement either. Shouto has the ability to separate Endeavor from Enji. Shouto wants to see what Enji the father has the potential to become now that Enji wants to atone, and even that seems to be for his sister’s sake, for her dream of having a family. Even Endeavor thought the same thing until Shouto makes it clear he’s not forgiven.

But Hawks doesn’t know this. Hawks probably assumes that because Shouto accepted interning with Endeavor and looked at Endeavor in awe that Shouto’s relationship with Endeavor must be on the mend. That maybe the abuse is behind them and the family is healthier. Hawks himself would never reach out to his own father or be near him, so why would Shouto? The only logical explanation and evidence Hawks has is that maybe Endeavor was forgiven and completely different now. Hawks, like Dabi, has no way to know that Shouto is holding his father accountable for abusing Rei and used to burn with self-destructive hatred inside. Hawks has no way of knowing Natsuo’s turmoil or that Fuyumi shares the same feelings as Natsuo, that Endeavor has a long way to go earn a place in his children’s lives - if they even let him.

Hawks is clinging onto his faith in heroes because he still believes in himself, in Endeavor, and in heroes. He’s like Shouto and believes in heroes and Endeavor despite Endeavor’s actions as a father. Shouto knows Endeavor is a skilled hero, but also accepts that people have different roles and may be shitty at one and great at another. Shouto knows Endeavor’s ambition and dedication to a title for his work drove him to hurt his family. Shouto knows Endeavor did this because Endeavor’s entire identity is his hero work - it’s almost expected that he put his ambitions before his family. Endeavor is just now, after 20 years, realizing he has another identity and role he failed to accept: Enji the father and husband. Now that he’s reached his career goals and realized the view at the top wasn’t as great or fulfilling as he imagined, he’s trying to figure out what Enji the father can do for his family.  

Just like Endeavor, Hawks’ whole identity is his hero persona, and if that hero doesn’t exist anymore, then Hawks would be lost. He’d have nothing. His whole life’s meaning - saving people - would be gone, and he has no connections to any roles (son, friend, citizen) because he’s severed ties with his parents and isn’t close to anyone. He can’t go back to being Keigo because it was too painful and hopeless being Keigo. Even if the commission is turning his back on him, he’ll still be the hero Hawks, this time on his own terms. Now that he’s free of their control, he wants to help the Endeavor he always looked up to as a sign of loyalty to him and possibly a vague way of returning the favor for indirectly rescuing Keigo all those years ago.

Rei and Tomie

Both mothers reacted similarly to their domestic abuse. Both mothers learned to associate their children with their abuser based on physical inherited traits. The Todoroki siblings each have a trait of their father’s (Touya has his eye color, Fuyumi has her red in her hair, Natsuo has his thick and tall stature, Shouto’s entire left side) and Hawks inherited feathers from his father. This fear serves as a small scaled representation of the societal stigma faced by those who possess lesser favorable quirks. These mothers learned their partner’s quirks were only used to hurt them or cause damage, and society has learned that certain quirks like Toga’s blood-sucking are inherently bad and are an indicator of morality. 

Like IRL domestic abuse victims, both mothers felt hopeless and powerless in their situation. Tomie asked her partner to fix the television without investigating what was wrong with it herself first. Tomie couldn’t care for herself or her son after Takami had been arrested - she’d been told what to do for so long and relied on Takami to provide (probably because he was paranoid and possibly wouldn’t let her interact with others out of fear she’d report him to the police) that she had trouble adjusting to any other kind of lifestyle. Making decisions was a skill she hadn’t used in years. Tomie, now homeless, compared Hawks to their abuser and expected him to provide by committing crimes too, which visibly hurt her son’s feelings. Some people who experience abuse subconsciously rely on their children to step up into a sort of caretaker/parent role. This is called parentification, and it just...sort of happens. This is why it makes sense Hawks’ identity revolves around being useful and wanting to help others. He had learned from a young age that if he wasn’t helping people, he had no value.

This isn’t to cast blame or judge Tomie, but to bring awareness to a boundary issue and inadvertent role reversal some victims and their families deal with as a result of abusive households. To parallel Tomie wanting Hawks to provide for the family, Endeavor also passively let Fuyumi to step up and fill the role of her missing parents. She carried a lot of the family emotional burdens after Rei was hospitalized, takes care of the family home, visits and cares for her mother at the hospital, and looks out for her younger brothers wellbeing in every sense of the word. Fuyumi is the unifying, optimistic link between Endeavor and his family. Even Endeavor recognizes Fuyumi’s parentification, though he doesn’t call it by its name.  

Rei expressed her hopelessness when she spoke with her mother on the phone about not being able to raise her children anymore, but couldn’t come up with a solution. She couldn’t raise her children anymore - and that was it. She didn’t ask her mother for help or come up with any ideas because she felt powerless. And again, this isn’t to demonize or blame Rei, but to point out that her reaction is reflective of the challenges some abuse victims face. Some people don’t know how to get out of an abusive relationship for various complicated, valid, and life-threatening reasons, no matter what logic outsiders apply to the situation. Some mothers feel trapped, like Rei and Tomie.

Both Rei and Tomie hurt their children, either emotionally or physically. In the light novels, Natsuo reveals that Rei was emotionally distant after Shouto was born, probably out of concern for Endeavor’s likely unhealthy enthusiasm to train Shouto. She was probably protective of Shouto, and inadvertently made Natsuo feel abandoned by focusing on her youngest. Like Keigo, Natsuo felt alone despite his mother being nearby physically. And also like Keigo, Natsuo eventually realized that the situation was complicated and his parents made mistakes and had issues that didn’t reflect their feelings toward him. Natsuo realizes his mother loved him still. He realizes Shouto didn’t have it better than he did because he had his mother’s attention, and Keigo realizes that even with his father gone, his mother isn’t “fixed.” Keigo recognizes that his parents had deep flaws and the Todoroki siblings recognize their parents’ too. Rei didn’t mean to hurt Shouto maliciously; Endeavor is to blame for their mother’s mental state. 

It’s implied that Tomie has an alcohol problem from the bottles laying around the unkempt Takami home. She uses alcohol to remove herself from reality, to put distance between herself, those she perceives are hurting her, and to hide. Running away doesn’t necessarily mean that she doesn’t care about her son - emotions and people are complex and not always black and white - but that she doesn’t have the mental and emotional capacity to nurture him. She’s distancing herself from her feelings (probably fear, hopelessness, dread) and with that she’s also distancing from her son. This might have been going on for a while because Keigo doesn’t even consider going to his mother for comfort. He goes to his inanimate Endeavor plushie instead. 

It’s also important to note that Keigo realizes that his parents’ relationship is devoid of love, and he probably thinks this is the reaso why he doesn’t receive any love from them. He wasn’t born from a loving relationship. The chapter implies he just...happened because Takami was hiding out with Tomie. Now Tomie doesn’t have an identity or will outside of hiding Takami and helping him, and Takami resents Keigo for tethering him to a person he thinks is useless and is holding him back.

In their own way, both mothers tried to console their child and ease the pain caused by their fathers. Rei did this by listening to Shouto, showing him that good heroes do exist, and reassuring him that he’s not his father. She was a loving mother, as noted by young Natsuo’s jealousy toward Shouto for “taking up” his mother’s attention. Her children are eager and willing to have a relationship with her. Tomie showed love for her son by buying that discounted Endeavor plushie in an effort to make up for the fact that Takami wouldn’t let him play outside. It’s important to note that while their family’s life was seemingly sustained by the fruit of Takami’s crimes, Tomie used what limited money the family had to pay for the toy, meaning that she wanted to ease some of her son’s pain and give him a source of strength. This was all she could manage considering the state of mind she was in. While it wasn’t big, she did the best she could, and apparently it left an impact because Hawks remembers the moment clearly.

The difference between these women and their families, which also mirrors real life, is that some work toward rebuilding their relationships and some don’t. The Todoroki’s support each other, and the Takamis are distant from each other. This isn’t to judge or blame or say one way is wrong and another is right, but to explore how this decision has and will influence Hawks and the Torodokis. 

Rei has made progress in her recovery and will likely be discharged soon, if she hasn’t already been. The family continues to identify and work through issues both as a unit and individually. Shouto realizes that it’s okay to use his left side, Natsuo is holding space for his unresolved grief and calling out Endeavor, and Fuyumi is hoping to finally have a family. Together, they’ve found healing from the trauma they suffererd together. Touya being alive only adds to this family’s ability to finally be happy and whole, though the journey may be difficult and painful.

Meanwhile, the Takami’s didn’t unite to heal together. Hawks’ father went to jail, Tomie and Keigo never saw him again and don’t want to, and Tomie accepted the commission’s offer to take care of her financially if she gave up Keigo. Keigo himself became Hawks, who suspected it was his mother who leaked his background to Dabi and wasn’t surprised to find out that he was right. He’s not visibly upset about his mother leaving either, which could either be him being emotionally numb or a sign his relationship with his mother never improved. It seems like he’s holding on to the scrap of love she did give him, as seen by his flashback to her holding his hand and remembering her words to “be strong like this guy.” But now she’s gone, and like he said, his shackles are gone.

So, what does this mean? Is Hawks wrong to still believe in Endeavor? Was Tomie wrong for revealing Hawks to Dabi and then leaving without notifying Hawks first? Given these character’s complex traumas, it’s hard to say without blaming someone for how they react to their trauma. It’s hard to apply logic to thinking and feelings that have been shaped by trauma. It’s uncomfortable to sit and see people make decisions that hurt others. Sometimes there is no right and wrong, sometimes there is wrong right and right wrong, and we have to sit and watch things play out, watch people react to the world through a trauma lens. 

Sometimes there’s no answer at all. I think that’s what adds a tragic touch to Hawks, to the Todorokis, to the League - they’re all reacting to their trauma in different ways, some in socially acceptable ways (Natsuo, Shouto) and some not (Dabi), and there’s no clear cut answer without passing judgment or telling someone how to react to their trauma. How does someone rewire their brain’s neuropathways from the ones formed by trauma to healthier ones, especially without professional help or even self-awareness.

It’s hard to watch all these characters suffer, especially when it hits so close to home for some of us. Let’s see what the next chapters bring! We’re not seeing the big picture just yet, and there is always time for epiphanies, breakthroughs, and change of hearts and minds.

[whydoeseverythinghurt]

Someone tell me Lower Decks gets better

Edit: So I am hearing good things from very angry people, and I think that means that it’s fine.

I know that a lot of people like Lower Decks, and I think in isolation, I would be one of them, but this is supposed to be Star Trek, right? I like Rick and Morty’s particular brand cynicism, and hopelessness, and I know a lot of the people working on Lower Decks come from there, but that just isn’t Star Trek.

Disclaimer: I only saw the first episode, so most of this can be discounted if that isn’t an accurate depiction of the show as a whole.

Star Trek started off as a ‘perfect’ utopian future, that was about what its creators thought we should aspire to. But from the get go we are shown that there are many issues with it, and that it is a utopia because someone is always fighting against the bad actors, working to improve life, and deal with all those issues. Star Trek is about reform from the inside.

Kirk and Spock both think the Admiralty, the Starfleet Code of Conduct and even the Prime Directive are needlessly restrictive, so what do they do? They find loopholes.

Spock tells Commodore Decker that he won’t stand for the endangerment of the crew, and if he wants to call it mutiny he can do so the second they get back to civilization, where Spock will be allowed to plead his case. Kirk is told that all the Court Martial business can be swept under the rug if he’s willing to give up his pride, and he says no. He forces them to have to go through the process, so that he can plead his case, but also to demonstrate that the system should work, it shouldn’t ignore issues.

Picard and River find out that the Admiralty are being controlled by worms, and take it upon themselves to stop the damage that they are doing. (Such a Star Trek sentence, I know.)

Deep Space Nine as it progresses makes the show about how the ‘utopia’ is based on colonialist ideals, and leaves behind the most vulnerable in society. In the beginning this is done with the justification that if they help the people suffering and being discriminated against, then they may lose a potential ally, or gain an enemy. The government decides that it isn’t worth the risk, and let’s people suffer.

But Deep Space Nine is not just as amazing as it is because of the Holocaust metaphors, its also because it pushes at the moral fabric of the Federation. It asks the question “What happens when push comes to shove, and your perfect society descends into war?” And it shows the fallout, and it shows the toll on people’s lives, and it shows that even when you aren’t living in a perpetual state of war it’s very difficult to go back.

Voyager asks “What happens when no one is looking? What happens when all you have are your ideals and morals that come from a society you are no longer attached to (that we as the audience know, no longer exists)? Do you sacrifice your morals so that you can get back to your utopia? In fact, do you sacrifice your ideals for your utopia as a whole. Or would sacrificing them make it something other than a utopia?”

Haven’t seen all of them yet, so: Discovery says “What happens when you make the wrong moral judgment (or depending on interpretation, the right one, but no one allows you to go far enough)? What happens when you are the scapegoat that they blame an entire war, on? Even one that has brewing since before you were born. What do you do when they place the blame squarely on your shoulders, and solely at your feet? What do you do when the one person who gave you a chance to prove yourself turned out to be lying the entire time, and actually wanted you to be what everyone else thought you were? 

“What do you do afterwards? How you trust someone again after that kind of betrayal? What do you do when some goodie two shoes, who has never seen the horror that you have, comes waltzing in and trying to apply their morals to your life? How could they possibly win your trust?” That one gets a definitive answer, they show their convictions, even when no one is watching, they say, “we have to do the right thing.”

It goes on to ask several others, (from what I know) which are in some ways similar to later seasons of Deep Space Nine, “What do you do when the utopia you loved and fought and bled, and that people died for, is gone? How willing are you to fight to get it back?”

Lower Decks introduces a character who sees the moral failings of Starfleet, shows them to other people and then encourages them to give up, and not try to make the situation better. They have influence, and could easily seize power, but what do they do? Nothing. They watch as people who should not be in charge remain in power and do nothing about it, and discourage anyone who wants to try. They don’t want things to be different, they want to rebel against their parents. And that’s it, not corrupt institutions, not bad protocols, or worse people in charge. They want their parents to notice them.

That is not Star Trek. Star Trek is about hope in the most dire of circumstances. It’s about persevering and going against the odds, even when you know you’re probably going to die anyway, but you still have to try. 

It is about not just fighting for yourself, but for your family, your people, your crew, caring about the faceless and the nameless, the ‘lesser’, those that cannot fight for themselves. Standing up to and against the institutions which did the wrong thing, which did not protect the people they should have. (The waters get muddy with the different framings of the maquis, but you are meant to be sympathetic to their ideas, and morals, if nothing else.)

Nihilism has its place in Star Trek, (a cynical outlook can be seen as one of the most common character traits across series.) Existential dread has its place too, but it has to be tempered with that hope. And that hope isn’t unwavering, in fact most characters at one point or another lose it, briefly or for longer periods of time, but in those moments they rely on those around them to keep the faith. They continually pass the torch of whose responsibility it is. One of the most important things is that there is always someone who has hope. 

And I would probably like Lower Decks if it seemed at all willing to explore the idea, “Well, what do you do when hope is completely lost? What do you do what there is no one left? And the thing you love is a shell of either what it used to be, or what it aspired to?”

Instead, all that is left of a green character who has never encountered that adversity and has their ideals forcefully beaten out of them. The central authority in their life tells them how they are wrong to cling to them (and then that person is demonstrated to be right.) I would be interesting to see the story if they wished to explore a slow dawning realization that hope is really lost, or even asked, “What do you do when there is nothing to hope for? And no one left to have that hope?”

To me it seems like they heard about Star Trek from parodies, and wanted to make jokes, so they set its central themes on fire, and then didn’t want to explore the implications. Just play in its dead carcass, and don’t you dare think about what it once was.

I know that Enterprise had its issues, but most people say that it improved greatly with the last season (besides the last episode), and say that it could have done more and been better if the network would have just kept it around a bit longer. People have their criticisms of Discovery and Picard, but I get the impression that they truly are labors of love.

Lower Decks gives me the feeling that it is just a blatant cash grab made by people who didn’t know, or understand the property and just had to do something with it. I know that their is diversity in the series, but I wish that I could say definitively that that the woman in the burka was actually meant to show the same sentiments as Chekhov in the Original Series. (As I remember seeing someone suggest as a viable option for how the New movies could handle Anton Yelchin’s death.) My thoughts right now is that it’s just an attitude of “Well, Star Trek is about diversity in thought, culture, and race, so we should make the characters diverse, because it’s a utopian future, right?” With no intention to to continue the way of dealing with current issues through allegory.

I hope I’m wrong. As far as I know it is a good show, but right now I don’t think it’s a good Star Trek one. 

(Although again take that with a grain of salt, because I have seen so little, and I didn’t particularly like the Orville, or what I’ve seen of it. Mostly, because it felt clunky, unnatural, boring and like they took half remembered plot points/storylines and placed new characters into them. The heart was there, but the thought didn’t seem to be.)

Tl;dr: Can someone tell me if Lower Decks has the characters fight back against Starfleet, or the bad elements in it? Or even if it explores why that isn’t an option? Why they have lost all hope?

[ruby-whistler]

Srry but i noticed in one of ur dream posts u Referred to tommy's cat as hope. I must correct u, that cat was born pussbou and died pussboi. /lh Also tommy killing that cat was nothing compared to dream killing mushroom henry in exile btw just wanna say Also for ur posts about dreams trauma or wilbur manipulating him can u provide links to vods or other proof? Srry if i seem rude i mean that in a "genuinely curious way"

Aaa sorry if my ask came off as rude im just genuinely curious :(((

hi! dw, you don't seem rude at all, and i'm extremely happy someone with a different perspective has found my blog! i really appreciate that sort of attitude and am happy to answer :]

/dsmp /rp

the cat was called pussboy by tommy, but dream only called it "the cat" and then said that "it was hope", which is why it sort of became a symbol (his hope is dead, basically) - that's why i kind of made its name capitalized, because it was more of a metaphor than anything.

most c!dream fans call the cat hope because it's just really nice and really symbolic, and also really sad when you think about it. that's why the name was used in the essay, just to clear up the confusion!

tommy killing that cat was nothing compared to dream killing mushroom henry in exile

i don't really think so? mooshroom henry was entertainment more than anything, and even if it was bad, when watching the stream i don't remember seeing him mourn that much - on the other hand, dream was very quickly and very obviously attached to the cat, with it being his only companion in months of isolation, along with the hope that even when tommy left it would keep him company.

keep in mind c!dream has been deprived of stimuli and human contact for so long it's officially classified as psychological torture at that point.

i don't mean to compare trauma or even compare deaths - because honestly, what c!dream and c!tommy have gone through individually is incomparable and i think neither should be diminished in favor of the other since they're both terrible situations.

that's why i disagree that it "was nothing compared to" - it had an obvious effect on c!dream, and was still c!tommy killing an animal specifically to hurt him, no matter what reasons he had.

when i'm talking about effects people's actions have had on c!dream, i'm not talking about those people. i'm talking about him. :) /lh

as for the trauma, a lot of people agree that a lot of the things he says or does are trauma responses, and hence it's very possible that he's had trauma before he went into prison!

this includes being repeatedly called a tyrant via propaganda by about half of your friends who decided to betray you, trying to keep peace and being pushed deeper into villainy instead, repeatedly being put in between a rock and a hard place in order to make sure the people you care about don't start killing each other, then being betrayed by your closest friends after merely trying to keep peace (sapnap & george) and just in general having no control over your life or image and grasping at straws to gain it back.

i know a lot of people with trauma who heavily relate to certain trauma responses, which aren't always just shaky breaths and flashbacks, but trauma often also manifests itself in extremely ugly and destructive ways, both inwardly and outwardly.

trying to control the people around you is also very often a response to going through trauma, as well as emotional repression which is... rather evident on c!dream during season two. it only seems to get worse with repeated abandonment.

in the end, during the vault scene, the way he acts really just isn't at all the way a healthy person would act, and a lot of his really bad mindsets come from the way he was taught by the world around him.

the character is very reserved however, and since we don't have his pov we can't really say for certain - a lot of people claim it in good faith because they have a lot of evidence for it, and i think they're certainly valid in that.

that is just before the prison, however. from what happened during the prison arc? there is no denying he's traumatized at this point.

he's been emotionally and physically abused by c!sam since the very beginning of being imprisoned, and being in solitary confinement for over two weeks is generally considered psychological (and maybe also physical?) torture. that alone shows up in a lot of symptoms of his mental deterioration while in pandora's during people's visits, and quackity's "sessions" just absolutely drove the point home.

what he's gone through during this arc is absolutely incomparable to anything others charactes have faced before, and it's just plain suffering being endured by someone who is, despite everything, still a human being.

as for the wilbur manipulation thing!! it's talking about the whole vassal scene (though even beforehand a lot of their interactions are pretty iffy), and here's a post about that :]

I also have a small question about the analysis u last reblogged cus it says "why dream needed lmanburg gone rightfully" and like. The house analogy is poor because for one cus the land is infinite. And 2 cus punz's yard was literally larger then lmanburg. And also stuff about dream being a mediator? Can u provide examples?

i wouldn't say it was poor. dream's said a lot of times that he didn't care in the slightest about the land - a lot of his problems with l'manberg arose with the fact that wilbur basically built it on lies and tried to disallow half of the server to come there. c!dream was mad about the division and the fact that wilbur wanted "freedom" to have authority in his lands - over others, as can be seen in this post also.

the table analogy was fitting not because dream was some overlord, but because these were literally friends he invited to hang out and live in a place he wanted to call home. claiming a part of it for yourself and saying people of a certain nationality can't come in is directly opposing those goals.

in the early days of the smp, dream's always been a mediator between his friends - sapnap and george, who would often get into fights and go around killing each other! he would always do his best to stop the conflict, which continued after tommy joined when he took him to court and then later tried to mediate conflicts he was a part of, which resulted in tommy killing him unprovoked, stealing his gear, and starting the disc wars when dream was trying to get his stuff back. later, during pogtopia, he is also most concerned with peace over everything, and this seems to continue indefinitely after.

Today i was thinking about how messed up the final control room was. Like. Dream arranged the betrayal and punz and sapnap killed tommy and tubbo who like. Were literal children and their pals (because the author, wilbur soot, is dead/j but srsly if u take the streamers words tommy said he was 9 during the revolution sooo)

Sorry im gonna ramble about how dumb canon ages are for a second cus like. Streamers can say the characters are one way or another (wilbur saying he is mentally 30-something, etc.) But in the end the characters act like they(or at least their streaming personas) do.

i... honestly don't find it that bad? they were in a war, and the final control room was basically just supposed to end it quicker. the l'manbergians made it clear they were going to fight to the death, so they really left c!dream no other choice. and it's not like he didn't give them chances to give up.

also yeah the 9 year old thing was retconned, because in that case c!dream would've been 14 and i don't think that's true.

c!tommy and c!dream were both young and once again, in a war. the final control room was an attempt to assure victory, which both sides would've taken if possible, but only c!dream saw he had the option.

i do agree the whole child soldier thing was bad but... complain about that to c!wilbur, methinks. he talked naive kids into fighting for his personal power. however, the age argument isn't really valid either way. they had enough agency to sign up for it, and whether or not c!wilbur pushing the intense nationalism onto them had something to do with that is another debate entirely.

Bacl to final control room cus like??? Also fun fact punz took 2 of wilbur's canon lives. And like that probably is what started wilbur's paranoia which later lead to his spiral and i. Many thoughts full of lmanburg today.

i'm pretty sure cc!wilbur said what lead to c!wilbur's spiral was a "dark, twister view of possessions" and "disregard for his fellow citizen whom he claimed to love so much", but i really wouldn't say it was the control room; if anything the sudden loss of power after the elections seems to me like the trigger for his spiral.

I watched the exile arc live and. I feel dirty almost for feeling little to no sympathy for c!dream (srry ive been forgetting to add that aa) because of his actions toward c!tommy and like. The whole probation was so humiliating and unfair and c!dream was planning to frame him for the crimes he and puffy did under the the guise of "pranks" and c!quackity was planning to seize the vice president role.

i mean... to be fair, if you didn't watch the prison arc much yet or only watch tommy's perspective i understand not feeling that sympathetic - however, i encourage you to maybe watch a few prison visits, since they could help you see the whole picture better!

i also watched it live, and i also thought it was terrible, but i share very much the same sentiment for the prison arc because. absolutely no one should have to go through either of those things, you know?

i don't think probation was that humiliating? he was just. being asked to not start conflict with the other factions for two weeks. of course, what happened as a result is in no way justified, but i don't think probation itself would've been bad at all. either way yeah the framing and c!quackity's behaviour was. very yikes, i agree.

Also c!tommy antis are dumb because they say "he deserved exile angry emoji" i dont see u saying that about ranboo. Just say you hate cc!tommy and go. Also people say c!tommy was just as toxic to c!dream and i??? No. One is the victim and one is the abuser and like. :/// man. This part is rambly srry

i wouldn't say they hate cc!tommy? cc!tommy has a persona who people think is annoying at first ( but then they subscribe because he is super entertaining big man! ) but a lot of c!tommy's actions are straight up toxic to certain characters, such as c!funndy and c!jack. he has a very dismissive attitude towards others and their trauma and it does affect the people around them very negatively.

examples; his repeated bullying and behavior towards fundy:

Tommy: “Fundy, I’m just here to kinda let you know that I – if you weren’t Wilbur’s son, you would be out of L’manburg, alright? Just remember – you need to keep that relationship with your father. I saw how asshole-y and bratty you were acting in the courtroom the other night. You need to pull your shit together young man.”

......

Fundy: “I’m wearing glasses…are you making fun of my eyesight?!”

Tommy: “Yes.”

Sapnap: “Your father would be very disappointed.”

Fundy: “Wh – disappointed for wearing glasses?!”

Tommy: “You got glasses, like what are you wearing…”

Fundy: “What do you mean?”

Tommy: “Sapnap, Sapnap, over here. Fundy, Fundy, Fundy, I’m really sorry to say this – I’m just here to publicly denounce you.”

Fundy: “…What?”

( credit for transcript: @/findingjoynweirdstuff )

he's also responsible for a big chunk of c!jack's trauma, both with actions and words, and that's why i think certain people might dislike the character, and i don't think that's wrong of them. anyone can dislike any character they want if they don't attack people for liking them, in my opinion.

also c!tommy was most definitely toxic against c!dream in the cell. it's of course understandable but that doesn't change the fact he was constantly hitting and insulting him (without dream doing anything back for a long while until he snapped) which is toxic behaviour.

i wouldn't say he was "just as" though, so i agree with you on that. they're different and they behave differently.

i made a dream blob keychain today. Is it possible to send images if u wanna see? Idk cus i havent used tumblr before. I think that's all for now. Thx for letting me talk :D peepoShy -curious anon (but fr a connoreatspants c!dream redemption arc would be cool)

yooo that's cool! i don't really,,, know if it's possible to send images? try it out and if it isn't i'll try find a way to turn it on.

also, no problem! just please remember this is a c!dream sympathetic blog, and me as well as my followers are uhh,, oftentimes emotionally attached / personally relate to the character, so if you could avoid sending hate on the character (not that you have or that i expect you to, just a friendly reminder) in the asks that would be great! we already see a lot of it unwillingly so, i'd rather not see more, but as long as the discussion is civil i'm absolutely ok with you asking more and with me answering more questions if you'd want to! :)

if anyone else would like to reblog this and add some things i might've missed with my answers, feel free to, just go easy on her (she uses she/her pronouns!) and keep it factual.

i hope u had a good or at least ok time at school today :D

thanks! i gtg now because exam tomorrow but i'm going to try write the redemption essay tomorrow as well because ohhh boy i have a lot of ideas about what all i could write around the concept.

also sorry this was long, i can't keep my tongue on the leash :[

[jackoshadows]

GRRM talking about exploring redemption specifically with Jaime and stating he personally hopes there can be a possibility of redemption for everyone is in his 2014 Rolling Stone interview. It’s a pretty well known quote, kind of a weird one not to know if you’re gonna weigh in on the big Jaime redemption debate... I guess you can just go for GRRM saying he finds it weird people crush on Jaime and the Hound instead, but it doesn’t really seem the most relevant one to me.

Alright, so I looked up his 2014 Rolling stone interview where he talks about redemption:

Q: Both Jaime and Cersei are clearly despicable in those moments. Later, though, we see a more humane side of Jaime when he rescues a woman, who had been an enemy, from rape. All of a sudden we don’t know what to feel about Jaime.

A: One of the things I wanted to explore with Jaime, and with so many of the characters, is the whole issue of redemption. When can we be redeemed? Is redemption even possible? I don’t have an answer. But when do we forgive people? You see it all around in our society, in constant debates. Should we forgive Michael Vick? I have friends who are dog-lovers who will never forgive Michael Vick. Michael Vick has served years in prison; he’s apologized. Has he apologized sufficiently? Woody Allen: Is Woody Allen someone that we should laud, or someone that we should despise? Or Roman Polanski, Paula Deen. Our society is full of people who have fallen in one way or another, and what do we do with these people? How many good acts make up for a bad act? If you’re a Nazi war criminal and then spend the next 40 years doing good deeds and feeding the hungry, does that make up for being a concentration-camp guard? I don’t know the answer, but these are questions worth thinking about. I want there to be a possibility of redemption for us, because we all do terrible things. We should be able to be forgiven. Because if there is no possibility of redemption, what’s the answer then? [Martin pauses for a moment.] You’ve read the books?

Q: Yes.

A: Who kills Joffrey?

Q: That killing happens early in this fourth season. The books, of course, are well past the poisoning of King Joffrey.

A: In the books – and I make no promises, because I have two more books to write, and I may have more surprises to reveal – the conclusion that the careful reader draws is that Joffrey was killed by the Queen of Thorns, using poison from Sansa’s hairnet, so that if anyone did think it was poison, then Sansa would be blamed for it. Sansa had certainly good reason for it.The reason I bring this up is because that’s an interesting question of redemption. That’s more like killing Hitler. Does the Queen of Thorns need redemption? Did the Queen of Thorns kill Hitler, or did she murder a 13-year-old boy? Or both? She had good reasons to remove Joffrey. Is it a case where the end justifies the means? I don’t know. That’s what I want the reader or viewer to wrestle with, and to debate.

Q: I don’t know if somebody like Jaime or Cersei can be redeemed. Cersei’s a great character – she’s like Lady Macbeth.  

A: Well, redeemed in whose eyes? She’ll never be redeemed in the eyes of some. She’s a character who’s very protective of her children. You can argue, well, does she genuinely love her children, or does she just love them because they’re her children? There’s certainly a great level of narcissism in Cersei. She has an almost sociopathic view of the world and civilization. At the same time, what Jaime did is interesting. I don’t have any kids myself, but I’ve talked with other people who have. Remember, Jaime isn’t just trying to kill Bran because he’s an annoying little kid. Bran has seen something that is basically a death sentence for Jaime, for Cersei, and their children – their three actual children. So I’ve asked people who do have children, “Well, what would you do in Jaime’s situation?” They say, “Well, I’m not a bad guy – I wouldn’t kill.” Are you sure? Never? If Bran tells King Robert he’s going to kill you and your sister-lover, and your three children. . . . Then many of them hesitate. Probably more people than not would say, “Yeah, I would kill someone else’s child to save my own child, even if that other child was innocent.” These are the difficult decisions people make, and they’re worth examining.

So reading through this, GRRM says that he is exploring the answer to the question - Can the villains in my story be redeemed? As he points out in this interview, the answer to this question in 2014, was that he didn’t know.

He also compares Lannister villainy to Michael Vick, Woody Allen, Roman Polanski and Nazi war criminals. He asks if Nazi war criminals deserve forgiveness after feeding the hungry for 40 years. What do you think? Do you think Nazi war criminals deserve forgiveness and redemption?

But fandom has decided that according to this Jaime has now been redeemed and anyone who questions the existence of said redemption is a Jaime hater who lacks an understanding of how Jaime Lannister is totally a good guy now.

Oh and look, he is also talking about Cersei Lannister’s redemption in this same interview. Funnily enough, I don’t see anyone in fandom talking about Cersei’s redemption arc when GRRM is asking the same question with her character as he does with Jaime’s. He is talking about whether Cersei Lannister can be redeemed - Cersei has murdered babies!

GRRM is also asking if the Queen of Thorns deserves redemption for taking out baby Hitler. No one seems to be talking about that either.

GRRM also questions if Jaime’s attempted murder of a 7 year old is justified by framing it as the character trying to protect his own children. In my opinion though, this is a guy who is in his thirties, engaging in careless incestuous adultery with the Queen, in the enemy/guest’s home where the enemy could have come upon them anytime and then tried to murder a child to cover it up. Not justified, at all.  This is Jaime Lannister about Joffrey:

Because Joff was no more to me than a squirt of seed in Cersei's cunt, and he deserved to die.

I don’t know, the character does not come across as caring for his children. It was more about saving his and Cersei’s lives than it was about his children. And Cersei tried to stop him from murdering Bran.

Who had the harder choice to make? Jaime has sex with his twin sister, the queen, in Winterfell - because he just doesn’t care - and then tries to murder Ned’s child to cover it up. Or Ned, who wants to save Jaime’s children from Robert Baratheon’s wrath, warns Cersei to leave as soon as possible and in doing so dooms his entire family.

Ultimately the author is exploring the question of whether the baddies in his novel can be redeemed. Not that they will be redeemed or that they are on a path to redemption. He wants there to be a hope for forgiveness for his baddies at the end of their journey. Villains doing good for 40 years - can they be redeemed? In whose eyes do they need to be redeemed?

Jaime could be redeemed in Brienne’s eyes - because she loves him and he helped save her life. Does this mean Bran Stark should forgive him? Does this mean the small folk in the Riverlands who suffered and died because of the WOT5K brought about by his careless adultery should forgive him? Does this mean he is redeemed in the eyes of the reader?

As I stated, in my previous posts, from my interpretation of Jaime’s arc, I don’t see any redemption from Jaime Lannister in the books yet. He is still arrogant and self- serving. A little humbled by the loss of his hand - but able to brag all the same about being ‘Goldenhand the Just’ because he hanged some hungry outlaws. No introspection or acknowledgment of his past actions. We did see some guilt in the dreams he has about abandoning Elia and her children to the Mountain’s mercies despite having sworn an oath to protect them. What he will do about all that? I don’t know.

He did not abandon Cersei because she’s a bad person who murdered babies. He abandoned her to the mercies of the Faith Militant because she was unfaithful to him - because of the personal injury to him. He sees keeping his oaths with respect to Sansa as salvation and then sends off Brienne to do his job, while being engaged in enforcing Lannister rule in Westeros.

The comparison to Theon Greyjoy comes about because Theon has accepted his wrong, Theon is full of remorse and regret. Theon wishes he could go back and do differently. Theon is a broken man - and yet, despite being so afraid, he risks all to help Jeyne Poole - a character no one cares about.

'Can a man still be brave if he's afraid? ' 'That is the only time a man can be brave‘

Saving Jeyne Poole is not going to earn Theon Greyjoy any rewards. But he does it because it’s right - not because it makes him feel good. Does it mean that Theon Greyjoy - who murdered two little boys - is now redeemed and will get a happy ending?

So yeah, can Jaime be redeemed? The author will try to answer that question in books yet to be written and leave it up to the reader to decide if the character has indeed been redeemed.  Thus far I see no redemption, in my opinion and as per my interpretation of the text. Take that as you will.

[carewyncromwell]

Zut alors! This art sure makes this Cinderella AU look like...well, a Cinderella AU, doesn’t it??

One critique I have about many Cinderella adaptations is about how the “ugly stepsisters” are either portrayed as one-dimensionally bad so as to make our Cinderella look more saintly by comparison or given just enough dimension that one could see them as secondary victims of their mother’s abuse and yet aren’t given an ending that frees them from it the way Cinderella does. And yes, obviously in many of those cases, the stepsisters jump in on abusing Cinderella too, but it’s a learned behavior the stepsisters acquire from their mother and, in some cases, one could also point to there possibly being an element of the child joining in on their parents’ abuse of their sibling, etc. as a method of self-preservation. There are a few adaptations where one stepsister “reforms” themselves while the other doesn’t, but in this story, I wanted to show that -- as unpleasant as the entire Cromwell clan is, including Carewyn’s cousins -- there’s some logic to how they behave. And in Claire Cromwell’s daughters’ cases in particular, they’re just as trapped by the expectations of their gender as Carewyn is, arguably more so because they’ve lived with Charles their whole lives and the importance of marrying well has been drilled into them much more than it ever was for Carewyn. Although it’s obvious how much worse Carewyn’s situation is compared to her cousins, I kind of liked the idea of showing how a character in the “ugly stepsister” role would feel, being constantly outdone by her relative despite her best efforts. And even in Carewyn’s canon, she does project a “perfect paragon” affect that irritates characters like Merula to no end, so this isn’t too much of a stretch. Doesn’t mean Iris is a good person or anything, but what can I say, I like giving my antagonists understandable motivations. 

In Carewyn’s canon, she becomes a robin Animagus. Part of it has to do with their size and coloring; part of it has to do with their symbolism (being associated with spring and, in the Christian tradition, selfless kindness, as they either earned their “red breast” when they sang comfortingly in Jesus’s ear while he bled on the cross or when they got burned fetching water for souls stuck in Purgatory); and part of it is because “Robin” was my deceased paternal aunt’s name, as well as my middle name! 🧡

Previous part is here -- whole tag is here -- Katriona “KC” Cassiopeia belongs to @kc-needs-coffee -- and I hope you enjoy!

x~x~x~x

On Charles’s instructions, Carewyn was returned to the tower room at the back of the Cromwell estate, this time with thick ropes tied her wrists together and lashing them to the legs of the cot set up in the corner. As Blaise finished securing Carewyn to the bed, he went out of his way to scold her that all of this was her own doing for trying to abandon her family before departing. 

Carewyn tried everything she could to get free, but within an hour, she determined that there was nothing sharp enough in the room that she could use to cut her bonds, even if she could move more than two feet in either direction. And so, in utter frustration, she collapsed to the floor, her eyebrows knitting tightly over her closed eyes. 

Talbott, she thought, please warn Orion...please, make sure he’s safe...

She wished she could simply have faith in Talbott, but being unable to do anything to protect Orion made Carewyn feel number and more afraid than she’d ever felt near the battlefield between Florence and Royaume. 

A moment later, Carewyn was startled by the sound of the door being unlocked. When it opened, she found Iris standing in the doorframe. Claire’s middle daughter was decked out in a striking dark blue and emerald satin gown and a dark blue feathered mask, and her dark hair was put up in a beautiful braided bun trimmed with peacock feathers.

“So you are locked up here,” said Iris. 

Carewyn raised her eyebrows very dully. “So I am.”

Iris’s face, for once, didn’t look particularly haughty. Her blue eyes, the same color and shape as Carewyn’s, swiveled over her cousin’s frame, taking in not just her bound ankles but the sewn-up back of her green dress. The dark-haired Cromwell looked almost disconcerted.

“This is your own doing, you know,” Iris said in a slightly higher voice than normal. “If you’d just left Prince Henri to me...done what Grandfather told you to do...”

“Blaise has more than given me that lecture already, thank you,” Carewyn said coldly.

Iris’s expression turned very offended. 

“So much for you not talking out of turn!” she said scathingly. “I would’ve thought you’d have learned your lesson, after what Grandfather did to you...”

Her eyes flickered over to Carewyn’s back again. Carewyn could see the discomfort and macabre fascination swimming in her eyes -- as if part of her wanted to see how bad the scars were, and yet the thought made her feel nauseous. 

Perhaps it was the compassion Carewyn felt, seeing her cousin struggle with feeling any kind of pity for her circumstances after how long they’d always hated each other...but she couldn’t help but address her a bit more gently than usual. 

“Just because Grandfather says something doesn’t mean it’s right.”

Iris scowled. “Just like you, to be ungrateful, after everything our family’s done for you...”

She turned her back on Carewyn as if to leave.

“I’m not just talking about myself,” Carewyn murmured. “I’m talking about you.”

Iris stiffened, stopping in the doorframe. 

“I heard Grandfather yell at you, when you first came home,” said Carewyn. 

“So what, you want to rub it in my face?” Iris huffed, sounding rather like a snake bearing its fangs after being stepped on. “Boast about how you always twist everybody around your little finger, without even trying?”

Carewyn couldn’t help but cock her eyebrows. “Boast? Iris, the only thing that’s twisted around here are the ropes that have been tied around my wrists -- and they hurt quite a bit.”

“You know what I mean!” said Iris impatiently. She crossed her arms, her shoulders sulking. “Stop being so...so bloody witty, will you!? You’ve always been so witty -- able to talk about absolutely nothing with complete strangers...even people you don’t want to impress! And then, all of a sudden, all those people can do is talk about you. Like Prince Henri...every time we talked, the conversation would always end up coming back to you and the dresses and shoes he wanted to make for you!”

Carewyn’s face became a bit more solemn. 

“The Prince and I are friends,” she admitted. “It was never anything more than that.”

Iris sniffed. “And I suppose it was ‘never anything more than that’ with Duke Lestrange either?”

“I didn’t even know Duke Lestrange,” Carewyn said exasperatedly. “And I had no interest in him romantically either. I think I made that quite clear both before and after you ripped my dress so badly that it exposed my undergarments.”

“And yet even then, you still charmed him!” said Iris, whirling around to glare at Carewyn. “You didn’t want anything from him, so why did you talk to him? Why did you smile and act all nice with him?”

“Because it was the polite thing to do!” said Carewyn, flabbergasted. “Because he was a guest! And one doesn’t have to get something in return to have a reason to show someone respect! It’s not something to be treated as a transaction!”

Iris’s face appeared more surly than ever as she looked away, adjusting the skirt of her gown. 

Carewyn looked down at her bindings and then back up at Iris’s back. She exhaled slowly through her nose, as an idea started to prickle at the sides of her brain. 

“...Iris...I’m sorry if I’ve wronged you,” she said softly. “I never had any intention to sabotage you...I know how much a proper marriage would endear you to our family.”

She took a deep breath. 

“If you want me out of the way...then I’ll go.”

Iris looked at Carewyn, startled. Carewyn stared her intently in the face.

“Just undo my bindings,” she said, “and leave the door unlocked...and when you and the others return from the ball, I’ll be gone. You’ll never have to live with me again.”

Iris stared disbelievingly. Carewyn’s eyes narrowed ever-so-slightly, betraying some desperation. 

“Grandfather won’t have to know it was you,” she said. “No one would know except for me and you, and I won’t be here to tell anyone. Please...just let me escape.”

Let me get out to warn Orion. Let me save Orion. 

Iris stared at Carewyn for another long moment. Then, very slowly, her eyes narrowed. 

“You...you really want this,” she said lowly. “Don’t you?”

Carewyn gave her a very serious look. Iris’s eyes narrowed that bit more, darting from her face to down at her bindings and back. 

“...Well, then...”

She bent down, took hold of Carewyn’s bindings...and tightened them sharply.

“Ack -- !” 

Carewyn couldn’t quite choke back a yelp of pain. Iris shot back up to her feet, her eyes burning with resentment. 

“You probably want to live your own life just as much as the rest of us do,” she said. “Only you keep stopping me from starting my own life, by charming every man I could persuade to marry me. So I guess it’s only fair I make sure you can’t escape either.”

She strode for the door, snatching it up and glaring at Carewyn one more time. 

“At least tonight I won’t have to worry about you catching anyone else’s eye. You’ll be locked up here, far away from the ball, and unable to charm anyone.”

And with this, she slammed the door behind her and locked it with a loud CLACK. 

And so all Carewyn could do was sit helplessly on the floor, bound tightly to the bed, as the sound of her family’s carriages clattered off of the estate and toward the palace of Florence. Carewyn couldn’t even look out the window to watch them go. 

She tried several more times over the next hour to try to break free of her restraints, but as the sun grew lower and lower in the sky outside the window, she once again found herself falling still. All she could do was hope and pray and think of Orion...pleading with every entity of fate and justice that he was still alive. Soon enough she found herself falling off into a restless sleep in her uncomfortable position on the floor. 

This is why, when she heard a bizarre CRASH from downstairs, Carewyn was slow to react, blinking the sleep out of her eyes. It took her a moment to even gather her thoughts enough to try to escape her bonds again, so as to try to figure out what was going on. Once she did, however, she caught the sound of a voice calling out. 

“Miss Cromwell! Miss Cromwell, are you there?”

Carewyn’s heart leapt in a combination of disbelief and delight.

“Baroness!” she cried.

She tried to get up and run for the door, only for the rope around her wrists to hold her back. 

“Ack -- Baroness, I’m here!”

There was a sound like two sets of footsteps quickly climbing the stairs. Then, after a moment, she heard Talbott’s voice. 

“Carewyn, stand back! We’re going to get you out of there -- let me just adjust this -- ”

Carewyn was glad she was tied up away from the door when a few minutes later, it was thrown off its hinges with another CRASH. 

Talbott and Baroness McGonagall came running through the dust into the room. At the sight of Carewyn on the floor, Talbott immediately ran over to try to undo her bindings. 

“They’re -- they’re too tight!” he hissed in aggravation. 

“Leave it to me,” said McGonagall sharply. “Focus on the spell keeping that door off its hinges: once your concentration breaks, it’ll return to the way it was.”

She materialized a knife from the pocket in her gown and, with a strong SNAP, cut the thick cord attaching her to the bed, which helped her pull the rest of the bindings off of Carewyn’s wrists. 

Once her hands were free, Carewyn threw her arms around both her and Talbott’s shoulders, hugging them both in gratitude and relief. Within a second, though, she’d pulled away to look at them both urgently. 

“Baroness, we need to move fast...my grandfather -- ”

“Yes, Talbott told me,” said the Baroness curtly. “Quickly now -- ”

She swept back down the stairs, Talbott and Carewyn at her heels. Once they crossed the threshold, the door magically floated back up behind them, slamming back into place with just as much force as it had been blasted off. 

“The palace of Florence is at least three hours from here,” explained Talbott as they ran down the stairs. “I knew I couldn’t stay transformed that long, and I’ve never flown so far before -- didn’t reckon it’d be smart to try to fly somewhere I’ve never been and risk falling right out of the sky on the way, so I decided to go get the Baroness instead. Fortunately, on our way back here on foot, we collided with Badeea, and she was able to ride on ahead to the palace and tell the Weasleys the change in plans -- ”

Carewyn’s eyebrows furrowed. “‘Change in plans?’”

Talbott smirked broadly, showing teeth. “Yeah -- the plan to bust you out of here.”

Carewyn gave a start. 

“It was KC and Bill Weasley’s idea,” Talbott explained. “After I delivered Cosimo’s message to you and took a break to recuperate from flying, I turned back into an eagle and headed to the palace. Figured Prince Henri would want to know the state you were in and might be able to do something to help. Unfortunately he couldn’t -- Charles Cromwell’s wealthy enough that he’s ingratiated himself to the King and Queen, and as your legal guardian, there isn’t much anyone else could do, unless you decided to run away. But Bill and Charlie didn’t like the thought of you being stuck there. Bill had already told Charlie to hold onto this coach he was fixing for the royal family, so they could use it to smuggle you out of the Cromwell estate and take you to their family’s house. And KC realized that the perfect night to do that would be the night of the ball, when the entire Cromwell family is supposed to be in Florence and you’d therefore be left completely unguarded. So Bill, Charlie, Badeea, and I decided to stay behind while everyone else at the palace headed out to Orion’s ball, so that we could come get you.”

Carewyn could hardly believe what she was hearing. Her eyes had gone very wide. 

“You...you mean you all put this together, just to help me?” she said shakily. 

Talbott’s face was very serious as they reached the ground floor. “Of course we did. You’re a good person, Carewyn -- you don’t deserve being trapped here.”

Carewyn’s eyes welled up with emotion despite her best efforts. 

“Talbott...” Her lips spread into a weak, overwhelmed smile. “I...thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Talbott said brusquely. “We’ve still got to get you to Florence.”

In the distance, Carewyn could hear the sound of a coach pulling up in front of the estate. McGonagall with her long legs reached the door of the manor first, and she unlocked and opened it, sweeping out into the courtyard. When Carewyn and Talbott darted after her, Carewyn gaped.

The broken royal coach she’d gone to help Charlie bring to the Burrow was as good as new, as clean, shining, and upright as it likely was when the King and Queen first purchased it. And sitting up in the driver’s seat was -- 

“CAREY!”

Charlie, dressed in a white-feathered black hat and a dark red velvet doublet trimmed with silver scales, dropped the reins connected to his and Bill’s chestnut horses and Badeea’s gray horse and leapt right off the coach and over to Carewyn. Jumping off the boot of the coach was Bill, dressed in a brown suede coat decorated with silver trim, and climbing out of the coach itself was Badeea, dressed in silver-dusted white satin. 

“Charlie!” cried Carewyn. “Bill! Badeea!” 

The Weasley brothers launched themselves at her, throwing their arms around her and squeezing tight. Unfortunately the wounds on Carewyn’s back made her crumple slightly, flinching away from their touch with a barely suppressed hiss of pain. 

“Carey?” said Bill, instantly concerned. 

“I’m all right!” Carewyn said very quickly. “I’m all right...”

Her blue eyes flooding with emotion, she threw her arms around both Charlie and Bill in return, squeezing them back. 

“It’s so good to see you,” she whispered. 

Bill’s eyes were very emotional too as he cradled the back of her head with his hand. The joy Carewyn felt just at the memory of her friends days earlier was back in full. She thought it’d be a long time before she’d ever see them again...and yet they were here. They’d come for her when she’d needed them most...

Badeea came up beside Carewyn, her dark eyes very concerned as she trailed a hand lightly along the stitching at the back of Carewyn’s dress. 

“Carewyn...your dress...”

The ginger-haired woman gave her a reassuring look. “It’s all right.”

She looked around at all of them, taking in their fine clothes. 

“Then...we’re all going to the ball ourselves?” she asked uneasily. “That’s the new plan?”

“Yep!” said Charlie brightly. “Andre had been working on some costumes for us, so we could all attend his mother’s New Years masquerade, before the whole thing at the border went down. He wasn’t able to finish any of them...but I borrowed a spare doublet from Andre’s closet for Talbott and Badeea was able to finish decorating the costumes that were closest to being done...”

He pointed out the “scales” on his doublet, while Bill held up the sleeve of his brown suede coat to show off the sparkly silver painted trim. 

Carewyn’s eyes widened. “That paint...is that -- ?”

“The paint Orion gave me? Yes,” Badeea said, beaming as she showed off the shiny “fur” detailing she’d applied to her own hijab. “It’s the first time I’ve ever purposefully applied my paints to fabric, but for a first try, I’d say it turned out pretty well. Your shoes and dress look even better, though...look!”

She moved over to the open door of the coach and pulled out a gray and orange gown and a pair of shoes. 

The chest was decked out with reddish-orange feathers arranged in a rounded heart shape, while the rest (made out of gray satin) was painted to look like it was covered in feathers. And the shoes...they were truly the most beautiful dancing slippers Carewyn had ever seen. The heels were made of colorful pumpkin diamond, while the shoes themselves, made of cloth, were nonetheless painted in a way that it looked like yellow, red, and orange stained glass. There was even a sheen on each panel, no doubt made with the slightest brush of the silver paint Orion had given Badeea, that made it look like it was sparkling. 

Carewyn brought up a hand to tentatively hold the skirt of the gown, staring in disbelief and awe. Badeea’s dark eyes were sparkling with pride.

“It’s a robin, see?” she said. “Andre thought it’d be the perfect way to apply your supposed ‘favorite color’ -- ash gray -- to your dress. He originally wanted to trim your shoes with more diamond, but after seeing everything on the battlefield, he was reluctant to spend any more money on materials. So I tried to make it look like it was made of diamond anyway...it didn’t quite work out the way I hoped, but I don’t think it turned out too bad.”

“Badeea...it’s beautiful,” breathed Carewyn, her eyes trailing over the “stained glass” slippers. 

Despite this, though, she whirled on the others with a severe expression. 

“...But I can’t go to the ball! My entire family will be there, as will Lord Malfoy and Patricia Rakepick -- none of them would let me get within twenty feet of Orion -- ”

“They will if they do not recognize you,” said McGonagall crisply. She turned to Badeea and extended a hand. “The mask, please.”

Badeea handed McGonagall a hand-painted robin mask to her. McGonagall then set about tracing a yellowish-gold spell in mid-air, which she then lightly tapped with the mask. In an instant, it sparkled with traces of golden light. 

McGonagall then placed the mask in both of Carewyn’s hands. 

“This mask has an illusionary enchantment placed on it,” she said solemnly, “one that will activate solely for you, while you are within the gates of Florence’s palace, for today only. While you wear it, you will appear, to the person seeing you, as a beautiful stranger. You will not look the same to any two people...meaning that, were anyone to try to identify you later, no one would be able to agree how tall you are, how slender, how old...not even any physical features like hair or eye color.”

McGonagall’s expression then turned very grave. 

“Just be sure that you leave the palace before the final stroke of midnight. Once the next day begins, my spell will break no matter what I might do...and if you’re still in the palace when that happens, then I daresay there’ll be plenty of people there who will recognize you.”

Carewyn nodded. Considering how willing Charles was to commit treason and murder, the last thing she wanted was for her grandfather to know she’d made it to the ball and who had helped her get there. 

“I understand,” she said.

“I will not fit in the coach with you,” said McGongall as she glanced at Talbott, “but I can maintain the illusion for the rest of the night, even from a distance. And I know my apprentice will do everything he can to make sure you get back to Royaume safely, once Orion is out of danger.”

Carewyn’s eyes became a little smaller and softer. “Thank you, Baroness...for everything.”

McGonagall’s usually stern face softened noticeably as she brought a hand to gently rest on Carewyn’s cheek.

“Godspeed, Miss Cromwell.”

And so Carewyn, Badeea, and Talbott all climbed into the coach. Once they were all inside, Bill -- playing the role of footman, snapped the door shut behind them and leapt up onto the boot of the coach. 

“Let’s go, Charlie!”

With a nod, Charlie bounded back up into the driver’s seat, snatched up the reins, and flicked them sharply with a “YAH!” The three horses charged off, pulling the coach right off the Cromwell estate and toward the reddening horizon. 

On their way to Florence’s palace, the group got themselves dressed. Carewyn politely averted her eyes as Talbott changed into the handsome purple velvet doublet Andre had been wearing when Carewyn first arrived at the palace, and then Talbott climbed out onto the boot of the carriage with Bill while Badeea helped Carewyn get dressed. 

When Carewyn took off her dress, Badeea saw her injured back for the first time. The artist’s gasp of dismay was silent, but she nonetheless trailed a cool, gentle hand along Carewyn’s bare back.

“I don’t think your gown will hide these,” Badeea murmured. “It’s cut low, to show off your back.”

Carewyn set her jaw grimly. “Then we’ll just have to leave them. Once I reach the palace and the Baroness’s illusion is activated, no one should be able to see them anyway.”

Badeea nodded grimly, her dark eyes very sad as she helped Carewyn pull the gown over her head.

“We all worried Lord Cromwell wasn’t treating you well,” she confessed, “but...I don’t think any of us thought he’d do something like this to you.”

Her usually serene expression betrayed a flicker of resentment. 

“He’s a horrible man,” she said very softly. “Just...horrible.”

Carewyn offered Badeea a weak smile, bringing a hand onto her shoulder and squeezing to show some reassurance. 

Charlie had never been to the palace of Florence before, but he was fortunately able to follow the many, many sets of long tracks left by other carriages and carts from Royaume that had already left for Florence’s capitol. He set the horses off at the fastest gallop he could manage without endangering his passengers, and within three hours, Charlie caught sight of some more carriages in the distance. He rushed to catch up with them, pulling up just behind them as they headed through the open gates of the Florentine palace.

The palace of Florence couldn’t have been more different than Royaume’s. While Royaume’s castle was white stone with extensive hedge gardens and many rounded towers trimmed with pointed dark rooves, Florence’s was made of tan-colored clay bricks stacked a mile high with geometric railings along the edges of towers and beautifully carved marble columns and arches framing the interior courtyard. It was also lit up with dozens of torches, making it blaze with golden light in the night. The warmer color palette, in contrast to Royaume’s palace’s pure white marble and clean lines, made Florence’s palace look significantly older, even though it was just as well-maintained. Carewyn couldn’t help but wonder what sorts of interesting histories she might read, if she could take the time to look over the yards of text etched into each column and wall. 

“I think I see Andre’s coach!” said Charlie.

He pointed out a coach parked almost directly in front of the grand staircase. Its coachman was tending to their horses.

“He must not have arrived too long ago,” said Bill. He looked at the others through the window of the coach. “Do you have the masks ready, Badeea?”

Badeea lightly waved the last mask she’d been painting back and forth to help it dry. “Just about...”

Carewyn could also see the white coaches belonging to the Cromwell family parked on the far right end. She could even see her horse among the white steeds pulling them -- it kept pulling at its reins tensely, as if not liking being lashed together with its fellows to the coach. 

Charlie pulled up in front of the castle, as far back and as far left as he could, so that they could stay close to the gate in case they needed a quick exit. As soon as they came to a stop, Bill pulled open the door of the coach. 

“Are you ready, Carey? Your hair and dress okay? Got your mask?”

“Yes,” said Carewyn. 

“Go on, then -- we’ll be right behind you.”

Carewyn nodded determinedly and quickly climbed out of the coach, holding her skirts up so as to keep them clear of her “stained glass” slippers. 

Charlie couldn’t help but gape. “Whoa, Carey...the Baroness wasn’t kidding! You don’t look like yourself at all!”

Carewyn blinked. “Really?”

“Yeah! You’ve got, like, blond hair and green eyes -- like some emerald dragon!”

“You look like a brunette to me,” said Bill sheepishly. 

“We can gush about the Baroness’s talent for illusions later,” Talbott cut them off brusquely. “Carewyn -- go find the King.”

Carewyn nodded. Turning her gaze toward the palace, she ran straight for the stairs, charging right past the guests that walked more leisurely up the stairs and ignoring how their heads turned in her direction. 

Orion...please don’t let me be too late...!

[superleeleehipster]

Caryl Spoilers/Positivity

Well, I woke up to a storm of craziness. No wonder I had a bad sleep last night, my mind knew what I’d be waking up to the next morning. 

This is kind of my take on things, and I will put a positive light on them, because I’m a chronic optimist despite this damn show. Warning for spoilers below.

I was hoping that they would stick to the idea that Daryl’s never had a serious relationship before due to his past. I mean, who wouldn’t have wanted to see a Caryl love scene where Daryl is shy and admits he’s never been with anyone, so Carol sweetly helps him navigate through wonders of female satisfaction. 

Gotta admit, this sucks, but this was something I was kind of expecting ever since we heard about this Leah character. I didn’t want it to be true (obviously), but I had a feeling...

The grief that settled in the pit of my stomach when I found out was the same grief I felt upon hearing Carol marrying Ezekiel. But, we've survived that and it wound up working out better than expected in the end. After all, Kang did say that Carol and Ezekiel is just a chapter in a bigger story that surrounds Daryl and Carol. And God help me, I still have faith that this will turn out for the better for us.

- If we go by the brief synopsis, it says that we see the “toxic situations that led him to be dog’s owner”, which is red flag #1 for me in this relationship he has with Leah. Why would they describe the situation with Leah toxic? We know she gives him an ultimatum, stating that he needs to decide which side he’s on (which is a shitty thing to do, and also an abuse tactic). Why would she tell him that that there weren't issues already between them?? Knowing that Rick is dead, and Carol is lost to him, he probably decided to go with her (there was no one in his life at that point) And then she leaves before he could get back in time. So im wondering if this relationship is really real for Leah or if she may be using him for some reason...

But I also knew that there was a possibility that they would let him have a relationship before he and Carol became an official thing. Some people would argue that “it’s only fair”, because Carol had a small fling with Tobin that she himself admitted could’ve been more if she had stayed in Alexandria, and of course her relationship with Ezekiel that last six years. So it’s only fair that Daryl would find someone else too during that time frame. But there are other folks who say that it’s out of character for him to have a relationship with someone else so quickly, and I do agree with that. Kang has said that Daryl wouldn’t start a relationship with someone he barely knows, so this whole situation seems extremely left field to everyone. In fact (and I know this has been said already), I think the general audience will even be thrown off because it's so out of the blue. Hell it would've made more sense for him to sleep with Connie than a random person.

But... here’s the thing. Maybe it’s supposed to be out of character for him. Here’s what I mean by it:

- The second thing that caught my eye is that the spoilers state that in a flashback, Carol tells Daryl that she’s not going to visit him anymore, and that it happens BEFORE he meets Leah (the latter isn’t confirmed yet). If that is truly the case, then him going for a relationship with Leah actually is starting to make more sense. Not only had Carol decided to live with Ezekiel, but she willingly said to Daryl that she’s not going to visit him anymore ; therefore, it sounded like she would be truly lost to him in Daryl’s eyes.

Also, we don’t even know the specifics of what Daryl and Leah bond over. Maybe Daryl admits to Leah that he’s lost everyone he loves, one way or another, and he’s all alone, and Leah being there to comfort him kind of drives him to “make a life for himself”, b/c him and Carol don't have a chance (at least at the time).

-Now this whole fight scene is... I'll admit, I'm nervous to see it. But I don't want to judge it before we get the full details on how the fight started, what they're fighting about, etc. My guess (and also my hope b/x this is the only way it would make some sense to me) is that when the fight happens, Daryl sort of goes off on everything he's held back when it came to Carol. He very well might point out that she's left him multiple times throughout the years and then hit the nail on the head when she left to live at the Kingdom and told Daryl she wasn't coming back. I'm not blaming Carol, but she has left him a lot, so I wouldn't be surprised if that comes up during the fight. Also, if Daryl has kept his frustrations dormant this entire time, what would happen when they're finally released into the wild? What happens when we keep things to ourselves and then something breaks the dam and we go off on the person who's done us wrong in our eyes? We say things to hurt them, we say things we don't necessarily mean, but you want that person to feel as much pain as you do at the moment. And maybe that's what happened with the fight. Daryl got too into it and he blamed Carol for Connie's death.

Listen, I don't like the new development as much as anyone else does. It's really out of character for Daryl, but I do believe we need to wait and see what the episode is like before jumping to conclusions. Like when we found out Carol had sex with Ezekiel, and the episode turned out way better for us than we thought. It could be a case like that. My hope is it'll be like this: Carol tells Daryl that she can't come see him anymore and he looks all sad and dejected and then he comes across Leah. Daryl blatantly says that he loved someone but she's in love with someone else, and Leah pushes him to be in a relationship by tugging at his heartstrings, but he had this dejected look after they have sex, like what they just didn't wasn't right... Then Leah tells him to pick either her or his past because she can tell he's holding onto it, but then leaves before he could come back. Then caryl get into a fight about their feelings and Daryl points out that everyone always leaves him in the end, Carol including and... they have a bad fight but also get a ton of shit out in the open. That's my hopeful take on it.

For those who are done, I get it. I mean, I GET IT. We've gone through so much and it seems like they're just toying with us at this point. But I do believe caryl is endgame. It might just take time to get there.

Side note: don't let this ruin your love for fanfiction. There's a reason why we have it. Keep reading and writing those lovely caryl stories loves 💘.

[hopevalley]

Season 8, Episode 1: Open Season

Work was busier than expected on Monday, but the deep dive into the first episode of S8 begins now!

Scene 1: Narration, Elizabeth and Nathan, Lucas

The awkwardness between Elizabeth and Nathan was...palpable at first lol.The best part about the non-narrated part of the scene is twofold: Nathan interacting with Jack is a well-needed and very nice touch, and of course it’s always nice to see that Nathan is patient concerning Elizabeth’s situation and reassures her that she can let him know when she’s ready to go to dinner with him.

My problem with the whole thing is that...if she hasn’t spoken up about wanting that dinner date yet, and she’s not saying yes she’d like to get dinner with you now, it’s like...any sane person would assume at this point in the story that Elizabeth isn’t interested in Nathan. Worse, Nathan isn’t the kind of man who wouldn’t take a hint. I’m pretty sure this is why the opening scene felt just a little bit off. I think they ought to have let Elizabeth be a little more enthusiastic about the idea while still failing to commit to it. 

To be fair to the writers, I can’t imagine it was easy for them to figure out how to open this season after such a long time gap. They let a whole winter elapse between last season and this one. How do you explain literally no major development with the love triangle in that amount of time? Especially after the way the last season ended?

Random consideration: the camera focuses on Elizabeth’s face a lot and makes her wedding ring clearly visible.

Boom, the flashback with Lucas. I think having him leave out of jealousy was a better idea than having his mother fall ill (we’ve certainly seen that enough at this point), and maybe we should also consider the fact that while Lucas was gone, Nathan didn’t really jump on the opportunity to woo Elizabeth himself.

I wonder if we’ll get an explanation for that or not. What makes Lucas so sure that after 4+ months, Elizabeth hasn’t started courting Nathan? Maybe he kept in touch with someone in town? Or he just knows Elizabeth well enough to know she wouldn’t feel quite ready to commit in that time frame anyway?

I did really like Lucas’s opening scene with Elizabeth. Honestly, he was quite likable, here: admitting he was wrong, admitting his shortcomings, apologizing. All good things. “I’m ashamed I let my jealousy get the best of me... The worst of me.” That’s such a good line.

It didn’t feel equal in enthusiasm to the Nathan scene, but I’ll have more thoughts on that later. I do believe it was on purpose.

--

Scene 2: Clara and Jesse’s Fight, The Café

I like the concept of some marital discord for Clara and Jesse. Marriage is easier said than done and like any serious relationship, it’s a lot of consistent maintenance. It starts out pretty well, with Jesse sleeping in the other bedroom. At this point I fully expected to find out Clara kicks in her sleep or she snores a lot or something that’s funny to hear about but really difficult to actually deal with in real life. Color me disappointed later, but I’ll get to it.

--

Scene 3: The Mercantile, Ned, Florence, Carson

This just set up things with Faith’s situation so there’s not much to say, but as always I do love Florence. I hope she gets some good scenes this season. And I love Ned so I hope the same for him.

Henry coming in to mail a letter was interesting, though. I’m not sure it’ll mean anything in particular later, but...it’s possible.  Then again, maybe he’s just here to set our expectations regarding Faith’s return (of course it’s a long trip from Chicago) or Carson’s worry (a bit unreasonable unless he expected to hear from her at a specific stop).

--

Scene 4: Nathan, Dylan

Dylan is such an incredible scumbag. The spurs were a nice touch. He says things almost fondly (“She’s growing up... My little girl.”) and then wants nothing to actually do with Allie. 

The guy’s actually a pretty good actor. The way he segues into being glad for Allie’s sake that Nathan wasn’t the one killed. If the next words out of his mouth weren’t a demand for go-away money you’d almost feel those words were genuine!

--

Scene 5: Lee and Rosemary’s Return + Faith’s Return + Dylan Part Two

Lots of energy in this scene, both good and bad. I always appreciate what Lee and Rosemary bring to the show. I genuinely just don’t care that much about Faith. I’m ready to ship her with Cowboy Brett Brewer. He gets a name, which makes me wonder if he’s gonna show up again. :3

Lol at Carson’s jelly face:

I MEAN...

Not a fan of Faith’s outfit...but to be fair we’ve never really seen Faith outside of uniform. That just doesn’t strike me as something she would wear to travel in...?

Dylan approaching Jack and Jack speaking to him was so hilarious to me. “A puppy!” It’s extra funny after he looked afraid of Rosemary. Nathan intervening was undoubtedly for the best, but I can’t imagine why he would have approached Elizabeth or Jack. He doesn’t know who they are, or their connection to Nathan. Maybe too convenient. Might have been better to have him approach someone else entirely--like Opal.

--

Scene 6: Nathan and Allie

It’s great Nathan’s officializing the adoption but he had literal years to do this and only chooses now, when there’s a threat? Legally Dylan doesn’t have a leg to stand on even in that day and age (he did the abandoning in the first place + Nathan is a lawman)... It kind of ruined the cute moment for me, and I think it will come back in a bad way later.

I don’t mind Nathan’s inability to confide in Elizabeth in this situation. At this point, she doesn’t need to know, and the situation is just weird enough that he probably doesn’t think he needs to dump his own problems on her.

--

Scene 7: Carson and Faith

I’m the jerk who just chanted “BREAK UP BREAK UP BREAK UP” during this scene in my head. I just...don’t care about Faith and Carson.

--

Scene 8: Bill and The Gals

I hate that they keep retconning Bill’s ability to cook well with every passing season. In season 2 and 3 he was more than satisfactory. In S4 he made dinner for Dottie and it was really nice. Now he’s godawful and doesn’t taste his own shit before letting other people try it? Come on.

This is the kind of stuff the writing team needs to cut out of the story. It’s not funny. 

Worse, outspoken Fiona lying to Bill? I just don’t see it. At least Molly told him the truth...but I still am just SO tired of seeing this shit. It makes me think new writers only watched the last couple of seasons instead of all of them.

Also, if Bill is literally running the cafe most of the time, if he was bad at cooking, then...the place would have shut down ages ago. What they should lean into if they wanna do a cooking joke is that Bill isn’t good at creating recipes from scratch. Maybe he doesn’t have a strong sense of taste (my husband has this issue so it’s the first thing that comes to mind) so he’s likely to over-do things like spice or sugar or salt on accident. There’s also a lot of room for jokes about his “taste” in things that can come of it (women, clothes, et cetera).

--

Scene 9: Lee’s Pants

Good scene, 10/10, wouldn’t change a thing. I hope this pants thing becomes a running gag. This is the good kind of humor I want in my life. And I like that Jesse wants to emulate Lee. It’s wholesome. 

--

Scene 10: Rosemary and Clara

The ribbon as a tissue was funny, but it was just SLIGHTLY too over the top for me.

--

Scene 11: Faith and Carson Again...............

“Were you jealous of that cowboy?” I think he should be. The cowboy is better. I don’t give a damn about these characters. And I genuinely hate that the strumming is Carson’s Thing Now. At the very least we should get some Carson and Bill doing a duet together which would be cool.

It just felt like it was shilling Paul and had nothing to do with the characters.

--

Scene 12: Mmm Money

This is arguably the most interesting scene in the episode. Lucas nodded at Nathan. Nathan went to Lucas for money. Lucas didn’t need to get the scoop to find out why Nathan needed it to loan it to him. Elizabeth is officially the least interesting part of the love triangle.

They treat her like she’s such a prize to be won, but I’m starting to worry that she’s become the new Lorigail on the show.

Anyway this scene had some gay vibes and I liked them.

--

Scene 13: Rosemary and Elizabeth Catch Up

YES. GOOD SCENE. It starts off fun and it gets serious, and the transition feels really natural. “Did he have reason to be [jealous]?” I’m genuinely glad this is in the episode. It needed to be. I hope Rosemary continues to ask the hard questions.

Elizabeth needs to face either dating one of them, or dating neither of them so that everybody can get on with their lives. If you’re not that enthusiastic about either of them I’d say...maybe don’t date either of them idk.

--

Scene 14: Nathan and Bill Talk

"If he sees you with me, then...” The problem with this scene is uh...twofold, let’s say.

Issue 1: ThEN HE WILL WHAT, NATHAN? WHAT HAS HE EVER DONE BEFORE THAT WAS SO BAD if he’s not a hard criminal? Maybe an example would be useful here...?

Issue 2: The old Bill Avery would have heard “if he SEES YOU with ME” and mentally been like, “all right so it’s only bad if he SEES ME” and spied on Nathan.

Nathan wanting Bill to stay behind in case Dylan doubles back isn’t a terrible idea, but it almost comes across more like...the writers just want Nathan alone.

--

Scene 15: Oil

I like the discussion and that Hickam gets to do something. I feel like Henry is low-key advising against shooting the well, and that Lucas and Hickam will end up doing it and causing an issue. It’s just setting up for the future and it’s nice to see those kinds of scenes in the series again!

--

Scene 16: Jesse and Lee

I’d like this scene more if I felt it gave us ANY insight into the problem Jesse and Clara are having. It mostly comes across like Jesse gets home and does nothing at all until bedtime and Clara is lonely. Could have been a better scene. It’s mostly just repetitive right now.

--

Scene 17: Nathan Cancels the Date

“Tomorrow’s Saturday.” Nathan’s like uhhhhh. This actually works really well to do what it’s supposed to do. By that I mean, he seems “off” so Elizabeth realizes he’s a bit stressed and leaving town = mountie business = dangerous.

I kind of wish Rosemary and Elizabeth would talk more about this, but maybe that’s coming in an episode soon...?

--

Scene 18: The Barbershop

Just a cute nice scene that shows a good friendship between Fiona, Clara, and Faith. I like this stuff. Keep it coming, Hallmark!

--

(Skipping Scene 19 because it’s just Nathan riding around...)

--

Scene 20: Lee and Rosemary Scheme

I really enjoyed this little bit where they decide to buy something for Clara and Jesse and we don’t get to see what it is. Super wholesome and very fun!

--

Scene 21: Nathan gets Ambushed

This scene was absolutely wild. Probably one of the best scenes like this that they’ve ever done. Dylan taking Nathan’s hat, “Take care of my little girl” after he takes the money and Nathan’s gun. It was super good.

Also, not too fake that Nathan was on the ground that long. If you got roped off of your horse you’d have the wind knocked out of you super hard lmao.

--

Scene 22: Bill & The Girls

Clara and Fiona are so cute. Bill playing the “Dad” figure to them both is really nice and it’s good for him. “I’m a lawman. I get to sneak.” What a Bill response. 

--

(Skipping Scene 23 since it’s just Nathan finding his horse.)

--

Scene 24: Lucas visits with Elizabeth

Lucas and Elizabeth are flirting via a nursery rhyme. I...don’t like that LOL. But Lucas’s “Helen Bouchard taught me to read and after that I was on my own.” She really sounds unloving. This was a pretty decent scene, though.

Also, Grand Isle Louisiana had a major hurricane in 1909 and 1915.

They also seem to have been hit by more mild hurricanes in 1916 and 1917, but the 1915 one was a Cat4, so...the most notable.

--

Scene 25: Rosemary and Lee in the Dress Shop

This tries to solve the issue of Clara and Jesse’s marital problems, but it doesn’t actually do that. “Let Jesse read when he gets home.” “I’ll talk to Jesse.” Meh.

--

Scene 26: Barbershop

“Why do this when you’re so good with women’s hair?” I fully expected Fiona to say, “That’s where all the hot gossip is, of course.” I do like  her gumption, though!

--

Scene 27: Nathan Finds Dylan

“I had to let you ambush me, so I had grounds to put you away.” COLD BUT EFFECTIVE. I appreciate this.

Imagine getting to be this smug. I wish it were me.

Anyway, long-term thoughts on this are mostly that...there is just no reasonable way Dylan’s story is over yet. It’s too juicy of a storyline to let go this easily. Allie is going to find out what Nathan did and she’s going to struggle to come to terms with it, especially after her grandfather really did try to turn his life around. Why couldn’t it be the same for her father? Why couldn’t she get lucky like that?

I hope it feels satisfying, whatever they choose to do. Otherwise this was just wrapped up too neatly/too quickly.

--

Scene 28: Nathan Returns

Very good scene. Nathan’s in a good mood and he does my favorite trope of all time when one person in the relationship has a child: “Why don’t we all go?” You already all know each other, so why not? It’s wholesome and good, and it shows he doesn’t care how he gets to spend time with Elizabeth, as long as he does.

Also, it takes a lot of the pressure off of her for the duration of the date and at its conclusion. This was a cute and good scene, one of the better they’ve had, I think.

--

Scene 29: Jesse and Lee Talk

This was a nice attempt at a talk, but it really comes off like Jesse has stopped loving Clara for no reason. That his romantic interest in her is what is causing the failure in their relationship.

The problem is: WE HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IS CAUSING IT. NOBODY EVER SAID. 

I agree that love isn’t “just” a feeling or “just” an emotion. It’s ALSO a choice. Marriage is a commitment you choose to continue every day. That is all good.

“Choose love. Then you feel it.” is probably some of the worst dialogue they’ve put in the show, though. Yuck. It left a bad taste in my mouth. It feels like it’s shaming people who legitimately fall out of love or who are in bad relationships. “If only you chose to work harder.”

I don’t think that was their intention at all, but it really soured the scene. I would have MUCH rather have had Lee get Jesse to talk about what’s wrong and then offer him pointers on how he could do better. Maybe he’s stressed out and losing himself in books, or he wishes Clara would sit and read with him because that’s something he always wanted. Or maybe Clara would be down for reading time if he read to her while she did her sewing.

There’s so much they could have done here to really send this home, but it didn’t work very well. At the very least Lee could have said, instead of ‘choose love’: CHOOSE COMMUNICATION. Make sure she knows you still feel that way about her.

The biggest thing is like, Lee could also be very encouraging in saying like, the honeymoon phase doesn’t last forever but just because things settle down doesn’t mean the love is less.

THERE IS SO MUCH GOOD STUFF THEY COULD HAVE WRITTEN FOR THIS but they chose “Choose love. Then you feel it.” WTF. That’s awful advice.

--

Scene 30: Jesse and Clara

Him bringing her flowers was a nice touch, and her getting him the book was also nice. The tandem bike was SO unexpected to me and I loved it. It’s just goofy enough that it works. The best part is that they know it’s not going to fix anything, but it’s still a fun and nice thing to do, and that’s wonderful for Rosemary and Lee. They both like to make the people they care about happy.

--

Scene 31: Mama Bouchard

MILF ALERT.

Elizabeth is just so shook at all of this she doesn’t say a damn thing for so long it made my palms feel sweaty.

“Someone ought to take an interest in your writing, don’t you think?” I rewatched the episode to understand the tone, and it’s a little hoity-toity/uppity, but she actually doesn’t sound condescending. It’s good for an editor to meet the author, after all, and meet to talk about their writing/book. This has always been custom, even in the early 1900s. Authors didn’t usually get their work published by an editor they’d never met (though of course, you will find some exceptions). 

From the little we saw, Helen seems fine. The preview for the next episode tells us she’s UH, AN EDITOR DOING HER JOB, so I’m not looking forward to the editor being the bad guy, but I guess I’ll have to deal with that when it arrives. (To be clear, Elizabeth has never proved to the audience that she’s a Good Writer, let alone a Great Writer. She’s also not experienced which means her work probably NEEDS SOME WORK.)

Anyway, Elizabeth is immediately rude as HELL. Nobody can make an excuse for this. Helen isn’t THAT big of a deal. There are other publishers. Your father is filthy rich. If she changes her mind about your book you can pub to someone via your father if you have to. Like...Helen wouldn’t have taken you on if she didn’t see any potential in you. 

Even if it was a big deal, Elizabeth has NEVER been a flake. EVER. 

This is a classic case of a writer forcing the character to go out of character in order to bend to what the plot dictates. 

If I were Nathan, I’d drop Elizabeth like a brick.

How to fix this scene? I’ll honestly have to think about that for a while. This was the first hint of truly bad writing this season. The bit with Lee and “choose love” was careless writing, but this scene with Nathan is just Bad.

The thing is, I KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING. I know they put this in there so that it looks like she’ll choose Lucas because she never even goes out with Nathan, and then BOOM. I know it’s meant to be this big thing about how she’s scared to feel anything for Nathan because Lucas is the safer option and also a good man (so why would she fall for the more frightening option?).

But this was not the right way to do this type of scene. I hope to God in the next episode someone says something about it. Allie could tell her it was rude and it hurt Nathan’s feelings/you shouldn’t have said yes if you didn’t want to. It’d be fully in character for her. Rosemary could also say something similar. If they do, I might be able to forgive this...but if it’s not called attention to by the other characters, then it’s a massive failure as a scene to me.

--

Did I miss anything? Do you want my thoughts on something in particular? Shoot me a message HERE and I’ll do my best to answer! 

[thedreadvampy]

Ok so like I don't really want to kick off another round of Mondays argument but

having had a bit of time to step back I feel pretty confident in saying that there's a real struggle in a lot of communities to understand and accept the concept of conflicting access needs

Like it isn't fundamentally an act of bigotry against Person A when Person B says 'this thing that helps you harms others', nor is it implying that A or B is 'less oppressed' or that their oppression doesn't matter. But these kinds of access conflicts need to be talked about in order to be addressed.

Like in a sphere I spend more time taking about, disability and neurodivergence, where this comes up a Lot - say wheelchair users need the entrance to be a ramp, but somebody with balance issues finds walking up a ramp difficult and often fall. Saying 'it's a problem for me that there are only ramps in this building' doesn't mean you think that it's unimportant that wheelchair users can get in, or that your needs matter more.

Or like, here's an example that's come up a lot for me lately - automated subtitles. Some people find automated subtitles on Zoom calls make meetings possible (people with hearing or audio processing issues particularly) but others find them distracting and find it impossible to focus. Those two things are incompatible needs - you can't both have subtitles and not have subtitles in this context - but that doesn't mean one of them is Real and Important and the other is Fake and Irrelevant just because that would make it easier.

One last example of this in material terms - I am autistic and have real problems with audio processing when I'm tired. I went to a workshop in a smallish space, so the workshop was quite near the crèche. Having a crèche is a vital access need for a lot of people; lone parents and working class mothers in general are often very left out of activist and social spaces because of a lack of childcare. But for me, it created an insurmountable problem - the noise from the crèche meant I couldn't take in any information, I was exhausted and stressed and in pain the whole time, you know? It wouldn't be fair to ask the crèche to shut or to silence the children, who need and deserve the right to play, but equally it wouldn't be fair to tell me I'm selfish or lying for having trouble following the session.

Anyway so that's access clash. Different people have different needs that may be fundamentally incompatible, but they're equally valid needs.

But access clash isn't just personal, it's also political, social and linguistic. And this kind of feeds into a recurrent issue in groups of marginalised people where there's a persistent desire to decide in any given argument Whose Marginalisation Matters More and to accuse the other of lying/arguing in bad faith/ignoring erasing The Struggle.

Some recent examples of that phenomenon in the TMA fandom (pokes bear pokes bear) might be:

1. It's aphobic to say that there's any problem at all with framing fat, traumatised MLM as virginal or naive or inexperienced or non-sexual, because he could be ace and that's important to ace people. But fat, traumatised and gay people have a history of being desexualised, given less sexual and romantic agency, and infantilised or objectified as cute and pure in a way that thin, non-survivor or straight people don't. One way to approach this is to say One Of These Issues Is Important And Valid And That Means The Other Is Being Homophobic/Fatphobic/Ableist/Aphobic and Targeting Marginalised People With Invalid Criticism. That's a very easy task to fall into but it's important imo to make space for the access clash.

2. Bisexual people want an event that focuses on bisexuality. Non-bisexual people want an event that focuses on their own sexuality. Everyone's desire in this situation is to see their own experience reflected.

There's this kind of hierarchy of truth idea where anything that conflicts with what you know to be true must necessarily be false, but the fact is that human experience is infinitely complex and variable so actually something that's undeniably true for some people will always run into some friction with what's undeniably true for others.

And there's such a strong impulse towards assuming that the other is lying or arguing in bad faith, because you KNOW your need is real and important and it conflicts with their needs and that MUST mean they're doing it At You, or in the extreme that they're actively lying to hurt and belittle you. And that's a really natural and understandable impulse, especially among marginalised people who ARE often hurt, manipulated and belittled in bad faith. But I really think that as a community we need to actively work to undercut the idea that oppression is a zero sum game; that if you having the space you need treads on my toes, I can say "you're on my foot and it hurts" without Secretly Meaning "you don't deserve space and shouldn't be given it." Like I do authentically need an untrodden-on foot and you do authentically need enough space to stand in and it's not undermining the truth of either of those statements to acknowledge the other.

idk I just think. Understanding that the other person may have an authentic need being intent/overridden (even though the need may not be what they think it is!) is a pretty important part of conflict management. and believing that if I say "ow you trod on my foot" means I'm actively trying to undermine your need for space is a pretty important part of how conflict escalates into oblivion until I'm yelling YOU DON'T DESERVE STANDING SPACE GO GET CRUSHED and you're yelling I'M GOING TO STAMP ON YOUR FOOT UNTIL IT BREAKS

idk if that makes sense but 🤷‍♀️

[flowerfan2]

David x Patrick, 40k so far, A03 (read from the beginning here)

It starts with a reunion... but what happens after that?

Chapter 13

Monday morning after his run David goes into the office, closes the door, and gets to work.  He spends a little bit of time figuring out whether he needs a printer (no), and if there are any office supplies he can order from Amazon and charge to the company (possibly; a larger monitor would be nice, and they aren’t actually that expensive).  The desk and chair are functional enough, although they probably weren’t meant to be used for actual nine to five activity, and David is going to feel it in his back before the day is over.

He reluctantly logs on and starts checking emails.  There’s a bunch from last week that he needs to deal with, and he messages Rory to see if he can respond to some of them.  At ten there’s a meeting with a vendor over Zoom (and yes, he thinks, I am capable of using Zoom, Stevie), and by eleven o’clock, he’s bored.

It’s not that his job is bad, or even difficult.  It’s just boring.  Although he’s still involved with the type of products he enjoyed selling at the Apothecary, most of the joy has gone out of it.  Now bringing in a new product means finding some way to convince the hotel operations staff that they can use it, and there are only so many travel size toiletries that a motel chain can give out without losing money.

When Patrick knocks on his door at noon, he’s more than ready to take a break.  They bring their lunches out onto the lanai, Patrick rocking back and forth on the chair as David eats the delicious salad Patrick has prepared.  

“I should have known you’d appreciate the grapes,” Patrick says, smiling as David takes another forkful.

“And the goat cheese,” David says, his mouth full.  “It’s quite good.  This can’t have come from the Publix.”

“No, I went to the farmer’s market in town,” Patrick says.  “There’s a guy there with some really nice cheeses.  From his own goats.”

David narrows his eyes at Patrick.  “Are you being serious?”

“What, you think there can’t be goats in Florida?”

“It just doesn’t seem very on theme.”

“You’d rather they try to make cheese from alligators, or dolphins?  I don’t think it would work.”

“Shut up.”

“People used to eat the armadillos, but now they give you the plague, so you won’t find that at the farm stand.”

David stares at Patrick.  “Now you’re definitely making things up.”

“Nope.”  Patrick grins at him, then takes a long sip of his iced tea.  “So, how’s work?”

David opens his mouth to complain about how bored he is, and then shuts it again.  He has no right to complain, he’s still involved with RA, he’s still employed.  Patrick is neither.

Patrick sees exactly what’s going on.  “It’s okay.  I can take it.  What craziness are the vendors trying to pull today?”

David hesitates, but Patrick’s face is open and he’s genuinely interested.  He launches into his tale of woe, the repetitiveness and the limits and the damn corporate frames, and all of a sudden he’s out of breath, sitting back in his chair with his jaw on the floor.

“Sorry.  I guess it’s been grating on me for a while.  I didn’t mean to spew that all over you.”

“No, it’s okay.  I get it.”  Patrick shrugs.  “I wasn’t able to find anything I liked doing as much as our store.  It’s different, I guess, when you’re in charge.”

David smirks.  “When <i>who</i> was in charge?”

“Fine – when <I>we</i> were in charge.”  Patrick’s face changes, and David can feel it in his chest.  “It was ours.  Together.”

That’s the rub, isn’t it?  Rose Apothecary wasn’t just the ideal place to express his creative side through high-end bath products, it was a labor of love with the love of his life.  Together.

*****

“Ugh, David, why won’t you help?”

“Alexis, for the hundredth time, I can’t magically lower your rent.  I’m already working for you for a fraction of what my time is worth.  If you’re not making enough money and you don’t want to live somewhere our parents already own, get a real job.”

“Every time I run the numbers it looks like it should work out.  I don’t know why my projects never make what they say they will.”

“What who says they will?”

“My spreadsheets!”

Like a genie responding to his name, Patrick sticks his head in the door to the office, an Amazon box in his hand.  His eyes go wide when he sees Alexis on the screen.  “David, um, this came for you, I didn’t know if you’d need it…”

“Oooh, thanks.”  David’s pretty sure the package contains the sketch pads and colored pencils he ordered.  He was planning on expensing them to the account he’s working on with Alexis, but it sounds like now is not the time to discuss it.  

He stands up and goes to Patrick, taking the box from him and putting it on the couch, then reaching out to link his arm through Patrick’s.  Patrick is possibly even paler than usual, and seems to have lost the power of speech as he stares at Alexis.  She’s staring back at him, her hands frozen in whatever little flingy motions she was making when she caught sight of Patrick.

“So, this is incredibly awkward,” David says, looking between the two of them.  “What do we say we just move past it?”

Alexis recovers first, her need to disagree with David overpowering her distress.  “David,” she starts, tossing her hair and shaking her head in an effort to get herself on track.  “It’s <i>not</i> awkward.  We’re fine. Peachy.  Right, Patrick?”

David moves them a little closer to his laptop, and guides Patrick to sit down in the chair.  “Yeah, um.  Hi, Alexis.”

Alexis twists a lock of hair around a finger and leans in close, peering at Patrick through the screen.  “I’m sorry you got hurt,” she says, gently sincere.

Patrick’s hand flies up to his head, as if he had forgotten all about his wound.  “Is it that noticeable?”

“It’s not, not really.”  David slides his arm around Patrick’s shoulders.  “I’m sure she can’t even see anything,” he says softly into his ear.  “She only knows because I told her about it.”

Patrick looks up at David a little helplessly, and David can’t help leaning in and kissing him, a hand on his cheek, not letting up even as Alexis sighs loudly at them.

“Eat nails, Alexis,” he says, without much venom.

“I’m not mad,” Alexis says.  “I get it.  You’re each others’ locks.”

Patrick blinks at her, confused.  “We can’t both be locks.”

“Whatever, you’re the key that goes in his lock, you know what I mean.”

“That’s quite an assumption,” David says, struggling to keep his face straight.

“Eew, David, shut up.”

“You started it.”

“I don’t care, you still have to help me figure this out!”

Patrick shifts, sitting up a little taller.  With a quick glance at David, he enters the fray.  “Did I hear you say you were having problems with your budgeting spreadsheets?”

*****

David’s in the living room, waiting for Patrick to finish talking with Alexis and possibly reveal that she needs to declare bankruptcy, when the landline in the kitchen rings.  Figuring it might be the hurricane screen guys (who he needs to be nicer to, they could be saving their lives) he scoots off the couch and hustles into the kitchen to pick it up.  When he hears the voice on the other end, he really wishes he had let it go to voice mail.

It’s not the hurricane screen guys.  It’s Marcy Brewer.

“David?  Is that you?”

He imagines hanging up, but that would be unfathomably rude, and this is Patrick’s mom.  Who David hasn’t spoken to in over three years.  Who probably hates him for leaving Patrick.  

“Um, yes, hi, hello.”

“It’s so nice to hear your voice,” Marcy says.  Sounds fake, but whatever.  “How are you?”

David rocks his head back and wonders how on earth he could have gotten into this situation again – he’s not going to be mistaken for Patrick’s business partner this time around, but do Marcy and Clint know they’re back together?  At least Marcy doesn’t seem to be surprised that David is at their house picking up the phone.

“I’m good, thanks.  How about you?” he responds, the standard phrases giving him a moment to catch his breath.

“Oh, we’re fine.  What have you and Patrick been up to?”  Marcy sounds friendly, interested.  Not at all like she wishes David was suffering in the deepest levels of hell.

David forces himself to try to respond to her question, and then nearly laughs, given that they haven’t been “up to” anything nearly as raunchy as Marcy probably expects.  Best to escape as soon as possible.  “Not much – hang on, let me get Patrick.”

“David, wait,” Marcy says, and David does, pressing a hand over his eyes and hoping that this isn’t the scolding he was expecting.  Not that he doesn’t deserve it, but he’s really not looking forward to it.

“What is it?”

“I just wanted to say that Clint and I are so pleased that you two boys are giving it another go.  Patrick’s never been as happy as he was when you were together.”

David’s throat gets tight.  He’d like to think that’s true.  Patrick seemed happy, at least most of the time.  He had said he was.  But then how does he explain the whole Mark thing?

“It probably seems hard, but we have faith in you,” Marcy continues.  “We saw what the two of you had.  It was something special.”

“It was,” David says, Marcy’s kind words demanding an answer.  “You have to know, he made me happy too.  Happier than I ever thought I’d be.   But I blew it, I screwed it up…” David has no idea why these words are falling out of his mouth, it’s some kind of effect that Brewers have on him, it’s horrible.

“Don’t beat yourself up, dear.  Sometimes getting everything you ever wanted can be overwhelming.  Patrick wasn’t used to that either, you realize.  The important thing is that you’re both trying again, and learning from what happened before.  You’ll make it work this time.”

David lets out a long, slow breath.  From your mouth to god’s ears, Marcy.  “Do you really think so?”

“I do.  I have a good feeling about this.  I know my boy.  It can take him a while to figure out what he wants, but when he does, look out.”

David laughs weakly.  “Is that a good thing?”

“Well, do you want to be with him?”

He’s positive that there aren’t words in spoken language to fully express how much he wants to be with Patrick.  “Yes.”

“Then it’s good.  Because Patrick is sure about you.  Let yourself be sure about him.  Not everything has to end in disaster.”

David wants to argue with her, to point out how his life is an example of exactly the opposite.  But then he remembers a conversation with his therapist where she made him reflect on things that have gone well for him, whether or not they were shaky at some point in the past – his relationship with his parents, his bond with Alexis, his work with RA.  His recovery, and the effort he’s put into his mental health.

Maybe his relationship with Patrick can be like that.  Shaky in the past, but solid now.

<i>Patrick is sure about you,</i> Marcy put it.  Maybe David can be sure, too.

“Thank you,” David says to her, his brain spinning.

“Anytime.  Now go get yourself a glass of water, and put Patrick on the phone.”

Patrick chooses this moment to appear, his eyes questioning as David thrusts the phone at him and escapes into the bedroom.  But he’s too jittery to just sit on the bed.  He goes into the guest room, strips, and tugs on his swim trunks and a long-sleeved swim shirt.  He pauses to look in the mirror over the dresser, his eyes looking back at him a bit wild.  The thin shirt is white with a black stripe down each sleeve, and he runs his hands over the smooth material.  Not exactly haute couture but it’ll do in what is feeling very much like a pinch.

David feels Patrick’s gaze on him as he breezes through the living room and out on to the lanai, not letting himself pause before jumping feet-first into the deep end of the pool.  The water is warmer than the air, but still a bit of a shock as it surrounds him.  He pops up to breathe, pushing his hair out of his face, and starts swimming.

David had it in his head that he was going to swim laps until he burned out his nervous energy, but he rapidly discovers that the pool isn’t really big enough for that, and also that as fit as he might be, swimming seems to use different muscles than running and breathlessly swimming miniature laps in a tiny pool isn’t that much fun.

He still swims back and forth a few times, then bobs around in the deep end, letting himself sink down with his hands above his head, his fingertips seemingly staying above the water even when his toes touch the bottom.  It’s not very deep.

The pool isn’t large but it is pretty, dark blue ceramic tiles running along the waterline, and seat-like ledges set in several places in both the shallow and deep ends, presumably so that the old people doing their water aerobics can rest.  Or maybe to sit on while sipping a tropical drink, which is a decidedly appealing thought David files away for later.

He hears steps and spins around to see Patrick, clad in a white t-shirt and Kelly green swim trunks, standing by the edge of the pool.

“Hi there,” Patrick says.  His face is wavering between fondly amused and concerned.

“I like the pool,” David says.  He reaches out to hold on to the concrete by Patrick’s feet.  The angle is kind of funny, looking up at Patrick’s pale legs.

“I can see that.”  Patrick fiddles with the hem of his shirt, glancing around and then back at David.  “You okay?”

“Yeah.”  David tries to make this sound confident.  Why wouldn’t he be?  Getting worked up over talking to Marcy Brewer for the first time in more than three years and then throwing himself into the deep end of the pool is dramatic, fine, but it’s not completely out of character.

“Want some company?”

David can’t help but smile at this.  “Assuming you are referring to yourself, always.”

Patrick goes over to the shallow end, where there are steps leading into the water and a curved handrail.  He pauses, and David sees him hesitate before tugging off his t-shirt.  David swims over, reaching out to Patrick, catching him by the waist and guiding him into his arms.

They stand in the shallow end together, David carefully running his hands along Patrick’s flanks, wary of the still healing bruises.  Patrick relaxes, his shoulders coming down, and he rests his head on David’s shoulder.

“How are you feeling?” David asks softly, a hand splayed over Patrick’s ribs.

“Good.  Really good.”  Patrick looks up at David and presses a finger along his eyebrow, catching a stray drop of water.  “How are you?”

David shudders as he remembers the call with Marcy, which the sight of Patrick’s bare skin had managed to overshadow for just a moment.  He takes a breath and squeezes Patrick’s shoulders, putting on a smile.  “I’m fine.”

“Did my mother say something to upset you?”

He shakes his head.  “No, absolutely not.”

“Then what is it?”

“You told your parents.”

Patrick tilts his head.  “Yes…?”

“About us.  Being <i>back together.</i>”. The phrase still doesn’t sit right with him, it seems too trivial for what is going on between them, but it gets the point across.

“Yeah, I did.  Was that not okay?”

“No, of course it’s okay, it just…”

“It surprised you.”  Patrick gives him a rueful glance.  “Because I didn’t tell them, before, back in Schitt’s Creek.”

“I just wasn’t sure,” David says, “when I picked up the phone and it was your mother, whether she knew?  And then it turned out that she did know, and she said – all these unbearably <i>sweet</i> things.”

“I’m sorry, she doesn’t have much of a filter.”

“No, it’s okay, like I said, she was really nice.”

“It was just a lot?”  Patrick suggests.

“It was a lot.  And from <i>your mother.</i>”

Patrick laughs.  “She’s just excited.”  He backs them a little deeper into the pool, the water now up to their shoulders.

“But why?”  David says, a panicked whine creeping into his voice.  “After what I did, why would she think this is a good idea?”

Patrick puts his hands firmly around David’s waist and finds his eyes.  “After we broke up, I told my parents everything.  <i>Everything.</i>.  It’s kind of embarrassing, looking back on it, but I did.  They were getting ready for a wedding too, remember?  They didn’t understand what went wrong, so I told them about Mark, and how you knew something was off.  They don’t blame you for what happened, any more than they blame me.”

David feels his chest clench.  “Are you ever going to tell me what really was going on?  Why you were flirting with him?”  He doesn’t mean to sound accusatory, but there’s a part of him that needs to know <i>why.</i> Was it something he did?  Is there something he needs to do better?  And if Patrick can’t come up with a reason, how do they make sure it doesn’t happen again?

Patrick steps back from David, one hand trailing down David’s arm to take his hand, putting a little distance between them but still hanging on.  “I think I was just scared of getting something I thought I’d never have.”

“But you were going to marry Rachel.  You had the chance before, you knew you could have it.”

“I could have been married to Rachel, but it wouldn’t have been right.  When I was with her, there was always something missing.  That’s what I thought I’d never have, even when I couldn’t put my finger on it.  Turns out, what was missing was you.”

Patrick pulls David in, brushing a kiss over his lips.  He tastes like tea, and pool water, and the soft warm heat of his skin.  David melts against him, his hips swaying to bring them close.  “I’m so sorry I didn’t know how to handle it,” Patrick says quietly.  “It was scary because you made it right, David.  After all that wasted time, you made it right.”

When they part, David feels giddy.  It’s time to commit, he can feel it.  He can feel how easy it is to love this person, who doesn’t hesitate to share his feelings with David, who isn’t scared off by how strongly David feels, by him spiraling literally into the deep end.  He knows that loving someone is a risk, but Patrick is all in, and David wants to be there too.  

“I’m sure about you, Patrick,” he says.  Patrick’s eyes widen, fixed on his own, and David nods, feeling the truth of it all through his body.  “I’m sure about you, too.”

Patrick surges forward in the water and climbs into his arms, his legs coming up and around David too, almost overbalancing them as David splashes to keep them upright.  As he steadies he wraps his arms around Patrick and kisses him fiercely.  Getting what you’ve always wanted may be overwhelming, but it’s damn good just the same.

[scripttorture]

Hey! My character is made into an experiment by the government due to him having a supernatural ability. The one who handed him over was his partner, who has been a part of that organization all along. He is usually a very confident person, powerful and extroverted. I'm not sure how his mental state is supposed to change? I don't feel like the whole loosing their will to live and becoming incredibly depressed thing would fit him as a person. How could I still show that the torture effects him?

There isn’t a sure fire answer to how any one person will change when they’re tortured. We know the possible symptoms, but most people won’t experience every possible symptom and we don’t have a way to predict who gets what.

 There’s a post that talks about the possible symptoms over here.

 Here’s the thing though: there is a lot of variety in survivors, in the symptoms they get and the way they personally express those symptoms. Some people do become suicidal. Some people do become depressed. And some people do lose their faith in humanity.

 But there is not one universal survivor experience.

 This means that there’s a big range in realistic responses. It also means that as a writer you actually have a lot of options. You should be picking 3-5 symptoms from the list of possible options, but the list has 14 things on it and some of those things can manifest in multiple ways.

 I think that, since we can’t predict symptoms, the best thing you can do as a writer is pick symptoms based on what you feel fits your character and story best.

 Depression and suicidal thoughts don’t do that, so let’s have a look at some of the others.

 Memory problems are incredibly common in real survivors and are almost never portrayed accurately in fiction. You can read about the four basic types here.

 I’d really encourage you to use one of these if you feel it fits your story. They create a lot of interesting narrative challenges for the character and they can make for really good emotional/introspective moments. If for instance you want to explore self-doubt giving the character memories he later finds out are inaccurate could feed into that, leading to him questioning whether he ‘really’ was betrayed.

 General forgetfulness (ie low level difficulty forming memories) can give the character a lasting disadvantage in everyday life, creating a much more traditional injury-recovery arc as he tries to find adaptions to this new normal.

 Intrusive memories, when handled well, can help create a deeper connection between the reader and the character. Because it lets you create situations where the character’s mood flips in an instant, the other characters don’t understand why but the readers do.

 Memory loss can be trickier, mostly because it’s rarely handled well in fiction. It doesn’t effect older memories, such as childhood memories, the person’s name etc. It almost never effects memories of torture itself. But it does effect other aspects of the time they’re held, the period prior to capture and sometimes a few weeks after release. It’s a distressing and disorientating experience and it’s a good pick if there’s any sort of investigation or prosecution.

 Because memory problems (especially memory loss and inaccurate memories) are a big part of why torture trials are really hard to conduct. Having the character find that he doesn’t actually remember the crucial details and watching the process of people trying and failing to help him, that can be a really powerful addition. It’s also a good way to form a rift between him and his friends without depression or having him lose faith in others. It gives a reason for any distance between them, even if it’s an emotional rather then logical reason.

 Read through the masterpost and really think about whether any of these memory problems could fit your story.

 Narratively speaking memory problems don’t link the character’s personality but they do have a strong impact on plots and sub-plots. Memory loss, inaccurate memories and intrusive memories will all effect the character’s emotional arc and sense of self. They can also throw up barriers for the character.

 He might be missing a couple of crucial details about his life before he was snatched. He might have some key details about how and where he was snatched wrong. Think about how those sorts of problems could feed into your plot, because they can add interesting conflicts and challenges.

 Chronic pain is also incredibly common in torture survivors and it often doesn’t have a single cause. Back, muscular and joint pain are particularly common.

 It can lead to a character seeming angry, unapproachable, anti-social or like they have a hair-trigger temper. It can also make it seem as though they have really bad mood swings or a short temper.

 This can lead to interesting character moments as non-survivors struggle to empathise with an ‘asshole’ while the survivor is struggling to express the fact they’re in physical pain. It can also lead in to discussions of disability and the way we treat invisible disabilities in society.

 It can also often be improved by, again, life style adjustments and sometime medication.

 If you wanted to use addiction as a symptom then chronic pain is a common reason behind addiction in survivors. Essentially they start taking more and more powerful pain medications in order to try and feel ‘normal’.

 Chronic pain doesn’t always lead to addiction though. Making good, consistent life style adjustments (using a mobility aid, being able to sit instead of having to stand for long periods and so on) can help keep pain at manageable levels allowing a healthy relationship with pain medication.

 Insomnia is another really common symptom in survivors. This basically means the character is always at least slightly sleep deprived. Which has knock on effects on absolutely every part of a person’s life.

 You can read about the effects of sleep deprivation here.

 I’d suggest thinking carefully about what you need the character to do before using this one. It might sound counter intuitive but a character with disabling chronic pain is probably more capable of the occasional bout of superheroics then a chronically sleep deprived character is.

 Insomnia caused by mental illness is also notoriously difficult to treat. Medication for the mental health problems survivors tend to have makes it harder to sleep and reduces the quality of sleep. Medication to ‘make’ people sleep often decreases the quality of sleep, when it works. It does not work for everyone.

 Essentially don’t treat insomnia as an ‘easy’ option with less impact on the character. It impacts every part of a person’s life, making them more likely to get sick, slower to react, more emotionally volatile and less able to learn/remember everything.

 There are so many things that insomnia effects that- well I find it easiest to think of it as a permanent lowering of ability across all categories. This does not mean that a character automatically becomes incapable of things; it means they are worse at them then they were before.

 If they were already really good at something then other people might not notice the difference. But the character himself will. Which can have a knock on effect on self esteem.

 Any of the things I’ve mentioned can result in social isolation. Because survivors can come across as aggressive, volatile and inconsiderate which can lead to people… avoiding them. Especially when other characters don’t have a good understanding of mental illness or experience dealing with trauma survivors. (Having said that, remember that a pretty significant proportion of the population experiences mental health problems at some point in their life. Think about how likely experience vs ignorance is, rather then assuming one or the other.)

 Isolation exacerbates pre-existing mental health problems.

 And any combination of the above symptoms make up the frame work of any long term personality change. For instance you describe this character as confident and capable: if he gets multiple forms of memory problems does that impact his confidence in certain areas? And if it does how does he cope with that? It could be by expressing his self-doubt but it could also be by taking a more passive role within a group, letting others take the lead instead of stepping in.

 I have an old ask over here that goes through how I pick symptoms for a character and how I vary them depending on the sort of plot I have in mind.

 Wrapping up, I think that we make these symptoms individual when we consider how the symptoms interact and what that means for the character.

 Depression does not have to mean someone looks overtly miserable. It can look like nausea, like struggling to eat and sleep, like being quieter in social situations. It can feel like going through life disconnected from the world, not so much the presence of misery as the absence of joy.

 You’ve listed these characteristics; confidence, power, extroverted and survivors can hold on to all those things. As always the central point is nuance. Because that confidence probably won’t be completely unshaken anymore, that extroversion might not be effortless anymore, his relationship with that power could change.

 The character might have developed a lot of self doubt and, though it’s a struggle, continue to make firm ‘confident’ decisions because he feels that’s important either to himself or to everyone else. It could be a way of him showing that he’s still ‘strong’, that he survived, that he can still support the other characters.

 The character could still be extroverted and depending on the symptoms you pick socialising might be harder, it could take up more energy. He might be hiding the cost from his friends. Or, another common way it plays out, is that he could just come across as… a lot more inappropriate: making dark ‘jokes’ that non-survivors don’t find funny, having obvious mood swings that make others uncomfortable. You get the idea.

 Torture does change people. But those changes are unpredictable and they often don’t look like we expect.

 Our fiction often tries to use depression and suicidal ideation as an excuse to turn survivors into passive objects. They are not.

 One of the things that stood out to me the more I looked at prominent survivors was anger. Because yes, despair is possible, common even. But so is spite and vitriol and rage. So is determination.

 There is more then one way to be powerful. Confidence does not need to be unshakable to be real.

 In essence: you are aiming for an understandable change in what is already there, not an excision of the characteristics you’ve already established.

 As a final note you might want to take a look at the masterposts I have on medical experiments (which you can find here and also here.) It’s worth deciding whether you want to show unethical but genuine experiments, or torture. You can have a look through the tags on unethical experimentation and pseudo-scientific torture for more information.

 I hope that helps. :)

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[mentalisttraceur-long]

So a Karen had a crying breakdown, after (not?) trying to hit black woman.

Ideally I just wouldn't have to experience this discourse, let alone ever need to talk about it, but if this preempts even on unpleasant-for-me take on this recent event, it's worth it. So here's why (almost) everyone is wrong somehow about this latest thing:

Your immediate reaction, in every situation ever, should be to consider the possibility that before the start of the footage, the seemingly obviously in-the-right party was doing something awful which justified what the seemingly obviously in-the-wrong party did. Ideally you readily think of at least one such situation, put yourself in the shoes of the superficially in-the-wrong party, and go on in alert for evidence of that possibility.

Similarly, you do not get to instead jump to the conclusion that the party most superficially in-the-right, was just looking to game how it looked and turn social outrage against the person. Same requirement: you should be able to think of at least one scenario where the party actually is really in-the-right, but for some reason feels legitimately worried and looking for evidence, put yourself in their shoes, and go in alert for evidence of that possibility.

In almost every situation where something bad happens, more than one person can be at fault or bad in some way, and that is almost always the case. Finding one person in the wrong in a situation is for immature children - you should be expecting that each person did something that was bad in itself, or made the situation worse than it should have been.

In this specific situation, the facial expression at the start of the footage is clearly pleading, possibly escalating to panicky, not one of the looks people tend to have on their faces when deliberately assaulting someone.

In this specific situation, the movements at the start of the footage look most like a reflexive panicky movement of instinctively wanting to grab or push down the recording phone. Given the facial features in the split second prior, this is the more likely interpretation. Given everything that happens after, this is the even more likely interpretation. Less likely in the unfavorable direction, the hand was being raised in a wind-up for hitting. Less likely in the favorable direction, the hand was being raised as emphasis/communication. More than one of of these could have been true, either at various moments, or even at the same time if the person was conflicted or still figuring out what they wanted to do.

In this specific situation, the recording person maybe had very good reason to want to record the interaction for their own safety, and the good reason may have included race-related stuff.

In general in the current social reality, a person in a confrontation often enough has good reason to want to record the interaction for their own safety, and a black person confronting a white person often enough has extra good reason on top of the race-independent good reasons.

We do not have good enough resolution on the face in a lot of frames to easily judge facial expressions, and this increases the danger of people reading in whatever they want into her facial expressions. I already see this. People seeing smiles in pixelated frames where I would say a more experienced gaze sees no likely smile, and where even if there is a smile there is not enough detail to distinguish a nervous or supplicating or reassurance-seeking smile from the smiles that would suggest malice or duplicity.

The person being recorded exhibits what is both entirely consistent with a genuine meltdown of an emotionally sensitive person being severely upset and panicking because they don't know how to handle the situation they are in, and which is consistent with a deliberately played-up reaction.

The repeated insistence of "no I didn't" with no elaboration could be true and the person is having a hard time figuring out how to say what they actually were doing, or could be false and the person is having a hard time coming up with a cover. Personally I find it much easier to come up with a believable lie which fits people's impressions on the spot, than to come up with a believable way of getting the truth around people's already-formed/forming wrong impressions.

The slow sink to the floor, especially with a sudden reduction in crying volume around the same time, is extremely consistent with people having a really bad upset. People freak out while crying badly enough, until they get light-headed and weak and it's like a half-involuntary thing which looks exactly like that - the involuntary part being that the person recognized that if they don't do a controlled descent, they're gonna have a worse uncontrolled collapse instead. On the other hand, any emotion is consistent with this - it's the crying and degree of physical activation that does it, not the nature or legitimacy of the emotion. But of course a skilled-enough faker can probably either fake it or work themselves up to a real one.

The person recording the interaction repeatedly exhibits signs of callousness, and a couple of instances of what sounds like cruel glee. If you have a person who's having a crying fit or is lying on the ground, what the fuck compels you to make snide comments or laughs at or about them, especially within hearing range? I understand that you might want to keep the camera on just in case something bad or new suddenly happens, but I'm sure if you tried to think really hard you could find a way to maybe not keep your camera persistently trained on a person actively begging you not to record their breakdown, or to least be less of an agitating, escalating dick about it.

But if we're being maximally charitable, the person recording it was probably in a very confrontational state, the kind where all sorts of social monkey politics instincts and emotions sway how we act. She might have also been trying to communicate with her TicTok friends live, giving them an update, and maybe her friends were genuinely worried.

The person doing the recording is also persistently managing to interpret and spin everything towards the bad-faith interpretation. I think this should be understandable and sympathetic and ideally you find a way to relate, but it also should be recognized as uncritically presenting some possible explanations as certain while omitting roughly-as-likely less-bad explanations.

We should also consider that as a black woman, the person recording was almost certainly acting from substantial pain history - who knows how many other experiences with people, and with white people or white women in particular, she was really cumulatively reacting to in that moment? Like when I finally physically fought back and won against my dad in my teens, in that situation I was needlessly escalating and if you looked at that situation by itself I was overly vicious, but I was lashing out against my entire history of his physical discipline and growing up in fear of angering him, and it felt very righteous at the time. (Of course, white people and Karens are not all one entity the way my dad is, so one overkill victory doesn't cash out the same way, but our brains and instincts aren't really built to handle that - in a small tribe where everyone knows each other, if you were routinely abused or oppressed or coerced by tribe members, one over-retaliation against one person would be very adaptive.)

Anyway, when the person being recorded eventually gets up and starts actively charing the person still recording them, that's obviously the same kind of thing psychologically going on as when you have a cornered animal in pain and you keep poking it with a fucking stick. If the recording person had been less of a persistent ass after basically "winning" the whole interaction, that would not have happened. It is not proof of violent or hostile nature, and it does not suggest any greater odds that the person had violent or hostile intent in any prior situation unless they were already persistently and severely harassed by then as well.

In fact, that was still communication - it was physical bodily communication implying that the recording person was hurting the recorded person enough that it's getting desperate enough for physical retaliation to be tempting, but actually attempted violence is usually silent. When people get serious about doing bodily harm, they tend to shut up. If she wanted that to get violent she wouldn't have been yelling "get her away from me" the entire time. That was a plea for help to the other humans so that the situation could still be resolved non-violently.

When the cops and security finally got there, the recording woman has some legitimate critiques/complaints/grievances. For example, if the two women's races were reversed, there is a real chance that the cops would've handled the situation very differently.

[kendrixtermina]

The “Genocidal Edelgard” Shallowtake

I was not going to make a post about this because it’s most likely futile and not going to convince anyone nor do I believe in dinifying the purity police with attention, but maybe it will let some ppl know that they dont have to let themselves be shamed for liking the wrong video game character

Whatever might have been the case in the distant past when Nemesis was around, by the “present day” the Nabateans are not at all some commonly oppressed stereotyped minority - the setting is chock full of characters that fit that bill a lot better like Dedue or Cyril. Characters that are ordinary humans not magic dragons. 

And even that is more founded on general purpose xenophobia than from the specific, relatively new early modernity construct of racism. (the dedue situation probably comes the closest)

Sure, Seteth and Flays have to hide from their old enemy the Agarthans, I see how some might find that relatable etc. but most of the population isn’t aware that they exist at all. They hold high status positions, are worshipped by the local religion and Rhea all but rules the entire continent (and says so herself to Byleth in that speech about how she was just “ruling this wayward country in your stead”, “you” being Sothis) - though that is mostly Rhea’s doing of which Seteth and Flayn are relatively innocent. 

The interviews pretty much confirmed that the Nabateans constituted the local aristocracy and that many humans genuinely saw the Elites as liberators - though there was definitely also an element of ppl going around killing random Nabateans to gain superpowers, not to speak of Nemesis’ very obvious very unambiguous mass murder. Not wanting to be ruled over by foreign powers is understandable, though obviously killing them all down to the last civilian was just flat out evil - its certainly not a simple situation, we can all agtree Nemesis & the Agarthans were evil but there is no clear defined good guy. 

There are historical conflicts you could compare this to, perhaps some conflicts in Africa or the middle eastwhere different groups took turns being the ruling class after the latest war,  but it’s not at all like the modern USA or early modernity colonialism, and forcing every real or, in this case, imagined scenario inherently dependent of fantasy elements, into this one framework from the present or near past isn’t conductive to understanding at all. 

And in the present day, by the time Edelgard is alive, we are talking about three specific people that she has good reason to dislike individually. Not any sort of group at all. 

She calls Rhea a cruel beast because that’s all she’s ever seen Rhea to be. She’s the shadow tyrant who rules her world, who created the crappy world Edelgard grew up in. It’s no different Cubans thiking badly of the castros after suffering through famines - or, no need for such extreme examples really, ppl call their least favorite politicians monsters all the time. 

She’s wrong to assume that Seteth & Flayn are wholly on board with this, but on the other hand, it’s not at all a far-fetched assumption to make: They hold high positions in the church though they ostensimbly just appreared out of nowhere one day. Do you have to be an evil bigot to assume that the brother and right hand man to the tyrannical god-queen is condoning & supporting her actions?

The truth is of course that underneath her pseudo-parental facade Rhea is sort of a scared girl, very lonely, very afraid, and ashamed, in a shallow, childish way, for “breaking the rules” just because they are rules. She says she can’t trust anyone, that she feels lonely & isolated... and while no one can blame her for distrusting humans after the slaughter of her people, but the reason she can’t trust Seteth is that she’s keeping her bad deeds secret from him. He wasn’t there the whole time, he just showed up a few decades earlier. 

She sees herself only as filling out for Sothis and doesn’t quite grasp that she’s in charge, very much a follower personality bent on stasis & regularity. 

Is Edelgard obliged to try & unravel the complex psychology of the tyrant who rules her home to correctly deduce why she would deceive even her own family? By all intents and purposes, Edelgard is the one getting rid of an oppressive government that doesn’t let ordinary humans let a say at all. A government where ppl of others faiths and nationalities are typically oppressed unless they work directly for the church.

It’s like having a disdain for, say, Ivanka Trump. She holds a high position in her father’s administration despite having no obvious qualifications, she appears to be profiting & making bank from her father’s atrocities, she certainly hasn’t done anything to stop him or disavow him the way that, say, her cousin Mary did - if you suffered under Trump’s regime you’d be very justified in assuming that Invanka is probably a bad person.

Flayn only looks young (She might not if we saw her in other clothes). I mean, Kronya could badly impersonate a schoolgirl. At the very least they’ve supported the regime by refusing to question their own side and they show some however benevolent belief that it is their duty to “guide” the people. Leaving her to the Agarthans is certainly questionable, but no more so than doing it with Rhea herself, under the assumption that she’s guilty and that it’s a sacrifice that will prevent larger chaos. The agarthans had their plan long before they created Edelgard as we know her, and she couldn’t stop their plots all on her own. 

You could say that it’s callous, distasteful or a deal breaker - as the death knight is her direct subordinate & she makes a personal appearance in mask, I would argue that she definitely knew & sanctioned the kidnapping - but she’s no more callous towards Flayn than towards anybody else. 

Of course, that doesn’t mean they’re evil, or that they deserve to die.... and Edelgard would agree with me.  She doing all this to prevent death – flipping the lever on the trolley problem so it crushes one person instead of five so to speak. She always gives her enemies the chance to surrender, unwilling allies the chance to leave, and jails enemies whenever leaving them alive wouldn‘t lead to further death… even the ones she has the most personal reason to hate, like the PM.

As servants of the church who have chosed to back her enemies, she’ll certainly kill them if she has to, but not any more than any other enemy. At no point anywhere in the story does she say anything like that they need to die on principle. Nowhere at all. Indeed there is much evidence to the contrary.

The church paints her as being completely against the religion or even wanting to set herself up as a satanic godess cause it‘s good politics & they don‘t get what she‘s doing – to an extent her own credibility & messaging is compromised by her secretive and at times unscrupulous actions, no one said she was perfect. In truth all she wants is to have the church out of politics, you know, what we have in nearly every modern country outside the vatican and saudi arabia.

You can absolutely let Flayn & Seteth go on CF and there is no word, no fuss about it anywhere. No „make sure to kill em all“ which would certainly be there if the narrative wanted to portray Edelgard that way. It requires the mediation of Byleth as someone they would talk to & not immediately assume the worst of, but, they see the church as the embodymet of all that is good & fighting its enemies as their sacred duty so of course it wouldn‘t be possible for just anyone to talk them down. It‘s framed as Flayn letting Byleth go cause they saved her life once, even if we know from behind the screen that she wasn‘t going to survive a fight to the death against the player-controlled faction.

Heck, even when it comes to Rhea, the one most guilty that Edelgard has the most reason to loathe, she‘s ultimately surprisingly gracious. She gives her the option to surrender – and this is not a lie, she discusses this with Byleth in a lecture question, and seriously ponders the possibility. Here Byleth gets a range of options like „stab her in the back“ and „keep the church under imperial control“ but you know which one nets you the support points? „Strip her of her authority so she can‘t interfere in politics“. She wasn‘t gonna mess with the religious folks & their religion at all, just make it so it‘s separate from government. Rhea could even keep being pope, if she could be satisfied without having complete supreme authority (and ripping her precious artifact out of Byleth‘s chest) – even when she puts her down she‘s not 100% without pity, telling her that „Your duty is done“ (the translators mucked this up)

Couldn‘t be any further from „lets kill them all on principle“.

What really annoys me is how ppl go and twist everything Edelgard says out of context to ascribe a motive to her that just isn’t there.

Common examples:

„If you have Flayn or Seteth fight her she‘ll say they need to die because they‘re nabateans“

Actually what she says is this: „You are a child of the godess. You must not have power over the people!“ Not getting to be privileges rulers anymore =/= being opressed. Stay out of politics =/= Diediedie. Also, this is from the VW/SS boss fight, where they have literally come to get her in her own capital.

„Linhard & Leonie don‘t tell her & hubert about Indech, probably cause he expects that she‘ll go & kill him„

What he actually says is: „Lake Teutates is a place that concerns the saints of the Church of Seiros. It may become bothersome should the two of them find out...“

„It may be bothersome“ as in, „we might get in trouble“, for doing the possibly very inadvisable thing of waltzing into what could possibly be an enemy location to satisfy personal curiosity. If it‘s something related to her agenda she might take over and Linny wouldn‘t get to investigate as he pleases – at very most you might construe it as Linny fearing that they‘ll be accused of consorting with the enemy, but „bothersome“ suggest possible annoyance not imminent murder.

The whole scene ends with Linhard telling Byleth to fill her in later. Doesn‘t sound at all like he expects her to go back with a harpoon.

„She said Claude isn‘t fit to be a ruler cause he‘s a foreigner“

What she actually says: „I understand your ideals are not so far removed from my own. But without knowledge of Fodlan‘s history, I cannot entrust its rule to you“

Now without the additional contexts that Claude won‘t get until after the fight, it might easily feel a bit like the former with the raw spots he‘d have from his backstory, but what she means is that he‘s ignorant of the Agarthan threat – which he is. Edelgard is all for making peace with Almyra and sees fostering isolationism & prejudice as one of the many faults of the church.

Once Claude basically kills Edelgard for information, he winds up having to take care of the storm she had been holding back. But to his credit, he DID „finish the job“ and get the info. But he didn‘t have it at that point.

And I don‘t mean any of this in the least bit as a diss of Claude - He is the smartest character, so there would be no plot if he got easy access to the info.  At this point, they both think they can probably do better, and more importantly, both their backstories have made them so that they won‘t let down their guard far enough to cooperate in this scenario.

That‘s also why the outcome in CF is contingent on Byleth‘s choice. - You‘d sort of have to trust that he will also act so as to minimize casualties.

Very disingenious since many players wouldn‘t necessarily trigger these dialogues.

I guess because Adrestia got a vaguely central-european aesthetic (partially; all the countries are hodgepodge mashups and there’s more than enough spanish or ancient roman vibes there) and central europe existed only for those 12 years of tyranny I guess, even though many other places have had similar BS happening, including the US that delights in making craptons of movies about their faraway victory because their governments haven’t added much of value to the planet as of late. -.- 

Faerghus (vaguely french/ russian - not at all places where nothing bad happened ever) has actually annexed some territory from their northern neighbors in the recent past, not to speak of the whole Duscur atrocity - but no one seems to go around laying that at Dimitri’s feet, because it would be nonsensical - he was a child at the time and as an individual he is super against it and champions a policy of reconcilliation if he gets to rule. after all, there wouldn’t be much of a plot if the characters inherited three perfect faultless problem free countries. 

Edelgard, too, is completely against the previous administration under Duke Aegir (which was in charge during the Bridgid war). She deposed him and is plotting to do the same with Arundel once she can politically afford to do so. For all that one can understand why she would chose the other path  (depending on how much she knows about what Edelgard’s doing and why) it makes all the sense in the world for Petra to support her on CF or if not recruited, because again, she got rid of that previous administration.