#but the problem is when you act like someone is inherently a horrible person for having a hard kink when you.. also have hard kinks lol

[m4sc4r4]

Since its midnight and I’m midnight posting, I always think it’s funny when porn blogs have really hard kinks but then have a DNI that’s clearly filled with moral disgust for people with equally hard (or even less hard) kinks.

If you understand why your hard kinks are just fantasy, and should only be indulged in IRL with consenting adults who have pre-established boundaries set up and safe words and stuff for just in case, then why would that be different for anyone else’s kink? And if you don’t get how that could be the case for someone else’s kink, then that makes me worry for your partners because it indicates to me that you actually don’t understand fantasy and consent which should be a prerequisite for having sex with people.

Even funnier when people have a certain kink in their dni list and then have posts that are clearly playing on that exact kink but rephrased slightly like at least be honest with yourself here.

[eggfriedricedwasian]

Tim Drake probably got into fights at school, but he didn't start the fights, he'd finish them. He'd also get away scott free.

People think that they can ruin the Drake's name with their kid getting into fights and causing problems, but no. They encourage him to do these.

Janet had a firm stance in her belief to have the upper hand, so he'd never get in trouble, because she'd blackmail and/or grill into the principal so hard they had to let him go and give the other kid(s) punishment.

Jack had one solid rule, don't start a fight, finish it, and always win. He enforced it by having occasional spars with Tim whenever he could and signed Tim up for all kinds of martial arts to make sure he knew how to fight.

Janet signed him up for whatever else extracurriculars he wanted(ballet, gymnastics, theater, art, vocal coaching, instruments, figure skating, track, etc.).

So just imagine, Tim Drake, publicly known to get into and win so many fights but with no prior context is seen as a trouble maker till they see how well behaved he is. They talk badly about him though, how much of a bad kid little Tim Drake who physically looks like his father but has the face and acts exactly like Janet when he speaks and leads.

And then his parents die and he doesn't cry. They think he's an even horrible kid for not caring about his parents' death even though he's torn.

And then he becomes a Wayne and his reputation, which only Alfred and Bruce know, brings the Wayne name down.

And then he becomes CEO of Wayne Enterprises and everyone expects him to be just like Bruce. What they don't expect is Janet Drake 2.0 when it comes to getting his way and the way he acts or Jack Drake 2.0 with his outstanding leadership and ideas and proposals and what not.

When the rest of the Waynes find out about his reputation, they don't believe it till they see it for themselves.

It's probably at a gala or some sorts. A socialite is being inherently racist towards Damian and talking about how bad of a kid he is. Tim is not standing for it.

"Oh I'm sorry!" he says just a but too loudly to get the attention if everyone in the place, "Would you care to finish that vile comment about my brother? That he was a what now."

"I do, in fact. Perhaps after everyone hears this you Waynes will do better to control that little devil and his unnatural brow-"

The socialite doesn't even get to finish his sentence when Tim karate chops their neck, making them choke(literally) in their own words.

"Oh what was that? Did someone who is actively cheating on their own wife with the underage heir of another company be racist towards my underage and tri-racial brother? Sorry? Did a pedophile defiling the 15 year old daughter of the Miller's family say my 11 year old brother's skin was the sign of the devil? Hm?"

No one says a word, even as they watch Tim twist his words and spill out every secret and dirty fact about the socialite.

They don't even stop him as they watch him beat the crap out of the person with out even trying when said person tries to throw hands with Timothey Jackson Drake, publicly known for getting into fights and winning as well as being graduated from every martial arts class in Gotham ever.

Police were involved, headlines were made, the Miller heir was no longer seen in public and her younger sibling was pronounced heir, and Tim Drake, not Wayne, got off without a scratch, repercussion, or warning.

Damian has never felt an older siblings' loving protection more than he did when he saw Tim grill that socialite. He s never felt more respect for the guy before. And suddenly Dick was lower on the sibling scale.

He was lower on the sibling scale for everyone. Good by #1 sibling Dick Grayson and hello Tim Drake.

Have a problem? Someone's mean or is picking a fight? Don't worry, Tim Drake's there.

Drake is more noticeable than Wayne when it comes to Tim, and everyone finds it out the hard way.

[hello-nichya-here]

Did Sia insult topic of autism somehow?

Oh honey, it's sooooooooo much worse than that.

Sia wanted to make a movie about an autistic girl that manages to connect to people/feel safe and confident through music. So far, nothing outrageous, just a simple concept that would obviously put Sia's music front and center while doing something nice and educating people on autism.

There was controversy about her not casting an autistic actress as it would have been nice representation, but she could have totally gotten away with that since, come on, hollywood hasn't even figured out Rain Man isn't exactly true to life, they're not ready to have an autistic person playing an autistic character. Baby steps.

The real problem started when Sia started promoting the "charity/support group" that was helping "educate" her on the topic to make the movie. The "charity" in question was Autism Speaks - which is absolutely HATED by the autistic community for things like:

1 - Spreading the myth that autism is a mental illness that one can develop/catch like the freaking flue and potentially be cured of, instead of a neurotype, aka something starts in the woomb and cannot be "cured" because to do that you'd need to replace someone's entire nervous system, which is impossible.

2 - Using that myth to get outrageous amounts of money from people so they "search for a cure" - that doesn't exist and will never exist because curing autism is biologically impossible, AND despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of autistic people don't even want to be "cured" (plus, since said "cure" would essentially mean giving the person a new brain, it leads to the question of "Would I even be the same person, or would that just kill and replace me?")

3 - Using the myth of "We don't know what causes autism" (we do, it's genetic) to, of course, get MORE money from people so they can "do research to find the missing puzzle piece" (if you ever see autistic people complaining about a puzzle piece being used to represent the condition, that's why, it was started by Autism Speak's massive disinformation campains).

4 - Falsely "confirming" things like soy milk cause autism with one of the world's most ridiculous "research", losing only to "vaccines totally make kids autistic, buy MY vaccine instead, guys, I am totally not an unbelievably biased person, it's ALL the other doctors/scientists lying to you. GIVE ME MONEY!"

5 - Pushing the narrative of "autism is inherently a tragedy" to distract from the fact that all the money they waste on stupid shit could be used to help autistic people and their families. Instead, they focus on creating more and more panic, making parents in particular despair even more - to the point that one of their "awareness videos" includes a mother talking about how she wants to murder her autistic daughter and then kill herself... while sitting right next to said daughter.

6 - Promoting ABA "therapy" - which was created by the same guy responsible for the attrocity that is gay conversion "therapy." Both have led to unbelievably high rates of confirmed PTSD and suicidal ideation in patients (victims), and ABA in particular has been compared to literal dog training. Very fitting since it was created by a guy who famously did not believe autistic people truly counted as thinking, feeling human beings, and said as much several times. Despite that, it is still praised by some utter bastards because "it makes the patients act less autistic when they're not crying in the corner or trying to jump out a window"

So yeah, working with these guys is a genuinely horrible thing to do since they're basically a scam/hate group pretending to be a charity - and people were STILL willing to give Sia the benefit of the doubt, since Autism Speak uses all their resources to make sure they're the first thing people see when looking up how to help autistic people.

Lots of Sia's fans, both autistic and allistic, warned her repeatedly, politely, that she needed to supporting them IMMEDIATELY as their goal was the exact opposite of the one she claimed to have - aka raise awareness through an accurate portrail of autism. People were even kind enough to name organizations like ASAN as replacements to help her fix any damage done to the project.

And instead of being a decent human being, Sia decided to cry on twitter about how the mean retar-I mean, autistics were bullying her even when she was so kindly using them for her vanity project.

Because yes, that's how the movie turned out. An unwatcheable piece of garbage, with the autistic "character" being so fucking bad even the people who actively use "autistic" as insulted being offended on our behalf - and of course, she was used just a prop to show how awesome Sia's character was.

Seriously, it was so bad the actress playing the autistic girl was sobbing in between scenes because she knew how it was horrible and she didn't want to insult anyone, but Sia is literally her godmother and helped her career by putting her in nearly all her music videos so she felt obligated to go along with it.

So yeah, fuck Sia and fuck Autism Speaks.

[menofprogress]

Here are some of my hot (or maybe tepid) takes about arcane:

(Under the cut bc i got wordy lol)

-the show could have used another season or like at least 5 more eps per season. Thats not a dig at the creators bc we know they were already forced to cut stuff out, but imho it shows a little, esp in s2. I fully believe Sevika was one of the biggest victims here, i genuinely believe she had an arc in s2 act 3 that was fully cut. And her being one of the biggest defenders of zaunite independence also means that by cutting her they basically gutted that storyline.

-the sheer lack of time with some characters also means that i simply did not connect with some of them, which made their deaths kind of underwhelming. Like i gasped when loris, isha, elora and sky died, but i cant say i was actually sad. That might be a me problem, but i need a little more time and info on a character to feel literally anything about them.

-on the other hand: we need to accept that sometimes background or minor characters are just that. No they werent robbed, no they werent underwritten, theyre simply not that important and thats OK bc theyre characters, not real people. You dont need to give equal attention to all characters for it to be "fair". And i sometimes feel like ppl think they HAVE to bemoan this. esp when its a female character a lot of fans talk about "sidelining" or "theyre using them as a plot device!!" Buddy, sometimes characters are literally just there to move the plot along, thats not inherently a social justice issue. (Ive seen this the most with sky and lest and like.... sorry, they were never gonna be more important than this. They can still be your fave, but just bc you wanted to see more of them doesnt mean they were sidelined for nefarious reasons)

-however sometimes the problem isnt that a character got too little screentime. S2 is a perfect example to show you can do a lot of character work in less time (viktor, ekko) and little character work with a lot of screentime (vi, sorry). Viktor and ekko were missing for entire episodes and managed to have full character arcs and vi was kind of there the whole time, but stuff just happened to her? Like she does do a lot, she looks incredibly cool, i liked watching her scenes, but her motivations, her goals and her values are ALL over the place. I love caitvi, but it did kinda ruin vis integrity when she threw away core beliefs (she becomes an enforcer, she temporarily agrees to kill jinx, she participates in chem warfare against the undercity) for cait. Hmmmmm.....

-i wasnt that deep in the fandom in s1 so i might have simply missed it or i might just not be following assholes, but the "jayvik shippers hate mel" thing never made sense to me. NOT because i dont believe it, bc i sure as hell have seen enough mlm shippers be fully misogynistic or racist, but the way ppl (mainly meljay shippers lbr) talked about jayvik shippers being horrible to mel like it was this HUGE thing confused me bc i personally have seen like 2 fanfics where they horribly mischaracterise mel to be a viktor-hating bitch, but thats it? Like, was that an actual problem or was it ppl deliberately misunderstanding stuff? (One specific example: ive seen someone accuse jayvik shippers of being misogynists bc they accused mel of manipulating jayce and sidelining Viktor. Which is a canonical thing happening in the show. Like ofc you can word it in a way to make mel a horrid evil bitch, im sure there are ppl who DO hate mel and think she is an evil succubus, but this person in particular just seemed upset about the fact that ppl were talking about things that mel canonically did.) This is a genuine question, bc from my pov after s1 mel was one of the fan faves and jayvik wasnt THAT big of a deal until s2. I literally saw a hundred times more jayce hate than i did mel hate, but maybe thats not the universal arcane fandom experience? Like, again, i HAVE seen (for lack of a better term) fujoshis get wildly hateful towards female characters in the vicinity of their ship, i was just pleasantly surprised that the arcane fandom seemingly DIDNT. So the unrestrained resentment and bitterness of some fans after jayvik "went canon" caught me off guard.

-the reason i ask this: i saw a video where someone talked about some rando homophobic timebomb fans who apparently resented caitvi for getting a happy ending instead of jinx and ekko. So i commented "i s2g het-shippers act like theyre an oppressed group sometimes" to which another person responded "well jayvik fans were really shitty about mel, soo...." and i was so fucking confused bc what? The video wasnt even about mel or jayvik?? They just heard me make a snarky comment about het ships and immediately felt called out. But yeah thats what prompted my question.

-i dont get the thirst for the fish man. I get the salo thirst even less. I cheered when jayce bonked him.

-i actually dont want jayce or viktor to appear in future projects. While i love the idea of them being ~not dead~, i think any further canonical storylines about them would devalue the extremely emotional ending they had. Like, imagine if they only bring one of them back?? What then?? No, i actually prefer post-canon fix it fanfics in this case. (Cough cough esp bc this way i can still plausibly delude myself into them being actually canon and yall KNOW it probably would not stay this way if their story continues)

[ewingstan]

So one of Ward's main themes has been asking what's needed to change as a person. Its the whole setup for Breakthrough: People who've done horrible things trying to become better. There's been lots of sub-themes within that—accountability, punishment and repentance, separating yourself from your past. There's been a constant counter to it, with most of the foils or antagonistic forces expressing the idea that you can't get better and might as well let yourself get worse. Lisa does this through her pessimism about things getting better. A lot of the minor career villains have represented it through their willingness to "be more brutal" rather than stick to the old rules we're pretending anyone followed. Cradle represented it through how he blamed Rain for not letting him stay good, and before that the rest of the cluster represented it through blaming Rain for their own bloodthirstiness via bleedthrough. "This isn't my fault, the world is making me bad" has repeatedly been positioned as the obstacle to "Regardless of why I did wrong before, I can put in work to get better."

I do think that "others are too quick to judge agents for reacting to bad circumstances imperfectly" is a bigger problem then "people are too willing to blame their circumstances for their behavior." Mostly because those unfair judgements of moral character has been the justification for uncountable cruel punishments throughout history, lead to untold people being paralyzed by the fear of Hell, lead to children being treated like they needed evil beaten out of them and convicts being treated like they're being disrespectful for daring to continue drawing breath. It can be hard for me to overcome my gut reaction towards anything that seems to be arguing for moral responsibility, because I genuinely think our ethical systems would be better without that concept being included.

But, that's not quite what Ward is doing, at least not when its at its best. "You need to take responsibility" in the sense of recognizing that you could act differently in the future is, strictly speaking, different from "you need to be held responsible" in the sense I find harmful. So as far as central themes go, its not bad. I have resistances to finding it astounding, but it's not an inherently terrible angle or anything.

That said, Ward has framed the opposing theme in counterproductive ways. While "the world wouldn't let me change" can work as a good beat, its not something that people are consciously thinking and being motivated by. We can talk about "they thought I was a monster, so they stripped me of all means to live honestly, so I had to live as a monster" or even "they thought I was a monster, so none would speak with me except others they considered monsters, and we made each other our worst selves," but in neither of those cases is the character's actions driven by their own belief that people wont let them be good—its driven by the actual external circumstances of how people treat them and restrict opportunities. So the way Cradle suddenly starts behaving horribly, not because others are treating him in ways that affect his material circumstances, but because of his reaction to the cluster bleedthrough—it just feels mistaken to even invoke "you made me a monster" as a trope. It doesn't work as a critique of pushing the blame for your actions onto others, because Cradle's reasoning for pushing the blame onto others feels written as an afterthought.

My problem with how this is treated in Amy are related, but not identical. A few chapter's ago, Amy complained about the world not letting her change. I don't think it made much sense for her, not only because her becoming someone who externalizes her issues feels like an unsatisfying direction for her after Worm, but more directly because it doesn't make sense in the context she's in. And sure, she's someone who makes poorly thought-out excuses for herself, so I'm not gonna ding the writing for that. It just feels like it makes more sense as just a parroting of what some commenters have said about Victoria and Amy, rather than something that Amy would herself think.

The same thing seems true for the above passages. A lot of things that readers have said about Amy are now being said, by Amy. Amy is of course voicing the rhetorically worst possible version of those claims, but I think the interesting thing is that the context Amy's saying it is the main thing making it reprehensible. Because as much as Amy is repeating the thin substance of what some readers have argued, fans arguing with other fans that "you shouldn't hate this character because X," is just substantially different than a rapist telling her victim "you shouldn't hate me because of X." Even if the strict words spoken were the same, they aren't at all the same claim, because one is what the audience should feel and the other is how Victoria should feel.

You could argue against this by saying "if its right for Victoria to hate Amy, its right for the audience to hate Amy, because hate is right when it reflects an accurate judgement of someone's moral character." I won't pretend that conception of justified hate isn't somewhat widespread, but I don't think it stands up to scrutiny. Especially not applied to fictional characters.

[paingoes]

(long Paris apologia paragraph ahead sorry)

I love both Delta and Paris, and while Delta is infinitely more likable and I have more in common with Delta re: autism and child abuse, I honestly find Paris to be a more compelling character? (Part of this is because I'm also an alcoholic with complex trauma and I so very rarely see the worst parts of my trauma being represented in a sympathetic light.) I definitely get why people don't like him. he's a violent shithead, a menace to society and himself, not to mention he has the emotional intelligence of a rock.

You mentioned this in a previous post but I think you did a really good job with showing that a lot of Paris' worst qualities (his violent mood swings, his sense of entitlement, his power tripping abusive behavior etc) comes from a place of his own patheticness and refusal to change (especially the times when he breaks down after getting too drunk) and I think that's what allows me to sympathize with and like him more then anything. His childishness in his most monstrous and vulnerable moments really drives home that he's not really suited to the role of all powerful monarch he was raised to be, and who's abuse and status in the empire caused him both to grow up way too fast, while at the same time never allowing him to develop into a healthy adult and that he's in many ways, a kid in a grown person's body who sees himself as doomed to repeat the cycles of his childhood trauma that created him unless he chooses otherwise. (A horrifying and daunting task for someone like him)

Like the scene where he breaks Delta's arm and almost drowns him? It's scary as hell but what stands out to me it despite the horrible violence and long term consequences of his actions, is just how petty and childish his motivations for doing so is (which does not make them any less harmful). he's acting this way because he feels slighted and abandoned by Lorelai. You hurt me I hurt you. This gives me a lot of leeway into both sympathizing with him as someone with similar struggles while also reminding me that he's not the way he is because he's powerful, like he wants you to believe, but a very weak and jaded person who wants to feel powerful and is given the systemic means to. Which doesn't make him less dangerous.

Sorry for the long ask, I'm just very much enjoying your story, especially Paris's "being humbled by life" arc and I'm super excited about what will be in store for both him and Delta next ❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹

oh my godddddd this was such an amazing thing to wake up to. i kind dont even wanna post it i just want to hold onto it forever. this is so sweet.

i dont know if i can respond to all of this right now and i might talk more about the different points you brought up later. but generally i am so pleased with this analysis and im pleased you have gotten this much out of it? im gonna say more under the cut

pretty heavy warnings for child abuse. nothing explicit just discussion of institutional child abuse/complex trauma and how it affects people psychologically.

like i said i could talk about them basically forever but re: childishness and being pathetic. YEAH i mean i think it is very obvious that paris’s growth has been stunted as a result of abuse + neglect. in fact i think that growing up in empire alone is inherently stunting because it is a system very much designed to kill empathy and to breed hunger and greed in people. its a problem with the whole society, cruelty and selfishness are incentivized over developing more complex moral structures and even over developing your own identity.

[ people like lorelai are very much an outlier within Empire, but i think its clear that she is….also pretty immature? she has a lot of love and a desire to do good, which kind of makes up for it, but she is childish in the sense that her parents sheltered her and her own ideas about revolution and utopia are very very idealized. i think this delusional optimism is a good thing for paris tbh and it kinda balances out his own cynicism. but lorelai will need to grow up at some point too. its just her reckoning is allowed to be softer. ]

but paris’s case was particularly bad for a few reasons.

the most obvious is that he was prince and naturally the expectations placed on him were a lot greater and the consequences for not meeting them were a lot harsher.

paris was born with pretty severe ADHD and mood regulation issues and his symptoms only worsened the more that he was punished for them

paris at his core is a genuinely sensitive and intelligent person that understands right from wrong

and i think this alone provides a lot of context for how he is now but it also makes it easier to understand why his childhood was basically torture for him. like yeah exposure to complex trauma will kind of naturally stunt your growth at certain points but you also get the sense that paris’s growth was like. deliberately stunted or that the handicap was self-inflicted. paris acts dumber than he is. its how he makes peace with it. its cool to be a callous idiot because if you have to be a self aware and moral person in this environment you will immediately get one-shotted by guilt.

and for what it’s worth i think delta’s growth was also — obviously — stunted. but in a different way shaped by their respective roles.

it’s legitimately really gross for me to describe it this way but it does feel like one of the goals with delta’s conditioning was to make a forever-child. someone who will do what you say and remain perfectly ignorant and docile and obedient. he can be used but is basically incapable of putting up a fight. martino and simon both speak to delta like he’s a child and that infantilization is to keep him pliant and similarly trapped in that same sense of helplessness he felt when he was little :(

i think delta is very low empathy naturally and actually doesnt have an innate moral compass which is what made him such a perfect candidate for the job. but it also means he is super susceptible to getting someone else’s morals imposed onto him as long as he finds them logical and coherent. his ability to morally reason and his way of interacting with people is obviously very underdeveloped but its more immediately obvious why.

ive said before that i think delta is more emotionally mature than paris but i think maybe this paints an incorrect view of things? i mean. delta is not holding his tongue and regulating his own emotions because he thinks its a mature thing to do. hes doing it because he knows not to speak without permission and that if he ever had an outburst the way paris did, he would be beaten within an inch of his life. so i feel like maybe its wrong to attribute this as one of his virtues. (without totally discounting the fact that delta is very sweet and doing his best.) delta would very much struggle with like. setting boundaries, standing up for himself in any way, communicating his feelings. you can describe paris as childish but i think delta is childlike. in that he’s also suffering the consequences of abuse but his specific conditioning has made him more fawny in a way that reads as sympathetic and virtuous.

basically yeah my point was. they were both stunted at some critical point in their development and are both dealing with the consequences of that. paris was a victim but he was simultaneously groomed to be a perpetrator, versus delta who is mostly victim.

anyway thanks so much wow im gonna print this whole ask out ❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹

[kagoutiss]

I kind of love how you have all these interesting hcs for Ganondorf like animals loving him, his weird dynamic with Sheik, the approval he seeks from his mothers etc. while at the same time being like ��he’s a horrible gremlin and bloodthirsty and no one would want to stay near him”. I feel like it really captures how absurd and chaotic he is. Thank you for your service.

oh…im holding this ask very gently…..this means a lot to me because like!! yeah all these things are sort of true to me and i feel like he’s one of those characters where the more you dissect him, the more discordant things you find, and yet they all somehow intertwine in a way that makes him compelling and whole :-) retroactively putting a warning here that i ended up talking a lot and going pretty off-track but. like,,, one of the main roots of his absurdity to me is that he just has these fundamental problems with connecting with people (outside of clever manipulation, which he is good at), which are very effective at driving people away, even when he genuinely loves them, and i think he does this thing constantly where he wants people to despise him and he wants people to think the worst of him, because he is so much more comfortable with that than just? learning how to actually differentiate between love & hatred? and to not immediately feel threatened by gestures of love as some kind of deception, because he probably can’t quite make out the difference? despite having such a high level of emotional intelligence otherwise? and this primarily ties in with the idea that the biggest most terrifying enemy he has ever known in his entire life has been the neighboring kingdom, which professes to be the epitome of love & light & benevolence while at the same time committing the most egregious hateful bloody acts of cruelty in the darkest recesses of kakariko’s catacombs

and like. i think all of his formative experiences have still led to him being fully capable of things like feeling love, but also consequently not having the faintest idea of what the definition of that actually is, or how it works, or how to relate to someone you care about without just projecting all your own experiences onto them, or communicating your affection in ways other than just. being mean. and him purposely antagonizing people who do love him and are kind to him is a kneejerk reaction that he might not even realize is nonsensical, just a way of avoiding the most fundamentally disconcerting thing he knows, which is the ambiguity of something that claims to be kind or good. and so i think he‘d find a weird comfort in things that either don’t have that ambiguity, or subvert it entirely

like animals! who are far less capable of deception, or monsters, who like him, are deemed inherently evil. or spirits, who shouldn’t technically even be bound by the concepts of good & evil, even less applicable to wayward souls than to living beings. above all other humans though, he is definitely closest to his surrogate mothers, who supposedly are the true highest authorities of the gerudo tribe, and who treat him more like a deity than a son, and might moreso love the idea of what they want him to be, rather than the person he is. and he is in fact mortal, and a human being, and extremely flawed, and prone to recklessness under stress, and makes silly mistakes, and is emotionally unstable, with an attention span that doesn’t actually seem particularly well-suited to politics or government. and i accidentally wrote way too much in one sitting again, but.

but yeah, he’s like. my point is he is so full of things. he is completely absurd and chaotic and yet also i think there are recognizable patterns in what he does, if you think about him way too hard for way too long. he’s an infuriating swiss watch of a person that functions with seemingly inexplicable precision, but is made to say rude things to you instead of showing you the time, and yet you can’t really judge him too harshly after making the difficult effort of trying to understand him, because it becomes more & more evident that. that’s just. the way he is. that that’s the inevitable way that he came together, entirely due to circumstance. he’s a reflection of the completely nonsensical universe that he lives in, an antagonist since the day he was born, defined as such by the world’s Inherently Good Authorities, who are themselves objectively guilty of mass kidnapping, torture, murder, displacement and genocide, and yet are still, by the immutable definitions of these words as they’ve established them, Good. and i NEED to go to bed but yeah i love him for being a horrible insufferable bitch, actually, because it’s meaningful in and of itself, and i love him for not being normal, and having unmanageable fears of inadequacy, and mommy issues, and ADHD and autism, and for bullying teenagers, and being more fond of monsters & parasites than people, and literally using his emotions as a weapon, and referring to himself as king of every evil thing in existence, and almost never bothering to explain his actual motivations to people who he knows have already decided that he is the crux of all the world’s problems, because he’s fully internalized that trying to be understood by anyone at all is completely pointless. wife material

[bibibbon]

Hey I stumbled a post about dabi and how he is a vile character and it made me think of how victims in the MHA are either good dekus or dark dekus. No nuance and it makes me think of Shig.

Ok...imagine for a moment, Shig defends Izu. This act could be used to humanize him even more as create a connection with them.

The scene where a villain calls Izu "useless deku" and shig steps in and defends Izu.

I ask this...bc I know for sure if hori had made this it would have been in a mean spirit way, it would be at shig and Izu's expenses.

And the fandom, even Shig's stans would either ignore the moment or make fun

"lol shig stop by bothering with this deku"

Or

"lol Izu is so lame shig has to save him"

Which is a damn shame bc this could have been useful to humanize shig and create a connection with him...as well understand the character. But nope.

Shiga is king of inconsistency.

Hi @mikeellee 👋

Yeah it's a pretty well established fact that horikoshi very much lacks nuance when depicting his abuse victims. The narrative depicts them as either always good perfect, innocent victims who can do no wrong or they're always horrible people who deserve worse than their own abusers somehow.

Shigaraki could do a lot of things that end up humanising him like protecting the leauge but a moment where he himself protects a hero (izuku in this scenario) it would do a lot more than just humanise him. It would

1) humanise him obviously

2) add more to the underdeveloped dynamic of izuku and shigaraki

3) may show the change in shigarakis goals, may make him realise that the problem isn't heroes but necessarily the system that they're all in.

Hmm a scene like that may not inherently work or maybe I just prefer a scene where shigaraki protects Izuku physically from a villain instead of standing up for him verbally. The scene you suggested would need the development for it. What I mean is that shigaraki and izuku need to have way more interactions than they do in canon for that scene to properly work.

Personally I would think that shigaraki stans would use this moment to show how good Shigaraki is and how he should be saved and redeemed rightfully so to be honest.

Shigaraki is definitely the most inconsistent character out of the bunch and it really bugs me especially with the potential he has😭. Anyway Imma need someone to take Shigaraki away from hori cos he clearly doesn't care or like him.

[ahoppingmagician]

Stolitz Rant

Now before I shit on the ship and Stolas' whole character, I have to give Spindle Horse some praise. Seeing Blitzo go off on Stolas was like eating your gran's food, comforting, something that you waited for, and fulfilling. Blitzo pleading like a desperate animal for the book was actually very potent, I won't get too much into my life but I have done things similar for people in my past to stay even though it was a dysfunction mess.

Alright that's my little hat's off to you Viv. Now let's get to my problem with this ship.

Unhealthy in a Bad Way

It's unhealthy. Now that inherently isn't the bad thing, now before you judge me too hard, I'll explain. If a pairing is presented as toxic that's not my issue but rather how it is handled. Stolitz isn't really presented by the show's narrative to be a horrible mess that should of died as soon as the two grew apart in their adult life. Instead it is presented like a us verses them. Romeo and Juliet type of romance. Now it doesn't really work that way because of everything that one side has done.

Stolas Sucks

I hate this fucking rich bird man, he was such good villian potential, until someone named Vivziepop got to attached to him, and tried to change the story for him to be a hopeless romantic who has a tragic home life, a damsel in distress who needs his knight in shiny armor to save him, instead of what he is a creepy rich man taking advantage of someone, and is definitely just seeing Blitzo as a toy in every since of the word.

If Stolas wants Blitzo to fuck him then it's fine because HE wants it. If HE decided that his daughter needs to be around someone who has ruined her family then she will because Stolas wants it, not even bothering to ask the man in question if he's comfortable with that arrangement. Blitzo doesn't like how he treats him, doesn't matter because Stolas likes it. HE doesn't want Blitzo to have the book anymore and Blitzo will just blindly accept it because that's what Stolas wants. This man with a child acts like a whiny little baby because the man who he has harassed, stalked, coerced into having sex with him, and treats like some kind of exotic pet, doesn't trust him when he gives him the stupid crystals because it goes against want HE wants to happen.

All of that was to point out how self serving this dumbass is.If Stolas wants it to go that way it just will because he deserves it after having an abusive wife. Now abuse is a serious subject, but it's clear as day that Stella was made to be abusive to make Stolas seem understandable. Also doesn't help that the story neglects to inform you that Stolas and Stella had Octavia at 19 and were both victims of the higher class by being forced into this marriage at like 16.

My Big Problem

Now I'll get into the whole contract to sex thing and how morally backrupt he is. This rich man knew how vital that book was for his obsession's business, to the point that he was literally stealing it from him on his birthday. Now like a reasonable man he kicked him out and never made any terrible decision ever, sadly no he fucked him and really liked it. So sometime later the bird man was in his bathtub and called his side piece, while Blitzo is in obvious distress he gives him an offer and won't shut up till he verbally agrees, which the imp did. Now what part of this is romantic? Or even sexy in a taboo way. Like what in the Wattpad is this arrangement. This feels like a ripoff of a book that just shows a toxic relationship like it's suppose to be good, Fifty Shades of Gray. A similar dynamic to our two men here weirdly enough. Which originally was a fanfiction. Now my dear reader like I said a toxic relationship in media isn't inherently bad, but if it is written badly then we have a problem. Why? you may ask me. Simple early teens watch this show, edgy kids watch this show. I personally think kids are fucking radical little guys, but they are also easily influenced. A show that paints this unhealthy relationship as good and worth all the fighting, that it is worth all the heartbreak and trauma because one day it might get better, key word might. For some viewers maybe it was their first gay relationship they were exposed to. This could shift the way they look at LGBT+ relationships as more taboo or sexy instead of it being just another relationship.

Now I'll wrap this rant up, next will be M&M relationship a d how I think it has some accidental toxic underlining, hopefully I can also get my solutions to this and M&M out today aswell.

As always you look fabulous, I'll eat your least favourite organ if you don't say something nice to yourself today. If your having a not getting out of bed day, it's alright the world is scary and you can try again tomorrow.

[paragonrobits]

As an autistic person growing up during the boom of online communication and social networks popping up during the early-mid 2000s, with communities of people like you always having the most horrible stories about how they were mistreated by family members and educational staff and people who said they were their friends, it kind of encouraged you to hate allistic people on reflex if you had a lot worse of it than others, and at the very least it encouraged a... mistrust of allistics in general.

Particularly extreme thoughts extended this to neurodivergent people who weren't on the autistic spectrum, too. The mindset was already trained to raise your hackles and shy away from people who didn't have the same problems like you. You were too used to being constantly on the defensive, waiting for the first sign that this person was also Unsafe. Just like all the others, acting friendly and nice and then you realized those things they asked you to do was insulting you. Mocking you; you weren't ever a person to them, at best you were the rough clay that could be molded into a Real Person or a trained animal to trick into doing embarrassing things they could laugh about with your friends.

At that point, a person like this thinks: it doesn't matter if they're also different from the non-neurodivergent. You've wasted too much time trusting people only to get screwed over, so why waste time? No point in playing by their inexplicable rules if they refuse to do it too, so just snap and snarl the second they breach your comfort zone.

A common joke then was mocking children having stress-induced meltdowns in stores; its funny, or their latest excuse for how people on the spectrum are Wrong; "look at this kid freaking out!". Its a joke to them; its less of a joke when the quiet kid who's gotten fed up with people playing nice only to take papers out of their hands and rip them up, well, that kid suddenly bellows and throws a desk across the classroom at them. They won't be bothering that kid now.

Is this a particularly productive way to look at things, or dealing with people?

In retrospect, the pretty obvious thought is 'not really', but its also the sort of understanding that comes with time, understanding and most importantly not being around people who were uniformly terrible people.

At that point, you... don't need to be angry or mistrustful all the time. You meet people, on the spectrum and off it, that you don't need to constantly be on the defensive around, because they're not going to do stuff like that to you.

People who are trans, or have Tourette's Syndrome, who are on the spectrum too, who are not particularly neurodivergent but at this point that doesn't really matter because they still understand or at least don't assume your differences or mannerisms makes you subhuman.

And then you come across stories of people talking to autistic people and having the gall to say things like "Are you a serial killer? You have dead eyes" or just saying someone is creepy and moves like a puppet without really interrogating it. The kind of people who see different or a deviation from the norm that isn't photogenic or something out of a slice of life coffee shop AU and they immediately become hostile: how dare you not be NORMAL?

And then its easy to return to that hackles-always-up mentality. Use it when you need to; put it away when you don't. Its certainly something to consider how those attitudes that you hated so much never really went away, people just understood more and it was easier to find people who understood, intellectually or through personal experience. And now its also easier to find people who, as much as they want to present themselves as sweet and innocent longing for a cottage and a little farm, become incredibly cruel and hateful whenever they encounter something out of their experience.

And it doesn't make you angry. Its annoying, yes, but that anger is tempered by the understanding that the allistic is not an inherent enemy, nor does everyone with that kind of configuration automatically hate you. Its a personal thing.

And sure, its common enough, and it sucks that its so common. But its always worthwhile to accept that those bad old days for you are gone and you don't need to act like a feral beast just to scare off people who hurt you.

Sometimes its nice to just accept how the world has moved on.

[torialefay]

I'll change the conversation a little if you don't mind?

What do you think of mama's boys? I think some skz members are

i want to preface this by saying that these are just MY opinions. i love women & i love being a woman, but a lot of the time, "mama's boys" are 100% created to be like that by their mothers themselves.

okay "mama's boys," let's do this:

1) think there is a HEALTHY LEVEL to which a guy can be a "mama's boy"... sort of. the problem is, i'd argue the vast majority aren't in this category 😭 there are some really fucking rad moms out there who are just super fun & close to their kids, OR maybe they have a son who was always just not really into the "typical masc" things or didn't get along with their father, OR maybe the son didn't have a dad in his life so he was close to his mom. in any regard, none of these are inherently bad things. as long as he was raised by a mother who was NORMAL, i think it could actually be a benefit and he could possibly come to understand women a lot better. a lotttttt of the time though, that mama is NOT normal 😭

2) the majority of mama's boys i've met have been made that way by their mothers. it's usually been from moms who were either overprotective and/or emotionally unsupported at home. i think some of it stems from women not always feeling loved or wanted by their male partner, so in turn, they try and "invest" more into their son, show him a lot of love, so that he won't turn out the same way. they think that if they teach their son to have this personal connection with them & give them unconditional love, then they'll be a good man in the future and know how to value a woman... at least, that's what their brain tells them. it can start with good intentions, but over time, i think a lot of these moms end up depending on their sons for emotional support & love. kind of seeing them as a "project" that they've created, that they now can't let go of. they start to see them as perfect & like they're really too good to move on from them... so when these mama's boys DO grow up, it's really fucking hard for them to see this person that they've basically "trained up" to be the perfect partner leave and go find someone for themself.... leaving them along again.

it's honestly so fucked up for the mom to feel that way, but now the son has that psychological shit going on too. he's been babied and mothered and shown unconditional love his entire life. in his eyes, he probably doesn't think he can do any wrong. and now he ALSO probably expects anyone he's with going forward to behave just like his mother. and if you don't... well he's probably not gonna be with you. or if he does, he'll have his mom in his ear the entire time telling him you aren't the one. i swear in these relationships, the only time the mom is EVER happy is when her son chooses someone who looks like her, acts like her, and lets her be 100% involved in their lives. and the whole time, in this guys head, this is all completely normal.

do i get "the ick" from the vasssssttt majority of mama's boys? yes. but do i also kinda feel bad for them sometimes because a lot of them have simply been groomed this way for their entire lives? also yes.

as horrible as it sounds, i just don't really see a way to have a good relationship with an extreme mama's boy if he doesn't recognize that she's problematic. if he's putting you first & fighting for you every time, then sure, whatever & you can work on it. but if he's taking her side all the time? well then, he's made his pick. and that's sad and no one deserves to have to go through that. no one will ever live up to the stabdards his mother has set.

that's some hardcore stockholm syndrome shit right there let me tell you.

so nowwwww, i NEED to know who you think could be a mama's boy in skz?!?! i'm so curious 🤭

[a-student-out-of-time]

I think Linuj'a problem is that he's borderline unable to make irredeemable characters even tho he WANTS people to percive them that way, we see a glimpse of it with Kizuna in the first game and it just gets amplified to a thousand in the second because of its themes.

Which reminds me how i don't like the ending of Sdra2 at all because it just confused me, it spent a bunch of time showing us that Sora is not the same person as Akane, she has he own thoughts, opinions and feelings and should be seen as separate from her, yet the game ends with Sora paying for Akane's crimes which just cements the idea that they ARE the same person.

If Sora is meant to be seen as a person of her own an not Akane virtual version then she SHOULDN'T have to play for what Akane's done.

Maybe i misunderstood because of how messy chapter 6 is, but it genuinely left a bad taste in my mouth and made my enjoyment of the game go down severely.

//Now you're seeing my real problem with SDRA2's story. Namely that, while the Voids were a unique idea, they ultimately do more harm than add to it by leaving you both with more questions than answers and the idea that we're supposed to see them only as villains, despite that going against both the information presented and the basic messages DR is about.

//Like, it really confuses me when creators fixate so much on the darker elements of DR, because that's really not what the games have ever been about. It was never about the executions, the investigations or even the trials. It was about the people involved in them.

//If you're going to tell a story like this, where you repeatedly fixate on the blood and violence, and the only thing you have to say about it is "Isn't the one doing this a bad person?", I have to ask why you bothered with a very basic truism ^^;

//There's also this very damaging approach to media analysis where people decide, unless a character has literally done nothing wrong, any bad action they take equates to them being the "true villain." Even when the entire point of the story is that heroes and villains are titles, not an actual moral status.

//You can't claim to be having a deep and engaging moral analysis when all you do is decide that people who do anything bad are inherently horrible. Call them monsters if you must, but never act as though someone can be fundamentally incapable of doing wrong of any kind, because that's blatantly untrue.

//And with the DR2 example, the point of that one was NEVER "Look how horrible the Remnants of Despair are," it was ALWAYS "You guys used to be pretty fucked up, but you can still choose to be better, because that is always an option."

//LINUJ is just not very good at exploring the idea. He can make great characters, as he's shown over and over again, but he really doesn't know how to handle them in stories. Especially not when he's willing to make massive changes to that story that ultimately do more harm than good.

[musical-chick-13]

It's unhinged (derogatory) that people think capitalism is why misogyny exists. Like. Oh my god PLEASE go read some actual fucking history textbooks. Because misogyny has been a thing in other systems besides capitalism and a thing well before capitalism as we know it. It's as old as civilization.

I KNOW 😭😭

The thing is, having someone to exploit, to look down on, to "other" to the point where it gives you power...that isn't. That isn't inherent to capitalism? Lots of humans just. Like that. Because a lot of people are selfish, and they want to be above someone. This is obviously a HUGE oversimplification of everything, but people aren't interested in controlling women (or other marginalized groups) solely because it's an Efficient Way To Feed The Capitalist Machine.

Can capitalism make misogyny worse? Yeah. Can misogyny be used to further the capitalist agenda? Sure, anything can be used as a tool for anything. I'm sure I could make...idk, Liking The Color Green into a political thing if I tried hard enough. But even without capitalism, the "benefits" people feel they get from misogyny (power, social standing, someone to blame when things don't go the way they want, someone to mistreat--as a way to feel "in control," as a way to act on their worst impulses that they have no desire to curb, as a punching bag they'll face no consequences for taking their rage out on--the idea that they are inherently "better" than someone else (and thus deserve more), the "promise" of having someone who is forced to do whatever you want for fear of reprisal, the idea of having a live-in-domestic-servant who backs up everything you say because That's Her Role In Life, JUST TO NAME SOME OF THEM) will still exist. You can have all of those ideas permeate society (and, indeed, historically, we HAVE had all of those permeate society!!!!!) without capitalism. The concepts of interpersonal power and social standing and a desire to Be Better Than Someone and wanting someone to cater to your whims and be a scapegoat/punching bag/person responsible for your happiness and ego-upkeep and literally nothing else...none of those are only present in capitalism, babes! Those can and do crop up in literally any environment!

Misogyny doesn't exist Because Capitalism. It exists because a certain group of people decided they could benefit from it. The "benefits" are the point.

(And, uh. Well. I've met enough Tumblr Communists™ to know that publicly divorcing yourself from capitalism doesn't automatically mean you stop hating women.)

I wonder how much of...a lot of Discourse™ is based on the idea that you can't care about multiple causes at the same time? Misogyny AND capitalist exploitation can both be bad. Transphobia AND racism AND ableism AND ageism AND homophobia can all be (and are!!!!!) horrible realities that people should work to dismantle. You can care about a suffering population in one country and populations in other countries who are suffering (whether that's for similar or different reasons).

Obviously for plenty of people, they are just. You know. Pretentious and/or oblivious, and they feel the need to make those things everyone else's problem whenever someone actually wants to talk about the sources and consequences of bigotry (or any societal issue). But I do feel like there's this idea that...caring about multiple things means that you...don't care enough about any individual cause? That your care or activism or commitment to an idea only means something if all of your time, energy, resources, and self is, at every second of every day, exclusively focused on that idea. You must not really care about trans rights if you are at this moment talking about misogyny (<-seen this one a lot--also way to suggest that misogyny somehow does not also affect trans people??). You...idk, you must not care about racism if you discuss ableism. You must not care about access to education or about misogyny if you talk about racism. (Again, with many people ignoring the fact that a lot of these things overlap, because that's what looking at things through an intersectional lens means.) You must not care about the flaws of capitalism if you devote time to talking about literally anything else.

And if you can't hold more than one cause in your heart at the same time...then the only way you can justify caring about multiple things is if they're all actually the SAME thing. They're actually all the SAME PROBLEM, you see. Aside from being inaccurate, I think this is just...actively detrimental to what (we claim) we're trying to do? We need to know how stuff functions in order to dismantle it (and to keep it dismantled). And going "everything is connected!!!" very frequently turns into Conspiracy Thinking. Which...well, first of all Conspiracy Thinking usually just ends in more harm being heaped on vulnerable people (and in many, many cases, Jewish people particularly, but trust me, I know tumblr at large doesn't care about Jewish people) because "well, when it really comes down to it, it's all THEIR fault".

Conspiracy Thinking also makes one look. Very unserious. And if we look unserious, it's going to be incredibly difficult for anyone to want to associate with us and help us fight. And!!! It gives us an untrue picture of how things work!!!!!! Which means we'll be developing fight/activism strategies based on false information. Which means all the more delays and roadblocks before meaningful progress can be made.

[hello-nichya-here]

What's wrong with ABA therapy? Genuinely asking.

It was literally created by a guy that did not believe autistic people were human - his words, not mine. It's not real therapy, it's just abusing autistic people (mainly children) until they associate doing any autistic thing (stimming, not looking people in the eye, giving only non-verbal answers, not being comfortable with hugs, etc) with stress and pain, so they "fix their behavior".

The entire thing is based on the completely bullshit assumptions that any trait of autism is inherently negative and has no real functionality, both to the person with the condition and to those around them, and that they can just learn how to do things "the right way" - hence the name Aplied BEHAVIOR analysis. It assumes we just "don't know how to act", like a little kid that hasn't learned to spell or how to eat using a knife and fork.

But the thing is autistic people behave the way they do for a reason. "Ordinary" things (like looking people in the eye, or always hugging their relatives and friends, or having to be in a crowded room, with a lot of people talking at once) are PAINFUL to us. Some of us can mask how much it bothers us, but it never stops being a problem. And on the case of stimming (saying the same word over and over, running around, flapping ours hands, biting on a toy, etc) that is what we do to self-sooth when something isn't going right.

ABA is abusive because it forces the patients to behave in a way that causes nothing but pain, just because that's how neurotypicals behave naturally. It's like punching someone in the face over and over, telling them that if they complain they'll just get punched again, and then using the fact that they're not complaining about being punched anymore as "proof" that you made them no longer feel pain - when it's pretty clear they're only not complaining because they'd be punished with more pain if they tried.

Not to mention: training a bunch of vulnerable kids, some of which cannot talk and don't even understand what's going on, that if an adult does something that bothers or hurts them, including touching their body without permission, it's their job to just sit there and take it and that if they turn to their parents for help they'll just get scolded for it because, again, the whole point of ABA is to go "This is all your fault actually, stop crying" is a HORRIBLE idea. It's practically grooming kids to accept that any and all forms of abuse (including sexual) are things that are supposed to happen to them.

That's why one of THE most repeated phrases by autistic people who speak out against ABA and organizations like Autism Speaks, an AWFUL hate-group pretending to be a charity and that adores things like ABA or trying to to blame everything from vaccines to milk for the "rise in autism cases" (which isn't actually real), is "Nothing about us without us."

The overwhelming majority of treatments and charities that claim to help autistic people are only doing things that are either useless or downright harmful to us because they all start from the basic misconception that we don't understand our own condition, that we cannot possibly know what would help us, and that we need someone else to "decode the mystery" that is autism to "save" us.

Entire decades of wasted effort and money, as well as abuse being pushed as a solution, could have been prevented if non-autistic people would fucking LISTEN instead of speaking over us just because we act "weird." It's all based on "Your condition bothers ME, therefore I'm the one who decides what is or is not a problem for YOU." It's the most condescending bullshit ever.

[porcelaintoybox23]

I think Gaul and Coriolanus have mental/personality disorders

I couldn’t think of a better title.

*Here is my disclaimer: No, I am not justifying anything these two do. In fact, I’m actually flabbergasted that so many people are into Coryo. (He’s not even hot evil, he’s your whiny teenage boyfriend from freshman year who didn’t understand how to not be a selfish dick. He would listen to Andrew Tate. I am not a licensed psychologist. I am speculating.) Having a personality disorder doesn’t make someone a bad person. Neurodivergence isn’t always quirky.

Coryo:

The point of tbosas was to hammer home that Snow chose to be a horrible human being. His childhood was marred by war and I understand why he fears the districts and why he wants to avoid rocking the boat. In fact, I can’t fault him for being selfish. Most of his motivation is self-serving, but even in his most selfish moments he still wants to support his family. While I will not laud his actions, I can’t fault someone’s desperation to survive. His family comes first.

I found his selfishness refreshing. I can’t remember the last time I saw a YA teenager act like a teenager. He’s selfish, he’s self-centered, he’s arrogant, he wants a comfortable life. He gets mad when things don’t go his way. He’s 17. He gets jealous for stupid reasons. Despite this, and despite his denial to it, Coryo has empathy, he cares about other people.

The problem is, well one of many, is that he cares about himself most. He grew up in the Capitol with a grandmother that regularly filled his head with the glory of the Snow family, with the belief that he was destined for more, that he deserves more than anyone, that he’s inherently better by virtue of his birth. Toss in a traumatic childhood and Capitol propaganda and we get him.

Coryo is just kinda a shtty person. Some people just suck more than others. Lysistrata and Arachne lived similar lives but became different people. So that is our base, now let’s add one last thing.

I think Coryo has NPD or another personality disorder. Maybe not full blown but traits are present. This doesn’t make him a bad person, but I do think it compounds with his natural inclinations and environment to make him worse. He’s insecure and paranoid to the point of another diagnosis. He is way more paranoid than he has reason to be. One would think he was in the arena.

Narcissists have difficulty with selfishness and being unable to extend worry to others. They focus inward to the detriment of themselves. Anytime he feels bad for someone it is overshadowed with the pity he feels for himself. Yeah, Lucy was nearly killed but Coryo’s future is in jeopardy since he touched the gun. Yes, Sejanus’ plan is harebrained but what if this reflects poorly on Coryo?

Part of that is the guilt he feels, because he does feel guilty. It would be hard for anyone to rationalize the death of a friend, and he does cry for Sejanus, but also for himself. Would narcissism exacerbate that? Probably. He can’t be a bad person. He would never be a bad person, so it’s not his fault. Nothing is ever his fault or, if it is, he was forced into it.

We are working with a boy who was raised with illusions of grandeur reinforced every day of his life, the natural inclination to being self-centered that comes with being human and a teen, and a personality disorder.

I liked his relationship with Lucy. It just felt so high school. It felt like your first serious relationship that was always doomed to fail but you didn’t know because you were young. These two have fundamentally different worldviews. There is no situation where they would last. Coryo did care about Lucy. He was able to be considerate and empathetic, though those moments were always tainted by his own selfishness. Lucy was his, how she affected him was paramount. Everything circles back to him, even when he’s being genuinely kind.

Coryo needed an intervention and a good therapist, things he would never get. He got grandma’am and Dr. Gaul. Honestly, Highbottom could have stepped in instead of being a little hater. He and Tigris could've helped.

He has a filter that automatically focuses on himself. I don’t think Coryo was capable of removing this filter, not without help.

He’s still responsible for his own actions. Some of his choices were accidents, he wasn’t trying to kill Sejanus, but he made many knowing the repercussions would be bad. He was given multiple opportunities to choose the right thing or the good thing, but he chose what would benefit him most. He did deviate occasionally when he helped Lucy.

By the end, Coryo is no longer a child and he actively chooses to be evil, vindictive, and cruel. He lies to the Plinths to become their heir, he dismisses Lucy and his paranoia, he kills highbottom, (admittedly, the guy was a dick, I don’t feel that bad) and becomes the Snow we see in the original trilogy. He was no longer an ignorant boy. He saw the brutality of the capitol, he saw the humanity of the districts, he experienced love and friendship, and he chose to become a snake.

Volumina Gaul

I hate this b*tch. I hate people with terrible philosophies that make no sense. I’ve run the gamut of trying to decipher what type of person Gaul is so far. I went from apathetic nerd who likes research vis a vie entrapta to outright sadistic psychopath. Her theories are so stupid and contrived I’m embarrassed to give her any credit as a scientist. Edgy ideas that are easily dismissed with even a passing knowledge of any type of psychology. I think everyone calls her out on this in the book.

At best, the nature of humans, of all life sentient or not, is to survive. Even viruses reproduce despite not being classified as living. The hunger games are not natural. The games are not a natural occurrence. Prey animals tend to be docile. Predators eat what they need and stop. Humanity’s natural inclination is not violence. The violence of the games is manufactured. What is she on? It’s so stupid, my god. When left in a natural environment humans just live. Like anything else they’ll eat and sleep.

I’m not even postulating that cooperation is a natural state. At its core, collaboration helps with survival. When left to their own devices humans started to bake, to speak, to create. Nothing is inherently human. Ma’am, if you just want to kill people, violate the laws of nature, and mutate animals, just say so. I genuinely think she has aspd. I think she is a clinical psychopath. Plenty of people with aspd live regular lives and stable relationships. The disorder makes aspects of life difficult because it’s a disorder.

I thought of a video I watched about Ogata Hyakunosuke from Golden Kamuy. The essayist mentioned how he was incapable of seeing another worldview beyond his own nihilistic one. How he believed everyone thought the same as him and anyone saying otherwise was lying. He was literally incapable of doing the most clinical version of empathy of just seeing things from another perspective. I think Gaul is like this. She genuinely believes that everyone has her worldview and those that claim otherwise are in denial or lying. It’s not a lack of trying, she just can’t visualize something different.

Gaul would still be an evil person without having a disorder. Add aspd onto it and you have a maniac. I don’t think Snow truly believes in what Gaul says, but convinces himself enough to play the part. He has decided to survive.

[alpaca-clouds]

I do not believe in evil

Or rather I should say: I do not believe that people are evil or can be inherently evil. I believe there are acts of evil - but I do not believe any human is inherently and inchangably evil.

I really got to talk about my thoughts on the justice system one of these days. But for now I am going to talk about it first within the aspect of fiction. Because it makes it maybe a bit easier to talk about it. And yes, this is also kinda my more or less weekly "lemme talk Castlevania" blog - but not only. Because it is a media thing in general.

A lot of western media likes to really paint the world black and white. Something that is very much rooted with Christian influences. Sure, at times the water is mudied a bit, but in general this is how a lot of western media goes. There is good. There is evil. And even in series where we have character get a redemption arc, there is usually characters, who will just be inherently evil. While those redeemed have all these complicated reasons for having been turned evil - the big bad usually just is bad.

There is comfort in seeing the world that way. Because it draws clear lines. It does not make us confront the fact that most of us have the potential to do evil. Because we are not evil, right?

It is the reason, why so many people get super angry and defensive, when they get called out for racism, sexism and the like. Because in their mind these things are bad/evil and they themselves are not. Hence they cannot be and cannot do things that can be described as racist, sexist and the like.

And on the other end there are lot of people, who will see someone being racist and what not and be like "they are racist and therefore evil", with no chance for them to ever come back from that.

I... just do not believe that people work like that. Every person has the potential to do good and bad. Most people will do both good and bad in their lives. Some more of one, some more of the other. In some cases way more of one than the other. But nothing of this needs to be final.

A good person can do really, really bad. Just as a person, who so far has done horribly bad things can do good - and a lot of it.

See, whenever there is a war countless people will be forced to do endless amounts of unspeakable evil. More than that, countless people will do so willingly because they are patriotic and what not. And even those who are not... war breaks people. Inflicting hurt and killing breaks people. Because that is not what we have evolved to do. Our neurology is kinda opposed to that.

And yet... Even if the war is lost, most soldiers will go home. No matter for whatever horrible thing they have fought in the war. I should know: Both my grandfathers were soldiers in WWII. Because everyone knows that those soldiers... Well, someone has to work. It is not economic to lock them out. And it also is not moral to shoot them all. So... they get back home. After which some will inevitably put on further of the behavior formerly aspised to. They will be violent, and be it just to their children and sposes.

But others will come back and do... good.

Because evil is not inherent. Evil is something people do - not something that people are. At least if you ask me.

And yes, again, this has kinda to do with Castlevania. Because I know quite a few people are quite angry that Hector, Isaac and Dracula get their happy ends, despite the thousands they have killed. But the thing is, that even with all that done, they still can do good. And at least Isaac explicitly ends the series setting out to do good.

Even with all problems that season 4 has, this ending just very much speaks to me. Because there is a hopefulness in it. People can still do good, if they just want to.

The reason why Carmilla ends up dying is, that she does not want to change. She is more or less offered the change by Lenore. But she does not take it.