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oysterbarfugitive · 6 months ago

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Nothing is fair and I have such a violent anger in me. (an essay)

I ultimately took a break from all social media recently, well tried to anyway. I wanted to stop the constant consumption. The addiction, the need for more. The quick dopamine and the desensitisation. I wanted to feel something more, I wanted to actually make a decision in what I was engaging with. I didn't want to be in an endless loop of whatever feed I was in, mind numb and ultimately empty.

I think I've always had my fair share of issues when it comes down to the way our attention has been monetised. Our attention and data being the product that is sold and companies ensuring that they get their continuous commission off our backs. The algorithms that are made specifically to keep us hooked and engage longer for more profit. The effects of short-form content on our brains and how it wires us differently over time.

These things that have been put in place specifically to influence our behaviour online, actively hoping and cashing in on the fact that we can't help but want more, needing and wanting us to doom-scroll or spend all our time on their space online.

The constant effects of consumerism online driven by unregulated means of capitalism.

Those are some of the issues I have without going deeper into it or giving a more nuanced opinion that isn't so… negative…or "radical", maybe.

My point is that I tried to give it a break and I came back after some time accidentally, and now I'm here.

I just can't help but feel like we're meant for more than this. I just feel like the way we're online right now is just so bad I can't even form a coherent sentence about it.

The way I feel so sensitive to what I see since I've been back online has given me a massively new perspective on what I previously thought about our desensitisation. I knew it was bad and how much it affects us, but I don't think I fully grasped the severity until actually feeling it myself.

I know that we've always been desensitised in a way and that it's not just online or anything, but i can't help but feel angry and frustrated over it. It isn't normal. Desensitisation like this shouldn't be accepted as 'normal'.

It always goes back to money and profiting and companies trying to capitalise off of anything they possibly can.

Media and outlets, constantly trying to sell us something, to market, grab our attention, to sell it. Media coverage always needing to create sensationalised headlines. It being okay to slightly alter the truth or twist words, voiding integrity, if it means something might sell better. My need to constantly question or further investigate the news or headlines due to its lurid nature in order to sell better. It's infuriating, and I think it's understandable why.

It's understandable to feel passionately about this because of how dehumanising the entire issue is on a basic level. I can't help but feel angry that we are willing to disregard humanity or real human life for the sake of a headline. I can't help but feel angry that we don't truly feel anything at hearing news that is happening to real people. Not just some headline, but that we can't feel anything the way we should anymore because it's nearly impossible to tell whether the news is really real, or just sensational.

We are bombarded with so much. Constantly.

It's not normal. It's not fair.

I was scrolling on tiktok, watching videos, laughing, being entertained or whatever; until I scrolled and found myself watching a 13-minute long video. It was a 13-minute long video, simply with a black screen and names rolling over top of it. It was a 13-minute long video displaying the names of the innocent children, who have been killed in Palestine due to the Israeli occupation. There are over 14 000 children who are now dead. It was a 13-minute long video showing the names of innocent children who have died due to being bombed, burning to death, and being lost and crushed under the rubble of collapsing buildings at the hands of the Israeli government and military.

The video made me feel physically ill. It made me feel more emotions than I can possibly express. I felt angry and devastated and sick.

I had to force myself to watch the full video.

As upset as it made me feel, my feelings are nothing compared to the lives lost and have been taken, and the least they deserve is to be seen.

It took me a while to get myself together after watching the video. I felt so empty and no part of me was able to keep scrolling after a video like that. I wanted to do something better with what I was feeling than just "move on" or desensitise myself by consuming something else in order to "make me feel better".

That's what led me here. It's taken me so long to even write this because I have so much that I want to say, that I didn't know where to start. I have so much in me right now, and I just don't think the way we're currently living is fair.

Mainstream media is actively trying to separate you from your humanity due to all the reasons I listed above. It is so critical for us to acknowledge things that may be uncomfortable to talk about because of the fact that we are talking about real people, and real matters of humanity. I understand the overwhelming feeling of hopelessness that comes with this, or not knowing where to even start. But while it all feels like a lot, everything makes a difference. Small things aid each other and ultimately our hope cannot be lost. No hope is lost while we are still breathing and care for each other. There is always hope through our humanity.

A lot can be said for the positives in investing your time into supporting ethical journalism that has no agenda beyond reporting and uncovering truth. A start to this is just to pay attention to news sources and their potential biases and what they stand to gain from promoting a specific view point. News sources endorsing specific people or views often have agendas beyond actual news (often indicated by who they are funded by) and are easy to spread misinformation or propaganda. No one is immune to consuming and buying into either of these things. Independent sources are often best to look at as they do not have the same profit incentive as sensational news sources, but always make sure to check any source's reliability before buying into them.

Many people chose not to engage with things like this because "it doesn't affect them and therefore doesn't involve them". Being able to ignore something or choose not to engage, is an inherent indication of an individual privilege that many people have and choose to use. I'm not trying to tell anyone what to do, but I think it's important to recognise these factors before entirely disengaging yourself from social, political or humanitarian issues. Being aware of our beliefs, choices, and why we might feel the way we do towards certain things, I feel is critical for understanding and justifying ourselves as individuals. I think on a basic level everyone has their own moral compass and their own reasons for it. I am in no place to judge people for what they do or don't do, but I just hope a person's own actions align with their own beliefs, or that they do things that encourage their own growth as an individual. There should just be an understanding or acknowledgment from people that there is no true neutral in any belief or action. There is either response to action, or inaction. Whatever a person does or believes is their choice, but I believe that the acknowledgement of theoretical apoliticism is needed by everyone.

While many things we encounter, both real world and online, are not within our control, being mindful of the media we consume and the biases inherent in it, can help us reclaim our attention and autonomy over what we engage in. Being able to see and acknowledge these patterns and behaviours can help us navigate our lives better in a very capitalist society. Even in small ways, it's important to have understanding of people and why things are the way they are. We need it to build humanity instead of giving up on it and it will hopefully build a more aware and empathetic society.

I think my final point in this whole rant is that being more conscious of our engagement in all aspects of the world is difficult, but it is necessary. It requires us to confront things that are uncomfortable and acknowledge and fight against forces that commodify our attention, like we are their personal product. I just want people to be aware. I am still angry and many things are still so unfair, but I still have hope. I still believe in people and their humanity and I think that's why everything is so worth fighting for in the first place. This whole rant may seem contradictory or jumbled, but to me it's not. While people may not get the whole picture I'm trying to paint here, I ultimately want to acknowledge how complex almost everything is. It's difficult and complex and it would be much easier if things were simpler, but they are not. Everything is difficult and complex, but it does mean that things are impossible or that everything is already lost. Again, It's not fair, nothing is fair and I have such a violent anger in me; but in the same breath, I believe in people and have unwavering hope for the good, and I just hope someone else does too.

#rant #personal #essay time #me #consumerism and capilatism is killing us as always #all eyes on rafah #all eyes on palestine #all eyes on sudan #all eyes on syria

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argumate · 3 years ago

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By the way, while this has always been a conceptual problem with the use of GDP in China, it has not always been a practical problem. When China was severely underinvested, which was the case in the 1980s and 1990s, GDP growth could be accepted as a reasonable measure of the real growth in the underlying economy. This is because even though budgets then were no more constrained than they are now, one could assume that the distortions they introduced were quite minimal. When China was underinvested, investments were nearly always productive, and so the ability to ignore budget constraints and hide the costs of nonproductive investment in the form of rising debt had little effect on the GDP data—or, to put it differently, rising debt did not reflect a rising debt burden.

But that is no longer the case. Because debt is now rising faster than debt-servicing capacity, one can think of the gap between the two as the capitalizing of what should be an expense—nonproductive spending—the result of which is higher reported growth and higher reported wealth: GDP as input in each period has become the sum of GDP as output and the amount of expenses that have been incorrectly capitalized.

eh now I feel like an idiot for badly paraphrasing Pettis when I could have just quoted these two paragraphs from this piece.

that last part about "capitalising expenses" is basically how you account for the value of the assets you've created by spending money on concrete or what have you.

if you poured ten million dollars worth of concrete into the ocean then it would create nothing of value and you would be down ten million dollars but if you poured it into a building which was worth twenty million dollars then you would be up ten million and everyone is happy.

but what makes the building worth twenty million? the best measure is if you can lease it at a price of X% of twenty million where X is greater than the interest rate you would pay to borrow twenty million dollars, that suggests that the building is offering value to the market as a whole and that value exceeds the cost of its construction (not considering land value etc. etc.)

if you can't lease it out because nobody really needs it then your only hope is selling it to some other sucker and hoping you're not the one left stuck with it.

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ofthefog · 2 years ago

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To try to answer the question "does an ai learn the same way that a person does?" is it depends.

When given the same inputs and internal structure, then the output would be exactly the same. You can see the same thing happen when speedrunners play a game and an ai is rewarded by completing the course the fastest. They both initially just widdle down on regular completion but occasionally a game breaking physics bug is found and that can be exploited. It can be done through trial and error which is how it is initially done, or it can be put in situations that lends itself towards exploiting that bug.

This is similar to super mario 64 veterans making maps designed to teach newcomers the techniques of the A button challenge.

Rather notable, though, is that you don't have an ai reading up on the techniques on a forum and exploring on its own in game to learn these techniques. But I'll get back to this.

Regarding digital art, the main difference is that the inputs and structure are different than a human being. Humans do not look at a digital picture and see the individual pixels. But that's the way they are fed into a ML algorithm. Humans also have a number of different inputs that are usually irrelevant but can also be drawn upon.

AI is really good at textures. The history of AI art really starts with style transfer algorithms after the initial deep dream stuff came aboard. I think that if you saw the image in the same way, it would be just as obvious as the difference between capital letters, punctuation, or kanji, or arabic text. These are all very object, surface level differences that we can understand because we really did learn to read one letter at a time.

AI, on the other hand, has trouble drawing upon different experiences because it doesn't have those unless we give it them. If you ask an artist to draw someone experiencing vertigo, then a human being doesn't need to see other art to draw that idea. They can just do it from having felt dizzy before and putting that on the page or what have you.

Currently AI art can take the text of "a person experiencing vertigo" and compare what art gets described as dizzying and what features they have. One such being a warped space that breaks deeply ingrained visual patterns such as a building being straight. And so you get this.

Now if I saw this as a work titled "Vertigo" it would make total sense to me. The way that it came to be is not quite the same as a person, but I would find it strange to base the essence of personhood on the ability to feel dizzy.

One could make the argument that the AI doesn't truly "get" the experience what with never having a body and all. And I think that is fair to say. But the big point is that what is lacking is that type of input, not really in the internal learning part.

For example, one thing that an AI is actually pretty good at too is author attribution of written material. Just like you may be able to tell that your mutual sent that anon, so can this AI if given enough labeled input. You may think that it doesn't really "get" the voice of a writer like a person does, but something interesting happened in testing - when removing superficial aspects of a text like punctuation, capitalisation and such, the AI could still reliably tell the difference between some famous classical writers. The thing it was looking at was more abstract. Word choice, sentence structure, and even topic. The abstraction can be replicated within the nueral network by having extra layers between the input and output. In that way, I'd say that the AI learns basically in the same way that a person does.

So that begs the question, could we just make an artifical person with a machine brain and all? And to that, I would say it is theoretically possible, but there are philosophical and technical limits. One being that identity of a person is pretty fuzzy. Should we also simulate the microbiome to affect the mood of our artificial person or would a different material and approximation suffice? That's a bit like saying whether feeling vertigo is important to being a person. One could say so, though I find that all rather silly.

The technical aspect is also that we don't quite know how to connect a bunch of different inputs like text and vision and speech all together in a specialized yet connected way that we see in the human brain. Also it would probably be a bunch of information and processing power that limits feasibility.

So "Does an ai learn the same way a person does?" It could, but it doesn't exactly because of technical restraints. But the parts where it doesn't aren't in my opinion all that important philosophically. Though we do have to take the difference in input seriously to understand its effect.

That ties into the question of "well if its so humanlike, then is this, like, causing suffering or something? Are we doing something morally wrong here?

Interestingly I think this is somewhat related to vegan arguments. On a practical level, both ai and livestock are used as tools for human ends. Of course the degree of "sentience" of our specialised ML models are more akin to protocells than they are any living creature, but the idea of how something that has senses and behaviour in a way similar to us, if to lesser degrees in complexity, should be treated is fundamentally the same.

So like the case of photography, we're not going to be giving the tool author attribution here. But it does serve as an interesting question about what it means to be human and an artist.

Early on in the discourse I saw a twitter thread where someone was responding to pro-AI art arguments and one was “Isn’t a machine learning styles the same way a person does?” and it was one of those things where I felt more the question being responded to was more interesting than the “answer” which was just some “no human needs to touch it” thing that is ironically the same argument people use(d) to delegitimize digital art as well as photography as well as Raphael (it’s Raphael who was the one that was criticized by the Romantic movement bc he had his apprentices be the ones to actually do the direct work while he designed the big picture of the work, right?)

#reblcat #thoughts ofthefog #compnet

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rainbirdsky · 3 years ago

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Alef/Resh

The Prince/The King (is supposed to) have a unique way of speaking and being referred to. I’ve not been very good at keeping it consistent so far, but this is how it SHOULD go. Mostly for my reference, but... maybe someone else cares too.

I will NOT correct people on this as it’s somewhat convoluted and I don’t expect anyone else to follow this.

I’ll add other info too because why not?

Readmore because it’s long and wordy.

RESH

When referring to Resh in writing, capitalise He/Him/His. If addressing Him directly, He will be irritated if you call Him anything other than ‘Your Majesty’*.

Resh will refer to Himself as ‘We/Us/Our’ capitalised.

Resh is specifically the form of the character much larger with red ‘eyes’. [Link]

ALEF

When referring to Alef in writing, use lowercase he/him/his. If addressing him directly, he is happy to be called Alef or ‘Your Highness’* - though he doesn’t require the formality.

Alef will refer to himself as ‘we/us/our’ in lowercase.

Alef is a small golden child with long hair and a habit of playing ’cute’ to manipulate others and get what he wants. [Link with colour]

Alef with Resh reff.

ALEF/RESH

Alef/Resh (alternatively AlefResh - both names said together) is the combined form of the character. Alef/Resh is the balance of the two states of being and more stable than either. He also combines the worst attributes of both, and is by no means ‘safe’.

Alef/Resh will still refer to himself capitalised (We/Us/Our) but can be referred to as either capitalised or lowercase (he/him/his/He/Him/His).

Alef/Resh prefers to be referred to as ‘Your Majesty’ but will accept other forms of his name - Alef or Resh or Alef/Resh. He begrudgingly accepts other respectful titles, but has asked Teal stop calling Him ‘boss’ because it always sounds sarcastic when they say it. Because it’s definitely sarcastic when Teal says it.

Alef/Resh is similar to Resh but smaller, slimmer and has blue ‘eyes’ (becoming angry will turn them red however). He mixes in some attributes of Alef, including the longer hair. [First draft of design]

Plural?

The Prince/The King has spent a lot of time alone and treats different phases of His life as differing personas. It is unknown if His psyche is actually fractured or if this was a coping mechanism for loneliness. The current form at any given time speaks on behalf of all forms, however His behaviour and reactions will differ based on the current form. Alef will be more merciful than Resh, for example.

Switching forms is unpredictable to outside observers however some triggers can be observed.

If referring to the multiple forms at once default to capitalising, as Alef doesn’t mind the capital but Resh definitely hates the lowercase.

Hug?

The form Sky Kids are familiar with is a simplified version of the character, as though you are meeting a stranger and have not yet lit them to reveal their appearance. With few exceptions, Sky Kids don’t typically know the appearance of the figure they meet in Eden. It is unknown why Alef/Resh continues these interactions with Sky Kids.

So... is He seeking minions/simps..? 👀

Not... really. All forms of The Prince/The King as I write Him are aromantic and asexual (Diversity win! The King assaulting you is aro/ace! /lh) He won’t love you and as the mod I hope you get better taste in dudes ^^; I can’t stop you of course and I won’t get mad at you... It’s more pity /jkjk

As for your characters serving The Prince/The King... eh, go ahead. But don’t expect gratitude or recognition. He expects obedience, He does not reward it.

Can we ask Him questions?

No, unless stated otherwise, such as if I post asking for questions for Him. If I feel it would be interesting to have Him react to an ask I receive I might do so but it’s up to my discretion.

Can we ask you questions about Him?

Yes but I won’t necessarily answer them. Again, I’ll decide based on the questions. Some questions might reveal spoilers or things I want to keep secret if answered and that’s no fun.

Can I draw Him?

Yes. Assuming you’re specifically talking about my character design for Him, I would quite like that! Just please try to keep good taste in mind.

(*Note: ‘Your Majesty’ is for kings/queens, ‘Your Highness’ is for princes/princesses.)

#mod post #text post #long post #alef/resh #oh lore?#alef #resh #the prince/the king #the prince #the king #writing #this may change slightly with time if i feel it needs to #my prince #my king

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that-shamrock-vibe · 3 years ago

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Movie Review: Cruella

Disclaimer: This is my non-spoiler review for Cruella, posting either the day or the day after the movie is released in the U.K, so if you are yet to see the movie and want to go in with a clear head do not read on until you do.

General Reaction:

Cruella however, I knew from the first trailer I was determined to see in cinemas and the fact it was my first time back in cinemas seeing a movie, I could not think of a better opening play.

It has been a while not only since I have been to the cinema, but also since I watched a new movie. Anything new that has come to me through the lockdowns have been older movies that are new to me. I haven't watched movies on PVOD or Premier Accees because I don't want to pay for them while in my bedroom on a small television and also they don't interest me enough to pay for them.

And that's what this movie is, an origin story. It's a Disney live-action adaptation of a beloved Disney villain's origins, sound familiar? That's what fans originally believed Maleficent to be before it became a redemption story of sorts.

Cruella was the villain of One Hundred and One Dalmatians because she wanted to skin puppies to make a coat, but this movie isn't about that, despite there being some excellent foreshadowing and even reworking as a prequel to the original story, this movie is about how Cruella became Cruella, not necessarily how she became a villain but making the character more three-dimensional and layered.

Here, without going into spoilers, we do see the reasoning behind Cruella being the villain we love her for and it is very much a nature vs nurture style of moral, but it isn't done to the detriment of the villainy Cruella is known for.

What Disney and the creatives behind Cruella have done with this movie is not only take note with everything great and bad with the more recent Disney live-action movies and filter out the bad, but also the potential of movies like Maleficent and even Mulan to a degree which failed to live up to their promises creatively, have seemingly been reworked for this origin story.

Does that mean she's not a villain in this movie? Well while she's not the movie's primary antagonist, Cruella stays true to herself and doesn't compromise why fans love the original character, if anything she amplifies why she's such a great character.

Cruella is such a love letter to the 1970s punk rock era while also managing to not just be style over substance but deliver on story and character as well, that I can't imagine anyone having that much of a problem with it.

It's what I would honestly call an artisan's delight, I'm not creative in a fashion sense, I love fashion and it's a reason I connect with Cruella so much, but I couldn't do what she does. I'd possibly be the Artie of her gang if not Horace and honestly I'm okay with that. But the way fashion, music and visual storytelling is used in this movies rivals the 1996 live-action 101 Dalmatians in that sense when scenes largely focused on the dogs selling the scenes without speaking. A picture paints a thousands words and Cruella's eccentric fashions were scene stealers.

It's funny, it's dramatic, it's well acted and directed. The writing is brilliant with maybe one exception with the Baroness which we will discuss in the spoiler review.

Speaking of spoilers. Way back when this movie was first announced I believe in 2016 I was adamantly against it, I thought it was sacrilege and that it would not be a patch on the original movies.

That being said, since seeing that first trailer and that stunning dress reveal I was hooked and have since watched pretty much every single trailer and TV spot this movie could churn out to the point where I feel I saw the entire movie already...but I was wrong.

From the trailers if you think this movie is going to end at a certain point you'd be wrong. I could kinda tell when the movie was going to end based on how the scene was set up, but even then there's more to the story.

I mentioned how this movie foreshadowed to the original One Hundred and One Dalmatians story as a prequel of sorts but also how it rewrote history so to speak, again the mid credits scene blows my mind as a Dalmatians fan and it cries out for a sequel.

However, to sum up, the original 1961 animated One Hundred and One Dalmatians is to this day my favourite movie of all time. Dalmatians are my favourite dog breed despite the fact I currently own a frenchie pug and Cruella De Vil I believe to be my spiritual mother.

Usually in these reactions I'll give a quick recap of my opinions of the movie or franchise the one in question is a part of, but I feel I've spoken about my love of all things Cruella De Vil and One Hundred and One Dalmatians enough in the past to get the point across.

All that being said, I am trying to compartmentalise my thoughts and be unbiased in my opinions for this movie. But honestly if this movie was bad I'd be coming down the hardest out of any critic on it because of what the property means to me personally.

So yes, I am going to big this movie up because pretty much every single element in this movie is 99% perfect. There is room for improvement, but that's where a sequel comes in to not only capitalise but better itself. And keeping the same creative team and bringing back the same cast, I feel this will be the Disney sequel to break the mould just as Cruella is the Disney movie to break the mould

But I have hyped up the lore and the character enough, what do I think of the movie? Well as much as I praised the creatives behind the movie for such a fabulous movie, director Chris Gillespe is partially to blame for how the movie looks. It’s still a visually orgasmic movie in terms of how it portrays its artistic choices, but in terms of those scenes and shots that could’ve been and should’ve been as visually pleasing as the fashion and art shots, just don’t leave as striking and lasting an impression as those shots and scenes.

Cast:

Honestly upon the announcement, to the point where I made a rant session post about it, Emma Stone as Cruella just didn’t land with me upon said announcement. However, as I said since seeing the first trailer, Emma Stone is young Cruella for me.

Glenn Close for me is Cruella De Vil in live-action. Victoria Smurfit on Once Upon a Time was fabulous but in opinion an elseworlds version of Cruella because she had magic and her story wasn’t really in line with the source material. Now, without spoilers but because it’s an origin you kinda can guess, Emma Stone’s version isn’t really in line with the source material either and up until seeing the movie I was all for viewing this version as an elseworlds story. even after seeing it I am all for viewing it as an elseworlds story from the original source material.

But does that mean it’s bad? No it’s just different. As I said earlier this is definitely a more fleshed out three-dimensional version of the Cruella that the original animated version and Glenn Close’s adaptation delivered, but honestly I’m excited to know where this Cruella goes from after seeing this movie. This is my favourite Emma Stone performance to date.

As for the other Emma, Emma Thompson as the Baroness, well she and Stone’s Cruella not only capitalize on Meryl Streep’s The Devil Wears Prada performance, but also adds that extra layer that make both characters not only believable as people but also villains. There’s no mistaking Thompson’s Baroness is a villain, but she does it in the best way and has never looked more fantastic doing so.

This movie also humanizes Jasper and Horace for me, I’m still unsure as to their relationship, if they’re friends or brothers, but based on the fact Jasper is race-bent in this movie and Hotace is still caucasian I’m going with not. However, without spoilers, based on how they meet Cruella I’m in favour of them not being related and simply lost souls coming together. But yeah they’re both funny, you believe they’re Jasper and Horace there’s no thinking one should be the other, and the chemistry between Jasper and Cruella is so electric that it demands a pay off in a sequel and actually speaks to a problem I know some male fans (including me) may actually have with Cruella as a character.

The other biggest breakout in this movie is John McCrea as Artie, who is not only Disney’s first clearly openly LGBT character but a scene-stealer in every shot that he is in. I said I would probably be Artie or Horace in Cruella’s gang and I stand by that because I think Artie is who I’d want to be (aside from Cruella herself) but Horace is physically who I would be.

Then as for the side characters, the movie does an interesting turn on the Anita/Roger origin story, Mark Strong as the Alonzo substitute is mysterious and brilliant, and the dogs are again scene stealers. Aside from 3 dalmatians (who are still alive at the end) there are two completely original new dogs who are part of Cruella’s gang and whether or not it’s because I’m a dog lover and own a dog or just because of the dog’s direction, they just pull focus every scene and make the characters more sympathetic because of how they interact with them.

Is this a knockout movie? Unfortunately no, I feel mistakes are made that leave holes for trolls to swoop in, however, I don’t think they should/ Honestly uou cannot make the “live-action” The Lion King a billion dollar flick and then complain about this movie, this is original, brilliant and 95% well executed. Yes I’ve dropped from 99 and we will discuss the issues in the spoiler review.

Recommendation:

But honestly this movie is worth the watch, it deserves the watch. As for seeing it in cinemas vs. Disney+, I could say it’s worth the £20/$30, but to get a true feel of some of the bigger and better artistic scenes it demands a big screen viewing. Also support local cinemas and all that jazz.

So that’s my non-spoiler review for Cruella, what did you guys think? Post your comments and stay tuned for my spoiler review hopefully coming soon, meanwhile you can check out other Movie Reviews and posts.

#cruella #disney #cruella de vil #101 dalmatians #one hundred and one dalmatians #baroness von hellman #jasper and horace #emma stone #emma thompson #glenn close

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harpersplay · 3 years ago

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CWH: So we have some questions from the community and one of them is about allyship and, I want, I would love for you to talk about—what is, what does high quality allyship look like? And the way the person phrased it is: "this is the golden age to be white and woke in America." And then they go on to ask about allyship. So can you talk about that?

TMC: You know, allyship isn't even my favorite word. I like to say to people that allies should be a way station on the way to becoming a comrade. Yeah. So the difference for me is that an ally is someone who has learned about inequalities, has learned about injustices and feels personally implicated. A comrade is someone who has learned that their personal implication will come with personal sacrifice. [...] and I actually think we've done ourselves a bit of a disservice in the public discourse about how we have made allyship the goal, right? Allyship is just a, it's a stage of identity development. It means you do consciousness raising and you should. [...] but always with the understanding that for us to move into a space of sharing the burden will always come with sacrifice. But I think it's important to point out that in exchange for that sacrifice you are ultimately freed from all of the lingering restraints that allyship puts on you. So it is better to become a comrade. I think it feels better. Yes, there's personal sacrifice. But there's so much collective benefit that then, you know, spills over to your personal experience. But it doesn't mean it's easy.

[...]

CWH: So one of the questions that I got is, "Can you tell us about some of your current ideas on the performance of white femininity in politics. For example, how does Marjorie Taylor Greene capitalise on tropes of white blondness as the gold standard of gender capitalism to advance her particular political power or how Lauren Boebert"—I'm not sure if I'm saying the name correctly—"invokes ideals of thinness. How do you see these performances evolving over the next decade?" And I'm thinking about the writing that you do in Thick and how it's so perfectly suited to to take on this very sophisticated question.

TMC: Oh, thank you for that one. And I'm, um, somebody can email me later if they ever want credit for the line that I just wrote down that I will be borrowing and that is "the gold standard of gender capitalism" because that is—that works on so many levels—as it is about blondness which I've been critiquing lately as the culturally acceptable avatar of white eugenesis ideas of white supremacy. [...] but that's what happens when you reduce solidarity politics to individual politics. So the minute we defanged feminism and made it about which slogans you prefer and made it about economic empowerment we divested it of any ability to be elastic enough for the kind of solidarity narratives that feminism was supposed to do. [...] They sort of clean them up. They make them bulletproof in political discourse. Because you can't attack a woman, right? And so you certainly can't attack a white woman. And so it mainstreams these ideas in the political discourse in a way that I think is as dangerous—if not more dangerous—than some of what we saw coming from something like Donald Trump, right? I always said that Donald Trump's most powerful weapon was actually Ivanka. It was his daughter doing the exact same work but through that avatar of blondness and femininity precisely because we are so conditioned for that to be eternally innocent. [...] We're going to have to reckon with how do we have a complex conversation about how not all women who proclaim feminism are doing feminist politics.

-Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom during a conversation on modern discourse moderated by Dr. Celeste Watkins-Hayes for The Policy Talks Series presented by The Ford School at the University of Michigan

Fuck! I love listening to smart Black women break shit down.

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#dr. tressie mcmillan cottom #performative allyship #white feminism #the casual toxicity of white feminism #tressie mcmillan cottom

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totallyinsecurerobot · 4 years ago

Text

the only lovers left alive

Summary: Asterix’s history from the moment they meet David. They keep finding each other, they keep ending up together, and maybe it’s fate, or maybe no-one else understands them quite like they understand each other.

A/N: 7718 words. SFW but there’s implied nsfw stuff. It does get a little bit violent at times, and there’s light period-typical (1950s Hollywood) misogyny, implied sexual violence, and victim blaming. It’s all very light, just mentioned in passing, but I thought I should give you a heads up. COMPLETELY UNEDITED AND JUST KIND OF A MESS. PROBABLY OOC. WHATEVER. nb oc & nb marko. poly lost boys at the end there. shut up they’re all in love street smarts.

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Perhaps it’s that he’s looking to feel powerful, that he sees Asterix, corsetted and well-to-do, taller than most, and he picks them as a victim because they look like a challenge, bragging right to - to who? Their sire perhaps, any others in the area; but Asterix would know if there were others in the area, they’ve been here long enough after all. He’s new to this, Asterix can tell; it seems strange for him to be walking at a normal pace, the movements a little too thought out, where the speed would be second nature to a human. Asterix knows from experience that it takes some getting used to, they’ve been working on it for several centuries already, at the very least.

“You alright, ma’am, you know strange things are afoot in these parts, you should be careful walking around alone at night,” he’s trying to appear charming and nonthreatening, but his clothes don’t fit right; they’re dark enough to hide the blood he hadn’t been able to get out, but nothing could hide the smell from a vampire’s enhanced sense of smell. Asterix plays along.

“Oh my,” Asterix says, eyes wide, hands clutching tight at the silk of their elaborate skirt, “I’d heard rumours, terrible rumours, but I thought this was a nice part of town.” Of course they’d heard the rumours, they’d been the actual source of them, this newbie was just trying to capitalise on how Asterix had normalised disappearances. They weren’t sure whether to laugh or be mad.

“I’m sure you won’t be bothered,” he’s alternating between walking too fast and too slow, trying to keep in time with Asterix’s consistent pace, but not quite being able to hold himself back, “would you allow me to escort you back home, to your- your husband?” He hazards a guess, a product of the time; Asterix, biologically nineteen and dressed to appear feminine, should very well have a husband by now, or at the very least be betrothed; all he’s really doing is determining whether he has to attack before or after they get back to Asterix’s house.

“Oh, I- I’m not... I’m new to town, you see, my Aunt lived here after being widowed at a young age. She passed recently and left me her house, a beautiful property on the edge of town,” Asterix’s story isn’t actually much of a lie, apart from the fact that they’d killed the poor widower who lived on the edge of town and fabricated a new life from her demise, “I certainly shouldn’t be accepting offers from strange men,” Asterix casts what they hope is a nervous glance his way, and the blonde vampire takes an obliging step back, “but I suppose if you really were some dastardly villain, you’d have already seized your opportunity.”

He really should work on controlling his expression, Asterix thinks with heavily veiled amusement; he’s practically telegraphing the ‘this is going to be easier than I thought’ that’s running through his head as he offers an arm for them to take, to be escorted. He’s too quiet, movements too fluid; if Asterix were any other person, they’d find it unnerving, off-putting, in ways they wouldn’t be able to put their finger on. Here and now, as a vampire of several centuries, all Asterix can see his youth in his movements.

Under the guise of small talk, Asterix asks about what rumours he’d heard, and he’s more than eager to warn them of the Devil that’s found a home in town, snatching up young sinners and leaving them dead and drained in the woods.

The Devil... That’s what they’re calling Asterix, they’d heard demon, vengeful spirit, monster, but devil, which had been what they’d been going for initially, was finally starting to pay off.

“Well you’re no devil,” Asterix laughs lightly, giving his arm a squeeze, as if to convey their relief. He doesn’t realise how deliberately they’re playing him, how they’re just waiting for him to reveal himself, and ruin that surprise with one of their own.

“And what about you, ma’am, would you consider yourself a sinner?” His voice is low, intrigued and tiptoeing the line between menacing and thrilling, and Asterix’s throat suddenly goes dry. He wants nothing more than to kill them, they know this, logically they know this, but if he knew the truth, what would their answer really mean.

“It’s just a load of nonsense anyways,” Asterix says, taking a deep breath, leading down a far less lit street. They’re suddenly tried of playing along. But he chuckles, low and rough, and when Asterix turns to look at them, he’s looking back, face twisted into it’s vampiric form, eyes shining bright and golden in the darkness.

“Are you sure?” His voice is a menacing snarl, but Asterix doesn’t flinch in the face of this change, dropping their nervous act in an instant, smirking. Finally.

“Yes,” and he seems confused at their cool, smug expression, their lack of overt reaction, right until they let their own face shift, ridges forming, eyes turning that very same gold, dropping their voice to a growl of their own, “because the Devil’s not a he in this town.”

Honestly, Asterix had kind of been hoping to run this newcomer out of town for trying to capitalize on their good bad name; it’s not easy to make a whole town accept occasional random disappearances, it’s certainly not easy to make them all believe it was divine justice, and to not look for the actual source. What they hadn’t expected was to end up with him apparently living with them.

Like a lost duckling, he still follows them home, and when Asterix asks after his Sire, he gets all broody and angry and admits that he had no idea. They’re in the basement, which Asterix has outfitted for their undead purposes; it’s always cool down here, which also happens to be why they store the excess blood from their victims. No use letting it go to waste, their stomach is only so big after all, and it’s always good to go as long as possible between kills, as to not arouse suspicion. They offer him a jar and he drinks hungrily; he’d been hunting tonight after all, he was probably thirsty, it’s just basic curtesy.

“I’m not going to teach you how to be a vampire... ?” They hesitate, squinting at him, and he fills in the blank with his name.

“Davidson - well, for now it’s Davidson, and I know how to be a vampire,” he frowns, unscrewing the lid of the jar, sniffing the contents doubtfully.

“It’s not virgin’s blood, but that’s an old myth, believe me,” their voice is flatly unamused; the night is young, they had planned to fly a few states over and swim naked in a lake to confuse anyone who happened to see it, not mentor a young vampire, “and boy, I knew what you were the moment I saw you, just because others don’t know what they’re looking for doesn’t mean they won’t be able to tell something’s of. If something’s off about you, soon enough the town starts speculating,” and as they explain, they sit themselves on the velvet sofa, watching him wrinkle his hose as he sips the blood, “and soon enough, the rumours I’ve worked so hard to start, but not be associated with will be linked to you, and once you’re killed or run out of town, I’ll have to start somewhere new from scratch. You’re inconveniencing me by being bad at this,” they tell him, lip curling as they look him over, as if trying to radiate ‘it was fun to meet you and mess with you, but you’re more trouble than you’re worth’.

“I’ll hunt elsewhere, but you don’t get to dictate where I am,” he responded, before raising the jar of blood, licking the excess off his lips, “this is stale.”

“Then give it back and stop being ungrateful,” Asterix held out their hand for the jar, but Davidson quickly scowled, taking another, angry sip, “and if I say I don’t want you to harm a single living person within a fifty mile radius, you’ll damn well do as I say.”

“And what makes you think that?” He sneers, looking over them, in all their silk and finery, on a dainty sofa, his tone derisive and gaze dismissive. Asterix’s lips quirk into a smile that didn’t reach their eyes.

“Because you would not be the first of our kind that I have disposed of,” they’re blunt, unsmiling and unwavering, and Davidson seems to finally start taking them seriously.

But he also stays.

He never hunts within the fifty mile radius that Asterix had set, unless of course Asterix themselves had invited him along on one of the night they hunt in one of the neighbouring towns.

The story has changed too; no longer was Asterix simply playing Lady Estelle, the unfortunate and unwed niece of the widow Sinclair, but now she was actively betrothed to Davidson, the man she’d had to leave behind when she’d accepted ownership of the property. It was the only story that explained their vastly differing looks despite living, and occasionally being seen together.

For the entire first month of the arrangement, Asterix regretted ever agreeing to it. Realistically they knew that if they stuck with the story and the hunting pattern they’d developed, they’d be able to live comfortably here for a very long time, but it didn’t stop them from being irritated by Davidson’s smugness, how bloody and messy he’d be when he came back after feeding, and how he’d roll his eyes whenever Asterix would choose a jar over hunting. They’d icily tell him that it was about now drawing unnecessary attention to themselves; Davidson would simply stick to the rules that had been set, but always chose a hunt over saved blood.

To be fair, he doesn’t see them hunt for that first full month.

When Asterix invites him, Davidson barks a harsh laugh.

“Didn’t think you knew how,” he admits, and says he’s only tagging along to see how a professional does it - his words, sarcasm dripping from them.

And so Asterix takes him to the edge of the outer limit, a sleepy town some fifty miles away, where a man was waiting in a graveyard by the church. Davidson waits out of sight as Asterix directs him to, and he watches in fascination as they approach the man, dressed in silk and lace, and he calls them a name Davidson doesn’t recognize, but Asterix greets him in kind, all quiet and sordid. They kiss like long-separated lovers, and the man, breathless and quiet, talks about running away, about horses waiting nearby, about eloping just like they’d always talked about, and Asterix plays at being thrilled, at tearing up and agreeing, and letting the man slide a ring onto their finger.

It’s it’s own kind of horrifying, Davidson realises quickly, to see how smitten this man is, and to know his fate when the man does not. He follows along, watches them climb aboard a horse that almost bucks the moment Asterix comes close; the man they’re with calms the horse however, and then they’re off. It’s a drawn out process, a slow execution for the man who does not even realise he’s on death row, and it is all but driving Davidson mad as he follows them through the night, through the darkness, for several hours. He’s about to give up, to head home, half convinced Asterix is actually just marrying this man, when the horse stops.

The moon is high in the sky when they stop at Asterix’s insistence, and the man asks what’s wrong when they dismount. Asterix claims to need to stretch, but soon they’re wrapping their arms around him, voice low and intimate;

“It’s just you and me out here, like it should be; you and me for the rest of your life.”

The man doesn’t catch Asterix’s wording as they pull him into their embrace, fingers threaded through his hair, pressing a gentle kiss to his vulnerable throat, but Davidson does. It’s time; he descends from where he’d been circling them like a vulture. The horse spooks and bolts at the sudden newcomer, but this is about the time that Asterix’s teeth sink into the man’s neck, and he tries to struggle, but their grip is unyielding.

He’s begging, pleading, screaming, but as Asterix steps back, they raise their free hand to the wound, as if to stem the bleeding, face transformed and grinning eerily.

“He’s not long for this world, if you’d like to drink it fresh,” Asterix raises their voice, not looking away from the man, though Davidson knows they’re talking to him. The man in their hands screams louder at Davidson’s sudden appearance by his side, but there’s no-one else around to save him. Asterix steps behind the man, fingers still threaded through his hair to hold him in place as Davidson feeds, sloppy, not even half as elegant as Asterix had made it look, but it didn’t matter. Something about the feral, primal way in which he drank had a dark appreciation stirring in Asterix’s chest, and couldn’t help but lean in to the man’s other side and bite him again, to share in this moment.

He’ll lick the blood from their fingers, eyes aglow, and Asterix will remember what it felt like to be newly turned and fearless and reckless, and the power that came with it, the heady sense of invincibility that would surge through them in the afterglow of a kill. They couldn’t begrudge him his cockiness anymore.

There’s a moment, a sense of connection, of understanding, of finally seeing eye to eye, creatures acting on instinct alone in the dead of night. Later, Asterix will explain the countless men they have been wooing in secret, men betrothed or married to other women, men whose families are suspicious of affairs, but with no proof, men who could be called sinners, men who would be perfect targets for The Devil these little towns all feared. Later, they’ll take the body of the man back to their house to exsanguinate him, to not let his blood go to waste, to dispose of him the following night far away from the scene of the crime. Later, Asterix will take the ring off that the man gave them, and Davidson will see the countless other ones just like it in a jewelry box they keep in a dark corner of the basement, and he decides not to ask.

“Even when you kill you’re...” he searches for the words, but they’re not harsh or demeaning like they may have been before this night had occurred, “calculated; men in towns for miles, months of work put in, all so people don’t realise it’s you; it must feel so unnatural to suppress your instincts like that, aren’t you tired of it?”

“I am alive,” Asterix points out, though they grimace at the choice of words, but Davidson understands anyways.

“Next time, hunt with me, let yourself let go,” he urges, teeth sharp and eyes bright. Asterix remembers that tone, his words - and you, ma’am, would you consider yourself a sinner? - as they look at him and agree, exhausted by always playing by the humans’ rules.

It’s freeing to be feral; for the first time in decades, Asterix feels alive.

But still they hold back, terrified of being overcome completely by their bloodlust, too aware of the power they wield to use it to full capacity. Humans only ever require a miniscule amount of power to tear apart, there was no need, they told themselves, for overkill.

The good thing they’ve got going lasts all of five years before people start to get suspicious about how they never age. After a year has passed, they tell other that they’d eloped, if only to keep up the ruse; it would be suspicious if they kept their engagement going on too long in this part of world. They’re both equal parts horrified and amused by it all, not that it changes anything about their dynamic; they’re still free to do whatever they wish with whoever they wish, so long as the people in town never find out.

But still, Asterix gives him the ring that had been given to them by the first victim they’d shared, the night they’d finally started to respect each other. It’s meant partially as a joke, but Davidson wears it nonetheless.

When the time comes, and the townsfolk start asking questions that they can’t answer, they take what little belongings they’ve accumulated - Asterix takes their box of engagement rings - and burn the house they were staying in, no proof of their existence left behind, just the memory of a young couple tragically lost, and they go their separate ways.

Asterix, desperate for a change of scenery, secures passage on a ship headed to Europe, and spends a considerable few decades residing in various bogs across Europe’s various forests, preying on unfortunate explorers, and occasionally towns, if they were close enough. It’s like hibernating, as if turning their brain off to become the instinct-driven creature they truely were. Being away from society, away from humans, away from even others of their own kind, it was the exact reset they needed.

When emerging from their self imposed isolation, there comes news of a war in American having been and gone, and for the barest moment they consider going back, but ultimately decides against it. Instead they take up residency in the heart of London, sleeping in the cellar of a pub they managed to claim ownership of through dubious means. City folk are so desensitized to strange behaviors that they don’t think twice about the pub only ever being open at night, when most others offered a lunch service; they don’t question Asterix managing to be the only employee, it’s a small pub after all. No-one wonders why Asterix is never seen during the day, most assume they’re asleep anyways, since the pub is open practically ‘til dawn.

Sid Priestly, Asterix’s current identity, could be any other human on Earth as far as most of London was concerned. They don’t live in a secluded castle, or hiss, or float menacingly through the air, so none of the humans think to suspect them as anything other than one of their own, albeit one who keeps strange hours.

There’s a few vampires in London, mostly the standoffish types, however there’s a respect and understanding between them all, and they all know Asterix pub to be a place where they will be invited in without question. Asterix, for their part, had reinstated their habit of preserving their leftovers, and finds themselves incorporating blood into one of their dark beers, so their special guests could enjoy themselves as much as the humans.

The pub’s been open for almost nine months when he walks through the doors, looking pleasantly surprised in the golden glow of the overhead lights. One of the other vampires in attendance lights up at the sight of him, waving him over.

“Arthur! Glad you finally made it,” he grins, and turns to Asterix, “two of your finest dark beers, thanks Sid,” and Asterix obligingly turns to fetch two of the blood-infused beers.

“Arthur,” they acknowledge him with a nod and a smirk, placing the beer down in front of him as he sits, giving the other vampire his own, which he sips gratefully while ‘Arthur’ gives the beer a dubious look. His gaze flicks to Asterix, who’s watching with hesitant amusement, not quite sure how to proceed, and then he takes a sip.

“It’s stale,” he says with a knowing smirk, which breaks the tension, and Asterix smirks a laugh, despite the other vampire’s confusion.

“You ungrateful bastard,” Asterix shakes their head, pulling themself a beer and cheersing him.

“Do you two know each other?” The other vampire asks, and Asterix and ‘Arthur’ share a look.

“Sid’s my -” he pauses, giving a look to Asterix, to their masculine presentation and current identity, and he shifts a little, voice growing a little quieter for fear of the human patrons overhearing, “husband.” Asterix huffs a dismissive breath through their nose, rolling their eyes at the memory of their ruse, of their briefly shared life.

“Husband?” The other vampire asks, looking curiously between the two of them, intrigued.

“Wife at the time,” Asterix offers, “I’ve been a lot of things,” is the closest they get to any sort of explanation. It takes a beat for the other vampire to consider, but then he’s shrugging, mentioning that he doesn’t think the beer, or it’s special ingredient, tastes stale; Asterix gives him a toothy, pleased smile, while ‘Arthur’ rolls his eyes despite hiding his grin against the lip of his cup by taking another drink.

There’s an understanding within the community, of outliving the restrictive, human concept of identity, in almost all respects. It’s easier to explore who you are when you literally have all the time in the world; many find labels that fit them, pronouns and names that are comfortable, finding variations of themselves each time they move. Without the pressures or expectations of human society, it’s also easier to be comfortable being with whoever they choose to, especially when they’re more than comfortable ripping apart anyone to cast negative aspersions on them for their choice of partner - or partners.

“You don’t get to claim part ownership of the pub just because we told people we were married fifty years ago,” Asterix closes the pub early that night, finding themself sitting atop the roof with ‘Arthur’. Neither of them is quite sure how to interact with the other, sitting a foot apart, drinking a pint in the moonlight.

“I don’t plan on staying long,” he says, looking out to the city while Asterix is watching him, “thought I’d go be a nuisance around Romania; America’s gotten boring.”

There’s something about him that’s different from when they’d last seen him, something easy and uncomplicated about his movements. His grin stretches wide, leaning back on his elbows, confident, sure of himself. It’s only in seeing him again that Asterix can feel how much his absence ached. It had only been five years, of the few hundred that Asterix had endured at this point, what had been so special about him that they’d been so effected?

He looks at them, smiling sharp and fond in equal measure.

“You’ve gone all soft in your age,” he teases, and immediately Asterix feels themselves growing flustered in their outrage, “serving humans, and not even attempting to court on a single one? How do you ever feed yourself if you’re not stealing the hearts of unfaithful bachelors?”

“I get by,” Asterix tells him, “I’ve got an understanding with some of the others; I don’t have to do the dirty work anymore, my loyal customers provide me with everything I could ever need.”

“Surviving on scraps, always surviving on scraps,” he tuts, “I think you’re scared of yourself, I think you always have been.”

“Arthur,” Asterix warns, eyes flashing a dangerous gold.

“What are they going to do if they figure out what you really are? Kill you, Sid?” He half laughs, and Asterix sits up straighter, tensing at his words, feeling the powers that runs through their blood, their muscles, the centuries of experience built up beneath their skin, “or do you just miss being human that much that you’d do anything to pretend you’re still like them?”

“I am alive,” Asterix snarls, lip curled into something dangerous and menacing, face half-shifted to it’s monstrous form, something they haven’t had to use in what feels like years. He watches them carefully, can see the nerves he’s touched, their button’s he’s pushed, and seems to delight in their indignation.

And maybe it’s that he’s seeing the person he met all those years ago, seeing an opportunity to prove his power; he’d been young then, inexperienced, unsure of his power in relation to them, but his confidence had grown in their absence. He is aware of what he is capable of, and thinks, finally, that he could rival the vampire who’d taken him in all those years ago.

When he pins Asterix faster than a human eye could comprehend, he’s surprised by how easy it is. They’re flat on their back, his knees planted either side of their hips and his hands pinning their wrists either side of their head; for the barest moment, they lock eyes and share in a strange sense of deja vu. Asterix flushes.

“What are you looking to prove?” Asterix asks, turning their head to look at his hand holding their wrist; they flex and unflex their fingers, otherwise unbothered.

“Are you scared of being a vampire? Is that why you try so hard to drink so little? To kill so little? To push down your instincts, deny your nature?”

When Asterix looks back at him, his eyes are aglow, face twisted to reveal his true nature, just like they’d seen countless times before; he thinks he has the upper hand, that like this, he can provoke a reaction from them, get them to fight back.

They’re far too aware of their own capabilities to act so rashly, instead, with surprising ease, they sit up, into his space, surprising him, forcing him back to sit on their thighs, hands raising too, like his grip meant nothing.

“Sweetheart, if I wanted to raze towns, I am more than capable, but if I let myself burn down the world, what would be left? You?” They smiled, but it didn’t reach their eyes. Upon hearing their words, however, their companion actually grins, leaning in as his face changes back to it’s more pleasant disguise, pressing a familiar kiss to their lips.

“I never said to burn the world, but a hundred years ago, people thought you were the Devil; you’re beautiful and terrible, but even then you’d held yourself back,” he’s still holding their wrists, grip loose with their hands in their lap, the two of them nose to nose on this rooftop.

“I’ll always be beautiful and terrible, but I’m not about to sacrifice my comfort for a cheap thrill,” they murmur, lips inches from his, despite their discomfort with the subject.

“You never miss stalking a beautiful lady or handsome gentleman through the night in a quiet town in another country? You never miss...?” And he trails off, fingertips sliding up Asterix’s left arm, their shoulder, to their neck, thumb gentle against their jaw as he tips their head just a little, a gesture they both know all too well, but that Asterix is unfamiliar with being used against them. A shiver runs down their spine.

“Why do you care so much?” Asterix frowned, tipping their head back against his hand, surprised when he holds their jaw instead of moving away. Something unfamiliar began to ache in a spot behind their sternum, close to where their heart should be.

“Because it’s been a hundred years,” and then he’s holding their face gently in both hands, smirking a little, “and you’re still just surviving, I haven’t spent this past century just being afraid, and I’m still here,” he points out, and Asterix bites their tongue on the urge to ask how many of those years he spent on the run, “you’ve thoroughly proven you can lay low, you can live in a bog for decades, so what does it matter if you terrorize a few cities? Burn a few towns to the ground then be a bog mummy, at least some of the time you’d be having fun.”

“I’m having fun now,” Asterix says quietly, blushing a little at the intimacy of it all, but then, as if resentful of his words, “I am fun.” They kiss him like they’re proving a point, something familiar and warm joining that strange sensation in their chest when ‘Arthur’ kisses them back, smiling against their lips.

“How strong are you actually?” He finally asks, pulling back with their hands gripping his hips firmly, still technically in their lap. Asterix’s eyebrows raise in surprise.

“We get stronger with age,” they’d said, though their lack of an actual answer does not go unnoticed.

“You’ll always be stronger than me, won’t you?” He smirks when he looks at them, and their lips twist into a wry, fond smile, leaning into his touch against their cheek.

“‘till we die,” they agree, eyes now sparkling with mischief. This news seems to both delight and disappoint him for very different reasons.

They keep finding each other in the years that follow, always with new names, new lives, new identities. Sometimes they’re together for weeks, for months, sometimes only for hours, but every time it’s like they’d never left one another’s side.

Asterix has conned their way, through both magical and non-magical means, into a life as a Russian noble at the turn of the 20th century, and he finds them at a masquerade. They’d know each other anywhere. They’re meant to be dancing with potential suitors, but the whole night they’re by his side. That night, they kill another member of nobility who had been suspicious of Asterix, who’d been planning a coup against the head of the family who’d welcomed them with only little persuading.

After the carnage of the kill, of the high they rode together, they sleep through the day, silk bedsheets and boarded up windows, a lie on Asterix’s behalf about a rare sleep disorder meaning no-one came in or asked questions, and the following night, he takes off, and Asterix acts surprised when the news of the previous night’s kill finally comes to light.

Wars come and go, and Asterix finds themselves in the middle of them, and sees men a fraction of their age take more pleasure in killing than they’d ever allowed themselves. They fight, and take bullets, and take orders from men who have never known real fear. The humans they fight alongside live like every day is their last in the time between the fighting, lives on the line because someone said it should be, from relative safety.

And they lose humans they considered friends, and they start tearing out throats, they stop caring about what if because everyone here would die quickly, they all knew it. Asterix felt like the only one with half a chance to outlive the war.

‘and you’re still just surviving’

So they start living, start letting themselves be sloppy and angry and give in when they want to fight and break bones and spill blood, because the government comes, and the government doesn’t care, and the government admits ‘we had some like you fighting with Lincoln’ and ‘we had some like you fighting with Washington’ and ‘we always had some like you’ and all they care about it what side Asterix is on.

The War ends, but the next starts in what feels like a blink after the centuries Asterix has been through, and they come out the other side understanding that the things they’d feared for so long don’t matter, that the consequences they feared would not affect them; if they were smart, the government wouldn’t care, and other people were too weak to be a real threat, so they have fun with their identity. They get malevolent after watching their fragile, human friends die, and they learn how to target terrible people, how to find humans more monstrous than themselves, and how to deliver the justice that the justice systems will not give.

In the 1950s, they’re working in the violent crimes unit in LA, focusing on targeting serial sexual abusers in Hollywood, after listening to countless victims teary statements, and hearing the men on their team laugh behind the victim’s back, saying that’s just how Hollywood was. Asterix made sure to remember each man who’d ever said that about a distraught woman, mentally promising to take them each out before they leave for their next identity.

He’s calling himself David when Asterix finds him in a bar on the waterfront, and he’s like a breath of fresh air. He admits to liking how Asterix was operating, how free they seem, and accompanies them when they offer to take him on a hunt.

By now, Asterix’s victims have all been killed in the same way, nothing to denote a vampire, but clearly a serial killer’s work, someone with experience, and within no time it’s thought to be a hitman. David’s more than happy to stick to their MO, especially since they still both get to drink their fill, and he’s delighted with how unhinged Asterix gets in the act.

People started to see the pattern, the connection between the victims, and more people come forward about others in the industry who’ve committed similar atrocities. They don’t quite know who to tell; some go to the police, some go to confessional, some tell their friends, but Asterix seeks out their voices, their testimonies, and their list grows until the word of the victims’ atrocities gets around.

They’re calling Asterix the Actresses Avenging Angel, since most atrocities had been committed against aspiring or active actresses. It’s a new version of the town that believed the Devil killed the immoral few, but it’s a title they wear with pride.

But one of Asterix’s coworkers sees them leave a bar with David, and calls them names that sting, that have Asterix’s blood boiling, all in front of the rest of their team. A team that never took them seriously when they took the assault victim’s side against a powerful man in Hollywood.

They were tired of this town anyways; their list had stopped growing so fast since the Actresses Avenging Angel had become popular folklore.

They’re on the run for almost twenty years after that day, after leaving no-one alive in that evening briefing, after stealing away into the night. The government does tend to care when Asterix, or people like them, kill a whole department of a police force.

So they lay low near Washington state, changing their look, writing ‘*’ whenever their name was required; someone asked out loud if their name was Asterix, and yes, they supposed it fit. They’d always had to be something to fit into society, but they’re tired of being anything when they never felt like anything, so ‘boy or girl?’ is met with a solid ‘no’, and they stop caring about the confusion it elicits. They will outlive confusion. They will outlive everything and everyone. Almost everyone.

In the eighties, they hear a rumour about a beachside town in California having an unusually high death-rate, how strange and unexplained it all was, and perhaps it was loneliness, perhaps it was that they were missing a very specific person, but Asterix travels in hopes of finding David. They are not disappointed.

They meet Max first, their lip curling in disgust at how he holds himself, how he parades himself like everyone else when he’d been just as smarmy and unbearable in the Late Middle Ages.

“You,” he says flatly, nostrils flaring as the only sign of his discomfort at the sight of them. He and Asterix had been sired by the same vampire some centuries ago, within a few decades of each other. He’d always resented Asterix for being simultaneously older and younger than him. Also he’d been the one to kill their sire fifty years after being turned.

“It’s Asterix now,” Asterix tells him, and Max’s lips thin into an unamused line, but before he can say anything, his gaze flicks over their shoulder to the door where there was a sudden commotion, sudden laughter. When Asterix turns, it’s to the sight of a display rack on the ground, and of two blonde boys trying not to laugh, leaning into each other as they insist they found it like that.

The eighties look is certainly kind to David. He’s always been pretty, but now he’s allowed to dress in a way that’s enhanced by his dangerous aura, and Asterix has never been so glad to see him.

And his expression lights up when he catches sight of them too.

“Asterix, do you know these people?” Max asks flatly, and if Asterix didn’t know any better, they would have thought he didn’t have any clue who they were, but judging by the sobering expression on David’s face, they knew each other far too well.

“Of course,” Asterix answers, smile turning cat-like and smug, if only to see Max grow more irritated, working harder to hide it.

“Asterix, this is Marko,” David says, unprompted, introducing the other blonde boy with curly hair and a slight frame; Marko is quiet by David’s side, looking over Asterix with something evaluative in his eyes, something evaluative and intrigued.

“All of you, get out; I told you boys aren’t allowed in here,” Max orders, and Asterix flips him off before making a beeline for the boys, and the exit. Marko stays quiet, but he, like Asterix, is comfortable falling into step by David’s side as the three of them head to somewhere more secluded on the boardwalk.

There’s a streetlight out over a picnic table not too far away, and Asterix is quick to sit, to make themselves a reasonable height out of habit, before David takes their face in his hands. It’s like he’s checking that they’re okay, looking in their eyes, hands on their arms, their hips, coming to rest on their knees, wordlessly checking in.

“Marko, this is Asterix,” David steps out of the way, gesturing to Asterix with one hand while his other still resting on their thigh. Marko steps up, offers his hand for them to shake with a grin. “They’re...” but David trails off, unsure of how to introduce them now, after all the time they’ve known each other, after all they’ve been to one another. But Marko seems to understand; he’s emotionally entwined with David the way Asterix more or less is, and surprisingly, Asterix realises very quickly that they don’t mind.

“Are you planning on staying long?” David asks later in the night, watching Marko as he talks with another pretty, blonde boy who they’ve apparently been talking to for a while, Paul. They’re intending on turning him, with Max’s blessing; Asterix is less than happy to find out that Max is technically the leader of the coven, and is right furious to find out that he’s David’s actual Sire, the one who’d abandoned him all those years ago. But he keeps himself separate from the younger vampires, so Asterix is more than happy to hang with the boys.

“I’ll stay as long as you’ll have me,” Asterix says gently, and David’s arm snakes around their hips, hand coming to rest on their hip, fingers spread wide and warm and possessive against the edge of Asterix’s exposed stomach beneath their crop top. It’s enough of an answer for Asterix to lean against him, to sling their arm across his shoulders.

Paul, where he’s talking to Marko, casts a dubious look to the pair leaning against the streetlight, arms around each other. Asterix winks at him, and though Paul quickly averts his gaze, his smile widens. It’s easy for them to adapt to this dynamic that Marko and David had developed, so long as there was a place for them. They’re more than happy to make a place for others too.

So Asterix makes a life for themselves with the boys in the abandoned hotel at the edge of the cliff, quickly getting close to both Marko and Paul once he’s been turned. They don’t think about how good it feels to not be afraid of their friends dying, or being killed suddenly. David doesn’t comment on how grateful they seem to have friends at all. Or perhaps it’s more than that, perhaps they’re all more than that; physical intimacy is clearly not a foreign concept.

Marko and Asterix will share an armchair while reading a magazine, cheek to cheek, him in their lap with their arms around his middle, and Paul has a penchant for taking one of the others down a dark alley or to a shadowy corner, only to emerge with kiss bruised lips and a flushed complexion, and in a year they have Dwayne too, who comes across as brooding to anyone who doesn’t know him well enough, never more happy than when he has his arm around a member of their little, insular gang, possessive and proud in equal measure.

Marko’s like them too, more than they realized, they learn, not nothing, like they are, but sometimes he’s both or neither or somewhere in between. Mostly they’re he but he also feels like they, and he doesn’t mind which they’re called, as long as it’s someone they love doing the calling.

Love. He’s free with that word. Freer than Asterix or David ever was, no matter how much either of them thought it in all the years they’ve known each other. But Marko says it and it sounds right. It sounds like the word Asterix was too scared to think back on the roof of their pub in London, a hundred years ago, when David had them pinned and all they could see was him backlit by stars.

“We’re a far cry from your silk bedsheets and Russian nobles,” David’s smirking up at the ceiling in the hours before dawn, stretched out on the moth bitten sheets of one of the hotel’s beds. Asterix is curled up by his side, eyes closed and content. It’s just the two of them in the hotel for now, the other three having gone out to stalk a group of assholes that had been harassing their latest person of interest, a beautiful young woman named Star.

The others don’t quite know how far back Asterix and David’s history goes, but everyone knows they’re close, know they can speak their own language without saying a word.

“You were Svetlana then, weren’t you?” He adds, and Asterix hums in confirmation, and David quietly muses that he’s not even sure if he’d given himself a proper name in Russia, since he’d just been passing through. “Do you still have that box of rings from the eighteen-hundreds?” He asks, half smiling, tightening his grip on them, pulling them a little closer at the memory.

“They were lost when my pub was burnt down,” Asterix told him, though this was new information to David, and came as a shock, “after Bram Stoker published Dracula, someone accused my pub of hosting several vampires; I was never accused directly, but someone noted how my patrons only ever seemed to come out at night, and they thought it would be best if the whole pub was taken out as a precaution. They were right, of course, but it was still fucked; I’m fine, obviously.”

“Do you want mine back?” David asks candidly, “you worked hard for them, you should have at least one as a keepsake,” his words catch Asterix by surprise, and they’re quiet for a very long time, trying to process what this all means, how this makes them feel. He kept their ring. All this time.

“It’s yours, I gave it to you,” they say, soft and gentle, finally looking at his face. He’s still looking at the ceiling, but he’s grinning, “do you not want it?”

“Depends; are we still fake-married?” When he looks at them, he’s grinning from ear to ear, all kinds of mischief and adoration at play in his expression, and Asterix’s expression melts to a sly grin as their tone turns teasing.

“As if I’d remarry after you,” they snort, and David quickly turns back to the roof, though it doesn’t quite hide his flustered grin, as he quietly mutters for them to shut up, voice full of affection -

“Get dressed, Star’s “friends” are having a bonfire and we’re gonna have a feast,” Paul bursts into the room with absolutely no warning, all but crashing through the door mid-landing, too excited to walk anywhere at a half-normal speed. He’s grinning from ear to ear, throwing articles of clothes at the pair like a hurricane localised entirely at the end of the bed.

Once the pair are getting dressed and know where to go, Paul is already gone, leaving them in relative silence, and Asterix glances over to see David patting down his pockets, before fishing a thin, gold necklace from his back pocket, holding it, and the familiar ring that hung from it, out to Asterix like proof, like an offering.

“You’ve gone soft in your old age,” Asterix grins instead, echoing his words back at him from a hundred years ago. David rolls his eyes, but puts the chain around his neck and tucks it into his shirt before they leave.

When they arrive, they let the others take the first bites, pun intended. Lord knows they’ve committed enough destruction to keep them sated for several lifetimes.

“Strange bedfellows we keep,” Asterix voice is low, teeth sharp and eyes ablaze as they drunk in the sound of the carnage. They hook two fingers into one of David’s beltloops while he watches his fellow vampires tearing their victims apart like lions tearing into gazelles. Asterix steps up to him, lets him curl an arm around them as they both watch with hungry expressions as the carnage unfolds.

“Feels good,” Asterix murmurs, locking eyes with a poor human trying to escape; neither Asterix nor David has allowed their face to shift to it’s true form just yet, so the human runs to them, begging for help. Asterix steps forward, is by the man’s side in a blur, too fast for him to get away as they wrap one arm around him, the other in his hand, pulling his head to the side to expose his neck, “though I do miss people thinking I was the Devil,” they call over their shoulder with a sharp smirk, eyes a bright gold.

David’s laugh fills the night air, amid the screams, amid the crackle of the fire, as Asterix sinks their teeth into the man’s neck.

#the lost boys #The Lost Boys 1987 #the lost boys imagine #tlb #the lost boys fanfiction #david the lost boys #dwayne the lost boys #marko the lost boys #paul the lost boys #violence tw

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duskdragonxiii · 3 years ago

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tell us your toy story 4 thoughts dusky

Ok you made this can of worms and now you have to die in it

Toy story 4 was the worst entry in the series by far, which i guess wasn't too difficult bc the first 3 films had already been great- and that is very very rare that all films in a 3 part series are good and not unnecessary. Its a shame TS4 came along and broke the trend. They should have ended it with 3 where it felt it ended, that was the natural end to the story

It is completely contradictory to woody's previous (and complete) character arc. Woody in this film completely reverts back to his previous state of being a shithead who's jealous of other people getting attention. The previous 3 films were about woody getting past his fear of abandonment and accepting that things change and life goes on. IMMEDIATELY the film opens on woody hating the fact Bonnie gave the Sherrifs badge to another toy and left him in the cupboard. Like ok, sure, maybe woody would still be a little jealous of not being played with, but not the way he behaves about it. if they wanted to address these themes again they would have been so much better making Jessie the focus of the movie since her issues with abandonment are so much worse and so much fresher.

Buzz Lightyear, though he had been gradually dumbed down and was never very intelligent- suddenly has no brains whatsoever. He's not much more than a joke now. Haha Buzz doesn't know what thoughts are isn't that funny. Yea he was a joke in TS3 too im not going to pretend he wasn't, but he and woody's friendship was still a key element in there. In TS4 he does..... Nothing.

Don't even get me started on Bo. Bo hasn't been present since TS2 and even in TS1 her role was absolute minimal. Her purpose really served as nothing but a jealousy pivot plot device in the development of Woody and Buzz' friendship. In TS4 they changed her entirely. She's not the same character anymore. We get it, you wanted a badass heroine in there for the Rep but [gestures to Jessie again] you really missed this. This movie could have had SO MUCH POTENTIAL if you had just REMEMBERED JESSIE IS THERE. We did not need Bo Peep and her weird "lets give woody a girlfriend" plot. Something something she helped woody find the next part of his life- except for the fact the ENTIRITY of this story is unnecessary.

The very focus of this whole saga is how best friends should stick together no-matter what. You've got a friend in me. Too bad that's out the window. Woody is fine leaving the gang to go and wander with Bo- contradicting the entire message of the previous films.

I get what they were trying to go for with forky, but given the context of the film compared to its predecessors its just totally lost. It's really overshadowed by what the hell else is going on- to the point i barely rmember what that plot was about. What was the point of Forky. It was a good premise and opened up all the mysteries of what qualifies as a toy and like how they're made and such and that even the simple things are important to a child but. He doesn't seem to serve as much more than a plot device either- because how the fuck are they gonna make a 4th movie in a finished franchise. In the end thats what forky feels like.

They bigged TS4 up for having very heavy themes never before addressed in an animated film for children and stuff in it and for being heartbreaking- but it did not meet those expectations in the slightest. I bawled my eyes out at TS3. My DAD cried at TS3. But TS4 didn't deliver at all. Those heavy themes they talked about? With the introduction of forky I expected it to be something about identity or something. That potential was there. But.... no it was organ donation. I'm not saying that's not a big thing, but overall it had so fucking little impact at all. They are toys. And in the end it would have no impact on woody anyway, because Bonnie would never find out, because HE FUCKING LEAVES THE GROUP. If you wanted to address organ donation SURELY you should have had him give up a part of himself and STILL be welcomed back lovingly among his friends who would support his decision. Surely Bonnie would be sad that her toy suddenly stopped working, but she would love him anyway. But she never knows because Woody becomes "lost". Bonnie is about 3-4 years old right? She absolutely has object permeance and when she discovered her cowboy is missing she will be so sad. She has other toys, but not that one. Do you people not remember TS3.

Tbh i do not even remember this movie that well. I saw it once in cinemas and was so incredibly disappointed I have never watched it again. So my points may be a little off bc ofc this is just my understanding of this film. But it annoys me so much to the point praise for it makes me want to hit people. They could have done so much better. It was an unneccssary sequel. they would have been better using similar story for a completely unrelated (preferably new) franchise instead of capitalising badly on characters who are already whole and loved. Animation is a hell industry under capitalism and TS4 ended up feeling more like a graphics showcase than a heart filled movie. I could probably go on but jesus christ i. sorry

#answer time #quacks

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humanmosquito · 4 years ago

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this is definitely gonna be a ramble-y post but i’ll neaten it when i’m done. (edit: didn’t really but I’m sick of this sitting here already)

I’ve put this under a cut for obvious reasons. There’s more things I didn’t like about this book but I forgot most of the plot immediately after reading it.

Given the usual time skips in Clare’s work you’d think this would be 6 months down the line and Livvy would have been completely forgotten about and is mentioned sporadically to motivate the main characters.

I’m not really buying the shock of Livvy’s sudden death i would say Clare’s done a job here and she’s certainly tried, but i’m not buying it.

Her treatment of Gay Characters (capitalisation necessary) is bad but so much worse with Alec than any others and i hate reading about her Alec bc of the way she infantilises him. Also has Clare seriously not found any way to solve problems in her own fictional universe without constantly reintroducing the same guy??? (who is also just a bunch of stereotypes of queer men) (Magnus)

you don’t need to use two separate images to describe people moving in the background, it’s fine.

why is Christina using Spanish pet names when we’ve never seen her using Spanish conversationally before? also, ( and this is a very specific thing to to be so worked up about like 4 years after i read it the first time) but why do whatshisname and Christina have to talk in English instead of implying the conversation was in Spanish but had been translated or even mention it at all? (okay, coming back in later to say that she does use Spanish randomly in this book, Clare has a habit of making Latine characters use Spanish randomly to show they’re Latine.

isn’t Mark 20 or something? I’m legitimately confused about these lines.

there’s no need to suddenly start using fancier language for two whole sentences. also you can just say she visited a wax museum or even Just Madame Tussaud’s (which i’m guessing is the place we’re talking about). also: why is all the dialogue in this book so stiff and overly formal? I know they’re in shock and some of them are functionally strangers but it’s still so off from how people normally speak. (I’m willing to excuse the faerie characters because everyone who writes faeries makes them speak super flowery but that’s it)

there’s no break between Mark and Helen’s POV.

I’m pretty sure than Simon is secular, why is he suddenly sprouting hebrew? (CC makes no effort to show him engaging with judaism in any form and has him Christmas shopping at one point in tmi)

wouldn’t that make it much easier to break in? (this is needlessly pedantic, I know)

A lot of people said that Emma just becomes a way to talk about how amazing Julian is and I’m beginning to see that. She focuses on the sound he makes walking along a hallway way too much. (Also: coming back a week later to add that Julian just gets worse and worse and for a character that we’re supposed to love(?), he has absolutely no redeeming qualities.)

Doesn’t witchlight only light up when a shadowhunter is holding it? I remember that from TID.

The rally with Dearborn feels like an attempt at the bit at the beginning of 1984 where they’re watching the propaganda video and the woman is crying out for big brother. also, there’s no way to write people chanting someone’s name that doesn’t make it feel like mediocre fanfiction, huh? The whole scene is very over the top and not at all like the actual process of radicalisation.

who thinks like this? Who thinks about themself like this?

The descriptions of the shadowhunters at the funeral are weird. Emma is described as putting on gear then wearing a dress, Christina has a gear jacket over a dress and Ty is in full gear.

she’s not even being subtle about stealing plot points from the tv show, is she?

why does she keep choosing random words to translate into Spanish? It isn’t necessary unless the word also means a specfic type of that word. A vela isn’t a specific type of candle, that’s just the Spanish word for candle.

Doesn’t Jonathon Shadowhunter creating runes go against tsc canon? No one could make new runes except Clary because of her extra angel blood. (I should know, I read the fucking Shadowhunter codex). (there are more instances of CC creating thing that go against canon but i kinda got bored of making this list after here)

(I know the answer to this one is just CC’s incest fetish but) Why did everybody just let Christina get engaged to her cousin?

I have to say that my suspension of disbelief lasted longer than I thought it would but it ends with Julian killing a Rider with a D&D figurine.

The whole Thule bit feels like it was copy-pasted from ao3 (While we’re on the subject of copied from ao3 “Ragnor Fell lives” is such a “saw it on Tumblr” cop out)

how did the cohort get Jaime? It’s not explained and I wish it was.

Julian sucks. capital-S Sucks. For the guy Emma is facing Losing her Shadowhunter life for and going into exile for, he’s a dick, with emotions he comes off as creepy, over-sexed and obsessed. Without he’s somehow even worse.

Zara calling Cl*ce disgusting and being called wrong for it is such an obvious dig at the people who criticised Clare when she wrote them nearly fucking in a ditch when they thought they were bio siblings. (I’m p sure they’re also adopted siblings and they consider the same man their dad, so it would still be incest.)

Also, she’s so one-dimensional and every scene with her, especially in the last 1/2 of the book was exactly the same. (emma attacks her but decides to let her go which was a ~mistake~ with consequences (consequences being “we see Zara again”))

It's not even a subtle D*mbl*dore's Army rip-off, huh?

I take back all the things I thought about Clare improving as a writer, chapter 33 makes literally no sense, also cannot do dialogue or consistent characterisation. (how did any of these get published, TMI especially)

Once again, Clare seems to be stealing plot points from the TV show. (Of course there’s going to be some overlap between the show and books even after it diverged from book canon but it’s getting pretty ridiculous at this point, isn’t it?).

Okay, every woc in this book is here to further the white protagonists’ story (which i guess is the purpose of supporting characters but the white supporting characters do fuck all) And i get they have their own love interests but it was super forced (don’t @ me for this, Kierarktina had potential but it was all rushed in the second half of this book because Clare realised what a cash cow it was)

Diana gets a little tropey (Speaking as a trans person) but her treatment b Vlare and the other characters was okay. I do wish she was allowed more personality than “no one can love me or know me because I’m trans” (it’s stupid and overused) and “helps the Blackthorns and Emma”. (also Clare knows that you don’t stop taking HRT, right? it isn’t a limited course, it’s not Gender-Changing Antibiotics.)

My final thing is that it went on way too long, like, insufferably long. (you’d think long enough to explain some plot holes, but no.)

#cursing out 12 yr old me for picking up clockwork angel now until forever #the dark artifices #tda #cassandra clare #anti cc #this was an experience i would not wish on anyone #book review

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scripttorture · 5 years ago

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1.) For a character, which can be as similar or different from yourself as you want. They're from the country of Imptula (based on England, with influence from China), and work as a healer. Once had a good relationship with the Archmage Chromain Baker, but after he starts having people tortured for information on the Wrathlanders, they stand their ground and fight his agenda in every way they can without putting themselves in unnecessary danger. Beyond that too, if you'd like.

2.) So, character creation questions: Name? (1st, last, middle, nickname?) What race? {for story purposes, they’d need to be one of these: Human, Mithu (rabbi- elf people), Draeken (lizardfolk), or Catfolk } Hair? (length, style, color, texture) Skin tones? Height? Body type? Age? Sex/Gender?3.) were they trained as a combat medic or a hospital doctor? Or a potion-maker/ pharmacist type? Affinity for what element? (Fire, water, earth, air, life/death?) Personality? (key traits, or a meyers briggs quiz if you want) Likes? Dislikes? What would they do on a day off/ in their free time? (hobbies, how they wind down, places they’d visit)

I feel like this is a question that’s more about how I’d write a character involved in this kind of activism then what people like this are ‘typically’ like. And I’m happy to indulge. (Though for the record I’m not sure if there is a ‘typical’ anti-torture activist in real life.)

With tabletop roleplaying games (which is what this sounds like) I tend to build a character starting from the race and culture they’re from.

I do that because I found looking at the stat bonuses for different rpg races was helpful for narrowing down the class I played.

But if it’s just writing and stat bonuses aren’t a factor- I personally go by what I think is interesting.

And what’s interesting to me is in-betweens and boundaries. If I have a setting with a lot of cultural differences then I want to show them. I like writing different characters navigating cultural differences in as many different ways as possible. I like code switching. I like exploring how people relate to their cultures and why.

I don’t tend to write a lot of non-human races in my fantasy.

I tend towards writing non-white characters. Partly because I feel like the genres I write in are completely saturated with white, Europe-based stories. And partly because it’s an unfortunate fact that I’m more likely to get published as a white person and the lack of representation is harming kids who aren’t white.

Looking at this list of character features I am struggling to put anything together. Because- well I don’t create characters in isolation. I create them for the world they inhabit.

In my own stories I’m creating them as I create the culture and other characters. I pick traits based on contrast to other characters. I pick backgrounds and inherent features based on what they add, what they bring in to the story.

And I do a similar thing in rpgs. I pick my character’s race because of what the world lore says about them and how that would effect them navigating the world. I pick their personality and age based on the other characters around them.

I also tend to hand out neuroses to my characters like sweets.

So you know what? Since we’re talking about how I would do this let’s put aside the list of features and focus on what I’d find important: the relationship with the Archmage.

This opposition is important, it’s character defining for both of them. I’d want someone different but not a complete inversion. I’d want to create a strong sense that these characters have different backgrounds, different roots, but enough similarities that they’d have been friendly. I’d also want to create as much diversity in the story as possible.

He’s a man. So my first instinct is to make a female character to oppose him.

He’s probably at least middle age if he’s occupying a position of power that requires promotion. I’d either make the activist much younger, in her 20s, or much older, in her 70s.

I’ll talk about making an older character because I feel like having a younger character would be more… typical. It’s a common fantasy trope to have the young good-hearted apprentice turn on their evil mentor. It’s a lot less common to have a good-hearted mentor stay alive and try to take down their evil ex-student.

An older character means you could have a wealth of experience. You could potentially give a character that age experience in every single area you’ve mentioned at different periods in her life. And that breadth of experience in turn means that she could have a lot of connections, hundreds of old friends.

That means that setting up an organised opposition wouldn’t be work. It would be a few letters or phone calls.

‘Lee my dear, how are you pet? Now I’m ever so sorry to bother you but I don’t suppose you’d be able to let me and a few friends into one of your warehouses tomorrow night? Oh well of course not dear! They’re very well behaved-’

‘Josephine, darling how are the children? I’m very happy to hear that, and the Mother’s Union meetings are they going well? How wonderful! I knew you’d be able to manage it- I don’t suppose the members would be interested in-’

‘Georgie love, how are the orchids doing? I am so glad to hear that, now I don’t suppose you know a Dr Cheng of Rainwrights Street? It’s ever so important I get to speak to him-’

One of the wonderful things about writing older people as activists is the place in society they occupy. A lot of cultures have traditions of revering the elderly as the holders of communal wisdom and history. And in practice a lot of older people have deeper and more wide ranging ties to their community; they know a lot of people and they know them well.

This makes them a natural fit for a communal movement. They can capitalise on respect they have already earned.

This also shifts the narrative away from big singular acts, making it about a collection of smaller sustained actions. I personally think that’s more true to life, and it leads to a different kind of story.

Having an older character as a focus also creates an easy way to introduce disability in a naturalistic way. Arthritis, cataracts, heart disease and cancer all become more likely with age. Since the character’s strength is in her social capital there’s a great opportunity to write a powerful disabled character.

Age and disability could even create an advantage for her. Even if the Archmage is comfortable having a bunch of strapping young men arrest, or even beat, a frail old lady with a cane other people won’t forget it.

Acting openly against a character like that, especially a loved member of the local community, would create a backlash. It would inflame opinion and help turn people against the Archmage. Because how dare he treat a sweet old lady with such disrespect.

To flesh this character out further, adding to her personality and hobbies, I’d simply look back over what I already have and think about what that suggests.

If I want the character to be someone with ‘soft’ communal power then I’d concentrate on the sorts of hobbies and traits that support that image. That make her above reproach in the cultures she’s part of.

Depending on the culture that can mean participation in religious rites and various institutions.

Thinking about England now I’d make a character like that the head of a local WI group. I’d make her a good cook and the kind of person whose door is always open to her neighbours. She’d make jams and pickles and cakes and have three types of tea blends in the cupboard. I’d make her a very good listener, patient and compassionate. She might do a little bit of gardening and grow flowers.

In essence I’d deliberately pick hobbies and traits that have particular associations in that culture: things that emphasise her status as a respected pillar of the community.

I don’t know what these would be in the cultures found throughout China. I also don’t know what they’d be in the setting you’ve created which has blended English and Chinese cultures. But you should be able to figure out what they are by thinking about the culture you’ve rooted this character in.

Alternately you might want to give her hobbies that are useful for the plot later on. Perhaps they establish a connection to a particular character, or establish the character’s capacity to cope well with a particular problem.

Rounding this off, you do not have to use the character I’ve sketched or the type of character creation process I do. There is no ‘correct’ way to approach writing. This is just the way I’ve found that works for me personally.

I hope that outlining it will help you think about your own character creation process and what you want out of this character.

Anti-torture activists really can look like anyone. They can be ‘mavericks’ operating outside the system. They can be traditionalists deeply entrenched within it. They can be any age, gender and race. They can be disabled.

Think about the kind of character your story needs. Think about what’s typical for the genre and whether sticking with that norm benefits your story.

Above all practice. Writing does become easier with time.

I hope that helps. :)

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