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acesolaris · 2 years ago

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Education in a Solarpunk World

Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel. ~ Socrates

I'm very passionate about knowledge. I'm extremely curious and love to share everything and anything. As you might notice when scrolling though this blog, I love to deepdive into topics and pile and sort the informaton I find, both for me but also for others.

I'm also living in a western european country and my school system is terrible. So bad in fact, I gave up my wish to become an schoolteacher and followed another passion. There are other well articulated and better researched sources that go into the why our school sytem is this way. I'll only talk about my vison to make it better.

The whole plan is creating an individualized curriculum for each student with a focus on creating citizens who are mentally-balanced, socially well-adjusted and know how to think, so the teaching would differ for each student.

My Solapunk version of education, has three pillars.

The first is free education. Free acess to the Institutions, but also the knowledge through libraries, free acess to the Internet, free acess to academic studies. Free acess reagardless of age. there is a minimum time you have to spend in education, but lifelong couriosity, learning and exchange is encouraged, even after you started doing your chosen daily labour in the community.

The second pillar is the fact that the concept of general knowledge is a construct by the society and state you live in. So let's completely revamp this. I strongly believe that general knowlede should be considered everything that helps you taking care of yourself when you don't have acces to the help of others. Examples out of my head are cooking, basic maintenance of your home/prosessions/garden, first aid, but also how to get and revaluate knowlede you need and don't have. That, and a basic understanding of numbers, reading and reading comprehension to evaluate what you are reading and be able to apply it to your life. To properly form arguments and comunicate in a non-vilolent way. Thats the basic curriculum, the shell so to speak. It doesnt matter how you learn it, via games, from your parents or classes you take. You can't leave education untill you have proven to function in those in your way.

Ok, so the kids earn those skills in peer groups of around five or six people for as long as they need in their own pace, but what about, you know, everything else? They get let loose. There might be some age restriction on topics, but what I envison is pure interest and passion driven learning. There's no classes or grades, just develloping skills and knowledge. Every day there are three or four discussion pannels or lectures to a weirdly specific topic, like the manuscrips of Timbuktu, the life and times of Ghandi or how to best craft a basket out of different plant fibres. And anyone who wants can submitt a topic, and if it interests you, you go, otherwise you stay and work on your linewight in your drawing or solve math problems. Depending on your learning style, there 're videos, audiobooks, texts and writings in differnt lengths in differnt formating from bullet points to tomes. There are workshops, and studygroups, games and media that cover every topic you possibly want to learn about. It doen't matter when you do it, it matters that you do it. If you are a night owl, you come at 9pm, if you only can focus for 30 min before having to switch the topic, you can, if you leave with 15 because you are sick of learning you can come back with 21 when you regrett dropping out. Time doesn't matter.

There is a third pillar which is the treatment of children as actual people. Up until I was 18 years and suddently an adult my no was never respected, unless I gave an essay on why I didn't want to. Simply because I was a child and my parents knew better- every adult knew better. Which I see everywhere, and people are wondering why consens is such a dificult concept to establish as we have to learn that No is adequate. No justifications, just a No. So the learning Institute has scientists and social workers present, who are accessible as someone the students might go to for advice when needed with whatever neeed might come up: assist in finding resoures or give input and correction on fake news, or they may act as mediators in case-you know- kids being kids. Overall however, there is the understanding that children have a certain autonomity they can adjust themselves to give up or keep. Children are people and are treated as such.

The students keep a portfolio of their skills, both as a resource of knowlege and memento. Plus, after spending a specific minimum time depeding on how easy you learn the "general skills" you would be allowed to submitt this portfolio to a council of scientist chosen by you who will certify you for your chosen field of studies. You don't need to, but from my own experience having a ceritficate of your skills is damn sattisfying. And you can do it immediatly when you are free to or wait five more years because you don't feel ready. Again, the choice is yours.

Remember, you can stay as long as you want and even after shifting your focus away to the application of your skills in the community, you are free to participate in the discussions and give lectures. Everyone is allowed to give them, after all. Scientists are conducting their reserach at specific research centres that are connected to the education centres and the students are allowed there after a certain age or reaching a level of knowlege deermined by the scentists working on the project.

There are questions up for debate of course, especially how we want to teach history, tackle the things we did to each other and the planet. My country is prized for how selfreflected we are but our political climate sugests otherwise so, it's still open.

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A small Linkspam on topic:

@safety-net-did muses about what should be considered general knowledge which inspired this post as well as @queerspacepunks contribution.

one of the many tumblr discussions on how children are a repressed class

another one on the same topic

a post of @missmentell on resources to learn basic life skills of adults

this reddit discussion on how to remember history.

~@acesolaris

#solarpunk #philosophy #future vision #education

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bonesandthebees · 1 year ago

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The recent focus on Wilbur's age in the last couple chapters has made me think about how the transition must look from an outside perspective (at least to guests who have seen both Pythias to notice a visual difference). Because you go from an adult in her 70s(?) to a child that's starting out his lifelong service. It wouldn't surprise me if Clara choosing her new vessels while they're young is just framed as a cycle of renewal (and besides, the Pythia doesn't have an age anyway so who cares how young or old the current vessel is physically).

Which makes me wonder how old Pythias tend to be when chosen. Is it typically middle school age like Wilbur or have there been some who were picked even younger like under 10? I can only imagine any parents involved believing this is a great honour so if they have to permanently give up a child then it's Clara's Will and they'll follow it (hopefully with a fair amount of difficulty because they cared about their child).

But it's as Techno said: the younger, the better. There might have been a time at the beginning of the system where Clara directed her priests to a baby or toddler who was then raised to fulfil their role when they were older. Only for Clara to realise "Oh screw this, you're really messing these kids up. I'm going to give my vessels long enough to develop a point of reference before they serve me just so they understand your methods are bullshit."

Also, one last thing because it keeps making me laugh thinking about

The Pythia, two years into his service: *telling Schlatt's dad about a new vision he had*

The Pythia, internally: Fuck, please tell me he can't hear how bad my voice is today. I'm the Pythia, I can't go around delivering Clara's warnings while sounding this squeaky.

regarding the switchover between pythia's, obviously people know that the pythia is a human being who ages like everyone else. they understand that the pythia will get old and need to be replaced. there's actually a formal announcement made to the public every time a new pythia has taken up the mantle. that's why phil knew the last pythia was chosen 10 years before, because he remembers the announcement. the public isn't given any information on the new pythia, but those in the palace are aware that pythia are chosen as children so they can learn how to perform their role as they age. it's not a 'secret', it's more just like the church doesn't like people knowing specifically how young the new pythia is. it's one thing to know "this kid is probably in their early teens" vs knowing "oh this is a 12 year old". and again, everything also ties back to making sure the pythia isn't seen as an individual. keeping their age vague also helps with that.

for the most part, kids between the ages of 11-14 are chosen to be pythia. if the child has parents, it's pretty much like what you said and they're honored that their child has been chosen to serve Clara, though many of them were of course still worried and upset about losing their child at such a young age. however, these parents didn't get a say in the matter. if the child was chosen, they went to the palace to fulfill their duties and if the parents tried to obstruct this things would not turn out well for them.

no toddlers were ever chosen, the youngest pythia ever chosen was probably like... 10. this is because there can only be one active pythia at a time. aka, you can't have two people actively receiving visions from clara. that's just not how it works. so the chosen child has to be old enough to understand what their role is, understand the visions they receive, and be able to interpret and articulate them to the emperor.

now if you're referring to the training period where the old pythia is still actively receiving visions while knowing who the next pythia will be so they can train them, I guess a toddler could've been chosen? but there's also the idea that a pythia has to want to do their duty. not just to clara, but to the country. while in universe no one is sure why clara doesn't show the current pythia who the next pythia will be until a few months before the visions will switch over, the theory is that clara wants the child to grow up normally so they know the country they're serving and have lived in it like anyone else. if you're just isolated in the palace you're going to have a very different experience compared to just growing up a normal kid.

either way, it's not about clara having 'sympathy' in that sense. this isn't to say clara is uncaring or cruel, but she's a goddess. her exact motivations and thoughts are incomprehensible to mortals.

LMAO yeah poor wilbur dealing with puberty during all of that 😭

#ask #hollenka99 #through a glass divine

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hasufin · 2 years ago

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Values

Yesterday, a neighbor was complaining that they renamed the main street near our house so it’s no longer named after Robert E. Lee. He first started on how it’s like they’re “trying to erase him from history, and then how it’s because Lee was a slaveowner and they might as well erase George Washington because he was a slaveowner too.

Now, I wasn’t in a position to argue the point, and honestly I don’t carry around how to articulate why not honoring evil people is important, but I was thinking about it.

To start, it’s pretty fucking stupid to claim that anyone is trying to erase any of the ACW from history. You want to talk “erasing from history”? How about keeping actual school courses from talking about slavery. That is erasing from history. But we don’t name a street after someone, or put up a statue to them, to teach history.

No, we do it to honor that person. That’s why we don’t have Adolf Hitler Way or Pol Pot Boulevard.

And here’s the thing - when we do that, we’re not saying - as conservatives like to put up as a strawman - “this person was perfect in every way and every child should be taught to emulate this person”. No, it’s because that person did a specific thing which was important, which reflects our values as a society. Typically when these things are dedicated, they outright say that: “For his contributions to preserving the Chesapeake Bay, we dedicate this pier to...”. There’s room to honor flawed people, because flawed people can and do have a positive effect.

And this is where we hit why it’s disingenuous to compare George Washington to Robert E. Lee. Yes, Washington was a slaveowner. And personally I think that should be discussed more for a number of reasons. But that’s not why we name things after him. We choose to honor him because he led the army that won US independence. Because he was our first President. Because he made a number of conscious decisions to keep the Presidency from being a monarchy. These are actual things which reflect - in theory - our values and for which we choose to honor him.

So, we have to ask... what did Robert E. Lee do? Well, his sole claim to fame was leading an army which existed in opposition to democracy, with the intent to kill members of the democratically-elected government and to maintain the ability to own human beings as property. That’s it.

Aside from that, he was simply one of hundreds of rich slavers who lived in luxury due to the toil of people he kept in servitude. Take out the whole “tried to overthrow democracy in support of slavery thing”, he’s imminently forgettable.

And so we have to recognize - either someone made an idiot mistake by honoring a complete nobody, or they felt the thing to honor was treason, killing Americans, and enslaving human beings. I mean, I know which one, but I don’t think the people who object to remove his name from streets will acknowledge it.

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britcision · 7 months ago

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Just gonna throw on top there to the lovely and complicated pile that is Rin:

It’s entirely possible that being taken by the Canaries saved her life

She was a child whose parents were lynched for “evil” magic, alone in the burned ruins of their house; it’s not likely anyone from the nearby town was going to pick up an eleven year old kid and keep her fed after that

When Kabru is thinking about his own party being taken by the Canaries, he mentions Rin has bad memories of the elves

And shows Rin in Canary armour

Eleven year olds grow. Real quick. We know the Canaries were in contact with Milsiril pretty soon after they acquired her, since Milsiril raises short lived kids and they couldn’t get Rin to eat, but she didn’t actually die

(Milsiril also specifically refused to take Rin in because she “couldn’t take another child”, but sent Kabru to socialise with her and see if he could help - 3 years after his own major trauma, which he at least seems externally to have recovered from - or repressed)

I think it is possible that Rin got informal magical schooling from the elves while she was in custody/whatever the formal explanation was for her presence; we know even just routine questioning often takes years, and Rin got out relatively quickly to travel freely with Kabru

Milsiril is an impactful enough figure that Kabru stealth-name drops her to get the Canaries to do what he wants… and it works

Milsiril knows where Kabru is, and what he’s doing - she shows up at his room to visit him in one of the supplementals

She knows he left with Rin, and she insisted on putting him through hell/training him extensively before letting him go dungeon diving

(We also don’t know what Helki, the Canary convict who still lives with Milsiril and is poking traumatised baby Rin in OP’s post, did as a magical specialty soooo lightning is on the table)

We do know Rin’s magical training was never formal because of her grudge against people who did get to go to school for it as being privileged and stuck up… an attitude, by the way, that she shares with Cithis, another of the Canary convicts who explicitly recognises Milsiril’s name and takes more interest in Kabru once it’s spoken

Since her parents were suspected of ancient magic, it would make sense for the Canaries to try and see if she could recognise any of it; there’s literally no other reason to take her

(except again that she’d probably die if they left her; Flamela’s an angry and aggressive elf with absolutely no grasp on her softer feelings because when she was a very young child (Rin-sized, funnily enough) her twin sister was taken away and probably assassinated at court

She is. Not someone you would expect to articulate sensitive topics well. Especially with a free and cranky sounding excuse.)

Given that all of the Canary convicts are in for a personal relationship to ancient magic, they’d probably also want to see Rin cast, since I agree she was old enough to learn; who better to recognise any “dangerous” habits?

With the added bonus of Milsiril’s interest via Kabru, I’d say the reason Rin can definitively recognise (or believes she can recognise) specifically elven casting, not just elven style magic like Laios will learn, is because of what she learned with the Canaries

She either saw them cast enough to pick up tells, which is less likely since the convicts’ magic use is heavily restricted outside of a dungeon and Flamela’s unit was canonically kept from all dangerous assignments (so they didn’t get called in on the way to bringing Rin to jail)

Or when Kabru made it clear to his mom that his new friend was coming with him to a dungeon, Milsiril pulled some strings and got Rin some informal lessons, probably from the Canary wardens since it’s all legal magic

(Given the HEAVY mage leaning of every single Canary party, that was probably actually reassuring for Milsiril; Kabru ain’t great at magic, but at least if he keeps Rin around he has a mage Milsiril knows and can estimate the ability of

Milsiril was sadly probably the tank of her own squad, unless they had a beastman, because she is specifically known as one of the finest sword masters of the elves… and her magic seems to mostly be animating dolls to Also Stab Things)

Anyway all of this is just to add yet more complexity to the depths of Rin’s feelings towards the elves, because she plainly does not like them (and freaks when she’s backed into by Flamela, the elf that arrested her ass in the first place)

But at the same time, everything she has now is in one way or another because of the same exact elves who traumatised her as a child, who she may well remember better than her actual parents

Even Kabru, whom she never would have met if Helki hadn’t wandered in to visit and then gone home to Milsiril

Emotional damage! 😃

Rin Masterpost

Rin! Rinsha Fana! Beloved side character I think about far too much (or maybe not enough?)

I decided that it might be nice to put together an informational post about Rin, since she has some of my favorite background details of any character in Dungeon Meshi. This is partly as reference for myself, and partly for anyone else who might be interested in her but not know where to chase down the tidbits we we get of her, both in canon & extra materials. There’s also a little bit of theorizing and analysis sprinkled in for fun.

If anyone spots something I missed, please let me know and I will add it in!

Alright. Time for ultimate #rinposting

History and Timeline:

We don't have an official timeline for Rin (even in the expanded Adventurer's Bible, sadly), but we can put a lot of pieces together based on Kabru's timeline & their respective ages.

Rin is 2 years older than Kabru, and they met when he was 9. Assuming that he met her soon after she was taken to the elven capital, that means that the elves took her when she was 11.

Before that, she lived on the Northern Continent. Interestingly, when Mickbell asks about Shuro, Rin says she was born "here."

Since "here" doesn't mean the actual Island itself, it must mean simply "not the east." She is described in the Adventurer's Bible as having "no real knowledge of or attachment to the East," so maybe that's why she draws a "there" verses "here" line.

I'd also like to add a note here that the elves don't seem uh... they don't seem great about respecting the value of other cultures, especially those of short-life species. Milsiril seems to have discouraged Kabru from eating or remembering food from his hometown, at least, and that's even as an adoptive parent who cares (at least in some way) for her child. As I will touch on later, the "care" that Rin was under probably had even less respect for her history or ties to either Eastern or Northern culture.

That is all to say, considering that Rin spent many years with the elves, I'd take her having "[no] attachment to the East" as more of a comment on how she feels now, and less as a definite choice she made. She may genuinely have chosen that approach and opinion for herself, she may have been pushed towards it by the elves, and she may have had little choice at all in the matter - all are valid interpretations, though I personally lean towards the thought that it's unlikely the elves didn't have at least some hand in it.

Anyway, Rin does seem to know at least a bit about her heritage - she can presumably name and identify the specific island her parents are from, and she recognizes that "Shuro" isn't a name used there. She also knows that different places from the Eastern archipelago speak different languages, so she knows at least a little about the other islands as well.

Some additional extrapolations I'll make based on these facts: she never mentions, and probably isn't in contact with, any family from her island. This may be because her extended family died, because her parents didn't (or weren't able to) maintain contact, or because she lost contact when she was taken by the elves. Somewhat relatedly, she also prooobably doesn't speak the language, at least not fluently, though her being able to comment on the state of language in the archipelago makes me think that she at least learned a little as a kid.

Anyway, Rin's parents were refugees from the archipelago, though we don't know what specifically caused them to leave. There is this little tidbit of info we get (from the cover of chapter 48, of all places), though:

So yeah, that seems like it would be the backdrop of Rin's parents fleeing. As I said earlier, it's unclear if Rin might have any living family left back on her island. The listing she has for “family” in the Adventurer's Bible is just a dash, but so is Izutsumi's, for instance, and we know that she was taken from her family with no knowledge of who might still be out there. It's possible everyone else was killed, it's possible they were separated... it's possible that Rin's parents didn't even know.

As an additional note, and this is speculation on my part, but I think there is an argument to be made, with this tidbit from the cover as well as the Nakamoto clan's specialty in espionage and use of ninjas, that the politics of the archipelago are partially based on Sengoku era Japan. Not necessarily super relevant here, but I think it's interesting context for all... of the archipelago characters, honestly.

(Especially considering it seems like the Nakamoto clan is in a relatively comfortable position, and yet clearly are involved, or at least prepared to be involved in larger conflict. How stable is their position, really? How is Shuro's father viewed by the wider region and archipelago as a whole? What about his lord? NOT THE POINT THIS IS A POST ABOUT RIN. BUT IT'S VERY INTERESTING TO THINK ABOUT.)

Okay, back to Rin's parents.

Whatever caused them to leave, they made their way to the north, where they made their living with their magic for a time. There are no specifics about what kind of magic they used, but we know at least some examples of jobs that magic can get you, based on the flashback to Laios and Falin's childhood in chapter 26. Laios proposes that Fain could use her magic to be a priest, gravekeeper, or wandering exorcist. Though these are specific to Falin's affinity with spirits, they give some idea of the shape of the work that might be available. It's important, but it is also on the outskirts of society - not necessarily admired or appreciated by the average person.

And Rin’s parents were killed by vigilantes for that magic. It's not entirely news that superstitious villages in the area would sometimes kill magic users - we see a small drawing of people being burned at the stake in a panel towards the end of the manga:

Nonetheless, Rin is the only person in the main cast who has experienced this brutality firsthand. And she did experience it firsthand, having been found by the elves as the sole survivor within the burnt ruins of her home.

It is unknown exactly how she survived, or what happened to her parents before and during the fire. Rin lived, and they did not.

The elves came some time after the fire, intending to investigate reports of ancient magic. They (and we) don't know if Rin's parents actually did use ancient magic, or if the reports and murders were simply spurred by general fear and superstition. Rin was the only piece of "evidence" that remained, and so she was taken back to the west with the elves when they left.

We don't know much about her time on the Northern Central Continent (where the elves/Canaries are based), but it doesn't seem like she was adopted or taken in by anyone the way that Kabru was. According to the Adventurer's Bible, after being taken into custody, "under their care she was treated as a captive animal would be." I would guess that means very basic food and shelter, little to no education. Probably the most social contact she got was from Kabru, as well as maybe, occasionally, from elves treating her as a curiosity, such as in this bit in the Adventurer’s Bible:

Assuming she left with Kabru (which seems like it is the case, there's no info about them having separated during that time), she spent 9 years with the elves, and has been with Kabru on the Island in the 4 years since then.

She also stays in the Golden Country after the end of the story, apparently working as an alchemist.

Additional Details (& Speculation):

What does she remember of her family and home?

I'd like to take a moment here to explore a little of what Rin might remember of her parents and home.

For reference, we can look at Kabru. The canaries came to Utaya when Kabru was 6, and he arrived in the capital when he was 7. He remembers the events of the tragedy in his home, and has some memories of his mother and life in Utaya, including memories of local dishes.

Rin lost her parents and home at 11, so she presumably has much clearer memories of the events that lead to her being taken by the elves... or she might, assuming that they haven't been completely blocked by her trauma from the event.

Yeah, I am fairly damn sure that she's got some memory issues from trauma and PTSD. For one, this is the state she was found in:

As already mentioned, she was also treated like something of an animal by the elves. She probably didn't have a lot of contact with other people, which would further perpetuate that sense of isolation and dehumanization. What I'm getting at here is that Rin probably didn't have much to help pull her out of this place, or heal these wounds. She had Kabru, who was also a kid and even younger than her, and she had herself.

Obviously trauma leaves different scars on everyone, and everyone responds and copes in different ways. But I do think it is interesting that we never hear anything about Rin's parents or life before the elves, and there are no real details about it given in the Adventurer's Bible the way we have for Kabru. What's presented is more surface level facts: they were refugees, they made a living with magic, they were killed.

I'm inclined to believe that things are laid out this way because that's how Rin holds on to these things. She knows things about them, but possibly remembers them more as things she was told/knows to be true, rather than actual memories she can picture herself experiencing.

Rin's Magic

In an interesting counterpoint to her potentially spotty memory, I do actually think Rin may have learned magic from her parents (or started learning, and was self-taught from there). She never attended a magic academy, and actually has a bit of grudge against people who did - owing to the social protection afforded to "upper-class mages," which her parents did not have. She also almost certainly wouldn't have been taught by the elves, who not only treated her as an animal but also knew her parents may have been involved with ancient magic.

Falin began to show signs of magical talent at 8, and was sent to the Magic Academy at 10, and that was as someone who had absolutely no guidance about or exposure to magic in her home town. Raised by two mage parents, I think Rin absolutely could have been learning some things by the time she was 11.

In terms of continued learning, I'll add that Rin is able to identify Marcille's magic as being A) from an Academy student, and B) cast by an elf:

This makes me think that she continued to study magic on her own while held by the elves, and probably even more so after leaving with Kabru. They didn't form the party until two years after they left the elves, which would give Rin plenty of time to try and learn from other adventurers on the Island, or to study up on her own. She'd probably be able to pick up some dungeon-crawling basics (like the water walk spell), as well as become familiar with the skill level and expression of skill common in different people with different backgrounds (hence why she is able to comment on the "textbook" academy wards).

Much like Marcille, Rin also seems to rely on a 'one size fits all' Big Boom method of dealing with monsters: lightning. We see the best example of its power in the fight with Chimera Falin:

But we also see her cast it pretty recklessly in a few other places, including the end credits of the new anime ED, which I think provides a good example of the downsides to such an approach...

Yeah, it is very much a 'get out of the way or get zapped' spell.

Especially since Marcille's offensive magic is self-taught and works very similarly, this definitely reinforces the idea that Rin figured most of this stuff out herself.

Outfit and Character Design

Dear sweet Rin of the Red And Black... how I love her design.

First of all, her clothes are damaged. Despite the fact that Rin looks relatively well put together overall, her outfit is worn out. I have some theories on why this is that I'll get to in a bit, but for now I'll just touch on what this design communicates in general about it.

I think, just like with Kabru's horribly messy room, it creates a sense that there is something more complicated underneath the surface. Something that isn't being addressed or seen to, just as the dress hasn't been mended or replaced.

It also reflects her not caring a ton about her appearance. She's neat, but she's not concerned about being pretty, so she doesn't bother with fixing up her outfit after her dungeon crawls. This also fits with her perpetual scowl (which I will talk more about in a bit), and slightly disheveled hair.

Next: the gloves. At first I thought they might be a sort of uncomfortable-with-touch thing, but after skimming through the manga and some bonus content, I have another theory. Rin takes the gloves off to eat, as well as a few other instances, such as when working on a spell with Holm and Marcille in chapter 36

This one is especially interesting because she has them on in the next chapter, during the fight with Falin. Since she also isn't wearing gloves during some of the Daydream Hour art of her outside of the dungeon, that leads me to believe that they are specifically for combat.

What does she need them for, though? Most other casters we see don't wear gloves. Well... just look at the other half of the page where she attacks Falin with lightning:

She is enveloped by this spell. I said it before was pretty reckless magic, but maybe its not just a problem for her teammates, but for her as well.

So here's my theory: maybe the gloves are rubber, or some other electricity-resistant material? They might help protect her from her own magic. I don't know why a caster would need gloves for combat otherwise.

I also think this might be why her dress is tattered at the bottom, by the way. Especially since the Daydream Hour genderswap design doesn't have a similar problem with his outfit, since the tunic isn't as long.

I will admit this is a bit of stretch/guess, but I think it's a fun one, and I wanted to share. I do think I'm right about the gloves being for dungeons/fighting specifically, at least. That seems pretty consistent throughout all of her appearances.

I also mentioned her scowl, so I'll touch on that briefly as well. The (fairly confirmed) explanation for Rin's expression is that she intentionally wears a frown to prevent her other expressions from showing through. I think it's important to emphasize that it's not just smiling that she is trying to suppress here - it's any strong emotion:

Anyway, because I can, here is the art of Rin smiling.

Rin and Kabru

I have talked a bit about Rin and Kabru's history, but I think it deserves its own section.

I think it's very interesting that Rin is pretty much the ONLY character in all of Dungeon Meshi that has explicit canonical romantic interesting in someone. It's literally part of the main summary sentence in her character profile.

This could be sort of reductive as a way to describe a female character (and in some ways it still is), but I think in part the simplicity and directness of it actually is part of what makes it so interesting. Especially when on the very next page we see the comic about her backstory. "This mage is in love with Kabru" -> one page of a horribly traumatic event and a child frozen in shock with no one to comfort her. What does that do?

Well, in my opinion, it shows how much Rin focuses on Kabru as something to keep her in the present. In contrast with the immense loss she has experienced, her love for Kabru is current and alive. He has presumably been her anchor for years, and I think that her love is part of that anchor.

Adding to this, in contrast with how explicit her feelings are, she never seems to actively pursue Kabru. She complains about his potential interest in other women, but she doesn't really flirt. She doesn't let herself smile around him any more than anyone else, and she doesn't hide her bitterness or anger from him to present a more appealing persona.

As much as she craves Kabru's attention, and has stayed by his side for years, I don't know that she really wants to possess him. He seems to know about her feelings, more or less, and she seems to know that he knows. Maybe she believes he doesn't reciprocate and is respecting that, maybe she's afraid of what she could lose if she tried to change things, or maybe the change itself frightens her. In any case, though she's not exactly happy with the way things are between them, she doesn't seem to be trying to change that status quo.

A specific thing I'd also like to talk about with their relationship, beyond Rin's love for him, is her fear for him. As the Adventurer's Bible puts it, "she worries that his knack for dealing with whatever life throws at him might lead him to get too full of himself and end up in serious trouble."

Rin is an interesting mix of restrained and explosive, herself. Her magic is destructive, her temper seems to run hot (she gets annoyed easily, at least), and her feelings for Kabru are apparent. At the same time, she doesn't let her emotions show on her face, she is the one who bluntly states that the group has hit the limit of their abilities, and she doesn't act on those obvious feelings for Kabru. It's interesting, then, that what she fears for Kabru is that he won't restrain himself.

And a small personal idea about that as well: I wonder if she somewhat blames her parents for getting killed. Again, this is very speculative, but I think it's interesting that her fear for Kabru is that he will get too full of himself. Take up too much space. It's never really stated what Rin thinks of her parents, but it can be easy in grief to search for control, and control often means blame. If they hadn't been so confident, so flashy, would they still be alive...?

I don't know if she's ever thought like that, and it could well be that her fears for Kabru come from a totally different place. But it's an interesting connective thread between her past and present - the idea of "getting in trouble" for taking up too much space and being too confident in one's own abilities.

Miscellaneous Tidbits:

On that note, I'd like to wrap up the main part of this post, and move on to a few extra things that I couldn't find another place for.

Rin plays with her hair when she's stressed

Using stressed as a pretty big umbrella here, because I think it's hard to perfectly pin down all the emotions at play, but it is a habit of hers. Best displayed in chapter 32, but it shows up in other places, too.

Her design contrasts with Marcille

This is a small thing, but I just love how much they are visual opposites.

Rin wears red and black and has dark hair, Marcille wears blue and white and has light hair. Marcille cares a great deal for her hair and puts it up in elaborate hairstyles, and Rin's is mostly loose and a bit messy. Marcille was even educated at the Magic Academy, which Rin dislikes. They both have little capelets. Also they both look very cute in each other's clothes.

Rin knows Flamela (and they meet again in canon)

Nothing much is done with this in canon, but I think it’s super interesting that Flamela's squad are the ones that find Rin as a child and take her away to the west, and then they end up stuck in the dungeon together for a bit.

Two days??? I'm so very curious what things were like between these three.

Aaaand I think that's all I have to say about Rin! For the time being at least. There's a lot more analysis that could be done about her and Kabru especially, but for this post I wanted to keep things at least somewhat anchored to canon facts, with only a layer or two of speculation on top.

If it isn't already obvious, I think Rin is a super interesting character with a ton of potential depth to explore. She mostly interacts with Kabru in canon, but has ties to a bunch of other characters: she and Marcille fill similar roles in their parties but have differing personalities and histories, she and Falin (and Laios) have been tremendously shaped by xenophobia and fear of magic common in the Northern Continent, her parents fled from conflict in the same region Shuro and his retainers are from, and she has history with Flamela and some of the second canary squad.

Her temper, her fear, her love... her repression and passion - they all inform her character, even in small ways, even with as little time as she spends on the page.

#dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #rinsha fana #rin dungeon meshi #dungeon meshi spoilers

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derfdiaries · 1 year ago

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I don't think it's possible for me to "judge" art with a clear mind.

I go to film school in New York. The dynamic in my classes revolve mainly around presenting work and the critique of it afterwards by classmates and the professor. It was difficult for me at first, since I felt I did not have the vocabulary or know enough about technique to participate in these conversations about students work. Obviously, with more time this changed. I learned more about techniques, pretentious vocabulary, why something may be considered good and why something maybe didn't work. Even with this new found knowledge to explain why I liked what I like, and why I perhaps didn't like what I didn't like, it was so incredibly difficult for me to articulate it.

This past semester I participated in a wonderful course on directing the actor. Our assignment was to take a scene from any script, and adapt it in our own style. We had the ability to change the world, the circumstances, the relationships between characters. I could watch the progress I made in this class. I knew why I liked some students directing styles, and why their scene worked. I could articulate that. Students had the ability to communicate a very specific theme and world through a piece of preexisting work, it was entirely apparent.

One student in particular has absorbed me for months, even after the class has ended. For their piece of work, they selected a scene from Blackbird. It is a play about a woman confronting her sexual abuser many years later. In their scene, they changed the circumstances to a woman using AI to create a scenario where she meets her abuser in the landscape where they used to meet. In class discussion, they excelled in this scene, praises were given all around. I couldn't help but deeply, really fucking deeply, dislike it. It was disgusting. Here, the woman clung to her abuser, entertained the abusers display of "affection." It felt like a mockery.

I was abused at a young age. If I had the chance to go in an AI world with no consequences, I would gut my abuser. I'm not sure if I would even go. The new depiction of the scene felt like a mockery. I was never praised for my abuse and I certainly was never listened to. This was not real to me. This was exploiting a very traumatic incident for many people and putting it on showcase. Because honestly who the fuck is going to raise their hand like, "Hey I know this scene is about the most horrible shit that could happen to a child but I hated it, fuck this scene and all your hard work." Nobody is going to do that in a small classroom.

After milling in my anger for days, the scene was gone over again in class. Praises again all around. The director used many of the techniques gone over in class, they knew their vocabulary, knew why the scene would work, and why it wouldn't work under different circumstances. I listened to the class speak. Holy shit. Maybe this scene was directed very well, and I am just unable to view this work with a clear mind due to my own shit.

I wanted so badly to raise my hand and say why this was just such a disgrace. I could not articulate it even if I tried to. Here I was with all this "knowledge" and in the simplest way I couldn't explain why I found this scene an abomination. I think it is because if I did, that would require me to expose my own past and shortcomings. This scene was an abomination because I never got the chance to give myself justice, and no director was ever going to do that for me. This scene was disgusting because that was not the reality of sexual abuse that I had learned. How dare someone go to the future of treatment for CSA when many people have been unable to be treated for it in the present. How dare this woman, in this scene, show a shred of care for this person who abused her, how dare she listen to them.

With this I was left even more confused than ever. Here I was, I had the tools. I knew how to communicate critiques effectively and well at this point. Here was this scene, which left me inextricably disgusted and unable to piece the words together as to why. It wasn't that the artwork was bad. The scene worked. The through-line was present throughout for their characters, the world did make sense. The director did their job. The issue with the scene could be argued that it was not "ethical" but I think art needs to bend those boundaries sometimes, that's another conversation.

The issue was I cannot judge art with a clear mind. None of us can. We can try to objectively judge using our terminology, structure, and techniques. That is how the classroom critiques work and what my fellow classmates did. When viewing something deeply traumatic, no matter how hard I try to objectively view the work, it will always feel like it is exploiting trauma for the sake of claps. I have recognized that this does not mean that the work was bad though, because their work was actually very well done in this case. Critiquing work is a muscle. I have now come to realize that if you are not careful, it is easy to become blind to your own unhealed parts and even easier for it to mold your judgements as well.

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heylittlebird · 4 years ago

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no title

So I read this at about 4am; I am restless a lot of the time, I don’t know if it is being in remission-relief, Covid-19 helplessness, or the crocodile that has lived under my bed since I was about four. I still take a running jump onto my bed when returning from the bathroom in the middle of the night to avoid his snapping jaws. So I read this… I always felt that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa had at its core, good intentions. If it failed in any way, or missed the mark, it was because these types of things often get muddled, often get murky, are often painful. Growth is painful. I also feel that the reconciliation part was reliant on a whole lot of forgiveness from one side and not a lot of atonement on the other. So I read this… And first, I was like, I so understand what the writer is saying. Totally. I was virtue signaling to myself, in my own head. Acknowledging the lived experiences of a person of colour. Nodding along to myself. Because you know, I am not racist. Obviously. I am NOT racist. I am totes not racist. I am not; my son is mixed-race, obviously I am not fucking racist. I stand against racism. I stand with people of colour. I am standing on the virtue of reading, listening, learning. Starting difficult conversations. I stand. So I read this… And when I got to this part. I knew that the difficult conversation I should be having, was with myself. “Then there are the instances most white people will recognize, though they probably never knew how damaging their words were. Every token black friend can recall the times when a white friend chooses to dub you “the whitest black kid I know.” It’s based on the way I speak or dress or the things I’m into, and it’s a comment on me not fitting the image they have of a black person. When I resist accepting such a title, the white person claims it’s a compliment — as if the inherent superiority of whiteness should leave me honored to be counted among their ranks.” Link to full article I am that white friend. I know that I have said this more than once. More than five times? More? It must be more, because I forgotten the names of friends I have said this to. I only remember one specific friend that I have said this to. I want to say sorry to her. I don’t know if it is right that I do it publically? I want to. No. Stop. I know it is not right. It puts the onus of forgiveness on her, when it is the onus of atonement that should be on me. I will apologise privately, and she’ll say, “Ah X, I don’t even remember that…” It’s not just friends I have said a version of this to. I am ashamed, because I have said something like this to my child, or about my child, jokingly. “You know not to wear a hoodie on the street, but if you do, thank goodness it’ll be your Hogwarts hoodie, and your half-British accent will save you.” I have said things like this, even after listening to my own child telling me that having a bit of an accent, being well-spoken, being articulate in high school, gave him ‘the pass’ he needed to ‘join’. So I read this... And before I have the right to say, “I stand with you”, I will now ask, will you please sit with me? I know it is not the responsibility of people of colour to teach me, but I have so much to learn. It’s not enough to say I can do better if I don’t face what it is that I did wrong. I am sorry. I was wrong.

#structural racism #implicitbias

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mentalisttraceur · 1 year ago

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Okay, so I actually have a much more constructive perspective on this now.

I realized that I never once in my conscious memory got to play a video game as long as I want without any tension to do or be ready for something else. Like, truly, truly as long as I want, 100% fully safe from any looming obligations, deadlines, interruptions, or threats of some negative experience.

I do feel very grateful to my parents for occasionally doing their best to give me times like that - for example, letting me stay up as late as I wanted with my new gift toys on holidays. One time for two weeks after school and doing homework I got to play a specific video game as much as I wanted (otherwise there was always a time limit). Maybe that even helped my brain learn that this would be part of the solution.

The problem was just that there was always something, looming. The next school day, the next week, the next time I got yelled at or insulted, the next whatever. So before I could naturally grow to prefer something other than the kid stuff, something got trauma-stunted. I no longer felt like I could have and indulge that feeling, like I wasn't even supposed to feel it and act on it or at least certainly not for as long as it naturally took to tire out. I learned to avoid that feeling, to abruptly rip myself out of whatever activity it got me into. I internalized judgement for it. This, I now know, contributed significantly to me having a bingy and addictive relationship with gaming. It almost "froze in time" some of the cognition flows involving that feeling of desire to play.

So a few weeks ago, I did my best to give myself truly unbounded play time while assuming the mental state/flow I had as a child, or at least which seemed plausibly like what I remember and assume I had going on in my mind back then.

I combined that with my idea of applying the DID perspective/interpretation/self-narrative/etc internally even though I am an integrated singlet. This was very helpful. In particular, when you think of yourself as multiple, you can more easily see possibilities like "I (kid-like cognition flow) don't trust [host/whatever-I-normally-am] to actually circle back to doing the thing I want to do, or to even honor previous intentions we both formed in the mind".

In fact, I actually got this whole idea about never having gotten to play to satisfaction while safe by doing this DID-style thought pattern. I found myself wanting to play a game I thought I had left behind, introspected the desire, was inspired by the idea of actual traumagenic multiplicity which can have alters that are basically who you were in the moment of some trauma, got my chosen kid "alter" going (figured out how to invoke the relevant emotion/state/perspective which I thought I had as a kid and was wanting to explore), introspected the desire some more, started playing while making an effort to maintain that mental state, mostly just to indulge and explore that childlike joy with it, but then at some point when I got interrupted+triggered, and it all instantly fell into place - because as that kid self, holding that mental state and perspective, I could immediately feel the difference in impact and how much more sensitive I was to it and it was natural to interpret it as I would if this was done to a kid.

So then I knew that my role as not-kid-cognition for the rest of this exercise was mainly to keep the kid safe. Reassure and soothe, keep certain thoughts of life risks confidently dismissed as non-risks even if they weren't technically totally unrealistic, and assert really strong boundaries externally.

Anyway, it worked. amazingly. It took I wanna say about ten days of playing the game. During that time I worked through some internal stuff which is best articulated in DID terms as the aforementioned child alter not trusting host/etc to do things that the child really wanted, restoring that trust by listening and empirically proving willingness to value child preferences by taking certain costly/significant actions in-game that were the child's preferences and not that of current self (mostly about conflict between maximizing fun vs effectiveness), started to be able to see features of me as a "protector" alter and feel some appreciation for those mental states in me as such. I restored other internal trust, such as by keeping the video game installed, even though normally nowadays I would delete it after being "done" to increase the effort barrier to slip back into another binge. But most importantly:

It damn-near magically single-handedly fixed my binging and completionism tendencies in video games (and also helped me very clearly identify what event got me cope-modifying my mind to value completionism). I no longer feel interest in getting stuff like achievements whose pursuit isn't fun in itself for me, or 3/3 stars on each level or whatever, for the first time in like a decade. I can just play for a little now and move on. I don't even feel unwanted temptation to play games any more, and when I have other goals the desire to play naturally recedes. I have never seen this much deep improvement come so easily. These were intractable motivation control issues for, again, a decade. Seemingly solved. Just like that.

On the one hand: I should swear off playing video games. They are an addictive drug. A video game succeeds by being unnaturally good at generating brain reward. Unnatural amounts of dopamine. A really good video game is basically wireheading. Real life achievement is incapable of competing.

On the other hand: I wanna play.

#cognition #mentalisttraceur meta

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carewyncromwell · 2 years ago

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“I'm in love with a fairytale, Even though it hurts, 'Cause I don't care if I lose my mind... I'm already cursed.”

~“Fairytale” by Alexander Rybak

x~x~x~x

I blame this ENTIRE idea on @drinkyoursoupbitch...but yes, with this, I issue a new challenge for all of you --

The R AU Challenge!

Basically, take one of your MC’s closest friends or even love interest and make them a sleeper agent from R, placed at Hogwarts specifically to help them find and infiltrate the Cursed Vaults. How do they fill the role of villain (or anti-villain)? What sets them apart from their canon self? How does MC and their friendship with them affect them? Do they go through a character arc of redemption, or does MC get corrupted by them instead? And yeah, as you can see, I chose Carewyn’s future love interest Orion for my entry! 💚

It was so fun designing Orion’s R look! I naturally had to include some long gloves over his blousy tunic because Orion, and his necklace (similar to his one from the game) features an evil eye pendant, specifically a light blue one, which used as a symbol of protection and as a conduit for peace, solitude, and deeper, more open-minded thinking. The red “R” tattoo, in my personal canon, only appears when its magic is activated or when someone with it makes skin-to-skin contact with another R member: I’ve drawn both Jacob and Rakepick with it in the past. I also headcanon Orion’s wand being made of beech, so I kept his wand’s coloring rather light compared to the rest of his outfit.

As a member of R, I see Orion as an anti-villain in the vein of Princess Kraehe/Rue from the anime Princess Tutu -- a talented, but tragic figure who was raised knowing nothing but selfishness, cruelty, and manipulation, but still somehow knows how to love, no matter how much pain it causes him.

In this version of Orion’s storyline, he’s picked up from the orphanage he was raised at by R as a very young boy. It turns out that his father was indebted to R for some unknown reason, only to die in the height of the Wizarding War. This debt was then transferred over to his child -- thus Orion, as long as he can remember, was a loyal servant to and puppet of R’s will, most notably its Leader, the cold and cruel man who Orion doesn’t know is called Charles Cromwell. The mark on his face, cursed to only appear when its magic was activated, made it so that Charles Cromwell always knew where he was and could inflict any of the Unforgivable Curses on him, even without articulating the spell or being right beside him. Among other members of R, Orion was referred to as the Magpie, referring to the bird of the same name, which can be symbolic of bad luck and deception. This symbol turned out to be more appropriate to Orion than any of R’s leadership realized at first, however -- for the magpie can also represent good fortune and true love.

At Hogwarts Orion serves as R’s faithful agent, keeping an eye on the Cursed Vaults -- but while at school, he’s enough distanced from Charles Cromwell that he can actually live something akin to a normal life. The flying prodigy soon makes friends in the Quidditch world and even earns the position of captain while only a fourth year. He also makes friends -- not just his team, but especially his best friends, Murphy McNully and Skye Parkin. Then, in his third year, when the Ice Vault is causing havoc, a new figure appears: the “Cursebreaker,” Carewyn Cromwell. Knowing R won’t want anyone else going after the Vaults, Orion craftily arranges it so that Carewyn’s friends try to coax her onto the Quidditch scene, thinking to both keep an eye on her and distract her enough that she won’t have time to get in R’s way again. But once he gets to know Carewyn after she seeks out the open Chaser position on his team, Orion soon realizes that Carewyn’s seeking the Vaults out for her brother’s sake, and that she won’t rest until she finds him again. Orion soon develops a soft spot for the noble little Cursebreaker, and wants all the more to coax her back onto his team to try to keep her out of harm’s way. When that doesn’t work, he appears to her in his red robe and explicitly warns her to stay away from the Vaults, only for Carewyn to refuse to back down. And so Orion -- ever a master at reading people -- reluctantly tries to use Carewyn’s heart against her. If Carewyn won’t back down for her own sake, perhaps she will for the sake of the people she loves...and so Orion uses the Imperius Curse on Ben one year and Rowan the next, trying to scare Carewyn enough that she’ll stop pursuing the Cursed Vaults. Try as Orion might, though, Carewyn will not be deterred. And, as Professor Rakepick herself warns Orion at one point in his sixth year, R would never leave her alone, even if she did --

“You know R as well as I do, Mr. Amari. Surely you don’t think you’ll be able to keep her safe, now that she has caught their notice?”

Orion himself merely keeps his back to her, clasping his hands tightly in front of him as he obscured his anger behind a cool, passive-aggressive mask.

“She certainly has caught your notice. …I do believe, Madam Rakepick, that you warned the student body to stay out of your way, when you first arrived. Do not force me to echo that warning myself.”

It’s also Rakepick who told him that R’s Leader was the man called Charles Cromwell. She says coldly that Charles isn’t having Orion scare Carewyn to keep her away from the Vaults, but instead to scare her into joining R, as her brother had before her. Orion doesn’t known how much if any of this is true, but it troubles him greatly. He hadn’t known Carewyn’s brother had been forced to join R as well, and if it is true, that Carewyn’s family is in R, as his father had been...then it means that Carewyn is fated, like him, to join their ranks. As much as that thought makes him nauseous at the start, it also fills Orion up with a bizarre kind of comfort. He’s always known that upon leaving Hogwarts, he’ll have to go back to being R’s puppet again. He’ll have to abandon Quidditch, his friends...the entire person he’d been able to be at school, forever. But if Carewyn joins R...then he won’t be completely alone, once he graduates school. They won’t have to be enemies any longer. He won’t have to frighten her or her friends again. They won’t have to fight each other. And R will no longer threaten the safety of the friends that they’d both made while in the safety of Hogwarts’s walls...the friends they’d each come to see as family...

There could be some peace for both him and Carewyn if they merely accept their fate, Orion thinks. What point would there be in them fighting against R anyway, aside from more suffering? Maybe that’s why Carewyn’s Patronus took the same form as his, that time R sent a dementor to Hogwarts. Maybe, somehow...he and Carewyn were fated to meet...to serve together, as servants of R...

But Carewyn Cromwell, of course, is not one to believe in Fate. And so now our Slytherin paragon has to find a way to both defeat R and save the wisest, gentlest young man she knows from their abusive, defeatist claws.

#hphm #hogwarts mystery #r au challenge #orion amari #carewyn cromwell #charles cromwell #my art #patricia rakepick #yes carewyn in that last doodle is wearing her 'fakepick' outfit from my good!rakepick au finale #minus the cape XD

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tuulikki · 2 years ago

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You know, as someone who is very much aroace and always has been I don’t understand the new vague of young queers people on the Internet talking about how disrespectful it is to want to have sex with someone and talk about your physical attraction to them. It’s probably because they are Americans and brainwashed by Puritanism because I don’t see people from other countries do that. I genuinely don’t understand how you can find someone sexy because I have never felt like this but damn even (1/2)

It’s definitely sad to see. A lot of cultures have sex negativity, but there’s a particular strain of it in certain online native-Anglophone queer spaces that really is heartbreaking to see. And I’m somewhere in the ace spectrum with you (near the demi end), so you’ll understand me when I say I don’t understand the “damn, I’d tap that” impulse either—and likewise I couldn’t agree with you more that it’s tragic when people start thinking there’s something somehow wrong with visual attraction. It’s a sad but predictable byproduct of an oversexed yet sex negative-society, with a heaping dose of societal homophobia on top of it.

I do think a lot of these people are trying their best to navigate a complex issue (i.e., human sexuality), but nothing in their society has given them the tools to do so. The explosion of pop-psych obfuscations of the definition of consent has also probably aggravated this: I heard someone asking a sex columnist if you’re morally required to ask someone else for consent if you want to masturbate while thinking about them (specifically people you’re not in a relationship with). That’s what’s hiding under the “I didn’t consent to see kink at Pride” bullshit, too, imo. People are seeing sex and sexuality as so fundamentally harmful and corrosive that to even think about someone sexually is committing an act of violent spiritual defilement against them for which you need to beg preliminary forgiveness—and that is what people are actually saying when they say they want “consent” in these scenarios of Sinning In Thought (and not at all in word and deed). It’s the same reason the idea of kids seeing people ambling around in kinkwear at Pride triggers such strong reactions: if you still see sexuality as something dangerous and morally contaminating, then of course “exposing” children to the idea of happy consensual sex in goofy costumes gets phrased as though it were “exposing” them to a terrifying contagion. (And I’d rather explain kink to a child than explain purity rings—one of those concepts is infinitely more harmful than the other.)

I’d argue that the uwu wlw soft sapphic vibes did have its limited purpose as a placeholder in the sexual development of plenty of young queer folks, the same way that baby-faced boyband stars do for young people who fancy guys. Bisexually speaking, I leaned more towards Orlando Bloom’s Legolas when I was in middle school, and now I’m more interested in aesthetically pondering Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn. I likewise reblogged a lot of uwu wlw pastel shit in my early years, as was my right and privilege at that age. But the problem with only doing the uwu “wlw desire isn’t horny, it’s beautiful and pure” thing is that it can so easily begin to live halfway between purity ring bullshit and between a deformed pseudo-feminism that assumes that straight male desire is inherently and innately predicated on harm. There are conversations to be had about how a patriarchal society can articulate toxic concepts of masculine sexuality, but believing what the patriarchy says about itself lends patriarchy an authority on the innate qualities of human beings that it has no credible claim to.

idk I can still put my finger to the live wire of my cultural programming by writing the words “sex is pure” and making myself think about it, because even after all these years, the idea of sex as something impure still lurks in my head. Caveat: Obviously not all sex is morally good sex, but the same can be said for plenty of human acts (not all car-driving is morally good, not all sandwiches are made with eager enthusiastic consent). But still. Sex is great and all, I’m a big fan, but we treat it as this colossally important thing and so ofc we still find ourselves writing obsessive secular theologies about what constitutes evil or holy sex. It’s just sex, guys. It’s a lovely activity, sometimes an impressive hobby, and sometimes a profession, but it’s not some vast cosmically important thing. It’s just a naked game of Twister with more fluids and some fun physiological responses. Think about boobs and maybe you’ll all calm down.

#dunno what prompted your ask but I have thoughts #doctor strangesex or: how I learned to stop worrying and love the dong #long post #opinions #sex positive

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crimson-mayhem-archive · 2 years ago

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(( “if y’all want, feel free to hop in my inbox with a muse and i’ll write a lil drabble.” If you’re still doing these, I’d love to see one with Ruki 🏃‍♀️ maybe they could be discussing a topic relating to a book they’ve read? HFDJKDK SORRY I know that’s pretty vague. ))

「 if y’all want, feel free to hop in my inbox with a muse and i’ll write a lil drabble. 」

🥀 the way i read through a good CHUNK of your posts bc i was like “how in the hell do i write this man.” 🥀

Well articulated words were spoken quietly, and in a way that flowed through the human’s ears comfortably, as his head rested upon his arms on the library table. Glasses were strewn off to the side, school blazer draped over his shoulders, as he listened to the Vampire’s reading. The subject changing from reading direct lines from ‘The Master and Margarita’.

❝ Have you noticed a particular pattern as you’ve progressed through this novel? It throws out the traditional views of ‘good’ and ‘evil’, and even the common thought that the Devil himself is the embodiment of it—❞

Virek’s eyes trailed from the book to Ruki’s own gaze, though he could easily be mistaken for snoozing whilst Ruki went on with how his eyes drooped. The human found himself quite fond of the way the Vampire projected his voice. Elegant, articulated, yet not hard to follow. It reminded him of the way the aristocratic class would speak— At least in some books he had read as a child. But it lacked the usual oppressive, or condescending nature that was laced within the others.

(❛ I don’t really have anything to compare it to… But at least his voice is nice to listen to when he’s passionate about something. ❜)

❝ Oi. Are my words even making it to that little brain of yours, or do you believe I’m speaking for my own betterment of health? ❞

Tilting his head so his cheek was rested on his arms more than before, scarlet eyes met steel, as Virek’s response came rather quickly.

❝ You could have been. I heard it’s quite good for your memory if you read aloud and vocalise your thoughts. Who am I to interrupt you at that point?❞

To say that the Vampire was irked wouldn’t have been incorrect, though he wasn’t angry either. Slight annoyance was perfectly hidden behind a wall of apathy, though he was also… Amused? Virek certainly was a human, who had a lot more to him than met the eye— Especially in the academic fields. Someone so versed in literature having such mediocre performance and outward expression simply didn’t sit right with him, though it was always a treat to find another as equally as passionate about literature as he was. Though obviously less experienced.

❝ While I do appreciate the care you put in to not interrupt my thoughts, I have to say it would be a lot more enjoyable for us both if both parties were engaging. ❞

A soft silence filled the room after Ruki’s words, likely as Virek was thinking up his own thoughts to share. Even going as far as to let his eyes fall completely shut in an attempt to organise his thoughts in a way that would make sense.

❝ I guess I’d have to agree with you on one thing: Bulgakov did provide a new perspective on ‘good’ and ‘evil’s dichotomy. But I wouldn’t say he completely got rid of the idea of the Devil being the embodiment of the latter. ❞

If Ruki’s attention wasn’t caught before, it was caught now. Wondering in what direction the human planned on taking his speech.

❝ Woland takes delight and enjoyment in causing problems in Moscow, that much is obvious. And Bulgakov even go as far as to make it known that Woland is Satan— Leaving it up to the reader’s to balance this depiction with traditional views.❞

❝ The targets in this novel are specific, and hand picked. All of them who were, or prone to be, inherently ‘evil’ or ‘sinful.’ Those who were materialistic, and greedy. Artistically making a show out of his victims death, and plunging Moscow further and further into chaos.❞

For Virek to express such well articulated thoughts, whilst seemingly being indifferent to his and Ruki’s entire ‘hang out’ session, may be surprising to those who aren’t familiar with him. But for the Vampire, he never thought he would ever here the human speak the much at one time. Let alone with such refined vocabulary.

(❛ So behind the choppy, apathetic responses of his normal demeanour, he was hiding such in depth analyses and well formed sentences? But why limit yourself in such a way..?❜)

❝ I believe that Woland’s character did a great job in opening up a new perspective to morality and philosophical concepts. New perspectives on the ambiguity of good and evil, as well as the revelation that evil is something that has been, and always well be around for the rest of eternity. In fact, he even proves that evil is necessary— A necessary rival to good. And one cannot exist without the other. Everyone’s committed evil, even vile deeds in their lifetime; just as much as they’ve exercised good deeds. The scales may be tipped in one way or another, but given how flexible and ambiguous morality is, it is truly impossible for a person to be entirely good or evil. And sometimes, one may be more necessary or useful than the other. ❞

❝ After all, without evil then being good is meaningless. To deny it would be to deny life’s complexity, and this denying life itself…❞

Well then… Such an in-depth explanation from someone like Virek is something Ruki had be curious about hearing, yet not something he would have truly expected from him. A man who didn’t seem to care enough about any one topic to speak on it for such a long period of time, without his usual buzzwords and pauses to fill the empty space.

❝ Colour me impressed. I never would have guessed you analyse books with such depth, nor speak for more than a few seconds at a time. If you had such an arsenal at your disposal, then why present yourself in the way you’ve chosen?❞

❝ Gah… My throat always hurts when I’m around dust… Cough—❞

(❛ He’s back to normal then, I’m guessing. Now I’m inclined to think that explanation was just a fluke that he’d already heard before… ❜)

Little did Ruki know, or perhaps something he already had a hunch about, Virek had read this novel at least twice or three times. After all for the past twelve years, there was nothing else to do but read and study— Even access to the outside world was nonexistent, so all Virek had were books. For years he spent his time analysing different texts, both fiction and nonfiction, historical documents, sketching the different descriptions he found in books, and pushing both his mind and imagination to the fullest. So it wasn’t unexpected for him to have such eloquent speech on something so complex— Not like Ruki would ever find that out.

The Vampire, on the other hand, was plotting different scenarios in which to trick Virek into vocalising more of his thoughts. Silently wishing to pick apart whatever complex barriers lined that mind of his.

❝ Hm.. I suppose we should have these kinds of meetings more often, if it will get you to say more than ten words to me. ❞

❝ I have no clue what you mean. I didn’t talk for that long… And I’m not even good at talking…❞

(❛ I find that odd coming from someone with scholar level diction and speech, but some things are best saved for another day… ❜)

🥀 HELLO I HOPE THIS WAS OKAY!!!! AND I FIND RUKI’S LITTLE “this is the most words i’ve heard you say ever” MOMENT SUPER CUTE. SO I HOPE YOU ENJOY.

and Virek’s usual ‘answer the question with a completely unrelated statement’ quirk just had to make an appearance 😎

also did not actually go through and read this book bc that is a lot— but i did read a bunch of different analyses on it to sorta grasp the concept 😞🤚. 🥀

#— ✎ scenarios #scenario #— ♔ asks #— ♔ ask game reply #ask game reply #ruki—mukami #ruki mukami #mukami ruki #virek sutcliffe #((idk if i wrote him well. especially towards the end 😭))#((but again i hope this was good))

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luwupercal · 1 year ago

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@libraryshadow replied to your post “@libraryshadow replied to your post “Hello. I have...”:

Could you explain it in detail please? If I remember in the post someone said that when they talk about the theory they watched like the light leave that persons eyes as they start piecing it together. I read that an went lol I want that for myself.

Oh gosh i dunno if it will do that lololol but I can share what it is and what I find interesting abt it. But tl;dr the fundamental idea is: what if we were lied to and the emperor was the one to kill Sanguinius, not horus?

in fear to tread horus finds out about the red thirst, which sanguinius kept zealously secret in life, and he also finds out sanguinius refuses to tell the emperor out of fear of being a third missing primarch (sanguinius specifically says "I will not be responsible for the erasure of the Blood Angels from Imperial history. I will not have a third empty plinth beneath the roof of the Hegemon as my Legion's only memorial!"). it's also said Horus reached out to Sanguinius before they fought, and Sanguinius rejected him

with that knowledge, it's not a stretch or even really a theory to believe that Horus might've referenced the red thirst as something that Sanguinius would've had to worry about less if he joined chaos, as kind of an underhanded last-ditch attempt to get Sanguinius to turn, something only Horus could've known. "Khorne would love you, dude, c'mon" kind of thing, lol

anyway, I had that thought and then had the mental image of the emperor overhearing it and sanguinius kind of half-hesitating and then the emperor just fucking stabbing him from the back before sang can properly say no. (in my original post from when i was in high school i brought up that in the famous pic of horus and the emperor's battle, sanguinius looks like he's been stabbed in the back, what with the exit hole in his armor being on his chest and spiking upwards like that, and the person who's standing behind him isn't horus)

as for why the accepted narrative in-universe is horus doing it, i mean, imperium, and there's also canonically been memory fuckery going on with the two canon missing primarchs, up to and including erasing their sibling primarchs' memories. and uh also i think i noted in my original post i couldn't find anything abt anyone observing horus and sanguinius's duel? i also-also had some possible thoughts abt the black rage, including either that they just relive sanguinius's death and sanguinius didn't know who killed him and so they just assume it was horus, or that maybe it was a memory implanted by the emperor for whatever reason, or who knows. there's ways to work it, honestly

what i find most interesting about this theory, honestly, isn't really the nitty gritty details though - it's how it changes the story of warhammer 40k. i mean, sanguinius is literally The Angel, he's Too Good For This Sinful Terra, and we've been trained to consider his death an unfair thing that happened because horus was soooo evil. so the emperor doing it instead makes the emperor look significantly more ruthless or even unfair, makes horus look less like some all-powerful evil bastard and catches him by surprise, and it also makes sanguinius imperfect and less of daddy's little angel, which i think are all very positive character changes - the emperor is ruthless and has demonstrated it repeatedly, horus being caught unawares by chaos at the start of the heresy and the emperor's actions and the end of it is a nice little echo (& also another, deranged thing i struggle to articulate about how the primarchs act a lot like manchildren + this particular scenario bringing out of horus a certain "terrified child realizes dad is angry for realsies" je ne sais quoi), and like, sanguinius becoming less perfect and more of a gritty little real person is like, character flaws 101 A Good Thing To Do To Him, no?

it also retroactively makes the emperor in tts like 150% more senile which i think is a good characterization move personally because he is quite literally a skeleton. you could be sad abt it like, "omg he says he loves sanguinius so much because he regrets it" if you want to, if this appeals to you, i'm just throwing that out there.

anyway, yeah, those are my updated thoughts on this whole deal lol

@libraryshadow replied to your post “Hello. I have come to tell you that, somehow,...”:

I have no idea what this theory is. I’ve never hear anyone mention this before. How long has this theory been around?

i mean i thought about it in july 2020 but i wouldnt be surprised if people independently came up w similar stuff beforehand tbh

#sanguiniusgate #libraryshadow

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tundrainafrica · 3 years ago

Text

Title: First Day

Summary:

“You usually don’t take time off,” Levi commented.

“I know."

“So why are you taking time off?”

“It’s our kid’s first day at school,” Hange responded in the most anticlimactic of manners. Yet, the knowing grin in her face didn’t fade.

Hange and Levi deal with their child's first day of school in different ways. Written for Levihan Week 2021, Day 1: School.

Link: AO3

Notes:

Levihan Week Day 1 Prompt: School, organized by @levihanweek.

This is kinda late because the past few weeks have been hectic but I've been trying to get back into writing regularly again since the long break I took after completing Lovebug.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

Most mornings, Hange was out the door at six in the morning. Sometimes ten minutes after, sometimes five minutes after but never anything more than that. It was always a loud grand exit accompanied with footsteps, a clipped ‘see you later’ and a loud slam of the door.

So routine that Levi would never look back. That day was a little different. Ten minutes past six and it was utterly silent. The absence of such a loud and chaotic goodbye seemed to leave a more deafening echo.

Deafening silence, or the absence of what had been usually there, wasn’t the type of deafening that rang in his ears. It was the type of absence that seemed to tickle at the back of his ears, awakening a fighting instinct that had been long asleep. “You’re still here?” Levi asked.

She was quick to reply. “I asked for a half day at work today.” Quick and very casual.

“Oh really?” Levi responded.

Hange had always told him the day before if she were taking a leave. That day, such a small detail sent some alarm bells ringing inside him. He looked back to see Hange deftly flipping through a newspaper with just one hand, taking bites of bread with the other. “Yep.” She didn’t seem at all in any hurry to look up at him.

Levi narrowed his eyes at her, wondering if that was enough to make her feel any obligation to meet his eyes. It wasn’t. The newspaper must have been a very interesting subject. “You usually don’t take time off,” Levi commented.

“I know,” Hange said, her tone unchanging.

“So why are you taking time off?” Levi felt slightly ticked at having to articulate the question. It just wasn’t the natural flow of their conversations.

Hange chose that moment to look up, a wide grin on her face, a knowing grin. She put the newspaper down, took another bite of bread and her chews were larger, seemingly more exaggerated. She had a special talent. If she actually tried, she could hide what she was thinking even from someone who had known her more than half their life. “It’s our kid’s first day at school,” Hange answered in the most anticlimactic of manners. Yet, the knowing grin in her face didn’t fade.

Levi raised one eyebrow at her. He set aside the cutlery he had been organizing and settled in front of her. He took a slice of bread from the plate in front of him, bit into it and flashed his partner an expectant look.

It wasn’t every day Hange was there at half past six on a weekday and she looked like she was completely aware of it. “How do you feel about Luke’s first day?” she asked.

“All kids go to school. This isn’t really a big change,” Levi said in between bites of bread.

“Really? Not a big change?”

Levi paused for a second. It wasn’t a big change. That is, if he didn’t count the past few days spent looking through rows of school bags at the shop, if he didn’t count the daunting process of organizing stationary while just relishing the unnatural feeling of expensive school supplies to the touch. The underground city didn’t really have a lot of schools and consequently, Levi never had to worry about such a luxury growing up. “Luke will be in school so more peace and quiet.”

The conversation was surprisingly slow. The air between them seemed louder and seemed to be circulating a little faster than usual. It was a loud silence only broken when Luke came barging into the kitchen, big bag precariously propped on his back.

Levi was suddenly aware that he was taking his sweet time speaking and Hange was letting him.

The young boy gave him more than enough of an excuse to avoid that awkward silent interrogation. “Luke, what the hell is in your bag?”

“First day!” Luke said, in some attempt at protest maybe.

No, it was a protest definitely as Levi had made it his mini mission for the day to untangle the straps from under the young boys arms.

There was no way in hell he was letting his child go to school with such a disorganized death trap. The bag was comically round, stuffed to the point that pencils and markers were sticking out in weird places.

A chaotic mess. A death trap waiting to bite or more specifically, crush him.

There was still some attempt by the young boy to inject some organization into it. The stationary was organized in clusters. The crayons bunched on one side of the bag and pencils on the other. There were folded papers stuffed in the middle of the paper, and some snacks were stuffed towards the bottom of the bag.

“Luke, I told you, you can bundle your crayons like this.” He had gotten a rubber band and twisted it around the crayons and pencils, once then twice.

Levi was bringing out the items in bunches, lining them out on the table then stuffing them into the bag again, that time with a little more regard for aesthetic and functionality. Levi was creating shapes, very convenient shapes and he had made a puzzle out of the whole process of organizing a three year old’s school bag.

When he was done, all the supplies only occupied half the bag. He gestured at the organized bag in the same way he did every other time Luke would watch him clean. And the latter nodded understandingly, the same way he did every other time before. Enough for Levi to know, the boy had at least taken note of half the cleaning process.

That exchange between father and son was very much routine. Since the child was old enough to talk, Levi had taken great pains to teach the young boy organization. Sometimes though, there were hiccups in the whole process of teaching. And during those hiccups, Levi was reminded, Luke was Hange’s child too.

Suddenly curious about her reaction, Levi turned to his Hange. The latter was still sipping coffee as she watched. An amused look was etched on her face. “If you ask me, I think he did a pretty good job fixing his bag.”

***

Levi didn’t know he had been waiting for a climax until he found himself very disappointed at the denouement.

It just seemed too easy and Hange just seemed too happy and too laidback. By the school gates, they separated with hugs, some pieces of advice dumbed down for a three year old. Hange was usually the more talkative one but Levi found he was the one asking more questions, saying more than necessary.

“He’ll be fine, you know,” Hange said, her voice firm, her look almost admonishing.

Levi froze. He had only become more hyper aware of his uncharacteristic chattiness when Hange pointed it out herself.

I packed you a sandwich… I’ll pick you up at two… If you wanna go home early, just tell the teacher okay?

Were those words unnecessary for a kid? But Luke had to know right? Or at least his teacher? “Maybe we should talk to the teacher,” Levi suggested. "Just so they know us and they won't hesitate to contact us if—"

Hange shook her head. “He’ll be fine,” she said. “Look, he’s ready to go in already.”

Luke wasn’t crying. He wasn’t begging them to leave him alone. In fact, he had only turned back at them, waved one hand and shouted ‘bye!’ when he was already a good few feet away.

“Okay, I guess he’s fine then,” Levi said. If Luke and Hange both think it’s fine… He spun around, his back towards the school and he let out a stifled breath, some release for that disappointment and tension that had been raring to ooze out since that morning.

“I said, he’ll be fine,” Hange repeated. It was starting to get annoying.

“I knew that,” Levi retorted.

“Doesn’t look like it.”

Levi shot her a venomous glare. “Okay, if you knew he’d be fine, then why bother taking a half day off from work to see him off?”

“Cause I was guessing… someone else wouldn’t be so fine,” Hange responded.

They had turned the corner from the school gates, to a narrow road a little emptier. Again, there was that knowing grin on her face and her face was only inches away from him. Consoling? Mocking?

No, it was definitely mocking. “Oh, who are you talking about?”

Hange didn’t respond. She looked away, just making it more apparent that she had been staring right at him.

“Who are you talking about Hange?” Levi pressed. He wasn’t stupid. The answer was right in front of him. But was it an answer he wanted to accept?

“I called a half day off from work. But I’m planning on going to the office today and working for an hour or so. Why don’t you come along? You should say hi to Armin and Mikasa, it’s been a while since you talked to them,” Hange said.

“I have to pick up Luke—”

“At two right?” Hange asked. “We won’t be in the office that long.”

“I need to prepa--”

“Prepare what?” Hange challenged. Her voice was firmer. She was walking ahead with longer strides, towards the path to her office, only a convenient few minutes away from the school. “You’re gonna be alone in the house you know.”

Alone in the house. Being alone wasn’t too big of a deal. Levi had lived alone a few times when he was in between roommates at the barracks. As captain, he conveniently got his own room. That felt like a lifetime away though.

The past few years were easier to look back at. When Hange was at work, it was usually just him and Luke at home. Then and there, just the thought of being home alone had sent some strange feeling through him.

A very strange sadness. A very strange loneliness.

A sudden need to turn to Hange and maybe confide for a little longer. Besides, it isn’t everyday Hange is giving you this much attention. Levi reminded himself.

“He’ll be fine,” Hange said again. “Going to school’s just part of growing up.”

“It is.” Levi admitted. “I think I just need to be a little sad about it.” He deliberately softened his voice then to something just loud enough for Hange to hear.

Annoyingly, her smile got wider, her eyes were larger, as if she was looking at a specimen and he was her specimen. “I knew taking a half day off would be a good idea.”

#levihan #levihan fanfiction #lhw2021 #levihanweek2021

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