#i would also never seriously advocate for prison

[evan4ever]

I just had the most angsty idea everrr and was wondering if I could request it to you: Kit and a girl reader in Briarcliff are all in love and finally happened to make love for the first time during kitchen duty, they get caught (much like in the show) and are to be sterilized as punishment to prevent a possible "unwanted" pregnancy in the future with their relationship, but reader has always shared to Kit that her biggest dream in life was experiencing pregnancy and being a mother one day if she ever got lucky to be free again, and so being desperate to try and save reader from sterilization and having her only and one dream totally shattered from her possibilities, Kit goes to the only idea he could think of to get reader out of that and lies straight ahead saying he harrassed her and forced her to do things she didn't want to (which was of course the most brutal lie ever, she was the one who had insisted it upon him in the first place btw) and so there would be no need for sterilization since there was no real relationship between them and no possibility of it happening again in the future, and Jude had absolutely no tolerance for harrassment so instead of having Kit being sterilized himself, she orders the guards to beat the hell out of him in front of the reader to make her feel like having justice from his acts to her, all whilst the reader knows what Kit was doing to save her and can't deny it at the same time; then lastly, in the end she visits him in infirmary to check on him and comfort him and also confront him.

Sorry it got way too long lol, but it would seriously mean everything if you could write this down please, and tysm btw! <3

A Lie For Me

Warnings: this is pretty dark so read with caution, it may be triggering. Mentions of rape, sexual assault, harassment. Abuse/beating. Talk of sterilization, infertility, etc. it was a hard one to write folks

—

“What?” Kit’s eyes went wide at your desperate request. You pressed your lips together so tightly the skin began turning white, looking at him pleadingly.

You knew it was a horrible thing to request of him. You knew it was wrong in so many ways, and you knew it would be really awful on his end — the things that could happen to him by “admitting” what you wanted him to. You felt terrible, but you were so desperate.

“Please Kit…” you whispered, tears forming in your eyes. His furrowed eyebrows began softening slowly as he studied your face that held nothing but the desperation you felt.

“S’let me get this straight — you want me to lie, tell them I… forced you… to do that with me back there in the kitchen? Y/n, why? D’ya know what they’ll do to me?” His eyebrows re-furrowed themselves as he listened to what he was saying, what you were wanting him to do. It wasn’t the truth, far from. The sexual acts that you were both caught in was completely mutual, wanted by both. He didn’t quite understand it and he needed a further explanation from you first.

“It is my biggest dream to be a mother someday. Kit I can’t think of anything worse for myself than being sterilized. If they strip me of my ability to form a child one day… I don’t think I could live on. Kit, I will end it all if they do. I will take my life the second I’m alone. I know it’s not fair of me to ask something of you like this, and if my chances of having a child weren’t at stake, I never would ask it of you. Please… I’m begging of you to just please try to understand.” You pleaded with him, trying your absolute hardest to help him understand where you’re coming from. You’re not a bad person, lying about sexual assault and harassment is such a horrible thing one could do. The false accusations have put many men in prison and you were a very big advocate about it; but now your future of being a mother was making you do the one thing you could never fathom before.

Kit’s eyes looked down at his handcuffed hands before they rested upon yours that were also handcuffed. You were both waiting for your punishment of being sterilized. He thought over your words again and again. He did understand you, he wanted nothing more than to be a father himself someday. But if what you were saying was true, that you’d take your life over being sterilized, he knew he had to do the right thing, for you. He’d do whatever it took.

“I swear on my life I wouldn’t dare ask if it wasn’t im—“

“I’ll do it.” Kit cut you off, his eyes now flickering back up to yours. They weren’t the usual kind eyes that you had gotten to know and love so much. They weren’t mean either, not even cold. They were just dark. Almost emotionless.

But you were desperate, so you didn’t dare start that conversation in fears that he would possibly change his mind. You had him on board. You had him where you needed him. And god, you felt so selfish. You hated yourself right now.

A beat of silence passed as you both just stared at each other, Kit’s face unreadable while yours nervous.

“..thank you.” You finally whispered out. Kit glanced behind you and you turned your head to see what he was now looking at and your stomach dropped as Sister Jude entered the small room, Dr. Arden and a nurse behind her. You swallowed hard and quickly looked back at Kit who glared up at Jude.

“Now, it would be wise of you both to not make this any more difficult than it already has to be—“

“I raped her.” Kit cut Jude off harshly. You sucked in a sharp breath at hearing his words, holding it in now as you waited for her response. Your eyes squeezed shut in shame, but when Jude looked at you for confirmation, she saw what she believed was fear.

“Y/n? Is this true?” Jude spoke slowly to you, softly.

You didn’t dare open your eyes, you didn’t believe you’d be able to go through with the harsh lie that you had begged Kit to see through. Instead, you only nodded in response. A choked back sob escaped from you, your handcuffed hands covering your face as you continued sobbing into them.

Jude believed you were crying because of being assaulted, no idea that you were actually crying because of his terrible you felt.

“I’m..” Jude started lowly, shaking her head slowly as she looked back to Kit, her entire body filling with rage. “I am just so.. incredibly… utterly disgusted right now. Kit, you..” she points her finger at him as she attempts to control her anger, her finger noticeably shaking, “you think being here allows you to do as you please with women?! Th-that you can force a woman to sleep with you on MY account, in MY kitchen?!”

You still couldn’t bring yourself to look at what was happening before you, only squeezing your eyes shut even tighter if it were possible as you listened to Jude’s voice raise into a scream — a scream directed towards Kit.

“You have some real nerve, boy.”

You tore your hands from your face at the sound of skin against skin, realizing that Jude had made her way in front of Kit and had just slapped him hard against his cheek. Your eyes were wide in seeing how angry and upset Jude was over this, shocked by it honestly. It seems to be personal to her.

“I will not have a rapist on this property.” She spat at him. Kits face dropped towards the ground, his shoulder slumping forwards in his own shame even though he had nothing to be ashamed of.

You wanted so badly to hug him and to tell him you were sorry, to tell Jude he was lying at the cost of your sterilization punishment. That he was lying for you. But before you could even manage to attempt speaking up, Jude had Kit pulled to his feet and was pushing him past you to the door.

“Well, I will just show you what happens to rapists on this property.” She pushed him out of the door, kit nearly stumbling over his own feet but allowing her to push him where she wanted him to go. You stood to your feet now and quickly walked out of the door and following behind them. “Do you realize the trauma you have caused this woman?!” Jude yelled at him as they entered her office, her finger now pointing at you as you stood wide eyed. “Do you understand what being sexually assaulted does to a woman?! Of course not, you’re a man. A pig.” She spits out again, turning and walking to you now.

You sucked in another deep breath as she approached and stood in front of you now, her eyes softening with what looked like sympathy for you. She felt bad for you. And it was so wrong because it didn’t actually happen, Kit never forced you, in fact one could argue that you initiated the sex.

“I am terribly, terribly sorry you had to go through that, my dear. No woman should ever have to. I do understand the pain you’re experiencing.” She spoke softly to you, her finger tips gliding down your cheek gently, comfortingly. But it didn’t feel that way against your skin, it felt like razor blades cutting you deep for your lie. You felt disgusted in yourself by the comfort this woman was showing you, comfort you didn’t deserve in the slightest. “He will pay for his behavior. You will redeem your deserved justice by watching him suffer.”

Her words cut deep like a knife, your heart dropping into your stomach when you realized what was going to happen.

“Show him no mercy.” She said to the men standing beside the two of you, them nodding and immediately walking to Kit.

“Wait that’s- it’s not neces—“

“He needs to pay. A lesson that greedy men deserve nothing.” She cut you off, walking back to Kit who only stood silently. He didn’t object, he didn’t intervene, he didn’t beg or plead. He readied himself for the beating that was to come, to be sure that you wouldn’t be sterilized. He was going to see it through. And you looked at him apologetically for everything you’ve caused by your selfishness. This wasn’t what you were expecting. You surely didn’t want to witness the abuse he’d endure. You honestly thought that they’d maybe lock him up for awhile and forget about it, but no, that wasn’t the case here.

You realized the very big mistake you’ve made.

And Kit quickly realized you were about to slip up, confess. He shook his head at you while Jude was looking away, your face scrunching in confusion as to why he wouldn’t want you to confess. You wanted to stop this, stop him from what was about to happen. But he silently begged you to keep your mouth closed. Your eyes burned into his trying to understand, soon realizing that if you did confess, this wouldn’t just go away either. If you confessed that it was all a lie now, not only would you both be sterilized, but you’d both likely be beat to near death. He was telling you that this was better than what would be if you told the truth now.

So you stayed silent, and you watched in complete horror as Kit was beaten. At some point you could no longer stomach it, looking away and trying your hardest not to vomit. They truly weren’t showing any mercy. The screams that came from Kit were now imbedded in your head, the bloody sight on his on the ground curled up in a ball replaying every time you closed your eyes. It was horrifying to see, and that was your own punishment for your selfishness.

By the end of it, they carried Kit away while you stood hugging yourself tightly, unable to move your eyes from the ground. Even when Jude approached you once more, speaking to you but you not hearing a single word. Jude believed it was shock from everything you had experienced. She had a nurse guide you to the Common Room and help you comfy yourself with a glass of water and a blanket.

And you sat in that chair, curled up, unable to pry your mind away from itself. You felt numb, sick, disgusted in yourself. You couldn’t bring your hand to grab the water for a drink no matter how dry your mouth was. You simply couldn’t move. As if you were frozen in that spot watching Kit be nearly killed because of you, over and over again. It felt cruel that the world would make you relive it, but you knew you deserved to feel this way.

Selfishness is the Devils work.

Hours passed by and you never moved a muscle. Jude noticed and had another nurse guide you to your cell to have you lay down. She was taking such good care of you, care you didn’t deserve. It was wrong and unfair.

When night fell, you finally pulled yourself from your thoughts and decided you needed to see him. You figured he was in the infirmary after the wounds he’d received. So once you were sure everyone was asleep, you snuck from your cell and made your way quietly and carefully all the way down to the infirmary, double checking that no one was around before entering.

“Kit?” You whispered into the silence. The room was dark, you could barely make out anything before you and had to feel your way around, finally making it to the bed. You heard the creaks of it intending someone was on it. You crouched yourself down so you could be eye level with the man who was resting on it. Your eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness allowing you to finally see better, scanning him from head to toe. He was now handcuffed to the side rails of the bed, as if he’d be able to do anything in this state.

You couldn’t see well, but enough to notice the bruises on his face and down his arms. They made you sick all over again. You could’ve hurled if you allowed yourself to, but you held back, swallowing hard before looking back to his black and blue swollen face.

“Kit?” You whispered again.

“I can’t really open my eyes.” You heard him respond, your jaw clenching at his words. More guilt washed over you and you rested your head against the side of the bed as tears formed in your eyes.

“I’m s-so sorry” your voice cracked as you spoke. “I’m so selfish, I don’t know what I was thinking… I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t think about the consequences. God im so sorry I made this happen to you.”

Kit couldn’t move much due to being restricted by his hands cuffed to the rails on either side of him, but he did turn his head towards you, letting his forehead lean into your head. You lifted it when you felt him, furrowing your brows wondering how he could possibly be comforting you right now. You deserved nothing from him, you wouldn’t blame him if he absolutely hated you because the feeling of yourself was mutual.

“They got me loaded up on meds.” He chuckled. “M’alright darlin. I’ll be fine. It’s over.”

You just gazed at him the best you could in the darkness, occasionally glancing at the different bruises and marks on his face. You couldn’t accept his acceptance of the situation. You didn’t want to be forgiven for begging him to do what he did. This was on you and it baffles you that he wasn’t angry.

“I’ll make it right with you, I promise you.” You whispered out, your hands now caressing his cheek ever so gently. He hummed in response, the feeling of your hands against his skin warming and comforting. “Whatever you need, say it. I’ll do anything. Whatever it takes.”

“Be the mother you want to be someday. Get out of this place and fulfill that dream. That’s all I want.”

You felt a tug on your heart, your eyes closing in response and even more shame filling you. You let out a quiet sigh before leaning your head down next to his and letting your foreheads rest against the others again. You only wanted this nightmare to be over, but you knew you owed everything to this man for not allowing them to take your fertility from you. You owed him everything, and you were going to see that through.

—

Tags: @evanpetersmood @witchsbitchestime @demxnicprxncess @yes-divine-ruler @shjjpm m @evanpsrealwife @iruzias @jangsuzchap @quicksilversg1rl @submissiveforahsmen @angelmenace @lovelizzie-blog1 @justa19 @daylas-life @simp4petermaximoff @totta69

[gayspock]

hmmm

obvioously ive got no idea whats about to happen. but sorry. im on tom zareks side in so much of this. kind of rolling my eyes a bit at the show itself in some senses. bc again. idk what happens. sigh. but its obvious that zareks being pitched, by the show, as someone to be "against" - not to be so reductive about it, but yeah.

bc frankly like... everything hes saying? no offence. i completely fucking agree with. am i being insane. am i. someone else soundboard me here. bc, like please- a terrorist, sure, they keep overstating that but... also one from saggitaron, an extremely exploited colony, and thats what he was fighting for in the first place

and not to mention that everything he's advocated for, thus far... i agree with. the prisoners being used, like slaves- dont "its a hard choice, but one we have to make" me, bc its still wrong to have to fucking earn your freedom, jesus christ. even if, yes, humanity is on the god damn line.

AND we never see the actual civillians in the damn show-and thats sth thats actually frustrated me, thus far. but hes ALSO right about them. is now maybe the best time for total change? arguable. but like- also sorry but im onboard with dismantling whatever fucking system is in-place, if that system is presumabaly analogous to our own. hes right. i mean im kind of fuckin confused, bc again theyre not showing us much- but theres no money?? and some people are still living "as wealthy" whilst some are still labouring? sorry??? but yeah- fuckin yeah that needs to be addressed

like it would ANYWAY. the inequality would ANYWAY ofc. but like if theyre seriously having to build a new livelihood here then fuckin... GOD i dont know i dont think its mad or irrational to be pushing for that

AND no matter the results... whilst i do kind of yield, and recognise in a time of crisis a strong leader is kind of important, and shes made good decisions, its STILL not crazy to want fucking elections. i dont know. call me crazy lol im in the uk and we havent had the chance to choose a damn leader for a hot second. but like laura wasnt... anywhere near qualified to be the president. she wasnt elected by anyone, for anything, and calling for a damn vote isnt some extremist madness.

and i guess you can say this is all naive- that hes only advocating for this, to be in power himself- but... so is laura? like shes holding onto her position so she can do what she thinks is right; so she can exercise power. fucking SHRUG. whats the damn difference there? and shes the one with the upperhand right now. and dont get me wrong- i like laura and the decisions shes made genereally speaking but again... a) not crazy to want an elected leader and b) not crazy to question how shes handling civilian side of things bc we barely see that at all

and i think thats where i am eyerolling HARD at this show bc again idk. i EXPECTED this. but again. being reductive, but also its hard not to be because like- zareks being depicted as the antagonistic force here, and laura as the rational one, as one of our protags and its like... i dont MIND a difference of opinion playing out in front of me, you know, nor do i need my own political inclinations to align wholly with a show BUT... my point is its kinda exhausting the way they do kind of act like what zarek is saying is crazy and the show itself isnt challenging laura herself on THESE issues in particular when its justified. like they do with other hard decisions shes made but with some of this really not so much

and another thing was like similarly... they narratively justified it, by having that guy get apprehended as an assassin in the end, but also like... lee was making me suck my teeth this episode and groan. like seriously. stepping in and strongarming civillians in full on cop mode. i dont fucking like it dude. like when those two ppl were having a disagreement, and he sided against one guy despite the fact they had exhibited the same level of aggression with each other, bc that guy aligned with his own beliefs, and then exercised his power to threaten the other guy- yeah sorry again to be that guy but like... be for realll lee. and again i wouldnt be MAD that hed do that, in terms of a character decision, but again its like- obviously its in framing, yeah?

and this whole thing yes- WELL IT IS ALL VERY SILLY OF ME TO GET TOO IRRITATED, I MEAN PLEASE. THEYRE THE FUCKING MILITARY. THE ENTIRE MAIN CAST IS THE MILITARY. im not going into this expecting my own opinions to always be resonant here - and i wouldnt wiht any show. thats as equally braindead to expect that. but nonetheless man. its still one of those things im gonna bitch and moan about when it grates me in a particularly annoying way LOL bc like again. shru

[collectionoftulips]

Also, I watched Persuasion (yes that cursed Netflix adaption). Admittedly, it is a bit like beating a dead horse, and I think that the review that said that everyone involved should be briefly put in prison until they understand their crimes against literature and cinema more broadly said it perfectly so adding my own thoughts into the mix are perhaps redundant. But I will say I have never watched anything that has made me quite so angry and offended at its complete butchering of the source material.

And I'm by no means an Austen purist - I think some of the best adaptions that have been made of her work has been made when creators have taken risks and not everything needs to be as faithful to its source as 1995 Pride and Prejudice. The diversity of the cast is about the only nice thing I will say about this movie even though its diversity felt incredibly surface level. Plus, Henry Golding clearly ought to have been Wentworth and:

They fundamentally misunderstand and butcher Anne as a character and therefore the most fundamental element of the novel doesn't work

The writers and producers have created as close to a carbon copy of Emma (2020) as they possibly could, not only copying major elements of the visual elements of the movie but also trying to change Anne's character to be more like Emma, completely forgetting the fact that they are two completely different characters

It was also like they saw how the occasional breaking of the fourth wall worked so well in Persuasion (2007) and how popular it was in Fleabag, and decided to just throw it in with little thought or consideration, thereby ruining one of my favourite least-used narrative devices in visual media, making me wonder why I even like it to begin with if it can produce such a travesty as Persuasion (2022). I might exaggerate but only barely.

Absolute garbage use of tension for a story that is entirely too reliant on the maintenance of tension. Anne and Wentworth don't go around checking in re: each other's feelings all the time because they are prevented from doing so at two levels: personal and societal. Completely removing that all together made for a movie with zero stakes and no tension. If they really wanted to ignore everything about the time period, they really ought to have just made a modernisation, instead of whatever cursed halfway house this was.

I could quite frankly write books about all the myriad of ways this adaption was just an utter flop, and I know no one asked for this, especially seeing as I mostly just write about Bridgerton stuff on here, but I just need you to know that WATCHING THIS ADAPTION IS NOT FUN - IT'S NOT EVEN FUN!BAD AND TBH IF YOU CAN AVOID AND WATCH IT LATER, PLEASE DO, BECAUSE I REGRET WATCHING IT BECAUSE NOW NETFLIX ARE GOING TO THINK PRODUCING THIS LOW-LEVEL CRAP IS OK BECAUSE THEY ARE GOING TO GET LOTS OF VIEWERS.

Sorry, I will resume my regularly scheduled programming soon but I just need people to know my pain. This is in my opinion arguably Austen's greatest novel and it's so quiet and delicate and this wonderful exploration of human psychology, relationships, regret, loyalty etc. It also has the most romantic letter ever committed to fiction and to have that reduced to "Now we are worse than friends, we are exes" or whatever the exact line is, is an affront.

[iamnmbr3]

love how much mental gymnastics you guys have to do to make out that mobius is a bad person. he is literally the only one who believes in loki from what we've seen and is putting his job on the line to help him. as someone who has adored loki since 2012, he has committed a lot of hideous crimes, his anger was only influenced by the sceptre (he was not mind controlled), and he was literally about to assault mobius. should mobius have just let loki hit him?? you guys are mental lmao

1) “You guys”?? Last time I checked I was one person. Are you under the impression that I am a colony of super-intelligent bees stacked on top of each other under a trench coat? Well. I suppose since I’m a stranger and you know nothing about me, technically that could be (bee?) true.

2) Given your behavior I can certainly see why you aren't able to understand why what Mobius is doing is wrong since you seem unable to behave in a moral, ethical, and kind manner and seem to feel compelled to be cruel and to try to control others. Perhaps you should consider a career with the TVA.

3) Seriously though. Regardless of whether my interpretations are correct or not, this isn’t an appropriate ask to send. You need to learn to cope with strangers on the internet having different opinions from you on a range of subjects. I’m not attacking anyone who has different opinions from me because that would be stupid and also not nice. This is a fictional tv show. It’s not even that serious. Why would you think it’s ok to send harassing messages filled with insults to a stranger because they posted something online about a fictional character that you disagree with? I really hope you wouldn’t do that in real life. It’s abominable behavior. If you truly find yourself unable to control your anger over insignificant things like someone having a different opinion from you about a character in a comic book movie, I do suggest you see a professional.

4) I don’t really have to do much mental gymnastics at all. From his first appearance in the first trailer Mobius has mocked and humiliated and denigrated Loki. He’s also made a lot of incorrect and insulting statements about him - that he likes to talk (not true, from his first appearance he is defined by his silence), that he likes to lie (also not true. his deceptions work because they are unexpected) and that he frequently stabs people in the back. He doesn’t believe in Loki. He believes that Loki can be useful to him. We have seen no evidence of Mobius showing sympathy or empathy towards Loki, advocating for his rights, having any issue with him being ensalved or hurt, or caring that he ws just recently tortued by Thanos. He also has no compunctions about shocking him or hurting him. Mobius is Loki’s captor and just because he doesn’t want him to be killed doesn’t make him his friend.

5) What should Mobius have done? Gee. I dunno. Maybe not be complicit in an organization that routinely murders people and is currently enslaving Loki. Loki is a prisoner who is being held against his will under threat of death and forced to labor without compensation. He has every right to fight back. Also he’s not lunging at Mobius. It looks like he’s trying to leave.

6) If Mobius is intended to be an antagonist then he’s a brilliant one and as of the latest trailer that seems to be more the intent, given the sinister framing and music. I hope they continue to go in that direction because that makes for a much more interesting narrative. As the protagonist Loki should have threatening antagonists to deal with

7) Where did I say Loki has never done anything wrong? I like him because he is a grey character. Also why do you single out my liking for Loki? I like Thor too because I also find him an interesting character. Thor has killed way more people than Loki and yet you don’t assume that I am ignoring that. Actually a lot of the Avengers have done sketch things, but only Loki seems to provoke people to swarm into others’ inboxes going ‘but you know he did bad things right??” Also Loki's whole motivation in Thor 2011 was to prevent a war and STOP violence, despite the fact that he comes from a warrior society where warfare is considered glorious. He is raised in a society that has genocidally hateful attitudes towards the Jotnar. Loki is actually much more reserved in his opinions (unlike Thor who openly talks about wanting to wipe them out, and receives no correction, indicating this is an acceptable attitude in Asgardian society). Only once Loki becomes consumed with hurt and self-hatred after he learns his own origins and has a suicidal mental breakdown does he try to destroy Jotunheim. Thor meanwhile murders dozen of Jotnar over an insult (something that is considered totally cceptable in his society). So why do you single out Loki? Loki then is captured, tortued, mind controlled and indoctrinated by Thanos and forced to attack New York. And that’s really it on the horrible crime front. Pretty mild by his society’s strandards. This is not to say he’s done nothing wrong, but it’s kind of weird of you to single him out when so many other characters in the MCU are also grey. And again. Why do you need to come into my inbox about it???

8) Ultimately these are fictional characters and I can enjoy them and interpret them however I want. To me Mobius is very clearly evil and part of an evil organization. I also prefer him that way because I find him much more narratively interesting as a clearly framed antagonist and villain. So I certainly hope that's the intent. That’s my prerogative. Similarly if Loki were irreeemdably evil and I just wanted to woobify him and engage in the fandom that way and excuse his every bad act that would be ok too. I can have fun however I want. It’s not healthy or appropriate for you to come in my inbox and try to police that.

[perthshirecottage]

I have been rewatching Deception lately and I forgot how amazing this show is! Seriously you should watch it. And I have so many thoughts! There are spoilers below.

So one of the things I don’t get is why everyone in the FBI is so distrustful of Jonathan. I mean I get that he is a convicted felon but like, it was for involuntary manslaughter. Which isn’t good but the word involuntary is also in the literal name of the crime. It means he did something reckless and person died and he is being punished for his stupidity but he also didn’t kill a woman on purpose?! And yes after the crash he ran. But they don’t act like there was a massive manhunt so it was more of a run in the moment panic but he also let himself get caught even though he is a master of disguise? Which could also be attributed to not wanting Cameron to go to jail for his mistakes because I doubt that the first thing the cops did after Cam said the man in the photo was his brother that they let Cameron go with a pat on the back. Cameron was probably brought in for questioning and would have been convicted if Jonathan hadn’t turned himself in to corroborate the story. So while he ran he did still make sure another innocent man didn’t take the fall for a crime that neither of them committed. But when Jonathan is let out of jail to help save Cameron Deakins and even Kay act like Jonathan is some master criminal who can’t be trusted in the slightest. Again it isn’t like it was purposeful and premeditated murder. It was literally an accident and is even how he was convicted. As in causing an accident in which a person died! And if the argument is that well of course he is bad he has been hiding his existence for 30 years...well, so has Cameron! And Dina and Jordan and Gunter! But they can be trusted. They also lied! I will come back to this in a minute.

Why is the FBI so mistrustful. Especially once they have evidence that maybe Jonathan isn’t making it up and is actually innocent. I can actually get on board with Deakins’ not trusting Jonathan. She doesn’t know him beyond‘convinced criminal bad’. But Kay believes Cameron when he says his brother was set up. She knows that she is getting an innocent man out of jail to help find his missing brother. And yet Jonathan is treated like a low life scum bag. Mike is just as distrustful but he also has personal issues with Jonathan so...and yet Mike treats Jonathan the best because he doesn’t actually think sending Jonathan back to jail is the right move because he knows he can help find Cameron. Mike even takes Jonathan back to the Archive to say goodbye to Dina despite the fact that Mike can’t stand him. Mike’s issues are purely personal and have nothing to do with Jonathan’s conviction and yet Mike puts aside those personal feelings. Mike has my respect for that.

It does make me wonder though why Jonathan isn’t allowed to benefit from this deal with the FBI. There are people who have done truly heinous things. People who murdered dozens of people and sold drugs and done a lot of horrible things and yet are allowed to go into witnesses protection or have lighter sentences in exchange for turning in people who are actually worse than them! And yet Jonathan who accidentally (again that is his legal conviction!) killed someone isn’t given any sort of incentive? In Escapology Kay straight up says that Cameron needs to be careful about having Jonathan ask questions in prison because people won’t be happy to find out that he is helping the FBI. So Jonathan is helping the FBI, is basically a criminal informant and is risking his own life to save a woman’s life and yet is not allowed to get some time knocked off his sentence. If he is helping the FBI why can’t Jonathan be allowed to go under house arrest instead? That way he can help while not being in prison and can a little more comfortable for his incarceration? Why can’t he get some time off his sentence for community service? The FBI wants to take and take from a guy who isn’t the worst criminal out there and yet despite all the help he has freely offered with nothing in return they act like he is the lowest of the lowest. Like if he was given the chance to run he would and he would gladly leave his brother to who knows what kind of fate. And in a moment of adrenaline and weakness where Jonathan pointed a gun at a woman (which he didn’t fire!) it confirms all their suspicious that he deserves to be labeled a criminal. Again, this is coming from Kay who says that she believes that he is innocent. Kay even made sure that MW was caught on camera because she believes that MW is the real criminal. I don’t get why Jonathan is given the short end of every stick and treated so terribly because he made one mistake. Even for the people who believe he caused that accident. No wonder Jonathan snaps at the end of the season. The FBI wants to treat him the worst bad guy, then fine he’s the bad guy. And unfortunately Cameron is the face the FBI sends in to talk to Jonathan for help and so Cameron gets the brunt of that anger.

And now back to the secret that has been kept for 30 years. Why is Cameron the scape goat for being the one to keep Jonathan trapped when there were 3 other people who knew? At least Cameron and Jonathan have the excuse of having an abusive father who pounded it into their heads that Jonathan must remain secret and I’m sure there is some leftover mental scaring which is part of what kept both of them in the cycle of keeping Jonathan secret even after their dad died. It’s the only kind of life either of them had ever known and it must have been terrifying to think about breaking out of that. And what is the crew’s excuse. They were all fully adults when they found out and none of them helped the twins get out of that toxic mindset because it does make a really cool show. Dina dated Jonathan and obviously liked him but she wasn’t any more willing to help Jonathan step out of the shadows than anyone else.

Why is Cameron blamed so heavily for Jonathan’s life being miserable? I mean think about it. Sebastian is obviously the one who started the whole mess and is truly to blame for everything. Cameron and Jonathan were just kids forced to do their dad’s bidding. Then after they became adults neither of the brothers revealed that there were two of them. Jonathan was legally an adult when their dad died. Why couldn’t Jonathan say screw the show and walk out on stage with Cameron and reveal the truth? No one was stopping him. And you can’t tell me that if Jonathan really and truly wanted out that Cameron wouldn’t have made it happen. Cameron spent a year of his life ruining his own career and driving himself crazy trying to find proof of his brother’s innocence long before meeting the FBI. Cameron refused to do anything to better his own life until he saved Jonathan. Cameron loves his brother more than anything and it’s so obvious. Cameron even turns his back on Kay, a woman he is starting to fall in love with. Cameron decided to become a criminal and go on the run because he loves his brother. Cameron would give his own life if it meant his brother could be free. Everything Cameron does is for his brother. And yes, Cameron didn’t steal the diamond but letting an innocent woman get in trouble for his own crime isn’t that crazy of a line to not want to cross. Cameron knows intimately what it’s like to feel guilty for an innocent person losing everything because of his own perceived mistakes. But when it’s just Cameron’s life on the line he is all in.

When I think about Jonathan wanting to end the charade I imagine the conversation going like this:

Jonathan: I want out.

Cameron: but we could do such a cool show.

Jonathan hesitating for a couple of seconds: ok.

I don’t think Jonathan put up that big of a fight. If he had made it clear that he wanted nothing more than to get out Cameron would have let him! Jonathan gave in easily and let himself stay there because it was easier than dealing with the consequences of actually going through with it. Again that mental scaring coming into play. Jonathan has only been known as himself by a very very small number of people. Everyone else in the world knows him as Cameron. So he is probably scared of what would happen if he were to reveal himself. He knows everyone loves Cameron but would people actually accept Jonathan? What if the answer is no? What if everyone is disappointed to find out that Cameron has a brother? What if Cameron is accepted and Jonathan is rejected? Would Cameron continue living his life and Jonathan would be forced out and stuck watching his brother from afar and wind up completely and totally alone? So Jonathan stays.

And Cameron loves his brother and knows his brother is amazing. What happens if people discover Jonathan and they all realize how amazing Cameron already knows he is? Will Cameron lose his brother? Will Jonathan realize there are people out there who are better than Cameron? And since Jonathan isn’t forced to spend time with only Cameron will he leave? Cameron couldn’t be truly known any better than Jonathan. Despite having a ‘life’ Cameron was just as trapped and isolated by this secret as Jonathan. Cameron lost a woman he loved because he couldn’t tell her he had a twin and so was accused of cheating because no one thought he should be allowed to trust her with something that important. I think the psychological toll this whole act took has been affecting the twins their whole life. It’s just that when the truth came out it was way worse than either ever imagined.

Again the crew sees themselves as family but they never did anything to encourage the twins to reveal the truth. I’m sure they heard Jonathan express his desire to stop hiding at some point. And none of them advocated for him. None of them helped the brothers to see that their life was actually messed up and that they both needed help. They saw Cameron devastated over his breakup because of this secret and they never said ‘hey, maybe it’s time you were both allowed to have a full life?’ Jonathan was able to actually maintain a relationship unlike Cameron because Dina was aware of both brothers and he didn’t have to hide from her. Jonathan screwed that up all on his own. Because at the end of the day Jonathan and Cameron were both victims of Sebastian’s terrible parenting.

This show has so much going for. I will be forever disappointed it never got the second season it deserves!

[dirtyrottenraskel]

my take on yueki's personalities

yue 

notes / personality

cocky (but also like understated confidence - r e g a l af) 

kind of a nerd

maybe a little entitled, and a little bratty and suki loves to indulge her or to rile her up depending on her mood

books

seems soft but made of steel

strong sense of duty

socially intelligent - can be manipulative and suki (the dork) thinks it is so hot 

aloof queen bee typa beat

supportive, both in ur day to day and in going after your big moral life goals 

deep water - steady and powerful, often underestimated

untold depths, private yet surprisingly nurturing - master of deflecting away from herself

political nerd - well read, and when she has someone she trusts not to take advantage of her, she goes OFF 

distrusting of most people, has been used and ignored and underestimated her whole life

patient - homegirl knows how to play the long game

excellent at pai sho / chess 

she and suki have epic battles of wits - dif types of strategy but both are really into it and get a little too competitive (multiple board games have had to be replaced over the years)

loves travel bc wasn’t allowed to much, esp when she was sick 

was super repressed growing up - never let her be herself or really have any sort of independence

used to sneak out and wander around in rebellion and casually sabotage plans and decisions she didn’t agree with 

introverted, many opinions but keeps them to herself, discreet but well spoken

weaponizes secrets and information - doesn’t often use it but...she could

definitlyyyyy worries and overthinks and re-evaluates - worries ab social politics a lot

obsessive about picking things - wants it to be perfect

shes growing into her confidence as a leader

prefers quite intimate places

incredibly romantic

classic lit

planner for the future - visionary

kind / sweet / gentle - yes, but that’s also her “front” to a degree (seriously, i feel like she gets painted as so sweet and submissive and one dimensional by the fandom a lot of times and it freakin kills me)

INFJ-T (The Advocate) ((yes this is from 16p which i know is not super accurate but u can still catch her overall vibes from it ya know)

Creative/insightful/principled/compassionate/altruistic

sensitive/reluctant to open up/perfectionist/prone to burnout/not a fan of the ordinary

friendships / relationships

(<> indicates that they’re one of her best friends)

sokka - puppy love crushes, laugh ab it now, get into deep late night talks about responsibilities and leading, water tribe culture, prank wars (no one believes sokka when he says yue is a mean prank master (expect suki comes to see it in action lol))

katara - <> badass women friendship, totally would go to matches and protests together, tough girl shit, waterbending practice/duels - start of cautious, but then get rough in a good way bc they trust each other, they do water tribe food adventures together

toph - indulges her chaos, bonding over stupid royal upbringings, odd yet weirdly endearing pair

zuko - both sort of standoffish gay royals, but once they come to see that they are friends - take up similar spaces though, so only hang out in a group or rarely by themselves, they do hang out at like political parties and stuff when they get more comfortable together

aang - <> he has an impressive world view, yue is super studied and well read, so she and aang nerd out over past cultures together, and also their peace keeping nature, they have tea together often - usually after she and katara wipe the floor w/ each other

clothing / aesthetic:

blues and pale colors

classy and understated wealth

like those cute feminine button down shirts

dresses

like cold weather classy

complicated braids

sort of soft girl aesthetic?

pleated skirts !!!

i feel like she would wear ethically sourced fur (i don’t wear fur but idk how to get it in an ethical way - maybe it’s just fake??)

knit sweaters and skinny jeans and heeled ankle boots

light academia !!!

hella funky earrings - to mark her native pride and also cuz gay

from my readings, tattoos have a lot of cultural significance for Inuit women, and so i feel like yue would totally have some (when she comes of age ofc) 

suki

notes / personality 

extroverted 

also very strategic 

more spontaneous tho - will totally calculate the odds in a spilt second in her head and then just go for it

like still a careful planner, but willing to say fuck it, yolo if it seems right 

reflects on her mistakes, but more in like a healthy way - unless it was a leadership mistake, then it eats her up inside - worries more ab keeping her girls safe and making the right call

likes lively places

total bashful romantic

manages the present and the short term - realist

loves to do lists 

a little punch happy - loves to make violent threats, but also does it out of excitement and she’s just a really physical person tbh

steady, can come off as stubborn and abrasive but she really just wants what’s best for everyone she loves

harsh on herself and worries about her girls a lot 

always ends up in the oddest situations 

totally would kick someone’s ass for being racist/sexist/homophobic/etc 

dedicated to her training and her regime 

not a great cook, but she can manage 

would drink monsters 

has a weird relationship with femininity - took her awhile to reconcile strength and toughness and being assertive and aggressive with also wanting to feel pretty and feminine and embracing being a girl and how those things can coincide and amplify each other

abandonment issues - parents absent/dead 

was imprisoned - obvi she had several almost successful escape attempts, but she got really close to breaking 

was incredibly independent really early, grew up really fast and tries to make up for that now by sometimes being reckless 

tough/assertive/woman of action 

dry sense of humor/sarcastic - not good at nickname/pun humor tho

practical/dedicated/strong-willed/direct/honest/reliable/loyal/patient

stubborn/judgmental/difficult to relax/difficulty expressing emotions/too selfless 

friendships / relationships

(<> indicates that they’re one of her best friends)

sokka - <>  man they’re like platonic soulmates - she beat him up, and now they spar all the time, totally funny and crack jokes all the time, go skating together, they do shitty art together, and then show their lovers after zuko and yue come back from their high society mixers, broke her out of prison, m/f friendship !!! 

katara - also sparring buddies (suki will throw down at any literally moment (and tbh so will katara)), not close but will hang in a group - go to each other for advice 

toph - <> listen these two wreak havoc together, they help each other out a lot, i feel like they’re shopping buddies (similar enough style to frequent the same shops) toph knows suki won’t judge her for wanting to feel pretty and suki knows toph will be honest, they are both blunt sarcastic assholes and get along like a house on fire 

zuko - <> shows zuko how to like,,,enjoy things (and how to let go of some of that pressure to be always right and the adult and in charge bc they were raised with so much responsibility on their shoulders even tho they were just kids)? she is also super protective of him (once she trusts him), one of the only ppl who can match suki fully in hand to hand combat, both do the Disappointed Parent Look when the group falls into chaos, but by themselves, the two of them end up in hijinks

aang- suki enjoys his optimism and they’re just chill bros, they love exploring abandoned placed together 

clothing / aesthetic

sporty and skater mixed 

ripped jeans, crewnecks, vans 

green and yellow and dark red 

gym clothes/athleisure - lifting style gym clothes - cut off t-shirts and bike shorts

skirts too, likes to play into femininity

she’s a gold jewelry kinda girl - but stuff that won’t hinder her movements 

necklaces that end in the hollow of her throat & occasionally rings

definitely cuffs all of her jeans (it’s just bisexual culture ya know)

so many crop tops - some came like that, some were more of a diy project

yueki’s relationship!!!

nerd/jock solidarity 

feel the burden of responsibility and the weight on their shoulders 

they create a safe space between them, full of trust and warmth and vulnerability 

yue will read suki sappy passages from poetry books while suki polishes her fans 

they slow dance in the kitchen a lot 

they get good at ordering takeout - and they have some weird decision making process that only they understand - bc neither of them are great cooks 

yue would feel jealous of suki and sokka, if it weren’t for how stupid in love sokka was with zuko and yue can see that suki really only has eyes for her 

yue is taller than suki and it amuses her to no end to pick suki up and carry her away from a fight (we all know suki could get away if she wanted to, but when ur hot tall sexy gf throws u over her shoulder,,,,,,u don’t complain)

joke they’ve adopted kataang and zukka, bc they’re all dummies, but in reality every last one of them is stupid LMAO 

they love to do each other’s hair and it’s like super intimate and really cute 

sometimes it’s these epic elaborate hairstyles and then at other times, they try to see how many ponytails they can fit on suki’s head and how many little braid yue can do 

they travel EVERYWHERE 

since yue is royalty and suki is her body guard,,,, well i mean, they totally have to see these kingdoms they are doing trade deals with in person 

it helps that they're friends with a lot of them 

they stay over in everything from camping so they can stargaze to ritzy hotels with hot tubs in the bathroom 

yue gives suki rocks she finds on all their travels and suki lines them up on their mantle around the pictures of them in increasingly weird locations 

suki loves guarding yue’s meetings bc she gets to watch her absolutely rip a new one into misogynistic old men and it never fails to bring her joy 

While yue doesn’t love getting attacked, the ruthless efficiency suki defends her with is like,,,,,stupid attractive 

[rwbyvein]

Firen Lhain: Chapter 811: Pretender:  Part I / III

Neo's eyes flew open and quickly sat up in her bed, quickly looking around. The door was closed, and the room seemed exactly as she had left it, except for the daylight streaming in from the window. She rushed over to the door and tried it, finding it still locked. She let out a sigh of relief. She wasn't sure what to do until the light caught her eye. She rushed over to see the mountains around her, but turning to the side she could see what they called the garden. They acted as if having something that was potentially a garden was something to celebrate about. Annoying children. She saw the chameleon walking through the so-called garden, disappearing and reappearing at a whim. She seemed to stop to enjoy the sun for a few minutes before there was a knock on her door.

Neo slowly moved over to the door and heard a second knock. She knocked on the door. "Uh?" Ruby asked through the door, "Breakfast?" she asked. Neo paused for a moment before knocking again. "Uh, okay?!"

* * *

Ilia sat down next to Jaune's empty seat, and he and Taiyang walked out with trays of food.

"How come she gets the good seat?" Yang asked, and Jaune sighed.

"Because we're not doing the official seating plan where everyone has a spot based on precedance. I mean, seriously."

"Well, how come Weiss gets the other seat next to you?" Yang asked.

"You want to know why?" Jaune asked, "Because you are really distracting, and I would constantly be turning my head, and that just makes me dizzy."

"Then what about Weiss?" Yang asked, "Are you saying she's not worth looking at?" And Jaune sighed once again.

"You know what? I'm not doing this." Jaune replied. "You're all gorgeous. You're all wonderful. You're all beautiful. And I'm not enforcing seating. I really don't want to see you guys fighting about it."

"To play the dragon's advocate." Weiss quipped, "Should your wives not get priority?"

"Do we want to talk about what happens at night?" Blake asked.

This caused Weiss to flush blue and develop a blush, looking around nervously.

"When you put it that way..." Yang trailed off, as her scales flushed orange. "Alright, I'll admit, I've been a heel. Can we save the spanking for later tonight?"

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Weiss asked, and Ruby Petal Burst into the chair next to Yang.

"So?" Nora asked.

"I don't think she's going to come down." Ruby stated.

"Kind of expected that." Jaune added, as he was putting the trays on the table.

"You did just adopt her." Taiyang stated, "You have to give her time."

"I know." Nora huffed. "But we were orphans, too, and we were eager to have Jaune-Jaune take care of us."

"You were what?" Jaune asked.

"We found each other with alarming alacrity." Ren said with a smile.

"Okay?" Ruby asked, "We know what happened to Ren's family, but what about Nora?"

"Oh?" Nora asked, "She ran away when the Grimm attacked. Fucking bitch." she huffed.

"What-what-what?!" Weiss asked, quickly standing up and pointing at her. She then stood properly and heavily breathed in. "Pardon my exuberance?"

"Your what?" Nora asked.

"My candor." Weiss stated.

"What's a condor have to do with this?"

Weiss developed a frustrated look that quickly turned into a smile "My apologies, but, we had assumed your parents died in some calamity."

"Nope." Nora simply stated. "She just ran the fuck off, leaving me to fend for myself. Ren saved me, and we've been together ever since. And then we got to Beacon, and, you know?"

"Despite his many faults." Ren stated, "Many faults." he repeated, "Jaune gave us something we had never had for a decade, stability and familiarity. From the earliest moments, Jaune put our own sake above his own."

"It was kind of funny to watch him always struggling." Nora stated, "But he was trying to take care of us, so, you know?"

"I know." Yang simply stated.

"Right?" Nora asked.

Weiss then breathed in deep and sat back down, "And Ciel, I must ask how you are handling this?"

"Handling what?" Ciel asked.

"Maybe suddenly becoming Jaune's minion?" Yang asked, "Just sayin'."

"I am unsure how I should find it." Ciel stated. "I have been accepted far more readily than I was expecting, I have spent a good deal of time training with skilled combat instructors, the food is more than adequate. The only thing I have trouble adjusting to is the expectation of self-determination."

"The what?" Ruby asked.

"She wants to be told what to do." Yang replied.

"Indeed." Ciel stated.

"So do you." Ruby said to Yang.

"But only by Jaune." Yang stated. "Wait..."

"Too bad." Blake replied, "You already said it."

"I am used to a more regimented training." Ciel added.

"Unfortunately," Weiss said to her, and paused to let everyone look at her, "if you are to be a Huntress, you will be entirely self-determined."

"Unless she's a Specialist." Yang added.

"Speaking of?" Jaune asked.

"She insists she remain on standby." Weiss said as she elegantly sat down, "Though I suspect it is simply that she has grown accustomed to living in our hangar."

"She's also not the friendly sort." Yang added.

"Maybe we should help her?" Blake asked.

"I did hug her." Jaune stated, and then looked at the far end where Qrow and Raven were sitting.

"I don't know why you're looking at us?" Qrow asked, "We don't exactly have a good track record with this. I honestly don't know how I'm part of this group."

"We took a vote!" Ruby exclaimed.

"Indeed." Weiss added, "We have decided that Qrow is an honourary Uncle."

"And me?" Taiyang asked.

"You have definitely earned your place as an honourary father." Weiss stated.

"Not a dad?" Taiyang asked.

"I have only have one daddy." Weiss stated, and then developed a shocked look, using her hand to cover her mouth.

"I think, at this point." Yang said, and everyone looked at her, "The Cat's out of the bag, right Blake?"

Blake quickly looked back and forth a few times.

"I've got a question." Qrow stated, and everyone looked at him. "What about Rae?" Raven scoffed at him.

"She is still married to Mr. Taiyang." Weiss stated.

"Dad." Taiyang replied.

"Father?" Weiss asked with a bright smile. "As such, she is an honourary mother-in-law."

"That doesn't make any..." Qrow tried to say.

"No, it's fair." Raven stated. "I didn't expect Yang to welcome me back with open arms, like Tai did. I'm happy with how far we've come."

"Why does that sound like you're giving up?" Yang asked.

"Did you want her to try harder?" Qrow asked.

Both Yang and Raven looked at each other, not sure what to say.

* * *

Taiyang walked up the stairs carrying a couple plates of food. When he hit the third floor he stopped in front of Neo's door, put the plate on the ground, and knocked before walking off.

* * *

Neo heard a knock and walked up to the door. After a moment she knocked, but heard nothing in reply. She stood there staring at the door for a few minutes until finally creaking it open. She saw the plate on the ground, and carefully looked around. No one was there, so she quickly opened the door, pulled the plate in, and quickly closed and locked it once again.

* * *

Taiyang carried the plate into the hangar. "Hello?" he called out.

"Hello?" Winter replied, and he could hear the clack of heels as she approached. Winter walked around a corner and looked at him curiously.

"I didn't want to just barge into your room."

"My, uh?" Winter asked, "My quarters?" She then breathed in deep, folding her hands in front of her, "These are not my quarters."

"This is where you are sleeping." Taiyang said, and handed her the plate.

"Thank you." she said to him, "But the reason I am sleeping here is that I am on standby."

"Why?" Taiyang asked.

"Mr. Arc asked me to?" Winter asked.

"But Cinder is gone." Taiyang stated.

"Well, yes, we still have another escaped prisoner they are trying to reform."

"That's not it, is it?" Taiyang asked, and Winter looked at him curiously. "You haven't been asked to stand down." Winter just stared at him, unsure of what to say. "If that works for you, that works for you, but we need to understand what we do."

Winter looked lost for a few moments before her eyes focused on him. "Thank you once again." she distantly said.

* * *

Cinder flipped through her scroll. "What's making you so happy?" Emerald asked.

"Oh?" Cinder asked, "With the CCT restored, there are so many wonderful bounties nearby. Without the CCT, they had trouble getting them fulfilled."

"Don't you have to be a bounty hunter?" Mercury asked.

Cinder played with a scroll for a few moments, before turning it to Mercury and Emerald. The display showed a Vacuan bounty hunting registration with her face, but for Eleanore Gunn.

"You used a fake name?" Mercury asked.

"This is Vacuo." Cinder replied, "They expect you to. It's really only about making sure the right one gets paid."

"What does it mean?" Emerald asked.

"Eleanore is my middle name, and Gunn is a name usually used for bastards."

"You're hardly a..." Emerald voiced.

"I certainly don't remember my father." Cinder stated. "Or my mother. And I do plan to become the queen bitch of the badlands."

[gayregis]

do you think the netflix series will stick to the books messages of anti war, family and friemdships? i hope not because those messages are what makes me like the books so much, also i hope the netflix fandom don't memefy the stories like they did with renfri, her story is supposed to be tragic and show how revenge corrupts people but the fandom just treats it like "uwu bisexual feral sword woman wants to kill big baddie wizard hehe"

correction: it's supposed to be “i hope so,” not “i hope not,” lol i can't spell

sadly, i don’t think that the netflix adaptation will stick to the themes of the books at all and here’s why.

first reason why: ciri

in the first season, they took out ciri and geralt meeting in brokilon. that is just the most unforgivable action they could have taken. that scene is literally what defines the entire series being about ciri, the child of destiny, geralt’s daughter who is the whole point of everything. they gave her more screentime, but less significance. she also is played by 18 yo freya allen who is acting as a 14 yo ciri, which blurs how she is supposed to symbolize childhood. instead, they went for a spunky sort of young teenage girl, which ciri becomes later (in the care of yennefer and during around the time of thanedd), but it is significant that she was a CHILD when cintra fell to nilfgaard, because it traumatized her for life and is the point of no return for her. because geralt thought that by fathering her, he would introduce her to death, but instead, the opposite occured - by deferring her, she was introduced to death. ciri loses her innocence, she loses the abilty to be a child. now she will continue to fixate on revenge for the entire saga, until she loses everything, absolutely everything. the witcher is a tragic story but it only manages to have this story because it is dominated by this theme of a lost childhood, surrounded by themes of family, vulnerability, revenge, destruction, violence... 

in the netflix series, we receive approximately none of this. ciri’s trauma is more treated as a “wake up call” because she’s such a “privileged princess” who doesn’t know about or care that her beloved grandmamma committed mass genocide (what???). this is treated like something ciri needs to overcome, thus it is actually a good thing that she is seeing people being murdered left and right in the name of imperialist conquest! 

second reason why: geralt

geralt in the books is a kind person. he is a pacifist. his profession is to kill, he ocassionally punches people so hard they die (he did this to save his best friend from being sliced open), and other acts of badassery, but inside, he does not want to kill and is opposed to it. this is the man that refused to slay a giant bug-like monster because he didn’t feel it was necessary (the witcher equivalent of trapping a house spider in a glass and slipping a piece of paper under it, then releasing it outside, instead of squashing it with your sandal). this is the man that felt himself unworthy to be yennefer’s lover, because he was afraid he couldn’t feel love in the same capacity she could. this is the man who pushed his best friend away on a dangerous quest because he was terrified that he’d be harmed and he’d suffer, and it would be his fault. and as mentioned, this is the man that deferred his daughter, his daughter who he genuinely loved and wanted to protect no matter what, his daughter who he legitimately raised a conflict with the queen of brokilon over, because he was terrified that he would bring violence and death into her life. this geralt is an introspective, pragmatic man. he cares deeply about the welfare of others, and the only way he can even do his job is to justify it though morality and codes of conduct which he makes up himself because he is so obsessed with not harming the innocent. he spares and befriends many “monsters” (post-conjunction creatures) and only slays the ones that genuinely pose a threat to the innocent and are usually are not creatures capable of rational thought. in the first book in the voice of reason 5, geralt literally states that he won’t kill innocent creatures.

and he continues this philosophy throughout:

he doesn’t kill dragons:

he advocates for dudu’s innocence:

he only was wary of regis because he was mistaken and thought he was going to harm dandelion in this moment:

in the netflix adaptation of the witcher, what is the first thing that we see him do? kill a monster brutally and without remorse. he doesn’t talk about his motivations behind it or why he felt justified to kill it, or why the monster was a danger in the first place. he just kills it and this violence defines him. later in the show, we see him antagonize and mock torque (when in the books he asked dandelion NOT to do just that) and he also punches dandelion right in the stomach. even when geralt was the most mad at dandelion in the books, he never did physical harm to him. ever.

the netflix show is representating a very different man. some have argued that they will try to develop him later on, but that is too late. geralt in the books was a good person from the very beginning for a reason.

third reason why: cahir.

the anti-war and anti-imperialist themes of the books hinge upon the concept of universal humanity and understanding that violence has its own motivations and reasons. cahir i think is a very good example of how the witcher saga comments on the effects of nationalist sentiment / patriotism. 

cahir in the books is a teenager or very young adult during the massacre of cintra (since he was no older than 25 in baptism of fire). even though he was also young and doing this only because it what was expected of him and he was intending to bring honor to his family, that does not change the effect that he has on ciri as a child. he enters her nightmares as an exaggerated version of what he was, even though he was scared, too. this demonstrates how impressionable youth are misguided into the military and people are made unaware of just how much violence they ensue. 

cahir is built up as this nightmarish figure, this horrifying man that ciri wants revenge upon more than anything else, and THEN he is revealed to also be a terrified youth. underneath the helmet, there was a terrified young man. that is an incredibly powerful image and metaphor.

and what did the witcher netflix do? ... well...

cahir shows his face, he doesn’t have the symbolism of his imposing helmet anymore. he’s much older, eamon farren is 35 years old, 15 older than cahir canonically is, so he’s not someone who has had nationalist ideals imposed upon him unfairly by his parents and society, but rather a full adult who is established and making his own decisions fully in his own control. in the books, he stops pursuing ciri once she escapes, because he has a mental breakdown from the stress of his society and family’s expectations of success, and fear of harsh punishment he will receive. he goes to prison in the imperial capital for a year for failing. in the netflix series, he stops at nothing to get ciri, chasing her down constantly and enlisting the help of sorcerers, a doppler... it’s a whole evil entourage. cahir is not the vulnerable and noble-at-heart young man that he was in the books.

in the end, these are things that are too late to change now. these things can’t be developed upon to “fix” them. ciri cannot suddenly receive her character establishment as a child. geralt cannot suddenly become a caring father who has cared about protecting ciri since day one. cahir cannot suddenly become a young man influenced by his jingoistic society who was only in full plate armor because his parents told him to. these things are so essential to their characters that they are begun to be established immediately.

and yeah everything’s going to get memed on just like they did with renfri. no one discusses the elves’ situation in dol blathanna seriously, they just like laughing at how jaskier called them “pointy.” ciri isn’t discussed at all by the fandom except for being a token baby character. it’s dark times

[eurosong]

Undo my ESC '21 (semi-final two)

Good afternoon folks, and welcome to the second part of Undo my ESC – my annual quest to make the year’s Eurovision better (at least, for me xD) by making a feasible change in each country – it could be something as small as altering a lyric or a staging detail, or as big as a different artist entirely winning the NF. Semi-final one was here so let's jump straight into SF2!

🇸🇲 San Marino: We're thrown into the deep end here with a fan fav that doesn't do at all for me. I'm one of maybe 5 people on the planet who prefers Freaky by far, I guess? I'm happy for Senhit to be getting so much love and for the diminutive serene republic to finally have a shot at a good result - but I'm not so keen on the way it's been done. There's a bit of cognitive dissonance for me because my favourite thing about Adrenalina is Flo Rida's rap, but I don't like the idea of bringing in famed American artists like "ringers" to elevate a song above one with "only" local talent. I would be so tempted to give the rap part to local artist IROL instead to spit some hot bars in Italian.

🇪🇪 Estonia: I had hope this year, I really did, for my era of absolutely adoring Estonia at ESC to be revived after 4 painful years. There were so many good songs at this year's Eesti Laul, like those of Ivo Linna, Egert, Gram of fun, Heleza - but ultimately, my huge favourite was, as expected, Jüri Pootsmann. Anyone who followed this blog back in 2016 knows how much I adore Jüri and was desperate to see him get a redemption arc at ESC itself. Magus melanhoolia was one of the best songs of the season for me and one of the best stagings. As much as I prefer '20 artists to get their shot in '21, problematic Uku with his toxic ex vibes song will have to step aside and let the Jüri renaissance happen here.

🇨🇿 Czechia: I really dig Benny Cristo - he has personality, presence and his own enjoyable style. At first I was kinda disappointed with Omaga because I was expecting something more in the vein of Kemama, with more pronounced Afrobeat influences. But it has grown on me a lot too. My change? Add more Czech than just one blink-and-you-miss-it line, mate! (Article continues below)

🇬🇷 Greece: I see this being talked up as potential televote top 3 and I just don't get it. Maybe it's the way the chorus rhymes dance with itself three times (and uses the term rockin' romance unironically); maybe it's the way that there are better 80s-inspired songs both in ESC and many fallen tributes in the NF season... it just leaves me cold. I actually preferred Supergirl and my change would be for Stefania to bring something with some actual Greek flair.

🇦🇹 Austria: I’ll echo what I said last year about Österreich – how did they go from Conchita to a guy who wished he wouldn’t have gay kids like this? I find both of this guy's songs insipid in different ways and I would invite Pænda back instead to avenge her getting robbed with the beautiful Limits. Or give a second shot at glory to the incredible Cesár!

🇵🇱 Poland: Unpopular opinion, but I absolutely love The Ride, and I feel bad for Alicja, but I much prefer it to Empires. What started as an ironic fondness for Rafał's cringy uncle vibes ended up being genuine appreciation - it's one of the few 80s-inspired songs that sound like they actually could have come out of that decade rather than like modern pastiches. And Raf actually does have an awkward charisma. My change - insert some Polish! Poland does so well with natural sounding bilingual efforts in JESC, they should bring it to the main contest too!

🇲🇩 Moldova: I was lowkey prepared to be disappointed by Moldova - I actually enjoyed Prison a lot and the news that they were going in a completely different direction didn't sit so well with me. And yet, I also love Sugar. Natalia's power! My changes: get rid of that weird scene with literally egg on her face - too on the nose for me. And incorporate a bit of the stellar Russian translation, Tuz bubi, because I'm always going to be advocating for more linguistic diversity xD

🇮🇸 Iceland: Daði Freyr can literally do no wrong with me. Whilst it doesn't have the same intense extra-fandom hype that Think about things did, I think I like Ten years even more. Nothing to change here.

🇷🇸 Serbia: It's no secret that Hurricane were far from my favourites at Beovizija 20, and that I find this a downgrade for Sanja compared to her powerful '16 song. And yet... Hasta la vista grew on me a lot, and so has Loco loco. It's something that is definitely scratching an itch at this year's ESC and the burst of anarchic energy it'll provide will be amazing. I am seriously tempted to change to the acoustic version, though, which has all the attitude of the original but is more beautiful for me and lets the girls' voices shine more.

🇬🇪 Georgia: Georgia keeps serving acquired tastes, and as a patron saint of marginal genres and I love them for that. This year, they've gone for something that even many fans of Tornike find hard to swallow - gone is the roaring rock of last year, replaced with a much more contemplative, soft effort that reminds me a little of Lou Reed. I enjoy both songs, but I can't deny preferring 2020. At the same time, I admire the chutzpah required to send something so different. I just wish there could be a moment to properly showcase T's powerhouse vocals.

🇦🇱 Albania: It was an odd Festival i këngës this year, outdoors in the freezing cold and without the orchestra that makes the songs soar so much more for me. Karma is a perfectly respectable winner, albeit one that lacks the immediacy and rawness of Shaj, Ktheju tokës and Mall. In my ideal alternate reälity, Arilena Ara would have been invited back. She'd bring a song as beautiful as Shaj - and not do a revamp into English that removes its edge this time.

🇵🇹 Portugal: 2015-2020 was a full on Portugal stan era for me. I want to believe that this year is an aberration and that in 2022, our lusitanian neighbours will produce the goods once again. Because ending a colossal streak of not sending songs that don't include Portuguese for this? I am baffled. I wanted the anthemic Joana do mar, produced beautifully by Luísa Sobral, or the timeless Contramão, which sounds like it escaped a Nouvelle Vague soundtrack. Saudade, Por um triz or a number of others would have been grand too.

🇧🇬 Bulgaria: I wasn't expecting much from Bulgaria - I really didn't and don't like TGS and the majority of songs in Victoria's NF-but-not-really aren't my cup of tea. I was happy she got her second chance, but resigned to not liking the song much that would get picked. And then, my fav, which was last in many community ratings, ended up being her pick. I adore GUIGO and believe it has the possibility to do very, very well at Rotterdam and be one of the 'moments' of the evening.

🇫🇮 Finland: CRIMINAL how YLE treated Aksel - it felt like he wasn't the defending champion, and that Erika Vikman had won the previous year. They also - I believe, deliberately - split his vote by making his just one of a number of ballads, so of course what stood out most were the two decidedly non-ballady songs. Finland only two years ago had a single-artist UMK. They could and should have brought it back for Aksel. I'd hope Hurt would win it, because that song is stunning.

🇱🇻 Latvia: I was, and am, delighted that Latvia stuck with Samanta Tina. The lady lives and breathes ESC, even wrote a university thesis about it, and if she tried so many times, finally won and then DIDN'T get to go to ESC, I would have gone to LTV headquarters personally to remonstrate. I really like both her songs. The moon is rising is poised, powerful and like nothing else this year. The only thing I'd change is adding some Latvian because it's a gorgeous language and we've been waiting for ages to hear it again.

🇨🇭 Switzerland: Gjon's song is once again not really my cup of tea, or tears - but I enjoy it better than last year's and I'm glad he's back. Highkey wish it did include Albanian or Romansch like confused commenters last year thought it did.

🇩🇰 Denmark: There is literally no excuse for Denmark's treatment of Ben & Tan. I'm not even a big fan of their music at all, out to not even allow them to compete in DMGP to defend their win with Iron heart? Even though there are songs that competed in DMGP that I prefer a lot, most notably Står lige her, I would probably have let them have a proper second chance.

And the automatic qualifiers voting in this semi -

🇫🇷 France: For me, France had an absolutely enthralling, sincere, perfectly Gallic entry that hit me so hard in the feels. And whilst I respect Voilà, no, that wasn't it. It was Pourvu qu'on m'aime, easily one of the best songs I heard all year inside NFs or out. I find Voilà a little too mannered and affected, whilst PQM is a shot straight from Juliette's heart into mine. In my dream, it'd have won CVQD and be receiving the same love that Voilà is right now.

🇪🇸 Spain: Whilst it is getting next to no love in the fandom and seems quite forgotten, I find Voy a quedarme one of the best songs sent from this country in several years - and I say that having preferred Memoria. I am proud of Blas and love that he had a hand in writing this song. My change? He said recently that the staging in Rotterdam won't be inspired by the poignant music video despite wanting it to be - I would incorporate elements from it in the live.

🇬🇧 United Kingdom: Frankly, I think almost all the Big 5+1 brought it this year, with the notable exception of Germany. Embers is the banger that I never thought was coming from James Newman, and it's been one of the biggest earworms of the season. I wouldn't change anything about it - I'd just ensure that the staging replicated the energy of the video as much as possible!

[drwcn]

'The onus has never been on him,' that slapped so hard. It falls true in canon events too and that just hurts. 'You don't have a gege and I no longer have a didi,' you ripped out my heart from my already collapsing chest. Your words are so beautiful, author. You know where to strike and your aim is nothing but perfect. Also, I desperately want lxc to dismantle the tyrannical way the Lan Sect Elders operate. His husband's death & lwj's suffering would be the last straw, is that wishful thinking?

Hey friends! You’re too sweet! I lumped these two asks together because they kind of both address the same thing, which is the actions of the elders. On tumblr and on AO3, I’ve had a lot of friends really upset with the way the elders acted. Rightfully so, since they made our poor boy commit honour su*cide. 

However, I thought now is probably a good time to shed some light on the cultural and historical implications of their actions, and to perhaps play devil’s advocate a little bit. 

The truth is, what the elders did within context is not at all outrageous. In fact, given how I’ve set up the story, to ask Wei Wuxian to die was the only thing they could’ve done since Yunmeng Jiang was unwilling to accept a divorce. 

I will explain. 

Because historical Chinese society was very gendered, I invite y’all to imagine for one second that there is no magic in this AU. Imagine this is a historical au and imagine Wei Wuxian as a woman. (I hate the heteronormativity of it, but in the setting of the story, by marrying into Gusu Lan Sect, he essentially has cast himself in that gendered role. There are no same sex marriages historically that I can draw parallels with... as far as I know.)

I believe Jiang Yanli in part 3 explains some of this in her internal monologue. She also said that the Gusu Lan family is within their right to do whatever they want. Her last in chapter three was “.. then by the week’s end, A-Cheng could very well be the only brother she has left.” She knew right away that death was a possibility. 

You see, there is no forgiveness for any woman caught having an affair. No forgiveness of any kind. You will not find forgiveness from strangers, from public opinion, from your neighbour’s cousin twice removed. No one. In historical texts, 七出 (seven leaves) outlines the 7 reasons a man can reasonably divorce his wife. 

Reason #1 is if the wife is unkind/unfilial to her husband’s parents (Right here, you can see just how different the priorities were in ancient Chinese society, how seriously ancient society took “respect your elders”, and why the Elders of Gusu Lan have so much power. This sets the stage for some of my later points.) 

Reason #2 is no offspring. If she is unable to have children, her husband may also divorce her, although since Chinese society was polygamous until mid 1940s, this is usually not an issue because the wife can always just allow her husband to find a concubine. 

Reason number #3 is affair.   

I should also point out that “divorce” as we understand in modern society is not the same “divorce” that I speak of historically. Historically, there are two types of ending for marriages. 1) an amicable separation or so called “he-li” 和离, and 2)xiu 休. An amicable separation is almost always a huge negotiation, requiring the input of elders from both families. A man and a woman cannot just wake up one day and have an amicable separation. Also, amicable separations are typically to “save face” and is practiced by large gentry and noble families, like the Gusu Lans and Yunmeng Jiangs. As well, an amicable separation is usually done when the woman hasn’t done anything “wrong”, as in the 7 reasons indicated above. Anytime she has “committed” any one of the 7 “sins”, her husband is within full rights to “xiu” her without consulting anyone. A woman’s station in society doesn’t necessarily even save her from being “xiu”-ed, they just... take on different forms. An Empress for example can literally never be “xiu-ed”, BUT, if she does something wrong like...say for example she is a jealous lady who can’t do a good job managing the inner palace, the Emperor can “废后“ - as in abolish her of her empress status. She is probably confined to “the Cold Palace” 冷宫 (a desolated area of the palace that’s essentially a prison) for the rest of her life. If she did something VERY wrong, like say was caught having an affair, she may live (and be sent to the Cold Palace) if her maiden family is powerful/influential enough in court, but if her maiden family is just so-so, she is definitely 100% dead. She will usually be given 3 options: dagger, a white silk cloth, and a cup of wine. Basically, stab herself, hang herself or poison herself. 

Now, that’s an empress. From empress downwards, all women, noblewoman and princesses included, can be xiu-ed. 

I consulted my mother on this just to make sure I’m right, and she said, yeah, a woman divorced by her husband historically is a very serious outcome. Like.... “she could literally never face society again” kind of serious, so seriously in fact she “might as well be dead.” Her maiden family would not just...welcome her back with open arms. No. They’d send her off somewhere hidden away from sight. 

As a matter of fact, once a woman is found guilty of committing a serious infraction, affair being the most scandalous, her maiden family may not even stand up for her because....well... she did something “wrong”. It is seen as more righteous if they allow her to die because then it’s like... her death restored her honour or she at least was good enough to face the consequences of her actions (All bullshit I know, but it is what it is). In fact, some large families with good reputations they can’t afford to besmirch will actively disown her. 

Now let’s bring this back to Wei Wuxian. As Jiang Yanli mentioned in chapter 3, if Gusu Lan wanted to be a dick, they’d just divorced Wei Wuxian out right. That would’ve been the dick move. But they didn’t do that. They wanted to give the Jiangs an olive branch. As a matter of fact, had the affair just been just a thing within Cloud Recesses, the Lans would’ve allowed for an amicable separation, even though they were within their rights (technically) to divorce Wei Wuxian. But...for whatever reason (I mean... I know the reason, you don’t haha), the news of the affair became rapidly disseminated such that literally everyone knows. Now both families are in a sticky spot.  

One, Zewu-jun is a prominent cultivator. To be cheated on in historical terms is a thing to be laughed at (fragile egos of manhood I suppose). To Lan Xichen’s behaviour, you really can’t voice any criticism. He’s gone above and beyond what is culturally expected as kind. 

Two, the marriage is finished. Now that the affair is exposed, to continue would be a farce and cause more reasons for ridicule. 

I knew pretty much since I started writing this AU that if I exposed the affair, one way or the other Wei Wuxian was gonna have to “die” if I wanted any semblance of reality. 

The only other scenario where he wouldn’t have died is if Lan Xichen is allowed to marry concubines. Then, Gusu Lans could’ve just secluded (imprison) Wei Wuxian for the rest of his life. Any woman or man Lan Xichen marries thereafter still wouldn’t be his “wife” or “husband” because he technically never had a divorce. They would all be concubines, and I don’t think Lan Xichen is the kind of man to do that to someone he loves. Also, Lan Wangji would have lost any and all chances to be with Wei Wuxian since they will never let him out. In that case, wangxian is done. 

I know it doesn’t make sense from a modern stance point, but what the Elders did was not only “right” but “reasonable”. Was it kind? I would even make an argument for kind. They intend to bury and honour Wei Wuxian after death (and that’s very important because funeral and afterlife in this culture are taken very seriously), and they will allow Lan Wangji to send him off at the funeral. No family in historical China would do that. 

Within context, the Elders aren’t wrong. Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian made their bed, now they have to lie in it. 

[serialreblogger]

You want to talk more about the bigotry in Harry Potter? Go ahead! I've actually heard stuff like that before, but have yet to do much research on it personally and it's been a while since I read it, so I'm interested.

WELL

Before we begin I should start with a disclaimer: this analysis will be dedicated to examining as many bigoted aspects of Harry Potter’s writing as I can think of, so--while I personally am more or less comfortable balancing critical evaluation with enjoyment of a piece, and strongly advocate developing your own abilities to do the same--I know not everyone is comfortable reading/enjoying a story once they realize its flaws, and again, while I think it’s very important to acknowledge the flaws in culturally impactful stories like Harry Potter, I also know for some people the series is really really important for personal reasons and whatnot. 

So! If you’re one of those people, and you have trouble balancing critical engagement with enjoyment, please feel free to skip this analysis (at least for the time being). Self-care is important, and it’s okay to find your own balance between educating yourself and protecting yourself.

On another note, this is gonna be limited strictly to morally squicky things to do with Rowling’s writing and the narrative itself. Bad stuff characters do won’t be talked about unless it’s affirmed by the narrative (held up as morally justified), and plot holes, unrealistic social structures, etc. will not be addressed (it is, after all, a kid’s series, especially in the first few books. Quidditch doesn’t have to make sense). This is strictly about how Rowling’s personal biases and bigotry impacted the story and writing of Harry Potter.

Sketch Thing #1: Quirrell! I don’t see a lot of people talking about Quirrell and racism, but I feel like it’s a definite thing? Quirinus Quirrell is a white man who wears a turban, gifted to him by an “African prince” (what country? where? I couldn’t find a plausible specific when I was researching it for a fic. If there’s a country which has current/recent royalty that might benevolently interact with someone, and also a current/recent culture where turbans of the appropriate style are common, I couldn’t find it). Of course, it wasn’t actually given to him by an African prince in canon, but it’s still an unfortunate explanation.

More importantly, ALL the latent Islamophobia/xenophobia in the significance of the turban. Like, look at it.

“Man wears turban, smells like weird spices, turns out to be concealing an evil second face under the turban” really sounds like something A Bit Not Good, you know? If you wanted to stoke the flames of fear about foreignness, it would be hard to do it better than to tell children about a strange man who’s hiding something horrible underneath a turban.

Also, Quirrell’s stutter being faked to make you think he was trustworthy is a very ableist trope, and an unfortunately common one. “Disability isn’t actually real, just a trick to make you accommodate and trust them” is not a great message, and it’s delivered way too often by mass media. (Check out season 1 of the Flash for another popular example.)

Sketch Thing #2: The goblins. Much more commonly talked about, in my experience, which is good! The more awareness we have about the messages we’re getting from our popular media, the better, in my view. 

For those who haven’t encountered this bit of analysis before: the goblins in Harry Potter reek of antisemitic stereotypes. Large ears, small eyes, crooked noses, green/gray skin, lust for money, control of the banks, and a resentful desire to overthrow the Good British Government? Very reminiscent of wwii propaganda posters, and in general the hateful rhetoric directed towards Jewish people by other European groups from time immemorial. 

I’m also extremely uncomfortable with how goblin culture is handled by Rowling in general. Like, the goblins were a people that were capable of using magic, but prohibited by the British government from owning wands. That was never addressed. They also had a different culture around ownership, which is why Griphook claimed that the sword of Gryffindor belonged rightfully to the goblins--a gift isn’t passed down to descendants upon death, but instead reverts to the maker. This cultural miscommunication is glossed over, despite the fact that it sounds like Griphook’s voicing a very real, legitimate grievance.

To be honest, apart from the antisemitism, the way Goblin culture is treated by the narrative in Harry Potter is very uncomfortably reminiscent to me of how First Nations were treated by English settlers in North America, before the genocide really got started. The Goblins even have a history of “rebellions,” which both raises the question of why another species is ruling them to begin with, and more significantly, is eerily reminiscent of the Red River Rebellion in Canada (which, for the record, wasn’t actually a rebellion--it was Metis people fighting against the Canadian government when it tried to claim the land that legally, rightfully belonged to the Metis. But that’s another story)

In sum: I Don’t Like the implications of how Rowling treats the goblins.

Sketch Thing #3: Muggles. Ok because we’re all “muggles” (presumably) and because I’m white, talking about this might rapidly degenerate into thinly-veiled “reverse racism” discourse, so please y’all correct me if I stray into that kind of colossal stupidity. However, I am not comfortable with the way non-magical humans are treated by Rowling’s narrative.

The whole premise of Harry Potter is that Evil Wizards Want To Hurt The Muggles, right? Except that it’s not. Voldemort’s goal is to subjugate the inferior humans, rule over non-magical people as the rightful overlords, but that’s hardly mentioned by the narrative. Instead, it focuses on the (also egregious and uncomfortably metaphorical) “blood purism” of wizarding culture, and how wizards would be persecuted for their heritage.

But muggles, actual muggles, are arguably the ones who stand to lose the most to Voldemort, and they’re never notified of their danger. We, the muggles reading it, don’t even really register that we’re the collateral damage in this narrative. Because throughout the series, muggles are set up as laughingstocks. Even the kindest, most muggle-friendly wizards are more obsessed with non-magical people as a curiosity than actually able to relate to them as people. 

I dunno, friends, I’m just uncomfortable with the level of dehumanization that’s assigned to non-magical humans. (Like, there’s not even a non-offensive term for them in canon. There’s “muggle,” which is humorously indulgent at best and actively insulting at worst, and there’s “squib,” which is literally the word for a firework that fails to spark.) It’s not like “muggles” are actually a real people group that can be oppressed, and like I said this kind of analysis sounds a bit like the whining of “reverse racism” advocates where the powerful majority complains about being insulted, but... it kind of also reeks of ableism. People that are not able to do a certain cool, useful thing (use magic) are inherently inferior, funny at best and disposable at worst. They suffer and die every day from things that can easily be cured with magic, but magic-users don’t bother to help them, and even when they’re actively attacked the tragedy of hundreds dying is barely mourned by the narrative. 

It gives me bad vibes. I don’t Love It. It sounds uncomfortably like Rowling’s saying “people that are unable to access this common skill are inherently inferior,” and that really does sound like ableism to me. 

Either way, there’s something icky about consigning an entire group of people to the role of “funny clumsy stupid,” regardless of any real-world connections there may or may not be to that people group. Don’t teach children that a single genetic characteristic can impact someone’s personhood, or make them inherently less worthy of being taken seriously. Just, like... don’t do that.

Sketch Thing #4: The house elves. Everyone knows about the house elves, I think. The implications of “they’re slaves but they like it” and the only person who sees it as an issue having her campaign turned into a joke by the narrative (“S.P.E.W.”? Really? It might as well stand for “Stupidly Pleading for Expendable Workers”) are pretty clear.

Sketch Thing #5: Azkaban. Are we gonna talk about how wizarding prison involves literal psychological torture, to the point where prisoners (who are at least sometimes there wrongly, hence the plot of book 3) almost universally go “insane”? This is sort of touched on by the narrative--“dementors are bad and we shouldn’t be using them” was a strongly delivered message, but it was less “because torturing people, even bad people, is not a great policy” and more “because dementors are by their natures monstrous and impossible to fully control.” 

“This humanoid species is monstrous and impossible to control” is, once again, a very concerning message to deliver, and it doesn’t actually address the real issue of “prison torture is bad, actually.” Please, let’s not normalize the idea that prison is inherently horrific. Of course, prison as it exists in North America and Britain is, indeed, inherently horrific and often involves torture (solitary confinement, anyone?), but like--that’s a bad thing, y’all, it’s deeply dysfunctional and fundamentally unjust. Don’t normalize it.

Sketch Thing #6: Werewolves. Because Rowling explicitly stated that lycanthropy in her series is a metaphor for “blood-borne diseases like HIV/AIDS”. The linked article says it better than I could:

Rowling lumps HIV and AIDS in with other blood-borne illnesses, which ignores their uniquely devastating history. And Lupin’s story is by no stretch a thorough or helpful examination of the illness. Nor is its translation as an allegory easily understood, beyond the serious stigma that Rowling mentioned.

That Lupin is a danger to others could not more clearly support an attitude of justifiable fear toward him, one that is an abject disservice to those actually struggling with a disease that does not make them feral with rage.

This definitely ties into homophobia, given how deeply the queer community has been affected by HIV/AIDS. Saying a character with a condition that makes him an active threat to those around him is “a metaphor for AIDS” is deeply, deeply distressing, both for its implications about queer people and their safety for the general population, and for the way it specifically perpetuates the false belief that having HIV/AIDS makes a person dangerous.

Sketch Thing #7: Blood Ties. This isn’t, like, inherently sketch, but (especially for those of us with complicated relationships to our birth families) it can rub a lot of people the wrong way. Rowling talks a big talk about the folly of “blood purism,” but she also upholds the idea that blood and blood relations are magically significant. 

Personally, I’m very uncomfortable with the fact that Harry was left with an abusive family for his entire childhood, and it was justified because they were his “blood relatives.” I’ve had this argument with ultra-conservative family friends who genuinely believe it’s a parent’s right to abuse their child, and while I don’t think that’s what Rowling is saying, I do feel uncomfortable with the degree of importance she places on blood family. I’m uncomfortable with the narrative’s confirmation that it is acceptable (even necessary) to compromise on boundaries and allow the continuation of abuse because “it’s better for a child to be raised by their Real Family” than it is to risk them to the care of an unrelated parent.

Genetic relations aren’t half as important as Rowling tells us. For people with a bad birth family, this can be a damaging message to internalize, so I’ll reiterate: it’s a pretty thought, the love in blood, but it’s ultimately false. The family you build is more real, more powerful and more valid than any family you were assigned to by an accident of genes.

I can think of one or two more things, but they’re all a lot more debatable than what I have here--as it is, you might not agree with everything I’ve said. That’s cool! I’m certainly not trying to start a fight. We all have the right to read and interpret things for ourselves, and to disagree with each other. And again, I’m not trying to ruin Harry Potter. It’s honestly, as a series, not worse in terms of latent bigotry than most other books of its time, and better than many. It’s just more popular, with a much bigger impact and many more people analyzing it. I do think it’s important to critically evaluate the media that shapes one’s culture, and to acknowledge its shortcomings (and the ways it can be genuinely harmful to people, especially when it’s as culturally powerful as Harry Potter). But that doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t enjoy it for what it was meant to be: a fun, creative, engaging story, with amazing characters, complex plots, heroism and inspiration for more than one generation of people. 

Enjoy Harry Potter. It is, in my opinion, a good series, worth reading and re-reading for enjoyment, even for nourishment. It’s also flawed. These things can both be true.

[cherubchoirs]

Have you ever heard of Leverage (TV series)? It is about a five-person team: a thief, a grifter, a hacker, and a retrieval specialist, led by former insurance investigator, who use their skills to fight corporate and governmental injustices inflicted on ordinary citizens. I like to think that Akira would do something similar when he grows older. If you don’t mind me asking, what types of jobs do you see the members of the Phantom Thieves having as they grow up?

i’ve heard of the show but i haven’t seen it myself, although i 100% agree that is totally akira!!! i think akira, at first, holds a lot of odd jobs because he likes meeting new people, seeing different places, and having all kinds of experiences...and it keeps his schedule flexible so that he can work as a burglar. he only steals from those who deserve it, doing meticulous combing of their backgrounds and digging all the dirt on them - he retrieves valuables for himself and often grabs blackmail material too in order to make them change their ways. however, akira works as the daring, hands-on type, becoming a modern day arsene that thrills the public with his daring heists and brings people to justice for crimes that wouldn’t otherwise be brought to light. he does this for years but...he scales a lot of high-rise buildings, a dangerous gamble that finally doesn’t go his way one night, and the fall he takes leaves him with a bad back and using a cane after lots of physical therapy to recover. he moves forward after that to go into activism, using a degree in law to work as an advocate for prisoner’s rights in japan...but definitely still continuing to work as a thief that now orchestrates heists in a similar way to what you mentioned where he stays behind the scenes. SO...i’ve thought plenty about akira obviously sdkfsjfd but as for the others!! 

- ryuji is a physical therapist - i never thought ryuji actually came off as dumb tbh, he just seems unfocused and like he’s given into labels. like i noticed that ryuji can be incredibly insightful and asked some really good questions...and i just want him to achieve so much more as an adult than he ever thought he could. he works especially well with kids, connecting to them easily and having the kind of upbeat, high energy they need to feel happy even after a serious injury. and i imagine ryuji is like. super buff. dude’s ripped. and the kids can see that he has an injury too but it didn’t stop him working out, playing sports, or having a good life even if there are certain things he can’t do (i hc ryuji lives with chronic pain and running is eventually too hard on his leg) he’s honestly a great doctor in general who makes people feel at ease even if he can be overly excitable, it’s just part of his charm lol 

- ann does become a model like she wanted, but i imagine she gets a business degree to learn how to eventually run her own modeling company. she wants a place where the models feel safe, where they aren’t used or abused in any way, and all claims of harassment are taken DAMN seriously and ann will ruin any photographer/company/manager that tries to take advantage of a model. additionally, she really wants to expand the kind of models that can find work in japan - ann herself knows what it’s like to be singled out for being different, but she also knows she doesn’t face half of what many minorities do. she wants them all to be see as beautiful and fashionable, she wants all people to be able to open a magazine and see someone like them held up as the image of beauty. 

- yusuke can’t be anything but a fine artist lmao his work includes a TON of travel, finding inspiration in all corners of the globe as well as making tons upon tons of international friends wherever he goes. he stays with them more often than not, barely even having a permanent residence, and none of the thieves are surprised when they get a text from him backpacking in australia or exploring a city in peru. it makes his work super eclectic, a beautiful blend of styles and compositions that he’s seen around the world (madarame WISHES he actually had the range!!), although his favorite will always be traditional japanese painting since that’s what his mother loved. 

- makoto initially goes into the police force wanting to be a commissioner...but even she is shocked to learn how disgustingly corrupt the force is. she knows what akira faced and the trumped up charges that would have been brought to the phantom thieves, but actually getting into on the other side was something else entirely. so she decides to work for internal affairs to climb the ladder to the top as quickly as possible. yes, she wants justice in the streets, but that will never be accomplished is the police are simply allowed to do as they please, so she decides she must take them to task first. it’s still working in a corrupt system, but she is MERCILESS, never caring how many people attempt to brick her out - she knows every loophole and makes various connections to get her where she needs to be to bring crooked officers before a court of law. 

- futaba continues to live with sojiro for a long time, but she easily develops her own software and makes good money from it. i sort of got the idea that futaba could definitely make a living like this from p5d honestly, where she says she made the top app in the app store but just did so anonymously (or something like that!!) so she didn’t get paid. i think she would just develop software and games and things like that on her own because traditional work just doesn’t suit the way she thinks and operates, and she’s happy to work all on her own. she also definitely, definitely helps akira with his heists and stealing info on assholes that deserve to be taken down while doing her own hacking on the side. 

- haru continues to oversee the company, but i think she scales it back quite a bit in order to be sure they maintain good quality and good policies. like ann’s business, all of her employees feel safe and comfortable to report any grievances and it’s known as one of the best places to work as haru keeps a close eye on things. she does get the cafe she wanted, although she wishes she could be there in person more. she works closely with the manager and all the employees know her though, making an appearance at least a couple times a week to relax and get that one on one interaction with her workers and customers. it has a beautiful little garden too that anyone can help tend, plus haru makes sure any unused food goes to help those in need (and those in need can always come to the cafe for a meal, just like her grandfather wanted).

- goro goes into law, where he works as a lawyer in family court. i always really liked the idea of him being a lawyer since i think his relationship with sae was an important one, but it’s definitely just a passion for him too because he’s tenacious in getting the outcome that’s in the best interest of children in any given case. he knows how little the legal system tends to care about kids in these disputes, and it’s even worse when they are orphans or in foster care, so he wants to be the one person on their side even if he has to fight against the whole system for them. and he. really definitely does fight that system tooth and nail, known for being brutal in court and exceedingly thorough in the evidence he compiles. no one took him seriously at first because oh he’s just that wannabe kid detective, but they all learned VERY fast how dangerous an opponent he really is. surprisingly, though, everyone sees the total 180 he does talking to kids, his voice soft and warm but full of confidence, and he’s done amazingly well helping out social workers that otherwise can’t find an advocate

[cannabisrefugee-esq]

(via A "Rational Suicide" Note. Ft. Anne Örtegren.)

November 9, 2019

This is a “suicide” note left by a ME/CFS sufferer who sought and found relief from her suffering via legal, medically assisted suicide.  She says this manifesto took her months to write, which I do not doubt a bit: it is long, detailed and polished and was written when she was feeling terrible.  She wrote it with the intent to describe her almost indescribable pain and experience, and to convince others to take action on behalf of ME/CFS sufferers, both of which are lofty communication goals when anyone is seriously ill.

Describing and convincing have been my most impossible endeavors since I’ve been seriously ill myself and I think I have mostly failed, judging by others’ reactions to everything I’ve managed to gather the physical and emotional grit to attempt to communicate: that I am seriously, hopelessly ill with an incurable, progressive disease, that there is no bottom to how bad this can get, and it matters not what anyone thinks about it.  Some things are just true regardless of whether anyone believes it.

In this note, ME/CFS patient Anne Örtegren describes symptoms and dilemmas I have experienced myself and she foresees logical outcomes to her predicament, something sick people and especially sick women are never allowed to do because catastrophization. For example, she knows that her heightened sensitivity to light and sound will make treatment or recovery in a hospital setting impossible where the standard of care in that environment requires constant activity and interruptions, and provides no privacy and no escape from the harsh industrial lighting, interrogations by (allegedly) well meaning staff and the general hustle and bustle of capitalistic money making on the backs and bodies of sick and dying people.

That is but one example of a sick person making informed prognostications regarding likely outcomes of the things other people want to do to us, and as someone who shares these sensitivities to light and sound (and therefore an aversion to hospital settings) as but one example of our shared experience of being seriously ill, I appreciated her spelling it out.  I also feel extremely sad that she had to, and furious that no one who allegedly cared about her wellbeing including medical professionals who should be fucking sensitive to the actual needs of real patients could make the leap themselves.  There are many such examples in this letter.

See for yourselves, and understand that as illuminating and raw as this letter is, it’s also been edited by the publisher and a so-called suicide prevention expert because the bottom line everywhere appears to be that there is no such thing as rational suicide or euthanasia because well people and people who make money off of the long-term sick and dying say so.  And because living in this capitalistic, patriarchal nightmare is so hideous for so many people that “suicide contagion” exists, where just knowing that someone, somewhere had whatever it took to end themselves is likely to cause untold numbers of happy, healthy consumers with bright futures to do the same damn thing.  Yeah that’s it, let’s keep telling ourselves that.

The letter as published is reprinted below.  The unedited letter supposedly exists online somewhere if anyone cares to look and has the energy to figure out how and where the edited version differs from the original.  Comments are open below.

Farewell – A Last Post from Anne Örtegren

Nobody can say that I didn’t put up enough of a fight.

For 16 years I have battled increasingly severe ME/CFS. My condition has steadily deteriorated and new additional medical problems have regularly appeared, making it ever more difficult to endure and make it through the day (and night).

Throughout this time, I have invested almost every bit of my tiny energy in the fight for treatment for us ME/CFS patients. Severely ill, I have advocated from my bedroom for research and establishment of biomedical ME/CFS clinics to get us proper health care. All the while, I have worked hard to find something which would improve my own health. I have researched all possible treatment options, got in contact with international experts and methodically tried out every medication, supplement and regimen suggested.

Sadly, for all the work done, we still don’t have adequately sized specialized biomedical care for ME/CFS patients here in Stockholm, Sweden – or hardly anywhere on the planet. We still don’t have in-patient hospital units adapted to the needs of the severely ill ME/CFS patients. Funding levels for biomedical ME/CFS research remain ridiculously low in all countries and the erroneous psychosocial model which has caused me and others so much harm is still making headway.

And sadly, for me personally things have gone from bad to worse to unbearable. I am now mostly bedbound and constantly tortured by ME/CFS symptoms. I also suffer greatly from a number of additional medical problems, the most severe being a systematic hyper-reactivity in the form of burning skin combined with an immunological/allergic reaction. This is triggered by so many things that it has become impossible to create an adapted environment. Some of you have followed my struggle to find clothes and bed linen I can tolerate. Lately, I am simply running out. I no longer have clothes I can wear without my skin “burning up” and my body going into an allergic state.

This means I no longer see a way out from this solitary ME/CFS prison and its constant torture. I can no longer even do damage control, and my body is at the end of its rope. Therefore, I have gone through a long and thorough process involving several medical assessments to be able to choose a peaceful way out: I have received a preliminary green light for accompanied suicide through a clinic in Switzerland.

When you read this I am at rest, free from suffering at last. I have written this post to explain why I had to take this drastic step. Many ME/CFS patients have found it necessary to make the same decision, and I want to speak up for us, as I think my reasons may be similar to those of many others with the same sad destiny.

These reasons can be summed up in three headers: unbearable suffering; no realistic way out of the suffering; and the lack of a safety net, meaning potential colossal increase in suffering when the next setback or medical incident occurs.

Important note Before I write more about these reasons, I want to stress something important. Depression is not the cause of my choice. Though I have been suffering massively for many years, I am not depressed. I still have all my will and my motivation. I still laugh and see the funny side of things, I still enjoy doing whatever small activities I can manage. I am still hugely interested in the world around me – my loved ones and all that goes on in their lives, the society, the world (what is happening in human rights issues? how can we solve the climate change crisis?) During these 16 years, I have never felt any lack of motivation.

On the contrary, I have consistently fought for solutions with the goal to get myself better and help all ME/CFS patients get better. There are so many things I want to do, I have a lot to live for. If I could only regain some functioning, quieten down the torture a bit and be able to tolerate clothes and a normal environment, I have such a long list of things I would love to do with my life!

Three main reasons So depression is not the reason for my decision to terminate my life. The reasons are the following:

1. Unbearable suffering Many severely ill ME/CFS patients are hovering at the border of unbearable suffering. We are constantly plagued by intense symptoms, we endure high-impact every-minute physical suffering 24 hours a day, year after year. I see it as a prison sentence with torture. I am homebound and mostly bedbound – there is the prison. I constantly suffer from excruciating symptoms: The worst flu you ever had. Sore throat, bronchi hurting with every breath. Complete exhaustion, almost zero energy, a body that weighs a tonne and sometimes won’t even move. Muscle weakness, dizziness, great difficulties standing up. Sensory overload causing severe suffering from the brain and nervous system. Massive pain in muscles, painful inflammations in muscle attachments. Intensely burning skin. A feeling of having been run over by a bus, twice, with every cell screaming. This has got to be called torture.

It would be easier to handle if there were breaks, breathing spaces. But with severe ME/CFS there is no minute during the day when one is comfortable. My body is a war zone with constant firing attacks. There is no rest, no respite. Every move of every day is a mountain-climb. Every night is a challenge, since there is no easy sleep to rescue me from the torture. I always just have to try to get through the night. And then get through the next day.

It would also be easier if there were distractions. Like many patients with severe ME/CFS I am unable to listen to music, radio, podcasts or audio books, or to watch TV. I can only read for short bouts of time, and use the computer for even shorter moments. I am too ill to manage more than rare visits or phone calls from my family and friends, and sadly unable to live with someone. This solitary confinement aspect of ME/CFS is devastating and it is understandable that ME/CFS has been described as the “living death disease”.

For me personally, the situation has turned into an emergency not least due to my horrific symptom of burning skin linked to immunological/allergic reactions. This appeared six years into my ME/CFS, when I was struck by what seemed like a complete collapse of the bodily systems controlling immune system, allergic pathways, temperature control, skin and peripheral nerves. I had long had trouble with urticaria, hyperreactive skin and allergies, but at this point a violent reaction occurred and my skin completely lost tolerance. I started having massively burning skin, severe urticaria and constant cold sweats and shivers (these reactions reminded me of the first stages of the anaphylactic shock I once had, then due to heat allergy).

Since then, for ten long years, my skin has been burning. It is an intense pain. I have been unable to tolerate almost all kinds of clothes and bed linen as well as heat, sun, chemicals and other everyday things. These all trigger the burning skin and the freezing/shivering reaction into a state of extreme pain and suffering. Imagine being badly sunburnt and then being forced to live under a constant scalding sun – no relief in sight.

At first I managed to find a certain textile fabric which I could tolerate, but then this went out of production, and in spite of years of negotiations with the textile industry it has, strangely, proven impossible to recreate that specific weave. This has meant that as my clothes have been wearing out, I have been approaching the point where I will no longer have clothes and bed linen that are tolerable to my skin. It has also become increasingly difficult to adapt the rest of my living environment so as to not trigger the reaction and worsen the symptoms. Now that I am running out of clothes and sheets, ahead of me has lain a situation with constant burning skin and an allergic state of shivering/cold sweats and massive suffering. This would have been absolutely unbearable.

For 16 years I have had to manage an ever-increasing load of suffering and problems. They now add up to a situation which is simply no longer sustainable.

2. No realistic way out of the suffering A very important factor is the lack of realistic hope for relief in the future. It is possible for a person to bear a lot of suffering, as long as it is time-limited. But the combination of massive suffering and a lack of rational hope for remission or recovery is devastating.

Think about the temporary agony of a violent case of gastric flu. Picture how you are feeling those horrible days when you are lying on the bathroom floor between attacks of diarrhoea and vomiting. This is something we all have to live through at times, but we know it will be over in a few days. If someone told you at that point: “you will have to live with this for the rest of your life”, I am sure you would agree that it wouldn’t feel feasible. It is unimaginable to cope with a whole life with the body in that insufferable state every day, year after year. The level of unbearableness in severe ME/CFS is the same.

If I knew there was relief on the horizon, it would be possible to endure severe ME/CFS and all the additional medical problems, even for a long time, I think. The point is that there has to be a limit, the suffering must not feel endless.

One vital aspect here is of course that patients need to feel that the ME/CFS field is being taken forward. Sadly, we haven’t been granted this feeling – see my previous blogs relating to this here and here.

Another imperative issue is the drug intolerance that I and many others with ME/CFS suffer from. I have tried every possible treatment, but most of them have just given me side-effects, many of which have been irreversible. My stomach has become increasingly dysfunctional, so for the past few years any new drugs have caused immediate diarrhoea. One supplement triggered massive inflammation in my entire urinary tract, which has since persisted. The list of such occurrences of major deterioration caused by different drugs/treatments is long, and with time my reactions have become increasingly violent. I now have to conclude that my sensitivity to medication is so severe that realistically it is very hard for me to tolerate drugs or supplements.

This has two crucial meanings for many of us severely ill ME/CFS patients: There is no way of relieving our symptoms. And even if treatments appear in the future, with our sensitivity of medication any drug will carry a great risk of irreversible side-effects producing even more suffering. This means that even in the case of a real effort finally being made to bring biomedical research into ME/CFS up to levels on par with that of other diseases, and possible treatments being made accessible, for some of us it is unlikely that we would be able to benefit. Considering our extreme sensitivity to medication, one could say it’s hard to have realistic hope of recovery or relief for us.

In the past couple of years I, being desperate, have challenged the massive side-effect risk and tried one of the treatments being researched in regards to ME/CFS. But I received it late in the disease process, and it was a gamble. I needed it to have an almost miraculous effect: a quick positive response which eliminated many symptoms – most of all I needed it to stop my skin from burning and reacting, so I could tolerate the clothes and bed linen produced today. I have been quickly running out of clothes and sheets, so I was gambling with high odds for a quick and extensive response. Sadly, I wasn’t a responder. I have also tried medication for Mast Cell Activation Disorder and a low-histamine diet, but my burning skin hasn’t abated. Since I am now running out of clothes and sheets, all that was before me was constant burning hell.

3. The lack of a safety net, meaning potential colossal increase in suffering when the next setback or medical incident occurs The third factor is the insight that the risk for further deterioration and increased suffering is high.

On top of the nearly unbearable symptoms it is very likely that in the future things will get even worse. An example in my case could be my back and neck pain. I would need to strengthen muscles to prevent them from getting worse. But the characteristic symptom of Post-Exertional Malaise (PEM) when I attempt even small activities, is hugely problematic.

Whenever we try to ignore the PEM issue and push through, we immediately crash and become much sicker. We might go from being able to at least get up and eat, to being completely bedbound, until the PEM has subsided. Sometimes, it doesn’t subside, and we find ourselves irreversibly deteriorated, at a new, even lower baseline level, with no way of improving.

PEM is not something that you can work around.

For me, new medical complications also continue to arise, and I have no way of amending them. I already need surgery for one existing problem, and it is likely that it will be needed for other issues in the future, but surgery or hospital care is not feasible for several reasons:

One is that my body seems to lack repairing mechanisms. Previous biopsies have not healed properly, so my doctor is doubtful about my ability to recover after surgery.

Another, more general and hugely critical, is that with severe ME/CFS it is impossible to tolerate normal hospital care. For ME/CFS patients the sensory overload problem and the extremely low energy levels mean that a normal hospital environment causes major deterioration. The sensory input that comes with shared rooms, people coming and going, bright lights, noise, etc, escalates our disease. We are already in such fragile states that a push in the wrong direction is catastrophic. For me, with my burning skin issue, there is also the issue of not tolerating the mattresses, pillows, textile fabrics, etc used in a hospital.

Just imagine the effects of a hospital stay for me: It would trigger my already severe ME/CFS into new depths – likely I would become completely bedbound and unable to tolerate any light or noise. The skin hyperreactivity would, within a few hours, trigger my body into an insufferable state of burning skin and agonizing immune-allergic reactions, which would then be impossible to reverse. My family, my doctor and I agree: I must never be admitted to a hospital, since there is no end to how much worse that would make me.

Many ME/CFS patients have experienced irreversible deterioration due to hospitalization. We also know that the understanding of ME/CFS is extremely low or non-existent in most hospitals, and we hear about ME/CFS patients being forced into environments or activities which make them much worse. I am aware of only two places in the world with specially adjusted hospital units for severe ME/CFS, Oslo, Norway, and Gold Coast, Australia. We would need such units in every city around the globe.

It is extreme to be this severely ill, have so many medical complications arise continually and know this: There is no feasible access to hospital care for me. There are no tolerable medications to use when things get worse or other medical problems set in. As a severely ill ME/CFS patient I have no safety net at all. There is simply no end to how bad things can get with severe ME/CFS.

Coping skills – important but not enough I realize that when people hear about my decision to terminate my life, they will wonder about my coping skills. I have written about this before and I want to mention the issue here too:

While it was extremely hard at the beginning to accept chronic illness, I have over the years developed a large degree of acceptance and pretty good coping skills. I have learnt to accept tight limits and appreciate small qualities of life. I have learnt to cope with massive amounts of pain and suffering and still find bright spots. With the level of acceptance I have come to now, I would have been content even with relatively small improvements and a very limited life. If, hypothetically, the physical suffering could be taken out of the equation, I would have been able to live contentedly even though my life continued to be restricted to my small apartment and include very little activity. Unlike most people I could find such a tiny life bearable and even happy. But I am not able to cope with these high levels of constant physical suffering.

In short, to sum up my level of acceptance as well as my limit: I can take the prison and the extreme limitations – but I can no longer take the torture. And I cannot live with clothes that constantly trigger my burning skin.

Not alone – and not a rash decision In spite of being unable to see friends or family for more than rare and brief visits, and in spite of having limited capacity for phone conversations, I still have a circle of loved ones. My friends and family all understand my current situation and they accept and support my choice. While they do not want me to leave, they also do not want me to suffer anymore.

This is not a rash decision. It has been processed for many years, in my head, in conversations with family and friends, in discussion with one of my doctors, and a few years ago in the long procedure of requesting accompanied suicide. The clinic in Switzerland requires an extensive process to ensure that the patient is chronically ill, lives with unendurable pain or suffering, and has no realistic hope of relief. They require a number of medical records as well as consultations with specialized doctors.

For me this end is obviously not what I wanted, but it was the best solution to an extremely difficult situation and preferable to even more suffering. It was not hasty choice, but one that matured over a long period of time.

A plea to decision makers – Give ME/CFS patients a future! As you understand, this blog post has taken me many months to put together. It is a long text to read too, I know. But I felt it was important to write it and have it published to explain why I personally had to take this step, and hopefully illuminate why so many ME/CFS patients consider or commit suicide.

And most importantly: to elucidate that this circumstance can be changed! But that will take devoted, resolute, real action from all of those responsible for the state of ME/CFS care, ME/CFS research and dissemination of information about the disease. Sadly, this responsibility has been mishandled for decades. To allow ME/CFS patients some hope on the horizon, key people in all countries must step up and act.

If you are a decision maker, here is what you urgently need to do: You need to bring funding for biomedical ME/CFS research up so it’s on par with comparable diseases (as an example, in the US that would mean $188 million per year). You need to make sure there are dedicated hospital care units for ME/CFS inpatients in every city around the world. You need to establish specialist biomedical care available to all ME/CFS patients; it should be as natural as RA patients having access to a rheumatologist or cancer patients to an oncologist. You need to give ME/CFS patients a future.

Please listen to these words of Jen Brea, which sum up the situation in the US, but are applicable to almost every country:

“The NIH says it won’t fund ME research because no one wants to study it. Yet they reject the applications of the world class scientists who are committed to advancing the field. Meanwhile, HHS has an advisory committee whose sole purpose seems to be making recommendations that are rarely adopted. There are no drugs in the pipeline at the FDA yet the FDA won’t approve the one drug, Ampligen, that can have Lazarus-like effects in some patients. Meanwhile, the CDC continues to educate doctors using information that we (patients) all know is inaccurate or incomplete.”

Like Jen Brea, I want a number of people from these agencies, and equivalent agencies in Sweden and all other countries, to stand up and take responsibility. To say: “ME! I am going to change things because that is my job.”

And lastly Lastly, I would like to end this by linking to this public comment from a US agency meeting (CFSAC). It seems to have been taken off the HHS site, but I found it in the Google Read version of the book “Lighting Up a Hidden World: CFS and ME” by Valerie Free. It includes testimony from two very eloquent ME patients and it says it all. I thank these ME patients for expressing so well what we are experiencing.

My previous blog posts:

From International Traveler to 43 Square Meters: An ME/CFS Story From Sweden

Coping With ME/CFS Will Always Be Hard – But There are Ways of Making It A Little Easier

The Underfinanced ME/CFS Research Field Pt I: The Facts – Plus “What Can We Do?

The Underfinanced ME/CFS Research Field Pt II: Why it Takes 20 Years to Get 1 Year’s Research Done

Take care of each other.

Love, Anne

Comments Open.

[slamsams-blog]

Die Another Day - #24WeeksofBond

24 Weeks of Bond hits the low point this week with Pierce Brosnan’s swan song as 007 in “Die Another Day”.  Oh man, there is just so much to say and unpack about this movie, it’s hard to put into summary every which way this film fails to deliver.  This film came at a cross-roads for film goers who still loved Bond, but were starting to grow a little tired of the hokey-ness and sleaze of James Bond and were wanting something a little rougher.  “The Bourne Identity” had come out just a few months prior to high praise for it’s hard hitting, intense, stripped-down style...it was fresh.  A few months later “Die Another Day” comes out with an older Pierce Brosnan, some god awful writing and cartoonish cinematography.  Change needed to happen, and this movie would mark the end of the sex puns, over the top gadgets, and far fetched scenarios.

Listen, I LOVE Bond.  I really have a hard time saying a Bond movie is bad...but this movie. is. bad.  This is a tale of two films. The first half is an action packed drama that is gritty, and dark and the second half is like watching a Joel Schumacher Batman film (the one where Batman has nipples).  The plot is also a rip off of “Diamonds Are Forever” and constantly goes for the cheap pop - bringing out all the old gadgets and familiar looking scenes for the 40th anniversary of Bond.  There is just so much trash talk to shell out here, but let’s start with the good stuff.

Die Another Day actually starts out quite promising and delivers a thrilling pre-title sequence with Bond infiltrating a North Korean Army base where he has stolen the clothing of a man trading African Conflict Diamonds for some weapons with a Colonel of the North Korean military and his stooge Zao.  Bond is eventually found out but manages to escape the firing squad to chase down Colonel Moon on a HOVERCRAFT!  Pretty neat.  Colonel Moon eventually runs out of road and takes a fall appearing to be slain, but Bond is caught again by Moon’s dad and for the next 14 months, Bond will be held prisoner and tortured.

I always liked how they utilized the title sequence to take us through Bond’s captivity (even though we are forced to listen to Madonna’s over produced and just flat out weird song...what’s the deal with the random “Sigmund Freud” lyric?).  Though the song is hard on the ear drums, it does a great job in providing an aura of despair and pain in the torture aspect of the title sequence...maybe because the song is torture?

We come back from Madonna, and Jesus Bond is now being traded for Zao who has diamonds permanently implanted in his face from Bond’s intrusion.  This makes Bond angry and makes him question why MI6 would give Zao up.  M is also pissed about it, it appears that there is someone who is playing MI6 for fools.  M is so mad that she essentially burns Bond and relieves him of his 00 status, but this doesn’t stop Bond from forcing himself into cardiac arrest to escape and find out who is behind all of this.

See?  Starts out great!  If only they can keep this momentum going...(spoiler alert: they can’t)

Another positive about this movie is a great fencing scene with Bond and Gustav Graves (Toby Stephans).  I've just always been tickled by how much this scene escalates from a little game of fencing to an all out sword fight.  It is one of the few highlights of the film, complete with a cameo made by Madonna...something I’m sure she negotiated to sign on for the Bond theme.  Get that payday, Madonna!

Well thats about all the positive I can muster for this film.  It’s time to take the gloves off.  Die Another Day’s wheels start to come loose when Bond is in Cuba looking for Zao...during this time, he meets Jinx (Halle Berry), and the dialogue that will unfold, sounds like the writer brought in his perverted nephew, who is just out of high school, looking to write a scene to get his friends to laugh when they watch it in his parents basement.  Halle Berry is the victim of poor writing, and possibly poor directing, yes, but she also tries WAY too hard to be a cool, witty, and deadly agent.  I’ll give Berry the benefit of the doubt to an extent, but I really think she just over acted here.

On top of that - Brosnan and Berry have absolutely ZERO chemistry.  Brosnan is no spring chicken anymore, so we are supposed to believe a woman like Halle Berry would welcome the advances from a bird watcher in his mid-50′s who says Mojito really weird?  Come on.  And the obvious dick jokes and creepiness from Bond who is foaming at the mouth, desperate for sex after being tortured for over a year makes this scene so uncomfortable to watch.

But we later come to find out that Jinx is more than just a reincarnation of Honey Ryder from Dr. No...she is also a secret agent that seems to never take anything seriously and in the face of death by laser, still has time for jokes.  We find out Zao is trying to do gene-therapy treatment to change his identity to someone else.  Much like Colonel Moon had done, turning himself into the man we will come to know as Gustav Graves.  The adrenaline filled, publicity junky, billionaire with an eye for diamonds.

Speaking of over acting, Toby Stephans puts out a good effort with the Gustav Graves character but he is just so over the top with his “evil” looks that there is no denying that he is indeed the villain.  Some of the best villains in cinema and television are villains that get you to like them.  They play to your emotions, let you in on their dark secrets, give you a smile and a laugh, maybe even make you connect with them in a twisted way...but Graves lets you know by his nostril flares and angry glares, that you couldn’t possibly like him if you tried.

Graves invites Bond to his party in Iceland, (isn’t Greenland the icy one?). This is when the movie goes off the rails completely, the second half of the film that looks like the props, sets, and lighting design were borrowed from the Power Rangers.  This ridiculous ice palace accompanied by the super ridiculous revelation of the “Icarus” - a satellite made out of diamonds (exactly like Diamonds are Forever) is just so off-putting. The Icarus shoots a beam as powerful as the sun and can also be used as a freakin sun beam death laser from the sky.  Yes, you heard that right.  At one point Bond is involved in a chase where he is being tailed by a sun beam death laser from the sky.  This leads to the most cringe worthy scene in all of Bond...Bond escapes by CGI surfing.

I’ve said before, one of the aspects of the Bond films that makes the series so successful is the heavy emphasis on real stunts.  REAL STUNTS.  Director Lee Tamahori thought it would be fun to amp up the CGI because he thought that CGI was the future of the Bond franchise, oh was he sorely mistaken. He also thought it would be a good idea to insert a bunch of slow motion shots throughout the movie, they were going for the ‘Matrix effect’ but it did not play well.  It’s choppy and pixilated and just ruins any momentum they managed to build up - it just ends up being annoying. 

If that wasn’t bad enough, Q Branch comes out to “Jump the Shark” by delivering an invisible car.  Really?  This is just another example of the theme of this film taking everything one step too far.  But maybe you could argue that that is what we needed in order to know what our threshold as a Bond audience is.  You could say that maybe Die Another Day was the most important film in the canon for that reason.  Maybe Die Another Day was the sacrificial lamb to fall on it’s own sword to prevent us from going in that direction again, maybe...this movie SAVED THE BOND FRANCHISE??

Eh, Now I’m just devil’s advocating myself.  This is thee worst Bond movie of all time and anyone who says differently has no idea what they are talking about, or are just trying to be ‘Ironic’, or whatever.  This film ends with Gustav Graves becoming an electrifying super-shredder villain whose design was probably stolen from the Mega-Man video games.  The final battle taking place on a plane that is crashing due to a window being knocked out and is also being destroyed by the Sun Beam death laser from the sky.  In other words...more CGI.

And to top it all off, we end on another uncomfortable scene with Bond and Jinx again, spitting out blatant toilet humor dialogue making us think that they are getting busy, but it turns out Bond is just putting diamonds in her belly button (which she really wants to leave in for some reason).  Traditionally, a Bond movie would end with some witty pun being the last bit of dialogue you would hear before credits, but this...I still can’t figure out how this left the writer’s table. 

Bond: “I'm still not quite sure how good you are.”

Jinx: “I’m sooo good...”

Bond: “Especially when you’re bad.”

huh??  It’s not even a pun, it just doesn’t make sense.

Honestly, you can tell Brosnan is thinking “who the hell wrote this shit?” while he is delivering that final line.  sigh.  The good news is that we can only go up from here!  This would be Brosnan’s final performance as James Bond, even though he publicly announced he was going to do another one.  Didn’t quite work out that way, the film studio eventually phased him out, leaving Brosnan at curbside.  Probably for the best, Brosnan was great for that time, but the pressure was on for change.  And change we would get - with Daniel Craig.

That’s all for me tonight, let me know why you hated this movie!

Reviews from Friends:

Tyler Dahlgren

See I like Toby’s Graves. That guy plays despicable well (Black Sails anyone?). It’s the redeeming part of the movie for me. That and the car. I love the Aston Martins, let’s stick to those.

Andrew Albertsen

I think the whole movie should’ve just been about Bond’s incarceration and torture and eventual escape.

My Mom

Sam you don’t mention Rosemund Pike in your review. I thought she made an outstanding ice queen. This had its moments and I do love Pierce Brosnan as Bond but this film was way too long and too much continuous action. A person tunes out.

Jake Benrud

The end of an era. All the gadgets and the over the top villains complete with "diamond face" and a genetically modified psychopath with daddy issues. I don't understand why he needed to drive his car in the ice palace in the first place. Also, that was an epic dive by Halle Berry.

24 Weeks of Bond will return next Monday with - 

Quantum of Solace

[eddiemoonson]

Season 5 is extremely interesting to me from a psych perspective because of the autonomy issues. This is a real world problem that even real live professionals have difficulty managing. On the one hand you understand where Ian’s fam is coming from. But ur right we barely get time for Ian to process it. I think it’s extremely hard because Ian loves being able to provide (more of his love Lang). It’s why he pushes Mickey away. Nobody is letting him actually process or vent his feelings. Part 1

Part 2/ then you have Monica being the bad impulse control whispering in his ear as he undergoes terrible symptoms from his disease including derealization and depersonalization. Overall it’s terrible and BPD is so tricky to treat as well. That’s why Mickey is important. He is a crucial advocate for Ian but he doesn’t look at Ian and see BPD he just sees his boy who is sick and hurting. I think if Monica hadn’t come or Sami never called the MPs they would have made it there and it’s tragic.

I agree. And idk what was going on behind the scenes back in s5, I wasn't too into the fandom then and tbh, even today, I'd rather focus on the show/characters than in the actor's/production team's personal lives. IDK if Mickey being arrested between s5 and 6 was the best idea they came up with to justify Noel not being in the show anymore. And I haven't watched s6, so I know very little about it. But they could have done a better job with these characters. This relationship was extremely important for them and they deserved a better end than what was given. If Noel wasn't coming back for s6 and they had to break him and Ian up, they could have made Mickey leave town to try to find a better life somewhere else. Having him being arrested for attempted murder and Sammi just not being mentioned ever again when she was shooting at him in the middle of the day and in front of witnesses? His character deserved better. It feels lazy, ugly and disrespectful.

It's sad because Shameless isn't a deep show that treats things seriously. They could have done an amazing job exploring Ian's mental illness even with the presence of Monica and Sammi, if only they gave Ian his voice. If he was allowed to talk more about how he was feeling, what motivated him to do the things he was doing, about what was going on in his head, his insecurities and fears, I don't think things would have gone that way. Because if he felt like he had a true support system, instead of his family seeing his disease and not him (that scene where they basically throw everything he did at his face to try to get him out of a sentence in military prison is extremely hard to digest for me; I know they were trying to help but fuck!), maybe he wouldn't have run off with Monica, maybe he wouldn't be so affected by her, maybe he could have accepted his diagnosis earlier. If he felt like he had a place with his family, if he had the chance to open up about feeling like a burden, they could have reassured him and maybe he wouldn't have gone with her. Also, imagine how much more emotional Mickey's speech would be if it was in response to Ian opening up to him about his disease? And even if the game plan was to break them up, they deserved a better treatment.

[ruffiorocks]

Few issues I want to address

I just want to address a few things I've seen lately (then blocked 😅). But I feel the need to at least say something for anyone else who came across the posts.

1. First off why do people feel the need to tell everyone they 'used' to ship Supercorp? Oh and then act like they had a religious experience, took off their 'supercorp' goggles and were born again? Like seriously? They are acting like they were on drugs and went to rehab and are now advocates against drugs. Being a shipper isn't a bad thing, it's NOT something you have got to recover from.

Also those who 'used' to ship Supercorp now thing that their time spent in shipper rehab means their mission is now to point out everything wrong with the ship and attack those that still like it. 🤔🤔 I'd like to point out that while attacking others for shipping Supercorp they are simultaneously shipping something else which is apparently acceptable because they have decided it is???

Please people! If you decide not to like a ship anymore don't suddenly act like you were on drugs or feel that your civic duty is to turn people away from something they enjoy by attacking them simply for not agreeing with you.

2. People really hate on Lena for being a billionaire and white huh? Shockingly after a glance at these people's blogs they are completely fine with WHITE BILLIONAIRE Tony Stark. These people want it addressed in the show that Lena is white, a billionaire and is privileged. Erm.... Ok..... But we can see she's white?? This doesn't need to be addressed, we know she's a billionaire, it's part of her story arc and we know she's privileged because she's white and a billionaire. I mean where exactly does this need to be addressed? I saw someone say that they acknowledged Kara's privilege when she didnt realise how good she had it being white and passing for human and they want the same for Lena. But.... Lena isn't pretending or acting like her white skin gives her an advantage, she openly dated a black man and she went out of her way to create image inducors for those that couldn't pass for human, not because she's racist or xenophobic but to protect them. Where exactly is the problem people want addressing?? She also uses her money to help other people.

The same people who diss Lena for using her money to cause problems and make tech, do experiments without telling Kara or anyone else are the same folk that love Tony Stark who fyi secretly worked using Loki's staff with Bruce to create Ultron without telling the rest of the Avengers and this ultimately caused the damage to Sacovia and the Sacovian accords that led to Civil War. But no one is talking about that??

3. People are still saying that KARA would never agree with Lena. KARA has different morals. Lena should have told KARA what she was doing. KARA could have advised her on what she should and shouldn't do. 🤔🤔 What the actual hell? Why on Earth does Kara get to be the ultimate decision maker?? Lena is not beholden to Kara/Supergirl anymore than the rest of the world is. Kara is not God! Kara may disagree with stuff Lena does, but just because she isn't a fan it doesn't ultimately make everything Lena does wrong. Shockingly Lena and the rest of the world dont have to Petition Kara/Supergirl everytime they want to do something.

4. I saw someone still going on about Lena going behind James' back to deal with his issue. Apparently Lena was absolutely in the wrong to do this because James begged her to let him handle it. Er..... Do you know what I remember? I remember James being cocky and thinking he could just be a a superhero because he was 'meant for it'. I remember James being a dumb ass and failing 'being a superhero 101' by almost immediately revealing himself and he genuinely believed there wouldn't be any consequences. He was literally going to go to prison because being a vigilante shockingly is against the law. Lena told him she would help and he actually thought he could deal with it. How exactly? What defence did he have? What resources? Lena knew he would go to prison and that's why she struck the deal, she wouldn't have needed to make any deal if James wasn't going to prison. She then let him have his moment and believe he had handled it BY DOING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING 😒. He then decided to get even more cocky and go back out as Guardian even though he knew be wasn't allowed to anymore. He got pissy with Lena saying HE handled it and how she worries to much prompting Lena to bring him down a peg or two and confess she's the reason he isn't currently in prison. He then gets angry she saved his ass and lied, even though he had NO DEFENSE to speak of. James didn't have pull to get himself out of that predicament. He then rejected her love and went out anyway risking his freedom and everything Lena worked for.

So she should have told him? I actually agree, not because she owed it him, but to give him a dose of reality and make him realises he isn't untouchable and sometimes you need help.

Anyhoo, that's today's rant.