#in fact its that biological essentialism i fucking hate so much

[jfkisonthemoon]

people on tumblr talk about how "mean" we are to men and its like. my textbooks chapter on gender in schools says that women need quieter, more social-based classrooms so they can retain their feminity through their education. my environmental policies class talks about the carcinogians women are exposed to in our health care products. terfs are conducting tests in the center of campus to prove that women are biologically inferior in sports. this all happened today. i really dont care much about my language making men "feel bad". i feel bad. this system wasnt built for me. i dont think saying that should be controversial.

[juvive-1234]

A very self indulgent James and Cyprian relationship “analysis”

I am actually obsessed with their relationship as essentially this is another case of [insert character a] living in [insert character b]’s story if this didn’t happen or if the circumstances were different (This is seen with Will and Katherine)

In this case, Cyprian is living in what would have been James’s story if he wasn’t chased out of the hall at 11. He would’ve be the hall’s greatest star and perhaps even a steward by the time Will entered the story. He would’ve viewed Marcus and Cyprian as his brothers not his replacements and would’ve probably held the same resentment Cyprian has for Justice.

But of course, this isn’t the case. James was chased out of the hall and was replaced by Cyprian.

This dynamic of being raised by the same man at different times is very fascinating to me. On one hand, Cyprian views Jannick as strict but still a good father, and James views Jannick as a dad who hated him in the end and replaced him despite the fact he tried his best to make him proud. (The gate scene at the end of dark heir where James wonders if his father would be proud of him at that moment.)

The resentment James has for Cyprian and Marcus is very, VERY evident in little snarky comments and his actions. I am convinced some of his rage towards Marcus in the prologue is resentment for him being replaced, and his little comment calling out Jannick and the Stewards for not telling the noviates anything about the cup is very passive aggressive to Cyprian. (“Not even your precious little adopted son?” - James) It’s understandable James is upset, his father threw him out and plucked two replacement children who he valued more this his own biological son.

Cyprian’s side of the story is quite tragic as well. Hes the best in the hall, but is he the best truly because he is or because James isn’t here? Cyprian is constantly striving for perfection because of one reason; acceptance. I wouldn’t say Cyprian is scared of bring thrown out because he’s not a reborn so there’s no real reason to throw him out, but he desires his father’s approval and he wants to make him proud. This work clearly pays off because both Will and Violet comment how perfect Cyprian is (Will going as far to call him a teacher’s pet I love him for that.)

When you put these two together, nothing goes well. Its pretty much adding a gallon of gasoline to the fire. James is constantly reminded of the boy he’s been replaced with plus his father’s favourite son and Cyprian has to see the boy he’s been working so hard to fill in for, plus the man who kidnapped his brother. Both of them resent the other. Yet, at the same time, they try and reach out to the other. James constantly calling Cyprian little brother and trying to strike up a conversation. Cyprian looking weird when James is called Anharion. Its clear that while they may not like each other, they recognize a part of themselves in the other. Cyprian sees himself in James because he recognizes that once, James also pushed himself to exhaustion after every training session. James sees himself in Cyprian because he was once his father’s pride and joy too.

So, this post can be summed up in a few words.

God fucking damn it Jannick.

[akaluan]

psssst. hey aka wanna talk about code vein meta and the life cycle of the BOR parasites -ser

The life cycle of the BOR parasites, huh? Those parasites, huh? The horrific, vampire-lite creating parasites that underpin Code Vein's EVERYTHING, huh?

SURE WHY NOT!

(Cut because Ser and I have legitimately done some "the ground is soft and I have a shovel" world building + a lot of these suppositions / worldbuilding is based off of story spoilers. So if you have no desire to read horrifying parasite / invasion worldbuilding based on Code Vein spoilers, skip this post, lol!)

Okay so, I'm going to start with some basic facts that Code Vein's story tells us:

1) we don't know where the BOR (Biological Organ Regenerative) parasites, the Horrors, or the Thorns of Judgment come from

2) the BOR parasites show up first, and are found because dead animals literally GET UP AND START ATTACKING EVERYTHING in search of blood

3) BOR parasite research initially starts as MEDICAL research, not to create Revenants for fighting

4) It isn't very long after BOR parasite research begins that the Horrors show up

5) all BOR parasites in the current Revenants are "artificial" (I'm actually suspecting that it's similar to using a weakened virus to train the immune system -- it's still a true BOR parasite, probably a cloned one, but it's been nerfed in order to generate Revenants that are in control of themselves)

There's a lot more than we get to see and that I'll be mentioning during this ramble, but these are some starting tidbits to build from.

So, first off.

BOR Parasites, which have never been found in ANY BIT OF PREVIOUS HUMAN HISTORY, are suddenly discovered. It's a medical miracle! Let's try to do some research on these things!

During the process of the research, gigantic beasts call Horrors suddenly appear and start wreaking havoc. Humans die too quickly to these things, so the BOR Parasite research is turned away from medical miracle to...

generating an army.

An army of pseudo-immortal soldiers. An army of pseudo-immortal soldiers that ALL REQUIRE BLOOD. And that, upon messing up and going into Frenzy, become Lost.

Revenants can be ashed (permanently killed) by stabbing the heart, where the BOR parasite resides. Becoming a Lost means that the BOR parasite takes over the entire body, not just the heart, and thus the BOR parasite itself becomes no longer vulnerable. Lost cannot be killed because upon taking near-fatal death, the parasite triggers dissolution and the body turns into motes that reform later in another place. (Revenants go through this same process when they take near-fatal damage that isn't damage to the heart. It's the BOR parasite's will to survive showing through.)

At some point, I'm hazy on the exactness of the timing, the Great Collapse happens and the Thorns of Judgment erupt from the earth and essentially rearrange the Earth's surface. The Thorns of Judgment are often a deep brown with glowing golden bits. I think there might be a few other colors, but those are the majority.

So in the process of all of this, more research is done and Project QUEEN is begun in order to find ways around some of the downsides of Revenants. Project QUEEN is carried out by feeding the subject Revenant the blood of (game says "all known animals" but I'm calling bullshit bc that's A LOT) many many animals, which ends up changing the Revenant and "evolving" (games stop using "evolution" when you mean "metamorphosis" challenge) the BOR parasite, at the cost of horrible pain to the subject and the feeling of harboring a growing monster.

Project QUEEN ends with the subject going into frenzy and becoming the Queen, who is ALMOST like a Lost, except... not as irrational / instinctive / driving to JUST EAT. The Queen is shown in several instances to fight intelligently, and seems to lead the Lost in some way. Drinking the Queen's blood (which is BLUE, btw! Every other Revenant is shown as having red blood, as are the Lost) is guaranteed to make a Revenant frenzy.

An INTERESTING note is that the Queen has access to... thorns. That look exactly like the Thorns of Judgment except WHITE AND SMALL

So now we get into "the ground is soft and I have a shovel and a will" area

We don't see many Horrors in this game -- we canonically see one in the main game, which is a gigantic canine/monkey-esque beast, and then three others in the DLC Depths maps -- but Mido (eugh, I hate taking this bastard's comments into consideration, BUT) makes a comment in the late game that Revenants and even the Queen are but stepping stones, and the Horrors are the next point in the "evolution" of humanity (STOP USING EVOLUTION WHEN YOU MEAN METAMORPHOSIS CHALLENGE)

Mido has also altered himself and.. essentially forced a metamorphosis of his own, making him look almost like a Lost except retaining his human rationality (not that he had much =| bastard) and ability to reason, etc. Or at least some level of it, since we can't be entirely sure how much his brain chemistry is being affected by the BOR Parasite and how much is just.. Mido is a fucking bastard like Kurotsuchi.

ANYWAY

Ser and I have shoved the puzzle pieces together in this order:

BOR Parasites and Horrors are from the same place, with the BOR Parasites leading the way.

BOR Parasites appear. Start to infect low level things, (animals etc) and begin to transform them into Lost. The Lost generate something called Miasma that affects other infected beings around them. Lost also become STRONGER via Miasma intake over time, which tends to... make them larger.

The growing population of Lost + Miasma serves as a beacon, drawing more BOR parasites to the planet. It's canonical that Lost blood (and also Revenant blood) affects inanimate objects -- it's called Ichor and it's used to make Blood Veils do their thing. The more Revenant / Lost blood that's spilled, the more "infected" the world becomes.

At some point, Ser and I believe that a BOR Parasite managed to essentially "infest" the planet itself. As a result, the Great Collapse happened, and the Thorns of Judgement appeared. I believe that the Thorns of Judgment act as a... a beacon of sorts. Where there were only a few Horrors here or there, there's now a veritable flood of Horrors, which accelerates humanity's desire to create revenants to fight. More revenants means more potential Lost. More potential Lost increases the miasma levels which makes more Revenants frenzy and become Lost, cycle continues.

Project QUEEN resulted in a "frenzied" but STILL RATIONAL entity that cannot be ashed, causes instant frenzy upon ingestion of its blood, and IS ABLE TO USE AN ABILITY THAT LOOKS LIKE THE THORNS OF JUDGMENT.

Proposition: Queen is not a Lost, Queen is A BABY HORROR.

Proposition: BOR Parasites are the larval form of Horrors.

So the life cycle, before humans intervene, looks like this:

BOR Parasites -> Lost -> Horrors -> [a "queen" is created] -> new planet is found -> Queen creates and releases new BOR Parasites on the new planet, cycle continues

When they come across humanity, the life cycle becomes a bit tangled, BUT:

BOR Parasites -> Revenant [a "queen" is generated in THIS stage and skips to Horror stage, but isn't truly mature the way it should be] -> Lost -> Horrors

I propose that the relics that are being handed around are Similar To But Not Quite Identical To the "eggs" that a true, mature queen entity would produce to make more BOR Parasites. Except in this case, I think that if they actually allowed the Relics to fully take over the bearers, you'd end up with more of the weird, "baby" queens that still need to mature before the cycle can truly continue.

So, in short, every Revenant is a Horror in potentia.

("In order to kill the monsters, we became the monsters")

Anyway, thank you for reading my long, rambling thesis on why Code Vein is a truly horrifying game no matter how you look at it or what ending you get.

=)

[starstuffandalotofcoffee]

Tumblr took that one piece of information about goblins being antisemitic caricatures in some specific historical context and has just been running with it for like 5 years now and indiscriminately applying it to any gross or creepy character. Preschool level literary and artistic analysis mixed with a desperate need to look woke i guess but still 🙄

Yeah...it goes so far beyond that though, and it’s not just limited to fantasy although as someone who consumes mostly fantasy/sci fi and whose Tumblr fandom presence is mainly in those circles that’s a big part of what I see. It’s like people unconsciously picked up on the concept that Jewish people are the ethnic group most targeted for hate crimes in the U.S., but are also are a small group with sufficient internal diversity such that experiences within the group can vary wildly so you often won’t get huge amounts of pushback, and went culturally-Christian buckwild.

Like, just off the top of my head: my mother has been an LOTR fan since the 70s. My sister stayed up to listen to Evermore when it dropped despite having work the next morning. I’m one of four kids and three of us play Dungeons & Dragons regularly, and both of the D&D games I’m in regularly are at least half Jewish. None of these things are in any way inherently antisemitic, in my opinion, and many, many Jewish people like them.

Also I’ve seen like 20 times more discourse about goblins or Ferengi or making a character with green skin than about, say, Shakespeare and specifically The Merchant of Venice, or (with the caveat that I haven’t seen it), The Umbrella Academy. [note: I enjoy a lot of Shakespeare, who was antisemitic in a time when Jews were literally banned from Britain; I refuse to watch the Umbrella Academy because come the fuck on]. It’s almost like the things these people cancel are things they already didn’t like, or things people they don’t like enjoy, and ‘problematic’ ironically becomes a way to justify being a really hateful person while simultaneously making it much harder to address real-world bigotry because of alert fatigue. (see also the recent ‘crypto-terf’ blocklist for an example of that whole fucked up way of being). (also with the major caveat that the complex relationship between Jews and whiteness aside I am personally someone who looks white, a lot of the white people wringing their hands over goblins ignore or even defend biological essentialism regarding a tendency towards violence, or noble savage stereotypes in sci fi and fantasy which is...interesting.)

Some of it is preschool level literary analysis and Woke Points, sure, but I think a lot of people are just too chickenshit to address that antisemitism in history didn’t look like veiled references to goblins. It looked like their own white European ancestors kicking mine out of various countries and launching violent genocidal attacks. Sure, modern-day antisemitism sometimes takes the form of dogwhistles, but also like, the synagogue I went to when I lived in the midwest was vandalized with swastikas on the eve of Rosh Hashana, as was my local train and park when I lived in NYC, and the kol nidre appeal I heard in 2019 referenced that the cost of a security guard, after Tree of Life, is a significant expense. A lot of white Christians have the luxury of looking away from the obvious stuff, and boy, do they luxuriate in it.

My slightly wild theory, and believe me, I’m very aware of the irony in this, also goes back to my general belief that a lot of people really want to seem smart and they think this involves uncovering conspiracies, or focusing on ‘insidious’ secret bigotry. Of course, this means that they outright ignore the stuff in front of their faces; it’s why people will talk about goblins and Ferengi but not actual antisemitism [sidebar: did you know the ‘The American people are not intellectual, to put it mildly’ line came from an interview in which someone claimed the Jewish people perpetuated a ‘counter-holocaust’ against Germany?], similar to how people will happily reblog posts about those White Bitch Karens and feel woke never caring that they were written by white men. When wokeness is a competition, you need to feel like you have extra insight when the uncomfortable fact is bigotry in all its forms is usually much more obvious and blatant and when you’re not the target and when the perpetuator is a creator you like, it takes some actual strength of character and effort not to look away, let alone to address it. It doesn’t take that strength of character and effort to regurgitate tired talking points in yet another flaccid call-out post.

[imaginedxlan]

Alpha Pt. 3 (Grayson Dolan)

a/n: I think its actually been two years since I wrote the first two parts of alpha but idc I’m actually in college now i feel like I have actual insight on how Mr. Alpha of ATO would act around y/n. 

After their date, or forced casual hangout according to y/n, Grayson doesn’t necessarily keep his end of the deal. 

y/r/n = your roommate’s name

warning(s): sexual allusions, cussing, drinking

(part one/part two)

_______________________________

When you return home from your, well you’re not actually sure what to call it, with Grayson, your roommate immediately sits up to see your face, looking for any indication of how your night went. She throws her chem textbook to the side and give you a look as to say well?

You close the door behind you before putting your face in your hands and taking a seat at your desk. You keep shaking your head, there is not a chance in hell you have feelings for this boy. The boy who preyed on a freshman at her very first college party. The boy who stalked you around all of your classes, got your phone number and somehow found out all about your life in the span of a week. You keep reminding yourself of the weird and uncomfortable things he’s done to distract you from the way he planned out an entire evening for the two of you, or that he actually helped you find your sister and her friends or how good he looked when the setting sun hit his tan skin in his topless Jeep only hours ago. Jesus, y/n, snap out of it. 

“Come on, spill!” Your roommate begs, she had to deal with your ranting about not wanting to go all afternoon, she deserves to at least know how it went. “What did you do? What was he like? How’d he dress? Oh my god did you hook up?”

“Ew, y/r/n, no!” You gasp at her last question. How could she expect you to hookup with someone you hate? “It was fine. We ate dinner in some park then he took me to that neon sign museum. Nothing fancy, he had a shirt on which was a first. He acted nice but I don’t buy it for a second.”

“Neither,” She replies, knowing the boy only from how you’ve described him. “He’s probably just trying to get in your pants so he can bug your sister about it.”

She’s right. You can’t fall into his trap, he has ulterior motive. They always do. You just have to go on and find some boy on your floor to kiss and get him out of your head for good. Every part of you wishes your sister hadn’t broken up with her boyfriend, he would’ve given Grayson a piece of his mind if he knew that he was bothering you. Unfortunately for you and her ex, y/s/n does not like to be tied down and she needed to “have her fun” for her last first semester. You and y/r/n talk for a little while longer, about classes and whatnot, but mostly end up talking about Grayson again. 

“We should go to bed.” You finally say, yawning and looking down at your phone screen that read 12:47 am. Your roommate huffs, obviously wanting to hear more about your night with the infamous Alpha Dog of ATO. “Recruitment starts tomorrow, we have to meet our groups at eight in the morning, remember?”

“I know, I know,” She replies, slipping out of her bed so she can gather her things to get ready for bed. You grab you toiletries bag as well and head toward the bathroom with her. “We’re talking about this tomorrow, don’t think I’ve let up.”

Recruitment happens over the span of four days, this weekend and next. It’s a dry rush period so no potential new members can be seen on frat property, giving you a good enough reason to avoid Grayson. Going into recruitment you’re already around ninety-two percent sure you’ll end up in Delta Gamma, just like your sister and your mom. The next few days of recruitment go well, you meet new friends from your rush group who help through the stressful process. Throughout the week you get sporadic texts from none other than Grayson Dolan wishing you luck with those days rounds, giving you unsolicited pointers of where to pref, and telling you that he saw you walking on greek row. You don’t respond to any, hoping he gives up on trying to woo you. So much for leaving you alone after one date. You pref Delta Gamma and Kappa Alpha Theta, but end up ranking DG first, not wanting to end your legacy but also because you felt you fit in most there. It was no surprise when you got a bid. Your sister is over the moon, shrieking over how her biological sister is now her deegster. You still have to get used to the lingo.

You come to find during bid day, which is Space Cowboy themed of course, that your new pledge class will be going out for bid-night with your bid day bigs. You don’t understand half of the things they’re saying to you, the language of sorority girls still lost on you. You’re added to a GroupMe with the new pledges of Alpha Tau Omega, just when you thought you could escape that fraternity as a whole, your bid night is with them. You almost immediately get a text from Grayson.

following in sissy’s steps? see you tonight miss delta gamma, anchor down ;)

What is it with him and these nicknames? You show your sister and she fake gags, saying she can’t believe he’s still texting you after all this time. She still has no idea about last weekend, you intend to keep it that way. When you get back to your dorm, you and your roommate talk all about bid day, she ended up going Kappa. Her bid night was with Phi Gamma Delta, or Fiji. If only you could have been so lucky. She can’t help but snort at the fact that you’re going to ATO tonight, she says it’s the universal pulling you and Dolan together. 

Your sister won’t being coming out with you tonight, having a lab tomorrow morning that she simply cannot miss. You’re partly grateful for it, now Grayson can’t let it slip to her that you two went out together. You end up getting ready in the room of a girl of your floor who you met today at bid day, wanting to base your outfit on someone else’s to blend in as much as possible. With the massive group of girls coming into his house, surely he won’t be able to find you. You meet up with your bid day big along with the girl on your floor’s and you all walk toward the ATO house together. You’re nervous, extremely nervous, but you don’t show it. As you near the house, you’re met with the mix of conflicting basses coming from any frat basement on the block. There are a few girls waiting outside the familiar house, and thats when you see it.

Grayson Dolan at the door, personally greeting every single one of your new sisters, his eyes scanning over every single one of the freshman walking into the door, earning him plenty of groans from the older girls. You don’t mean to say anything out loud, but you let an oh god slip. Your bid day big turns to you with a confused look.

“My sisters warned me about him,” You tell her, which is half of the truth. “Real scumbag I’ve heard.”

She just laughs, not even needing to agree with you for you to know she feels the same way about him. The closer you get to the front door, the more your stomach aches. If only you could be in your dorm watching Barbie Mermaidia with your roommate like last night. You try your best to hide within the group you came with, but it’s no use, he has his single file, one over strategy down to a science. 

“Hello you.” He greets you with a shit-eating grin. You hope the girls with you don’t catch him singling you out. “I’ll see you inside.”

“Fuck off Dolan,” Your bid day big calls over to him. “She’s not one of your play things.”

She pulls you inside before Grayson can say anything else. Luckily he doesn’t follow the two of you either. She gets you a drink and you socialize with the girls and some of the guys. You’re more focused on making girl friends tonight, as much as you’ve loathed your time at ATO, finding a group of girls to wander around greek row on a Saturday night is and essential part to your freshman year plan. You don’t even realize how drunk you’re getting, you follow your sister’s order to never take a cup from a brother, only ever allowing something you or one of your sisters have mixed to travel down your throat. You recall the words of your sisters earlier in the night, ‘bid night means black out ladies.’ You certainly don’t want to black out, but getting a little tipsy won’t hurt anyone. Toward the middle of the night you’re all dancing, body to body in their packed and sweaty basement. You have to admit, you’re actually kind of having fun. When you feel a pair of hands dig into your hips you don’t even flinch, simply moving your hips along to whatever shitty remix is coming from the massive speakers. You swing yourself around to face the boy and wrap your arms around his neck while his stay on your hips. You don’t recognize him, but from what you can see under the dim colored lights he’s cute. Mostly everyone in ATO is. He gives you a grin, letting one of his hands travel closer toward your ass, you don’t mind it, at least it’s not Grayson.

Grayson. Where is that boy? He said he’d meet you inside and it’s been at least an hour and a half. You don’t know why your mind is suddenly wandering off to Grayson. How he must look right now, definitely shirtless with some stupid phrase painted across his chest. How the sweat from the sheer amount of bodies in the house is probably making his tan skin glisten under the LED lights. How his hands are probably wrapped around a red solo cup so perfectly. You don’t even realize you’re biting your lip until your lips are connected with the boy you’re dancing with. You don’t hesitate to kiss him back, suddenly feeling all hot and bothered after picturing Grayson, wherever he is in this house. Snap out of it. Finding Grayson even remotely attractive would go against everything you stand for, your sister would probably smack your head to make sure there is still a brain in there. 

You keep drinking, everything practically going down like water at this point. Your speech is slurring and the room spins around you. You leave the boy you’re dancing with for another drink, finding the stairs to the main floor and gripping onto the handle for dear life. You stumble towards where some boy is pouring a mystery liquid into a cup and stop in front of it. Your new drink is swiftly taken from you and placed back on the table and you’re pulled from the crowd of people.

“How much have you had to drink.” It’s Grayson. He looks so good, you think. He’s shouting over the music for you to answer him. “I’m serious y/n, I need a number.”

You try and do the mental math but the only clear thought in your brain at the moment is how good he looks with his shirt off. You start to count on your fingers but lose track at five so you just shrug. He rolls his eyes, knowing that if anything were to happen to you your sister would beat his ass like it was somehow his fault.

“Why do you care, dad.” You mock him as he tries to think about what he should do with you. “I have to drink this much, I’m in a sos-sorotity you know?”

He can’t help but laugh at the way you’re butchering the words coming out of your mouth, the slurring evident on your tongue. “Okay, miss sorotity, follow me.” He grasps your hand, interlocking your fingers and begins to pull you up another flight of stairs that you’ve never been up. This house is massive. He pulls you into a room and locks the door behind him. Even with the room spinning you can make out a few features. A bed with a white comforter that lies low to the ground, a big frame holding what looks like a yearbook page of girls, and a lava lamp. 

“Is this your room?” You ask, leaning up against the wall for some stability. He just nods, fiddling with something in his drawers. “I’m not having, s-sex with you Grayson. You can’t make me.”

“I don’t want to have sex with you, sweetheart.” He mumbles back, pulling an article of clothing out of the open drawer. Once you process what he says all you can think is ouch. He’s fucked practically every girl on at this school, are you so repulsive you’re excluded from the campus wide Grayson Dolan body count? “Oh don’t be sad, I meant I’m not having sex with you tonight, y/n. Contrary to your hilarious nickname you came up with for me the first night we met, I don’t fuck drunk girls.”

You realize you may have said ouch out loud, have you been doing that all night? He’s only telling you this because he’s almost one hundred percent certain you’ll remember none of this in the morning. Between the jungle juice and natty seltzers, the only thoughts in your brain tomorrow will be getting to a toilet bowl immediately. He pulls out a shirt and a pair of boxers and tosses them your way. You don’t catch them, just start stripping your shirt off.

“Jesus, y/n, if I didn’t know any better I’d say you were giving me a little strip tease.” He jokes with you, turning his head away from you, letting you keep at least part of your dignity. “Tell me when you’re done.”

“I can’t put them on, Grayson.” You whine, your drunken brain unable to comprehend how to put on a t shirt. You pick it up off the ground and hold it out for him to grab. “Help me.”

He huffs out and takes the shirt from your hands, he should at least be getting paid for babysitting you like he is. He pulls his shirt over your head and forces your arms through their respective holes. As he’s about to walk away from you again, you put and point at your shoes and jeans. He rolls his eyes and pulls both your shoes and socks of both feet before carefully undoing your zipper and shimmying the fabric off your sweaty legs, then pulling the pair of boxers over your hips. He’s usually taking underwear off girls, not putting a second pair on. His breathe hitches at the oddly intimate moment he’s sharing with you, you won’t remember any of it but he doesn’t usually do this. You suddenly feel very tired, almost collapsing on top of Grayson before he steadies your hips. He pulls back his comforter for you to slide under. You sink into his mattress and smile at your need for a bed being fulfilled. The lights shut off and you hear him unlock and open the door.

“Wait!” You call after him, making him stop in his tracks. “Can you stay?”

“You’re one needy chick when you’re drunk, huh?” He asks, walking back into the room and locking the door behind him again. “You’re lucky you’re pretty, you know that?”

You just give him a cheesy smile, not sure if he can even see you in the dark room, but you don’t care. You hear his shoes hit the ground and the bed dips next to you. You can still hear the music coming from the basement, it’s muffled but you can still make out every word. You roll over to face Grayson and he’s already looking at you.

“What’re you looking at?”

“You.”

A goofy grin graces your lips when he says it. If you were sober you’d probably protest, whack his arm or something, but now you don’t care. You let your index finger drag along his bicep, up over his shoulder and neck, around his face and then boop his nose. You can feel his face shift when he smiles. 

“You have a pretty smile,” The words leave your lips before you can even think if it’s an okay thing to say. He lets out a short laugh, finding your drunk self’s inability to filter your thoughts amusing. “You’re handsome, Grayson.”

“You’re drunk, y/n.” He teases you. “You need to stop talking before you say something you regret.”

You whine, faking a pout on your lips. “I think it when I’m not drunk too.”

He can’t contain his smile, pushing a piece of hair that has fallen into your face. “We’ll talk in the morning. Goodnight, y/n.”

You wake up with a pounding headache and no recollection of last night past kissing some boy in the basement of ATO. You rub your eyes, shielding them from the light coming in the large window. Large window? This isn’t your dorm, you’re not in your bed and that is certainly not your roommate passed out next to you.

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck.” You whisper repeatedly as you try your best to slip out of the bed you’re currently in. Your shirt and jeans and shoes are strewn across the floor and your in someone else’s shirt and pants. Underwear is still on, two pairs now which is comforting. In your attempt to sneak out of whoever’s room this is you ram your knee into the dresser beside the door. “Goddamnit!”

Before you can continue gathering your things, the figure that you were just sleeping next to takes in a deep breath and let’s out a loud groan, stretching out his arms. “Y/n?”

You know that voice from anywhere, you’re so fucked. “Grayson?”

He sits up and runs his hands through his hair. The contrast of his tan skins against the white comforter is breathtaking. His hair is going in all different directions but he still looks good, how does he always looks good? His silver chain hangs loose around his neck and falls just belong his collar bone. You genuinely believe, at least physically, he is without flaws.

“Surprised?”

“Obviously I am!” You shout back, hurting your own head in the process. “Oh god, oh fuck, did we?”

“God, no, y/n.” He stops your spiralling. You let out a breath of relief that you didn’t even know you were holding. “You think I would have sex with you if I had any doubt that you would remember it in the morning? No, you were hammered and about to keep drinking and I saw where the situation was going so I room you out of it. End of story.”

“So I changed myself?”

“You were meant to, but you started whining like a three year old that you didn’t know how to put a shirt one.” He replies. You’re not really sure how to feel about it, but it’s better than the alternative. “I put your clothes on and put you to bed.”

You let out a sigh, plopping yourself back onto the bed now that you know who it belongs to. You wish you could remember last night, knowing you probably did and said some things in your drunken state that you’re sure you’ll regret if you ever hear of them. Grayson just looks at you, wondering what’s going on in your mind and thinking about what you said to him last night. How you complimented his smile and called him handsome. He couldn’t get it out of his mind. When you turn your body to face him, he scans your features. Hair a mess from both the dingy basement and the hours of sleep you just got, your mascara has collected under your eyes but you still look pretty.

“Stop looking at me like that.” You pull him from his thoughts of you, he didn’t even realize he was staring. He shakes his head and puts on his signature smirk to prevent you from thinking anything other than that he’s an asshole who’s mind is on girls 24/7. He has a reputation to keep and all.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re about to kiss me or something.”

“You’d like that wouldn’t you.”

“Oh fuck off, Dolan.” You scoff at him before he makes the decision to bring himself just inches from your face. So close that you can feel the warmth from his body. Your first instinct is to touch him somewhere, anywhere, but you don’t act on it. “What are you doing?”

“Just getting a better look,” He replies making your eyes roll. Anytime you think you’re letting yourself fall for him he says something gross. “Do you want me to be doing something?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about, y/n.”

It’s silent. There’s nothing to say. Your chest is moving up and down at a rapid pace, you’re not sure why you can’t seem to catch your breath but you can’t. His eyes flicker between your and and your lips. Before you can stop yourself you reach your hand to sit on his cheek and inch your body closer to his. The closer you get the more you can feel his hot breathe on your lips and without a second thought you bring your lips to meet his. Your brain is fuzzy and your body feels like it’s on fire but it feels right.

It doesn’t take long for Grayson to kiss you back, he’s actually shocked you gave in given the way you ignored him for weeks. He rolls over so that he can steady himself with him one arm beside you and the other gripping your waist. You can still barely breathe and he notices. He pulls away from you and give you the biggest shit eating grin. “Can believe you gave in.”

“Shut up before I change my mind.”

[werevulvi]

I kinda just wanted to make a rant, to lay out why I feel so iffy about trans women and hopefully get a better understanding of my own feelings and what the fuck is brewing under that surface. There has to be a reason. This post is analytical drivel, not a debate, but by all means, feel free to respond or otherwise talk to me about this. Let's take it from the beginning and then go from there.

Part 1 Detransition:

So, I began detransitioning roughly 2 years ago. That's where my feelings about the trans community as a whole began to shift, and with that my feelings about trans women. At that time, I was still active in a truscum group and came out as detrans there, after having been known and looked up to as a trans man there for over a year. At first I was accepted, but when I started having doubts about wanting to get rid of my beard, and felt like I wanted to embrace my body hair and deep voice... people there started acting like shit towards me. They told me that my biological sex still being female did not matter, that I was essentially a man and had to detrans medically to be considered a woman again. That hurt badly.

Shortly after that, I was also told that because I was medically transitioned, trans women were "more female" than me. That was like the last drop that made the goblet pour over. Fuming, I started saying that I'm more of a woman than trans women can ever be, even if I keep a full beard, because they'll never be truly biologically female, no matter how much surgery they got. I was hurting by their cruel words, so I stuck it where it would hurt them the same. (I’ve always an “eye for an eye” sorta person.) That's when people started telling me that I hate trans women, but I felt like that was a misunderstanding. That I was just acting out, out of sadness, grief, anger, panic, and having my gender denied for the sake of validating trans women's genders.

But were they right?

Part 2 Gender critical thought:

Over time, I got exceedingly gender critical and fell into radblr. I also read/watched content that "exposed" transgenderism as a scam, most of which was articles and youtube videos from conservative right wing people, and Christians. I had joined an fb group for detransitioners, and the creator, a "born again" Christian detrans man, happily shared all the many sources he had on how transgender was all a scam from the start of its movement. I felt somewhat sick consuming those links, but probably equally intrigued. But at the same time, I kept a foot in the trans community, starving for attention, even though I was never good enough for them anymore, unless I lied and said I'm not a woman. What a sick twist of fate, I felt.

Part 3a Sexuality, from a lesbian view:

Sometime around that, I struggled with my sexuality and after a lot on inner search, I came to the conclusion I was a lesbian. I felt as though I was only attracted to the same sex as myself, including trans men, but felt nothing worth praising towards males, including trans women. That led to yet another rabbit hole that I tumbled down into. I became convinced that majority of trans women were lesbophobic predators, and I had some shit luck on dating apps. Most people who approached me there were gnc males; transvestites and trans women. I almost went on a date with a good-looking trans woman whom I had mistaken for female, because I felt guilty for having lost attraction to her the moment she told me she's trans and post-op. Luckily she canceled our date for unrelated reasons. I felt like because she was attractive to me before I knew she's trans, but felt completely uninterested in her after the fact, I couldn't possibly be attracted to trans women.

Part 3b Sexuality, from a bisexual view:

That, of course, is not necessarily a bad thing. But I kept asking myself why. Especially since I realised my error in my sexuality calculations, and upon correction discovered I'm actually bisexual after all. I still find women and transitioned females attractive, and in addition to that also men in general, and some vaguely transitioned males. Except from trans women. That odd little inconvenience stood out as a sore thumb which I couldn't stop scratching. Why? I kept asking myself. Why not trans women?

My question dug deeper than just to attraction. I don't think I feel iffy about trans women because I'm not attracted to them. I think it's the other way around.

I never had to convince myself to be attracted to trans men. I discovered early on in my own transition that some other trans men were really hot. That was it. I later on dated a trans man whom I was head over heals in love with. That confirmed it. I've been questioning my attraction to standard men and women far more than I ever questioned my attraction to trans men. It was that obvious, that clear. However, when it comes to trans women I was always the complete opposite. That no matter how I twisted and turned it, I only ever felt revulsion at the thought of being sexual or romantic with a trans woman. No matter how well or badly they passed, no matter how aesthetically pleasing or how charming their personalities.

I wanna clarify that I'm not at all forcing myself to be into trans women. I'm just trying to understand why, so that I'll no longer feel bad about my lack of attraction to them. Because I cannot accept things which I do not understand.

Part 3c Sexuality, digging for answers:

At first I thought, maybe I'm just not all that attracted to femininity. It's not like I typically get super into hyper-feminine natal women either, and fake tits and faces with a ton of plastic surgery has always made me queezy. No, I seem to have a strong preference for masculinity in partners, regardless if they're butches, other masc bi women, trans men or kinda standard masc natal men. So then it just kinda makes sense that trans women, whom are often hyper-feminine, just don't fit that image. Except... that one trans woman I almost went on a date with... she looked like a butch. I mistook her for a natal woman partly because she had short hair, no makeup and wore what looked like men's clothing, but I could see she had hips and tits, and her face looked naturally female. But I still wasn't into her, because she's trans.

Then I thought... okay, that one checks out, but maybe I'm just creeped out neo-vaginas? Yeah, that must be it! I'm almost equally creeped out by neo-penises too, but most trans men don't get bottom surgery anyway, so it hasn't been much on my mind. But then I thought: okay, but what about trans women who choose to not get bottom surgery then? I am attracted to dick. Nope, still uneasy at that thought. I started comparing men who are just very feminine, to trans women, and noticed yeah I don't actually feel half as iffy about men who are just feminine. A man in a dress and makeup can actually be very hot, to me. And I've always preferred long hair on men. But I prefer them still looking clearly male underneath that, although I don't mind a few androgynous features here and there. But I’m only into it if they don’t act like their affinity for femininity makes them women or non-binary, or if they’re feminine in a way that mocks or sexualises womanhood. So I’m not into tacky transvestites in over-sexualised lingerie. At least try to be tactful and elegant, please. So, it’s not male femininity per se that puts me off. If there’s any femininity I’m actually into, it’s male femininity. Because gender non-conformity is attractive to me. And I love the idea of being a strong female protector and girlboss of a gentle, delicate, feminine man. At least I like fantasising about that. (But enough about my daydreams.)

Part 4a Womanhood, biology and identity:

Somewhere after having gotten that far in my digging, I started getting close to finding my sore spot: trans women's view on womanhood.

As for myself, my own view of womanhood is completely detached from femininity. I'm just like... I can even have a full beard and bass voice, a flat and hairy chest, and still be a woman. Because I'm simply bio female. Trans women tend to very often think that they need to "pass" and with that comes a certain look: high voice, no facial hair, no body hair, big breasts, curvy hips, etc. All of which are features that I'm dysphoric about having on my own body, but admire in other natal women. But on trans women, it's like I feel uncomfortable about those kinda features on them. Like to me being a woman is just dealing with having developed that way, or not dealing with having developed that way. Where as for them it seems to be actually striving for developing that way, and I guess that causes my brain to short circuit. Cannot comprehend.

Part 4b Womanhood, fragility and validation:

My womanhood is kinda fragile. I admit that. I'm quite insecure as a woman, because of my transition and masculinity. I feel like most of my womanhood has been lost, which although I'm fine with, I still grieve. I grieve it because I was a bit of an idiot when I first transitioned and had not yet processed my trauma - not because I regret looking like a man. It's complicated, but basically... I feel as though my womanhood is hanging by a thread, which is my genitals, reproductive system and chromosomes; all of which are either mostly hidden or always invisible.

I'm often met with disbelief and disagreement. People either saying "You're not a woman because you can't possibly be female. You look too male." or "You're not a woman because you medically transitioned. You having a uterus is not enough to make you a woman." and it gets to me. And then there are trans women... some of whom do not even need to put on a wig to be instantly validated as women by just identifying as such. Others thinking that because I look like a man, they refuse to think of me as a woman. And that... pisses me off.

There have been a few trans women who in some utterly failed attempt at being supportive of me have said I'm like a nonbinary person who is half male and half female. That's not a lot better, but thanks for trying... I guess.

Part 4c Womanhood, dysphoria and misogyny:

I think that might be what gets to me about trans women. All of it. This entire list of things. That some of them are lesbophobic predators and have absurd claims of what being female is, that others mock womanhood, and yet others view themselves as somehow more female than I am. The genital factor and the slight creepiness of plastic surgery. Their view of womanhood as an identity and my view of it as a biological sex. I keep ending up in fights with trans women about these sorta things. I can't keep a lid on my frustrations no matter how hard I try to just see them as people with dysphoria and opinions that are different from mine. I cannot find any fucking solidarity between myself, as a dysphoric natal woman, and trans women. I feel like they're making mockery of my sex, my dysphoria and my struggles with misogyny, as well as making me feel like shit about something that I love about my body: my transition. I have no common grounds with them, and whenever they try to find solidarity in stuff like misogyny, I feel like they don't even know what the fuck they're talking about. I have a huge bone to pick with them, on multiple levels, and I don't even know where to start or where it ends.

Part 4d Womanhood, jealousy:

But a lot of it comes from jealousy. And I think it's mutual. I'm jealous of their ability to access female only spaces despite being male, which I cannot access despite being female. I'm jealous of their ability to be accepted as women. And on the other side, I think they're jealous of my reproductive ability, and my female socialisation, which I'm not like super hyped about myself, although I do love my pussy (she gives me great orgasms.) I'm jealous of their ability to claim womanhood without even trying to pass as female, because people are quicker to accept the woman-gender-identity than the woman-bio-sex. But likewise, ironically, I sense that they're jealous of that I can claim the "woman lane" despite looking convincingly male, because I'll always be biologically female, no matter how insible my sex is.

They cannot see me as a woman, because of my transition, without looking at themselves as men, no matter how far they transition. And I cannot see them as women, no matter how far they transition, without labeling myself as a man, because of my own transition. I think that about nails it.

Part 5 Conclusions:

I don't think it's true hatred, but rather insecurities both from myself and from them. Because we cannot both exist as women under the same ideology. One of us has to be considered a man, and neither of us is willing to fold on that. Ultimately... I am a threat to their womanhood, as much as they are a threat to my womanhood. And that tension is so thick... not even a knife could cut it. I guess the sad thing is though, that I think that tension is unnecessary. I am so unlike trans women that we could potentially bond based on how different we are. Because there is a lot of similarity in those differences, if you really think about it.

But no, I do not wish them harm in any way. Despite the vast array of insults I sometimes hurl their way. That is really just in response to them insulting me. I do not think they're doing anything wrong by transitioning, or even necessarily by identifying as women. I think, if they had just been more like "I can see you as a woman despite having transitioned, because deep down you like being female and having a pussy... kinda like I'm a woman because I wanna have a pussy, despite having been born male" I would have been much quicker to embrace them. Because that, I could get behind; but they can't.

So, there is no solidarity. It remains an endless fight. But I feel like it's not just on my part. I have tried. I do try. But they're not willing to meet me halfway, and that makes me go to attack in self-defense, which makes then go to attack in self-defense.

[whitehotharlots]

So we’re just gonna straight up embrace conservatism?

A few months ago I came across the story of a group of young trans activists who wrecked up the opening of a feminist library in British Columbia. To avoid accusations of taking sides or whatever, here’s what the feminists had to say about it, and here’s what the trans activist kids had to say about it. (Direct link: https://www.facebook.com/notes/gag-gays-against-gentrification/response-to-vancouver-womens-library/379623995740078 )

Both sides agreed that the activists physically disrupted the opening of what was purported to be a feminist space, caused several hundred dollars worth of property damage, threatened physical violence against the library’s proprietors, and demanded that a dozen or so books be removed from the shelves.

I decided not to write about this. Firstly, because engaging with trans discourse in any way other than nodding politely guarantees you will be accused of Literal Murder, and I just don’t want to mess with that. More importantly, I felt I couldn’t say anything that wouldn’t amount to a simple, maybe even pedantic observation: namely, it’s kinda weird how we’ve begun to fear subjectively perceived, metaphorical “violence” so intensely that we’re willing to accept literal, physical violence as a response to it. It’s easy to make fun of people who say that using gendered pronouns is a direct cause of murder or whatever, but these people aren’t just obscure cranks anymore--they control the discourse; we’re living in the world they’ve built. 

Here’s a sample of what I tried to write:

Here, in the interest of objectivity, it’s traditional for a writer to point out the tremendous amount of danger faced by those trans people who committed violent acts against the cis feminists and have demanded that the cis feminists radically alter their own space. A writer should re-cite the oft-cited statistic that over twenty trans people were murdered in 2015--and that, no doubt, at least half of them were beaten to death with a copy of Andrea Dworkin’s Pornography. And I don’t mean to be facetious: should a trans activist suggest that these books were being wielded as literal, physical weapons, there might at least be a smidgen of logic behind their demands. But such a connection, however tenuous, is never proffered. We are left instead with a vague implication by association: the trans activists understandably don’t like trans people being murdered and they also don’t like books they assume question the essentialist foundation of their self-understanding, therefore a responsible author will make sure to establish a sense that the former is indeed caused by the latter. Or, if it’s not a case of actual causation--since obviously it’s not and no one would ever be so daft as to suggest that it is--at the very least we should respect the trans activists’ sensitivities toward literature they find upsetting, seeing as they’re acting out of a sense of extreme fear that they at least believe to be justified. Criticizing them at lashing out would be like getting mad a cornered raccoon for showing its teeth.

Just… can you believe this? Honestly? Here, very real violence and property damage is excused simply by putting in the context of the emotional state of those who committed it. Can you imagine any parallel situation taking place in contemporary America? A black man would have a much more solid case in going down to his local police station and wrecking up the place. Police violence against black people is an actual, direct, and literal thing--no flimsy metaphors are required to explain it. If such a thing were to happen, however, the black guy would be killed or imprisoned and his actions would be condemned in all but the most radical of spaces (try to find a mainstream publication that supported Chris Dorner. You can’t). Or more on point: let’s say a group of radical zionists entered a store the specializes in classical music, so at to disrupt a talk about Wagner. They post threats on social media. They wreck merchandise. They tear down posters, shove some elderly classical enthusiasts, cause several hundred dollars worth of damage, and leave a manifesto demanding that certain naughty works be banned. Again: they’d most likely be arrested. They would find no defense within the mainstream press. Their sense of victimhood would certainly not be used as justification for their actions, and no serious person would yield to their demands that certain works of music be banned from stores.

So… yeah. I was having trouble not sounding dismissive. But since then other shit has gone down, and it’s dawned on me that this tendency to prize the metaphorical over the literal isn’t new. It’s very old. It is, simply put, the general grounding of the American conservative worldview. It just happens to be coming from woke people now. 

For an example, take a look at a piece about trans activists vandalizing a rape crisis center with death threats. The vandalism was, of course, denounced on all sides. But check out the phrasing here: 

Trans people face employment and housing barriers, Jenkins said, and the graffiti could be a product of a trans person’s pent up frustration. Vancouver Rape Relief, she said, is a visible organization at which to point a finger.

“A lot of the actions of Vancouver Rape Relief through exclusion of trans women I think are symbolic of society’s disdain for trans people generally,” she said.

“So I can understand that for someone who is having a really hard time generally, this is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the world that is treating me terribly — which is no excuse, but I can see how someone could get to that point.”

Just… fucking seriously? Again, can you imagine this kind of even handedness being afforded to any other marginalized group? The only time you see violence regarded in such an apologetic or celebratory manner is when cops and soldiers do it. 

But, oh, it gets even weirder and stupider:

More graffiti adorns the sidewalks of Commercial Dr., further east from the Vancouver Rape Relief location. In support of trans people, the message “Trans women are women” appeared on sidewalks near Grandview Park earlier this summer.

Another message reads “Lesbians unite,” coupled with a double Venus symbol. Claire Ens, president of the Vancouver Dyke March and Festival Society, said the two Venus symbols are a coded threat to trans people.

“The two Venus symbols, that may seem innocent and to some even a call for lesbian rights and women-power, but in fact it is the opposite,” she said.

Two Venus symbols, side-by-side, is a larger symbol for “biological essentialism,” she said, a belief that peoples’ identities are determined by their genitals or chromosomes, which is inherently discriminatory to trans people who may have genitals that don’t match outdated ideas of what it means to be a man or a woman.

“The Venus symbols are meant as a warning sign to trans women, to state that trans women are not included nor welcomed, and is a perfect example of ... ‘dog whistling’ (because it is) innocent to those who aren’t in the know about it (but) harmful and hateful specifically to trans women,” she said.

Oh... oh dear. 

I’m reminded of the time when I was in 8th grade and my best friend did some weird art project where he put an arrow through a George Jetson doll he won at the carnival and painted the wound with a red marker. His mom found the doll. She spoke with her evangelical busybody cunt friends at work, who informed her that the “ritualistic sacrifice” of stuffed animals was a surefire sign that the boy had been brainwashed by Satanists. She then had him involuntarily committed. A state official determined him to to be depressed but not under any demonic influence, and so he was released under the condition that he start going to cut-rate therapy, where yet another evangelical busybody cunt informed him that the doll was, in fact, a sign that at least one satan lived within him (possibly several) and advised his mother to throw out all of his cds and videogames and keep him under constant watch. Oddly, this did not help with my friends’ depression. Made it a lot worse, in fact. Kicked off about a decade of severe substance abuse. But that’s neither here nor there--the point is, he did something objectively harmless that a bunch of hateful conservatives found offensive, and demonizing and bullying him was a small price to pay to get him to stop doing said harmless-but-offensive things. He might not have meant the plush art project to be a sign of aggression. A dispassionate observer would most likely not regard it as such. But the subjective, spiritual harm suffered by his mother engendered a violent reaction, and the cruelly conservative social structures of our community prized her perceived victimhood over any actual harms, and so they therefore encouraged her to damage the boy so as to make herself feel more safe. Nobody wins. Everyone was worse off. But the woman got some momentary catharsis, and that’s what was important.

Uhh… shit. I was gonna try to connect this to something else, but I think maybe I made my point. If you don’t agree with me yet, you’re never going to. But just remember, pedantic as this argument may be, there’s a reason censorship has historically resided in the conservative purview. There’s also a reason why it used to be considered virtuous, in liberal spaces, to not regard your own tastes and pet peeves as moral issues that warranted vicious remediation. Conservatives are conservatives, regardless of their color of their skin, the people they like to fuck, or whether or not they regard themselves to embody the gender they were asigned at birth. Cruelty is likewise always cruel. A cunt is a cunt. And there’s nothing to be gained by denying these basic truths.

[eldunea]

god ok i haven’t even started anakin’s blog yet but i already have his entire pokéverse thought out here i go

ORIGINS.

anakin was born in my fakémon region of preuzien to an enslaved old prussian (prūsai) family. in real life the old prussians were exterminated but in the pokémon world they were made the slaves of the junker ruling class. when the allies came into germany after wwii they tried to put a stop to this but unfortunately were not entirely successful.

as in canon, he has no biological human father, he’s like……the universe’s kid or something, it’s where he gets his insane powers from. in this verse he is also definitely a chosen one, but don’t take that to mean he isn’t a douche because he still totally is

like in canon he was a racer, but he didn’t race pods he raced dragons. his master knew he could make big bucks off him from an early age due to his abilities so according to prussian custom he was put on a dragon before he could learn to walk and learned how to ride that way. 

he speaks three languages: german, prūsiskai (the old prussian language) and english. his inability to speak japanese has been a weakness of his that he wants to improve on, and so he is studying that as well.

his first pokémon was a racing noivern that he named majjis, which is old prussian for “corn.” she loves her name and he didn’t even change it after he went vader, it was real fucking obvious which one of “team sith” would go back to the light side when all the other admins named their pokémon stuff like “void devourer” and “bone crusher” and here was darth vader with his ace named fucking. corn. he is currently 36 and starting from like age 10 he never lost a single race while riding corn until he was finally defeated by his son luke.

also like in canon, he won his freedom in a race but was unable to free his mother. much like lotor at the age of 12, anakin had the sense to get the fuck out of preuzien, but unlike lotor, nothing pressing dragged him back. he went to make a name for himself as a trainer and racer around the world, and also became the world’s strongest psychic.

he did go back to prussia briefly to rescue his mom. by that point shmi had been brutally beaten for refusing to give sexual favors to her master, and died in anakin’s arms. enraged, he slaughtered the entire family that had enslaved him.

DESCENT AND REDEMPTION.

as in canon, he was tormented by prophetic dreams of his lover padmé amidala dying and was corrupted by sheev palpatine to join the sith order (colloquially referred to as “team sith”), a criminal organization in orre that stole some of team snagem’s shadow-turning techniques and aimed to do it on a grander scale. palpatine’s goal was to build something known as the shadow star, a weapon so powerful that when aimed at a planet, it could turn all beings shadow, even arceus. the sith order would then use shadow control techniques to rule the world. but one thing that palpatine was also obsessed with was the search for immortality, which is how he baited anakin into joining him--by promising he could save the one he loved.

when anakin became darth vader, he allowed palpatine to turn him into a SHADOW HUMAN, just like all the other team sith admins. this means that much like a shadow pokémon, the door to his heart was sealed and much of his original personality was subsumed into just. this roiling inner turmoil of anger and violence. formally, nobody knew that star trainer and dragon racer anakin skywalker was actually underground crime lord darth vader, but they could all tell that something was really, really wrong because he started becoming colder and more withdrawn to his fans that he had formerly loved. 

nobody guessed that he had become a shadow, however, because they all attributed his change in personality to the cybernetic enhancements he had been given. by this point he had lost half his head and three of his limbs in battle, and so they were replaced with prosthetics and his artificial brain was enhanced with programming for metagross supercomputers. metagross are known for being assholes who think more like machines than living beings, so it was easy for his adoring fans to believe that anakin’s change of personality was no fault of his own.

he was purified by his children, luke and leia. they were battling rivals who later discovered that they were twins and figured out who their father was. meeting them, he felt human again for the first time when he was around them…then they told him they wanted to defeat the evil darth vader and darth sidious and restore balance to orre, and he was just. well this is awkward.

his first instinct was to just kill his children but something held him back. so instead of killing them, he accompanied them on pointless missions that would ultimately lead them nowhere near close to defeating him and sidious--just to keep them distracted. little did he know, the more he fought alongside them and spent time with them, the more his heart gauge was emptied and the closer he became to purification.

much like a shadow pokémon, the more he was purified, the more his body and brain resisted it. finally the temptation to stay shadow became too strong, at which point he told his kids he was vader, locked them up, and turned them over to sidious to dispose of them. they managed to escape, however, after which there was a double battle of luke and leia vs. vader and sidious. the twins found themselves quickly overwhelmed, and sidious was about to kill them--when the sight of the two children about to die in front of them instantly emptied the remainder of anakin’s heart gauge. finally feeling real love again for the first time in years, anakin killed his master and saved his twins. luke and leia then took him to a purification chamber to be fully restored.

CURRENT STATUS.

anakin has returned to preuzien to become one of its strategic gym leaders. his gym’s theme is sky battles, which are fought only by pokémon that can stay airborne such as flying-types and those with the ability to levitate. though this may seem to be restrictive, anakin can still fight with a diverse mixture of pokémon.

he’s actually a league member in two regions: preuzien, aka german prussia, and prutenia, the newly-instated old prussian nation. essentially he’s a diplomat but in many ways he’s the wrong choice because……darth vader, have you fucking met him? however, lotor deliberately chose someone who was angry and undiplomatic to fulfill this role because he wanted to make it very clear to the german prussians that the rights and sovereignty of the prūsai are completely non-negotiable and there is a guy in the prutenian league who will happily beat the shit out of anyone who says otherwise.

he and lotor have a very strained relationship. on one hand anakin has healed a lot since he left the sith, and he is very concerned because he sees lotor going down the same path as he did. but on the other hand he still has a long way to go yet acts like he’s 100% redeemed when he lectures lotor, and lotor sees right through this…then when lotor calls anakin out on the fact he still has issues, anakin gets all pissy. also, anakin correctly suspects that lotor is using him as an ally for his “chosen one” status, inviting him to the league and giving him a second chance in spite of him being vader because he wants to get on the legendaries’ good side by treating their chosen one well. basically them being colleagues is an Angry Bastard Disaster that they need a lot of sorting through if they are ever going to be on truly good terms.

one time anakin straight up “force choked” lotor using his psychic powers in a fit of rage. lotor taunted him by choking out the words “vader…you haven’t changed.” this could easily have led to lotor’s death, as anakin was highly emotionally charged, but instead of snapping his neck psychically at that moment he dropped him to the floor and left the room. a sign of hope in their relationship perhaps?

honestly he’s? still a fucking mess??? like just because he left the sith doesn’t mean his issues are over. he’s still angry over his mother’s death and over padmé’s death, and now he’s angry that he let palpatine manipulate him and suffers from crippling guilt that he nearly killed his two kids. not to mention psychologically he’s part machine now so he has forgotten how to be human in some ways, and it’s in this way that he still hasn’t stopped being vader.

he doesn’t feel love for anyone except his twins, majjis, and padmé. he feels small likings toward other people and pokémon and he is trying to turn that into something deeper, but he’s still extremely stunted.

he gets terribly impatient with humans when they’re not as precise or as exacting as he is. in the og movies darth vader hated anything that he perceived to be incompetence, and anakin is the same way…except now that he’s part metagross, his standard of “competence” is so far above anything humans can do that he inevitably gets irritated and lashes out at people just for being human.

he’s lost all interest in “the little things.” he doesn’t appreciate the warmth of a sunny day or the coolness of a soft breeze or seeing a pretty looking bug on the sidewalk or anything like that, the only thing he is fixated on 24/7 is sharpening his intellect. he’s kind of like sabrina in that way.

MISC.

this would be his battle theme, full stop.

he has an aegislash variant that is basically a lightsaber: the hilt is metal but the blade is pure energy. 

he is an overprotective dad and in that way he’s kind of a hypocrite, because of how he was once the biggest threat to his kids before he reformed. he gets rEAL FUCKING ANGRY when leia starts dating han solo, saying he’s just a street rat from orre and he’ll eventually stab her in the back and she’s like do i need to remind you of how you almost killed us?

he doesn’t need to hold out his hand to force choke someone bc that’s not how psychic powers in pokéverse work, he just does it because he’s a dramatic little bitch

he eventually has five grandchildren, all of which he gets overprotective toward. on luke’s side: ben skywalker. on leia’s side: jaina, jacen, anakin and ren solo. and if you thought him disliking han solo was bad, you should see his reaction when ren starts dating palpatine’s granddaughter rey…he just tENSES any time he’s around her saying i sense a great potential for evil in her and his kids are like oh really, well we’ve been sensing that in YOU ever since we met you and we don’t judge, so………damn i hate canon reylo but i mean it could work in an AU where kylo ren was never evil

[kelpie-earnest]

They’re really gonna kill my boi billy huh ? (Plz convince me otherwise):

Oh anon. I’m not sure I’m the right person to come to, for comfort. lol I like to stick close to reality, in theories and HCs (still love my AUs too of course) So I apologise in advance if this is not AS hopeful as you’d hoped. But I will share my honest views, based on what we know so far/what I think is going to happen.

After the events in the new book about parts of Max and Billy’s earlier lives (Runaway Max) I’m pretty sure that they are intending to make Billy more sympathetic. Not redeeming him (yet?) not by any means, and also not painting him as a better guy per se, but showing us more of how he was, how Neil was, what he was subjected to for a long time and how he ended up like he is, achieving this sweet spot between ‘I still don’t like him but I feel sorry for him’ for a lot of people aka. probably the majority of ST fans who originally hated him. Naturally, this doesn’t look good for his survival chances because it seems to be building the audience up to at least feel something when or if he dies.

Depending on how much you want to accept as canon from the book, of course, as it wasn’t written by the show runners (but most likely had base points to stick to). So from the book we know Neil’s been beating/abusing him for a long time, and that he is resigned to it by now. We also know that he knows Neil is full of shit, and doesn’t consider him his proper ‘father’ (now if this means he really isn’t Neil’s biological son, or just that he knows/expresses that Neil is not fit to be a parent is a good question. Maybe we will know after s3, if we see glimpses of his mom there).

It also makes it look like that he is aware that Neil would beat him, no matter what he did. He would find a reason. So his behaviour and the way he dresses, in part, might also be him taking back a semblance of control, by creating a ‘reason’ himself. But I went off there a bit, sorry. :’)

So yeah, what we take away from the book is that he’s already, unfortunately, pretty damaged as a result of his upbringing and does some unsettling things - that are, by the way, not out of the realm for a teenage guy at this age, in his situation. I was actually relieved they weren’t worse - and appears to be only half there unless when he’s angry/ snaps to attention which is when the unpredictable things and his violence happens.

He also had some tiny bonding moments with Max - and his quip about Neil - which showed that, even if he’s somewhat out there, he’s not completely gone yet, as a person. Which again circles back to most people probably feeling sorry for and troubled by him, if they read this book.

Back to s3. What we know or suspect so far all points to the fact that yes, he’s probably one (?) of the main enemies. But not by his own accord. He definitely gets possessed by the Mindflayer and I’m pretty sure he will become a sort of spy/lackey to it, moving things behind the scenes, doing its will, setting things up. I’m also pretty sure that, after taking a good begrudging look at El and then at the School/The Party in it in S2, the Mindflayer knew that for its plans to succeed this time, it will need to take El and the Party out, first, which is most likely what it’s going to try to do with Billy.

So yes, Billy will be possessed and do things against his will.And this part is speculation, but I think Heather might be his first real friend (or girlfriend) or just someone he’s relatively close with, and she might sense something is off, first, or see something at the pool which will lead to the Mindflayer killing her off first, to eradicate the witness, using Billy to do it of course. This will also definitely lead to Billy suffering emotionally - I don’t think he will be completely gone yet, before this. Maybe after. (( I’m also fairly sure that IF anything happens with Karen, even just Billy starting to pay attention to her compared to before, it will be because of the Mindflayer, making him, to get closer to the party through Kare,/one of the moms. To hear things.))

So the thing with him in S3 will most likely be that we know he’s not himself, or not even there, and will probably see him scared or suffer for it first, but after the possession takes over he’s definitely going to do a LOT of bad stuff. Trying to get the Party, get El, do the bidding of the Mindflayer in whatever form… Essentially yes, a villain.

For this purpose the mindflayer might make him team up with Lynx Corp too, by the end, because they have the same goal of opening a gate to the UD again and /maybe/ get El too, and it will most likely recognise that while not having enough physical presence/ muscle in the human world, it’s within its best interest to work together with them — until it won’t need them anymore, of course.

What is also suspected/spoiled from some sources is that at the very, very end, Billy will snap out of this state/ manage to get his body back, and do something that will have a pretty big -positive- impact. But this action will cost his life. SUPPOSEDLY. As I said, this part is a spoiler which, again, no matter the source I’m still treating with a GIANT pinch of salt.

Even if true, Stranger Things had cases of seemingly killing a character (like El in S1) before, only to bring them back next season. So unless his death is very, and I mean very obvious and final, I’m not treating it as a confirmed death, until a final scene OR the final season, S4. Final consensus – I’m sorry, I know I went WAY off on this, but there’s been SO MUCH new content and info with Billy… it’s impossible for me not to talk about it right now. lol

So final consensus is that:

Billy is definitely a main villain, but not by his own will. He is also set up to be a somewhat sympathetic villain, with his life and Neil, and his grief and suffering (to come). The way his character is treated and presented so far does seem to build up to a possible sacrifice/victim of events sort of approach with him, but there is also just so much material in him, and possibility, that right now I would also not put money on him being killed off for good. It would be a very boring decision from the writers. Personally I see him fake killed off for dramatic effect,and then showing up in a final scene or just, suddenly, next season. Like oops, guess who didn’t bite it!

I also need to cram in here that he would be such an amazing asset for the team, against fighting monsters. And it would also definitely help him start to deal with things. Such as his anger… I also think they would make a fucking amazing duo with Steve, and would begrudgingly develop mutual respect (especially Billy towards Steve, the grudging ‘I guess you can handle yourself after all, pretty boy’) which then would COULD turn into a very mutually beneficial friendship. Not even in a shippy way. I genuinely believe their friendship would be awesome and help both of them a lot, emotionally. Even if for Billy, it would be slow going. 

Ahem, sorry for the mini novel. But here it is! A few of my takes on Billy, gearing up to S3. 

[jayne-hecate-writer]

Troubling thoughts

So summer has arrived here in the UK and yet we find ourselves sheltering inside, like the Rebel Alliance hiding from the Empire. In this case the Rebellion is all of us and the Empire is a foul little virus that has evolved the ability to kill us all too easily.

On the warmest days of the year so far, I have awoken to find myself feeling like Luke's T47 gunner, Dak Ralter, ready to take on the Empire all by myself. Until the grey overcast days of lingering pain return and all of the other horrible aspects of my disease that comes with them, leaves me feeling like Oola in Jabba's palace, fighting off a Rancor. Long term chronic illness is like some dungeon dwelling beast, able to reach out claws that grab and slice away at us, some days we can dodge it like a Jedi Master and on other days we are caught in the clawed hand, hoping that we too can struggle enough to escape. I hate being ill all of the time. No, really I do. I actually hate what I have become, or rather I hate what has become of me, a thing that I cannot fight against. Waking up each day to a body filled with pain is something no one would ever want and if I could Jedi heal it away, I promise you that I really would. Yet, if I think too hard about it there are so many things which I could wish away from me, that before I know it, I would have wished away so much that the Force alone knows where I would have ended up spending Life Day. Is that what I really want though, a life completely different from this one? Would it really be so wrong to ask for that?

I know that some of this pain and suffering was caused by my absolute need to be active while in my younger years. I had to be moving, living fast, hedonistic for the delights of my sports (and to change franchises somewhat!), and like Roy Batty, I revelled in my time, my candle burning oh so brightly. In some ways, Roy and Pris were the perfect beings, dying before the got old enough to have their bodies fail them. Not that I would want their four year life span spent in miserable servitude and slavery. I have joked many times that I want a complete body transplant, but what does this mean? Could who I am at my core be encased in a new body or would a new body be stuck with an old brain that is still ill and useless? How many times could a brain be transplanted into a new body before it grew so old as to no longer function? Also, does the body really make us who we are or does who we are come from another source that is entrapped in flesh by the body? These are the questions I ask myself while trying to ignore the pain I awake with each day. They may not be the deepest ones, being the selfish questions of who are we, where do we come from? But what they are most importantly is just a simple distraction, they are me trying to hide away from the very real fact that I am essentially, all but useless, without value to our economy driven society.

We live in a society that is obsessed with youth, entire industries exist to develop creams and potions and undeliverable magical charms to halt age at the door, while we desperately try to fool ourselves that the biological imperative does not exist. I have over the years watched the smooth skin of my hands lose its elasticity and become wrinkled and leathery. My eyesight has dimmed meaning that I need glasses to read the small print on the packets of drugs I use to keep me functioning. My body fails me every day as my cells die off and my DNA is damaged, my mortality knocking each day on the door of my soul. Yet as strange as it sounds in this society we have created, life is seen as sacred only for the very first cells of fertilisation and for the decrepit shudderings of the ancient. But, we are forced to ask, why is the emphasis on quality of life never present when we discuss the human right to life? The unwanted baby is only sacred while it lives in the womb of its mother, once it is delivered, it is welcomed  into a world that no longer cares for it. We talk about the dignity of old age, but the frail and the ancient are often life to sit alone and uncared for, in urine filled underwear, as they suffer the debilitating losses of dementia in its many forms. We judder along en-mass, consuming all of the worthless things that industry tells us we need to stay youthful, thinking that we are doing so in freedom, when in fact all we are doing is acting like automata swallowing down whatever we are told to swallow, developing an economy that was never designed to benefit us. Life is to the majority of people an unending struggle from beginning to end and there is no way for the ordinary to fight against that.

If this disease proves anything, it is simply that our society is more fucked than we ever thought. There is ridicule and outrage being spread on social media, making pariahs of those who dare to step outside the confines of their tiny four wall prisons, to escape the madness building up inside them. We are told that we must only go out for only the most essential of trips, meanwhile the advertisers on every piece of media we see, are still screaming at us to consume, consume, consume... The big fear that they have is not that that many people will suffer unbearably and then die, but that they will do so without spending their tiny sums of currency, thus the economy will suffer and it will wither to a dry husk. Money will devalue, great wealth will be lost, orange skinned oligarchs who took grasp at power make senseless statements based on foolishness and utter stupidity, all about their need for some of us to die to satiate their desire for increased wealth and power. We as a species just carry on, pointing, laughing and ridiculing, before employing the doublethink and doing exactly what we condemn others for doing and going out to the shop for that essential bath oil, emollient cream and glossy shampoo. Society has failed and we need a major rethink because the things we value are not the things of worth. This is hardly a new thought though and it is hardly original. If anything, this is the thought of the old as they are replaced by the youthful, who have yet to learn the value of what we know.

In the boring humdrum of my daily life, little has changed for me during this period of social lockdown. Each morning I still struggle to wake up, facing the tyranny of illness and pain and social isolation. Chronic illness does not take days off, I don't have a weekend or a holiday away from pain to look forwards too, but what I did have in mind was the chance to ride my speeder bike through the forests of Endor, being careful not to crash into any Ewoks of course.  My plans have once again come to nothing and I am trapped once more in my four walls, hiding in fear, waiting for the quarantine end to come, hoping that this disease will avoid me because I am not sure that I have the energy to fight it.

Yet, for society to change, we must all take part in it. If I have learned anything from Han Solo and Chewbacca, it is this. “Rrrrrraaaaaaaaaaawawaw.” Wise words indeed.

[saigebeaumont]

- ̗̀ * ( robert sheehan + cismale + he/him ) have you seen ( benjamin ‘benjy’ magwitch ) walking around campus ? they are a ( twenty-three ) year old, studying ( political science ). we hear they are in ( rho pi rho ), and can be ( magnetic & irresponsible ), maybe it’s because they are a ( leo ). they sort of remind us of ( shiny red apples, walking on ledges, kaleidoscopes ), maybe we can find out more ! ( james + 19 + est + they/she ) *  ̖́-  + theatre/track

hi hello as u may have seen my name is james and this is my baby, benjy. i dont know how long this is going to get so pls bare with me

tw; fire? 

gen. info

full name: benjamin ‘benjy’ henry magwitch / joshua hollowood but u will never catch him actually using his real name tbqh

nickname(s): think of a random name. any century, any gender, any amount of letters or lack thereof. that’s it that’s his nickname. previous aliases that he has claimed to be are - thaddeus, balthazar, dante, romulus, etc., etc.

b.o.d. - july 31st, age 23

label(s): the icarian, the blackhole, the insouciant, etc. etc.

height: tall

hometown: ???

sexuality: chaotically bisexual

bio. info

let’s try and make this short n sweet

so like. y’know when a faerie steals a human baby and replaces it with it’s own, weaker, inferior baby? benjy is the human baby in this case

except they weren’t faeries

dorothea and fawley were two...somewhat, in love, folks--who had really wanted to have a child of their own. when they did, finally, have their child--he was very sickly and small and neither of them wanted their child to be weak goddammit

so they did a switcharoo, like...switched at birth except i’ve never ever seen switched at birth, and ran off with this extremely rich family’s newborn baby instead!

dorothea and fawley were part of a circus, and thus, lil benjy was raised in a circus !! how cute.

needless to say he was raised in a very nontraditional setting, like, homeboy was homeschooled bc they were literally always travelling, around the country and once or twice out of country.

despite that, he never doubted that his circus family didn’t love him or anything like ?? yeah he never called his ‘parents’ mom or dad, but that’s bc it was like...everyone was his parent.

dorothea and fawley told benjy that his name will never define him, and he could be anyone or anything he wants to be.

this caused a tiny benjy to be CONSTANTLY changing his name. like, almost everyday he’d just declare a new name and everybody in the circus would call him that specific name. even when he did acts, he’d go by a different name every single time

this carried onto adulthood and benjy still doesn’t tell people his real name very often. sometimes they’re sort of normal names n other times they’re fucking bizarre.

when he was seven he declared his name was ‘sock’ for an entire month.

grew up doing a buncha odd lil jobs and roles in the circus, from being a lil handyman like fawley to being a magician’s assistant like dorothea. t’was a lil tiny animal tamer (before the circus stopped using animals in their acts because we don’t stan circuses like that no we do NOT) at some point but reeeaaally liked tightrope walking and things as such

also tried his hand at fire-throwing/etc. etc. but the like eighteen (minor!) burn scars across his body will tell u that it was not for him and he gave it up to pursue knife throwing tricks and juggling

wasn’t rly ever around ppl his own age, also never had a smartphone before he was like eighteen or so--he’s not old fashioned but he can definitely be behind on the times

also grew up listening to primarily older rock/folk music/whatever the fuck music his family created/his own music

that being said benjy is good w a guitar but bitch cannot sing. he sounds like a dying frog.

he also did a bunch of petty theft but that’s bc some of the other folk in the circus did it and he was like huh. looks like fun. bc benjy is thoroughly an idiot but more on that later. so he got some shit on his record but he got them sealed when he turned 18, like, asap

but. benjy is a dumbass. he committed ANOTHER petty crime, because the boy has addictive qualities, and he left some dna evidence bc boy’s got some mf hair

surprisingly, it wasn’t through his records that they found him via his dna  but, rather, his real parents who did a whole ass dna kit thing for fun one day

this came as a shock to everybody involved, honestly, though tbh ? benjy didn’t care that much that he had parents who weren’t the circus, but that’s bc of his entire upbringing.

either way his birth parents wanted to like. y’know. meet their delinquent biological son and when they did they were like ‘woah woah woah wtf ur in a circus’ and he was like haha yeah

n that was...sort of it, for a while. benjy was 18, had his GED, n wasn’t planning on going to college at all.

the circus was still traveling, the world was all right, etc. etc, benjy maintained contact with his bio parents bc it was Polite to do

and then the circus burned down! somebody did a flaming knife trick when they weren’t supposed to and, long story short--the entire circus went up in flames. there were no victims, no worries, but their entire livelihood was gone and they were all effectively displaced.

when his Rich Biological Parents found out about benjy’s newfound predicament that he 100% was not responsible for whatsoever, they were like . . . . listen. we’ve got a Reputation to uphold, but we’ll send you to college.

he’s been here since he was like, 21, so he’s a junior i think ??

he’s majoring in political science but it’s like technically his first year as the major bc his freshmen yr he wanted to do anthropology and then he switched to mathematics and homeboy was nvr satisfied but now he thinks he wants to do smth w social welfare so he’s doing political science w theatre and public affairs as minors

personality

he’s got. a big personality

he’s got this sort of energy that attracts others but they don’t really know why bc holy shit benjy can be annoying

he’s just super intense ?? like the boy does not know how to calm down, he’s constantly moving around and being dramatic and sometimes whiny

pouts more than a person should averagely pouts

i wouldn’t call him a liar because he can be, very very blunt, and doesn’t know how to beat around the bush, but he likes telling half-truths simply to either confuse others or to just b a lil bitch tbh

he’s got big dumbass energy like okay he’s smart he just doesn’t apply himself very often and he just. does dumb things

gets into fights bc he’s a dumbass. like. he will purposely provoke ppl he doesn’t like, n when he’s drunk he’ll do it to literally anybody esp ppl he likes

also just. doesn’t know when to stop talking. can find ways to ramble about nothing, asks questions w the intent of being annoying, etc. etc.

his ~parents~ didn’t rly believe in modern medicine n they were just like ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away!’ so he’s got this obsession w apples. literally is always chewing on an apple or a toothpick or anything he can get his hands on. he’s like a teething toddler, essentially

probably the dumbass who plays wonderwall at a party tbh

okay but fun fact! he’s super nimble and just. cat-like, from all his yrs of practicing n performing tightrope walking. if he falls over it’s because he wants to fall over and if he falls over it’s bc he wants ATTENTION

he loves. being the center of attention? but he’s also content with being in the background if it makes sense. he just wants to be doing something, anything

anyways he doesn’t take shit seriously at all like, i don’t think he’s ever had a serious conversation in his life ?

big slut for parties. he loves partying, he nvr knew he loved partying until he went to ucla but he loves it

he’s got an addictive personality so like okay. he’s not Addicted Addicted to anything specific (besides nicotine) but he definitely has no problem with drinking n doing drugs Often.

i mean he’s reckless too he never knows when to stop, feels like he’s tryn to be the Superior boy but he’s not and he’s probably overcompensating nowadays to deal w the guilt of accidentally burning down his entire life

drives cars too fast, drinks too much, has no problem getting into heavier drugs

also okay on a lighter note the boy used to be addicted to cigarettes bc he started fairly young but hoo boy he’s now on that juul game

literally he always has a juul on him. spends all his money on juuls

he works as a florist n a gardener for extra cash even tho his bio parents send him money, just bc its one of the only things that really calm him down tbh ??

also i meant it when i said he doesnt tell ppl his real name, like, ever. at least his first name bc he loves his last name but ? u probably dont know him as benjamin or even benjy, just smth stupid like marcellus the magnificent or booboo the fool hahahsdfgh

did i mention he casually juggles bc i genuinely cannot remember lmao

uuuhh there’s more i’m sure but !! i have a really bad memory!

i also dunno if im keeping his fc but we will SEE

he’s basically like....still a five yr old child

OH okay so i remembered smth else

he’s essentially a nomad which means he hates being rooted to ucla so he’s usually off drivin’ around the coast bc he’s bored goddammit but he always comes back bc he’s a loyal dog

speaking of loyal dogs. he’s got commitment issues. but not commitment issues? it’s sort of like. he gets really interested in things/people, kind of focuses all his energy on that thing or person, and then one day wakes up and is just. terribly bored. tends to drop ppl like that, esp relationships, and he doesn’t think much of it bc it’s Normal for him

but believe it or not, if u call him in the middle of the night he WILL show up, or if u wrong him instead of him wronging u, he’ll still b endlessly loyal

like he’s shitty but he’s got a heart ?

also like i said. he is chaotically bi. both chaotic and bisexual and also the two combined.

he’s chaotic neutral in general

wanted connections ?? possibly ??

frat bros - [hulk hogan voice] brother. he needs them

general friends ! - if u dont hate him then u just. love him, man. no inbetween

exes - he’s probably got...a few of these, because his attention span lasts like a max of two weeks

hookups - they also dont tend to last very long just bc of how he is as a person, but y’know. they good while they last

ex-hookups, specifically

ex-friends - bc he’s an idiot

if u really want to u can bring in a circus pal but firstly idk how they’d afford school but honestly. we can work smth out. hmu [kissy face]

roommate - do they hate each other ?? who knows

bad influence - they only egg on benjy’s dumbass behavior

good influence - probably forces him to study for once, or take care of his dumb ass

idk what to call it but like. ppl who HE eggs on to be bad, is generally toxic to the other person

anything else u want [another kissy face]

[zenlosingit]

Buckle up folks it’s gonna be a long ride

So @stxrriea recently got asks about how the mcu is toxic and I wanted to make a post about it so bad that I got @stxrriea permission so here we are!!

I think one reason mostly why the mcu is so toxic is that everyone involved in creating the movies completely disregard comic canon that everything turns into a shit show. When Iron Man was released in 2008, a time where superhero movies were now getting popular, Marvel just wanted to finally create a movie around its characters, they didn't care about including facts from the comics, they just cared about setting up a story involving Iron Man's origin and getting it out to the public- then and there is where the problems first arrive.

Now, yes the first movies kinda stick to the comics origins involving Iron man, Thor, and Captain America, but when Marvel creates the sequels to these movies, the mcu derails from the comics. In my opinion, the second movies of each trilogy are poorly written, crappily made ooc movies. I hate watching the second movies b/c of the "dark" theme to them and the hard to swallow story lines (especially Thor the Dark World- I hate everything about it). As further along as the mcu universe expands the 'toxic masculine cishet writers' don't care about what is fact about the comics- and the actors are to blame too.

I have seen some interviews where some of the actors admit to reading the comics as kids, but even though some have read marvel comics growing up the majority don't care about comic lore, have never have read the comics involving their character, and are amazed to find out what their character has done/is like when someone- who actually read the comics- tells them about it!! Essentially the actors create their own version of the Marvel characters and the writers don't help with that. That's why Black Widow is a sexual Americanized spy and not a ex-soviet secret operative with a Russian accent; why Clint is a second-hand background character that has a family that makes him special, and not a hearing-impaired special operative; why Steve is a good boy "fuck the government" boy scout and not a understanding, educated man that knows the struggles of immigrants, poverty stricken ppl, lgbt ppl, and the roles women are forced into; why Scarlet Witch completely loses her Romanian accent when clearly she was raised in Eastern-Europe and spoke its native languages; and why Tony Stark belittles women and men around him and not a mentally ill man that is charitable and understanding to people who are suffering/struggling.

Not only do the actors and writers of the franchise have no knowledge concerning the comics, but they as well have no knowledge of actual human history and common sense! If you're going to create a story and have take place somewhere on earth the least you can do is do research of the place's history, language, politics, ethnicity, religion and more. What writers love to do is have a story based around a large populated city and sometimes do little to no research about the area- or even consider that if some major event happened in a previous movie, do you really think people in that area would be really happy about another event happening? Or at least think that there would be new safeguards in place to stop it happening again? The creators blatantly ignore a place's history and someone’s background that causes the character to fall apart from lack of detail and become ooc.

That's why there's a unnecessary grudge match between Steve and Tony, why Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver's storyline is twisted and less of who they actually are, why Natasha and Clint are just used as background characters, why Thor's personality is always different and sometimes awful. And nothing ever gets better when the fans take hold of the characters and rip them apart to use and hate on one another because someone else's opinion of the character is different from theirs. And sometimes people look too much into the relationships and interactions between characters that they create pedophillic and incest relationships (I think why a lot of ppl ship Thoriki is since Loki isn't blood related it gives them an excuse to ship the two together b/c "technically they're not biologically related so it isn't incest" when it clearly is b/c being raised together and sharing platonic/familial love is what makes them family).

Because of the lack of action in doing any research in anything involving the movies the characters become separated from the comics and fall apart- even further when ppl examine the characters too much that they create hate and split ppl apart and create horrible relationships. Marvel should've incorporated more comic canon into the movies but they were lazy and just wanted to get cash that they didn't and won't change how the characters are portrayed.

You can take this with a grain of salt, I've never read the comics before, however I've been here since the 1st avengers movie was released- still before when my parents rented the 1st Thor and Captain America movies and I fell in love- and I've watched the change happening to the characters and learned info on actually how the characters are in the comics.

(Also the anon stating they've never seen the X-Men movies I've only seen 2- and that was like last month when I had the house to myself- and I can't exactly say how good or bad they are. There were, however, a lot of points in the movies that I disliked and wished they treated it differently (1 of the movies plot was basically the gov. found a "cure" to mutantism and the response between society, mutants, and extreme "all normals must die" mutants was awful to watch) so- in my opinion- they're no better than the mcu movies.)

[anima-contritum]

hamilsquad magic!au headcanons

A/N: this au is my baby so please be gentle with it. if you guys wanna write stuff based on this (which i myself will eventually do) then ask me and credit me and @11wolfpup11 because she had a big part in creating this world with me. this is just a little bit of something big that i have tons of notes on so feel free to ask questions and such (: as always, enjoy! p.s. this is my first hc so idk if im doing it right o well

Alexander:

Weather Wizard

this boy can make the sunniest day instantly cloudy and dark if he’s in a bad mood

when he cries, it rains with flashing lightning and thunder that shakes the ground

overall, donT MAKE HIM UPSET

he will either strike lightning down on your ass or have a storm cloud follow you for a week

one time after he fought with Jefferson, he manipulated the static electricity so his hair was frizzy 

Thomas nearly killed him for it

When he first discovered his powers, he set off a hurricane

he and his brother were fighting pretty bad to the point that’s what set Alex off

poor Alex couldnt control it, it was like a giant burst of energy exploded inside of him

it destroyed the entire town killing hundreds

he could hardly forgive himself after knowing this uncontrollable thing inside himself caused it

everyone hated him once his secret powers were exposed

there were riots and it all got pretty dangerous until he was finally able to be transported to Flilria Magic Academy 

Very bisexual and very flirty

when he first met Angelica, the ice witch nearly froze his face off for flirting with her

(John still laughs his ass off at that fact)

even after that he made the mistake of thinking dirtily about John Andre when the man could literally read every thought

(again, John still laughs)

but despite all that, Alexander still shamelessly flirts with Laurens and usually is very protective of him

Defiant as fuck

on his first day of attending Flilria, he got sent down to Headmaster Washington’s office at least 6 times

part of it was because he nearly talked Professor Seabury out of his own classroom 

another part was because he was veryyy close to kicking James Reynolds into the next fucking dimension for abusing Maria and degrading Hercules and Laf

John:

Potions Wizard

this freckled cutie is a total geek when it comes to potions and spells

he can create any potion knowing the ingredients and chants no matter what, like the information was already in his brain

he can also turn water into poison if he tried hard enough

when he first learned he could this kind of stuff, he accidentally poisoned one of his classmates from the human world and had to run away - again

HeS BEEN/GOING THROUGH SO MUCH PLEASE PROTECT HIM

his biological dad - whom no one ever speaks of (and surprisingly isn’t Henry hehe) - abused him both physically and emotionally

John was blamed for his mothers death when she died from the birth

his dad took his anger and grief out on him, cursing him so every full moon he turns into a hideous beast and so that his kiss was poisonous

when he was old enough, John ran away

for a while he lived on the streets with almost nothing to live on

it wasn’t until he was taken in by the Laurens’s did he know a little bit of compassion 

but in John’s experience, everything good has its end

Henry had slapped him across the face and beat him black and blue for accidentally knocking over a very antique and expensive family heirloom

he ran and never looked back

even after being taken into Flilria Academy, he has a hard time

people bully him because he isn’t that powerful

(in which Alex tells them to fuck off unless they want a foot where the sun don’t shine)

he has a hard time dealing with his ability because it just reminds him of his powerful and dark biological father

just

please protect him 

(more on the curse)

my poOR BOY 

John could never press his lips against someone’s skin, for the person would die 

its intention is to prevent John from ever falling in love (but boy oh boy that didn’t stop him)

to add to it, the curse prevents him from ever speaking of it to anyone

it kinda cuts off his words and leaves him speechless for a moment

the curse itself acts as a live darkness that can take over his body and mind or cause him pain if it senses something it doesn’t like

not even magic can cure the curse...

Alex has tried too many times to count

Loves Alexander despite the damn curse

he can be shy about it but is generally very open about his affections for the other boy

but he always has mini heart attacks whenever his lips get too close to Alex’s skin 

there was one time where they nearly kissed

John avoided Alex for a week after, terrified of killing his love and best friend

he often helps him with tests and stuff when it’s based on potions and all that hoopla

it’s all very cute and fluffy, but can be a big danger 

(verY ANGSTY)

Hercules:

Earth Wizard

this boy can pick up boulders and bend metal wiTH HIS MIND

(i kinda based his powers off of Avatar oops)

he can also do crazy natural disaster stuff like earthquakes 

super damn powerful but literally the sweetest boy ever

in addition, he can spawn cute lil flowers and other earthy things 

(he likes to put the flowers in Laf’s hair)

He caused a devastating earthquake when he first tapped into his abilities

it killed his family and nearly everything around him for miles was in ruins 

nobody was able to pinpoint the cause so Herc was shoved around like every other orphan

that was until he was teleported to the magic school where he first met Lafayette - his roommate

He was selectively mute for a very long time because of the after effects of the earthquake

it left him traumatized

he was speechless for a very long time, occasionally learning ASL words to ask Laf for something

Laf was always there, teaching him new sign language and talking to him even though there was no reply 

Laf was just generally okay with it and both supported and defended Herc through it all

this went on until one day Lafayette was rambling on about not having a Moon Stone for his collection

Herc had perked up and gotten up from where he was sitting. It took a bit to find it, but when he did he gave the Moon Stone he had to Laf with a small smile as two words passed his lips. “Keep it.”

(Laf made it into a necklace and wears it everyday)

That was the first time he had spoken since the earthquake

Please love and respec and protec

for a while, Herc would only ever talk to Laf

it would progress from quiet one worded responses to whispered sentences to full conversations

but even though he talks to Laf doesn’t mean he talks to everyone

he’s still trying to get passed his barriers and talking to others but most times it comes out in stutters and broken whispers

he has really bad anxiety but still tries

most times Laf has to stand up for him because others use his struggles against him

He’s scared of his powers

no lying, he’s one of the most powerful kids in the school

but because of the earthquake and avoiding his powers, he doesn’t know how to control it

it’s very hard for him to do big things at a time because he’s terrified if he pushes the limits he has set, he’ll hurt someone

it all comes down to his bad anxiety but he does try if he’s encouraged

sometimes the encouragement can be someone messing with Laf 

he learned he could bend metal from that one time someone called them a homophobic slur and he lost all sense of control

it still scares him though when he tries new things

Lafayette:

Animal Wizard

this pure boy can talk to animals

even though he can do this though, he sometimes has trouble understanding certain animal dialects

it’s kinda like how people can’t understand a different language if we don’t study it

he can also sometimes compel them if he has to but he hates it

He haS A BADASS PET DRAGON

he found the dragon egg under a giant willow tree

after carefully watching over it and keeping it safe, it hatched and out came a little black and blue scaled dragon he’d name Saule

(Saule translates to Willow in french)

Laf would soon learn that he and Saule established an unbreakable bond after she was born where they can speak telepathically and feel each other’s emotions 

now as she’s basically a teenager in dragon years, Saule’s the sassiest lil shit ever

she always teases him about his giant crush on Hercules 

oH and she breathes electricity rather than fire which is pretty cool

at this point, she’d be about the size of a very large dog

essentially, she’s like Lafayette’s sister and will do anything and everything she can to protect him

Fun fact; he was one of the first students at Flilria

he was very young when he learned of his abilities

his family had gotten into a car accident that got his mother killed and he unconsciously called out to a family of bears that took him from away the incident

when little Laf finally got to Flilria, good ol’ Gwash became like a father to him 

in other words, they’re very close

Very much likes Hercules

that is all

he just likes him

a lot

he will protect him and love him 

it’s very cute and domestic and not angsty and goD I LOVE MULLETTE LET ME LIVE

[sage-nebula]

hey so i saw someone vaguely translate the argument between lillie and lusamine in today's ep and apparently it amounted to lillie being mad that lusamine evolved her clefairy without her consent and lusamine's answer amounting to "well technically it was my clefairy that i gave to you and also your reason for not evolving it was stupid" and? is it wrong for me to hope that pokeani will give us like (cont.)

more of this? like. lusamine being overly smotherly and lowkey selfish and overbearing and those aspects of her get more and more pronounced as an early warning sign that she’s not the ally the other characters think she is? like it’s pokeani there’s so many things that could go wrong here but the fact that this argument was bad enough that even sato and kukui notice that lillie is NOT here for her mom’s shit and that sumo-ani has been p. good with developing relationships make me hope.

Well, first of all, if that’s the same clefable that Lusamine has in the games, then it can go get fucked, tbh, because that clefable gave me the hardest time in the final battle. Not because it kept killing* my pokémon, but because it wouldn’t fucking die, none of my attacks did significant damage to it, and it kept healing itself and it was just The Worst™. So honestly, Lillie, you dodged a bullet there, because that clefable is a fucking bastard.

(*No, I do not nuzlocke. This is just an expression, not meant to be taken seriously.)

On a more serious note (because yes, the above is supposed to be a joke, please don’t take it too seriously, anyone), hmm … honestly, I don’t know!

It’s hard to judge because the PokéAni is inconsistent across the sagas in many ways. There are some constants that we can always count on: Ash will always leave all of his pokémon sans Pikachu behind when he goes to a new region, he will never win a game League, and he will always have at least one (1) of the new region starters as a mainstay on his team, so as to promote the new generation to kids. But aside from constants like that, the PokéAni tends to change its narrative style each season (and Ash along with it, but this post really isn’t about him). For instance, the first two seasons ever produced—and the first season itself in particular—are markedly different in tone from everything that followed, even when compared to the Johto seasons of the OS. The Johto seasons were more formulaic; they’re chock full of episodes that are very same-y and that you can skip right on over without losing anything of value. Meanwhile, the Kanto season was really treated as an adventure; it was less about showing Ash going through the game journey, and more about showing him on a journey, period, even when it included messier aspects like the kids being lost for two weeks on the way to Vermilion City, and being completely caked in dirt by the time they finally arrived, longing for baths and laundromats. Similarly, the Kalos saga is markedly different in tone from the Alola saga. The Kalos saga took itself more seriously, and so while there still were moments of comedy and some typical anime expressions here or there, by and large it was more … I don’t want to say realistic, because it still is a modern fantasy anime, but you had a lot less exaggeration in terms of animation style. By contrast, the Alola anime doesn’t seem to take itself nearly as seriously (at least right now), and the animation is a lot more exaggerated and over the top. Compare, for instance, animation sequences of the twerps falling asleep thanks to Jigglypuff’s song in the OS to the same situation in SM. Yeah, a lot of it is due to the fact that their animation budget is much higher now, and the technology they have to work with is much better et cetera, but a lot of it also has to do with a tonal and style shift.

So with all of that said, it’s really hard to predict what this saga will do, because we can’t exactly use previous sagas as a concrete frame of reference. We can try to make guesses … but it’s hard, because each saga is so distinct, they all have different things they were trying to accomplish. Just because one saga might have followed through doesn’t mean that this one will, and vice versa. And even though it’s been about a year so far, I feel that the Alola anime is still a bit too young to make a call, especially since …

Well. We all remember what happened in Kalos, don’t we?

Lysandre was a realistic depiction of an abuser. The emotional abuse he layered on Alan, and the way that he lied to, manipulated, and used him like a tool is blatantly obvious, despite the cordial way he behaved around everyone else. As a result, and speaking as someone with C-PTSD from abuse myself, the C-PTSD that Alan has is also very obvious, and is also a realistic portrayal. Lysandre was an abuser, Alan was his victim, and this is obvious to everyone except those who purposefully refuse to see it so they can have an excuse to keep trashing all over Alan the way they do. 

And for the most part, PokéAni handled this well! Like, I was legitimately impressed with how well they handled it! Again, Alan’s C-PTSD was extremely well portrayed. His severe depression was extremely well portrayed. In XYZ044, we see that this has (more than understandably) hit such a critical mass that Ash essentially talked him down from suicide in their garden discussion, even if the actual word was never spoken. (Like, has Ash ever looked that anxious when asking someone to promise him to battle again in the future? I don’t think so. Let’s be real, like pretty much everything else in their relationship, it really was not about the battle.) And yet, despite all of that being done so well, despite it being portrayed so well … the PokéAni writers decided “fuck this lmao” and ruined it in all the episodes that followed by sweeping Alan’s issues completely under the rug, disrespecting his boundaries and wishes once again in a way that actually triggered me in XYZ045, and sending him off on a journey again in the last episode of the saga. They were doing so well, XYZ044 was actually a perfect conclusion for him, and then they … ruined it all at the last second, as they are wont to do. 

So I mean, if we follow that as an example, then it’s perfectly possible that they could continue doing a great job with Lusamine, that they could really show how she is inarguably an abusive parent, how she doesn’t care about Lillie’s wishes or boundaries … and then ruin it all at the last second by “redeeming” her and having everyone decide that she’s not really abusive after all. Or maybe they won’t continue doing a great job, and her following appearances will be disappointing because they’ll pull an OS and forget that they were supposed to be keeping up with this subplot. (I mean, this isn’t really a subplot and so I doubt that will happen, but to be honest, any one of the subplots in the OS could have been a main plot, and they chose not to do that, so like …) It’s really hard to say. The PokéAni writers proved with Misty’s and Brock’s cameos that they can do anything at this point. Almost everything is fair game. (Almost. Ash is still never going to win a game League. People need to just give up on that dream.)

That said, I’d say that if you’re enjoying it now, then enjoy it now! Enjoy it while you can, for as long as you can (and hopefully forever). At this point, like I said, anything can happen. I don’t think it’s wrong to hope for just about anything at this point. (Again, just about. No League wins, no eleventh birthdays, et cetera.) So keep watching and keep enjoying; might as well make the most of it while it lasts. :)

(On that note, “technically it’s my clefairy that I gave to you” fjdksjdf fucking yikes. Bullshit like this is why I adamantly maintain that Lusamine is the most realistic depiction of an abusive parent the series has had to date. Ghetsis is cartoonish compared to Lusamine—a caricature. Aside from the fact that Lusamine’s “you betrayed me when all I ever did was give you love” line in the games pretty much mirrors the last conversation I ever had with my biological mother, my biological mother used to hold Shiloh like that over my head all the time. She hated the fact that Shiloh and I were so close, so she used to threaten to get rid of her, telling me that she was going to all the time so that I’d step in line and behave, justifying it by saying that she was the one who gave Shiloh to me, so she could do whatever she wanted insofar as keeping her at the house or not. Of course, she was also fond of the “I brought you into this world, so I can take you out of it” line, but tbh my own life has never mattered as much to me, so that never scared me as much as threats to Shiloh did. So yeah, Lusamine telling Lillie that the clefairy was actually hers, legally, is just … yiiiiikes. There are so, so many ways in which Lusamine is written as a realistic abusive parent. It’s what hands down makes her one of the utmost, absolutely most vile villains the series has had yet.)

[tariqk]

falling out of love with Iain Banks’ the Culture

So, like, I had this thought yesterday about Iain Banks' Culture books, that kind of drove the nail through my love of the series. It's been a long while coming, to be honest — I was in love with the idea of the Culture, but there was always parts of the books that I was leery of — but yesterday's epiphany, especially with regards to the thinking I've done about transhumanist ideas, just sealed the deal for me.

NB: I've only read, so far, Consider Phlebas, The Player of Games, Use of Weapons and Excession. So that is, from what I can see, Banks' earlier work on the Culture. I don't know if he's changed after that, but guessing from the discussion that's happening, and what's been said... probably not.

If you want to know more about the series, here. I'm putting the rest behind the cut, because it honestly is heavy shit that deals with genocide, murder, rape or consent violation, and heavy shit like that. If I've missed anything send me an ask and I'll add more warnings. Also, spoilers ahoy.

So. First, the revelation: In Excession, there is a ship, that's well-known for violating the taboo that the Culture's most powerful beings (the Minds, transcendental intelligences way above the human range) have with regards to not meddling with the minds of its citizens. It's name is the GCU1 Gray Area, but everyone calls it — admittedly, behind it's back, because GCUs are pretty fucking capable: Culture ships are able to lay waste on planets and star systems with not trouble — Meatfucker. This is supposed to convey the contempt Grey Area is held by its peers, because it's a highly-charged insult.

My revelation was this: If the Culture prizes the liberty of its individuals, why is Grey Area called Meatfucker and not something worse?

Let's be real, here: it spends the beginning of Excession in orbit around a planet, delving into the minds of its biological inhabitants, extracting and copying memories, constructing a history of what happened there, and, after identifying at least one person, subjecting at least that one person to horrific mental torture until they literally die of terror.

That these people, and the people of this world, were perpetrators of a (very successful) genocide might be seen as justification for Grey Area's actions... maybe? But that doesn't excuse Grey Area's actions, it merely explains it. But why is Grey Area called Meatfucker when their proper name ought to be Rapist? Because that's what they are.

Like, if you have mind-altering and mind-reading tech, and you don't hesitate to use it, my concern isn't that you're “consorting with lower beings”, or substrates, it's that you're violating someone's consent. For a society that's pretty big on liberty, and is an anarchist society par excellance, the fact that one mind can subject its “lessers” to mental violation and escape merely with censure is... pretty telling.

Actually, the pathological meat-hate that exists among Minds in the book is very telling. Meat is, as seen by the first scene in Excession with a Zetetic Elench2 drone3, slow, inefficient, and a waste of space. Minds and drones treat humans with a sort of benevolent condescension, except when the mask of benevolence comes off and violence is threatened.

It's rare that it happens, but when it does, drones and Minds that do so are rarely if ever brought to task or made to make amends — in The Player of Games, Jernau Morat Gurgeh, a Culture-born human, finds himself blackmailed and threatened by Mawhrin-Skel, themselves a decomissioned Special Circumstances drone, into a traumatic, year-long campaign against a society so breathtakingly violent and brutal that by the end of it, it's pretty clear that Gurgeh himself is traumatized.

We only later find out — Gurgeh never does, not even to his dying day — that he was manipulated into events by Special Circumstances, thanks to Flere-Imsaho, ostensibly another drone, but in truth Mawhrin-Skel. Such is the respect that drones and Minds of the Culture towards their “lessers” that they don't even try to hide signs of their subterfuge.

In some ways, I don't think Banks — and by the extension, the Culture — actually get what liberty and consent mean. Like, the empire that Gurgeh goes against — the Empire of Azad, named after the game that Gurgeh later uses to dismantle the entire empire by defeating their emperor with it — is horrifyingly brutal, with all but a small group of elites basically oppressing, suppressing, torturing and murdering everyone else, with the Culture essentially making value judgements to the Azad and ultimately finding them wanting.

Yet, at the same time, this is the same Culture that interferes with the Empire, causing enough death and destruction along the way, while traumatizing and manipulating one of its own citizens for reasons that aren't entirely clear (couldn't one of the Minds have played the same role, or put themselves at the same level of risk? Apparently not). We're made to understand that, what was wrong with the Azad was their tendency to dominate, forgetting that domination, at least in controlled environments, like in, for example, play, is expected and often encouraged, so long as the participants are consenting.

That the Azadi do not engage in consent among its participants is understandable — they are a society of biological beings, limited in power and understanding, based on Banks' logic. Yet the Cultre does not either, and thus cannot escape judgement. Not that they are omnipotent or omniscient, though — they aren't. But they don't even appear to bother to try. Consent is manufactured or manipulated in, and characters like Gurgeh often appear to consent... yet by how much? Information is withheld, or in Gurgeh's case, is finally shown to him in all it's glory, in a way, again, to traumatize him, to manipulate him to the Culture's final goal. It's telling that by this point, Gurgeh doesn't say — but of course he cannot, he is completely dependent on his survival by Flere-Imsaho — how does the Culture's actions differ from the Empire, in other ways other than in degree?

In some ways, this makes the actions of other characters facing the Culture, either as opponents (Bora Horza Gorbuchul in Consider Phlebias) or as collaborators (Cheradenine Zakalwe, in Use of Weapons) more understandable. Horza constantly rails against the Culture's Minds, who are seen as stifling the agency of the beings under them, and aligns himself with the Idirans, who eschew creating sapient minds and are ultimately doomed (the Idirans are themselves finally defeated when the Culture “awakens” — you'll note a common thread here — the Idiran's planetary network, who then coerces the Idirans to surrender and eventually subsume into the Culture). Zakalwe is often used as a pawn, put in danger — even (quite literally) losing his head in one case — kept in the dark, yet even he had a final revelation that was too horrifying for the Culture to stomach — and one that finally leads to “Zakalwe”'s abandonment by the Culture.

All of this, kind of, outlines my dissatisfaction with the entire business of Banks' work. As complex narratives with cool science-fictiony bits jammed in, the Culture, as many science fictional works, delivers. It really does. But outside of that, in the axioms that form the ethical and moral dimensions that the works operate in, Banks' work is, to be honest, mediocre. And I'm kind of done with it.

General Contact Unit, a specific kind of Culture ship (a list of ship types are provided here). ↩︎

a Culture spin-off, that consists of members of the Culture that disagreed with the Culture and spun off their own society ↩︎

another Culture name for independent, autonomous robots with intelligence comparable to human minds ↩︎

[treehugginglibrarian]

Faulty Comparisons: Viagra is an “Apple”

I don't have an opinion on the fight over transgender individuals in the military, because I'm too logically minded to discard or ignore the valid questions that are brought up by both sides. Also, my general dislike of men I don’t know all that well has long since morphed into a dislike of both those humans with penises, whether they are men or not, and those humans who merely identify as men. I’m an equal opportunity misandrist- if you’re associated with dude-ness, in any way, and I don’t know you, I’m certain I don’t like you. I don’t like dude parts. I don’t like dude brains. (At least, until I know the dude brain. Then I might like it. I’ll never like the dude parts. Not my cup of tea at this point. But I digress). Thus, I don’t really deserve to have an opinion on this issue, and I know that. 

BUT... The comparison between Viagra and transgender medical treatment is both inaccurate and disrespectful.

While erectile dysfunction has a fair number of physical causes, three of its primary causes are psychological: depression or anxiety, stress, and relationship issues, typically due to poor communication. Anyone, man or woman, who has suffered at the helm of PTSD will probably recognize these as hallmarks of that mental illness. We have taken a serious, debilitating, symptom of a serious, debilitating, illness, and turned it into a petty bullet point being used to advance an important, but completely unrelated, issue within the service. While I'm not typically one to scream "But what about the mens!" this is so fucking problematic I don't even know where to begin. Whether we mean to or not, the tone and tenor of the articles written are basically telling the men who are on these drugs that they should be ashamed of this fact and that we don't think they deserve the treatment that they're getting. This, despite the fact that in many (if not most) instances their treatment is directly related to their service in the military.

And that is where the comparison becomes an "apples to oranges" one. Most of the men needing Viagra through Tricare** need it to treat a symptom of a condition that the military gifted them. It is not, for lack of a better phrase, a pre-existing condition. Transgender individuals come into the military already aware of their situation, and already aware that their situation will require medical intervention. It is a situation that is pre-existing and that is not caused by their military service. The ONLY way this comparison to Viagra even remotely checks out is if someone, somewhere, is able to break down the Viagra users by "those who need it because of a militarily induced issue" and "those who don't." I have a feeling if you compare the price point for Soldiers seeking medical assistance because they are transgender with the price point for those seeking medical assistance because they entered the military with ED, the number isn't as impressive as the one the media is reporting. Which is precisely the point.

There's also an "economies of scale" issue with this comparison. You’re comparing the needs of somewhere between 3000 and 4000 Soldiers with the needs of tens of thousands of Soldiers. Something like 85% of the military is male (it varies depending on branch and whether you're talking active duty or reserves). The total possible population of personnel that could need Viagra at any point in time is so much larger than the total population of transgender individuals in the military, that the comparison is patently absurd. A better comparison here would actually be the amount of money the military spends on birth control.

Birth control is rarely used to treat a condition that the military caused,*** yet the military will pay for it (in some form) for every biologically female service member who wishes/needs to be on it. No matter the reason. The percentage of the population is slightly closer, proportionally, though still not an exact match. And the price point is much more on target, with most forms of birth control costing less than $100 a month (I'm not arguing it's cheap. It's not fucking cheap. I'm arguing that it's closer in price point to the hormones transgender individuals are taking, because it is closer in price point to them than Viagra is). Yet, this isn't the comparison the media chose to make. This was a comparison they very intentionally stayed away from, though I am certain at least a few of them KNEW it was a more accurate comparison, since the research needed to determine which comparisons were and were not accurate is basic as fuck. Librarian skills not needed for this research.  

But conservative trolls who are looking for any reason they can grasp to discriminate against an ever growing population of people they've decided they hate, would all too happily demand the military stop paying for birth control. They're too stupid to realize it's utilized to treat actual medical issues, both physical and psychological, and too sexist to comprehend the notion that women are more than just walking uteri. And liberal readers would lose their fucking shit if the media dared make a comparison that seemed to call into question the necessity of birth control and/or the military's need to pay for it. Accuracy in comparison isn't needed when you're not looking to paint an accurate picture. When what you're looking for is outrage, than an outrageous comparison is absolutely perfect.  

So instead, they went after a group that has become a rather common scape goat amongst today's liberals: men. Admittedly, they broadened the field significantly with this blast, as they didn't go after white men. Or straight men. They just went after men, all men, who happen to need Viagra. Which means they went after a group of men who are probably already psychologically vulnerable and who really don't need to be dragged into this fight. They cast about for a figure, a number, a fact that they knew they could sell to an overwhelmingly headline-oriented populace, and they ran with it. Never bothering to discuss the realities behind those facts and figures. Never bothering to take into consideration the humans, many of them suffering psychologically, behind the numbers they are, essentially, mocking. 

There is a right way and wrong way to go about bringing attention to an underserved, under treated, group of people who are being discriminated against. THIS? This shit was NOT the right way.

Try harder.

** I stuck only with Tricare here because the population being treated within the VA is, obviously, dramatically different. Men utilizing the VA may be on Viagra for a plethora of reasons, to include old age. Moreover, the Department of Veterans Affairs does not cover transgender health related issues, without copays on the Soldier's part (much like standard insurance), because it's not considered a militarily-induced issue. While medications and procedures would not cost as much as they would without insurance, there will be some out-of-pocket costs associated with these treatments if seeking them through the VA. The ONLY treatments for which there is never an out-of-pocket cost are those associated with military service, UNLESS the person being treated has a disability rating that surpasses a certain percentage. These distinctions are yet another reason why the media's use of Viagra for these comparisons is little more than a cheap shot taken at a group of people who have nothing to do with this fight.

*** The Department of Veterans Affairs is eating itself alive right now trying to figure out whether it wants to consider "Gulf War Syndrome" an actual thing. Gulf War Syndrome is basically a conglomeration of illnesses that seem to be making an appearance in those veterans who have served in the Gulf. Intestinal problems, sexual deficiencies, anxiety disorders, and menstrual irregularities are all things that Soldiers who have served in this region are commonly experiencing. Many women who have served end up on birth control to control their periods or their moods following their time in service. Currently, however, this actual, medical need for birth control, is only loosely recognized by the VA. Roughly 17% of requests for compensation because of Gulf War Syndrome are actually granted, leaving about 83% of troops who are suffering these issues to do little more than treat their symptoms and hope they pass, paying co-pays for that treatment the entire time. Yes... this DOES mean that a fair number of the younger men being treated by the VA using Viagra, are probably paying a co-pay for the medication they're being given. $8 a month, most likely.