#it applies much more broadly than that; but it's an instance i think about A Lot and it's what led me to this line of thought to start with

[mckitterick]

When Noem testified before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, ranking member Senator Chris Murphy gave such powerful, informative, and important opening remarks I have to share:

transcript:

"I say this with seriousness and respect, but your department is out of control.

"You’re spending like you don’t have a budget. You are running out of money for this fiscal year. You are illegally refusing to spend funds that have been authorized by this Congress and appropriated by this committee. You are ignoring the immigration laws of this nation, implementing a brand new immigration system that you have invented that has little relation to the statutes that you are required to follow as spelled out in your oath of office. You are routinely violating the rights of immigrants who may not be citizens, but whether you like it or not, they have constitutional and statutory rights when they reside in the United States.

"Your agency acts as if laws don’t matter, as if the election gave you some mandate to violate the Constitution and the laws passed by this Congress. It did not give you that mandate. You act as if your disagreement with the law, or even the public’s disagreement with the law, is relevant and gives you the ability to create your own law. It does not give you that ability.

"Let’s start with your spending. You are on track to trigger the Anti-Deficiency act. That means you are on track to spend more money than you have been allocated by Congress. This is a rare occurrence and it is wildly illegal.

"Your agency will be broke by July, over two months before the end of the fiscal year. You may not think that Congress has allotted enough money to ICE, but the Constitution and the federal law does not allow you to spend more money than you have been given or to invent money.

"This obsession with spending at the border has left the country unprotected elsewhere. The security threats to national security are higher, not lower, since Trump came to office. To fund the border you have illegally gutted spending to cybersecurity.

"As we speak, Russian and Chinese hackers are having a field day attacking our nation. You have withdrawn funds for disaster prevention. Storms are going to kill more people because of your illegal withholding of these funds. Your myopia about the border fueled by President Trump’s prejudice against people who speak a different language have shattered most of this country’s most important defenses.

"Now let’s talk about the impoundments. When Congress appropriates funds for a specific purpose the administration has no discretion whether or not to spend that money unless you go through a specific process with this committee.

"Let me give you two of many instances of this illegal impoundment. The first is a shelter and services program. Senator Britt may want to zero that account out, but that account is funded in a bipartisan way. You may not like the program. Your policy is to treat migrants badly. I think that’s abhorrent, but it doesn’t matter that you don’t like the program. You cannot cancel spending in this program, and you cannot use the funds, as you have, to fund other things, like ICE.

"You have also cancelled citizenship and integration grants, which help lawful permanent residents become citizens, helping them take the citizenship test. I know your goal is to try to make life as hard as possible for immigrants, but that goal is not broadly shared by the American public. That’s why Congress, in a bipartisan way, for decades has funded this program to help immigrants become citizens.

"Now let’s talk about why encounters at the southern border are down so much. This is clearly going to be your primary talking point today. You will tell us that it represents as success. But the prime reason why encounters are down is because you are brazenly violating the law every hour of every day.

"You are refusing to allow people showing up at the southern border to apply for asylum. I acknowledge that you don’t believe that people should be allowed to apply for asylum, but the White House doesn’t get to choose that. The law requires you to process people who are showing up at the border to apply for asylum.

"Why? Because our asylum law is a bipartisan commitment, an effort to correct for our nation’s unconscionable decision to deny entry to Jews to this country who were being hunted and killed by the Nazis. Our nation, Republicans and Democrats, decided, wrote it into law, that we would not repeat that horror ever again, and thus we would allow for people who were fleeing terror and torture to come here, arrive at the border, and make a case for asylum.

"Finally let’s talk about these disappearances. In an autocratic society, people who the regime does not like or who are protesting the regime are often picked up off the street, and spirited away, often to open-ended detention. Sometimes they’re never seen again.

"What you are doing, both to individuals who have legal rights to stay here, like Kilmar Abrego Garcia, or students who are just protesting Trump’s policies, is immoral and, to follow the theme, it is illegal. You have no right to deport a student visa holder with no due process simply because they have spoken in a way that offends the President. You can’t remove migrants whom a court has given humanitarian protection from removal.

"Now, reports suggest that you are planning to remove immigrants with no due process and send them to prisons in Libya. Libya is in the middle of a civil war. It is subject to a level 4 travel advisory, meaning we tell American citizens never to travel to Libya. We don’t have an embassy there because it is not safe for our diplomats. Sending migrants with pending asylum claims into a war zone, just because it’s cruel, is so deeply disturbing.

"Listen, I understand that my Republican colleagues on this committee don’t view the policy as I do, don’t share my level of concern for the way the government treats immigrants, but what I don’t understand is why we don’t have consensus in the Senate and on this committee on the decision by this administration to impound the spending that we have decided together to allocate in defense of this nation.

"We as an appropriations committee worked interminable hours to write and pass this budget, and so we make ourselves irrelevant when we allow the administration to ignore what we have decided. And then when we look the other way when the administration rounds up immigrants who are here illegally and have committed no offenses worthy of detainment, we also do potential irreversible damage to the Constitution.

"These should not be partisan concerns—destroying the power of Congress, eroding individuals’ Constitutional rights. This should matter to both parties."

_

I never knew that our asylum laws arose from when we didn’t take Jews escaping from the Nazis. Both parties said never again. Yet here we are.

Everything this "administration" is doing is impeachable, and this Congress has a responsibility to get these criminals out of office and keep them out.

Contact your representatives and demand that they hold Homeland Security to account if they want to keep holding their offices - if they in fact want those offices to still be a thing in the future.

[drdemonprince]

in regards to the concept of abled people not existing/abled folks being expected to do more in relationships with disabled folks... You make some good points about us all being disabled in different ways and not recognizing it, but I still feel that there's quite a vsst gap materially between say, an ADHDer who can lift and push 50lbs easily/without pain and one who can't. And i have run into big roadblocks in relationships with other lefty types as the person who can't! And I think that expectation should be talked about and accepted more because I know a lot of "leftists" who would never think to apply this to stuff like doing the dishes because they're hellbent on everyone doing Equal Amounts. It's all fun and IG graphics about disability justice until they decide that youre Nonbinary roomate named sock who doesnt do the dishes etc etc , then see yourselves to the door!

You're absolutely right that there are differences in what various disabled people can do and the privileges that affords. It's glaringly obvious as a problem in Autism spaces, where people who can mask and speak like me are listened to and trusted and frequently talk over people who are nonverbal and cannot mask.

Even there, though, there are massive problems in attempting to rank-order someone's level of ability rather than just speaking specifically about these things in terms of privileges and oppressions. People assume I'm capable of all kinds of things I am not capable of, for instance, or hold me to ableist standards of productivity and ability because I "seem more capable. And Autistic people whose disabilities are more obvious have the opposite problem -- they are denied agency, presumed to be incompetent, not permitted to take on challenges they could find stimulating and worthwhile, and are dehumanized, etc.

And so where I'm getting with this is that we can't determine from the outside what a person is capable of doing, or what they should be capable of doing. It's not that far of a logical path to go from saying "Oh, this ADHDer is not physically disabled, they can lift 50 pounds, they can do a lot of things that I can't do" to saying "This ADHDer didn't unpack all our luggage for two weeks after our trip, they are lazy and not pulling their weight."

Someone might have the literal physical ability to do something in terms of strength or mobility, but not have the ability to complete a task because of the disabilities they do have (ADHD, in this case), and even if we are disabled ourselves we may be primed to see those people as lazy, uncaring, not pulling their weight, and all kinds of ableist interpretations.

So broadly I get your point, it is undoubtedly true some of us have abilities that others don't. but I think there's no way to put this idea into practice beyond just trusting people when they say they cannot do a thing, and not passing harsh judgement against people we think ought to be able to do a thing but don't (and maybe can't). This goes back to the original point of the discussion -- wondering why so many other people seem to fail disabled people and not show up for them.

To your second point, about a lot of even leftist people bringing therapy and instagram infographic "boundary setting" advice to their relationships and expecting all chores to be divided up equally, yeah that's a big problem and it's been a big problem in interpersonal relationships for many decades at this point. Most people overestimate the portion of the chores that they do, underestimate the work their partners or housemates do, and aspire to "equity" in a way that drives them absolutely crazy with score-keeping and resentment. There's a lot of research on how that outlook absolutely poisons heterosexual relationships and has done so pretty much ever since women started getting the ability to say no to a chore. It's a big problem of individualism under capitalism at its root, I think.

And the social change needed is much the same thing -- people need to learn to actually trust their loved ones when they say they cannot do the dishes, cannot clean the gutters, can't drop off the rent check, etc. I think a disability justice politics of raising everyone's class consciousness regarding their own disabilities and others is the way to go, and a massive strengthening of community ties.

[anghraine]

thatinsufferableb-st-rd said:

@anghraine so i have read the books multiple times and am an avid fan of the movies. I enjoy both for what they are. I think the main difference is that Peter Jackson was very open about what they chose to cut and why from anything I've ever seen. They even have Sam give a nod to the book readers by saying "by rights we shouldn't even be here". No I'm not happy about what they did with Faramir and Glorfindel got jipped, and I would have lover to have seen Elronds sons but at the end of the day there were acknowledgments of what and why. Rings of Power to me has always come off as hiding from any criticism by using the shield of "well if you don't like it it's because you don't like POCs in it". To which I genuinely could not give a fuck less, like there are so many branches of elves that went different ways so that could make sense within what Tolkein established. But don't hide behind that when your writing is just "Sauron is evil. We know. And we know she knows. But we have to make it seem like she's the only one who Has A Clue so we must all try to shoo her off to make a plotline"

@lesbiansforboromir has already correctly and politely pointed out that you are doing the very thing we were criticizing in that post—intruding on ROP fan discussion to unfavorably contrast the show to the Peter Jackson films, while also applying a degree of scrutiny to ROP that the Jackson films are rarely subject to in a remotely comparable way and could not bear. Frankly, @lesbiansforboromir is nicer and more restrained than I am about this, but you chose to tag me as well, so I'll also respond.

We (lesbiansforboromir and I) were talking about being excited about costuming in S2 of ROP and disliking the fandom meltdowns over ROP's costuming looking (somewhat) different from the films' aesthetic. Since it had already come up in their discussion, I added that I'm not convinced by the anti-ROP contingent framing their seething hatred of the costuming and design as just caring so much about fidelity to Tolkien's vision. I pointed out that Tolkien fandom broadly cares far more about their preferred, film-influenced aesthetics than Tolkien's actual descriptions and gave some specific examples of this.

There's been a lot of talk, for instance, about how the universally long, flowing hair for Elves preferred by the fandom and used in the films is actually totally canon according to Tolkien even if it's rarely mentioned in LOTR proper. This is inaccurate. Galadriel's brother Aegnor is typically depicted in the fandom/film-preferred style rather than per Tolkien's description of his hair as "strong and stiff, rising upon his head like flames" (indeed, in general neither Aegnor nor anyone else is ever depicted this way, and this description rarely shows up in the lists of "no it's about ethics in adaptation" Tolkien hair quotes).

Tolkien repeatedly describes Elvish, peredhel, and Dúnadan women as wearing their hair bound up in braided coiffures with jeweled hair pieces/nets rather than loose and flowing à la the films and the fandom. Nobody cares, any more than they care about Tolkien's description of Arwen's clothing as soft, grey, and noticeably devoid of ornamentation apart from a belt and netted cap (i.e. the opposite of her highly elaborate film costuming and typically loose, unbound, uncovered hair in the films and most illustrations).

Meanwhile, my fave Faramir's hair is nowhere near long enough in the films or most art to mingle with Éowyn's as Tolkien describes. It's usually also depicted as blond, reddish, or brown rather than black as in the book; in Tolkien's LOTR, all described Gondorians have dark or black hair, with the only difference in coloring being that some Gondorians are dark-skinned and some are pale. Again, almost nobody in the fandom cares about this when they're going on about costume design and casting to reflect Tolkien's vision, and male Gondorians are overwhelmingly depicted with short or shoulder-length hair in the films and in Tolkien illustrations.

Popular depictions of Gondor, including the Gondor of the films, very rarely reflect Tolkien's description of Gondor's aesthetic as similar to ancient Egypt, the Byzantine Empire, and the Roman Empire. Film Gondor has, at most, extremely vague allusions to Byzantine architecture amidst the general and deliberate westernization of Gondor's design—as just one example among many, Tolkien's explicitly Egyptian-based design for the royal crown of Gondor is converted to a generically western European-style crown in the films and overwhelmingly in the fandom.

I then pointed out that it's been very noticeable that ROP haters tend to have a powerful double standard wrt fidelity when it comes to the Jackson films. For over 20 years, most film fans have been constitutionally incapable of tolerating even slight criticism of the films without jumping in to defend their greatness and condescendingly explain the most basic elements of adaptation. (Yes, we know film is not the same medium as text, we know changes are part of adaptation to another medium, we all know that, we all know that a word-for-word adaptation would suck and never be made, this is not new information and does not make the PJ films' every choice a good one.) Yet most film LOTR fans who vocally despise ROP display none of the charity towards ROP that they demand for the films (demand even from someone like Christopher Tolkien, a dead man the entire fandom is deeply indebted to, whose dislike of the films still leads to regular attacks on his character from Jackson film stans).

This hypercritical yet hyperdefensive tendency in the fandom is neatly illustrated by the fact that you responded to a conversation about the double standards in evaluations of ROP's costuming vs the films' to go on about how ROP is objectively bad for reasons entirely unrelated to costuming, how you're totally not racist (something nobody was talking about), and to quote you directly, "Like the show was just Bad." Truly, an incisive critique. Meanwhile, your concessions with regard to the Jackson films are mainly about extremely minor and defensible omissions like removing Glorfindel and the sons of Elrond rather than the serious and fundamental problems that lesbiansforboromir and I have with them, or even the ways they do pretty much the exact same things you're lambasting ROP for.

I mean, if we're going to talk about action hero Elves in ROP vs the Jackson films, what about the action hero-ification of Legolas in the films? He was described by Tolkien himself as the Fellowship member who accomplished the least, so super badass battle-skateboarding Legolas hardly represents fidelity to Tolkien's vision. Why should that get a pass while film-stanning ROP haters seethe about ROP!Galadriel being too special, even though Tolkien described her as one of the most special Elves to ever live and specifically as remarkably athletic and insightful?

Meanwhile, film Gimli is reduced to comic relief, the only dwarves taken seriously are conventionally hot ones in The Hobbit films, and Frodo's expressions of strength and fortitude are consistently removed to glorify other characters. Film Gondorians were deliberately designed to seem like useless tin soldiers (which they are in the films, as well as whiter and blonder than Tolkien wrote them) rather than the physically imposing and highly effective fighting force of the book. ROP imagining Elvish rituals upon approaching Valinor that aren't based in Tolkien canon but don't directly conflict with it is absolutely trivial compared to the films' handling of Denethor and Faramir.

The point is not that you, personally, are not allowed to like the films or dislike ROP despite all this. Many people do love the films, including most of my followers. They do have their strengths, though they are extremely racist and few film fans will acknowledge this without soft-pedaling it in some way (esp, since you brought it up, given the context of the truly unhinged degree of racism that has accompanied much of the broader discourse around ROP).

The point is that film fans who hate ROP are constantly showing up in our conversations to be "well actually ROP is just objectively bad, unlike the films, because the show has failings that are also in the films but it's totally different there because of the contents of Peter Jackson's soul" or whatever. The point is the absolutely glaring and obnoxiously hypocritical double standard of defensiveness about the films and obsessive nitpicking of ROP that leads to ROP haters continually going on rants to ROP fans that are unwelcome, uninvited, and usually (as in this case) irrelevant to what was even being discussed.

[fatalism-and-villainy]

We are dipping back into Hannibal meta hours, because @ringo-rocks commented on this post all the way back in November and I am only just now posting the response. (And because my strongest fandom tie to the show at the moment is, well, Chiyoh, and the women in general, so it's fitting.)

Hi! You're one of my fav Hannibal writers. This post was very interesting and I have mixed feelings on the topic, so I just wanted to ask, what do you overall think about Hannibal's treatment of its female characters? I find myself thinking, wow, it has created some deeply compelling characters here--I really like almost every character in the show, and the girls almost moreso--but I also feel like they ARE regulated by the show to being part of a man's story. They lack agency--which to be fair, seems to be part of the show, destined fate, but like, Abigail has almost zero lines in Mizumono for instance. The female characters arcs do feel to me like very typically ignored, especially Chiyoh. And at the same time, I think she's a very interesting character … So I'm kind of just asking your vague thoughts on the subject, if you have the time. Do you think the female characters have an unfair lack of agency, or is it proportional to the male characters/serves a purpose?

First of all, thank you, that’s really nice to hear! The idea that I could be among someone’s favourite Hannibal writers is kind of wild.

I’ve been thinking about this question intermittently, because it brought up a lot of tangential analytical points for me. I’ll try to touch on the points you’ve raised, but I do want to push beyond the premises you’re operating on.

To answer your question in brief - I don’t really buy into this criticism. It’s a criticism I see a lot - “Hannibal is bad at women” gets taken as axiomatic in some discussions - but I’ve just never been convinced by it. This is even more true now that I’ve been getting back into Star Trek, which is egregiously misogynistic in so so many places, but even before that it rang false to me. There are certain storytelling decisions in Hannibal that I might quibble with (which I’ll get into in a minute), but for the most part? I actually think that for a story that is explicitly and deliberately centered on a Super Important Homoerotic Relationship Between Two Men, Hannibal is actually well above average in how it handles women.

Because, as you alluded to, most of the women’s character arcs and thematic role in the story are in some way tied to Hannibal Lecter, or Will Graham, or the relationship between Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham. But… that’s true of all the characters on the show. The show is about Hannibal and Will, and most of its plot elements and set pieces and secondary character arcs thematically reflect and lead back to that. The show’s pacing and story structure pretty much orbits around the magnetic bond between them.

And that’s my main objection to so many of the complaints about how the women on the show are handled - I’ve rarely seen any critiques that don’t broadly apply to the men on the show (who are not Will and Hannibal) as well. How much do we truly know about, for example, Jack, or Chilton? We don’t get any more backstory or character history for Chilton than we do for, say, Alana or Bedelia. Jack gets fleshed out a bit through the arc with his wife, and Dolarhyde also gets a ton of screen time and focus (though, again, his backstory is massively cut down from the books), but there’s no comparison to the level of personal history and detail that Will and Hannibal get, because they’re the main characters and focus of the show. And I think the complaint that we don’t learn much about the women really ignores the level of insight we are actually granted. Alana, for example, I’d argue has one of the most interesting and nuanced character arcs on the show, and the idea that she’s thinly written in practice often seems to me like a failure to engage with what’s actually there. (The only place where I would agree that she’s underwritten is season 3, but that’s true of everyone, even Will and Hannibal - it’s a consequence of squashing two different arcs into one season that a lot of stuff is compressed.) Freddie Lounds is no less developed or sympathetic than Chilton; Beverly is a static character, but so is the rest of the forensic team (and Bev is the most prominent member of that team).

I want to touch on the topic of agency, because I don’t think that’s the right lens to look at the issue with. Usually when we talk about “agency”, it’s a proxy for interiority - do the women feel like narrative props, or do they feel like fleshed out people? So it’s possible to have a female character who’s disempowered without it being anti-feminist, provided she has her own perspective and character arc. You brought up Abigail, and while I do take issue with the way her character arc in season 1 is more or less cut short, I don’t think the problem with her sidelining in season 2 (which I’d say is one of the biggest structural problems with that season) is that she lacks agency. In fact, I think her trusting Hannibal in part because he demonstrates some level of respect for her desire for independence, only to end up entangled in the eternal daughter role once again, is a very tragic but fascinating direction for her character. My problem is that we see none of her perspective on that (after season 1 gives us so many insights into her POV). I don’t even mind her dying, necessarily, because I think there is an appealing tragedy to it, but I think it would have been possible to do that without relegating her to merely a narrative symbol of the bond between Will and Hannibal.

Alana is another example we could poke at - season 2 sees Alana getting the wool pulled over her eyes and used as a character witness by Hannibal, and given his deception of her, her sexual relationship with him is extremely dubiously consensual. But, for one thing, we do actually get a lot of emphasis on her perspective and emotional state - much of Ko No Mono is devoted to her POV and growing distrust of Hannibal, and Mizumono dedicates an extended cinematic sequence to how violated by Hannibal she feels (namely, the imagery of her drowning in black water). And for another, she does still have agency at that point in the narrative; her entire season 2 arc is centered on her making moral decisions and living with the consequences. And her decision to trust Hannibal and distrust Will is both understandable given the information available to her at the time and very much a consequence of who she is as a person. Furthermore, in 3A, she takes active initiative to both get revenge on Hannibal and make up for her mistake of trusting him - which of course then leads to further consequences that she has to clean up. She’s constrained by the circumstances of her situation in both cases - namely by Hannibal’s manipulations and Mason Verger’s abuses of power - but she still demonstrates quite a bit of agency, in ways that further her character arc.

Or we could consider Bedelia, who is also manipulated and controlled by Hannibal in quite a few ways, but also has plenty of agency. She makes moral choices too - she has a gun on Hannibal after the events of Mizumono, but chooses to give up her power in that situation. While under his thumb in Florence, she realizes she’s in too deep, and manages to manipulate the situation to her advantage and escape him. And then in 3B, she chooses to continue to engage with Will in order to further gain control of the situation.

There’s even Margot, who’s a more minor character than the others, but is also instructive as to the show’s balancing of agency and disempowerment in its characters. Margot has very little power when we meet her, but we get plenty of her perspective, and she’s still able to make decisions within the constraints placed upon her. It’s worth noting as well that the decisions she does make to try to seize more power and autonomy for herself all involve some level of exploitation of others - sleeping with Will under false pretenses isn’t the most egregious sin, but it does leave him feeling justifiably angry and used, and of course what she ends up doing to Mason is a replication of the same sexual and reproductive violence that he’s enacted on her.

Which is to say, I think a lot of the most prominent women on the show are victims - usually of Hannibal, but sometimes of other violent men - and subject to some level of violation or disempowerment because of it. But they also make moral choices and moral compromises of their own. Those choices are often spurred by Hannibal’s influence, but they are still freely chosen by these women, and a consequence of their personalities and values. And this is also true of many of the men! Jack Crawford is manipulated by Hannibal, but he’s also in a position of institutional power that requires him to make moral compromises and exploit others, and his guilt over that forms a huge part of his character arc. Chilton is victimized to a comical degree and ends up as a pawn in Hannibal and Will (and Alana)’s schemes, but he also makes his own choices (choices that are driven by his selfishness and arrogance). Hell, Will himself is stripped of agency in season 1, but he claws his way back to himself and chooses to morally compromise himself to reel Hannibal in. One of the things I find most interesting about this narrative is that balance - the way everybody is caught up in the magnetism of Hannibal’s influence, and yet also a moral agent, contending with impulses that are forced to the surface either directly or indirectly by Hannibal and yet are still a fundamental part of their personality. Not all the characters go through this to equal degrees, of course, but I don’t think there’s a gender disparity in those who do.

I do want to touch on Chiyoh while we’re here, because I definitely think she’s a very problematic character. But I actually think the reasons for that have much more to do with race and Orientalism than with gender. More broadly speaking, I have more problems with the show’s handling of race than gender (though I honestly think the fandom perpetuates more racism and sexism than the show).

Hannibal is pretty deliberately apolitical in its handling of both race and gender. We do get some arguable commentary on misogyny with Margot’s arc and some with some moments with Alana too, but for the most part, things like the commentary on misogyny from the Red Dragon novel are excised in the adaptation of that storyline, with the subtext of sexual violence towards the women being narratively redirected to serve the violence-as-homoeroticism framing of the triangular dynamics between Will and Hannibal and Francis. And I honestly think that’s a legitimate adaptational decision. I’ve seen and even agree with some critiques of the specifics of Fuller’s handling of the “excising sexual violence from the narrative” thing, and how that affects the show’s adaptation off the novels, but for the most part I think his intentions were good and that the show is not really designed for political polemics.

Wrt race, the approach is pretty similar - racism and racial identity are never rendered explicitly narratively significant, and we have several characters like Jack Crawford and Beverly Katz who are played by people of colour but whose characters are pretty racially unmarked. And for the most part that’s fine, but the show’s determined apoliticism re: race does lead to some incredibly tone deaf moments. There’s the exchange between Jack and Miriam, where she says that the Ripper might not be white, but “exotic somehow,” and that that’s why Jack will catch him - an insane thing to say to a black man, and also completely inexplicable. There’s also the plot point of the racially diverse mural at the beginning of season 2, with the line from Hannibal about how “the colour of our skin is so often politicized” and so it’s refreshing to see it used for purely aesthetic means. Which I find… deeply smug and self-congratulatory and also kind of gross in context. The show’s commitment to aesthetics over ethics is generally fine, but in moments like that it bumps up against real world injustice in honestly pretty ugly ways.

Anyway, that brings us to Chiyoh, a character whose ethnicity registers very strongly. Her portion of the narrative is derived from Hannibal Rising, a book whose presentation of Chiyoh and Murasaki (the latter of whom was originally intended to play Chiyoh’s narrative role on the show) is extremely Orientalist in ways the show can’t quite excise. Even aside from the script’s sort of weeblike incorporation of Japanese culture (the “nakama” line is sooo stupid) Chiyoh is very obviously coded as Other, coded as an enigma, and used to jack up the show’s surrealism and untimeliness in its settings.

Like, I mentioned here semi-jokingly that she also speaks in the same metaphor-laden, semi-incomprehensible manner that Will and Hannibal do (the “stoned vampire” dialogue), but it is worth noting that those speech patterns, as well as her sort of magical intuition (just knowing that Hannibal is in Florence for no reason) are very much tied to Orientalist tropes. This is of course complicated by the fact that her vibes-based analysis reflects the vibes-based analysis used by our white protagonist, but it’s also worth noting that this iteration of Will Graham was somewhat modeled on Twin Peaks’ Dale Cooper, another white man whose vibes-based analysis is explicitly derived from “Eastern philosophy” or whatever. So I’d say the show’s surrealism and dream logic is refracted and intensified through Chiyoh and what her body signifies.

The same goes for how out of time the character feels. It’s been mentioned before that Murasaki (and by extension Chiyoh) in Hannibal Rising represents a very antiquated portrayal of Japanese culture in a way that is also a pretty common Orientalist trope (I recall an article on The Joy Luck Club that discusses how the novel’s portrayal of China, and by extension the Chinese-born characters, seems to take place in an undefined and almost mythic past, whereas the representation of America is very firmly grounded in the present day). Chiyoh also feels like she’s been transposed from another time period - being sent away by her parents to wait on Lady Murasaki is a backstory that makes no goddam sense in the present day, and there are also (as many fans have noted) the time warp implications of her having been in the Lecter estate for as long as she has while still being significantly younger than Hannibal.

And again, this is complicated by the fact that many aspects of this show feel deliberately out of time, and that Hannibal Lecter himself - a white European man - feels more a product of the nineteenth century than the twenty-first. In fact, season 3A’s portrayal of Europe also feels very temporally displaced - I saw a critic point out that it feels more like an American fantasy of Europe than actual Europe, and on my recent Hannibal watch through I wryly commented on discord that I doubted that European academia was as glamorous as the show was making it look. But again, I think the untimeliness of the show’s presentation of Europe - and in general, the way 3A expands the show beyond the procedural confines of the first two seasons and makes it generally more surreal in its aesthetics - is accentuated by Chiyoh’s presence. Will travels to Lithuania, where the Lecter castle represents a very Gothic, Old World vision of Europe, and it’s there that he encounters Chiyoh, an East Asian woman with a very heavy accent who is implicitly in the role of a servant. There’s… a lot of loaded symbolism there.

And - as I alluded to in the linked post - she is often relegated to that role as a servant in fandom as well, with many post-canon fics involving her logistically enabling Will and Hannibal’s escape or helping them maintain their lifestyle. I have also mentioned this in my writing, as it shows up in To Stop This Crawling (though that fic also raises the possibilities of her unresolved tension with Will), and it is set up by the show with her promising to watch over Hannibal and enabling his escape from the Verger estate. Fuller himself expressed regret that her arc was pretty much dropped in favour of her functioning as a deus ex machina there, and I suspect that was one of many story elements that was shortchanged by the cancellation. (This is also why I can’t really fault him for not developing Alana/Margot much - given that we get a lot of context and backstory for Hannibal and Bedelia’s relationship at the beginning of season 3, when they’ve already run away together, I suspect that if there had been a season 4, there would have similarly been time devoted to filling in the blanks for that relationship, just as there would likely have been more work done with Chiyoh.) But given the possibilities the show raises with her dynamic with both Will and Hannibal, and her conflicted sense of ethics, I do think it’s unfortunate that many fanfics similarly reduce her to a plot device.

But anyway, when it comes to Chiyoh, I think that the problematics of her character derive much more from Orientalism than sexism. Not that they’re separate (and I do think one could rightfully complain that the women of colour are denied the more fleshed out and complete arcs that many of the white women are given), but I think the reasons Chiyoh’s POV is hard to access is that, aside from how crunched the entire 3A narrative feels, it’s consistent Othering of her and the general aura of mystique around her that occludes her POV. I’ve certainly tried to access it, and to contextualize her relationship with Will and Hannibal, and you can find that in plenty of meta posts in my tag for her. But it is also something I’ve struggled with when trying to plan my Will/Chiyoh fic. Because I definitely want to lean into the temporal weirdness and general surrealism surrounding her (I mean, it’s a Hannibal fic), but it’s hard to do that without simply replicating the Orientalism surrounding her character. I’ve tried to rectify some of that by coming up with a backstory in which she was living a somewhat normal life and attending university and engaged to be married when Murasaki summoned her to deal with Hannibal and his roaring rampage of revenge over Mischa’s death, but it doesn’t excise everything and is still a bit jarring with what we see in the show.

Anyway, that’s a long tangent from what you asked, but I do think it’s important in contextualizing what’s going on with Chiyoh, and I do think I’ve been somewhat negligent about it in my discussions of her. Basically, I don’t agree with broad criticisms that the show is bad at women, but I do have some problems with its racial politics and think women of colour sometimes get the short end of the stick in writing, and that there’s a lot of racially loaded stuff going on with Chiyoh specifically.

[broodwoof]

Mythal – The Judged Mother

Making this incredibly easy to ignore and scroll right past if ppl want <3 I am having many thoughts while listening to my little science audiobooks and it has me in an essay mode lmao.

While I am a strong advocate for people viewing media and characters as they want and in ways that hold meaning for them – including ways that are not canonical, because frankly, that can be fun! And enlightening! And sometimes it's just what people see, whether it has its roots in the deliberately-told story or not – it can be frustrating when an interpretation is presented as objective fact, particularly ones that do not strongly reference the source material(s); that is what this post is about. Less a critique of the interpretation and more a critique of the presentation, at least from some people some of the time.

Also a minor analysis of underlying forces that contribute to the frequency of these and similar views, particularly as applied to women.

I know – because I have read people explicitly saying as much – that some people view Mythal as a mother before anything else. And, specifically, that they project the difficult relationship they have with their own mother onto her character.

This is actually entirely fine and normal. Characters are vehicles for personal interpretation, and using them as a way to navigate one’s own trauma or challenges is very, very normal and has a huge, spanning precedent.

For those of us who like her, though, it is frustrating to see her character regularly reduced to a single-note “bad/abusive mother” archetype. The validity of these points of view and the frustration they can cause can coexist! People contain multitudes and all.

Is it a little questionable that one of the female characters is so quickly and broadly reduced to “bad/abusive mother” and little else? I think it is questionable, yes; not inherently awful or deeply, automatically problematic, but questionable. Primarily when these personal interpretations are presented as objective fact. In relation to Morrigan, I think saying that Mythal – more accurately Flemythal – is an abusive mother is accurate! Although it is also worth pointing out that Veilguard portrays a recovering relationship between mother and daughter, which is also important and intentional. But this does not mean that Flemythal never did anything bad!

But saying that Mythal is an abusive mother/mother-figure to Solas is, inherently, interpretive. There is no direct support for this view in canon. In fairness, there is no direct support for my view of them as a romantic relationship, either! "Love" is a term that can be applied to a vast array of relationships, from romantic to platonic to familial. I feel like the in-game conversations between the companions was more supportive of a romantic or platonic relationship rather than a familial one, but I will acknowledge that the companions are, of course, biased sources and not omniscient narrators.

Is it tiring to see yet another woman have her motherhood emphasized over any other potential dynamic or relationship she could have? Yes! Does that mean everyone who views her in this way is evil, or misguided, or offensive? No! Are there underlying social, cultural, and political forces contributing to this view? Yes! Take Elgar’nan, for instance: literally known as the All-Father, yet rarely reduced to the role. It is not a crime or a cruelty to point out that female characters tend to receive more criticism and less grace, nor is it anything new.

Just the same, individuals who hold these views are not uniquely terrible or wrong, and many of them have personal cause to interpret her in this way.

This is why my critiques emphasize the large view, the broad generalizations in fandom/fanon – rather than yelling at or vaguing any one individual. 

One final note: outside of the interpretive elements, I have had the displeasure of seeing some deeply offensive things stated about Mythal. In these cases, it is clear that the speaker(s) hold internalized prejudices and -isms and I am very tired of seeing them project these unexamined biases onto character(s), but this is far from unique to Mythal.

[2n2n]

a stinky post! smelly…. it's a little rough lately with, IRL stresses and you know whats a good distraction in specifically this circumstance ... being fake mad at fake things that are unimportant ... !

It's fun to think about the manga in any way.... (:

I feel like some dumb takes really live inside of you forever (which is why I do not look at much), as just so pants on head stupid … During the Hakubo/Sumire arc there were 100000 dumb takes, but among them was someone trying to assert the manga's theme was … abuse … (and you know in what way this was meant, in the same hamfisted way any young person talks right now) ... using benchmarks like, Mitsuba was bullied, Teru is abused, Amane was abused, Sumire is abused… but it's like, it didn't think whatsoever about every SINGLE instance of which there is 'abuse' and how characters feel about it, actually … if it was 'about abuse', it would do such a laughable job of it, and it would, half the time, be saying… the worst thing possible, which would be something like: true love forgives everything, including abuse; or, staying through abuse is something you can do to prove your devotion, or to endure in honor of someone else, or a virtue you stand for. There is a lot of suffering in JSHK, but people aren't typically surviving it and then applying it in a way you'd want to replicate. It's romantic in the more symbolic and extreme vein. I mean. Romantic in the vein of… a shinjuu… stay with me, here!

More BROADLY, individuals suffer from STRICTURES, and this is actually what harms Amane, Sumire/Hakubo, Teru, Mitsuba ... (and what harmed in Snow White and MDLD! the INSTITUTIONS of the church, and the royal families; tradition and virtues perpetuated on trapped people) RULES, collectivism, keeping your head down and behaving, serving a greater purpose (as a sacrifice, as a son of a legacy, as a mystery); often individuals hurting each other is forgiven and understood, or even appreciated... ? The things you endure in honor of some capital, in the idea of 'goodness', those are the sufferings ... the things you tell yourself to endure in honor of who you love, might be foolish, might be tied up in that, but they are presented in contrast. Teru does not do what he does, for the town. He loves his family brocon.

There is more to be said about love, endurance, devotion, loyalty, and in fact, all of those in the face of abuse; literally the opposite to what someone was trying to get at … Amane will forgive everything that is done to him, even if it makes no sense, if it's not justified, if it is something nobody else would or could or should forgive. He isn't STUPID for that, he's NOBLE! You couldn't get more poignant than Aoi STABBING AKANE, and him enduring it, swearing to still love her, even at her worst. Continuing to crawl towards her, refusing to let her get away. Amane can KNOCK NENE OUT, gaslight her, he can kill her friend-- under any definition, he is abusive to her, isn't he? She'll chase him down, every time. Even on a good day, he's touching her without consent, her verbally telling him to stop or shoving him off of her. But Nene-chan's role is to understand why, to forgive his transgressions upon her, and deep down, to like how he treats her. You just can't impose an anti-harm virtue in that, it prioritizes love.

For all the weardown methods in this manga (HanaNene, NatsuSaku, HakuMire, AkaneAoi....), you'd be insane to assert it has an anti-abuse message… or even really cares about that as a cautionary tale ... you can't keep looking at major long-built-up-to events as flops or mistakes or sudden, predictable creepiness out of left field, in contrast to your idea of virtue as if it otherwise maintains it.

Even with Mitsuba, you'd be crazy to think we're trying to 'say something about abuse', when Kou himself bullies Mitsuba… Kou's even quite rough, throwing rocks at him, and so recently, violently wrestling him. He'll call him stupid while doing it all! He'll call Mitsuba's suicidal urges STUPID! In what way isn't that 'abuse', if we compare it to anyone else arbitrarily held up to scrutiny? Where do we draw the line, you know? Shouldn't it never be a gag or bit or silly, if we want to coherently deliver a message of some artistic import to the author? Are AidaIro wanton?

It's like people notice "people get hurt", relationships are twisted, and then automatically assume "so the message probably is one that moralizes upon that".

What of how Sakura dehumanizes Natsuhiko, and how much he loves her anyway? She hits him, she declares he deserves no recognition. Does he 'deserve' it, for being a pest to her? I guess the argument is often that Tsukasa 'deserved' to die … does , Mitsuba 'deserve it' when he is bullied by Kou? ? Does Nene-chan 'deserve it' when Amane removes her autonomy ? if we start thinking about 'deserving misery', why doesn't Amane deserve the agony he's been trapped in? He definitely feels he deserves it. I suppose Hakubo deserved his end for his life of slavery, due to how he didn't fight it hard enough, or feel bad enough ?

You have everything from severe situations where characters, in pure love, endure anything, and you have comedic situations where you're not meant to take the slapstick seriously, and you have people sortof wantonly deciding that, well, the way Tsukasa acts, is abusive, but, then, Kou, isn't, for arbitrary reasons, not even following the guideline of how something is framed. Nene-chan can like, hit Amane. He can knock her out. Whether or not that's a problem to a rube is a toss-up (and usually, just if they like Amane, or like Nene. and usually, Nene's flaw to people is being boring, really :p).

But if you get hooked on the idea of the 'theme' being something like this, this relationship harm abuse thing, the story looks haphazard and meaningless and renegade. And then people get frustrated by headers where Tsukasa is a funny little mascot blowing bubbles and painting Mokke in chocolate … because it's disorienting, in THAT context. In the context of a story trying to unpack abuse, and take it seriously, Tsukasa's depiction becomes backwards, annoying, confusing. It's like AidaIro-sensei aren't taking their own story seriously! It's like they just want to pander to fans (what, on an unpaid for completely by her own volition banner, a thing with Aida-sensei used to playfully do for her and Iro-sensei's blog when they were teens together? Before even being employed at all?)

but you know,

In the context, "Tsukasa is someone still worth loving", all that depiction makes sense. Of course, you're meant to find him precious. You're waiting to understand why he is Amane's yorishiro. You're waiting to understand why he looks at him like this… even after everything.

Thinking about love, first and foremost, we understand why someone should adore Sakura, even as she threatens to destroy the world. Someone who would let her hurt them, any day, every day, and still see her as cute, caring, shy, lonely. What she really is.

We can understand why, even if Kou is stupid and violent, even if he can't express anything well, even if he lashes out with insults, someone should still want to give him a chance to help them.

We can understand why Akane can be rejected by Aoi over and over and over again, why he would forgive being stabbed through the body, why he would still want to kiss Aoi, even after she insists he stop loving her already.

We can understand why Sumire was never afraid of Hakubo's Oni nature, and could never hate him; not even after 100 years of quiet, imprisoned abandonment.

Characters really do feel devotion in… DANGEROUS excess, to BAD FOR THEM or BAD FOR OTHERS extremes (which sometimes, others comment on as absurd!!), maybe, most relevantly, this is true for our TITLE CHARACTER, who PARTOOK OF A LOVER'S SUICIDE. Perhaps it is DANGEROUS to love and be loved by Amane, perhaps it was DANGEROUS to love Tsukasa! Perhaps it is more dangerous than anything, for Nene-chan to dig deeper and deeper, when Amane wants to hide it all from her!

Should all of these people still love eachother? Should they wrestle themselves away, with some sense? It's too bad ... they simply will. Is it tragic that they stay, or is it beautiful? What does the story think?

All things told, just your boyfriend refusing to give you the details of his criminal record is not good….

Amane is surely scared he could not have Nene-chan's love any longer if she saw him fully.

But should we want her to run away from the full weight of it? Of course not … however bad it is, we can have faith Nene-chan could, and would, still love him. Even if it was stupid to. Even if nobody else would love him. Even if there's no sane way to justify loving him.

It is a little wild to me the situations of institutions and legacies of power, tradition, is just not perceived, either. Even though I think that is far more socially relevant and engaging a message even for the western audience ... More often these romanticized individual relationships are niggled and nitpicked to hell and back, as the Big Nasty Thing, but the greater shape of the Minamoto family, the institution trapping the Mysteries, the belief systems about Kaii and Human, the very conceit of social credit represented in rumors perpetuating expectations of harm and changing people into monsters, is just not seen as the actual 'Big Bad'. What hurts anyone? What forces someone to make a bad decision? All these trapped animals, poked in their cages ... what a misnomer, to watch the animals hurt eachother, and say, "that one is bad, and deserves to be killed to make the other animals safe". It's sweet that for all the biting and clawing eachother, the animals lick eachother's wounds.

I heard there is someone out here trying to break cages...

Anyway... as I mentioned a couple times ... It's not as if I think the writing is without a meaningful message, or as if it's only jerkoff fodder yandere soup for the SIMP's soul. You can think of rumors as representing expectations, stereotypes, prejudice-- perpetuation of belief, superstition creating paranoia, hysteria, harm… the Minamoto+Nagisa families as expressing how history is obfuscated and rewritten towards a chosen narrative, how something as noble as seeking control and safety can justify individual harm, how individual lives and freedom become nothing but collateral or fodder in pursuit of collective security (fascism, if you wanna go there... or just anti-collectivism if you wanna be less intense). The broader concept that seeking to protect something may provoke the destruction of autonomy. "You can't do anything, so it's better to forget, and be happy" is repeated constantly (and argued AGAINST!) too...

It's just never going to be a narrative in support of punishment, banishment, 'bad people do bad things' ... or else our title character would not be an imprisoned criminal, who hates himself.

[mollyrealized]

Sen. Chris Murphy to Kristi Noem, Trump's Homeland Security Director

Sen. Chris Murphy to Kristi Noem, Trump’s Homeland Security Director:

[Y]our department is out of control.

You’re spending like you don’t have a budget. You are running out of money for this fiscal year. You are illegally refusing to spend funds that have been authorized by this Congress and appropriated by this committee. You are ignoring the immigration laws of this nation, implementing a brand new immigration system that you have invented that has little relation to the statutes that you are required to follow as spelled out in your oath of office. You are routinely violating the rights of immigrants who may not be citizens, but whether you like it or not, they have constitutional and statutory rights when they reside in the United States.

Your agency acts as if laws don’t matter, as if the election gave you some mandate to violate the Constitution and the laws passed by this Congress. It did not give you that mandate. You act as if your disagreement with the law, or even the public’s disagreement with the law, is relevant and gives you the ability to create your own law. It does not give you that ability.

Let’s start with your spending. You are on track to trigger the Anti-Deficiency act. That means you are on track to spend more money than you have been allocated by Congress. This is a rare occurrence and it is wildly illegal.

Your agency will be broke by July, over two months before the end of the fiscal year. You may not think that Congress has allotted enough money to ICE, but the Constitution and the federal law does not allow you to spend more money than you have been given or to invent money.

This obsession with spending at the border has left the country unprotected elsewhere. The security threats to national security are higher, not lower, since Trump came to office. To fund the border you have illegally gutted spending to cybersecurity.

As we speak, Russian and Chinese hackers are having a field day attacking our nation. You have withdrawn funds for disaster prevention. Storms are going to kill more people because of your illegal withholding of these funds. Your myopia about the border fueled by President Trump’s prejudice against people who speak a different language have shattered most of this country’s most important defenses.

Now let’s talk about the impoundments. When Congress appropriates funds for a specific purpose the administration has no discretion whether or not to spend that money unless you go through a specific process with this committee.

Let me give you two of many instances of this illegal impoundment. The first is a shelter and services program. Senator Britt may want to zero that account out, but that account is funded in a bipartisan way. You may not like the program. Your policy is to treat migrants badly. I think that’s abhorrent, but it doesn’t matter that you don’t like the program. You cannot cancel spending in this program, and you cannot use the funds, as you have, to fund other things, like ICE.

You have also cancelled citizenship and integration grants, which help lawful permanent residents become citizens, helping them take the citizenship test. I know your goal is to try to make life as hard as possible for immigrants, but that goal is not broadly shared by the American public. That’s why Congress, in a bipartisan way, for decades has funded this program to help immigrants become citizens.

Now let’s talk about why encounters at the southern border are down so much. This is clearly going to be your primary talking point today. You will tell us that it represents as success. But the prime reason why encounters are down is because you are brazenly violating the law every hour of every day.

You are refusing to allow people showing up at the southern border to apply for asylum. I acknowledge that you don’t believe that people should be allowed to apply for asylum, but the White House doesn’t get to choose that. The law requires you to process people who are showing up at the border to apply for asylum.

Why? Because our asylum law is a bipartisan commitment, an effort to correct for our nation’s unconscionable decision to deny entry to Jews to this country who were being hunted and killed by the Nazis. Our nation, Republicans and Democrats, decided, wrote it into law, that we would not repeat that horror ever again, and thus we would allow for people who were fleeing terror and torture to come here, arrive at the border, and make a case for asylum.

Finally let’s talk about these disappearances. In an autocratic society, people who the regime does not like or who are protesting the regime are often picked up off the street, and spirited away, often to open-ended detention. Sometimes they’re never seen again.

What you are doing, both to individuals who have legal rights to stay here, like Kilmar Abrego Garcia, or students who are just protesting Trump’s policies, is immoral and, to follow the theme, it is illegal. You have no right to deport a student visa holder with no due process simply because they have spoken in a way that offends the President. You can’t remove migrants whom a court has given humanitarian protection from removal.

Now, reports suggest that you are planning to remove immigrants with no due process and send them to prisons in Libya. Libya is in the middle of a civil war. It is subject to a level 4 travel advisory, meaning we tell American citizens never to travel to Libya. We don’t have an embassy there because it is not safe for our diplomats. Sending migrants with pending asylum claims into a war zone, just because it’s cruel, is so deeply disturbing.

Listen, I understand that my Republican colleagues on this committee don’t view the policy as I do, don’t share my level of concern for the way the government treats immigrants, but what I don’t understand is why we don’t have consensus in the Senate and on this committee on the decision by this administration to impound the spending that we have decided together to allocate in defense of this nation.

We as an appropriations committee worked interminable hours to write and pass this budget, and so we make ourselves irrelevant when we allow the administration to ignore what we have decided. And then when we look the other way when the administration rounds up immigrants who are here illegally and have committed no offenses worthy of detainment, we also do potential irreversible damage to the Constitution.

These should not be partisan concerns—destroying the power of Congress, eroding individuals’ Constitutional rights. This should matter to both parties.

[4denthusiast]

How do moderately popular Tumblr posts happen? I mean posts with more reblogs than the OP has followers, but many fewer than the size of its target audience*. I don't think this is a bad thing; this isn't a complaint. I'm just a bit confused.

My intuition for how these things ought to work is that each post has a certain R0, the expected number of reblogs resulting from each reblog. If R0<1, the total expected number of reblogs is roughly the OP's follower count**/the average follower count/(1-R0) (with a few other minor multiplicative factors) and it quickly peters out. Possibly someone more popular than the OP happens to reblog it and it gets a boost that way, but that doesn't change things a huge amount and it'd be visible in the reblog graph. If R0>1, it has a high probability (I think about 1-1/R0) of going viral and reaching a large fraction of the entire target audience (and if it doesn't, that's probably because the first few instances of the post just happened to get fewer reblogs than average, and it doesn't even reach the point of being moderately popular). In order for a post to become moderately popular under this sort of simple suceptible/infectious/immune model, its R0 must happen to lie very close to 1, which is quite unlikely.

(As an aside, I think the average R0 of a post must be roughly equal to the fraction of posts on the site that are reblogs rather than original. I'd guess it's about 0.7, but in any case it's less than 1.)

There are a few ways such a simple model could be failing. Firstly, the chance of a post being reblogged could depend on how popular it already is. I know I for one enjoyed the "spiders Georg" and "kicks Miette like a football" posts, but it doesn't feel like there's much point in reblogging them because I just assume everyone has seen them anyway. Given how many of the posts I see are repeated though, I don't get the impression this is a major factor for posts with much less than 1000 reblogs at least, but maybe I'm wrong. Secondly, maybe the shape of the follower graph is inhomogeneous enough that this sort of simple model doesn't apply. If there's a sort of fractal clustering of people within the larger cluster of the entire target audience, this could increase the probability that someone seeing the post has already seen it even before it broadly goes viral. I think this is reasonably plausible, but it seems kind of hard to model.

The reason I'm thinking about this is that I have a few posts that seem to be in this moderately-popular range of a hundred or so notes. Most of them are related to the game Book of Hours, and given how often I see the same posts coming up on BoH-related Tumblr blogs, I think that might just be a small enough target audience that a hundred or so notes is consistent with having gone viral with R0 a little greater than 1. Most recently though there was a maths joke that fell in this range (currently 98 reblogs) (If you're seeing this post as a result of the Cantor Georg one, hi.), and I find it doubtful that the target audience of maths nerds is small enough that that's the explanation. I guess it's probably the fractal clustering thing. You could maybe measure whether that's true by looking at the spectrum of eigenvalues of the follow matrix or something. Probably someone has done this already but I don't feel so curious I can actually be bothered trying to look it up.

*Here I'm defining "target audience" as roughly the set of people on Tumblr who are sufficiently interested in the post's topic to reblog that sort of thing, and who follow** other people with the same interest. I'm assuming that people sort themselves into interest-based groups well enough that this is essentially the entire set of people who regularly use Tumblr relating to that interest.

**By "follower" I actually mean something more like "people who see that person's posts", which includes actual followers but also people who read that person's page directly, etc..

[inoppositionflorien]

Did you know that atheists were and remain one of the most discriminated-against groups in the world?

But this is something you don't hear about, because people loathe atheists so much they'd really rather not talk about how atheists are trusted less than rapists, are less likely to be able to get a job than believers in nearly any religion, and are legally not allowed to hold office in seven US states (this is ruled unenforceable but the laws are still on the books) and dozens of countries, and negative attitudes towards atheists in the US are stronger than negative attitudes to both gay people and black people, who I think most people would rightly agree are very discriminated against.

Thirteen countries have the death penalty for atheism, and dozens more have codified discrimination against them. (For instance, in Algeria, atheists are not allowed to inherit anything, nor marry muslim women), and many others which nominally do not have explicit legal discrimination are all too happy to apply laws broadly specifically to target atheists (Indonesia, Bangladesh, India).

But please, go off about how atheism is right wing (despite most polling suggesting the vast majority of atheists are progressives or lefter-than-that) and mutter disapprovingly about the "culturally christian atheist", which is probably a thing worthy of scorn that exists in any meaningful quantity I assume even though it's unclear what people actually mean by that or what exactly they're complaining about, and then say "atheists aren't really discriminated against, they're all white guys anyway." These things are reasonable concerns that matter when we're talking about thinking "maybe religion and spirituality are wrong about the nature of the world" being widely loathed everywhere, legally discriminated against in most places, and punishable by death in several.

[rollercoasterwords]

like. i still wouldn't want someone to copy and paste my fics into a large language model like chatgpt but it's not so much bc i'm worried abt my work being stolen (seems unlikely that an LLM would spit back out my exact words considering how it works, and even if it did, i doubt any individual would be able to like. publish and profit from those words, based on the nebulous status of copyright law when it comes to LLMs like chatgpt. and having my words fed into the LLM really isn't going to make much of a difference when it comes to corporations profiting off the tool in the first place; plus in instances of corporate exploitation i think there are more effective ways to organize than like...arguing for strengthened ip laws or trying to like make ip laws for fanfiction spaces). it's more because i'm wary of what that says about how a person is like...approaching my fic specifically + fanfiction more broadly. in two main ways:

1. i think it is just. basic respect to check with a writer before u take their work off ao3(or whatever fanfic-specific place it's been shared) and put it somewhere else. and like, this applies to lots of things outside chatgpt--reposting fics to other sites, posting them on goodreads/storygraph, printing + binding fics, etc. if u are treating fanfic writers as people who u are in community with, who are generously sharing a gift with u, then it seems like basic kindness to check in and see if they're alright with u taking that fic outside the space it was posted to do something else with it.

with chatgpt and similar LLMs specifically, a lot of people are wary because there's still so much unsettled in regards to how copyright laws might shake out, and most people (myself included) are unsure of how/whether our writing/data might be stored and used by these corporations that own the LLMs. i don't think ai itself is something that should be mythologized as like ontologically evil technology, but anytime a corporation is introducing us to new tech like this we need to be wary of where it's coming from and how it could be used--people have already pointed out a lot of very serious issues with the way this technology is being developed and how it could/likely will be/already is being used exploitatively--which, again, is more a matter of organizing against corporations than railing against ai tech itself, but is still a valid reason for writers (again, myself included) to be wary of having their work fed to LLMs without permission.

and like. sure, u don't have to care abt writers' feelings + boundaries and can just take their stories and do whatever u want with them. but to me that says u aren't treating fanfic as a community space, but rather a content farm in which fics are products that u are entitled to do whatever u want with. and i just think that's shitty! and if that's how ur treating fanfic then i'd rather not have u reading my fic at all

2. i honestly think it's a strange way to engage w storytelling by treating endings this way. like. story endings are usually v important + intentional, and can completely change the entire tone, themes, messages, etc of a story. i understand going to the writer and asking them abt what they had in mind for the story ending if ur looking for closure, and i understand imagining ur own story ending or even writing ur own ending to an unfinished story. what i don't understand is plugging a story into chatgpt and having it spit an ending out for u.

and like. maybe this is bc we've all been calling these LLMs ai, which evokes an impression of like. a sentient robot creating something. but that's not what these programs do! the first article i linked explains how they actually work really well, but essentially--chatgpt and similar LLMs cannot create new ideas. they can't take a story and synthesize its themes or pick apart its tone to then come up with an original idea for an ending. at the same time, they aren't just plagiarism machines that are ripping text directly from other writers and spitting it back out.

instead (to my understanding), what they're doing is compressing vast amounts of information by running statisical analyses to just save the most common trends, patterns, recurring info, etc, and then plugging that in to fill the gaps. it looks like it's writing something new, but it's essentially just paraphrasing already-existing information pulled from the internet. so i'd imagine that if u fed an ai a fic and said "write an ending," the ai would basically compare the fic to whatever similar stories it has saved and then spit out an ending that is most commonly found on the internet for that type of story. [not an expert here tho--this is just my best guess based on the bit of research i've done].

my point is--you won't be getting a new ending inspired directly by the story u put in. you'll be getting a paraphrased version of the most commonly recurring type of ending for similar stories on the web. and i just....don't see how that would be satisfying in any way. it seems, again, like a way in which someone would be approaching fic like a product, something that needs to be finished + complete bc ur entitled to it, rather than viewing fic as a piece of art with its own unique themes, message, and story that can't just be plugged into a one-size-fits-most ending generator. and like, i'm trying to avoid mysticizing writing as some sort of ethereal art form that would be blasphemously degraded by having someone plug in a shitty ending paraphrased from a conglomeration of various similar stories--i don't think someone creating a shitty ending for a story is like. a horrible evil thing. but i can understand where the satisfaction is coming from if you're writing your own shitty ending, where you get to come up with where u think the story would go + where u get to synthesize the themes u picked up on etc. but ai isn't even doing that--so again, i don't understand where the satisfaction is coming from aside from just going "well every story i read needs to be finished," which. makes me wary bc it just feels like a completely different way to approach stories and storytelling than i would hope to find in fanfic spaces, one that treats fic less as a creative place to explore and more as a transactional space where u are entitled to products.

anyway. feel like my thoughts + feelings abt ai keep changing the more i learn abt it + i'm sure they could change again, but rn my impression of this whole situation is like. i find the fact that some people are plugging fics into LLMs less concerning re: ip + ownership rights, and i don't think it's useful to exaggerate or mythologize abt what ai actually does (i think even calling it ai has kind of misled a lot of people, myself included). what concerns me more is that plugging fics into LLMs to write endings feels symptomatic of a broader culture in which people treat fanfic as an informal profit economy in which fics are product or content that a consumer-audience is entitled to, and i think that sort of approach leads to a whole plethora of other issues + makes fandom a more hostile space.

[grrrlsoverdramas]

Here with my semi-annual brain dump about global perspectives vs culturally-informed criticism!!

So, my main perspective on Autistic rep in Extraordinary Attorney Woo is informed by being a teacher in Korea for 2 years + having friends who worked with students with developmental differences there for longer than me and then being a teacher in the US for many years who has worked with a number of students with Autism.

Which is to say I don’t get to decide if something is good or right, but here some things I consider when thinking about the representation here (or elsewhere) in Kdramas. Most of this sort of applies broadly to how I think of rep of any type of difference, not just developmental differences:

You might be interested in this scholarship review on ASD in Korean children to see where I’m coming from. It’s outdated (from 2013) but that’s how such things work.

Be aware of when you are thinking about global representation vs. kdrama representation. When it comes to representation, I am a big proponent of the idea that more representation is better than “good” representation.  The more characters with xyz difference, the more opportunity there is for characters to be diverse, specific, and interesting, and the less important it is for them to be “accurate.” (I know it’s not THAT simple -- like there are things that ARE just wrong... my Big Thing as the granddaughter of someone with schizophrenia is media ALWAYSSS confusing it with DID... so the “diversity” of schizophrenic characters is just a bunch of characters who aren’t schizophrenic -- check out a beautiful mind or, surprisingly, criminal minds for the only portrayals I personally like) You might look at this drama and feel like it’s all been done before or it’s leaning into tired tropes, but are those *GLOBAL* tropes or things you’ve seen a million times in kdramas?  I’m not saying one way of looking at it is better, but I always think it’s important to be aware of the fact that even a netflix kdrama that is meant to be “global” is also being made by Korean people with a Korean audience in mind. Just as an example, many people who watch this show will hear the Korean term for echolalia for the first time. Even if they might have seen it in other foreign-language media, I think that sort of thing is valuable if we’re thinking exclusively about representation as a societal device for good.

Developmental differences and disabilities are treated very differently in Korea than where I live in the US.  Schools don’t have inclusion programs, for instance.  At one of my schools in Korea, a student who needed a lot of extra academic support was lucky if a public service military officer happened to be assigned to the school.  He would sit next to them and “help” - but obviously wasn’t a teacher and didn’t know what he was doing. Of course this show isn’t about her childhood, and I’m NOT saying that Western/American special ed is good for all students all places or even most students in most places, but it’s just an example of the fact that things are different, how society works is different.

Korean culture is its own thing and how someone with social communication differences interacts in that culture feels VERY hard to compare to American/Western culture.  Like, if you read the above scholarship review, there is a difference in themes of pretend play for anglo-american children and korean-american children! Wild! I’m interested in how much this portrayal is driven by actual input from or research into Korean Autistic people and how much is driven by portrayals of Autism in Western media. For instance, they showed Young-woo being uncomfortable with a handshake, but handshakes are RARE in Korea, even when being introduced to people! Korea also has MANY more social RULES. Meaning, you don’t need to use subtle social cues to determine how to interact with someone. You are taught at a young age how to greet people, when to use honorifics, how to refer to people. In fact, according to the above scholarship review, a child’s difficulty to use honorifics correctly is one way to help form a diagnosis. All of this is to say that trying to read characters in kdramas based on expected Western behaviors or values will always be flawed, and that continues to be true in this context!

[madhyanas]

tell me ur thoughts on twilek head coverings 👀

aw YES thank u so much my brain was going to burst

to avoid my brain melting out my ears and also to apply some Critical Thought and Depth to star wars for once: i will be ignoring the aspects of the gross sexualisation of female twi’leks that aren’t relevant to what i’m saying. as recommended by doctors

tw: discussions of canon-typical slavery, trafficking, hyper-sexualisation. brief explanation of blood as internally transported by the body (not graphic). compression aids/stockings for medical purposes. 

only mentioning things people might want to avoid - it’s mostly okay!

0. ‘lekku’ - the tentacles growing from twi’lek heads. that’s uhhhh p important lmao

broadly speaking, i see 2 primary points of significance to twi’lek head coverings: cultural and anatomical.

1. cultural significance

to start with the obvious, we only see head coverings worn almost exclusively on women and children. children seemed to wear head coverings regardless of gender (see: suu lawquane’s kids). the only examples i could find of any coverings on adult men are either helmets or bands that wrap around the ends - with the exception of this dude who appears in the kanan comics and honestly? looks amazing

one interpretation could be a modesty-oriented culture. this is probably my favourite cultural explanation, and one i could 100% see emerging as a form of liberation amongst twi’lek women as a response to the over-sexualisation and trafficking of their species. especially since it’s such a well-known practice and stereotype. (for instance, it’s one that hera syndulla took advantage of multiple times to lower people’s guard.) 

the over-sexualisation of twi’leks is, as far as canon is concerned, distinct to twi’lek women, while enslaved twi’lek men were typically trafficked for manual labour. so it would make sense that the women’s experiences and trauma, being different from that of their male counterparts, may have resulted in a unique custom of dress in retaliation to their suffering.

very messed up how twi’leks are characterised as individuals and as a species, but something i would like to explore from that is how their subjugation and hyper-sexualisation influenced their community identity, their ideologies (especially regarding independence) and the twi’lek population taking back autonomy over their bodies and appearance. 

(in my opinion twi’lek women should have more identity-asserting narratives beyond just a few characters, but that’s by the by.)

however, there are a lot of flaws in the modesty-oriented interpretation idea. firstly, if originating as a social revolution against their enslavement, it only makes sense for as long as the enslavement and trafficking of twi’leks had been a practice. not so sure how it works out pre-Empire. secondly, it doesn’t really work in the case of enslaved twi’leks. think original trilogy - they wore ornate head coverings even when barely clothed otherwise. my guess is that these are more for ‘decoration’, for lack of a better word. since the head coverings themselves are apparently a staple of twi’lek culture, it could be that slavers let enslaved twi’leks wear head coverings for the. ‘exotic’ effect. or whatever. disgusting so let’s move on

it could very well be a religious custom, though i don’t think this is very convincing. simply because we don’t see much of twi’lek religion at all. wish we did :(

there’s a few more possible interpretations but last one for now: family lineage. from the kalikori episodes in rebels, it’s made very clear that family legacy is a defining aspect of a twi’lek’s individual identity. so i guess it wouldn’t be a stretch for women to ‘pass on’ a certain style of head covering through the family line. this explanation is really fun imo because it could possibly explain the different styles of head coverings a little more comprehensively than just regional variations/personal preferences. it also adds more more depth to what’s already been established as twi’lek tradition. could also be little things like medallions/ornaments added to head coverings. 

then again - to once more rain on my own parade - this might not check out, since neither suu’s children share any similarities in head coverings to her own, nor does hera to her mother’s. but more on hera’s head coverings below

2. anatomical/physiological

yeah alright i started getting tired here so. bullet points

star wars plays fast and loose when it comes to twi’lek physiology, especially lekku

the presence of ‘braintails’ - lekku that apparently contain part of a twi’lek’s BRAIN (whack) could be a reason for head coverings

so first and foremost i guess a logical explanation would be it’s just safer to have your brain wrapped up lmao - if they’re contained in dangly bits like lekku with no BONE encasing them (???) then having something wrapped around tightly would be a pretty basic safety measure

why don’t men wear them then? well quite a lot of male twi’lek’s have bulbous, protruding foreheads. not too far-fetched to argue that men’s brains are located more forward, while the women’s are located more backward? definitely not an airtight explanation though. 

i’ll be honest my number one favourite explanation behind head coverings is for circulation. like for varicose veins in the legs (a non-fictional condition), patients usually wear compression stockings. they improve blood flow by letting the arteries (high pressure blood vessels) relax for a bit and gives veins (low pressure) some help in sending blood back to the heart

i think that’s what head coverings could be for!! to help with blood circulation in lekku!! they’re essentially an extra pair of limbs to account for but with none of the motor skills/control of movement. and they’re constantly dangling - seeing how bouncy they are, gravity has to be taking a toll there. think like the worst case of pins and needles but you can barely move the limb that HAS the pins n needles. a compression sock/stocking/head covering might help with that.

reasonably speaking the compression sock would be at the bottom of the limb to account for gravity, and this doesn’t address the gender disparity, so it’s not a perfect explanation. but i like it a lot!!!!!

this could also be adapted for pilots, i feel. like hera’s head coverings have been mentioned to be a notable divergence from usual styles, which could be because they’re adapted for rapid changes in altitude, pressure and gravity? 

anyways much to think about

[vampish-glamour]

first, i want to say that i hope this doesn’t come off angry. i just don’t see a lot of people with your views and i have some questions and thoughts. also, if only for clarity’s sake, i’d like to ask that you humor me with the existence of an ace spectrum.

i’m not sure why you’d think it’s beneficial for asexuality to have one rigid definition (and it seems that may most closely fit with “aro-ace”), and if someone doesn’t fit it exactly, you think they should simply fuck off with the label? A million different people go through life, discover, and think of themselves in a million different ways.

There are a few caveats in different manifestations of asexuality that can describe the different ways people fit idk, as an example very low attraction, because once you start just sticking with more allo-aligned labels, people will start having certain expectations of you, and if you can’t perform that, well, where does that leave a person? Like, in any instance regarding being with a person, you’d likely have to explain yourself, your low sex drive, attraction, interest in the act itself, or what-have-you anyway, but in my own exp, it seems more legitimate and comfortable to have a term rather than word spaghetti with no root.

I just cannot see how theoretically cutting out language that’s already extant and already has comprehensible explanations for any other party concerned could help anyone. And forgive me if that’s not your intent, but claiming asexuals and asexuality are a monolith that can only be a certain way as opposed to existing on a spectrum makes it seem that way. It seems to do more othering and dividing than unifying, and to me, when weighing the similarities and differences between people who are on the ace-spectrum vs. not, it doesn’t make much sense to group people who don’t exactly fit a perfect void of attraction with people who regularly, actively seek out and have sex. There’s space in between two extremes, imo.

To be clear, too: asexuality is an umbrella term for people that use subidentity, I’m not trying to contradict myself by creating the perception that ace subidentities are themselves divisive. That and I think it’s a little late in the game to start caring about how messy and ever-expanding the English language is lol (and that being a purist about it can get dangerous, if that’s a concern). hope ur havin a good one, and thanks if you actually read✌️

Hi! Thank you for first clarifying that you don’t want this to come off as angry, since it’s really hard to tell sometimes through text on a screen.

Just a preface I’m adding after writing this; I used “you”/“your” a lot, and I mean it as a general “you”, not you as in anon.

Right off the bat, I can humour you with the existence of the ace spectrum in the form of the allo spectrum. Asexual means no attraction. You can’t have a spectrum of having no attraction. Allosexual apparently means having attraction, and that you can absolutely have a spectrum of.

I always use the number line example. Think of a number line between 0 and 10, 0 being asexual and 10 being hyper sexual (not a sexuality, but the best opposite to asexual I can think of atm). Why would everything in the middle be considered asexual, when asexual is 0? I would consider everything in the middle varying degrees of attraction. Even if you’re at a 1, you still experience attraction, and aren’t at 0. Therefore you aren’t asexual. This is because “no attraction” is a much more rigidly defined thing than “attraction”.

You can do the same thing with homosexual/heterosexual and bisexual. Say that 0 is either homosexual or heterosexual, and 10 is bisexual. Since homo/hetero are the more rigidly defined sexualities here (exclusively attracted to the same/opposite sex, while bisexual is attracted to both sexes), you’re not homosexual or heterosexual unless you’re at 0. However, even if you’re at a one because you experience more attraction towards one sex than the other, but still like both, you’d be bisexual.

Point is, you can’t have a “spectrum” of something that’s at zero. You can’t have a spectrum of feeling nothing, or a spectrum of exclusively being attracted to a certain sex. But you can have a spectrum of how much attraction you feel/allosexuality, or a spectrum of bisexuality.

The reason I think asexuality needs to be rigidly defined is because words mean things. What’s the point of having asexual as a label if it can mean whatever fits the individual? We don’t see this with heterosexuality. Nobody is trying to define heterosexuality as having a fluid and flexible meaning. How ridiculous does it sound to say;

“I’m on the hetspec! I experience attraction to the opposite sex, but I also experience attraction to the same sex sometimes so that means I’m demiheterosexual or gray-het”.

Ridiculous, right? So why are we doing the exact same thing with asexuality by saying “I experience some attraction, so I’m on the ace spectrum and I’m demisexual, gray ace, etc.”?

So yes, if somebody experiences attraction, they should absolutely fuck off from the asexual label instead of changing its meaning to fit them. I would say the same thing about a homosexuality spectrum or a heterosexuality spectrum. Yes, everyone has different life experiences and all that, but that doesn’t mean they need to be calling themselves something they’re not.

For the expectations issue, you’d likely have to have that conversation with a partner anyways. I think that most people don’t have a clue what half of these labels mean, so saying “I’m gray ace” will mean nothing to them, and you’ll end up having to go “that means that I...”. So why not just start there? Once again, just because this is an experience people have doesn’t mean they need to change a label to suit them.

It’s not really cutting out language, it’s moreso trying to return the language to what it was before a bunch of people changed the meaning to suit their own needs. I raise you the question; do you think I’m claiming all homosexuals are a monolith by saying “homosexual means exclusive attraction to the same sex, and if you don’t fit that definition you’re not homosexual”? Or by saying “homosexuality doesn’t exist on a a spectrum, you’re either gay or you’re not”? Because that’s exactly what I’m doing with asexuality, I’m saying that it means no attraction whatsoever, and if you don’t fit that definition, the label isn’t for you.

Why is it so important for people to be able to force themselves into a label that doesn’t fit? Why is it better to take away the meaning of a word until it practically has no meaning, than to establish a specific meaning so the word can properly describe something? I don’t think it’s dividing at all to preserve the meanings of words to prevent them from becoming utterly meaningless.

Would you say that it doesn’t make sense to group together people with a perfectly 50/50 split attraction to men and women, with people with say a 10/90 split? Because both of those are just as bisexual as the other. Unless you’d rather call the 10/90 demihomosexual or demiheterosexual, we can apply the same logic to allosexuality. If you experience attraction, even if it’s just a little bit compared to somebody who experiences ten times more than you do, you’re still allosexual. You are not asexual unless your attraction is zero. In the same way that you are not homosexual unless your attraction to the opposite sex is at zero.

I have a hard time explaining myself and I feel like my points may be all over the place.

So here’s a summary:

The asexual spectrum exists, but it’s actually the allosexual spectrum. This is because you cannot have a spectrum of feeling no attraction, but you can have a spectrum of feeling attraction

Sexuality needs to be rigidly defined to hold weight and meaning. Otherwise you’re throwing around words that mean nothing. When somebody says they’re asexual, do they mean they experience no attraction whatsoever, neither romantic or sexual, or do they mean they only feel sexual attraction towards people they form a bond with? We don’t know. When you widen the definition of a word so broadly, it ultimately becomes meaningless.

Homosexuality does not exist on a spectrum of some attraction to the same sex, some to the opposite sex, and heterosexuality does not either. We recognize that as bisexuality. So why should asexuality exist on a spectrum of experiencing varying degrees of attraction, but not always zero, when that should logically be recognized as allosexual?

There is no reason for people to need to change the meaning of a word to suit their needs. If the word doesn’t fit, it doesn’t fit.

I hope that sort of explains my reasoning! I have a hard time properly getting my thoughts into words, so I’m worried that it makes perfect sense to me in my head but the words I’m writing don’t communicate my thoughts. If that’s the case, I’m hoping the summary helps. 😄

[braided-roses]

What is the best way to tease someone?

A 3,449 word essay broadly covering the methods with which we tease

Twenty-five minute read

"There can be no true despair without hope... I will feed the people of Gotham hope to poison their souls."

Bane: Dark Knight Rises

“Without hope, there is no despair. There is only meaningless suffering.”

D. Morgenstern

For this essay I will define teasing as a playfully enforced delay of indulgence. While the above quotes are dark for sure, and do not directly apply to this topic, I think they highlight aspects of teasing that are foundational to its differences from other forms of play. I believe there can be no true teasing without hope of gaining one's desire. If one feels they cannot reach their goal or desire, I believe that becomes an expression of submission to another, to the situation, but not a teasing of the mind.

Studying the possibilities of this field of play is one that takes special care because it draws on what we know about our counterparts like few other disciplines do. It requires us to first know what our counterpart desires most, and how to then playfully enforce the delay of indulging in that desire. Finding out what another craves, and creating structures with which to playfully impede the immediate gratification of that craving are challenging enough on their own, but combining these working pieces of teasing into a system is incredibly complicated— requiring intimate knowledge of one's counterpart’s boundaries and turn offs. While there can be no best way to tease someone, because of our inherent human complexities, this essay will attempt to put forth the best practices I know to have a mutually rewarding and pleasurable experience.

I think the first step in the process of teasing is to gain understanding; Get to know each other, build understanding, rapport and trust. This knowledge may be gained through focused, play specific conversations. Communicating in this way allows effective play to happen sooner. For example one could have a conversation as brief as please rub my clit until you break my mind, I'll beg you to let me cum, but don't let me. I'll tell you to stop if something goes wrong, and we'll talk about it after. The two drawbacks of this style of conversation is that it will remove some surprise as there isn't enough information yet to synthesize possible play patterns on your own, and one will lack a whole understanding of the person one is going to play with.

If a more holistic experience is desired though, it comes through best, in many cases, through a conversation as broader life and fantasies are discussed over many conversations that take place naturally and organically. The bits of information that may apply to play may be more separated, but they come with so much more information that can all be used to generate a deeper relationship, and broader play. We learn about each other through the listening mentioned above, and in our turn sharing our own desires and hesitancies. We have to open up also so we can be cared for ourselves and build trust through reciprocated, honest, vulnerability. These conversations inform us and build trust as we learn that both sides hear each other, want good things for the pairing and will not shy away even from the more sexually hungry sides of each other.

While this type of understanding centered communication is meaningful on a grand, human scale, even in the comparably limited topic of teasing it is needed in many ways. First, that trust built will be necessary in teasing play as it often leads to walking the edge of what a person can handle in the moment, both mentally and physically. To what degree we can trust, we can relax our fears of being hurt, allowing us to enjoy each sensation with less calculation of how to protect ourselves, allowing us to live in the moment in proportion of our trust, and to have the confidence that our partner cares to hear us when we make objections. Secondly, the information gathered in good communication is essential in order to know: the desire we are waiting to fulfill, the stimuli we will later use to push our counterpart to the point until it consumes every bit of them, warn us of the stimuli that could end play terribly, and how to recover from that event should it happen.

Some examples of what we may learn about play in everyday life- You may learn how meaningful it is to your partner when you hold your partner's face in your hands as you kiss them, or he/she may ask you if the you like being made to chase them down in a kiss. They might mention how they love the pain of their workouts, or that high rep sets are their favorite because they get test how long they can go before their will breaks. Watching a movie, and seeing one of the couples depicted playfully kissing each other, your partner might reveal that pulling away from a kiss doesn’t read as a building of desire to them, instead it feels like one is trivializing their highest expression of love— Making them feel their love is disrespected and devolved into a game. These lessons should be drawn deeply within ourselves. Making note of what makes them feel loved and pleausured, and special note of what makes them feel awful. Violating these turnoffs by accident or design may have terrible trust breaking outcomes. It is important to understand the reasonings and depth of their dislikes. One's dislike may be superficial, like forms of pain that, with a different approach, can be enjoyable, but some, like the kiss, may be fundamental to their world view. (Example of what could be synthesized from the above person’s information may be found at the bottom — Bonus Example 2)

The second thing is to determine how you will delay their indulgence in what they crave, by means of space, time, or even their own will. All of these modes and tools can be used in vast and narrow applications. Space, for example, can be used in inches or miles. Suppose your submissive wanted to touch, but you knew they wanted to be teased even more than to rub. You could grab your trusty ropes and tie their hands, one to the bed post, and the other by way of slinging a rope through the head board. You could release the tension until their hand is an inch away from their most sensitive spot. They can twist and moan and beg as they can almost reach, their finger tips just able to move the sensitive flesh nearest their most sensitive spot. They could reach up and play with less sensitive spots, but they won’t be able to reach any more, at least not without raising their hips to their hand, which can become quite challenging. Space has now been used as a tease. A boundary on their experience that they cannot get out of, nor do they truly wish to escape. A second instance of space as a teasing tool, known as "The Kiss" will be given in my final example at the end of this essay (Bonus example 1)

As examples for time and space — At work, one could be sending sexy texts to their counterpart who decides to be a little bratty. The dominant in this exchange could text back, “Say that again and I’ll have to remind you what happens to brats when their dominant gets home.” Knowing that their submissive will have to wait hours longer for the thrill of the attention of the punishment they asked for. In the same way a domme could send, "You've been such a good boy today, working so hard at work. I’ll keep dinner hot for you." Attached to this text would be little gif of her rubbing herself for him. He too will have to endure the boundaries of time and space. Time has been a tease in that hours will pass before they get their desire. Space has been incorporated in time because even if all parties from the individual couples decided to meet in the middle somewhere, they'd still be teased by time as they cannot magically teleport home to cross the space (if you can, please teach me). An example of time alone being a tease would be giving a submissive a vibrator with only five or ten minutes charge left in it. They can play all they want with it, but they don't know how long it will last.

The previous examples examined using time in minutes or hours, Time, like space, though, is incremental. Time can be used in minutes, hours, or like in the next example, seconds. Suppose you had an exhibitionist submissive walk with you in the woods and told them that they will flash you whenever you want them to. Already they’d be excited to have their desire at hand, knowing you crave to see them exposed, as well as the desire to be under your caring control. As you two walk you command your submissive to flash you for a few seconds here and there. Blushing, but proud, they obey. You praise them appropriately and enjoy your walk. Eventually you two hear the distant, barley audible, murmurs and stompings of a team of hikers. This time you turn to your submissive, order them to stop walking and command them to flash you, they willingly obey, but the knowledge that hikers are approaching you they risk discovery. They can hear the hikers drawing closer and they continue to obey, trusting you. Each tenth of a second registering in their minds and each snap of a twig causing their heart to pound in excitement. Time has become a tool for this second by second tease. As soon as you hear the first full word of the hikers you know they are almost close enough to see, so you order your sub to cover. You then praise your sub highly for their perfect submission and continue on your walk, no hiker the wiser.

Will is unique among the teasing tools. Time and space exist outside of our bodies, but will is our’s alone to interact with. Of all the tools of teasing will is perhaps the most wicked and most variable of all. If your submissive is a lawful-good type and aims to please, then you could use their will as a tease and simply ask them to spread their legs and start to rub or stroke for you. Tell them that they are not to cum without your permission. The pleasure from their body mixes with the pleasure from their mind as they internalize the fact that they are uniquely pleasing you, hopefully bolstered by your praise. These stimuli serve to push against their will to obey. What makes this particular mode so wicked is that their desire to please and obey is fueling their mental pleasure. Their will to obey forces them to stay within the boundaries you set, or lose what they truly crave- the sensation of pleasing you. As they get closer and closer their requests turn to quivering moans and groans- the craved treat of a teasing dominant-. You tell them no, and they continue to obey, rubbing or stroking for you. Their requests are denied until they speak in pleadings and beggings. In a bounded, short term tease of ending play, you simply let them cum, and praise them for their perfect obedience. In a boundless, pushing kind of tease though, you could deny permission until they slip over the edge and spectacularly cum. This form of play, for an obedience minded submissive, will feel like disobedience to them. — You must reinforce the fact they did all they could to obey you. You wanted to find their limit and they showed you beautifully.

For long term teasing you could tell them they are not to cum without your permission, if they do they will be punished for it. This punishment is one they are okay with, but might not know. This leaves them to fight their own will for pleasure, obedience, freedom, and even pain. Lest they slip over the edge, they might force themselves to stop altogether, or you could command them to stop, leaving them quivering in utter denial. Their will has been the tease preventing them from indulging in orgasm. You comfort them and tell them maybe you’ll change your mind tomorrow, but, for know, they're done. Now time and will act as the tease. You cannot supervise them at all times, and especially without chastity- their own self will begins tease them until eventually they must resist their own desires at all hours of the day. Proving to themselves they crave metaphysical pleasure more than the physical release.

You may also balance will with consequence of pain if your submissive is bratty or masochistic in a way. Telling them that if they slip over the edge they will be punished, even tortured. Without knowing exactly what it is they may fight harder to stay on the edge. They edge spectacularly for you, but eventually crumble under the self inflicted stimuli, they cum and you deliver the next stimuli- maybe you simply force their hand to hold the vibrator against them, turning teasing play into overstimulation, or turn them over to spank them.

The third thing that must be done is to manage the environment we are in to best suit the play we will have. The space we are in should be constructed to do as much of the heavy lifting in our communication of the tone of the experience, and the desires of our counterpart, that we can. For example, an environment that is clean and bare suggests that nothing else will be happening in this space but what the two of you create. This type of room seems fitted to a private submissive who cherishes time and quiet exploration, and will become stressed or distracted by a number of other stimuli. A single sash and short rope laying on the couch suggests light bondage will be involved. A kind of quiet in the room implies that no one will be interrupting their play. They can take all the time in the world. On the other hand, a hot kitchen that is just a few steps from a noisy living room full of friends can generate a whole new tone. One of desperate craving for your counterpart, a contrast between the necessitated quietness of your actions and the noise and business of the space, a daring display of desire as you two risk discovery of your intimate acts with even the smallest allowances of expression- such as slipping your hand under their shirt and scratching up then down their back. If they let out a noise, they could be discovered. If someone walks in, they'll have to act like they haven't been delightfully toyed with for who knows how long, or the two of you might have to talk your way out of it. (Bonus points by the way if you pretend to be casually doing something else while your sub enjoys the predicament you're creating) Suddenly a kitchen becomes an environment perfect for sadomasochism and borderline exhibitionism. A room were will, time and space are used to holistically create a tease.

Finally, words and tone should be used to highlight the teasing. Drawing on the hope of the situation, highlighting what prevents them from indulgence, seems like the most fundamental approach to using our words to tease. Even in a relatively SFW tease with a short sub that is into strength kink, and having her height used against her. You could hold a stuffed animal out of her reach, she'd enjoy her feeble attempts at trying to snatch it away from you. Highlighting this exchange with your words would likely be welcomed. "Oh come on, hun. You have to be stronger than that. Maybe get up on your tip toes and reach for it. Haha. You're using both of your arms. Can't you pull harder? To end this form of play you could simply hand it to her, or let her gain some ground and take it from you before you transition to another fun game.

In summary, the best general approach to teasing someone is by fully utilizing the knowledge we have of their desires and drives, selection and use of proper abstract and practical blocks to that desire formatted to what degree they like to be pushed in their comfort levels or have their impulses blocked, that balance hope and the knowledge they will likely not succeed should then be traced with our words. All of which is bounded within trust and care for their overall well-being.

Bonus examples

1. The Kiss

I grasp her face with both my hands, knowing this makes her feel desired. My eyes meet hers and she knows this will be no little kiss. She shuts her eyes. I use her favorite kiss, placing the softest kiss I can on her waiting lips. She lets out a little shiver. She pushes into me gently, and I pull away just enough to keep our kisses feathered. I kiss down her jaw line, moving my face nearer to her ear and whisper a command to stay perfectly still as I let her go. I pace around her once, gently caressing, with one finger, places that catch my eye, her sensitive jaw line and clavicle, along her lower spine. I slip a finger into her waist band and slide across a few inches. Then I tug her by her waist band to me. I catch her by her shoulder and steady her, placing my hand on her jaw I pull her in for another kiss. I praise her for keeping her eyes shut. What a good girl she is. While I caress her cheeks and brush her hair away from her face, kissing her cheeks and forehead as I do this. I ask “are you going to continue to be a good girl for me? She breathes out a hot “yes” , “Look up”, I command. I place my hand on her neck and pull her into a deep kiss- gently moaning into her lips. I push her off and again praise her for being so obedient, so compliant. Praising her plump lips. I bring her back this time for gentle kisses. This proceeds until they become more insistent again, my grip on her neck tightens ever so slightly and she kisses me more intensely. I push her off and tell her soft kisses now. We return. She does so well at first. It’s not but a minute or two before she starts to get more intense though, whining and squirming into me trying to kiss me more deeply. Now I begin to pull slightly away each time the kiss becomes to firm. Leading her in a chase. Backing myself slowly into the corner she has lost track of. I push her off of me and say “You will kiss me gently. Yes, baby?” “Yes. Please” “Good girl. Now kiss me”, she goes to lean into me, but realizes my strong arm will no longer let her. She fights my strength, choking herself in my grip- I’m careful to keep my palm away from her trachea. I see her hunger flicker to desperation- I tell her to open. Her eyes snap open and I see her pupils constrict as they focus in the light and on me. As soon as she opens her eyes I grab her shoulder with other hand and pivot my hips, stepping forward and slinging her to my former spot as I switch places with her- now she is in the corner and I say, leaning in to just outside of her necks reach “oh, come on, baby. I thought you wanted to kiss me?” I feel her hot breath on my lips. “I do, please” I extend my arm again. “Prove it” she pushes again. Hungry eyes on mine. I watch her expression waiting for the slightest break in arousal, a second or two later I allow my arm to bend and let her come to me. It’s her turn now to lead. I grab her rib cage and let her press her lips into mine as she please. My hands caress her sides as she spins, pushing me into the corner. I match her passion and rhythm. She presses her body into mine, squirming against me as she places kisses on my lips, fevered and then soft and then heavy again. When she seems to be fading in decision, I slowly spin her back into the corner. My forearm framing her face on one side, my palm on her cheek, my fingers in her hair, and my extended arm on the other side boxing her in. I place soft kisses on her flushed skin and proceed to praise her and hold her gently.

2. Bonus example two. Referencing paragraph six. — Once we have this information of preferences and possible obstructions of it we can begin to synthesize it into possible modes of, and tools for, play for long or short term. For instance, using the above examples we can put together a possible play session that involves lots of skin to skin contact, unbroken kisses and maybe a pushing of minor, but prolonged pain to be a style this counterpart would enjoy. Such as having your sub straddle you, so your legs are touching theirs, putting your hand under their jaw, you drawing them in by it, using slow, soft kisses, but putting a teasing parameter on the kiss of a moderate painful stimuli, like slowly twisting the sensitive flesh on their ribs as long as they kiss you. They get a small dose of pain that they enjoy, lots of kisses and lots of skin to skin contact- both of which they adore. The pain they enjoy mixes with all of their love languages and make a special thing happen in their mind while it acts as a form of a will tease. After they limit is reached one could return to normal kisses and start a form of aftercare.

[jeannereames]

Hi Dr Reames, I hope you're well! I think I might have asked this before, so sorry if I'm being obnoxious, but do you think there is very much studying left to be done in regards to Alexander/Macedonia? Looking at the field from the outside, it seems a little bit like all that can be said, has been. Would you recommend studying Alexander specifically as a prospective academic path, or would you advocate pursuing other areas of classics?

The problem with studying ANYthing in the ancient world is always a problem of the sources. Unless there’s new material, then we’re all just doing ring-around-the-rosie with what we have. That doesn’t mean new things can’t be said. I’d point to my own work on Hephaistion, or for that matter, Alexander’s bereavement. I wasn’t looking at anything new, just looking differently at what we already had. As someone who’d done bereavement counseling, Alexander’s mourning of Hephaistion didn’t strike me as particular unusual, except in the amount of money he had and power to have his desires put into practice.

Also, scholarship tends to go through “fads,” like anything else. That is, someone makes a splash with a new approach, one that can be applied more broadly, and suddenly, a lot of people jump on board. That’s not necessarily bad, but it can result in oversaturation. Right now, one of the big fads is “reception studies.” So the rise of new directions in the study of old fields can offer alternative approaches to familiar material.

Another thing that can happen is for old fields to give birth to new ones. E.g, Charles Edson, Harry Dell, and then Nick Hammond all started asking questions about the country that produced Philip and Alexander, instead of writing just about them. Edson’s 1939 dissertation at Harvard, “Five Studies in Macedonian History” widened the lens but things really began to churn in the 60s and 70s. In 1972, Nick Hammond published the first volume in that massive A History of Macedonia, after having done Epiros earlier. He got Griffith to work with him on vol. 2, Griffith writing much of the material on Philip (which is still, btw, a pretty damn good summary of Philip’s reign, if you allow for material discovered since), then Walbank, already well-known as a scholar of Philip V, worked with Hammond on Vol. 3, which is the Hellenistic period.

Macedonian Studies was born, and by 1990, 3 different histories had appeared: a short version by Hammond on Macedonian Institutions called The Macedonian State, Gene Borza’s (still) excellent In the Shadow of Olympus, that goes up to Philip II, and Malcolm Errington’s A History of Macedonia that included ATG and the Hellenistic period. What followed (and was in between) involved numerous articles, then companions and conference proceedings. Alexander (and Philip) were still hot property, but many articles had nothing to do with them. New direction had been found.

Yet notice most of those early scholars were English-speakers. Partly, that owed to where it got started: Edson and Dell were Americans. They trained students who were also Americans. So Bill Greenwalt (Dell’s student) would go into Argead Macedonia with an interest in Illyria (and Thrace) because Dell had the same. There were some Greek scholars, such as Miltiades Hatzopoulos and Argyro Tataki doing a lot with epigraphy, and Manolis Andronikos himself, but the field was dominated by English-speakers for a while.

One of the bigger shifts in the last 20-25 years has been an expansion into other languages, plus the Greeks dominating the archaeology. When you take up high-level scholarship, there’s an assumption that you will read material in languages besides your own. When I got my PhD, aside from the ancient languages, common wisdom dictated I learn German and French.

BUT my NUMBER ONE piece of advice to anybody who wants to do ancient Macedonia today is LEARN MODERN GREEK.

Why? Because, as I said, the Greeks have taken back their own archaeology and most of their reports are in Greek. They’re talking to each other, and most (non-Greek) scholars don’t read modern Greek [that well]. That’s not entirely accidental, and some payback for the colonial dominance of the late 1800s and 1900s. (Elgin Marbles anybody?) The best way to keep out “interference” is to write mostly in a language few other scholars read well. That keeps Macedonian history in Greek hands. I would now advise young scholars that modern Greek is more important than French. Just as, if you really want to do Thracian history, learning Bulgarian and/or Russian might be a good idea.

It’s getting increasingly hard, as scholarship expands, to keep up with all the languages one needs. Current work is being done on Macedonia, as well as Alexander and the Hellenistic world in English, Spanish, Italian, German, modern Greek, and even Russian, and that doesn’t look at the wider world outside Europe (and colonial states). We’ve got a ton of talented young scholars on the continent, while jobs are lacking in many English-speaking countries, meaning students just aren’t going into it. English still remains a major language, largely because Americans and Canadians suck at learning other languages while the Europeans might speak 4-5. But English is becoming less relevant. As a grad student, I couldn’t have guessed I’d need Spanish and Italian more than French.

But LEARN MODERN GREEK, as that’s where the NEW stuff is. I doubt we’ll get much (if anything) new in textual evidence. By contrast, archaeology is rewriting what we thought we knew about north Greece. E.g., Methone now vies with Pithokousai for the earliest Greek script. Think about that a minute. Euboian Greeks and Phoenicians weren’t just hanging around off the coast of Cumai in the late 8th century, they were poking about the Thermaic Gulf, too, interacting with whoever the hell was at Pella before the Macedonians moved in (Bottaians, Paionians, somebody else…?). Who [what people] were buried at Archontiko between 650-450 BCE?? What was happening tradewise between Aiani in Elimeia and Corinth? That, to my mind, is where scholarship is going: or it should be. The Early Iron and Archaic Ages…periods before Macedonia even shows up in the written record with Herodotos.

Sure, I love Alexander, and I write about him a lot here, or Hephaistion, but I’m really an Argead specialist. I’m just as curious about how Alexander I used Persian power, then Persian absence to consolidate his own power and create Macedonia as we know it. When I first got to UNO, the Hellenistic Era was the “happenin’” place, but there are now a number of Macedoniasts doing that. Pat Wheatley (Brian Bosworth’s student) and Charlotte Dunn just (2020) published a new (probably definitive) book on Demetrios Poliorketes for instance (I’ve been waiting to see that for years). And there will always be Yet Another book on Alexander or Philip, but the place that is WIDE OPEN for research is the archaeology of Archaic and Early Iron Age Macedonia. That shit is interesting.

Go to Macedonia. Drive around and visit the museums (not just the big ones in Athens and Thessaloniki, or even Vergina). Go to Veroia, go to Pella, go to Aiani, go to Ioannina, go to Florina. See what’s up there. It’s COOL.

[thebluelemontree]

Is it wrong to say that Sansa uses an out of sight out of mind coping mechanism? I noticed it because it's what I do a lot. I know some ppl say she rewrites traumatic memories to make the memories bearable but it doesn't make sense. If that was how she coped, wouldn't she have been telling herself lies about Joffrey still in acok? Or found a way to erase/rewrite Marillion's attempt to rape her?

Yes and no. She does that except all the times she doesn’t. ;) I think that characterization is extremely reductionist (and ignores character complexity and  growth) when it’s applied that broadly to every situation Sansa has been in. You have to take these things instance by instance because they aren’t all the same. Sometimes that labeling doesn’t fit at all. In many cases, it feels more like the fandom pathologizing the act of romanticizing or trying to push aside or reframe something unpleasant or even traumatic when that’s just something most human beings do now and then. Some do it more than others, but its all within the realm of typical coping behavior and being older or more educated or more “logical” doesn’t make one immune to it. So I hope you don’t let those interpretations make you feel abnormal or more fallible for identifying with Sansa in that way. Romanticizing doesn’t even have to be about coping at all, but simply expressing desire through daydreams. People imagine being in idealized scenarios with crushes all the time.  

You also hit the nail on the head. Sansa just doesn’t go around making up false narratives about every objectively awful thing that happens to her. In fact, her actual responses to those moments can be a useful basis for comparison when we’re analyzing the unkiss, for example. Misunderstanding the unkiss is usually where a lot of these assumptions stem from. That’s a whole other can of worms in itself. The unkiss is just too long of a discussion to put here, so I just recommend this post as to the reasons why it isn’t about trauma and take a browse through my unkiss tag. It does bear repeating that Sansa factually remembers every scary thing that happened during the Blackwater and why it happened, indicating she has processed it honestly and critically, before any incarnation of the unkiss happens. The unkiss is a mismemory added on to the facts, which began as her being the actor that kissed him first. It’s not a lie to deny the facts or to excuse his behavior. It’s regrettable to her that Sandor was not able to be the person she could rely on to get her out of KL at that time. Nonetheless, this repressed desire is just so strong in her that it manifested in a kiss so real she could remember how it felt after the reality of his leaving KL for good sank in. 

Early AGOT Sansa tended to want to move past unpleasantness rather quickly. Just sweep those red flags under the rug so everything can go back to blissful harmony. Sansa is naturally averse to conflict and just wants her present with the royal family to be smooth sailing into a bright future. Ned had a very similar tendency when it came to concerns over Robert’s true character. He saw things that disturbed him, but he hoped and clung to his idea of Robert anyway. For Sansa, this resulted in some misplaced blame and rewriting events so she could deal with the aftermath. This is mostly seen in her processing the Mycah incident after Lady’s death and how her perception of all the characters involved shifted in varying ways. This is after she knew perfectly well what really happened, because Ned says Sansa had already told him the truth of what Joffrey did while Arya was still missing. However, it would also be unfair to completely chalk this up to Sansa’s idiosyncrasies. We have to put her flip-flopping in the context of the situation as well. She’s also experienced a gutting loss with Lady’s death and the fact that the first blow to her innocence was her father volunteering to put Lady down. She doesn’t have Catelyn to go to with her confusion and hurt, and Ned has largely been silent. She’s also still engaged to Joffrey through all this, this is still a patriarchy, there are political ramifications to speaking against a crown prince, and she doesn’t know how to deal with seeing such cruelty and vindictiveness in her future husband. Especially when he responded to her tender concern and wanting to help him with venom and hate. 

I mean, jeez, she’s 11. I don’t expect an 11 year old to understand how to identify the signs of emotional manipulation or see how this situation can escalate into domestic violence. Just because Sansa can’t articulate what is happening within her relationship with Joffrey, doesn’t mean she has blocked out any notion that Joffrey can turn his anger on her. Part of the reason she misplaces blame on Arya (and rewrites what happened) is because Joffrey turns scornful of Sansa for being a witness to his emasculating shame. He punishes her with the cold shoulder because she didn’t immediately take his side and pretended not to see instead. He regains power through making Sansa feel small and fearful of his moods. 

“He had not spoken a word to her since the awful thing had happened, and she had not dared to speak to him.” -- Sansa II, AGOT.

Sansa looked at him and trembled, afraid that he might ignore her or, worse, turn hateful again and send her weeping from the table. -- Sansa II, AGOT.

This is coming from someone who is supposed to love her and someone she will spend the rest of her life with. To fix things, she must be unequivocally on Joffrey’s side going forward or suffer the consequences, which we can see happening as her story completely flips over breakfast sometime later. This is not saying Sansa is fully exonerated from not supporting her sister when she needed her, but that it’s understandable how she arrived at this point. Even when things start to get really bad after Ned’s arrest, Sansa still holds out some hope that she can appeal to Joffrey’s (and Cersei’s) love for her to get him to be merciful. Is it really her fault she believed a part of Joffrey really loved her (and thus was reachable by her pleas) if he also heavily love bombed her and treated her like she was the most special girl in the world? Love bombing is a classic feature of the seduction phase leading up to abuse.  

So we can see Sansa does ignore truths and rewrite events sometimes and her personality is a factor; however, the context surrounding it matters a lot. Post Ned’s execution, Sansa does a full 180 regarding Joffrey and Cersei.

Sansa stared at him, seeing him for the first time. He was wearing a padded crimson doublet patterned with lions and a cloth-of-gold cape with a high collar that framed his face. She wondered how she could ever have thought him handsome. His lips were as soft and red as the worms you found after a rain, and his eyes were vain and cruel. "I hate you," she whispered. -- Sansa VI, AGOT.

Once she had loved Prince Joffrey with all her heart, and admired and trusted his mother, the queen. They had repaid that love and trust with her father's head. Sansa would never make that mistake again. -- Sansa I, ACOK. 

"A monster," she whispered, so tremulously she could scarcely hear her own voice. "Joffrey is a monster. He lied about the butcher's boy and made Father kill my wolf. When I displease him, he has the Kingsguard beat me. He's evil and cruel, my lady, it's so. And the queen as well." -- Sansa I, ASOS. 

There’s also her conscious efforts to push away thoughts of her dead family and Jeyne Poole, but she states why she does that. It’s traumatic, the tears start flowing uncontrollably, and she is desperately trying to avoid falling into another suicidal depression. Her survival in KL depends on her holding it together and appearing loyal and obedient to Joffrey. Mourning her loved ones would imply to Joffrey she is plotting treason. Besides, she knows that even if she did ask Cersei or LF about Jeyne, she has no reason to believe they’d do anything but lie to her face in a patronizing way. There’s no point being plagued with wondering what the truth might be when she can’t do anything about it. Still, she prayed for Jeyne wherever she might be. She genuinely thought Arya had made it to WF on the ship and was safe at least until she got word of her brothers’ deaths and her home being sacked by the Iron Born, though there was initially a touch of projection and fantasizing about Arya being free while she remains captured. As of Feast, she believes she is the last Stark left alive and she has no one but Littlefinger to help her. So while she is suppressing her grief, it’s done with good reason, and it’s not being replaced with any false narratives to cope. 

We also cannot ignore that her relationship to Sandor Clegane has instilled in her an appreciation for the un-sugarcoated truth now that she has experienced betrayal and injustice first hand. In his own way, he’s encouraged her to listen to her own inner bullshit detector. The rose-tinted glasses have become a lot more clear compared to where she started. This is a newly learned skill though, and her self-confidence has been wrecked by internalized verbal abuse. She’s also been left on her own to figure out people’s intentions by herself, which runs parallel to her mounting desperation to get out of KL as Joffrey’s violence escalates. Developing a touch more of a jaded, skeptical side does sometimes clash with her enduring idealism and faith in other people (like with the Tyrells). This struggle is not a bad thing. The goal isn’t to become as cynical as the Hound, but to arrive at an earned optimism that has been tempered by wisdom and practical experience.

Her situation with Littlefinger is much more challenging than anything she faced in KL. He moves her where he wants her to go with complex web of lies, manipulation, grooming, isolation, coercion, dependence, guilt and shame. Her safety and desire to go home are tightly bound to being complicit in his lies and criminal activities. She feels indebted to him for getting her out of KL, even though his methods push her past her boundaries and force her to compromise her moral integrity. The thing is, there are things Sansa does know about LF, but she doesn’t seem to be ready to try and put the puzzle pieces together. She’s not daring to ask probing questions about Lysa’s reference to the “tears” and Jon Arryn or about the possible dangers of Maester Colemon prescribing sweetsleep for Robert’s convulsions. While the subject of Jeyne’s fate is still one she doesn’t want to revisit, somewhere in her mind she does know LF took custody of her friend. If it feels like this is somewhat of a regression back to her early AGOT self, there’s probably some truth to that; however, it’s perfectly okay for positive character arcs to be an imperfect progress. There can be relapses, regressions, setbacks, missteps, and misguided actions. All that growth isn’t lost. Everything she knows is just stored in the back of her mind, not forgotten completely. The general trend line moves her toward successfully confronting Littlefinger with the truth when GRRM is ready to pull the trigger. She’s definitely aware of Littlefinger lying to her more than she lets on and she knows his help is not out of the kindness of his heart, but motivated by what he wants her to be to him. But it’s not like she has the option to go anywhere else, does she? She’s a wanted criminal with a bounty on her head and has no other friend or ally in the Vale she can trust with the truth of her identity. Confronting LF without any means of neutralizing his power over her isn’t the smartest thing to do when he’s shown her he can literally get away with multiple murders. Again, it’s not just her personality that makes her hesitant to pull back the veil and face the horrible truth head on. The outside forces pressuring her perceptions and behavior cannot be discounted either.