#it changes the way her autonomy is affected but that means you have to work harder to explain why it’s just as bad like I can’t believe some

[dykedvonte]

people act like wanting to discuss how anya being male would affect the story/the themes erases the actual game from existence, like is gone or somehow cheapened by fans doing what fans do

i think you don't like those (happy) ending baby aus and neither do i but it kind of feels similar where the exploration of possibilites is discouraged entirely or considered disrespectful towards the source material or a sign that the fans don't understand the original message which is such a weird viewpoint to have

especially because i think the game lends itself to these kind of conversations/fan content... bc yeah while it wouldn't be the same if anya was male, but that doesn't mean you can't use a male anya au to criticize the patriarchy/rape culture? it would maybe help some people to look deeper into an au like that especially bc it would require THEM to use their brain and maybe confront their own biases

It’s like a ridiculous thing to be so upset about in my mind because it comes from a place I keep seeing in this particular fan space of people interpretaing personal views as like canon analysis.

It’s a game that deals with multiple sensitive topics on a lot of different fronts and of course a lot of the fans are going to go about engaging with it in different ways. Too many people are getting mad at others for depicting things in ways they don’t like even if it comes from a place of personal experience with the subject matter or other real life lived experiences.

I don’t like the idea that Anya has to keep the baby but it’s not unheard of that victims end up having to and it’s not evil or missing the point to admit that or explore it through an au. It’s not happy nor do I think it’s a post canon fix it like some are deposited as but from what I’ve seen of them I’ve only gotten ones that are real and upsetting and deal with the stress of having to care for your rapist child. Again, the concept of Jimmy refusing to take responsibility and forcing it on to others even when they shouldn’t have to.

With the idea of male Anya and female Jimmy the conversation of autonomy, patriarchy, sexism, misogyny and rape culture can still very much happen. It is a lot more nuanced and muddied just due to how male victims are addressed, if addressed at all, but to think it disregard the points of the game means you have a shallow understanding of all of the themes at play in tandem. The idea it’d affect his life less completely misses the point he would feel a shame and guilt about being assaulted by a woman but it fostering a child. Many people in real scenarios would assume he’s only saying it wasn’t consensual because he doesn’t want the kid despite discomfort and fear around Jimmy. Theres the idea that Jimmy would guilt him to care for the baby and thus her back on earth which furthers the idea of being stuck with you abuser along with how Anya may be compliant because men who defend themselves are still seen at fault. If everyone’s gender is swapped it opens the discussion of how women can be complacent in n rape culture too.

I think a sign of a good piece of media is if enables transformative conversation on the subject matter. I think the issue people are having is not understanding that there isn’t one right way to act in the scenarios we were given, that victims find themselves in. It’s a lot of people getting upset at others who react differently and acting like putting those opinions out there is damaging when it’s just another real perspective someone is either opening up and sharing or trying to depict.

[amostimprobabledream]

You know, I know people like to meme on Homelander like "bro is beefing with a baby haha", but with S4 Ep4 revealing more context to his backstory, it's really not surprising and adds an extra tragic layer. (Note this isn't excusing him, it's just a little analysis.)

We already know early on that Homelander's childhood is a public fabrication and that he was raised as a lab rat, with Vogelbaum being his primary father figure. Despite raising John from birth, though, Vogelbaum has never seen him as a son or even a child - he's a product, an experiment that needs to be managed. Every day, Vogelbaum would go to work, do experiments on Homelander with his team of scientists, Stan Edgar, Barbara, and then go home and play happy families. Billy Butcher manages to get Vogelbaum to give him intel on Homelander specifically by threatening to hurt Vogelbaum's daughter if he doesn't comply. Once again, Vogelbaum puts his biological child over the one he spent most of his time with, and doesn't bother warning him or Madelyn of what's coming.

We also know now that the scientists who tortured him also had families - Frank is forced to go in the oven because Homelander overtly threatens to burn them too if he doesn't. We don't know about Marty or Barbara but it's easy to assume they do too. But none of them thought anything of sticking a little boy in an oven or testing nuclear weapons on him.

Then you have Madelyn. And we don't know exactly how long they've known each other, but it seems like it must be a long time for Madelyn to be in the position she is in Vought and by how well she knows Homelander. She's the closest thing to a mother figure he's ever had, and his unofficial handler/mentor. Whatever Madelyn thinks of him, Homelander is close to her.

And then Madelyn gets pregnant.

Something that always stuck out to me in Season One was when Homelander comments that Madelyn's baby is just a prop to make her feel like a good person. This always seemed like a really astute and oddly specific, personal observation, because mostly Homelander seemed pretty selective with Madelyn's unsavoury qualities until she lies about something too major for him to ignore anymore. But it does seem, to me, that he was right - whether Madelyn felt genuine love for Teddy or not, it does seem like these scientists and other people who work at Vought use their loved ones to convince themselves that they aren't really bad people - look, they have a good relationship with their kids! They're happily married! Yes, they experimented on a child, but that was just a job. It's what he was made for. But that's not who they really are, right? In particular, Madelyn's determination to make Teddy breastfeed from her seemed less because it was what's best for him, health-wise, and more because she saw it as something she was failing at as a mother so early on, and because she wasn't happy about her motherhood plans being derailed by her baby's refusal to comply with them. I feel like down the line, Madelyn would have probably ended up being emotionally abusive or at least extremely manipulative as a mother - loving your child and being a controlling parent aren't mutually exclusive, after all.

Vogelbaum's affection for his daughter doesn't change what an awful person he is. Stan Edgar adopting and grooming Victoria into being, well, Victoria, doesn't mean he isn't a sociopath - he's fond of Victoria because she's a successful project he raised. He still fucked her up and turned her into a serial killer and Victoria has now demonstrated she's willing to violate Zoe's bodily autonomy if she thinks it's necessary (or rather, convinces herself it is.) Frank was a family man 'just doing his job', but that didn't save him from Homelander's wrath. Did their families know about the atrocities they were committing? If they didn't, would they be able to look at them the same way?

So no wonder Homelander hates Madelyn's baby - he finally had a parental figure in his life who didn't have a family taking away what he saw as the love and attention he deserved like Vogelbaum did, and then she goes and has a baby anyway, and once again, someone else is receiving all the affection and care that Homelander has never, ever been given by anyone.

tl;dr: Homelander hating Madelyn's baby makes perfect sense and makes me sad. EDIT: If I've made a some mistakes in this post it's because I haven't watched S1 & 2 in a while so my recollection is a bit fuzzy, excuse me for that lol.

[ilynpilled]

Have you seen that post on how Cersei pushing Jaime into forcing sex on her is an abuse technique on her end?

no, but i checked his tag now lol. while i know that george explicitly expressed that the sept scene was intended as consensual by him, i still believe that jaime’s pattern of pushing to have sex with cersei, and how, speaks of an unhealthy relationship with consent in this relationship on his part too, a lack of respect for boundaries on his part, as well as objectification on his part that cannot be removed from the context of this society’s gender dynamics, especially when it concerns cersei’s themes and her character (to contextualize and expand on what i mean, heres a very quick collection of quotes regarding how jaime’s relationship to cersei, sex, swordplay, and even violence blend or function similarly in relation to very heavy dissociative tendencies):

i understand the jc dynamic’s set up:

“She has never come to me, he thought. She has always waited, letting me come to her. She gives, but I must ask.”

“She wanted to draw his face to hers for a kiss. Later, she told herself, later he will come to me, for comfort. “We are his heirs, Jaime,” she whispered. “It will be up to us to finish his work. You must take Father’s place as Hand. You see that now, surely. Tommen will need you . . .”

i also understand how george seems to establish communication and patterns within this dynamic that reinforce his expressed intention, which is also apparent in a scene that a third party witnesses and how that mirrors the sept, and i obviously also do not think these two would do all of this healthily and establish things akin to safe words (lmao) (though i take issue with a lot of things here still when it comes to grrm and how consent is framed):

and i understand george framing cersei utilising sex, or even love and affection, as a means to have power, and that being a big factor in this relationship’s dynamic and how she takes control (see instances when cersei does initiate— jaime’s narration is not entirely correct, we know of the inn, which is unique but important, so it is interesting that he chooses not to connect this until feast, that would mean confronting something he doesn’t want to— and what motives she has: “She smiled for him, so sweetly. “Do you remember the first time I came to you like this? It was some dismal inn off Weasel Alley, and I put on servant’s garb to get past Father’s guards.” “I remember. It was Eel Alley.” She wants something of me. “Why are you here, at this hour? What would you have of me?” His last word echoed up and down the sept, mememememememememememe, fading to a whisper. For a moment he dared to hope that all she wanted was the comfort of his arms.”

but i do not think that changes much about the issues on jaime’s part, or how patriarchal hegemony works, or how a lot of fandom frames cersei. we know cersei only enjoys sex with jaime (it is sex that is categorized as different from lancel, osney, taena, and robert — all of these also cannot be conflated for obvious reasons — by her), she says so, but that doesn’t change that she still believes that it is her only source of power and means through which she can reach equal ground within her society. we can understand why cersei thinks and functions this way: we understand how she was reared and how she was viewed as a sexual object and a tool for political transactions with no autonomy since childhood by every adult around her. we see how and why jaime is needed by her to feel “whole”, and how he is her “sword.” it is also not difficult to acknowledge that while the abusive dynamic is not what i would consider equal: jaime does not verbally berate her to the degree she does him, does not physically hit her and throw things at her, does not use her or emotionally abuse her the way that she does him (and no, i personally do not agree with people that say they are equally terrible to each other or they equally benefit from this relationship), jaime still ultimately has some power over her due to his gender (the physical is obvious, but on top of that this is a medieval society with extreme levels of gender inequality), and nothing will really erase that because this relationship does not exist in a vacuum. this is not diminished by how this relationship functions, her status as queen and jaime’s status as her kg, and other variables that play into the unequal power dynamic. it will always have to be acknowledged that cersei is a woman + everything that comes with that being the case in a medieval society with complete patriarchal domination. i also think the unhealthy belief system of “we are one. you are me. i am you. we are two halves of a whole” will have effects on the understanding of consent and how both parties function in the relationship. i think this extreme delusion would lead to a plethora of issues when it comes to consent and boundaries. with cersei too, the moment she (including her offering sex) is rejected by her “other half” she emphasizes and says things like “you swore that you would always love me.” and “i was a fool to ever love you” or starts verbally berating him, emasculating him, being ableist etc. this relationship operates on some absurd conditions and ultimatums, it is not healthy, hence things like “the things I do for love” too. in reality, it really is the opposite of “unconditional destined lovers.” both of them have things that they end up prioritizing over the other, and both have an incorrect idea of the other that fits their specific needs and wants. i just despise this whole “cersei groomed and manipulated jaime since they were children” bullshit. a child is not capable of this. teenaged cersei was navigating the strict and dehumanising boxes that her father and society forced her into since she was 7 years old. she looked to her brother for comfort and escape as much, if not in many ways more at this point, as he did. i also think cersei escapes into the relationship to subvert those societal patterns in many ways (i have seen people discuss that jaime views her as an equal and a person more so than others: “If I were a woman I’d be Cersei.”) but this still does not change the flaws that jaime has. he is not only a man in westeros, he was also reared by tywin lannister lmao. he is a misogynist with a skewed understanding and view of a lot of things. no point in denying this.

and all this aside, i also understand “mutual abuse is not real”, and understand the damage ignoring that can do to narratives revolving around victims of abuse, and the issue with framing ‘retaliation’ or ‘bad victims’ as mutual abuse (see discussions regarding robert and cersei for example and some of the putrid narratives that come out of that), but we are talking about fiction and its themes, discussing an author’s known intention and execution of that intention (that we can also criticize), as well as what is written in a text, and i do not think we should be ignoring the nuances when it comes to applying a modern lens to a medieval society with some very different and more severe and strict paradigms when it comes to gender inequality and the oppression of women.

here are george’s actual comments that i do not believe contradict the bulk of my perspective either tbh:

[darkonekrisrewrite]

Ochako Needs Toga and Toga Can’t Die

(Toga/Ochako Meta, Toga Survival Meta, Current Spoilers Warning)

Ochako needs her Villain alive, free but close to her and Toga can’t die, not only for her sake but also because Ochako can’t achieve the goals she bet her life on without her.

Toga and Ochako connected and formed a real bond ^.

And it’s one of the most important moments in Bnha but it can’t end here for either of them.

Because neither can truly succeed or get what they really want without the other.

Or at least Ochako can’t.

Because anything Ochako (based on her current Final Arc goals) wants to do, without Toga, she can’t do.

Ochako’s Microphone isn’t going to cut it anymore

The only reason Ochako’s Speech to the Civilians worked was because she told them exactly what they wanted to hear, that they would be protected and returned to normalcy.

Literally begging them to care about the Young Hero who has fought and suffered for them all this time while swearing that they’d get exactly what they want.

She was also very lucky in that some of the Civilians had prior experiences with Deku and supported the sentiment.

Kota and the Heteromorph Woman.

Another advantage she had was that her current goal of helping Deku was aligned with that of the “System” (Endeavor, Hawks, Jeanist and Nezu); no one with any real power was opposed to Ochako.

That’s definitely not the case this time, with her current line of thinking.

Everyone will be opposed to Ochako now, both heroes and civilians.

Not truly for the sake of “Justice” or “Fairness” (if anyone, heroes or Civs. really wanted either of those things; half the Villains wouldn’t be Villains at all) but because both groups stand to lose a lot by accepting that the villains are human beings and their continued existence and autonomy.

(This ^ was their response to being asked to help Deku by letting stay at the heroes own shelter)

If the civilians needed so much convincing just to take some risks to help their Savior (Deku) then no amount of crying, begging or screaming is going to convince them to help their enemy (Toga).

A Path that would require them to take a serious look at their way of life and actions, admitting they’re wrong and make the difficult but extremely necessary changes.

With everything the Bnha Civilians have been shown to be, the only logical outcome of (Megaphone or not) peacefully asking them to change, it’s not going to work.

The civilians are the ones that haven’t shown any desire to change, not in any way that was really genuine.

And the Civilians won’t want to change because all they want is for everything to go back to their selfish “normal”.

(Their ideal normal under All Might ^)

Reminder that any Core Lov member’s life is worth infinitely more than any number of “Innocent” Civilians.

An example of a Hero who definitely won’t be on board with Ochako’s new Path is: Shoji “Shine bright until the one kicking you down feels bad” Mezo.

Whether Ochako (currently or later) realizes it or not, Shoji’s “Heroic Answer” is fundamentally opposed to her own.

Toga and Spinner might not be the same in many aspects but they’re not incomparable, in how society rejected them and in how they came to be villains.

Just like any person so negatively affected by their Quirk (mentally or physically) could become a future “Toga”; any Heteromorph treated cruelly enough could become a future “Spinner”.

And in dealing with these issues in the present, Ochako and Shoji (mostly) reveal how they’re going to deal with them in the future, and their answers couldn’t (logistically) be more different.

(Any timeframe of when that’ll happen???)

Shoji’s personal answer was for him to: “Become the coolest Hero ever”, which honestly I still don’t know what that means.

Coolest as in: Popularity? Heroic strength or influence? Inspiring others the next generation?

Shoji never specified anything about whom or what he wanted to be and he never said that he was actually going to help the Heteromorphs.

He even threatens the other Heteromorph’s children that they’ll be targeted next if they don’t stop, despite the fact that he was a target himself a few years (to current time) ago as a child.

Taking this all together, it doesn’t seem like Shoji’s going to be doing much at all for the Heteromorphs and he’s basically told them to behave until the people who carved up his face (for saving a child) feel bad.

Basically a whole lot of nothing.

Ochako isn’t like that.

She persuaded Toga as an equal and connected with her despite their differences, never putting herself above the person she was trying to convince.

Working with the person suffering directly and offering something real, something that really helps.

(An actual “Helping Hand” being given ^)

And while she hasn’t come right out and said things systemically need to change, the fact that she was willing to go so far to help Toga and committing to that future “for life”, shows that she’s only one step away from reaching that conclusion.

That actually, Heroes do need to directly intervene in situations like this and they should, in that it’s the right thing to do.

Because that’s what a real Hero would do as opposed to telling those suffering to “shine” and then trying to be the “coolest Hero”, whatever that entails.

Even if this doesn’t lead to conflict within the Hero ranks, it does show that Ochako’s not going to have a lot of allies going forward, even with just saving Toga herself.

Tsuyu and Deku might fall in there somewhat, but it hasn’t been made very clear about where they’ll really stand in the end on a larger view.

Whether Deku will expand on his “Helping Hand” previous answer or not.

The only person Ochako’s going to have “Going all in” is Toga.

Someone willing to do whatever it takes for the person they’re loyal to, to life or death, for better or worse, something the Lov specializes in.

Because while Ochako’s other friends are undoubtedly loyal to her, especially Deku and Tsuyu, the things they’re willing to do don’t really fall outside of Ochako’s own comfort zones.

For instance: If Ochako winds up rocking too many boats in hero society (even by just helping Toga) and the current government decides that’s not going to fly, what happens then?

(We still never got any specifics on what any of the “corrupt” Heroes did, more than a little suspicious.)

Because remember Lady Nagant was operating during All Might’s Era, so if Deku wins and becomes the next symbol of “Peace” there’s nothing stopping such things from happening again sooner or later unless Deku himself is willing to throw his own weight around, not against any directly hostile force but at the system/government itself.

Nothing so far has shown that he’s willing to do that.

The closest thing was Deku becoming a fugitive in the third Movie but he wasn’t really fighting against any government or similar institution, so I’m still going to say no there.

And looking back, who was it exactly, that took out the last hero Commission?

(The same commission ^ that employed child soldiers?)

Twice and Redestro did that.

It can’t be a “We’ll try to do better from now on” ending without any elaboration or resistance by every flaw of Hero Society already established.

It may be a Shounen Manga but it’s not a Disney Series, I think it’s fair to expect a little more nuance in things going forward with all the buildup that just keeps coming.

Ochako isn’t going to succeed without Toga

Because nothing her heroic standards will allow her to do will be enough to really make anything better, to prevent more “Toga Himiko” variants from being made.

She doesn’t have the power or the willingness for violence to force change if the Government and Civilians say no, which based on everything we’ve seen so far, they definitely will say no.

No Hero has both these qualities together.

The Lov need the 3 core Heroes to become brighter versions of themselves but the 3 core Heroes need the Villains in case they need to be darker versions of themselves.

Giving the villains hope and giving the Heroes Teeth.

Especially true for Ochako and Toga.

That I think (and logically is) is the only middle ground, working together to meet between Naive Heroic optimism and Nihilistic Villainous destruction.

Toga can’t die because Ochako can’t follow through on her Arc’s conclusion and future (greater) Hero goals without her.

It just isn’t possible.

Now Logical reasons why Toga can’t die:

While Toga did and still does want to live and die her own normal way, she obviously didn’t want to die so soon.

And while she did seem to choose death over imprisonment, I don’t think that was truly the reason so much as Toga wanted to save Ochako no matter the consequences.

It was a factor but not the prime reason.

And keep in mind Toga did survive this:

(With this many small bombs going off inside her body and the damage she was shown to take afterward, I think it’s reasonable to assume that she can handle Blood loss for a while.)

Also This:

Toga did stitch up Ochako’s wound already so the blood isn’t still being lost in such a large quantity anymore.

And prior to the transfusion, Toga had taken Zero Damage in the battle, so she would have all of her own Blood amount going in.

Toga isn’t literally giving Ochako “All of” her Blood, she’s just replacing what was lost while dealing with a (mostly) closed Wound.

While it would definitely be draining for Toga, there’s really no way it should be fatal.

And even if it was leading towards that danger, there is one more person very nearby that should still be able to help, someone that shares Type B Blood (Ochako’s Type and Toga’s current transformation Type) and understands what Ochako is trying to do:

Toga and Ochako’s story can’t end here.

[raionmimi]

Someone once told me that they loathe Medb because she objectifies people, and I can't help but agree. From her creation of Cu Alter to her relationship with Skadi, and then something Fergus mentioned twice, once in the manga and once in Summer 4. But, rather than seeing this in a negative light, as the person who mentioned this, I couldn't help but find this an interesting fault because the story, for the most part, treats this as neither fully bad or completely good Because viewing it through this lens makes Skadi and her relationship uniquely realistic because, while Medb is doing it for completely warped and selfish motives, it also highlights the fact that Skadi needs a self-severing person in her life to get over her troubles and eluvates her in such a intersting manner. Or, in another situation, how she basically earns Cu alter's respect via sheer tenacity through that viewpoint but also caused the american singularity. I had these thoughts swriling around my head the past few days I couldn't help but to wonder what the biggest Medb fan would think about this.

A lot of people, including your friend, view America as a "I have you now, my pretty" scenarios from what I've seen. America plays it up that Medb "gets to have" Cu as an object of affection. Higashide specifically wanted the player to think that, so it comes off as a surprise in the reveal when Alter admits that he's fighting for Medb's wish on his own free will the whole entire time.

(TL;DR: at the bottom before the cut)

When you go back, you realize that there is a lot of foreshadowing that this was the case the whole time. Namely that Cu Alter has so much autonomy and free will for someone who is supposedly "under control." Medb never gets mad at him when he disagrees with her, and the fact that he would debate with her at all is extremely telling when she's usually pretty pushy as a person when it comes to what she thinks is the correct line of action

Both Medb and Cu have their own ideas of what it means to be a king and a hero. For Cu, we know that he doesn't care for honors and titles, but Medb had to work her ass off to get a title for her own safety and to be taken seriously by others. Cu (probably) thought he was well meaning for telling Medb that he didn't want to hurt or kill her because she was a woman, but to her, it was insulting that he wouldn't view her as a warrior when she had gone through a fuckton to get to where she was. He accepted that he was going to die in a blaze of glory, while she can't understand how he can just go throw his life away without ever properly taking her on when everyone thinks of her as the villain of his story.

So there's an obvious disconnect between the two. The fact that they DO talk about this, change each other's minds, and disagree is where the development lays. By the end of the singularity, Alter is able to recognize Medb's efforts as a queen, which was the main validation she wanted from him. Medb also arguably understands that Cu isn't how she thought he’d be that if you notice, anytime they're together, she no longer brings up how she thinks he should act. She just thinks what he does is really cool instead, so they’ve basically gotten the chance to get to know each other better and come to some sort of understanding

The only problem is that Higashide never actually addresses the issue on Cu's end. Personally, I don't really mind tooo too much because Medb's emotions is what I care more so about in the dynamic, but it still leaves a very huge "What even are his thoughts about this?" And I dont mean Alter, I mean the original Cu. It's very clear by the stark difference in how Medb talks to Alter and Cu that she thinks Cu is much colder to her than he actually is. But she also was able to talk to Alter more genuinely because with his emotions suppressed, it was like talking to someone who would never actually respond in a way that would be too overwhelming where she'd have to be on guard. But that's only a stepping stone to the actual problem.

Cu cares a great deal about Medb as a person because if he wasn't aware of her circumstances when they were alive, he does now that they're servants. He mentioned her in HA before she was even in FGO and says that a ton of bad things happened to her and she's a product of what happened to her. But he still doesn't do anything about it in a way that's actually helpful. He treats Medb like someone he feels like he has to take care of, even if she's troublesome, instead of acknowledging his own flaws that got him into the situation with her in the first place.

He still has chivalrous view of women that can be seen as patronizing like telling Medusa in Extella that he doesnt want to fight or kill women when Medusa had the clear advantage. He chooses Nero over Tamamo because Tamamo reminded him too much of Medb. He talks about how he wants to be more reliable to Medb in his voiceline, even to the point of making a promise to her that we still have NO idea what it could possibly have been about. He avoids Medb when she's up to mischief, yet when she asks for help he is immediately willing to do whatever. Even to the point that Knocknarea in LB6 is confused as to why he's so eager and willing to help her.

Cu's thoughts are a huge piece of the puzzle missing that if you don't pay attention to how he handles Medb, it comes off as one sided when it's more like two people avoiding communicating the root of a problem.

I highly doubt that his side would ever occur as the closest there has come to being critical of Cu's actions is the consequences of his thing with Fand and Emer in the Vday events with Caren and Bazett. Do agree that sometimes, other writers will just use Medb's love for him as a gag to idk fill up the spaces or something. It can be funny but if that's all she does, then ya I get the criticisms esp when their actual convos are way funnier. I have more thoughts on them, but I've already wrote so much lmao

Very cool and poggers of the manga to have Cu Alter kneeling down and accepting a kiss from her tho

TL;DR: Medb and Cu have lore to build off of + that there are flaws to be addressed. Makes the subtle growth very cool and leeway for further Medb development and complexities.

---

Putting the rest under the cut because I'm critical of the way Sakurai writes Medb and Skadi. Read if u want, but know that I'm kind of a hater so I'd rather you look at something you like instead.

Sakurai's writing with Skadi doesn't have the benefit of lore to easily play around with though. TL;DR at the bottom.

The problem is that the writers never really fleshed out Scathach that much, nor did they have the latter interact much with Medb. The whole premise of this dynamic is that Medb thinks Skadi is Scathach and she's surprised that "Scathach is acting different than she usually does" and keeps trying to get Skadi to act "like she usually does"

But Medb doesn't even really know Scathach, they hardly talked. Like ever. There's like 5 lines of dialogue from between 2018 to now between the two across the American singularity to events and voice lines. Most of the time, they don't even directly talk to each other. Unlike her thing with Alter, Medb has never come to an understanding with Scathach, nor does she really have any reason to care about her

The writing has to rely on existing character dynamics that... was hardly there to begin with makes it crumble that much faster to me personally. It'd make more sense if they had actually written a LOT of interaction with each other to the point of them influencing each other's characters, whether in a positive or negative way. But as it stands, it'd make more sense for Medb to react to the gap difference between Ushi and Taira than Scathach and Skadi because the writers chose to give more depth to Ushi and Medb as frenemies.

I was never a fan of Medb Skadi writing because it comes off as a cheap way to introduce Skadi into the Chaldea dynamics. It's nothing like Ushi or Ex and Medb, Knocknarea and Castoria's level of development, where it'd make sense. Not to mention, nothing about Skadi is remotely what Medb is interested in. If it had been the other way around, where Skadi was introduced first and then Scathach showed up, it'd make a bit more sense given who Medb usually hangs out with or talks to

Sakurai mainly utilizes Medb as a mouthpiece of how cute and uwu Skadi is rather than having any meaningful development between the two across multiple events. It just gets weird and sometimes even creepy at times, esp when you remember Higashide's Medb had never been sexual towards Alter. But Sakurai's Medb sexually harasses Skadi when Medb herself is a SA victim?? And she writes Medb as calling herself tainted in a diff event????? Even Minase treated Medb better in the Prisma Illya event. Like, I don't hate Sakurai, but she can be very hit or miss with me on certain things.

You can compare Skadi to almost any other character that Medb has interacted with, and it's severely lacking. Neither one's lore is really addressed until Skadi's interlude and even then, Medb doesn't really have much to do with it, she's just "I will lend you a Cu (caster) because I'm already holding two Cu's hands right now"

I don't mind if people like Skadi, but I just don't think Sakurai handles Medb and Skadi well together. It comes off as either shoe horned yuri bait at worst, and not knowing where to put Skadi since she didn't have much connection to any character in her LB at best that she just slapped her onto Medb for the vague Scathach connection. There is no lessons learned, no real understanding of each other, and it's just Medb doing what she wants. There's no balance or substance that I personally like

I admit that I have not read her summer event parts to know how she develops with other characters though. I'm still very :// about the transphobia with her changing Caeneus's spirit origin without his consent because she "wanted Caeneus to fit in with the other girls" which doesn't help much when she calls Caeneus tainted because of their SA in the lostbelt.

I just don't really care much for the character or the writing between her and medb, so that's why you'll hardly ever see me talk about her.

Apologies because I know you went in talking positively, but I agree with your friend on this one. It does come heavily across as objectification and one of those ships you'd meme on as "gay ship for straight ppl (with a male audience in mind specifically)" and is not treated well, so I personally ignore it.

TL;DR: I dont like Skadi writing or Medb/Skadi writing. I do not mind if other do tho, so like its just do ya own thing, yfeel?

Anyways, ship Castoria x Knocknarea

[bonefall]

Yes, I want to ask you more AVOS and Needletail stuff, I want you to do justice to one of my favorites...

So given that Breezepelt is another POV joining the kin in the rewrite and also has an arc of disillusionment from them, how do you plan to distinguish Breezepelt and Needletail's roles in the story and personalities so they don't feel like the same character/the same role besides one of them dying and one of them surviving? How will their motivations with regards to the kin differ (I'm hoping you can portray Needletail at least with a combination of genuine idealism, feeling of alienation from her society, and romanticization of violence as a way of having autonomy for herself and belonging)? How will Needletail and Sleekwhisker be shown to contrast in personality as well?

I am trying to preserve her as much as possible, but it is difficult because from what I'm seeing, a significant amount of her draw is based on how ludicrously evil The Kin is from the very beginning. How she sees that, knows that, and goes forward with what she does anyway. Her disillusionment comes when she finally realizes that Bad Society means that She Is Affected By It As Well, her rebellious boredom resulting in real-world harm.

And I don't want The Kin to be that anymore. I want it to be confusing and cultish, I don't just want it to be a Violent Alternative to Clan Culture, which I strongly established for the previous 4 arcs of the Rewrite is violent as a major theme. And like I've mentioned, it bothers me immensely that the Apprentices were basically just rebelling because they were bored little shits and Rowanstar was "too soft," because the main series couldn't admit that Clan Culture is flawed and worth changing

(thank god for TBC finally changing the status quo)

And, tangentially, this arc is already showing a bunch of similarities to previous arcs, even in canon. Needle's execution feels like Stonefur 2 (Kill this child or you die), The Kin feels like BloodClan 2 (Evil foreign barbaric horde that hates love and friendship), Darktail feels like a combination of Sol (manipulative almost supernatural force with a grudge against clan society) and Breezepelt (wants to kill because his dad sucks but loves his mom)

And then on top of it, specific to my rewrite, I'm both trying to fix canon AND complete the dropped character arcs from OotS. So I've got Heather and Breeze here too.

But I am considering these things and here's the current WIP plans:

Needletail: Remorseful Rebel

I'm trying to build on what I think is the part of her character people like the most; how much agency she has over the Kin's takeover. I'm approaching her as possibly the most important individual in their rise.

The fear and violence The Kin's tactics involve are acceptable, ESPECIALLY because she immediately becomes one of the higher ranking Kin members, until it personally affects her or someone she cares about.

Her role is as a perpetual bad influence. She likes what the Kin offers her personally; power and respect. Sleekpaw was the real leader of the Rebel Apprentices, but saw Needlepaw like her deputy and always heard her out. Berryheart, her mother, adored her daughter and would follow her to the end of the Earth. Violetshine looked up to her.

When Darktail murders Mistfeather, lamenting what he "Must do now that his paw has been forced", Needletail sees this, and understands. It's about being able to get rid of anyone who embarrasses you. Here is a system that allows her to go from a low-level, powerless scrub to an elite. No more apprentice tasks. No more being bossed around. No more being 'humiliated,' by whatever arbitrary standard she sets.

But Darktail will need her help, she needs to offer the cats of ShadowClan an alternative to the life they live now. Sleekpaw and the Apprentice Rebels want power to force the Clans to work together. Berryheart and the adults want a competent leader. The ex-Dark Forest trainees and HalfClan cats want acceptance. They all want change.

Needletail doesn't realize it, but she's Darktail's inside voice to spread his propaganda and funnel information back to him. Without her, the Clan society is too big to understand the intricacies of so quickly.

Sleekwhisker, Needletail, Rain, Breezepelt, Darktail. A tight inner circle that grows smaller and smaller, until Sleek alone leads the remnants of the Kin away from the Lake.

Needletail is now the first of this inner circle to die. Violating rules as if they don't apply to her, bringing Violetshine to see her sister, sharing herbs with another Clan, calling out Darktail's cruelty in taking one of Rain's eyes, Needle is one of the first public executions The Kin carries out. Violetpaw was to be killed for breaking the rules, but Needletail tried to fight to free her.

Darktail makes a small speech about how the REAL problem was surely Needletail and she'd just been corrupting Violet, instead of canon where trying to get Needletail to kill this child was just a cruel mind game with no purpose.

(tangent: I firmly believe Tigerstar commanding that Stonefur kill the apprentices was as an excuse to get rid of his political rival, on top of wanting to kill halfclans. "Prove you aren't disloyal like the other halfclan filth. Oh, you won't kill kids? See everyone! He's disloyal! I am justified in commanding this execution." So I don't want Darktail to be commanding Violet's death for... lulz I guess.)

Darktail becomes worse after this, his paranoia escalating. Bonefall Needletail also does not go to StarClan, she is in the Dark Forest... but as you know, the Dark Forest isn't a horrible fate.

Breezepelt: A Reflection

Needlepaw's first order of action was getting word out about Darktail, appealing to cats who feel othered in their Clans. Breeze is one of the first to join, tired of his problems in WindClan. Furzepelt and Sunstrike join him, more loyal to Breeze than anyone else. This is Darktail's first wave of recruitment; he goes from his Original 6 and his SkyClan Pack to suddenly having almost 20 members, and they still don't have the ShadowClan Apprentices.

Breeze and Dark hit it off immediately. Breeze is probably the only one who gets into that 'inner circle' because Darktail legitimately enjoys their company as a friend.

Being so close to Darktail makes Breezepelt start realizing things about himself. The rage and obsession with WindClan, how isolating this kind of anger is, how paranoid power makes him. But all this is a very slow process, which only truly starts to cause a turn around after Needletail's death.

(A change: Crowfeather is now also involved in Harespring and Kestrel's plot to bring herbs in defiance of Onestar. Crowfeather brings some to Breezepelt, and hopes that he is safe. Breeze snaps at him but the experience sticks with him.)

I'm thinking there's some kind of 'party purge' towards the end, the final days of Darktail clinging to power before Violetshine finds SkyClan for the final confrontation. Heathertail is one of the cats who is going to die here, and it's the moment where Breeze has to make a choice.

I think this fight actually ends in a draw, both of them nearing the drop-off of the lake shore, unable to get enough of a lock to hold the other under. They realize neither one is strong enough to kill the other without dying. That's how Breezepelt comes up with the plan to drown Darktail, feeling that if he'd done it in that moment, he could have been "redeemed" and he feels it's his fault that so many people are dead.

In conclusion; What makes them different

Where Needletail is rebellious to the end, Breezepelt is doggedly loyal to Darktail and betraying him was personally painful.

Needletail does more diplomatic work, Breezepelt is an executioner.

Needle's plot is more politics-centric, Breeze is more about self-exploration and his relationships.

Their personalities are different. Needletail is self-centered, motivated by her desire for authority and freedom. Breezepelt is seeking a sense of belonging and justice.

[grandhotelabyss]

Speaking of fin de siècle end-of-history texts, I’m perpetually on the verge of finally reading through Sexual Personae, though there always seems to be another philosophical work half its length or a novel of comparable size to read… In any case this will be the year I think. I’ll confess based on the little Paglia I’ve read always pegged her as the last of the great intellectual trolls, but we’ll see. I was amused to discover recently that she herself identifies as transgender while opposing gender ideology, which throws a rather different light on a joke once I made (in the fashion that all properly educated people do, throwing around the names of thinkers whom they’ve not read comprehensively and have only a mental caricature of) that my own position on gender is the dialectical synthesis of Butler and Paglia.

You don't have to read the whole book, though, just the long first chapter, which is the "theory" part. The rest are almost freestanding critical essays on the literary or artistic exempla of the theory; they can be visited and revisited whenever you're actually reading Spenser, Shakespeare, Dickinson, Wilde, etc. I'm sure I've read every page, some many more times than once, but I've never sat down and read the book qua book cover to cover. The "cancelled preface," collected in Sex, Art, and American Culture, is really fun too:

I pity the poet or novelist in this age of mass media, but my envy is frank and unconcealed for the musician, who is able to affect the audience with such emotional directness, a pre-rational manipulation of the nerves. I long for a prose of Classic structure yet Romantic fire, as in Monteverdi or Chopin. A prose with both clarity and passion, eternal opposites of Apollo and Dionysus, a harmony of brain hemispheres. My domination by music is total. Sexual Personae could be subtitled, after a 1972 Stevie Wonder album, Music of My Mind. My "reading" of Western civilization was directly inspired by the four Brahms symphonies, which entranced me in college—in particular, the third, which I listened to hundreds of times while writing this book.

Her transgender provocation is similar (which is to say maybe I stole it from her) to my own probing at the nonbinary category, since it seems to me that I am nonbinary if anyone is, and yet I am really not, and I would pretty much die if anyone called me "they." I'm just not going to go back to the playground where brutes and mean girls said my tastes, interests, and disposition meant I wasn't a man!

The "dialectical synthesis of Butler and Paglia" is, I think, already more or less contained entire in Paglia underneath the shock rhetoric, not that I've ever been the world's great reader of the turgid and humorless Butler. Paglia does believe in the autonomy (thus necessarily the performativity) of human culture, except that for her it's (1) constrained more than it is for a poststructuralist like Butler by a biological base and—this is the far more important part—(2) subject to aesthetic criteria rendering illegitimate the kind of clumsy, coercive interventions activists and bureaucrats dream up. I know she said "you can't change sex" recently, but I think that whole question is an angels-on-pinheads abstract imponderable of no great relevance to on-the-ground questions of, say, civil liberties or pediatric medicine—themselves two distinct and separable issues, by the way, which I say as a strong civil libertarian who strongly distrusts technocratic institutions.

(P. S. The last time an anon used the phrase "gender ideology" on here, I got yelled at for an entire day by a graduate student, who, following Butler, called me a "fascist." I couldn't care less about the phrase "gender ideology," and if it bothers anybody, please substitute a more neutral label for what is, after all, an extant phenomenon, namely, the anti-essentialist critique of gender and sexual categories. I am practically a pacifist who doesn't give anybody a grade lower than "B" for finished work. If people think I am a fascist, I really hope they are able to remain sheltered and therefore never encounter the genuine article.)

[sinnahsaint]

I think it’s a shame how often people split the world in to “people who can think logically and feel emotions” and “animals that know only physical drives and instinct”. There is so much nuance in the world and when you let animals be what their type of animal is you expand your world.

(below cut starts as an expansion on this, turns into a love letter to my chickens, and then returns to the point)

There’s a lot of talk on here about how cat haters just can’t deal with an animal setting it’s own boundaries or how chihuahuas aren’t actually vicious demons when raised in a household that respects their autonomy… expanding that type of thinking is what allowed me to have a corn snake that peacefully hung-out with me instead of just being a pretty danger-noodle in a glass box.

Learning about the animal types you plan to interact with lets you make accommodations for them. Dogs are not cats are not birds are not reptiles are not fish etc. Even different breeds of dogs have different social and physical needs.

I currently have chickens. Respecting their needs means I’m careful not to chase them or loom over, and I hang out and talk to them when I come to do chores. By taking an extra 3-5 minutes of just staying still and talking in a conversational or calm tone when I go in the coop to change their water or fill their food, I’m making myself part of their known and trusted environment.

Respecting their social structure by either letting the head hen eat her fill first or scattering the treats so everyone can snack at a distance keeps the harmony.

My chickens have only been with me for less than a year so I’m still learning how to work best with these individuals and they’re still learning how to trust me, but I have NEVER been bit by a chicken (even during treatment for injury or illness), and the rooster has never attacked me. He’s not a “sweet boy” like some folks show online cuddling with humans… but we have a calm working relationship.

Learning about chickens before interacting with them helped me avoid common errors of …. culture mistakes? I never scold a hen for pecking another hen, and I won’t interrupt their occasional squabbling (that’s the rooster’s job and he does it well) unless I see blood. I never keep the rooster away from treats even if it was a calcium rich treat intended for the hens because one of his jobs is to call the hens over to tasty treats (the act of calling them while picking up and dropping the treat is called tidbitting). Also, I never made the mistake of crowing when the rooster crows.

All this adds up to me (in chicken culture) not being a “rooster” who would be a threat to the roosters reign, and not being a “hen” who would be part of the pecking order. I’m outside their rules, just like the local songbirds, so they don’t expect me to follow their rules.

If I were to do something foolish like give treats to the lowest hen while the rest watched but could not reach… the chaos would not be good for any of us. That would either place the hen in risk of a fight with the other hens for getting ideas above her station, or me in risk of a fight with the rooster for stealing his girl, or maybe both.

I have no clue if chickens can be happy in the same way humans can. I have no clue if chickens can love. I have no clue if chickens mourn. I do know that chickens can be worried, excited/worked up (positive and negative), and I know they desire peaceful time spent with other chickens they consider part of the family.

Considering this post started with “but a pet reptile/amphibian can’t love you”… who’s to say a dog loves you? you can’t ask them in any way that is conclusive… but it also doesn’t affect you in any way that matters.

Any social animal may consider a human part of their social group/family. Any non-social animal may consider a human part of the rest of the non-threatening animals in their environment. “Familiar and not dangerous” is as close to family as some animals get…

Why would you not want to be “familiar and not dangerous” to a creature type you don’t normally get to interact with?

ppl really do love to be like “but a pet reptile/amphibian CANT LOVE YOU” like ok… i dont care…i dont need it to love me i just need it to be a swag beast

[autolenaphilia]

I've previously wrote a response to this post months ago as a separate post, but perhaps it's more forthright to have it as a reply. I've used material from my earlier post, but consider this a much revisied second draft.

The basic problem with this post is that claiming our society is a patriarchy, while also claiming it "hates men." It's a contradiction, the introduction of a fictitious "misandry" to the reality of patriarchy. And it misunderstands the reality of patriarchy. I will use the word "misandry" for short, that's the real word for the idea that " our society hates men"

It's true that western patriarchy is full of fears about other men being predatory towards women. It's also a rape culture where rape and other violence towards women is justified. These truths are simultaneously true.

CW for discussions of rape, because I need to explain some things.

Misogynist men view women as property belonging to men, a resource men compete over. These men are only offended by rape when it's men raping women that they view as not belonging to them.

Like until the 1960s rape was defined legally as only happening outside of marriage (and these laws took decades to change, these legal reforms just started in the 60s). Husbands could force sex from their wives as much as they want. The worry was solely about men raping women who belonged to other men. Due to white supremacy, this is often expressed in fears of black men raping white women, who are seen as belonging to white men.

You can see this in how narratives of rape are still focused on the “stranger danger”. The weirdo in a ski mask hiding in the bushes. Despite rape being way more often committed by boyfriends and husbands. The weirdo hiding in the bushes is a way of externalizing the problem of rape upon men coded autistic or mentally ill, which is ableism not misandry.

The father joking about shooting his daughter’s boyfriends is another expression of this sense of ownership. It’s the old misogynist idea that daughters are the property of their fathers until they get married and become property of their husbands. And fathers are still often a bit uncomfortable with their daughters exercising autonomy in who they choose to date and marry. The dad wants her to only marry a man he approves of. And that sentiment is expressed in a joke.

It's not in anyway equal who is hurt by these narratives. White men literally get away with rape and murder while for example disabled men and black men are hurt by a perception they are predatory and creepy. This is because they suffer from ableism and racism, not because of any misandry (which if it was real would affect these privileged white men).

The post overall points towards issues that men do suffer from, but falsely attributes it to their gender. Like men "dying on the battlefield or working themselves to the bone to "provide"., This is because of capitalism and class, not gender. The capitalists who profit from men working themselves to the bone are disproportionately men. The officers who lead soldiers to death are also men. If the suffering of the male working class was due to them being men, their exploiters would not be other men.

The men who are hurt by capitalist work and wars are hurt because they are working class, not because they are men. And women are hurt by these things too. Housewives have always been a limited phenomenon, and the majority of women throughout history have worked to provide for themselves and their families. Women do wage labour under capitalism and are exploited by it just as men do. Women's role on the battlefield have been limited by misogyny, but they have suffered greatly from war, including the widespread use of rape as a method of warfare.

And like even if housewives can be argued to represent a limited and even economically privileged group of women, they were still oppressed by misogyny. Being "provided for" means you are absolutely economically dependent on your husband, who had thus massive power in the relationship. And being a housewife still means a lot of work doing childcare and housework, which women who still work full-time are still expected to do the majority of.

So yes, being a working class man or a soldier exploited by capitalism, sucks, but being a woman means being exploited by capitalism and dealing with misogyny, which is worse. There is no hatred of men that makes things worse for them.

Men's work in wider capitalist society and in the military is also lionized in a way that women's work is not. Men are seen as heroes for doing it.

In general, masculinity in men is seen as a good thing in wider society. Men might feel constrained by the rules of masculinity, and it does limit men, but it also is an expression of power in a patriarchy. It gives them a license to do horrible things towards women, cis or trans, the wrong kind of men such as black or mentally ill men or degendered others.

That is the purpose of the "negative" stereotypes. Men are thought as violent and angry, but they need righteous anger and violence to protect their women from the wrong kind of dangerous man. They lack empathy and emotions, but in hegemonic masculinity, too much empathy and emotions make you vulnerable to manipulation, too soft to do the necessary violence. This is the true purpose of masculinity, to legitimize men's violence.

And of course, there is the deeply offensive claim that transmisogyny is actually misandry. Sigh. Let's explain some basics.

Transmisogyny is actually an intersection of misogyny and transphobia experienced by transfems. It's a systemic oppression, that makes transfems into a gender underclass, beneath both men and cis women in the gendered hierarchy.

In this gendered hierarchy, men and masculinity are privileged over women women and femininity. Transfems challenge this by rejecting manhood and masculinity and embracing womanhood and femininity. This causes both misogyny and transphobia to intersect in our oppression.

The transmisogynistic stereotype of the perverted predatory sapphic trans woman who is a danger in bathrooms and changing rooms and must be excluded to protect cis women is a development of older stereotypes and arguments about queer women rather than any "misandristic" stereotypes. It was not long ago the predatory cis lesbian was the main danger in women's bathrooms, used to justify lesbophobia.

And of course, the view of trans women being perverts is tied to the sexualization of women and femininity, and the simultaneous demonization of women's sexuality in cisheteronormative ways. Women who focus on their own sexual pleasure or are attracted to other women are seen as perverted. This is the source of the autogynephilia framework to demonize sapphic trans women.

This is why this post is so offensive.

I don’t know how to put this gently, but saying that transmisogyny is actually due to hatred of men is actually really transmisogynistic.

This kind of rhetoric is still misgendering trans women. It defines us in the discussion of our oppression through the misgendering rhetoric of transmisogynists. It claims to oppose transmisogyny as it furthers it, gives weight to its rhetoric.

It takes transmisogynist claims at face value. Like the basic claim of terf rhetoric is that “We are just concerned about men hurting women, and trans women are men, so they have to kept from female spaces.” And these posts just accepts the idea that this kind of thing is aimed at men, except its clearly not, because men aren’t hurt by this in the slightest, trans women are. Men aren’t excluded from public spaces by things like bathrooms bans, they can still use the men's bathroom safely. In fact, men are expected to use violence against trans women to remove us from these spaces.

Whereas trans women are very much excluded. When you can’t go to the bathroom safely, you are effectively excluded or at least strongly limited from going out in public. That is the genocidal aim of bathroom bans.

Rhetoric of transfems being predatory hurts us far more than it hurts men, because we don't have male privilege. In a rape culture, men are listened to and believed more than women, and so can survive even the most substantiated accusations of abuse with their reputations intact. They also have the power to punish their accusers, often with violence. Whereas trans women often are excluded and socially isolated on the basis of vague rumours of problematic behaviour, as described in Hot Allostatic Load.

It's no coincidence that men can walk away unharmed from a lifetime of violence against women while the mere possibility of a trans woman hurting a cis woman results in calls for our exclusion from public life.

The problem with this kind of post is that it imagines transmisogyny as solely consisting of interpersonal interactions and hateful rhetoric instead of a system of structural oppression that turns transfems into a discriminated and oppressed underclass in all patriarchal societies. In fact it misunderstands all oppression like that.

And transfems is an underclass that don’t have their own oppression in common with cis men, as this “transmisogyny is actually misandry” idea implies, but in fact are oppressed by them.

That kind of misgendering rhetoric is a way to hurt us with words instead of some honest description of the the violence that is being enacted upon us.

Again, men can be oppressed, but they aren’t oppressed for being men and trans women definitely aren’t oppressed for being men.

So in summary, bad post OP. You misunderstand what is actually misogyny as misandry. Society does not hate men for being men, it hates some men but for different reasons, and society actually really hates women.

Tumblr just destroyed 30 minutes of work, so I'm going to summarize.

TL:DR - A hatred of men is an essential part of transphobia against both trans women and trans men.

Despite living in a patriarchy, our culture hates men. You see it all the time: fathers will joke about how they'll shoot their daughters' boyfriends. All men believe the stereotypes about themselves: that they are sexual predators, violent, dangerous to women and to other men, that they are all sexual perverts, they are always angry, they are stupid, they are incapable of empathy, that they are only good for dying on the battlefield or working themselves to the bone to "provide".

This is bioessentialism rolled up with gender roles and sex/gender stereotypes and all wearing the crown of Western Patriarchy. A patriarchal society absolutely depends on biological essentialism and a black and white definition of sex, gender, and a person's role in society.

Trans women are affected by a hatred of men because they're still considered "men" by transphobes. All the bathroom terror, all the fear about trans women in sports, it's all a combination of a hatred of men and masculinity and misogyny. How could a man want to be a woman? Being a woman is degrading, beneath him! He's just a sex freak, clearly he's only doing this to fetishize women even further than he was clearly already doing before. If it was just misogyny, the fear of trans women would not be like this - that comes from a fear and hatred of cis men as they are defined by the patriarchy.

Trans men are affected by a hatred of men too. As we transition, we first go from "innocent confused girls who need protection" to "gender traitors who are just straight women who want to rape gay men and turn lesbians straight". As we transition, we get all the negative stereotypes about men piled upon us: testosterone makes us violent rapists, it makes us angry, it makes us fat and smelly and disgusting. Misogyny is there too: testosterone ruins our youthfulness, it destroys our fertility, our gender affirming surgeries are called "mutilations". It is a jealous manhood, for we "lack" what a true man has.

To ignore a hatred of men in our society leads to an incomplete picture of transphobia, and even an incomplete image of our culture as a whole.

[nikitafiber]

Questions of the Week 4/11/23

1.) Where do your ideas come from?

My ideas are usually derived from issues that I am currently dealing with, or topics that are relevant to me at the time. Until this question, I never truly realized the strength of correlation between my life current events or struggles and the art that I make in fibers class. I think that this theme is very much limited to the fiber classes I have taken. This is because of the way that the assignments are structured, with very little restriction, but enough guidance to not be completely lost or confused. I appreciate how quickly ideas are able to come to me with this structure.

For example, last semester when I made my uterus piece, I was inspired by the topic that was being heavily discussed obviously within the United States, but also in my political science class. We needed to meet a quota of 15 participation points to get an A in the class, regardless of our grade in the class. Close to the end of the semester, I had 10 points, and the professor had an opportunity where we could have a private discussion about a topic of her choosing. She chose a debate on the overturning of Roe vs. Wade. We talked about it and even within the context of class, this topic was exceptionally relevant. Invested in public health, I hold strong feelings in support of the right to choose and maintain bodily autonomy, as the research shows that having access to safe (legalized) abortions reduce the amount of health risks associated with child birth. Though it is a "moral" issue to many, it is a medical procedure that has scientific backing for its purpose and decreases the prevalence of maternal mortality and is actually safer than child birth in the United States. Because of this, I think that the Kalamkari piece I made reflects this importance and the burden placed upon our society now that the right to safe abortions is not longer protected everywhere. This is especially relevant in the state of Texas, where healthcare access and patient care are already limited, but are now further limited, specifically in terms of negatively affecting people who mostly identify as women.

Another example is the recent pill bottle soft sculpture. I was very much influenced by the recent stimulant shortage that has greatly affected people with ADHD diagnoses. In response to this, there have been some policy changes that further limit accessibility to an already hard to get medication, worsening an already difficult situation for those who need stimulants. I think people have poor perception surrounding mental health, medications for mental health, and in particular stimulants. With the cute prompt, I feel like bringing awareness to these medications is very beneficial, as these can literally save people's lives. Amongst this dilemma, I saw some mentions on social media and reflected upon things I have heard in the past about ADHD. Many people who do not understand the full extent of the problems associated with ADHD, greatly reduce how detrimental it can be to a person. I have heard: "everyone has a little bit of ADHD", "I feel so ADHD right now", "people with ADHD just want stimulants", "stimulants make you smarter", etc. But the thing is that, yes everyone will have lapses in attention and focus (this is part of being human) but ADHD goes beyond lacking in focus or feeling hyperactive. The symptoms that are often unrealized include: confusion and disorganization, emotion dysregulation, executive dysfunction, time blindness, sensory processing disorder, racing and constant intrusive thoughts, and feelings of inferiority. These invisible symptoms are often hard to describe to people who are not suffering with the same woes, and as selfish humans, it is hard to imagine the perspective of another person. I think by working to decrease the stigma that surrounds mental health and treatment for mental health, those that are suffering and have the means to seek help can work to seek help.

2.) What role does beauty play in contemporary art?

Beauty is conventionally associated with femininity and soft elegance. However, I think beauty is highly dependent on a viewers perception or bias towards topics or art works. This is because not everyone's perception of beauty aligns with the conventional definition of the word. I think that in terms of conventionality, contemporary art has strayed away from this towards a more loose definition of beauty that is able to account for a wider array of work. it is also able to encompass a diversified outlook on life. Allowing representation of other races, cultures, and beliefs to be highlighted and well received by the public. With this expansion, these concepts that were/ are not largely held become more normalized within society and garner better reception.

[puttingherinhistory]

“Covid has unleashed the most severe setback to women’s liberation in my lifetime. While watching this happen, I have started to think we are witnessing an outbreak of disaster patriarchy.

Naomi Klein was the first to identify “disaster capitalism”, when capitalists use a disaster to impose measures they couldn’t possibly get away with in normal times, generating more profit for themselves. Disaster patriarchy is a parallel and complementary process, where men exploit a crisis to reassert control and dominance, and rapidly erase hard-earned women’s rights. (The term “racialized disaster patriarchy” was used by Rachel E Luft in writing about an intersectional model for understanding disaster 10 years after Hurricane Katrina.) All over the world, patriarchy has taken full advantage of the virus to reclaim power – on the one hand, escalating the danger and violence to women, and on the other, stepping in as their supposed controller and protector.

I have spent months interviewing activists and grassroots leaders around the world, from Kenya to France to India, to find out how this process is affecting them, and how they are fighting back. In very different contexts, five key factors come up again and again. In disaster patriarchy, women lose their safety, their economic power, their autonomy, their education, and they are pushed on to the frontlines, unprotected, to be sacrificed. 

Part of me hesitates to use the word “patriarchy”, because some people feel confused by it, and others feel it’s archaic. I have tried to imagine a newer, more contemporary phrase for it, but I have watched how we keep changing language, updating and modernising our descriptions in an attempt to meet the horror of the moment. I think, for example, of all the names we have given to the act of women being beaten by their partner. First, it was battery, then domestic violence, then intimate partner violence, and most recently intimate terrorism. We are forever doing the painstaking work of refining and illuminating, rather than insisting the patriarchs work harder to deepen their understanding of a system that is eviscerating the planet. So, I’m sticking with the word. 

In this devastating time of Covid we have seen an explosion of violence towards women, whether they are cisgender or gender-diverse. Intimate terrorism in lockdown has turned the home into a kind of torture chamber for millions of women. We have seen the spread of revenge porn as lockdown has pushed the world online; such digital sexual abuse is now central to domestic violence as intimate partners threaten to share sexually explicit images without victims’ consent. 

The conditions of lockdown – confinement, economic insecurity, fear of illness, excess of alcohol – were a perfect storm for abuse. It is hard to determine what is more disturbing: the fact that in 2021 thousands of men still feel willing and entitled to control, torture and beat their wives, girlfriends and children, or that no government appears to have thought about this in their planning for lockdown. 

In Peru, hundreds of women and girls have gone missing since lockdown was imposed, and are feared dead. According to official figures reported by Al Jazeera, 606 girls and 309 women went missing between 16 March and 30 June last year. Worldwide, the closure of schools has increased the likelihood of various forms of violence. The US Rape Abuse and Incest National Network says its helpline for survivors of sexual assault has never been in such demand in its 26-year history, as children are locked in with abusers with no ability to alert their teachers or friends. In Italy, calls to the national anti-violence toll-free number increased by 73% between 1 March and 16 April 2020, according to the activist Luisa Rizzitelli. In Mexico, emergency call handlers received the highest number of calls in the country’s history, and the number of women who sought domestic violence shelters quadrupled. 

To add outrage to outrage, many governments reduced funding for these shelters at the exact moment they were most needed. This seems to be true throughout Europe. In the UK, providers told Human Rights Watch that the Covid-19 crisis has exacerbated a lack of access to services for migrant and Black, Asian and minority ethnic women. The organisations working with these communities say that persistent inequality leads to additional difficulties in accessing services such as education, healthcare and disaster relief remotely. 

In the US, more than 5 million women’s jobs were lost between the start of the pandemic and November 2020. Because much of women’s work requires physical contact with the public – restaurants, stores, childcare, healthcare settings – theirs were some of the first to go. Those who were able to keep their jobs were often frontline workers whose positions have put them in great danger; some 77% of hospital workers and 74% percent of school staff are women. Even then, the lack of childcare options left many women unable to return to their jobs. Having children does not have this effect for men. The rate of unemployment for Black and Latina women was higher before the virus, and now it is even worse. 

The situation is more severe for women in other parts of the world. Shabnam Hashmi, a leading women’s activist from India, tells me that by April 2020 a staggering 39.5% of women there had lost their jobs. “Work from home is very taxing on women as their personal space has disappeared, and workload increased threefold,” Hashmi says. In Italy, existing inequalities have been amplified by the health emergency. Rizzitelli points out that women already face lower employment, poorer salaries and more precarious contracts, and are rarely employed in “safe” corporate roles; they have been the first to suffer the effects of the crisis. “Pre-existing economic, social, racial and gender inequalities have been accentuated, and all of this risks having longer-term consequences than the virus itself,” Rizzitelli says. 

When women are put under greater financial pressure, their rights rapidly erode. With the economic crisis created by Covid, sex- and labour-trafficking are again on the rise. Young women who struggle to pay their rent are being preyed on by landlords, in a process known as “sextortion”. 

I don’t think we can overstate the level of exhaustion, anxiety and fear that women are suffering from taking care of families, with no break or time for themselves. It’s a subtle form of madness. As women take care of the sick, the needy and the dying, who takes care of them? Colani Hlatjwako, an activist leader from the Kingdom of Eswatini, sums it up: “Social norms that put a heavy caregiving burden on women and girls remain likely to make their physical and mental health suffer.” These structures also impede access to education, damage livelihoods, and strip away sources of support.

Unesco estimates that upward of 11 million girls may not return to school once the Covid pandemic subsides. The Malala Fund estimates an even bigger number: 20 million. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, from UN Women, says her organisation has been fighting for girls’ education since the Beijing UN women’s summit in 1995. “Girls make up the majority of the schoolchildren who are not going back,” she says. “We had been making progress – not perfect, but we were keeping them at school for longer. And now, to have these girls just dropping out in one year, is quite devastating.” 

Of all these setbacks, this will be the most significant. When girls are educated, they know their rights, and what to demand. They have the possibility of getting jobs and taking care of their families. When they can’t access education, they become a financial strain to their families and are often forced into early marriages. 

This has particular implications for female genital mutilation (FGM). Often, fathers will accept not subjecting their daughters to this process because their daughters can become breadwinners through being educated. If there is no education, then the traditional practices resume, so that daughters can be sold for dowries. As Agnes Pareyio, chairwoman of the Kenyan Anti-Female Genital Mutilation Board, tells me: “Covid closed our schools and brought our girls back home. No one knew what was going on in the houses. We know that if you educate a girl, FGM will not happen. And now, sadly the reverse is true.” 

In the early months of the pandemic, I had a front-row seat to the situation of nurses in the US, most of whom are women. I worked with National Nurses United, the biggest and most radical nurses’ union, and interviewed many nurses working on the frontline. I watched as for months they worked gruelling 12-hour shifts filled with agonising choices and trauma, acting as midwives to death. On their short lunch breaks, they had to protest over their own lack of personal protective equipment, which put them in even greater danger. In the same way that no one thought what it would mean to lock women and children in houses with abusers, no one thought what it would be like to send nurses into an extremely contagious pandemic without proper PPE. In some US hospitals, nurses were wearing garbage bags instead of gowns, and reusing single-use masks many times. They were being forced to stay on the job even if they had fevers.

The treatment of nurses who were risking their lives to save ours was a shocking kind of violence and disrespect. But there are many other areas of work where women have been left unprotected, from the warehouse workers who are packing and shipping our goods, to women who work in poultry and meat plants who are crammed together in dangerous proximity and forced to stay on the job even when they are sick. One of the more stunning developments has been with “tipped” restaurant workers in the US, already allowed to be paid the shockingly low wage of $2.13 (£1.50) an hour, which has remained the same for the past 22 years. Not only has work declined, tips have also declined greatly for those women, and now a new degradation called “maskular harassment” has emerged, where male customers insist waitresses take off their masks so they can determine if and how much to tip them based on their looks. 

Women farm workers in the US have seen their protections diminished while no one was looking. Mily Treviño-Sauceda, executive director of Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, tells me how pressures have increased on campesinas, or female farm workers: “There have been more incidents of pesticides poisonings, sexual abuse and heat stress issues, and there is less monitoring from governmental agencies or law enforcement due to Covid-19.” 

Covid has revealed the fact that we live with two incompatible ideas when it comes to women. The first is that women are essential to every aspect of life and our survival as a species. The second is that women can easily be violated, sacrificed and erased. This is the duality that patriarchy has slashed into the fabric of existence, and that Covid has laid bare. If we are to continue as a species, this contradiction needs to be healed and made whole. 

To be clear, the problem is not the lockdowns, but what the lockdowns, and the pandemic that required them, have made clear. Covid has revealed that patriarchy is alive and well; that it will reassert itself in times of crisis because it has never been truly deconstructed, and like an untreated virus it will return with a vengeance when the conditions are ripe. 

The truth is that unless the culture changes, unless patriarchy is dismantled, we will forever be spinning our wheels. Coming out of Covid, we need to be bold, daring, outrageous and to imagine a more radical way of existing on the Earth. We need to continue to build and spread activist movements. We need progressive grassroots women and women of colour in positions of power. We need a global initiative on the scale of a Marshall Plan or larger, to deconstruct and exorcise patriarchy – which is the root of so many other forms of oppression, from imperialism to racism, from transphobia to the denigration of the Earth. 

There would first be a public acknowledgment, and education, about the nature of patriarchy and an understanding that it is driving us to our end. There would be ongoing education, public forums and processes studying how patriarchy leads to various forms of oppression. Art would help expunge trauma, grief, aggression, sorrow and anger in the culture and help heal and make people whole. We would understand that a culture that has diabolical amnesia and refuses to address its past can only repeat its misfortunes and abuses. Community and religious centres would help members deal with trauma. We would study the high arts of listening and empathy. Reparations and apologies would be done in public forums and in private meetings. Learning the art of apology would be as important as prayer.

The feminist author Gerda Lerner wrote in 1986: “The system of patriarchy in a historic construct has a beginning and it will have an end. Its time seems to have nearly run its course. It no longer serves the needs of men and women, and its intractable linkage to militarism, hierarchy and racism has threatened the very existence of life on Earth.”

As powerful as patriarchy is, it’s just a story. As the post-pandemic era unfolds, can we imagine another system, one that is not based on hierarchy, violence, domination, colonialisation and occupation? Do we see the connection between the devaluing, harming and oppression of all women and the destruction of the Earth itself? What if we lived as if we were kin? What if we treated each person as sacred and essential to the unfolding story of humanity? 

What if rather than exploiting, dominating and hurting women and girls during a crisis, we designed a world that valued them, educated them, paid them, listened to them, cared for them and centred them?“

[midnight-in-town]

Hey Anon! Thanks for your thoughts. :)

I'll admit that I'm not the biggest Seb fan (tho I enjoy his character very much) haha, so my thoughts can pretty much be summed up by my answer above and what Yana previously explained about his character (see links above).

To elaborate though, I agree with you: indeed Seb is far from emotionless, he mostly lives by his demon's aesthetics, he takes his job as our!Ciel's butler very seriously and he does differentiate easily between humans, despite overall reducing them to "grasshoppers".

However, while some fans like you might disagree with this, I highly doubt (as presented above) that Seb is capable of getting challenged emotionally, meaning he's not capable of much development (which is why I'm not his biggest fan). That's because, as a demon, he's an All Black character (unlike human characters in Kuro who mainly take a stroll on the grey spectrum of characterization).

So, no matter what may happen in Kuroshitsuji, to give a few examples, I believe humans are and will stay grasshoppers to him and he will probably never hesitate to eat our!Ciel's soul (as ch95 proved), despite also saying he's enjoying his dynamic with our!Ciel a lot.

That being said ! Kuroshitsuji wouldn't be as compelling and enjoyable as a story if our!Ciel's lack of self-worth and faith wasn't supported by Seb acting as a catalystic abyss. That's why they make such a good duo and I love reading about their dynamic. :))

Also, to quote @chibimyumi's (whose analyses about Seb's character here and here I really recommend to read), despite his lack of achievable development, there is still a lot of nuances in Seb's character and I really enjoy that Yana allows us to speculate about aspects such as "how continued servitude may have made Sebas into what he is now. Sebas is a powerful demon, and yet whenever he is summoned onto earth by a human, he would be in some type of servitude to ‘a mere mortal’, or to him, ‘cattle’. How does this influence Sebas’ proud mind? How does a frequently repeated sacrifice of authority and autonomy affect the mind?"

TL;DR Seb has many layers as a character, as you and others have presented so well ! However, it's the fact he's not capable of being challenged by his surroundings, precisely because he thinks humans are grasshoppers and way below himself, that creates a void of development, leading to some kind of intertia that cannot fully influence the narrative. That's why, despite Seb being the main character, the plot is mostly driven by our!Ciel's predicament.

That's a rather unique writing choice by Yana-sensei (so kudos to her) and I think she's managed to write both our!Ciel and Seb quite well so far, which is why I also (mwhahahah) hope to see a possible conflict arising between them. Because, if one part of a good-working duo cannot change (Seb) while the other can have his views challenged (our!Ciel) then, ultimately, we're bound to have a gap to discuss. :))

Sorry for rambling? I don't know if that answers your question, but I wish you a nice day Anon!!

Hello! :D

Is it just me or does Sebastian treat Finnian oddly gently throughout the series? (sure, ignoring the whole ordeal in the green witch arc)

Ofc ik hes not an UwU demon who won't hurt anyine but his methods when it comes to reprimand Finnian or scold him seem to be more gentle in comparassion to him punching Bard or yelling at Mey rin.

The fact he let Finnian hugged him 2 times when he could've simply avoided the hugs, he gave Finnian money to plant the garden when Sebastian could've let Ciel deal with it for Finnian to get the right reprucussions, he also gives him gentle reminders about to not use his strenght with normal people, and he calmly accepts when Finnian accidently breaks a shovel or any gardening tool, Sebastian also praised Finnian during his first harvest and calmly answered Finnian's question about the orgins of peas lol.

And also this may be rather small, but in the book of murder arc when Sebastian wakes up Bard to give him instructions but also accidently wakes up Finnian, he apologizes for waking him up and tucks him in?? Like?? There was absolutely no need for him to do that??

And yes, Finnian has been scolded by Sebastian alongside Mey Rin and Bard but hes rarely seriously reprimanded by himself (even in the green witch arc when Sebastian kicks Finnian out he goes out of his way to thank him for what hes done for the young master and didn't injure Finny enough to get a scar or anything of the sort)

Idk... I just find it oddly nice that whenever Finnian is distressed he chooses to go Sebastian and even go as far as hug him, and Sebastian instead of telling him to stop, treats this like a normal occurence and just tells him to not y'know... Accidently throw people across their room and break their backs.

Like I said earlier, I know Sebastian isn't a soft UwU character and he may have his reasons for this but I don't quite know why... Or maybe this is all far fetched and im reaching too much lol.

Hello Anon and sorry for the delay! Sorry, but no I don’t think anyone gets special treatment from Seb, aside from our!Ciel since they have a contract and Seb legally can’t hurt or lie to him... to a certain degree (*cough*ch95*cough*). 

When it comes to Finny, I’d say that he used to be rather unpredictable with that strength of his...

and Seb was on the receiving end of it more often than not before Mey, Bard and Tanaka were around. In that scene above from ch163, I always had the feeling that Finny was simply too quick for Seb to stop then. 

Anyway, to Seb who’s an elite trash demon, humans are grasshoppers, so whoever that is...

...

...

Seb treats them all the same way, especially when he becomes not so patient.

TL;DR Finny is as much a grasshopper as anyone else in Seb’s surroundings, so there is no special treatment. 

Have a good weekend Anon!

[lazarusinashesmods]

Easy Sentiment Cheats v0.8

Ever get tired of how complicated and somewhat ineffective sentiment cheats are, particularly in removing sentiments? Not only do you have to type the name of both Sims—which sometimes doesn't even work—you have to remember the tuning name for every single sentiment, which means you have to constantly look each one up. On top of that, even if you remove a sentiment by typing all of that out, it doesn't fully remove it!

It's a massive pain and it's especially bad for storytelling purposes. Easy Sentiment Cheats fixes all of this. It allows players to easily assign sentiments through a pie menu which is divided into four categories, ensuring that adding a sentiment is only a few clicks away. ESC was made using only Base Game sentiments, so players without Snowy Escape can still use it! A Snowy Escape edition is planned in the future for those who would like easy cheats for those.

More info and download under the cut!

Instructions

Once installed, go into the game, click on a Sim, and sort through the pie menu. You'll see a pie menu called Sentiment Cheats. In that pie menu, you can either add or remove sentiments.  Every sentiment that comes with the base game is included within four pie menus: Positive Sentiments, Negative Sentiments, Positive Romantic Sentiments, and Negative Romantic Sentiments. Romantic sentiments have been sectioned off so that they aren't added by mistake to family members and such. Pick whichever sentiment you want and your Sim will have it toward the Sim you have chosen.

How It Works

Every sentiment in the game comes with a unique relationship track—a relationship track is exactly what it sounds like; it tracks your relationship with another Sim. What each interaction does is set your relationship track for the chosen sentiment to 100. Because of that, you can only add sentiments to your Sim about another Sim. In other words, you cannot use this mod to give someone else a sentiment about your Sim. However, if that Sim is in your control, you can easily just select them and do that.

On removing sentiments: This version only has four sentiments that can be removed. To be frank, they're tedious to code. For that reason, I've only included sentiments that I've seen players complain about in this version. The reason they're tedious is that each sentiment comes with a relationship bit. The relationship track is what affects the moodlets your Sim gets, but the bit is what affects their autonomy. For example, a Sim with the Festering Grudge sentiment toward another Sim will get tense and angry moodlets. In addition, when they interact with that Sim, they'll autonomously do mean actions. Once the track is set to -100, the moodlets will stop appearing, but one Sim won't stop insulting the other until the bit is gone.

For the sentiment to be truly gone, the bit must be removed, which is quite a lot of work to code for every sentiment on the backend. Currently, the sentiments that can be removed are Festering Grudge, Furious, Deeply in Love, and Deeply Connected. With time, every sentiment will be included in this mod! The immediate ones on my bucket list are Hurt, Deeply Wounded (this one bugs me to no end), Closer from Happy Memories, and Closer from Quality Time.

Caveats

There's only one big caveat. Some sentiments simply cannot coexist. It's well known that a Sim can only have one long-term sentiment, but they also cannot have conflicting sentiments. For example, if a Sim has Deeply in Love, it will conflict with Furious about Cheating; one will have to give way. As a general rule, positive sentiments subtract from negative ones and vice versa.

Even if they don't outright conflict, sentiments of opposite polarity don't like coexisting. A Sim in my daughter's dorm has the Guilty sentiment toward her. She also has "Closer from Happy Memories", which, when acquired, lessened the length of Guilty.

All of this is to say that if you have a Sim with negative sentiments and you add a positive one, you might need to add it three times before it fully registers. Such is the case for adding a sentiment like Deeply Connected when you have a Festering Grudge sentiment. Even if you do this, the bit will still be there, so running the cheat to remove it will be a good idea.

Also, a minor one: the menu will appear on your active Sim if you click on them. The options do nothing, but it appears.

Age Restrictions

Children cannot add romantic sentiments or have them added to them. They also cannot add "Open-Hearted" to teenagers and adults for obvious reasons.

Installation

Unzip the .zip file and place both the .package file and the .ts4script file in your mods folder. Please note that you must have XML Injector for this mod to work correctly! If you have done these steps correctly, you'll be good to go! 🙂

Compatibility

This mod's code is completely new and does not change any in-game resources, so it shouldn't conflict with anything.

Download for free on my Patreon!

[cinnamonest]

Genshin Impact Yandere HCs - Razor

TW: mentions of noncon/impreg below the cut

In my last post I said Venti was probably one of the most difficult yanderes you could have... Well, Razor might just beat him on that.

- The thing that makes Razor so difficult is that he doesn't understand normalcy, feelings, and romance on so many levels. He doesn't even recognize the feeling he feels at first, it frustrates him even. He can't focus on hunting, nor fighting. He can't focus on anything, and keeps getting distracted. He thinks about the human he met every day, every hour, every second.

He's never observed such a feeling among the members of his wolven family. He doesn't like the realization that whatever he's experiencing is probably a testament to the fact that deep down, he knows he's human, and that this strong emotion in his chest is a human thing. Nonetheless, he can't really help it, and with time, he stops trying to fight it.

He begins to look forward to those times you venture out to his area, even if he worries about your safety when you're there. Eventually, memorizing your patterns, he starts to wait for you outside of Wolvendom, making it so that you don't have to put yourself in any danger by venturing deep in.

He finds himself feeling some warm, tingly feeling at the knowledge that you would willingly take your time to come see him, just to see him. It makes him feel that maybe, you're experiencing the same feeling that he has, and something about that idea makes him feel... Happy, some special happiness distinct from any other he's ever known.

- At first, he's willing to act a little bit human, just for you. He's observed humans enough to understand what they like, their customs. His primary form of affection is gifts, which he's observed that human girls like. Unfortunately for you, that will primarily be in the form of dead animals. You're too nice to hurt his feelings, so your acceptance with strained smiles only encourages him. You'll never go hungry, at least.

- Taking you away isn't him being sadistic nor disregarding of your feelings, rather more of a caveman-esque "club her over the head and drag her back to the cave" type of logic. Realistically, that might be exactly what he does. He's not exactly a delusional, but his lack of understanding makes him act like one. He wants you with him all the time, it's what's best for you. If you don't understand that, logically, it only makes sense to take matters into his own hands.

He sorta understands why you might be upset, but he thinks it's primarily confusion, or displacement from your environment. He assumes it'll only take you a few days to settle down and accept things, and will get frustrated the longer it takes.

- He doesn't need human restraints to keep you in your place - no, his pack is loyal and helpful to him, he simply assigns them to watch you and make sure you don't leave. If you try, well, he tells them not to hurt you too bad, but if push comes to shove, use whatever force is necessary. Really, you probably won't try it - stepping out of line earns you these enormous canines snarling at you, which is enough to strike a fear in you so great you immediately go back to your spot.

- Now, at first, you might think that your... Cultural differences could be used to your advantage. You could tell Razor that he just doesn't get it, with humans this isn't normal, and convince him to let you have autonomy or even leave, but you'll quickly find this isn't the case. He has a slight disdain for humans, and is very much convinced that the wolf way of doing things is simply better. He's very stubborn when it comes to this - who cares how humans do things? He's not truly one of them, this is how his kind does things, and you're just going to have to accept that.

- He's pretty easily upset, even if half the time it's just a frustration over something he doesn't quite understand, but nonetheless, he's not very used to practicing restraint. When wolves get mad, they get violent. It's all he knows. He's not one of those types that's too arrogant to admit to having gone too far/overreacted or too proud to apologize like some people (cough cough Kaeya), no, once he calms down, he'll be constantly apologizing, clinging to you, wrapping you up in his muscular arms, whimpering, nuzzling into your neck.

Speaking of violence, sorry, but any friends or companions you have that he sees as competition... aren’t gonna make it. It’s probably the most animalistic of all his traits, but when it comes down to things getting in his way, Razor can easily be utterly brutal. In his mind, you should be happy. The female wolves never get upset when a former alpha male is driven out, they just acknowledge the superiority of the new one, and he expects the same from you.

- With Razor, you’re going to experience a lot of forced intimacy. Not in a sexual way, but just... Touch. It's something the wolves aren't that big on, outside of mothers and pups. He's seen how humans cuddle, how they sleep next to each other and hold each other in their arms, and deep down he craves that feeling. He can sit for hours, just holding you.

While the aforementioned forced intimacy isn’t a sexual thing, that doesn’t mean that you won’t experience that as well. See, wolves don't really understand the concept of consent. They're simple creatures - the strongest male that can defeat the other ones, gets to do whatever he wants. In his mind, that's how these things work. If he just gets rid of every other competitor, you'll accept him as the alpha male and be his mate. Even though in wolf culture, that means he gets a whole pack of females, he doesn't have such an urge - he knows enough about humans to know that this desire for one single partner is a human trait.

He wasn't expecting you to be so resistant, but, it's not unheard of in his world. Sometimes, when a new alpha takes over a pack, females will initially be resistant and have trouble adapting. But with a lot of affection, emotional and physical, even if a bit forced, they eventually come around.

If all else fails, there is one surefire fix. From what he's always seen, the female wolves always become more loving, more obedient and docile, once they have puppies. The hormonal changes make them more... Accepting, or something. So, if you really, really struggle to accept your new life, it'll help speed up the process to give you puppies of your own.

[theerurishipper]

And can I just say something? The whole idea of Chat Blanc and Ephemeral being about making excuses for Adrien not being allowed to face is father is... an interpretation, that Astruc himself agrees with apparently, but if that's the case... why the hell would you write that? Why would you, as a writer, make the choice to give Adrien such a deep and intimate connection to the final conflict, give him this arc about breaking free of abuse, make the literal main villain of the series his father and his abuser, and then write an excuse so that he doesn't get any resolution for that? This is basically setting up an arc for him and then chickening out because it has to be Marinette that saves the day. What about Adrien's arc? The one the writers set up? If the intent with Chat Blanc and Ephemeral was to suggest that Adrien couldn't participate in the final battle, then why was he given an arc that could only be resolved if he took part in the final battle? Why these pathetic excuses of episodes only to deprive him of more agency?

The way some people use this as a justification makes it seems like Chat Blanc and Ephemeral were set-in-stone stories bestowed upon the writers by the animation overlords that they had to work around and couldn't change, when really, they're not? The writers made the choice to write those. The criticism is that Adrien is absent from his own arc, and using these episodes as justification doesn't actually negate that, and in fact it is only more damning. Using these episodes as justification only makes the writing seem worse, because the decision to remove Adrien from his own story to replace him with Marinette goes as far as Season 3. Then Adrien's connection to the plot and the villain only ever existed so that Marinette could have a connection to it through him. They never intended for a story about a victim of abuse regaining his autonomy and freedom, Adrien was always just meant to be a bridge between Gabriel and Marinette. A convenient plot device, if you will. They never intended for Adrien to be significant or have closure for his character.

If Chat Blanc and Ephemeral are meant to show that Adrien can't be in the final battle, then the critique of bad writing extends not only to the finale but also to those episodes and every other one that mentions them. The criticism of Adrien being denied agency in his own arc doesn't just become an aspect that was overlooked, or that the implications and how it would come off was not understood. It means it was a conscious and deliberate choice to infantilize his character and undermine his agency to make room for Marinette to solve his problems for him. Adrien was always only ever meant to be a trophy for Marinette, a plot device to get her close to the main story. He has no agency and no resolution of his own. Him gaining his freedom and breaking free of his father's control, standing up to him and facing him and calling him out is all done for him by Marinette. Adrien, a character who is a victim of abuse, whose arc is about breaking free of a controlling father, is not important.

Even the ending is Marinette telling Adrien how to feel, and the end of his arc is less that he's gained his independence and knows the truth, but that Marinette loves him enough to lie to him. Adrien's struggles only matter as far as they affect Marinette. The only thing that matters about Adrien's struggles is how Marinette feels about it. Adrien may get his moments, but the story was always about Marinette the knight saving the prince locked away in the tower, and even the princesses in the classic fairytales had far more agency than he ever did at the end of it all.

This does give us a new perspective on the Marinette-Gabriel parallels and the Adrien-Emilie parallels though. Marinette and Gabriel are the only characters with agency, while Adrien and Emilie only ever exist to be a source of motivation for them and as plot devices in their story, with no agency of their own.

'Omg it was so vile to keep Adrien away from the final fight against hawkmoth. Can't believe they did this'

YALL WHAT DO YOU THINK THE POINT OF CHAT BLANC AND EPHEMERAL WERE!?!?!?

Adrien cannot fight his father. He can't do it. Not only because he's a fucking sentimonster, bit because Gabriel can take advantage of him so easily when he reveals its all for his mother.

'But he fought his father in Representation' but he wasn't being faced between the prospect of betraying his only family or betraying the love of his life then. He was just an angry teenager who had been pulled from his home. No moral dilemma just anger.

Adrien is not emotionally intelligent enough to chose between his mother and Marinette.

If Adrien was there, they would have fucking lost. THAT was the point of Chat Blanc and Ephemeral.

[seesgood]

can we very gently talk about call out posts / culture really quick?  not in a judgmental way, but in like a: i just want to pose a thought and explain why i’m never going to buy into it and why i wish it would become less of a trend instead of more of one? and i’ll add the  disclaimer  here: i totally get not wanting certain people around you for various reasons, that is all your prerogative. that’s your comfort level. but in emphasizing “your blog should be a safe space” we’re kind’ve losing sight of the fact that the rpc should also be a safe space, and as much as your comfort and safety matter, so do other people’s. and not just the person who hurt you, but the third parties and other mutuals and 99.9% of people who are not at all involved in any way in whatever happened. so, anyway here goes, read it or don’t, we all have different opinions or reasons, i just want to be heard:

people are allowed to change.  think back to who you were last year. two years ago. think about the stuff you said when you were seventeen, or twenty-one, or hell whatever age you were. current-you would probably cringe at the kind of stuff past-you had to say. because you grew. you learned. you had life experiences. in hindsight you have the freedom to be like “oof yeah that was not the best version of myself right there damn i don’t want to be like that again.” the growing trend of ‘here’s a 10+ page google doc complete with out of context screenshots that sometimes date back to like 2017 or earlier’ makes this kind of change impossible. because right there, you’ve just frozen a person in time, probably not at their best, removed any and all amounts of context, and put it on the internet and let other people judge it for themselves. 

so that leads into another point that i want to just kinda present to the community at large: the act of documenting behaviors and storing them for months / years at a time, in itself creates a super unsafe environment, not just for you, your friends, the people who have hurt you --- but also for anyone else that isn’t at all involved in whatever happened. like, for example, i like to think that i’m a pretty nice person. i actively try to be a nice person. am i sometimes not having the best day? have people definitely caught me in bad moments? oh hell yeah. but am i, as someone who tries really hard to be nice and welcoming, constantly thinking through every message i send to someone knowing that a) i could have a reputation that makes them read into context that isn’t there and that could contribute to them misinterpreting words i meant in a different way, b) very aware that every post i make, ask i send, message i send can at any moment be screenshotted and posted and taken out of context and either serve as someone’s only opinion of me or pile on to someone’s existing opinion of me? yeah. so in my experience, and based on people i’ve talked to, we now have this thing where you can be surface-friends wtih a lot of people, but if you want to survive in the tumblr rpc you should really only have 2-3 people that you really trust that you can actually talk about shit with. 

and lately i’ve been seeing a resurgence of posts on my dash about like “bring back xyz in the rpc” or “the reason the rpc is like this is because of xyz” and i both agree and disagree with a lot of this, but primarily i think the reason the rpc is Off lately is because everyone and their cousin has a DNI, which is --- again --- your decision and i understand and respect that, but while you know the context of every name on that DNI, other people don’t. and to be honest: other people don’t really care and honestly maybe they shouldn’t care. --- and don’t get me wrong, your friends should care if someone has hurt you. that’s important. but joe billy bob who just wants to write their character with yours is going to read through your rules, they’re going to see “do not interact with me if you follow with or interact with these people you’ve never heard of and if you want me to tell you why just message me” (which no one is ever going to do, i’m sorry to say). and say, joe billy bob also followed that other person because they were like ‘omg this blog looks cool’ --- now joe billy bob, who just wants to write cool plots, is suddenly the middle-man in some type of drama that they do not understand, and maybe they’re able to remove themselves from the situation, but even then it’s still in the back of your mind. 

this is getting long. it’ll be longer, but let’s take a brief break for me to remind you that in some cases, it’s definitely good to give your mutuals and friends a heads up when someone has done something really, really bad. like, remember x amount of years ago when some dude was like ‘i’m gonna make up a new person and say they died by suicide as a social experiment’ or ‘hey this person actively tries to force very triggering plots about abuse / rape / incest onto people and has been doing so for years and does not seem to change their ways no matter how many people try to educate them’ that’s shit people should probably know about. and it’s also okay ( in my opinion ) for your friends to be able to message you like ‘hey i saw you’re writing with x and i just wanted to let you know i had this experience with them’ if that’s something they feel comfortable doing. and if they are comfortable with you still having the autonomy to make your own decision regarding the person. 

i’ll be honest, for a second: i’ve been part of friendships and groups that have turned really toxic for one reason or another. a handful of times. there are probably people out there that are like “yeah this chick is really fake and manipulative and etc, i was friends with her back in 2019″ which, okay. yeah. i’ve definitely done shit and said shit that was not the most representative of who i want to be and who i want to become, and you probably have to. because we are human beings and we are a product of our social groups and the community around us. and you shouldn’t be chained to a version of you that isn’t you anymore. people change. they grow. you don’t have to like them, but you should respect that sometimes people don’t mesh, and that doesn’t mean any of them are bad people, it just means the experience was bad. 

a few additional notes i would like to make but i’ve already gone on way too long:

90% of the callout posts that i’ve seen and the DNI’s that i’ve seen can, in my opinion, be classified as a friend group thing. you were friends with x, x did something, now y and z aren’t friends with x anymore. pain is a very, very real thing and people hurting you should never be minimized, but at some point i just want you to remember that not every friendship is going to end happily, but both you and the other party should be allowed to move on and grow better, healthier friendships after. rehashing Friend Group Gone Wrong instances removes that ability for not only person x, but also person y and z.

you putting out a callout says just as much ( maybe more ) about you than it does about the other person. which sucks. because i’d like to think we all have great intentions, and i’m not saying that you should swallow your pain, but it might not be the kind of thing that impacts the community at large, and maybe you should try to find a better way of working through it with a trusted friend(s)

i’m going to be very real and very blunt on this one: literally no one cares. i say that with love. i’m good friends with people who have each other on their DNI’s. establish a baseline of respect and ‘i’m not going to say anything to them about you and vice versa because there’s no need for me to do so’ and move on. but seriously. no one cares. most outside people read callout posts because they like being in the know about the drama, not because they actually care. 

person a and person b who are mentioned in the DNI / callout aren’t the only ones who are going to be affected. your friends, your mutuals, your writing partners are now all put in a weird spot where you have to pick sides on an issue you know nothing about and shouldn’t have to know anything about. you’re asking people to choose sides on an issue they cannot fully understand, and that’s not fair to them or to you. and it drives great people away. and then we all lose out on having more awesome people in the rpc.

you’re entitled to your safe space, but this is a public platform and you are also responsible for maintaining your safe space. you shouldn’t put it entirely on other people to do that for you. you can block, blacklist, make up funny names for, or spitefully erase from your many anything and anyone that you wish. but you shouldn’t make your friends do it for you.

there’s always an inherent power imbalance when any kind of drama occurs between those who have more followers / friends / connections and those who do not. and the smaller blog is always going to suffer a little bit more because they don’t have people blindly coming to their defense. 

bad moments, bad experiences, bad decisions DO NOT equal bad people. 

allow people to make up their own mind about something or someone

anywho, if you read through this whole thing i think i owe you financial compensation. but also thank you for reading / listening / considering. even if you rolled your eyes through the whole thing like “stfu lia” that’s fine. i’m just presenting an alternative thought. i’d like to once again state: i’m not judging you if you’ve made a callout/DNI or if you’re on a callout/DNI. like i literally don’t care. and frankly, in my opinion, i shouldn’t have to. because i, and you, and your friends, and your mutuals, and your non-mutuals should be allowed the space to make up their own opinion and mind on something or someone without being told that there will be consequences if they don’t agree with you. set boundaries. communicate in healthy ways. you don’t have to forgive the people who have hurt or wronged you, but you also don’t get to decide that their actions make up 100% of who they are as a person, or decide that that is the only side of that person people should get to see.