#it's just an interesting observation to me how so many people see one as harmful but deny the harm the other can cause

[swiftiefirefighters]

not about anything in particular besides adding on to the discussion with something i've been thinking about for a couple of days now but it's also really fucking interesting to me how as a community we all realize now how harmful it is to ourselves and each other to joke about hurting/killing ourselves and how it doesn't help our mental health but rather perpetuates the feelings and intensifies them but we still have people deny that "harmless jokes" about killing gay men for being gay (as an example but there are other ones out there - this one just happens to be relevant at the moment to the discussion) don't have any impact on how safe people feel around their fellow fans

[nachobsns]

Hello - I was impressed and extremely relieved by what you wrote in the post about the cult mentality of the Left RE Israel and accusations of genocide. You mentioned that you bought into the mindset until recently. If it's all right for me to ask, what was it that helped you break out of it? (Please feel free to delete/ignore if you'd rather not answer!)

thank you!! and no worries about asking— i think i put something in my pinned post about how people are welcome to send asks about this stuff, although my story isn’t super interesting. i fell down the typical online rabbithole, a couple weeks after october 7; i knew what had happened, at least vaguely, but the posts trickling onto my dash were all about the (undeniably tragic) loss of life in gaza, with little to no acknowledgment of the hamas atrocities that had started the war, so my narrative was pretty one-sided from the beginning. it just continued to snowball as the months went on and people became more radicalized, calling into question the reality of the 10/7 attacks and the humanity of all israelis. i never went all the way down the pipeline to full-on endorsing hamas or justifying their attacks, at least on a personal level, thank god, but i would reblog other people’s posts referring to hamas as a “resistance movement” and calls to boycott starbucks and mcdonald’s and condemnation of the “zionist media” etc etc etc. what pulled me out of it wasn’t any one thing— if someone had directly called me on my flawed logic and antisemitic biases while i was in this mindset, i doubt it would have done much, just reinforced my belief that i was on the “right side of history” and zionists were aggressors who couldn’t be reasoned with. it was mostly just passive observance and a slow exposure to other perspectives. i’m pretty sure the first post that led me to question my thinking was an ask on jewish-vents, which popped up on my dash in like, late july. this led me down another rabbithole, first scouring every single post on jewish-vents, then moving on to more popular jewish blogs that i had seen on “zionist blocklists” (applesauce42069, xclowniex, and spacelazarwolf were probably some of the blogs that influenced me the most, though i told myself i was just hate-scrolling at first, lol). i felt incredibly guilty seeing all the harm the movement i was a part of had caused to random jews and israelis just trying to live their lives and i realized how it went against everything i believed about how minority groups should be treated. from there, the aspect of actually undoing my thinking and changing my behavior for the better still took several weeks. denial of jewish indigenity to the levant in the face of tantamount archeological and cultural evidence was the first to go, as well as any ambiguity in my feelings about hamas. after that, it’s mostly been a slow process of redefining the idf’s actions from a “genocide” to a “war.” i still believe that what’s happening in gaza is unconscionable and horrific, and that too many innocent civilians have died, but i also understand how difficult it is to fight against a terrorist group that systematically embeds itself in civilian populations, and that the ratio of militant to civilian deaths is incredibly low compared to most urban warfare. i quietly deleted my old blog in early august— if i had directly engaged in harassment against jews, i likely would have kept it to make amends to the harmed parties and put a face to my actions, but as was, i had just contributed to the larger atmosphere of antisemitism on this site, and i felt uncomfortable knowing that i had a blog full of sentiments that no longer matched my values and beliefs. i decided i would be better if i took my endorsement out of the equation entirely, because when you’re looking through the notes of a post, it obviously doesn’t matter if someone who’s reblogged it no longer agrees with what was said— their notes still count as tacit approval, and i did not want approval of this “activism” attached to my online presence. i still have unwanted kneejerk reactions that crop up sometimes, particularly around the fundraiser posts from people “in gaza”; even though i know logically that they have all the markers of scams, there is still a part of me that really wants to believe i could help.

[fragmentating]

Honestly not much radicalized me in regards to bodily autonomy the way being a chronic selfharmer for 10+ years has. And one of those things that really are so awful to deal with is a lack of privacy.

When I go inpatient and they ask me if I have wounds, and I answer honestly, they dont just write that down. They make me undress and show each single one, otherwise I wont be "processed" and let into my room.

In the underage psych ward I was in they would sometimes search the rooms of known selfharmers while we were away at a therapy appointment, or seeing family in the visitation room, etc. They wouldn't tell you. They would lie about it if you asked about it. But all your shit had been moved around slightly, enough for observant people to notice. If they found blades, or any other sharp object regardless of it you had used it to selfharm though, you would obviously be punished.

One time I cut and went to the nurses for help, I was scared because it had never been that deep before and their response was tossing my room after I had voluntarily given them the two blades i had, while a male nurse kept saying how uncomfortable he was that he "had to" inspect my pads, saying "why would you need that many", ... they had metal detectors. They could've just swiped it across everything. But that wouldn't have been humiliating enough like seeing a nurse dig through my underwear and pads and diary.

Outside of the psych ward, my family kept up a similar approach. They did not search my room at least, knowing it was futile because there were always knifes in the house if I was desperate anyways, and a store down the street that sold razors. But locked doors were my mothers enemy. If I locked my door to masturbate, and she noticed it was locked? She would knock and yell until I opened it. If I simply wanted to relax in a bath but she decided it was suspiciously long ? The same.

When they couldn't catch me in the act but my scars kept getting more and more theyd threaten me with being hospitalized again.

When the hospital ER would send me to the closed ward for cuts that had nothing to do with suicidal ideation, but they decided I must be lying because it was deep enough, no matter how often I said I simply "messed up" because of adrenaline and blades that were sharper than expected. They had no legal ground to lock me up again but who cares, right. Its just one of those freaks who cuts themselves anyways.

And none of this kept me safe. None of this prevented me from cutting majority of the time. It made me distrust the ER. It made me distrust nurses. It made me hide my body even around my family. And when it did momentarily work I simply started harming myself in other ways. I ended up covered in bruises, with minor concussions, increasingly starving myself, depriving myself of sleep, ...

No one ever went "let's really try to figure out why you do this." Instead they went "why the fuck wont you just chew some bubble gum and roll a spikey ball on the soles of your feet you depressed fuck" or some shit like bro I am being severely traumatized by the world and this is my reaction. It's all "you are the problem".

And as an adult whos decided that I'm not interested in quitting, who "only" practices harm reduction I know that absolutely no one wants to accept that as a choice I should be allowed to make. Doesnt matter that I'm an expert at taking care of wounds and I have not had a single infection in 10+ years aside from once on wounds that got fucking stitched at the hospital. that I actively do my best to avoid lasting damage. That I try to keep the frequency low. They put me through years of surveillance and shame and threats without ever trying to see the root cause, only ever treat me as a bratty problem child who's being difficult just to fuck with them, and can not understand why that wouldn't make me want to stick to the goals they have set for me.

Therapists genuinely lose their mind when I tell them I don't want ~sobriety~ I just want to reduce harm and get on with my life. Their teachings do not allow for this to be but a short term compromise. I do not care.

[severus-snaps]

Legilimency & Occlumency & Emotion

i was reading something somewhere (possibly on my binge of metas last night, but who knows) that Snape was very talented at Occlumency, but just about average at Legilimency - but I respectfully disagree, and here's a whole (3k word) accidental ramble about it, which started as an observation and devolved into how I think Legilimency/Occlumency works in the context of Snape and Voldemort, and why I interpret it differently than it being (entirely) magical dissociation and actually quite an emotion-based skill once it's more complex TLDR: I've often seen Occlumency described/conceptualised as a "shield" or some kind of suppressed emotionless state, but I discovered upon writing this that I think it can be quite a bit more complex and emotional, actually - just like Snape <3

Snape's Talents

The idea that got me rambling today went something like "Draco, who only had a handful of lessons from Bellatrix, was able to keep Snape out of his mind using Occlumency - so Snape can't have been a very good Legilimens, or Occlumency was easy to do"

And I do agree that Snape was probably better at Occlumency than Legilimency by sheer quantity of practice alone - and also that, outside of using it on Harry (and Draco) when they were up to mischief, and Snape likely wishing he could use it to work out what Dumbledore was hiding from him, Snape had no desire to see, hear, interpret or otherwise get the gist of what anyone at Hogwarts was thinking - but especially not a bunch of pubescent students, nor colleagues who liked him on a surface level but obviously were not close enough to think Something Was Up when he killed Dumbledore (which, fair in some ways, unfair in others, but I digress)

[side note: Snape can't have just not used Occlumency for over a decade before Voldemort's return, so I like to think of him and Dumbledore practicing to keep his skills sharp - although I expect that would be another 'fun' way for Dumbledore to hold Snape in chains which would make for an interesting fic]

I suspect that if Snape had chosen to, he could've invaded Draco's mind in that scene, broken through whatever defenses Draco used - but that's not a very Snape thing to do to a student, and especially not one he knows well, was a family friend of, has closely seen grow up, and probably has a soft spot for. It's very reminiscent of his conversation with Narcissa, to me. Throughout that entire conversation with Draco, Snape was trying to comfort Draco, empathise with him, get Draco to trust him, confide in him, offer support to Draco whether he wanted it or not - not further alienate him to a point where Snape couldn't help. And besides, invading Draco's mind aggressively doesn't sit very well with his vow "to the best of your ability, protect him from harm".

And as for Harry's lessons, Harry was using spells - which Snape seemed surprised, interested, and almost impressed to learn that were effective against Legilimency, which isn't surprising in itself as it's not a widely used area of magic. And since Harry had no idea that Snape (and probably Dumbledore) were 'reading his mind' for years before he learnt about Legi/Occlumency, I don't expect many people would know if Snape used it, or put up a fight using those methods - other Death Eaters probably stuck to Occluding, because it would hardly garner any favour if they cast a stinging hex or Protego at Voldemort or in a DE meeting Which brings me back to my other point as well, which was that "Occlumency possibly wasn't difficult to do". On a rudimentary level that might be true (at least insofar as any advanced magic was difficult to do - Harry was actually quite talented, e.g. casting a corporeal patronus at 13/14 or whatever, and Draco could do it after a few lessons with Bellatrix). Harry learnt almost despite Snape, because he didn't take instruction from him well and because Snape is (intentionally) abrasive in lessons (which I could go on about, since Snape couldn't really be nice to Harry when Voldemort was possibly looking through harry's eyes at any given moment - and as other metas have pointed out was another layer to Snape's rage when Harry looked at his memories). But Snape could do it without a wand, without an incantation, so he was reasonably skilled - imagine casting a full body Patronus or other impressive spell with neither a wand nor an incantation

Also we don't know precisely how long Draco had lessons for, it might have been loads and he was actually pretty good, or it might have been 3 and he was awful. But unlike Snape, who is not the greatest Legilimens of all time (that's apparently Voldemort?), it was glaringly obvious to him that Draco was using Occlumency - Snape had him sussed in like 3 seconds, and chose not to go any further for the reasons I outlined above - which interestingly he did not do with Harry, when faced with finding out where Harry learnt Sectumsempra (but at that point both Snape and Draco's life had been on the line - if Draco dies, presumably so does Snape?)

Which brings me back to Snape... How I think Legilimency/Occlumency works (sometimes)

You have no subtlety The mind is a complex and many-layered thing It is true, however, that those who have mastered Legilimency are able, under certain conditions, to delve into the minds of their victims and to interpret their findings correctly. The Dark Lord, for instance, almost always knows when somebody is lying to him. Only those skilled at Occlumency are able to shut down those feelings and memories that contradict the lie, and so utter falsehoods in [Voldemort's] presence without detection.

There's a lot to take in there, and also pretty ballsy to say to Voldemort-by-proxy (Harry), which might reduce the validity of my idea that Snape didn't want to be nice to Harry during their lessons in case Voldemort was watching, since Snape's pretty happy to give Voldemort (and the reader, more likely) a complete insight into what he's himself doing... although I expect that Voldemort has considered this, and also doesn't recognise the limits of his own power - or the extent of Snape's.

I also wonder whether the 'certain conditions' are something simple, like eye contact being made or the spell being cast, or whether there's something to the mental state of the 'caster' at the time as well, like there is with Occlumency walls/shields and being calm and empty-headed, or whether the conditions is the Occluder themselves presenting (or not presenting) some alternative things to interpret. One of the wizarding world (I think) pages says Snape trained a 'slight natural ability', so that makes me wonder more, as well, but i digress.

But my second point is this: Snape's talents weren't Occluding by total shutdown, or Occlumency 'shields' which always now irk me in fanfiction (this I'm definitely drawing from another meta but I have no idea where, so... apologies). Snape wasn't throwing up a wall in front of entire memories or thoughts, for the most part. Although I expect that between the Pensieve and Draco's example use of Occlumency, that was sometimes a function (e.g. some of the things Dumbledore told Snape to pass along, he'd have to entirely block out, alter, or otherwise adapt those memories to make it look as though Snape had passed information along of his own volition against Dumbledore's orders, or hide the fact that he'd helped Dumbledore when he was supposed to be helping Voldemort, etc).

So inkeeping with my own questionable metaphor, where Draco threw up a wall - metaphorically crumbling, last-minute, cowboy builder Occlumency where the wall would hold but you could see it very clearly and obviously; where with a lesser Occlumens the wall was nice enough, but you could see where the paint job didn't quite match up and the plastering wasn't done very evenly; Snape had the whole house set up so that you didn't know the wall wasn't there from the start, and probably had a few artfully chosen scuffs to make it seem real, or it was some kind of trapdoor under the carpet. (okay the metaphor died, but I've been watching a lot of remodelling shows lately, you get the point if you've read this far)

In another metaphor I imagine detecting a lie to be like running your fingertips along a smooth surface and finding a lip or a bump - you could then, pick at it, poke at it, tear it open. You could sense that something was being hidden, or withheld. But there were no lips or snags in Snape's thoughts; potentially Voldemort could simply not detect them, not even when he searched him openly, repeatedly, full eye contact, at the table at Malfoy Manor. Snape welcomed Voldemort into his (it's just occurred to me, but "mind palace") and Voldemort repeatedly, for years, could not tell that anything was amiss, and presumably Voldemort did this with much more ferocity (and skill) than Snape looking at Harry for 2 seconds and immediately summoning Harry's mental image of the Prince's copy of Advanced Potions Making

But it can't be down to detection alone. There's also a level of interpretation to Legilimency. So here I'm focusing on a more interesting aspect to me, which is how emotion is used in Legilimency/Occlumency. Obviously, Snape isn't Occluding all the time, and as much as I adore Alan Rickman, book!Snape was naturally a total petty, stuttering mess (love him for it) who only wishes he had Alan Rickman's gravitas, and could on occasion emulate it.

I told you to empty yourself of emotion! … Fools who wear their hearts proudly on their sleeves, who cannot control their emotions, who wallow in sad memories and allow themselves to be provoked this easily — weak people, in other words — they stand no chance against his powers!

I think this quote is interesting for many reasons I probably won't be able to connect properly and are in no particular order beyond how I thought of them

Snape is emotional here when he says it, he's angry, annoyed, upset, and it's an honest feeling, and he's obviously not devoid of emotion but can still Occlude Harry

Snape is an emotional person, much as he tries to pretend not to be, and can still Occlude Voldemort just fine even on the night he thinks he's marching to his death at the end of GoF

Much like how many other kinds of magic require lots of study and a strong emotion/will/conscious thought at the start, perhaps it become easier with experience to the point where this advice is not essential (e.g. kind of like driving, I no longer have to think about changing gears like I did as a Learner)

Snape is also talking about himself here, indicative of Snape's worldview where showing 'weak' emotions is the problem - soft emotions, vulnerability, "never tell".

"Provoke" is exactly what Voldemort does to Harry

This is Occlumency 101; Snape's teaching Harry the most basic of Occlumency - to compartmentalise, to block someone out, to throw up that shoddy but sturdy-enough wall for Voldemort to come up against, like Draco did to Snape. Harry's anger and emotion is a weakness in this basic Occlumency lesson, where Voldemort is trying to look through Harry and/or trick/provoke him; thus, the wall.

But this probably isn't the kind of Legilimency Voldemort would use on Snape (which is to see if he's lying, if his information is real, if his values are aligned, etc), and it probably isn't the kind of Occlumency Snape was doing in return, to lie or deflect suspicion or ingratiate himself. In fact, throwing up a wall is the opposite of what Snape does with Voldemort; Snape lets him in, lets him stare him down in front of an audience, all the while showing Voldemort what he wants to see. I think as well there's an element of a Legilimens 'grasping' for something, searching, "provoking", like how Snape 'grasped' for Harry's memories of Advanced Potions Making, how Voldemort appears to search Snape at Malfoy Manor - so if all Snape presents is a memory, empty, devoid of any complexity, Voldemort would question it.

In my interpretation, when Occluding, Snape displays a different type of emotional control; Complex Occlumency means you control your emotions, yes, but not block them off - Snape takes his emotions where they need to go, makes them do what they need to do, to support the interpretation he wants Voldemort to reach. He chooses to some extent what Voldemort sees if he lies outright or omits details (a well made wall, basic Occlumency), and chooses how to present it (complex Occlumency). And he does it with subtlety; he doesn't often outright lie, and there's a lot left to interpretation - in both Snape's speech (with Bellatrix) and his actions throughout the books, and presumably his Occlumency.

So I suggest that Snape, in a situation with Voldemort, must be able to "lift up" or "lean into" an alternative emotion for interpretation - the decoration around the wall, the interior design, if you will. For example, Snape couldn't tell Voldemort that he desired Lily, in a total absence of any feelings at all, without it coming across as false and thus easily detectable as a lie. And you know that when a young Snape, who's hardly made a name for himself (Snape's likely never killed, at least, and isn't especially memorable to anyone in Azkaban and is last named by Karkaroff, and other things I won't go into here) outside of overhearing half a prophecy begs for a Mudblood Order member who's the mother of Voldemort's downfall who's thrice defied him to be spared, you can bet that Voldemort will want to thoroughly find out why, so...

To me this suggests that there was a level of desire there that Snape could 'lean into', whether that desire be for Lily or someone else he found desirable to act as a kind of substitute - though given that Legilimency seems to work on mental images and memories at least in part, a memory where he desired Lily would've been useful. And I'm just using that as an example, because Voldemort would also presumably at some stage have interrogated what Snape thought of Dumbledore and Harry, and Snape would've had to lean into feelings of hatred and loathing - which he'd manage just fine for Harry, but Snape would have leant into his feelings after Dumbledore silenced him after nearly getting eaten by a werewolf and again freeing Sirius in PoA, but I digress

When Harry finally learns Occlumency (by his own admission) in the wake of Dobby's death, it's grief that helps him master it - which, for me personally, is not a detached, clear-headed feeling in any sense. It's visceral, emotional, and painful; all-consuming. It's love/grief/loss/strong loving emotion that forces Voldemort out, after he loses Sirius and again when he loses Dobby. But it's a contrast to the emotions Voldemort uses of Harry's to draw Harry out, via his fears for Sirius. But with grief, Harry's dived headfirst into feeling what Voldemort doesn't want to feel (unlike the anger), to keep Voldemort out of his mind. Whereas Snape would do the opposite, and dive right in to the feelings Voldemort would want to sense - to the exclusion of others. Would Voldemort even think to search for Snape's love for Lily, if he was first presented with something more visceral, with more negative connotations, like desire or jealousy, hurt or betrayal? These are the emotions Voldemort thrives on and can exploit, that he's familiar with, that he understands. In the context then of 'grasping' that's how I think Snape leads Voldemort down a path of believing him - by bringing honest 'negative' emotions to the fore that Voldemort understands.

this is really where I think skilled Occlumency differs from dissociation or wall-building. I think Snape would simultaneously have to dampen his 'lie' feelings and to raise the volume on the 'fitting' feelings for his chosen interpretation. My interpretation of this all stems from my experience of writing, of getting lost in music, in using those activities to "wallow" in certain feelings. Snape does not present Voldemort with his true feelings, but they are real feelings. So in that way, I feel Snape was like an artist or writer; he felt deeply, he felt conflictingly, and dived headfirst into those wells of emotion when he needed to - diving so deeply that it cuts off and hides the conflicting evidence. I feel that when I'm writing, when I'm listening to music, when I'm wallowing. And I feel a lot of sympathy for Snape, because it can feel like a real whiplash when you're midway through writing an intense scene or listening to some excellent music that really fills you up with something, it can take you to some dark places, and it's quite shocking somehow when abruptly interrupted - which would be what his life was constantly like after Voldemort's return, leaning into and shying away from/shutting down emotions and memories he didn't necessarily feel whenever he was called, and then having to return to work or meetings in that headspace, where everything feels out of touch and you're in internal turmoil. (Granted, I can snap out of it because the music or the writing is neither here nor there, really, but he'd be doing it with his own life experiences, with his own life on the line, and to repay a debt of guilt - there's a lot more emotional baggage there, and even more once Dumbledore died). And I think it would take its toll in other ways, too, which leads me to Lily...

Far from some people's cries that possessive or obsessive attraction or desire is some huge moral failing, I'd argue that you'll find a level of it in most teenagers and indeed the regular spectrum of human emotion - I know I've certainly experienced feelings of intense jealousy and whatever 'Snaters' (I'm not a massive fan of the term, but as a shorthand) accuse Snape of, whether I acted on it or not. So I'd suggest that Snape 'leant into' that for the sake of being on the receiving end of Voldemort's Legilimency. Whether Snape regularly, or actually, felt those emotions of his own free will or not is hard to say - since there's no actual evidence he did act possessive or jealous beyond the normal teenager level (and that's without addressing the fact that we didn't know how he would've ended the sentence "I won't let you -"). And I'd also go as far as to say that Snape probably, truly, had some awful thoughts (don't we all?) and so he was able to lean into some very dark and gloomy nooks and crannies of his mind, the parts we're told healthy people steer clear of acting on but also undoubtedly experience (jealousy, possession, rage, bitterness) in much the same way as a writer, artist, or musician might, to make his 'lies' and the stories he told more 'truthful' - which was why Voldemort trusted him so much.

TLDR: Snape's a man of many contraditions and very much emotional depth, and he manipulated his own emotions (likely to the detriment of his mental health) for years. But just as I, a fanfic writer, can vicariously experience the bitter resentment for a person who doesn't love me, can imagine a world where he can think those thoughts, embody them, and still not take them on as part of his identity.

anyway i don't have a conclusion, I just had thoughts

[Side note not strictly related to ANY of the above: I find it interesting as well that Voldemort's skill is apparently specifically in working out whether people are lying to him, suggesting that you could specialise even further into different aspects of behaviour. But people do lie to Voldemort (Narcissa, Snape, off the top of my head, but there's no indication of Voldemort using Legilimency on Narcissa in that moment where Harry lives - Voldemort was too elated, once again caught up in his own glory). [side side note: Harry's treatment after his 'death' does make me wonder, briefly, about Snape's own treatment when he returned at the end of GoF - public torture and humiliation, an opportunity for the other DEs to turn on one of their own to 'increase their own standing' in Voldemort's eyes, crucio to weaken Snape's defences, to check that his information and loyalty true? i get the impression that Snape shared his information with Voldemort privately, given that Bellatrix didn't seem to know much about Snape's return, but who's to say there wasn't some 'fun' beforehand, or at other points during his time as spy]

[habaritess]

Is Claire Bear one of the villains of The Bear? Part 2

Here is Part 1.

We get another sign of Claire detachment when she and Carmy are talking after the mail drop. She talks about hanging out as kids, doing things together, and shoplifting. Carmy is completely caught off guard by this as Claire nonchalantly talks about stealing from walgreens many times. The potential harm in her actions once again goes unnoticed by Claire, and even Carmy openly expresses how that isn’t right. But Claire just doubles down on it and calls it thrilling, expressing no remorse for her actions. What's interesting is that we later meet an eccentric guy from their past name Kyle, who also shares a similar sentiment to stealing as Claire. Might be a stretch, but I believe this scene was place there for us as the viewers to juxtapose Claire and Kyle because despite them being two very different people in appearance and behavior, they share the same neurotic viewpoint and are thus, people meant to be avoided.

The car scene continues with Claire confirming to Carmy how she “observed” him drawing at his desk since she sat behind him, something even he didn’t recall. One of the interesting things to note about this conversation was Claire admitting how they never really talked, and that she wished she knew why he was drawing. Carmy than tells Claire he wished she talked to him more. Carmy had no friends and was a loner who drew at his desk to help pass the time. Claire saw that and chose not to socially engage with him. This fact she is trying to deny. Claire tries to turn that around and say that she tried but he was too shy. From this conversation, I got the feeling that Claire was trying to create an untrue picture of their childhood together to make her appear better to Carmy. Claire was the pretty popular girl with tons of friends who didn’t give Carmy the time of day when they were younger. She could have talked to him but didn’t, and Carmy put the onus on her for not doing so, after Claire pointed out at the beginning of the conversation that they’ve never really talked.

Claire did not expect Carmy to do this. She wanted to create a fictional viewpoint for Carmy that showed her in a better light than what she really was, that she was always interested in getting to know him, but he was too shy. Carmy eventually puts some blame on himself by admitting she did have a lot of friends( and thus intimidated), so these manipulations in the memories are working. I believe this is what helped shape Carmy's view of Claire in future episodes, especially the ones in season 3 where he has this romanticized view of her. Claire then mentions a party that she wants to go to, and Carmy becomes visibly uncomfortable about the idea. Seeing the discomfort, Claire then guilt trips him to going by telling him that he owes her now for taking him for this ride.

Now, some could argue that Carmy did wrong first that day by changing their plans to hang out and taking a trip to the post office, a place Claire obviously didn’t want to go, so Carmy should deal with going to a party. But people should not forget that Claire has been pulling the strings since she got his number and Carmy never wanted to go out with Claire in the first place. Carmy was using their hang out time to do something useful, but he was also trying to get to know Claire, which their hang out time would have been mainly about anyways. Carmy also did not guilt trip Claire into this, as Claire always does to Carmy. If she didn’t want to go, he would not have told her “ you owe me for helping you move”. He would have just accepted it.

The manipulation doesn’t end there. They are both at the party. Claire promises 15 minutes tops, and they end up staying there all the way until the party ends. There is a scene where Carmy checks in on Claire and on first watch, I thought he was staring at her to admire her, but we all know how Carmy looks when he is in awe of of a person( how he stares at Sydney when they first met, when she returns, when they are physically close to each other) and that wasn’t the expression on his face. Dude was getting impatient and wanting to leave, but felt that he couldn’t say anything since Claire was still comforting her friend.

Claire sees Carmy staring and she continues to “comforting her friend” trying to make it obvious that she isn’t ready to leave. Carmy is then distracted by men who mistook him for someone else, and here Claire is happy to see a more extroverted Carmy. When they get settled down, Claire once again throws the fake number in Carmy face. I strongly believe that Claire knew that Carmy didn’t enjoy himself at the party. He was just making conversation. She wanted to make sure their night didn't stop at this party, so she once again guilt trips him about the fake number.

Claire asks him this out of the blue, suddenly becoming serious, and stares at him with puppy dog eyes. She askes him this as if she is asking "why would you do this to me?" Carmy falls for it every time, and he goes for appeasement to avoid answering the question, instead telling her how much he “likes” her. Claire than goes for the seduction route, and openly makes her move on him.  Carmy knows what she is implying when she reaches out to touch him, and you can see the uncertainty on his face when she confronts him with it.

I feel strongly that Carmy would have ended the day sooner with Claire, rather than spend the rest of the day with her, had she not made her intentions of spending the night with him so obvious. When they get to Claire's vehicle, Carmy makes the choice to take Claire to his restaurant, but really observe his face during this. After Claire tells Carmy that her friend found another boyfriend and they are standing on either side of her car, Claire looks at Carmy expectantly. She doesn’t want the night to end and Carmy easily reads that on her face. He then reluctantly suggests going to the restaurant. Note how Carmy moves with Claire always involves the restaurant. It is always a matter of convenience for him.  Now really look at this scene tho. Carmy is guaranteed a booty call staying with Claire tonight and yet, his face as he suggests the restaurant and she agrees, is nothing but dissatisfaction. There is no excitement in those eyes, he is still trying to appease her.

Even with her promise of sexual activities, he wasn’t enthusiastic about it. He is mechanically doing what is expected of a guy that “likes” a girl, something he's been telling her to get him off his back on the fake number, but now he has to prove it. When she agrees to go, his face is one of disappointment.

Carmy takes Claire to the restaurant to have their first kiss. At this point, he accepts what is about to happen and chooses to do so in a place I strongly believed he imagined his first kiss with Sydney would be in. It’s one of the ways Carmy mentally deals with being with Claire is just trying to put Claire in Sydney’s place. Even with the kiss, it’s Claire who moves forward first as Carmy follows her lead. He even speaks his true feelings out loud when he repeats what Claire just said to him “very fast”, that they are moving way too fast.

If it wasn’t for Fak interrupting them, the kiss would have been terrible on Carmy’s part, because you can tell he just wasn’t into it. But Fak’s interruptions actually gave him confidence, because Fak tells him how Claire is just THE best, which he agrees, then Fak informs Carmy that he is great too. It’s just the boost the guy needed, and he was able to proceed with a very passionate kiss afterwards.

In episode 8, we get to the next day after they had sex for the first time, and you would think being able to score would have a guy feeling great… but Carmy is not feeling great at all. First sign is how he left Claire alone in bed early morning. She doesn’t get the satisfaction of waking up next to him. She wakes up alone in bed and has to find him brooding on a kitchen counter. Before Claire is up, we see Carmy fiddling with his hands. I believe his mind is on Sydney, since the episode opens up with what she was doing at this moment.

Try as Carmy might, Carmy could not wake up happy with Claire by his side. Whatever happened last night, did not leave the man feeling good( and when you think about it, of course it wouldn’t since he never wanted this in the first place). When Claire gets to him, Carmy is staring off into space and even she knows something is wrong with him. We later learned that Carmy had a panic attack last night about his mother driving her car into the house. What made sleeping with Claire bring up all these bad memories? I will get to that soon.

So at this point, Carmy is still doing what Claire wants. He knows she wants to be romantically involved with him, and he engages with her. But Carmy does not view what occurs as something HE wants. Claire is the “friend” who wants a physical relationship and he feels obligated to do so because he “wronged” her. This is all for her and not him. So when Sydney calls Claire his girlfriend, he bulks at that. “Girlfriend? You think?” He later on vehemently denies it again when Sydney brings it up because whats going on between them just isn’t that. He knows it’s not that. What he has with Claire doesn’t feel “good” and girlfriends are supposed to be a good thing. Then Sydney, unaware of how their relationship started, implies that him not clarifying what they are looks bad on him, and the poor dude is horrified and confused. He doesn’t want to be viewed as “shitty”, especially not to Sydney, but we the viewers know that Carmy isn’t using Claire for her body, even though he could have. It was obvious to Carmy what Claire intentions were from the beginning and he purposely chose not to pursue even though she would have been an easy lay. But Sydney calling his actions potentially shitty made him question his own actions up to this point and WHY he was with Claire in the first place. He is so confused he looks for another perspective of this and asks Faks if Claire is his girlfriend. This showcases Carmy innocence and lack of experience and why he is so easy to groom in this case. When speaking with Faks on this, he asks if he needs to ask Claire if she is his girlfriend and Faks doesn’t like the way he worded it. Carmy original framing of this question is the exact kind of dynamic they have because his input is not needed, he is still doing what she wants so what she says goes.

Unfortunately, in his confusion and trying to avoid being a shit person, he confirms with Claire that they are boyfriend and girlfriend.

Or at least, he tries to tell himself that. Dude is trying to be happy with Claire and tries to treat Claire how he would have treated Sydney, the person he was actually trying to be with. He makes Claire fresh pasta, something he was probably going to treat Sydney to after their conversation in episode 2. Claire responds with a kiss and they make love once again.

I used to believe that the rapid heart rate and the panic attacks Carmy had with Claire was due to her connection with his past, but now I strongly believe it is mostly due to Claire’s actions. Carmy doesn’t want to be with Claire, but he forces himself to because of Claire purposeful manipulations of a traumatized man. He feels like he owes her and he gives her what she wants every time, but doing so is traumatic for him. He can’t help it. His mind is trying to convince himself that he want this, but his body reacts to the truth. Being with Claire is like living with his mother. He had to do what Donna wants to manage her and her chaotic nature. There is no getting through to his mom when she in that state, so the only way to avoid escalation is to do whatever she wants when she wants it.

When you are use to living in this state of constant appeasement, like how Carmy had to do with his mother, it is very easy to fall back to those toxic habits when dealing with other people. It's hard for them to realize that what they want matters. He fell back into it with Chef David, taking his abuse. He fell back into it with Claire. He is just a ball of stress and anxiety as he tries to make Claire happy while ignoring what he truly wants. He wants Syd so he tries to put Sydney into Claire as a coping mechanism. He makes her the food he would have made Syd. He was rewarded for his efforts by Claire sleeping with him, but instead of it being a great thing, he gets an even bigger panic attack the next day as his feelings toward Claire becomes more and more intertwined with how he always felt living with his mother. It’s toxic and Carmey slowly starts to realize that after his panic attack in episode 9, and the only way to calm him down was thoughts of Sydney, who he truly wanted to be with.

You can see him starting to accept it. The dude was planning on breaking up with her. He begins ignoring her calls. He tells Sydney that she will have his full focus. Unfortunately, after Claire runs off after overhearing his grievances of wasting his time with “pleasure” rather than focusing on the restaurant and being their for Sydney, Carmy listens to the voice message that Claire sent to him. The sweet message, plus her confession of love, tears him apart, and he is once again racked with guilt over Claire.

We see in season 3, Carmy closes himself emotionally in order to build up the perfect restaurant, and he refuses to make up with Claire as a result. His avoidance of her and his refusal to address what happened between them, does the opposite effect, and now he can’t stop thinking of her. Memories of Claire are seen through a rosy retrospection. She becomes something to him that she never was… “peace.” Even through his Claire obsession, we get a flashback in episode 4 where Carmy is making out with Claire and Claire notices that Carmy's heart is beating fast.

When Carmy is with Claire, he is not at peace. He is in constant fight or flight mode. Even when something good is happening with Claire, he can never truly settle down with her. He can’t because their relationship started on a manipulative basis. Any romance he had with Claire is tainted by that reality. This is why we never see Carmy at peace when dealing with Claire. This is why sleeping with her results in panic attacks. This is why he isn’t happy waking up next to Claire in bed. Being with Claire to Carmy is like being with his mother… but the show avoids making obvious parallels between them. Claire is toxic, but not in the same way as his mother. She isn’t angry, yelling, throwing things, or cursing. Claire is the kind of toxic that is unassuming, hidden securely behind a reassuring smile while making a person feel like they are the worst kind of person. She does so with an air of innocence that fools everyone around her.

If I’m correct in Claire being one of the villains of the Bear, I believe that when Carmy finally decides to talk with Claire again, Carmy will confront why being with Claire always felt so bad. I find it hard to believe that they would have Carmy so panicky around her for no reason if Claire wasn’t intended to be another negative person in his life.

[zvezdacito]

// TWST Book 7 spoilers, thoughts of Malleus's writing as a character

So I was reading some other people's opinions on why some people consider Malleus overrated/annoying, and tbh this makes me really sad. The general consensus is that a lot of people fixate on certain sides and can only see him as one extreme or the other and it results in many ppl thinking a watered down version of his character is how he is in canon.

I feel that its such a shame because he's the most interesting, compelling and well-rounded take on his character archetype I've seen.

From my observation, usually they kinda make this archetype (the broody misunderstood 'everyone fears him like a monster except for one special person') someone you can't take that seriously, because of how his struggle usually kind of written in a way where everyone involved feel less like actual fully fledged original characters and really just one note tropes interacting with other one note tropes.

To elaborate: What i mean when i say this is usually ppl who hate him kind of just do because of plot requires them to and to show how all their haters are "normies" who can't get him because 'he's not like everyone else'. The misunderstood guy still usually has toxic personality issues but the story really tends to make it feel like they don't fear him for that but because they're shallow and have prejudice to ppl like him, so his personality issues are not framed as wrong or character flaws.

I don't think there's anything inherenrly wrong or mediocre with the "one special person who gives him a chance before anyone else" trope like I'm literally a Malleyuu enjoyer lol but like i said its all in the execution cause otherwise it fails to be compelling and believable. Usually in the poorly written version of this trope the guy doesn't undergo any character development other than showing more emotion and kindess to his partner because they melted his ice I guess so it really makes his whole character feel like its revolves around the sake of romance and fanservice.

Malleus doesn't fall into this trap in my opinion because his situation despite how fantastical it is, the way he was written makes it believable as to why everything is the way it is with him, and it also challenges the viewer if they would be able to say they wouldn't fear him too in that situation.

"We're gonna give you this character who everyone sees as a monster and show you deep down he just wants the same love as everyone else, making you contemplate changing judgement on him. He wants to prove this, but his way of going about it always inadvertently harms others."

"You know where hes coming from and if he had that social connection to give him a better understanding of others this wouldn't be happening, but its also equally understandable that the people hes trying to connect with don't deserve this and fear him even more after this, trapping him in a cycle of isolation."

"Given his track record, do you go about giving him a chance or just considering the repeatedly proven danger he brings. With the valid reasons of both parties, can you really say he isn't a monster and demand that 'if only people be near him'?"

There's just such a tragic and thought-provoking dilemma to his character that adds so many layers that makes him so good.

As omniscient viewers we have the benefit of seeing what he's going through form his POV so we can sympathize with him and understand that he thinks what he's doing is the best course of action and he's just trying to create a "win for everyone" situation.

But also everything he does ironically reaffirms everyone's fear and distrust of someone like him. No one can deny he has a tendency to cause further destruction when he tries to do something "good", examples including: past Briar Valley lantern lighting fire, the Halloween 2 ghost world party, and now his Sleeping Curse stunt in Book 7 Part 2 (they really emphasize this by making the spoken name of his UM basically mean "Malicious Fairy" but have its written name used to convey what its meant to mean be "Blessing").

↑ Given this, it honestly makes sense others, especially those who don't know him all that well, would just expect the worst when he's around already, and you wouldn't be able to blame them for that given the track record. It doesn't help that this impression is worsened since he tends to cause misunderstandings due to his lack of familiarity with human social cues.

Alongside the bias and preconceived notions from his status and reputation, they also make a point on how his personality flaws are still also a huge factor in pushing people away, such as not being able to see things through the perspective of others.

He also holds a subconcious belief due to what has been ingrained in him since childhood as a Draconia and the next in line that because he's superior to others at certain things, he has the right and responsibility to decide on what will protect and help them, disregarding the individual values/priorities of human beings and leading him to take reckless and destructive action with good intentions.

His upbringing, character strengths and character flaws are all realistically connected to each other and the way they are subtly shown to be ever-present in defining his decisions, goals and thoughts throughout the whole story. So we don't really need to have a character go out of their way to exposition this to us this word for word just so we can understand and believe it.

Moving onto something slightly more lighthearted, I really also like how dorky Malleus surprisingly was. Other similar characters in the archetype I usually see don't really have any hobbies, interests, or quirks outside of being a broody authority figure, which might've been appealing to some at first but it really just gets stale and boring after a while.

This should be the bare minimum in making a fleshed out and interesting character so maybe i sound like im giving them too much credit for pointing it out😭 But yeah compared to the other examples it's good that Malleus has his Tamagotchi and Gargoyle interests it makes him feel like a believable person who has his own life going on too (with the bonus that these interests are also metaphors for aspects of his character). The gap moe adds an endearing side to him, and makes the gap between his intent and impact of his actions even more tragic. It wouldn't hit the same without this side.

(^ Forgot how the exact quote goes, but it basically said dark stories are more effective when there are moments of genuine happiness and good in them, compared to if it was always just grim and edgy. The former increases the stakes and tragedy because you have something you to care about losing, while for the latter there is nothing for you to care about so nothing the story does really matters. Same logic applies to Malleus)

Overall, it's just like an unfortunate incompatibility of goals and circumstances, which is what TWST is all about. Another thing I want to say is out of all the characters, I feel like Malleus is the one who is the ultimate embodiment of TWST's main themes:

-> How it's not about "hero" vs "villain" just differing circumstances crossing paths and clashing because of how people on either side have their own complex perspective and dreams they want to realize

-> And how connection and finding community is important to find people who will help you make up for what you lack in reaching your goals and to better understand all the factors that caused the situation in the first place.

As if seeing yourself reflected in a mirror, the more you get to know the people around you, you realize in many ways you are actually quite alike, and through understanding others you could also possibly better understand certain aspects of yourself. It's sort of encouraging you to do the opposite of dehumanizing others and yourself, which is something Malleus has most evidently internalized.

So yeah this was so long😭 I had a lot I wanted to say since Malleus is my favorite TWST character. Idk if I missed anything or if i managed to express my thoughts in a cohesive way but yeah. I kinda go into a rage whenever I see the worst takes ever be put out about his character but tbh sometimes I can't completely blame others since fandom trends and the convenience of simplifying things into tropes can warp your perception of a character and what you associate with them.

Also sometimes twst doesn't do a good job with utilizing his character like Book 5 where he got turned into a deus ex machina and Halloween 2 where they killed any hype and intrigue for the plot we had at the beginning through the ending reveal and gave the worst justification ever for Malleus and Lilia's actions ever.

Regardless, I hope more people manage to move past this and appreciate his character for what it really is soon though. He's an amazingly tragic character; a lot of thought was put into how his experiences, strengths and weaknesses would convincingly connect, and he represents something relevant in the story's plot and themes.

The fact that I've seen some people unironically believe that Malleus may just be faking his cluelessness of social cues to hide his "true evil" is evidence to how convincing his character's situation is, that even some in the audience who know more about him than the characters would still end up in the same place of doubt and distrust of Malleus because of what he's capable of.

Aight thank you for reading👍

[tsutsumi-kurose]

Thoughts on the new chapter?

so many!!!! we got so much thematic/character stuff and a lot of lore implications as well!! I’ll try my best to cover all my thoughts!!

mitsuba SHINED this chapter he was GLOWING he was so brave and clumsy and troubled, he absolutely NAILED the final girl role and I love that so much for him!!

he also had some of my favorite thematic moments. I especially loved the yorishiro destruction panel:

LOVE love love love that he TEARS IT APART WITH HIS TEETH !!!! when we’ve learned this mitsuba has supernatural mitsuba’s memories!! the HAT oh my god the symbol of the hat flying off in the moment when he goes full feral to save this girl and himself… when that’s a part of himself supernatural mitsuba tries so hard to hide and suppress… this mitsuba dives into it for the sake of his own life and the life of his underclassman. mitsuba tears something apart with his teeth, leaning into his more monstrous instincts, to be a hero!! the hat is so silly but also I’m choosing to read it as a symbol of hiding the parts of himself he’s scared of, and in this moment we see the beauty and strength in that part of him!! (go, queer monster boy, go!! I love you!!!!)

I also find this mitsuba fascinating for how he flips the script on picture perfect mitsuba

picture perfect mitsuba wants to pretend he’s human mitsuba… he wants his memories, even if it’s fake. 116 mitsuba… wants to remember!! he wants to understand!! he wants the truth!!

it’s hard to really know what to make of this though, because it’s hard to know who this mitsuba is. according to the supposed altered timeline, this should be alive mitsuba. but he has supernatural mitsubas memories… it raises questions mitsuba and tsukasa always have: what is a person? a soul? memories? both? to what extent?

to bring it back to him destroying the paper with his teeth: I would love… if original/human mitsuba had some of the same aggressive/feral tendencies supernatural mitsuba is so ashamed of, that make him feel so nonhuman, so monstrous. he doesn’t have human mitsubas memories; there could be so many similarities between them he can’t see!!

one last mitsuba observation:

his injured hand in 116 is the one always in his sleeve as a ghost and then as a supernatural. probably just a thematic thing rather than a lore one, but a really interesting detail!! are we barreling inevitably back to our original timeline?

kou is also really interesting this chapter, and in this arc in general, for his unwillingness to remember… he’s had multiple opportunities and ignored them all. very baffling, considering picture perfect kou’s and red house kou’s dedication to reality and all the pain that comes with it. not sure what to make of this just yet, but it’s something I’m keeping an eye on!! would love to hear other people’s thoughts on this!!

my favorite kou panel this chapter:

I am FASCINATED by the bandages slipping off his hand… they look!! incredibly familiar!!

I wonder what the parallel is here? could this be a lore hint, implying amane’s wounds were caused by whatever gave kou his injuries? or maybe just a thematic parallel of a boy in too deep trying to protect someone? someone putting himself in harms way willingly… much to think about!!

now some nitty gritty lore thoughts:

happy to report I am still steadfastly team “tsukasa is tsukasa”—I think original supernatural tsukasa definitely is tsukasa, and the white bubble of him calling out to amane suggests to me he’s still in there in this timeline too, just less in control. maybe that’s as good as neutralized to the clock keepers though? or maybe the yorishiro destruction was more tsukasa’s idea than the god’s, and the god is appeased by this ritual enough to not need to destroy any yorishiros?

do mysteries and their yorishiros even exist in this timeline?

on the topic of yorishiros, it’s interesting that the girl from the photography club was saved when the paper was destroyed but kou still got possessed… is it just one spirit traveling between targets, and it left the girls body to possess kou? but the girl and tsukasa seemed to be possessed simultaneously… so maybe destroying the paper did do something to help the girl? if the yorishiro allows connection between the supernatural and human realms, why the flowers? are they a sacrifice? the existence of the ritual itself is also confusing, because the god didn’t need any ritual to contact tsukasa in the red house… does this have something to do with the power of rumors? or is the red house maybe just a more powerful location than the school? why was amane hyping up the ritual? is tsukasa calling for him because he’s used to teacher amane being there and now he’s not?

as usual I find myself with a million questions lol, I absolutely loved this chapter!! would love to hear other thoughts about it!!

and as a closing note: I would die so fast in this timeline there’s no way I’m not playing with him he’s so cute even when supremely possessed

if he’s so evil why does he have a halo??

little angel confirmed <3

[walkingstackofbooks]

AITA for being "too dedicated" to my job?

Unfortunately I can't give too many details, my work is pretty strict on privacy, but let's say I (48 m) work as for this security company. I'm in charge of recruiting and vetting new candidates - as you can imagine, this is a pretty rigorous process, and there is no room for mistakes. I wish I could say how bad the consequences would be if we hired someone with bad intentions, but that might pinpoint what I do too accurately.

So there's a doctor (m 33) who works for one of our sister companies - obviously there's a lot of information that needs protecting in the medical field - and we've had our eye on him for a while. About a year ago, it turned out he'd been lying about his background to cover up some illegal activities he'd done in the past - strike one. Then, a few months later, he was involved in a conspiracy to release strictly controlled information into the hands of people who would have done unspeakable things with it - strike two.

Despite this, the powers-that-be decided to keep him on - he is, admittedly, an immensely talented doctor, and there were enough mitigating circumstances in both instances that our sister company felt that he was free of blame. We, however, felt he needed closer monitoring, and so over the past few months I've been sending people in to observe him closely, so we could be sure he's working for us and not outside influences.

We didn't get anywhere. The trouble was, while he wasn't doing anything "suspicious", he was also acting so perfectly in line with regulation that that in itself seemed suspicious. Trust me, I've been working in this business for a long time - very few people are *that* good for *that* long.

So this got us thinking - either he was a very serious threat and needed to be dealt with, or else a ridiculously talented, ridiculously good doctor who would be an asset to our company, right? But the usual methods weren't getting us anywhere. And with his skills of deception (that law-breaking I mentioned? He'd hidden it for fifteen years) and capacity for sudden actions (the secret-selling was planned spontaneously within 24 hours), I know we'd have to do something slightly... off the books, let's say, to get the results we needed.

My plan was very simple - we arrested him and questioned him, using an implanted relay to record his neuroelectric responses so that we'd know for sure if he was innocent or not. Admittedly, we didn't want to cause a stir in the sister company, so on one of his days off, we carried out the whole thing in a holosuite, so that the responses of his colleagues etc. were all controlled by us, and he believed that it was real. Part of the investigation included sharing our suspicions with him that he was working for some other organisation with harmful intent, and we manufactured some evidence to see how he would respond.

Fortunately for all of us, it turned out he was innocent. It seemed our sister company had judged the mitigating circumstances well, and that those incidents truly were things in the past that he regretted - and he certainly wasn't working for anyone outside the company. In fact - just like me, it seems - he is a man who works with the company's and our clients best interests at heart, at all times. Naturally, we debriefed him, congratulated him on passing our test, and invited him to join us as a medical consultant - to put his talents to even greater use. He declined, though, and we parted ways.

So here's where the debate comes in. Some of my colleagues think I went too far in my methods, but I stand by my actions. The doctor absolutely could have been a security risk, and I'd argue, in fact, that all evidence pointed towards him being a traitor. At any rate, everyone in my company who knew about him was anxious about his loyalties before I did this, and now we don't have to expend any more resources on figuring out what his deal is.

I also believe that I wouldn't be facing this criticism if the doctor had agreed to join our company, which is a decision I had no control over. Some of my colleagues feel that he would have been a real asset and are frustrated that my actions put him off our company - however, I would argue that if he can't understand the reasons for what I did, he's not a good fit for our company anyway. And besides, it's only been a week, he might well change his mind in the future. It's really too early to tell.

Tl;dr - my job is investigating security threats. I used a simulated environment to arrest and interrogate a doctor about whom everyone in my company had extreme concerns, and discovered he was not a threat. Now some people are saying I went too far: I say I was just doing my job.

(in response to this challenge set by @the-last-dillpickle and @hellostuffedtiger for Sloan AITA posts)

[polyamzeal]

Polywise Review

When I first learned of non-monogamous, I seeked out as many resources as possible to learn if I really was it. Some of the most important resources were a few books. The communities I found made it seemed like you were not even allowed to have a license to be polyamorous unless you first read certain books. At that time, the holy bible of polyamory was More Than Two and before it was The Ethical Sluts. These were the books everybody recommended as a must-read if anybody wanted to learn more about polyamory, no matter what aspect of polyamory they wanted to learn more about. These books were hyped up like they would cover everything. Those books have fallen out of favor now a days and are hardly ever recommended and when they are people are quick to jump in to talk about their controversies as a reason why nobody should read them for them anything. So a new book had come along to become the new holy bible of polyamory. That book was Polysecure by Jessica Fern. How do I feel about Polysecure? I think it is a good book that is over-rated and over-recommended. Unlike the previous bibles, I do not see Polysecure as a polyamory 101 book. It does not get into the very basics of polyamory at all. It is much more of a polyamory 102 book, a book to read once you are ready dig deeper and study the more advanced topics. I think it is great we have 102 books! I am glad that every polyamory book out there is not just an introduction to polyamory. I often mention that "Love's Not Colorblind" by Kevin Patterson is a fantastic polyamory 102 book! Polysecure feels more focused on attachment theory than polyamory honestly to me. It is really interesting stuff to read but I never really felt like it applied much to my relationship, I rarely felt insecure in my relationships. I had other problems that needed working on in different ways.

So all that to say that Jessica Fern had a second book come out. And despite having some issues with the community worshipping the first book, I was ready to give the author another chance. It sounded like this book was going to be more of what the community makes Polysecure out to be. And yeah, I am happy to say it is accurate. Now I still don't think this is quite a polyamory 101 book. If you want an introduction to polyamory that covers all the basics there are other books I would recommend like "The Smart Girl's Guide To Polyamory" by Dedecker Winston or "Ready For Polyamory" by Laura Boyle. But Polywise is more of a 101 book than Polysecure is. Maybe Polysecure is really a 103 book with Polywise being 102.

Whhat do I have to say about the contents of Polywise? Honestly not much despite everything I prefaced it with. The book is good and i liked quite a bit! But like the last book, it is meaty intellectual topics that make your brain think. Which makes it a bit hard to summarize and untangle in a simple review without going page by page. I do like how much focus is put on how many little tiny things change when going from monogamy to non-monogamy that you wouldn't think of or plan for. Also the whole book has an angle of not just monogamy to non-monogamy but also one form of non-monogamy to a different form of non-monogamy. It is very thought-provoking. From my favorite chapter was on codependency & differentiation. It was amazing to have words for these phenomenons I had personally observed serveral times but didn't know what to call it. I feel like that chapter in particular will be really useful to a lot of people. Finally there was a lot of unpacking old habits that were once useful but are now harmful. It really shines a spotlight on the shift to non-monogamy being a really big change that I don't think a lot of newbies often understand.

I highly recommend Polywise: A Deeper Dive Into Navigating Open Relationships by Jessica Fern & David Cooley. I think it is a better book than Polysecure. My caveat is I don't know if it should be the very first book you read about Polyamory.

[jarofstyles]

Stay Right Here- the first meeting

The first meeting between omega maid Y/N and alpha prince Harry!

Enjoy my lovebugs.

Check out our Patreon!

Hellooo. Here is alpha prince Harry’s experience first seeing Y/N 🤭 enjoy!

—

It was a cold day when Harry first saw her.

Arriving back from his journey, the palace was buzzing with people and a celebratory dinner was being hosted in his honor. People milling about preparing for the dinner, decorating with winter florals and garlands, Harry felt a bit of the tension in his shoulders drop. He was home.

When the time came for dinner, Harry was ready for a night of drinking, full bellies, good music, and wonderful company.

What he hadn’t been ready for? A beautiful little omega maid who brought out the finest bottle of wine.

The dining room was made up and decorated to the finest degree, the most precious dinnerware set out, people sprawled across the rooms at different tables. His was filled with the highest class. His father, mother, sister and a few of his cousins, aunts and uncles. The highest ranking and the ones meant to carry the lines. He was supposed to be paying attention to the story his uncle had been saying but there was a scent that caught his attention. It was hard to pinpoint with so many in the room, but it was driving him mad.

It was only when he felt it get closer, the scent strong as he found the source standing beside the table with her head bowed that he realized it was her. That scent that made his cock swell and his teeth clench, the thing that had been distracting him most of the night, was standing right in front of him with a bottle of wine to pour. Only the finest bottle, too, which meant she was in good standing with the staff. They wouldn’t send a bad maid to pour the wine to the highest people.

Harry’s body ached. It burned as he watched her with a sharp glare as she moved around the table, filling glasses with a curtsey each time. It was when she got to him that it changed. It had to- Harry wanted to see more.

“Give me your eyes.” He commanded quiet yet tersely., anticipation riding in him as he watched her tense. She shook a little bit as she raised her face to him. seeing the fear unsettled him. He didn’t want her to be afraid of him.

He realized his error, knowing most royals wouldn’t speak to her unless there was a problem or she was in trouble. His demeanor gentler than before, he tried again. “There is no harm to you. I just wish to see them.” His tone softened for her.

Her beauty was far better than anything he had seen in all of his trips. How she wasn’t one of them, a noble, at least the wife of a nobleman or woman? He had no clue. She took his breath. Stole it from his lungs. Beauty surrounded this omegalike an aura, crystalline visions popping into his head as he observed her. The curve of her lips was something he had seen painted in the most priceless pieces of art, her lashes long and soft. Harry felt displeasure rise when he saw the unease under her gaze, but he could see the interest in it as well. That soothed the beast.

“What is your name?” He questioned, ignoring people around them looking at him for speaking with staff. It was very unusual but he didn’t really care for the normalities at the moment.

“Y/N, your highness.” She peeped, the soft voice wrestling and wiggling under his skin. He wanted to hear more. His hands clenched around the chair again as he tried to reign himself him, his stare seeming to beam through the woman. Her hand still shook as she waited for him to address her again.

“Y/N.” Tasting the name on his lips, he decided it was his new favorite flavor. Until he could taste those curved lips or the honey between her thighs. “Thank you. You’ve done excellent tonight.” He thanked her. “You may go.”

Letting her walk away was something he felt against his inner nature. The alpha in him was thrashing at the idea of her walking further from him but he composed himself, returning to his conversation without addressing why and how he did that.

The entire night he could smell her. His eyes tracked her as she walked across the room, eyes avoiding his even though he knew she was well aware of his stare. She had to feel it. She was polite and graceful, curtseying and pouring the wine, carrying trays. It seemed wrong to him. In his mind, she was someone to be treasured. A beauty, a smell like that? She would be sat at this table in his lap. Like the other omegas did, curled happily into their alphas. His more primal mind couldn’t comprehend why he couldn’t just grab her and do the same. It was a scent match, at least on his end. That’s how it should be done.

If he wasn’t a royal, maybe he would. He wasn’t so out of his mind yet to do so, but he hatched a plan that night. One that would definitely raise waves.

-

“I want a chambermaid.” He spoke to his father, sitting across from his desk. The day after the ball to welcome him back, he sat with his finger stroking over the stubble that had grown that night.

“I thought you didn’t. For your privacy?” His father raised a brow, placing the paper in his hands down on the wood. “I suppose you can. It is your right. I can look and see who is available, set you up with a skilled-“

“I want Y/N.” It was rare he interrupted his father. But he didn’t want just anyone. Just any maid. He wanted the one that had made him go mad the night before, chasing her scent every time she walked around the room and unable to look anywhere but her when she entered the room. “The one who served us wine last night. She was very polite. I wasn’t aware we did more hires when I was gone.”

The king looked over at him with an unreadable gaze, clasping his hands together. “I see.” He let the words sit for a moment. “She’s very pretty, too, Harry.” His brows turned, looking over his son. “I know you know of your duties. Your honor. I don’t mind that you have a chambermaid you have affection for so long as you know it is not something you can keep. If she is willing to change her positon for you in the kitchens… I will see to it.” He paused, looking over his son. “I know you are a mean of honor and will not make this woman do anything she is not willing to do. But be mindful. Be aware. Omegas are delicate creature emotionally. Lay out your bearings and conditions if you move in that direction. I will not have a scandal. Am I clear?”

The king was no fool. He knew exactly why. After seeing him speak and stare at the omega all night, he wasn’t surprised that Harry was interested. The woman caused a commotion with others as well, despite her knowledge.

“Yes, Father.”

If only they knew.

[slugtranslation-hypmic]

Hi Slug!! I'm curious about some of the religious imagery in hypmic! Kuko is obvious and I think Doppo has talked about not believing in gods before but what's up with Jakurai? Is he meant to actually be Christian or is it just an aesthetic thing?

This ended up being so long Tumblr wouldn't let me put it all in one post. Hoo boy. Under a cut for length.

Usual disclaimer that I don't live in Japan, so I'm not talking about IRL Japan so much as Japanese media. Media isn't perfectly synonymous with real life and, of course, it's foolish to draw conclusions from the general (media and culture) and apply them to the specific (individual persons). With that being said, media is indicative of real life values and cultural concerns--for example, the American high school experience is a lot less interesting than in movies, but these movies reflect a romanticization of teenagehood so widespread in the US and areas with heavy US cultural influence that filmmakers take it for granted in their audiences--so I can talk about what assumptions inform the portrayal of religion in Hypmic.

As in a lot of Japanese media, religion is present but not explicitly mentioned outside of Kuukou. It's what I would call culturally religious as opposed to actively religious. Similar to how many works in the Anglosphere are steeped with Christian ideas and phrases even if the authors/works themselves aren't Christian (the Christian concept of sin, using "God" or variations as an interjection, etc.), many works written in Japanese are influenced by Shinto and Buddhist ideas. Some people in Japan are active worshipers of Shinto, Buddhism, or both, but many more have a somewhat relaxed approach. It's not uncommon for people to have a belief in a higher power, but the nature of this higher power isn't terribly well-defined. Many people will attend religious ceremonies for holidays or funerals but rarely pray to a higher power outside of moments of great stress. That is, being culturally religious. Traditions are fun and comforting, especially if they involve dressing up in fancy clothes, eating yummy food, and seeing friends and family. Even if you're not especially devout, it doesn't hurt to pray for a bit of luck before a big test, that your child will grow up healthy and strong, or that your recently departed ancestor will be at peace. For those in predominately Christian areas, you probably see plenty of this in your community--people who maybe go to church occasionally for companionship or holiday celebrations but aren't active worshipers. Or, perhaps, people who pray like, "Hey, if anyone's listening, can you lend me a hand?" Maybe you're even one of these people yourself. We can generally assume that most of the cast falls into this camp. Doppo and Hifumi go to a festival with a religious element--charms and rituals to bring good luck by appealing to Shinto deities--but I doubt either of them have a firm belief that these particular deities exist. They may think that there's some higher power...or not. But what's the harm in a good luck charm, right? And more importantly, it's fun to play games, eat, drink, and horse around with friends! But wait, does that mean these two are only Shinto or...Shinto-ish? Probably not. There's an expression that most Japanese people are "born Shinto, but die Buddhist." Shinto rituals tend to focus on matters of the living (although Shintoism has its own distinct funerary rites, sometimes combined with Buddhist rites), while non-devout Buddhists usually participate in Buddhist ceremonies only when loved ones die. We see Juushi and Hitoya with loved ones buried in Buddhist cemeteries, but it's safe to assume both observe Shinto holidays and customs in some fashion. We also see in the very beginning of TDD that Nemu and Samatoki have what appears to be a butsudan--a Buddhist altar--in their home dedicated to their deceased parents. "But wait," some might say, "I thought spirit worship isn't a part of Buddhism." That's true for some forms of Buddhism, but not all! Buddhism is enormously varied, and some of the (many, many!) forms of Buddhism practiced in Japan accept aspects of Shintoism. There's plenty of mixing, just as we see within individuals themselves. Again, the Hypmic characters may not fully believe that spirits exist. (Well, outside of Ramuda...) But it's a comforting thought that one's deceased family members are around in some form and can be a positive influence on one's life.

[maybe-boys-do-love]

Throughout the Trainee, I’ve been waiting for the shoe to drop—for some big reveal about an ultimate problem at the company or for someone to be fired who had gone too far—but the show is too mature, it has to much compassion towards all of its characters (and towards people’s humanity in general) to do that.

I saw so many instances of mistakes happening, some more obvious, some subtle, some key to the plot, some seemingly background fodder, some addressed by the characters explicitly, and some that the characters or the show just seemed to observe without commenting on. Some of these mistakes didn’t amount to anything, like the broken hard drive, and some of them caused real physical harm to people in the show, like the cosmetic mix-up during testing. I presumed there was a kind of accumulation happening. I thought that the mistakes were adding up to something, a bigger conclusion about this work environment, or a commentary on work environments and society at large. The Trainee, however, refuses to construct a larger theory about work and life’s problems. It refuses to condemn anyone or any one thing to that extent. Each mistake is its own problem. And each person is capable of contributing to it and finding a way to move past it.

You see, what Jane says here is the core theme of the show:

(GIF by @ryansjane )

Don’t assume; ask questions; talk it out with the recognition that everyone is coming to the table with different backgrounds, skills, areas of knowledge, flaws, fears, and hopes. They will not be perfect, and neither do you have to be. The Trainee wants its characters and its audience to find the courage, like Ryan and Jane, Ba Mhee and Tae, or the lovely moments between Pah and all his coworkers this week, to speak up with curiosity and openness.

Then, the next step it shows so wonderfully is how you can appreciate what complexities you contributed to the situation. You can acknowledge and apologize for your role once you understand it—not because you are wrong or right, but because acknowledgement and sorries are ways to show other people that you didn’t find a way to help avoid the problem either that time. It’s important to note, as I see some discourse rising up about who apologizes in the conversations during the show, that Thai and Broader Asian cultures in general have a VERY different culture around apologies, humility, and shame so that those feelings and their related gestures are used to build connection and positive feelings, compared to negative shame in Western culture; book rec if your interested in that topic and more—Between Us: How Cultures Create Emotions.

The show doesn’t have some moral argument to say about a systemic HR issue at this office. It also doesn’t depict its office as devoid of deeply troubling systemic issues like sexual harassment. Its recommendation to address the issues, though, is not through stricter enforcement of rules or the perfecting of one’s behavior. It’s to communicate when the time is right on with self-respect and compassion.

There is just so much love and care in every element of the Trainee, and I already know it’s gonna be a comfort show to return to again and again in the future because it’s intricately produced tone and its story just release the tangled knots of perfectionism in me without discouraging me from my desire to grow and improve. You can just tell it’s done by people who love their jobs and their work environment. How rare to see a workplace in media be simultaneously so realistic in its depiction and still so positive about the overall experience 🌻

[captainofthetidesbreath]

Thoughts on parallels between the scene where Phineas beats Sherman and where Imelda tortures weepe?

Jonas Spahr is there, and he's also not having a good day. 😔

So, I initially meant that as a joke about how I'm a huge fan of Jonas and will obnoxiously take any opportunity to talk about him. I do think there are many parallels and resonances between these scenes, and there is much to say about the four characters named and the central action of nearly killing someone for the sake of the Trust, but those angles are more obvious and more likely to be recognized by most. (And I'm willing to talk about some of those as well, if asked again. Or, if there's a specific aspect you'd like to hear about, let me know.)

In terms of my interests, it IS a pretty interesting point to be made: Jonas Spahr is there, watching. It's integral to both scenes that Spahr is a witness; he's even the ONLY witness in the Arca. His role as such is also explicitly recognized by the active character in each scene:

Since this is about the cabaret and Arca scenes specifically, I won't spin off into an entire commentary and analysis of Spahr's role as an observer and witness. For now, we'll have to content ourselves with the short version just for context, but I can go into it at a later time.

The heart of it is: thus far, his role in the narrative is a generally passive one that largely centers on watching and observing. It's the first thing he does as a player in this story. He steps back and watches how Phineas handles the Ginsberg situation, and the narrators remind us four separate times in 1.03: Mica:

Deeds of Valor—and Caenum, apparently—need to be witnessed, after all! Thing is, Spahr does a lot of watching but, until more recently, doesn't really SEE all that often. He is for a long time a passive, immovable, unreadable observer to events as the eyes of the Trust. He is that witness for much of events he's involved in, for better or (more likely) worse.

After Phineas attacks Sherman, Spahr himself is quick to identify this problem with himself in 2.02: Ascendancy, that he is watching and looking but he is, perhaps intentionally, not seeing and noticing:

The incident in the cabaret and the incident in the Arca are directly connected and bound together by Spahr as witness. Phineas attacking Sherman and Imelda torturing Weepe are moments that Spahr is truly seeing, bearing witness to events and comprehending them, their context, and their implications.

In both, he bears witness specifically to the damage that the Trust causes and the ways that it harms people inside and outside of it. Phineas and Imelda believe that Spahr will witness something else—Phineas hopes that Spahr will not be witnessing a failure where Imelda hopes that Spahr will be witnessing one—but what he is seeing instead is the raw brutality that the Trust and its systems and pressures naturally engender at their logical extremes. He immediately recognizes it to be a horror:

Spahr experiences a dread born of comprehension typically reserved for moments of understanding in eldritch horror. Sucks to be the guy whose role is to see things and you end up actually comprehending some of them! And comprehend them in these two scenes he does.

Spahr doesn't do a ton in terms of active action in either scene—the cabaret scene is notably set off by his mere presence, and he ultimately freezes in the Arca scene—but in each, he does ultimately move to attempt to stop what is happening. And, notably, he does so under his own power and motivation.

That said, he fails to prevent a significant amount of the damage. He moves fast enough to prevent Phineas from killing Sherman, but too late to prevent the harm done to Sherman and all the spiraling consequences of this. He is frozen into a paralysis by Imelda's threat, so he fails to follow through and stop her, stop the harm done to Weepe, and again stop the spiraling consequences from this.

Twice, once in each scene, he fails to meaningfully prevent the harm done here. He attempts to stop them when he is standing here in the room with them, but by then it's too late. ("Too little, too late," as Sherman will eventually say.)

Obviously, Spahr is not the sole bearer of responsibility in either incident. Phineas and Imelda have an immense amount to answer for there, and the system of the Trust itself created the conditions that one way or another pushes them and Spahr to do as they do. However, both are incidents that he in some way has allowed. He reflects on having not seen, or even ignored, the signs of what was brewing inside Phineas and what he was being pushed toward; he helps engineer this intervention and stands by while Imelda locks Weepe in the Arca, never asking enough questions.

He has allowed both to happen. When he begins to feel the emotional aftermath of each, in 2.02: Ascendancy and 2.17: Compensation, the narration of his internal monologue even uses that wording:

They're both critical scenes to Spahr's development as someone whose role is largely passive, both within the Trust systems and within the narrative. Just as much as he is to be seen, he is also very much here to see—and to refuse to see. To stand by as a passive witness to horrors and allow them, silent and impassive and watching. He can try to intervene, but he's already facilitated this.

He is coming to understand his part in this, in brutalities such as these, with horror. In the aftermath of the Arca incident, we see him increasingly discontent with his role in the Trust and desperately in search of ways to stop what he can. He is not yet successful, but his vision is very much clarifying. His arc turns around these scenes as paralleled experiences for him in his narrative, as moments that he witnesses, allows, and fails to stop against even his own belated efforts. These two scenes bookend his growing comprehension and self-reflection throughout season two.

Twice now, it's been asked of him: What are you refusing to see, Jonas? What horrors and brutalities are you allowing to happen? Will you always be intervening much too late?

Third time's a charm, perhaps.

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

i do think sometimes people think special interests are like. having an interest that is very big. and yes that is part of it. it’s the most obvious one to an outside observer. but, like, that in and of itself isn’t a special interest. neurotypical people can get incredibly into hobbies. and i think it’s important to keep in mind bc i've started seeing people go around saying really ableist shit about special interests again bc they view them as just very intense hobbies but like. they’re not.

autistic people do not choose their special interest, for one. like, i've seen a lot of disdain and downright hatred for people who have special interests in “childish” things going around and like… no, autistic people don’t have “childish” special interests because they refuse to learn media literacy or whatever. a lot of people's special interests come from their childhood- of course an eight year old isn’t going to be consuming media aimed at adults, and like, autistic children grow into autistic adults? they don’t just shed their special interests. special interests can change over time, absolutely, but they also sometimes, like… don’t? that’s not something an autistic person can control. and even if it’s something they got into later in life… it’s actually very normal for adults to like. not solely engage in “mature” things. like for one parents exist. and older siblings and cousins and just in general like. most adults have child relatives somewhere in the family tree and like, spend time with them? but even with that aside like, well adjusted adults don't aggressively reject anything they consider childish. adults have had nostalgia forever. adults have enjoyed animation and games and other “childish” things forever. who do you think makes kids content? passionate adults.

and i've also seen a lot of disdain for autistic people just having objectionable special interests and like. okay but they literally cannot control that you know that right. they can control the way they engage with it obviously this isn’t an excuse to like, be an asshole or a bigot, but also like… you can’t really consciously stop having special interests even if you don’t engage in it you’ll have thoughts on it and process things through the lens of it it’s not something consciously controllable. like do you think i'd choose to think about nothing but extremely dark psychological horror minecraft child abuse like no that’s fucking weird as shit. i actively dislike one of the two creators involved but i physically cannot stop thinking about his stupid roleplay i have tried to stop and it lead to me self harming bc i couldn’t and the thoughts distressed me very badly.

on that topic- yeah, trying to “break” a special interest not only doesn’t really work bc it’s not like. a hobby. it’s something we constantly think about and a way of making sense of the world. it’d be like trying to get rid of depression by never allowing yourself to think of sad things like that’s not how it works. it also can be fucking dangerous. coping mechanisms exist for a reason, and throwing them out with no replacement or actual help involved can fuck you up for life. you're likely to either have a complete breakdown or get infinitely more unhealthy coping mechanisms. and while special interests aren’t a one to one analogy to coping mechanisms they’re closer to that than a hobby let me tell you. i see so many posts telling autistic people that they have to “break” problematic or even just fucking “cringey” special interests and like. bro 99.99% of the time it is not worth self harming or being institutionalised over. because that’s like, what happens if you deny yourself access to a tool that allows you to access the world? like please stop so flippantly basically asking autistic people to risk extreme burnout at best bc like. the creator interacted with someone who turned out to be a terrible person ten years ago with no reasonable way of knowing that. like c’mon. y'all just wanna see autistic people suffer and are wrapping it up in progressive coatings like take a LOOK at yourself.

like, sorry. you think it’d be so easy for this website to not be ableist. but no you’re back to just spreading flagrant misinformation about autism to try and sound better about yourself. like, are there some shitty autistic people who use their autism to be bigots? yeah, duh. but using that as an excuse to mock autism as a whole is completely fucked up. we can’t win unless we fight against ALL bigotry, and that means while bigoted autistic people are acting unacceptably using ableism to combat them only helps perpetuate those systems of harm. call out the bigotry, not a person's existence. and for gods sake, stop treating “likes the owl house” as a moral failing equivalent to that like no media literacy isn’t dead bc autistic people are cringey you’re just looking for smart sounding ways to justify treating disabled people as if they’re degenerating humanity and like. treating disabled people as if they’re degenerating humanity has a history that’s pretty incompatible with like, anti fascism and fighting for equality.

[herbofgraceandpeace]

Spoilers for A Deadly Education below:

(I haven’t discovered how to do the read more link on mobile yet, sorry for being a tech loser.)

So I really, really, REALLY enjoyed A Deadly Education! It was such a deeply, richly imagined world, and the exposition of it was done wonderfully through El’s grumpy, sarcastic inner dialogue. I don’t think you could actually justify it as complaining, but it sort of works as an explanation for her breaking the fourth wall.

The characters were so deliciously real and believable all around, not just El! Side note: I love, love, love books with many women characters; they are just like life, which ALSO HAS MANY WOMEN CHARACTERS. I don’t think it has to be just women authors who do this, but it’s telling that they’re usually the ones to do so. Anyway, the boys and girls of this book were such people very teenagers, and it heightened the drama naturally as a result! A lot of the book relies on hierarchies of the kind usually found in school stories, but that wasn’t just a cool gimmick or means to enliven the stakes. It meant that the morality of their actions was much more obvious and undeniably relevant, and that’s such a powerful truth about suffering on its own! It strips back the fripperies of life and requires us to make very real decisions about what our relationship to the people around us. What will we do to survive? Can we survive alone? And what counts as survival? If we sacrifice others to save ourselves, what will be left of us at the end?

I loved the way that El’s internal dilemma centers around her ability to harm others easily and her desire to not do so—and sometimes, painfully but so realistically, her battle with her desire to harm them in retaliation for how she’s been treated. One of my favorite parts of the book was El’s moment of decision on whether or not to fight the maw-mouth; it reminded me strongly of the moment from Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables when Valjean has to decide whether to turn up at the trial of the man who has been misidentified as Valjean himself. In both cases, the protagonist is forced to make an utterly self-sacrificing choice—to choose something which will most likely destroy their life completely in order to save someone in many respects undeserving. The freshmen El was attempting were young, innocent, and helpless, but they had done her no favors, and she knew she would gain little to no benefit from saving them. But she did it anyway!! Just as Valjean has to realize that he can’t keep his position as mayor and do good if it’s built on the unjust suffering of this man. (I’ve no idea if that connection makes sense to anyone but me, but I’m tired and can’t explain better.)

I couldn’t help contrasting this book with Spinning Silver since I just read it, and I have to say I was delighted by how much more open discussion of morality (see the paragraph above lol) there was in this book! Spinning Silver was so action-focused that I’ll have to look deeper to get at its themes, whereas El’s narration AND her character arc brought it all to the surface in A Deadly Education. Another of my favorite moments was El’s thoughts on her own anger with Magnus; there was lots of real, convicting truth there. You cannot fight the cycle of violence, of fear, of hatred with the very same weapons—you can only break it through choosing mercy and justice (paradoxically) and giving of yourself. Which brings me to the delightful Orion Lake! Ladies and gentlemen, a certified Boy. I’m not sure if he could be called a narrative foil to El (I’m so tired help), but it’s interesting to observe the difference in how they go about caring for others. El is jaded; she sees the brokenness of the world and all of its cruelty, and she chooses to help others (by denying herself at all times!) anyway. Orion sees much less of the evil in people and in the systems of the world—but! fascinatingly! he sees the evil in the scholomance system in a way that El doesn’t (or at least isn’t prepared to deal with yet). He can’t be bothered to think about the consequences of saving everyone, but he’s darned well willing to die doing it. I was amused and frustrated with El for not seeing him as a kindred spirit earlier on in the book because they both recognize the fundamental principle that might does not make right, that the strong should not prey on the weak. Yet while El refuses to acknowledge how deep her loyalty to this principle really is, Orion’s thoughtlessness means that he’s blind to the ways he himself is perpetuating the abuse of the weak through the enclave. Delightful stuff, and realistic character conflict born of different perspectives and experiences!

also, did I mention we get sisterhood?? I don’t care if they’re just friends, El and Aadyah and Liu are sisters now. To me.

Basically, it’s a great book, and I can’t wait to read the next ones

[screamingcrows]

Like a self indulgent fool, I made a complete set of Genshin style voicelines for Celeste who features in this. (Written as if speaking to the Traveler, I like to think she meets them when they're in Snezhnaya)

Hello:

I'm Celeste, assistant to The Doctor. I've heard a great deal about you and it's a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance. There's no need to be nervous, I'm neither interested in nor skilled enough in combat to harm you. It's a little soon to go into the details of my work, but if you need anything related to medicine or the like, you're welcome to ask and maybe I can be of assistance.

Chat: Cooperation

Clear communication is important for cooperation. Just make sure to distinguish between being clear and being rude.

Chat: Tail

Yes, it's soft. Touch it, and I'll make you regret it.

Chat: Samples

Did I properly seal those flasks before leaving? Ugh, would I even have enough subjects to start over?

When It Rains

I wonder if Snezhnaya has legends about what controls the weather. You wouldn't think the Tsa- wait, maybe I shouldn't say that.

When Thunder Strikes

It's a bit loud for me, but watching lightning strike the sea is mesmerizing in it's own right. If you count the seconds from lighting flashes you can- whimpers make it go away…

When it Snows

Really? ...Doesn't this just make you want to curl up inside?

When the sun is out

We should get a move on, this won't last forever.

In the desert

If you see me start digging, look away… No? Well I thought it was funny.

Swimming

I'll find another way, I don't like to get my fur wet.

Good morning

Starting your day with a glass of water is beneficial to your health and helps wake you up. We lose a surprising amount of moisture over the night.

Good afternoon

I'm going for a nap.

Good evening

It's time for dinner already? Time truly waits for no one.

Good night

You can go ahead and lay down, I have some things to get done. Hm? It's fine, I work best at night anyway.

About Celeste: Expressions

I've been told that I don't have the most expressive face, my ex would constantly pinch my cheeks and tickle me to get me to smile. As far as I'm concerned, it's preferable to wearing your heart on your sleeve. It's unfortunate that my body will still betray me, if I'm not vigilant my ears tend to move around a lot.

About Celeste: Pieces

We leave little bits of ourself in everything we do and everyone we meet, it's inevitable. Just make sure not to break yourself beyond repair.

About us: Friends

It's admirable how you always go out of your way to help your friends no matter what it takes, especially with how many people you seem to know and how they swarm you, it's a miracle you have time for yourself. It must be nice to be so adored. Make sure never to leave with things unsaid, but you probably don't need to be told that, do you? Anyway, I'd like to observe you a little more, maybe some of your 'friendliness' will rub off.

About us: Loyalty

As a way of thanks, if you'd like of course, I can set up a meeting between you and The Doctor? Just remember, you'll be on your own from there, certain circumstances keep me from being able to take your side should a confrontation ensue.

About the delusion

My delusion? Mm, you've got a sharp eye. It's more akin to those carried by Harbingers than regular soldiers, that's as much as I'll say. A certain someone was adamant about ensuring there would be minimal risk of backlash from using it.

Something to share

There are things in this world that should be left alone. Figuring out who spread this idea and why should be at the tip of our ambitions.

Interesting things

It is easy to think that the eyes of the gods are a blessing, while this might seem immediately true, power is never given away that freely without any strings. When it all turns to ash, they will be the hardest to save.

About Dottore: Segments

It's important to get familiar with all The Doctor's segments, not only does it make working with them a lot easier as I can defuse any situation before it gets really ugly between them… I'm kidding, don't look so concerned. It also lets me pick the ideal one to approach if I need his signature on something, did you know, his handwriting hasn't changed one bit since his youth!

About Dottore: Relationship

I was quite surprised to find that The Doctor is quite the lenient boss. As long as I get done what he requests, preferably without damage, he's satisfied. He'd rather I speak my mind and correct him than simply go along with whatever he says out of fear.

About Pierro

How do I put it, The Director is, well he has an aura that commands respect wherever he goes. I rarely see him, but whenever I have, he's always looked a little weary up close. His patience must be tested daily having to manage the rest of the harbingers, either his tolerance is boundless for arguments or he just tunes them out.

About Arlecchino

The Knave is, rightfully so I suppose, a little wary about anyone who associates with Dottore. However, she's invited me to accompany her to Fontaine on multiple occasions, with the hopes that I could help one of her children. I'd go so far as to say we're on amicable terms now, last she returned, I found a box of madeleines outside the laboratory along an invitation for tea.

About Childe

I think you've spent more time with him than I have, and I'd prefer to keep it that way. It's a pity he's so obnoxious, I'd like to run some tests on him but there are limits to what I'll tolerate. Maybe you could get some biopsies for me? I can provide detailed instructions, I'm sure he wouldn't mind.

About Sandrone

You want to know something about The Marionette? I'm afraid there's not a lot to tell, she keeps to her own wing most of the time and we rarely interact save for a few times where I've had to borrow some spare parts from her. She pretty much just shoved it into my hands and spun me around…

About Columbina

Every time I've spoken to The Damselette, there's a strong desire to rip out my brain and scrub it. Something about her presence clings to you like a mist and makes your blood run cold. She always speaks in riddles, popping out of nowhere, and clearly knows much more than she lets on. I'm just happy I'm not the one who has to keep her on a leash.

About Pantalone

The Regrator is such a stuck up bastard, avoid him at all cost. You couldn't pay me enough to willingly listen to his incessant monologues, always bragging about his newest acquisition. I always make sure to drag my tail along his furniture whenever I visit his office, white fur on black furniture is such a good look. If you do end up meeting him, sounding convincing enough when arguing can make him lose his cool, oh and wipe that dumb smirk off his face for me will you?

About Capitano

If you're waiting for me to gush about his bravery, strength, or dreamy voice, you're going to be sorely disappointed. While The Captain is certainly and honorable man, I just don't see him enough to have an opinion. I've heard about his exploits, it's impossible not to, and think his actions should speak for themselves.

About Signora

I never really had time to get to know The Fair Lady, as I was otherwise occupied before she left for her last mission. I do feel an odd sort of kinship hearing about her past, maybe if fate had been kinder…

About Wriothesley:

Oh you've met The Duke as well? Did you get in trouble or something? I had to sit through a meeting with him once, something about borrowing resources from the institute. I've never seen anyone look so displeased by the coffee I made.

About Furina:

So she wasn't really an Archon? It's not too surprising if I'm being honest, she's always seemed more like a spoiled child, a cake topper if you will. Oh, so that's what happened to her… Makes me feel pretty bad for almost assaulting her once. Maybe I'll speak with Arlecchino about delivering an anonymous gift…

More about Celeste: I

You want to know more? Ah- I think you already know what you should.

More about Celeste: II

From what you've seen on your travels so far, would you say the Fatui are inherently bad people? I used to be of that belief, now I believe that what binds us together is desperation more than anything.

More about Celeste: III

Every once in a while, I find myself regretting not moving to Sumeru. I even passed the entrance exam to the Akademiya and all. Maybe it's for the better, having heard about all the wondrous sights and places to explore, I'm not sure I'd have finished a single assignment.

More about Celeste: IV

There was a time where I could be easily goaded into just about anything to prove myself. I wish diving headfirst into a rock had made me sit down and think.

More about Celeste: V

There's nothing worse, in my opinion, than disappointing those who have hopes for you or are counting on you. That might be partially why your altruistic nature is so confounding, aren't you afraid that something will slip through the cracks? It's so easy to blame fate for our misfortunes which can be both a blessing and a curse. It might sound rough, but in a sense, I'm grateful to my misfortune in Fontaine, it woke me up to the bitter truth that I'd grown complacent.

Celeste's hobbies

There's just something about laying in the grass and watching insects pass by, living their life undisturbed by all our tribulations. Not that I can do it anymore, not living in Snezhnaya, so I've settled for taking care of my little terrarium instead.

Celeste's troubles

I hate when there's dissonance between what people say and what they do, even worse if they themselves are completely aware of it. Is this about someone in particular? No, why do you ask?

Favorite food

If you're thinking about making it for me as bribery, don't even bother, I can't even replicate the taste myself. You still want to try your hand? It's relatively simple in theory, just regular crêpes.

Least favorite food

Seafood. I've had enough of that for several lifetimes. The smell alone should be categorized as a hazard.

Receiving a gift: I

You made this for me? It's good, even if it was poisoned, it'd still be worth it.

Receiving a gift: II

I'll admit, the presentation had me a bit skeptical, but I enjoyed it. Would you show me how it's made?

Receiving a gift: III

This is… Unexpected. Were you really going for this?

Birthday

Birthday? But I'd heard that you-.. Nevermind, if you say so. Happy birthday then, would you like a little celebration? Or perhaps you have a request for something you need? In any case, I hope you can enjoy yourself a little extra.