#its a completely reactionary label.

[apas-95]

Hi, do you think you could answer a question about the polish people during ww2? I had a discussion with a coworker today, and she claimed that "after jewish people, poles were the second biggest group to get killed." I, unfortunately don't know enough about that (I asked her "are you sure you don't mean COMMUNIST poles and she said no, but with how history's taught, I'm generally doubtful I'll find good answers on the internet)

The Nazi Generalplan Ost involved the genocide and depopulation of slavic peoples in the service of colonisation by German settlers, not only in Poland but in Ukraine, Belarus, Yugoslavia, Russia, etc. Poland, being the closest to the German heartland and having the best-established German presence, experienced some of the most effective depopulation through the use of gas chambers (developed from the original program of forced euthanasia in German medical and psychiatric facilities), compared to the 'holocaust by bullets' carried out further east.

However, it's important to note that this history of Polish oppression is often weaponised by Polish nationalists to minimise or outright erase Polish collaboration with Nazi Germany, Poland's own history of antisemitic pogroms and anticommunist massacres, and the fact that the Polish state was itself fascist prior to its occupation - as is the case for much of Eastern Europe. Given the existence of collaborator movements in these countries, it should be fairly clear that the Nazi depopulation program was not carried out completely indiscriminately, but was done in a way that would allow reactionary segments of the population to ally themselves with - or at least not resist - the German occupation. Polish people in general, for example, were largely amenable to the initial German efforts to remove and exterminate Polish Jews, and further, Polish communists. The expansion towards execution of the remaining Polish population was still carried out piecemeal, with more and more segments being labeled 'political enemies', rather than necessarily being targeted on the stated basis of being Polish.

Notably, efforts towards a 'divide and conquer' approach of turning the population against themselves failed in the regions of the USSR, as socialist society had fought against antisemitism, racism, and eugenicism; compared to the capitalist states, both liberal and fascist, of Eastern Europe, which had been carrying out the exact same process of reinforcing these axes of oppression as Germany had.

[bonesfool]

kinda pissed off that people who I've never seen talk about rap before are making memes about the kendrick v drake beef (especially all the people comparing it to the fucking Hmbomberguy James Somerton video like tell me you don't know shit about black culture without telling me Jesus Christ), but I'm glad its become a catalyst for the conversation that so many white people on here just do not engage in black art forms

a lot of people have been boiling it down to if you claim to universally not enjoy rap, a genre that is almost universally populated by black artists, producers and record labels you're racist. this is certainly true, especially if you don't treat other genres as monoliths you can write off. (cough cough we all saw those tags on that one post)

But as someone who has a special interest in protest music (usually American protest music specifically) I think that even if you genuinely do not enjoy the sound of rap, if you consider yourself to be an American leftist, and have not made any effort to at least learn the history of rap you're not only racist, you're also uneducated and I would go as far to say not a real leftist. Why? because rap is inherently political: both in the sense that all music is political because all art is political, but also in the sense that rap uniquely political as a black art form

I've seen a lot of people saying "not all rap is about drugs and violence" which is a true statement, but ignores the fact that a lot of rap *is* about drugs and violence. and for a fucking good reason, both of them dominated the urban black experience in the 80s and 90s, and therefore have a disproportionate appearance in black art. Rap was born in American urban centers in the 70s/80s, a time when Reagan and Nixon's policies had completely divested federal support from urban centers, deindustrialization had made growing wealth in black communities suddenly become unsustainable, and racist policing laws had been put in place to funnel black men into drugs and then into the prison industrial complex (read The New Jim Crow if you have not, this post is already too long and if you don't know about the war on drugs im not gonna whitesplain it to you more than I already have).

Point being, it has always sucked to be black in this country, and rap was birthed in a time where uniquely targeted racism was driving much of federal policymaking. It was a time where mainstream politics were directly reactionary to the progress made by civil rights activists in ending Jim Crow and other de jure racism. So much of rap (particularly gangsta rap) was born as a genre of protest music, and much of it continues to be to this day. If you don't have at least passing familiarity with the giants of the genre (I'm not saying you even have to like their music, you just have to know the artists' and songs' significance in American countercultural history) I simply do not trust your knowledge of American leftism or protest movements

All this to say, I want to wholeheartedly recommend the documentary series Hip-Hop Evolution. It's on Netflix and its 16 episodes covering the history of DJing, hip-hop, and rap. It has lots of interviews with prolific and influential producers and rappers, and you can also hear some of their music throughout the series, so its a great place to get a comprehensive view of the genre and maybe see if there are any subgenres to your taste

[mesetacadre]

do you think religion and communism are compatible?

I'd say it depends on the maturity of the social relations and the starting point of socialism. Religion was identified by Marx as the opium of the masses not because he was a radical anti-theist bent on the immediate destruction of any semblance of religiosity, rather because religion, as it accompanies the evolution of the economy, serves to alleviate the alienation caused the the exploitative nature of work ever since labor was organized. It acts like an anesthetic, or rather, an opiate.

Therefore if religion began to take form in this way, and considering its pervasiveness across most aspects of almost all societies, its removal will have to be slow, much like the family. Take Spain, where a little over half of the population considers themselves to be catholic, along with the comfortable place the church has within society and most people's minds. If the communist revolution were to happen tomorrow, and assuming its continuance, it would take a multi-generational effort for the dismantling of all causes of alienation along with the appropiate education to make religion wither out, or perhaps mutate into something completely new. For me this is at the same level of speculation as the conclusion of family abolition.

Keeping all of this in mind, and getting at your question, communism is, nowadays, compatible with religion insofar as the objective conditions demand it to be. If religion is important to the working class in your region of intervention, it would be an immediatist error to viciously attack that religion and demand people stop believing in it. It is one thing to remove the financial and political privileges some religious institutions might have, which should be done albeit avoiding excessive antagonization, and another to go after people's faith.

To give a couple of examples, the USSR's policy on religion was to remove the power that the religious institutions and leaders had achieved by allowing workers to stop being reliant on them, emphasizing science and technology. The first chapter of Anna Louise Strong's The Soviets Expected gives a good example of what this looked like at the beginning of industrialization. In Cuba, on the other hand, christianity was, to an extent, included in the narrative created around their national liberation struggle and revolution, it had a part in the creation of that revolutionary patriotism that's characteristic of communist national liberation. The difference in the preconditions for Cuba and the USSR is that the USSR was a mosaic of tens of religions, if not hundreds, with contrasting levels of reactionary tendencies and influence, whereas in Cuba the population was pretty monolithically christian. There is no single recipe for the policies to take regarding religion in socialism.

When it comes to currents like christian socialism or liberation theology, I personally think that mixing theology with marxism should be avoided at all costs. Philosophically speaking there are very little similarities when you go beyond the surface, the scientific approach to analizing history and society that marxism takes has nothing to do with the irrational or spiritual explanations theology gives. I don't really care if people choose to go that way, I just think it's a waste of time because if you ever wish to go deeper so to speak, there will be a time, sooner rather than later, when you'll have to choose one over the other. I consider the approach I explained earlier to be a sufficiently close relationship to religion and that, strategically speaking, it is also unnecessary to intertwine the two.

In East Asia, especially China, the label of religion and its difference with spirituality and philosophy is less clear than in the west as far as I'm aware, but I don't know anything beyond that so maybe someone can expand on it, though I assume the approach is similar.

[dragonsfromthemoon]

The Dance being based on misinterpretation in the show is SO FITTING when you see that Green stans completely lack comprehension skills, just like Alicent.

Indeed, anon! The theory of “accidents” does fit that show (story + characters) and its audience of greenies. It's very telling about the quality of their reading comprehension and awareness about some themes. You're right on point about that!

At the same time, I can't help but mourn. My interest on F&B was picked only because I watched the first episode of the show at a friend's. I found the premise intriguing, the promise of a good story. Now I can say with certainty that the Dance and Rhaenyra deeply move me. In a way, I'm grateful to the show for introducing me to this period of Targ history.

Though it hurts watching once again a character and a story I hold dear, that means so much to me, being butchered by people that didn't care about it or didn't have the sensitivity to translate it to tv. Like it happened with Dany in GoT. All I can feel about the second season of HotD is dread.

Reducing a conflict heavily rooted in misogyny and patriarchy to a series of mere accidents feels like a hard slap on the face. What happened to Rhaenyra in F&B was no accident, it was the status quo of patriarchy violently retaliating any change. A reactionary move. So it makes me queasy to see all her struggle reduced to “ooopsie! my bad!”

Even when we look at out own history, wars and conflicts rarely arise from accident. They brew for years, in most cases; fruit of complex social, economical and political circumstances.

In F&B, GRRM showcased how the seeds of the Dance were planted much before it actually took place. It's a shame this wasn't carefully explored in HotD, leading to a dumbed down and way less impactful narrative.

Not to mention the insufferable fandom. And I'm being nice to label it as just insufferable.

I hope you don't mind my rambling. Thank you so much for the ask! 🥰

[dustedmagazine]

Nuclear Remains — Dawn of Eternal Suffering (Maggot Stomp)

Photo by Mark Temperado

Dawn Of Eternal Suffering by NUCLEAR REMAINS

Brutal death metal is not a subgenre famous for its socio-cultural acumen. Willfully stoopid and frequently juvenile in its desire to shock and disgust, the music is most often issued by outfits with names like Abominable Putridity, Abysmal Torment or Abated Mass of Flesh — and that’s just in the A’s. If you are not familiar with those bands (and honestly, good for you), you can likely still imagine the results. In many significant ways, Nuclear Remains — a recently formed brutal death metal band, based in Phoenix, AZ — follows convention and makes songs replete with caveman riffage, absurdly gastric vocalizations and a snare drum that sounds like an overinflated basketball bouncing off asphalt in the midday desert heat. The semiotics? Tunes are titled stuff like “Horrific Decapitation” and “Sickening Depravity.” Is it really necessary to listen further?

Maybe not. But before we over-hastily dismiss Nuclear Remains, we might note that the title track of Dawn of Eternal Suffering is largely given over to J. Robert Oppenheimer’s voice, from a 1965 interview in which he somewhat ruefully reflects on the consequences of the technologies he helped to imagine and engineer into being. And the second song, “Thermobarbic Asphyxiation,” starts with what sounds like a sampled recording, from a TV pitchman’s breathless anticipation of the detonation of the world’s first hydrogen bomb (that would be the 1952 Mike Shot during Operation Ivy at the Enewetak Atoll). Those gestures are not innocent of political content: they feel fraught, skeptical, laden with satiric intent. Of course, when the voices fade, Nuclear Remains starts doing its thumping, grunting, crunching thing. It’s death metal that skews towards its most elemental, perversely heavy for the sake of the heavy. Mindless pleasures. 

So far as those pleasures go, songs like “Subterraneal Breeding” and “Disintegrated Misery” are pretty effective, pitched somewhere between the repulsive antics of label mates Sanguisugabogg and the aggro riff worship of Mutilatred (whose remarkable Determined to Rot was one of last year’s best metal records). There’s sufficient, sophomoric gross-out to go around. Check out Nuclear Remains’ “Sodomizing the Skinless,” which is more than moronic enough to neutralize even the bare signs of political engagement on Dawn of Eternal Suffering. 

Given the completely incomprehensible lyrics, it’s hard to say exactly what stance the band takes toward its insistent subject matter: apocalypse, thermonuclear war, agonizing death and absolute ruin. Perhaps the “brutal” wins out, and Nuclear Remains is most interested in mucking around in the wretched end stages of intense radiation sickness, which melts the body into a pool of toxic goo. For sure, the band likes having their picture taken with lots of long guns and heavy weaponry (Dusted takes a pass on posting any of those). That’s not intrinsically a sign of reactionary politics; the Body has pulled the same move, and that band has been public about its conviction that leftists should arm themselves and know how to shoot. Who knows? When global destruction seems inevitable, one way or another, maybe we should all just enjoy our symptoms. 

Jonathan Shaw 

[sunspira]

the secret to almost all identity and label discourse is describe what your experience means to you, don't try and describe what the other experience means to other people. don't try to pin down what sexual attraction feels like for allosexual people when describing your asexuality. because if you're ace you don't know what other people feel and will inevitably misrepresent the nuance. if you're pan, describe what that means to you. do not try to describe and define what bisexuality means or is or feels like to others. if you're not bi, you don't know and time and time again people have misrepresented the nuance and put random assumptions onto bisexuality while trying to define pansexuality. if you're trans or non-binary, express and define what that means and what that feels like. but don't try to define what being cis is or feels like (aside from the privilege aspect of course. do try to discuss how society protects and favors cis people!) don't try to discuss how cis women love being women or love girly dress or interests or anything like that, or that cis men love being guys and enjoy activities and media aimed at men and boys. because obviously it's not that clear cut and completely fucks over both gnc cis people and gnc trans / non-binary people by forcing something as personal as gender onto others. just worry about what being trans or non-binary or genderless means to you! and keep pushing for the right to be that and to have your community and label honored and the healthcare or social support you so deserve and need. again, when i say "your experience" i'm talking about the inner matters of "how do I know if i'm ace, trans or not etc", not matters of privilege or oppression that occur after coming out which can be much more defined and compared. but the experience of "what makes a cis person know they are cis" can't so easily or universally described, especially not by someone not living it. gender is always a personal matter with endless nuance! we can only definitively that they're not trans or non-binary and have zero interest or connection to those labels or communities (besides allyship). and that's more than enough.

because bottom line, many of these experiences do overlap, and that's ok! but gatekeeping what it means to be someone else. don't box in anyones gender because you fear you need yours to be entirely different from theirs for your label or community to exist. it absolutely does not need to be different in every way! the spectrums cross over and sometimes have more in common than not. but the labels and communities THEMSELVES are still worth having!!! don't let right wing reactionaries tell you that exact and precise divisions are needed in order to define yourself and advocate. it does not! pansexuality doesn't have to be definitionally or officially any different from bisexuality to exist or to make the person feel good and feel at home with the label. one person who doesn't feel sexual attraction during adulthood and then starts having sexual attraction in their late 20s might prefer to use the label allosexual late bloomer. another might prefer to label that time period of their life as when they were asexual or say they're on the ace spectrum. both of those make sense. one butch in love with a woman might feel like they are non-binary and that is the eureka answer to who they are, and another butch gnc lesbian might feel they are proudly a woman but in the lesbian sense which is its own thing apart from woman of the straight sense. and use he/him pronouns lol while still feeling found in labels like butch lesbian and if asked would probably call himself a cis woman. which is fine! there's peace and solidarity in just worrying about who you are to you. and not how unique that feeling definitionally is to the vast compounding layers in everyone's souls

[freakus420]

this is giving me a fucking aneurism right now why do you people think that "pansexuals" are the only ones special enough to be attracted to nonbinary people dkfjksvksjcandnaxnecbaxkq

[maaarine]

How mental health became a social media minefield (Rebecca Jennings, Vox, Sep 30 2021)

“But in the past decade, as social media has forced billions of us to virtually bump into people we never would have otherwise, many of us have also found the need to categorize people into recognizable boxes.

One way to do so is by seizing on common human behaviors to name — gaslighting, emotional labor, trauma, parasocial relationships, “empath” as a noun — then disseminating them until they cease to mean much at all.

We end up treating mental illness like a subculture, complete with its own vocabulary that only those in the know can use and weaponize.

It often looks like this: On August 26, a woman posted a TikTok suggesting that “excessive reading” in childhood was considered a “dissociative behavior.” (…)

At the risk of, well, over-pathologizing, it basically seems like there are two types of people: 

those who tend to appreciate and identify with this kind of internet diagnosis — “[X] behavior is actually a trauma response!” does legitimately make sense for some people and helps them live a happier life —

and those who find it not just annoying but potentially harmful, stigmatizing, and unscientific. (…)

It’s difficult to talk about this sort of discursive overreach without sounding like a far-right reactionary; indeed, criticisms of over-pathologization have come from conservatives who argue that, to generalize, it’s all just a bunch of self-obsessed liberal snowflake eggheads. 

“One of the biggest problems is that the far right has correctly identified that this is happening — that the discourse and identity policing has gotten out of control,” Moskowitz tells me,

to the point where it becomes hard for others to push back against it without sounding as though you’re siding with an ideology they don’t adhere to.

“There needs to be a strong, leftist stance of ‘we’re not going to do this identity-pathology policing thing anymore, but that doesn’t make us reactionaries.’”

Whether doctors over-pathologize certain normal human behaviors has been a subject of great interest in the medical field;

when the DSM-V, the standard classification of mental disorders, was published in 2013, many psychiatrists argued that it medicalized typical behavioral patterns and moods, possibly as a result of the pharmaceutical industry’s influence.

(One common example here is the potential to misclassify grief over the loss of a loved one as major depressive disorder.)

Billieux has studied gambling and gaming addictions extensively, and warns against the instinct to diagnose every symptom.

“The idea of being able to categorize mental illness like you’re categorizing insects, for example, is something that is very complicated and probably is not valid in the context of psychiatric disorders and psychological suffering,” he explains.

“These labels are very reductive in terms of defining the psychology of someone, and they tend to ignore individual differences.” (…)

It can feel special, understandably, to adopt a label around which to frame one’s identity, if not outright cool. And the internet rewards it:

“Whereas a therapist might question the usefulness of identifying oneself as permanently aligned with whatever struggle one is experiencing, engagement-driven platforms help frame conditions as points of identity, badges of honor,” explains Isabel Munson in a piece on Real Life.

People in our own lives may reward it, too: As writer and TikToker Rayne Fisher-Quann pointed out, friends and family tend to be much more forgiving and understanding when you can excuse behavior using a label, as opposed to trying to articulate the complexities of the human mind at any particular moment.

Treating mental illness like subculture, though, can have unintended consequences.

Just a few days ago, I was served a TikTok ad for a direct-to-consumer startup centered on delivering cutely branded ADHD medicine to your door.

Was this an ad targeted to me based on what TikTok assumes? Or was this sent out to the general public, implying that there are enough people on TikTok who have or think they have ADHD to make the ad a worthwhile investment?

In a story on internet pathologization for i-D, James Greig writes that easily categorizable people are also easy to market to.

“While there is genuine support out there and a lot of good intentions, it’s worth bearing in mind that some of the people involved in pushing these diagnoses have a vested interest in doing so,” he writes.

(Consider the zillions of products that claim to quell anxiety, a market that’s exploded over the past decade.)

Perhaps the solution to this sort of categorization and grouping is to redefine the terms.

“To me, we should start seeing identities more as things you do rather than descriptors of who you are,” says Moskowitz.”

[coughloop]

vent/rant post about fash/cryptofash/reactionaries on tumblr under the cut dont reblog

im really frustrated with how things have gone down in the last week and im gonna ramble a lot, also im gonna use fash/cryptofash/reactionary and maybe some other terms pretty interchangeably cause they all feel like umbrella terms for the type of people im talking about.

I know we're all getting tired of blocking the same cryptofash accounts that keep remaking over and over again, as well as new ones that find their ways into the periphery of popular posters and have suddenly shoot into popularity until they post something super racist. And a lot of the time it feels so useless and futile, like half the time they have a backup ready to go and the other half just remake in under 24 hours. and like, what does it even do? its not fighting any real world issues, i have no idea what the social effect of having super racist people 3 degrees of separation from everyone on the site actually means, but I know I really fucking dont like it, I know it makes me super uncomfortable to see a mutuals reblog from someone who constantly reblogs and interacts with people that fantasize about beating up trans people on the street.

and now that people like me and some others are getting more and more savvy about noticing cryptofash blogs, it becomes harder and harder to not see how many people i follow that keep me 3 degrees of separation from them.

take ukrainianbimbo for example. they constantly reblog from terfs, transphobes, racists, misogynists and anti-Semites AS WELL as trans people, Jewish people, and people of colour. i blocked them from following me months ago after spending 30 seconds on their blog and recognizing multiple well known tumblr reactionaries. when they noticed i had blocked them and made a couple posts about how easy it is to not follow and reblog from fascists they went on a posting spree whining about how they dont check who they reblog from and why should it be their responsibility. wah wah wah, shut up. anyway, last week they got properly called out for this behaviour and badgrapple came to their defense, going on the dumbest tirade ive ever seen about how theyre sick of fake callouts for people who havent done anything wrong (tell that to your friend ukrainianbimbo who's reaction to being labelled an anti-Semite and a fascist was to triple down on telling a trans jewish woman that she was ugly and should kill herself (both of these things are very untrue shout out Agent, you dont deserve that at all)) and now both of them are going out of their way to interact with more bigots seemingly as a protest for being repressed over hanging with those types in the first place. Fuck off.

All of this then led into people i respect making random vagueposts like "feel like fash is a word being thrown around way too liberally on tumblr these days" and like, yeah, in a way i guess it is, but also people are acting like fascists! crypto fascists specifically because theyre never completely open about their beliefs. fash is shorter and less confusing however (thanks cryptocurrency for that) so thats what people genuinely call them. Why is that a bad thing? If you're posting things that people look at and say "woah dude, you sound like a fascist", maybe thats on you for doing things that other fascists on this site do, not on them for using the "wrong word" for it.

on top of all this though, people HAVE started making up unchecked callouts about people, like Declan smokeweedinbong, who was unfairly called a fascist by someone because declan responded to a comment on his post he didnt background check, thats totally unfair to declan but fuck the reaction from a lot of my mutuals was REALLY WEIRD. people didnt start posting in defense of declan, who again, did nothing wrong but not pay as much attention to a random person as he could have (ive done that too i get it!), but instead people started beating the "cancel culture has gone to far" drum, fucking again. why is that your response?? defend your friends, please! but why is it people who dont want to be exposed to racists and transphobes and anti-Semites ultimately receiving the pushback? its so dumb!

so now half the time i see someone getting an anon about reblogging from a fash, they respond positively but why do they always get follow up anons like "thats dumb who cares, i never look at who i reblog from" like maybe you fucking should?? shut up! people are so fucking stupid on anon it blows me away soemtimes.

i really have no idea where im going with all this, i just really needed to get this frustration of my chest. thanks for reading my run on sentences if you did, and sorry for being somewhat incoherent, i just am so fucking tired of all this, and it doesnt even mean anything. whatever

[androgynousblackbox]

It's so weird because I've only been following this discourse from a distance but like... the pro-ship stuff is obviously right? I don't just mean in terms of the context of fandom, but in terms of larger issues around American perspectives on fiction and sex-negativity and performative activism for personal catharsis rather than prioritizing the people you claim to protect... this discourse is actually very emblematic of problems both in certain social justice circles and larger American culture in general.

You could probably make a good essay, video or otherwise, about how the anti phenomenon is rooted in other large-scale social issues and the spread of radical feminism and how reactionary ideologies that reinforce dominant power structures will disguise themselves using the language and beliefs of progressivism but... that'd be too complicated for Sarah Z I guess? Still, I never liked "well both sides" BS because I'm not even asking her to take a side, I'm asking her to make her video with at least some level of objectivity and facts. Antis believe this. Pro-ship believes this. This is the history. Here's some discourse around what they labels mean. Not over-representing or under-representing the behaviour of either side. Like just skim a few of the discourse blogs on either side and make a list of the points each side is makings? It wouldn't be that hard if she wanted to take it seriously.

Then again, I don't like fandom drama youtubers in general. There's to much of a... haha fandom weirdos vibe in so many of them. Even when making videos on the batshit insane stuff fandom has come up with which is actually pretty funny in an absurd sort of way, I don't know it feels less like they're laughing with us than at us? Me and my buddies on a discord gossiping about the Johnlock conspiracy and giggling about how crazy it was while neck deep in fandom ourselves and loving it and all its weirdness, or just a random Tumblr post poking fun at some absurd drama, just hits different than someone making a video about those crazy shippers with so little sympathy or context. I feel among friends when I talk fandom with other fandom people, and I feel self-conscious and ashamed when watching most of those videos. The only ones that didn't make me feel bad was Lindsay Ellis' omegaverse court case videos, and Folding Ideas' Fifty Shades of Grey videos.

Maybe it's the veneer of professionalism and insistence on behaving like an outsider or above all the fandom weirdness? So it comes across as less affectionate ribbing or targeting a specific group that actually did wrong than mockery of fandom as a whole. Which I wouldn't even be against if these video essays were more like actual essays with thesis and a point than just, someone recounting some fandom drama while sort of snickering about it. Like discuss the context of these events, the hows and whys and how it connects to larger culture and stuff. It's not like we're not already having these conversations, and fandom drama is often reflective of other larger issues. Fandom exists within the context of shit like sex-negativity and racism and ethnocentrism and sexism and we have the right to treat it as a serious matter.

Remember when cyberbullying was considered a Big Deal though? Those were the days, huh. Now we just get told to stop overreacting to targeted harassment and go touch grass.

Agree completely. Couldn't have said it better.

[aces-to-apples]

Mandalorian Philosophies

I’m not really a huge meta person, mostly because I can never quite connect and lay out my thought processes in a clear and relatively concise manner, but something finally hit me today. I don’t have anything new or interesting to say about the history of Mandalore and its factions, particularly the New Mandalorians, that hasn’t been said by plenty of others, namely Dr. Izzy O. Coffee (@izzyovercoffee) and @inqorporeal.

But I’ve opened up a new post multiple times over the past couple years to try to lay out my thoughts on the subject, with little effect, so I’ve had ample time to chew it over. And, as I said, I had something of a revelation.

Collectivism vs. Individualism

Not really groundbreaking, I’ll admit, but until now I’ve always tried to lay out my problems with the New Mandalorian regime by itself. Today, I was making pasta and making fun of the Death Watch essentially being a cult in my head, when I did something that I haven’t done or personally seen done before and directly compared the Death Watch, True Mandalorians, and New Mandalorians side by side.

Specifically in that order.

Because until literally an hour ago, if I thought about them in relation to each other, it always looked something like this:

Three very different variants of the central idea of being Mandalorian.

Whereas, an hour ago, I realized that I think it’s more something like this:

On the left: individualism. On the right: collectivism. In the center: the True Mandalorians balancing the community with the individual. (The decision of who’s on left and right was arbitrary, I hasten to add after typing that out. Anyway.)

Collectivism

My overarching issue with the New Mandalorians has always been that’s it is a totalitarian regime that committed genocide ignores consent of the individual in favor of order for the collective. Violence caused disorder and so it was banned wholesale, ignoring that the original culture of Mandalore and its people is a warrior culture. Collectivism is taken so far that consent of the individual is disregarded and ignored. Those who didn’t agree with the new way were banished from the collective and any sense of individuality and dissent suppressed.

Individualism

Death Watch, as a reactionary group, takes the opposite direction: the good of the community is thrown out in favor of the desires of the individual. Anyone who stands in the way of their specific way of life, i.e. anyone who isn’t also Death Watch, is labeled an enemy and therefore an acceptable casualty on their path to restore what they see as their rightful original heritage. Which is also incorrect and, like I said, reactionary, and I hate Pre Viszla so much I’m glad Maul killed him he’s such a dick and Death Watch is a freaking cult I mean it’s literally called Death Watch ARGH! Individualism is taken so far that the good of the community is completely disregarded. Those who don’t agree to join the cult are considered traitors to the cause, taken out back, and summarily shot.

Some Semblance of Balance, Goddamn

The True Mandalorians, by contrast to both of these factions, are (hilariously enough) the least extremist of these three philosophies. While they don’t seem terribly impressed with non-Mandalorians (see @kaasknot’s hilarious breakdown on the two demonyms of Mando’a and how Mandos apparently see outsiders as two groups: “children of [place/people]” and “untrustworthy bastards of [place/people]” which I will never not find funny), they also manage to coexist reasonably well with the rest of the galaxy except for the people who keep trying to erase their heritage (New Mandalorians), the people who keep trying to warp it into something it’s not (Death Watch), and the people who want to kill them for being the biggest and most dangerous badasses in the galaxy I guess (Sith and also kind of Jedi). Family, clan, and community overall are central to their beliefs but they also foster a fierce sense of honor, independence, and self-reliance within individuals. They accept and adopt outsiders into their collective at the drop of a hat, have very little rigidity wrt their ways of life and personal codes, and are reasonably adaptive when faced with adversity. The good of the community and the consent of the individual are both valued and reasonably well-respected.

I don’t really have a conclusion to this (when do I ever?), and I’m not saying that the True Mandalorians were perfect because man that is a fraught thing to say about anything, particularly anything in Star Wars which is entirely made up of streaks of grey, but I figured I may as well share my thoughts now that they apparently have decided to stand still long enough for me to take a snapshot of them. Bah-dah. Anyway, fuck the Death Watch and the New Mandalorians both, they’re both on some extremist bullshit, Apples out.

[midnightactual]

What was Yoruichi's first impression of the Gotei 13 and the Onmitsukido? When did this perspective start to change (if it ever did)?

There’s no one, singular answer to this question. As the heir apparent (“Princess”) of the Shihōin, Yoruichi’s experience with both institutions was limited and largely academic until she made her decision to enter the Onmitsukidō. Her very first impressions were largely ambivalent: they didn’t matter all that much to her or her life and she didn’t much think of them.

As she grew up, she became somewhat starry-eyed at the possible opportunities offered by a career the Onmitsukidō (and to a lesser extent, interaction with the Gotei 13) as compared to life among the Great Noble Clans. They both gradually came to represent freedom in her mind, but that optimism quickly soured when confronted with the reality on the ground. Although it was her choice to work her way up within the organization, it quickly became apparent that it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, staid and rife with inefficiency as it was. Worse still, it didn’t much challenge someone of her caliber, providing only mixed (and often negative) forms of growth to perspective and emotional character. Intellectually and physically, it was a stuck up, repetitive bore, and she found herself shirking its responsibilities just as much as she had her noble ones.

With her promotion to Gundanchō, her perspective began to shift by necessity: she decided to remake the Punishment Force, at least, in her own image. Clearly nobody else—to include her own father, the Sōshireikan—was going to clean things up, so it fell to her. Of course, her own vastly higher performance ceiling and thoughts on efficiency made this grueling, especially as she knew the ins and outs of work in the trenches. Her program could fairly be described as ruthless and unaccommodating. In this time, her view of it could be read as burdensome.

By the time she became Clan Head and Sōshireikan herself due to the political machinations of her father, her uncompromising pursuit of efficiency and perfection had begun to falter internally. Her heart was no longer quite in it as she began to doubt the validity of the mission—she increasingly felt the ends no longer entirely justified the means. While she kept up appearances, her drilling of the other Forces was ultimately less rigorous. It was simply obligatory.

Later, when she was offered the position of 2nd Division Taichō by Yamamoto, she had already begun to quietly reverse course, deliberately detuning the day-to-day efficacy of her forces. Her goals in mixing the Onmitsukidō and 2nd Division together so thoroughly were two-fold: first, to further centralize her own primacy in the organization by making the chain of command more serial than parallel; and second, to make it less efficient by splitting resources, blurring mission focus, and engaging with the Gotei 13. She also started to subtly mold her troops along her new lines of thinking, and began to accumulate power under herself, secretly coming to possess the only division at that time with three Bankai wielders (to include herself, Kisuke, and Soifon; Soifon only told Kisuke, but he of course blabbed to Yoruichi). Her end goal in doing all this was nebulous, even to her, as she was simply doing what seemed natural and appropriate. Spreading this sort of detuning to the 12th Division (infamous because of Hikifune Kirio’s various experiments) with Kisuke’s promotion likewise seemed only natural, as did facilitating closer ties with the Kidō Corps under Tessai. She wasn’t planning a coup, but she felt a personal and moral obligation to unwind the set of military organizations as a whole. (An agenda which, it seemed to her, she was not alone in, considering the nature of the leadership of the 5th, 8th, and 13th Divisions and how that was expressed in those units too.)

As for the Gotei 13, from the very beginning she was unimpressed. It was clear to her that its members were successful at nothing in particular. They were wholly unimpressive as soldiers, lacking almost any ability to coordinate as even small units, let alone massed formations, and forget about working across chains of command. Yet they were completely inferior as duelists too. They were too selfish, macho, and romantic to serve as the former, and too undisciplined, lacking in initiative, and feckless to serve as the latter. Worse still, the bulk of the morals of the most righteous ones—defeating evil, dispensing justice, and so on—were self-evidently a crock of shit. She was certain that the Gotei 13 was an inertial, reactionary, passive force: more like a stone than anything, it existed largely to do nothing of consequence, and in doing nothing, maintain the status quo.

Ironically, as she grew disenchanted with Soul Society’s operations, she came to conclude that doing nothing was actually a way forward. In this sense, the Gotei 13′s ineptitude at anything except doing nothing actually became inspirational: the smart thing wasn’t to overthrow the system, it was to take it to its logical conclusion wherein it did so little that it essentially dissolved itself and fell apart, and some change was required, which she simply had to be prepared for someday. (Of course, outside factors prevented this from occurring in the way she’d foreseen.)

In this sense, despite largely eschewing the label of Shinigami, she still carries a component of the Gotei 13 within her: a studied capacity to do nothing. Likewise, she still carries some essence of the Onmitsukidō, as summarized by Aizen to Soifon: “Don’t seek aesthetics in battle. Don’t seek virtue in death. Don’t think your life belongs only to yourself. If you really want to protect something, attack the enemy from behind.” Within her still lurk deliberate passivity and absolute ruthlessness, although her journey in life since has moderated them.

The pursuit of wisdom, which is a major component of her personal growth, is in her eyes about learning how to act, when, and where. Whether it be doing nothing or direct action, compassion or no mercy, and everything in between and besides, only long experience and varied circumstances can really guide and hone one’s sense of core values. In this regard, although her experiences the Onmitsukidō and Gotei 13 were a mixed bag, they were nonetheless a vital part of her tempering and development.

[revasserium]

Hey! Can i please ask for 5 + Oikawa? Thanks!

hq!!reqs temporarily: closed ; all other reqs: open

send me a number a character and i’ll write you a drabble ;

5. love as one of the dead languages oikawa ; 3,718 words, assassin!au 

a/n: this will… maybe. have a part 2… maybe. 

for him, love was never a question, and death almost always the answer. it was never a question of why, only how and where and when. but then again, he’d never questioned the who either, assassination as a trade, or the stock of lives taken like tally-marks against his skin – sometimes, when he closes his eyes, he thinks he can hear them screaming. 

the first time he meets you, it’s at the grocery store. you bump into him, one airpod hanging from your ear, a loaded shopping basket swinging from your arms. you turn with wide eyes and a cherry-stem mouth to apologize for not paying more attention. 

he tells you it’s okay, smiles, and glances at the things in your basket. 

“big party this weekend?” 

you shake your head, grinning up at him, “nope! i just really like cooking. so i cook a ton of food and bring it to all my neighbors. there’s an old lady that lives two doors down from me who loves it! and she has the cutest cat – his name is mr. meowmers.” 

oikawa blinks, your voice chiming through him like church bells, the sound of it something he doesn’t think he’ll forget in a hurry. there’s a light in your eyes that makes him wonder if you’ve ever tasted the pain of heartbreak, another part of him that hopes (wishes, like a child on a shooting start) that you won’t ever have to. 

“ah…” is all he musters before you’re off again. 

“he’s a really cute cat, but i think i’m a little allergic. i always get the sniffles when i visit them. or maybe it’s just cause the old lady hasn’t dusted in like… 87 years.” 

oikawa laughs, and the realization shocks even himself. when was the last time he’d laughed like that – a completely unweaponized thing, reactionary and natural. he tries to think back and finds that he can’t remember. 

“oh shit! sorry, i’ve gotta go – the weather forecast said it was gonna rain and i left the goats out on the window. bye! and sorry again for bumping into you!” 

he doesn’t have the chance to ask you your name; he spends the remainder of his shopping trip wondering why he’d ever want such a thing. it’s not like him to be so… sentimental. 

two days later, he moves into a new safehouse. and it’s in a nice enough building, if a little dated (built in the 80′s, or something like that), doorman and mailroom – he thinks he’ll be sad to leave. it isn’t till he hears someone knocking on his door that he frowns, pressing the large sniper rifle he’d been assembling back into its case and kicking the entire thing under the couch before peering cautiously into the peephole. 

his stomach drops out of his body at the sight of your face. 

your cheeks a little pink, your bottom lip caught in your teeth. 

you reach out to knock again, but oikawa pulls the door open with a colgate smile. 

“hi! i’m sorry to bother – oh! it’s you!” 

you blink up at him as he leans casually against the doorframe, wondering what on earth you’re doing here. 

“ah – yes, it’s me,” he says with a small flourish of hands, his heart thumping against his ribcage. the world swaying beneath him because why the hell are you here? and more importantly, why does he care so damn much? 

“uhm – i was wondering if i could borrow some sugar? it’s just – i was baking and i was halfway through mixing everything before i realized that i forgot to buy sugar that one time at the store and – well, the old lady, she likes stuff really, really sweet, even though her doctor’s been telling her that she needs to keep the sugar intake down. and –” you teeter on the balls of your feet, rocking forwards and backwards as you babble on and oikawa can’t help feeling just a bit endeared. 

“do you live here?” he asks, catching you in between breaths. 

you nod, your smile widening tenfold as you point to the door diagonally across from his. his heart sinks into the place where his stomach used to be. 

“yep! just over there.” 

oikawa forces another smile and jerks his head towards his living room, “i can get you some sugar if you give me a sec. how much do you need?” 

you purse your lips, your eyes glittering with what he imagines is an entire galaxy of just-born stars, “just a cup! oh – or maybe two – to be on the safe side. in case i need them for the cupcakes. yeah, definitely two cups.” 

oikawa nods before retreating back into the apartment. he scoops out two cups of sugar from his untouched sugar box into a large bowl and returns to the door, handing it over with a smile. 

you bow your head, your hair fluttering around your shoulders – its only then that he notices how long it is, falling around your face like a waterfall, sleek and smooth and – 

he wonders if it’s soft. girls’ hair usually is. he wonders if it’ll smell nice too. 

he resists the urge to lean foward and check. 

“thank you! i’ll bring you some when they’re finished – and uhm – well,” you stand back up, your cheeks three shades darker than they were before, “thanks, again,” you totter along the edge of your words, and he leans in, as if drawn forward by some invisible force – perhaps gravity, perhaps something much less physical. but he stops himself. 

this is not the time, nor the place. 

“you’re welcome! and, thanks in advance! i’m sure the cake will be delicious!” 

he watches you scurry a back to your door, bowing once more before you turn into your own apartment, the sliver of it he catches when you open your door is bright and a veritable explosion of pastel colors. 

by the time you disappear back into your own apartment, oikawa is already hitting speed dial on his phone. 

“tell me you didn’t fuck this mission up already.” 

oikawa scowls at the sound of iwaizumi’s voice. 

“i’m not always a fuck-up, have a little faith.” 

iwaizumi lets out a bark of laughter, “right, like that time you accidentally left your gloves on the rooftop of the shinjuku hit? or that time –” 

“okay, okay – shut up! i get it, so i’m a little… scattered, but i always get the job done, don’t i?” 

iwaizumi snorts across the lines, “yeah. by some godforsaken miracle.” 

oikawa smirks, “i’m pretty sure being forsaken by god is a prerequisite for assassination as a career path. isn’t that like… on the pamphlet they give you at job fairs?” 

“alright, what do you want?” 

oikawa slumps down on his sofa, “the girl living diagonally across the hall from me. in unit 1012 – whatever info we’ve got on her.” 

silence. and then. 

“do i even wanna ask?” 

oikawa grins, glancing down at the bit of sugar caught on his shirt, “depends. do you like cupcakes?” 

two days later, he returns from a particularly grisly assignment, his joints aching from a completely unwarranted bar fight, the front of his shirt completely soaked in blood and beer. he doesn’t even want to think about how he might smell. 

“rough day at work?” 

every muscle in his body tenses at the sound of your voice. his hand rests on his door and he somehow manages not to break the handle off the hinges. 

he turns towards you, pressing his lips into a rice paper smile. 

“something like that. some of the coworkers wanted to get some drinks after and uh – things got a little messy.” 

you laugh, your shoulders shaking, your eyes alight with mirth. he watches you with a muted fascination. he’s never known anyone to laugh as freely as you do. 

“a little, you look like you murdered a guy!” 

he laughs, “oh, homicide via tequila shots is a pretty frequent occurrence in my life, so, you’re not entirely wrong.” 

you smile, ducking into your apartment only to return a moment later with a platter of freshly baked cookies. 

“here, i made these today – macadamia nuts, you said you like them, right?” 

oikawa nods, cautiously reaching out to take a few, hoping that you won’t notice the blood caked beneath his fingernails. 

when he finally pushes through the door of his own temporary abode, he finds iwaizumi sprawled across the couch, his feet propped up on the coffee table. 

his eyebrows are millimeters from disappearing into his hairline. 

“homicide via tequila shots – really?” 

oikawa scoffs through a mouthful of cookie, pulling his sullied shirt over his head and tossing it into the basket by his door, lovingly labeled burn pile. 

iwaizumi eyes him with a curious expression. 

“i got the file, on the chick in 1012.” he waves a thin folio in the air before tossing it down onto the table by his feet. oikawa swallows, licks the crumbs from his lips before picking up the file. 

he nods, skimming over your name, birth date, birth place, social security, nationality. 

“studying criminal psychology, interesting.” 

iwaizumi cackles, “that girl? criminal psych? please say sike.” 

oikawa frowns, “you never know, she could have been onto us since day one.” 

iwaizumi rolls his eyes, “us – you mean you? letting her borrow sugar.” 

oikawa scoffs, “it’s just sugar, and it’s not like i’ll ever use it for anything.” 

“right, cause you can’t cook worth a shit.” 

“i’ll filet your ass if you keep on going off –” 

“you know that this can’t be a thing, right?” iwaizumi’s voice dips into a lower register, his eyes going dark as he leans forward to fix oikawa with a look. 

oikawa narrows his eyes, “of course i know it can’t be a thing – i let her borrow sugar. it’s not like a fucking proposal for marriage –” 

iwaizumi shrugs, “with you, i’m never sure.” 

oikawa pouts, raising his hand to toss your file back at iwaizumi. but he stops himself with a sigh. he opens his mouth to say something, but a series of knocks at the door tells him that you’re on the other side of it. probably with another tray of some baked good you’d spent the whole day making. 

he takes a breath and opens the door. 

“hey! i made challa bread – cause the couple in 1017 are jewish and – oh, were you about to take a shower? sorry –” 

oikawa glances down at his bare chest and flashes you a sheepish grin. 

“i was about to hop in the shower, but damn, these look really good. did you have to braid it yourself and everything?” 

you nod, the excitement painted so plainly across your face he feels his heart stutter. 

fuck. 

“here! uhm – this one’s for you. and uh – if your friend wants some, he can have some too! i’ll let you get back to your – uhm –” you glance at his chest again before flushing the most darling shade of pink, “showering,” you finish, bowing as he reaches out to pick up the large loaf of challah bread. he waves his free hand as you scramble back to your own apartment, glancing over your shoulder once more before ducking behind the door. 

oikawa closes his own door with a sigh. 

he meets iwaizumi’s gaze with a flatline one of his own. 

iwaizumi looks from the loaf of bread in oikawa’s hands back up to his face. 

“not a marriage proposal, huh?” he scoffs, “damn, you’re fucked.” 

oikawa stares down at the freshly baked bread in his hands before heaving a sigh. 

“get out of my house – i still need to shower.” 

iwaizumi gives him one last once-over before pushing to his feet. he brushes by oikawa with a grimace, pausing by the door even as oikawa sets the challah on the kitchen counter. 

“y’know, it’s the first time i’ve heard you call anywhere a house.” 

oikawa stiffens. “it’s called a safehouse, isn’t it?” 

iwaizumi lets out a mirthless laugh, “yeah, but the way i see it now – it’s the farthest thing from safe for you.” 

and then he’s gone, before oikawa has the time to snap back, or perhaps throw something at the back of his head. oikawa glares at the place where iwaizumi had sat on his couch and vows to wash the pillow covers the next day. he glances back at the challah bread, and then to the file still on his coffee table. 

maybe, just maybe, he should find a new safehouse. he takes a cold shower and decides to invite you to dinner next week instead. 

“i thought you said you’d made lasagna before!” you laugh, bumping oikawa out of the way with your hip, bending over to inspect the damage he’d managed to do in the four minutes you were in the living room picking a movie to watch. 

“i have! in cooking mama – and garfield makes it look pretty easy,” he says, pouting as he leans over you, trying to watch what you were doing with the lasagna but he can’t concentrate for the smell of your shampoo. green apple and jasmine flowers. coffee beans and petrichor. 

you almost smack into his nose as you lean back up, closing the oven door with a snap. 

“it’ll be ready in about four more minutes. and is john wick okay with you?” you glance over your shoulder at him. he licks his lips before flashing you a sheepish smile. 

“maybe something that’s not about killing people?” 

you smile, “what, not good with blood?” 

oikawa shrugs, “something like that. what about marley and me?” 

you gasp, “so you’re okay with a dog dying, but not with people?” 

he yelps, shaking his head, “i mean, no! it’s just – you had a lab when you were younger, right? so i thought maybe –” 

you quirk your head, “how’d you know i had a lab?” 

oikawa blinks. 

well shit. 

the timer goes off and you jump, turning back to the oven. the moment passes like any other moment, and with you tittering about how hot the lasagna pan is, oikawa tries to remember that breathing shouldn’t be so difficult – but it is. he forces himself to breathe in, and then out, and then in again. 

you end up watching something on the disney channel, but oikawa’s too distracted by the way your leg is pressed up against his for the entire duration of the movie to pay attention. 

the lasagna is good (no thanks to him), and when the movie ends, you turn to smile at him, a bit of sauce on your upper lip. he reaches out to wipe it away and time slows around him, the way it usually does right before he pulls the trigger, every millisecond coalescing around him in stark, mind-numbing clarity. 

you lean forward at the same time he does. 

the second before he kisses you feels like an entire eternity – one that he can stretch and bend to his will as he pleases. something he can mold between the palms of his hands – these hands that have only ever known death now cupped around your cheeks like they’re learning how to hold life for the very first time. 

he kisses you with trembling lips and when you pull back, you flash him a tiny little frown. 

“why’re you shaking? i’m not going anywhere.” 

oikawa lets out a breathy laugh before leaning in to kiss you again, harder this time. his lips more sure, though his mind is the furthest thing from sure – he can’t shake the tightness curling in his chest, wrapping his heart in a thick gauze of worry – when he pulls away again, breathless and lightheaded, he wonders if this is what fear feels like. 

real fear. like the phobia of heights, or falling. 

or rather, falling in love. 

shit. fuck. goddammit. 

the next time he meets iwaizumi, the latter is much too pleased with oikawa’s clear distress. 

“not gonna say i told you so,” he says, smirking as he tosses back a glass of scotch. 

oikawa glares, nursing his own glass between his fingers, “well you just said it, so fuck you.” 

iwaizumi raps his knuckles on the bar for a refill. it appears a moment later, and he promptly downs this one as well. 

“well, you know my advice. nip it in the bud – kill it before it –” 

“she’s got a name –” 

“fuck oikawa, i was talking about the relationship, not actually killing her.” 

oikawa tosses back his own drink, grimacing as it hits the back of his throat. 

“could’a fooled me.” 

iwaizumi frowns before flagging down the bartender and tapping at oikawa’s glass. 

“we’ll take the rest of the bottle.” 

the bartender regards him with a dubious look before iwaizumi tosses down his black card and the bartender bows, scurrying away to fetch the drink. 

“he’ll probably upcharge you for that,” oikawa says, not looking up from his empty glass. 

iwaizumi shrugs, “who cares. company card.” 

oikawa allows himself a helpless sort of grin. 

“maybe i’ll just tell her,” he says, swaying in his seat as the bartender returns with the bottle of tequila and iwaizumi’s card. 

iwaizumi thanks the man before turning back to oikawa. 

“what, that you kill people for a living? please don’t – i’ll end up having to take you out, and we both know you’re not gonna enjoy that.” 

oikawa laughs, “you wouldn’t kill me.” 

iwaizumi heaves a long sigh, “wouldn’t i?” 

oikawa shakes his head, and a moment later, iwaizumi laughs. 

“you’re right. i probably wouldn’t. which is why they’d assign someone else to you. someone without any emotional connection – and then you’ll be just another target. just another mark.” 

oikawa nods, “just another mark,” he repeats, even as iwaizumi refills his glass. 

“so,” iwaizumi says, slipping off the barstool, clapping oikawa on the shoulder, “like i said, kill it before it gets worse. and i mean –” he shrugs, “if you gotta kill her too. well, that’s just how it be sometimes, right?” 

oikawa grunts, downing his drink before pouring himself another. 

that night, he gets home way too late, only to find you curled up on his couch, his jacket tossed over your shoulders. 

he smiles as he crouches down next to you, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear, letting his fingers linger against your skin. he watches the way you sleep, peaceful, without a single sign of bad dreams. what must it be like, to be so innocent and unhaunted by the cruelties of the world? to fall asleep without the fear of death looming over your next waking moments. 

he leans in, his lips moments from yours when you awaken again, smiling as he kisses you. tender and sweet. 

“rough day at work?” you ask, blinking sleepily up at him. 

“yeah,” he says, smiling as you push yourself up onto your elbows, barely stifling a yawn, “sorry i’m so late. there was a big project that needed finishing.” 

you nod, burying your head in the crook of his neck as he scoops you up into his arms. he carries you to the bedroom and lays you down in bed, kicking off his pants and shucking his shirt before crawling into bed next to you, curling up around you with a long breath. 

you relax into him, your heartbeat steady beneath his palm as he holds you close.

after a moment, you giggle, twisting around in his arms till you’re face to face, your hands pressed against his chest. you lean up to kiss him, nipping playfully at his lower lip as you do. 

“quit being such a scardy cat, like i said, i’m not going anywhere.” 

he smiles and crushes you against him, burrowing into the junction of your neck, the place where you smell the most like you. he takes a deep breath, and then another. they both come out shakey, and you card your fingers through his hair with a sigh. 

“do you wanna talk about it?” 

oikawa shakes his head. 

“okay then, we don’t have to talk about it – but here’s what i know – i know that you’re a good person. and that you like cats more than dogs, but you’re also super loyal, like a dog. you suck at cooking, but you’re not terrible at baking, and you like classical music with violins in it. i know that you’ve got your heart in the right place, and to me, that’s all that matters.” 

you hold his face between your palms like it’s something precious. 

he hiccups and wonders if it’s at all healthy to be feeling like this – to be so full of some unnamed emotion, to be boiling with it to the point where he’s sure he’ll burst. he kisses you, hard, and hopes that somehow, someway – this will all work out. 

though he has no idea how. 

he pulls back with a watery laugh. 

“you’re the best.” 

you smile and lean in to nuzzle your nose against his. 

when you pull back, he settles into the pillow, hooking one of his legs over yours with a contented grin. 

you trace the line of his nose with your forefinger, bringing it down to his lips, where he presses in to give you another kiss. 

“tooru?” 

“hm?” he hums, allowing the tiredness to seep from his body and into the sheets. he thinks that whatever it takes – whatever that might be – to make all of this, all of this with you, work out – he’ll worry about it tomorrow. 

you lick your lips. 

“can i ask you something?” 

he smiles, a little sleepy, a little (or maybe a lot) in love, “sure, shoot.” 

you take a breath, hesitate for a moment before – 

“why do you always smell like gunpowder?” 

—

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[words-writ-in-starlight]

I never stop being suprised at how well adjusted Jin Ling is, given his situation- being orphan and heir to one, potentially two great sects aside, he is incredibly normal given ones who raised him were Jiang '' I express concern by threatening to break your legs and its step up from how I was raised'' and Jin '' I will put up with all of your tantrums because i have 12342 different ways to orchestrate your death on backburner'' Guangyao. Like, how is this kid relatively normal given his 1/2

parental figures were walking mess of decades long traumas who trained him to be as deadly at night hunting as possible and schemer who sweetly smiled while being insulted for everything aand planning numerous atrocities who kept spoiling him with 400 nets and best pet in world? I blame it on Qin Su,.( 2/2)

HERE’S MY THING, Jin Ling is a wreck as a person.  I can think of several “well-adjusted” kids, some of them more shocking than others, but quite frankly Jin Ling is five traumas in a Jin crest, with a sword for a comfort item and a brand new expectation that he get his act together to run a sect.  I love him so much, but the vast majority of his influences have taught him to interact with the world on two axes labeled “Anger” and “Orders,” both of which are normally directed at him.  His only two responses to a crisis are to lash out at the person in charge or to break down into these agonized tears that he feels horrendously ashamed of.  Both of those reactionary schema can be traced pretty directly to the way Jin Guangyao and Jiang Cheng have raised this kid.

Anger: this is Jiang Cheng’s Brand.  It just is.  In fact, I’d put money that Jiang Cheng had a lot of the raising of Jin Ling, because they both handle emotion in exactly the same way--they don’t.  When Jin Ling doesn’t know what’s going on, or feels out of control, or isn’t entirely sure how to process his emotions, he picks a target and gets mean fast, because his uncle is an adult that he trusts to have his act together and that’s how his uncle behaves.  Unfortunately for both of them, it’s actually not that productive to just.  Yell at people and lash out.  It leads to things like brothers who don’t tell you about golden core transfers and potentially powerful allies who don’t trust you.

@ Jiang Cheng, bud, I understand that you have capital-T Trauma and that you’ve withstood years of people applauding you for the murder of the brother who you loved and felt massively betrayed by and kind of didn’t mean to kill but also kind of intended to kill but also kind of chickened out on killing and blamed for everything bad in your life, because that’s what your parents taught you to do.  I understand that.  Please give your nephew one (1) hug.  He would do anything for a hug from you.  I hope the whole Nie Mingjue debacle was informative to you both on this front.

Incidentally!  Jin Ling is especially unstable and prone to rash anger when this phenomenon intersects with feeling that he’s being manipulated or talked down to.  Hm.  Wonder where that could have come from.  Which brings me to...

Tears: Jin Guangyao hasn’t killed Jin Ling yet by the time of the main plot, which means two things.  First, he is sincerely emotionally attached to the kid.  On the upside, Jin Ling got a dog out of the deal.  On the downside, Jin Ling has probably been on the receiving end of a lot of Jin Guangyao’s “protective” instincts, which I think Qin Su can confirm are not necessarily the most fun instincts in the world.  They’re heavily predicated on Jin Guangyao being in control of things, which means that he relies incredibly heavily on emotional manipulation and enforcing the hierarchy he’s working within.  Examples include: Nie Mingjue, Qin Su, Jin Zixun.  Because Jin Guangyao is sect leader for most of Jin Ling’s life, that means that no matter how hard he pushes, his uncle will always have the strength of the hierarchy to back up his manipulation, which means that all the anger in the world is useless, which means that Jin Ling grew up desperately lacking in control.  And Jin Guangyao is doing it for his own good, so Jin Ling can’t be angry, of course, how could he be angry with his uncle for protecting him?  

Second, Jin Guangyao was...never planning to let Jin Ling inherit properly, right?  We’re all on the same page here?  He was anticipating, A, becoming immortal (the whole goal of cultivation) or, B, stepping down gracefully and puppeteering Jin Ling from behind the scenes, or very possibly C, both.  That means that Jin Ling needs to be manipulable, which--listen, you can say a lot of things about Jiang Cheng, but manipulable isn’t really one of them.  That suggests to me that Jin Guangyao probably went with a very basic method of trying to make Jin Ling into the heir he needed: guilt trip, reserve compliments unless certain conditions are met, make gifts and compliments backhanded when possible, reward “weak” behavior while also reprimanding it.  Basically?  If Jin Ling was being reprimanded by Jin Guangyao and started crying, he probably got called out for being weak but the reprimand stopped and any punishment was less intense than it might have been otherwise.  Hey presto, you have a kid who can’t really handle confrontation but doesn’t know how else to deal with a problem, and who understands that crying will get him out of trouble but also associates it with a complete lack of control over the situation.

Not really ideal for a sect leader, right?

Now, this is where it took kind of a turn for Jin Guangyao, because that plan would have been immaculate if not for the fact that Jiang Cheng is as direct a dealer as anyone in the cultivation world.  Yes, he’s angry all the time, can’t handle his own emotions (except by rage and tears! JGY and Madam Yu should get tea and chat about parenting), and hasn’t decided if he’s guilt-stricken or gleeful over the death of his brother.  But.  Jin Ling knows exactly what to expect from him at all times.  Pretty much the only time we see him actually confused is when Jiang Cheng says that, if Jin Ling doesn’t catch something on their night hunt, he can’t come back--and Jiang Cheng is outraged that Jin Ling took him seriously.  (I also kind of think Jin Ling is being a shit about that on purpose.  But that’s me.)

The rest of the time?  Jin Ling is offended that people take Jiang Cheng’s threats toward him seriously.  He’s pretty much completely prepared to throw himself on Jiang Cheng’s mercy when he needs help.  He postures and poses to mimic him, and breaks Wei Wuxian out against Jiang Cheng’s direct orders without fear of reprisal.  That’s not a kid who’s afraid of his uncle, except, of course, that he wants Jiang Cheng to be proud of him, and he knows that crying is a disappointment.

I’m not saying Jiang Cheng is uncle of the year, see above re: PLEASE hug your nephew, but the mere fact that he can be relied upon to react predictably, in Jin Ling’s experience, does a lot to counteract Jin Guangyao’s attempts to control him.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Jiang Cheng is the product of a toxic childhood doing his best with the tools he has, and Jin Guangyao is the product of a toxic childhood experimenting with a fun kicky new kind of toxicity in the next generation.

And honestly?  I think that Jiang Cheng having gotten some of the weight off his chest about everything, Jin Guangyao’s manipulations being exposed, and having actual friends will do a lot to help Jin Ling get his feet under him.  Not to mention his brand new uncle who is even more forthright than Jiang Cheng and is more than prepared to tell Jin Ling outright when he’s being a spoiled brat without concern for rank, plus also being willing to Give That Boy A Hug And A Sincere Compliment.

I’m not saying that the Jin Ling fic I’m planning to write is going to heavily feature Wei Wuxian going “okay!!!!  You need to learn that positive reinforcement doesn’t always come laced with poison!!!!!”  But I’m not not saying that.

[alcego-writes]

The 3 Act, 9 Block, 27 Chapter Plotting Method

There are countless ways to structure your story. There’s the general plot structure (exposition, rising action, etc.), the hero’s journey, and three-act structures—but do you really know how to put together a plot and put it into action?

The 3 Act, 9 Block, 27 Chapter plotting method is an excellent resource for both plot and pacing, and I use it for almost all of my projects. I’ll review it here and give you an idea of what it is, when to use it, and how to put it into action.

What is the 3 Act, 9 Block, 27 Chapter Method?

The 3 Act, 9 Block, 27 Chapter outline method is exactly what it sounds like: there are three acts, which are divided into nine blocks, which are then divided into twenty-seven chapters. Be Your Own Mentor has an excellent page describing each block and its subdivisions here. I strongly recommend checking out this page, as it explains each aspect of this plotting method in detail.

However, this outlining method does more than just suggest where to put plot-points—it’s also a guide for pacing. Each block should be roughly the same length, which helps prevent your story from getting a sagging middle. This relatively uniform length also allows you to set word-count goals for each section, particularly if you’re aiming for a specific word-count in a project.

For example, in an 18,000-word novella, each act (which I split up evenly—some people prefer to have the second act span from the first plot twist to the second plot twist) should be roughly 6,000 words. With three blocks in each act, this means that each block should be roughly 2,000 words. This allows me to keep an eye on how much I’ve written and adjust my scenes/pacing accordingly.

When to Use the 3 Act, 9 Block, 27 Chapter Method

First of all, this is most useful when you need to fast-draft a clean, tight, and effective story. I use it for all of my ghostwriting work, as it is simple, straightforward, and allows me to both discover and understand my story (and what I’ll need to pull it off) while outlining.

That’s not to say that this method is ill-suited to other projects. It’s actually quite versatile (I’ve gone so far as to merge it with the formulaic structure of mystery novels) and simple to use, once you understand it. Even if you’re a discovery writer, it can be really helpful to keep an eye on this chart and make sure you’re hitting all the beats you need to, and that you’re moving your story forward instead of stalling.

That said, it can be less useful for short fiction. Short stories tend to follow a different structure altogether, with many focusing on a specific scene or mood-related to their premise (although I have, on occasion, seen short stories with full plots), so having a beat-sheet or three-act outline won’t necessarily work for you. Now, you can absolutely take parts of the 3 Act, 9 Block, 27 Chapter outline and focus on, say, only Act II or Block 4 for the duration of the short story—because, as I said before, this is a really versatile tool. Play around with it and see what works for you!

Basically: if you need to know the beginning, middle, and end of your story; need a simple beat-sheet for your project; or even just want to familiarize yourself with the generalized structure of a long-form story, this is a great resource.

Key Terms

While BYOM does an excellent job explaining the gist of the 3 Act, 9 Block, 27 Chapter outline, there are a few things that may still be confusing if you’re not 100% familiar with all the fancy plot-terms involved. So, before I dive into how to use the 3 Act, 9 Block, 27 Chapter plot structure, I’m going to clarify a few terms that may cause confusion.

Plot Point - You’ve probably heard of them, but I promise they don’t have to be as dramatic as popular media would have you believe. There’s no need for a surprise! The character was dead all along! if it won’t suit your story. Still, plot twists make for a good story. They keep things fresh and interesting. And, this is important, they don’t have to come out of left field. For example, in romance stories, a plot twist could be something like a plot point the main character forgot about coming back to influence their story, or a revelation of an important character’s backstory, secrets, or other important traits. What I’m trying to say is that these should be Big Moments of your story, but they don’t need to be world-shattering. They should feel natural and rewarding to your story’s premise. These should occur at roughly the 25% and 75% mark of your story.

Midpoint - Strictly speaking, this is the middle of the story. It marks a change in your protagonist: where they were reactive in the first half, they become proactive here. They’ve learned about the new world/situation they’re in, and it’s time for their character arc to impact their choices going forward.

Reversal - Here, both the readers and the protagonist see something in a whole new light. This may be caused by a change in circumstances (in a thriller, for example, this may be a trusted ally betraying the protagonist) or by the protagonist’s new perspective shifting the way both they and the readers see the events of the story. To put it simply, this is where something known changes form. A friend turned foe, a job gone wrong, and even a sudden realization that demands the protagonist’s attention all work. This should occur after the midpoint, where the protagonist has changed.

Reaction - You’ll notice that this appears twice in the 3 Act, 9 Block, 27 Chapter structure, and the ambiguous nature of the term may be confusing for some folks. The Reaction is not so much your protagonist’s response to everything that’s happened thus far so much as it’s their reaction to the plot point that occurred immediately before it. How does the protagonist react to the inciting incident (and its immediate consequences…)? How does the Reversal affect their behavior? These are the questions you’re answering at this point in the story.

Action - While the first half of the structure is mostly reactionary, there’s no getting around the fact that a reactionary plot can be boring, even annoying. This is where you show how your protagonist acts under pressure; something Big has just happened to them, and now they need to decide how to proceed with their life. Do they run, or do they charge into conflict? This defines your protagonist at the early points of their arc and serves to contrast their eventual development in Trials and Dedication.

How to Use the 3 Act, 9 Block, 27 Chapter Method

If you haven’t already, I recommend taking a look at BYOM’s break-down of each block. It’s a very useful guide and will give you an idea of how each point ties into the next.

Ready? When outlining, I keep a “skeleton outline” on hand that looks like this:

This “skeleton” allows me to keep track of everything while I put together a plot in another document that will get far messier and harder to keep track of than the clean, easy-to-read skeleton. In the functional outline, I usually mark my actual outlines with the block numbers and goals, as seen in the second image, but that’s largely due to how I structure my Scrivener document after I’ve completed the outline.

After I’ve set up my outline and have my “skeleton outline” (combined with any genre formulas, as with mystery) ready to go, I begin writing the plot. This usually takes me 1-2 days, depending on my current work-load and productivity levels.

As you can see, I’ve blended a few points together (such as in Block 4, where there’s a lot of overlap in the block’s structure) and added several notes to myself while filling out what happens at each point. You’ll also notice that I write more the further I get through the outline—this is partially because I’m getting familiar with the story, and thus have more to say, and partly because there’s more to keep track of as I get further through the plot. (Including b-plots, which I also make note of in this outline.)

The goal here isn’t to map out everything that happens so much as it is to give me an idea of what I want to be doing in each part of my project. At the beginning, I need to focus on the romance, but in Act II I’ll pay more attention to the b-plot. I often jump around on the outline as I figure things out (such as plot twists, as knowing what these are in advance makes it easier to build them up) and add notes regarding characters I need to create, places I need to have descriptions for, and other project-relevant details.

From there, I set up my Scrivener document. As you can see, I combine and separate each aspect of the blocks as I see fit; the ‘27 Chapters’ is more of a guideline than anything else. When working on a project with chapters, I’ll label each scene with the chapter it will go into, but I don’t sort them into chapters until I’m done writing.

You’ll also see that I write a schedule for myself based on a) how much I need to write, b) when I need it done by, and c) how much I’m able to take on. This is my job, so my schedule is tighter than it would be for someone doing this in their spare time. And, while having a schedule is by no means required, it helps when it comes to managing your project and working to its end. I use highlights, labels, and status markers to keep track of my work and let myself know where I am and where I need to be.

Outlining is a really personal thing, as you’re not just putting together the structure for your story—you’re putting it together in a way that makes sense to you. With the exception of clients who request outlines, no one except for me will ever see this outline. Ultimately, the outline is yours, and yours alone.

Find my blog useful? Leave a comment or check out my Patreon for early-access and extra content! Thanks for reading, and happy writing!

[nonbinaryresource]

ive been thinking abt this for a little while & have been needing to ask someone abt it. i am nb & have always considered myself trans but recently ive not been vibing with the trans label bc i am so sick of seeing ppl exclude & invalidate nb ppl. ik that i shouldnt stop doing smth just bc other ppl r being assholes but its so tiring to see ppl constantly say how u dont belong or arent valid. srry this is long & kinda rambly i just dont really know how to feel abt it

I will directly address your ask, but I’m going to start by telling you a story about my journey with identifying as asexual and queer.

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When I was about 11, my friends suddenly started drooling over magazines and calling people hot, and I didn’t know what it was, but I knew I did not feel whatever it is my friends were feeling.

Until I was about 16/17, this part of me remained a mystery to me and to my friends. I never had crushes, I never found people hot, I never liked complimenting people physically, I was uncomfortable with sex on TV, and I didn’t even like platonic touch. Now my group of friends were all repressed and closeted queer folk, so I didn’t have to deal with “being left behind” as my friends dated. But the later we got into high school, the more my friends began discovering and exploring their sexualities.  A freshman became a part of our friend group and was openly trans and gay. One friend came out as gay. Another as bi. They started commenting more and more about other’s looks and having crushes.

Still, there was nothing on my end. My friends used to think I was just being vague and secretive because this is what I tended to be like. I don’t think they’ve ever realized how much of it was that I truly didn’t know or understand what my lack of sexual feelings meant or that it could even mean anything. I used to just consider it a “nothingness” of myself. Until, by complete chance, I came across the term asexual. I immediately connected with it. It explained so much that I didn’t even know I needed explained.

I came out quickly after that and I was really excited and happy and proud to know who I was and what how I felt meant. My friends were great and supportive. My mom was a little ignorant but overall supportive. AVEN was great and a community for me. But if I tried to talk about it anywhere else online…

Well, the effects of how people treated me would fester for years. See, I came out as asexual before exclusionism (the specific movement of anti-aro and anti-ace erasure and gatekeeping from lgbt+ spaces) was a movement or a named thing. Yet exclusionist attitudes were exactly what I faced. My queer friends all completely accepted me as one of them and I helped co-run our school’s new GSA with the rest of them. But online, as a teen, I was facing 30+ year olds telling me I wasn’t queer and that I was just trying to seem special and that I needed to shut up about my asexuality and my experiences and that I wasn’t valid and that asexuality wasn’t a real thing and that even if asexuality was a real thing it wasn’t valid and it certainly didn’t matter.

I graduated high school and went to college and was no longer really in touch with my group of friends. I therefore completely cut myself off from any lgbt+/queer community, even though a friend invited me to join the college’s queer association. I stopped participating so much in online asexual spaces. I become wrapped up in other things.

A couple of years went by and a lot of things in my life changed. By chance, mod applications for a blog about aro and ace headcanons for a fandom I enjoyed came across my dash. I had extra time on my hands and thought I could help, so I applied and was accepted. This increased my exposure to the aspec community again and thrust me back in… just around the time exclusionism was becoming a specific and named movement of bigotry.

At the same time I resisted these ideals, I was also still hurt and unhealed from what I’d gone through as a teen. I internalized a lot of the hatred and gatekeeping. I was so hurt and so tired. I just wanted to be able to exist in peace. And people I considered myself one of were harassing me and dismissing even my biromanticism. So I struggled with my identity and my asexuality. I did not specifically become an exclusionist, but I turned my back on the lgbt+ community and spaces. I did not consider myself lgbt+ because I learned that doing so only brought pain and upset and made me feel alone and isolated. I didn’t speak a lot on exclusionism or inclusionism, but at some point I did make a plea to my fellow aspecs to just let the larger community go and be our own community and accept that maybe we could be straight. I did it out of desperation and hurt, wanting to stop feeling targeted and attacked and to stop seeing the fighting on my dash and in the tags. I just wanted us all to be happy and feel accepted and supported.

On that post, one wonderfully kind and patient person opened up a discussion with me, explaining their own hurts over exclusionism and being so damn exhausted of them and fellow aspecs being targeted and excluded and written out and not supported and feeling like they had to split their asexuality from their other queer identities and how being asexual was a part of them and how it had strongly shaped their experiences, especially with realizing and coming to terms with the other parts of their queer identity. And through their raw honesty I came to realize… I had never stopped to process the harassment I had faced and the pain and hurt that cut me so deeply.

It was a changing point for me. I realized that I had handled my pain in a bad way and had ended up lashing out at other aspecs instead of the people who were actually hurting me. I realized how much I had hurt myself and held myself back and cut myself down and dismissed parts of myself trying to fit into the box exclusionists had laid out for me, as if I could ever made them happy enough to stop harassing me and just let me exist. I cut myself down for them, but the truth is that exclusionists don’t just want aspecs “out” of the community. They want to hurt us. They want us to hurt. They want us to doubt ourselves. They want to feel strong and powerful, and they feel they can achieve this through bullying us. Perhaps some, like myself, are trying to appeal to their oppressors by pointing out another vulnerable group they could target more/instead. They are passing on hurt instead of standing up to it and so they are actually festering in hurt instead of changing anything.

Today, I am a staunch inclusionist. I understand myself and the issues aspecs face much better. I am a more compassionate person regarding the confusion and upset aros and aces have over their identity and their place in the world. I feel more stable and confident regarding my identity as an asexual - and now as an aromantic - queer person who is lgbt+.

But it was a long, hard, difficult journey to get here. It was full of a lot of turmoil. I wish I would have had a happier journey where I felt more supported and accepted, and I hope I can help provide more stability and support for future generations to not have to go through what I did.

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My point (or one among a few, anyway) is that I deeply and personally understand how you are feeling and the decision facing you now. As someone who went through a very similar experience, my advice to you is to take care of yourself and to prioritize your mental health.

It’s okay if you can’t handle identifying as trans right now. Maybe you do need some space from the label (and definitely from the hatred and gatekeeping). Maybe you need to pull back from certain communities or blogs or discussions.

However, I will say that not identifying as trans may not bring the peace you desire. It may end up making you feel even more isolated. Not identifying as LGBT+ certainly didn’t help me. It was reactionary and it only made me feel like there were less spaces for me. That said, you may find peace in this. But I think the bigger action to take is to separate yourself from those who are saying harmful things more than to separate yourself from a label you feel really suits you. Use your block button liberally. Don’t force yourself to partake in spaces where gatekeeping is allowed or encouraged. Follow and listen to more people who are inclusive.

I think burnout like this is unfortunately pretty common. You do not have to force yourself to face this hatred or exhaustion because you think it’s the right thing to do. It’s okay to pull back and just take care of yourself. Just work on some self-care. Work on building up a community of people around you who don’t resort to bigotry and hatred and exorsexism and gatekeeping and identity policing. Engage only with what you can actually, honestly handle.

We will confront and move past this bigotry only by acting as a united front. The responsibility for improving things isn’t on any one person’s shoulders. And no one needs to be on the front lines 100% of the time, especially at the cost of their own wellbeing. Take care of yourself and rest now before you completely burn out and break down.

You do not have anything to prove, okay? I have both hope and faith that there is a lot more to your journey - a lot more good things and a lot more happiness and belonging. Take whatever time it is you need to help heal yourself and recover from the hurt and harassment that’s been plaguing you. You are important and you matter, much moreso than whatever label you use at whatever point in time. It will be okay.

I am here for you.

~Pluto