#its also so interesting to see how it interacts with my chronic pain

[satellites-halo]

morphine

[transmutationisms]

I would love to hear more of your thoughts on House & its relation to the detective genre ! I think that house (completely accidentally and very badly) stumbles into a good critique of how doctors & medical structures view addicts & disabled people, with house being a horrible hegemonic mr malpractice to his patients frequently yet half is series is unironically just about all the injustice/mistreatment he faces because his doctor colleagues can’t see him as a person but only as a problem to be solved/rehabbed/therapized/institutionalized/treated like a child with stolen candy/treated like a criminal. and then it also randomly takes an incredibly pro MAID stance. which isn’t really part of this but I just remembered how batshit insane that show was. and then chase killed a dictator and I feel like the show was squarely on his side for that one. Anyway. Do you have thoughts? I really like house.

ok here's my house md take. like a lot of medical dramas, the show essentially relies for its dramatic appeal on the construal of patients as gross, weird, and stupid—rubes who are too uneducated and self-serving in their petty lies to solve their own bodies, and thus need the intervention of house to fix them. this is standard for the genre, although slightly meaner on house than on some other examples (cf. grey's or even the older and soapier generation of these shows). i don't even think house committing malpractice is all that new; it's relatively common as a plot point that positions the noble rule-breaking doctor as someone who 'does what needs to be done' and skirts the bureaucratic red tape to follow their own superior judgment. what makes house more interesting is that from the get-go, house himself is both a doctor and an unwilling patient. in itself this isn't a tension that's new to the medical soap (injuring a major character is pretty par for the course) but house's particular interactions with the ruling biomedical epistemology are, as you point out, characterised by hostility and resistance, and the show frequently either sides with house, or at least leaves it somewhat up to the viewer to decide whether house is right to resist the pathologisation that cuddy and wilson try to impose on him.

this is kind of a tricky line to walk for 7 seasons or however long the show is. my recollection is there are episodes, for example, where it's very clear that house's pain is physical, and the writers use this to morally justify his vicodin use. this is obviously not a full-throated defence of opioid users, but it is at least pointing to a position on chronic pain that allows for the possibility that for some people, long-term use of drugs with a high addiction potential and side effects is legitimately the best thing. but, this messaging is also undercut by the fact that it's primetime television, they need to make drama, and there are definitely also episodes where house is framed as potentially lying about his pain, or at least mistaking a somatic problem for a physical one, which the writers often (not always, but often) present as evidence that actually, house shouldn't be trusted to make his own decisions about drug use, and ideally should be 'de-toxed' and probably sent to cbt or whatever. of course all of these considerations are also contextualised by the fact that house is, again, not just a patient but a doctor: his right and ability to make these types of calls for himself is, it's suggested, a result of his having attained medical education and credentials. the patients who come to be treated by him are seldom, if ever, given this same level of consideration or presumed to have sufficient self-awareness to make their own medical decisions. this isn't to say they're portrayed entirely unsympathetically, but ultimately the narrative engine of the show relies on house being the smartest guy in the room (though ofc, sometimes tragically 'held back by his addiction').

so, although there are moments on the show that genuinely transgress some of the norms of the med-drama genre, i have never agreed with people who thought that the show as a whole was presenting any sustained critique of the medical system, the treatment of chronic pain/disability, or the power-imbalanced doctor-patient relationship. ultimately all authority on house md is supposed to emanate from the physician, or the physician's superiors (cuddy as a 'check' on house, though sometimes a failed one! again because of the need to generate drama for like 140 episodes), and at its most radical the show is really only capable of presenting house himself as an out-of-control aberration whose existence strains the existing system rather than being produced by it.

this is where i think the comparison to the cop show genre becomes more clarifying. house md never made a secret of being an interpolation of the detective genre, specifically sherlock holmes. however, i'm not sure i've ever really seen writing on the show that analyses what effect this actually has on house. like police, doctors are tasked with maintaining certain social norms; the dichotomy between policing and medicine isn't even a solid line, as criminality is frequently rhetorically construed as a pathology in itself and medical authorities can and do have recourse to carceral systems in order to discipline and confine recalcitrant patients, the 'criminally insane', addicts, and so forth. (policing has historically also been understood in a more expansive sense than how we use the word today; our understanding of the medical/public health system as separate from police authority is arguably more to do with university credentialling than the actual exercise of social and political power).

so, if we want to be serious about the portrayal of medicine in popular culture (i am always serious about this) then we're necessarily talking about broader systems of power, social control, and discipline, and doubly so on a show like house that is explicitly inspired by detective fiction. this is where house md is most ideologically objectionable to me: as with the trope of the cop who breaks all the rules, house is basically positioned in one of two ways throughout the show. either he's a lone genius who alone is willing to achieve noble ends (cure) through distasteful means (breaking into patients' homes, berating them, performing risky interventions on them, &c), or—and this is rarer on house but does happen—he's portrayed as genuinely crossing an ethical line, in which case he's a kind of monstrous aberration from the normal, ethical functioning of the medical system, often represented metonymously by the objections that cuddy, wilson, or house's underlings raise. in both of these cases, as with copaganda, the function is ultimately to reinforce the idea that doctors, though occasionally capable of human error, are prima facie wiser than their patients, looking out for their patients' best interests, and performing noble social roles as healers. house, ofc, is very rarely willing to admit that he has any underlying ethical motivations, though much of the show is driven by the flashes where he is revealed to 'secretly' care about another person (often wilson) and anyway, the construction of an ethical society in which all individual actors are motivated solely by selfish interests is a very established rhetorical move for those interested in defending liberal capitalist societies (cf. charles darwin, thomas malthus, adam smith, &c).

because of television's need to generate profit via audience engagement, house md always relied on a certain level of shock or at least provocation in order to sustain itself. so, there are certain aberrations from the more overtly doctor-valorising medical dramas, like the suggestion (sometimes tongue-in-cheek) that house was better at his job when he was mildly high on opioids. this was, for the reasons outlined above, never a serious entry into political critique, but it was at least refreshing in a certain way as a departure from, eg, the portrayal of addiction and drug use that we see on grey's, which is completely limited to the medicalised AA narrative of 'recovery' as a battle against the malevolent intervention of an external chemical agent. which is to say that although house md is ultimately reactionary in the way we should expect from an american tv show, it did at least dabble in a certain level of caustic iconoclasm that allowed limited departures from the genre conventions. even with what was ultimately a pretty solid vindication of the anti-opioid narrative, the show does stand out in my mind as one of the few very popular presentations of any kind of alternative stance on chronic drug use. that it's usually put in house's own mouth means it is occasionally legitimated by his epistemological authority as a physician, though ofc ultimately this authority is challenged not through a critique of the medical system, but by presenting house as individually and aberrantly licentious, undisciplined, and insane—and his chronic pain/disability are both a justification for this, and a shorthand for conveying it.

[galedekarios]

According to the forgottenrealms wiki, the city that the mindflayers are attacking in the trailer is Yartar, not Baldur's Gate like many assumed. Yartar is northeast from Waterdeep and it isn't very far from it, so it could be possible that Gale was looking for artifacts in that city or nearby and that's were he got abducted.

[continuing on from my post about when and where gale might have been abducted by the nautiloid]

this is actually a really interesting idea, anon! thank you for sharing it with me!

i took the time to look up how long it would take to travel from waterdeep to yartar and i think it would be feasible:

[source for the travel time. it's an interactive map of faerûn.]

also:

Yartar was an important way stop for caravans and traders traveling between its allied city of Silverymoon, and the great metropolis of Waterdeep. As such, many of its business catered to caravaneers, merchants and other Faerûnians that regularly traveled the roads of the North. [source]

the only thing that i'm not sure about is if he would have been able to travel alone such a great distance. for two reasons, mainly:

a) we do know that his condition affects things that are very important for him to defend himself as a wizard (general biological deterioration, muscle spasms, ringing in the ears, disorientation, concentration issues and varying levels of physical discomfort / pain). and it's something that gale admits as well:

player: i fail to see why you need me to help you this. you’ve done fine without me so far. gale: A fair point - however, until recently I was able to rely on a supply of artefacts stored in my tower in Waterdeep. A supply that has now run dry. The reality of the matter is that a lone wizard with a chronic impairment such as my own is not in the most ideal of situations with regards to self-defence. The manner of artefacts I need are not often found waiting patiently on a shop-keep’s shelf. One usually has to lift them delicately from trap-filled tombs or prise them from the hands of violent ne'erdowells.

so he would have been--if we assume he was suffering the effects of the orb after leaving his tower which housed no more artefacts to consume--essentially defenseless as a wizard and having no combat training, which is something that even during the game's events, he doesn't seem interested in (see his banters with lae'zel).

and b) the route would have taken him along a road that is probably a prime target for thieves and bandits, with it being a trading route and all.

as a small aside, we do have this line though:

gale: I've been threatened with the sharp end of a dagger before, but never with such a monster as Orin holding the blade. 

sooo... maybe?

desperation might have driven him to the point of making such a dangerous decision.

[androgymagnus]

ohhh my god speaking of house md and brilliant minds comparisons. yikes. like. okay. i understand why people try to start with this. i truly do. i think if you're trying to communicate something you like about the show to someone who hasn't seen it, and you do that by relating it to a very popular medical drama, that's like. i get why you're doing that. but while there's a pretty good common thread here (ie, medical drama starring disabled doctor who will do anything to help his patients and his gaggle of diverse interns) it's.... largely surface level and reductive, because these are two very different shows other than that little logline.

like, their disabilities and how they're handled and what they mean to their characters and how they handle them are very different. (SO different i'm not even gonna get into it. but they serve different purposes you know?) the tone of the whole show is different--my god is the tone different. the shows are actively trying to do different things.

and like (this one deserves its own line) while i personally believe house is very empathetic and cares about his patients under All That, uh, All That still exists, and does not excuse any kindness he might have under All That, and All That is still a problem (ie yes he will go to any lengths to cure his patient but he will also call them and their whole family slurs. blah blah blah complex character motivations and trauma the effect is still bad no matter the cause) and anyway, that's just what i think from his characterization, generally, he is still incredibly rude and caustic and you could certainly argue for the reading that he actually cares about the puzzle, not the patient. and even if you, like me, believe he deeply cares about his patients even when he doesn't want to, he still largely focuses far more on their literal health than their feelings or lived experience in the hospital. he'll save your life but he'll be a dick the whole time. he'll make patients cry and not really care. meanwhile dr wolf cares about his patient's lived experiences, how they feel, not just their literal physical health. that is literally his entire approach: getting to know them as people, treating them with kindness and understanding when other doctors have brushed over them or signed them off as a lost cause. rather than any kindness/empathy being subtext or shown through certain actions, it's the text.

now, i'm not saying this makes dr wolf a better character than house (a better person, perhaps!) or even a more complex character, since again. they are very different characters serving very different purposes. house is a deeply fucked up little man dealing with very bad chronic pain, childhood trauma, probably repressed bisexuality but let's not go there, etc., and he lashes out. he's a complex character, he's sympathetic but not a victim, he's an asshole but often you like him anyway. wolf is serving a different purpose as a character--i'd say his speech about harold in the first episode really speaks to it. like. he cares, about things other doctors don't, that even house probably wouldn't (depending on the episode and season probably). he's got his own backstory, albeit one we don't know all of yet, that plays into how he interacts with people now and why he is the way he is.

like. agh. gestures frusturatedly. there are interesting contrasts one could make here between these two characters (for example: if we buy that house is deeply empathetic, he deals with this by not wanting to get attached to patients at all, refusing to see them directly, and treating them like puzzles, because when he does see them as a person it hurts more when they die; meanwhile dr wolf does the exact opposite and loathes the idea of seeing patients as their diseases, as a puzzle, but as a consequence gets maybe even too attached every single time, which, while admirable, can lead to burnout or just, you know, getting fired or being a bit single-minded with blinders on trying to save them), but ultimately, it's kind of apples and oranges (that previous parenthetical is fun and all but they have very different backstories and motivations and context and that's kind of just isolating one thing, you know?) and seeing people uncritically compare the two is at least mildly irksome. they have, again, wildly different backstories and motivations.

these shows are trying to do different things! neither one of them is better than the other (i think i'm enjoying brilliant minds more personally, although with only seven episodes out to house's eight seasons i think it's a bit of an unfair judgment to try and make objectively as of yet) because they are trying to do different things. they just happen to be medical dramas about a doctor who will do anything to cure their patient, which is, when you think about it, a very broad category. you could throw in 'and he's disabled!' but let's be real, their disabilities (and how they're handled and interact with the plot) are very different.

the point is, i understand why people make this comparison but i think it's a little reductive and misguided. but at the same time like, i get it, trying to get across something in an easy to understand way when you're trying to convince someone to watch the show, just--don't go giving them the wrong impression! if someone goes into brilliant minds expecting house md, and they like different things about that show than you did, they're gonna end up being disappointed

anyway, disorganized ramble: end. hope it somewhat made sense

[forlorn-crows]

Crow!

I have a question...questions? Request? Maybe a little bit of both...?

I am a (relative) newcomer to the fandom, I've been hyper-focused on Ghost for the last year and my heart's completely, irreparably and quite blissfully gone on all of the Era IV Ghouls (Phantom and Aurora included), but, in particular, on our beloved Earth Ghoul Mountain (Mmmmmountain...💕)

HOWEVER, recently, I've begun trying to learn more about the previous era's Ghouls, and although I already have a growing appreciation for Omega, there's another that I find myself circling back to again and again and again...

...Zephyr.

Unfortunately, there seems to be a distressingly small amount of information on him in terms of HC's and fandom lore which really does make it harder to get a feel for his character and personality, so, I was wondering if you could help with that.

How do you see him in your head?

What is he like?

Who is he to you?

Please help me add a tenth Ghoul to the nine I already love...

hi, welcome!

ive got lots of headcanons about them so i'd love to go through some of those for you. i'll drop some great zephyr photos first and then we'll continue under the cut :3

firstly, i cant tell you where the name zephyr originated. maybe fanfiction or other fan circles. zephyr is more commonly known as "chAir", because they were almost always sitting down to play. sort of like cowbell is named after the instrument he appeared for two seconds to play lmao

you'll notice i use they/them pronouns for zeph. thats something i picked up from @gayrickgrimes when i first started interacting more with ghost fanfic. but lots of people also use he/him. not sure why nonbinary zeph has really stuck with me since then, but i quite enjoy it!

i would say the most commonly shared headcanons about zephyr are as follows:

older in age, like omega or alpha often are portrayed

has chronic back and/or joint pain (there's lots of clips of them walking off stage holding their back, thus the headcanon)

has light or white hair, commonly portrayed as longish and wavy.

reserved. maybe a little "old mannish" at times. less spontaneous than other ghouls.

however! they like groovin' on stage. can be seen doing some wiggles during their keytar solo or jamming out on their stool.

some artistic portrayals i love are @endopyre's, @turbodrawn's, and @kamonart's :3 also for a portrayal that doesnt necessarily fit those 'common' appearance hc's above is @joeynihil's zeph, whom i LOVEEE.

i also love @divine-misfortune's depictions of them, but i have indeed given void the zephyr brainrot soooo....oopsies sorry not sorry.

so, now onto the things i specifically headcanon about zephyr. i dont know if youve read any of my ficlets with them yet, but i do have a few! generally, i hc pretty similar to the above bullet points. some other thoughts i have are as follows:

i think zeph has a more antiquated way of speaking. doesnt use a lot of slang or 'modern' words. is very precise, refined in the way that they speak.

very amicable with and well-loved by their pack (aether, ifrit, dew, mountain).

has an 'air' about them, if you will (pardon the pun haha). some may say its too much like they're looking down their nose at you, but i think they're clever, smooth, and teasing in equal measure. has a way with words, in more ways than one.

they really do like to have fun on stage, and i think they like to 'let loose' a little bit that way. that ghoul can groove and move when they want to! and i do enjoy watching ritual footage of them, would recommend <3

not sure if you're interested in unglamoured hc's, but i think they turn very gangly, resembling something like a vulture or other long-legged birds. taloned feet and hands. hocked legs. feathers sticking out behind their ears and tattered, crooked wings. bright eyes that glow in the dark and can see for miles. razor sharp teeth. literally terrifying if you catch them peering at you from high in the trees.

likes when the others offer to help with their back pains. ifrit with his warm hands. aether with his quintessence. maybe mountain with weed or dew taking them to the lake to take some weight of their joints. always very kind, thankful in return.

i think the abbey has a chapel with an organ that zeph likes to play. i think that's what they learned on originally, and transferred that knowledge to the keyboard. when they retired from the band they still enjoyed playing for midnight mass or special occasions.

lastly, i think zeph is a quiet dom. very controlled of a ghoul in normal situations, but very good at controlling and directing others. has a silver tongue and can absolutely take mountain down to studs with just words. i have many feelings about mountzeph in general, and how their dynamic works, which ive explored a little bit. but in general, i think zeph likes to have that control, either because they have pain that doesnt allow them the freedom to explore certain pleasures, and/or because thats what they like. its natural and fun for them. and its certainly fun for everyone else involved lmao. i just think of them as a very elegant ghoul in all aspects of their life.

all in all, im very fond of zephyr as a character, at least how i see them in my head and how i've seen them portrayed by others thus far! hopefully that can serve as some inspiration for you in 'getting to know' this air ghoul :3

[contagious-watermelon]

It's interesting to me that understandings of transsexuality have been almost exclusively filtered through the lens of queerness and the social aspects of gender. In other words, that the "T" was added to "LGBT." I've thought for a while that in a lot of cases, transness — and specifically dysphoria — makes a lot more sense when analyzed through the lens of disability rather than through queerness. (Personally I see it as being at the intersection between those things.)

I think that a theory of transsexuality would be incomplete without taking into account the societal aspects of gender, yes, but it seems to be similarly incomplete in the popular understanding of it.

I've seen a lot of discussion in the stuff I've read by disabled people about the contention between being objectively harmed or, well, disabled, by your disability, but still wanting to be proud of it or finding identity in it regardless. A lot of autistic communities, I've noticed, talk a lot about the fact that being autistic is difficult; it's made worse by other people's reactions to it, but it still is hard on its own (e.g. auditory overstimulation); yet people still can say that they'd rather be autistic than not. Or they may say they wish they weren't, but that they've come to terms with it because it's not exactly changeable.

Point is, there's open discussion about the differences between inherent challenges to your disability regardless of society, the ways which ableism makes things more difficult, and the contention of finding identity and community in your disability despite that. (And I use autism as an example because I'm autistic; I don't want to speak for, say, a physically disabled community as I'm able-bodied. But I have seen similar discussions there as well.)

The trans community, as I've seen, doesn't really have that. We're polarized between the extremely self-hating people who think that being trans is a curse and that people who like being trans are just fakers co-opting transness, and the toxically positive contingent who refuse to engage with the fact that sometimes dysphoria really does just hurt. And also that transphobia exists.

There's also the fact that in many ways, dysphoria is actually disabling. It isn't for everyone, and part of the problem is that transness as a concept covers so many things that analyzing it through just one lens will always be incomplete, but for me at least it caused me a lot of depression and dissociation, and made it difficult-to-impossible to interact with other people or function at my classes. Back before I medically transitioned, I related a lot to some descriptions by disabled people about their chronic pain, because my dysphoria effectively was chronic psychological pain. I don't want to say it's the same thing, because obviously I've only experienced one of those things, and dysphoria has a treatment while many (all?) chronic illnesses don't, but nevertheless it was a comforting lens to think of my dysphoria through in the time before I got top surgery.

Also of note is the way both our communities are treated by the medical establishment. I've heard many horror stories by disabled people of how doctors simply refuse to diagnose them or give them issues with their meds. Trans people obviously also have to deal with the shit that doctors put out in order to get access to HRT and any necessary surgeries. People deride HRT, saying that we shouldn't take it because it'll "make you a medical patient for life." People act like mental pain isn't real — calling depression fake, acting like because things like fibromyalgia aren't "real pain" that it shouldn't bother you so much, etc. — and that extends too into the way they dismiss the pain of gender dysphoria.

So, I don't really understand why the trans community has taken so many pains to disavow themselves from being considered even remotely similar to disabled people. I know that the common refrain, "we're not mentally ill!" is meant to combat the idea that we're deluded into thinking that we're a "different gender" than we really are, but the effect is throwing actually mentally ill trans people under the bus. The insistence that there's no way that dysphoria should be considered a disorder because there's nothing wrong with us — I just think that we could take a hint or two from the way that disabled people theorize about this subject.

[dr-docktor]

Local Docktor thinks its a fantastic idea to crossover his two biggest interests at the moment.

First for some context (don't worry, I'll keep it brief). One of my best friends has been working on a table-top RPG since like high school called Percentile. And its the main game that the group plays for our campaigns. Thus, it never leaves my head.

You know what else doesn't leave my head? Spies are Forever.

So here I am. Planning out what theoretical character sheets would look like for Owen and Curt. I'm so normal. I swear. Below the cut includes my insane ramblings on this topic.

I will also be playing a little fast and loose with some of the rules here because making character sheets in this game, while fun, is LENGTHY. And I'm insane but I'm not THAT insane

Ok so I want to start with Owen because I'm making him a mage and I LOVE building mages.

For the sake of simplicity I'm gonna keep 'em both human. (boring I know. but the list of ancestries is so long it almost overwhelms me for this)

To quickly explain the percentages: That is basically your rate of success on any given skill/action. So the higher the number, the more likely they are to succeed!

Owen's Stats

Power represents magic. POW is just another word for mana. And size mainly only impacts things like how easy you are to tackle/grapple and what spaces you can squeeze into.

So he's got 10 HP

14 POW

2 Soak (armor, it takes 2 points off of whatever damage they were hit with)

+28 initiative bonus (initiative dictates who goes first in combat. The higher your number, the more likely you are to go first)

and can move 5 squares per turn (turns last 6 seconds), or 6 if he runs.

All fairly standard for a human mage. The interesting stuff starts with choosing his spells.

In Percentile, the standard mage can have a few collections of spells called Spell Schools. They can only have one spell from each school prepared at once but can spend 6 hours a day switching them out safely (or do it within seconds if you wanna feel the consequences)

So here's the spell schools I think he'd have

BLAST -> its in the name, you get several spells that are just different types of blasts. So magical bullets, lasers, etc.

CHANGE -> He'd probably use this spell school mainly for his DMA disguise but instead of a mask he can physically change his appearance for several hours a day.

VISION -> Great for espionage and detective work. Spells include making you really good at looking for stuff, being able to see events that transpired previously within a room, and gathering information.

WOUNDING -> Gives him access to several magical bladed weapons. Good for Torture and homosexually sword fighting your ex lover.

really good... ouch.

Skills/knowledges are another story and are one of my least favorite parts of character building so I'll briefly go over it.

High intimidation, spot hidden (looking for stuff. almost every percentile character needs a decent spot hidden), move quietly, resist, and rapine (rapine is like sleight of hand, pickpocketing, handling small and/or delicate things)

Middling physical skills like jumping, climbing, etc. first aid, hide, and survival

Low grapple.

His knowledges would include

High performance (haha actor man), espionage, and literacy

Middling lore

Low cooking. and everything else. He can cook its just all post WWII British food which I think should qualify for being bad at it.

OK NOW FOR MY FAVORITE PART: Traits and Scars.

SCARS

his scars include more physical stuff like reduced hearing and chronic pain (player would roll a dice to see how bad the pain is that day to see if he needs to use a mobility device). But also include

Untrusting - CHAR INT based - compelled to roll an idea check to see if someone is lying every time he starts a new interaction with someone. On a fail he believes they are lying no matter what

POSSIBLE TRAITS

Magic Hair, for my long-haired Owen fans. Basically he has hair that's so cool it makes him more charismatic.

Strong Promises. Whenever the character makes a promise, they get a bonus to whatever stat that will help them achieve that promise.

Plotting. Whenever characters with this trait record or speak out a plan, it functions as if they practiced it for an additional day. Perfect for villain monologues.

Pull At Soul. Characters with this trait declare a goal during each level up. These goals can be something like “plan with everyone in the party about the mission & use that plan”, it can be “avenge my fathers killer” “seek out & find the sage” or more abstract things, “Die & be born anew in the eyes of my community” or “See the moon as it truly is”. They cannot tell any other characters about this goal. Once they achieve this goal as determined by them & the GM, anytime they are at 1 HP they can choose to level up.

Buddies! -> Select another character. Decide on a secret handshake, set of gestures, or exchange. It does not have to be uniform, but does have to be meaningful. Anytime you perform this with them, and one of you gains exhaustion, instantly both of you gain 1d3 to a stat. They do not have to be the same stat, select them when you take the maneuver. If the other dies, this trait is removed, granting the character back the trait points, and the character gains a -1d3 to that stat forever.  (THE FUCKING HANDSHAKE)

I think that's all for Owen!!

It's Curt's turn!

God I was SO tempted to make him a Ragamuffin for this. But I'm sticking with humans. I don't even know why. I just think it would be funny. Something fun about the 'brute' being made of fabric and fluff.

Anyway. Stats!!

12 HP

8 POW (not important given he's a fighter and not a mage)

3 soak

+27 Initiative bonus

and can move 4 squares per turn, 6 squares if he's running.

Instead of spells, fighters get weapon proficiencies and maneuvers! Maneuvers are basically fancy fighting styles and actions.

Possible weapon options: Short sword (what they fight with in the show), a gun, and fisticuffs. Mages also get a weapon or two and tbh these could all apply to Owen too.

Possible maneuvers:

Taunt -> It is what it says on the tin, mock your opponent to try and make them get sloppy and target you instead of your allies.

Reckless Strike Back -> When dodging an attack, you can take one extra damage to attempt to hit your opponent back. If you fail you take extra damage.

Induced Sloppiness -> Make yourself unpredictable! on a success you get bonuses to damage and to land hits. Those attacks are really difficult to parry and dodge. On a fail your opponent gets a bonus to parrying and dodging.

Dodging into My Blade -> you must have this maneuver readied. If you opponent dodges your or your allies attack while this is readied, you can basically say "Lmaoooo" and attack them again

Skills!

High physical stuff like jumping and climbing, resist, move quietly, hide

Middling intimidation, spot hidden, repine, and grapple

Low first aid (scared of own blood) and listen.

Knowledges!

High linguistics, cooking, and espionage

Middling riding arts (for cars and stuff)

Low almost everything else (doesn't mean he's dumb. Fighters just aren't built for having a ton of knowledges)

Possible Scars!

Alcoholic - CON based - Roll a withstand check upon the GM's orders to see if you feel the urge to take a drink. On a fail you either take a swig or suffer withdrawal

Bad With Magic - POW and CON based - Anytime characters with this scar roll a check involving power expenditure, the GM describes it as if they are deeply unsettled by it, that it seems strange, random and scary, and that they are somehow making a mistake, regardless of what the magic does, how it functions, or if they succeeded or not. 

Possible Traits!

Buddies! -> Select another character. Decide on a secret handshake, set of gestures, or exchange. It does not have to be uniform, but does have to be meaningful. Anytime you perform this with them, and one of you gains exhaustion, instantly both of you gain 1d3 to a stat. They do not have to be the same stat, select them when you take the maneuver. If the other dies, this trait is removed, granting the character back the trait points, and the character gains a -1d3 to that stat forever.  (THE FUCKING HANDSHAKE AGAIN)

Poison Blood -> Anyone eating characters with this trait takes 1d6 necrotic damage per SIZ consumed, and the character can take 1 HP from themselves to coat weapons in their blood, which deals 1d4 necrotic damage or stuns the enemy for 1d4-1 turns. It will add this effect to 1 attack until it dries in 3d6+CON turns. (something something alcohol-poisoned blood)

Sturdy ->  While at max HP characters with this trait cannot be reduced below 1 HP in one hit.

Natural Jester -> Anytime characters with this trait crit fail any check, anyone who witnesses it must roll a withstand check or be stunned for 1 turn. 

Fast to The Fight -> Add +3 to initiative rolls (can be taken more than once)

There's actually a TON of traits that could fit Curt but I'm capping it off here because I will go overboard.

Anyway thanks for reading! Sorry if any of this is incomprehensible.

[carmenized-onions]

HEY LOVELY!!!

Been a while since ive done one of these. Im re-reading AGAIN and forever will be. im obsessed, truly.

Through re-reading this hit SO hard.

“The other shoe still hangs in the air; but not in your bed.”

LIKE WHAT? HELLO? KILL ME? Your writing is phenomenal. i cannot fathom how you do this EVERY CHAPTER.

Anyway, im so exited to read every chapter to come. Am i in love with Tony? maybe a little (a lot). I was also wondering if you have anything planned for after you finish Chicago's finest? Another The Bear book? or maybe something else entirely? Not to rush you or anything, obviously. Im just so incredibly nosy. My deep apologies.

Just to tell you for the millionth time, im in love with you, youre writing, Tony, how you write the characters, EVERYTHING. gives me life.

me when i hear anyone coming even CLOSE to me while im reading Chicago's finest.

me planning a characters slow and painful demise when they upset Tony. (love you Carmy. not really. no, joking i do. maybe not. NO I DO I SWEAR.)

me trying to act casual when i see you've posted.

ALSO

me trying to act casual when Tony and Syd are interacting. (Dont worry, babe! by Chappell Roan? Who said that...?)

ANYWAY (for the second time) very sorry that this is just me rambling about stuff you dont want to hear.

Hope you're having an amazing day/night, lovely!!

I've stuck you in perpetual re-reading hell have I? My deepest apologies. Esp since I've been chronically re-reading in my brief basically hiatus as i write, I USE SO MANY COMMAS GUYS??? WHY WERE YOU LETTING ME GET AWAY WITH THAT??

the revisions once the series is finished is gonna go CRAZY.

Anyways, SUCH A DELIGHT to hear what silly prose of mine sticks out to you!! thank god you think i do it every chapter!! i am constantly doubting each chapter (man why do you think 15 has been so delayed? LMAO)

I adored using the other shoe as a through line throughout the Troubled Angst arc, one because it's very canon, but also because its very much a thing for me, like, when a good thing happens, cannot HELP but wonder how it's going to get fucked in the end.

which, after telling my doctor that, got reccomended the same books i reccomended carmen LMAO. love you son <3

THANK YOU FOR LOVING TONY!!! I love her dearly, I put so much of myself in her and also so much of what I see and love about my darling friends; my sweet darling dashing hero complex burden carrying the guy overconfident yet under confident tony. My sweet babe. the people love you!!

As for when I finish Chicago's Kindest (PUNCH BUGGY ACAB!! FUCK THE FINEST!!), I'll probably certainly absolutely take a break from writing for The Bear for a bit (though I'll definitely be around to answer asks!! duh!!). But once I return, I am hoping to...

If you send in little blurb requests for Chicago's Kindest, I'll do em!! I know esp with like Mikey/Chip there's a lot of bits that have been spoken about but never actually written out and lived. So like. If you got requests, send em in, I might write em.

I promised a SquidInk spinoff and bitch you're getting one!! There's two different ideas I've got twirling around for them at the moment, they might combine into one one off, or two separate things, who's to say!

More and More I cannot see RiChip as anything more than a platonic duo, but like, maybe I'll try to write something about them? I do adore those two. I just cant see em doin a kiss. that's just bad for my brain.

And I have no hard plans atm, but like, I'd like to write something for RIchie in general at some point. What about and what of? Idk. Certainly not a series this long. that's for fucking sure.

I don't think I can ever write for Carmen though again LMAOOO, it's only Tony for me atp. Like I can't pair him with a new reader, I'll fucking freak out. It's Chip or Die, y'know?

And while I have an epilogue planned, once Season 4 comes out, if there's something interesting that I feel like I wanna throw my hat in on, I'll come back for a Chicago's Kindest Season 2, so to speak. But no promises. They will probably give me nothing to work with, with how our stories diverge. who's to say.

anyways! not nosy!! sorry for talking about it for so fucking long!!!

i'm so glad I write the characters well, please note that it's cause I'm always freaking out about it. I am re-writing bits of lines all the time to make sure it suits their voices and decisions ,and even still i have changes i wanna make looking back LMAO

DONT CRASH OUT WHEN READING CHICAGO'S KINDEST LMAOSOD where is everyone typically when reading CK?? I'm usually on the subway editing my google doc lmao

and listen, every time i re-read Just Dropped i'm like damn. why did i not go with the punching route. should've cold clocked his ass. (love you carmy but JESUS CHRIST I WROTE ALL THAT??? WHAT WAS I GOING THROUGH MY WORD???)

THE LAST PHOTO ALSO?? i know that's a classic promo image but what the FUCK IS RICHIE DOING IN THE BACK? WHY ARE YOU SITTING LIKE THAT??? SIT UP BIG MAN WHAT THE HELL WE RUN A BUSINESS GIRL

Always rant and ramble to me!! Love to wake up to spam in my inbox. even if it takes me ten years to answer (sorry to everyone still trapped in my inbox, i love you babies)

all of you are really gonna hoot and holler when you see the squidink playlist, truly, it's so gay and sad. i love those idiots. when do i get to make them kiss. is it now? i hope it's now.

anyways i am SO LATE TO GO TO BED I'VE GOTTA GO BABIES BUT THANK YOU FOR CHATTIN WITH ME SORRY FOR TALKING FOR TOO LONG <3 HOPE I GET YOU YOUR NEXT CHAPTER SOON BABY I'M SORRY FOR THE FORCED HIATUS

[sockori]

shmupdate 🧦

very long, hastily written, but a look is appreciated

greetings- to those who are somehow still lingering around this account or came up upon it during my desolate time off. it is sock. or sockori.... or raven... my name is actually raven (they/it, 20 yo disabled autistic goth nerd whatever the fuck). howdy

im still on the 'undetermined hiatus' so to speak that i described in my leaving post, but i will say right now that i have no near future plans on returning. in the tags on my newest art, i mentioned my naruto hyperfixation (of like. 6 years i think) finally died out and other interests have long since captured my autism full force. for me personally, when i lose a special interest like this so drastically, i just full on abandon it for as long as it stands. however, this isn't the only thing that made me leave, and i think its time for me to be completely honest & get some weight off my chest.

i made this account around the cusp of turning 14, during a god awful pubescent era where i acted as any other edgy teen does and i'd much rather like to forget these days. what im saying is i was not in the right mindset at all when i exposed myself that much & got the attention that i did. a dismayingly giant coping mechanism i had in my youth was being online 24/7 because i had no one in reality to lean on let alone feel comfortable talking to about anything that was happening at that time. this of course leads to what the kids call these days being 'chronically online'- desperate for some sort of assurance or interaction, i crawled into internet spaces i shouldn't have been for an also incredibly unsupervised child using the dangerous worldwide web.

yes, naruto was apart of this, as well as other interests i had at the time. throughout my journey i met unsavory people, suffered abhorrent things like stalking & gr---ming, saw things i didn't deserve to see, did a bunch of stupid shit an angsty teen does, i believe you understand the rest. i am in no way proud or gleeful about any of these years and have some very sour memories tied to fandom as a whole, not just naruto, and i really don't like reflecting on them. so, unfortunately, this account sorta became a bitter reminder of what i went through as i grew up & finally matured and sought to recover. that's the first part of why my activity fizzled away & i began backing off from internet use entirely.

the second part is sasori. yes, the puppet man. sorta the sole reason i made sockori in the first place. as the sasori enjoyers following / who followed know, this puppeteer has an incredibly unhealthy philosophy and worldview (if the carefully preserved corpses turned puppets and complete lack of humanity didn't give that away), and is safe to say entirely detached from his reality to a nhilistic and suicidal extent. when you autistically fixate on a character like how i did, sometimes this character's rhetoric can seep into your own without you even realizing; Especially when you're a spot where you are incredibly vulnerable and psychologically unstable, as i was in my youth. now i didn't go around believing you should uhhh murder people and preserve them Obviously- actually i began to believe that perhaps there was some peace in obtaining a robotic existence. maybe emotions were useless, perhaps nothing truly mattered, my life didn't matter, art in eternal in the sense that death is scary and i should avoid it at all costs, why make connections with people when they just die or leave, cant trust people at all to help me, xyz. anything in these lines. without going too uncomfortably deep for everyone's sake and mine, it fucked me up severely. i suppose in a way it relates to how he uses poison. his toxins got right into my nervous system, but the pain i felt from those toxins was the only thing i could really rely on at the time, so i just let it happen. such is the depressing case of coping in the worst spot of your life.

cant help but feel incredibly strange telling the tale, as it sounds so obscure doesn't it, but media can truly get inside your psyche like this if a consumer isn't careful. not sure if anyone else out there fell into a similar headspace dealing with interests in this nature- but regardless. what i mean to say is, sasori is now a kind of content i cant consume anymore. i am in a way better place now, have grown wise and balanced with careful recovery and patience, and of course have grown out of whatever teenage nonsense i was on. sasori, who was once the only thing my autistic traumatized ass could lean on, is now an extremely dark shadow on my life. yes i see this homicidal anime puppet dude from a fantasy ninja anime and get psychological distress. he's somewhat of an aggressor or abuser to me now, which is tragic. ive been actively avoiding everything even vaguely relating to him, be it the art of puppetry, anime clips, robotic/sci-fi genre, whatnot cause i just. man. i dont wanna go back there. shouldn't have to explain why at this point. ptsd at its finest

feel like ive been honest enough. sasori enjoyers out there who were just around to enjoy what i made, anyone i happened to be good friends with during my time on this account, this doesn't have anything to do with you guys. i appreciate everyone dearly for supporting me and cheering me on in whatever i made despite all the hell & anguish that was taking place beyond the keyboard. im just glad that i managed to find some way out and get the help i need before i gave up & took my own life, which depressingly i almost did a handful of times. carrying the horrors is an exhausting burden to bare sometimes, but that does not mean i can't look back on the good parts of the era too. and seeing you all happy and sharing my memes or whatever made me ecstatic and at least a little bit hopeful for the future. fortunately that little spark of hope grew into something more. thanks for being a light in a very, very dark room.

that being said, i leave you all with this: i am not dead, just greatly changed, a new person at last freed from apathy & exhaustion, with now enough room to finally grow. the memories will never truly fade & my disabilities will be a part of me until i pass on, but at least now i can manage them a lot better than ever before, surrounded by way better people who love me for who i am. i will hang on the best i can. i wish for you to do the same. find freedom and happiness wherever you are. take care. happy trails

trans rights. i eat fascist souls. free palestine

[dragontamerno3]

DS9 S1 E12-15

I have been sorta nursing my health for the last couple of days as I've had some pretty bad pain days and didn't really feel up to giving a full recap as I watched something. I'm still feeling crappy so this may continue for the foreseeable future. Yay chronic illnesses... Anywhoo on to the recaps.

E12 - Vortex

This is another Odo episode. Was kinda expecting to just blank out and let this one pass without much thought, but I was pleasantly surprised. I didn't particularly like it, but it had some good moments. Up to this point there didn't seem to be much to him besides "security dude" but getting to see that even he has temptations was a nice touch for character development. There are potential clues on who/what he might be in it but ultimately I knew it was too early for him to get to meet his people so I was curious to see where it actually led. When he ultimately let the dude and his daughter escape by letting the Vulcans take them to safety was really where the episode changes for me. That's literally at the end so it doesn't do much but change my star rating on it but it let me see that Odo has a heart and I look forward to seeing more of softy Odo. If he truly is a grump with a heart of goo (this is a pun laugh with me) then I might actually come to like Odo.

6/10

E13 Battle Lines

Typical "two sides have been fighting for centuries and refuse to stop story." While I agree with Sisko's decision not to let Bashir change the "coding" of whatever was keeping those folks alive after dying over and over again, I was on the side of ending it until Shel-la (I think) said he'd use it to win the war finally.

I felt bad for Kira when the Kai died and when it became clear that she couldn't leave again because of it. Kira's reaction was pretty much how I would have (at least in the sense of "Why aren't you DOING something") and she's growing to be the fiesty Kira I know and love.

5/10

E14 The Storyteller

This one had me laughing probably more than I should have been but I had a fun ride on this one. I in no way thought this one was a "good" episode but seeing Miles in any uncomfortable situation like this is generally worth my time. I know that Bashir and Miles become friends at some point but seeing them have this awkward interaction at the beginning, the pulling of teeth to make Miles socialize with anyone let alone a chatty Bashir, and then the bait and switch on the surface. Chefs kiss. Bashir also had too much fun laughing at him. lol

I don't have much to say about the plot itself, it was okay. I do enjoy a "we created our own monster" story, though generally its also tied to a "this person is a monster" character so it was interesting to see it manifest as a storm like thing.

6/10 for the giggles

E15 Progress

I really like this episode but I don't like how it ended. To me, it doesn't fit with the Kira that we've met so far. This is the first time that I could see the Ro Laren skeleton to Kira's character design cause I could see Ro doing the same things.

Having her, of all the crew, touch down on the surface and run into (at least) 3 folks trying to live their lives away from the pain of what the Cardassians did to them, was the perfect set up for this. Everyone else would have fought them harder or would have taken them without their permission within minutes. And then when the old man gets hurt and she stays to nurse him back to health for a while, it really felt like she was settling back into the Bajorian refugee type where they all help each other no matter what their title was. It was really touching and beautifully set up.

What I don't agree with is what happened after Sisko reminds her that while it's okay to be conflicted but it's not okay to get stuck, she decides that she is going to drag this man away from his home unwillingly. Yes, if she left him there he *probably* wouldn't have survived and yes she had a job to do, I'm aware of all of this and even accept that these are the reasons she acted the way she did. But I feel like war exhausted Kira would throw all she had at him and still let him decide his own fate, given how much the Cardassians had ruled over them. I feel like he should have been allowed to choose where he wanted to die and it felt out of character that Kira didn't agree.

With that said! The idea that she helped him finish building a few things or fixing things up and then she turned around to burn it all down was a pretty dramatic touch that I didn't see her doing. It was a very powerful ending.

7/10

[1moreoffkeyanthem]

4, 12, 19, 27 for the fic writer asks!

Yoooooo hey some slay questions! Here we go bois!

4- a story idea you haven’t written yet! So I have a good amount of random ideas just languishing in my notes, and if a creek mood ever strikes me, I have a film school au with them in mind! I think that would be fun lmao

12- a trope you’re really into right now so this is a constant with me and a surprise to literally nobody, but I LOVE a character getting taken care of!!! Wounded, sick, whatever man I just adore the tenderness of that shit, like there’s a reason I’m the Whumpshot Wizard and it’s bc I’m a sucker for patching someone up leading to confessions of feelings, or a partner who is well versed in their partner’s chronic pain and knows what to do, or the soft sweet reassurances as they hold a feverish loved one and remind them that they’re safe, or the protective fierceness of a person desperately trying to get their love to safety and figure out why they just collapsed, the gentle encouragement of urging a barely conscious partner to wake up the rest of the way, the concern of the recovery period, just FUCK dude I’m so soft for that shit!!!

19- the most interesting topic you’ve researched for a fic dude I’m gonna be so fr a lot of the time I just wing it for even my more involved aus but every once in a while I’ll actually fact check myself, and I went down SUCH a crazy rabbit hole learning the history of the Missoula Smokejumpers and smokejumping in general for And The Lightning Cracks The Sky, also I taught myself a little bit of lotr style elvish for How We Began (and I use that shit in the OJV too lmfao Stan and Kyle are fuckin dorks who whole ass speak elvish to each other)

27- your favorite part of the writing process ok I absolutely LOVE the buildup to the climax, like even more than the climax itself. Like writing the calm before the storm is such an ideal place to put tender moments; I’m gonna reference The Webs In The Rafters, chapter 16 when Butters and Kenny have their sweet moment at the pond like RIGHT before shit hits the fan. A lot of the time my fics start out as a specific scene I see in my head and build off of, and fleshing out character interactions is another one of my favorite parts, like for TWITR example, what is Cartman’s role in the group? How does Kenny react to learning more about the rest of the ranch hands? What is Kyle’s role in the gang? Who is closest to who? That kind of stuff, I love being able to try and convey personalities and relationships through the smallest interactions! Also, my favorite thing about posting on ao3 is just absolutely unhinged authors notes, like I LOVE busting out a new au with a “HELLO MOTHERS AND FUCKERS ITS TIME FOR ANOTHER PCE MULTICHAP!!!” Bc I’m insane and it’s fun plus I love coming up with a Question Of The Day for the end notes and seeing people’s answers! And ofc I love getting comments in general (also leaving comments lmao)

Thank you for asking these dude and apologies for the long winded answers I am Extremely Annoying and enjoy being obnoxious!

[intertexts-moving]

HHHHHHHHHHH

so funny story i saw that post you made some time ago when you were liveblogging the cloak scene, the "did it hurt" scene and it significantly changed my view

also ive never looked at their second meeting that way before. i have many thoughts re: first conversation, first interaction (? is it an interaction when you try to flirt with a stranger up the banister and they ignore you?,,, asking for a friend), but never paid much attention to the ehem conVENIENT "you fall i catch" thing beyond how weirdly interesting it is. since wkx has no romantic/platonic/personal-anything intention at all at that point, but subconsciously is very much drawn to the guy still. but yeah actually, this is kind of spot on. HH oh god fuck im not going to be normal about this. i thought i was insane when i clocked that their first conversation, when wkx starts talking about that butcher and about how it must be impossible for someone to have that level of skill as zzs being in disguise without any traces of it at all suggests, has so many layers already. hes speaking there as if he has perceived zzs without realizing it. perceived him as this guy who has basically made himself into a myth (like wkx himself!) and as this thing completely unattinable for him, a man mirroring him down to his soul and living a life he can only dream of. the yearning!!! ughghguhgg. the complete lack of self-awareness of it!!!! the hilarity of the situation because wkx is right, and he is literally only following a gut instinct, and he has no idea!!! i thought i was overthinking it a little. im glad im not alone there, seeing things in their first interactions that, without ever really being talked about, ripple deep into the story??

and oh a mutual tag! thats a great idea im going to do that too. siren is very much fine, what would you like me to tag you as?

YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!! yeah yeahyeah ive been thinking abt this all day actually.. like. the subconscious recognition. the like. the inherent understanding the two of them have even b4 they know each other!!! first thing zzs ever thinks abt wkx is the "somehow, in this vast sea of strangers, he still found someone who understood." the first reaction he pulls out of wkx is that hey. huh. i was right? moment when he hears him echo that he was sunbathing. & its so indicative of how they continue on out from there- iirc, wkx never tells zzs he's the ghost valley master. zzs never actively tells wkx about the nails. or any of the other shit they have going on. its the. silent hunch & feeling things out & recognition... like fumbling around in a dark room except they find the light switch every time first try.

& YEAH i havent thought abt it that way b4 but u are SO right... the inherent hilarity of wkx just. really just making fifty educated guesses in a row about zzs and each one of them hitting spot on. the way that yeah the only reason that it. Works. is bcos they genuinely are mirrors of each other& all the things they see abt the other map back onto themselves too..

also GOD. i think abt the cloak scene & wkx's way of interacting w/ zzs so much.. this is. probably bcos i'm disabled (re: chronic fatigue & illness etc.) & i've had variously disabled friends & like... idk. i recognize it!!! the way he is like. "okay. i'm treating you like normal i'm not gonna be weird about it i'm gonna try not to make you uncomfortable about it. but nevertheless if you're in pain i'm going to help you in the most straightforward way possible. idiot. just because i dont treat you like you're glass doesn't mean i'm gonna let you hurt. just because your body is slowly running down like a broken machine doesn't mean i'm gonna treat you like you're made of glass. i want to do whatever i can for you though ok?".....makes me froth at the mouth NFNSDFKSDFD.

[obaewankenope]

@bookmancer-legendarium your tags:

#interesting points here #i feel like it's worth account for more than just the social model of disability #because going by that people with invisible illnesses don't count? #and society feels owed an explanation for why they get certain accommodations? #but that's my own experience coloring this i do love the explanation of the social model and Zuko's nuanced experience with it

There are many models of disability beyond the social model that account for invisible illnesses, thankfully. They take into account, or expand upon the social model, but enable the inclusion of invisible illnesses.

The social model originated in the UK and was more centred on physical disability because of those who brought about its creation mainly being physically impaired. There are different versions of social models that different from the UK model (e.g., Legal Rights Model centres on protecting individual rights rather than ensuring treatment for conditions; Minority Group Model sees disability as a individual and institutional discrimination like racial discrimination; Affirmation Model sees disability not as a negative thing but positive and centres on viewing disability as a cultural community for supporting others with impairments and disabilities). [source]

Other models include;

Functional Model of Disability — which focuses on impairments and deficits similar to the medical model but sees disability as the way those impairments affect the person: so you're not disabled just because you may be blind in one eye but because of how that affects your ability to function like depth-perception etc

Biopsychosocial Model of Disability — that combines the medical model with the social model and accounts for psychology in regard to disability and impairment. It considers the physical aspect of disability, e.g., a broken spine, alongside the psychological aspect, e.g., depression from being unable to walk, with the social, e.g., not being able to hike anymore or access a building because there's no wheelchair access. In theory it should work great. In reality, I've seen a lot of discrimination and rejection of individuals being disabled because they don't have a clearly defined physical disability. Fuck the UK government, okay.

Nordic Social Relative Model of Disability — in this model, people are assessed by how they interact with society and the environment (and vice versa) as well as the aspects of their impairments that affect the individual themselves. So not only is a person with chronic fatigue seen as disabled in this model because they may live somewhere that is not easy to traverse because they grow tired easily (like hiking up and down hills all the time), they're also disabled because the fatigue makes it difficult for them to focus from brain fog, they may struggle to socialise because of the exhaustion, they may experience isolation because they can't go far etc. Disability, then, is a continuum that shifts from functional to environmemtal/social depending on the person and situation in question. Disability and impairment are not separate, they are intertwined and affect each other.

I personally like the Nordic Model because it's one that can account for the more difficult to categorise disabilities and impairments, like chronic fatigue or chronic pain.

You can use this model too to look at Zuko because, if he does experience any issues from his scar then the Nordic Model allows for that because it does not separate disability and impairment. In this case, previous mentions by @thejakeformerlyknownasprince of times when Zuko experiences ableism be cause of assumptions made by others, can be accounted for as well as any prospective problems centring around his scar and eye. In the comments @i-am-mildly-insane mentioned that Zuko sleeps on his side and this changes depending on who he is around. He will sleep on his non-scarred side with those he trusts, and his scarred side with those he does not. This may infer a degree of impairment to his sight or possibly his hearing from the injury which the Nordic Model would account for because it can recognise that Zuko is also disabled by this in a way he would not be otherwise. The personal functionality of his senses affects him and thus the Nordic Model would recognise him as disabled even if he was not treated as he was in the narrative.

I'm very curious to hear your take on Zuko as a disabled character? All of your analyses of disability in fiction have been very interesting to read so far, thank you for sharing your thoughts/expertise.

Thank you!  Follow-on from this post about Toph.

What I mean by saying Zuko is a disabled character: the social model of disability basically states that disability is any bodily difference that gets problematized and/or treated as abnormal by society.  This definition includes facial differences, AKA any scarring, skin marking, and so on that leads to staring by nondisabled society or other forms of stigma based on the person’s appearance.  Part of the reason for this inclusion is about complicating the disabled-nondisabled dichotomy; facial difference and facial scarring are identities within that framework.  Part of the reason comes from the U.S.’s history of Ugly Laws, which literally made it illegal for people with facial differences to appear in public in some cities as late as 1974.  Part of it is the huge overlap between ableism (giving more privileges to the nondisabled) and lookism (giving more privileges to the normatively beautiful).

Avatar: The Last Airbender has some high-quality anti-ableism in showing Zuko’s story, including how other characters respond to Zuko and how Zuko’s appearance informs but does not define his characterization.

One of the ways this comes out is by turning nondisabled characters’ gaze back on them:

In “The Serpent’s Pass,” Jet says to Zuko “You know, as soon as I saw your scar, I knew exactly who you were…” and then goes on to describe his almost hilariously wrong conclusion that Zuko’s a Freedom Fighter waiting to happen because Zuko’s village was presumably also destroyed by the Fire Nation.  We get to see Zuko’s moment of terror that he actually has been recognized turn into incredulity as he then gets invited to join a guerrilla force opposing everything he (currently) stands for.  Jet looks stupid for jumping to conclusions based on appearances.

In both “Zuko Alone” and “The Cave of Two Lovers,” that same jumping-to-conclusions works in Zuko’s favor, because both Song’s mother and Li’s parents assume that anyone with a burn scar must be a veteran of the fight against the Fire Nation.  Again, the emphasis is on the fact that the people judging Zuko based on his appearance are wrong.

In “The Chase,” Azula becomes the only person we ever see mock Zuko for his appearance, when she covers her own left eye to draw out the “family resemblance” for Aang.  The moment gets a horrified reaction out of Aang — Zuko’s his enemy, but Aang also realizes that this is a nasty thing to do — and helps to establish Azula as not just a villain, but a sadistic one.

In “The Beach,” Zuko blows up at Ty Lee for commenting that stress can cause breakouts.  His response is unnecessarily mean-spirited, but it also draws attention to the relative level of privilege (the biggest skin problem she has to worry about is acne) that informed her careless comment.

In “Crossroads of Destiny,” Zuko assumes that, when Katara calls him “the face of the enemy,” it’s a way of calling him frightening to look at — and it’s Katara who looks like a jerk for implying it, even accidentally.

The other big way that this comes out is clapping back at the implied treatment of disability as demanding explanation, or the “But why are you like this?” form of ableism:

The show makes it clear that Zuko does not owe anyone — not Song, not Li, not Jet, not his crew, not his friends — an explanation for why he looks the way he does.  None of the Gaang ever ask Zuko what happened, and the few characters who do (Li, Song, Lieutenant Jee) don’t end up looking good when they do so.

“The Cave of Two Lovers” clearly underlines the show’s theme of “my body, my business” in the scene where Song tries to touch Zuko’s face.  The tone (including literal musical tones) signals that Song is being inappropriate and invasive.  It’s understandable that she wants to make a connection, but it’s also emphatically not okay to touch body parts of strangers one has not received permission to touch.

To be clear, taking people’s ostrich-horses is also not okay, Zuko, but Baby’s First Grand Theft Auto helps drive home just how thoroughly Song has let her curiosity and rudeness sour a budding connection.  It also shows that, while she’s right that she and Zuko have some things in common, she has privileges he lacks because she doesn’t have to disclose her scars if she doesn’t feel like it.  Plus, that moment contrasts to Katara and Mai both touching Zuko’s cheek — Katara just after they’ve shared a moment of vulnerability, Mai just before they start smooching — because they’re both doing so in a way that’s respectful to Zuko himself.

When he wakes up from a dream of turning into Aang, the first thing Zuko does is touch his left eye to make sure he’s still himself.  It’s part of his identity, and the only time we see adolescent Zuko without it (earlier in the dream sequence) it’s a way of showing that Zuko isn’t truly himself.

Zuko grapples with the fact that he’s always going to bear evidence of having survived abuse, and a big part of his character journey is concluding that he’s free to make whatever meaning he chooses of that scar, regardless of what Ozai might’ve intended.

There are other elements of Zuko’s story the Avatar writers do well.  He bears a superficial resemblance to the thousands of villains (especially in SF) who become villainous because they incur facial scarring, but of course his story is infinitely more humanized and nuanced than “skin bleached in a vat of acid, might as well go rob banks now.”  His appearance incurs very different reactions depending on his current wealth and political power, emphasizing the intersections of disability and imperialism.  He discusses the possibility of a cure with Katara, but also goes on to live a long and fulfilling life without one.

Maybe there’s no clearer evidence that Zuko counts as disabled in the sense of “society treats your body as a problem that needs to be solved” than the way that adaptations of AtLA treat the scar.  They tend to minimize, hide, or otherwise avoid it.

[Image description: Sepia-toned image of the Gaang from a Legend of Korra promotional that appeared on the Nickelodeon website.  Zuko has his head turned and his hair swept forward in such a way that none of the left side of his face is visible.]

[Image description: Screenshot of Zuko from the 2010 adaptation The Last Airbender.  Dev Patel has a very subtle amount of makeup meant to convey minimal scarring around his left eye.]

Like I said: facial difference counts as a disability because society treats it like one.  In the social model, that’s what counts rather than, for instance, how much peripheral vision Zuko does or doesn’t have.

I’m not linking to any of many works of fan art that depict Zuko tilted to the right, occasionally even when other characters are presented facing directly ahead.  Nor am I going to link to any of the equally-plentiful works of fan fiction that keep most other elements of canon the same but specify that Zuko’s face is unscarred.  (A similar number, it’s worth noting, also make Toph sighted.)  This isn’t a callout.  It’s an explanation of how Avatar does an effective job of showing how Zuko’s facial difference informs his identity without making that difference the sum total of his identity.

[alyssalikestoreadbooks]

Yours Truly - Abby Jimenez

"Dr. Briana Ortiz’s life is seriously flatlining. Her divorce is just about finalized, her brother’s running out of time to find a kidney donor, and that promotion she wants? Oh, that’s probably going to the new man-doctor who’s already registering eighty-friggin’-seven on Briana’s “pain in my ass” scale. But just when all systems are set to hate, Dr. Jacob Maddox completely flips the game . . . by sending Briana a letter.

And it’s a really good letter. Like the kind that proves that Jacob isn’t actually Satan. Worse, he might be this fantastically funny and subversively likeable guy who’s terrible at first impressions. Because suddenly he and Bri are exchanging letters, sharing lunch dates in her “sob closet,” and discussing the merits of freakishly tiny horses. But when Jacob decides to give Briana the best gift imaginable—a kidney for her brother—she wonders just how she can resist this quietly sexy new doctor . . . especially when he calls in a favor she can’t refuse."

Read Date - July 2024

Length - 416 pages

Genre - Romance, Contemporary, Chick Lit

Rating - 6/10

Stars - ★★★☆☆

Notes - The book starting out with the Doctor Death talk is interesting, because it paints the scene for distrust between Briana and Jacob. I think its also really cool that Jacob has representation for anxiety disorders. It’s written very well, and the interaction between Jacob and his brother and ex partner is fascinating. He wants to try to accept them, but internally he never will. why would he? Briana misunderstanding Jacobs reason for being there is so aggravating but i understand why they used this plotline, as it's very dramatic. The reveal that Briana’s brother is on dialysis and dealing with chronic depression was heartfelt and It changes his sickness/illness for me, because its much bigger than just being hospitalized. Jacob having a miscommunication with Briana was played out well (and not annoying unlike other miscommunication tropes) where she comes to realize that she’s the asshole in the situation, but she too wasn’t meaning too. It was just a bad week for her. Her brother is sick, and it makes sense that she would be a bit triggered by the things he’d said out of context. I think the letter writing is SO CUTE and it such a smart way to counteract the miscommunication trope because it instantly fixes it, and its true that writing is easier to express your thoughts because you have time to think and respond instead of being put on the spot. I think Briana saying the thing about “yours truly” was so cute and its like!!!! you said the thing!!! The phone call between the two was so cute and i love how fast they bond together. The closet lunch scene was a great way to describe symptoms of overthinking with anxiety, and i like the way it all plays out. Jacob donating a kidney is insanely kind, and goes to show what kind of person he truly is. Briana finding out he’s the donor was a slightly tense moment but its quickly resolved The fake dating plot was very nice and i like how involved the two get with each other. Amy accusing Jacob of going too fast with Briana was interesting because you never usually see that in Fake Dating tropes. Briana mishearing the argument and refusing to date Jacob is a little annoying. no elaboration needed, i just hate the miscommunication trope. It doesn’t get resolved for quite awhile, and it was sad to me. I like how Jacob and Briana interact with each other, and i hate that a lot of the book is spent pushing them apart, even if it makes sense. It just seems like there’s such an easy fix and they aren’t doing it. Briana choosing to move in with Jacob for a few months is interesting and they slowly patch up their relationship to what it used to be before Jacob confessed his feelings for her. Briana’s mom is very annoying for me, but i understand where she’s coming from. She has none of the information we do about the relationship. Brianna assuming that everything bad happening with Jacob is related to his anxiety is also a little annoying because its just another miscommunication that they could work through if they just talked. Jacob finding out that Amy is pregnant and having a panic attack was such good representation of GAD and I really did love the entire scene. Her admission of love was a good conclusion to the miscommunication. The spice in this book is extremely poetic (in my humble opinion) and is played out nicely. The next conflict of Briana not wanting to be with him and coming out of a Post-Nut-Clarity was interesting and smart. The talk between the grandpa and Brianna was SO SWEET!! I cant explain it but her giving in and giving him a cigarette is just so cute, and he took all the precautions!! The reveal between Amy and Brianna was cool and shows that she wasn’t a villain in this story, just a person who makes mistakes. I also like that they finally communicate with each other!! finally!! Seeing Nick again was such a shock i wasn’t expecting. And him and his WIFE are pregnant? insane! It triggering her own trauma with miscarriages and men is realistic, and i’ve seen some people say it came out of no where, but i believe the foreshadowing was there. The reveal that Briana is pregnant was SHOCKING. I genuinely wasn’t expecting that when it happened, but it explains the breakdown 10x more. The two having to work through their own issues alone before the transplant was cool for me, because its realy the first time they’ve been apart since the start of the novel. Briana reading Jacob’s diary was a sweet scene, and her trusting him was nice. I liked the ending and the wedding and i think the two are a cute couple together. This was a really tricky novel for me because i liked some parts, but really hated other parts. And on top of this, the parts i do hate are pieces that other people love and adore!! obviously this is alright, but it just makes me feel like the odd man out. 

[ghooostbaby]

deeeep dive into why and how wei wuxian and lan wangji love each other, complete each other, are the inverse reflection of each other’s deeply hidden internal selves mirrored through the other’s external self, lan wangji’s inner wildness that he has to conceal and protect recognizing and loving wei wuxian’s outer wildness, wei wuxian’s deep, fuddy-duddy morality and values that he conceals with an elaborate subterfuge of jokes, mischief, and bravado, seeing and loving in lan wangji the ability to say no that it was never safe for him to express directly, “between you and me there is no need for thank you and sorry”

oh and a slight diversion midway through into a manifesto on WEI WUXIAN IS NOT INSECURE the whole story is about a society where being liked is ESSENTIAL for survival and it is actually completely perilous not to be liked, and his “people pleasing” is a skill and tool for his survival especially as an orphan and proven to be a necessary one when he stops doing it and STOPS SURVIVING

after the cut discussing the very interesting dynamics of consent in general in the novel, but not going into the consensual non-consent kink stuff till the last paragraph if you need to avoid for any reason.

I've been thinking about how Lan WangJi sees in Wei WuXian the exterior, unfettered expression of the wildness Lan WangJi holds in him and protects with rigid codes of conduct, propriety and outward dignity.

I have had this sense that these two are mirrors, either one reflecting the hidden, interior (and unallowed) self of the other. but it seemed more clear from Lan WangJi's side, especially knowing about his history with his mother and the spicy side that emerges when he drinks and in the extras.

I also - just... the way this whole story shows how romantic love is truly this longing for your self, to become yourself, to become the thing you're not allowed to be, seeing in that person the expression of whatever it is you can't become and longing for it, protecting it, joining with it as closely as you can without ever being able to let it live inside your own body.

On the surface it seems a lot more difficult for Wei WuXian to find a piece of his soul in Lan Wangji. I think its a bit too simplistic to see whatever draws Wei WuXian to Lan Wangji as a reverse-psychology sort of craving of acceptance from the only one who won't give it, pushing and pushing against this impenetrable boundary that he needs to break to feel assurance that no matter what he can make anyone accept him.

And he is SO drawn - in a mind boggling way, in the teenage flashbacks Lan WangJi rudely and aggressively throws him off over and over and Wei WuXian cannot keep away! Even when he talks about how boring Lan WangJi is, he never stops trying to be around him and talk to him.

I've seen discussions of the way Wei WuXian has always relied on the goodwill of others to survive, and that his placating of others to survive is a character flaw. Although that seems only halfway true. 

As a young child he didn't have anyone's goodwill for a while and he survived, and it seems like he can always find a way to survive from whatever means and sometimes very limited resources he has at his disposal. Doing what he has to do to become powerful enough to survive losing his core and being thrown into the burial mounds slowly costs him the goodwill of everyone around him - and what happens to him as a result shows how much placation was a truly necessary for someone without the protection of biological/hereditary family bonds.

(Don’t get me started on how his loss of his golden core and his development of demonic cultivation to give himself power by ‘unnatural methods’ through the use of a musical instrument is a metaphor for disability and the way ableist society sees the use of accessibility devices and tools. Actually please DO get my started haha.)

Wei WuXian is so charismatic and seems very used to getting what he wants and needs on the strength of that. He pushes a lot of boundaries and seems pretty confident and flexibly prepared to handle the consequences, whether beatings or harsh words. But he does work so hard to make others feel good, good with him, good with themselves.

When he is in the cave with Lan WangJi, Wei WuXian is described as "like one who forgets all past pain as soon as the wound heals". He can't resist coming up beside Lan WangJi and talking to him again and again after every time Lan WangJi pushes him off, only finally staying away when Lan WangJi bites him (and he still keeps trying to talk to him after a little bit!) and then calls him an awful person (!!! Bad Wangji! :(((( ). In the end, when Lan WangJi (very minimally) discloses what happened to his sect and his father, and even cries, because of all the defences/assaults Lan WangJi has put up Wei WuXian can't do anything or say anything to help and feels miserable.

Lan WangJi just absolutely refuses to allow Wei WuXian to take care of him - and I began to wonder maybe that’s what Wei WuXian actually really likes about him? Why he is unable to resist coming up to Lan WangJi again and again? Maybe because Lan WangJi refuses to let Wei WuXian appease him. He’s not trying to crack Lan WangJi to get to this impenetrable place of approval and acceptance. In a way he can’t quite understand, Lan WangJi is a respite for Wei WuXian from the constant work to be the one who pleases.

And  how different this is to how Wei WuXian is (or has to be) with Jiang Cheng when he wakes up in Lotus Pier after the cave. Jiang Cheng gets so down and really really needs Wei WuXian to do what he does so well (and wasn’t allowed to do with Lan WangJi) - chasing Jiang Cheng down while being injured and reassuring him about all his insecurities about his father's acceptance and becoming a sect leader and Wei WuXian's own abilities excelling his - and at first Jiang Cheng is pushing him away, but he really does need Wei WuXian to do all this to feel better.

Wei WuXian is described as not wanting to be lonely, and not wanting to see other people unhappy, and he keeps trying to push and pull with whatever he has to not be lonely and lift the mood for those around him. I don't think it's a kind of codependency or insecurity. It’s not that Wei WuXian is afraid to say no, in fact I would say he doesn't do anything he doesn't want to do, but he must always do it creatively, with humour. Similarly to Nie Huaisang, he uses a persona of foolishness to give himself a covert agency.

I also think I'm writing this because I don't like seeing this discussed as a sad bean character flaw for him to always need to be liked - its a strategy, its a tool, its how he survives and excels. Doesn’t the whole story prove how essential being liked is to a human’s survival? And he is so so good at being liked, in making others happy, even when he is refusing to do what others want from him that he doesn't want to do, he does it in a way that deflects criticism, with a smiling bravado that never says what it truly means and has people writing him off as shameless or foolish or just endearing himself toward them despite themselves.

He is always at work really, with jokes and flattery or mischief and teasing, to get the resources he wants and needs. Case and point, when he makes a big coquettish show for mianmian, definitely not being "people pleasing" for her, but the group of girls around them all find it funny and cute and in the end she gives him a perfume sachet which ends up being a valuable resource for later. Or the time he outright tells Jiang Cheng that if you give the girls some lotus seeds they'll remember you and return the favour in the future. (Also notice how his interactions with girls seen as flirtatious are actually strategic resource-gathering acts.) These are the skills he has developed to meet his own needs. (THIS IS NOT A CHARACTER FLAW. I REPEAT.) He takes what he needs and steals from the Lotus Pier markets knowing it'll be paid for, he lives like he never know when his next windfall will come from so he'll take what he can when he can find it. Like Jiang Fengmian said, if there is no guarantee of a meal in the future then today's meal should still be enjoyed. It’s how Wei WuXian said to Nie Huaisang at Cloud Recesses, you have to find ways to make your own fun out of whatever you have. So he gets kicked out of class, goes fishing, gets alcohol, he pursues his own pleasure. He actually is quite insistent of his own agency and right to choose, he just can never directly say no.

And that little detail that Wei WuXian always tucks coins into his clothes just in case, that makes him able to buy food when he and Jiang Cheng are on the run... breaks my heart and reveals so much about the way Wei WuXian is constantly at work on ensuring his own survival and never takes for granted whether he is safe (he knows he never is). 

I've seen some people talking about Wei WuXian sacrificing so much for his brother and sister out of a need to be accepted out of a chronic sense of insecurity. But isn’t this just true? Doesn't he live in a world where being accepted is absolutely essential for survival? Doesn’t this whole story show the cruelty of a social system based on networks of hereditary/biological family that closes out and scapegoats any outsiders, and that without biological family connections that can enclose around you, you can never truly be safe if not constantly working to earn acceptance? (And then beautifully ends with the way a gay romantic relationship that queers marriage/family/etc disrupts all this and creates safety and inclusion for Wei WuXian without needing a normative family.) (AKA romantic love does not resolve some internal personal problem in Wei WuXian but disrupts and refuses and rebels against the problem of SOCIETY.) (*breathes heavily*)

And that’s why Lan WangJi is magnetizing to Wei WuXian. Lan WangJi is always saying no. Although what Lan WangJi sees in Wei WuXian is an exterior wildness, Wei WuXian is not really out of control so much as he is playing and caring and supplicating and showing off and pleasing people to get the resources and the acceptance he needs to live his life. He has firm values and desires that he can never outwardly state, only creatively spinning plates to distract and deflect while he refuses what goes against his values, protects who he cares for, or takes what he needs to in order to survive/thrive. Lan WangJi embodies an exterior of resoluteness and direct agency that Wei WuXian doesn't have the luxury of. And he's so drawn to him for his ability to repeatedly say no, to refuse to get along, or make others laugh, make other people happy, but just simply follow what he thinks is right.

Wei WuXian’s outward wild movement protects an inward stillness. He is an exterior of people-pleasing around an interior of refusal. He is an exterior of youthful rebellion around an interior of unflinching morality. He sees in Lan WangJi the outward expression of his stillness, his morality, his resistance that he can't express, that he's had to protect.

FYI after the cut gets more into the dynamics of consent in the story, and the last paragraph directly talks about consensual non-consent kink play in wangxian’s relationship.

When Wei WuXian is with Lan WangJi, there is no work to be done. Lan WangJi cannot be swayed by him, and so there's no point vying for resources or favors. Lan WangJi will either give him everything or refuse him everything based on who he is, it does not matter what Wei WuXian does and he can't do anything that will change Lan WangJi’s mind. Someone he literally can't win over. After the resurrection, they are often in an adorable tug of war, where Wei WuXian tries to take care of Lan WangJi, while Lan WangJi won't allow him to but demands to care of Wei WuXian right back. Actually, Lan WangJi insists that Wei WuXian take everything he wants or needs from him and is even angry when he doesn't take or when Wei WuXian tries to offer a gesture in return, even something as simple as a thank you Lan WangJi won't accept. It’s kind of adorable how frustrated Wei WuXian is in doing this thing he's learned that he needs to do, and just... so confused by Lan WangJi, and has to find a way to please this person who aggressively refuses to be pleased and is ONLY pleased by Wei WuXian being pleased.

(Not to mention the way Wei WuXian delights in finding that Lan WangJi can’t say what he wants, and they have sort of these chaotic cohesive both-being-so-pleased-by-working-hard-to-please each-other moments where Wei WuXian is letting Lan WangJi please him by finding out what pleases Lan WangJi and giving it to him.)

The wildness Lan WangJi had always hidden within himself is something he sees as just as dangerous as Wei WuXian thinks of his desire to refuse. He saw his mother be socially alienated, shunned, and eventually die because of her wildness. His ability to survive in the world, aka to be accepted by his family, is contingent on him being able to control this inner wildness. From a young age (re: Phoenix Mountain kiss) he could only understand his sexual desires for Wei WuXian as something repulsive or dangerous that had to be repressed and controlled, and that the only way he could imagine his desires as possible was as non-consensual. His secret gay desires were never available to him as anything but something monstrous.

Importantly, it’s not like everyone else other than Lan WangJi are all vampires cruelly demanding Wei WuXian’s constant sacrifice. Wei WuXian is always vibrantly, charismatically offering so much, before anyone has asked. It’s Wei WuXian who creates this kind of relationship for himself again and again. It’s Lan WangJi who simply refuses - he refuses to charmed, to be cared for. And so in the end Lan WangJi becomes the one person who Wei WuXian feels doesn't need anything from him. When he says he's eating the corpse's fruit to save Lan WangJi money and Lan WangJi says that will never be necessary. Or when Wei WuXian asks what toy he should win for Lan WangJi at the market game, and Lan WangJi says anything Wei WuXian gets will be the one he wants. (XD stahhhhp it’s too sweet !!!) He really just wants Wei WuXian to be, to exist, to spend his life discovering his own desires and allow Lan WangJi to help satisfy them, he doesn't want anything from Wei WuXian other than him living - happy and safe.

It takes someone like Lan WangJi to refuse Wei WuXian’s aggressive generosity, it’s definitely not an easy thing to say no to Wei WuXian, dazzling or annoying people so chaotically before they even realize there’s something to say no to. The sacrifice he gives to Jiang Cheng, he never even offers a choice - and perhaps it would have been too much for Jiang Cheng to accept if he had the chance.

Lan WangJi’s statement "Between us there is no need for thank you and sorry" seems like one of the most important sentences in the novel, and you can’t help but noticed the way “sorry” and “thank you” is littered meaningfully through the book. What is owed, what the characters owe to each other, the give and take, touches every part of the story (down to wangxian's erotic explorations!).

When Jiang Cheng talks to Wei WuXian at the Guanyin temple he makes a lot of contradictory statements about what Wei WuXian owes, what he was given, what he took, what he (Wei WuXian still) is owed in return. Wei WuXian, according to Jiang Cheng, took everything from the Jiang clan, and paid them back with their deaths. The Jiang clan give him his life when they took him in, and he owed Jiang Cheng service for the rest of his life as the right hand to the sect leader, that’s what Wei WuXian had promised anyway. At the same time, Wei WuXian sacrificed everything (his golden core) to Jiang Cheng, by giving everything he was taking one more thing - Jiang Cheng’s right to even be angry at him. Jiang Cheng had taken everything from Wei WuXian. Everything that happened around Wei WuXian after could be said to be because of the loss of his golden core, which Jiang Cheng might be said to be responsible for. But he never asked for it, maybe he never would have wanted it. He wishes Wei WuXian told him, but Jiang Cheng never told Wei WuXian his golden core was melted while he was sacrificing himself to save Wei WuXian. He wants Wei wuxian to say sorry, but that makes him feel pathetic. And Jiang Cheng says sorry too. It’s a mess of paradoxes, and in the end somehow it seems like the scales are balanced in the most hollow, dismal way.

What is owed, what is given, what is taken ... Wei WuXian has never been part of a family. He has always had to say thank you and sorry for everything he's taken. Wei WuXian himself admits that he used "thank you" as a way to enforce distance between himself and Lan WangJi. Lan WangJi's point i think is that they belong to each other, Wei WuXian is his, and he is Wei WuXian's, unconditionally. The way that Jiang Cheng speaks of him in the Guanyin temple (admittedly I read a fan translation and this is very nuanced, related to slight variations of grammar), even when Jiang Cheng clearly is so broken by the loss of Wei WuXian from his life, he talks about Wei WuXian as an outsider. It is what MY family gave to YOU, never what you took from our family. But at one point Wei WuXian was part of their family - but he takes too much, and becomes an ex-disciple, not a brother. Wei WuXian’s inclusion as a Jiang was always conditional. 

Even when Wen Qing and Wen Ning leave him to go take the blame for qiongqing path they tell him "thank you and sorry", drawing a line between them and him, so he doesn’t even belong to these people who he sacrificed everything for. The way Wei WuXian acted when he was younger, he was always keenly aware of this - he always knew that he didn’t belong to anyone, no one is going to protect him unconditionally. And after first escaping the Burial Mounds, he is done pretending. When Lan WangJi warns him about what a demonic cultivation path will do to his heart, Wei WuXian replies: “After all, on the topic of how my heart is, what could other people know about it? Why should other people care about it?” He is done pleasing. Nothing has changed really, he still belongs to no one and is alone, but now he is angry about it, and instead of saying thank you and sorry he is going to become too powerful to be at anyone's mercy. And then we see in the story afterward what happens to people who don't say thank you and sorry.

The whole point I think is the impossibility of choice, the impossibility of consent in this society. If he didn't forgo the behaviour his social acceptance was conditional on, he wouldn't have survived the burial mounds. But once he becomes powerful enough to survive and get revenge on the Wens, he is socially outcast. Except he was already outcast from the beginning.

And so how do Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi find a way through all that to a life together where all their desires are possible, where Wei WuXian can say no while also being pleasing (safe) to others, and Lan WangJi can indulge in his wild desires while still being good? The answer is kinky sex!

It is kind of miraculous and beautiful how Wei WuXian finds a way to say no, while simultaneously pleasing Lan WangJi, giving pleasure, while taking it, saying no, and knowing his refusal is not just tolerated, but gives Lan WangJi pleasure, knowing Lan wangji and knowing the painful belief Lan WangJi holds within that his desires are unacceptable and unspeakable, and that Wei WuXian can take care of Lan Wangji in a secret little way and please him and give everything to him by craving this wildness in Lan WangJi while at the same time he gets to say no again and again , and it won't push Lan WangJi away, he can refuse everything while at the same time be totally pleasing and thus safe, and also for Lan WangJi, Wei WuXian's pleasure at saying "no" while still being held onto, that he genuinely wants to be fucked even while begging Lan WangJi to stop (and the many ways he does give his consent for this throughout, especially their first time), allows Lan WangJi the ecstatic feeling that this idea that his sexual desires are only possible through force are not just something his lover forgives him for but something his lover is SO turned on by, and that he has consent for his fantasies of non-consent, Wei WuXian has the same fantasies from the other side, he is doing what he is supposed to while doing what he shouldn't, and actually these monstrous feelings in him allow him to take care of Wei WuXian in a way that he needs - that they both need - and all these impulses that are so wrong with Wei WuXian become very right and a way to do good. And they are just both so perfect and perfect for each other and I love them and I am so happy for them to have a long kinky life together.

[seoafin]

Honestly, i believe that it's almost a must to look from a critical point of view when reading or analyzing something, be it a script of a movie (how it's written), author's writing AND especially writing of a character themselves.

If people can't comprehend that then i really don't have to say much except avoid it? Some of us simply don't wanna see every writing/character as honky dorky or romanticize them because we're madly in love with a 2D ink on a paper. First and foremost at least, as much as i love Gojo, i can't dimiss all his negative qualities because they are there, i don't wish to blindly choose and ignore them because i hold an affection for a ink on the paper that's not even real. That's how i treat it first, as something that i think it's nice but it still holds its flaws, despite all that, if we all chose to just focus on characters lovely qualities and shoved aside all else then what exactly is the point in writing the said character let alone appreciating them in the first place?

The amount of people that romanticize, twist and write them into something that think would appeal their stereotypes is like a chronic pain or a suffocation in my plexus, for all i care actually do it but at least stop playing the victim when you see someone having a different point of view and especially when it doesn't aling with yours. Differing interpretations will always exist, and that's normal however it doesn't mean that every interpretation out there is valid, if i love someone's writing style, then maybe it's more because it drives me closer to the actual canon and it feels just right? People should be free to critize as they wish, it's in their interest and if that hurts someone on a personal level then just don't interact with it? Simple as that, i will continue to critize writing, how others portray characters, ships and whatnot, ya'll however don't have to listen to any of that if you don't want to, no one forced you to come to my blog and read my whole essay as to why i think this character sucks or why this ship sucks, that's entirely on you and you alone for ending up being offended afterwards.

Anyways, those are my two cents, Morgan, i'm sorry you have to deal with oversensitive assholes around here but it is what it is, if you're doubting why some of us love your work then let me reassure you; i genuinely love it because i think your intepretation is just right and valid, because the way you write makes me feel like "Oh this feels like canon" or this feels like Gojo to me, it's exactly like Gege writes him except we are exploring the facets that aren't in the manga and most likely never will be. Not every intepretation is for everyone but nobody is forcing anyone to be obliged to read into it so instead we should just stick to our spaces that we enjoy and think are best for us.

Thanks for reading, lovely! <3

omg don't thank me thank YOU for writing all this out 😭

like if i'm being honest half the problems in fandom along with all the shitty translations and misinformation would be fixed if ppl just took a second to stop and really think about it before reblogging and spreading it around even more. in the end i can't make anyone write what they don't want or critically think about manga. at the end of the day it's just my opinions and me talking on this niche and small blog where i repeatedly state several times that i critically interact with media (i literally study theoretical media). granted yeah some ppl on here will write and have fun even at the expense of real life people but they'll do that regardless

the thing is that interpretation is something that can be soooo good. i love hearing and reading ppl's interpretations on characters and events. various liberal art fields of study would not exist without interpretation. it just needs to be grounded in an understanding of canon and characters!!!! if me saying all this makes me a killjoy then like so be it 😭

also one thing that annoys me is that i am far from being the first person to talk about 'fandom characterization' bc i HAVE seen posts of much more popular blogs talking about "hating gojo's fandom characterization" or hating that ppl write him as a fuckboy with hundreds of notes so it's not like im doing anything new here??? but i'm the one getting called a bitch and a hater for suggesting not all interpretations r valid??? like they aren't wrong but also hmmmmmmm.