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vistovii · 8 days ago

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𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐅𝐎𝐎𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐇 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐅 𝐍𝐀𝐗 𝐈𝐒 𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐁𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐌𝐘 𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐒!

📌hey there! Anaxanation speaking. today I’ve brought a… typical setup? maybe. but it’s still plenty hot.

𝐩.𝐬. english isn’t my first language, the translation of this text may not be accurate.

𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐬 & 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: 18+ only, student fem!reader x professor anaxa, smut (blow job)

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 1,9k

𝐢𝐟 𝐮 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐢𝐭: your karma just got a +1000 boost, cheers❤️‍🔥

Academy of the Grove of Epiphany, sprawled beneath the boughs of the wise Cerces, was renowned not just for cutting-edge research, but also for its... challenging faculty. Professor Anaxagoras was a living legend and a living nightmare. Young, brilliant, with pale green hair pulled into a flawless tail, one eye hidden under a patch, the other a pale aqua with a violet glint – fathomless, utterly devoid of warmth. His course was a filter, sifting out the weak and lazy. He demanded perfection. Uncompromisingly. Sharp-tongued as he was sharp-minded, Anaxagoras shattered the confidence of even the brightest students.

You were far from a weak student – quite the opposite. A genuine star. Popular, charismatic, with a rare knack for grasping complex concepts on the fly. Many professors genuinely valued you, classmates envied you, younger students adored you. You soared in the academic stratosphere... until you collided with Anaxa's gravitational pull.

Submitting your first major paper for his course, you expected top marks, confident in your mastery. Instead, shockingly, you got only a 'Pass' with a curt comment: "Insufficient analytical depth. Superficial." Utterly perplexed, you approached him after class.

"Professor, I cited every key paper on the subject, including your latest dissertation. Where's the superficiality?"

"Citing isn't understanding, Miss Y/N," he replied, not even gracing you with a look. "You listed facts. I expected synthesis. Expectations unmet." Anaxa moved towards the door, leaving you simmering.

Your next papers were even more meticulous. You dug deeper, found obscure connections, consulted other professors. While others cheered a 'Pass', your efforts earned 'Good' marks, but still not 'Excellent'.

Meanwhile, you started catching Anaxagoras's gaze on you more often during your answers – that same analytical, cold, dissecting stare. But sometimes... was that a flicker of... satisfaction? When you stumbled on a tricky question? Or when you brilliantly parried his barb?

After one particularly stellar seminar, he seemed stranger than ever. Packing up, you lingered. Professor Anaxa stood by the lectern, examining some yellowed manuscripts. A chill ran down your spine. You felt his gaze. Long and heavy. But when you turned, he was looking at his notes as if nothing happened, only the corner of his lip was slightly raised. Not a smile. Something closer to a smirk.

However hard you tried to ignore Anaxagoras's quirks, the day came when you couldn't take it anymore. The final straw was your project. You'd poured your soul, your knowledge, and a month of lost sleep and social life into it. Victory and top marks were inevitable. Yet... Bold red ink screamed 'Fail' with another comment: "Misinterpretation of data. See basic textbook, Chapter 3."

"Basic textbook?! Chapter 3?!" Your hand clenched the thick project binder with white-knuckled fury, ready to incinerate every page.

It was an insult. You knew it was flawless; you'd painstakingly cross-referenced the latest research, including his own unpublished data – accessed thanks to your friendship with Hyacine, who couldn't bear your perpetual suffering. Professor Anaxagoras was deliberately marking you down. Why?

Standing in the empty lecture hall, you stared at the cursed paper. Fury boiled inside, mixed with hurt. But suddenly, the pieces clicked. That lingering gaze on your back. That smirk. That interest, carefully masked by icy detachment. Not professional interest. Personal.

Your eyes ignited with the fire of challenge. Did Anaxagoras think he was an impenetrable fortress? An infallible judge? Did he want to play cat and mouse, demeaning your intellect?

"Alright, Professor," a dangerous smile played on your lips, "You want analytical depth? I'll show you depth... you won't expect. Let's see whose ice melts first."

You didn't confront Anaxa immediately. You gave him a day. A day for him to see your unnerving calm after another "failure". A day, perhaps, to let him feel a flicker of disappointment that you hadn't come running to complain. A day for his own tension, his hidden anticipation of something, to build. You knew men like him. Control was everything. And what could be sweeter for such a man than breaking someone else's control? Or... losing his own?

And so, after another lecture, as most students left and shadows lengthened, you headed to his office. Not to plead. Armed. Your weapons were beauty, intellect, and the absolute certainty you'd found his weak spot. You knew you risked everything – your reputation, your place at the academy. But the thrill outweighed the fear. Knocking firmly, you entered the lion's den of Anaxagoras's office without waiting for an answer, ready to ignite the blaze.

The door creaked shut behind you, cutting off the world's noise. Anaxagoras's office was like the man himself: impeccably organized and cold. Tall shelves groaned under ancient scrolls and crystalline specimens, the desk buried under schematics and bubbling flasks. He stood over it like a general surveying a battlefield map, gaze fixed on papers.

"Miss Y/N," Anaxa didn't look up, "Lectures are over. Office hours are posted. Leave." His voice sliced the silence like a scalpel.

You didn't move. The air thickened with tension, crackling like pre-storm ozone.

"I'm not here for consultation, Professor," your insides trembled, but your voice held firm, "I'm here for justice."

Finally, he raised his eyes. In the visible one, like the flicker of a distant star, burned a spark of irritation.

"Justice? Knowledge of theory and the ability to apply it are distinct, Y/N. Your approach lacks sufficient rigor. The mark stands."

"Lacks rigor, does it?" You took a step forward, your shadow falling across his desk, "Or... lacks personal attention?"

Anaxa's brow furrowed. Knuckles whitened around his pen.

"Veiled hints and emotional manipulation are signs of intellectual weakness, Y/N, not strength. They won't help you pass the exam."

"Then what will, Professor?" You circled the desk, closing the distance. The scent of old paper and ink assaulted your senses, "Extra tutorials? A deep dive into... nuances?"

"You're crossing a line." His voice lost some detachment, gaining an edge of steel.

"A line?" Your hand rested lightly on the back of his chair as you leaned in, your lips inches from his ear. Your breath brushed his skin. You saw his jaw tighten, "You're the one blurring it, Professor Anaxagoras. By deliberately marking me down. Why?"

He snapped his head around. Your eyes locked point-blank. A storm raged in his visible eye – anger, warning, and... something else. Scorching. That very hidden interest you'd suspected.

"Leave. Now."

"Or what?" You smiled slowly, predatorily. The hand on the chair slid onto his shoulder. Muscle tensed beneath the dark fabric, "You'll give me another 'Fail'?" Your fingers squeezed lightly, "But what if I offered... an alternative form of knowledge compensation? Guaranteeing an excellent result."

Anaxa didn't look away. His breathing, usually so measured, hitched slightly deeper. He saw your resolve, your challenge. He saw your beauty, usually dismissed with contempt. And he saw the chink in his own supposedly impregnable armor.

"You're playing with fire, Y/N," his voice was low. A warning? Or an invitation?

"Perhaps," you breathed, your lips almost grazing his cheek, "But aren't the purest elements forged in fire, Professor?" Your hand slid down his chest, over his belt buckle, "What do you say? Top marks... for top effort."

He didn't answer with words. Anaxa's hand shot out, grabbing your wrist as your fingers brushed his zipper. But it wasn't rejection. It was a dominant, unyielding grip forbidding retreat. Then, almost imperceptibly, it softened, becoming a guiding touch. His thumb stroked the sensitive skin inside your wrist.

The challenge was accepted.

You sank to your knees on the cool stone floor before him. The high-backed chair made him an observer, the sovereign of this scene. His posture remained impeccable, but tension vibrated through him like a drawn bowstring. His unblinking gaze pinned you.

You took your time. Your fingers found his zipper again, meeting no resistance this time. The fabric parted. Every movement was deliberate theater; you were both actress and director. When the final barrier was removed, and Anaxagoras's arousal stood revealed in all its impressive, pulsing rigidity, a sharp intake of breath hissed above you.

His organ was perfect, like everything about him. Strong, straight, with a delicate tracery of bluish veins beneath smooth skin. The scent of clean linen mingled now with the musky tang of male desire. Heat flooded your own body at the sight.

You leaned forward. The first brush of your lips against the hot skin at his base was feather-light. Anaxa flinched, fingers digging into the armrests. Your tongue traced a slow path up the rigid shaft, unhurried, exploring every ridge, every throb of a vein. The professor responded with a choked groan, stifled deep in his throat.

While one hand encircled his base, applying gentle but firm pressure, your lips closed around the sensitive head, giving it a soft, experimental suck. After a moment's play, you began to move. Slowly down, taking more of his length into the warm, wet depths of your mouth. Your jaw relaxed, your throat opening with each descent. Your free hand rested on his thigh, feeling the powerful muscles clenched tight.

The professor's mask was cracking. His head was thrown back, the eyelid above the patch trembling violently. Sweat beaded on his forehead, strands of hair escaping the tail. His fingers no longer gripped the chair – one hand tangled in your hair, not painfully, but commandingly, guiding the rhythm; the other rested against your neck, his thumb feeling the flutter of your throat muscles with each deep intake.

"Y/N..." It was the voice of a man on the edge, utterly unfamiliar, "Enough... This... experiment..."

But you didn't stop. His loss of control was your victory, your 'A'. The rhythm quickened, your head movements became more confident, deeper. You applied more suction, your tongue working relentlessly against the underside of his shaft. The sounds grew louder: your ragged breaths through your nose, the wet, intimate sounds of connection, the professor's guttural groans escaping through clenched teeth.

The hand in your hair tightened. He involuntarily lifted his hips, meeting your mouth. The pulsing against your tongue became almost unbearable. The moment came. His body jerked sharply, pulling your head flush against him in one final, deep thrust. A hot, salty surge flooded your mouth, pulsing in time with powerful waves of release. You took it, swallowing, tasting the essence of absolute surrender, the broken infallibility of Professor Anaxagoras.

He slumped in the chair, utterly spent, chest heaving. His face was a mixture of blissful exhaustion and profound shock. His hand slowly loosened its grip on your hair, sliding down to cup your cheek.

Slowly pulling back, you looked up at him – this fallen god of intellect – and felt a heady rush of power. Standing, you felt the tremble in your knees; your lips felt swollen. Walking silently to his desk, you placed your project before Anaxa.

"Terms fulfilled, Professor," your voice was slightly hoarse, "I trust you found my... diligence... sufficient?"

The corner of his mouth, usually set in a disapproving line, twitched into something more complex than a smile. Acknowledgment of defeat? Or the opening gambit in a new, far more dangerous game?

"This experiment yielded... unexpected results," his gaze, still heavy and dark, held yours, "The mark is amended. For now."

What happened was only the beginning. You'd breached his fortress, acquiring the key. The path to top marks was open. And far more importantly – the path to Professor Anaxa himself, this complex, unyielding element who had proven capable of a volatile, uncontrolled reaction. And you intended to study him... to the very end.

#fanfiction #fanfic #honkai star rail #hsr #hsr fanfiction #hsr fanfic #hsr anaxa #anaxa x reader #hsr x reader #hsr smut #new writers on tumblr #genshin impact

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moonieandi · 8 months ago

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corners and walls | silco x f!reader

Summary: the grief of loss shakes apart the friends of four, leaving silco and her to pick up the pieces of the complex affliction between them

warnings (TW): slight spoilers for arcane season ii//act ii, swearing, mentions of death, alcohol mentioned, general trauma, violence (implied)

tags: established relationship, honestly for once NOT dumbasses, angst… comfort?, affection

notes: i think this is a oneshot. Im not completely sure (im kinda maybe sure) that this is a oneshot… im allowed to write about my interests! (pt 11 of snapshots in my drafts rn its a complicated ch im wrestling w myself about posting)--- but im in arcane brainrot…. I love dissecting it and unfortunately for all of u i LOVE silco……… hes a questionable character…… but the way the action of season ii is going i need something familiar in my life while looking at (doomed) victor/jayce (heavy sighs) — if u don’t wanna read i understand this is a moonie want (and need) — love youuuuuu <3

word count: 2.6k

| masterlist |

There were corners of her he did not know.

Folds of her linens and clothes he moved to uncover in the past months. She was quiet, silent in the visage he had drawn of her, but stubborn (something familiar) and something of great consistency to him.

It was hard to quantify her, easier to dismiss. She was not special. Of common stature and of common shape. Plain colors adorned her closet, plain and even temperament, plain tone, and of plain face.

That is what they would say when uncovering her past. Now that she was part of this mess, part of the mess he had sheltered her into (part of the mess Vander had shepherded her into). The dream of a larger nation, of overarching architecture and structure and reasoning. A voice, they figured between the four of them, a voice that would listen and learn and speak loudly in the face of the injustices they had survived and crawled through.

But he figured they would only comment on her appearance, perhaps. Of her coal stained shoes and the dirt under her picked nails.

They would not know the woman behind it all. Would not know of Felicia either (now). Not with the violence inflicted on the bridge. Not with the weapon staining his hand (an accident he had sworn to them both).

He knew of the woman before him though, knew of her mind and spite and grit. Knew of her work and the lengths and dredges she had come from. Knew of her grief. Something he sequestered in the back of his mind. Survive survive survive. She had once compared Zaun’s residents to roaches. Unkillable, dirty, and strikingly annoying. She meant it in an endearing way, she had to. She was a roach too.

It was a different kind of insect, a different animal, that drove him to draw a gun on the woman he loved so dearly. He wouldn’t have thought to wrap a finger around the trigger if it weren’t for the feral instinct of preservation. He could discern danger like a sense, it came as easily as smell, as sight, as breathing. But it had him stuttering now, seeing her on the other end of his warranted violence (was it warranted?).

She was a structure of poise, like usual. Another reason to keep the gun drawn to her. The silence in her acceptance of his decision. He knew though, that if they both survived the grief of his mistake she wouldn’t forgive him- never forgive him for registering her as a threat. How could she be?

He had been waiting for the retaliation. He hid away in corners and along dark walls in wait. He waited for Vander to seek a sort of violence in him, the last violence the large man would ever do. Seek blood in the name of their shared friend, for the orphans he made. He was sick, sick with the thought of it most days. But composed, up until this point. Up until Vander used his last facilities to shake his roach of a mind from the corners of the nation they once dreamed of in the depth of caves and between stone-cold walls. She was it, was that thing that would make him waver, and he knew that.

She had her palms raised, hands shaking. But composed, as usual. It was hard to shake the structure of her. She was rarely surprised by violence, much less the plights of men. She wasn’t quick to anger, wasn’t weepy at the thought of destruction, and stood as strong as cavernous walls, sturdy against the infrastructure of the Undercity. He admired that, he loved that.

She had only shaken a total of three times, in front of him. Only bent her head and neck and bowed before him in emotion all of three times. Imprinted in his mind, the cascade of her hair, the shaking of her shoulders, and the sightless grief in her eyes.

The first was the first time he truly saw her. She consumed herself with work. Whether it be their laborious job in the mines or the turmoil of finding justice in an unjustified upbringing. She had broken one day, that very first day.

She was a sightless, unknowing girl in the crowd. But something about her hunched structure had struck him differently that day. He was younger then, only twelve. He knew of empathy but had yet to experience it. But he was shackled by it then, that day, when he first saw her. Hands bloody through her miners' gloves, shoes holey from the trek to and fro. She was younger, by a year or two. It was not unusual to find distressed children in the Undercity, perhaps more common than people would like to comment. Children, like they were, grew along the walls and innards of the city, meshed into stony hallways and bridges, faded into noise and paint of the background. It should go unnoticed by most, a crying child. But it struck him differently, then.

The second, the day she confessed unfounded feelings. Years in the making, the dredges of the relationship between them. Even now, he could not comprehend the strings that were strapped between them. It was more than stuttered words and whispered confessions. It felt undying between them, an acceptance.

She had been confused at the progression of their relationship, as was he. No reference to be found between them of a structure to hold their relationship. They took it in stride, took and molded their wants between them to breathe easily. Wind through a metal chime, ultimately peaceful, but prone to knots. Their strings overlaying, knotting, tightening. He had never thought to unweave them when he fled. The tug of knots and her heart led her back to him anyway.

The third time would be now. The shake of her hands and the draw of her legs. The shimmering tears rounding along her chin. She was beautiful. She never liked when he said so, but she was captivating. He didn’t enjoy seeing her cry, it unsettled a deep dark part of him. One he would crush and stamp down, that domineering possessive part of him. He thinks of drawing the gun to his foot, squeezing the trigger at his incompetence and attitude to make her cry (this was the second time now, he swore, two strikes in the threads between them).

“Please.” She never pleaded. “Please Silco, come home.” The grit of her teeth against a stutter, the shuddering of her breath in the cavities of her chest. Grief, unfounded.

“You know I can’t, dear.” Too quick for his liking, he responded. He had backed himself into a dark corner, grown leaves into walls, and hid in shadows of the Undercity bridges now. It would have to be without her though, he grieved again. He had sunk so far into the stones, in the murky water of the Undercity, it wouldn’t be safe for her to follow.

“I’m sorry.” An afterthought. A forethought. What he apologized for was lost between the notch of string on his belt and the thread leading back to her shirt. Was it for Felicia? His grief? Or was it for leaving her? (Was it for the children? For the young girls that remember his visage in Felicia’s home? For the blue-haired pixy girl that asked for him between shattered bombed dreams? The girls she shushed and rocked and cried to sleep?)

She liked to think it was for all of it. Her stupid heart forgave him anyway.

She was far from naive, far from gullible.

She knew of men and violence and dark waters by the ripe age of nine. Something she would teach Felicia’s daughters now too. It was why she lived, why she breathed still, her unwillingness to bend and snap her neck in the face of shadows and men. But she had forsaken that for him, craved a subjugation in his waters, and wished to follow him up ivy walls and read the ink scrawled on his stupid notebooks. Wanted to breathe life into his ideas and into Zaun. She’d follow him into the dark, knowingly leaving the unsaught dawn behind her.

She only bent because she knew the power between them was equal though. She was sure of exactly three things when it came to Silco.

The first being that he was flippantly deep. That he thought not in breaths but in paragraphs. That he could not speak but write for hours on end, that he could comprehend and listen and swallow and accept, and that he did not react in haste. He was full of purpose and determination. It was more than endearing, almost blindingly inspiring that he wished for not better but only ever the best.

The second being that he was a perfectionist. That his scripture was scrawling and hard to read, but comprehensive. That he enjoyed messes only because he enjoyed the meticulousness of planning and cleaning up. That he loved the structure of homes and corners of houses and the craft of cleaning something that was truly his.

The third being that he loved of equal measure, that she was most sure of, could recognize in the dead of the night, in the depth of caves. That he was severely serious when it came to the strings strung between them, and not because of the disorder of them. He would have color-coded, would have untwisted knots, and lengthened rope if he wanted to. But that was the truth of it, that he was the farthest from a perfectionist when it came to love. That he didn’t measure distances and didn’t note words between them, because he threw away the scale of them long ago. Pulled her close, twisted words between them, and sang and hummed to her in crooks of her neck. That he wished for her continued safety above anything, and far above his own. She knew for a fact, was sure of it as she was of the red-pitched brick outside the bar. It was as cumbersome as the smoggy sky, but as easy to swallow as any dark liquor. That he loved her in dark corners that made him.

But there were dark corners of her he did not know of yet.

That the consuming grief of her long-time friend sent her into a rage, that the stabilization and measurements between them fell and broke when he was not there for her to confide in. She wished above all else that he had stayed, that he had faced Vander’s anger. She had stayed, breathed, and swam the storm of their mutual friends' grief. Stayed for the children and for their grief also. Did that make him a coward?

“For what.” She asks, the caverns of her lungs shaking now. Her hands weak, falling to her side. “Don’t say that, don’t say that if you don’t know what for.” It was senseless and miscalculated of him to say sorry. He is so purposeful, so full of preserverations. She just wished he did not feel he had to preserve himself in the face of her.

The gun shakes now, dropping to his side, his finger poised along the trigger still. The depth of the scarcity of her image still shook him. It had been weeks, what felt like months since he’d seen her face.

He had seen her in crowds, seen the children marking her frame and clutched in her arms. It shook him to not wake up to her face anymore, much less her smell or her frame or her voice. Her face though, the visage of tears and the weakness of her arms, awoke something in him.

He had to remember himself, why he left. To build a nation, to structure a future for her. For the new shadows of Felicia that followed in her wake now.

“Everything.” He meant. “For everything, my love.”

She sighs deeply, tired. Her head tilting to the left on instinct. Powder made a home in the crook of her neck most nights now.

It was striking to see him. She dreamed of him between nightmares and dreamless sleep. Dreamed of waking up to him, of the quirk of his lips and the crook of his nose. The smell of him and the warmth of his embrace. The fold of his jacket around her shoulders and the breath of a kiss along her brow. When she woke she could not decide the ups and downs of walls, couldn’t decide if it was a tortuous nightmare to be awake or to be asleep.

It strikes her when he steps forward from the shadowed corner she had backed him into. His hair is longer, his eyes deeper and darker, his clothes caked with dirt. She thinks to be insistent again. Thinks of bringing him home despite Vanders’ anger, despite the grief they shared between them. But wasn’t Silco grieving also?

He approaches with stuttering steps. Unsure of the length of strings between them, grasping her to tie her tight again to him, when he reaches for the curve of her cheek and jaw.

“Don’t cry.” He commands for the third time in her life, sweeping his thumb and fingers along her wet cheeks. She shutters around it, breathing between the mess of string and space between them.

“Good.” He hums, bringing his fingers to the nape of her neck, curving her neck up in revelation. He bends his own in subjugation to her, curving his shoulders and bowing to her visage to meet familiarly between them. Curving his slight frame and lips against her own warmth, the common parts of her beat faster at the affection. It burst between them, the movement of endearment and familiarity. She forgot about this above all, missing the plainer parts of life you don’t know to miss until they are gone.

She’d miss him again and again, would string along strings and set fires in dark paths and along walls searching for him. They’d say goodbye now, and say goodbye again once she traced him back down to the cobblestone he had slid into and out of. She’d look for him in architecture and in the children of the Undercity, she’d swear and kiss away it all now, though. Anything to push off the knots between them, anything to stop a stuttering goodbye between them that was as inevitable as her own death. A thousand of them, these tiny goodbyes, she’d take though, if it meant he lived.

Lived farther down below than she’s ever been. But then again, there were corners and foothills in her mind he did not know of, yet.

#arcane #arcane season 2 #arcane silco #silco #silco x reader #arcane imagine #arcane fanfic #lmaoooo sorry yall

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whitehairandtraumatized-bracket · 5 months ago

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White Hair and Trauma Preliminary 2: In Stars and Time

They both had one submission

trauma and propaganda under the cut!

Trauma!

Loop: “The loops do be looping and Loop got the short end of the stick (cough SAAP cough)

Dying over and over again sucks, watching yourself(?) die over and over and then some how SURVIVE at the end when you never did and will never be able to sucks harder”.

King: “Entire country got forgotten by the world!! Oopsie! Including by him! He spends every waking second grasping for the most fleeting recollection of what his beloved homeland was like and mourning how easy it is for something so precious to be forgotten!! He's so traumatized by the loss of his people and his culture that he becomes a storybook villain about it and starts spreading a curse to freeze in time the country that took him in as a refugee, to try to protect them and their kindness from suffering the same fate!”

Propaganda!

Loop: Star creature made of wishcraft (i think?), they them pronouns user, they're literally so pretty, i never got to two hats but i'm like 90% sure they have a secret boss fight which is cool, weird relationship with Siffrin who is also technically them iirc??? Literally cannot tell what to call what ever they have going on but its funky

King: Oh believe me, he's not [cool]!! He's understandable but unforgiveable!! He made himself grow into Basically His Own Mech-Size using incredible forgotten magic and started marching across the country slowly enough to let anyone try to stop him... or to let people try to save themselves, if they would rather abandon their own land than welcome their fate-- this is conjecture, on my end. I've been thinking about egregious monster so much for so long. I'm writing a years-long character study about him just to try to dissect how the hell anybody gets to that point. Do NOT vote for the King because he's cool, he's NOT COOL HE'S VERY BAD, but vote for him because he's so damn well-written and internally complex and INTERESTING!!!

#white hair and trauma preliminaries #polls #in stars and time #isat #isat loop #isat king #isat spoilers

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pearsandrust · 2 months ago

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Aventurine and the Rule of Three: Past, Present? and Future

Disclaimer: I did not edit this post very well, and it has not been beta-read. Please let me know if you see an error.

IT'S AVENTURINE ESSAY TIME!!!!!! While I previously planned to expand on my original post on this topic, I realized that things actually go a lot deeper with Aventurine.This post is therefore going to address a different interpretation of the motif of "threes", one that will hopefully be more interesting when explored in detail. My thoughts on this have been so chaotic that this will feel more like a rant than an essay, so sorry in advance!

Thanks to everyone who reblogged my original post to point out that Kakavasha, Aventurine, and Aventurine's future self also make a trio in the 2.1 quest. I owe you a trillion credits. (i think the first person to mention it was @onceuponaladye -- thank you so much!).

Alright, I'll stop yapping. Words below the cut. As usual, I'm not sure if any of this is coherent.

INTRO:

Aventurine's lore is completely intertwined with the number three. Three dice. Three slots. A goddess with three eyes. And not to mention all the other instances where it appears:

Three spade-like symbols on his coin

Three screens behind him in his boss fight

Three stages of his life (life on Sigonia-IV/life as a slave/life as a Stoneheart)

Three Cornerstones gambled for Penacony

Three parts in the prayer to Gaiathra Triclops

... and probably a lot more I'm missing! Feel free to point more stuff out :)

Notably, the writers use the motif of threes as a narrative device in the 2.1 quest segment "All the Sad Tales", in which we see three versions of Aventurine: Kakavasha (his past self), his current self (who I will be referring to as Aventurine), and his future self (who I will be referring to as Future-Aventurine). This gives us a framework for thinking about the other instances of the rule of three. IN THIS ESSAY I WILL! ... try my best to dissect two very prominent instances of the rule of three in the Penacony 2.1 quest, and elaborate on how each acts as an analogy for Aventurine's past, present, and future. The interesting thing, however, is that Aventurine's present self stands out among these three versions of him. While his past and future selves have very distinct identities and morals, present Aventurine doesn't. He's conflicted, insecure, lost. He's caught between the weight of his facade and the burden of his past. And while we already know this from the story, it's pretty cool to see just how much subtle symbolism there is in his lore.

Note: Unless stated otherwise, all quotes are from the 2.1 quest.

SECTION 0: Preliminary Thoughts on Kakavasha and Future-Aventurine (mostly a preface -- skip if needed!)

Before I start my analysis, I'd like to point out that Kakavasha and Future-Aventurine are both complex and well-written characters in their own right, and I am definitely not going to do them justice in this essay. Both of them have incredible depth; each has their own opinion on justice, luck, power, preservation, and so much more. However, while looking through Aventurine's lore, I found that their characters are best represented through sets of two, like the pieces of jewellery Aventurine's mother left behind or the paired quest descriptions in "All the Sad Tales". I'd like to do a complete analysis of them someday, but I will be oversimplifying them a bit in this essay, and I'm sorry about that. Kakavasha and Future-Aventurine specialists (if any of you are out there), feel free to correct me in the notes.

My best analogy for the relationship between past, present and future Aventurine is that Kakavasha and Future-Aventurine are two sides of the same coin, and current Aventurine is the edge of that coin. We usually approximate a coin toss to two equal and opposite outcomes: either heads or tails. The third option -- tossing a coin and having it land on its side -- is rarely acknowledged due to its near-impossibility. However, Aventurine is exactly the kind of person to toss a coin and have it land on its side. It should be impossible for him to hold onto both his past and his future given how much they conflict, but he tries anyway.

SECTION 1: The Three Cornerstones

One of Aventurine's biggest feats is choosing to gamble not one, not two, but three entire Cornerstones on Penacony. Furthermore, Aventurine tries to make both Topaz and Jade's stones seem like they're his own. This mirrors how both Topaz and Jade both share distinct similarities with Aventurine, which allows for us to interpret the three Cornerstones as symbols of the stages of his life:

Topaz represents his past.

Aventurine represents his present.

Jade represents his future.

I'm going to go through the Topaz and Jade sections first, as they're a bit easier to explain.

The Past: Topaz and Kakavasha Topaz and Aventurine share a similar origin. Like Aventurine, she also comes from a desolate home planet, and like Sigonia-IV, that planet was also targeted by the IPC. However, the most important similarity between Topaz and Kakavasha is that both of them believe that human lives should come above all else. When Kakavasha's sister tells him that the rain is a gift from Gaiathra, allowing them to turn the tide in their fight against the Katicans, he says this:

But… but people will die, and you will be in danger… How is that good fortune? Why are you all doing this…

Kakavasha has never cared for the politics of Sigonia-IV, and he also seems to question the traditional belief that poverty and suffering are just the trials of Gaiathra Triclops. In his eyes, all of the ideas that his family taught him (that he should appreciate poverty, that defeating the Katicans is important) have only led to more senseless deaths. To him, his family's survival is the only thing that really matters. Topaz expresses a similar (albeit more twisted) belief to Bronya:

I know freedom is precious to people, but in reality there are things of much greater value… such as survival.

In addition, Topaz states that she works in the interest of the common people, and she's known for not caring much about wealth. In this regard, Topaz and Kakavasha have similar ideals.

Topaz also seems to be one of the most honest IPC employees. It's even mentioned in her Character Stories that the one exam she failed was business etiquette, suggesting that she never really puts up a facade for the sake of making a deal. Accordingly, Kakavasha is the only version of Aventurine that isn't acting. He lives as himself: questioning the world around him, grieving what he's lost. The other versions of Aventurine do not have that privilege.

The Future: Jade and Future-Aventurine As we know, Jade was essential in recruiting Aventurine to the IPC in the first place, and they've worked together on many missions. Both of them are experienced in making high-stakes deals, often using lives as bargaining chips (although Aventurine only ever bets his own life -- I'll get to that). These are traits that become more and more central to Aventurine's character as he tries to bury his past and commit to his Stoneheart persona. In the 2.1 quest, Future-Aventurine fully embodies this facade: he's cynical, manipulative, materialistic. Good at sweet-talking in a condescending way, to the point where he sounds a little too much like Jade:

Which is why once you step into the hotel, you remove your high hat and beg everyone you come across for help, like a hyena scavenging for scraps in the desert. - Future-Aventurine, 2.1 quest Unfortunately, there are no more Avgins in Sigonia. You're the last lucky dog. - Jade, Aventurine’s Character Story III

They both speak to Aventurine in the same patronizing manner, and they both refer to Aventurine as a kid/child/young person at some point.

(Side note: When Aventurine is "in character" as the confident negotiator that his future self seems to be, he also acts a lot more like Jade. For example, in Aventurine's animated trailer "Non-Zero Sum Game", he swirls a flute of champagne around the way Jade swirls her wine. Pretty neat detail.)

Future-Aventurine and Jade also share a trait that neither Kakavasha nor current Aventurine possess: the willingness to put other people's lives on the line. Future-Aventurine points this out himself:

In your hands, those who follow you could've become joker cards. They're far more useful that way. - Future-Aventurine, 2.1 quest You will become the IPC's agent in the Silverchain Galaxy. From this moment on, every huff of your breath and every minute of your life will contribute to the Amber Lord's great cause... - Jade, Jade's Character Story: Part I

Future-Aventurine and Jade are both willing to take advantage of people's desires, ultimately using lives themselves as betting chips (or "joker cards", as Future-Aventurine says). It's important to note that Future-Aventurine specifically mentions "those who follow you", which perfectly parallels Jade's ideology towards deals. She waits for those who need her to come to her first.

So, if Topaz represents Kakavasha's innocence and hope, and Jade represents Future-Aventurine's unapologetic, cunning nature ... Where does that leave present Aventurine, represented by the real Aventurine stone? Luckily for us, Future-Aventurine has the answer to that:

The Present: A Fractured Sense of Self?

...Just look at it, tsk. Shattered, just like your life. Poor thing. A humble pebble coated in the most lustrous sheen.

See, the irony of Aventurine's Cornerstone plan is that the two stones he surrendered to the Family -- Topaz and Jade's -- are the ones that make it out unscathed. His own stone is not so lucky. And like his future self says, it's a perfect representation of his life. Because Aventurine's current self is fragmented. His identity is a mosaic of every life he's lived before and every life he'll live after, patched together with escapism and a proficiency for acting. He is the facade and the person under it. He's Kakavasha, Future-Aventurine, both, and neither.

To explain this better, I'd like to look a bit closer at the phrase "a humble pebble coated in the most lustrous sheen". This phrase is especially important because Acheron basically says the same thing of Aventurine, and she knows him especially well after everything that went down in 2.1.

A shattered emptiness draped in the guise of desire... his existence is strikingly powerful, yet the self beneath is extraordinarily faint. - Acheron, "About Aventurine"

(Side note: I find it funny how Acheron just occasionally just drops a Very Accurate Statement about Aventurine and then refuses to elaborate. She's so real.)

"A humble pebble coated in the most lustrous sheen" can be interpreted in two ways:

The first interpretation describes Aventurine's relationship with his past. Kakavasha grew up on a desolate planet, living mostly in poverty. In this situation, he is the "humble pebble". Aventurine's origins make him somewhat of an oddity among the employees of the Strategic Investment Department, and many people were against him being selected as a Stoneheart in the first place:

"And let's not forget the letters from the councilors of the Sigonian Sovereignty. They denounce his tribe for once breaking agreements and sowing discord, leading to significant changes in the balance of peace between the tribes, resulting in repeated delays in the signing of agreements between Sigonia and IPC. Allowing such an employee to join at the IPC would be a severe detriment to public relations..." - Aventurine's Character Story: Part I

Regardless of what others say of him, Aventurine's success in the IPC has given him a great deal of wealth and status, which he uses to mask his difficult past. This is the "lustrous sheen"; the "strikingly powerful existence" that hides his suffering beneath it.

We can tell from the story that Aventurine has never forgotten his past. The "sheen" that the IPC affords him only exists on the surface; no matter how much wealth he has, he cannot use it to erase his previous suffering. And on top of that, Aventurine usually has to conceal his past to maintain his power. But even if he didn't ... the IPC destroyed Kakavasha's home. Aventurine can't bring himself to reconcile with his past identity because of the guilt it causes him, knowing he's now on the enemy's side. In fact, he already thinks of Kakavasha as someone as someone who'll be better than him:

"Kakavasha": Awesome, I hope I can become as good-looking as you when I grow up. Aventurine: Of course you can. Aventurine: You'll be better, and stronger than me.

What does one do with a past they can't return to? It is a problem with an impossible solution, and in the end, it leaves Aventurine stuck between acknowledging his origins and burying them. He knows that Kakavasha will always make up a part of him, but he can't bring himself to accept that -- not when the very company he works for caused his younger self so much pain.

So if present Aventurine both is and isn't Kakavasha, then what about Future-Aventurine? Could Aventurine become him? Could he commit entirely to the facade, living off of deals as Jade does? Could he, perhaps, acquire enough power to be truly free?

This is where the second interpretation of the phrase "a humble pebble coated in the most lustrous sheen" comes in. Because interestingly enough, aventurine is often used as a substitute for jade.

??? (Future-Aventurine): This type of stone isn't rare, but its hue is very similar to a certain gem. In fact, it's often used as a substitute. And that more precious gem is... Aventurine: ...Jade.

A "humble pebble coated in the most lustrous sheen" can also be an act of deception. It can represent Aventurine using glamour and frivolity to make himself seem more confident, daring, valuable -- more like Jade, who has always had more power than him.

I mentioned already that Future-Aventurine is very much like Jade. He's willing to throw away a lot of things for success. In fact, he tells the present Aventurine that (like Jade) he should have no problem putting other people's lives on the line:

In your hands, those who follow you could've become joker cards. They're far more useful that way.

But Aventurine refuses. In all his endeavours, he never gambles away anybody else's life; he only ever stakes his own. That's something he's unwilling to budge on, because he knows what it feels like to be treated as a bargaining chip. And tragically, that's what prevents him from fully realizing his potential as a Stoneheart -- from fully becoming Future-Aventurine, who is so much like Jade. Because Jade's entire business operates on the principle of using lives as capital. Therefore, Aventurine can never become equivalent to Jade if his morals stay as they are now; he can only be a "substitute", a less valuable version.

The present Aventurine is a study in irony. He can't forget his past as Kakavasha, but he can't fully acknowledge it either if he wants to be a Stoneheart. And yet, the pains of that buried past are what prevent him from truly reaching the top of the IPC. He is truly just as shattered as his Cornerstone, made of bits and pieces of other people. People that he once was; people that he might eventually be. And yet he himself is close to being nobody (the self beneath is extraordinarily faint).

Although the Cornerstones are arguably the best representation of the relationship between the three versions of Aventurine, there is another set of three that represents him very well. And although it'll feel a bit repetitive, I'd like to address it too.

SECTION II: The Prayer to Gaiathra Triclops

May the Mother Goddess thrice close her eyes for you … keeping your blood eternally pulsing. May your journey be forever peaceful … and your schemes forever concealed.

You guys probably know what I'm going to say in this section, but this is one of my favourite things about Aventurine ever, so I'm going to say it anyway. The prayer he and his family say to Gaiathra Triclops is yet another example of a set of three: it contains three wishes, each corresponding to one of Gaiathra Triclops' eyes. And like the Cornerstones, these three wishes seem to perfectly align with the stages of Aventurine's life. Again, I'll start by talking about the parts that coincide with his past and future identities, as those are a bit more straightforward.

The Past: "... keeping your blood eternally pulsing." When interpreted literally, this phrase parallels Aventurine's childhood fairly well. Of course survival would have been a priority for Kakavasha -- he and his family were living in terrible conditions on a conflict-ridden planet. There wasn't room in their lives for much else. However, "blood" can also refer to one's relatives, giving this phrase a double meaning; Kakavasha's primary goal was not just survival, but also the survival of his family. Despite his sister emphasizing that he was the blessed child of Gaiathra Triclops, that he would be the one to survive, Kakavasha always thought of his other family members. In his mind, their survival was just as important as his own.

There is also a third interpretation of this phrase, which Kakavasha's sister brings up in their final moments together:

As long as you are alive, the blood of the Avgin will never run dry.

As Kakavasha's sister told him, he was the hope of the clan -- the one who would lead them to happiness. If anyone could make it out, it was him. And so the burden of preserving the Avgins' memory falls entirely onto his shoulders.

One of the reasons Aventurine cannot let go of his past is because of this responsibility. If he truly lets Kakavasha "die", then the history of his people will truly be lost, reduced to only what the IPC was willing to say of them. And Kakavasha will die as soon as Aventurine truly loses himself to his facade.

The Future: "... and your schemes forever concealed."

You're a natural, kid. You don't stop at fooling the audience — you fool yourself too. - Future-Aventurine

I (hopefully) established in the last section that Future-Aventurine is every bit the cunning gambler that people think he is. He's deceptive, condescending, always taunting Aventurine. He even acknowledges himself that he has very few likeable traits. He has no qualms with playing dirty, using others as chips for his deals. He even tells Aventurine he should've sold his mother's lucky charm, completely ignoring its sentimental value (he is both right and wrong about this, but that's a story for another day).

In the context of his character, this part of the prayer is bittersweet. On one hand, it's a sigh of relief: Future-Aventurine has the power he needs. He no longer has to wish for survival. On the other hand, it's tragic, because it means that Future-Aventurine really does completely fool himself. It means that he buries his past, his fears, his suffering. All he's concerned with is his schemes.

(If you need further proof that Future-Aventurine, this phrase, and Jade are connected, Jade repeats "May your schemes be forever concealed" to Aventurine at the end of their first meeting.)

However, for Future-Aventurine to exist, Aventurine must first completely fool himself into believing his Stoneheart facade. He has to convince himself, again and again, that it's worth it; that he can abandon his past and commit fully to the act. And that is the ultimate scheme that he wishes to conceal. Future-Aventurine is a product of Aventurine successfully deceiving himself, and that's tragic. Because even though Future-Aventurine finally has enough power and influence to save himself, there is no self left to save.

The Present: "May your journey be forever peaceful ..." Finally, we get to the last section of the prayer (and the last big section of this post!) Of all three parts of the prayer, this is the least specific. The concept of "peace" isn't as concrete as those of survival and deception, and the idea of a "journey" is equally vague. This aligns with Aventurine's uncertain present; he doesn't truly believe in the IPC, and he doesn't solely desire wealth or fame. He has no way of saving his past or future selves. Then, what does Aventurine want? He questions this himself in the 2.1 quest:

Even if I overcome this difficult trial, what would come next? What awaits me after this glorious gamble... an even more glorious one?

Aventurine is always looking for the next deal, the next gamble. This is his journey -- he goes from one opportunity to the next, never settling too long in one place. He needs the thrill of danger to distract himself, and yet anxiety underscores every bet he makes. He can't win without wondering when his lucky streak will end.

What Aventurine truly lacks is peace. He wants closure; he wants a purpose; he wants answers to those impossible questions (Then how bad were our sins? / Then what did we do to deserve living in a world like that?). He remembers enough of his past for it to haunt him, but not enough to feel whole. And of the million lives he's lived, not a single one has been truly fulfilling.

To tie it all together, this is the description of Aventurine we get at the end of 2.1, which parallels both his need for peace and the concept of his "journey":

His life knows not quietude. His fate yet demands him to win them all, to weather tempests, one after another... til mire enshrouds his very breath. And now, in the unfathomable depths of dream, the once falling die... has at last landed on its earthly rest. Quietly, peacefully, it at last landed.

"Quietly, peacefully, it at last landed". At the end of 2.1, Aventurine does find some semblance of peace, which is a writing decision I am infinitely grateful for. For at least a moment, Aventurine's needs are fulfilled. For at least a moment, he's okay. I very much hope it's not the last.

FINAL THOUGHTS (it's 3AM)

If you made it here, congratulations! Or "I'm sorry"? It's been years since I've written something like this, so I'm not entirely sure which is more appropriate.

In any case, thank you for reading! I love Aventurine and Penacony so much that it was hard to really express my thoughts on them. Most of the time I spent working on this essay was just me staring at my computer with a vague ache in my chest. Penacony is all about illusions and deception and false identities, but I still think it's neat just how well the characters embody these motifs. Aventurine is not who we think he is, and he's definitely not the person he once was. But none of those versions of him were wasted, because they all contribute to the strange, messy, wonderful character we know. I hope I did him at least a little justice with this rant.

Thanks again for reading, everyone!!

#aventurine word vomit hours #UNEDITED POST #SORRY GUYS #i dont even know what to say here #live laugh love aventurine. cant think about him without feeling sad and pacing around my room #okay. more tags tomorrow maybe. im really really sleepy #hsr #hsr aventurine #3800 words total including the quotes. thats. wow #penacony ── .✦#long post ── .✦#hsr thoughts ── .✦

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genericpuff · 6 months ago

Note

Who is your favorite LO character? Who is your favorite LR character?

i feeeeel like my answers change every time i get asked this question JFDSKLAFJSDALK but that's okay because it just means i'm constantly finding new ways to analyze and explore these characters >:3

LO faves: Minthe and Hephaestus.

Minthe because she obviously gets such shit treatment in the comic and subsequently from the fanbase, but she's a lot more relatable than 99% of the characters in the plot, she feels like she has actual depth and a real character arc, even if that arc ended with an unceremonious whisper. It goes to show how great of a character she was that Rachel practically had to nerf her out of the plot, because it was often only ever at its best when she was present. Funny how as soon as she was written out, there was nothing interesting going on with Hades or Persephone anymore - the plot was literally so boring without her that Rachel literally tried to create a Minthe 2.0 through Leuce, and we all know how well that went /s

As for Hephaestus, nothing super specific, I just like his vibes. Maybe it's just my absent older brother issues, but I would love to just like, hang out with him, game in the same room as him, just autistic parallel play stuff, I think he would be into that. Only complaint is the design flaw of giving him running blades as the default prosthetic, that can't be comfortable for his hips and joints. But that's not his fault u.u and that's basically my only complaint about him which makes him a winner in my book, esp compared to the rest of the cast. He might not be in the comic all that much, but that was clearly to his benefit because it seems the more attention Rachel pays to a character, the worse they wind up being in the long run due to poor writing. Hephaestus is in the comic just enough, not too little, not too often.

So yeah, Minthe and Hephaestus are both 10/10 characters written by a 0/10 writer. They did the best they could... not Rachel of course, she did literally the bare minimum of "representation" which often came across as ignorant white knighting at best and blatant stereotyping / stigmatizing at worst, I mean that Hephaestus and Minthe did the best they could as genuinely interesting characters with unique circumstances and disabilities who were being written by an amateur Wattpad-level writer with a privileged white guilt complex lmao

LR faves (within the cast that's currently been introduced): Persephone and Dionysus.

I know, very different from my LO choices, esp considering Persephone herself within LO is literally one of the most insufferable characters by the end, but I'm frankly having a great time rewriting her in my own way, especially in regards to her specific role as the "wrathful side" of Kore. I know I've gotten questions regarding the interpretation of Kore as a DID system, and while that interpretation is totally valid, the angle I always approached it from was that repressed trauma and emotional bottlenecking. Obviously those two things are, in and of themselves, contributing factors to DID, so far be it from me to tell people they can't identify with Kore / Persephone as DID representation. It just motivates me even more to give her the character arc she deserves and never got. It's gonna be messy. It's even gonna be downright ugly at times.

But I hope, in the end, that anyone who identifies with her struggles will find closure and comfort in the resolution of her story. It's certainly a challenging tightrope to walk, between honoring the themes of her original myth, retelling a version of her that almost existed in LO (a version that I was hoping for and never got), and dissecting the implications of my own version of her throughout LR's narrative, but it's a challenge that I've been having a great time undertaking and all I can hope for is that I can meet and possibly exceed my own expectations - as well as the readers - in the end. This is Kore's story - it's also Persephone's.

As for Dionysus... he's just a very, very fun character to write, and someone who I had the advantage of introducing before he was depicted in LO. It wasn't intentional but it sure as shit paid off because even though I'm sure some will assume that this is my own re-interpretation of Rachel's version of the character, myself and anyone else who was there at the time can vouch that Dionysus was aaaalllll me, baby LMAO

All that said, we're obviously going at it from a VERY different angle than how he was tackled in LO, but I'm hoping people enjoy his presence in the story, especially as he becomes more involved (which is very, very soon wink wink) The roles have definitely reversed here with Dionysus taking on more of a "parental" role to Kore rather than the other way around. I feel like his characterization has only grown stronger in hindsight compared to what we got in LO, especially where he's one of the only characters who beat LO to the punch and wound up being in a sort of arms race with Rachel's depiction ─=≡Σ((( つ•̀ω•́)つ

#ask me anything #anon ama #ama #anon ask me anything #lore rekindled ama

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laurelwen · 9 hours ago

Text

Media: Double Trouble: Like Minds

by Rjurik Davidson, Metro Magazine #151, Jan 2006

A BIG thanks to @neuroticspiral, who obtained this article through uni library access. And let this be a reminder that if you are still in uni, you have access to so much published material that is locked away behind paywalls for the rest of us. You will miss that availability when you graduate, so enjoy it while you can! Obviously, these articles are under copyright, but today you are all my students and we are here for academic purposes.

This author make a few good points (keep reading for the bit about Eddie and Tom's eyes), but he also, I think, missed the point a few times. Full text of the article after the cut.

Double Trouble: Like Minds

17-YEAR-OLD ALEX FORBES (EDDIE REDMAYNE) SITS IN A POLICE INTERVIEW ROOM CALMLY. HE RADIATES A SUBTLE INTELLIGENCE, INDICATING THAT HE IS IN CONTROL OF THE SITUATION. NOT AT ALL THE REACTION OF A BOY WHO HAS JUST BEEN ARRESTED FOR THE MURDER OF HIS BEST FRIEND.

BY RJURIK DAVIDSON

What could have driven this innocent-looking youth to murder, or is he, as he claims, innocent? This is the question that forensic psychologist Sally Rowe (toni Collette) must answer. The interview process, together with Rowe’s own investigation, forms the first storyline of Like Minds. The second storyline, which is the heart of the narrative, is intercut with the first. It is Alex's retelling of the macabre and disturbing events that led to the murder of Nigel (Tom Sturridge).

In this story, Nigel arrives at a prestigious boarding school and becomes Alex's new roommate. Nigel is brooding and quiet. He spends his time alone, dissecting animals and writing in voluminous notebooks. He is, to the other boys, a freak. But he’s a freak who slowly draws Alex into his fantasy world, a world dominated by the history of the Knights Templar, the murder of the heretical Christians known as the Cathars, and the Templar myth of Maraclea. According to this myth, Maraclea was the true love of one of the Knights Templar. Before they could be married, she died tragically. Devastated, he dug up her dead body and made love to it. Nine months later, the knight was summoned to the grave, and on opening the coffin found that the body’s head had been moved beneath its hips and its thigh bones crossed, (the origin of the sign of the skull and crossbones, Nigel tells us). This myth becomes central to Nigel’s gradual entrapment of Alex, and a ghoulish replay of the myth brings the story to a climax.

But it is more than a question of entrapment, for it seems that Alex himself has awakened these dark fantasies in Nigel: they have entered into a Gestalt relationship, in which ‘the whole is more important than the sum of its parts’. Gestalt psychology is the true and central subject

of Like Minds. Alex cannot help being dragged into Nigel’s fantasy world. He finds himself agreeing to secret rendezvous, reading Nigel’s histories of the Templars and the Cathars, and taking on his friend’s obsessions. It is as if Nigel is in his mind and can read his thoughts. As

writer-director Gregory Read explains:

There is a big misconception about psychopaths. The majority of psychopaths are not killers at all. They are out there functioning in society, maybe in a very dysfunctional way but still, they are not necessarily dangerous. I thought, what happens if we put two potentially ‘normal’ psychopaths together in a close environment? Could they trigger something in each other?’

Filmed alternately in Yorkshire (the boarding school scenes), Adelaide (the police interview scenes), and New South Wales (the train scenes), the film is a macabre psychological thriller whose interest in Gestalt psychology is mirrored in its very structure, in which both storylines

resonate with each other. At times the complexity of Like Minds strains and even ruptures its own bounds. There are moments when the sheer amount of conceptual information threatens to overwhelm the viewer. What, we ask, is the relationship of all this – the Templars, the myth of Maraclea, Gestalt psychology, the fact that almost all the adult males belong to a club apparently descended from the templars – to the story of the two boys? But if this is a weakness it is also a redeeming feature: better a film be too complicated than thin and empty. Read’s aim was to:

... think of it more in terms of a psychological puzzle, one which the audience can piece together. With this in mind it was imperative that all the pieces were carefully defined, allowing the audience to read the clues through the story, and draw their own conclusion in retrospect.

Nevertheless, it doesn’t quite hold together. The adult male club, for example, sits in the background threatening but never actually coming into play. Nor is it exactly clear, by the film’s end, of what happened, and more importantly, what the motivations of the characters were. The viewer is left to backtrack through the scenes to try to reassess. The script also sometimes falls into the awkward error of transmitting chunks of information through dialogue. Some of these moments form the film’s low points, as characters become mere mouthpieces for information or discourses about history. The film is thus reminiscent of adaptations of novels for the screen, which so often fall into the same difficulties.

The history of Knights Templar is, in the wake of The Da Vinci Code, not exactly original material (though the myth of Maraclea and the history of the Cathars chart more original territory). Neither is the boarding-school psychological thriller exactly unfamiliar. Notions of half-forgotten histories, of secret clubs and the power of mythology, are common in the literature of the macabre, and at moments the film suffers from a disconcerting sense of déja vu. What originality it shows lies in its combination of these elements.

Like Minds is distinguished by strong direction with great attention to the mise-en-scène. The film makes great use of the brooding Yorkshire landscape with its muted light and bleak weather. Director of Photography Nigel Bluck says:

The Yorkshire scenery was great. The starkness of the leafless trees and the muted colours, the soft low English light, the classical stone architecture and the atmosphere of the snow were perfect for the mood we were trying to create in the film.

Adding to this is a nicely underplayed and moody score by Carlo Giacco, which works well with the direction. Giacco composed the music so that there were:

... no cues where the music heralds what’s going to happen. It follows rather than flags what is occurring dramatically. The element of surprise works to great effect in the film throughout and it was important not to pre-empt that musically.

Without doubt there are some strong performances, most notably those of Eddie Redmayne and Toni Collette. Redmayne is a young actor to watch. Though this is only his first feature film, he captures the character of Alex with subtle verisimilitude. Director Read claims that ‘I wanted to find someone who had the eyes. The casting was all about the eyes.’ This, however, proves to be truer of Tom Sturridge’s portrayal of Nigel. Rather, Eddie Redmayne’s facial expressions as a whole carry his performance. Indeed, this is no easy task considering the occasionally clunky dialogue, yet it is one he carries off with aplomb. Collette, meanwhile creates a consummately professional performance from rather thin material, while Richard Roxburgh is less convincing as police officer Martin McKenzie, though the part offers probably the least potential for dramatic variation. Here again, the film suffers from over-complexity. Roxburgh and Collette’s characters have apparently once had some kind of romantic relationship, a fact referred to only once or twice. In this, as in various other elements, Read might have done better to strip out a character or two and simplify the film. A 110-minute feature can only bear so many ingredients.

Like Minds is not, in the end, a ground-breaking film. Its key concerns – what is psychopathology? What makes a psychopath? – will be familiar to most viewers. Its interest in medieval history likewise has the touch of the familiar about it, even if some of the specifics are original. For a part-Australian film it does chart some new territory, delving into the sub-genre of the psychological thriller where recent Australian staples have been comedies or relationship dramas. Never boring, what carries the film is its satisfying pace, strong direction, well-planned mise-en-scène and strong performances. It’s a film that shows that Gregory Read has talent, which should develop beyond this promising but unremarkable first feature.

Rjurik Davidson is a freelance writer and editor. He has taught at Victoria University, RMIT and La Trobe University.

For additional reading, please see: [Like Minds Masterpost - Main]

This article appeared in the same magazine issue as the previously posted "Macabre Myths and Psychological Puzzles."

#author complaining about the ending's lack of clarity and how viewers have to piece it together - my guy that's the best part #like minds #nigel colbie #alex forbes #eddie redmayne #tom sturridge #murderous intent #like minds 2006 #like minds annotations #like minds analysis

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readingtoinfinity · 7 months ago

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Jelloapocaylpse and One Piece

So, there's this thought I've been having about gigantic franchises: any criticism against them needs to be taken with two specific grains of salt. First, people who dislike the franchise will be more annoyed by its flaws because of overexposure, and second, reactions to these criticisms will be overblown because there's so many more fans. I'm of the opinion that you shouldn't respond to criticisms of your favorite things if they're enormously popular, meaning I'll be more silent on negative reviews of things like Critical Role, One Piece and Brandon Sanderson's works than I would be for smaller things like Wayward Children, Grimm or The Craft Sequence.

But when these two grains of salt come together? Oh, boy. OOOOOOOH boy.

I love So This is Basically..., and have since I discovered the channel. A good chunk of my humor comes from the jokes in those videos, and even for something like Kingdom Hearts where it's negative, I still enjoy both the video and the franchise, so I've elected to let it be. But in his recent video on One Piece, while it was funny he got so many things seriously wrong about the series that I've struggled with whether or not to say something about it. I think the artistry on display in the video can get drowned out by the negativity being poured into it, and while I don't have much of a platform I can yell into the void like the best of them, and it's bothering me enough that I want to lay some things out.

So, for your discretion: a time-stamped review of Jelloapocaylpse's So This is Basically One Piece. I will endeavor to only time-stamp things I found wrong or interesting about the video. I understand jokes aren't meant to be taken seriously, but I think humor is revealing, and if we can dissect the jokes of the anti-woke crowd to find the ugly truth within, we can do the same to ourselves. And if I can shout out a more complicated thought about One Piece from a joke then I will, and even point out moments where Jello is right.

I will not talk about Brendan Blaber's personal life nor his anime work. I am aware of what happened with Lovely★Complex but find it immaterial to the video on his YouTube channel. Perhaps his motivations were dishonest, and that could explain his rampant dislike of the source material; at this time, I don't think it factors in, but if I'm proven wrong I will make an edit with the proper updated information. And, per a beef I have with the video itself, I also want to stress that you should not harass nor send death threats to people you dislike, especially about a piece of media. THIS INCLUDES ASSHOLES.

With that, let's begin. Video is included so you can follow along. There will be spoilers freely discussed; be forewarned. If I am wrong, chime in and correct me; I am not above mistakes.

youtube

0:08: This is a fun callback to the 4Kids dub of One Piece, which is widely reviled but for some small moments of genius.

0:11: an out-of-context, raving explanation of the worldbuilding, which is entirely correct.

0:38: Incorrect. The Grand Line is specifically written to be hard to get into and out of unless you have the tech for it. This is a big deal in both the manga and the anime and I don't know why/how he missed this.

0:50: This is a fan theory. I was willing to accept it but googling it turned out it wasn't correct. The following jokes require this to be true, however, so creative license applies.

1:06: Arguably true, and I say that because, while each of these characters technically has a different power, they're all used to manipulate the environment and stone like it's water. That's a thing and a theme in the series; Luffy even gets to fight Charlotte Katakuri, who has a similar Devil Fruit. Call it lazy, call it creative, it's debatable, and funny.

1:11-1:38: the following explanation is also true, but insulting. The boundaries between each Devil Fruit are more fluid than the initial system lets on, true, but as in real life aggressive categorization is usually incorrect and uninteresting.

1:43: The description of the fights applies less to One Piece than Shounen as a whole. You could be uncharitable and say it describes all fights, but I will restrain myself. A lot of fights do have an element of unpredictability to them; sometimes it's the randomness that feels realistic and other times it's Deus Ex Machina. You could argue the fights are more about the philosophical difference between the two (Sanji vs Wanze comes to mind) but it makes for long, drawn-out fights. I think most of the pacing problems come from the anime but I've been annoyed by the manga as well.

1:55: It is true that Robin doesn't get many fights, which is disappointing as a Robin fan. And I won't deny that sexism pervades the writing of One Piece when it runs unchecked. But I don't think the two are related; Robin's fights tend to be brutal and fast, and she deals more with grunts than generals. The exception is Robin vs Black Maria, which was Very Good.

But her focus in the story is less on fighting and more about archeology and history, and in that case she often reshapes the way we see the world with her investigations. Fighting ain't all there is to a Shounen series, and the wise reader remembers this. (this point copied wholesale from Anthony Gramuglia)

Obligatory "Yes One Piece is very long and I hope it ends well".

2:02: The espionage episodes are quite good. But I think this conclusion draws from the dislike of the adventure and action, so you need to agree with the first to reach the second, and I do not.

2:08: I had not realized how many islands were circles in One Piece so that criticism applies even if it doesn't mean anything for the quality of the series. But Punk Hazard isn't about stopping Smiley (who barely features) and I would argue that "natural disaster" doesn't apply to some of the threats the crew faces, and it's definitely not every arc.

2:24: only Punk Hazard was (half) on fire. Fires do happen a lot as a way to push tension but the arcs were flattened to make this point.

2:30: "from the jungle" is the best joke in this episode.

2:37: "Hit 'em with the poison that doesn't work!" happens a lot as well. It is often because the characters have to figure out a way around it, like other protagonists do during Good Fights.

2:46: This is a weird take. I know Zoro is an asshole but sexism was something he hated in his childhood and that disdain forms a big part of his personality. You could also call him Minority Hunter like the fanbase does, given he fights mostly black people.

2:52: Nami's not gay in the series, not explicitly, anyways. Alas.

2:56: God, to be a Sanji fan is to suffer. He has some of the best and worst moments in the series and the live-action series made him a bajillion times better.

3:15: good follow-up on a joke with a bad setup.

3:16: I'm annoyed Franky was removed from this. He's a lot of fun. And I'm also annoyed that you talk about Sanji's perversions but don't bring up Brook who is arguably worse in every way. These as well as Chopper and Jinbe get flattened for the sake of this video, and considering Chopper is my favorite Straw Hat this very much annoys me.

But he does make a point about these characters: Robin through Franky don't get to do as much throughout the series. They're often rendered as side characters who react to things instead of having their own arcs. For all that Thriller Bark was Not Great, Chopper was given an arc that ties very directly into who he is, and I'm saddened we didn't get something like that again until Wano.

3:21: The characters have personality, it is just now shown in this video. Usopp is not given a description and Nami is summarized as "lesbian" with nothing else of their character depths.

3:26: again, the best joke is the jungle joke.

3:39: I am not certain we're supposed to like Aokiji. He does some pretty heinous things throughout the series. Garp is a more-interesting case, in that his loyalty to the World Government is treated as his greatest flaw, but he's also an asshole. It's almost like he's a very complicated character or something.

3:47: This is the part that I kept coming back to, the part that's most insulting. I am bad with names so I admit I had to google this fish-man's name, but his name is Macro, he was a member of the Sun Pirates and he didn't keep slaves. The Sun Pirates especially freed any and all slaves they came across because they were also enslaved. Arlong did keep slaves but he was not enslaved himself, and the continuing stain of racism and slavery washes out over the rest of the series itself almost as if it were good or something. Out of all the things to get wrong, this one was the most egregious.

4:00: The Marineford arc was VERY LONG. A lot of stuff happened and it affected the pace quite a bit. The dig at the author is unwarranted.

4:07: FROM THE JUNGLE BA-

4:15: I'm torn on this complaint. On the one hand, subtle foreshadowing is usually the way to go when it comes to announcing what is going to happen. On the other hand, you can easily forget a lot of things that happen in a single narrative so sometimes twists come out of nowhere.

However! This complaint is mitigated by the fact that the series will readily bring you up to speed on context whenever it's necessary. Take that as you will.

4:20: Localization is a Thing™ that happens and translation hasn't always been the best. I first learned the word "nakama" from Japanese because of a fansub of this series that insisted it wasn't just "family". I am also annoyed by newer chapters that insist on calling the swordsman "Zolo", and these issues extend to the fan wikis. This has nothing to do with the show or manga, however.

4:33: There are a LOT of characters, true. Whether or not that is too much is debatable; they are drip fed to the reader over the course of all the chapters, and even if there are twice as many characters as chapters (there are not) that's two characters per chapter to introduce. That's not a lot for an audience to read; if you've gotten through Wheel of Time you will be fine, but this ties into a latter issue I'm about to bring up.

4:47: I'm almost certain these characters were chosen at random. On a whim, I decided to return the favor and pick a character at random to defend its inclusion. That turned out to be Pekoms.

Pekoms is a character in Big Mom's crew, loyal but deathly afraid of her. He's defined both by this bond to Big Mom as well as to his Mink heritage, and he takes pride in both. It's only when he learns of the Straw Hats' defense and salvation of the Mink Tribe that his courage starts to grow to outweigh his fear, and he eventually turns on her in response to the sacrifice of a friend of his, demonstrating the themes of the Whole Cake Island arc: a family bound through fear is a temporary measure, and it will fall apart when something better comes along.

I bet you could make a defense of just about any character he removed, even characters that are bit players. That's the thing, too: complaining about "too many characters" ignores the fact that sometimes, the guy who gets one line also gets a name. A stage play should be stripped down to pure essentials, not so much with mediums you can edit.

And fuck, he cuts out Yamato?! The best guy around?!!

5:07: It's very strange that he says the Straw Hats don't have any meaningful dynamic with each other when the #1 thing people keep asking for is downtime so these characters can hang out and interact almost as if their dynamics are what carry them through the arcs. I mean, it has been a while since some characters interacted, true, but remember: there are 10 Straw Hats on the crew. That's 45 different interactions that are possible. There's, sadly, not gonna be enough time for Robin and Jinbe to sit down to tea with everything else going on.

(Also I know that in Wheel of Time (the closest approximation in length) Rand, Mat and Perrin have a wonderful dynamic and then don't talk for several books. Sometimes the plot happens, but I don't know if people hate this part of the series so this might just be me; I stopped reading during The Path of Daggers or The Winter's Heart, I'm not certain. I remember being annoyed by Tuon a lot)

5:26: I'm going to divide this between the two questions people asked on SBS. None of what happens with Fuckass Joe in this question is relevant to One Piece as a whole because it doesn't happen in the story proper. But the way the video frames Oda's relationship with his editors is weird.

5:47: I'm gonna be honest this is a really weird question to include in SBS. Whoever sent it in definitely has some things going on, and while Oda wasn't responsible for it (and he answers the question with annoyance and confusion) the fact it was included at all speaks to the priorities of the people writing it. Again, this is about SBS and not really relevant to the manga as a whole but I think you can absolutely be critical of this with Oda.

5:54: There's three complaints in here in rapid succession, so I'm going to go through each:

"Breasts grow larger": absolutely a thing that happens. It's a well-documented annoyance in the fandom at this point, and hard to miss.

"Negative space grows rarer": I'll be honest, I didn't notice this as a problem. So I went back to the manga and re-read chapter 1, chapter 1133 and chapter 566 (about halfway through). In the first chapter, there is a lot more negative space in the panels so you focus more on the characters, and there's a lot more characters and background details in the latter chapters, but it's not hard to follow even still. So I'm not certain this is an issue, but it could be an eyesore; adding detail is not always to the good.

"Oda doesn't credit his assistants" I didn't find the names of his assistants through Google. The fact it is hard to find is telling, either for Oda or search engine optimization. In either case it's nothing to do with the manga. It should definitely be easier to find these names.

6:07: The sketchy art had a purpose in a flashback, showing someone losing memories (and on a more-meta level I think Oda had a health emergency... correct me if I'm wrong). I don't think the artwork has changed overmuch from the beginning, and there's a conversation to be had about the changing amount and quality of the details, but given it is shown that they're specifically referencing that kind of art I wanted to respond to that directly.

And the pot-shot at the anime is more deserved. The fact it's weekly means quality can vary wildly and characters are often drawn off-model in a way that's meant to be sexy but doesn't look very good. (I couldn't find it, but there's a specific part where Nami gets injured and scuffed up, and the anime adapted it more sexually than the manga made it. Not that it was nonexistent, mind you. This part is a "trust me bro" more than the others so please keep that in mind).

6:17: The pacing in the anime can be quite bad. The joke with the water slowly turning yellow is also quite funny.

6:38: This is debatable. The story has happy and sad moments like most good stories and it's an adventure story, with a focus on fun. But the story is also willing to leave you with strong negative emotions and just deal with them, the backstories being the most notable examples of characters dealing with trauma.

6:46: This criticism is overblown but not incorrect. Pell should have died from that explosion and I stand by that, but no consequences to anything? There are whole chapters where the balance of the powers of the worlds are shifting and these consequences play out. Whole arcs are built from the consequences of of the death of Whitebeard alone and, as Anthony Gramuglia pointed out in his stream (I'm still watching it to conclude its accuracy) if the manga has intense foreshadowing and knows where it's going that goes against the "no consequences" criticism. (again, thank you Anthony Gramuglia for this note)

6:54: Uta is from a movie that is non-canon, even if she exists in-story. It would be unreasonable to note any criticism of the story from One Piece: Film Red because it's unreliable as a foundation.

Yasopp leaving Usopp is something the fans have complained about for some time now. At this moment we don't know if he had a good reason for leaving beyond heeding the call to adventure, but I know I, personally, think it was a dick move.

7:03: I find this next part disingenuous, for all the potshots Jello takes against Oda before and after. It's also unrelated to the story as a whole (mostly) so I'll be skipping through it.

7:26: I think this criticism stands. Oda is very weird about women in the story and tends to draw them a specific way (thin waist, large bust, tall and lithe). This doesn't stop almost all of them from being interesting characters, mind you, but it's something to keep in mind as you read the story.

Also, if you were going to criticize Oda for Ephebophilia (sexual interest in mid-to-late adolescents, according to le Wikipedia) in his story, that's great, but if you're going to take potshots at him why don't you also mention his friendship and defense of Nobuhiro Watsuki, writer of Rurouni Kenshin and most-known for possession of child pornography? Why drag the family into this when they have nothing to do with Oda's behavior or predilections?

And that's that. I won't be doing this too often (I am a writer and a critic, not a drama channel) but that specifically left a bad taste in my mouth I wanted to get out. Again, if there are any mistakes I will be calling them out in the edit.

One Piece means a lot to me. I've been following it since I was a tween, and it was the first series I read without my parents' permission (oddly enough, my very conservative mother also though the women were too sexualized... on episode 92, before it got so much worse) because I loved it so much. And even now as an adult I find it an old reliable that makes me happy. I try not to be blind to its flaws; I can see the sexism for female characters and character design, the way Oda writes gay people has improved but isn't perfect, and his examination of racism is hampered by not having stories to draw from about it. But it's a long, wonderful series that I can heartily recommend to anyone who enjoys adventures and themes of freedom, family and fun.

So This is Basically... is a series that always manages to make me laugh, even in episodes I dislike. I say "Sora, become a beekeeper!" to myself all the time, and the specific way Jello says "garbage" in the RWBY video sticks with me. But if you engage with the media he talks about you can see the cracks; it's the CinemaSins problem, disguising criticism as jokes and jokes as criticism, never taking a firm stand on either.

I hope both these series improve. I hope we look back on this video as a fluke rather than the standard. I'd like to continue to enjoy Jelloapocalypse in its purest form. But this whole thing has been uncomfortably revelatory to me, and I will keep my eyes open and my mind sharp.

EDIT: I finished watching Anthony Gramuglia's video on the subject. I don't 100% agree with his takes (in particular the speakers' disdain the humor, which I enjoy quite a bit) but he and his guests go into more analysis than I do, at times coming up with ideas I hadn't considered (as mentioned in my previous notes) and at times reaching a bit. I still think it's quality analysis on why Jello is a terrible reviewer in a number of key ways.

EDIT2: I did eventually get a look into what all happened with Lovely★Complex, but in the process I also found a video that more formally breaks down the flaws of Jello's arguments, even before his video was controversially-received. I'm including it here for anyone who only has 30 minutes for this kind of thing.

youtube

#jelloapocalypse #one piece #youtube #anime #manga #anime and manga #shounen manga #criticism #Youtube

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soft-sylus · 3 months ago

Text

You Were Meant for Gentle Things

Chapter 3

Masterlist: Here

AO3: Here

Pairing: Sylus/OC non!MC MC/Sylus

Words: 5k

Sylus savored music, not only for its sound but for its obedience .

It was predictable, rarely able to catch him off guard. It’s melody, it’s rhythm, easy to distinguish. Eliciting any emotion it craved from the listener. Manipulating its audience.

He’d been born with an innate understanding of it. His voice was a natural asset, one he honed relentlessly, but true mastery came from dissection. Notes and scoresheets memorized by age ten. Instruments conquered out of spite, their simplicity irritating, until he found the organ. Its complexity was the only worthy opponent.

Battle soothed him in the same way. Here, too, he was the composer. People became instruments, his shadows the strings. If they resisted? He’d tune them himself. The melody never wavered. Never betrayed him. His oldest, deadliest companion.

And If he was the conductor, she was his star musician.

Sylus ducked as Mai sent another fist at him, his reflexes as a boxer serving him well. Before she could wind up again, Sylus hooked his leg behind her knees, and she toppled. She glared at him, a look he always enjoyed.

“Trying to scare me, Kitten?” he leaned over her. Mai’s lips curled.

“Well, if we're playing dirty…” she said seductively. Her moves were quick, wrapping his leg between hers before pulling him down. She flipped over onto his body, straddling him. “Then I guess I can play too.”

Sylus couldn’t help but let out a satisfied laugh. “Not exactly legal in boxing, but yes, you are a fiesty warrior for such a small thing,” he sighed. He enjoyed her here, so close to him. The symphony in his head caresses the lack of space between the two. He reached up beneath her chin, pulling her face closer to him. He drank in the self-important smile left by his compliment.

Their moment was shattered by the most offensive sound Sylus had ever endured. Were those chipmunks singing?

Mai giggled before rolling off of him in one fluid movement. “Like my new ringtone, Sylus?” She walked over to her phone, wiping the sweat on her brow off with a towel.

“Is this going to be a permanent feature?”

“I can make it your personal ringtone if you're interested?” she quipped. She finally answered the phone, and Sylus could feel himself grow irritated. They needed her again. She spoke a few words before hanging up. “They called me into HQ,” She said, her voice already professional.

“As they always do,” Sylus replied, not even trying to keep the irritation out of his voice. She shot him an apologetic smile.

“Aren’t you busy too? Mr. Big Bad Boss of the N109 Zone,” Mai teased.

He had cleared his schedule for her, but he wouldn’t tell her that.

“I can find a way to keep myself busy, Kitten,” he smirked.

“Give ‘em hell,” she said, pulling her gym bag over her shoulder. “Oh! I forgot! You got a new cook right?”

He thought back to the background check the twins had left on his desk. “Yeah, a girl off the streets of N109 zone streets. Not exactly the Crows' smartest move. But I guess no one else was willing to sign up for the job. The name is Laurie or something. Why?”

“She’s incredible,” Mai said without hesitation. “What she left us for lunch was some of the best food I have ever had. If you get rid of her, send her to me. I’ll find a way to keep her.”

Sylus smirked. The cook had been in his service about 10 days. He rarely noticed his food; his real indulgence was wine. But as long as she stayed invisible and kept Mai happy, she could stay. “Noted.”

Mai kissed his cheek. “See you later Sylus.”

His hand snapped out, catching her wrist. “Be careful.” The words came out rougher, more exposed, than he’d intended.

Mai blinked, then grinned. “You’re going soft on me.” She nudged his shoulder. “Of course I will be.”

He released her, jaw tight, unable to meet her eyes. She didn’t seem to notice as she left, vanishing into the neon haze of the N109.

Alone, Sylus exhaled. The gym felt too quiet.

-----

“The bastard thinks he’s too good for food .” Leilah wrenched the strainer of tomatoes under the faucet, water sloshing over her wrists. “What kind of overgrown steroid-case survives on three bites a meal?”

She really had tried. It was part of her plan. She needed to become indispensable. But it didn't matter what she cooked, duck confit with perfect crispy skin, uni nigiri glistening like ocean-polished amber, even the simple omelet every culinary student could perfect in their sleep. Each dish returned, only slightly touched. But the wineglass? Drained every time.

The Crows, at least, devoured her food without complaint. Kieran, the taller twin, still glared at her through his mask, but his plate was always scraped clean. Luke, quieter and quicker to thank her, had become her only ally in the cold apartment. He’d brought her clothes, played uneasy cards with her once, and had a gentleness that surprised her.

“Back with your list,” Kieran announced, dropping the groceries onto the counter. “Hope this one’s worth the trip.”

Leilah ignored his tone, sorting through the bags. Luke lingered, holding out a package wrapped in butcher paper. “The fish you wanted,” he said, his voice more hoarse than usual.

“Thank you.” The words almost escaped as a sigh. She’d begged them half a dozen times to let her join their market runs, to teach them that quality wasn’t measured in money. But Kieran always refused, citing orders: the apartment’s location stayed secret.

Luke shifted his weight, watching her inspect the fish. “It looks great,” she admitted, and his shoulders relaxed as if her approval mattered.

Kieran was already rifling through her fridge.

“Out.” She didn’t raise her voice. “I’ll call you when it’s ready.”

For once, he listened, but not without a muttered threat about “ungrateful strays.”

The boys retreated to their rooms a floor below, down the hall from hers, leaving her to work in quiet solitude. Tonight, she cooked Pesce all'Acqua Pazza - not for Sylus, but for herself. The fragrant broth of tomatoes and white wine simmered gently, the fish poaching to perfection. This was comfort, not concession.

When the dish was ready, she summoned the twins first. Only after they'd begun eating did she prepare Sylus' tray, carrying it upstairs with measured steps. His study loomed at the end of the first-floor hallway, a place she'd only ever approached to leave meals outside the door.

But with a stroke of impulse, she took a chance.

She knocked.

Sylus’ voice called, and carried her in.

As she entered, he was engrossed with a book, a record playing in the background. Leilah looked around and nearly snorted.

He has a gun wall .

“Something funny?” Sylus asked. She immediately smothered her smile.

"No," she lied, approaching his desk. She set the tray down. "Your dinner."

His hand bypassed the food entirely, closing around the wineglass instead. "And this required an audience?" His eyebrow raised. His red eyes finally looked at her. Fear no longer grew in her gut when she looked at him. Only anger.

You did not erase me that day .

"I want to know what you actually eat. Clearly it's not my cooking."

“Food is food. Not something I am passionate about,” He drawled, returning to his book. “I am sure yours is fine. But I have had food from all around the world. It never impresses me.

“I am the best,” the words slip out.

“You're the best, are you? The best cook in the world is found on the side of the road in the N109 Zone? Convenient.”

"Good enough to know when I'm wasting my talent." She forced her hands to unclench. "If you want fuel, I'll give you fuel."

"Do as you please, master chef." The title dripped acid as he reopened his book. "Just leave it outside next time."

Her palms ached from clenched fists as she left. Later, she’d dice onions with unnecessary violence.

Note: The next chapter is already posted on Ao3 and it's my best yet! Hope you enjoyed!

#sylus #l&ds #l&ds sylus #Sylus/oc #sylus/mc #non!MC #romance #love and deepspace sylus #love and deepspace #qin che #enemies to lovers #angst #long fic #ao3 fanfic

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uniquethingtastemaker · 2 months ago

Note

It's all ir nothing (I say as I obsess over characters instead of studying math)

Jade is one of characters I find most interesting in twisted wonderland, but I also like Floyd, Malleus, Idia (my long lost twin), and obv Vil

Rook is also interesting, in his own ways

Moooooood. Escapism at its finest. I understand and relate lol (this turned out to be way longer than i expected but this is fine lol. Also low key off adhd meds but we still posting anyways)

Jade is an amusing character. He's hilarious. I love how he teases and pokes fun at Azul. His sense of humor is entertaining. He has such cute and fun quirks. Sometimes they’re deadly (rmushrooms), but that’s part of the fun

Floyd is entertaining. Ngl, in Azul’s Dreaming of You, he’s the best side character. He's the MVP. He’s so fun to write for. However, I’m curious to see how he’d act in a serious situation or in true emotional distress. @solxamber did a fantastic job in her "Let's Break Up" series, so I intend to talk to her and dissect her thoughts lol

Malleus was a character @solxamber got me into lol. While he isn’t my favorite, he’s a fantastic central character in the canon story. He’s very cool. I want to figure out some ancient fae magic to help him keep track of time. I aim to at least assist the man in finding a long-term solution to his time management problem in my fanfics

Vil! I love him so much! It’s why I put him in his place in every fanfic he's in. Actually, in Rook x Observant Reader, he's the main reason the couple doesn't get together faster. It's nothing nefarious. Rook and Reader just have a silent agreement that Vil takes priority. Our favorite model needs help, and he's on a time limit. Besides, both of them care deeply about their friends, which is so sweet. It just goes to show how much love and attention I put into Vil in this fanfic. I hope that Vil lovers will like it just as much as Rook fans. Perhaps I can convert people into appreciating our favorite hunter more... According to my friends, I'm very persuasive

I'm also trying to ensure that the audience doesn't fall in love with Vil romantically in Rook x Observant Reader. I hate when that happens. I'll go back and check. From what I remember (bro, this thing is so long, I forget stuff. I go back to read parts of it and pause, because I don't remember writing that. However, it's good, so I'm not complaining. The surprise keeps the fanfic fresh and interesting. It’s just wild), I do a good job of establishing a familial bond. I mean, you saw the Vil milf post. That man is the mom of the group and it shows. Even when Vil gets his act together, Reader still throws in a friendly jab. To me, it signals "we're friends now, so I get to bully you." Besides, I ensure that any emotional scene between Vil and Reader, Rook plays a key role. I hope that comes across, but I will review it

Oh, I'll also say that Vil's Dreaming of You is one of my favorites so far. I'm so intense about this fanfic. Every time I think about it, I burst at the seams because I'm so excited. It's so good. It's delicious. Again, I fangirl any time I think about it. However, Riddle's and Azul's are coming out first. I made a promise and I'm honoring that lol

Idia is relatable on a spiritual level. He's my boyfriend's favorite, which makes sense. He's a mechanical engineer who likes video games and anime... However, Idia is funnier than my boyfriend... I'm the funny one in our relationship. He made the mistake of saying I was funny once, and now I hold it over him. I never say he's funny. I always say he's cute when he make me giggle

I have some of Idia's Dreaming of You. I know, it's a new one/update! It's comedy-oriented, and I love it. When I think about this one, I laugh.

Rook! My spirit animal lol. If you can't tell, I love Rook. I'm writing a novella or novelette for him, so... I think it shows how dedicated I am. He's a complex and interesting character. In my Rook x Observant Reader, I aim to uncover and explore the intricacies of it

I also have the concept of Rook's Dreaming of You... When it's next to the Observant Reader fanfic, it pales in comparison. However, it is still well written and amazing. I had to really dissect his dream and the intent behind it. At its core, what does it say about Rook, what does he value, and what makes him happy? I explain and show that in the fanfic. However, feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments. I'm always curious

Also, thank you for interacting with me! Sorry, this is so late lol. Been busy with real life. However, I love talking with people with the same interests as me, so keep the interactions and comments coming!

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aterzulaa2 · 19 days ago

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Another crk rant because im bored!! (If theres something I missed or got wrong let me know!)

Yes this is about the beasts. Im very sad that some parts of the CRK fandom do not fully understand the beast/ancients stories and are either making shit up thats not true or not paying attention. Lets make some things clear:

1. Beasts and ancients are not related. Idk where people are getting this from?? Ancients literally aquired the soul jam and were not born with it, correct? Also, if they were, I promise you eternal sugars dynamic with hollyberry would be WAY different. But nobody takes that into consideration.

2. Shadow milk was never a predator. And yes, people did think this. I think the misconception was when shadow milk altered pure vanillas memories to eventually turn him evil blah blah blah people thought he was spying on him as a kid which IS NOT TRUE.

3. People also tend to water down the beasts whole purpose of doing the things they did, and the beasts themselves. Its not as simple as things like "bsc was bored!!" Its way more complicated than that. I beg of you to do more research on these charecters lore and play beast yeast, these give some really good insight on to these charecters. The lore is pretty interesting to dissect and go through!

4. To add on to 3, people also water down ancients lore and their personalities A LOT. Pure vanilla and White lily possibly having it the worst. There are people who really think pure vanilla is "minor coded" and weak.. and white lily as a pick me. Like..wow. Tell me you werent paying attention without telling me. These chareceters can be pretty complex, and its a shame when people underestimate their full potential as a villain or as a hero

5. Also, what the beasts did to the ancients is quite underminded by the fandom. No, this is not a "hate post" about beast × ancient persay. However, I do feel as if people should be more aware of this fact. (I had not realized that in the original post I had equated mental illness as something that is evil, and a lovely viewer pointed this fact out to me. That was not my intention at all! Apologies for this! Mental illness is a very serious and complex thing, and I did not mean to insult anybody, as im dealing with mental health issues myself. I would never want to offend somebody like that, and Im deeply sorry )

There may be a part 2..idk hopefully this wont flop.

#cookie run kingdom #rant post #crk fandom #shadow milk cookie #burning spice cookie #eternal sugar cookie

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drbased · 3 months ago

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Deconstructing Conservative Rhetoric About 'Art'

So. I occasionally stumble upon the 'obviously fascist' side of tumblr, and today I discovered one of these blogs talking about what makes 'true art'. I've dissected TRA talking points before and so I shall do this one. It's a really long post, so I'm only providing screenshots of the parts that are relevant:

The first thing that struck me about these paragraphs is their similarity towards feminist analysis - specifically, what I have read in Dworkin's Pornography and Griffin's Pornography and Silence. OOP references the difference between the pornographic and the erotic. Whilst feminists would agree that pornography is dehumanising where eroticism is natural, healthy desire, that is where the similarity ends. Throughout these paragraphs you'll see how the patriarchy constructs these unspoken ideologies which feminism recognises and dissects.

A perfect example of this phenomenon is how eroticism and lust are rendered entirely separate categories. Eroticism is 'natural, healthy' sexual desire, and a 'fundamental part of the human condition'. Lust, despite also being something humans are capable of having, is separated into its own separate category, thus implying that it's not a fundamental part of the human condition. For all the right is obsessed with the left inventing language to 'redefine reality', the above is a perfect example of a patriarchal construction that has no definition outside of its own circular logic. The idea here is that there is 'good sexual appetite' and 'bad sexual appetite' and that these are conditions that are so distinct that they warrant categorisation. The complexity of the human condition and the various psychological factors that result in rape and sexual violence can be neatly isolated and packaged up as a result of the pseudo-spiritual evil force of 'lust'. Under right-wing thought, everything is categorised and simplified, so we never have to examine the construction of our world as a result of human thought processes and values and so hierarchies are preserved.

Additionally, there is demonstrated here another aspect to symbolic thought that I have discussed elsewhere: the implicit rejection of causality. The dehumanisation, rape and sexual violence caused by lust is used as proof of its inherent evil, rather than the other way around. So, then, an individualist narrative is formed of lust being the 'inner demon' that men are in struggle against: sexual violence is reframed not as something that men do to women to gain and sustain power, but instead a pseudo- - or actual - spiritual force that is inherently evil, and so women become props in men's inner struggle.

This narrativising of causality and morality as something inherent and 'above reality' allows for ad-hoc justification of anything that benefits the person. And this narrativising is present in another aspect of these paragraphs: note that pornography, and the sexual violence associated with it, is scapegoated as a 'modern' phenomenon. Once again, said sexual violence is implied to be 'proof' of the inherent corrupting (note the usage of 'perverting': a dog-whistle-esque term alluding to the corruption of the natural order) and evil force of pornography-fuelled lust, rather than an atrocity in its own right.

This is a dogwhistle towards liberal values: men, who have dehumanised, controlled, raped and impregnated women without the modern conceptions of 'pornography' for longer than written human history, imply that said rape and objectification is a product of deviant male sexuality caused by some pseudo-spiritual societal sickness - one that has nothing to do with patriarchy. Conservative men rightly recognise the evils of rape and dehumanisation in theory, but in practice they implicitly understand them to be the bedrock of male power. So it is within their best interests to deflect; to tell themselves and women that yes, men commit evil deeds, but if we religiously stick to our agreed-upon roles and hierarchies, we can at least mitigate the damage caused by men, or at least we can be psychologically comforted by believing that if we do things 'right' then we are safe. So, then, the patriarchy constructs a model of male sexual violence as something inherently aberrant and associated with the 'other': thus other violences can be justified, and atrocities within the 'in-group' can be downplayed. Whenever a man commits a heinous act we can be collectively reassured that he's 'not a real man'.

Meanwhile, the other major implicit assumption here is that within every man (and possibly every woman, although as you may notice as I share further screenshots, he never really addresses how women process the world), there lies this fundamental desire to dehumanise that is associated with sexual desire. As we've seen, he attempts to distinguish between 'good' sexual desire vs 'bad' sexual desire, and his use of 'Christendom' indicates the ideological position he holds. And once again, we see this same rejection of causality: 'good' sexual desire naturally exists within the context of 'the sacrament of marriage'. The implicit assumption here is that marriage is some inherent good, which results in the sexual desire within it being inherently good. This is of course something feminists reject outright.

And now, onto the meat of what I wanted to talk about:

So. If you thought I was stretching when I called those other things dogwhistles, then perhaps this will convince you. I'm going to take apart line by line why this is completely bullshit:

'Here the body is perfectly at rest': what does rest have to do with the erotic? Isn't a dead body also 'at rest'? I am as inherently alive as an erotic being when I'm doing the fucking grocery shopping as when I'm lounging in my pants at home. I'm being facetious, of course - the significance of this, that I will expand on later, is clearly in the desire to see femaleness as the natural opposite of maleness. Maleness is active where femaleness is passive. Men see femaleness as a pseudo-child-like state, whereby men make sacrifices to provide women with luxuries. And so, the healthy and natural state of things is demonstrated by the woman being portrayed as at rest: she is inactive, but she is content with that.

'The Venus could be clothed from head to toe, and her natural posture need not change in the slightest': This betrays the patriarchal belief about sexual desire: that men are inherently desiring and women desired, and that the female body inherently invites male lust, and therefore sexual violence. It is important that she looks as if she could be clothed, because that means she's simply naturally nude, and not posing sexually. Of course, there are deeply sinister undertones to all this: it is important she is both at rest and also could be clothed, which in short means it's important that she displays no outward signs of sexual desire. For all the waxing lyrical about her not being objectified, it is paradoxically important that she plays the role of a sexless being, being desired by the active male.

'The viewer is drawn automatically to her face, which veils her nude body from perversity': and here it couldn't be any more obvious that the female body is believed to contain some natural perversity which drives men to commit evil deeds. Men have to be reminded that women have human faces in order to remember that they're human and therefore don't deserve to be raped.

'You cannot objectify this woman, her flesh is off-limits to base appetites': This woman is literally a painting. She is literally an object. She is depicted nude for, as he wilfully admits, the 'male gaze'. Whilst in his mind, this painting demarcates a clear boundary between pornography and erotic art, a feminist would question this construction. This man is desperately attempting to justify looking at a naked woman as if it tells him something about the nature of humanity and eroticism through art. But for all his posturing about how art enriches us, all he's done is betray the same patriarchal beliefs that were likely also used to justify the painting's creation.

Also, I'd like to point out a few other aspects of this painting that to me, as a living human woman with 'flesh and spirit and entwined', read to me as distinctly un-erotic (i.e. displaying the exact kind of misogynistic dehumanisation you would expect from a patriarchal pornographic mindset):

As I've already stated, the fact that she's just lounging and showing no active interest in anything, let alone sex.

How pale and smooth she is. She looks like a fucking porcelain doll. There's no sense of her having interacted with the physical world.

The lighting in this piece is really odd - despite the huge black mass behind her that would surely place her in shadow, she looks as if she's under a bright spotlight. There's no real sense of shadow on her. She's entirely isolated from the environment around her - divorced from material reality, divorced from causality, as if to emphasise that she is there to be on display for the viewer.

The lack of body hair. She's a full-grown adult, and adulthood is where we develop our spirit of eroticism. For all the allusions to deviant male sexuality, if you didn't know any better you might be mistaken in thinking that healthy male sexuality that would require an erotic attraction to adult women with pubic hair. But pubic hair has been suspiciously absent in 'art' of naked women long before what we now call 'pornography' has become mainstream in the 'modern world'.

There are people in the background. Including what looks like a child. I notice he doesn't mention this at all. Especially since by his own admission, what makes eroticism so powerful and healthy is that it's of 'two becoming one' - but the privacy and intimacy of eroticism is surely lost when other people are depicted nearby. But I almost wonder if the existence of the other people actually bolsters the eroticism for him in a sense. Because if there are other people around, then she is further restricted from displaying sexual desire, and the presumed male in this scenario is also restricted from initiating sex: eroticism is thus separated from 'lust' by reminding the man that he can't fuck her at will. Of course, you'd think the fact that she's a human being who might not want sex would be enough to turn him off, but instead he requires external signifiers to remind him not to rape. This could indicate to us that her perceives eroticism less as an active force and more a lack of dehumanising lust. The existence of other people I think adds another aspect to this: broadly, conservatives believe that women should be private property, and liberals believe that women should be public property. But conservatives are also perfectly happy to bend rules to their will, as their entire ideological construction merely exists to preserve power. So if it benefits them to present the supposed sacred and vulnerable female body as something that's actually for public consumption, they will happily do that. The longer I consider the existence of other people engaging in their active lives in the background of this supposedly 'erotic' painting, the more I see this painting as some sort of intrinsic 'threat' to women: your body is naturally erotic, and no matter where you are or whatever situation you're in, if a man sees your naked form he views you as an object of his lust.

So I don't need to say as much about this second image, as it's mostly the same rhetoric. I will concede that he does address that she is a woman who actually does things. Curiously he says that her features are 'hardened' - hardened as opposed to what? As opposed to the other painting, where the woman looks like she's had the smoothing tool vigorously applied to her whole body? This women is still obscenely pale, with no areolas, no body/pubic hair, and nothing even resembling wrinkles. Her face looks less yassified and her stomach has marginally more definition than the other one, but to call her 'hardened' is patently absurd. This man is once again proving that for all these bodies are 'unashamed', he believes what makes a woman erotic is her being pure, untouched, inactive and - ahem - child-like.

'She too is off-limits': The overall impression we can get from these passages is that a woman has to display the most cartoonishly obvious humanity in order for a man to not view her as an object of lust (an allusion to a desire to rape her). For him, eroticism comes not from mutual desire, and instead from the thrill of crossing a boundary. The idea is that she has walls up, and there is excitement in conquering him. I've said before how men conceptualise rape and sex as functionally synonymous, and that 'consent' is merely the point at which she submits to his will: that ideologically is laid stunningly clear here; whilst this man clearly condemns rape, he processes eroticism through the same lens as rapists do - he, too, is sexually excited by the idea of her lack of consent. He, like all men, establishes a boundary at which point said excitement is morally bad - but every man who crosses a woman's boundary has the same justification.

'Theirs is not a nudity of advertising or intentional display, but instead of total leisure': he attempts to allude to the objectification of women in pornography whilst bypassing pornography's function in displaying women for male gratification. And that's what conservatives do - create arbitrary classifications for the purpose of creating some 'other' where deviancy lies. The argument of eroticism vs lust is a smokescreen so he can avoid addressing the real ideological position of pornography. After all, it's funny that he admits that these women aren't intentionally displaying themselves, when pornography where women are accidentally exposed is widespread. The idea that she is just lounging perpetuates his belief in the psuedo-spiritual inherent eroticism of the 'female form' (a helpful belief system to have when you want to construct a society where men can own and forcibly impregnate women), and it also fulfils the narrative of the erotic force of her lack of consent. We're supposed to believe that her lounging for a photo is somehow less fake than pornography - which it categorically is not, and I can't believe I had to say that. She's still posing, it's still fake, the only difference is she's expected not to show sexual desire. So if anything, you might even argue that (ideologically, at least) this is actually a bit worse than pornography that depicts a woman desiring sex and enjoying herself.

THERE'S A FUCKING BLACK SLAVE? SERVANT IN THE PICTURE. Where's her humanity, where's her eroticism? A white, extraordinarily pale naked lady gets to lounge, and its erotic that she 'could be clothed' but the black woman in mid-motion fully dressed isn't erotic? I think it's absolutely telling that in both these 'erotic' images there are whole other people in the picture. I can't say confidently that he chose these specifically because of the other people, but the fact that he's not turned off by them, the fact that he doesn't even mention their presence, speaks volumes. He's trying to construct a view of healthy eroticism that's supposedly about the connection between two real living beings and he chooses images of women showing no desire, doing nothing, next to other real human beings who aren't addressed at all. Mind you, given his political views I don't imagine he even recognises the black woman's humanity.

So these are two images that are supposedly erotic art. You wanna see what they're contrasted against?

'an unnatural and inexplicable pose that she would never hold if she was fully clothed': I will cede that women are placed in unnatural poses for the purposes of dehumanisation for male gratification. And there is definitely an element of that here - it's plain to see that the pose was chosen less because of its dynamism and more because of it showing off her bum. And the legs apart has some allusions to sexual positions - many women hump pillows in positions like this. But its allusions to more explicit things don't make it somehow less exploitative than the other images - she's equally as nude, equally the center of attention, equally on display. In fact, you could argue that she's actually less explicit here because all her bits are covered - no areola-less nipples are on display, and you could at least imagine that she has a bush.

It's funny to me that once again he prizes the idea of purity in a naked through how well he can imagine the woman being clothed. It's frankly just silly that he's trying to claim that this pose has anything to do with clothes - it's transparent grasping at straws to attempt to cover up his real desire to see women with boundaries that he could theoretically transgress. He wants to see nude women, but the desire to see nude women doesn't square with his conservative sensibilities, so he makes up this fiction that as long as she 'could be' clothed, she still has those boundaries, so she's still a viable candidate for possession by him. And to further illustrate that she has boundaries, she has to not show an indication that she wants sex, and that includes being a living, breathing, active human being: so, she must be still. She cannot resemble a clothed woman whilst naked, because without clothes the line between 'madonna' and 'whore' is blurred - so he has to find other signifiers that she is still the chaste, unsullied woman whose boundaries he desires to transgress.

'The face is another red flag, as it has no feature to play in the body's composition, and we have no reason to be drawn towards it': once again we have a clear admission that this man has such a shaky grasp of women's inherent humanity that he thinks not being able to see the face full-on means she ceases to be a subject and so becomes an object of lust. Don't get me wrong, there is real criticism to be made here: if she's looking 'off-screen', then this image is voyeuristic; at least in the other paintings there is some allusion to the existence of consent. But in this context, the woman is in a pose that, despite what he wants to claim, is clearly not designed to display herself sexually to the viewer. There's a real irony in that, actually - in the other paintings, the woman is directly looking at the viewer whilst fully naked, clearly implying that she is posing: literally on display. And yet in this context the woman is not posing elegantly and is looking off-screen, alluding to a much more natural context. It's clear his definition of 'on display' is, once again, divorced from reality - the inherent sexual nature of her body is such that moving whilst naked is enough to categorise her as 'on display'.

'Whether she is intentionally avoiding our gaze or is simply unaware of it, her subjectivity is compromised': Interesting how a woman's subjectivity is defined by her relationship to a man looking at her. You could argue that we're talking only about the context of a painting here, but it's clear from his rhetoric that he holds a much deeper ideological position that he is merely employing in his analysis of the painting: it is highly likely that he, implicitly or otherwise, views women's subjectivity in such a way.

'and we are free to engage in more lecherous mental activity': you couldn't make it any clearer: sex is something men get from women, and it's women's responsibility to remind men of their humanity so they can avoid men committing atrocities against them. Make no mistake, when he refers to 'lecherous', he is not thinking of this in moral terms - if this was about morality, then he'd have made the kind of analysis that I'm doing. He processes the world through this patriarchal ideological lens, which he exposes in the next sentence:

'This is not the body unashamed, like the Venus or Olympia. Instead, it is the body shameless.' Under the conservative viewpoint, there is the madonna and the whore: the woman whose body is capable of being shamed and yet stays pure, and the woman who has embraced her true nature of the shameless whore. The only distinction between this viewpoint and that of the pornography he denigrates is that pornography does away with the categories and claims that every woman is, deep down, the shameless whore. Both viewpoints come from the same ideological underpinning: that there is something pseudo-spiritually shameful about the female body, and that we are capable of being corrupted by sex. It's a useful viewpoint to have when you want to preserve your power through rape and want to outsource responsibility for your own actions and assuage your guilt.

'Her nudity, while beautiful, is dangerous and borders on advertisement': You couldn't make it any more clear that he does not view rape as an immoral act committed by a conscious actor on a victim. To him, her nudity is dangerous - not the beliefs or actions of the rapist. And despite his claims that our modern liberal society has commodified everything as a product (which, to be fair, it has):

it's evident that he views a woman's body as inherently a product. We can understand that he doesn't actually hate the concept of a product - but, like all conservatives, he wants it categorised. A woman's body could be advertised, but it shouldn't. Despite how much he wants to think of himself as different from those liberals wo view everything as a product, he defaults to referring to a woman being naked as 'borders on advertisement' - he, too, believes that anything, even the supposed sanctity of human eroticism, can be potentially a product.

To him, and by extension all men, the sanctity of human eroticism is vulnerable to all sorts of pseudo-spiritual and symbolic corruption - and that vulnerability is what makes it erotic. The fact that she has boundaries that can be sullied makes said boundaries vulnerable, which generates a high of eroticism. This, as with all symbolic conceptions, is a replacement for the true vulnerability of human eroticism: his eroticism as a living, breathing human being. The 'dangerous' naked woman whose body 'borders on advertisement' is entirely safe because she's just a painting, and so he's safe from having to engage with the reality that a real human woman can hurt him, can reject him. His entire self-conceptualisation as a man is structured about him being the untouchable centre of the universe - he is the presumed audience of the painting, his experience of sexual desire is not just universal but eroticism itself, and so a woman's naked body is advertisement to him. His discomfort and guilt around his desire to commit violence - that only exists because of how he is conditioned to dehumanise women - is outsourced and thus also becomes safe. All the things he likes about himself are good and healthy and natural. All the things he dislikes become narrativised into a psuedo- - or perhaps literal - spiritual and symbolic battle so he can feel that he has control over the universe. Her 'consent' is taken from her, as is her lack of consent, and instead reframed as part of his narrative - his internal struggle with the demons inside him.

When I first read this post, I surprised myself with being intrigued by his attempt to define art. I'd not really seen it done before, so even though I knew I would hate this guy I still decided to read out of sheer curiosity. Besides, it's healthy to know what your ideological position thinks and how they process the world - the youtube series 'The Alt Right Playbook' has given me great insight into the conservative worldview, which is why I recommend it at every turn. And after having read this guy's take on art can't help but think that for all the posturing about how art is enriching and gives you a window into the human experience, as opposed to 'modern art', kitsch etc which are purely products designed, to, well...

Like, this guy spent so much time trying to justify images that are clearly designed to be props that he finds satisfying to look at...

A lot of this argument isn't even terrible - I think there's an interesting discussion to be had about where the line is between art and commodification. But the conservative dogwhistling is so loud that every dog within several miles is howling - like, what's the point, here? What is the material harm caused by the commodification of art? Is this about human exploitation, about conditioning society to consume more and expect less, about training us to be less discerning so we're less susceptible to propaganda? No, it's vague allusions to taste as some psuedo-spiritual good, some inherent 'truth' that exists outside of material reality. This is the conservative viewpoint at its most transparent. He even concludes with 'then one must recognize that, like human beings themselves, not all art (and certainly not all product) is created equal' - as if he was literally tasked with the job to illustrate the right-wing mind so perfectly.

#my writing #theory posting #symbolic states #wowwwww so I checked the wordcount and this is over 4k words #was going to add a quote from pornography and silence but I've spent at least 2 hours writing this at this point

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