#like it really really shows how nasty a lens you see the world where the most repellant words you can attach to the serial killer

[tacticalgrandma]

Thank you for asking! No, I’m still not over Orin is a “toxic bitch” who can’t be redeemed vs. Gortash is a normal redeemable human. Check again later.

[drinkyourvillainjuice]

ok sure world building questions here's a few softball ones,

You said Alderbrook wasn't the big leagues, are heroes/villains in bigger ponds much more directly powerful or just more more skillful?

How often is it that someone gets a power that's all downsides?

You said the adVenture crew was in a different town, more or less dangerous than Alderbrook?

Since there are superpowers does the supernatural, or even magic also exist?

Are augments used to treat physical disabilities?

Does the government regulate augments?

Did superpowers change how wars are fought?

Did 9/11 still happen?

Big Leagues -

It's a combination of strength, skill, and MO. Almost nobody in Alderbrook can, say, knock down buildings or effortlessly destroy a semi truck. Even some of those that can have limitations: Arcade's lasers can be very powerful, but realistically he doesn't get time in combat to charge them up all the way.

While the overall mask population of Alderbrook is a bit higher than average, there are few independent heroes and villains in town and those mostly have relatively minor powers.

Of the villainous gangs, the Businessmen keep a low profile and are focused on profits, not trying to take the town over. The Shreds are dangerous, but disorganised and generally kind of shit at strategy. S.C.U.M have a bit of a 'smalltime' mentality: they're rarely making shows of force (and are still recovering from their losses in the Zone)

To take another example, a guy like Scour is in theory really dangerous: he turns into a sandstorm, and that's destructive over a wide area and difficult to combat. However, he isn't interested in being that kind of a problem, he's content being a heavy with a cushy job that pays well for little effort.

The Zone incident basically put Alderbrook on the mask map. It wasn't drawing too many eyes before then.

Except from Hypothesis, apparently.

All-downside powers? -

No, every power has at least some use. They might suck on a day to day basis and have nasty side effects, but nobody's power say, explodes their own ribcage and nothing else.

AdVenture's hometown -

FAR less dangerous than Alderbrook. No villainous gangs, little parahuman activity, a teeny DPR hero team with barely an office. Alderbrook isn't big leagues, but AdVenture's hometown isn't even a blip.

The existence of supernatural, magic -

So I picture this debate morphing, in DYVJ, to "we can't attribute to the paranormal/magic what can be explained by parahuman powers!"

What I can say is that some power interactions (and powers in general) manifest very, very strangely, and where combinations form, one can begin to see effects difficult to explain when regarded purely with the lens of "what do power A and power B do?"

Augments to treat disability /Government regulation on augments -

Cybernetics can be used to aid people with disabilities, yes! There's a distinction - one I should really make more textual - between 'person with an advanced prosthetic' and 'an augment' in the setting. Someone's prosthetic hand isn't equivalent to a militarised bionic arm, you know?

The more potent a piece of cyberware gets, the more likely it is to be regulated, and higher grade pieces have maany hoops to jump through. Anything with an actual combat application is off limits: nobody's walking off the street and getting Enfilade's bolt launcher arm installed, for example.

In any case, if anyone's getting enough cybernetics packed into them to be deemed an augment, it's either with the government's knowledge or completely illicit.

Superpowers and warfare -

Yes, parahumans changed warfare. Kind of a weird tradeoff between, in the long term, probably resulting in less hot conflict, but only because individuals could be so destructive to regular soldiers.

But yeah, I think countries are probably at war less simply cause... if your elite parahumans all got killed in action, who's stopping the villains back home?

Did 9/11 happen?

No.

[alchemistc]

Help, I'm so confused. How can it be, that shippers and antis have such a wildly different perception of the 911 daddy issue szene? I don’t watch the show, just saw some gifs of it, but the discours my dash provides from both sides is astonishing. Wtf is happening? (And for context: even if I'm not in the fandom, I have read Buddie and BuckTommy fics and like both ships.)

Honestly I'm incredibly new to this fandom so I can't really do a deep dive, but from experience in fandom dating back to like, the late nineties, I can tell you there is always, always a section of fandom that wraps themselves in fanon and ties their entire identity into making their own preferences canon.

I have zero problems with the idea of b*ddie. I think it definitely has its merits, and through a certain lens it makes sense. It's not what drew me in and so far there hasn't been a particular fic or take that calls to me, but that's a me thing and there's nothing wrong with having preferences.

What it comes down to is a purposeful misunderstanding of the context given - Buck is into sex, Tommy is clearly into sex, they are into each other and they are exploring that with healthy communication ahead of time by having a flirt about it. That's it. That's all that scene was. It showed us that Buck and Tommy meet each other where they're at and enjoy each other's company and wanna fuck nasty.

But as it ALWAYS goes in the minds of shippers/antis who have wrapped their identities in 'this HAS to be canon or there is something intrinsically wrong with the world and I'm going to make it everyone's problem's (which is NOT ALL SHIPPERS, MIND YOU, THESE GUYS ARE JUST THE LOUD ONES) - they aren't making a genuine connection with either the source material or the character arc. I could tell you twenty different ways off the top of my head that that particular scene could make for EXCELLENT b*ddie content but that's absolutely not the way the antis are coming at it - it's a personal insult to them that they didn't get their way so instead of feeding that into beautiful fanon they've made some bonkers banana wild exclamations about moral superiority.

This is not new. This is exactly how the (small but loud) subsect of shippers/antis has always operated. It's failed media literacy and making it personal when the reality is that this is currently the story the writers want to tell. Antis operate in an echo chamber. It's a bad faith argument (I hesitate to use that word because it's more like proselytizing) based on personal preference.

If bucktommy ends up being a flash in the pan, I will still have enjoyed the dynamic it brought. If Bucks storyline continues on a different trajectory that I don't particularly care for, I can either fade from fandom or dig in with canon divergence and be happy with that.

To answer your actual question though, which is how the two ends of the spectrum have such wildly different readings on the Daddy scene: everyone is looking at this through their own lens of experience/understanding, so of course, of course people who ship Buck and Tommy are delighted, and of course (some) b*ddie shippers don't enjoy it.

There's an element of maturity levels to it that I don't really feel like digging too deep into, as well, but lets be real: the infantalizing of Buck is a big part of the 'ick' we're seeing, the kinning/stanning going too far.

It's the taking it personal bit that's causing all the discourse. It'll fade, it always does, until there's another thing to clutch pearls about. It's just noise. It sucks, but at the end of the day this is a fictional TV show about first responders that is for the most part very Unserious™️ and these are all fictional characters that people from different walks of life are seeing themselves in.

And at the end of the day, there are creative outlets that allow you to change whatever the hell you want about canon if you aren't jiving with it - fanon exists for a reason.

I'll just be over here in my corner enjoying two grown ass men being so down bad for each other they're a little stupid about it.

[hexentanzenigma]

Thank you for this. I'm truly grateful, especially considering that this beautiful insight comes from someone who doesn't like him.

What we call "Cazador Nation" does exist, most part of us is probably on Twitter and we are mainly dark fiction appreciators and yes, we love the toxic, abusive dynamics between them and like to explore it through dark tropes.

We have a huge range of headcanons about him, about Astarion's past with him, even between him and Vellioth (for example, how entombing Astarion for a year might have been seen as soft, considering he was impaled for 11 years for -failing- in killing Vellioth).

We have a lot of headcanons even about his possible birthland (Kara-tur in general and Kozakura specifically, an abandoned setting of an older version of D&D. Not very successful at the time and not aged well speaking of narrating a fantasy Asian setting).

We like him as a villain, how terrible he is without being forced to be really big or imposing. Everyone was expecting the classic huge, fearsome vampire lord with the deep baritonal voice and the mad look. Instead we have a fine and aristocratic creature, probably a Patriar who, we know it through the only insight we can access to in the game, he suffers . And he shows how a monster has nothing to do with the look, that everyone, out there, could be a saint or a monster within their house walls.

So many people, especially Asian or of Asian-descent ones, have seen in him their parents and felt seen in their traumatic family struggles with them, and consider him a very well-written villain for this. In the same way many other like Gortash or Raphael for the same reasons.

Unfortunately there is SO MUCH cut content about him: he had a whole questline, player would have had the chance to recruit him as an ally for the final battle like Lorroakan, Ethel or Sarevok, he hates the Absolute. But Larian cut the Upper City completely (where there was the other half of his palace) and The Pale Elf is the only quest with NO links to the main questline, so nor him or Astarion have ties regarding the Absolute before the game. Or so it seems.

And, it's true, he's an abuser if we see him through the human, IRL, morality lens and people hate him so much because he hurt Astarion and because peoplet think he SAd his spawn due to a EA dialogue between Tav and Astarion that, personally, I've never translated as such a thing.

However BG3 is a dark fantasy game and he's a vampire lord. Not a human, not our world/reality, not our IRL morals. The way he treats his spawns is nothing abnormal among them: vampires are wretched creatures in D&D, spawns are minions that DMs send against players to be killed. They live violently and die violently because adventurers want to slain them. In D&D vampires don't live for too many centuries, let alone millennia, like it happens in books/movies. They are considered enemies. Even Astarion, would have been. So, they're all monster and as monsters they have their natural hierarchy: spawns are natural-born slaves to their sires and vampire lords creates spawns as servants because it's a cheap solution and they're disposable. All they must do is to bury their last meal for 24 hours and that is.

They're not human, in the same way Raphael isn't and Raphael has even more direct reference about how he might have sexually tortured Hope or made her been sexually tortured by someone else.

Gortash, instead, is a human. A human who sold other people, his peers, friends too, for his own gain, because he was a traumatize child and now a traumatized adult who don't know affection (and I like both Gortash and Raphael, as villains. Their stories are interesting. Ketheric too, so tragic. I don't like Orin, but it's just my taste, she's a nice character too).

Astarion himself, before Larian watered him down so much of his most nasty, cruel and freakish sides was problematic. During EA we Astarion fans were labeled as "red flags, "abuser apologists", and he was often staked at camp because "he's a cruel, racist, sexually deranged asshole and he shouldn't be in the party". I fell in love with him because, FINALLY, we had a very morally-grey if not evil main character in a RPG party. Not so far from what it's now Marazhai in Rogue Trader.

=================================== Anyway, beautiful is the insight about him in the game (with detect thoughts when opening his coffin where he's sleeping/recovering, if Astarion is not with the party), that, to me, is half of Cazador's charme: Narrator: *The great vampire lord looks peaceful, recovering in his coffin. There is no trace of the fury that you fought against.*

Cazador Szarr: These deathless dreams hold memories of a mortal life once-forgotten. Of the boy I was, the man I became, the monster that will not end. Cazador Szarr: I sleep, but cannot rest. I live, but cannot die. I am eternal, and I grieve. Narrator: *His dreams have the form of an endless ocean of blood, vast and unknowable.* And this unlock a whole new interpretation of why he might have searching for the Ascension, together with what Raphael tells Astarion about his scars:

he probably wanted to be as human as possible again, keeping the strength of vampires but enoying being somehow "alive" again at the same time. Suffering the painful thirst for blood never again and being able to taste again normal food, even just for pleasure and not to survive. Stay under the sun.

We don't know how or why Vellioth sired him. Maybe it was against his will. Is it really so strange he searched a way to re-gain what it might have been stolen from him, while being forced to live as a vampire (and being a vampire twist what you were in life, like it or not. You become a monster, like it or not)?

=================================== So, thank you again for your thoughts! <3

i love bg3, and i love being in the fandom but also. i have never felt more alone as someone who also happens to be chinese like.

i don’t like cazador. i don’t think the majority of bg3 fans do. but the fact that i’ve never seen the same amount of grace given to cazador that is given to gortash or even raphael, by fans or in the game, just fucking hurts.

consider gortash and cazador: both gortash and cazador have been hurt, and choose to perpetuate this cycle of hurt. gortash is widely crushed on and shipped with durge. in game, karlach (gortash’s victim, no less) expresses sympathy when she realises what was done to gortash. nothing remotely resembling this sympathy is given to cazador, regardless of in game or in fandom.

i’ve always gotten upset seeing people hate on cazador without allowing space for nuance, and haven’t been able to explain why until now—

characters like raphael and gortash can be loved, regardless of / including all the atrocities they commit. they’re pined after, and shipped, and loved. anytime someone likes cazador, on the other hand, fingers are pointed and everyone goes ‘but he’s an abuser!!’

and that’s just it: cazador is just ‘the abuser’. hatred towards the only memorable asian character never goes challenged or questioned, because he was quite literally written to be the most evil, most abusive character of all.

yes, he’s a terrible person, yes, he’s an abuser, yes, asian people can be abusive just like every other person on earth. it’s understandable why one would hate him, because he’s literally written to be, but the fact that he’s the only asian character i can name in bg3 just really fucking hurts.

fans who love raphael (me included) or gortash (me not included) are much more likely to be ‘excused’ or accepted, whereas any fans who even express an ounce of love for cazador immediately get shut down. why do you think this is. think about the implications of the only memorable asian in the game being the most abusive and most evil. (no, asian side characters and npcs with two lines of dialogue don’t count. no, the one asian face option for tav also doesn’t count)

again, i love bg3, and its changed my fucking life, but its just deeply upsetting to me that this character was written specifically to be hateable with no room for grace or remorse or empathy. nobody questions the blind, pure hatred for him. nobody questions why this hatred isn’t expressed quite as strongly for literally any other evil white character in the game.

i’m not asking for people who sympathize with / relate to astarion’s storyline to like cazador at all— that’s not the point of all this. i’m not telling you which characters to like or dislike. but racist beliefs / predispositions / inclinations do not magically become less racist when the character of color in question is written to be abusive, not to mention the fact that he’s the only asian character in bg3 that i can even name or remember.

growing up, i’ve always wanted to see myself in the fantasy stories that i loved. i’ve given up hoping that i will, but i’m really sad and disappointed that the one character who remotely looks like me in this game that i love with my whole heart is just evil. not nuanced, not tragic, not even a fucking person to most fans or even the creators, regardless of his canon backstory and his morally wrong similarities to other characters that are loved like gortash and raphael.

i love this game and this community so much, but i just feel so . i don’t know, stupid? LMAO maybe i’m just reading too much into it, but i just feel terribly alone in feeling this way

[variousqueerthings]

The Karate Kid/Cobra Kai Star Trek AU ideas...

@phantomcomet talked about a Star Trek AU and then I went too far in writing this post imagining some roles in Star Trek. I’ve stuck to the adults from TKK/CK and maaaainly envisioned characters through the lens of Starfleet (although not only). 

Anyway, here’s some thots! Any Star Trek/CK fans add more!

First things first: I did not think of a name for the starship Miyagi’s captaining, so I’m just calling it Miyagi’s ship for now. (The Bonsai doesn’t seem like a ship name really. The Crane Kick not so much either... The Cobra totally works though... anyway, someone have some ideas?)

Miyagi: Captain of the ship (later an admiral and then retires to take care of his bonsais). Obviously has a soft spot for Daniel, whom he probably spotted doing some whiz-kid stuff on a shitty, broken down civilian ship and took onboard. You know, you probably don’t even have to mess with his backstory that much to make it fit, he grew up on a planet on the outskirts of the Federation and saw some shit and is doing good, a la similar to Kirk’s backstory. He’s experienced abandonment from the Federation, so he may work within the system, but he’s fucking with it at every turn he gets and does what he thinks is right (a la Sisko. If Kirk and Sisko had a baby? Strange thoughts, but tell me I’m wrong).

Daniel: Engineer. Low key kind of a prodigy with engines. Engineers aren’t as often officer-class (unlike science/medicine and command, which I believe always are), so I can see Daniel coming into that from a less privileged space – definitely not the Academy – and initially butting heads with Johnny (as well as a bunch of others). He’s not head of engineering, but he works for the Lead Propulsion Engineer. Also he talks to the warpcore. You know he does. All the time.

Johnny: Security Babey! Also backstory is maybe he was trying to get into a command situation onboard a different ship led by Captain Kreese and he was the golden boy, but things went South when he was pushed to doing something he didn’t feel right about, so he was demoted for something bad that he’d done on Kreese’s orders and then couldn’t let go of. And he brings that baggage aboard Miyagi’s ship.

At this point people joke about Miyagi taking on lost causes and strays…. (but never to his face).

Ali: Doctor, of course! Did everything by the book and sometimes dreams that she’d let go of her parents expectations and could go out and do something outside of Starfleet. I feel like she might’ve studied with Johnny at the Academy and for a short while been onboard Miyagi’s ship with him and Daniel, but gotten transferred into a more specialised field at some point (chasing the dream).

Kumiko: Okay there’s three different things I see for her

1. Presumably this is a galaxy-class/exploration ship (similar to the Enterprise) and so civilians are also onboard. If Kumiko isn’t with Starfleet, maybe she was using it as transport as an incredibly famous dancer and there’s a whirlwind romance that can’t last vibe.

2. if Starfleet, definitely in Command somewhere. I kind of love her for a first pilot/flight pilot.

3. Command. Even if she’s not in Starfleet I can see her having command of her own ship: Quietly competent, but steely in conviction and capability, that’s her!

Kreese: Used to be a Captain, but quietly was ousted from Starfleet during an internal investigation that showed up a lot of problems during his command and even before that. Star Trek has depicted war, and bigotry, and I think Kreese would probably have some dirty laundry there (some of which hasn’t been uncovered). Still bitter about losing his command and losing Johnny and has some personal business with Miyagi that he puts on Daniel, like in the movies.

The OG Cobras: They were all on Kreese’s ship originally, but dispersed after the incident with Johnny. I wonder if only Bobby stayed on, studying intergalactic faiths and assisting in various first communications and interchanges.

Someone help me out with Jimmy, Tommy, and Dutch. Continue on in Starfleet, yay or nay?

Yukie: I caaannot see her as Starfleet. She obviously grew up with Miyagi on that planet and I feel like she’s heavily involved in the rebuilding efforts and has been her whole life. She’s traveled to earth multiple times to petition for relief efforts, and is incredibly anti-war – there’s a whole department dedicated to her work – wait is Yukie basically some hotshot activist who condemns Federation Neo!Colonialism… I feel like… that’s poetic… also you know where Kumiko gets her calm competence from!

Sato: I mean he’s some big-shot admiral while Miyagi’s still Captain and they have History! I think Sato bought into the Federation a lot more and is consistently angry at Miyagi’s choices and wants to initially trip him up, but he just can’t. And eventually they find themselves back home and patch things up – it’s the intergenerational environmental Trauma babey. You need to go back to the source to begin to heal.

Chozen: Speaking of intergenerational trauma… I mean, he’s gone through the Academy, he’s wound up as a combat pilot/second pilot on a great ship, (in this Sato isn’t captaining a ship, he’s risen in the ranks, but he’s pulling strings), he’s going through it. Unsure of what actually would happen, but I like him for combat pilot as a counterpoint to Kumiko’s flight pilot. Poetic.

Terry: OOOOKaaaay, who the heckening is Terry Silver in this? In canon I already HC him as almost a ghost, so how does that translate here? He’s an intergalactic crime boss, he’s got 50 different stories told about him (he’s an augment like Khan, he’s worked with Borg, he’s got contacts throughout the Federation, he came from the Gamma Quadrant) – only Kreese marginally knows him and knows he used to be an ensign, but before that… even he’s not sure…

Barnes & Snake: They work for Terry… do you think he’d do a longterm con of getting his own people into Starfleet through the Academy? I feel like he would. Officer Class, except Snake probably wound up in lowgrade security, I cannot see him having the brains to move that far up the ladder. I’m inventing a whole conspiracy now…. or maybe Terry hired Barnes after he got kicked out of the Academy, hmmm...

Jessica: I want her to be Science Class, so that’s what she is. Research and Development. Social sciences and Xeno-archaeology. She makes and collects gifted pots.

Carmen: She’s a nurse. I feel like she also came through in an unconventional way, possibly studying nursing in a civilian capacity and worked on civilian ships for a few years, using it as payment for traveling with her mom and her kid. Then, eventually, ends up on the same Starship as Johnny and Daniel and Co. (and now I kinda want to see her training under Ali, but in my head Ali left before Carmen entered the picture).

Rosa: I feel like the Diaz family didn’t grow up on earth – I’m aware that this puts people of colour mainly off-earth, but I’m thinking about Star Trek’s earth-metaphor as “paradise” (DS9) while it lets all the nasty stuff happen outside, which is… very similar to “first world/third world country” rhetoric + how in Karate Kid and Cobra Kai first Miyagi and then the Diaz family are immigrants. I think Rosa Diaz would get on with Miyagi – like a type of Guinan and Picard situation, where she’s definitely a civilian, but constantly ends up on conversation with the Captain and he’s not quite sure what exactly her history is. Also I’m imagining a lil toddler-Miguel on a big starship.

Amanda: Similar to Kumiko I can see Amanda in a lot of places – administrative? Officer class? Intelligence officer/analyst? Bridge crew? Captain-in-training? What are we thinking here? Also I wonder about her past, but that’s something I do in canon as well. I kind of like the idea that she’s worked incredibly hard for what she has, putting herself through the Academy, presenting the front of someone who grew up with giving parents on the “Paradise” of earth, but actually she didn’t…

[arcticdementor]

In a democracy, every vote is supposed to be equal. If about half the country supports one side and half the country supports another, you may expect major institutions to either be equally divided, or to try to stay politically neutral.

This is not what we find. If it takes a position on the hot button social issues around which our politics revolve, almost every major institution in America that is not explicitly conservative leans left. In a country where Republicans get around half the votes or something close to that in every election, why should this be the case?

This post started as an investigation into Woke Capital, one of the most important developments in the last decade or so of American politics. Although big business pressuring politicians is not new (the NFL moved the Super Bowl from Arizona over MLK day), the scope of the issues on which corporations feel the need to weigh in is certainly expanding, now including LGBT issues, abortion laws, voting rights, kneeling during the national anthem, and gun control.

…

As I started to research the topic, however, I realized there wasn’t much to explain. Asking why corporations are woke is like asking why Hispanics tend to have two arms, or why the Houston Rockets have increased their number of 3-point shots taken over the last few decades. All humans tend to have two arms, and all NBA teams shoot more 3-pointers than in the past, so focusing on one subset of the population that has the same characteristics as all others in the group misses the point.

I think one reason Woke Capital is getting so much attention is because we expect business to be more right-leaning, and corporations throwing in with the party of more taxes and regulation strikes us as odd. We are used to schools, non-profits, mainline religions, etc. taking liberal positions and feel like business should be different. But business is just being assimilated into a larger trend.

Corporations are woke, meaning left wing on social issues relative to the general population, because institutions are woke. So the question becomes why are institutions woke?

…

Through the lens of ordinal utility, in which people simply rank what they want to happen, we are about equal. I prefer Republicans to Democrats, while you have the opposite preference. But when we think in terms of cardinal utility – in layman’s terms, how bad people want something to happen – it’s no contest. You are going to be much more influential than me. Most people are relatively indifferent to politics and see it as a small part of their lives, yet a small percentage of the population takes it very seriously and makes it part of its identity. Those people will tend to punch above their weight in influence, and institutions will be more responsive to them.

Elections are a measure of ordinal preferences. As long as you care enough to vote, it doesn’t matter how much you care about the election outcome, as everyone’s voice is the same. But for everything else – who speaks up in a board meeting about whether a corporation should take a political position, who protests against a company taking a position one side or the other finds offensive, etc. – cardinal utility maters a lot. Only a small minority of the public ever bothers to try to influence a corporation, school, or non-profit to reflect certain values, whether from the inside or out.

In an evenly divided country, if one side simply cares more, it’s going to exert a disproportionate influence on all institutions, and be more likely to see its preferences enacted in the time between elections when most people aren’t paying much attention.

…

Here are two graphs that have been getting a lot of attention

What jumps out to me in these figures is not only how left leaning large institutions are, but how the same is true for most professions. Whether you are looking by institution or by individuals, there are more donations to Biden than Trump. Yet Republicans get close to half the votes! Where are the Trump supporters? What these graphs reveal is a larger story, in which more people give to liberal causes and candidates than to conservative ones, even if Americans are about equally divided in which party they support (and no, this isn’t the result of liberals being wealthier, the connections between income and ideology or party are pretty weak). Here are some graphs from late October showing Biden having more individual donors than Trump in every battleground state.

…

In the 2012 election, Obama raised $234 million from small individual contributors, compared to $80 million for Romney, while also winning among large contributors.

…

In September 2009, at the height of the Tea Party movement, conservatives held the “Taxpayer March on Washington,” which drew something like 60,000-70,000 people, leading one newspaper to call it “the largest conservative protest ever to storm the Capitol.” Since that time, the annual anti-abortion March for Life rally in Washington has drawn massive crowds, with estimates for some years ranging widely from low six figures to mid-to-high six figures. March for Life is not to be confused with “March for Our Lives,” a pro-gun control rally that activists claim saw 800,000 people turn out in 2018. All these events were dwarfed by the Women’s March in opposition to Trump, which drew by one estimate “between 3,267,134 and 5,246,670 people in the United States (our best guess is 4,157,894). That translates into 1 percent to 1.6 percent of the U.S. population of 318,900,000 people (our best guess is 1.3 percent).” Even if the two left-wing academics who did this research are letting their bias infuse their work, there is no question that protesting is generally a left-wing activity, as conservatives themselves realize.

People who engage in protesting care more about politics than people who donate money, and people who donate money care more than people who simply vote. Imagine a pyramid with voters at the bottom and full-time activists on top, and as you move up the pyramid it gets much narrower and more left-wing. Multiple strands of evidence indicate this would basically be an accurate representation of society.

Another line of evidence showing that the left simply cares more about politics comes from Noah Carl, who has put together data showing liberals are in their personal lives more intolerant of conservatives than vice versa across numerous dimensions in the US and the UK. Those on the left are more likely to block someone on social media over their views, be upset if their child marries someone from the other side, and find it hard to be friends with or date someone they disagree with politically. Here are two graphs demonstrating the general point.

…

There’s a great irony here. Conservatives tend to be more skeptical of pure democracy, and believe in individuals coming together and forming civil society organizations away from government. Yet conservatives are extremely bad at gaining or maintaining control of institutions relative to liberals. It’s not because they are poorer or the party of the working class – again, I can’t stress enough how little economics predicts people’s political preferences – but because they are the party of those who simply care less about the future of their country.

Debates over voting rights make the opposite assumption, as conservatives tend to want more restrictions on voting, and liberals fewer, with National Review explicitly arguing against a purer form of democracy. Conservatives may be right that liberals are less likely to care enough to do basic things like bring a photo ID and correctly fill out a ballot. If this is true, Republicans are the party of people who care enough to vote when doing so is made slightly more difficult but not enough to do anything else, while Democrats are the party of both the most active and least active citizens. Yet while being the “care only enough to vote” party might be adequate for winning elections, the future belongs to those at the tail end of the distribution who really want to change the world.

The discussion here makes it hard to suggest reforms for conservatives. Do you want to give government more power over corporations? None of the regulators will be on your side. Leave corporations alone? Then you leave power to Woke Capital, though it must to a certain extent be disciplined and limited by the preferences of consumers. Start your own institutions? Good luck staffing them with competent people for normal NGO or media salaries, and if you’re not careful they’ll be captured by your enemies anyway, hence Conquest’s Second Law. And the media will be there every step of the way to declare any of your attempts at taking power to be pure fascism, and brush aside any resistance to your schemes as righteous anger, up to and including rioting and acts of violence.

…

From this perspective we might want to consider this passage from Scott Alexander, who writes the following in his review of a biography of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The normal course of politics is various coalitions of elites and populace, each drawing from their own power bases. A normal political party, like a normal anything else, has elite leaders, analysts, propagandists, and managers, plus populace foot soldiers. Then there's an election, and sometimes our elites get in, and sometimes your elites get in, but getting a political party that's against the elites is really hard and usually the sort of thing that gets claimed rather than accomplished, because elites naturally rise to the top of everything.

But sometimes political parties can run on an explicitly anti-elite platform. In theory this sounds good - nobody wants to be elitist. In practice, this gets really nasty quickly. Democracy is a pure numbers game, so it's hard for the elites to control - the populace can genuinely seize the reins of a democracy if it really wants. But if that happens, the government will be arrayed against every other institution in the nation. Elites naturally rise to the top of everything - media, academia, culture - so all of those institutions will hate the new government and be hated by it in turn. Since all natural organic processes favor elites, if the government wants to win, it will have to destroy everything natural and organic - for example, shut down the regular media and replace it with a government-controlled media run by its supporters.

When elites use the government to promote elite culture, this usually looks like giving grants to the most promising up-and-coming artists recommended by the art schools themselves, and having the local art critics praise their taste and acumen. When the populace uses the government to promote popular culture against elite culture, this usually looks like some hamfisted attempt to designate some kind of "official" style based on what popular stereotypes think is "real art from back in the day when art was good", which every art school and art critic attacks as clueless Philistinism. Every artist in the country will make groundbreaking exciting new art criticizing the government's poor judgment, while the government desperately looks for a few technicians willing to take their money and make, I don't know, pretty landscape paintings or big neoclassical buildings.

The important point is that elite government can govern with a light touch, because everything naturally tends towards what they want and they just need to shepherd it along. But popular/anti-elite government has a strong tendency toward dictatorship, because it won't get what it wants without crushing every normal organic process. Thus the stereotype of the "right-wing strongman", who gets busy with the crushing.

So the idea of "right-wing populism" might invoke this general concept of somebody who, because they have made themselves the champion of the populace against the elites, will probably end up incentivized to crush all the organic processes of civil society, and yoke culture and academia to the will of government in a heavy-handed manner.

To put it in a different way, to steelman the populist position, democracy does not reflect the will of the citizenry, it reflects the will of an activist class, which is not representative of the general population. Populists, in order to bring institutions more in line with what the majority of the people want, need to rely on a more centralized and heavy-handed government. The strongman is liberation from elites, who aren’t the best citizens, but those with the most desire to control people’s lives, often to enforce their idiosyncratic belief system on the rest of the public, and also a liberation from having to become like elites in order to fight them, so conservatives don’t have to give up on things like hobbies and starting families and devote their lives to activism.

[biomic]

I've seen Kamen Rider Drive and Lupinranger VS Patranger so I wanted to know your opinions but their is something I don't really understand, can you explain the difference in why Shinnosuke (is that correct?) and Keiichiro (is that correct?) are ethically different even when the are both morally similar?

(apologies to my mutuals who are probably sick of hearing me complain about drive but they asked)

im biased on this one bc keiichiro ended up being my favorite red despite being a cop (the power of kousei yuki’s smile.), so i can’t really say my opinion on this is totally objective or anything. i would completely understand why someone wouldn’t want to engage with either of them given their roles as cop superheroes (although i have no idea how that one person on twitter came to the conclusion that keiichiro was Definitely a fascist but shinnosuke was a great rider)

but for me, it’s mainly a difference in how they and their enemies are framed, especially in regards to the franchises they’re in

(the rest under the cut to spare my followers)

from the start, i think lupat has a leg up on not being too copaganda-y because the lupinrangers are there as the dual protagonists, and really their story is the emotional core of the show. even if the series isn’t gonna address the problem with superhero cops because it isn’t built for that, we’re at least getting another side of things, you know? and their enemies, the ganglers, are pretty standard sentai bad guys. they’re interdimensional invaders whose goal is to take over the universe. dogranio and his subordinates have all the trappings of a classic mobster gang, but at the end of the day they’re still clearly Sentai Monsters. it doesn’t feel as uncomfortable when the patrangers blow them up, because that’s what every other sentai in history does

keiichiro himself starts the series as an angry hothead who’s dead set on capturing the lupinrangers and defeating the ganglers. but as the series progresses, we see that underneath the bluster, he’s a kindhearted guy who cares a lot about other people. this is most evident with his relationship to kairi, where he can see how closed off kairi is and actively wants to make a connection, but you also see it in his interactions with tsukasa, satoru, and even that girl who had a crush on him (my self insert). he’s just Good in a way that’s very genuine, not just following the classic toku hero archetype. he’ll take a laser blast or a deadly amount of poison to protect the public, sure, but he’ll also reach out to you when you’re feeling lost and alone. that does so much to elevate him as a character

and then, you have this scene

the show makes it very clear with this scene that for all the stock keiichiro puts into being a police officer, the thing he cares about most is helping people, and he’ll give up that position the moment it stops being about that. is that enough to justify another cast of toku cops? not for everyone, understandably, but i at least appreciate that lupat makes sure to firmly establish this as keiichiro’s motivation

shinnosuke, on the other hand, doesn’t have this kind of depth to me, and it makes his role as a cop all the more problematic (for lack of a better word). shinnosuke’s version of Good is much more in line with the basic toku hero archetype, and aside from some peter parker-esque lines early on in the series, drive doesn’t do much to develop him beyond that, so he doesn’t have a lot to work off of besides Cop. he doesn’t have those quieter human moments that make keiichiro shine as a person beyond his badge. shinnosuke doesn’t feel driven by an innate desire to help people, but by wanting to live up to his dead cop dad. it’s harder to latch onto in comparison

the biggest issue, however, is how the roidmudes are portrayed. the ganglers are your stock sentai baddies, but kamen rider is known for having more nuanced takes on its villains, and that’s technically true of the roidmudes. they’re not soulless conquerors, they’re robots who’ve been abused and abandoned by their creators, and want to take back humanity for themselves. the problem is nobody in the main cast seems to be put off by wasting these sentient beings anyway. giving them this sympathetic portrayal while still having them get kicked to death every week by our cop protagonists ends up feeling a LOT more iffy than what was clearly intended. no, that’s not to directly compare fictional robots to real marginalized groups (nobody in our world is crafting evil scifi schemes to get back at humanity bc of police brutality), but it just puts the usual “blow up the monster” formula of the typical tokusatsu series under a really uncomfortable lens. we see glimpses of non-evil roidmudes in the show, but this doesn’t cause any of the protagonists to question what they’re doing in the grand scheme of things. instead it just comes off like these are one-off fluke cases compared to the rest of roidmudes who need to be destroyed no matter what. the show ends with every roidmude dead, and we’re supposed to feel sad at this great tragedy, but it’s undercut by the fact that it could’ve been completely avoided had any of our heroes stopped for one second and thought, “hey, maybe we could like. capture these guys instead of killing literally all of them? you know, like cops are theoretically supposed to do?”

and then you have all these little things in drive that build up over time into something that just became impossible to ignore for me. nobody ever questioning krim despite being shady as hell and abandoning heart in a lab with fucking banno of all people, shinnosuke letting that one ex-cop who put people in danger to solve an old case off the hook despite never giving a roidmude the same opportunity, the police department putting together a roidmude HIT LIST. and on top of everything else, the series constantly shouts at the audience about how this is what Kamen Rider “really is”, because ishinomori’s anti-fascist roots totally gel with a basic ass cop show right? it all just piles onto one another into this nasty, uncomfortable mess, unintentional as it may be. nothing in lupat comes close to how bad drive got with its cop shit

tl;dr in the simplest terms, keiichiro feels like a Red Ranger who also happens to be a cop, while shinnosuke feels like a Cop who also happens to be a kamen rider, and the latter is a much harder concept to reconcile with

[revasserium]

beauty as a perspective (or a study of truth through the lens of a boy who has always believed in fairy-tales)

anon: And it is beautiful with Hinata First love with kageyama? Please :) 

101. and it is beautiful hinata ; 1.8k words

there are so many things he considers to be beautiful -- the sunrise, the sunsets, the way the moon lingers on the horizon after a whole midsummer’s night, like it’s waiting for the first rays of sunlight to spill across the world, the way the stars are relentless in their twinkling, as if emboldened by the darkness that beholds their very beings -- that they are made all the brighter by night’s all-consuming dark. 

there are other things too -- a well-aimed spike, crystal cut and down the line, right next to the pole, a perfectly arched toss, slow enough for thought, but too fast for the opponents to follow, the double-rolling saves that noya-sempai had promised to teach him and still hasn’t gotten around to, the way a clean sneaker sounds against the well-waxed floor of a freshly cleaned gym, the sound of a volleyball meeting skin, the flutter of a net, the chorus of voices as it echoes towards the ceiling. 

the cheers of the crowds when a point gets scored. when a match is won. 

the weight of happiness, so light and yet so, so heavy too, enough to make his bones feel like they’re filled with gold or silver or maybe magic itself. he thinks there’s nothing more beautiful than playing... and winning. 

until he meets you. 

your name breezes through him like a summer wind through wheat, leaving no part of him unruffled and untouched, all this thoughts tangled and out of ordered, but so beautifully so. he watches you go like a child watching the end of a really good dream, powerless to stop it, but still with the naïve hope that perhaps, if he just kept his eyes open (or closed) for a moment longer, maybe, just maybe you’ll stay -- 

“hinata-kun, its your turn to help clean the classrooms.” 

he snaps out of his reverie (did you know that’s the word for daydream in french? how fitting, right? and when tsukki had asked, drop-jawed and all, where the hell hinata had learned such a thing, all he could do was shrug and blush and say he’d read it somewhere -- to tsukki’s compounded shock and confoundment), the teacher is watching him with a hiked eyebrow, and half the class was giggling. but you, you’re standing next to his desk with a sweet, expectant smile and he’s lost all over again. 

(who was he, anyway? before he knew what your smile looked like? what your voice sounds like? what the color of your hair was beneath the morning sun, or in the golden glow of dusk?) 

“let’s do our best, hm?” you offer him your hand. 

hinata had never wished for after class chores to last forever, but he has now. 

he doesn’t know how you get onto the topic of volleyball, but it always ends up there somehow... with him -- and he finds himself rambling like he always does when he’s nervous, blabbing out an invite because yeah! it’s pretty cool! and there’s a practice match today! and oh, yeah! i’m on the starting lineup and of course you can come watch! i’m super awesome y’know! -- 

and then the horrifying, daunting realization that he’s going to have to play. with you watching him. with your eyes, like pools of amber so deep and clear they remind him of melted caramel during the holiday school fairs, with your smile like tasting a favorite treat after a long, hard day’s practice, with your laughter and your voice like -- like -- 

“what’s this? hinata’s brought a friend?” there’s something in the texture of suga-sempai’s voice that hinata isn’t sure he likes but he’s too nervous to call it out at the moment. instead, he tries desperately to explain why the hell he’d brought you along, not that he’s really sure either, other than the fact that he doesn’t ever want you to leave his sight ever again in his whole life but, well, he can’t really say that out loud without sounding like a freak -- 

“uh -- it’s not -- i mean, yeah! we’re friends! i think so at least -- well anyway -- ahhhhh -- she likes volleyball and there’s a practice match today and i told her she could come and watch cause i’m really awesome at it and she just moved here from tokyo, or actually she stayed in france for a while before that! can you believe it? hey -- wait do you know kenma from nekoma? they’re from tokyo too, right --?” 

kageyama fixes him with a flatlined look even as you smile. 

“she’s not from the same school, idiot.” 

hinata puffs up as he turns to kageyama but thankfully, daichi is there to pull them apart before things get really nasty. he flashes you a sincere and somewhat apologetic grin. 

“ah, thanks for coming. you can find a seat up there, and uhm -- welcome to karasuno.” 

hinata finds himself watching you go (he nearly yells when you wave at him from the second level, that is until kageyama elbows him so hard in the side he actually does yell). 

“focus, boke!” 

“shut up, crappyama!” 

“ha? what did you say?” 

“both of you, quiet!” 

they both flinch at the sound of daichi’s voice. 

but hinata can’t help stealing another glance towards you, thinking that this feels different, somehow. different than all the other practice matches he’s played before. it’s like his vision is sharper, all his senses on high alert -- he can smell the sweat on his teammates’ skin, can see each spec of light as it refracts off of the newly waxed gym floors, can feel the weight of your eyes on him like a superhero’s cloak -- beautiful and full of responsibility. 

and he plays well that day, he thinks -- got a few really solid quick’s in, and he only messed up on two of his serves, which, all things considered, is probably a record low for him. kageyama only yelled at him five times, also on the low side. 

they manage to scrape a win, and it was mostly asahi-san’s doing -- noya-sempai being awesome as ever, too. still, he thinks it’s been a good day. he almost forgets that you’re watching for a while, but only for a while, and as the match draws to a close, he’s again keenly aware of your eyes on him. 

he turns to grin up at you, shooting you a thumbs up. he finds you no longer sitting, but standing by the railings, your eyes huge and happy as you wave down at him. there’s a flush to your face that makes him want to walk off a bridge right into a very, very cold river but he shelves that thought for later as you make your way down the stairs, jogging right up to him, your smile so brilliant he thinks he might go blind if he stared too long. 

he blinks, still dripping sweat down his now very wet uniform. 

“shouyou! you were amazing! i mean, you are amazing --!” 

he almost jolts at your use of his given name, but then he remembers you asking (because you liked the sound of it or something; he’d forgotten what you said after that cause he was too busy marinating in the fact that you liked the sound of his name) if you could call him that. and him saying yes. 

“for a while there it looked like you were flying, like really flying!” 

he nods along with your excitement, his smile growing so wide his cheeks are starting to hurt and god, what what happen if he just kept on smiling wider and wider? what would happen to his face? would it stretch and keep on stretching? or maybe he’ll accidentally split his face in half and have to get stitches from the hospital, which wouldn’t be fun but for you, he thinks, it’s worth it. 

“y-yeah! cool! right?” he leaps ups as if to illustrate, but as with all things he does on a spur of the moment impulse, it doesn’t go quite as planned. he ends up smacking his head on the doorframe of double gym doors, leaving him whining, curled up into a ball on the ground, and you kneeling by his side. 

“shouyou? are -- are you okay? oh my god, what happened?” 

he winces as he pushes himself up into a sitting position, grinning awkwardly up at you. 

“i wanted to show you!” 

“show me what?” 

“what it looks like to fly!” 

tanaka is fussing over hinata, loudly asking if he’ll get a concussion while tsukki is remarking to that getting a concussion might be good for him; noya and tanaka are both laughing so hard they’re also curled up on the ground. 

you giggle, “save some flying for next time.” 

“for... next time?” 

“yeah, for the next time you play.” 

“will... will you be there?” 

you smile, nodding, offering him a hand. 

“if you want me to be.” 

“yes! yeah -- oh man, i do! i really really --” 

“good, then i’ll be there.” 

“aahh, that’s amazing! super great! ahhhh i’m so --- mmmm -- i’m so happy!” 

he leaps up and is about to jump up again before he realizes you hadn’t let go of his hand yet. 

he blinks, heat washing up his face like jumping head-first into a steaming onsen. 

“hey! you said you’d save some for next time, right?” 

hinata laughs, “right -- for next time.” 

you give his hand a squeeze before letting go, turning to greet his teammates. hinata watches you, like he’s been doing from the second he’d set eyes on you a week and a half ago, when you’d introduced yourself to the class. 

like when he’d all too enthusiastically volunteered to show you around the school, like when the pair of you had stopped in the library, and you’d run your fingers along the spines of all the books like greeting old friends. 

like when you flipped open a book of fairy-tales and traced the outline of a boy with melting wax wings, plummeting from the sky. 

“you know, i used to always daydream about flying as a kid,” you said. 

hinata quirked his head, “why?” 

you smiled, “dunno, seemed like a fun thing to do.” 

hinata smiled then too, “well, it’s not that hard.” 

you looked at him, “you... know how to fly?” 

“sure i do!” 

you laughed, then, but not a mocking kind of laugh -- a delighted, dancing kind of laugh that made hinata’s whole chest fill with hot air and helium. 

“you promise to show me some day?” 

hinata had nodded so hard his head might’ve come right off it’s hinges. 

“hey, what’s ‘daydream’ in french?” he asked. 

you blink at him, “reverie.” 

“wow... beautiful.” 

you laughed again, nodding, “it is, isn’t it?” 

and he decides then, watching as you smile at something suga-sempai says, as you quirk your head curiously at kageyama, making him flush a hilarious shade of crimson as well, that sure, there are a lot of beautiful things in this world. 

but none of them quite so beautiful as you. 

[xxtraord1nary]

POV

Fandom: Open Heart

Pairing: Tobias Carrick x f!mc (Charlotte West)

Word Count: 1.6k

A/N: Constructive criticism is always welcome! No hate please and thank you for reading reblog and comment if you enjoyed.

Summary: A very naughty and heavily pregnant Charlotte much prefers her handsome lovers point of view.

Warnings: Strong Language, Fellatio, Sex, and a tad of dark humor. If that makes you uncomfortable please exit stage left because you’ve been warned. Overall vulgar.

Tag list: @katkart122 @missmiimiie @openheartfanfics

“Tobias, I am not playing with you get that damn camera out of my face! It's way too early for your shit.” Charlotte snapped whilst swatting at the pest she called a husband as he continued to record his very moody wife with his old camera he found a couple a months ago when Char ordered him with a broom in hand to go “clean that damn garage” or he could sleep on the couch for a month, so that being all the motivation he needed Tobias got to it with vigor.

“You're really good at this whole black mama thing Charlie.” he teases with a shit eating grin plastered on his stupidly perfect face. “Keep it up and I’ll be a single black mama if you don’t quit.” she grunted while taking down her plaited kinky tendrils that in the morning tended to have a mind of their own.

“Now why would you say that?”

“Because I’m going to kill you” she said whilst continuing to grumpily apply toothpaste to her electric toothbrush.

“Really talking like that when I’m recording, then the police will immediately know who to be held responsible in the case of my untimely demise, Charlie.” he further ribbed while shaking his head playfully behind the lens.

“Screw you and the police Carrick.” she spat.

“Babe, you know all you have to do is corporate and let me get my daily picture of you and our little Tiny Tia. So get with the program.” he chided with a small but genuine smile as he further gazed at the love of his life and their little one growing inside her very pregnant belly.

“Alright two things: that name is super cute and I’m surprised you came up with that yourself.”

“I’m good for something, see?” to which she answered with a ‘meh’ and shrug of her shoulders.

“I’m offended.” and again another answer in the form of shrugged shoulders and a hard roll of the eyes.

“Now for two, why on earth do you need a picture every day?” she whined with tired eyes.

“This is our first child out of many, I need to capture every moment. Now lift up your shirt!” he confidently proclaimed.

She didn’t want to burst his little bubble but if he thought for a second she was pushing another of his big headed babies out of her lady parts he was sorely mistaken. ‘What the hell is “out of many” anyways?’ she pondered with a perplexed expression. “Absolutely not, I look like a gross ragamuffin.”

He sighed, “Charlie lift up your shirt or I’m gonna hold out.” he asservated pleased with her shocked expression. “Oh yeah, hold out what exactly?” she challenged with raised eyebrows. He knew the denial of sex would be the thing to do it for her. Already she had an insatiable sexual appetite hence here they were here six months pregnant, but pregnancy hormones only amplified that. “You really don’t wanna play those games with me Tobias, or you’ll find yourself handcuffed to bed and taken by force.” she lightheartedly fired back. “I’m quite intrigued as long as I can return the favor.” he huskily dropped an octave and whispered to her. She shivered and scoffed “You a silly little freak.” with a laugh.

“Honestly Charlie, all this is unnecessary as all I wanted was my pictures and could have been going about my business by now but someone refused to get along with the picture. Pun heavily intended.” he sighed.

“Okay I’ll bite, but what are you even doing with these pictures?”

“Well, if you must know. I take your picture or video then I pleasure myself.” he sexily drawled “then upload it online to make a virtual scrapbook.” he happily finished. “Why am I not surprised?” she chuckled as she shoved his laughing form. “Wait, you still masturabte?” she inquisitively questioned.

“Well, yeah sometimes you're in a horrifying mood and I’d rather work with what I’ve got than you ripping my head off, do you?”

“Actually no, not since I met you at least.” she truthfully noted, as her hands just didn’t do the job since Dr. Tobias Carrick waltzed into her life with his devilishly handsome face and rocked her world.

“I’m doing my job right then.” he pressed with a smirk. “Mhm, too right if you ask me.” she quipped pointing to her very round and beautiful stomach adorned with barely visible glittery stretch marks that only magnified her beauty and strength. “What’s on your mind now?” he pried while she poked at her bump in the mirror. “Me and Sienna, Aurora, and Jackie are going out to Carson Beach and I can’t decide whether to wear a two or one piece.”

“Two pieces of course so I can enjoy the fruits of my labor.” he smiled proudly.

“Four minutes hardly constitutes at “labor” she mocked with air quotes. He smacked his teeth in annoyance, “If you loved me you’d do this for me.” he pleaded. And now it was her turn to kiss her teeth, “Fine!” she huffed. “But leave my face out of it, I look icky in the mornings.” to which he eagerly disagreed and pecked her lips but not before muttering something along the lines of “stunning”.

“Alright, I’ll give you your little video but you have to do something for me.” she suggestively proposed. To which he readily agreed as he loved her ‘just been fucked’ afterglow. He then turned off the old camcorder and attempted to put it away but she fingered the loops of his jeans “Uh uh turn it back on.”

He was sure his eyes were completely bulging out of his skull and managed to mutter a “Charlie a-are you serious?” in his daze. She nodded and sunk down to her knees as she slowly tugged down his boxers and elicited a low groan from him.

In the lens of the camera she expertly handled his member with care and tenderly began to stroke him giggling at his floored expression. “You ready for me, Tobias?” she tantalizingly asked not ceasing her stroking. Receiving an eager nod and thumbs up from the camera she smirked at her success in making the talkative bastard speechless. Expertly she teased his large in girth and lengthy member with the tip of her tongue before guiding him into her mouth as she had done tons of times before sucking her mans dick like a woman starved.

“Oh god, slow down baby.” Tobias pitifully groaned while screwing his mind down as the love of his life expertly worked him. “You wanna be inside me, baby?” she whispered in a sultry tone against the head of his member cursing a pleasant shiver to rack his body. He didn’t answer but instead made a gesture behind the camera for me to turn around. He thanked the heavens above for the easy access and the fact that she was wearing one of his shirts and abandoned underwear long ago. She hissed as his large strong hand cam crashing down on her bare ass, and soothed the pleasant sting with a soft rub. “Perfect.” he murmured as he continued his caressing of her more than generous backside. “How’s the view?” she asked with a wink through the mirror.

And with a quick and brutal thrust he was inside leaving her panting mess on the cold surface of the bathroom countertop as she moaned slowly.

“Amazing.” he quickly answered before he began his unrelenting deep thrust. “Deeper” she moaned out in the air. Resting on her palms and easing away from the countertop she made eye contact with a chipper Tobias as he violently thrust into her and she had to brace herself. “Where are you going Char?” Tobias teased as she stood on her tiptoes desperately in an unsuccessful attempt of creating space between them.

“Damn I know I told him deeper, but now he's just showing out for the camera.” she thought while groaning as he hit a spot inside her making let out a loud guttural moan. He made the most out of his opportunity reaching to rub her clit. Moaning even louder he soon used one hand to grip her shoulder as he angled the camcorder downwards to catch sight of his pelvis meeting her dripping cunt. Closing her eyes for some reprieve she opened them to meet Tobias’s eyes in the mirror to find him damn near gnawing through his lip to hold back his loud groans.

Her release soon crep up on her and she moaned loudly, “Baby, I-” to which he cut her off as he sped up his tireless thrust, “Me too. Don’t wait for me.” and with that she came harder than ever and fell back on the counter, a panting mess and sweating bullets and winced as he pulled out of her. She mistakenly thought he was going to clean her only for him to zoom in the camera to get a close up of her used pussy with his milky cum dripping out of her.

Once he caught his breath he chuckled “That was amazing and it wasn’t even my birthday.” to which she rolled her eyes with a dazed expression and a small smile on her face since enjoying the after effects of their morning activities.

“Yeah yeah you better delete that.” she warned turning on the shower.

“Uh-Uh Charlie we just made a porno, I’m downloading this to my USB and keeping it in my safe.” he remarked while being transfixed at the camcorder in his hands causing her to snort with laughter.

“Whatever, if it gets leaked I better get paid for it.” she declared while leaving to her shower leaving Tobias in a cheerful fit of post orgasmic laughter.

Fin.

A/N: That was nasty and you read it so you’re nasty too.

[saintheartwing]

So...I’ve Begun Reading Artemis Fowl...It IS Really Good

So, I decided to check out the movie and...ugh.Not good. So I began to think “How badly did they screw this up” and began reading the books.

They’re REALLY good. The thing you need to know about Artemis Fowl is he starts off as...well, a smug snake. He’s a big jerk in a lot of ways who, after his dad supposedly dies out trying to get into a new market in Russia which the Russian mafia doesn’t take kind to, his mom goes nutso. She doesn’t recognize him half the time. His only friend is his butler...and he doesn’t even know Butler’s real name. He’s also a super brilliant young man. Add all that up, and you get a very selfish, self-centered, pretentious young man who doesn’t find ANYBODY his equal. 

He decides upon doing some investigation into the more strange and occultish things in the world to get hold of a ton of money through a SEEMINGLY insane, ludicrous way...through the fairy world. Yes, there’s actual elves. He got into it, evidently, by trolling through the ancient stories and there always seemed to be commonalities among them from ancient races. 

Artemis slightly lucks out. He’s able to get hold of basically the Fairy Bible, the Book of the People. It provides insider knowledge of how they do things, and through that, he makes a plan. He’ll kidnap a fairy, overcoming their magic, and ransom them for gold. It’ll be difficult, they need to get one that’s low on magic. And they have to wear special sunglasses that will be reflective, for fairies can MESMERIZE people, hypnotizing them.  They’ll catch one doing the necessary ritual for magic recharge. 

The good news is fairies are fairly commonly popping out of the Underground they live in in Ireland...where the Fowl manor is located. And the ritual is best done near an ancient oak and a riverbend and even better, under a full moon. Well, there’s one not too far from Fowl Manor...and after some staking out...Fowl catches one. A fairy named Holly Short, the only female fairy on the recon unit that the fair folk have. 

He, Butler, and his butler’s sister Juliet lock her in a room with a bed. They’ve got their hostage. They use the helmet armor she’s got to communicate with her boss. The fairies figure out where Fowl Manor is, but though they can slow down time, pretty much stop it...Artemis now has fairy tech because he caught Holly, and this means Butler can move freely through the time bubble. He kicks the butts of EVERY recon agent sent to save her. So Holly’s boss, Commander Root, has to come in for negotiations. 

Artemis wants gold. A ton of twenty four carat gold. And a ton of gold is, evidently,  64.3 million dollars. A looot of money. Root says that Artemis can’t win. They have a “bio bomb”. It destroys all organic matter used on it, and if they’re caught in a time field, as they are right now, they can’t just race out the front door to get away. There’s only one helmet, and there’s three of them. They’re trapped.

Right?

Well, Artemis says he knows how to escape it. And he’s thought of everything ELSE the fairies would do so far. So...they send in a wild card. Professional Thief Mulch Diggums, a dwarf. Dwarves are natural diggers, they tunnel by unhinging their jaws, eating through the dirt, and expelling it out their rump.

...yeaaah...THAT particular scene from the movie’s pretty accurate. So Mulch is called on to tunnel into the Fowl estate to try and help free Holly. At the same time, Holly’s got a way to break free. She’s been using the bed to break into the floor and beneath the floor...is some earth. And she’s got an acorn on her. With that acorn and the proper words and access to real Earth...she can recharge her magic. Not even reflective lenses can keep her from mesmerizing Juliet. And Mulch finds Artemis’s copy of the Book of the People, thus taking away his big advantage over the fairies. Holly’s now free, but she can’t leave the house. Fairies have rules to adhere to if they wanna keep their magic, and when captured by Artemis, one of his rules was “You absolutely can’t leave the house”. Now...she COULD leave her room. He didn’t say she couldn’t do that. But the house? Nope.

No matter. Root’s gonna send in the gold, get Holly out...then bio bomb the place, stroll in, and claim the ransom.

Unfortuntely his second in command and friend, Cudgeon, has a better idea. They’ve got a troll Holly recently caught. Cudgeon suggested to the fairy’s ruling council to just launch the troll in. Have it wreck the place, the humans will be screaming for help, and then the fairies can just bust in and kick Fowl’s little ass up and down the halls. And if Holly’s hurt, well...too bad. 

It goes badly. Butler is strong and skilled but he was trying to get Juliet to safety and he wasn’t expecting a TROLL. Holly tries to help fight it off but she can’t get her helmet to work properly, it’s been damaged, and the weapon she used on the troll earlier to beat it was IN the helmet. She only manages to make it reel back, but she’s badly hurt. BUT...not so hurt she can’t use magic to heal Butler. Who is NOT. PLAYING.

He rises up, puts some nearby knight armor from a standing knight stand on...and has a mace. BAM! BAM! BAM! He has a Sig Saurer submachine gun. BAM-BAM-BAM! Nobody touches his sister. But...Holly asks him not to kill the troll. It’s beaten. And it’s just a dumb animal, please show mercy. So he doesn’t kill it, kicks it out, and Artemis and Juliet and Butler get contacted by Root, who agrees to send the money in, apologizing for the troll. 

Holly feels bad that Juliet’s about to get killed, she doesn’t feel bad about Artemis, but she doesn’t want Juliet killed. She says “I have magic, please, isn’t there anything I can do, you’re gonna be killed!” Artemis says there’s nothing she can do. He knows there’s a real danger coming but he’s sure he can beat it.

Although...there is ONE thing Holly could do with her magic. 

Then...sure enough...Holly is allowed to leave the house with half the gold. Payment for services rendered. The fairies launch the bio bomb as Artemis and Butler and Juliet drink drugged champagne.

And THAT...is how they beat the time field and the bio bomb. By knocking themselves unconcious, they can weasel out of the time field’s effects. When the fairy recon team comes in...yep. Sure enough, no bodies lying around. Artemis has escaped. So he gets to keep half a ton of gold. 

And...well, Holly did some magic for Artemis. She cured his mother of her mental illness. And that’s the first book.

Artemis is kinda unlikable, but having Holly freeing herself basically, not being a true damsel in distress, AND her saving Butler, who’s a lot more uneasy and disliking of Artemis’s plan, makes the story engaging. Artemis may not be a nice kid you can like, but the other characters make up for that. And there’s great worldbuilding and humor, with some nice, dry wit. 

The “Artic Incident” shows that Artemis’s mom is having him see a shrink. THe issue is he doesn’t respect anybody else. Nobody alive. Sure, he respects people like Einstein and Archimedes, but nobody PRESENT. And his dad’s still gone.

...or so he thought. A video has come in. Slightly blurry. But a man is tied up to a pole in a Russian winter and a sign on him reads...Hello Son. 

...Artemis is sure it’s him. And the FAIRIES are sure Artemis has teamed up with one of the most problematic, and STUPIDEST races of all...goblins. Nasty little things who can breath fire and who are super dumb...but now they’re using human tech to attack the fair folk underground. Who else but Artemis would do it? It’s sinister, evil, clever, it’s totally him.

The joke, though, is it isn’t him  who’s sold the tech to the goblins. Holly brings him in to be interrogated by Commander Root, and the scientist centaur, Foaly, who’s a brilliant mind and who makes fascianting devices like iris cams, little cameras that can slip onto your eyes as easily as a contact lens. Artemis isn’t behind what the goblins are doing BUT...he’s willing to help find out who is...

If they help him get his dad back. Well, Root agrees. Holly at first doesn’t believe Artemis actually cares until more time goes on and she realizes “Oh, wow, he’s serious, he DOES care about his dad, he’s not as cold and cruel as I thought”. They find out though that...well...they’ve got problems. While going to Russia, and trekking through the artic to where his dad is being held...goblins attack, and their weapons have been sabotaged! Somebody on the inside has screwed them over. 

But no, it’s not Foaly or Commander Root or the like. It’s Cudgeon. He’s teamed up with the pixie Opal Kaboi, a brilliant young woman who “upgraded” all the fairy folk police weaponry...as part of a plan for Cudgeon to take over the fairy lands. He’s sold weapons to the goblins, and he’s depowered the fair folks weapons...but then he’ll come riding in, JUST in time to save them. The weapons of the fair folk will be restored, the goblin rebellion put down, and they’ll all be so grateful he saved them he’ll get into a position of power. And then he’ll make Opal Kaboi meet with a tragic accident. Maybe several. And, of course, he’ll kill off Commander Root and Holly and Foaly and those “mud men”, as he calls Artemis and Butler. Heck, all the fairies call humans mud men. Racist pricks. 

Artemis is able to help stop the rebellion. He exposes cudgeon to Opal, Butler and Root kick goblin ass, and in the end, they uphold their end of the bargain and go back to Russia to free Artemis’s dad, faking him being shot. Artemis thanks Holly...rather profusely, at that. He’s SUPER grateful. She’s given him back his family, she’s saved his life once, and she’s just an amazing woman and-

Yeaaah, it’s sorta implied he KINDA has feelings for her. And Holly’s grateful too, not just for the “helping to stop the goblin rebellion and conspiracy” thing. She had lost her finger in an incident involving a train earlier when travelling through the artic with him. A door had slammed and cut her finger off, but Artemis was able to get it back on and to use the magic ritual to heal her, meaning she didn’t have to lose her trigger finger. She gives him a gold coin that she shoots through, a trophy, and says that beneath that exterior, there’s a “spark of decency. Blow on it sometime”.

The next story has Artemis trying to be a bit more...well, less criminal. He’s got some technology he salvaged from that helmet Holly left behind at his house. He’s used the tech and made a fancy computer cube, YEAAAARS beyond anything humanity has. No, he’s not putting it on the market. Not yet. He wants a businessman, Jon Spiro, to invest in his company he’s gonna be making. He’ll keep the cube off the market, Jon Spiro can sell his stocks, and invest in a real winner. After all nobody else has this kind of tech.

Spiro, however, is like “I could just kill you and take your fancy computer here you just showed me”. And Artemis is like “Oh give me a break, I arranged to meet you in a public restaurant, in broad daylight, and with my bodyguard who’s like three times your size, you can’t threaten me.”

Well. actually...he can. Spiro had the ENTIRE PLACE filled with his assassins before Artemis arrived. All the “customers” are his men. He takes the cube and leaves Artemis to get plugged by his bodyguards. Not good! The good news is Artemis rigged a sonic grenade underneath the table and they set it off. So all the bodyguards are beaten down!

Bad news is that one of the bodyguards actually was prepared for such a thing...well, mostly. His teeth are all blown out but he’s still concious enough...to try and shoot Artemis right in the chest. 

Butler barely saves him, taking the shot, and managing to shoot THAT guy, knocking him out. But Butler...Butler’s wound is basically fatal, and he reveals his true name, Domovoi, before he goes limp.

Artemis is DESPERATE. He has only one recourse. He sticks Butler in the nearby frozen fish ice tank in the restaurant to keep the body cool, and calls in a favor, getting a cryo pod delivered to keep Butler’s body cool. He then makes a call. A public phone call...that talks about stuff ONLY the fair folk would know, all to get the attention of the fairies. And lucky him...Holly shows up. He begs her to heal Butler. 

“Please, Holly. I can’t just let him go. It’s BUTLER...”

“...alright, Mud Boy.” Holly agrees. She owes Butler, after all. He’s saved her life several times and he’s a good man. Foaly the centaur is unsure the magical procedure will work, it’s NEVER really been done before. Artemis keeping the body cool has helped, but...it’s a shot in the dark.

But...the magic ritual works. Holly heals him. But she’s also sorta...took  some of his life force. The process made him age a bit. He’s now got a beard! But, still, he’s alive.

Artemis admits what happened with the cube computer, and Jon Spiro. And the cube is SO powerful and SO beyond normal human tech, in Spiro’s hands, it’d be a nightmare for all parties. He can easily, if he cracks the code on it, find out about the fairy folk. So Artemis offers to clean up his mess if he can get some help from Holly. Commander Root says sure...if he agrees to a mind wipe. He, Juliet, and Butler. They’ll remove all memory of the People from him, he won’t remember anything about fairies and the like, and they’ll fill in the gaps since, after all, he’s known about them for several years now. 

Artemis agrees, and they come up with a plan. Jon Spiro can’t get INTO the cube. So Artemis will agree to come to him in exchange for Spiro not going after him and his family, and he’ll crack the code he put on the cube to allow Spiro to make use of it. But it’s a trick. He’s wired with some fairy tech to spy on Spiro through it all as they make a plan. He’ll “fix” the cube, crack it open...but make it so it won’t actually tell Spiro about The People. On top  of that, he knows full well Spiro wants to use the cube to get even with his rivals...

And what better way to do that than to break into their own corporate HQ with the cube and hack their security and steal all their stuff right from out of their noses? Artemis is like “I don’t think that’s a good ideaaaa” in a sort of more subtle “Stop, don’t, come back” bit from Willy Wonka. He’s COUNTING on Spiro being a “rub his face in it” type...and Spiro really, REALLY is that type. Super petty, super smug. And super screwed. Artemis and the gang manage to trap him, get the cops to show up, and they steal the cube back, with Artemis tricking Spiro handily. He even fiddled with the cameras in the facility that Spiro tried to break into to make it look like HE wasn’t even there at all!

With the adventure done, the gang has to have their memories wiped. Artemis gives Mulch Diggums, who helped with everything, the gold coin memento Holly gave him saying “it means a lot to me, and I’d like you to have it”. He also thanks Holly for everything. He has both his family and now real friends thanks to the People. He wishes he didn’t have to forget that. 

Soon, the memory wipe is done. Artemis tried to leave behind some memory triggers to get AROUND the wipe, like unsent emails, online storage, and even a time capsule buried in the yard. But...well, that gold coin he gave to Mulch the dwarf isn’t ACTUALLY the coin.

It’s a computer disc. With a few memory triggers on it. He also has a note attached to it. “Wait a few years and come find me...we’re gonna do a TON of business together”, basically. Artemis, meanwhile, realizes a short time after the mind wipe that..something isn’t right. He was washing his face...when a tiny lens fell from his eyes. A corroded contact lens with a mirrored  layer behind it. And Juliet and Butler had them too. But they don’t remember putting those lenses there...clearly, something’s up. And he’s determined to find out what. 

Meanwhile, Holly and Foaly are rather sad about wiping Artemis’s memory. They were really beginning to like him. They’re worried, too, that maybe wiping his memory has taken away all the progress he’s made. Maybe he’s back to being that cold, cruel criminal Holly met those few years ago...

Well, the People will soon end up needing him. Because the pixie Opal Kaboi, sinister mastermind and sociopathic inventor, has been faking a coma, and she’s got two servants of hers to break her out. She switches herself with a clone of her that’s brain dead to fake the coma, and she’s got a plan. She’s disguised herself as a human, the child of a billionaire environmentalist, and she’s going to make herself human...and have her dad do a special project. A project...to tunnel down into the Earth to tap into the core.

And, well...fairies live underground. The two races are sure to meet thanks to this project, and Opal is sure they’ll be war, and with her sinister technology and skills, she intends to wipe out the fair folk and have humans win, and then work her way up from there, getting more and more power so she can finally take over the world. 

Artemis, meanwhile, is engaging in some theft of a very special painting...the Fairy Thief. He’s now gonna be the youngest thief in the entire world, and as he admires the painting, he realizes something about this Pascal Herve painting. The fairy is lingering at the window because she can’t come in unless INVITED. How does he know that? 

At the same time, Holly and Commander Root are trying to track down a goblin general who was able to sneak out of prison. Root has recommended Holly to basically take over the division she’s a part of, to be, well, a commander herself. And he also wants her to know how proud he is of what she’s become. He’s become a secondary father to her after she lost her own dad twenty years back. 

...I think...you can guess what I’m going to say next. No, he’s not three days until retirement. But he and Holly walk into a trap set up by Opal Kaboi. The goblin general is wired. When Root tries to grab the goblin...a special bomb is strapped to him. One that’s messing with the electronics in the room they’re currently stuck in. Foaly, watching everything from Holly’s camera, can’t hear what’s being said, and all he sees is her pointing a gun at her commanding officer, he can’t even see the bomb because the bomb’s made of a special stealth ore. 

Root is gonna explode. But Opal says “Hey, if you shoot this ONE SPECIFIC PART of the bomb...MAYBE you’ll stop the countdownn, but you really should go off and save those mud men, because the Fairy Thief painting they’re after has a tracking chip in it. And I’ve sent a bio bomb after them to blow them up.” 

Holly is SURE she can make the shot and stop the countdown but...

...well, she doesn’t. Poor Root is violently blown up. It’s a horrifying, terrible scene. And shortly after as Holly BARRELS desperately to try and save them, the bio bomb soars at Artemis and Butler! The good news is Butler leaps out the window with Artemis, using a bed to cushion the fall.

The bad news is they barely survive. Holly manages to save Artemis, carrrying him off, intending to come back to help Butler later, he’s just WAY too heavy to carry, and after healing Artemis, and he awakens, she explains what’s going on. 

You might think he doesn’t believe her. But no, he does. He remembers the strange lenses he’d put in his eyes, and her story lines up with them. He found out shortly after discovering those lenses HE ordered them, and he could only have done so to cheat a fairy mesmer. So he belives Holly...but he doesn’t remember her one iota. 

Butler, meanwhile, is visited by Mulch Diggum, who’s broken out of prison upon hearing Julius Root is dead and Holly is suspect number one. They’re his friends...and he HAS to help them! So he’s gone to Fowl Manor...with the memory trigger disc. He plays it for Butler...and Butler remembers everything. Good thing too...

Because Opal Kaboi has just found Artemis and Holly and intends to PERSONALLY have them killed as NASTILY as possible cuz they avoided being killed by her little bombs earlier. She’s gonna have trolls tear them apart. And she rubs salt in the wound by telling Holly that hey, funny story...that sweet spot I told you about? On the bomb on Root? That I said if you shot, it’d stop the countdown? Well, there wasn’t one. I lied just to frame you. The good news is, Artemis had his phone on and was leaving a message at Fowl Manor, and Butler and Mulch heard the whole thing, so they know where Opal is gonna be sending them. And they hurry over as Artemis begins to get more of his memories back, and they try to escape from being torn apart by trolls.

Soon Artemis has his whole memory back...and he’s torn by guilt over what he did to Holly when he first met her. He feels scummy. And he also swears to stop Opal Kaboi. And he knows exactly how. 

They know where Opal is going to be because she’s bragged so much. Mulch is able to sneak onto her ship...steal the bombs she intended to trigger that would be part of her plan to damage the home of the fairies and make them even MORE vulnerable to the drilling plan her “adopted human father” was planning...and put them in her ship. In fact, right where she was keeping her chocolate truffles. Just to add insult to injury. Opal had been all “You’re so dumb if you thought stealing the bombs would stop me, I’ll just detonate them and your whole ship will blow up”. Well, Opal, they did steal them from your ship...but they just moved it to another part of the ship you didn’t think to check...

Until it’s too late. Opal’s ship blows up, she BARELY escapes to the surface...and just as her  magic has run out, leaving her stranded in Italy and forced to work in a vineyard, digging holes for grapes and the like. Artemis and the gang reunite with Foaly and explain to him and the fairy authorities what happened, and after an investigation and Commander Julius Root’s funeral, Holly is cleared. She and Mulch decide to work together as private detectives, the Fairy Folk now consider Artemis and Butler a true friend of the people, Mulch has his criminal record expunged completely, and Artemis, in a show of generosity, decides to secretly donate “The Fairy Thief” painting he stole (which,t to be fair, was taken from ANOTHER thief...) to the Louvre.

The fourth story is definitely the height of the series. Some dramatic changes, Artemis at his very best, the interplay with the gang, the high stakes...so I can recommend the series. Well, to a point. THIS point. After this, the books begin to go downhill. It just comes across as spinning  it’s wheels, and then for the last book, well...

Well, uh...see, there’s this plan Opal has to cause chaos and because a TON of her technology is now being used up on the surface world, all the technology she had friggin blows up. We’re talking stuff like dialysis machines and other medical equipment made useless. Pacemakers? BOOM! Right in your chest! Submarines no longer functioning! People on boats? Stranded! People begin looting. PLANES FALL FROM THE SKY. 

Oh but hey, at least they’re not distracted by TV anymore. No really, that’s...like, nobody really dwells on what’s clearly a horrific, apocalyptic scenario and god knows how many people died...

Look, I love the series. But I think I can best recommend it...in the graphic novel format it came in. So check those out. They go all the way, at least currently, up to the fourth book. So just read those if you can. They’re a ton of fun and super creative. :)

[starrysupercell]

if it doesnt bother you too much, could you maybe do a stu and rico drabble?? platonic or like. brotherly?? if you can ^^

also i rlly like yer blog :p

TwT just when you think you're safe from robot feels. This became more of a oneshot because... Stu. (Can we call Tuesday....Stu's Day, lmao.) Hope you like it...! 🎆🔫 Also, thanks! 😊

At the start of the show, Ricochet sat stubbornly, crossing his arms. His eye remained narrowed even amidst the excited crowd.

"Cheer up, Rico," Brock said, leaning over to him, speaking loudly to be heard over the crowd. "C'mon, give the guy a chance. You can't judge him on how he looks alone."

"I can and I will." Rico said.

8-Bit grinned mischievously. Due to his height, he was standing on the seat next to Rico to watch the show. "Scared you might be replaced by the next model?" He asked.

Instead of answering, Rico reached behind  8-Bit, grabbed the top portion of his head, and pushed him forward so he was precariously on the edge of the chair.

"Stooop!" The arcade machine complained, trying to upright himself to no avail. Rico laughed.

Brock double-took and reprimanded them. "Hey! Behave yourselves. You're going to start something."

"Is everyone here ready to start!?" The announcer, Max, asked into the microphone. "Let me hear you cheer!"

Rico pushed 8-Bit back to normal in his chair as the crowd gave a resounding cheer.

"Glad to hear it!" Max grinned. "Before we get to the guts and glory of this event, I'd like to welcome back our opening act- Spectacular Stu!"

There he was, the top of the ramp. The spotlight made sure you wouldn't miss him. Rico rolled his eye as cheers resparked.

"If you were here last time, you'll know he took a nasty dive and got wrecked. But he's back and rollin' as smooth as ever!" Max assured them. "So without further ado, our very own Crash Robot!"

The Stuntdevil waved, pumping the crowd up even further. He spun in place, and geared up to rocket down the ramp.

He left tire marks on the top with a screech, and his engines revved. He had to pick up enough speed to make the jump through a lit ring, and over on the other ramp to make a loop.

Stu soared through the air and twisted through the fired-up hoop.

Even Rico had to admit that his aim was impressive. 8-Bit leaned in with awe as Stu stuck the landing on the second wooden ramp.

Oh, but wait-! Red flames trailed behind him, right on his cape, and traveled higher.

Stu looked back upon hearing the starting jeers of the audience. It was a good indicator of when something went wrong. "U-uh-oh..." he muttered to himself. He started to reach at the burning fabric to try and remove it, but he began to veer.

Stu began to panic. Was it more important to remove the flames and complete the loop, or get it off before it reached his main body-?

He didn't have time to decide. Stu made it up halfway through the first half, but was too far off-center and he flew right off the track.

He flailed, feeling the flames crawl up even further even as he began to fall.

He faceplanted, skidding and rolling a good amount of distance. At least the fire was put out.

"Ha, wow! That must be a world record of eating dirt!" He picked out from the crowd.

Cheers...for him..

His blue lens flickered and gave out.

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

"Yes! There we go!" His vision flickered on and he saw Max over him. "Up and at 'em, Stu! There's someone who wants to greet you outside. He insisted, and I gotta go now. Careful, because you aren't really fixed yet. I'm up next with Surge, catch ya' later!" she caught him up, and waved bye as she practically flew out the door.

Stu sat up slowly, still feeling his processors warm up. Max and Surge's show was the third act. Ugh...

Wait. Someone wanted to see him? A fan?

He hopped up from where he lay. He glanced at the mirror on the way, stopped in his tracks. No, no, not presentable at all! His clothes were burnt.

The bot rolled back to the mirror and changed into a different suit as swiftly as he could.

White suit, red cape. He looked dashing.

Stu rolled to the door, and paused briefly. Great first impression. He flung the door open.

"H-h-how's it go-o-going, champ?" He asked gleefully, before seeing that it was.. another robot. Oh. Not what he was expecting. And one that looked similar to himself too. Wait, wasn't he... Rico?

"Are you okay?" He asked.

Stu looked at him blankly. That was it? Just a question? He looked around. Well, a fan's a fan. "L-l-looking for an autograph? Advice?" Stu laughed, and spun once. "No free pho-o-oo-photographs." He said.

Rico looked at the bot in concern. "You're sad..." he pointed out.

Stu jolted back. "Wh-at?"

"Blue Visor." Was the blunt response.

"Hahahaha. B-b-buddy. This," Stu pointed at himself. "Is blue tin-ti-tinted. Ever her-heard of fshh-fashion before?"

Rico was in disbelief. "Then explain the broken regulator for your voice box?"

Stu's eye narrowed at the word broken. "R-ru-de. I cou-ouUol-cou-ou..." Stu stopped himself, feeling...just horrible. He could handle the jibes included in a cheering crowd. But being picked on like this was just plain cruel. "N-n-ot ev-everyone can b-be as lul-lucky as you, can th-they?"

Rico blinked. "What do you mean?"

Stu rolled his eye. "Ric-Co. The ro-r-robot just adored by every-everybody. All you-ou had to do was wal-wa-walk up here a-nd the ress-st is histo-ory."

Rico shook his head. "Even if that were important to this situation, I worked hard to make friends... But that isn't important right now. We're discussing you." He reminded. "You can make them stop putting up so much hazards. Or walk out. They can't force you to stay."

"I cho-oo-ose to, Dummy." Stu griped.

Color him shocked. "Why?"

"They love me." Stu said. "Now sc-scram before I ca-call se-see-security on you."

The bot couldn't wrap his head around that. Love? Did he not hear the rude comments? The laughs and jabs? Being used? He couldn't even begin to imagine Brock and 8-Bit treating him like that and seeing it as praise.

You can't help those who don't want to be... but Rico didn't want to leave without any indication of getting through to him at least somewhat.

He stepped forward with his arms outstretched and pulled him in for a hug.

Stu froze, surprised. He couldn't process anything right now. He just stood there, being hugged for the first time.

After seconds of silence, Rico pulled away. "I'll leave now. We should keep in touch. If you want." He suggested.

"....I-if I c-can find t-ti-time for you, buddy." Stu shrugged. "I'm a v-very busy bot." He rolled backwards to enter his room, and shut the door.

Rico sighed. He's tried his best. If Stu truly wanted help, he would have to take the next step.

On the other side, Stu didn't know how to feel. He wheeled slowly across the room, and caught a glimpse of the mirror. He rolled over and looked at himself. He was happy with his role. Happy.

...Just the same, he could grace that fanbot with an appearance every so often. Make his day. That... sounded nice.

[linkspooky]

Ten Favorite Female Characters

I was tagged by @midnight-in-town​, so now I have to show them how much I love my favorite women. 

Name your favorite female characters from 10 different Fandoms and tag 10/or the amount you wish people

Tagging: @hamliet​ @amonmahboi​ @inumaqi​ @thyandrawrites​ @kaibutsushidousha​  @harostar​.. yeah, I don’t know ten people. 

Enoshima Junko 

“Hope is harmony. A just heart, moving toward the light. That is all. Despair is hope's polar opposite. It is messy and confusing. It swallows up love, hatred, and everything else.”

Junko wishes she was a psychopath. She’s spent her entire life pretending to be a crazy psychopath, because living that life is just so much more interesting than the one she’s stuck in. Enoshima Junko is just too smart for the world, and everything is too easy for her, and rather than try to dumb herself down a little bit she’s decided to knock everything else down. She’s a girl kicking down sandcastles because building them out of sand all alone is no longer doing it for her. 

Junko’s interesting because of the weird logic and loops she runs her brain into. There’s a complex character behind the whole “I exist only to spread despair” thing. She’s perfectly capable of forming emotional attachments to people, and genuinely caring. But the people she likes are generally far worse off than the ones she doesn’t care about. 

Junko wants so badly to, just not be human. She does the most inhuman things possible to prove that she’s not human. What really made me love her is the lengths she’s willing to go, to the point in Dangan Ronpa Zero where she basically took a screw to her own brain and started acting like a normal girl only when all of her memories were removed. 

Junkos relationship with Matsuda shows two conflicting sides of her character. How much she's humanized by her love of him,  and also how much she wants to completely destroy that part of herself. It's like she physically can't be a normal girl. Or rather she doesn’t want to be to such extremes she’ll break everything and then herself. 

And if she can’t be normal than Junko decided that self destruction is her next best bet. There’s just nothing that will satisfy Junko, and it’s interesting to watch someone that empty decide the world is going to end, or she’s going to end herself and she doesn’t really care which. 

Ajimu Najimi

“Call to me with affection, Anshin’in-san. Well, I don’t really care what manga characters call me.” 

Hey, I put Junko on this list twice. Both Ajimu and Junko live in a world that is too easy for them, and therefore they have no reason to get emotionally invested in others or try to attach themselves to anything. Which is why it’s fun to see Ajimu attempt the same thing as Junko to kill herself in style and eventually get saved from herself.

Medaka Box is such a meaningful manga to me because they take the weirdest characters and no matter how deranged they are they find the parts of them that are relatable and go, well guess what you’re human too. Ajimu literally calls herself a non-human and she’s just as human as all the rest in the end. 

The best part is it’s not her good points that make her human, it’s all her flaws. It’s easy to feel like the world isn’t real, that nothing in the world is worth living for, to feel no emotional attachment. Those are all human emotions. Not because they’re good and shining, but because they’re petty and terrible. Ajimu is this brilliant character, but she’s also kind of just a petty little girl using a ‘fiction is reality’ lens to cope. She’s not that special actually, she’s just suicidal, and kind of awful in general. It’s nice to see that human side behind the mastermind character. 

Azula

“My own mother thought I was a monster. She was right of course but it still hurts.” 

Azula is someone thoroughly dehumanized by everyone even the “good” members of her family (Uncle Iroh, Zuko, her Mother). I like how Azula in some part seems to be aware that both her brother, and mother seem to kind of consider her the “bad sibling” and she just decides to embrace it. Like it’s... not emotionally healthy in any way and it’s terribly tragic but there’s something about characters who actively make the decision to be a monster that gets me. 

There’s something about Azula’s writing that makes me uncomfortable, and it makes me sad that Zuko like... continually associates her with his father’s abuse, and demonizes her like she wasn’t also a kid going through the exact same situation, but Azula getting increasingly unstable is at least an appropriate response to that. 

Even if her brother, her mother, or her father won’t see her as her own person and they all see her as an extension of her father’s abuse on her, Azula is just so determined to be her own person even if it means burning the world, or herself A common theme I guess, but a lot of these characters have narratives about not being allowed to be their own person or shown any kind of humanity or normalcy. 

Morrigan

“Well, well, well what do we have here?”

Morrigan is mean, and nasty, and grumpy and bitchy and witchy. She’s allowed to be unlikable, because Morrigan never bends to anyone. Her survival, and freedom will become first before anything else. 

It feels like Morrigan is the main character in her own story, and you just happen to be a part of it for a short while. You may even be an important character to her, she may be attached, but ultimately you’ll never be more than support to her. 

Morrigan is such an ambitious an singular entity that her character development is letting you be a part of her life and not the other way around. She'll always survive on her own.  Morrigan is irrevocably shaped by her environemnt, and yet she craves freedom in that too because she doesn’t want to be bound by her past or shaped by her mother. So much of herself is dedicated to being better than the environment that she was raised in that she defeats her mother not by killing her, or freeing herself, but rather by being a better mother than her. 

Raven / Rachel Roth

“Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos...” 

Raven is fun, because a bunch of monks thought the best way to teach her to handle her emotions was to never allow her to feel any emotion ever. So, Raven is eternally running on a zero. She’s terrified even a small amount of happiness will end the world. She’s not allowed to be her own person, neither her bastard father, nor the monks treat her like one.

Raven is so gentle, and selfless, and emotionally perceptive and sensitive to others needs but she can’t ever display almost any of these good traits because she’s internalized the idea that she’s such a bad person. She always believes all the time that she exists to hurt others and that makes it so difficult for her to connect to others. 

Which is why her true friends bond with the Teen Titans is so meaningful, because Rachel found a family in spite of all of that. She has friends who think she’s a good person unconditionally despite the fact that Raven continually tells herself she isn’t. There are people in the world willing to navigate the maze of walls that Raven has built around herself, and that her environment forced her to build and closed up, and she’s so happy to have them. 

Midna

“Some call our realm a world of shadows, but that makes it sound so unpleasant... The twilight there holds a serene beauty... You have seen it yourself as the sun sets on this world. Bathed in that light, all the people were pure and gentle...” 

Midna just steals the show. Her story now. The game’s not called Legend of Zelda anymore now it’s Legend of Midna. Not only is she the most important character in the game she appears in, but she’s also in character someone so selfish she’ll always prioritize herself over everyone else. However, only because she feels that she can’t exist as anything other than the princess of the twilight and has to prioritize her survival for the sake of her people. Midna even says so at the start of the game, she can’t be kind because she wasn’t spoiled like princess Zelda in the bountiful kingdom of the light. 

Midna is so selfish and yet doesn’t really have her own wants and needs as a person outside of the role she has to play for her people, which is why she’s so terribly lost without it and just because this terrible selfish little gremlin. Link and Zelda affect Midna so much because they humanize her. They both sacrifice themselves to save Midna the person and she doesn’t get why. She doesn’t get why two people would help someone who has been so unkind to them and who has failed them this much so far. 

That act of selflessness moves her, and also freaks her out. She even says she didn’t want to be saved by either of them. Which is what makes her redemption in the second half of the game so interesting, because Midna really improves herself so she can become someone worth their kindness. She doesn’t want the selflessness of people like Zelda and Link to go to waste, and because of that begins to care about things outside of her kingdom and her role as princess 

Vriska Serket

“After all of this is over. Do you want to go on a d8?”

Unfortunately one of my top 3 favorite characters of all time comes from a really terrible source material. Vriska is everything I like in a character.  She's a mess. She's really hard to swallow. She's a character that's not meant to be liked.

Nobody really likes Vriska and it's all her fault for being such a horrible person, nobody wants her damage. Which is so interesting because usually main characters get forgiven over and over again. Everyone leaves and if they don't Vriska will burn those bridges herself. No character better embodies what it's like to be stuck in a self harming cycle

Authors are always so obsessed with making characters look good or showing what a good person they are few characters are allowed to be just plain unlikely in ugly ways. It’s what lets Vriskas genuine desire to be better actually seem like a struggle. 

Kocho Shinobu

“Are you angry? Yes, I’m angry Tanjiro. I’ve always been angry.” 

Shinobu is just all pleasantries on the surface, but so full of negative emotions in ways women aren't allowed to be. I love the medicine / poison dynamic to her character and how it rots her to the core. Too much medicine is a poison, while poison can be a medicine when applied to the right situation.

Shinobu is, two faced. She’s beautiful and kind, and full of ugly emotions and empty. She nurses people back from the dead, she sees no point in living herself and purposefully throws herself into a suicide in her plan against Doma. There’s just such a destructive dance between extremes for her because Shinobu is such a unique individual, trying to deal with all of these emotions she just can’t deal with. She can’t be noble, or better than her trauma, she just pretends to be a good person while she slowly rots away inside.  

Shinobu can put on smiles all day -

But she can't be like her sister.  She can't love people like her sister can. Maybe she could once but all that's left now is anger. Bitter, unpleasant, and completely in denial of it and still masquerading as a good person. The most beautiful kind of poison of all.

She’s not her sister, but she’s also not really her own person. She doesn’t know who Shinobu is, doesn’t know who Kocho Shinobu lives for. She just doesn’t imagine herself living past her revenge, and even though she’s surrounded by love she’s just so cracked it all pours out of her and absolutely nothing could be worth prolonging her life after everything she’s lost. 

Toga Himiko

“What exactly is a normal life? I also live a normal life, you know.” 

Himiko Toga is a girl who lives entirely on her own terms. Which is just so rare for a female character, you know? It’s so genuinely subversive to know that Himiko was once a nice girl, who always smiled, always put other people’s feelings first, and that sort of ‘good girl’ behavior drove her completely insane.

Toga deciding to be true to herself is an act of rebellion against the world. 

For Himiko everything is flipped. What others regard as psycho behavior is her normal. She doesn’t let other people define her story as a tragedy, and even murders the one person who tries to control her story. In a story where female characters constantly downplay their own importance to support the male characters Himiko is the only character important enough to be the center of her own story. Himiko’s story is so subversive as well, both of how society treats her, and how the story treats characters like her. 

Himiko is such an excellent yandere, all yanderes wish they were himiko. She comes off as this batshit stabby girl,  but then you find out that shes actually emotionally perceptive. She first comes off selfish, bratty, and self-centered but she turns into one of the most sensitive characters in the manga. She eschews the ideals of being a good girl that was forced down her throat, but that doesn’t mean she’s not empathic, or that she’s not capable of goodness. She’s good to twice. She’s good to the people who accept her. 

Himiko no matter what will always be a deviant. Always be an outsider. Instead of trying to make room for her her parents forced her to lie and wear a mask until her identity became completely shattered. I like Toga because under the knife wielding psycho she's a normal girl. Then under that normal girl there’s also a knife wielding psycho ready to fight back, and both of them are the real her. 

Ihei Hairu

“I saw the reaper, he was very beautiful.” 

Every character from the garden is just fundamentally broken.  Hairu and Rize are interesting foils, because if you think of about it a loveless childhood turned them both into ruthless killers. It’s just they decided to live for different things, Rize lived rejecting love and Hairu lived chasing after love. However, fundamentally they are the same. They are children starved for any kind of love or nurturing.  Hairu is so desperate she devotes her entire life to the first person who acknowledged her. However, the same sort of desperation to live, that tragic need to make the most out of the few short years they have exists in all garden children.

Hairu wants so badly to be a person, but she’s not a person. She’s half ghoul. 

There's just something about a girl who was never meant to be born and never meant to live, still trying.  There's a dark side to her character, she's violent and inhuman exactly like the environment she was raised in but she was also still a child at heart seeking love.

Which is why though her narrative is a thoroughly unhappy one, it does make me happy that there was someone who loved her in the form of Koori Ui. There is someone who wanted her to live longer. Her life was short, but she did live, and it’s that struggle to connect to others that made her truly alive. 

[roguephoenix85]

Final chapter - is Ymir badly written or is it something else? (spoiler for the end of SNK)

TW: mentions of child abuse, sexual abuse 

So I’ve seen a few people confused, upset, and a little angry about the explanation for Ymir “loving” Fritz as the reason why things were as they were, and claiming it’s bad writing and rushed and what have you. I don’t claim to know all the nuances and in and outs of long form storytelling such as Attack on Titan, but I do know some things about being a victim of brainwashing, abuse, and defending the people who abused me. Some are saying it’s Stockholm syndrome, and while I don’t necessarily disagree, it’s a bit more nuanced than that. Because I did everything I could to get away from my family that hurt and abused me, but I still kept them in my life for some inexplicable reason, year after year, involving them in it and divulging information to them that they would use to harm me psychologically and mentally for their amusement and sense of power and superiority. Why? Everyone outside of my family who observed it could see that they were shitty and awful and I didn’t need them. But after 30 years of being told I’m incompetent, no one loves me like they would, I can’t take care of my life responsibly like an adult would, and that I’ll never have enough money to live unless they helped (and the condition of their help was to give them control over my care - they picked doctors, therapists, everyone, that would give them the diagnoses they wanted so it would be an easier case to be declared legally incompetent and have my mother control my financial and housing freedom), I had internalized it to such a degree that I truly believed those things about myself. My depression and suicidal thinking sprung from the conflict that this treatment wasn’t right vs. but they’re your family and they love you so they MUST be right, you MUST be an evil child to be controlled, and YOU’RE the problem. When that is all you know, you think that it’s love. Because the love you receive is conditional upon subservience.

Ymir wanted love and the only “love” was from the king once she acquired power. As much as she wanted the love she observed the only love available was manipulative and abusive. If you’ve never known actual unconditional love, you’ll take anything that you’re given.  That’s why I was raped. That’s why I was molested. That’s why I allowed myself to compromise myself to stay with people who only sought to use and manipulate me for their own ends.

Because there was none around me. And when you’re terrified of death and attached to the world, wanting and hoping that someday something good will finally happen, you latch on to people, ideas, objects that end up doing more harm than good to you, because all you know is that abuse is what love is. Mistreatment is the norm. But inside, you know it’s not right. Something doesn’t feel right. So you hope. You pick the first person who gives you any value, even if it’s your value to them and not your own inherent value you’ve found for yourself. You never truly live for yourself. You’re living so that others will give you your value. Because when you did do things for yourself - you’re ridiculed. You’re betrayed. You’re humiliated and abused more. You’re kicked so much that you go back, again, and again, because the humiliation is worse than just letting them do what they want to you. That’s what happened to Ymir. The one time she did something she wasn’t “supposed to”, what happened? She got hunted and almost murdered. And when she found that power, she had value to her oppressor. Her tribe betrayed her to save themselves. This “king” tried to have her killed. But she found power. And once she had power, her abusers sought to capitalize on it. She had no one. So when you gain power and all of a sudden you have value to someone? You latch on. Because now you’re important. Now you’ve elevated yourself. But that value isn’t something for YOU. It’s something that is for the benefit of someone who only values you when you’re doing something for them.

I’ve noticed a lot of “I don’t get why Ymir would love the king, that’s bad storytelling”. My mother is a sociopath and allowed my molestation when I was a child because “everyone else went through worse and you’re a nasty little girl” - to a nine year old. She schemed to take my inheritance away from me. When my visitation with my father was over for the weekend, she would abuse and manipulate me for three days after every visit to “get me back to where I needed to be.” I would be choked, slapped, hit, have my room ransacked and destroyed if I didn’t comply with her wishes. When I wanted to kill myself because I found no solace with friends, teachers, therapists (that my mother sought out and paid for because she wanted someone to declare me incompetent or bipolar so she could take away my legal rights and exert control over every aspect of my life), neighbors, no one, even my own stepfather told me I was stupid for wanting to kill myself and that I’m ungrateful for everything. I would later discover this man was a heroin addict for longer than I had even been alive and that the only reason my mother stayed with him was because he had a large inheritance that would come to him and she could easily have his power of attorney taken away from him and control him because hey, he’s a drug addict and can’t be trusted. Better to let her take care of it all, right?

And even after all of this, I loved her. Well, I used to. I would keep wanting her love and respect because to give it up meant I had no value to anyone. The two significant others that I did have didn’t really love me, my last one was also a sociopath who convinced me to snort adderall, take hallucinogens, and stole my car to commit sexual assault against a mutual friend who had been assaulted not even 6 hours prior by someone else. When all you know is abuse, manipulation, gaslighting, and harming yourself to get a modicum of dignity and respect and love, of COURSE you stay. Because no one else loves you, right? You’re worthless and stupid and have no value except to me. I’m the only one who can love you. I’m the only one who can use you properly. Just do what I say and what I want and don’t complain or worse will happen to you. Families don’t do this to each other, you’re just mad that I’m better than you. Choices are hard, let me make them for you because clearly you can’t handle the “real world.”

When you are told these things and unduly punished for pushing back against it, of COURSE you think it’s love. Because no one is giving it to you otherwise. They isolate you, triangulate you so you HAVE to go back to them. And you do it. Because there’s nothing else around you showing you otherwise. It’s only when you share the story with others, or view it through the lens of someone else, that you understand how fucked it truly is. Under the under, Ymir is a child. She’s a child who wants to be loved. And all she’s known is manipulation and abuse. For thousands of years, because each “founder” was just her original abuser in a new body. Like Zeke. 

Until Eren. Who saw her story, and instead of using her, validated her. Saw her experiences through an objective lens and said ENOUGH OF THIS. This is WRONG. It’s SICK. And it won’t end unless I do this. Until I give her the choice to break free. All it takes is one person to listen to you and hear you and your world is changed. But she never appeared as she did when she died. She was still a hurt child beholden to her abusers. And in this instance, the only thing that could make it stop is destroying it completely. 

Is genocide wrong? Yes. Is scapegoating an entire race of people in the name of world unity wrong? Yes.  Is using children for war and power and brainwashing them wrong? Yes. This world is cruel. It always was. That’s been the thesis of this story from day one. But. It’s also beautiful. But you have to allow that beauty in. You have to show it to people. Ymir wasn’t able to see any of it until it was far too late, but not from her own conscious choice. She’s just a child who wants to be loved and only found manipulation. And was scared of “death” because that meant there was no love in the world. None for her. Her existence was to be used and fucked to death metaphorically. And when that’s the only love you’re given and told to expect, you hold on to it and believe there’s nothing better.

Until someone or something objective comes along, hears your pain, shares it, validates it, and then tells you it’s fucked up that that’s how you were forced to live. When everything you’ve known is a fucking lie, you do want to scorch the earth somewhat. All these people that could have helped you and they said fuck you, I’ll use you too. Standing up to your abuser is scary. I’m currently suing my mother now, and I’ve been terrified of her retaliation even though I’m 35. Because she has money and people she can manipulate into harassing me on her behalf. Even though I’ve taken as many precautions as I can, there’s still things she can do - ensure I get none of my inheritance, destroy my childhood memories, slander me publicly, fly out to where I live and stalk me or have others stalk me, or find people loyal to her to assert that I should be declared incompetent because of my autism, even though I have my own doctors I see now who disagree with that sentiment. It’s scary, but it’s right. But I’m also an adult now, and when I realized that my stepfather was telling everyone in the family that when he was high on ketamine I convinced him to murder my birth father, and that it was MY IDEA, and that my mother lied about reporting my sexual abuse to DHS because she wanted to protect her brother, his kid that abused me, and their family over me, and also had me lie about my birth father abusing me by convincing me “Oh it was so traumatic you can’t remember” so she could get custody of me just because she hated him, I finally said enough. But I didn’t have an Eren to help me make that decision. Or a Mikasa to do what needed to be done.

Ymir is still just a child mentally. Separation from that, especially when you’re a child and have no other allies in the world and you’re told worse could happen to you if you separate from your abusers, is difficult. And sometimes nonsensical. I know a lot of people were confused as to why I would still try to involve my mother in my life after the insanely fucked up shit she would do. But you don’t know any better when you’re the target. My reasoning is that I’m an adult now and I have a life of my own I’ve built despite her. Ymir didn’t have, or didn’t understand, that choice. So she stayed. Asking for breadcrumbs of love and respect and dignity from lesser beings. To quote Chelsea Hart “You want to be worshipped by a goddess without having to be a god.” She had the power, and she didn’t know what to do because she was a child. So she gave away her power. And by then it was too late to be properly reasoned with. The only way to stop it was to destroy all of it. Because when you’re a child you don’t have the benefit of retrospect. You have a limited view of the world because you’re a child. You’ve been sheltered and told manipulative bullshit to keep you down, so breaking free is the radical thing. And when you’re a child, you don’t know moderation. You’re impulsive and your emotional intelligence is limited. So of course the rumbling is the result. But you also think you still love your abuser. Because that’s all you know truly, and when you don’t see it until it’s too late, this is the result. It’s tragic, but Isayama never said this was a happy story. And considering how he WAS going to end it, giving who remains another chance at life and evening the playing field by having Paradis’ army now be comparable to the opposition army, and having the curse of the Titans eliminated from the world, that’s a pretty good ending for them.

I mean, isn’t that what Eren’s goal was since he was a child? To eliminate the Titans from the Earth? I’d say that mission is fully accomplished now.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Treat Your S(h)elf: The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker

We’re going to survive - our songs, our stories. They’ll never be able to forget us. Decades after the last man who fought at Troy is dead, their sons will remember the songs their Trojan mothers sang to them. We’ll be in their dreams - and in their worst nightmares too.

- Pat Barker, The Silence of the Girls

“It’s always hard on women, when a city falls.” Briseis, former princess of the Trojan city of Lyrnessus, has been Achilles’s slave for several months when someone she knew in her old life says these words. From the ancient world to our modern world there is this ugly and unspoken line of rape as a weapon of war. History is replete with examples. In the 20th-century where Nazis raped Jewish women despite soldiers' concerns with "race defilement" and raped countless women in their path as they invaded the Soviet Union and then in Berlin 1945 Russians in turn went on a brutal raping spree to punish the Germans. In the bloody Balkan wars in the 1990s, Serbian forces tortured and summarily executed scores of Muslims and Croats. In the Iraq war and the many conflicts in Africa in the 21st Century, rape is systemically used to subdue a defeated enemy. History shows the ugly truth that women’s bodies have always been viewed as the spoils of conflicts waged primarily by men.

The issue of rape in war is something that has always sat uncomfortably with me ever since I did my stint as an army combat helicopter pilot in Afghanistan. From my high vantage point I felt a detachment from the electronic battlefield - for everything was viscerally seen from my helmeted eye patch visor lens and not the naked eye. I couldn’t look people in the eye as as soldier on for patrol would have. The fear and sweat is the same but the risk is different. Soldiers on patrol or on a mission risk the constant threat of ambush, sustained attack under mortar or fire fights as well as the ever present danger of being blown up by an IED by accident. Pilots risk being coming under attack too by being ambushed by RPG rocket fire or coming under fire from below. Worse, was to think if you got hit and you had to bail and you were all alone, survival and evasion from capture becomes fearfully paramount. Of course they train you for this until it hopefully becomes muscle memory in how to survive and take evasive action from being captured and resisting as long as you could under interrogation. But as a female pilot the unspoken fear that dare not speak its name was ever present: the fear of rape.

I’m not sure my brother officers - no matter how sincere and well intentioned they were because we were all fiercely protective of one another - really understood what the word ‘rape’ means for a woman. Indeed a male friend and ex-army colleague said to me in jest don’t ever kid a man about kicking him in the balls because it’s one thing every man can imagine feeling but would find it hard to explain the excruciating pain when a man does get his balls bashed in. I don’t think the two ‘experiences’ are the same obviously but I understand how hard it is to articulate what it might feel like. I never really allowed myself to be consumed by the fear of what might happen if I ever got shot down and was captured but instead I made sure to focus on my job. It never really became pressing issue for me throughout my time in on the battlefield. I was lucky I got out in one piece despite a few close scrapes along the way.

I did hear awful and terrible stories from my oldest brother who served in the Iraq War of the raping of Kurdish women by Iraqi forces. It sickened him and left him hollow the the things he witnessed first hand. Through the charitable work of ex-veterans I have come across refugee woman who shared their harrowing stories of how they were violently and systematically raped as war booty and as primal assertion of victor dominance and control.

I was thinking about all these things as I read Pat Barker’s novel about one of the most famous wars of all, telling the story of the siege of Troy from the point of view of the local Trojan women taken by the Greek forces. It’s The Iliad as seen through the eyes of 19-year-old Briseis, the Queen of Lyrnessus who’s taken as Achilles’s “bed-girl”, his “prize of honour” for mass slaughter.

Barker’s not the first to turn to the classics for inspiration. It’s popular practice these days. Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire and Michael Hughes’ Country, for example, transpose classical stories onto contemporary settings.  The Silence of the Girls is yet another much welcomed book to offer a fresh perspective on Homeric women, following Madeleine Miller’s brilliant Circe. But while Miller’s reinvention of literature’s first witch brilliantly evoked a world of ancient magic in retelling The Odyssey from the witch’s point of view, not that of the warrior she waylays on his journey home, Barker’s story has its feet very firmly on the ground. Yes, the gods are still there – you can’t tell the story of the Trojan wars without them, after all. The gods remain mostly off stage but they are present in the background, magically restoring the mutilated dead body of Hector. The sea goddess Thetis, Achilles’ mother, is a briny, frightening presence, as are the dark shore and the waves by which the whole horrible story takes place. Apollo still sends a plague, Achilles is the son of a sea goddess who brings him divinely forged armour and Hector’s body is magically restored to freshness after being pulled behind Achilles’s chariot.

But what really stands out are not heavenly allusions but the dirt and filth and disease and sheer brutal physicality of the Greek army marauding everything that stands in their way to Troy - there’s no magic here to ease the pain and trauma of rape or murder or even to help exact revenge. And while Achilles’ divine mother makes an appearance, and Apollo is beckoned by Briseis to bring about a plague, the gods remain on the peripheries of this story. If Circe, which chronicles the life of its titular character, is very much about the gods and their egos, then The Silence of the Girls, however, is very much about humans, their egos and their wars - both personal and political.

In all this Barker gives female characters such as Circe and Briseis the voice they’ve traditionally been denied, readers glean a different version of events behind the Trojan War epic myth. “Great Achilles. Brilliant Achilles, shining Achilles, godlike Achilles…How the epithets pile up,” Briseis begins. “We never called him any of those things; we called him ‘the butcher’.”

In The Iliad, a poem about the terrible destruction caused by male aggression, the bodies and pretty faces of women are the objects through which men struggle with each other for status. The women are not entirely silent, and goddesses always have plenty to say, but mortal women speak primarily to lament. They grieve for their dead sons, dead fathers, dead husbands and dead protectors; for the city of Troy, soon to fall, and for their own freedom, taken by the victors of war. Andromache pleads with her Trojan husband Hector not to leave her and their infant son to go back to fight Achilles. She has already endured the sack of her home city by Achilles, and seen the slaughter of her father and seven brothers, and the enslavement of her mother. If Hector dies, their child will be hurled from the city walls, Troy will fall and Andromache will be made the concubine of the son of her husband’s killer. Hector knows this, but he insists that his own need to avoid social humiliation as a battle-shirker trumps it all: “I would be ashamed before the Trojan men and women,” he says. He hopes only to be dead before he has to hear her screams.

Barker’s absorbing prose puts the experience of women like Andromache at the heart of the story: the women who survive in slavery when men destroy their cities and kill their fathers, brothers and children. The central character is Briseis, the woman awarded to Achilles, the greatest Greek fighter, after his army sacks one of the towns neighbouring Troy. Agamemnon, the most powerful, although not the bravest, of the Greek warriors – a character whose downright nastiness comes across beautifully in Barker’s telling – has lost his own most recent female acquisition and seizes Briseis from Achilles. Achilles’ vengeful rage against Agamemnon and his own comrades, and the subsequent vast death toll of the Greeks and Trojans, is the central theme of The Iliad.

Homer’s poem ends by foreshadowing the fall of Troy in the death of its greatest fighter, Hector. Barker’s novel begins with the fall of another town: Lyrnessus, Briseis’ home, destroyed by Achilles and his men. We then see that the fall of a city is the end of a story only for the male warriors: some leave triumphant and others lie there dead. For the women, it is the start of new horrors.

Barker’s subject has long been gender relations during conflict, along with the machinations of trauma and memory, so she’s in her element here. Her blood-drenched battle scenes are up there with the best of them, and she shows a keen understanding of the “never-ending cycle of hatred and revenge” fuelling the violence. Her focus, however, is that which takes place off the battlefield, inflicted on the women in the “rape camps.”

Barker keeps the main bones of the Homeric poem in place, supplementing Homer at the end of the story with Euripides. His heartbreaking play The Trojan Women is, like Barker’s novel, a version of the story that shifts our attention from the angry, destructive, quick-footed, short-lived boys to the raped, enslaved, widowed women, who watch their city burn and, if they are lucky, get a moment to bury their slaughtered children and grandchildren before they are taken far away.

One of Barker’s most tear-jerking sequences is lifted straight from Euripides: the teenage daughter of Priam and Hecuba is gagged and killed as a “sacrifice” on the dead Achilles’ tomb, and then Hecuba is presented with the tiny corpse of her dead grandson, a toddler with his skull cracked open. The girl’s gagged mouth and the child’s gaping brains conjure a gruesome twinned image for the silenced voices that should tell of the horror and pity suffered by the victims of war.

For most of Barker’s novel, Briseis is the first-person narrator, but in the final part, the narrative is intercut with third-person chapters told from the point of view of Achilles. We never get as close to Achilles as we do to Briseis, but he is a compelling figure in his fascinating combination of brutality and civility. Like Siegfried Sassoon in Barker’s 1991 novel Regeneration, this Achilles has the soul of a poet as well as of a killer and hunter: he is a man whose physical courage and compulsion to fight sit uneasily with his clear, articulate awareness of the futility of war.

But Achilles, however fascinating he may be, is not then at the centre of this story. Still, the novel does provide a moving, thought-provoking version of what is perhaps the most famous moment of The Iliad: when the old king Priam makes his way, alone and unarmed, through the enemy camp, to plead with Achilles to give back the mutilated body of his son, Hector. Barker twice quotes Priam’s Homeric words to Achilles: “I do what no man before me has ever done, I kiss the hands of the man who killed my son.” Barker lets us feel the pathos and pity of this moment, as well as the pathos of all the many young men who die violent deaths far from home. We glimpse, too, Achilles’ alienation from his own “terrible, man-killing hands”, which have caused so many deaths.

Briseis has a powerful riposte to Priam’s words, weighing this unique encounter between men against the myriad unremembered horrors suffered by women in war. “I do what countless women before me have been forced to do. I spread my legs for the man who killed my husband and my brothers.”

Reduced to objects, they’re catalysts for conflict – Barker’s Helen inspires ribaldry not worship, “The eyes, the hair, the tits, the lips/ That launched a thousand battleships...” chant the soldiers – blamed for inciting hatred between men. Or they’re regarded as the victor’s spoils, claimed along with cattle and gold.

Briseis is both. Taken as a slave, Achilles and Agamemnon then feud over her: “It doesn’t belong to him; he hasn’t earnt it,” fumes the former. Men - Greek and Trojan alike – are afforded the privilege of vocalising their pain and loss, while women have to repress their suffering. “Silence becomes a woman,” they’re told, even when they’re free.

No longer an issue of decorum, now it’s about staying alive. “I do what no man before me has ever done, I kiss the hands of the man who killed my son,” declares Priam when he prostrates himself before Achilles begging for Hector’s body. “And I do what countless women before me have been forced to do, Briseis thinks bitterly, “I spread my legs for the man who killed my husband and my brothers.”

Barker has a very clear feminist message about the struggle for women to extricate themselves from male-dominated narratives. In the hands of a lesser writer, it could have felt preachy and woke but she masterfully avoids that. The attempt to provide Briseis with a happy ending is thin, and sometimes the female characters’ legitimate outrage seems a bit predictable, as when we hear Helen thinking: “I’m here. Me. A person, not just an object to be looked at and fought over.”

The novel has some annoying anachronisms, such as a “weekend market” (there were no weekends in antiquity), and a reference to “half a crown”, as if we were in the same period as Barker’s first world war novels. One wonders if any woman in archaic Greece, even a former queen, would have quite the self-assurance of Barker’s Briseis. But, of course, there is no way to be sure: no words from women in this period survive but Barker is surely right to paint them as thoughtful, diverse, rounded human beings, whose humanity hardly ever dawns on their captors, owners and husbands. This central historical insight feels entirely truthful.

Barker has a quasi-Homeric gift for similes: “that shining moment, when the din of battle fades and your body’s a rod connecting earth and sky”, or Achilles’ friend Patroclus dying, “thrashing like a fish in a pool that’s drying out”. There is a Homeric simplicity and drive in some of the sentences: “Blood, shit and brains – and there he is, the son of Peleus, half beast, half god, driving on to glory.” She is Homeric, too, in her attentiveness to what happens between people, and to the details of the physical world: the food, the wine, the clothes, the noise and the feel of skin, blood, bones, crackling wounds and screams. Barker, like Homer, understands grief and loss, and sees how alone people can be even when they are crying together. Loneliness in community is one of the major themes of this book, as it is of The Iliad.

Angry, thoughtful, sad, deeply humane and compulsively readable, The Silence of the Girls shows that Barker is a writer at the peak of her literary powers. You sense her only priority is to enlarge the story that we all know and she adds to it magnificently.

I have always enjoyed reading Pat Barker especially her enviable experience of writing about military life in her earlier novels and here in this book it shines through in the depiction of the Greek forces. The men are dehumanised by the wars they have created. This is primarily a book about what war does to women, but Barker examines what it does to men too. I was disturbed by the magnificently poignant final section which can’t help but make you reflect on the cultural underpinnings of male aggression, the women throughout history who have been told, by men, to forget their trauma. When Briseis is told to forget her past life, she immediately knows it is exactly what she must not, can not do: “So there was my duty laid out in front of me, as simple and clear as bowl of water: Remember.”

Briseis knows no one will want to record the reality of what went on during the war: “they won’t want the brutal reality of conquest and slavery. They won’t want to be told about the massacres of men and boys, the enslavement of women and girls. They won’t want to know we were living in a rape camp. No, they’ll go for something altogether softer. A love story, perhaps?” But even so, Briseis, for all that she must bear, understands eventually that the women will leave behind a legacy, though not in the same vocal, violent way the men will.

“We’re going to survive,” she says, “our songs, our stories. They’ll never be able to forget us. Decades after the last man who fought at Troy is dead, their sons will remember the songs their Trojan mothers sang to them. We’ll be in their dreams - and in their worst nightmares too.”

I felt disconcerted reading this and also very moved. As much as I love the Classics and firmly believe in it providing the foundational building blocks of our Western civilisation I also have to pause and remind myself that heroic behaviour, something the greatest of the Greeks are known for, isn’t anything admirable when viewed from the lens of the women they abuse. Heroism can be tainted by the dark side of one’s nature. However pure one soldier’s sacrifice for another can be, so there is the bestial side of us where the chains of civilised moral behaviour are unshackled and left to satiate our primal instinct for cruelty, conflict, and domination. Indeed what Barker does is be a much needed corrective because just as you think her perspective of the Greek heroes may be softening, she pulls back to remind you of Odysseus tossing Hector’s baby from the battlements, or Achilles’s casual butchery. “It’s the girls I remember most,” Briseis says. This then is a story about the very real cost of wars waged by men: “the brutal reality of conquest and slavery”.

In seeing a legend differently, Barker makes us rethink who gets to write history but also to remind us of our tainted human condition. There is no god in the machine to sort out most violent conflicts and situations with a thunderbolt here. There are only mortals, with all their flaws and ferocity and foolishness. And we all have to live with that but not I hope in silence.

[peepingtoad]

OKAY SO. 

It’s not that often that I talk about what I really think about Jiraiya, and I guess I mean more how I feel about him, since I always try to write my ‘deeper’ headcanons/metas from a more... idk, trying not to get too emotional about it point of view. Basically it’s because I know how controversial he is, and I pretty much ritually avoid a lot of takes because I don’t want to get irritated about something that really doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme, because we’re all entitled to our opinions and I largely get my say through the act of writing and developing him how I see fit.

Which is enough for me, mostly, but for the purpose of reinforcing/building upon how I see my muse’s plight, working through some of my Sannin-feels and also to dip my toes into why I find blindly judgemental/single-faceted takes of him, his priorities and the Sannin’s bond so exasperating, I kinda feel like rambling my thoughts (feelings) anyway! 

Politely sticks this stream-of-consciousness mess under a cut.

So sometimes I do think about the fact that Jiraiya kinda, lmao, forgot about Everything Else in the world because of Orochimaru and his (frankly) obsession with him/them. And the fact that a ridiculously significant portion of bad shit that happened is down to his actions/inaction. And the fact that he really did go and leave the likes of Naruto (and maybe to a degree Kakashi, although there’s zero actual evidence he didn’t get involved given the strong indications of a great rapport in the canon), just because he was so hellbent on pursuing Orochimaru, who was not even shown to be affectionate towards him at the best of times. When I think about it in terms of Jiraiya being gone and the main reason we’re given for it, things suck for a number of people, and quite largely because of potentially unrequited/horribly communicated/obsessive JiraOro pursuits, in essence :’)

(And for all it’s still quite the rarepair, Jiraiya does express on accounts that he was destroyed when Oro left. I mean... this is the guy who rarely acknowledges his sadness so... It’s not my bias at all I sware)

Of course JiraTsu is very real in my eyes too, albeit a very different kinda tragic, as is OroTsu. And the messy poly ship? Ohohoho, even better, but... yeah. Tsunade does at least go her own way for a long time, as messed up as that is in itself, for reasons including the fact she seems to pointedly not heal or move on from her grief. And given the absolute debacle that was her and Jiraiya reuniting... and both her and Oro even discussing a possibility of sacrificing him... and just, them in general for that whole arc :’))) yeah. They are without a doubt messy and troubled, but even despite how fraught things become I genuinely think all the furtive expressions and the undercurrents of longing and the evasion of their past exhibits a history much deeper and full of lost love compared to many other team dynamics we get (otherwise the Three Way Divorce wouldn’t have been quite so horrible on them, would it? That and they’d probably have split up after Team Hiruzen was no more, if they really hated each other/just tolerated each other out of familiarity like I sometimes see speculated).

But yeah, back to our main man. Jiraiya’s intense (and frankly very Scorpio of him) love for our first series Big Bad kinda did ruin him and what he was setting out to do in some ways, to the degree that the actual story of Naruto wouldn’t be very much without him in terms of drama. I mean, he always loved a good story, right? So art imitates life, and innit just pathetic poetic.

And in so many ways it is incredibly tragic and pitiable that he’s Just Like That. Idealistic and warping everything terrible, no matter how bad, into adventure in his mind! As growth! As pain that makes you TOUGH and makes you a stronger man! As something to be pushed aside while you just keep on truckin’! Whatever anyone you love throws at you, it’s Totally Fine!

After so long narrating through his personal lens, I’ve come to realise he truly is so convinced that everything bad that happens, is sort of just... something he has to deal with and feel big and guilty and feelsy for while spinning it in ways that enable him to keep going. He just loads it on himself and sorta holds it. The fact he’s so sad and filled with sickly pining grief that he has to try and exorcise it with impulsive bouts of decadence? Fine. And it’s not abnormal at all, how he approaches things with such broad scope and just kinda... thoughtlessly wrecking-balls his way through everything he thinks is a great idea at the time. He experiences the fallout of these things and simultaneously feels the entire ravages of it acutely while compartmentalising it ever so neatly away. The crazy thing, too, is that he’s exceptionally convincing at making everything he does and how he handles things seem so grand and noble and romantic and tragic... but in a humorously self-deprecating and still ultimately very hopeful way, to the degree that I as a mun get caught up in his relentless optimism and forget he actually is a sad and heartbroken guy wrapped up in all this grandiosity.

Sometimes I do step back and look and I just think yeah, fuck, he really is a total disaster! He’s a walking disaster and he’s been so damaging to himself and others in so many ways, all because of acting on emotions and impulses without really thinking about the impact! He really did kinda give up on those who needed him and for what? A love that will never love him or prioritise him back? 

A wonderfully tragic theme that I do love with him, don’t get me wrong.

But then at the same time, there’s always more nuance to be had than just ‘he is a disaster and made bad choices, as tragic and romantic as it is, he was actually just selfish and kinda sucked in the end, pathetically whipped by his friends and unable to let go of what they had’. There’s more nuance to be had than reducing him to a purely romantically-inclined character, who just snubs everyone else for a doomed love... because in the end, I think a huge part of JiraOro’s demise in particular was that Oro felt immensely snubbed by Jiraiya when he stayed in Ame, when his loyalty to Konoha (as a place and people, not necessarily a system) and of course loyalty to his own ideals was prioritised over Oro.

To an extent, I feel like Tsunade could have been a similar case, were she not preoccupied with already having lost so much, and besides I really do think she and Jiraiya were quite firmly in best friend zone at that point. With Tsunade not being able to get comfortable around Jiraiya or to pursue any underlying affection for him because of the dumbass way he always behaved (understandably of her tbh), probably until she got with Dan, by which point I reckon Jiraiya started to really come through by showing how he valued her for her, where we see by them having each other’s backs so closely in the second war. Not to mention him generally respecting that his feelings for her have no place by the time he gets her back to Konoha.

In terms of that first split in Ame, Jiraiya, I feel, simply didn’t think him leaving was going to be a big deal, because the three were always fiercely headstrong people who had their own shit going on (simultaneously independent while also being, perhaps not to their knowledge, So Very Codependent). Not only that, but his overly affectionate ways and incessant jolliness were probably considered such a joke that he was basically like ‘they’ll be fine without me’. I certainly don’t think he felt needed by them, which I don’t think is their fault or a point of angst and ‘waaah poor blameless Jiraiya’, because quite honestly, the strain on their relationship was something I fully believe even he didn’t realise he needed out of at the time. His one-track mind was just on ‘save kids, teach kids, this is right, must seize opportunity to be the change I was told I’d be, not continue with this godforsaken war’

Selfish? Maybe. Well-intentioned? Certainly. Intended to hurt anyone or imply he stopped caring? No.

In essence, when it comes to why in the end Jiraiya seemed to be so horrendously bad at being around at the worst of times, at being responsible, whatever else (and I’m not even going to go into scenes intended to be comedic because, they are comedic)... I’ve got to look at it from more than just one view. It’s easy to say ‘he’s ridiculous and terrible because he pretty much flaked on what was important based on his whims/a doomed love/his dick’ (which I have seen said lmao) but there are so many other things at play here.

So I’m thinking, while he was shirking duties (godfatherly mainly)... did he actually consider that his most important duty? Was it anyone’s place to tell him it was? Minato didn’t, as I recall, and when he sacrificed himself he specifically left it to the Third because he (presumably) respected what his teacher was about and knew he wasn’t for staying put. Did Jiraiya not consider his primary duty to be to the prophecy, and in a more general sense fixing the big wrongs and trying to foil big dangers to his home? Were these things not pretty much what he existed for (as much as his faith wavered and went off the rails at times)? Was that not the main source of any real purpose he ever had, being a kid who showed practically no ambition before? Did he not pretty much redesign himself as being ‘from Mt. Myōboku’ rather than Konoha after two devastating wars, and thus is it not understandable for him not to focus solely on Konoha—not outright destroying it, still ultimately loyal to his home and not about to let anyone destroy it, but seeing that the world is in fact so much bigger than just his little town? Is that really something that’s so bad and wrong of him, in a story where the main cast’s country has a pretty fucking nasty system and is established to do so very early on? Is he not pretty revolutionary in his own brand of not blindly serving, but not going on a destroy-it-all frenzy either?

Also, was he not the only one who actually bothered to investigate Akatsuki and the forces that would see Naruto dead, in time? For all he did help bring Akatsuki into existence in ways, it was inevitable from before he even met the orphans that they were going to be groomed/moulded into what they became, regardless of whether Jiraiya came onto the scene. Jiraiya leaving them was just a different kind of suffering to what they were inevitably going to suffer anyway, and hell, with his influence at least there was a time where they might’ve stood a chance of going totally against Madara/Obito’s path, especially while Yahiko was still around. Jiraiya didn’t know that the whole thing with the Ame orphans was, by a design out of his control, doomed to end horribly. So while he felt personally responsible not knowing this, and it’s taken as a given that he was... actually, was he, when there was a master manipulator at play? Was it wrong to want to give some kids a chance?

With regards to all those things I see people say he should have stayed and fixed, that he should have been there, he should have done x y z... Is it not the responsibility of everyone not satisfied with their lot to step up to the plate and make where they live better? Jiraiya wasn’t the only adult. Tsunade, and I absolutely love her, does seem overwhelmingly to be absolved of leaving Konoha because... ??? Kicker is that she too is related to Naruto, of course. 

So... was she not also needed for the very material ways she could’ve helped at numerous points? Was she not also placing her grief and lost love before everything else? Are some reasons inherently more ok than others to ditch? As Kakashi’s generation grew up, was it not also then up to them to decide whether they’d change the status quo? Were Minato’s own generation, presumably his own peer group, not complicit in Naruto’s ostracisation? We got a slight taste of rebellion with Asuma, Hiruzen’s own son, but the fact is many Konoha-nin were overwhelmingly complacent with how things were. And yet never get demonised at all for it. Because it’s Jiraiya’s fault for... not staying and giving it all up to be a guardian who could well be depressed and unfit to raise a child... or just being a flaky as hell one that’s never there anyway because he has shit to do? (and in doing the former would let too many things go unchecked by a completely tuned-out Hokage, not gathering all that spicy useful intel, y’know... essentially he wouldn’t have ended up largely doing his job along with the personal shit in between).

Basically when I see claims saying that Jiraiya as an individual should have done pretty much everything better, and somehow been there for everyone that needed him at any given time, and that (mostly Naruto’s) suffering was a failing on Just His part because of his selfish whims... I feel like the point of his tragedy is absolutely missed. That tragedy being that barrelling through things alone is definitely a failing and harmful in numerous ways, as we see with Itachi shouldering everything alone too, and we see them both miss out on Naruto and Sasuke as a result... but at the same time, is just settling down and leaving everything else to chance not also a huge failing, when there are so many other circumstances and enemies acting against you, when you do have the power to change tides, and when so many other people refuse to or can’t seize their own agency? Jiraiya does put his faith in a lot of people too, and a lot of people fail. Don’t fail him, but in a general sense many, like Minato, fail to make the change they wanted to. That’s life in this world, it’s tragic, and after losing a lot of loved ones yeah, he retreats and goes at it alone. 

But how can he win? How does he do what’s right, other than by chasing what he thinks he can do to actually help the world, which happens to be bigger and not centred on individuals, even those he cares about?

(and remember, nobody knows Naruto is special-reincarnation-prophecy-boi, which is why I tend not to blame-game any characters for him being treated like so many orphans were because... while it’s not morally right or nice at all, it’s tone deaf to how the world is, to the fact all characters having different degrees of knowledge and priorities, and it’s insensitive of the fact most the characters had their own struggles and were just doing their best with a bad lot gdi). 

Hell though, Jiraiya even does put Oro, his big obsessive wild goose chase that whisks him away into selfish pining hopelessly devoted land, on the back burner at points. Maybe not in a lasting way, particularly by the last databook where he’s inspired anew by Naruto, but he does prioritise other shit on numerous occasions. And there’s a lot of shit to try and prioritise.

What I’m trying to say is, Jiraiya can’t solely be held responsible for people. Sure, he’s a character whose decisions were pivotal to events, but what of every other character in the story? Why are they not held to the same crazy high standard of doing and protecting and preventing and somehow doing everything ‘right’ that would have also meant him fitting neatly into the Konoha mould? Would other characters really have been that much better in the position of The Big Guide/Martyr/Tragic Hero/Force For Change character? And also is having a tragic Chaotic Good bastard of a hero not a sign of a damn good and interesting character, that at the very least tried where so many others didn’t? Would Naruto not have been a boring as hell story, whose main protag didn’t really have much conflict to make him compelling, without Jiraiya (among others) being a mess with the best intentions? Without so many other characters having failed him, for him to overcome it and still be able to love and inspire change (albeit through sometimes-clumsy talk-no-jutsu)? Was I missing the point of the story?

............. Hmm!

No longer sure where else I’m going with this now, so.... here, I guess, ends my ode to why character hate (especially that reduces them to One Thing) is dumb, why demonising truly well-meaning characters doesn’t feel particularly woke to me in a cast full of flawed characters and horrible circumstance, and why I’ll defend this poor bastard with far too damn much hinging on him to the end I guess :’)

TL;DR HE’S A DUMBASS AND HE TRIED, OKAY?!

[mwolf0epsilon]

Maybe a story about Norman being a good parent?

Summary: Mindless beast or not, the Projectionist was a Polk, and the Polks did not hurt their young, or whatever they perceived as such.

You all knew it was coming inevitably...

---

[[MORE]]

     Norman's and Margarite's marriage had come as a surprise to the entire Polk family. A simple signature on a piece of paper, and a pair of battered rings that had belonged to Nanna and Poppop Polk (gifted to him by the former who always knew he'd be a better fit for them). No fanciful ceremony with pretty dresses or suits, expensive cakes and extensive guest list.

A disappointing waste, his mama had proclaimed over the letter she'd sent as a reply to his own that detailed his status as a married man in a far off city. She'd wanted to witness the event, shed her motherly tears as one of her little ducklings became a real man ready to start a family.

But, to Norman and Maggie, the marriage wasn't a motive of celebration like his mama thought. It was insurance against further discrimination towards them. They were, after all, the black couple that lived in a quaint apartment in New York city.

Already that was a challenge of its own, as said apartment was populated primarily by white hot-blooded tenants, with only one more laying vacant for a (hopefully) friendlier family.

Their downstairs neighbor clearly hated them from sight alone, and the others were unsure how the new additions fit into their "perfect" lives in the Big Apple. If any of them were to discover that they both enjoyed the full spectrum of the gender binary, well... Accidents happened in the big city. Accidents that targeted specific minorities for some "unfathomable" reason.

So yes, as shameful as it may be, their wedding was strictly business. Rings for show, public displays of affection to dispell the gossip, and overall just the usual married life arguments in the grocery store to sell the deal (neither of them could care less about which type of sugar made the best apple pie crust, or what brand of soap was better, but it sure made the couples they passed by smile knowingly at the common domestic disputes). There was just one thing left to do to really make a statement on their relationship status.

  "Three of my coworkers are getting maternity leave. It's been a few months, I think it's time."

Children were a sensitive topic. Both Norman and Maggie wanted kids, had a vague idea of how many they planned to raise, and were quite certain they'd make beautiful and healthy younglings with one another. The question was: Was it fair to bring in chidren into a farce of a matrimony? What if one day they found their actual ideal partner?

  "Yous better be sure it's the right time darlin'..." He'd urged her to think more on the subject. "Don't want to rush things like that now, do we?"

  "I'm ready." She'd stared him in the eye with a certainty and confidence he couldn't begin to imagine. He knew she was, but was he? Was he truly ready to bare such a responsibility?

That night he relented to her wishes and they had finally consummated their marriage. Nine months later, little Nancy was born a small but relatively healthy baby. Upon seeing his firstborn for the first time ever, and then holding her gently in hands that dwarfed her little head greatly, Norman immediately understood he was ready to be a parent. And a loving one at that.

-

     In total, Norman and Maggie had five children. Three boys and two girls. Nancy was their eldest child and the more levelheaded of the bunch. The apple of her mother's eye, and her father's baby girl, she was the perfect balance of their greatest qualities and teachings. A clever and determined young girl with big aspirations for her future. She wanted to be a doctor.

Aaron was the second eldest child and the one most like his father. Clever and with an eye for detail, enough so that he had taken up an interest that fits his perceptive nature: Photography. The walls of the Polk household were filled with his works, at first done with Norman's own old and battered camera, until he'd bought the young lad his very own fancy new model.

Louise was the middle child, and the troublemaker of the bunch. She was a bit of a tomboy, and liked to scrap with the boys in her class, to the point where it wasn't uncommon to see her with several bruises and band-aids, and haphazardly taped wireframed glasses. She kept both Norman and Maggie on their toes.

Albert was the second youngest and the quietest. A little bookworm that appreciated the art of literature over anything else. He wanted to be a novelist, even at a very young age, and often shared ideas for stories at the dinner table. There was no doubt in Norman's heart that his little boy would write a best-seller one day. Maggie fretted for his social life, however, as he was the least sociable of their children. Far too shy.

Finally the youngest child was Willard. An outspoken young toddler that was definitely as confident as his mama. A little tot with a very big personality indeed, that Norman couldn't wait to see grow up into yet another fine young boy. If any of their children was to ever get what he wanted in life, it'd definitely be Will.

Truly there was nothing in this world that Norman loved more than his offsprings, and indulging in their interests was always an adventure. One to be shared with three other members of the family.

The vacant apartment had been occupied by Norman's younger brother, Alfred, and his own two children. By then almost all their neighbors (minus the one that hated them from day one) had warmed up to them. So another set of friendly faces was a good addition to their home life.

Norman absolutely loved watching over his nephew and niece, especially because his children were delighted to have other kids around their age to play with.

It reminded him of being back home in Louisiana, his own brothers and sisters sparring with him and playing whatever games they could come up with on the spot. Watching Louise and Nelson tumbling about fighting as equally dirty as the other, really stirred up some good memories he had of his older sisters.

"Bite her Nelson! Bite her!" Lydia cheered as her older brother pinned their cousin to the ground.

"Louise tug on his ears! Pummel him!" Aaron called out to his little sister, encouraging her to fend off her opponent.

"Lydia and Aaron! What I tell y'all 'bout encouragin' yous's siblings t'fight all nasty?!"

"Not to...?"

"Exactly."

Granted some play-fighting needed to be monitored when most of the audience were enablers, and neither his middle child nor his nephew had any qualms sending each other to the hospital. They were still learning about consequences after all.

Still, there wasn't anything else in the world that built better character than teaching the children that they were equals to one another in all their shared activities. Respect was an important lesson to be learned. One Norman wished every parent taught their child.

The world would be a better place otherwise...

-

Sometimes the Projectionist would inevitably be unable to fend off sleep. The exhaustion would wear it down and give way to the nightmares of a life it could barely remember. Then it would wake up and scream, trying to rid itself of heinous visions of itself ripping its offsprings apart.

Norman Polk would reawaken inside its brutish body and lash out, hoping to either physically fight away his own broken psyche or perhaps cripple the Projectionist so that it could never fulfil these dreamt up acts of violence.

A Polk was all about family, and the thought of becoming the sort to bring harm upon his own children... Well, Norman had heard the stories. Knew why Poppop was such a taboo topic. He did not want to be the man besides his Nanna in the portrait above the fireplace... One he'd resembled if his eye wasn't wrong and he'd grown out his beard...

The Projectionist didn't have the mental faculties to understand this distress however, but it seemed to recognize that what it saw in dreams was bad. That what it did to the vermin, it should never do to those innocent little youngsters that looked at it with love instead of fear and hatred. So... Why did it do it in dreams? Why did it kill when it wanted to be docile? The children were not a threat, so why...?

It made no sense... But it didn't much care for elaborate existential crisis like that. Norman's consciousness would freak it out, but ultimately loosened its grip and go back to being dormant. The lumbering beast resuming its tiring trek through the endless maze. A cycle that would repeat itself the next time it fell asleep.

It was in the aftermath of yet another nightmare that the Projectionist came across something completely new to it. Something small and living, and very much intruding on its space. Something that very vaguely looked like it...

A living being with a body similar to the ones the horrible botched critters that ran around in packs had, yet with no visible imperfections to it. Its head though... It was kind of like a projector, but not. Square in shape, with a lens, a tube, dial and something very round that kind of looked like a big ear. A camera, like the one Aaron had gotten for his birthday.

It seemed to have gloves, shoes and a belt that sort of looked like the speaker lodged in the Projectionist's torso, but it was hard to tell since the strange being was on the ground flailing about like a dying fish.

The towering amalgam stared at the tiny new thing in dumbfounded silence, unsure how to react to such a strange discovery, until it realized why the thing was flailing about to begin with.

One of its legs was pinned under a crate that appeared to have fallen from a nearby stack, and the Projectionist could tell the limb was broken. Nearby lay a series of Ink Hearts that had been resting on the fallen crate.

On any other occasion it would have simply walked over, raised one heavy foot, and crushed the intruder's skull for daring to try to steal from it. This time however, was completely different... Something primal was urging the Projectionist to do something completely alien to its usually aggressive nature. Something instinctive.

The poor creature grew agitated upon finally noticing the Projectionist's presence as it approached, but its broken limb ensured it stayed put even after the crate was picked up and tossed aside. It shook fearfully once the Projectionist knelt down to pick it up by the torso. It stopped shaking once it was brought to rest against the much larger beast's chest, cradled gently like an infant. The Projectionist rumbling softly so as to reassure it that no harm would befall it.

The little creature, with a head that was not a projector but a distant relative of a sort, stared up with its own dark lens before reaching out to gently pat the Projectionist's "face". It seemed to understand its intention to help it, rather than exterminate it.

The lumbering beast carried on in its path, now carrying a most precious cargo. It would find something to help treat the injury and then it would begin teaching this newly adopted offspring to survive in the studio.

Mindless beast or not, the Projectionist was still a Polk, and the Polks cared for their younglings. This tiny sentient camera was its child now, and the beast would protect it from the horrors of this horrid studio.