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rozinaaa · 23 days ago

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The Simplest Way To Start A One-Person Business by Dan Koe

This article explains the easiest way to start a one-person business, because let's face it, there's way too much information out there about how to go about it, to the point where it becomes almost impossible to simply start, so going back to basics often helps.

As Dan says, starting a one-person business "is the most logical option for beginners", and he couldn't be further from the truth, simply because we all need a starting point, and (as I've realised over the past few years) it's easier to start off small and work your way up from there.

I've also been one of those "many people [that] have dreams of starting things […] that require a ton of capital and resources to make [it] work", and although it seems really tempting at first to go all in and create the most ambitious and impressive business out there, essentially expecting impressive results from the second I make a start on it, I also have to realise that I'm just one person, and although I've been in free fall for half the year, building a business and making the right decisions will take time (shoutout to my 1990s Business Major parent that doesn't realise that building a successful business isn't something that will happen overnight or at the clicking of fingers), as well as realising that I can't spend too long trying to make a decision (especially in terms of what software to use and in what context), since that will also hold me back, possibly more so than just diving in and realising that I've possibly made the wrong decision.

I also like the fact that Dan mentions the most important (and often overlooked) question of them all: "I like the concept of the one-person business, but how do I actually start?" since this question has been rattling around in my mind for at least a few years, so having a lot of straightforward clarity will help.

I do enjoy the concept of working for myself and being able to eventually earn a decent amount of money by doing something that I enjoy doing (the closest I got to that was at my previous job), as well as all the lofty lifestyle things that come with it, but the only reason I don't have all of that yet is because I don't know where to start, simply because there is way too much input (and lots of information that usually contradicts each other) to the point where it becomes hard to seperate the signal from the noise, which then becomes a whole load of analysis paralysis and overthinking, which will take me away from actually doing the work itself.

Additionally, I like the fact that Dan acts "as if you only have a few dollars to your name and few interests that you could see yourself turning into a business" and although I do have a few interests (mainly revolving around visual design in different contexts), for the sake of this, I will focus on the curation front, because although I have a very minimal and static hand coded site where I just simply list everything that exists at the intersection of art and technology in alphabetical order (with a sentence or two explaining that link), I want to move beyond that, and turn it into something much more interesting (where I can combine my existing skills and pick up new, relevant ones along the way) without running the risk of being too ambitious too quick to the point where I set unrealistic targets and end up abandoning everything half way through, due to how unrealistic I've made everything.

So for now, I'll just follow Dan's advice, which is to "not worry about building a website, starting an LLC, or even worrying about taxes just yet", because although starting an LLC and worrying about taxes aren't even on my radar, I always get hung up on the building a website stage, where I spend too much time thinking about how I'll build it (should I code everything by hand and break my brain in the process as I try to get everything right, or should I use that fancy website builder all the cool designers are using right now?) and worrying about how it'll look that I never get past that bit, so I'd like to break free from that.

As Dan says, "focus on actually making money first", since everything else will follow, although having been a Web Designer and trying not to obsess over building a website first is going to be easier said than done.

Now to actually make money, I'll most likely need to produce something that's going to be of value, and for that to happen, I need other people to be aware of who I am and what I do.

However, first thing's first.

I need to set up a simple digital tool stack, so I know what software I need to use (and in which context), as well as limiting my options so I don't get bamboozled by all of the other options out there.

To keep things super simple, Dan mentions that "when setting up an online business, you need 4 things: somewhere to generate traffic, somewhere to collect emails, somewhere to accept payment and host your products or services, and somewhere to save your ideas and writing", which means that at most, I'll need 4 different tools, although I can probably get away with using less than 4 tools if each one has the features that I'd need, but for now, each tool should do at least one of the following: one to be able to get traffic (and emails), an online store, and somewhere to save all of my content, as well as a place to schedule all of that content to put on social media.

To generate traffic, Dan suggests to use social media, as it's "the simplest, most accessible way to start generating traffic", simply because it's free to use, I can post content and promote what I need to every day (or as consistently as possible if it becomes too much), and that I can test my ideas with a very small amount of friction, because creating a small post and interacting with others is going to have a lot less friction than creating a whole product and using old fashioned methods, even though this seems ironic as I've criticised social media in the past, but that was in the past.

Suppose for the curation front, I'd want it to exist on a few different platforms, which is of course my plan for the long term, but not something for the short term, as each platform essentially has a different vibe.

However, Dan says that it's easier to "pick the one you resonate with most and focus all of your energy on that", since it will be easier to focus on building an audience on one platform than to build it on lots of different ones.

My initial plan (from a few months ago) was to start off by posting content on LinkedIn, but I quickly scrapped it, simply because LinkedIn itself feels too formal and professional, so naturally, the content I made felt too formal and professional, even though (according to Dan) it "has the most money", which means it's probably easier to start off there.

I'm not sure how I feel about X/Twitter since (in my experience) that's full of hypercapitalistic techbros, which feels like way too much of a competitive environment for me.

However, I've felt comfortable with Instagram in the past, and it's generally good for the creative type (i.e. a lot of creative people and things use it), since the platform focuses on visuals first, so I think it makes sense to start off creating content for the curation front on a platform that feels best suited to it. Creating content for social media is the first step, so although the curation front has the potential to be suitable for a range of different audiences that are more or less interested in the same thing (the intersection of art and technology), I should use the platform where most of them will be, but for now, I won't overthink it, as it's the very first step, which means I'm basically torn between using LinkedIn and Instagram for the content.

Collecting emails is the next step, and although I'm in the process of creating a newsletter for the curation front (as it seems to be the most logical option for this type of thing, as I can go in depth with different artists plus others, and so that it's easier to find different posts), I'd at least like people to read it and share it with others who might find it interesting.

In fact, you can sign up to the newsletter here to be the first to read it when it goes live.

The flow so far now consists of creating social media content and plugging my newsletter.

I know Dan says to just write content for now, but since what I curate is fairly visual, and since I already have some experience with graphic design, it makes sense for me personally to create some graphics (with the actual creative freedom to do what I want (within reason) without having to worry what everyone else will think) to go with the written content, since the graphics will make easier to grab the reader's attention.

Additionally, he recommends using Beehiiv to create an email list, since you can also turn that newsletter into a website and a blog, so it's easier for outsiders to essentially try before they buy (i.e. read a few posts before subscribing), which also means that I don't have to worry about what software to use.

I know I could have easily created a Tumblr for the curation front (since that now feels very frictionless to me now, although it's probably the result of blogging on it for over two years), but it isn't as straightforward to create a newsletter with it (sure, I can copy/paste each post and turn that into a newsletter, but that's going to take a lot of time), and all of the posts on Tumblr are essentially bits of driftwood in the river, because although they're somewhat easy to find, you're essentially forced into reading all of the posts, which is good if you're a curious twentysomething with lots of time on your hands, but not if you're a curator for a large gallery or an academic working towards a tight deadline that needs to find out more about a certain artist, so in this case, having a newsletter and separate posts for each thing makes much more sense than a long list of everything in alphabetical order that will most likely overwhelm anyone.

For now, I won't worry about the storefront or creating any extra products or services, as my main focus is on creating content for social media (short form) and leading those potential followers to my newsletter, which will be a lot more long form.

Skipping through the extra monetisation advice (for now, mainly to avoid overwhelming myself, although that advice does seem useful), I want to focus on the fact that promoting yourself is absolutely essential, because (according to Dan) "the only reason people don't make money is because they don't promote themselves", which essentially echoes what Justin said, and what I explored in a previous post.

However, if you don't promote yourself, Dan says "1. You don't have an incentive to improve your writing. 2. People won't know they can pay you. 3. You'll never get over your fear of selling. 4. You can't improve what doesn't exist.", which are all important points, and a lot to take on, but I want to focus on the third point, where Dan speaks of the "vocal minority on the internet".

This vocal minority is "the 1% of people who despise advertisements and self-promotions" (about 2 years ago, I was probably of that 1%, and all I've learned from there is that I've held myself back in actually doing anything business related), in which "they'd rather you beg for donations or sponsorships rather than create your own products and pitch it to them", which to me is about as effective as working for free and making an income from tip money instead of an actual salary, which will make life a lot harder.

The main reason why I've spent the best part of the past 2 years viewing the curation front as just a little side project and not potentially a full on business was because of this anti-capitalist vocal minority (who often exist on niche Mastodon instances and believe that monetising a hobby/creative endeavour is a major sin, because according to them, mainstream social media platforms (that everyone uses) are bad, even though everyone will be more likely to know of Instagram and X/Twitter than some random Mastodon instance with 500 users, not to mention pretty much everyone on r/nosurf, because newsflash, it's going to be 2025 next month, AI is everywhere and in full swing, social media and the internet are inevitable but essential parts of life now, and only nans and crackheads use dumbphones, so get your head out of the 1990s and actually get with the times for once) that essentially try to drag anyone down, especially for those that want to improve themselves.

Anyway, I like how straightforward yet in depth Dan goes with his letters (as he calls them), so this was an extremely useful article for me, even though I've only covered about half of it, mainly to reflect on the stage that I'm currently at with turning the curation front into more of a business than a small side project.

#research

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heliconlog · 5 months ago

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Week Log - song analysis

OK,

I'm going to try to briefly do justice to a really heavy intense week.

So I've been listening to the playlist most days and I feel like my impression of almost all the songs has gotten a lot of dimension and context and like, nuance. It's crazy that I think of 16 songs as one unit of divination, because basically every single song has many ways I can interpret it, lots of personal contextual and emotional content. It's kindof an undertaking to look into it with any type of rigor, which is probably why I haven't been that rigorous. But just listening to the songs has given me a lot to think about. Like the first time I listened to Violent Crimes (a song about domestic violence) it made me uncomfortable and seemed a little overdone and hard to relate to, but after making myself get through it several times, I really did reach a moment of catharsis about my feelings of having been in a relationship where I was physically afraid for a long time, and also felt really powerless and violated. It's hard to admit to those parameters. I have an urge to downplay it, to assure everyone that I was never injured, and that I wasn't blameless and it's more or less resolved anyway. But on the other hand, when it's just me. It's verging on dishonest to disavow the reality of my emotional experience. It took sitting through that song to even acknowledge that that's what I was doing. And in reaching toward a certain reconciliation with my ex, being able to clearly acknowledge those emotions and the relevant themes from the song and letting my perspective be validated by them was really grounding.

Like, just because it's an example of a song that has personal content without having to get too detailed, I can maybe say more. I think another aspect is that my ex was the person who comforted me through the death of my father, and he also has two daughters. The counterpoint between harm and care, nurturance and control, change in perspective from before and after and abuse that leads both too and from past and future violence seems really resonant. Additionally, the way that it presents the conflicts in social archetypes of men and women, and adults and children brings up feelings of vulnerability and agency that are conflicting in my life right now, and shaping my choices when it comes to how I address my emotions about romantic relationships and my relationship with my ex in particular, vs my role as a parent, and the way I relate to my own vulnerability.

I like how it's mentioned a few times that we see difficult circumstances as a story and that the "scary nights" can't be left out. And also to some degree the way that the opening section seems to address the struggle to justify our roles in these devastating interrelationships and participation in harmful social patterns in a way that can speak to either sex. It's a song that is not exactly fun to listen to, but for me, the more I listen to it the more it almost kindof normalizes the idea that this is not something that is only in my head, or that I'm not blowing it out of proportion.

Another theme that is in Diet Mountain Dew and The Color Violet is comparing relationships to speeding cars. Not only did my ex teach me to drive and helped me get my drivers license (another weird Dad parallel I guess), but I bought him a new car that he crashed while suicidal after we broke up. The impression of romantic love being risky and harmful, but intoxicating seems painfully relatable. While my relationship with my ex was legitimately pretty risky in ways I didn't appreciate when I was making those choices, it also highlights the way that emotional risks are necessary to form a connection, and the way that I've taken for granted the ways I've evaluated those risks and the way that has impacted me and my partners and my family. It's both sobering and enlightening to consider.

It also makes me think about how the risk of vulnerability and intimacy and the payoff get conflated. In diet Mountain Dew, the lyrics wonder about being in love forever, while in The Color Violet, the narrative concerns a connection that fails before it gets off the ground and that the pot walks away from. It seems like at a certain point the risks in a healthy relationship seem to fall off after trust is formed, but in unstable relationship, every day is a leap of faith. On the other hand, having a valuable connection is a risk in itself. Love is definitely not the only risk in my life, and I feel like these songs both make emotionally accessible the implications of different ways to respond to risk.

I haven't gotten to far down the road, but there are kindof a lot of these songs that mention being a monster. I read the wikipedia on monsters and that is a deep rabbit hole. I hope I can reflect a bit more soon.

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waterolivecoffiyeh · 6 months ago

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Replying to Puppyluver256

Well, I see I finally have your attention. @puppyluver256

You'll have to excuse me if I couldn't reply sooner given the waterfall of word vomit I had to slog through for anything relevant. It was incredibly hard to pinpoint your actual response when you're simultaneously rambling about everything and nothing at all.

Additionally, it's hilarious that you think sprinkling random videos into your reply makes your points more valid. If anything, it just makes you look like you can't formulate a proper rebuttal without turning this into a dumb meme. Way to demonstrate how little you actually care about the topic.

But since you’ve decided to finally acknowledge what I’ve written, I will address everything you wrote, irrelevant as some topics may be and unlike you, I will not be lazy and ”skim through”. If I don’t cover a specific thing, it’s because I’ve either already stated my opinion elsewhere or I didn't care enough to discuss it.

And by the way? Confessing that you just skimmed through my blog shows me you still don’t understand a single word of what I’ve been saying as your response is so tactless, disorganized, and rife with paranoia.

Oh, and if you’re going to be "using my words" actually take time to read what I said vs "what you remember”. In fact, here's a link. Anyone who's reading this post can see exactly what I said. I'd have added a quote to this post but my response to you is already far too long and my old post is possibly even longer.

But I’ve stalled enough. Let’s comb through this mess together, shall we? Do try, and extend the same courtesy I’m giving you by actually reading my reply this time. Perhaps you will learn something.

Firstly, I’m going to get this out of the way since it really stuck in your craw: The misgendering.

1. You have not been going exclusively by they/them pronouns for years. I had been a follower for years prior to my departure and even when I returned when this whole debacle started, you still had she/they listed as your preferred pronouns on your blog and on other socials. You had she/they up for years. It was only within the past two weeks you made the switch (at the time of this post’s original upload). 2. I've paid enough attention to you to know this was a recent change, so if my older posts still say "she" that's because you still had female pronouns displayed on your blog at the time they were originally written. Trying to retroactively accuse me of transphobia is completely disingenuous. 3. Furthermore, if you wanted to be known exclusively by they/them you should have nixed the "she" stuff long ago. Additionally, my recent post doesn't even use "she" so stop trying to rage-bait anyone reading this with the narrative of me being transphobic. I'm LGBT+ too and frankly, I’m disappointed someone who’s in the same community would stoop to such a level.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let's get right to the heart of things: Addressing the holes that make your argument about Israel VS Palestine null and void.

I’m going to straight out call you a liar about you having known about Palestine for 20+ years.

1. If that was truly the case it would infer you knew how sensitive this subject was the entire time and still choose to believe your own interpretations of events instead of the actual facts. 2. You wouldn't have worded your so-called "freeverse" poetry so vaguely at a time when news of the genocide was breaking. Yes, you could have still said you felt helpless, but you chose to spin the current news of Israel vs Palestinian as a consequence of religious dogma, which it is not (more on this point further down). 3. Your “freeverse" poetry is nothing more than a bunch of melancholy platitudes where you lament your ineffectiveness and wail "Oh, woe is me! Won’t someone please comfort poor little me?” Frankly, that's the majority of your posts. They have always been tiny soapboxes for you to stand on to whinge and whine about how a specific situation affects you selfishly, treating your personal discomfort as more important than any actual victims of said situation. 4. This claim you care too much? It's a load of BS. You’re insincere to others and lying to yourself. If you truly did care, you'd take a hot second to actually read my blog. Leaving the poem up is just you not wanting to admit it's tone-deaf and a poorly uneducated take. If you truly learned anything you would have either removed it or added an addendum about why it was harmful, but you don’t want to do either because then it would draw more attention to you and you might actually be held accountable for something for once. 5. All of the posts that I archived coincide with dates of big news coming out of Palestine and they are either passive-aggressive or purposefully vague. I told you before whatever you're complaining about you're not the least bit subtle. If you didn't want people to scrutinize what you wrote, you wouldn't post certain things online and quietly keep your certain thoughts to yourself. 6. Don't use the excuse of "Well it's my blog!" to dodge accountability. When you use social media like a personal journal, everyone can see your opinions and since this is SOCIAL MEDIA, emphasis on the word “social”, anyone can respond. It's like reading your diary out loud to strangers in a crowded room. Everyone can hear you and they may have an opinion about what you wrote and it may not be what you want to hear. People can and will call you out. You are not free from criticism or rebuttal just because it’s a personal opinion. Consequence free speech does not exist. The moment you open your mouth, you are opening yourself up to a response from someone else be it positive, negative, or neutral. Trying to hide behind a shield of “Don’t reply to me! This is my personal space!” makes you appear weak in conviction. 7. Touting your atheism and your “secular humanism” as if makes you intellectually superior or more empathetic is self-aggrandizing and frustrating to watch. Pretending to be more intelligent because you don’t believe in God does not make you better than those who hold faith in their hearts. Playing this role as the untouchable enlightened who has seen the truth unlike the “masses of ignorant sheep” who believe in a higher power is what egotistical jackasses do and it’s a bad look. You’re every bit the Strawman archetype for the “Insufferable Atheist”. You’re almost at parody levels of cliché.

Just look at this paragraph you wrote without a shred of irony:

“I may be an atheist, but more importantly I am a secular humanist, and before knowing the latter term and taking on that label I was still an atheist even at the time, so the religious argument of “god gave them that land, they own that land” would never have worked on me the way it seems to with so many people. And tbh I don’t even know if that’s an argument that the Israeli government themselves put forward (it’s a terrible argument no matter who put it forward), but I do know that Christian fundamentalist extremists say things like that in their push for “god’s people” to return to "their god-ordained homeland” so they (the Christian extremists, I mean, just so we don’t get confused here) can try to usher in the end of the world based on the drug trip of a final volume in their bizarre storybook and no I am not kidding that is literally what they believe.”

Way to give yourself a pat on the back for a way of thinking millions of other people also share. You’re not the only atheist living in the Bible Belt. You’re not that special or unique.

If you were knowledgeable about the conflict in the Middle East you would speak from the socio-political perspective and not reduce this tragedy to a simple religious war (as if those too aren’t also extremely nuanced and complicated). Do you want to know how I know this? You contradict yourself in the very next paragraph:

”You must inform anyone you come across of this travesty. You must not let them look away either. But the suffering will continue regardless. They are all convinced they are in the right, all fighting for the will of a god that they will never confirm to be real, in fact the same god in wildly different interpretations. All the while, the innocents caught in the crossfire will continue to die, glorified in the disgusting “honor” known as martyrdom."

…Do you not see the irony here?

Tell me you didn’t imply this is situation is a religious war right there. Your words alone are tell me you believe it's solely religiously motivated and nothing more.

Let me tell you something. It's not.

The genocide of Palestinians can be rooted in the fact that Israel is basically an illegal colonization and occupation of land. People were forced to leave their homes, losing them in the process and then having Israel settlers move in and take over. Anyone with half a brain and a lick of common sense knows for a fact that Israel is trying to kill off the natives to take this land. Don't you dare blame the Palestinians! Most of us do not blame the Jews or the Muslims for this conflict.

Also? "Crossfire?" Please enlighten me where the crossfire is because most of the time it's Israel causing the destruction and killing. There is no crossfire when the Palestinians are the intended targets. Or are you gonna bring out Hamas as another excuse for calling it a crossfire…if you even know who or what Hamas is.

And the most insulting thing of all is that you sit, comfy and safe thousands of miles away from the horror of this reality, blaming both sides simply because they have faith in the same kind of God. Their religious texts may not be the same as the Christian fundamentalist extremists but they have the same roots. Calling any religious text a “bizarre storybook” is a disgusting insult. For someone who claims to be a “secular humanist” you seem to lack a core component of humanity. Your inference that if only both sides dropped their beliefs and chose logic & reason over faith & God, the blinders would fall off and they would instantly come to their senses, stop fighting, and be at peace.

That is not how real life works.

Religion is not the end all be all seed of all evil that sows discord all over the globe and it’s repulsive you believe it could ever be that simple. Even if EVERYONE in the Middle East adopted your perspective, there would still be pain and suffering. It would still be a genocide in that region. You have a lot of audacity to reduce this down to such a trifling matter, much less say and believe it.

You think you’re the smartest person in the room because you can’t be “fooled” into believing in God? In reality, you’ve shown your ass to the world with how callous and apathetic you are. And I’m not interested in your grandstanding of how decent you are.

And if you want to continue to deny it? Look at your own damn tags:

Side note? You should take the advice listed and grab a snack and a drink because we’ve barely scratched the surface. We’re going to talk about your justifications and excuses for why you can’t handle this news (Spoiler: none of them are valid).

“This is something that is not going to surprise anyone who knows me to hear: I have the emotional constitution of an improperly set flan.”

Tell me something I don’t know. In fact, how about you tell me how you’ve made it to your age without learning how to strike the proper balance between staying informed and not being burnt out from information overload.

You claim you want to hide from “the horrors of the world while online for the sake of your own sanity”. I have some very bad news for you: that environment no longer exists. The internet is no longer a niche little ecosystem that only a few people have access too. Everyone and their mother has a Facebook, a Twitter, an Instagram, etc. and that includes news organizations and major corporations. These days information travels faster. We live in a world where we can get live updates happening in real time which is absolutely paramount when so much news is actually being censored. But I’ll go over that later. I want to focus on this part specifically:

“Every single post about it, tweet about it, insertion into a video I was watching that gave no prior indication it would even remotely talk about it, it kept breaking my heart little by little, especially as I could do nothing to help and the charged language of everything was written to basically shame anyone who didn’t do anything regardless of whether or not they were actually capable of doing so.”

Of course people are talking about this! Its major news that has a global impact on so many things especially your country! We are potentially about to get involved in another so-called “war” that will last 20+ years and cost trillions of dollars! There are people who still don’t know if their loved ones are alive or dead because they’re being held hostage by amoral monsters who will kill them without second thought. Everyone is afraid for the future. Try to step outside yourself for a few seconds and look at the big picture.

No one is asking you to donate everything you own, join all the boycotts, or get involved in every debate and discussion. You always had the ability to choose your level of engagement, even none at all. Yet what you fail to grasp time and time again is that if you want to have an opinion on Palestine, you have to stay informed. You can’t reject information because it upsets you and then turn around and state your opinions on said subject even vaguely. You can’t have it both ways.

And you can tell me till you’re blue in the face your “freeverse” poem and all those other posts were not about Palestine. I do not believe you. You are trying to sneakily weasel your way into the discussion in a way that prevents anyone from replying because the slightest pushback leaves you running scared, blocking to avoid any productive conversation.

Also? I just have to ask: Where are these pictures of dead bodies you’re talking about? I have been plugged into multiple news outlets and even some accounts right at the source and I have not seen even a fraction of this “gruesome injury and death” you speak of. You phrase it as if it’s just a 24/7 parade of gore to mentally scar you. You’re the one in control of what you see. No one is holding your eyes open as you oh so dramatically put it. The onus is on you to enforce your boundaries, which by the way, are for your protection not to correct or change everyone else’s behavior.

Don’t like what someone posts? Unfollow them.

Don’t like when a video starts talking about Israel vs Palestine? Skip ahead or close out.

Don’t want to read posts about it? Keep scrolling part.

Try to actually learn how to properly use the tools you have instead of complaining that total strangers who wouldn’t know you from Adam aren’t catering to your incredibly specific sensibilities. Maybe take a look at your block list and see if some of the things on there are really worth losing sleep over.

As for the rest of section 2?

“All of this on top of my more direct struggles–adjusting to a new house I never wanted to move to in a location I never wanted to even visit again.”

It’s been a year and half since you posted you were moving. You’re telling me you still haven’t adjusted to your new home?

“learning to care for a new dog and never getting enough time to get anything done as a result, constantly getting bitten by said dog”

You are seriously blaming your dog for contributing to your “heartache”? Really? That’s the level we’re at? Frankly? You don’t sound like a responsible pet owner either. You adopted that dog last September and you’re still struggling with training? In my opinion, you could benefit from spending even more time with him. Less opportunities to get mired in the news and decompress mentally.

“the brand new house constantly falling apart either due to shoddy workmanship or because of Dog”

Old houses need a lot more work but in general you need to follow basic upkeep so things continue to run smoothly. And if your dog is destroying things, he’s not getting the proper attention/training.

“never getting enough sleep anymore (admittedly through no one’s fault but my own)”

You are quite literally your own worst enemy.

“pulling my hair out over all this stress and then stressing out over that in a vicious cycle of bald”

If that is the case, you seriously need to seek help to figure out a proper way to manage your stress levels. It should never get this bad. However, everything else before it? The move? The house repairs? The dog? These are just the daily routines of everyday life. If this is the “worst” it gets then you’re already doing better than most. You should feel incredibly blessed you even have a home, a pet, and a living family. The Palestinians don’t even have the remains of their loved ones to properly bury. Try to keep things in perspective. It’ll keep you humble and grounded.

Now, shifting gears to things that are only tangentially related because you're incapable of staying focused on the main topic, your "Fandomazation of Tragedy" section is ridiculously over-bloated with random nonsense totally unrelated to my criticism but I will address it since you felt you had to include it. I’m only doing this because there is one specific paragraph that truly enrages me so I’ll cover that first.

1. I know and have seen people show support for Palestine via edits, gifs, cartoons, or game characters because that was what they felt they could do to show solidarity and support. And if not that, they are boosting other support posts.

You want to claim it's tasteless and wrong for people to make Fakémon for Palestine? I'll tell you what's truly tasteless. This right here:

“I’m sure you can gather what Fakemon is through context, fan-made Pokemon, something I’ve heavily gotten into myself via the Cantessy project and at least three planned future Fakemon projects, and have been following plenty of artists and collaborative creators in the field for years now.”

Using genocide as a springboard to plug your fanfics and art? This is NOT the time nor the place to promote your fan projects! There is ZERO reason this should have been included! How dare you try to siphon attention away from an actual genocide and turn it into an opportunity to get more attention, followers, and feedback. How dare you try to milk this for your gain. And finally, how dare you criticize people using art as a means to express viewpoints or work through the emotions associated because it intrudes on your precious little playground while you try to poach new followers. That's true hypocrisy right there.

2. Cartoons and game characters have been used to make political statements for years (WW2 shorts via Disney and Loony Toons anyone?) This is not a new trend. FREE HONG KONG was just a few years ago after the controversy with Blizzard siding with China. This sort of thing isn't new and it’s not going away.

Side note? I've seen you complain about seeing Palestinian stuff in Splatoon 3 plazas, yet at the very bottom of your response to me is a manta ray character with a watermelon design. You wouldn't be using that to support Palestine if you honestly believed using fandom in political talking points was so "wrong".

And since Pokémon is your favorite fandom judging by your recent fanart series, need I remind you that when PETA tried to take potshots at this franchise for promoting animal abuse, there was a slew of pushback from its fandom in the form of fanart? They openly mocked PETA for trying to push their agenda on a fantasy game and claimed Nintendo and Game Freak supported animal abuse. Does that count as “unsettling” to you because it brings in real-world issues to light-hearted media…or does this one get a pass because it aligns with your personal system of ideals?

3. People do this sort of fanart to come to terms with stressful situations or to show solidarity with others because if there is anything we all have in common it’s the cartoons we watch, the comics we read, and the video games we play. Fandoms cross international borders. Those artists who make pro-Palestine art do so to connect with others to say, “Hey, I see you. You’ve not been forgotten. We’re with you.” And maybe, just maybe, those things can provide a little bit of comfort and support for people trapped in the middle of this nightmare. God knows they deserve a moment of levity and solace.

That being said if that sort of thing really doesn’t gel with you, that’s fine. But you need to understand other people feel differently. Furthermore? There is still plenty of non-politicized fanart out there. Yet you get so worked up when you stumble across anyone who posts pro-Palestine related fanart in your wanderings that you obsess over it and then sulk for hours before going online and crying about how you can’t escape “The Current Bad Thing That’s Been Happening Lately”. It’s absolutely pathetic for someone your age to act this way.

Now that we’ve gotten all that out of the way, let’s get back on track: Your so-called "state of decision paralysis”.

That is a weak excuse for why you haven't do thing one to demonstrate your supposed support despite asserting it multiple times in your response. Saying you don't know what to boost? You don't know what's actual real vs fraudulent?

Well, Mx."I've known about the Palestinian conflict for 20+ years" you'd know if you were actually tuned into the issue, did a tiny bit of research to see which posts were gaining traction, checked their authenticity, or even followed Palestinians online. So yeah, that argument? It doesn’t track. And it’s contradictory too. For someone who claims to have over two decades of knowledge on this subject, you seem to know only two things: Jack and Shit.

1. Saying delving too deep into this subject would shut you down entirely? Apparently not since you had knowledge of this conflict before anyone else? You must be an oracle if you were able to see 20 years into the future! 2. Hesitant to donate because you’re weary of malicious scams? While understandable you can still find established charities like the UNRWA to provide relief or if you truly can’t spare the money, look into the backgrounds of those funds to see where the money is going so you can include links in your bio or boost posts that have them listed. 3. Can’t attend a protest? No one said it was required. I don’t know why you’re letting the charged language of more vocal or active supporters have so much influence over you like this. Can you really not weed out the impassioned from the manipulative? And don’t delude yourself into thinking getting arrested would have any impact on your parents. You’re over 18. You’d be responsible for you.

Oh but wait! The protests you are involved in are coincidental! Well, that balances out!

…I’m being sarcastic by the way if you can’t tell.

Saying you unknowingly have been joining the boycotts cause you avoided Starbucks/Walmart/McDonald's up until recently? That doesn't count if you weren't aware of the movement when it started, so stop trying to score brownie points from your followers.

The simple truth is you didn't want to boost anything because it didn’t fit the aesthetic of your blog so don't come online claiming you can't make a decision. I've said it before and I'll say it again: You only recently reblogged that one post to try and save face. If you truly cared about this situation then your blog would reflect that fact.

And now the last paragraph in section three and the entirety of section four: That I ”misrepresented your posts" and your issues with how people write "censor tags."

If you’re concerned about people misinterpreting your posts, you need to consider reviewing what you wrote before it goes up. With how much you complain over the news, anyone who watches you would assume you were making more digs at Palestine. And when you add that to the passive-aggressive posts you’ve already made, it's not hard to draw certain conclusions.

“I was being vague for the purposes of letting anyone fit in whatever thing they’d find upsetting and needing to filter, and that was deliberately taken as me dismissing a very specific travesty.”

Yeah. No. That does not line up with the timeline of breaking news and when you posted.

“In my case, I often times forget entirely to clear out my filters when I’m in a mindset to not need them anymore.”

Then why are you getting angry at being, in your own words, “tragedy-jump scared” when you’re the one who took the filters off in the first place? Why are you upset other people are still talking about an ongoing situation they want to know about instead of hiding themselves to protect your sensitive soul? And that leads me into the second paragraph…

Your complaint about how people misspell tags to get past the censors.

…I’m going to give you a quick crash course in Internet History because you either don't seem to understand the why: People wouldn't need to change the spelling of those tags if it wasn't being seen as something to already censor. The reason that type of "misspelling" began was because POCs were being censored for talking about their trauma and personal experiences by non-POCs. They became uncomfortable with POCs talking about racism, rape, suicide, gun violence, police brutality, abuse, drugs, alcohol. The POCs used purposeful misspellings so they could stop being harassed by non-POCs for making them uncomfortable or getting their stuff taken down. But before long, this practice migrated outside of Tumblr and has now been adapted by people who did not understand the original origin and it snowballed from there.

People like you always cry about how you hate seeing certain topics brought up but then turn around to complain about misspelled tags and how it trivializes serious subjects. People like you create these conditions and then act clueless about why it so. And why? Because you try to push your boundaries on other people to change their behavior instead of taking yourself out of the environment causing you stress. THAT is what true boundaries are.

However, tag censorship is your own personal pet peeve to deal with and I've wasted too much time on this tangent. It is seriously so hard to stay on message when you go off random topics unconnected to the core issue. Can’t help but feel that’s intentional to obscure things. I guess it works for you though. If you can’t counter an argument, just wear the other person down into giving up. Brevity must not be a word you’re unfamiliar with.

Too bad for you I’m actually willing to pick your response apart sentence by sentence so let’s get to the conclusion which for some reason is the longest section! I’m going to be jumping around a lot. Try to keep up.

1. I said earlier that Palestinian news is being suppressed as hell online here in the West. Getting news straight from the source is very important in situations like this. Suppression of information is detrimental to us as a whole so if people need to circumvent mass media censorship to tell the world what's really going on, so be it. I will stand in support of them. That will always matter more to me than the whims of advertisers or the lobbyists who have these companies in their pockets. Or in this specific case, the emotions of one sad blogger. 2. Just as I have the right to this information, you too have the right to burrow your head in the sand and remain blissfully unaware. You're an adult. You have the power to just close a tab or block anyone you wish. You have a lot of tools to curate your feed but you can’t do that and it’s not because its everywhere you look. It’s because if you truly cut yourself off, you’d have nothing of substance to say…not that you had much substance to begin with. You need a reason to complain. It helps you feel self-important. 3. The fact that a huge portion of your response was tangents about tag censorship, using fandom as a platform for political discussion, and retroactively joining boycotts demonstrates that you can't even give Palestine the attention it deserves, miring the issue with personal anecdotes or mindless prattle.

To put it bluntly, you're not someone who can have a mature conversation with me.

“You carefully made sure there was no way I would find your blog and your targeted harassment under normal circumstances–even with that one instance of you commenting directly on my post that led to me blocking you.”

The reason for this is right there in your very own words. I confronted you outright rather than trying to hide in your DM’s and you instantly block evaded me to avoid any further conversation. I had to resort to these backward measures of archiving because you cut all communication instantly. How can any effective communication be had when the other person chooses to run away rather than address the issue?

“You’d tagged all of your posts with tags you either knew or suspected I would have filtered via vanilla Tumblr so that I could not see it while logged in even if I unblocked you or told Tumblr to show me your blog despite my block, or perhaps you blocked me on that blog and Tumblr finally fixed the issue of blocked users being able to view the blogs of those that blocked them.”

Considering your block/filter list probably goes into the hundreds? I’m not surprised you couldn’t find me initially. And by the way, you’re still not blocked on my blog. You’re welcome to respond at any time. And unlike you, I won’t try to hide.

“Hell, I only found out about this in the first place from a mere google fluke, trying to make sure my own inattentiveness on a completely unrelated issue didn’t lead to someone doing exactly what you’ve done on that issue and just so happening to be on an incognito window while doing so.”

Gotta say that’s a hell of a coincidence. Also gotta say I don’t believe it for one damn second.

As far as I've witnessed, you’re extremely reactionary and simply unable to tolerate it when you get called out so don't try to hold me to a standard you yourself don't follow. I've seen how you interact with people who challenge you or disagree with you, including going out of your way to pester folks in their online space to provoke a reaction before you block evade, and then congratulate yourself as if you outwitted them and laugh "haha another hater”. This has always been about your attitude and your ignorance on subjects you don’t truly understand, putting your personal spin on things because of your own internal biases.

You’ve stated in your response that I’m guilty of harassment and running a smear campaign. I have to ask: What harassment? Pointing out your hypocrisy is not harassment. Informing other people of your true nature is not harassment. I’ve never used slurs or insults based on your identity. I’ve never doxxed you. I’ve never threatened to physically hurt you. Not liking someone is not harassment no matter how much it hurts your feelings.

If this was an actual smear campaign, why is it everything I’ve linked back to your blog still the same as when I first took the screencaps? If you consider sourced words with proper links a "smear campaign" that tells me you’re actually very afraid everything you’ve ever said coming back to bite you in the ass. This isn’t cruelty as you described. It’s pointing out all the holes in your arguments and letting your followers decide if they want to follow someone with such a judgmental view of the world.

“You don’t intend to make the world a better place by doing this, not in the slightest. No, instead you’ve just berated the “snowflake trigglypuff” for trying to keep their “safe space” intact, while painting that sentiment in the language of the social justice warrior you believe yourself to be rather than that of the crazy altright loser I believe (or at least hope) you’d find as repulsive as I do so that no one would clue in that that is in fact what you were doing.”

You really are projecting a lot.

Saying I’m co-opting the language of a social justice warrior? Suggesting I’m alt-right? You’re grasping at straws more than a choking sea turtle.

And calling yourself a “snowflake trigglypuff” even in jest? Who still uses edgy SJW terminology like this anymore? I think this says more about who you are than anything it could about me. I don’t need to reduce myself to dated insults like those. I can come up with far more effective wording to describe how callously ignorant you are.

“Clearly someone who thinks it’s in any way appropriate to tell someone, and I’m quoting mostly from memory as it’s been months, “I’m sure all those dead kids are glad you’re protecting your mental health” has NO sense of shame whatsoever. If I were to stoop to your level, I’d tell you that those same dead kids are probably really proud of you for harassing someone who has, at worst, made some tactless statements out of frustration.”

You are right about one thing, however. Those same “dead kids” don’t care about your mental health or about me calling you out. But this isn’t about those “dead kids”. It's about their families and friends who may still be alive. It’s about the other children who have been lucky enough to not been slaughtered. It’s about people who will suffer generational trauma and PTSD for the rest of their lives. It’s about the same people who may end up dying by their own hands because they can’t live in pain any longer. They’re the ones I’m concerned about.

The dead don’t care. The living do. The opposite of caring is not hatred. It’s indifference. And that’s why I’m speaking out against people like you who take the suffering of others and make it their platform to soliloquy about their first world hardships. So, to borrow a very old Tumblr-ism, I would check your privilege.

“I don’t believe for a second that you actually give two shits about the plight of the Palestinian people beyond some vague sense of "clout.”

Clout? Seriously? If I was interested in immaterial nonsense like that, do you think I’d be posting on Tumblr exclusively where things like “clout” don’t matter to anyone? No. I would be posting this everywhere to reach more people. The reason it’s only on Tumblr is because it’s where you primarily spend your time. It’s the only place you can be reached, where you can’t ignore me.

“I looked at your blog, its layout themed around the symbols of Palestinian liberation, and as far as I can tell it’s all just window dressing.”

And your poetry and posts are just soapboxes for you to puff yourself up or use as “cudgels”, as you say, to pester people into reading stories about your fan-made Pokémon region. Yet you want to accuse me of clout-chasing and using dead kids to bully you? Yeah. Okay. /s

Do you truly believe I’m doing this for attention? For some imaginary internet points to “win”? Win what exactly? What game do you believe we’re playing? There are no winners, only one loser talking out their ass.

Oh and as for this?

“Hell, with the vindictive nature of your blog, you’d think you'd’ve even had posts targeting other peoples who are at best trying to get on with their lives through the 24-hour news cycle of death and destruction or at worst actively supporting the deaths of innocents. (I still wouldn’t encourage such things, but it’d at least make sense given your general vibe).”

There’s nothing vindictive about cataloging these posts and making sure you can’t hide your judgmental nature behind that paper thin veneer of wholesomeness you try to fool people with. The reason I called you out specifically is because you’re a two-faced jackal. That’s the true core of my dislike of you: Presenting an image of niceness while hiding the vileness behind fluffy words and emotionally manipulative language to make people feel sorry for you.

You're not someone to support as an artist. Frankly, you're not a wholesome person either. You're judgmental, emotionally immature, and have a lot of issues, issues you couldn't even pay me to address. I don’t know what you need but it’s something well above my pay grade to diagnose.

And finally we’re going to close this disaster out by talking about your suspicions of my identity. I’m going to summarize because a lot of it is repetitive from earlier points or in the section itself.

You’ve identified me as “H” and for a short while believed I was someone called “A”. You believed that “A” was upset by you and took their frustration out on you, leading you to unfollow “A”. You later realized that wasn’t the case and are now referring to me as “H” (for Harasser). Clever.

I'm not “A” or “H” or any other letter of the alphabet. You’re just upset you don't know how else to address me because I’m smart enough to not leave so much of my personal details online. Whatever happened 4 years ago with whoever? That's not me. Try and not be so quick to assume before you start pointing fingers. You make yourself look paranoid. If you’ve got beef with other people, make sure you're addressing the right person at the least.

I already said multiple times I was a follower of yours and only called you out about the Palestinian stuff because I was appalled that someone I once saw as a good kind person morphed into a self-centered jackass who had no problem using a tragedy as a means to emotionally manipulate people into paying attention to them. If you don't believe me, that's on you. But if anyone uses this genocide as bait for their own little pity party, I'm not afraid to draw attention to it. And since you claimed to have known about the Palestinians for more than 20+ years, I’m holding you even more accountable to get it right and act gracefully.

“Maybe you’ve gone after more than just them, but these are the two I know of for certain. M told me directly, and I saw C’s post about getting an anon “warning” her about someone with an “anti-religion agenda”, and because I’m not a complete moron I could put two and two together because that’s the kind of bullshit religious people spread about atheists all the damn time.”

The only person talking about religion here is you. What I’m doing is pointing out how your animosity towards religion has given you a bias towards the Israel vs Palestine situation because you can’t see past the faith of people in that region. I merely pointed out your concerning behavior to your mutuals because “M” and “C” have the right to know your true character. Friends should not be complicit when one of them is acting poorly.

“Like I’ve said numerous times, I’d take a dozen progressive theists over one asshole atheist.”

Those same progressive theists? They want nothing to do with you. Not even other atheists would want you. You are the asshole atheist in this scenario because you are incapable of thinking critically and simply write off the whole genocide as religious zealots fighting over the Holy Land because God told them to. It always comes back to this. You keep making the genocide about martyrdom so it's easier to maintain your hatred of all things religion. “But you are no hero, nor am I a villain, and I would not be so gauche as to claim the reverse is true either. We’re just a couple of randos on the internet, one who has an unhealthy level of vitriol toward the until-recently clueless other.”

And finally, we come to the point where you try to appeal to my sense of empathy by a generic “we’re all people at the end of the day” sentimentality, going even so far as to say that you’d never claim I was the villain. You’re not going to placate me this way. Stop trying to minimize your actions and act like they are inconsequential. They’re the earmarks of a person with poor morale character. You asked what I hope to gain from doing this?

I want you to drop this façade and either do better or start being honest. You’re full of false sincerity and niceness, pretending to be the bigger person while also muttering your petty disdain for people who don’t think like you, like what you like, or share your exact beliefs. You hide it subtly in the way you write. You think you’re above reproach. You’re the judgmental rotten soul you see in everyone else.

The only reason you'll end up as a "Persona non grata" is because how you present yourself online will eventually catch up with you. At some point, everyone will grow tired of watching you spinning your wheels and gaining no traction anywhere. They will move on to something that's actually worth their time. But until then I will continue to warn others about you and show them your true personality. Take the advice you gave me: Fix yourself and do better or disappear into irrelevance and be forgotten.

PS:

“Whatever your goal was with that, it was your final mistake, because now I know exactly who you are.”

Your threat has no teeth. If you really knew who I was, you’d name me or you'd at least open up a conversation with me. But you won’t. You never will. You’ll continue to cower away while putting on a mask of confidence and arrogance, thinking you outsmarted me until the only one applauding you is yourself.

#puppyluver256 #do not support this artist #palestine

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asc27 · 2 years ago

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koraki-grimoire · 3 years ago

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Witchcraft in Hellenismos

Disclaimer: This post is non-exhaustive, and though I'll try to equally spread my focus, it will inevitably lean towards the kinds of magik I personally practice.

Often, in modern pagan circles, people are under the impression that Ancient Hellenismos either didn't have or despised witchcraft. This is largely from three causes. The first is simply misreading, or failing to come across witchcraft in the Hellenism they research. Second is only reading about or adhering to branches that didn't like witchcraft (usually due to it being perceived as hubristic) and therefore assuming that's the most popular opinion. Finally, sometimes people apply their assumptions based on Christian and Germanic culture to Hellenismos, and assume it carries the same attitudes.

In actuality, the view of witchcraft was historically more neutral. Witches weren't typically seen as hags, but maidens, respectable men, priests, and more. It should also be noted that, frankly, "witch" is a slightly tonally incorrect translation usually applied to the word "pharmakis."

For historical attitudes towards witches, we can read works surrounding mainly Medea and Kirke, as well as Hekate if we go past pharmakeia.

But pharmakeia and nekromankia (necromancy) are far from the only forms of witchcraft or magik--which in Ancient Greek would be "mageia" or "goeteia" depending on time and place, but will simply be called "magik" here.

So, with that very long introduction, let's get into types of magik.

Pharmakeia - Herbal Sorcery, Witchcraft

Pharmakeia is perhaps the most recognizable form of magik in historical Hellenismos. As mentioned, it was associated with the heroine Medea, as well as the goddess/nymph/hero (it's complicated) Kirke. This was magik performed using the aid of herbs, and both historically and now blends magik and science. It includes brewing poisons, casting curses, potionmaking, transmutation, and more. Kirke, famously, used pharmakeia to transform men into swine, whereas Medea tended towards poisoning, but both had variety in their craft.

Generally, when pharmakeia is translated, it's done very broadly compared to other kinds of magik. For example, pharmakeia is usually translated, especially in the Odyssey, to "witchcraft" or "sorcery." Pharmakis--the word for a practitioner of pharmakeia--is usually translated to "witch." This often leads to misconceptions of witchcraft in Hellenismos being specifically oriented around herbs and transmutation, when that's only a small piece of the picture.

Nekromankia/Nekromanteia - Necromancy

Nekromankia is far more famous now in its Anglicized pop-culture form, but it was most certainly present in Hellenismos. It's important to clarify that in Ancient Hellas, nekromankia was magik pertaining to the dead, not things such as zombies and raising the dead. In Hellenismos, the maintenance of good relationships between the dead and the living is of great importance. There were plenty of festivals devoted to placating and celebrating the dead--not to mention the monthly Attic holiday Hekate's Deipnon, devoted to honoring Hekate, goddess of nekromankia. So, unsurprisingly, there were witches who gravitated towards this as a craft.

Multiple Hellenic deities were associated with nekromankia, the most notable of which being Hekate, but also Persephone. Though, of course, any khthonic deity--especially khthonic theoi who also had non-khthonic aspects--were relevant, such as Haides or Hermes. A practitioner of nekromankia would be referred to as a nekromanteías.

Manteia - Divination, Oracles

It should be noted that manteia is heavily contested as being a form of witchcraft or even magik in Hellenismos, but it certainly meets the qualifications. The main reason this debate exists is controversy around magik in Hellenismos in general, since as most Hellenists know manteia is so central to so much of our religion, and those who dislike magik are insulted by it being considered that. Additionally, the definition of magik is constantly in flux--it's debated in modern magik circles, and it's even harder to apply a definition we can hardly agree on to an ancient culture with its own independent definitions.

Manteia is, most simply, the power to give prophecies, divination, and the use of oracles. It's the power of the Pythia (Delphic Oracle), it's in the Olympian Alphabet Oracle, it's every single seer and prophecy and divinatory method known to us.

Someone who practices manteia is called a mantis (usually translated as "soothsayer" or "diviner") or a khresmologos ("oracle"), depending on station.

Heliomanteia - Solar Magik

Heliomanteia is hard to find detailed historical information on, but most simply, it's magikal invocation of the sun. This is generally done by attempting to harness the power of the sun, or by requesting the aid of solar deities (namely, Helios).

Interestingly, Helios had many associations with witchcraft and warding off evil. It could be assumed that, due to the qualities attributed to Helios, heliomanteia would be best used to reveal truth, ward off evil, harness the power of fire, promote life, and similar.

Presumably, a practitioner of heliomanteia is a heliomantis.

Goeteia - Magik, Charms

Goeteia (in modern times "goetia") is a term for magik that fell out of style for general magik around the 5th century BC in favor of mageia. It, additionally, was shoehorned into a dichotomy of theurgy (divine, "professional," and virtuous magik) and goeteia (low, malicious, and fraudulent magik). This was largely due to political and social overhaul. The name became associated with fraudulent and harmful magik, and talk of goeteia in Ancient Hellas is a major source most anti-witch Hellenists use.

The goes (practitioner of goetia) was maligned, seen as hubristic and either trying to go against the power of the gods or intending to scam others. Plato famously portrayed them as malicious frauds, and he was not alone. Since the term "goes" is generally translated as "witch," it's not a leap to figure out why this lead to a lot of anti-witch Hellenists.

However, before this (and technically after), "goeteia" simply meant magic, charms, and similar. As a unique practice, and not simply an umbrella term for witchcraft, it can be considered channeling, a relative of nekromankia, or baneful magik, depending how much one leans into the later definition.

Theourgía - Deity Work, Divine Magik

Theourgia (in modern times "theurgy") quite literally translates to "deity work" or "god(s) working." It is ritual, sometimes magik, done with the intent of invoking one or more of the theoi. This was the ritual magik often performed by priests. In fact, it could be considered the mainstream magik of Ancient Hellas--assuming, of course, that one considers it magik.

It's not only historic magik that was central to the religion, but sets historical precedent for the controversial phrase "deity work." The existence of theurgy as the "higher form" of magik in Ancient Hellas is singlehandedly enough evidence to prove the phrase is not and would not be considered inherently hubristic. It should be noted that this form isn't inherently superior, but if you asked Plato, he would disagree.

There are certainly more forms of mageia in Ancient Hellas--For example, I skipped over amulets (periapta), which were almost incontestably the most common magik in a lot of Ancient Hellas, since they could technically fit under some other crafts and because they're the easiest to research on your own. It's a similar case with potions, too.

One important takeaway is the hard line between magik, religion, and science is a fairly recent invention. Pharmakeia could act as medicine, not just sorcery. Many potions were also medication. Frankly, the more women were involved, the more practical it tended to be, with 'spells' often being genuine aids to childbirth and/or birth control. This didn't make them any less magikal, and the magik doesn't make it less real.

And I hope I made it very, very clear, but witchcraft has always been in Hellenismos, and isn't inherently hubristic. That is a myth, and is rooted often in historical (and modern) classism, misogyny, xenophobia, or similar. Always consider your source's incentive to stigmatize before discounting all Hellenic witches.

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hatchetfieldtheories · 3 years ago

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Timelines, PEIP and Spiders. Oh my!

Ok, @blueskiesandstarrynights - as I said, its not the most well thought out theory, just something sat at the back of my head but let's see if I can make it make sense.

So, as we now know, its now confirmed that we're dealing with split timelines rather than time loops. Which is awesome. But the question is how it was split.

There are a number of possibilities as to the cause, the main two talked about being:

1 - PEIPs portal

2 - Hannah's birth

These are raised most often as we learnt in Time Bastard that the timelines split after the point Ted goes back in time to (2004) - as this is the only way he can be Homeless Guy in every timeline. Both events above happen in 2005. So would fit the required time slot.

However, I propose an alternative:

Both events are involved in the split - and Webby had a helping hand.

The Web I Spin

In NMT1, Webby gets an epic song in the form of The Web I Spin For You, however as well as being a bop, it also contains some interesting points, namely:

What’s the point of giving love and trust for

I thought it something that was worth the fight for

And now I wonder what I worked so hard for

I even thought that I could give my life for you

Webby was working towards something with someone, who stabbed her in the back.

Additionally while we know the timelines are split, in my head they are split in a very particular way. Threads of each stemming into each other. Certain events being constant through the streams (such as Jane's death). Certain themes interlinking over more than one timeline (Paul and Emma).

Timelines weaving.

Like a web.

Now, I want to make clear, I am 100% behind the Hatchetfield timeline created by @abiimaryy : x

I am definitely not disputing it and its the thing I fall back on when trying to put certain events in order. But what I am saying is I see that timeline a bit more like this:

Bear in mind this is an old pic from mid-NMT1 but the gist is still relevant.

I think this is the web Webby has spun.

Ok, but what about PEIP?

So how do PEIP fit in?

We see throughout the Hatchetfield shows that its not easy for a LiB to physically leave the Black and White. Wiggly needs a portal. Nibbly has a whole ritual. Blinky has a mascot at Watcher World. Tinky's form is of a man in a naff onesie. And Pokey has to send his Ivan Ooze goo down in a meteor.

So I would imagine when they saw PEIP trying to build a Portal they were thrilled. And wanted to make sure it was a success. So Webby helped make sure it was successful somehow. She was able to ensure the portal succeeded, maybe with the help of a human with powers, who could hear her.

But then Wilbur appeared in the Black and White, and it became clear that the LiB had plans for humanity. So Webby spun her web. Fractured and spun the timelines so that whatever they did didn't cause the de facto end of humanity.

The web I spin for you

Got you in the spell I cast,

The iris of my eye is black,

If I’ma trust I’m gonna trust in me

You may have taught me but I’m now learning

All this time I’ve been untangling

In 2005, she fractured the timelines to stop her brothers, and now she is working to stop them bit by bit. Eventually untangling her web and restoring a single timeline without their influence.

And Hannah?

If Hannah was born in Hatchetfield at the time of the timelines being split, its more than reasonable to assume she can see all the timelines because part of her is in each one too. She's intrinsically tied to the split, maybe as an accident. Maybe on purpose. I don't know.

But I imagine if that's the case, she's going to be important should the timelines ever converge at any point.

#starkid #team starkid #nightmare time #nmt2 #hatchetfield #hatchetfield theory #hatchetfield theories

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penname-artist · 2 years ago

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Autumn Blues

Author’s Note: You know it’s gonna be a long discussion when I have to open a Google Document around it…[also: this was planned ahead of time for after my surgery. Wanted to make sure I was alive and all. Which I am, though I now have a mouth full of holes and blood. Good times.]

In summary, this post is another personal one, and I likely won't be doing so again very much, if at all, until October. There's several reasons why, but it's mostly for my health. I also want to address something about unfollowing and/or blocking some people, which is relevant to said health.

In case you find you've been unfollowed, or in a single case, blocked, please do not take them personally. These have nothing to do with the individuals; I have not been wronged, I was not offended, there was no personal reason towards any other person that is the cause of these things. I have finally come to the decision, after almost a year of push-and-pull attempts, to cut out military/navy/air force topics from my dash and from several areas of my life. They've been collective semi-tolerable triggers for a long time now, and though I have been trying to overcome it with exposure and engagement, it has reached my capacity of tolerance, and I really do not have the mental strength to risk it anymore. I do admire and respect my mutuals that post on these areas, as they all have amazing content and they're wonderful people. But for the sake of my well-being, I need to walk away from this area. This is also why I’ve officially added these topics into my Discord carrd under a list of potential triggers, as while tolerable, they can easily capsize.

I still intend to post the occasional Kittyhawk or Flysenhower bit, but only to minimal, controllable amounts. There are simply too many unwanted memories surrounding the fandom circles of those characters for me to apply myself too much to them. My enjoyment of the characters are for almost entirely different reasons than most, and so any future posts of or around them will mostly only apply to that aspect of it. I like them for me, not for the sake of anyone else, and I need to stop convincing myself that those are the same things. Easier said than done of course, but it's a process, not an event. I spent too long convincing myself to enjoy something for the sake of other people, and now I'm un-convincing myself of that.

The reason for my extended hiatus is partially because of this, but additionally for the reason that I desperately need to recollect myself after this massive burnout. The transitional weeks between July and August were so hard on me in so many ways that I dropped writing and art almost entirely for a good bit. When your natural instinct is to doodle and drabble daily, that's a scary thing to realize.

I'm really trying to come to grips with my own abilities right now, my limitations, and how to still be productive with these limitations. People in person have been clawing at me for commission work, and I barely managed halfway through the last one before giving up on the time constraints and cutting my estimated pay in half to compensate. Commissions are not something I can feasibly do, even lightly, let alone as a main source of income. As well, my requests, gifts, and personal projects have all been collectively piling up, and the paper tower of those ideas has fallen down as a result. It's a mess.

The time I'm taking off is to rest and reorganize the mess, hopefully with finished projects I can check off the list finally. As bad as I feel for taking such a long break amidst an incomplete and long overdue major collaboration, I NEED to take this time off if I have any hope of even finishing it. And I need to continue making personal adjustments and filters to my feed, lest the precious bits of creative energy I have left be drained faster than they should be.

I am - again - stupidly grateful for all of my friends and people who have my back in this admittedly terrifying change. Shu, Mac, Dusty, Storm, other Storm (yeah there's two lol), Bobbly, Rotor, Jackal, all of the rest of the Volo Pro Veritas cult, my social media mutuals and friends, and anyone else who has reached out. It's really scary, admitting that I am not as strong as I once was, that my trauma has put limitations on me, even in the places where I feel safest and most at home. But no one else is or has ever been obligated to take care of me; that's my job. And I've really been needing to clean the junk out of these corners of my brain.

If you were able to make it down this far, thank you again so much for the bit of support in this effort. I'm not down for the count just yet, so long as I'm still breathing I'll find a way to do what I love. Even if that means scaling back a little bit.

Got ideas and plans for future projects, but not leaving any details here. They'll get done when they get done, and I'm very excited to show you all the finished products. Here's to the morrow, fans and freaks. Take care of yourselves, and I'll see you on the other side.

-Pen

#updates #personal update

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skeletonnextdoor · 2 years ago

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Harmony Journal Day 1

The Curse of the Black Sun is upon us. But with it came a long awaited Harmony buff. As an enthusiastic ST player, I jumped onto the chance to try out this archetype once more. My deck looks as follows:

(image from: https://www.playgwent.com/en/decks/a95dea67c7fd6d1e5a4708c413fd025c) The match history is as follows:

(The last one was also a W, Source: playgwent.com - match history)

Small Guide: The biggest advantage I’ve noticed in this deck is how easy it is to pilot. You only have a limited amount of control cards in your deck, everything else is Harmony or triggers Harmony. What I usually like to do is: R1 - Play Fauve -> Waters of Brokilon and then Percival. That is usually enough to make a strong enough base for R1. I often just jam out my other harmony cards and hope my opponent can’t outpoint/outcontrol me. Winning R1 usually isn’t too difficult with this strategy. R2 - I like to either dry pass or use this round to get rid of duplicates from my hand so I bleed my opponent a bit. Depending on what I think is more viable in the match. R3 - I pray to have the scenario on my hand, insta-trigger it with Leader to get some real tempo going. Then I just proceed as I do in R1, first all Harmony units, then unique categories. Of course, the last card I like to drop is Dusk-aspect Guardian.

Individual Cards: Chameleon is really nice for triggering Harmony constantly. Even twice (or thrice!) per turn. You just have to be careful and read its infused tag so you don’t brick your categories in hand. Heatwave is just a nice card to have when we’ll get overrun with Scenarios this season. It also helps with getting rid of stuff like Cahir, Brouver, Kelly, etc. Cards that can really wreck your deck. Serpent Trap can also do the trick for the latter cards if your opponent plays them first. Teleportation is great for moments when you have a lot of duplicate units in your deck so that you don’t brick your mulligan. You lose some points, but get a guaranteed Harmony trigger most of the time, as well as a potential Armor reset for your Dwarf.

Strengths:

Consistency is surprisingly not a problem. Call of the Forest helps a lot with getting specific units, like Guardian or Percival. The Scenario I’ve also never had a problem drawing. I think you don’t have a need to run more tutors, because your cards are mostly there to trigger Harmony, for which only their unique category is relevant.

It is hard to contain this deck with damage alone. Even against Pirates I have managed to pull through and keep most of my cards, while also buffing others. You counteract a lot of damage control simply by triggering Harmony.

The control cards in this deck are usually unexpected and serve as a nice surprise tool to counter cards that could break your entire strategy. Often enough, your opponent simply won’t expect so much removal from a Harmony deck, especially in the form of banishment and a trap.

Simplicity is also a feature of this deck. You usually don’t have to think hard about your opponent’s interactions, since you’re playing very solitaire-esque. You grow and hope you outpoint your opponent. Therefore the ball is in your rival’s court and you need to be contained.

Weaknesses:

You get easily outpointed by greedier decks, such as Fleder spam. It is hard to defend against these, since you usually need to remove more than just one card. Additionally, limited removal options lead to problematic situations such as an untouched Cahir, which loses you the game.

A lack of purification makes defenders as well as locks and poisons incredibly lethal against this deck. If your opponent is playing such control, you are in for a hard time.

Yrden

All in all, Harmony is an amusing revival of a fun archetype. Yes, it is very much a solitaire deck, but you can spice it up with some interactivity. Complete changelog here

#gwent #harmony #scoia'tael #ST #Deck Diary #the witcher #witcher #deck guide #deck building

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sixth-light · 3 years ago

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I have come to the disappointing conclusion, as someone who backed the Kickstarter and who has listened to/watched the Briarwood arc multiple times, that The Legend of Vox Machina is going to be a show I experience through gifsets for maximum enjoyment. Which is kind of a bummer, and I want to work through why that is, exactly, for my own peace of mind. (This is not intended as a declaration about the show's objective quality and it isn't in the relevant tags for that reason. Rest assured there are no plot spoilers below for the first three episodes, which is where I tapped out.)

First off, stuff I did like: the animation and character design is all absolutely fine, I have zero problems with the CGI dragon, and there's a lot of little vignette moments that I enjoyed a lot (the guards and Trinket, Matt's coat-check character). I also thought the fights/use of spells and checks was translated pretty thoughtfully to a narrative story, esp one where they presumably couldn’t use trademarked D&D things.

On the level of things that simply are not to my personal taste: the regular hyperviolence and heavy reliance on jokes where the punchline is that a subject or act is taboo (e.g. Scanlan peeing on someone, most of the sex jokes, 'ball tag'), plus the equally heavy use in the episodes I watched of cringe/'fish out of water' humour. I am fully aware all of these things were a part of the original show; they were just a much less concentrated part of it. Some of the material also lands differently for me in a visual medium than in theatre of the mind, particularly the violence.

It also makes a huge difference to me when these kinds of jokes or scenes are being told by people I am watching play roles, for each other's amusement, vs by characters in a fully fictionalised story. A lot of Sam's Scanlan stuff I never liked but clearly the other players did, and that smoothed it out. It doesn't get that smoothing in an animated show. Same with all the bits where VM are completely failing to read the room/act like adults - in Critical Role you can see Matt enjoying it. In TLoVM, absent that context and with characters in-story disapproving/annoyed, it comes across as much more puerile. To a degree I think it flattens out the characters too, because they ARE pretty broad stereotypes and when you’re not seeing the actors construct them, it’s less obviously a Choice to make them that way, and at least for me it renders them less interesting. Biggest case in point: Grog.

(Additionally, my golden rule is Some Of These People Have To Like Each Other and three episodes in, I don't believe ANY of these people like each other, aside from Vax and Vex I guess. And they did at this point in the original work!!!)

On the level of things I think there's an objective argument could have been done better...the pacing, oh MAN, the pacing. This is a fanservice show first and foremost, and it means they're trying to introduce fourteen named, important, recurring characters as well as cram in a bunch of in-jokes. In three 22-minutes episodes. There isn't time and it means the action frequently pauses for funny 'bits' which don't contribute to the overall plot, and character arcs are...not really visible. I think the only way it could have been less disjoined is if they had bitten the bullet and picked a couple of members of the cast to focus on as leads, and gradually built up the others. And killed some of their darlings in terms of funny one-off scenes. I also understand that they're apparently having Pike leave the same way Ashley did in CR even though obviously that constraint does not exist here, and like - this is completely inexplicable to me. How hard would it be to write around her presence??? Not that hard!

There's also a defensible though likely not universally accepted argument that because they're leaning so much on a fairly crude form of comedy while trying to tell a very serious story, it's tonally incongruent in a way that works better in improv than in a traditional narrative.

All up I feel like, if this story was going to exist as a coherent narrative that would attract non-CR watchers, it needed to be worked up by people who were familiar with the genre but NOT big fans of CR. Instead what's been made is a show that is aimed at people who are intensely familiar with the source material and have a particular view on which parts of it make it great, i.e., the parts I liked least.

Which, again. This was a fan-funded project originally, there's some logic to this. And I will freely admit that if the bits that hit my personal buttons were toned down, I'd probably be a lot more forgiving about the writing.

But it turns out that when it comes to adaptations, especially when I think about my reaction to WoT, or how I feel about comics!TOG vs TOG-the-movie...I'm not actually very interested in one-to-one adaptations or adaptations that largely exist to create visual representations of an original text. I want to see adaptations that stand alone as coherent stories within the confines of their new medium. So, for example, this REALLY changes my expectations about what I might enjoy in, e.g., a Rivers of London tv show if one ever happens. TBF that's a bit different in that the original author started as a scriptwriter, but still; I think I'd actually want to see a lot more change than I've discussed in the past. This goes all the way back to LoTR twenty years ago, so it’s pretty clearly now a part of How I Enjoy Stories.

Anyway, like I said: clearly TLoVM is working out for a lot of people, good for them, I'm going to stick to gifsets or maybe curated highlights when the first season is done. The bits I like don't outweigh the bits I don't like and sometimes that's how it goes.

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the-insomniac-emporium · 4 years ago

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Dimitrescu Daughter HCs

I thought this would only take a few minutes. I was so, so very wrong. Anyway, some of these are somewhat exclusive to my fic (Serenade), but they’ll make sense even if you haven’t read that.

Daniela:

Others have already talked about how Daniela reads a ton of romance novels, so I’m not really going to go into that very much, just saying that I agree 100%, I mean c’mon, it’s practically canon.

While she mainly sources books from her family’s library, there are a few she’s “acquired” over the years that she keeps locked away in her room. These tend to be a bit, ahem, steamier than her mother would approve of/let her read under normal circumstances.

How did she get these? Well, there has to be someone who delivers goods to Castle Dimitrescu (Duke, perhaps?), seeing as the Maidens need, like, actual food to survive. Sometimes Daniela manages to convince them to order books for her, usually just asking for books by authors she likes, or ones she’s heard maidens whispering about.

No, the delivery person does not read the book’s summaries or reviews, they have a feeling (based on titles and covers alone) that they don’t want to know.

As for her experiences with actual romance… she’s so very, very excited about it, all the time. Wants to kiss every cute Maiden she sees, and sometimes daydreams about a beautiful woman fleeing from lycans who comes to the castle for shelter, clinging to Dani for warmth and protection, and it’s love at first sight, and they kiss and kiss and right as it gets to the good part-! Someone interrupts her daydream (usually Cassandra).

However, her actual experiences are fairly limited. Sure, she has kissed Maidens, but she tends to get over excited. Like in Serenade, she starts to rush the process, and usually ends up draining her “lover” aka victim before anything more intimate happens.

She’s definitely done sexual things, just, well, not with other people. Private things. Usually during or after reading one of her special books. You get the picture.

Because of this, and her aforementioned love of romance novels, Daniela has become somewhat obsessed with the idea of her first time. She wants everything to be perfect. The setting, the timing, who she’s with… Hence her reaction in chapter 3 of Serenade. It’s not that she didn’t want to continue, just that the circumstances didn’t feel right. She’s very particular!

Favorite Music Genre: Girl goes wild for an emotional, gut-wrenching love/power ballad. The type to lie in bed and cry while listening to Hozier or Lorde (not that she can hear either of them, considering her limited music options). Doesn’t admit it, though, and mostly listens to indie pop when other people can hear. That and whatever the Maiden plays on piano ;)

Okay it feels weird to joke about her loving music I wrote, anywayyyy

Hobbies: Other than reading there’s not too much I can see her doing, really. She’d be sure to get into anything that her s/o enjoys, though, even if it’s something difficult or time-consuming. Writing is something she’d love, but it’s difficult for her to keep her focus on just one project at a time. Ideally she’d write short stories, romantic ones obvs, and have someone else proofread/edit them. For the most part she’d write within fantasy and historical setting (seeing as she’s got experience in both of those departments).

ADHD, BABY. Bigtime, seriously. Maybe this is just my adhd ass projecting, but I can’t not see her as having it. For her it mainly manifests with hyper-focusing/difficulty staying on task. It’s like a switch with those on either end, flipping back and forth every once in a while. She can spend six hours reading two different books in one sitting, but if someone just breathes too loudly it disrupts her completely. Because of this she’s somewhat prone to abandoning projects. It’s a sore subject for her, and her sisters are aware, normally only bringing it up if they’re really angry with her.

Opinions on the four lords: Thinks Heisenberg is a tool (pun intended), also thinks that he secretly reads super erotic novels. She doesn’t have any proof, though, and would never say anything about it out loud. Just makes fun of him in her head. Doesn’t actually judge him for what she thinks he reads, just judges his personality and the “need he feels to hide his secret”. Loves Donna, and low-key thinks she’s attractive. Daniela mostly bases that off the portrait she’s seen, but, like many fans, also thinks the hands are nice. The puppets don’t bother her, though she also doesn’t really care about them, other than thinking that Donna interacting with them is cute.

Opinions continued: Moreau is… uh… fish boy. Daniela thinks he’s weird, kinda gross, and hardly considers him a “real” lord. Poor boy :( At least she doesn’t actively make fun of him?... Even if that’s only because she kinda forgets about him most of the time. As for Lady Dimitrescu, well, obviously Daniela loves her mom. The whole family is very close, and as the “youngest”, Daniela gets a lot of attention. Sometimes she thinks her mother is too strict, but at the end of the day there’s no love lost.

Bela:

Cleans up after her sisters a lot, but still nowhere near as much as any of the Maidens do. Often agrees to help with messes in exchange for blackmail material. “Oh, Daniela, what a shame you broke mother’s favorite dish… I could help, but you owe me one.” At the end of the day, though, there’s plenty she would slide.

Being the “oldest”, she’s expected to behave the best, and often feels more restricted than her sisters. Being an example is hard! Occasionally she’ll have the impulse to rebel, but this usually only manifests in scenarios like the one mentioned above, aka she’ll simply be more lenient of her siblings for a bit.

Overall far less sadistic than her sisters. Cares more about the quality of pain then the amount of it. Only ever goes overboard if someone full out threatens or hurts her family. Insults towards them still earn her ire, and will get her to punish someone, but it’s not enough to make her resort to torture. Usually.

Gets the most restless out of the three. As cool (and large) as the castle is, it’s all she’s ever really known. If not for her weakness to cold, she’d go out on hikes a lot. Nature interests her, fascinates her, but she’d be a little less fond of most of it in person. Like, oh, waterfalls sound so cool, followed by a hundred complaints about the noise. Thinks deer are the cutest shit ever (second only to humans, maybe).

Unlike Daniela (though that HC is relevant almost exclusively to Serenade), Bela has actually slept with a Maiden before. She doesn’t really care for them enough to consider it a relationship, instead admiring them for their entertainment value. Definitely could fall for a Maiden, simply hasn’t yet. Of the three I feel like she takes the longest to fall in love, and even longer to actually act on her feelings. Sometimes resents her siblings because they unknowingly “claimed” a Maiden that she was starting to be interested in. However, she fully acknowledges that she should have said something if she didn’t want to lose the girl, considering the situation they live in.

Favorite music genre: Classical, full orchestra style, with a soft spot for swing/jazz. Enjoys having music play softly while she reads, and is very particular about the volume. Absolutely would argue with her sisters if they tried to change the music or turn it up.

Hobbies: Reading, duh. Less interested in romance than Daniela by a considerable amount. For the most part she reads non-fiction books, enjoying learning about history and the sciences. Astronomy is at the top of her favorites list, followed by biology, then obscure (and often bloody) pieces of history. Niche=perfect. Also enjoys music, even if she had to rely mostly on self-teaching books. Knows the basics of piano, but doesn’t actively play, much preferring both the violin and harp. Most of the time she’ll only play if she knows her sisters won’t bother her, or if her mother asks her to.

Opinions on the four lords: Admires Heisenberg’s work/his edgenuity, but thinks the actual man is a temperamental child… who smells like wet dog. He’s only been at Castle Dimitrescu a couple times (per Mother Miranda’s request), and both times Bela moved to the other side of the house so she wouldn’t have to acknowledge his existence. While she would never admit it, she’s low-key creeped out by Donna’s dolls, and really only tolerates Angie. However, she would never act on her nerves, out of consideration for Donna’s feelings. She knows that her mother gets along well with the dollmaker, and keeps this at the forefront of her mind.

Opinions continued: “Moreau who? Oh, the fish guy? He’s still alive?... Good for him.” Wants to make Lady Dimitrescu proud, but not as desperately as Cassandra. Unknowingly mimics a lot of her mother’s little habits and ticks, and would be quietly embarrassed if someone pointed it out to her. As mentioned previously, she feels like she has to be an example for the others, and somewhat resents the pressure this puts on her. On the other hand, she does enjoy being “responsible for” (read: in charge of) her sisters. Additionally, she is the most likely to get away with lying to Alcina, though she does not often do so. This isn’t because she’s the most manipulative (that’s Cass), or the best liar (that’s Dani, if she’s trying), but simply because Alcina doesn’t think her oldest daughter would lie. Even if she doubts something Bela says, she’ll usually give her the benefit of the doubt… as long as it doesn’t happen very often.

Cassandra:

Sleeps the most of the three, if only because she’s the most active of them. Not as fast as the others while in swarm mode, but the fastest on foot, partially because she’s more likely to simply walk places. She knows the sound of feet on the floor scares the Maidens, and she drinks their fear with utter pleasure. Additionally she claims that it just feels nice to “stretch her legs”. But she will not hesitate to enter swarm mode when chasing someone. As fun as it is to smell their fear, she can get impatient, wanting to get close and personal to her target.

Tends to hide most of her feelings, sometimes even opting to “convert” them into anger. In other words, think of her emotional state as an ever-filling bottle of water. As things happen, she feels emotions, and the rate at which water pours into the bottle increases. Ideally if the water level started getting too high, she would address whatever is increasing the flow of water. Instead of that, she often uses anger, which is equivalent to shaking the bottle a bit and letting water messily spill out of it. Doesn’t address the actual problem, but let’s her release some pressure/free up some room.

Goes through Maidens faster than her siblings (yes, even Daniela “draining you of blood is romantic” Dimitrescu). Not all of them even die in the basement, sometimes what was supposed to be a “warning” turns into “oh shit the blood won’t stop coming out, this is how I die, in this accursed castle, no friends or family to mourn me, just the painful knowledge that I will not be the last, I will die for no cause, no glory, just the bitter whims of a blood-soaked mistress” or something along those lines.

While more likely to get attached to someone than Bela, Cassandra isn’t one to do much about it. She might flirt, might even try to kiss (or, uh, kiss while also not wearing clothes wink wink), but she won’t (usually) claim someone as her own, or protest if one of her sisters wants to have some fun with them (even if it’s the bloody kind of fun). Technically gets over breakups and “breakups” (i.e. death) easier than either of her sisters. To be fully accurate, Daniela still goes through lovers faster, but she also remembers them and cares for them for longer post-breakup.

Somewhat of a blood kink. Like, more than vampires automatically have. In intimate settings she cares more about the quantity of blood and what she can do with it (loves bloodstains) than what causes the bloodshed.

Favorite music genre: Rock ‘n roll. Leans towards older stuff, as well as heavier songs. Soft spot for symphonic metal, but doesn’t admit it out of the fear that some might consider it a “weaker form” of the genre. Almost exclusively listens to bands that have female vocalists, and gets crushes on them more than she’d ever admit.

Hobbies: Art! Painting, mostly, but dabbles in sculpture from time to time. It’s been too long since I took an art class for me to suggest a style for her paintings, but I imagine her sculptures would be somewhat abstract. Her art would revolve around emotion, the stronger and rawer the better, with viewers often being left uncomfortable. While Alcina buys plenty of art supplies for her, Cassandra is fond of improvising, especially by creating her own “tools” (of questionable efficiency) out of items she has laying around. She is absolutely the one who took her mother’s lipstick. If you don’t know what that means, don’t worry, it’s just mentioned in one of the RE8 notes that Lady Dimitrescu’s valuable lipstick is missing.

Opinions on the four lords: Tolerates Heisenberg more than the rest of her family by a considerable amount. She’s seen glimpses of his work, his steampunk-adjacent style, and actually kind of digs it. While Bela cares more about the science behind his work, Cassandra just digs the aesthetic. Sometimes for her art she also needs things she can’t get from the castle, and are too obscure to get from a merchant, so she trades tools/ideas with Heisenberg in exchange for him making something for her. “Can you make a battery but whenever it’s in use it makes a horrible screaming sound?” “Yes. PS I hate your mother and Miranda.” “I didn’t fucking ask.”

Opinions continued: Doesn’t really care much about Donna, but acknowledges her as a fellow artist, and would be willing to consult her if she talked more (and talked without Angie). Cassandra hasn’t met Moreau, thankfully (he would cry). Knows about him from her sister/mother, and as a result doesn’t care about him. Internally whenever someone mentions him, she pictures, like, a Goldfish Cracker (the snack that smiles back) with legs except also it’s green and moldy.

Opinions cont.: Loves her mother so much. Determined to please her, to make her proud, but often left feeling less loved than her sisters. This strains her relationship with her family, not that she’d ever voice her feelings and talk through the issue. Let’s be real, Alcina would probably feel guilty for not realizing how Cass felt. Nonetheless, Cassandra probably spends the most time with her mother, often offering to assist her with tasks, or trying to get her to appreciate her art.

#resident evil: village #daniela dimitrescu #bela dimitrescu #cassandra dimitrescu #dimitrescu family

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graylikethecolor42 · 3 years ago

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Frankenstein 1931 Rant

Ok so this is my review of sorts for the 1931 Frankenstein movie. I had never seen it before, and decided that I should watch it so I could form my own opinions. I mainly compared it to Shelley’s book, attempting to remain as unbiased as possible. This proved difficult, and I was left at the end with a bundle of incomprehensible emotion that I later determined was mostly Rage. This is Long AF, so I'm going to put most of it under the cut.

This movie disrespected my girl Mary Shelley. In the opening credits they list her as “Mrs. Percy B. Shelley”. What the actual horror loving fuck?! Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein when she was 18. She was a feminist, daughter of one of the most prolific feminists of all time. She was so hardcore goth that she lost her virginity on her mother’s grave and carried around her husband’s CALCIFIED HEART. She deserves more respect than being referred to as her husband’s wife in her own goddamn movie adaptation.

The version I watched (rented from my local library) began with a quick content warning, which surprised me. All the things mentioned in the segment were true of Shelley’s book, and it led to a false sense of hope that maybe this movie wasn’t as off base as everyone claimed.

These hopes were quickly dashed with the presence of “Fritz”. While I don’t think he was ever referred to as such, he was recognizable enough as Igor, whom I only know through Pop Culture Osmosis--Frankenstein’s hunchbacked assistant. He only exists in the story to mess everything up in the name of plot development.

Case in point: the brain. This scene set up one of the greatest deviations from Shelley’s original text. Her book asks The question of nature vs nurture--if humans are inherently bad, or if our experiences shape us. This adaptation decides that the brain itself is inherently abnormal and therefore evil, and Dr. Waldman throughout the movie cements this detail.

Minor note here, but why is the college town Golstadt? Was Ingolstadt too hard? The extra two letters really put a strain on the movie’s budget? The extra seconds it took to say it padding the runtime too much?

Ok, was anyone going to tell me that they messed with the character’s names, or was I just supposed to figure that out by watching the scene multiple times myself? The man that enters is named Victor, and Elizabeth references her fiance Henry. This was very confusing, as in the book Victor and Elizabeth are love interests, and Victor’s best friend is named Henry Clerval. Additionally, this Victor’s last name is Mortiz, which you may notice is Justine’s last name. Justine Mortiz is not in this movie. Henry Clerval is not in this movie. This Victor character is either a bastardization of both Justine and Henry’s characters, or a complete fabrication, and I’m not sure which version makes me angrier. Justine and Henry were both integral characters in Shelley’s book, and to see them either way, edited down to nothing plot relevant makes my blood boil.

For the sake of my sanity and Clarity, I’ll be calling “Henry Frankenstein” Frankenstein, and “Victor Mortiz” the pretender Victor. Additionally I’ll be referring to the Movie creature as “The Monster '' and the book creature as “Adam”.

At least this movie recognized that Frankenstein was a college dropout, though his reasons for leaving were a bit different: Movie Frankenstein was becoming unstable, asking for more bodies and leaving when they wouldn’t supply him, where Book Victor didn’t even try to ask and just went graverobbing of his own volition and then created the Adam in his college dorm, dropping out afterwards.

In the scene where Waldman, Victor and Elizabeth go to visit Frankenstein, Frankenstein treats Elizabeth like shit (technically all of them but especially her), saying she’ll ruin everything. I have no commentary except for “dick move, who wrote this screenplay again?”

My mom was watching this with me, and asked why Frankenstein didn’t just keep his unwelcome guests locked out or make them stay downstairs. I replied with “Well the man just insinuated that he’s crazy, he has to prove himself now.”

I will admit, the “It’s alive!” scene was pretty cool. I recently saw a post about how if this version of Frankenstein was paired with Adam from the book there would have been a happier ending. This Frankenstein is so excited and happy that it work, that he did it, that he’d created life and cherish it. While completely out of character, it gave a look into Frankenstein’s inner workings in the movie.

I’ll be honest, I found it hard to care about Victor’s family. And by family I mean his Father, because Ernest and William were nowhere to be found (more on that later). The Baron is grumpy and unlikeable, and he doesn’t even die like he deserves like he did in the book.

Frankenstein has some raw dialogue in the scene with Waldman, “Have you never wanted to do anything that was dangerous? Where should we be if nobody tried to find out what lies beyond? Have you never wanted to look beyond the clouds and the stars? Or to know what causes the trees to bud? And what changes the darkness into light? But if you talk like that... people call you crazy. Well, if I could discover just one of these things - what eternity is, for example - I wouldn't care if they did think I was crazy.”

But then Waldman brings up the inherently evil bullshit that I mentioned earlier. Oh, the brain was abnormal, it was evil, and the monster is now evil no matter what.

Now Waldman has a line here that I find interesting--”You have created a monster and it will destroy you.” More on this later, just keep it in mind.

The scene with the monster establishes a few things--At least some comprehension, a yearning for light, a fear of fire, and the fact that Fritz is the worst and he deserves what’s coming. But I’d like to detail the Biggest derailment of the canon source material--The creature’s intelligence. Part of the Horror of Shelley’s work is that Adam is conscious, aware, and intelligent. He learns quickly and is abandoned by the person who should have cared for him, and he’s painfully aware of the horror of his existence. His humanity comes from his vast emotions and mental capacity, showing that it wasn’t his nature, but the (lack of) nurture that created the “monster” within him. Taking all of that away, stripping the character until he’s a groaning, barely conscious being, rips away layers and layers of Shelley’s commentary and storytelling.

Fuck Fritz. He hurts the monster when in reality it hasn’t done anything to anyone--yes it freaked out and they had to restrain him, but that was self defense and he didn’t seriously injure anyone. Meanwhile Frankenstein has a line later about how Fritz “always tormented him”. I’d probably kill him too, especially since Fritz kept pushing even after Frankenstein told him to leave him alone. I don’t feel anything over his death.

Next Waldman convinces Frankenstein to destroy the Monster. Showing a shocking change of character from both the “It’s Alive!” scene and his previous conversation with Waldman, Frankenstein barely puts up a fight, one “It’s murder” and then he gives in.

The monster goes down, Frankenstein’s family comes and sees him collapse, Waldman promises to “painlessly destroy” the monster, blah blah blah

Waldman’s death is interesting to me. I’ll talk about it a little more when I get to Maria, but so far all of the Monster’s violence and murders have come across as self defense. An innocent creature trying to defend itself. Yet it’s still painted in a negative light, even though Waldman was just as morally gray in his endeavors to end the Monster. Also, Waldman was going to Vivisect the Monster, not “painlessly destroy” him like he told Frankenstein. Who was really in the wrong here?

Wedding wedding, blah blah blah

Ok we’ve reached Maria, the moment I’ve been leading up to. Maria is a little girl from the village that takes up two important roles in the story--The old man that accepts Adam as a friend and then is accidentally killed by him, and William, Book Victor’s youngest brother and Adam’s first revenge murder. In the book, these two scenes are major turning points within Adam’s own recounting of his story--where he first found love and peace and then learned that the world was cruel and unfair when he lost it all, and when Adam makes a distinct choice to be cruel right back, killing William and pinning it on Justine. However in the movie the Monster isn’t intelligent enough to have those turning points. This scene shows the Monster’s humanity, his childlike wonder and Innocence. And unlike in the book, Maria isn’t afraid of the Monster. She seems more than content to play with the Monster. However, this version also shows that the monster is still inherently evil--that he’s capable of killing an innocent child, even by accident. But the biggest issue I have with this recasting is that it takes away all of the Consequences of Frankenstein’s actions. Shelley’s book was a cautionary tale, not necessarily about breaking the laws of nature or trying to be like God, but of not taking responsibility for your actions. Book Victor makes the wrong choice over and over and over again, and he doesn’t care about anyone but himself. I’ll revisit this a bit later when I talk about Elizabeth, but Book Victor never thinks about how his actions will affect the people around him. His brother is murdered and Justine is framed for it. Henry dies for the same reasons. Adam tears his way through his loved ones because he was hurt by his negligence. But this movie takes this all away, shifting the consequences away onto random characters while Frankenstein is vaguely guilty and not personally affected.

Ok, over to Elizabeth. She for some reason has been excluded from the wedding party, and makes her appearance now. She warns Frankenstein that she’s got a bad feeling, Star Wars style, but he doesn’t really pay her any attention. I feel like the treatment of Elizabeth in the book was pretty satirical, Shelley making subtle jabs at how women were treated at the time. The movie makes it feel more like “this is how women are”, in a very sexist way. Early Hollywood is not known for is progressiveness or women’s rights or anything like that. Now in a similarity to the book, Frankenstein locks Elizabeth in her room, and also like the book, the creature sneaks in. But where Adam was exacting revenge, specifically for his lost Bride (which is also nowhere to be found in this version), the Monster displays a very weird character shift. Up to now, The Monster’s violence and murder have been either self defense of accidental. However now he sneaks in specifically to attack Elizabeth. Why? It doesn’t make sense except for the “inherently evil” dialogue that has underscored the movie, and even then it feels like a stretch. But even worse, Elizabeth doesn’t die. For some reason the monster attacks her, but doesn’t kill her. This continues the line of no consequences for Frankenstein. Yes, his fiancee was hurt, but he didn’t lose anything in this movie. Nothing drives him to be a better person, to confront who he is and help him realize his responsibility.

Ok, home stretch people: The manhunt. Maria’s dad carries her tiny waterlogged corpse through the wedding celebration, causing a riot that the Baron fixes by creating an angry mob. Everyone searches, and The Monster is back to self defense pretty much--he’s getting attacked, so he attacks back.

The Monster faces down against Frankenstein, knocking him out and dragging him as he attempts to outrun the mob. They find a windmill, Frankenstein and the Monster fight, the monster throws Frankenstein off the roof (which he miraculously survives by the way). Why did the monster shift again, showing a personal vendetta against Frankenstein where none had previously been shown (except in the attack against Elizabeth)

The villagers burn the windmill, trapping and killing the Monster. In the book the Monster implies that it is going to commit suicide via burning (I believe on Victor’s funeral pyre, but it’s been a while since I reread the last part of the book), so there’s at least a little bit of a parallel? Something that confused me was how the movie managed to show his death in a sympathetic light, even while actively casting him as the villain.

Then Victor lives happily after. No, I'm serious. He’s fine, Elizabeth’s fine, his father is fine. No consequences. No lessons learned. Going back to Waldman’s line, “You have created a monster and it will destroy you.” Except it didn’t. The tragedy, so inherent in Shelley’s text, is completely destroyed and glossed over. In the book they chased each other to the ends of the world and died within a day of each other, mutually assuring their destruction. Here there’s no need: The monster is dead, along with all the consequences that should have followed Frankenstein.

#frankenstein #Frankenstein meta #rant #infodump #mary shelley's frankenstein #frankenstein 1931 #classic literature #classic literature meta #Gothic #gothic horror #gothic literature #victor frankenstein #Adam Frankenstein #Frankenstein's monster #meta

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battlinghurricanes · 3 years ago

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DEIPHOBUS TIME!

I'm honestly not entirely sure how I got such a deeply involved concept for his character and motivations, but I definitely did. I just feel like he fits into an especially interesting place in everything and that there's a lot of great potential with him.

Shout out to @petalveinedwarrior for enabling me and also I'm very sorry for being incredibly long winded. My bad.

Also DISCLAIMER! I am NOT an expert on the Trojan War and all its surrounding mythology lol. This is just for fun, based on my own fairly limited knowledge of the myths (though I think I pretty much cover everything that’s relevant to this). These are just my headcanons woven with some details from various myths. Sorry if anything’s missing or inaccurate!

SO!

First and foremost, I headcanon Deiphobus as the oldest of Priam and Hecuba’s children after Hektor.

Hektor calls Deiphobus the dearest of his brothers, and to me, this is why. They are the closest in age and they were the closest growing up, best friends when they were young. They also get the closest to being on equal footing which means a lot to Hektor, who often feels distance between him and his other siblings because of being heir to Troy.

Despite the relatively equal ground and Deiphobus treating Hektor with a very casual familiarity, deep down, he idolizes him. Deiphobus adores and admires Hektor, ever a younger brother in how he looks up to his strength and intelligence and reliability but close enough in age to not feel the same envy as so many of their younger siblings.

Deiphobus is aware that he is next in line to inherit the throne of Troy after Hektor, and the possibility of that is more real to him than to the rest. He doesn’t envy or want the responsibilities Hektor has to bear being the first son and admires him for it rather than resenting him. He never wants the weight of Troy on his shoulders.

Additionally, as close as they are, Hektor confides more openly in Deiphobus than the rest of their siblings. Consequently, he has a more realistic idea of both the burden he bears and also the ways he struggles to manage it like any human would.

Deiphobus holds Hektor in the highest regard- he means the world to him. It is a strange and unique combination of relating to and understanding Hektor exactly as he is and then loving him so dearly for how remarkably he seems to do in all of it, all that Deiphobus adores and strives to be like.

Hektor calls Deiphobus the dearest of his brothers, but Deiphobus would never need to say the same of Hektor, that much has always been obvious.

Deiphobus himself is ferociously loyal, boastful and fiery proud, wild and energetic, and always quick to smile and laugh with a sharp sense of humor. He’ll defend his own with tooth and nail, Hektor first and foremost, and they make a well balanced pair. Hektor’s level headed sense of responsibility softens many of Deiphobus’s rough edges, and Deiphobus’s enthusiasm breaks through many of Hektor’s more anxiously formed reservations.

Deiphobus would do near anything for Hektor, to a concerning degree in the eyes of some, but Hektor, by his nature, isn't overly controlling. He doesn't want Deiphobus to change how he is. Mostly, the only place Hektor truly pushes him is on moral grounds, for better rather than for worse.

Deiphobus hates to spend time overthinking anything, which benefits him in some ways, but also frequently has him following the example of those around him without considering what might lean towards cruelty. Hektor never tolerates hurtful and needless rudeness or otherwise, and their friendship doesn’t spare Deiphobus his reprimands.

Hektor's needling, though, has him step back and reexamine his actions and the second look is generally what he needs to correct his missteps. Admittedly, he’ll sometimes act better in some way solely to please Hektor, but far more often than not, he’ll come to recognize why it’s best with time and continue that way from his own compulsion.

(He grows and his conscience sounds irritatingly like Hektor.)

Deiphobus is actually one of the best of his siblings at not holding a grudge. He might for drama or humor’s sake, but once a squabble is past, he’ll easily set it aside in favor of having fun with whoever he fought with.

Regardless of his flaws, Deiphobus is amiable and of the opinion that it’s never worth passing up a good time over some pettiness. He’s never one to ignore the value of little joys, no matter how fleeting they are.

Before the war, when he is still younger, there is Antheus. He’s the pretty son of Antenor, and both Deiphobus and Paris are quite taken with him. Paris’s involvement rubs him the wrong way, but he elects to ignore it as best he can. It doesn’t sit right to consider policing Antheus’s actions. He can hardly demand he stop seeing Paris while still insisting on his company, after all.

Besides, he can’t really complain. Antheus favors him with his presence often, laughing at his jokes, stealing off his plate when they share meals, tumbling with him when they wrestle. And when Antheus lifts his hand to idly toy with his lower lip as he smiles slyly at him, Paris is the last thing on Deiphobus’s mind.

Hektor teases him sometimes when he turns up ruffled from some exchange turned overzealous, but his flustered frustration pales in comparison to his excitement, so Hektor gets away with it. Oh, he loves Antheus and the feeling is so heady, better than the most potent wine.

Then it all shatters when some men rush into the palace with Antheus’s limp body carried between them. He was in the gymnasium with Paris, they learn. One throw from Paris with a warped discus and Antheus was gone. Deiphobus stares at the blood soaked in his lovely hair.

Deiphobus is ready to rip Paris apart, but when his brother is guided in after, there’s just no room for it. He’s in complete hysterics, shaking all over as he hyperventilates, and screaming would have gotten through to him no more than their family’s vain attempts to calm him down.

Paris is inconsolable afterwards. He retreats in on himself, though without any attempt to defend himself, first to give himself the blame. He makes for a pitiful sight, and at first, Deiphobus can’t stand being in his presence at all, to take his anger and grief out on him or otherwise.

It doesn’t take that long for Deiphobus’s anger to grow more painful than cathartic anyway and, well, it is hard to lash out at someone acting exactly how he feels. He feels the same heartbreak and pain he sees in Paris and he can’t find it in himself to rage against him when he’d rather just sit and cry himself.

Paris does take it upon himself to face Deiphobus after a time and claim responsibility for what happened that day. Deiphobus doesn’t forgive him, doing that feels... off, but he manages to convey that he won’t turn on him for the accident with Antheus. He thinks that might make Paris feel better but he can’t truly tell.

It all still hurts then, even as they try to get things to settle. Nothing but more time can do anything more to heal those wounds.

And time passes and then Paris returns from Sparta with Helen, and, well.

The brewing war doesn’t drive a rift between Deiphobus and Hektor, but it does force a new distance between them. The pressure on Hektor spikes and never eases, and the time he has to spare becomes exceedingly rare.

Much of the time the two would have spent for themselves together now shifts to working together to manage the complications that come with this new conflict; Deiphobus has new responsibilities to shoulder himself. More work, less play, but the mutual affection and respect between them remains just as strong as before.

Deiphobus can’t help but feel a certain bitterness over having the casual companionship of his brother taken away from him, but he does all he can to set it aside. He refuses to let it be another source of stress for Hektor, so often too caring for his own good, and he doesn’t hold it against him anyway.

As always, Deiphobus remains aware that these tasks could easily have been his and, privately, he feels woefully inadequate in the face of that possibility. And truly, it just serves to make Hektor even greater in his eyes, handling it all with grace he can’t imagine. He knows he’s not perfect, yet still, it’s hard to imagine that anything could ever truly bring Hektor down.

And so, Deiphobus helps his brother in the ways he can and loves him as ever, always ready and eager to fight at his side.

Deiphobus leads a contingent himself, and does it well. It comes easier to him to manage a smaller group like that. He does as directed and guides his men through the fighting. One can say what they will about his ability to lead, but his capability as a warrior is undeniable.

Things shift between Deiphobus and Paris as well. Much of Troy turns on Paris, some faster than others. Deiphobus ignores the greater dramatics which, in his opinion, help nothing. Still, it is often tempting to berate him for his flippant disregard of the battles so he does, which is, admittedly, not entirely unwarranted.

However, Deiphobus and Paris share a mutual, unspoken understanding that they simply cannot focus on the war at all times. Sometimes it must be set aside. This is more often true to Paris than to Deiphobus, but that invites Deiphobus to keep Paris’s company when he can no longer bear all the stress.

In turn, when Deiphobus approaches him like that, Paris can trust not to be reprimanded as he so often is, as that gets ignored along with the rest of it. So there are times during the war where the two can be found together affably, chatting about nothing important. Their personalities can still mesh in such moments.

And, well, it’s shocking how steady things can stay over nine years of war, but they do. Death and loss become far too familiar companions, but they can do nothing but keep fighting through that, and things proceed much as they have been.

Until, of course, Achilles.

With all the cruelty of fate, it of course follows after they get the closest to driving away the Achaeans as they ever have. Such a brief, amazing hope. In his unmatched fury, Achilles slaughters their soldiers, butchers many of his brothers, escapes Scamander’s rage through the grace of the gods, and drives the army behind Troy’s wall with his advance, except for-

Then-

Hektor is dead.

Deiphobus tastes blood in his throat screaming at the sight behind the chariot.

In a way, it’s a blessing that it takes twelve days to get Hektor’s body and another twelve to bury it. With his death, command of Troy and her allies has passed to Deiphobus, and he could barely lead his own horse after losing Hektor, much less an army.

Deiphobus falls to pieces. He can barely process it, losing the one he held in the highest regard, held every confidence in, believed in to his core. Hektor was the best of all of them and now he’s dead, leaving him shattered. Deiphobus is hysterical, wildly heartbroken.

In this time is when Priam first turns on his remaining sons. He lashes out at them as he prepares to ransom Hektor’s corpse, degrading them as the most worthless of his sons. Still half blind with tears of grief he can’t hold back, he thinks that it’s true in the same moment he thinks of how he will now have to take Hektor’s place, worthless ruin though he is.

Most often, Priam refrains from speaking of his remaining sons after that, and in rare, fleeting heartbeats he almost seems contrite over cursing them. Neither is enough though to keep him from savagely reproaching them in unpredictable instances as Troy continues to spiral towards its doom. Deiphobus shakily chokes down his father’s abuse without a word.

Of course, he returns to the battlefield once Hektor is buried, coming to truly learn the crushing weight of his new role. How did his brother bear this? Every day feels like one failure after another; he’s not strong enough, not smart enough to do this. He tries anyway, each day more taxing than the last.

Deiphobus can hardly bear Paris after Hektor’s death. A large part of him hates him for it, desperate to pin the blame on someone despite knowing deep down that he’s not responsible. Though, even then, part of him is drawn to Paris, broken same as him, shaped by a sort of desperation to grieve for their brother with him. Misery loves company.

His anger burns hotter, but now he can’t bring himself to berate him even in the way he did sometimes before all this. He never confronts him with his hatred, such that it is. He simply avoids Paris entirely, knowing that if he indulges in the impulse to curse him for what happened to Hektor, he would fall apart at the seams.

Even now he can’t face the truth of what happened and keep going. It is all he can do to try never to think about it.

And then, with the aid of Lord Apollo, Paris kills Achilles.

The undecided limbo of Deiphobus’s feelings towards Paris topples into something like affection the moment he hears of it, connecting them once more. Paris has destroyed Hektor’s murderer, avenging him, and that matters to Deiphobus more than anything else.

That night, the two of them drink together until it half kills them, close enough to keep knocking shoulders as they revile Achilles with the worst profanities they know. It’s the only celebration they can muster after everything, but they’re both laughing for the first time since they lost him.

(When the night grows damnably late, Deiphobus’s attempt to laugh turns into retching and Paris collapses to the ground when he tries to get up to help. They suffer the agonizing morning together.)

They make a strange pair from then on. Friendship would be a generous word given the still unavoidable tension between them, but they somehow manage to maneuver around that and share a certain closeness. They maintain it despite differences that grind against each other. Sad as it is, it’s one of the only things either of them have left.

Paris and Deiphobus also weather Priam’s spontaneous tirades together. Usually wordlessly, but there is something to be said for the company of someone enduring the same pain you are. It is a quiet solidarity, but a significant one.

They talk of the war far more often now. Every day it devours more and more of their lives, always harder and harder to ignore or set aside. On rare occasions, they do still manage it. Those conversations make for a breath of fresh air, though that does little to stave off the feeling of drowning.

And then Paris takes a poisoned arrow and dies.

Deiphobus doesn’t wail and sob in the same way he did for Hektor. He’s too numb for it now. It hurts in an unnatural, distant sort of way. All he can muster is a ugly, stilted feeling of shame for letting himself come to care for him in the first place. Of course he would die like the rest, he should know this by now. He crumbles further.

After Paris’s loss, there's only two reasonable options for what to do with Helen. Either they need to return her to Menelaus or arrange a new marriage and keep her in Troy.

Helen pleads to be returned to her first husband but Deiphobus competes with Helenus to be the one who weds her. Troy does not stop them. There is a quiet but tangible tension to the city and he doesn’t think their people would tolerate Helen departing. He competes with everything he has left and he wins. And they marry.

That first night, Helen stares at his back while sitting in her new place on his bed. She expected to be treated like a piece of meat, a feeling she's grown well used to through living her life under the eyes of men, but he's barely even looking at her. He fought for her hand with an undeniable, feral sort of desperation. What was it for if he doesn't even want her?

"Why?" she asks him. "Why bother going through every effort to marry me only to be so cold now? What do you want?" Her voice would cut razor sharp if only she wasn't so tired.

He turns to face her with bloodshot eyes narrowed in a glare, riddled with barely restrained anger and grief. "I'm not letting you leave," he forces out and Helen pushes down the urge to scoff because that much is obvious.

"It has to be worth something," he continues. "There has to be something we fought for. If we just let you go back, then it won't have been worth jack shit." He paces, not looking at her again. "I won't allow that. Don't think you can avoid all this so easily now that Paris is gone. There has to be a point. My brother is dead because of this shit! If you're gone, then what would be the fucking point?!"

His brother. He means Hektor. He means Paris. He means every last one of them, so many dead. He means Hektor.

Helen doesn't reply. There is nothing she can say to that. For all that it doesn't make a difference, what he's laid before her is something she knows well. She's spent so long now berating herself and blaming herself for all that's come to pass and she understands. She hates this, all she wants is to go home, but she understands him.

She knows that they both hate each other and themselves all in equal measure. What a wretched pair they make, Helen thinks.

Not that they make much of a pair at all. They're rarely ever together. Deiphobus camps outside whenever he can, and when he can’t, he goes out of his way to avoid her. Helen accepts it as the best she can expect from the truly miserable situation this has become. The war drags on, but the truth hangs in the air that Troy is losing.

Then the horse.

The people, starving so desperately for peace, bring it inside the walls. Deiphobus tries to be cautious. He tries to think of what Hektor would have done. He commands Helen to walk around the horse, calling out in the voices of the Achaeans' wives. If there's some wretched spy or invader, let them show themselves. He'll kill them.

No one answers. Deep down just as desperate for peace as them all, he breathes a sigh of relief and leaves the damn horse.

He hopes the Achaeans filled their mouths with blood, biting their tongues as hard as they must have.

Troy is burning. The Achaeans fill the streets with slaughter; they are everywhere. Reunited with her husband after so, so long, Helen tells Menelaus where Deiphobus is. And so, Deiphobus dies alongside Troy.

(Deiphobus and Hektor meet again in the Underworld and Deiphobus tries to apologize for his failure to keep Troy safe. Hektor will hear none of it, refusing any of the anger he has every right to put on him. Still, a long time passes where Deiphobus silently and anxiously wonders if that was a lie, if Hektor truly does hate him for what happened.

Hektor keeps throwing him tense, unsettled glances sometimes when he thinks he’s not looking, even though he never says a thing. Each one worms further and further underneath his skin and he starts to squirm under the conviction that he’s done something wrong. Something Hektor holds against him.

When it finally grows so unbearable that Deiphobus confronts him about it at last, Hektor flinches and doesn’t disguise his fear and upset. Deiphobus braces himself. But then, mangled in with confusing, ashamed apologies, Hektor recounts for the first time how he died.

Athena luring him to his death in Deiphobus’s shape, speaking in his voice. How he turned to face Achilles believing he had support. When he called for a spear from his brother, he was alone.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I think of it at all, I’m so sorry I let you believe I was angry with you because of it. I’m not, it had nothing to do with you, you shouldn’t have to know of it at all. I just- remember it sometimes. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Deiphobus feels nauseous. Hektor looks even more so.

“If I had actually been there-”

“No! Don’t do this. Achilles would have just killed you too.”

“We wouldn’t have died alone, then.”

They clutch at each other, these battered remnants of their souls, carrying with them the wounds of their lives.)

#the iliad #deiphobus #hektor #hector of troy #paris of troy #and misc others i wont tag lol #trojan war #greek mythology #my writing #goal: make everyone else have thoughts and feelings about deiphobus too #hes my randomly selected emotional support child of priam #and hes perfect for my favorite thing #weird little character studies #hopefully this was at least somewhat interesting to read #its been a long time since ive done a post like this #an unsurprisingly it is way too long lol #sometimes it really is just all or nothing with my headcanons #i also think about the version where achilles is going to marry polyxena and deiphobus grabs him while paris stabs him in the back #inchresting

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transgenderteensurvivalguide · 4 years ago

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Hi, I'm a parent of a 14yr old who says he is a transmale. After reading the vocabulary list, is there a difference between transmasculine and transgender male? He has not transition yet but I'm trying to learn/do what I can to support his journey. Thank you and please accept my apology if I didn't use the correct descriptive words.

Lee says:

The difference is like the squares and rectangles thing!

All squares are rectangles, so all trans men fall under the transmasculine umbrella, but not all rectangles are squares, so not all transmasculine people identify as men.

Transmasculine is a term used to describe trans people who were assigned female at birth and identify with masculinity to a greater extent than with femininity in some way.

Being transmasculine doesn’t mean that you actually identify as a man, it just means you’re A) masculine-leaning, B) transgender, and C) assigned female at birth.

Personally speaking, I identify as transmasculine because my gender expression and medical transition is bringing me in a direction society sees as masculine.

I also am medically transitioning to a body that people see as more masculine- I’m on testosterone, I’ve gotten top surgery, I’ve had a hysterectomy, and I’m scheduled for phalloplasty in the spring.

In terms of my gender expression, I usually have short hair, I’m growing a patchy quarantine beard, I wear men’s clothing, etc. But saying I have a “masculine” gender expression is an interesting thing because it depends on your point of view. Compared to my pre-transition gender expression I come across as much more masculine now, but compared to gender-conforming cisgender heterosexual men, I do not come across as masculine at all! People often assume I’m a gay man because I am gender non-conforming in some ways, like I have effeminate mannerisms and while I only wear men’s clothes I wear super skinny jeans and the like, so when I’m in a group of men they often think I am feminine, and therefore I must be gay because #sterotypes be like that.

So I use the term transmasculine because it can be helpful in describing what my transition is, like where I’m coming from and where I’m going to, even though I’m not stereotypically Masculine™.

Despite my masculine-esque appearance and transition, I actually identify as genderqueer and non-binary and I feel that my gender itself is neutral and not particularly masculine or feminine.

I don’t understand what it means to “feel like” a boy/man, I don’t use masculine-coded words to refer to myself and prefer gender-neutral language, and I had a choice between being in a men’s group or space and a gender neutral group or space I’d always choose the gender neutral one.

I’ve just always known that I would be happier in a more stereotypically “male” body and being in my pre-transition body was increasingly distressing after puberty. Some people who have similar feelings as I do might choose to identify as a trans man, but I’ve just never felt the need to do so.

So even though I identify with masculinity and would consider myself transmasculine, I don’t consider myself a trans male, and that’s how someone can be transmasculine but not a trans man!

Transmasculine is the umbrella term that covers both binary transgender men like your son and non-binary people like me who choose to transition in a masculine way.

In your son’s case, it seems likely that he is both transmasculine and a transgender male. He’d be transmasculine because he likely is transitioning (or wants to transition) in a masculine way and/or identifies with masculinity or male-ness more than femininity or female-ness, and he’d be a transgender man because he knows he is a man despite the gender he was assigned at birth.

So it’s possible to be transmasculine and a trans man.

That being said, there’s a bunch of different terms that people use within the community and which term someone uses depends on the context and what they’re comfortable.

Some trans men may not be particularly attached to the word transmasculine as a self-identifier even though it’s a label they could choose to claim because they feel like it’s redundant or not necessary because saying they’re a trans man already conveys the same information that transmasculine does.

Transmasculine is a useful term for describing the overlap between the section of the trans male and AFAB non-binary community, but it doesn’t describe all AFAB non-binary people either, as some may identify as a trans neutral or eschew a broader umbrella altogether.

So transmasculine doesn’t mean the same thing as assigned female at birth, and not all transgender people who were AFAB are also transmasculine.

Anyhow, being knowledgeable about the various self-identity terms people may use and how the various umbrella terms fit together is definitely a cool thing to do in supporting him, but I don’t really think it’s the most important thing! I’ll be honest, there’s a lot of terms out there that even I don’t know, especially specific microlabels for gender identities, and different people define and apply the same terms in different ways. But messing up on terms matters to some people more than others, so it is good to get an idea of the commonly used terms to avoid misunderstandings and hurt feelings.

In general, the most important thing you can do to support his journey is listen to him about what he needs and make sure you’re approachable so he knows that you will listen to him.

Now for some advice that you didn’t ask for! I just can’t help myself, so here we go.

I’d personally recommend looking into trans-competent mental health providers in your area. This is useful for a couple of reasons, the first being that pre-transition trans people often have depression because they struggle with being misgendered, incidents of transphobia, dysphoria about their bodies, being rejected and not accepted by peers/relatives/teachers, and so on, which is a lot to add on top of the usual stress from high school! And therapy can be helpful in finding strategies to cope with gender dysphoria.

Additionally, medical providers and insurance companies who follow the WPATH-SOC will require a letter from a psychologist saying that the person is ready to take [insert relevant medical transitioning step] so seeing a therapist is often the first step towards a medical transition, and at age 14 he might be interested in starting puberty blockers until he’s able to go on testosterone. Or he might want to start testosterone right away, or do neither, but having a therapist and getting diagnosed with gender dysphoria can help get through the gatekeeping process that may be present in medical transitioning if that is the path he decides he want to take.

But be careful of how you bring this up- you really don’t want it to come across as you saying “you’re trans so you’re mentally ill and you need therapy,” because the fear of conversion therapy means if you don’t make it clear why you’re suggesting therapy he might be hearing the completely different message of “you need therapy so you can stop being trans and get better” which is not your intent at all.

Every step makes your child’s life better- I legally changed my name at 17, which was hard for my parents to allow because obviously they were attached to the name they had given me at birth, but it made a big difference in my mental health. And the earlier people transition the easier it is for them.

It might also be helpful to offer to buy him men’s clothing and underwear and shoes and men’s deodorant and all that if he only has women’s things right now. He might be between the boy’s and the men’s sizes for clothes, but most folks can find something they can fit into.

You might also want to offer to buy him a safe binder from a reputable binder company. Binding unsafely can have risks, and if he can’t get a safe binder he might choose to bind unsafely with a cheap and dangerous binder or ace bandages or duct tape and so on, or bind for too long because he has to hide it and can’t get away to change out of it.

Buying a packer is another thing that he might want, but of course, with all of these things you also shouldn’t make assumptions about what your son will want or need.

For example, some trans men may not medically transition and/or may not aim for an masculine gender expression because gender expression and genitals are different than gender identity. So even if he doesn’t want to go on testosterone, or decides to wear a dress sometimes or doesn’t pack, it doesn’t mean that he’s not trans.

You don’t want him to think that you’re saying that he should want these things or need them to be valid, or feel like you’re pressuring him into taking steps that he’s not ready for in his transition. But if you don’t bring up the topic at all, he might be too anxious to tell you about it because he’s worried about what you might think.

I do emphasize that being trans is rarely a phase, detransitioning is not common, trans people know who we are and we know our genders and you should trust our word on that and so on, but I think sometimes people push the “it’s not a phase!!!!” message so hard that they don’t leave any wiggle room for people who are still questioning and coming to terms with their identity.

Especially at the start of someone’s journey we need to be open to some level of uncertainty and change. The only person who knows what someone’s gender identity is the person whose gender it is. It’s very important to take your son at his word! But figuring out your identity can be a process, so be understanding if he switches names, pronouns, or gender labels a few times while he’s still figuring it out.

It’s likely that you will slip up with names and pronouns on occasion, and the best thing to do is just correct yourself, and move on.

You can briefly apologize (wait to do it later when you’re in private if it occured in front of someone) if you feel like it’s necessary. But don’t make it into a big deal, which calls attention to it and can be embarrassing for the trans person, and don’t start to self-flagellate about it and beat yourself up because then it makes it about you, and the trans person feels compelled to say “it’s fine” or something to reassure you when it isn’t fine.

Just correct yourself and move on, and do better next time! Then make sure you actually practice with his chosen name and pronouns so you make fewer mistakes in the future- practice makes perfect, as they say.

You should also make sure you’re an active ally to trans people in your everyday life if you weren’t already doing this. This is something you should ideally be doing whether or not you have a trans son who just came out.

Finally, make sure you get the support you need. You might find seeing a therapist helpful for yourself, or connecting with a support group for parents of LGBTQ children- many are meeting on Zoom now, so if there isn’t a group local to you there’s probably one online you can join! Be careful to avoid the transphobic mom groups that promote conversion therapy, rapid onset gender dysphoria, and don’t believe in being transgender. Finding a good support group will let you vent when you need to and find community for yourself as well- it’s a lot to process, and it can be emotionally difficult for you on top of managing the logistics.

But honestly, I wouldn’t recommend telling your son about anything you’re struggling with when it comes to his identity because saying things like “I feel like I’m mourning my daughter” isn’t going to make your relationship with your son any better. Especially because he’s 14, telling him that you’re having a hard time is just going to hurt him without helping you any, so it’s best to keep those feelings between yourself and your support system until you’ve reached that stage of acceptance when you’re no longer struggling with coming to terms with it. He needs to be reassured that you’re supportive of who he is and he won’t be able to reconcile your support with those statements, so don’t lie but don’t volunteer those sentiments.

The For parents/guardians intro has some of the same stuff as I mentioned above, like links to safe binders and packers and info on puberty blockers and the benefits of medical transitioning, so check that out too if you haven’t!

All in all, I think it’s really great that you’re reaching out and trying to support him! I know that even trans folks with really supportive parents still have anxiety about being rejected so it’s good to give them a little extra reassurance to show that you do care about him and that you do see him as male and you respect what he’s sharing with you. Good luck to both of you!

Followers, anything to add?

#Lee says #transmasculine #trans male #terminology #parent #parents #allies #for allies #cis asker #Anonymous #trans #transgender #transgenderteensurvivalguide #TTSG

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