#of you to someone you *cannot* get away from and how people will condescend to you even after the fact etc---is so honest and tbh? relatable

[agnesandhilda]

*through tears* yeah ms. hayter. a man WILL break your back like it is nothing and he WILL not ask your forgiveness but you will have to forgive him. still

[ganymedesclock]

This might be extremely late and maybe you already got an answer about this and isn't in su anymore but if it was possible do you think Greg should reconcile with his parents despite everything they done to him?

TL;DR I think "should" doesn't really have anything to do with it in cases of personal relationships.

This may come at a contrast to a lot of how "redemption discourse" tends to get circled around but one thing I think that a lot of people don't realize is that when you are talking about specifically heroes and villains in actionized series, there tends to be an accidental blend of "are we going to personally develop a friendship with Badguy McStabs" and "are we going to pull Badguy McStabs off this railroad track before the train hits him"

Longer deliberation under the cut,

The thing is. In a lot of stories. protagonists tend to have, or acquire, or assert, a lot of say over the situation. To use SU as an example, if Steven decides he is not going to work with White Diamond in any magnitude, draw an us-vs-them line and not allow any of his allies to work with her either... White Diamond does not really have a lot of options besides dying- or getting exiled to the middle of nowhere in a 'technically not a death' death sentence. Steven, at this point, is functionally one of the ruling authorities of Homeworld and leading an active revolution.

What Steven Universe does that I think is particularly relevant to this topic is it points out that Steven can choose to let White Diamond have a functional life, while 1. meaningfully halting the threat that she poses and 2. not choosing to personally be her friend.

SU Future makes it pretty darn obvious that their relationship is strained. White has become, in no uncertain terms, the weird grandma that Steven feels some familial obligation to but is not sure he likes. Sure, as his weird grandma she's very enthusiastic about connecting with him but she's out of touch and condescending and a lot of things he doesn't personally like.

By contrast, the thing with Greg and his parents, is similar to the thing with Steven and Marty, or Steven and Kevin. If Our Hero does not extend an olive branch in this situation... nothing's directly gonna happen to these guys. We cannot say directly, unambiguously clear-cut, Greg's parents will suffer if Greg never talks to them again. They may miss their son, but, well, at that point, we're weighing their hurt feelings over Greg's hurt feelings at his upbringing, which we know he was miserable about.

Any time we talk about rehabilitating an antagonist, we're actually talking about multiple bundled concepts.

-Does the antagonist specifically stay in power, or remain unchecked?

In the case of White Diamond, the answer to this is no- while she is still ruler of Homeworld, her relationship with her peers has completely changed and Steven now directly has the public authority to put a check on her and be backed by Homeworld's own resources.

-Does the antagonist functionally get to have a life after this?

I would generalize this out from "does the antagonist die or not"- think about someone going to jail, implicitly for a life sentence, or as Vlad Masters from Danny Phantom, getting flung out into the depths of space for the rest of his existence. They are nominally alive but narratively they have still been put in a neat tidy box where they will never affect anybody's life again, the end goodbye.

-Does the hero or heroes personally keep the villain in their life after this?

That's what this question is getting at. And your intention may not have ever been to touch the other two- we KNOW Greg's parents have or had some kinda life and presumably didn't get fired or forced into destitution by their son running away. The thing they lost was access to Greg- and in time, to Steven. But I think whether or not you answer yes, or no, to this question, it's important to split it off from the other two- because that's where a lot of people can get into really intense arguments about this- where person A thinks that the answer is "yes, they should be redeemed", meaning, "obviously take them out of power and the heroes may not want them around personally but like, don't kill them or ruin their life, yeesh" and person B hears that yes and thinks that person A means "they should not experience ANY consequences for their behavior and in fact be directly coddled by people they hurt whether or not those people independently want to"

And when "is someone good or bad" is inevitably complicated as all hell even in media where it's the Happy Caring Friends Of Hug-A-Lot vs. The Hateful Nasties Of Mount Meanie, you can see where boiling things to imperfect extremes and then getting really mad at people is both an enduring pastime for the ages and also not a great way to read media.

To follow up my opener- at the point where it's just about who do you choose to keep in your life or not, no implicit threat of death or fantastical consequences... I don't think moral imperatives really matter that much.

At the end of the day, we're never going to know Greg's mind fully, even having a deeper lens into him than we'd ever have into a real-world associate given we've watched him as an audience. We aren't going to know his entire situation. And even if we somehow, perfectly did... we'd still have different answers on whether or not he "should" forgive his parents, based on innumerable factors, none of which are "are we, ourselves, Good or Evil"

So I just don't think framing it as a potential imperative, should he, is gonna get us anywhere. It's just not the knife to cut this particular question with. I'd be more interested in would he, or if so, what might that look like? good idea? bad idea? or even just, how did his parents feel about all this, what's their side of the story and how does that inform our read of Greg?

[guxciestone]

— self-love. ❞

(pick a pile reading)

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self-love and self-acceptance is very important. i hope you can take this reading very seriously and perhaps even find this accurate and learn some things about yourself. if you need any encouragement on why you deserved to be loved, check this post out! hopefully that helps. i hope you’re having a good day ♡

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✧ pile 1 ✧

how do you see yourself?

- There’s this idea of seeing yourself as someone who cannot love others. You might be what others call a “commitaphobe”. You might struggle with intimacy or getting close to others because you believe it is too much work, or perhaps you are afraid of what comes with it and what the other person will think of you. You might think that you aren’t worth getting to know, and if anyone did then they’d be turned off . This goes from your friends to your family to even your romantic relationships. You might be the type to think that love isn’t for you, which is not true. You view yourself as someone who is only worthy of it for the short-term and nothing more. For some of you, you might be a player or you like to get around. There’s also this vibe of not respecting yourself and your own boundaries.

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why don’t you prioritize your own needs?

- You might be a huge people-pleaser. You serve to please others before yourself. You might be used to being around brash, abusive, controlling and arrogant individuals, so you are used to submitting to others. You could struggle with standing up for yourself at times too. I’m seeing a significant figure like a parent that could be an example of this in your life. There’s also attachment issues for a few of you, perhaps to this particular parent. Or even a particular partner. For some of you, you might be in a relationship where your boyfriend/girlfriend isn’t treating you with the utmost respect and could be very condescending and careless.

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how can you show yourself that you are worthy?

- You need to learn to listen to yourself. If your soul or body is telling you what you want, you give yourself what you want before you give anything to anybody else. Most importantly, you need to trust yourself and others. If you know someone is a good person and truly wants to care for you and get to know you, don’t push them away and be flighty. Listen to them and get to know them back. I’m also hearing take it slow if that is what makes you comfortable. I feel that most of you also struggle with overthinking things to the point where you self-sabotage yourself from good connections. Taking deep breaths, meditating, or even journaling can get your head in a good place before you make any serious decision.

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how can you be more authentic?

- For a certain group, you might be obsessed with materialism. You love nice things and you love feeling as though you have nice things. Who doesn’t? But you might be someone who likes to play an image of someone who has it all. I believe this is telling you to stop. You don’t need to have the nicest car, house, or clothes to be loved and admired by people. You are more than all of that. Show who you really are behind all of that. I’m sure you’re an amazing person. For others, you might struggle with truly committing to people because perhaps you have this idealized version of how intimacy and love should be. Love isn’t perfect, and you need to realize that. There’s going to be ups and downs. Stop running away at the slightest inconvenience, and you’ll be surprised how amazing love really is. Learn to be more comfortable expressing your emotions too. People around you probably think you’re nonchalant because you barely like showing how you feel. A few of you could also struggle with gambling too.

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what is something you need to let go of?

- You need to let go of your ego. That ego that stops you from experiencing true love and intimacy. You have this character of not needing love, not needing friends, not needing anyone—when in reality, we all need love. We are humans. We are social creatures. We thrive off of togetherness. You think that showing that you are capable of being on your own entirely will prove yourself to others, but it only pushes others away more and honestly it scares them. Truth is, this ego is only trying to hide fear. That fear of showing who you really are and possible being judged for it. There’s nothing to hide and prove. Just let go of that pride and let others in. Love is a gamble. When you open yourself up, you either get rejected or they’ll open themselves up to you, but I promise you it’s always worth it.

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what is something you need to acknowledge?

- You cannot avoid disasters. You cannot reverse troubles, problems, and hick-ups in your relationships. Again, love isn’t perfect. We aren’t perfect. Additionally, you definitely cannot have the good without the bad and vice versa. It’s okay if your friend or siblings talk to you about how you need to open up to them more. They just want to communicate with you so that your relationship with them can thrive. It doesn’t mean they hate your guts and don’t like you. Please stop climbing into your little hole when someone tries to communicate with you about an issue. I promise you the bad parts are always worth it for the good parts.

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a message from your spirit guides/higher self

- It’s time for you to step into a new chapter in your life where you are aware of the challenges, know what is out there for you in regards to connections, and be your authentic self. I feel you’ve always known all of this, you just struggled with taking that first leap into the unexpected. Again, life and love is a gamble. You’ll never know what you get, but the bad is always worth it for the good.

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✧ pile 2 ✧

how do you see yourself?

- You could see yourself as someone who is vulnerable. You might believe that you are a pushover and it’s easy for others to take advantage of you, which leads you to feeling pretty worthless and insecure. At the same time, you can be guarded. You are someone who is stubborn and always seem to have a chip on your shoulder towards people. You could struggle with letting go of the past or forgiving people. There’s this energy of feeling as though the world is against you or is out to get you. You are defensive about who you let see your natural self out of a fear of being taken advantage of or judged. There might be times where you are aware of how vulnerable you are and you try to stand up for yourself but it only comes out as extreme aggression. It feels like you are just trying to survive in the world where everyone is against you.

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why don’t you prioritize your own needs?

- For a group of you, you may have dealt with relationships in which you were always cheated, taken advantage of, betrayed, or embarrassed by someone. There’s a possibility of a toxic friendship or an abusive/tyrannical romantic partner. You are so used to this feeling of worthiness and having to stay in the shadow of the people you love, you aren’t comfortable with lifting yourself up and giving you what you want or need. You also seem to refuse to move on from these connections, and you have this belief that everyone you deal with will be this way with you. You’re stuck in the past which allows you to keep repeating these destructive patterns of depriving yourself of your needs.

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how can you show yourself you are worthy?

- Firstly, there needs to be a realization—you need to move on. You need to move on by forgiving the people who hurt you. Not for them, but for you to carry on with your life. It’s going to be difficult. It’s going to take some uncomfortable moments and a reconciliation with your past, but it’ll be worth it. You need to accept that this is your past. It’s not going to determine your future and the people you meet at all. I also feel you need to cry. There’s so much built-up emotion from the pain you’ve consumed. All of this sadness and betrayal turned into anger towards anyone and everyone you know, and you need to release it. Signing into therapy, journaling, or self-soothing meditations could help.

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how can you be more authentic?

- You are familiar with thinking of the past, but it is more important to think of the present and future. Think of who you are now after moving on, and think about who you want to become in the future. All the way up to now, you’ve been lacking in personal development and progress due to focusing on what already happened. It’s time to set goals for yourself in regards to your self-love, career, and true connections to see what life holds for you. It’s time to stop pitying and find what truly makes you happy and satisfied.

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what is something you need to let go?

- You need to let go of your personal ideologies you’ve made about people over time. Not everyone is a bad person, and not everyone is someone that is to not be trusted. It is time to let new people have a chance to see into your world. I’m also hearing that if there is someone or some people in your life right now who are trying to becoming your friends, you should let them. They’ll introduce you to a spontaneous world you’ve never been in before. You might go to parties, bars, and be more social often.

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what is something you need to acknowledge?

- You need to acknowledge that your life turns in the favor of your thoughts. If you believe in the positive and abundant, then that is what it’ll be. You are not a burden or a curse to this world. You deserve happiness, peace, and love just like anyone else. You’ll soon see that your outer world will change according to your self-image. Good people are going to start coming into your life.

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messages from your spirit guides/higher self

- There’s one distinct person who you need to cut off from your life completely. It could be someone you refuse to let go of, and you might know you need to do so. There’s this promise that if you do, your life will improve much more. This could be a masculine figure—a father figure, friend, or someone you are romantically involved with. They seem like someone who serves no purpose in your life and are just dead weight. They could also place unnecessary burdens on you.

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✧ pile 3 ✧

how do you see yourself?

- You could see yourself as someone who needs to be saved or need to be swept off of their own feet. You have this victim mentality occurring. You could feel that you aren’t as fortunate as most people. Perhaps you are in the working class or a part of a minority. There’s this feeling of having the burden of struggling and waiting for someone to come help you. You also kind of feel left out in the cold. This perception of yourself could make you someone who is incredibly hardworking but yet has this pitiful mentality of “I’ve been through the worst and I’m used to the worst.”

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why don’t you prioritize your own needs?

- You don’t prioritize your own needs because you are too in your head about things. When you are overthinking, you subtly discourage yourself from taking care of yourself because you feel it’s not worth it due to your status or whatever societal construct you feel is holding you back. For some of you, there could be some underlying insecurities regarding your race, gender, or social class. You are also someone who take things very seriously. You are someone who is always on the defense and ready to attack anyone who you feel threatened by.

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how can you show yourself that you are worthy?

- There’s this utter bitterness I feel coming from you—bitterness towards the people who you feel have an advantage over you. I would love to tell you right now that you cannot fight hate with hate, it only makes the situation worse. I’m hearing “balance” and “fairness”. You need to respect others, at least the people who haven’t shown any source of animosity towards you. You also get a bit unmotivated when you are looking at others prosper. You should learn to encourage others in order to encourage yourself. Lifting up others makes you feel ten times better about yourself. Looking at others, especially the people you love, prosper will encourage you to do better. There’s also no need to be defensive at times. I’m getting that being less defensive and accepting will bring in new people in your life who will give you opportunities to go after your goals.

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how can you be more authentic?

- You have this strong desire to “go against the grain” all the time. I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to do that anymore. It is okay if you happen to want to do something that others happen to criticize others for, that’s you. Striving to oppose everyone just to stand out or prove a point gets stressful after a while. Do what you want without your socially constructed ego getting in the way of it.

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what is something you need to let go of?

- There might be particular goal you have in mind that you truly don’t want to follow through with. Your ego is what is making you go after this goal. You need to let go of that goal because that isn’t what you really desire. If this is a particular career that was forced upon you by your parents or society, most definitely drop it. Follow your true passions. I’m also feeling that you need to quit your current job for some reason.

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what is something you need to acknowledge?

- You need to acknowledge that the world isn’t fair at times. Sometimes you won’t get what you exactly want because society has made it to where not everything is made for us. However, create with what you have. Make the best out of what you have, and you are guaranteed success and happiness.

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messages from spirit guides/higher self

- It is important to stop putting yourself down. You’re much more than what people say you are. I’m hearing that you know yourself better than anyone, and you know you are more. Take the time to cry. But don’t cry for long, because I feel you might have a tendency to fall deeper into the pit when you sulk too much in your emotions.

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‎✧ pile 4 ✧

how do you see yourself?

- There’s a sense of confusion in how you view yourself. Perhaps that most of you struggle with your identity and knowing who you are as a person. There could be the possibility that a lot of you use other’s perceptions of you to define who you are, which isn’t healthy. You could be the type of person who receives judgment from others and takes it to heart. You don’t take criticism easily, you’re very sensitive too (there is nothing wrong with that, by the way. please don’t bash yourself for having feelings) You don’t have a clear sense of self-identity, hence you don’t have a clear sense of self-worth. You could be someone who is also a bit selfless too, but in a detrimental way. You could be used to others having the attention and appreciation. You might be the type to avoid being in the spotlight due to the fear of being judged or being perceived as selfish. You are an incredibly humble person though, but it’s okay to shine once in a while. You could also see yourself as someone who is a bit chaotic and all-over-the-place. Your might be confused about a lot of things about yourself—like what you want, what are your goals, etc.

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why don’t you prioritize your own needs?

- You do not prioritize your own needs because there is a fear of feeling selfish. You believe that putting yourself over others means you are careless and reckless, which is not true. It is okay to look after yourself. You’re here to survive and live the best life possible for yourself, of course you’re in the center of your own world. You could be easy to control and manipulated into doing the opposite of what you should. Perhaps you have friends who persuade you to help them with their problems instead of the other way around for example. I’m also getting the vibe of someone in this pile being in a relationship or connection with someone where they are being handled like they cannot make decisions for themselves. It seems to me you need to take back control of your life in some way, in some area of your life. For some of you, it could be a career; for the other group of you, your identity and ability to make your own choices.

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how can you show yourself that you are worthy?

- You can show yourself that you are worthy by appreciating yourself more, and letting others appreciate you more. It is okay for the attention or spotlight to be on you. If there is something you feel there is worth congratulating for, then best believe it is. Let everyone see you for a minute, let yourself see you for a minute and clap for yourself. This will also help with self-confidence. I’m also feeling you should try to invest in new hobbies. Find what makes you happy. I feel you are so used to dealing with others, you don’t spend time to learn more about yourself. This is the time. Go out to the park, buy a new pet, or start creating art. Have fun and get to know yourself more through your interests.

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how can you be more authentic?

- You can be more authentic by taking more risks and truly going after what you want unapologetically. You might have certain goals you’ve always wanted to accomplish but self-sabotage or insecure thinking may gotten in your way. Most of the things you want to do have been halted due to your unsure mindset. In order to truly know what it is you want to do, you need to stop thinking, go for it, and take that risk instead. I’m also getting that some of you want to travel or start a business venture. I suggest you go for it and don’t think twice.

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what is something you need to let go of?

- You need to let go of this constant need of serving others. I understand you’re humble and giving, which is great. However, sometimes it can be a bit exhausting considering the fact that you are going to need to serve yourself at the same time too. Once again, it is okay to focus on and provide for yourself once in a while. There’s no need to feel shame for that whatsoever. You are not meant to serve others like a maid or slave, you’re a human being who deserves comfort and security just as much as anyone else. Believe it.

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what is something you need to acknowledge?

- You need to acknowledge that you are not inherently “better” than others just because you are selfless and giving towards others. You might have a tendency of looking at people who have a good sense of self as individuals who don’t care about others when in reality you are too invested in others to know that you should be caring for yourself as well. You need to acknowledge that there is nothing wrong with focusing on yourself just as much as there is nothing wrong with caring for others. There can be a balance. It seems to me that you feel this way about these types of people because you are rather envious of the fact that they can shamelessly check up in themselves while you can’t, and also the feeling that being selfless is the “right” thing to be. Both sides can good or bad in their way.

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messages from your spirit guides/higher selves

- There seems to be financial or mental hardships in your life right now. Your guides or higher self is calling for you to pay attention to this. This matters the most right now. It’s time for you to take the attention away from others and focus on getting what is tearing down built back up again. Some of you could have lost a job or could be going through a depressive season right now. It is okay to seek a financial advisor or a therapist too. It is okay to talk to others about your issues. Make sure it is people you can trust and confide in, people who won’t take advantage of your insecurities.

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[donnerpartyofone]

I saw two posts recently that synergized in my mind:

1. One described the hot girl experience in which you cannot act too interested in men just as friends or respected colleagues or whatever, because they'll assume you want to fuck them and get angry when it turns out that you just cared what they had to say. You have to be cold and mean to any man you're unwilling to fuck, it's more humane than letting them think that you want to bone them on account of you enjoy their thoughts or company.

2. Someone was talking about the "male loneliness epidemic" and how it implies that only men experience romantic longing and sexual alienation (which is of course insane considering the pressure women are under to look perfect, even from guys in no position to demand perfect 10s). They further said that discourse on this topic seems to be stuck on the alleged problem of sexual scarcity, as opposed to all the other reasons that men might lack a sense of connection and belonging and general social support.

I do not participate in hot girl culture, but the narrative in post #1 has absolutely happened to me. In one case I pursued the friendship anyway (after much apologizing that I should not have done) because I really DID care about the guy, but I found that the destructive effects of his initial sexual disappointment never really went away. And maybe if society didn't have this commitment to the "don't feed the bears" attitude that entitles men to be resentful about any relationship that doesn't lead to sex, then we wouldn't have the issue in post #2 where these guys are painfully alienated in the most general sense. I suppose this is all very no-duh, but like, come on, seriously.

...and yeah, of course, "not all men," certainly MOST of the men in my life do not want to fuck me and wouldn't like it if that was my goal with them. But because the thing in post #1 has happened to me more than once or twice, it makes me overly neurotic about finding ways to state my sexual availability, which I think is really not good for any relationship. I have to find this balance between responsibly making it obvious that I'm happily married, but not making it TOO obvious so it doesn't feel like I'm accusing the other guy of wanting me, and then even after my availability is established I worry that any time I bring up my husband it might sound "extra", like I'm harping on it because I think I'm such hot shit that I have to fend people off. It's really awful, it's sort of condescending to the guy and egotistical of me, but at the same time I'd hate to be wrong ever again and wind up in another situation where I supposedly should have known that my friendship gestures would be read as sexual overtures and then whatever happens next is my personal fault. Sucks for everybody.

[savemefromanepicoftimewasted]

You Cannot Run From Your Past

Mobster!Simon "Ghost" Riley X F!Reader

The rest of the meal was quiet, save for the noise of knives and forks gently scraping against the ceramic plates. You were thankful for the silence, giving you the opportunity to think about everything that had happened that day. You’d gone from living on the streets to being housed by one of the most dangerous people in the country. a/n:this is a mafia au! so there will be a LOT of violence, MINORS DNI, this is part one of the series, the rest will be linked once posted warnings:mentions of wounds, blood, murder, gore, smut(MAJOR smut) word count:4.5k

Everyone knew who the 141 were, some of the most feared men on this side of the Atlantic. No one with even a single braincell knew to fuck with them. Their leader, Price, had killed men for less than what you were currently kneeling for. You’d gotten caught trying to steal money from one of the henchmen. Your boyfriend had kicked you out of the apartment, after finding out he’d been cheating of course, and now you were homeless. It was either steal from the, what you assumed was dumb, henchman or go hungry for another week until someone took pity on you. So here you were, kneeling before a man who wouldn’t think twice about putting a bullet between your brows.

“Did you really think he wouldn’t notice?” Price was more annoyed than truly angry, he felt some sort of sympathy towards you.

“I thought if I was quick enough he wouldn’t, no.” You were ashamed to admit you thought you could get away with your plan.

“Why were you trying to pickpocket anyway?” Price sat on the edge of his desk, staring down at you.

“Boyfriend, ex boyfriend, kicked me out and I’ve been living on the street for the last couple of months. Got desperate if I’m gonna be honest.” You hadn’t lived in England that long, having moved over from Massachusetts earlier in the year to live with your boyfriend.

God you had felt like such a moron, he’d lured you over with the promise of being able to take care of you, only to dump you out onto the street like trash. Of course he’d at least given the courtesy of telling you about Price and his men first, and yet here you were.

“Soap, take her and get her something to eat, I want to have a chat with the ex.” Your brow furrowed, why the hell did he want to talk with Eric anyway?

A man walked over, the strip of hair down the middle of his skull was slicked down yet looked almost fluffy. He helped you up gently, taking you down to the kitchen where a chef was cooking up something delicious. Your stomach grumbled loudly, leaving you embarrassed as everyone’s heads turned to stare at you. It really had been too long since you’d had a decent meal, not counting the scraps that the cook had given you a few days ago.

“Have a seat lass, eat as much as you’d like.” His voice wasn’t condescending and that you were grateful for, people could be so cruel to the homeless.

The chef dished up a heaping plate of what looked like spaghetti bolognese, the scent of roasted garlic and tomato filled the air. Your mouth was salivating within seconds, but before you could pull the plate closer the chef was sliding a heft piece of cheesy garlic bread on top. Oh my, you had definitely died and gone to heaven if this was going to be the case. You picked up your fork and slid the plate closer. The steam rising from the sauce caused a slight bead of sweat to rise along your browline. You couldn’t be bothered to wipe it away as you dug in, knowing better than to eat as fast as you could lest you get sick.

The flavours burst over your tongue like fireworks, this was definitely the best bowl of pasta you’d ever eaten. You swallowed the forkful you’d just eaten before biting into the garlic bread, nearly moaning at the salty bite of the cheese. This was how Price got to eat on the daily? God you would give anything just to eat like this at least once a month. Half the plate was gone before you came up for a breath, wiping your mouth with the napkin Soap had left by you.

“Would you like some water?” The chef was holding out a glass, his hands now clean that you noticed.

“Oh thank you so much.” You took the glass grateful, gulping down the water until there was nothing left.

You set the glass down next to your napkin, digging in once more to the amazing pasta. Maybe he was letting you eat one final meal before he killed you, there were worse ways to go. At this rate you weren’t going to complain, not since this was the first decent meal you’d had in forever. On the other side of town, you were completely unaware that Price had located your ex Eric and was paying him a personal visit.

Knuckles collided with the skin on his cheek, blood pouring from the wound opened by the ring on Price’s pinky.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Eric could barely lift his head, words slurred as his vision blurred.

“Do you really think I’m that naive? You worked for me, and yet your little friend is trying to steal from one of my men to get herself some food.” Price was beyond enraged, Eric was one of the lower henchmen, someone to clean up his dirty work mainly.

“Fuck, she’s still alive?” Eric screamed in pain as a blade dug into the skin and muscle of his shoulder.

Simon was standing by the door, arms crossed over his chest as he watched Price take care of a mistake he’d made. Though no one but Soap, Gaz, and Price were ever allowed to call him Simon, most people who bore witness to him as Ghost. He was the silent killer, slipping into someone’s apartment with ease and slipping out without leaving a trace behind. He’d had nearly as big a reputation as Price himself, for different reasons of course.

“Yes, she’s still alive, however since I’ve come to find out you’ve been stealing money from me you won’t be around to see any of it.” Eric’s eyes widened in fear, lips parted to beg and plea as Price pulled the trigger.

The gunshot was partially muffled, no one would call the police until Price and Simon had fled the scene, giving him ample time to make it home with an alibi. He began to wonder how you were doing, had you been able to eat and take a shower? Maybe you took a bath and soaked in one of the large tubs he had. It was the least he could do, the only thing Price never did was murder women or children, it was against his code. He’d heard about someone else who took anyone down that crossed their path, he refused to be like that.

Goddamn American’s.

“Make sure all our fingerprints are gone before tonight.” Price didn’t wait to see if Simon listened or not before heading down to his car. 

His driver was waiting behind the wheel, nodding when Price muttered the word ‘home’. He hadn’t planned on getting messy today, but sometimes things happened that he couldn’t control. It would be less paperwork in the long run, he’d just transfer the money from Eric’s account to one for you. Maybe he could get Kyle to do it, he’d been itching to do something for the last few weeks anyhow.

“We’ve arrived sir.” Alex pulled the car into the garage, knowing better than to open the door for Price.

“Thank you, why don’t you take the rest of the night off? If I need your assistance I’ll call.” Price slipped out of the back of the car and headed inside to look for you.

The sound of two people arguing caught his attention, he could make out Soap’s voice right away, but the other wasn’t one he was quite familiar with. As he turned the corner the picture before him nearly had him laughing. You were standing across from Soap, freshly showered in what looked to be a pair of Soap’s pajamas, arguing about desserts.

“Brownies are clearly the superior choice! You just have horrible taste!” Soap scoffed, rolling his eyes at your bratty attitude.

“Tha’s a lie!” Soap was ready to argue his point on why the chocolate chip cookies were better.

“That’s because you have horrible taste! Even the chef agrees the brownies were better.” You refused to back down, ignoring the way Soap’s chest was heaving.

Price had stopped in the doorway, snickering at the way the two of you were acting like complete children. It was a nice change of pace, and with how his night had gone it was a pleasant surprise to come back to.

“You’re back! I just wanted you to know that your chef is amazing and makes some of the best bolognese I’ve ever had before.” Your stomach was still full, slightly aching with everything you’d eaten.

“Glad to know the food was up to your standards, you settling in alright?” Price kept his hands hidden, knowing his knuckles were bloody and bruised.

“I am, I honestly don’t even know how to thank you for everything.” You were afraid he would still kill you, especially since you’d spent the last hour arguing with his henchman Soap.

He brushed you off, assuring you that you didn’t need to worry about repaying him right then, he could find a way for you to work for him if needed. Maybe you could do the finances, it was an easy enough job for you to do, it would keep you housed and fed as well. You were quite attractive as well, he could take you to any fancy party as his arm candy.

“How well are you with money?” It sounded like such an odd question.

“I worked in finance in the US, so I’m decent.” You didn’t want to say who your employer used to be, lest it cost your life.

“Perfect, you’ll work for me, if that’s alright.” Price raised a brow questioningly.

Your jaw dropped open, nodding quickly to confirm that yes, you would absolutely be alright working for him. It would get you off the streets at least, though working for someone so dangerous was nothing new to you. Maybe you could get an apartment nearby, something that wasn’t infested with termites like your ex's place.

“We’ll get you started tomorrow, the first matter of business is taking you shopping so you can look presentable for meetings.” Wait, you weren’t going to have to be around him 24/7, were you?

“I’m sorry sir, I’d be going to meetings with you?” For some reason the thought unnerved you, what if things backfired and you ended up dead this time?

“Yes, is that going to be a problem?” Price turned to face you, brow raised slightly.

“No, not at all sir.” It was time to keep your mouth shut and do whatever was told, Price was a very dangerous man.

You only had a couple minutes to prepare before Price, along with Soap, were dragging you out to one of the many cars that sat in his garage. Soap would be driving wherever you wanted to go, money not an issue to make sure you would look flawless. Designers were a waste of money, sure having the logo would make heads turn, but thousands for a piece of cloth? Ridiculous.

Price insisted you buy things that at least looked professional, since you seemed to be so against letting him purchase things for you. Soap even tried to interject and get you to agree with Price’s demands, saying it was better not to argue. You wanted to stand your ground and refuse, until you caught sight of a gorgeous dress. There’d be no reason to wear it, but by god did you need to have it at that moment. So you relinquished and gave permission to price to choose things for you, as long as you could get that dress.

He agreed happily, choosing things and letting you find your size so as not to make you uncomfortable. It was nice, knowing that you would be able to get all these new clothes without the stipulation you would need to sleep with him. Your ex would constantly hold gifts and such over your head so you would sleep with him. And yet he’d still had the nerve to cheat and throw you out.

“Awfully quiet sweetheart.” Price turned his head to face you, noticing the way your brow had furrowed.

“Just thinking about the past is all.” You merely shrugged, there was no use in being upset over things you couldn’t change, but it still stung.

“Well, why don’t you tell me about it?” Price had turned to face you fully, attention focused on everything you had to say.

The words turned to ash in your mouth, could you tell him the truth about the type of person you were? How you’d helped someone murder so many innocent people that dared cross his path just by simply existing?

“Do you want the basic rundown, or all the nitty gritty?” You had only ever told one person about your childhood, you’d hoped to never run into him again.

“Everything, spare no detail.” Oh, well this was going to be a long day.

The words slipped out with ease, telling Price everything, from how your father was physically abusive, to how your mother tried to use you for her own benefit. You had run away at fifteen, working odd jobs before you met your old boss at eighteen. He kept you housed, fed, and clothed from when you turned eighteen to a few months shy of when you left entirely. You’d seen things most people who’d gone off to war never dealt with. It was a horrible reminder of how much you’d had to give up just to survive.

“You worked for someone else, someone important..who.” Though it was a question, Price knew exactly who you’d worked for.

“James Barnes, sir.” Your heart was racing, no one except for James, and his right hand woman, Natasha, knew about you.

Price’s expression darkened, causing your heart rate to spike suddenly as you realized how badly you’d fucked up. Would this be the end for you? Having admitted to working for what was essentially his rival?

“How long?” Price could use any information you had on the other man, especially if it meant getting ahead.

“Over ten years, took me in when I was barely eighteen.” It was the truth, you’d basically grown up alongside James.

“And you don’t by any chance know some things that could be useful to me?” It was a loaded question, do you tell him how James had a son he cared so much about. Or how his best friend for over twenty years had cut off all contact after he’d heard of what became of him?

“I’ll tell you everything over dinner.” It was a proposition. You give him information, he gives you anything you could ever ask for.

Soap smirked to himself, pulling down the long road that led to Price’s luxurious home. You would fit in quite nicely with everyone.

Price had everything brought to your room, the closets stuffed full of all your new clothes, shoes, and even the few accessories you picked out. It was nice, knowing you were going to be alright as long as you didn’t step on anyone’s toes. As you made your way down to the kitchen you noticed someone else talking to Price. He was big, arms large enough to crush your skull(though you’d probably thank him). Something about him seemed so familiar though, as if you’d run into him many times before.

“Ready to eat?” Price turned away from the stranger, gesturing to the expansive table.

“I am, thank you so much for all of this, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to repay you.”  You walked over and sat down, if the food was even half as good that lunch was, you would die happy.

Soap and another man you’d never met before walked into the kitchen, taking their own seats alongside the newcomer. The chef brought out the first course, a delicate butternut squash soup with crusty pieces of bread to dop. You nearly moaned at how silky the soup was, making sure not to slurp and disturb anyone else. The bread had a slight bite to it, the crust just hard enough to soak in the buttery goodness without becoming soggy.

“So, what can you tell me?” Price had finished his soup, sipping on the glass of bourbon that had been brought out along with his food.

“James is someone that’s highly feared in most of the states, word spreads like wildfire and they’re all too afraid to say anything bad about him.” You took another bite of the bread, taking a moment to collect your emotions.

“His best friend Steve hasn’t spoken to him since they were teens, he’d found out about James joining the mafia and just disappeared one day.” You’d witnessed the way Steve had torn the other man apart, it was gut wrenching to watch.

You felt bad for James at that moment, he no longer had his family, and now the one person he could rely on was gone as well. Natasha was the closest thing he had to family anymore, and last you knew they were still friends. 

“He has a son, named after himself of course, goes by JJ. Last I knew his son was nearly thirteen and was living solely with his dad.” You sighed softly, grabbing your glass of water to take a sip.

“Surprised he had the time to knock someone up.” Soap mumbled into his food, ignoring everything else entirely.

“Johnny, what did we talk about?” Price stared at the other man like a disappointed father.

“No talking shit at dinner.” Soap, or was it Johnny?

You tried to hide your smile, a soft giggle slipping through as you finished your bowl of soup. Soap looked affronted, how dare you laugh at him being scolded by Price as if he was a child, very uncool.

“Before we continue with our conversation, I’d like to introduce Gaz, and Simon.” Price gestured to the two men sitting across from you.

You were shocked that someone as stunning as Gaz was working for him and not as a runway model, he could bring people to tears with his beauty. Simon wasn’t glaring at you per se, more like he was trying to decipher you. There was something about him that made you want to stare back, but you thought better of it and focused your attention back onto Price.

“Nice to meet you both, I met Soap earlier and his horrible taste in snacks.” Gaz couldn’t help but laugh at your statement.

“Thank you! He’s always had the worst taste imaginable.” Gaz was definitely going to become a good friend, you could sense it.

“Shut up!” Soap threw his hands up, arms crossing over his chest with a huff.

“You do mate, it’s all out of love.” Gaz slapped a hand on his shoulder, laughing when Soap rolled his eyes.

The chef brought out the entree before anymore conversation could continue, a beautifully seared filet mignon with roasted fingerling potatoes and caramelized carrots. You wanted to dig in almost instantly, waiting until everyone had their plates before slicing into the meat. It melted like butter on your tongue, washing over your taste buds as if it were made by god himself. 

“Alright, as I was saying earlier about James. He’s a very paranoid man, comes with the territory when you’ve slaughtered as many people as he has. So unless you have a reason to do business with him you won’t be able to get close. I’ve watched him murder a man for less before, and that’s the last thing I want to see ever again.” You cut apart one of the potatoes, popping the half into your mouth.

“So, what you’re saying is that if I need to take care of him, we need someone on the inside.” Price had a point, but James would see it coming a million miles away.

“Partially, but James would see that coming a mile away. You want someone he’s close with, a loved one, or a best friend that knows his every move and can get you the information.” You kept your eyes on your plate, not noticing the way all eyes were suddenly on you.

“And, do you know someone that could do this?” Price was asking something dangerous, sure you knew plenty of people that could, and had reason to kill James, but none of them were willing.

“The only man that would ever want to take him out would be Tony Stark, man’s had it out for him since he found out James had his parents murdered.” It had been the final straw that sent you packing.

“Hmm, I’ll have to give him a look see later.” Price dug into his own food, ignoring the way Simon seemed to still be staring at you.

“He’s a dangerous man, nearly had me killed just for walking on his property one day.” You rolled your eyes, stabbing your potato with more force than necessary.

Simon raised a brow, watching how you seemed to become annoyed at even mentioning Tony’s name. Whoever this man was clearly had a vendetta against you, and you as well for him.  That’s how this type of world worked, you were either with or against the people you considered the villains. You seemed to fit in so well that Simon couldn’t be bothered to second guess any of it, not when Price welcomed you in with open arms.

“Have to be precautious, comes with the territory darling.” Price merely shrugged, he’d always kept one eye open no matter what, but some people were just paranoid.

“Yeah, I guess. Didn’t make my life any easier when I was trying to get out of New York though, I swear James has men everywhere.” You’d almost been caught twice before finally boarding the plane to safety.

The rest of the meal was quiet, save for the noise of knives and forks gently scraping against the ceramic plates. You were thankful for the silence, giving you the opportunity to think about everything that had happened that day. You’d gone from living on the streets to being housed by one of the most dangerous people in the country. This was definitely a dream, you were going to wake up in the morning and find yourself under that bridge with everyone else. It wasn’t the first time you’d had this dream only to wake up to reality. Though it usually landed you back in the US and not over in London.

“I’ll be in my office if anyone needs me, goodnight.” Price nodded towards everyone before leaving the table.

You weren’t sure if you were allowed to head to bed or not, after the day you’d had your body was begging for sleep. Soap’s clothes, while a little oversized, were definitely going to be comfortable enough to sleep in. Gaz immediately pulled Soap into a conversation, discussing something that sounded like an entirely different language to you at that moment. You gave Simon a quick nod before leaving the table and heading up to your new room. The only light was from the moon, illuminating the room in a soft ethereal glow.

Throwing back the covers on the mattress you crawled into the plush bed, groaning softly at how soft the comforter was. It felt as if you were laying on a cloud, even with the crisp air the blankets were just warm enough to keep you comfortable. Your eyes slipped closed before you could even try and fight them, slipping into dreamland.

Downstairs Soap, Gaz, and Simon were all sitting around the table. Soap had tried to pull Simon into the conversation only to be shot down immediately. Simon couldn’t explain it, but something about you drew him in. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this way, always pushing away the prospect of dating as if it was a deadly disease. Soap would catch on to his sudden fixation on you, man was like a bloodhound when it came to women. The very last thing that Simon wanted, or needed, was Soap getting on his ass about you. He couldn’t get a proper read on you, there was something you weren’t telling everyone. And Simon was determined to find out every tiny thing.

Meanwhile in New York

James was angry, nearly panting as he paced the foyer of his penthouse. How the hell had you managed to slip through his fingers so easily? He’d had eyes on you for so long, and yet you’d managed to get to fucking England. Natasha had been the one to break the news to him, stance stoic as the words sunk into his bones. You were gone, and now there was a high chance that you’d managed to get yourself killed. James knew all about Price and his little minions, the fucker was slowly taking control of more countries.

“We need to locate her, now.” James kept his back to Natasha, the only person he ever trusted.

“I’ve reached out to my informants, they’re scouring every nook and cranny to find her. Last we knew her boyfriend was killed.” Shit, if they’d gotten to someone you were dating, you were definitely next.

“You mean that little shit convinced her to leave, and someone got to him before me?” James’ tone was deadly, venom lacing each word.

“It appears so, they’re claiming his death was a suicide, but the autopsy showed facial wounds caused by something small but sharp.” Natasha had seen the photos, it was pretty clear what had caused the superficial wounds.

He sighed softly, stepping away from the floor to ceiling windows to fully face Natasha who was watching him closely. James was the type of man to take out anyone that stood in his way of something he wanted. She could never figure out why James seemed to be so infatuated with you when you’d never shown any interest. You were friendly with him of course, but there had never been romantic feelings. Had he been trying to replace Steve’s friendship with you? It was the only thing that made any sense.

“Why don’t we make a quick little trip across the pond, there’s some people I’ve needed to visit anyway.” James smirked, reaching up to slick back his hair gently.

“I’ll call Scott and make sure the plane is ready in the morning.” Natasha turned away from him, pulling out her phone to make a quick call.

Who in the world did James know that lived over in England? The last she’d heard about that was when she’d had someone killed in their apartment for stealing money. Her phone pinged with a new message, a name she’d never expected to see again flashing before her.

Steve Rogers: We need to talk.

[masterthespianduchovny]

It’s really fascinating that whenever people are pressed by a ship it’s always 1. Why can’t men and women just be friends??? 2. Shippers clearly weren’t paying attention to the story.

Just say you don’t like the ship and own that shit. Stop trying to condescend and pretend people who ship two characters aren’t paying attention or, in the case of Freya and Kratos, are ignoring their backstories, which is far from the case.

When it comes to Kratos, just because he’s still mourning his wife’s death doesn’t mean he cannot move on or that he wouldn’t fall in love with someone, in this case Freya, unplanned. Faye tells him to open his heart and himself to the world so that he has an actual relationship with his son and fulfilling relationships with others in general. It stands to reason that a man who is in the process of doing that might fall in love with someone, esp someone he has such a deep connection with.

Before Kratos found out that Freya was a god, he clearly distrusted her the least and was opening up to her in a way he hadn’t with anyone besides his wives. Then he finds out that she’s a god and is angry with her and closes himself off again. When Atreus gets sick, despite his poor behavior, he goes to her and literally trusts her with his son’s life. Literally the most important person to him. Kratos is distraught and goes to HER. If he truly distrusted her that wouldn’t have happened. He felt played and was angry as a result.

He believes so much in the goodness of Freya, despite his past with gods and her concealing her identity, that he kills her son against her wishes. He regrets hurting her, but not choosing her life over Baldur’s. Kratos’ care is so deep for her, it extends even years later when she’s actively trying to kill him. Kratos literally refuses to hurt or kill her and only fights back to defend himself.

Kratos unashamedly compliments and comforts Freya and isn’t coy about it in the least bit. He finds her admirable and says it’s plainly.

Yes, men and women can be just friends, but honestly, these two are tinged with sexual tension. There’s this intimacy that exists between them that makes it hard to see it as remaining just platonic.

Which leads to Freya. Although Kratos killed her son, deep down she knows that it was necessary and that her anger at him was a projection of how her actions led to this as well as her shit marriage with Odin. As much as she loved her son, he made the world as worse place. This was partially (or mostly) a consequence of her trying to protect him from all harm, which fucked up him mental then emotional state. Add to having Odin as a father, a monster was created.

Because of her banishment at the hands of Odin as well as the shit he pulled during their marriage—only giving her a child to control her, I believe—all she had ti keep her going was Baldur’s safety and protection. Her mind was distorted due to her hostile circumstances. She literally couldn’t protect herself even if she tried and was locked away in an u familiar land. Cut off from her brother and her people.

We get hints that Freya doesn’t hate Kratos as much as she wants to believe. There’s so much subtleties and nuances in their interactions and how she has to fight his advice and being endeared to him. When he helps free her from Odin’s spell, she calls a truce between them. After that, her hostility melts towards him even though she says she can never forgive him.

Freya pleads for Kratos to fight against Odin and even makes him head of the army. She explicitly trust him with her life and of that of the nine realms. After she is free from Odin’s magic, she never uses Baldur against Kratos at all.

And I honestly do believe she forgave him completely because kratos knew what it was like to be betrayed and manipulated by a god and lose a child. He did not want to kill Baldur, it was a necessity, one that I believe she accepts. Him revealing that personal stuff about his daughter softens Freya in her assessment of him.

Freya reveals to him that she’d have another child if the opportunity presented itself. Considering that he’s the man that killed her only child, that says a lot. Why would she even reveal this to him? It has nothing to do with romance, but her trust in him. He’s a confidant and someone she feels not only comfortable around, but is okay with being vulnerable with.

She constantly laughs and jokes with him and feels more comfortable around him than Mimir. Again, Kratos is the man who killed her son, where as mimir suggested the marriage between her and Odin. Later, she is friends with mimir, but it’s telling that she’s closer to Kratos before she is with mimir. She’s also very complimentary towards him as well.

Rather than going off and doing her own thing, Freya chooses to help Kratos rebuild society, which isn’t some light commitment. She’s literally going to be spending fucking years alongside Kratos helping him rebuild society.

Like it’s so obvious that she forgave Kratos, esp when compared to Odin who she admitted to relishing in the reality of watching him lose everything in the end.

And we also see her defend and protect Kratos against Gna after ragnarok.

Like, yes, they’re friends, but this can evolve into something else considering their histories with each other, how deeply they care for one another, and even though lose informs their behaviors, they’re no longer defined by it. Both see paths as to having futures after their losses and despite how they were defined/perceived in the world. So we can’t fall back on him still needing to mourn Faye or Freya being unable to forgive him for Baldur.

This is all assuming that they get together right away rather than over time. I don’t think those feelings would be obvious, but would make sense once they realized that something has changed for both of them.

So it’s really strange how shippers are framed as ignoring context and backstories to push a ship when the narrative makes it clear that Freya has forgiven Kratos and will being spending a shit ton of time with him. She can’t forgive him for Baldur, but literally put the life of humanity in his hands, protects him, travels alongside and rebuilds society with him, compliments him, reveals her deepest secrets to him, served as support about him wife and son (even the first set of wife and child), yet the idea that she could never move past him killing her son is the crux of the argument as to why Freya would never get would Kratos?

Although some arguments can be made, imo, there’s more evidence that that’s just not the case.

And Kratos moving on isn’t impossible since he has done so before. He needs someone who he trusts and that understands him and that he cared about…hmm…wonder who fits that criteria.

[purgemarchlockdown]

Mercy and Amane Momose

(Also Known As: I'm so normal about Amane Momose, lets talk about the conflation of love and pain.)

(CW: Child Abuse, Cults, Discussion around Death and Child Death)

So, recently the 0708 interrogations have answered T2 Question 09:

Q: What does love mean to you

Kazui has a really interesting response that I'll talk about some other time but what I want to focus on is how Amane answers it.

This Translation of her answer is provided by @/milgram_en over on twitter:

A: To spread mercy with no limits

(@/prisoner-000 has there own translation of it over here, it doesn't change my opinion on this, I just thought it would be important to mention.)

Now that's not exactly the clearest answer but we can put it together with T2 Question 02 to get a clearer picture of what she means:

Q: Do you believe you were loved? A: Very much deeply.

Now, as we know, Amane was abused and judged sinful by her parents and punished because of that, this constant punishment and abuse causing her to hate them so much she wanted to kill them.

Amane: Furthermore, isn’t it condescending of you to assume that just because I happen to be a child, I am incapable of hating someone enough to kill them?

Mercy is defined as compassionate treatment of someone you have the power to hurt, clearly what they did to her isn't mercy in the dictionary sense so why does Amane consider it mercy when the actions done towards her were so painful and traumatizing that it really could have killed her? Most people aren't exactly equipped to survive torture, much less a twelve year old who isn't allowed any sort of aid.

Well, here's the thing. Amane Momose was Told and Treated as sinful for her entire life. She was Taught to believe in her own horrible self. She grew up believing herself to be impure and unholy.

She portrays herself as weak and childish in Magic, she punishes herself in Purge March for making small mistakes. No matter how much she says otherwise, Amane Momose doesn't consider herself to be "good."

Magic very heavily features the concept of being a good girl but it's important to note that Amane never Calls herself that. She says that she could be or she's going be. Not she is a good girl.

I swear! I'm going to be a good girl now! That's it!

I promise! I can only become a better girl!

Purge March's good girl theming isn't as intense as Magic's but it is present, especially in this line.

If you become a bad girl, monsters will come out This is the magic that stops that from happening

This line is during The Cat Scene, a scene where she was "weak" and stole away the cat's trial.

Amane: Both pain and illness are trials. According to our teachings, those who run from them are the worst evil there is. That’s one of the four great principles. No matter who you are, that cannot be forgiven. Es: What are you…? Amane: Oh – speaking of which, there is one among the prisoners right now. An evil existence that’s trying to steal people’s trials away from them.

Evil you say?

Amane doesn't believe herself to be good, or even capable of being good and hates that about herself. If she could be good none of this would have happened. Everyone would be happy.

Only if, only if, only if I could be a good girl I hope, I hope everyone can be happy and smile Forever, forever together would be a dream

This is what makes her parent's actions mercy. If Amane is unable to change who she is and Amane is inherently sinful and impure then her parents trying to "cleanse" her using punishment is...mercy. They could do So Much Worse, but they don't, because they think she could be "better."

It's painful yes but their only doing it to help her. And isn't pain a trial anyway? Really her want to get away from it is just a sign of her weakness.

Dear wise one, Is this ok? Is it ok to be weak sometimes?

And this training, is Supposed to make her less weak. They believe there's still a chance for her, a glimmer of hope that she could be better. That with enough time she won't be Amane Momose anymore. She'll be someone better.

And what's more merciful than that really?

Amane: I’m happy that I was born to my parents! It was a bit difficult, and it could feel restrictive sometimes, but I’m really happy that I could grow up on such beautiful teachings! I want to live this way!

[avirael]

FFxivWrite 2023

Day 14 - Clear

That just can’t be true!, A'viloh thought as Yda and Papalymo led him into the solar to introduce him to the partner for his new mission.

Minfilia had mentioned that the two of them had found a new recruit in Gridania just a few weeks before A'viloh joined the Scions and that she planned to send the two rookies out on a small mission together. She had explained that she thought the two of them would make a good team but now that A'viloh saw his new partner he strongly doubted her judgement.

In front of him stood a Viera with long white hair, piercing amber eyes and a too familiar ill-tempered scowl. One and the same Viera he had met at the Sastasha Seagrot and who immediately had pissed him off with their condescending behaviour.

"Rael, this is A'viloh Tia. A'viloh, this is Rael Hyskaris. The two of you will go to Gridania together.", Yda announced happily.

The Viera crossed their arms in front of their chest and barely glanced at A'viloh.

"We already know each other.", they stated grumpily.

While Papalymo raised an eyebrow, Yda exclaimed in an equally merry and oblivious manner: "Oh! How nice!"

The Lalafell ignored her remark and instead started to explain the task that awaited them. It sounded easy enough and A'viloh wondered if a mission like this really required two people.

The Viera seemed to have the exact same thought. "That seems simple, I can to that on my own. It will only take much longer if I have to keep that one from stumbling into Ixali traps."

A'viloh couldn’t believe his ears! Angrily and a little embarrassed he said: "You cannot still be mad about that Coeurl!"

The Viera furrowed their brow. "Mad? I’m not mad, I just don’t want to babysit your clumsy ass all the time. Honestly I am surprised you haven’t gotten yourself killed yet."

A'viloh growled. He wondered how the Scions had decided to recruit someone this rude!

Before he could answer anything though, Papalymo interrupted their quarrel. "I don’t know what your problem with each other is and, to be honest, I don’t care. Rael, you can’t go on your own, we don’t send new recruits out on solo-missions. The two of you will have to pull yourself together I‘m afraid."

A'viloh groaned while the Viera rolled their eyes.

Papalymo cleared his throat and added: "Have I made myself clear?"

"Clear.", Rael said reluctantly.

"Crystal clear!", A'viloh added.

Papalymo nodded, told them to meet Serpent Commander Vorsaile for more details and then left while shooing Yda away.

The Miqo'te and the Viera glowered at each other waiting for the two of them to be out of earshot.

"Just to be clear.", Rael said with a straight face. "If you get me into trouble, I’m going to feed you to a Morbol."

A'viloh smiled at them with an unfriendly forced smiled. "Just to be clear, you’re an insufferable, rude piece of gobbue dung."

The Viera simply shook their head and left.

"Hey!", A'viloh protested and followed them.

"We shouldn’t keep Vorsaile waiting...", was all he got as a reply.

This is going to be a nightmare!, A'viloh thought.

[velvetvexations]

Hey, would you believe me if I said I drafted a long ass ramble meant for you yesterday and I never sent it because I was very sleepy and mayhaps a bit worried it'd read as dramatic? (I am once again asking for permission to deliver seven paragraphs to your ask box.)

Somewhat related, I cannot wrap my head around what people think they're achieving by treating you this way. They go on and on about how you're on the wrong side and how people thanking you daily for putting in effort and being you don't care about you. Do they imagine that if they treat you badly enough you'll somehow crawl over to them like a beaten, cowed dog?

The posts talking about how 'transmisogynists shouldn't expect any forgiveness' very clearly establish the social stakes you exist under right now. You can either continue to stick with people who are at least positive and grateful towards you while others use your kindness to justify hurling insults at you, demeaning you, and dismissing you. Or you can admit you're 'wrong' and beg for forgiveness and community that can be taken away from you at any time it suits someone to label you a transmisogynist for supporting transmascs. How is this not a recreation of the exact transmisogynistic dynamic that tells transfems they better be right and perfect and good on the first try OR ELSE?

To be fair I do seek out arguments and am sometimes more aggressive than I should be, which is something I need to work on. So I am to an extent deliberately taking that hornet's nest and slam dunking it onto the ground. I think that's what I worry about the most, that I get too aggressive and even the people behind me will start to say I'm just being cringe lol. But yeah, like, I'm sometimes a a little condescending and really sarcastic but the response is still outrageous and it helps to have others reinforce that.

When I first started learning about these issues a couple of my friends were telling me they had to come to me to talk about it because they thought they were going insane not agreeing with how transfems dictated their oppression to them. And I'm happy I have the chance to let others know they're not going insane either, that some things are fucked up and they're right to notice and want to do something about it.

It's good to like, have each other's back and validate things.

And yes! Send anything you want!

[limpfisted]

WYLL’S FLAWED PERSPECTIVE. or, how to “read” my replies!

i personally believe wyll is a flawed character and its important to give him the full spectrum of emotions beyond “good” “kind” or “bad” “evil.”

i am personally working on trying to stay “ic” and true to my characters, without pushing the character into saying something that will like, be good for a ship, or like, be an “rp people pleaser” if that makes senses!

i don’t JUST want to have interactions where wyll is perfect. to me, wyll has flaws in the way he communicates and sees the world. this does not mean he is not heroic, or a kind, decent man—it just means i love him as a character for his layers. these things make him more REAL and complex than i think wyll as a PERSON wants to be, in a kind of “hide my truth, hide my feelings, elsa frozen kinnie” way

so without further ado, here are some things wyll might do or want to do or say incorrectly or percieve your character in the wrong way even tho i personally would not behave in the same ways irl On Purpose For Some Of These Things

CONDESCENDING. wyll believes he knows best. wyll believes he can say all the right words and “fix things.” he can make EVERYTHING better. he has a SAVIOR COMPLEX. while never being a perfect martyr, he really does think he can “ahaaha dont have depression ur so sexy” ur ass by being gentle and kind and roleplaying a fairy tale with you. additionally, if you seem “soft” in some way, or “meek” in some way, wyll want to “help you” more.

AVOIDANT. wyll does not want to talk about what he wants, what he notices, what he feels, except in poetryor tall tales or threats of violence. his pretty words sometimes hide an emptiness, a dreaminess. he speaks of things he cannot have and will not ask for. he is embarrassed to want, embarrassed to need, attention, desire, anything but charm and protecting the innocent and meek.

OVERLY ROMANTIC. this ties in with above. he idealizes people, he puts them on pedestals, he treats them like they are made of glass. he does not humanize others or himself enough, and prefers to live in a world of fantasies and pretend.

BOASTFUL. wyll tries to be humble—but this is to match a persona. if you dive even slightly deeper into things, he’s all too happy to tell you how strong and heroic he is, to the point of condescion and vanity. on the other hand, he will not take you seriously if you threaten him! he’ll threaten you back! he doesnt give a single fuck!

BLACK AND WHITE THINKING AND SNAP JUDGEMENTS. to wyll, you are either “hunter” “prey” “hero/villain” the person he needs to protect people from. he will bide his time—but it is difficult for him to trear villains kindly, and he will NEVER truly respect them as people, unless they prove they have changed or are not trying to hurt anyone currently.

WILL WORK WITH VILLAINS. WILL MAKE DEALS WITH DEVILS. WILL ALSO HUNT THEM FOR SPORT. easy to understand, wyll believes he can “control” devils, if they are useful to him. wyll can ally with evil—even if he is just biding his time to kill them later.

VIOLENT. ROLEPLAYER. if you are evil, he will just want to kill you and that’s that! he wanted to kill every goblin at that camp! he relishes in violence as long as it’s for justice. he gets off on the power and pomp of it n his heroism—even when its not actually heroic

WORDS GET AWAY FROM HIM. he will speak with intention, but has a tendency to ramble poetically. when angry, and threatening someone, sometimes he makes no sense at all bc he just wants murder myrder death death justice

A SILLY BILLY!! he can take himself very seriously, but also he is brainweird and skin hungry n loves to touch n be weird and wrestle n write funny poems and get drunk n dance under the stars. he’s a silly ex-(would have been a theatre kid but his dad wanted him to join jrotc instead) kid! he likes big bold gestures. he is EXTREMELY REPRESSED, but the closer he gets to u, the more ull see his joy n not just his “good hero”

DEEPLY LONELY AND APPROVAL SEEKING. wyll really likes it when people pay attention to him. nore than he likes actually doing good things, sometimes. note: there is nothing wrong with doing good things for recognition, everyone deserves recognition of hard work n pain. but it still makes him more interesting to me than generic hero!:

EASILY CORRUPTABLE / MOLDABLE / MANIPULATED. he approves of killing for auntie ethel n them immediatley goes. oh. fuck. oh no…. i fucked up. im trash…. he got i. cahoots with mizora and thinks he CHOSE that bc hes so so good!

NOT IN TOUCH WITH HIS FEELINGS. wyll doesn’t always know wgat’s going on his beain/heart, n honestly he doesn’t want to think abt it too hard! but i will! i always will, wyll.

SMART, BUT DOESN’T CARE ENOUGH TO QUESTION. i dont feel like writing anymore god free me. free me from the sin of my hubris. free me. no more writing

THERE ARE MORE THINGS PROBABLY BUT I DONT FERL LIKE WRITING THEM. LOOK AT MY PRETTY HC BANNER ITS SO PRETTY. GOODBYE FOREVER

something so,ething hes traumatized and pushes people away n puts them on a pedestal so they can never know how scarred and scared and unworthy he feels bc of the deep loneliness inside him from his family’s emotional instability coupled with being homeless as a teenager with only an abuser to guide him thru his late teens, etc

[hildegardladyofbones]

RANT

FUCJ THUs SHIT. FUCK. THIS. SHIT. School is starting on Friday and now I'm actually going to school which will swallow like the majority of would be free time because I have no other choice. But for the past entire week I have had NO MOTIVATION, NO ENERGY and barely inspiration. I gave up. I said fuck this shit ill just try to survive. (And then I went on an impromptu mini trip because I was rotting away in my room completely alone and I knew I needed a restart) and NOW. NOW I HAVE MOTIVATION. for the better HALF of a month I have been DEAD. And now I have all of those things. This is unfair. This is fucking unfair. I'm going to school, and art school and I will be tired and lazy and I will never write those stories and never paint those paintings. And that is honestly why I hate summer. It's cruel how I have nothing going on for the majority of the summer so technically I could be writing and painting and drawing and crafting 24/7 but I physically cannot because I crumble without structure. There are no regular (inevitable) things that I can plan my life around and thus I fall apart. I spent half of July dissasociating and the other half not home. But when I DO have that structure I have no time. I exhaust myself by Friday and then I have to become human again during the weekends. And that takes time. Honestly I do love learning and all that jazz but I sincerely wish I could just not do that. I hate both summer and school and I can live with neither. Because oh boy school will be an obstacle. At least I'm not sharing my classroom with 4 loud boys, instead I'm sharing it with a quiet girl and a mayybbee loud boy? Who the fuck knows because there's another new student again. BUT those 4 loud boys and many more even louder children will still exist around me and they will scream and yell and run and eat and I want to lunch them in the face. I Will need hearing aids by the end of the schoolyear, not because of their noise but because i will try to drown out their noose with my noise. How the fuck am I supposed to function. And my mom is actually pushing the diagnosis thing more than me and if I have learned anything from other tistics, then I know for sure that the process will be hard and tiring and long and I don't want to deal with that. She's quite fond of the idea of finding me someone who can idk help with my misophonia and like help.me exist in the world and I have to invent gods to pray to to not get a condescending doctor. That is why I have not pushing therapy myself at all so far. I had convinced myself that therapy would be something I'm doing once I'm 18 or older because there are wayyy too many therapists that don't give a shit about minors anyway and I feel like I'm constantly having to explain myself anyway because I don't speak the same language as other people apparently. Idfk.

I'm probably over reacting, I would've never done those things anyway

(If you read all that then love ya <1212, if you scrolled last then love ya<1212)

[saetoru]

hiiii i hope you know how much i love ghe way u write haitham !!! also sooo true haitham is definitely autistic!! (me too haitham me too) i think u get how haitham is actually a quite kind and selfless person despite people think hes arrogant, egoistical and such but like if u read some if his voicelines like the one where hes asked what concerns he has he says smth not about him but how people tend to hurt themself and like cmon would an egoistical person have that concern??? also he doesnt look down on anyone its just he knows how capable he is and like ughhhh i feel like ur writing is a breath of fresh air cause like some people make it seem like hes some arrogant dude BUT HES NOT HES JUST AUTISTIC GUYS like when people say they dont like him and its just traits that autistic people usually have…. anyway thank you for sharing ur writing i love going through ur haitham tag it makes my day

HELLO HI I LITERALLY READ THIS LIKE 3 TIMES AND MY SMILE GOT SOOOO BIG EACH TIME IM GONNA TRY NOT TO RAMBLE AS I ANSWER THIS

but omg yesyesyes i agree he’s got so much pointing towards him being autistic and ppl will bash so many things ab him and it makes me so sad but also i’m like … maybe u ppl just don’t like traits that tend to describe autistic ppl idk … BUT i read so many fics of him being autistic and i see kaveh having adhd a lot in fics where they’re written to be neurodivergent and i think the authors i’ve read from so far have done such a good job of writing them and yeah. u get it. he’s definitely got sensory issues i know this is so real and true in my heart

AND HE IS SOOOOOOO KIND. i think ppl gloss over the fact that al-haitham doesn’t look down at anyone so much like everything about this man is so disciplined. so disciplined. like someone of his intelligence in a nation like sumeru could do sooo much bad but he literally just wants to have simple life where he goes to work and goes right home HE JUST WANTS PEACE. and his voice lines IF PPL WOULD JUST READ THEM. like the one about when ppl read difficult and abstruse books and then he says “jk i don’t enjoy watching ppl struggle lol” AND YES. THE ONE WHERE HE BASICALLY WOES ABOUR HOW PPL MAKE THEIR LIVES MORE DIFFICULT THAN IT NEEDS TK BE. he’s so caring by nature and i feel like even he doesn’t even understand that to some extent like i think he sees himself as a practical guy who just wants everyone to have peace for the sake of practicality. BUT HE ALSO JUST. CARES. YOU KNOW ?????????? they way it’s just canon that he’s misunderstood by ppl at the akademiya and he just doesn’t bother to correct them bc he doesn’t care to. THROWS UP HES SOOOOOOOOOO LOVELY I WISH MORE PPL WOULD SEE IT. i cannot tell u how many fics i read and then have to close bc. they just. THEY MAKE HIM SO ARROGANT AND MEAN BUT ARROGANCE =/= CONFIDENCE. he’s aware of his capabilities okay :( he’s not some condescending know it all. im just rly picky ab the way he’s written fjsjdjf so then i’m like. ok. i gotta write the content i wanna see 😔

but omg i’m rly glad you read and like my haitham writing sometimes i get carried away and make it so like…self servicing w the way i write him and the dialogue and then i get embarrassed to post it skfjsjfn but i’m very excited u like it I AM KISSINF U ON THE MOUF and also i am kissing ur brain for understanding him

[overtake]

holy shit i’m not anon but my god your post detailing how you grew fond of max has EXACTLY been my experience i actually teared up a little! i’ve been coerced into being a ferrari fan by my father when i first started watching races with him but honestly liking max just felt.. inevitable. he is so endearing to me with all his little idiosyncratic habits and qualities like he’s truly just a little guy who is extremely good at one thing. i first started to come around on him after a few pointless dramas such as brazil22 where i just felt like the backlash didn’t fit the “crime” and well.. you know how you start to like someone cause the people who hate them do so for the wrong reasons in your opinion? that’s sorta what happened with me. and his fans that i’ve interacted with here have been so lovely and welcoming too like idk it was hard not to like him tbh!

Every time someone hates on max, we grow in our aggressive affection toward him. He literally cannot do anything without people villainizing him. I know it doesn’t bother him and he’s utterly desensitized to people saying awful things about him (jos you will pay for your crimes), but there’s something so infuriating about people who walk around with this smug sense of superiority and condescending attitude, absolutely sure that their take is well-informed when it would be proven insane and ridiculous if they took off their blinders for one second and attempted any form of objectivity. They just get this feedback loop from people who jump on any chance to hate max, no matter how big of a reach and how utterly out of touch with reality it is.

These people will, with a straight face, say Max doesn’t care about winning because he doesn’t hoot and holler and perform for them like a show pony after every win. Then they say he has anger issues and is an asshole if he does anything to win or anything celebratory, like pointing at the 1 on his car. There is nothing he can do to win with them, and my aggressive frustration toward their absolute blind hatred to the point of throwing away all sense for easy rage bait simply makes me love him more each time. It’s their loss if they can’t have fun with him.

[likorys-shimenawa]

Having read your entire post, it is clear you are manipulative to the point of ridiculousness by trying to victimize yourself (by implying my response is 'attack' on you) as well as using aggrandizing language to put yourself in position of moral superiority (by misrepresenting a casual comment on how your wording comes off as expression of some kind of 'duty').

I will adress most misleading or dangerous things you said for the record and nothing more. Do not respond again unless you stop being manipulative, I'm not interested in being condescended to and chastised over your own misunderstanding of relationship between fiction and reality.

I didn't say it should be ignored!

You have said we 'bestie it's 2025, Tumblr has moved past picking one thing out of a post and being like, "BIGOTED!"". It is implied very clearly that I wasn't supposed to point out your sentence in the first place, based on this response.

you called me bigoted

I have not. I pointed out specific sentence you said comes off as bigoted. In part due to allegations concernig Gaiman, I've put effort into only claiming actions, not people, as being any kind of way.

However, the way the scene is written can say a lot.

No, it cannot, because once again - fiction is no indicator of real life. Lolita's writer does not out himself as pedophile by being able to write from perspective of one, even down to his erotic view of underage girl.

bastardized like four different other religions he culture vultured

If you make such claim you should provide a source for them next time. As is - by which I mean with no source whatsoever - you come off as someone throwing hot-button issues to distract and try to change topic.

"Hey, when I read this scene Neil Gaiman wrote about a woman of color who kills a man in a highly sexualized way I got uncomfortable because he used very demeaning language to describe her and he adhered to toxic tropes that actually lead to more WOC getting abused."

Every single thing described here is either your personal feeling/vaguer or unsupported to the point of being irrelevant.

Not even the word 'hooker' being demeaning is objective, especially not in contect of the sex scene. I would also disagree about the scene adhering to any toxic tropes, especially since you single out 'black woman kill someone during sex' while omitting 'black woman is a goddess worshipped by a man until he giver her his entire beeing in worship'.

Mostly it's futile to try and judge a single scene without providing any broader context.

THIS SCENE was written in a way that was not productive.

One again, that is your personal feeling about the scene. Nothing more. You are not entitled to using your personal feeling about a piece of fictional writing as indicator of what author of fictional writing does in real life.

I also take issue with use of word 'productive' - writing can exists for wholly unproductive reasons.

It also takes away from the original point that Gaiman is a bad person

I completely and utterly disagree. Nobody has a right to condemn entire human being as one thing and while Gaiman's actions are reprehensible, that is all you can judge (and even that judgement is doubtfully unbiased).

Again, it is clear you are not interested in discussion and only want to be told your the smartest person around and everyone else is wrong. You wouldn't dispute the entire point of the original post to begin with otherwise.

[thepoliticalvulcan]

Fact Checks, Mediation, Curation, and Censorship from a Library Perspective

I have a lot of thoughts. This is a biggun. You might want a cup of tea.

As a librarian, I am a free speech enthusiast. Also as a librarian, I am accustomed to dealing with limitations on how much speech can actually be accommodated and thus having to try to find some standard for adjudicating merit that is as ideologically neutral as possible. Translated into plain English, I have limited shelf space and budgets so I can't buy a copy of everything in existence: I have to make judgments about how to allocate my scarce resources.

Perhaps the single part of that judgment process that makes me sympathetic to Meta is that I have to think about who uses my library and the overall quality of their experience versus as opposed to what I believe they should desire to see and how they should want to use my resources. If I rig the experience too far towards my own biases, I'm out of a job. People will show up, not find anything that suits them, leave, never come back, and maybe complain to one or more elected officials who have power over my budget and authority to impose limits and demands on how I do my job.

Librarianship attracts a lot of progressives. To pretend otherwise would be lying to ourselves and to the public. If there is anything at all that I think we as a profession and left of center highly educated people more generally should take away from the culture wars is that the loss of public confidence is profoundly damaging and digging out of that hole is not a trivial exercise. I like to think librarians more than almost any other lefty profession recognizes that we have to hold our truths loosely and see ourselves as facilitating a long conversation within the public. The alternative is allowing our reflexive "ick" when someone checks out the latest polemic or O'Reilly penned pop history to make us condescending, disengaged, and paternalistic. We can't assume the long conversation begins and ends with that patron checking out that book.

Hiding information we think is empirically incorrect or dangerous from the public or shaming them may or may not be an effective way to modify their beliefs and limit harm, but regardless of efficacy I think its a bad instinct to nurture. No single institution, agency, or platform in open societies is the only venue in which people encounter information and opaque decision making about what we emphasize or deemphasize can build suspicion. If we get caught following a zeitgeist that feels like empirical truth but later proves faulty, its hard to recover the public trust. Credibility is hard to build, easy to lose.

You cannot persuade or achieve mutual understanding if the feeling you nurture is contempt.

I firmly believe that mutual understanding is necessary for persuasion.

Having said that though, it goes both ways. If someone feels nothing but contempt for you and acts on this feeling, then you can't truly have productive dialogue of any sort. As a consequence, libraries have rules governing behavior in the physical spaces and violators may be asked to leave. Chronic violators may be barred from returning.

This sentiment as applied to books is a little more abstract and "eye of the beholder-ish" but when making decisions about what to spend money on, librarians look at various proxies for merit:

Reputation of the publisher for quality control when it comes to proofreading, formatting, and binding.(1)

Authors that are already established as having good name recognition. (2)

Requests from the public.

Book reviews from well regarded outlets. (3)

(1) Given that time is one of our scarce resources, we are biased towards publishers that provide good metadata for our systems to ingest which makes our books more easily discovered by patrons using catalog search tools. This bias definitely has unintended consequences: independently published authors are often locked out of library systems; as are smaller, less well established and resourced publishers that can't match Pearson et al. dollar for dollar when it comes to marketing. If there is a traditionally published book that comes from a smaller but reputable publisher, please request it for your library so its on our radar!

(2) Yes this does discriminate against authors just starting out who aren't hooked up with powerful publishing houses that will advertise the heck out of them. See (1).

(3) Awards lists from the American Library Association and affiliate orgs like YALSA reviews in Library Journal are the platinum standard, but we're not above using NYT best seller lists, Goodreads, and even Amazon reviews but most of us are very aware of how these things can be gamed and exclude all but the luckiest Indie writer. Again, we love suggestions that help us bring things into the collection that are exist inside the blindspots of our human frailties.

Aren't we talking about social media, not libraries?

How this applies to the realm of online conversation in my thinking is as follows:

When was the last time you had a good and meaningful conversation with a stranger in a setting that wasn't strictly moderated?

Have you ever managed to have a good and meaningful conversation with a stranger across a significant ideological divide in a setting that wasn't strictly moderated?

If you have a compelling answer, I'd actually love to hear it. Because this seems profoundly rare and I have to wonder if you were simply unaware of the moderation because of the way moderation set expectations for conduct that ensured good faith participation instead of acting like a smug jerk out to trigger and farm likes.

Now of course you might also say that this is tone policing and that not everyone is owed civility.

Yes and yes!

It is tone policing and not everyone is owed civility. Tone policing has long been a tool to ensure that grief, rage, and unpopular ideas are seen as invalid. Rules of etiquette that are too tight bleed out the humanity of a discussion and tend to prioritize those who have learned the affect of the highly educated and privileged. This is a real risk to moderation of discussion on large platforms and it does warrant scrutiny.

Yet I would still argue that some tone policing is necessary to have real communication about real ideas instead of a competition to yell the loudest or to wield harassment to try to make a platform unusable by people with objectionable ideas.

Much as tone policing can be weaponized against people on the basis of class or culture, another consequence might be bad ideas being laundered through the language of sensibility. This might result in ugly phenomenon like racists veiling their rhetoric, "sane washing" it to sound more reasonable ala Hernstein & Murray's "The Bell Curve." If you're from the conservative or class first left side, you might say it "smartens up" empirically senseless grifts from people selling struggle sessions to guilty liberals who want to feel like they're making the world a better, fairer place without actually volunteering their time or money to worthwhile causes.

Bad ideas being laundered through erudite language because of tone policing (moderation) and the inability of other people to just drop the pretense and call Murray a bigot does present a risk of those ideas being sane washed and people falling for them. To that I say the downsides of not setting a minimum expectation for conduct are felt disproportionately by the people who most need to be heard.

The act of calling Murray a bigot inoculates some of the audience from being taken in from his work, but others see it as a thought terminating cliché that is designed to shut down any consideration of any of Murray's ideas. Thus some people will inevitably get lured into Murray's trap that much more easily, their critical thinking disarmed by their disdain for anyone who throws out the word bigot.

Just being willing to be exposed to the counter argument is a small victory for information literacy

Meanwhile, there is a far riskier proposition, one that librarians wrestle with when we suppress our gag reflexes and buy the latest polemic: what if we trust people to make up their own minds?

Knowing full well that some people will "fall for" the misinformation and yes, that does have dangerous consequences in a world with hate crimes and pandemics. Yet the alternative to trusting people is attempting to control their access to information, to only permit them access to the good information. In a world where people can consume information ala carte, this just ensures that we quickly lose all of the people who feel excluded and attacked and they migrate to somewhere that caters to them exclusively, if not more aggressively. A place where they won't necessarily have access to ideas that challenge them because that place might not follow the professional ethics of librarians.

We can't stop the skeptic from walking out the door when they encounter books from people of faith nor the liberal from leaving when they see Anne Coulter's new collection of rants nor the religious conservative when they encounter queer dialogues. The library is a two part bargain: it is opt in and by opting in you agree to be at least tempted by the presence of narratives contrary to your own and in being in the presence of these "bad" books you will at least be consenting to tolerating their existence. And that's a start. That's a foundation you can attempt to build a society on.

The second part of the bargain is that you don't have to be too hyper vigilant because care has been taken in the selection. Not to guarantee fidelity to reality, but rather that a bare minimum of effort has been made by the author, publisher etc. to be coherent so that the reader can at least make sense of what they're looking at.

This is the role that fair and effective moderation can play in online spaces. It does not allow everyone to speak freely, but it does allow people who are willing to agree to a minimum standard of conduct the opportunity to participate. Moderation is also a tool of equity. Establishing guardrails around decorum, the dreaded "tone policing", favors the people who are most likely to get abused and dog piled. Which again in some situations might be the Nazi who is "hiding his power level" but in other situations, probably more often even, it favors the cultural, religious, political, or sexual minority! It protects them from the sort of harassment and bad faith interactions they'd get in other settings.

So as a free speech enthusiast, I am less offended by Meta backing away from fact checking than I am by allegations it is quietly relaxing standards around speech that is abusive or hateful. It is now permissible to say that LGBTQ people are mentally ill. It is also now, even more bizarrely, permissible to say women are household objects. For the sake of clarity, here is Meta's own words on the subject as I cannot find the specific quotes used in the NBC and CNN articles I linked, which I find deeply problematic from a journalistic ethics standpoint.

"We recognize that people sometimes share content that includes slurs or someone else’s speech in order to condemn the speech or report on it. In other cases, speech, including slurs, that might otherwise violate our standards is used self-referentially or in an empowering way. We allow this type of speech where the speaker’s intention is clear. Where intention is unclear, we may remove content.

People sometimes use sex- or gender-exclusive language when discussing access to spaces often limited by sex or gender, such as access to bathrooms, specific schools, specific military, law enforcement, or teaching roles, and health or support groups. Other times, they call for exclusion or use insulting language in the context of discussing political or religious topics, such as when discussing transgender rights, immigration, or homosexuality. Finally, sometimes people curse at a gender in the context of a romantic break-up. Our policies are designed to allow room for these types of speech." Meta Transparency Center, Hateful Conduct Policy Rationale as of January 7, 2025

Notably the examples of forbidden post types do still include threats, encouragement of self harm, openly wishing for all [category] to be killed, die, commit suicide etc.

Given that I saw examples of forbidden speech all of the time under the old rules, under the newly relaxed standards a much greater burden is going to be placed on moderators to make judgment calls about what is beyond the pale. Somehow I doubt that discourse is going to become more jovial, civil, or thoughtful and that low effort trolling and sniping will be discouraged. Nor that people in categories that are protected outside of a political or religious context will enjoy a lot of freedom to post openly about their lives seeing as virtually everything about their existence can be argued to be a political or religious freedom issue for someone else who wants to engage in harassment.

Notably a trans-owned shop that I have happily purchased numerous items of Renaissance Faire gear from and only became aware of because of advertising on Facebook, is pulling back from using Meta platforms as a community engagement tool because of rampant harassment and bad faith reports. Reports that camouflage the anti-LGBTQ motive and exploit Meta's lack of interest or allocated resources to do more than superficial investigation of reports.

Unfair and inadequate moderation are one of the swiftest routes to losing credibility and I do expect there will be long term negative consequences to relaxing standards in order to be more consistent overall rather than devoting more resources to adjudicating reports accurately and fairly. But of course, I would expect negative consequences wouldn't I?

"Can't you just block the trolls?"

This is a popular response to complaints about lax moderation by free speech enthusiasts. I have probably made some variation of this argument before. On some level, this is true.

BlueSky has one of the most robust suite of tools for managing rude behavior of the major platforms, at least that I am aware of. The features include:

The traditional "block" feature where you will never see a person again and they won't see you.

The option to hide a reply to one of your posts from everyone else.

The ability to "disconnect" your post from a quoted reply so that an offensive or annoying quote is not obviously associated with your original post.

These tools reportedly work very well for even fairly high profile people like famous authors to manage unpleasant people harassing them or other people in their comments, but as BlueSky has become labeled "the left Twitter" and risen in prominence, there are alleged campaigns being organized on other platforms to brigade BlueSky and conduct mass harassment of LGBTQ users and perhaps other people regularly in the crosshairs of conservative troll armies. This is a strategy I'm very familiar with from my own experiences in 1990s forum culture where users of rival boards would register en masse to try to distract and harass their enemies in a sort of office chair version of enemy gangs making incursions into each other's territory. For a few days until a critical mass of people had been IP banned, a site could be unusable for its loyal posters.

Given the scale at which modern social media platforms operate and the vast numbers of followers prominent rabblerousers can rouse, for their victims the self service moderation tools would not be adequate. If you've ever read/listened to someone who has become the main character of the internet for a few days, a targeted individual might receive hundreds, even thousands of unwanted and abusive messages all at once. Shout out to Jamie Loftus and her podcast "Sixteenth Minute (of Fame)."

I'm very, very pro-human labor when it comes to tasks that require understanding context and nuance but realistically, recognizing when someone is being bombarded with hateful content and addressing it is a task that at least to some degree is best suited for a robot. This is also where features present in other social medias like word filters can help but the tools are often hidden behind layers of menus. To beat the dead horse and acknowledge the steelman: overly punitive and credulous automated moderation is part of how Meta dug itself into a hole with its users in the first place. This is one part of Zuckerberg's self assessment about Meta's moderation tools that rang true in his interview with Joe Rogan, although he breezed past the alternatives like just hiring more people, training them better etc.

When the Banned Become Martyrs & Platforms Acting in Bad Faith

I feel very little pity for the troll who intentionally breaks terms of service as an act of protest against what they perceive as unjust moderation policies. In the quest to keep abreast of how people I find deeply unpleasant think and feel, a friend subjected me to an hour of conversation between Bari Weiss and Seth Dillon of Babylon Bee.

The steelman version of this conversation would read as follows: Weiss and Dillon make accurate observations about the perverse incentives and risks of overly centralized, too reactive, and too risk averse social media. They also make these observations in the most infuriating way possible. The amount of whining about not being able to call being trans a mental illness or being issued punishments for misgendering people is definitely content not fit to be consumed without a mouth guard, for allies are sure to grind their teeth. A lot. I sure did.

This is where I do have to separate out my disgust for the content of their speech and address where I do think there is a there there.

Because as a librarian, I am genuinely torn. As I have just spent an inordinate amount of time laying out, I am not against minimum standards of conduct in spaces, online or off, if the intent is to ensure that the broadest number of people, acting in good faith, may make use of the space as its intended and be heard. Even if I don't necessarily approve of the ideas, I think its good and healthy to be exposed to the intellectualized versions of ideas I don't care for. There is a risk that intellectual "pathogens" may spread but for me at least, I listened to what Weiss and Dillon had to say and I liked them less as human beings when the credits rolled and their arguments for free speech made me think long and hard about the trade offs involved in content moderation. Mostly in a way that made me less persuaded by free speech absolutism.

Yet, their commentary on power and incentives rang true. Meta has no commitment to core principles. It has a fiduciary duty. Any pretense that it has principles is at best an ex post facto rationalization by people who are trying to justify working for Meta and at worst, its simply a lie. Meta's pretense that it has ever intentionally, as a first principle acted in the public good is a marketing tool intended to make us, the users, feel better about being on a platform associated with genocides, the spreading of lethally incorrect information about pathogens, conspiracy theories about election fraud, and the more banal everyday irritation of comment section feuds and clickbait drivel being shoved at us from accounts we are not following but appear more frequently in our timelines than those of our own friends.

Back at the dawn of the panic over "fake news" Meta's introduction of tighter standards for moderation and fact checking appeared to be in part due to a moral reaction to the use of Facebook to help fan the flames of a genocide in Myanmar among other events. It seemed to be part of a sense that unlike individual to individual communication like phones, social media had a moral duty to limit its use for obscene and destructive purposes.

Ethically, it was becoming viewed more as a newspaper or TV station in the public consciousness or at least among the specific parts of the commentariat that concerned themselves with expanding the scope of human rights and was focused on limiting harms like violence, hate, dangerously inaccurate information etc. The downsides of a for profit entity granting itself editorial authority were seen as less likely to produce harm than true neutrality, and after all, the steps Meta was taking were aligned with that of the Intelligentsia.

Now with Meta walking these things back, I think its clear that what Meta was doing was limiting its exposure to consequences for how it was used. For a while, it seemed like real action might be taken on holding major platforms accountable for allowing users to do things that might contribute to some sort of tangible, real world harm or crime. Anti-trust was on the lips of the Intelligentsia and some users were having conversations about the ethics of using services that had contributed to genocides at the extreme and were just generally becoming more and more unpleasant as they became more of a venue for people to lock horns over politics. Which again, locking horns over politics may just be a sport to some, for others it presents the real risk of real harms like doxxing, SWATTING, stalking, defamation, harassment campaigns etc.

So Meta took action to limit its legal risks and to calm the moral outrage of its loudest users.

Now the tables have turned and the legal risks come from a Federal government whose regulatory tools are in the hands of Republicans who are very outspoken about desiring to punish Meta for punishing people who were chronic terms of service violators under the old rules regimen. People who ran afoul of Meta's more strident definitions of hate speech, incitement, disinformation etc. because those people were the ones who expose Meta to legal and financial risks when Democrats are in control.

Unintended Consequences

I have never had a romantic view of Meta. There is no big tech founder I have ever idealized. I will not pretend that I am in mourning over some lost era of civility and empiricism. That never existed. I also am not going to overperform outrage over Meta relaxing its standards for moderation and abandoning fact checking because while I have made a case for why they can be good, from my vantage point I have never seen it be the case where Meta ever applied legible standards consistently or fairly. Which just winds up damaging the credibility of the third party fact checkers who seemed to mostly be trying to act in good faith but had no control over how their fact checks were deployed as a dispassionate, automated tool when handed off to Meta.

Facebook and Instagram are only usable to me because I keep a very narrow and carefully selected range of people who are allowed to see and comment on my posts and I'm extremely selective with how I interact with public posts from pages and groups. When I use the default timeline view, it is a minefield of engagement bait. It is as of this writing only indirectly political: recommended posts primarily debate social issues in the context of fandoms and higher education.

The fandom posts are irritatingly toxic but carefully worded to avoid being too toxic and mostly written by trolls who I have serious doubts actually watched or read the things they're commenting on and primarily seem interested in using fandom to get around the algorithm "shadow banning" political topics. It almost all devolves back to whether Marvel, Star Wars, or Star Trek have gone woke and the comments are overwhelmingly skew stupid, vulgar, and histrionic.

From Meta's perspective, this must be a win. Its generating engagement and apparently what the engagement actually is is irrelevant so long as the number goes up. Where circa 2021-2024 Meta was de-emphasizing overt politics and trying to prioritize cordiality and fun, now it evidently feels that it is more lucrative and less dangerous from a regulatory perspective to go back to being a troll free for all. This will probably be good for Meta financially in the short term since the verbal blood sport that is online discussion of politics and cultural issues generates traffic galore.

Presumably this will also please the GOP unless the same relaxed moderation allows a new wave of "Resistance" or Black Lives Matter style organizing.

In the long term? I suspect it will accelerate Meta's decline as people who simply want to keep in touch with distant family find it more and more difficult to see one another's posts without a tech savvy relative to show them where Meta hides the legacy feeds that only show people and pages you are actually following in chronological order.

What will Meta do when the "anti-woke" controlled regulatory committees and agencies notice "anti-fascist" organizing on Meta's platforms? Will Mark Zuckerberg tell presumptive FBI director Kash Patel that freedom of speech means freedom of speech for everyone or will he clamp down on people, pages, and groups critical of the Trump administration, GOP, or other "right" coded groups and causes? I think he'll prioritize his empire because I believe he was prioritizing his empire when he made changes to tamp down on incivility and misinformation.

Who Moderates the Mods?

So that leaves me in an interesting place as someone who thinks a little censorship is good to promote better conversation overall because for moderation to be truly effective at shaping discourse and thought, moderators need the consent of the moderated. I've seen across many types of forums from old school VBoards, various social media platforms, Reddits, chat rooms but also physical spaces like the workplace: when the authority isn't viewed as being consistent, fair, and serving interests that aren't purely selfish then it becomes a hug box for authority's sycophants and an oppressive hellscape for the out crowd.

The robot in the room is that Meta has automated quite a bit of this and with that automation comes built in erosion of any sort of moral authority. When a person makes a mistake and you appeal that mistake, you're entering into a form of conversation about the problem. That conversation may be contentious but it is a conversation. Information is being exchanged between two human beings and the end result may not result in the satisfaction of the appealer but at least there's the tiny comfort that you've been heard. Any sense that you're dealing with an algorithm is a reminder that you're essentially cattle being managed by a rancher who is more interested in ruthlessly performing the appearance of justice for an audience as cheaply and efficiently as possible rather than relating to individual users as people.

When you're just cattle to be milked for your data to resell to advertisers, then moderation is about order not justice. Long term users of Facebook and Instagram can attest to the sense that when confrontation and misery were what seemed to make the number go up, the algorithm served up inflammatory content thus rewarding misanthropes and the fearful for their rage/doomposting with lots and lots of attention and sometimes financial rewards. This also keeps other users in a perpetual state of hypervigilance because each flick of the thumb could reveal new horrors they don't want you to know.

In case anyone forgot, the algorithm was not neutral in this era, it was not simply giving users more of what they wanted in an impartial fashion, there was a period of three years where the "Angry" reaction made similar posts FIVE TIMES more likely to appear in the user's feed.

Quoting The Week quoting Washington Post (cause paywall):

"Facebook data scientists by 2019 determined posts that earn angry emojis were more likely to include misinformation, toxicity, and low quality news, meaning "Facebook for three years systematically amped up some of the worst of its platform, making it more prominent in users' feeds and spreading it to a much wider audience."

After the 2020 election, January 6th, and Donald Trump becoming the first sitting President to be banned from all of the major social media platforms, Meta decided people wanted a break from politics. Thus the nature of the engagement bait shifted away from politics to...other stuff. This is I think a moment where reality became more fragmented because my feed and as a consequence a disproportionate amount of my mental energy was devoted to a lot of incredibly irritating and clickbaity fandom content that was acting as a proxy for the social controversies Meta was discouraging talking about directly.

If you're not a huge nerd, I don't know what your reality has looked like in the era of Meta suppressing overt politics. I assume that you may have been subjected to the culture wars playing out in other contexts but I won't hazard a guess as to what form this takes.

I suspect that this was a mix of Meta trying to read tea leaves about upcoming regulatory battles and deciding it had peaked in its ability to elicit fear and anger based engagement and was thus getting experimental. Throw in a dash of trying to look docile to Democrats who were looking for someone to blame and punish for the Jan 6 riot, and you've got yourself a recipe for Meta once more trying to adapt to a changing regulatory environment.

This is all very antithetical to my librarian ethos.

Curation & moderation are about fostering an environment where the most people can feel safe and be heard, not to keep them docile to generate metrics for the sake of generating metrics or worse: use a steady torrent of outrage to keep them addicted to rage, terror, and disgust.

As someone very passionate about critical thinking, goodfaith and constructive exchange between real humans with sincerely and deeply felt beliefs, and the free flow of reliable information because its reliable not just because its useful to political campaigns or affirms biases; Meta's manipulation of users and discourse to avoid regulation and maximize revenue really pisses me off.

I'm willing to take the word of Meta's fact checking partners that they saw themselves as good faith actors and working within the confines of their own restrictive ethical guidelines as researchers and journalists. Yet the way in which their work was utilized was never adequate nor was it wielded sincerely by Meta. I'm of the opinion it was only ever to safeguard against liability when there were real threats of regulation and monopoly busting and perhaps also to virtue signal to users who might have otherwise quit over Meta's various ethics scandals and the overall unpleasant user experience.

Sometimes companies will do the right thing for the wrong reasons. I'm not against creating financial incentives to behave virtuously. It works quite well if imperfectly in more empirical industries where user safety is a thing that can be easily tested, quantified, and brazen incompetency / malevolence detected and punished by consumers and regulators.

Social media on the other hand too often works by making people dependent on a product and then making the overall experience worse once it runs out of opportunities to grow by expanding its user base. At that point social media contrives ways to make people spend more time using ad supported products by making the experience confusing or pay walling features that used to be free. Want to protect your account from impersonators who might try to scam your family and friends? Be prepared to spend.

Cory Doctorow refers to this as enshittification. Ed Zitron has coined the term "the rot economy." Both center the idea that if there is an opportunity to destroy the quality of the user experience in such a way that it creates the appearance of more engagement which can in turn be used to make bold claims about the value of the product, then companies will simply break their products rather than do true innovation.

Declining engagement and regulatory threats are the only stimuli that social media companies ultimately respond to. Because they are the only true threats to the bottom line.

Librarians are directly accountable to their patrons and to the political entities that fund them. A loss of trust can be felt very swiftly and very concretely. Whether the basis of that loss of trust is truly real or not is a separate matter, but the loss of trust is felt. The mod is moderated by those they moderate.

Reddit and traditional forum moderators are usually unpaid volunteers who do it for the love of community.

The mods of Facebook groups that are actually functional are much the same.

There are times and places where norms breaking is called for. I think the narrative that civil rights victories have only truly been achieved by discomforting the comfortable until the complacent agree to a new status quo is correct. From my vantage point as a librarian though, when the unheard resort to rioting it is precisely because circumstances were permitted where the loudest and the meanest could shout down and terrorize those who were trying to use civil discourse to be recognized as full and complete human beings and citizens. Although I'm not ignorant of my own profession's history of curating away disruptive ideas and the way publishing can invisibly silence people who are following the rules to introduce unpopular ideas in a civil manner.

These things are not easy. The tension between curation and censorship requires constant vigilance and introspection. Where I land is that freedom of speech is best understood like other rights: people's rights can and do conflict and "more speech" to combat bad speech ensures the person trying to be recognized as fully human or just pointing out hypocrisy is always at a disadvantage. But boy is curation or moderation a tough sell when you're pretty sure you can't trust the mods.

[imspardagus]

Be careful what you wish for

What will the Gregg Wallace saga teach us? The probable answer is: absolutely nothing. It’s not a question of teaching old dogs new tricks. More that, as we are in the field of time-worn adages, you can lead a horse to water…

Because (and I am not, decidedly not, claiming to know that Gregg was guilty of inappropriate behaviour: that is for others to determine) once again, the BBC (it is not always the BBC, but is more often than it should be) seems to have got exactly what it bargained for.

You can almost hear the commissioning team’s discussion over who to pick to front the Masterchef cash cow and the others. “We can’t have two people who are refined. The public won’t buy it. What we need is someone who’s a bit of a geezer, a bit of a lad. A cheeky chappie. You know, a bit … edgy. A bit … working class.” “How about an East End greengrocer who hasn’t grown into his vowels yet?” “Oh, yes!”

Sounds a bit patronising? Well surely no surprise there. It’s how we got the likes of Jonathan Ross, Russell Brand, Jeremy Clarkson, Alan Carr, Jay Blades (I am not saying that any of these is a bad person, just that they share certain personality traits that made them appealing to condescending and algorithmically-driven snobs). And that’s without referencing Jimmy Savile. It’s the same mindset that foisted Mrs Brown’s Boys on us, insisting it is a “comedy” and East Enders, insisting it was “true to East End life”. It’s the same mindset that gives us those God-awful afternoon quiz shows in which ignorant people are encouraged to parade their ignorance. Away from the BBC, it is how we got those interminable “reality” TV shows: Love Island, Big Brother, The Only Way is Essex, to name but one.

It’s not new. The Upper Classes have always favoured a bit of rough, so long as it knows its place. It makes them feel more in control. It makes them feel superior. Until, of course, the bit of rough begins to get ideas above its station. Until, that is, the bit of rough not so much forgets itself as remembers itself.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m an Essex Boy myself. My family tree is two hundred years of East London. But if your idea of authenticity is that bit of rough, nicely muzzled at first, don’t be surprised if it takes the skin off your hand when you make a deal with it. If you want a diamond geezer don’t ever expect him to polish up like the finest brilliant cut.

I was born in the Fifties, in Ilford, and I grew up with “banter” and men behaving badly. It was banter of the ugliest kind and women were the butt of most of it. The rest was reserved for lesbians and homosexuals and the racial minorities. A lot of my generation and the generations that came after it gradually learned better. Sadly a lot didn’t. A lot thought, and still do think, that it was their manhood that was under threat when women found enough of a voice to explain about respect and consent and to expect a bit of common decency. They didn’t realise, and sadly still don’t, that respect and decency are the hallmarks of real manhood, that restraint and consideration and kindness are qualities to be admired and emulated and that self-indulgence and bullying are actually the marks of weakness and failure.

Again, I am not saying that the allegations against Gregg Wallace are true, but I have known, and still encounter, men of my age who, it seems, cannot contain themselves when a woman is present, particularly a young and attractive woman. They seem to believe they have a duty to be – in their minds – laddish, and in everyone else’s mind boorish.

But look at the evidence and you have to wonder if perhaps the commissioning teams actually got it – us – right. In the US, we have just witnessed the election of a philandering, groping slob, one who doesn’t even try to disguise his bullying baseness or his low opinion of women, especially bright women. We have had Weinstein behaving towards young and vulnerable women in ways that would make a teenage boy blench. And yet still we defend the behaviour.

Last Sunday I was in the White Horse. Most of the time the chat was pleasant and light but someone brought up the Wallace affair. His view, as a sixty-something male of reasonable education and professional status, was that it was all a “witch hunt” by “the woke” and that nobody was safe from these vigilantes. I attempted to put the other side but my attempt was howled down, not least by the two women present, one of whom was a primary school head teacher who claimed, proudly, that she “liked a bit of banter and didn’t see anything wrong with it”.

So maybe they got it right and maybe this kind of behaviour is what we truly wish for.

So here goes. Have you heard the one about ….