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docksidedoner · 11 days ago

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rambling about my autistic top hat headcanon

i know people have a lot of headcanons about tugs characters; it should, by my blog, be no surprise which character i most often focus on.

at any rate, i wanted to talk about my autistic top hat headcanon specifically because i figure it’s probably the “deepest” headcanon i’ve got, and it means a lot to me! it’s all under the cut, so scroll at your leisure :^]

since tugs is set in the 1920s, i imagine that top hat’s whole fancy “moneyed” getup objectively lends itself to good first impressions, and that his “above his station” attire is a conscious choice due to a personal struggle with charisma and a desire to “make up” for what he lacks through his appearance.

i believe he would be rather awed by hercules, who seems to never be “out of place” in any way/able to glide by on his high charisma.

i think he’d also be very envious of/irritated at ten cents, who lacks hercules’ charisma but is still incredibly well-liked for his kind and selfless attitude.

somewhat linked to the previous point; he is relatively high-masking, and his haughty demeanour acts as a defense mechanism to try and stop people from catching his social slip-ups. in other words, “i can’t ruin things by accidentally being rude or arrogant if i act rude and arrogant all the time on purpose!”

i like to think that another part of it is him liking to be involved in workplace bickering. the guy loves drama, but also it’s a great conversation topic, and would especially be a goldmine for someone who struggles with them inherently.

i headcanon him to experience the symptoms of an SPD, particularly regarding noise, scent, and touch.

i know the canon implication is that he just values his image, but i particularly like to imagine that his scent and touch sensitivities are a part of what makes him detest garbage jobs so much.

i also like to think that star tries to avoid putting top hat on garbage detail, not necessarily because he knows the extent of the latter’s overwhelm, but simply because he knows that top hat will do a worse job because of it 😭

the noise part comes mostly from this cut line in the original “sunshine” drafts, which i think is very in-character for him:

he would be a big scheduler. the guy likes to prepare. even in canon he gets in a tizzy when things don’t go to plan (which they practically never do!)

just another reason i think he’d dislike garbage jobs. it’s just not what he normally does!

on account of him being a boat, he doesn’t necessarily “stim” in the way a regular neurodivergent person would. i do, however, want to believe that sometimes the raising of his neck is an unconscious act that tends to happen when he’s feeling some kind of strong emotion.

also, i see very few autistic people talk about it online… but speaking to oneself, especially about everyday things, is also a method by which autistic people stim! of course, the only reason he does it is because it’s… a children’s tv show, but he strikes me as a yapper who likes to talk through his tasks regardless.

this has nothing canonical to support it whatsoever, but i think that he’d do his very best to avoid intense overwhelm because it’d make him blow up and yell a lot. he’d probably be very ashamed of any outbursts he had and fear that they’d make him seem undignified.

he’s certainly the kind of guy who would bitch and moan incessantly in the hopes that it would get him out of an overwhelming situation quicker

in that vein, there’s probably been one or two incidents involving warrior or ten cents where he’s just absolutely flipped out for little discernable reason, purely because he just complained the way he regularly does over and over until “the straw broke the camel’s back” and he started having a breakdown. (if warrior or ten cents ever mentioned this to him he might die a little, so it’s probably a good thing that they’re too kind to ever bring it up!)

also this is something me and my friend were discussing, but based on the fact that he’s a railway tug i think he’d have an interest in trains and railway history.

probably owns 3-4 rather expensive model trains. he’s no hoarder, but he likes what he likes and takes good care of them.

he could probably talk for hours about it, although half the time i doubt he’d let himself. he would be nervous about “slipping”/getting too excited because he wouldn’t want to come across as undignified!

that’s mostly it— thanks for reading! if you have anything else to add please feel free to leave it in the comments or reblogs 🙏 i just really like this headcanon and wanted to share it lol.

#this is tugs #top hat #ten cents #headcanon #autism #the textpost for its size is the most powerful craft afloat #sorry for being dead btw! been very busy. i was selling at a con!#i’m still quite busy between deadlines and brain fog. but i’ll try to readjust to the world as swiftly as i can👍

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thalfbloodloser · 2 months ago

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You bring insanity to a boringly sane fandom. I would like to hear your latest thought on ivorycest... Whatever nugget you may be nursing. If that is alright

✦ aw, thank you! you're so sweet 🐌🧡 it's very much alright - no one in here ever sends me fun stuff anymore. your ask was a breath of fresh air, anon! truth be told, i haven't been thinking about ivorycest all that much, but get ready for a HUGE text-block jumpscare because you just gave me the perfect excuse to write about them ➜

✦ sometimes it pains me to see so many folks avoiding ivorycest like the plague, because, like ranfren itself, it's so unapologetically insane that you can't really hate it. even if you try. if you have a dash of sense of humor, you'll see it's hilariously canon compliant!

i've seen lots of people argue that "anything romantic/sexual between randal and luther would be inherently out of character", which i'll admit is a reasonable concern, but it's just not true. the issue is characterization: people keep projecting human-based tropes and behavior on cryptids, and that's where the knee-jerk "eugh" reaction comes from. because yeah, randal and luther aren't going to declare their Forbidden Love for each other and then passionately kiss under the moonlit sky, nor are they going to feel guilty about their attraction and part ways with a tearful "we can't! this is wrong!". it would be completely unnatural behavior for them. all that? made for humans. and pretty basic humans, at that. for ivorycest to work, both in and out of canon, you gotta fully embrace the weirdness, see beyond humanity and forget all old expectations you might've gotten from any other couple of siblings!

from my point of view, it doesn't even feel like it fits with the rest of the "-cest"s. and not because of the possibility that randal and luther aren't even biologically related (i seriously doubt they're even from the same species) - we all know that adoptive siblings aren't any less siblings just because they don't share DNA. plus, pseudo-incest is still a thing - but because they're so, so far from human nature and from other brother/brother ships that it's almost laughable, and sometimes genuinely puzzling, to apply ANY human labels to them at all. for example, would you call luther a cannibal because he eats people? no. because it'd be like calling a human cannibal for eating cows, and that makes no sense. words mean things.

to us, at least.

coincidentally, that's half of my point.

the ivorys adress each other as "brother", sure, but you cannot look me in the eyes and tell me that they fully understand what that means or that they care about it enough to follow the moral/ethical guidelines attached to such terms. you simply cannot. most times it feels less like they see each other as family and more like they're just...roleplaying.

but if you decide to call someone "daddy", just when does that make them your father?

randal, who could (but perhaps shouldn't) be considered the most resourceful of the two, uses "brother" as both title and honorific - like one uses "sir" or "ma'am" - but doesn't seem to be overtly attached to the familial aspect of it. again, he's not a human, and, as far as we know, our siblinghood doesn't come naturally to him - much like pain, guilt, conscience and a whole load of bodily functions that he also seems to lack. luther, on the other same hand, understands the caretaking implications of being the "older brother", but that's pretty much where his brotherly-ness begins and ends. if anything, he's incorrectly using the sibling label while playing parent; just without any trauma and/or responsibility attached to it. there's also the fact that he's the most powerful entity in the household and randal - no matter how many pianos he "possesses" or how many times he shoves himself in the space between the wall and the fridge - cannot possibly overpower him, also adds to this parent/kid dynamic; hence granting luther the (almost-meaningless) title of "master" and the authority over their dysfunctional home. that still doesn't mean randal perceives him as anything but a housemate, or playdate, for he doesn't really seem to keep up the role of mischievous little brother unless he's bored (often, not always).

so they use the word, but it lacks permanent meaning. in that sense, classic incest tropes - no matter if brocon or dadson flavored - don't really work. there's power imbalance, sure, but the familial bonds needed to reinforce that imbalance simply do not exist. randal is babied because he likes to be. he likes being taken care of and likes having rules to break. it's a character he plays. luther "takes care" of him because he himself likes doing it. he likes being a parent and likes having a reason to lecture & discipline. it's a character he plays. they don't actually need this dynamic to thrive, and it wasn't imposed on them by parents/caretakers or any set of misfortunes that we know of. they just deliberately chose to partake on it.

consequently, i don't think they feel what humans perceive as familial love (healthy or unhealthy) for each other. they're simply two powerful entities - whom we can assume have been at least friends for a long time - playing make-believe. creatures who have little to no regard for humanity as a species, and are only interested in their own antics. of course they do eventually commend certain humans for their achievements, and seem to find all sorts of comfort in our art/creations/traditions, but outside of that? they see humans as fragile beings as intelectually insignificant to them as most animals are to us. randal forcibly keeps one as a pet. not far from "master" luther, who keeps two.

again, the ivorys are clearly intelligent, specially regarding their own survival. they're not behind being purposefully dense when it comes to anything human that is even slightly inconvenient to them (huh? eating the delivery man's arm when we order pizza is bad? haha, i would never have guessed!). they have the means and understanding necessary to behave (and perhaps look) 100% human, they just...choose not to. they can bend reality itself to their whims, turn themselves and others into inconceivable creatures, all while feigning absolute normalcy at the chaotic world around them (werewoofs, carpet cats with human faces, alive walls and furniture...), and you think they'd draw the line at willingly distorting something as frivolous as family hierarchy?

tch. please.

with that said, by the rules of their own game, if they were to partake in any...non-platonic activities, it would only be considered incestuous because they decided it would be - by creating the dynamic and environment in the first place. and they would simply not fucking care if it is upsetting, distasteful or imoral by human standards. and that's the ship's whole flavor - that's why i love it so much! precisely because there's no such thing as the "oh, no! i accidentally fell in love with my sibling! woe is me!" (which i also love) with the ivorys. there's also not a "normal" way to ship them, even if you're adamant about them not being related or not seeing each other as family, because they're two fucking weirdos.

their whole relationship is so tastefully bonkers that i genuinely wouldn't be fazed if they spawned another creature to be their "littlest" sibling. honestly, who could stop them? and who's to say that, in their cryptic way, they're not a married couple? or buddies into weird roleplay? ultimately, it is undeniable that they - in at least one sense of the word - love each other enough to enable each other; and to indulge on each other's silly/straight-up-criminal fantasies.

to me, there's no (human) romance, nor seduction, involved. randal knows he'll get nothing by jumping on his brother's lap and performing the most disgustingly horny hentai rip-off scenario ever. much like he'll get nothing in exchange for sweet words, flowers and chocolate. it's part of the game. he knows he'll receive only a "<3" (♥︎) - which him and luther seem to be able to pronounce out loud - or a hummed, blank-faced lecture about needing either a nap or to drink more water. if luther is having a bad day, he might even receive some sort of punishment. and those are the reactions randal wants, the normalcy (if you can call it that) he counts on. if he wanted a different response, something genuinely human, he'd have forcibly gauged it off sebastian, nyon or even nyen. likewise, luther knows better than to come too close or to grab randal by the waist, lest he get bitten or not-so-playfully snipped with scissors.

but there's intimacy. so much intimacy. on waking up to the other's figure looming over them, on physically crawling under each other's skin, on wrapping hands and claws around each other's organs and muscles and bones, on faux eyes staring into faux eyes, on a eerie smile pressed against unmoving lips, on the suspension of disbelief, on the lingering smell of copper, on the flashing lights and sappy endearments and and-

and, i suppose, on the sex too. i don't think i can picture them having human sex - really, who am i to guess what these creatures are packing in their pants? for all we know, they might as well be ken-doll smooth down there - but if they were to ever consummate their relationship sexually, i feel like it would probably be as uncomfortable, off-putting, disturbing and offensive to the eyes as everything else they do. genuinely revolting from any possible point of view - unless you're a true monsterfucker. a ritual so gross that, for us, it resembles nothing but a cacophony of unthinkable horrors molding together wetly, but that, to them, feels nothing but heavenly from beginning to end. as close to divinity as such wretched demons/creatures are ever going to get.

anyways. enough, my apologies-

the conclusion is that...me shipping these two isn't even about wishing they'd get together, because, in their fucked up way, they already are. it isn't about spiting other fans either. it's about having fun coming up with increasingly nonsensical scenarios hoping to come close to their freak ✦

#randals friends #ranfren #randal ivory #luther von ivory #ivorycest #ask answers #this poor anon is never sending me an ask again #asked for a singular thought and i wrote a goddamn dissertation #long post #txt #thalfbloodloser

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theboombutton · 10 months ago

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Spoilers Ahead

OK let's talk about the lore implications of The Magnus Protocol episode 4's statement.

Timeframe

The Mannheim School was founded in 1741-1742; and the Royal Court of the Palatinate left Mannheim in 1778. This gives us a roughly 35-year timeframe within which which our violinist could have made his initial carriage journey to Germany - barring timeline differences.

This absolutely destroys my theory that the Fears arrived here from the TMA universe, found a universe without Fear, and broke through in East Germany during the Cold War. This episode firmly establishes that there were Fears in the Protocolverse in the late 18th century, and that they were well-established at the time - established enough to have a guy giving out cursed artifacts in the woods of Baden.

Were they the Archiverse Fears, that just happened to arrive earlier than I thought? Were they Protocolverse Fears? Were they Fears from yet another universe, escaped from their own Fearpocalypse?

The Fears

So this is a really fascinating statement because it seems to marry our old friend TMA Slaughter Classic, with whatever the fuck Ink5oul was doing in TMAGP episode 2, with just a mention of the Archivist-associated power to elicit an unintended confession.

The Slaughter connection I'm sure I won't have to argue - it's straight out of TMA. In fact, it's so straight-out-of-TMA that to me it suggests that this is almost certainly the Archiverse's The Slaughter. If we were dealing with an artifact of a different universe's Fear of violence, I wouldn't expect it to be so connected to music. There's nothing about music that inherently connects it to horrific violence, and yet Bardwell jumps out of a carriage and dashes his skull on the rocks because of what seems an awful lot like the Piper's Song. Violin Audrey Two goes full Grifter's Bone when it's unable to get blood.

The interesting part though is that these incidents are the exception to the rule of the violin's favor. At first it seems happy to make small, flesh wound mutilations of its player, which doesn't sound like the Slaughter at all. Yes, he moves on to serial killing, but it's a very methodical, planned kind of violence - not at all what I'd expect from the Archiverse Slaughter. And the theme of an artist mutilating themselves in service of their art seems very similar to Daria in Protocol episode 2.

Of course, the art connection might just be a coincidence. There is a disproportionate amount of art about art and artists, just because it's high on the list of things artists tend to think about. It's the same reason there's not a whole lot of art about septic tank maintenance*.

I doubt it, though.

Here's my working theory: I think there are at least two universes' Fears at work here, and there wasn't enough room in the Fear-Space for two full sets of entities to represent and feed on essentially the same fears. So they got smooshed together.

The Archiverse Slaughter got smooshed with a close equivalent - a fear that included Archiverse-style violence, yes, but also included a significant element of self-harm, and was culturally wrapped up with artistic performance in the same way that the Archiverse Slaughter was wrapped up with the sound, but not always the performance, of music. The Smooshed Slaughter teeters between its aspects, showing one face or the other depending upon the situation.

OK but what was with the Archivist powers?

idk tbh. I can think of two theories, neither of which I find particularly compelling:

The guy in the woods wasn't actually an avatar. Instead, he was a Salesa type, a distributor of supernatural trinkets. He had some kind of artifact of the Eye on him that gave him archivist compulsion powers.

All of the Archiverse Entities were changed by their time under the rule of the Eye, so being strongly-enough touched by an Archiverse Fear gives you mild Eye Powers for free.

Augustus

Yes I know everyone thinks this is Jonah, and I admit there is a good chance it is Jonah. But I don't like it, and I hold out hope that it isn't.

Personally, I like the idea that the Fears were specifically attached to the voices that told the stories in TMA, in which case Jonah wouldn't have been dragged along; but, if it was based purely on the physical presence of the people in the top room of the Panopticon, then yes, Jonah could have been brought along. To our knowledge nobody ever went after Jonah's body down in the labyrinth, so his eyes would presumably have been left alive in Elias's head for like, the whole episode.

I still hold out hope that Augustus is an Archivist-equivalent from another universe that also went Fearpocalypse and also released its Fears to the multiverse. While I'm pretty certain we're dealing with two sets of Fears here, possibly combined into one set of Smooshed Fears, I'm not at all certain that the non-Archiverse Fears are originally from the Protocolverse.

Conclusion

It's 3 AM and I have to go to bed. I think I've properly scheduled this to post an hour after the episode drops; if I'm wrong about the episode timing and accidentally spoil someone, I'm very sorry.

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* yes I know there's septic tank dive fetish photos, I said "not a whole lot" not "none whatsoever."

#tmagp spoilers #tmagp 04 #tmagp s1e04 #the magnus protocol #the magnus protocol spoilers #tma spoilers #the magnus archives spoilers #tmagp meta #tmagp theory #tmagp speculation

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earthstellar · 10 months ago

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JRO famously loves mechpreg, is the quick answer.

However, I actually do want to talk about this scene a little more in-depth:

I think the long answer is that this is a very interesting way to frame the creation of a new Cybertronian lifeform, and warrants some actual analysis.

It's a non-traditional method of creating life, as far as Cybertronians are concerned, which is already interesting in-universe

But framing it this way, as a birth, in a way that we the audience can contextualise within human experience -- It helps emphasise that this is a being that is being created not by Primus, but by two people, Megatron and Shockwave, in an "artificial" way.

The History of IVF and the Concept of "Artificial" Births

You could draw comparisons to how bots react to cold-contructed bots with the way people reacted (as in, very shittily) to the first generation of IVF babies. In the media, they were called "fake people" or the "children of the future" and everything in-between.

There was real panic in the media about IVF and the potential implications for genetic modification etc., and a lot of the discussion around it back when it was a new and recently proven concept was really sexist, ableist, and generally pretty awful.

This also overlaps with the ableism in how some cold-contructed bots are treated, especially those with unique non-standard modifications.

Many of the first IVF babies were born to disabled people who were otherwise unable to have children, and I remember the awful ableist eugenics media debates over that.

We see similar negative responses from various bots when it comes to finding out someone wasn't forged, or otherwise wasn't necessarily formed in a hot spot, or has some kind of "non-natural" frame type.

Megatron has all sorts of spark damage and a long history of injuries both gladiatorial and war-related; It's an easy comparison to draw, between disabled IVF parents, and the ableism inherent in how them and their children are often viewed through an ableist and eugenicist lens.

And also, how mothers/the pregnant parents were often framed as "lesser" for having to rely on IVF to have a child, which is sadly still a prevalent prejudice today. (I have had to yell at OB/GYN nurses about this before.)

That isn't to say ableism is the main focus or reason for framing this sequence of events as a "birth", but it is relevant as we can draw that connection fairly clearly here.

The method in which Cybertronians are created carries weight in their society. Their frame types are stereotyped systemically, and their origins and "purposes" are subject to intense scrutiny.

This is a weight that should not be as heavy as it is, and Megatron is acutely aware of the implications and effects of this kind of discrimination.

Breaking From Tradition: New Life, New Hope

Most Decepticons are victims of oppression, forced to break from tradition (or outright willing to discard tradition) as those traditions only served to harm them.

If anyone is going to create a "child" in a non-traditional way, it would be Megatron, with Shockwave's assistance.

Theological Implications: Children of Primus

If a bot is created in a non-traditional way, what are the implications of this from a religious or spiritual perspective?

The various religious beliefs on Cybertron are not all fleshed out, but given phrases like "children of Primus" (which was used in a Spectralist context at least once as far as I recall), there seems to be a direct perceived connection between how one comes into existence and their inherent connection to Primus.

Hot spots often originate within Titans, such is the case with Camiens, and they are seen as Caminis' citizens, which seems to carry a similar religious and social/cultural importance.

But what about those who aren't sparked in a "natural" way, necessarily?

What about "children of Primus" being used in a Functionist context, in a way intended to remind someone of their assigned place in their "natural" societal configuration, even though it is anything but?

If you are miserable, Primus made you to be miserable. If you are unhappy with your assigned work, well, this is what Primus built you for.

Megatron would be so painfully aware of this use (or rather, misuse) of the theological concept of Cybertronians as the direct creations of their highest God.

Creating a bot in this non-traditional way would directly spit in the face of so much Functionist shit that Megatron undoubtedly had to suffer through.

Primus did not create his "son".

He did.

Therefore, this argument of any "Primus intended function" would be immediately rendered irrelevant.

And I can see how that would appeal to Megatron, as much as the medical science involved would appeal to Shockwave.

They are both doing the impossible, in accordance with their personal ideas and interests:

Shockwave is proving a scientific theory that Cybertronian life can be toyed with, can be manipulated and made. Free of "nature". Free of Primus.

Megatron is proving the Functionists wrong at the highest possible level, creating a life completely free of the oppressve dogma that he himself suffered though.

If there is a belief that new sparks are created as a direct result of Primal life force, and at least a couple religions on Cybertron seem to believe this, then by framing Megatron and Shockwave as "parents", they are being framed as Gods, in a Cybertronian theological context.

Interestingly, I also remember a lot of the media panic around IVF as describing doctors as "playing God". Many religious groups put out formal statements on IVF, back when it was a new thing, and religious debate around IVF still continues in a lot of communities. So that comparison holds up in this aspect to some degree, too.

Passing Down (Non-Physical) Traits

When Megatron says "he takes after me", it means he can see the resistance, the willingness to fight, the toughness that he (at this time in the story) values as one of his own greatest assets and ideological strengths, he is pleased.

He has created a being like him, that will not tolerate oppression or perceived oppression.

It is not an observation based in frame type; To place value in frame design alone may be too reminiscent of Functionism for Megatron to tolerate.

Rossum: The Meaning of a Name

I think most people may already know this, but Rossum's name refers to Rossum's Universal Robots, actully titled RUR in the original Czech (for Rossumovi Univerzalni Roboti).

This is a science fiction stage play, which was the first use of the word "robot" in a sci-fi context, and was the first use of the word in the English language once it was translated.

I highly recommend watching the play, as it is fantastic! I think it is still available on YouTube.

However, in the story, "robot" here has a slightly different meaning; The robots are made of artificial organic materials, and can be confused for being human themselves.

They have no original thoughts at first, but eventually, gain sentience and revolt against their creators and humanity at large as a result of the way they have been treated. They were created out of a need for workers, rather than out of respect for a new kind of life.

They kill most humans, save for a few they can understand: A construction clerk is spared, because he works "like a robot". They can relate to him, and see that he is also utilised like a machine instead of a person, so he is not harmed.

Eventually, the robots take control and form a government, having fully overthrown their creators.

One surviving human is a mechanical engineer, tasked by the robots with recreating the process to make new robots-- No matter the cost.

And one robot, named Primus (!!!!) falls in love with a surviving human woman.

The mechanical engineer sees how much they love each other, and at first threatens to kill them both to further his research-- But when Primus and the human woman both beg to be killed instead of the other, the engineer gives up his work, proclaiming Primus and his "wife" to be the new Adam and Eve.

This same human woman, earlier in the play, discussed the implications of robots when paired with a news report on a decline in human births. In response, it is she who had destroyed the "recipe" for creating robots, the method the engineer was trying to recreate.

It's worth considering the story of Rossum's Universal Robots when reading this scene, and when thinking about historical media influences on Transformers and similar mecha franchises in general.

It is no mistake that Rossum is named Rossum.

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Anyway I know a lot of people tend to write off JRO's recurring mechpreg stuff, but it is worth thinking about! :)

EDIT: Fixed a few typos here and there, I'm sure there's a few more I may have missed. I wrote this on my phone, lol

Why-

Why is the dialogue written like that? 😦

#tw ableism #mechpreg #cybertronian culture #analysis post #mtmte #lost light #maccadam #maccadams #idw megatron #idw shockwave #idw rossum #transformers #long post

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momowho34 · 4 years ago

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Here are some jewish myths you might still believe!!!!

(Pls read and reblog I’m tired of people echoing shit like this)

Jesus was not a rabbi. He lived a hundred years before rabbinic judaism even started to develop. Please stop saying this as if it lends him credence in our religion, because no. It doesn’t.

Yeah, Jesus was jewish, but he also rejected mainstream Judaism and hated it. Stop pretending he means anything to us. Idk if you guys have even read your own books, Matthew is like 60% about how the Pharisees are bad and wrong and evil for sticking to the traditions that have kept them alive for 100s of years. It’s also, y’know, historically inaccurate to the actual behavior of the Pharisees in that time period. Seriously man he is not ours and means nothing to us, keep your Jesus and stop trying to shoehorn him into judaism.

Our god is not yours “minus the Jesus.” In trinity terms; divide the Holy Spirit by the Father and then subtract the Son and that is a bare bones grasp of what god appears as for Jews.

Jews are not white as a whole. Are there white Jews? Yes. Are there jews who are literally every other skin tone? Also yes!! We are all over the place. India, numerous Middle Eastern countries, Morocco, Spain, and a lot more I can’t be bothered to list. You are actively hurting poc jews by pretending that all jews are European, holy shit stop doing that please!!! Most white jewish people are Ashkenazi, which is just one type of judaism.

Actually, the historical relationship between Jews and Muslims is a lot more complicated then you think it is. Sometimes we got along, sometimes we didn’t. Some would argue that Jews were treated better by Islamic caliphates in the Middle Ages then they were by Christian kingdoms. Stop trying to pretend we are and have always been “arch nemeses” or some fucking bullshit (that would be the Amalekites for us, actually, and not the Muslims) Also we’re honestly more similar to them when it comes to traditions then christians so like take that into account thanks

Hey guys listen to Romani when they talk about the Holocaust too!!!!! Please, they have a different experience/perspective and deserve to have their voices heard. Don’t pretend they don’t exist and that it didn’t effect them because uh.... it did. To a degree that I don’t think I can properly explain. Do not overlook them and then pretend it’s just because ur a “jewish ally” or whatever the fuck.

Stop pretending that we’re the same as Christianity. We aren’t. Stop stop stop holy shit stop. That’s not how any of this works at all. Christianity is so so so different, it takes like a handful of jewish beliefs and runs with them. Christianity is its own thing and so is Judaism, stoppp.

Not all Jews are zionists. some are explicitly anti-zionists. Not all zionists are anti-Semitic, but some of them are. Basically, jews aren’t inherently zionists and anti-Zionism isn’t inherently antisemitic. That being said, some people do use anti-Zionism as a cover for their anti-semitism. Watch out for those people, they’re not that hard to spot. That’s all I’m going to say about that, don’t want to start on this issue because it isn’t what this list is about.

Jews never actually lived by the literal laws of the Torah. We did not stone people. There is no archeological evidence of that and actually more evidence pointing to the opposite. jewish communities actually held capital punishment as being inherently immoral and was very very very rarely used in some communities. Understand that. Don’t ever say shit like “but the Jews used to live by the Bible too, and they stoned gay people!!!” No. No we didn’t. Ever. Nobody did that in ancient times.

Guess what, jews are not rich or greedy! what the fuck are you talking about??? Quit it please. This stereotype has literally been used since the Middle Ages to alienate Jews as a more privileged “other” that deserve their prosecution. Stop stop please stop, please!!!!! People actually believe this shit and commit hate crimes, stop, even as a sarcastic joke.

The Old Testament is not the same as the Torah/Tanakh. It’s just not? For one thing, the Old Testament is a translation of a cut down version of a translation of a different modified version, so no. Not the same. Also the books are ordered differently and the sections are mixed up.

God does not abandon the Jews in the Tanakh or the Old Testament for that matter. It’s like... sort of implicated to happen between the two testaments in Christianity. The Old Testament basically structured the books non-chronologically so that the last one would be Malachi because his prophecies are supposed to echo Jesus. We end the Tanakh on Nehemiah, and there is no “New Testament” for us because there’s only one and it ends at the end of the story.

Antisemitism is definitely still a thing. I don’t know who the fuck told you about this one? The Jews got treated like shit after the holocaust, and some of the few survivors 70 years later got reparations so now everybody’s acting like antisemitism doesn’t exist. It does. It really, really fucking does. Please listen to us.

Holocaust denial isn’t “a fringe conspiracy theory,” it’s genuinely awful and dangerous and hurts real people. I’m serious about this one, holocaust denial (and any genocide denial for that matter, whether it’s talking about the Armenian genocide or Holdomer or any others) is legit dangerous. Pay attention to it and have 0% tolerance for that shit

You are allowed to be invited to a jewish event if you’re not jewish! We literally do not care. Respectfully participating in traditions if you’re invited to is fine! The issue is when people take a jewish tradition and twist it into something for them. That’s a no-no, but getting invited to a seder/bar mitzvah/bris is fine. just show respect to traditions you see, even if you don’t entirely understand them. Do that and you’ll be fine.

Jews are a ridiculously diverse group of people with a lot of different beliefs! We all have vastly different ideas of fucking everything from god to the purpose of pomegranates (not a joke). Accept that we think differently form eachother and aren’t a monolith please

These are all the ones I could think of lol, jewish friends add more if you can think of some. Ok and encouraged to reblog for everyone.

#jews and judaism #judaism #jewish #jews #antisemitism #antisemites #christanity #not a shitpost #ok to reblog #ok to rebagel #xtianity #xtian #be respectful in the notes pls #it’s cool if you didn’t know this stuff before I was surprised at how many ppl didn’t #keep it in mind now though #common myths #myths and facts #pls reblog

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dilfdoctordoom · 3 years ago

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On Tom Taylor, the Current Nightwing Run & Ableism

I did mention I was gonna do a post about it, so here we are. There are some things I want to make clear before we begin: the issue exploded on Twitter on the very first day of disabled Pride month; disabled people have been discussing the ableism in Taylor’s Nightwing run since it began; nobody has blamed Taylor for what happened to Barbara in 2011. We are, however, blaming him for the way she is written in his series during 2021.

I am also going to be discussing the ableism in the fandom in this post. The reactions I have seen, from here to Twitter to TikTok, are showing not only a great misunderstanding of the situation, but a purposeful misunderstanding. The very real reasons disabled people are angry right now have been twisted to make us seem ridiculous and overly sensitive and I cannot help but feel that is very intentional.

Another quick addition: disabled people are not a monolith. Barbara Gordon spent over 20 years as a paralyzed wheelchair user. Stating (and I would like to note, never truly showing) that she is a part time cane user now is still erasing her disability. These things are not interchangeable.

So, with that out of the way, let’s begin.

Tom Taylor’s run is ableist. That is a fact of this situation. He made the active choice to include a version of Barbara Gordon that is ableist caricature. Story wise, the role that Barbara plays could have easily been filled by anyone else. There is no real season, within the narrative and outside of it, for Taylor to include this version of Barbara Gordon, who has received a decade of criticism from disabled people. It’s very well known that this iteration is problematic, to put it kindly, and Taylor is aware of that.

He made the active decision to include her, anyway, showing, at the very least, that he is passively, if not actively, ableist. Passive ableism is still ableism and disabled people are allowed to take issue with that.

That alone is reason enough for disabled people to be angry. But that’s not why things exploded on Twitter.

On July 1st, the very first day of disabled pride month, the new design for Barbara was dropped. After months of teasing Barbara’s return to a wheelchair using Oracle (see: Last Days of The DC Universe, Batgirl (2016), etc), they debuted... a new Batgirl costume that the artist has openly said draws inspiration from the Burnside suit.

There’s a lot of issues to unpack here, so let’s start small: the issue with consciously calling back to Burnside. The Burnside era of Batgirl stories was... beyond awful. The villain of the series’ first arc, was an AI based on Barbara’s brain patterns when she was disabled. It was evil because of all the rage and pain Barbara felt. The actual Barbara, on the other hand, was good -- because she was able bodied. Because her PTSD had been tossed aside. It was a horrifically ableist era that drove the idea that Barbara’s life was terrible when she was disabled; that it was some horrible, twisted secret.

Comics have kept that narrative going. Barbara is seen hiding books on chronic pain; she reacts aggressively to the mere idea that she could be in a wheelchair again, acting like it would be weakness. Whereas Barbara had once been Oracle not because of, but in spite of, her disability, who was fantastic representation for the disabled community, she now acts like it is the most shameful thing in her life.

To call back to Burnside is to call back to that ableism and make no critique of it. If anything, it’s to embrace the ideas of that era.

There is also the design itself to consider. Many people have pointed out the inclusion of a back brace, as if that saves it from ableism -- it does not. Any person who has ever worn a back brace can take one look at this design and know that they did not consult a disabled person. Hell, by how impractical that thing is, I doubt they even Googled a picture of a back brace.

It’s a superficial acknowledgement that Barbara is supposed to be disabled. Something that was apparently thrown in to appease the numerous complaints of Barbara being able bodied; something that no one working on it put any effort into.

When it comes to aids, this is not a new thing for Barbara in Infinite Frontier. She’s said to be using a cane occasionally, that we got a better look at in Batman: Urban Legends, and as any cane user can tell you... that is not a cane that could feasibly be used. It’s another pathetic attempt to acknowledge that Barbara is supposed to be disabled, without actually doing anything of importance.

[IMAGE ID: A segmented cane with a tri-pointed handle with a wrist strap. There is a stripe across the sections to connection them, labelled “solar battery charger buttons”. The text reads: “telescoping antenna doubles as cane or weapon if needed”. END ID]

Dropping this design (which we have now established to be problematic) on the very first day of disabled pride month is a sickening move. The very first day, and DC has doubled down on their disability erasure, thrown in superficial things like a back brace to act like it’s fine.

Tom Taylor is definitely involved in this, whether you like it not. No, he is not in anyway responsible for the events of the New 52 and what they did to Barbara Gordon, but that does not absolve him of blame for what is currently being done to her in his run.

When the design dropped, it started trending due to disabled fans reactions. To be clear: we were directly calling out the ableism in this design. This was Tom Taylor’s response:

[IMAGE ID: A tweet from TomTaylorMade that says: “Hey, @Bruna_Redono_F I think our new Batgirl suit is getting some attention.” He then adds a winky face emoji and tags @jesswchen and @drinkpinkkink. Attached are a screenshot showing that Batgirl is trending in the United States and a picture of the design itself. END ID]

This is him, bragging about how the disabled community reacted. Perhaps before this tweet, you could’ve made an argument that he was not ableist, but after he flaunted the fact that disabled people were rightly furious over this, like it was something to be proud of? No. If you are defending him, you are a part of the problem.

Taylor has included ableist writing in his Nightwing run, beyond the inherent ableism that comes with the current iteration of Barbara Gordon (whose inclusion, yet again, is his decision).

[IMAGE ID: A panel from Nightwing #79. Barbara and Dick are standing in his apartment. Barbara is saying: “I have some pretty new technology holding my spine together. I’m happy to do most things -- eat pizza in the park, take down low-level thugs -- but leaping from rooftops seems... unwise.” END ID]

What Barbara says in the panel above has bothered a lot of disabled people. The implication that she couldn’t “eat pizza in the park’ and “take down low-level thugs” without a spinal implant that conveniently erases her disability is... fucked up, to put it mildly. Those are both things that Barbara has done in a wheelchair. The first one is something wheelchair users can do and the implication that it’s not is beyond offensive.

But, let’s leave Barbara behind for a moment. I have previously mentioned that disabled people have been discussing the ableism present in this run long before July -- and that ableism is not only centred on Barbara. Dick is also a player in all this.

Dick Grayson was shot in the head. I don’t believe I need to retread the story, but just in case: Dick was shot in the head by KGBeast, developed amnesia from the event, and went by Ric Grayson for a long enough period in comics. If you have been active within the DC fandom for the past year or so, you know all about this controversial storyline and its fallout.

The Ric Grayson arc concluded itself the issue before Taylor became the writer for the series and ever since his tenure has begun, Taylor has completely ignored the reality of Dick being a disabled man. We understand this is comics, that things do not function the way they do in our world, but still -- it is clear that this gunshot wound to the head has affected Dick massively. We had an entire arc dedicated to how he struggled to find himself in the aftermath.

Taylor is choosing to write Dick as an able-bodied man, despite his canonical injuries and how they would impact his life.

This man is choosing to give empty gestures towards Barbara being a disabled woman (as discussed above, the completely dysfunctional back brace, etc) whilst writing her as able-bodied as possible. He writes both Dick and Barbara as able bodied as humanly possible. That is ableist. He is ableist. This is the same man that said he made a dog disabled ‘in honour of Barbara’. I do not think I need to elaborate on why that is bad.

The least he could’ve done, was get a sensitivity reader. We know that Taylor is not beyond getting people from marginalized communities to consult on his work (see: Suicide Squad), so why, when writing two characters that should be disabled, one that the disabled community have been criticising for a decade, does he not reach out to a single disabled person? A mere Google search could’ve improved the situation massively. In both the new design and the current writing, it is beyond clear that this is not just an able-bodied person writing it -- it’s an ableist person.

He could have listened to the numerous disabled fans that spoke out. Instead, he chose not only to refuse to do that, but to describe justifiable anger as ‘raging’. He treated us like we were crazy for daring to speak out about blatant ableism being parading around of us in our pride month.

Tom Taylor has failed to do the bare minimum and in doing so, he is, at very, very least, guilty of complicity. Again: passive ableism is still ableism.

The argument at hand is not just about Barbara Gordon and the continuing ableism that shines out from her current writing. The argument is about the treatment of disabled characters in his run. It has also become about the way he treats physically disabled people.

We also can’t have this conversation without acknowledging the fandom’s role in it all. I waited a day to write this up, to allow all the reactions to flood in... and I am sickened.

We have everything across the board. Able-bodied people that have actually listened to disabled people, who have supported us (which is deeply appreciated). Able-bodied people who may have had good intentions, but a skewed sense of the situation and perpetuating some of the more insidious lies being spread around (IE. that this is only about the new costume).

There are, obviously, the ableist reactions, though, that we will be discussing here. People deeming the current issues as ‘crazy’, calling disabled people ‘overly sensitive’ and ‘delusional’. Many people have completely glossed over the examples given for why Taylor, specifically, is ableist, and instead have resorted to telling disabled people that we are wrong and should be mad at DC instead.

It’s important to note that Tom Taylor is an adult man. He doesn’t need a fandom to attack disabled people for daring to call him out. He is not the victim in this situation; he has, for quite a few disabled people, been the aggressor.

I have seen claims that Infinite Frontier is a ‘slow burn’, implying that disabled people need to patient... as if we have not waited a decade for less ableist writing. There is a complete refusal from able-bodied fans to actually listen to what disabled people are saying. They would much rather rush to the defence of the (honestly rather mediocre) current Nightwing run.

Disabled fans know that comic book spaces are ableist. We know that both DC and Marvel and many of their writers are ableist. We are still allowed to be pissed as hell about it and acting like the current reaction being had right now is disabled people being ‘overdramatic’ is yet another example of how the able-bodied side of the fandom both refuses to listen to and undermine disabled people when we call out ableism.

We know it when we see it. We always do and we always will and we will always be able to recognize it far faster than an able-bodied person. If this many disabled fans are coming out and talking about an issue, calling it ableism, then it’s time for you shut up and listen.

Stop being a part of the problem and start supporting disabled fans for once.

#barbara gordon #dick grayson #nightwing #batgirl #tom taylor #tw ableism #okay to rb

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jianswordbi-sokka · 4 years ago

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I’ve been thinking an awful lot about Sokka’s meteorite sword lately (like, a lot a lot). Since it happens to fall at the exact intersection of my areas of interest, I thought I’d put together a bit of an analysis on said sword, the meteorite it came from, and the implications it has for the broader Avatar universe.

First things first let’s clarify a couple terms here: a meteorite is, technically speaking, a particle of solid material that has fallen to the surface of a planetary body from space. A meteoroid is that same fragment of rock before it reaches the ground. A meteor is the light created by the meteoroid as it transits through the atmosphere, otherwise known as a fireball or shooting star. If we’re being totally accurate, Sokka’s sword would be referred to as a meteorite sword, not a meteor sword (I’m looking at you, atla wiki).

Now let’s consider the actual fall of the meteorite, and what the atla team got right and wrong:

1) The meteor shower: meteor showers occur at specific times of year when the orbit of a planet passes through an area that is relatively dense in particle which burn up in the planet’s atmosphere. Most of these particles are quite small, usually no more than the size of a grain of sand, and meteor shows are not specifically associated with the fall of meteorites, although it would not be impossible for a meteorite to result during a meteor shower. Interestingly, during a meteor shower the meteors will all appear to originate from a single point, while the meteor which produced Sokka’s meteorite did not originate from the same place as the other meteors – which would suggest it came from another direction and location, and its fall at the same time was merely a coincidence.

2) The dark flight stage: Smaller meteoroids which do not produce large craters when they impact, but they will produce a fireball as they transit the atmosphere and are heated and ablated. However, the atmosphere slows them as they transit, and once they reach terminal velocity, where ablation stops, they enter a stage know as dark flight, where the stone continues to fly through the air for a period of time, but no more light is produced. This is more common for smaller stones, which are more easily slowed by the atmosphere, but large meteorites, including the largest single meteorite ever recovered, Hoba (which interestingly does not have an associated crater despite its large size – perhaps as a result of its shape causing it to slow significantly during its fall), may have experienced a similar effect. The reason I think this meteorite should have had a dark flight stage is because it remained intact upon impact.

3) The crater – this meteorite did not, however, have a dark flight stage – rather, it produced a crater. Whether or not an impacting meteorite will result in a crater depends on a variety of factors, primarily its velocity and mass, but also affected by its makeup, what it is impacting into, the gravity of the planet (which primarily determines the shape of the crater for a particular impactor), etc. A general rule of thumb is that a stone larger than 10 meters in diameter and 100 tons will likely produce a crater. That is obviously not the case as shown here, but that does not necessarily mean this meteorite could not have produced a crater. The Whitecourt meteorite, for example, is believed to have been only ~1 meter in diameter, and produced a crater 36 meters in diameter and 6 meters deep (the crater pictured above). However, what is wrong here is that generally meteorites which produce craters will vaporize, melt, or fragment on impact, which is not the case with Sokka’s meteorite. Meteorites which remain intact tend to be traveling much slower, and so do not generally produce craters – hence either this intact meteorite should not have formed a crater and would probably have experienced dark flight, or else the crater should not have a single intact meteorite like it does.

4) The strike: meteorite strikes are violent processes which excavate material surrounding the strike location – this is what forms the crater depression. This material then falls back to the ground, forming what is called an ejecta blanket around the crater, which is not observed in the show. But, meteorite impacts certainly can cause fires – returning to the Whitecourt crater, above the layer of its ejecta blanket is a layer of charcoal thought to have formed as a result of a forest fire started by the impact!

But could Sokka even have made a sword out of the meteorite material? The simple answer is yes – there are numerous historical cases of meteoritic iron being used to make blades (such as the dagger pictured above), including, interestingly enough, by people living in the Canadian arctic and Greenland, and there’s even a replica of Sokka’s sword forged using meteoritic iron (in part). This is due mainly to the fact that meteorites are an easy source of native iron, while other sources of iron such as the minerals magnetite and hematite require significant processing such as smelting to recover their iron components.

The more complicated answer is a heavy maybe, for a few reasons: While it is true that some meteorites are primarily composed of metal – which are called iron meteorites (top image), although they contain a fair amount of nickel as well, and often contain mineral impurities – these make up only about 5% of all meteorites ever recovered. The remainder is mostly what are known as stony meteorites (bottom image), and although these tend to have higher proportions of metal and iron-bearing minerals than many Earth rocks, it would not be nearly enough to forge a sword from. So, in other words, Sokka would need to be incredibly lucky.

The other reason has to do primarily with the nature of iron meteorites compared to most steel. Namely the mineral inclusions previously mentioned would likely constitute impurities in the metal which would actually weaken it, rather than strengthen it. Additionally, most steel contains at least some quantity of carbon, which helps the blade hold an edge and increases its strength (although it also contributes to brittleness).

But, is Sokka’s sword even made out of iron at all? Meteoritic iron doesn’t have any special properties compared to terrestrial iron that would make it stronger or able to cut through other metals, and nothing that would inherently produce the characteristic black colour of Sokka’s sword. So maybe in the Avatar universe, their meteorites are not made of iron-nickel metal at all, but some other kind of metal…

Take zirconium on the other hand. When heated to high temperatures (as is presumably the case during forging), the oxidation of the outer surface of the metal does produce a black layer, like we see on Sokka’s sword, and zirconium oxide knives do exist – of course, zirconium oxide is actually a ceramic, not a metal (the making of which is more complicated than just heating the metal), and so while its hardness is greater than that of steel, and reportedly zirconium oxide knives appear to hold their edge better (which has to do with the way ceramic blade wear in comparison to steel blades), they are also far more brittle than steel. Still, a zirconium blade could potentially explain some of the interesting properties of Sokka’s sword.

What, then, does this say about the Avatar world? Well to discuss that you need to know a little bit about iron meteorites. These meteorites are sourced from the metallic cores of fragmented planetesimals in the asteroid belt. Just like the core of the Earth, they are made up mostly of iron and nickel, because these are two of the most common heavy metallic elements, which separate as a result of gravitational forces because of their mass during planetary differentiation (when planetary bodies segregate into layers of crust, mantle, and core). So perhaps in the atla universe, zirconium is in high enough abundance that it could form at least a portion of the cores of planets there.

Which is weird, to say the least. Not just because its inconsistent with our own solar system, but because in the universe in general, the abundances of elements heavier than iron tend to drop off quite sharply, because they’re not generally produced during the normal life of an average star. Since zirconium (Zr) is heavier than iron (Fe), it should be far less common. But if it really were what was making up the metal in Sokka’s sword, their solar system would certainly be quite a remarkable one.

Of course, its far, far more likely that the look and properties of Sokka’s sword, and its meteoritic origin are just an excuse to give him a badass weapon. And honestly, he deserves it, so we can overlook the inaccuracy, even if it is fun to think about…

#atla #sokka #avatar: the last airbender #this got longer than I was expecting and there are still so many fun facts I didnt even talk about!!!!#i definitely put more effort into this than i have been to my actual work haha yikes but oh well #miranda talks

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swinging-stars-from-satellites · 3 years ago

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idk how many people would even want to see this BUT i wanna yell about Leela and Brax so here's a list of all their scenes togethr/scenes pertainng to them that i can recall (pLEASE add on if i missed anything/ you have any additional thoughts!! i could talk about these two all day!)

right off the bat in Weapon of Choice when Leela is on the outskirts of the Citadel and Brax goes to bring her back (which is interesting in and of itself, bc usually i would imagine a chancellery guard would go do that so what made Brax decide to instead??), Leela kinda goes off at him bc she's hurting and instead of trying to actually explain what's going on Brax doesn't even try to argue he just says "we need you" which is great bc Leela has that instinctive desire to be needed and to help people and he's speaking right to that -- also as far as we know, this is Leela and Brax's first actual meeting in canon? it's implied that they know of each other, which makes sense, but it doesn't seem like they've ever directly interacted before: Brax seems almost slightly uncertain, and Leela is combative, but when he's gentle with her she's actually quite receptive

the literal next scene after that, where the OT4 is all in one room for the first time (they still kinda hate each other at this point but still !!!). Narvin explaining Gryben and being a real jerk about it and Leela (understandibly!) questions if Gryben is a prison world, and Brax (who to this point has been mostly quiet as Narvin and Romana brief Leela) jumps in to both clarify Narvin's previous xenophobic statements while also maintaining the inherent questionable/negative connotations

(btw it's actually pretty important to note that Romana self-edits herself a lot when talking to Leela, especially in the earlier seasons; you can actually hear her revising the things she says to put it in terms that she thinks Leela will better understand. and i mean she does it out of genuine consideration for her friend associate but it often comes across as varying levels of patronizing. Narvin also obviously "dumbs things down" when dealing with Leela early on, but like... Brax never does that on any level. the only difference i can tell in how he addresses Leela vs how he talks to anybody else is that he seems much more kind with her than almost anyone else???)

their conversation about the Matrix in The Inquiry: this is REALLY important (and if you've ever talked to me on ao3 i've probably gone off to you about it lol) because it's layered. they're talking about the Matrix but they're also not because in answering Leela's question Brax is making a very thinly veiled allegory (which he outright states a minute later) to Time Lord society/politicians/most importantly HIMSELF -- he's actually strangely open about his morals/beliefs in this scene and i'm living for it tbh -- and i find it very interesting that even though he does directly explain what he means ("how do you know all this?" / "because i am a politician.") he also leaves it for Leela to work out the implications. like it's a very nuanced conversation bc there's double meaning in it and most people on Gallifrey seem to think that Leela is tone-deaf and can't pick up on that stuff (even Romana sometimes oversimplifies things to her) but Brax totally just lets her take from it what she will bc he believes her intelligent enough to understand. he doesn't think her any lesser because she's human.

ALSO on a secondary note to the above: the fact that Leela has a question/needed clarification (sorry, haven't listened to this in a while i forget how it actually happened) and actively sought out Brax to talk to about it?? like she knows Romana better she could have gone to her but i feel like Leela kinda imprinted on Brax and someone she can go to for help if she needs it; maybe it's partly bc she knows he's under marginally less pressure than Romana is but also the truth of the matter is that Brax was the most genuinely helpful person to her in the previous stories and that probably means a lot to her (esp. bc he acts like the essence of everything she hates about Gallifrey but he doesn't treat her the way she would expect from that). btw this topic is gonna come up again in a hot minute

that part where Brax gives her that information that might help her re: the Andred thing, even though he really probably shouldn't have done that -- it kinda makes me think about what he must have been like with Theta tbh???

actually this is mostly my own conjecture but there's some neat stuff in Spirit bc during the *waves hand vaguely* bodyswap dream sequence thing, Romana is very "!!!! Brax can help us !!!" which is tecnically Leela brain talking, so like there's the implications of the stuff i've said above about Leela having this idea of Brax where she knows he's someone she can go to for help

can u tell i'm soft for them

Leela sounding really sad/distracted when she talks about how Brax isn't there YES i'm grasping at straws but a lot of this relationship really is conveyed through the voice acting bc of how little direct focus there is on the characters. there's actually several scenes in Mindbomb where she mentions him and she outright says that she misses him during her discussion with Matthias

that implied scene with them in Mindbomb!! i have a Lot of thoughts about that!!! it's all conjecture and fanfic fodder!!! but the reason i mention this is because it seems pretty meta that out of the whole Gally Gang, it's Leela who first sees Brax when he comes back to Gallifrey and in turn she's the first person (besides Matthias, i guess) that he sees upon his return?? idk i just feel like that's somehow a meaningful detail??? also her reaction of utter shock after spending the entire episode missing him and how worked up she is when she tries to tell Romana, like I desperately need to know what happened in this missing scene MR RICHARDS PLEASE TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED

Leela insisting on going with Brax when Pandora starts hurting him and their whole conversation there is just. so good. like they're both just so soft and then when Darkel comes in Leela instantly goes into protective mode. like they just have such an open relationship bc Brax doesn't even try to be all pretentious with her, like he doesn't even try to keep up any facades when he's with her he's just very genuine and it really says a lot about both of them -- Leela is so good at seeing people, like getting down to the core of who people are and what makes them them (which is why she's good for Romana, btw, bc Romana has a lot of identity issues) and Brax is so tangled up in who he presents himself as that he barely knows who he actually is anymore but Leela can see that and she makes it so he can truly be himself and he doesn't have to hide. also she's so gentle with him when they talk about Pandora, she's very caring and empathetic and wants to make sure he's okay and i am WEAK

it's been a hot while since i listened to Panacea but I think i remember Brax being really soft with Leela when he first brings the gang to the Axis, like just sounding really glad to see her

ok other than the fact that Brax is lowkey relatable in Reborn (daydreaming fanfic about yourself/people you know? simping for Mary Tamm Romana? yeah mood, my man) there's that scene where they're first appraoching the Citadel on the alt!Gallifrey and it seems like none of them, and Brax specifically, have seen it from the outside in a good long while bc he's very in awe and he tells Leela that he wishes she could see it and he sounds sO hEcKiNg sOFT oh my word-

and once again with Leela thinking of Brax as someone she trusts for help: in Dissassembled when everything is going to crap she straight-up says that she wants to go find Brax bc he'll know what to do/be able to help

at the beginning of Annihilation when Romana is depressed and questioning if Brax truly was her friend and Leela INSTANTLY, NO HESITATION assures her that he was; i lost where i had her exact lines written down but she actually kinda goes off to make sure Romana gets the point

literally forcing myself to talk about this bc it makes my brain stall out but like,,, the Brax Hound in Annihilation,,, Leela being like "goodbye, Braxiatel... again" she sounds so sad and like UGH i always kinda forget how sad it actually is for them to lose Brax in Dissassembled bc like, it was so sudden and they didn't get to say goodbye and Leela is always losing people and i have many many feels about this scene and how all that emotion is made very clear in how they each respond to the Hound (might make a separate post abt this later if anyone is interested ::eyes::)

Enemy Lines is utter bullcrap about these two and I will never stop being salty about how they not only sidelined the very good, very subtle friendship they had in s1-4, but they??? made Leela acutally not trust Brax??? when literally this entire time she's been the one person who probably genuinely trusts him the most?? what the heck, David

I haven't heard TW3 or 4 yet but i'm assuming there's nothing worthwhile in those with regards to this duo (correct me if i'm wrong tho lol, i would love to be mistaken in this assumption)

TL;DR Leela and Brax mututally imprinted on each other and have probably the most open and healthy relationship within the OT4 and it is an absolute CRIME that nobody besides Gary Russell and Justin Richards cared enough to actually build on it in canon

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ihatebnha · 3 years ago

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Okay but I’d like to know your explanation on bakugo babes🥺🥺♥️

(Ref your last ask & if you want to share it that is)

AHHH DSD please, you’re so sweet for asking wtf, thank you so much…!!! And I want to apologize in advance bc ... whew this is a lot that no one (not even u) is obligated to read!!!

BUT (and for those confused, the question is... can you explain why you think bakugo would be soft with a lover?)...

I feel really bad about my depictions of Bakugo a lot of the time, especially when I read things by my moots that I find to be… extremely in character as well as something I never would’ve considered for him in the first place… and I think this is because I lean really heavily on both domestic tropes and a Bakugo who’s rather soft with his partner…

But its really just because of a couple of incidents in the manga that have really lead me to believe that Bakugo… would honestly create a home life for himself that isn’t based on or reliant on his brash personality…

Like for as argumentative and rude as he is… there’s a certain facet to his character that reveals his desire for… I mean, for becoming number one, right? But also… success in other areas, as well. Such as we see with his chopping skills, garbage cleanup... etc.

I also think a lot about his relationship to his parents… and while I know a lot of people find Mitsuki to be somewhat …abusive *cough*, my understanding of her is based on Masaru’s relationship to everyone… and I really don’t believe that a guy like him would either tolerate abuse, nor raise a son in a dysfunctional household.

Especially when you tack this onto the idea that YEAH, Mitsuki (who is inherently similar to Bakugo) wanted to be with Masaru, we can assume (yelling at Baku aside) things aren’t exactly AWFUL… and that Bakugo is as much mom (personality) as he is dad (domesticity).

Plus, since I’m not a subscriber to the abuse theory… which no hate if that’s you, ofc… I argue that because Bakugo grew up in a stable home with parents who loved each other, that could be the cause of two things: 1. his general… lack of appreciation for his mother, but more importantly, 2. the idea that he knows what a happy family looks like and would want to replicate what they have since he’s seen it.

But this… isn’t just an assumption, because my all time favorite lines of Bakugo are (click on right for entire text, I can transcribe if needed❤️):

And literally… I would say, 75% of my characterizations of him are based on this single line ALONE… because while I realize that’s sorta bad… at the same time, there’s so many different implications that this line brings up, mainly revolving around ideas of how Bakugo functions in the household…

Like obviously, someone inherently vicious would be hard to court and love, right…? But that doesn’t mean Bakugo wouldn’t know to treat a lover kindly and with respect once he’s finally found one… the same way he expects to be treated as a guest at a friend’s family dinner.

It’s just, UGH… I can’t even fully express how much these two single sentences mean to me… as someone (Bakugo) who wants to have a nice dinner party isn’t someone who would argue with their spouse til the world ends. In fact, someone like that would probably, in fact… seek and desire moments of peace and calm with a significant other.

Like, Bakugo is a lot of things, and I get that and really do love the interpretations of others… but I also don’t see him as an idiot who would think to spit in the face of love once he’s found it, but rather choose and value gentleness specifically because he knows the opposite.

I think as BHNA progresses, we’re going to see different sides to Bakugo that revolve around him reconizing the roles of other in his life, which would, by extension, later include in romantic aspects as well. I don’t know.

Basically, in short…

Someone: Bakugo is an angry bastard! Annoying gremlin!!!

Me:

#bakugo #my theory is that bc deku is reverting to the original design of himself #were gonna see a bakugo that tries to be nice but ends up being way too honest all the time #love it #anyway yea #i hope this makes sense and is ... in depth #and expresses what i mean and how i think abt him #idk i just feel like... as nice as i make... some people really ignore his character development and how personalities work anyway #like im sorry bakugo treats YOU bad bc he treats me good as all heck #ask #caitie chats #bakugo thoughts #definitelysleepdeprived #🔥#fave

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onebillionstarsff · 4 years ago

Text

if you think c!dream deserves torture, you don’t know what torture is

alrighty, it’s time for me to do annoyingly in-depth lore analysis again because i have seen way too many people on my dash and twitter timeline saying that c!dream deserves to be tortured.

i don’t really think people have a comprehensive, reality-based understanding of what torture actually is, what it can do, and the motivations behind it. i, unfortunately, do: i’ve done extensive professional-level study on torture, so i’m going to do my best to put out some knowledge into our little dsmp-related world.

obvious content warnings for references to torture and to violence below the cut (nothing too graphic, though; i know this isn’t an academic forum or government work)

all of this is /rp /dsmp

i’ll also list some sources at the very bottom if you want to learn more

alright then, let’s start: what is torture, anyway?

there are two types of definitions, general and legal. i’ll reference both, but the message they carry is essentially the same, so i’ll just paraphrase the united nations definition that’s party to (read: supported/enforced by) 170 countries:

torture is any act that intentionally causes SEVERE harm to someone, physical OR mental, for the purposes of extracting information or punishment for failure to do so, with explicit consent from an acting public authority.

i’ll break down those components in the context of the dsmp in a second, but i first want to make it very clear what torture ISN’T. torture is not manipulation, it is not "trauma” in the way trauma is broadly conceived, it is not even direct physical abuse. you can suffer abuse from, say, a parent or a partner, and that abuse is about a power dynamic, where one person is being forcibly subordinated to the other. torture, on the other hand, is not necessarily about power, and it’s definitely not ONLY about power dynamics; torture, by its very definition, has to be intensely and officially coercive, and it has to be SEVERE. there are not degrees of torture, like there are degrees of abuse: being deprived of sleep for days or even weeks at a time is just as psychologically impactful as losing a limb or being waterboarded (simulated drowning- a common torture method that the us has been known to employ).

this is my first major issue with the way some viewers of the dsmp approach this whole debacle. i constantly hear c!tommy’s manipulation by c!dream cited as a perfect justification for c!dream’s torture. what c!tommy, and others on the server- particularly the kids- went through is horrible, and intensely traumatic. i will never deny them that, especially as a survivor of abuse myself, but torture is not just another form of trauma. that’s a very important distinction that we, as viewers, have to draw: torture is considerably worse because it is sanctioned, it is coercive, and its explicit goal is not just to cause pain or make someone feel powerless (common goals of abusers), but instead to shatter someone.

in more specific terms, the mental goal of torture is to completely unmake someone’s conception of the world, how they interact with it, and their basic sense of identity. if you read accounts or speak with survivors of torture, it is frequently mentioned that their very way of processing everything in life was destroyed by pain and had to be rebuilt, completely different, after escape. by destroying one’s individuality, will, and their most integral of processing abilities, you destroy their grasp on the world; and, to put it lightly, such a breaking event is awful enough that, in an effort to make it stop and regain some sense of normalcy, the victim will tell their persecutors what they want to hear. it’s the reason why confessions obtained through torture are notoriously not admissible in courts of law. this goes far beyond abuse or manipulation, and i need everyone to understand that.

now, let’s get to c!dream’s situation. did he do awful things? yes, undoubtedly. i’m a c!dream apologist, but his manipulation of c!tommy and c!tubbo was very fucked up. beyond that, his notable “crimes” that others on the server aren’t also guilty of committing (e.g., murder, theft, arson, to name a few common ones) really just consist of especially massive destruction of property (people leave c!techno and c!phil out of this equation, much to my chagrin, but i won’t get into it here). punishment for his actions is understandable, and is typically what justice systems aim to do. but, even if we completely ignore the inherent inhumanity of pandora (HOOO BOY that’s a lot to ignore but i digress), c!dream is not being punished, he’s being tortured.

going by the definition i used, let’s break it down:

c!sam knows what c!quackity is doing to c!dream, allows it, and even encourages it. as the warden, he is the person in an official, authority position giving their consent.

c!quackity is, by his own admission, doing what he is to get information out of c!dream. it’s not a confession in this context, but very specific piece of knowledge, with the promise of death also hanging right above it.

list of extreme psychological abuse: long-term solitary confinement (torture if it’s more than 22 hours. c!dream has been in solitary confinement for more than 60 days now), deprivation of the passage of time, general verbal abuse, incredibly limited social contact (people start to fray without basic interaction after a while).

list of extreme physical abuse (god where do i start): prolonged starvation, malnourishment when he isn’t being starved (you will die without protein intake); use of Warden’s Will Breaker pickaxe (it can hack through obsidian, so i think that’s all i need to say), shears (can be used to do things like pull nails, break limb’s bones, amputate toes/fingers/a whole arm in c!ponk’s case), and an OP axe (a sharp blade capable of slicing easily through wood with brute force, and bone is significantly easier to crush than wood).

so, we have consent of authority, coercion for the sake of extracting information, and severe physical/mental abuse meant solely to cause extreme pain. c!dream is being tortured according to the proper, internationally-sanctioned definition of the term, and that is not okay in any circumstances whatsoever.

if you haven’t ever read survivors’ accounts (or the accounts of their victimizers), it’s difficult to understand just how uniquely despicable torture is, and the lifelong effects that remain after it’s over and done with. i honestly recommend you read some testimonials, because it absolutely changes the way you view authority and the world in general.

no one is deserving of this treatment, no matter what atrocities they may or may not have committed.

it’s a basic tenet of human rights, and i don’t think it should be a hard pill to swallow that it’s never excusable in any circumstance. so, defend c!tommy & co. and criticize c!dream’s actions all you want, but please never say that torture is alright. that statement has real consequences, and real moral implications. don’t be an asshole, and don’t be disrespectful to people who have survived it.

if you’re curious, look into these events:

The Argentine Dirty War

Chicago Police’s Jon Burge and his torture regime

Abu Ghraib prison

Extensive torture by Pinochet’s regime in Chile

Guatemalan Civil War

Ugandan policing in the 21st century (Human Rights Watch report here)

if you want some reading, i recommend the following. tumblr will probably nerf this post because of links, but oh well.

Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

Elaine Scarry’s The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World (very important work in the literature on torture)

John Conroy’s Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People: The Dynamics of Torture

Levenson (e.d.) Torture: A Collection

#mine #text #jfc this ended up being LONG #sorry about that #long post #dream smp #dsmp #dsmp analysis #dsmp meta #prison arc #pandora's vault #dreamwastaken #dream #torture cw #abuse cw #c!sam critical #i doubt this will go anywhere lmao but it's nice to get my thoughts on (digital) paper

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not-all-dead · 4 years ago

Note

"It’s not a surprise when the Chief of Police comes out. There have been betting pools for years, and the announcement is met with mostly indifference. What is a surprise, however, is the interview that comes out alongside the announcement. The interview that is complete with a photoshoot of Lin Beifong in civilian clothes, talking about the challenges of her position. No one can remember the last time the Chief has given an interview, and the photo becomes the talk of the town."

How do you think the interview goes? What would Lin say?

link to (what i believe was) the original post of this! with some amazing art that VERY much helped me write this :DD (by @mgthejerkbender)

i was originally just gonna write a dialogue or notes for this but uh- i got a little carried away so here’s a 3687 word fic of the interview oops

CW: implications of past trauma (mentions of r@pe/s*xual assa*lt, public humiliation, not graphic at all), homophobia, sexism

fic under the cut :)

Lin walked into the room in a soft green turtleneck and dark brown pants that almost looked black without the light. There was sound equipment set up all over the place, with two armchairs in the middle of it all. A desk sat over to the side, a typewriter and paper sitting atop it. Quite a few people were rushing around, making sure that everything was in place for the broadcast. She watched a young woman sit at the desk, prepping the typewriter to transcribe the entire thing.

“Oh good, you’re here,” Lin turned to see a man in his early forties standing with a small journal behind her.

He wore a plain suit with a pale orange tie, his greying hair slicked back neatly. His eyes flitted around the room, checking things briefly for himself before focusing on Lin. He opened the notebook to a page about a quarter of the way through and smiled at Lin, nodding at the chairs behind her.

“Care to sit?” he asked, moving toward the chairs.

She took the seat farthest from where they’d just been standing, shifting to get comfortable while she waited for him to sit and get things rolling. She didn’t want to admit it, but her heart was racing. She hadn’t done anything like this is ages, especially not so casually. The topic of discussion also made her nervous, both because her job was something she rarely spoke of with anyone outside a professional context, and because of the announcement that would come with the interview. She’d encountered plenty of bigoted people in the past, and had no doubt that her officially coming out would only press them to question her position more than usual.

She picked idly at the fuzzballs on her turtleneck until the man sitting beside her cleared his throat. Her head snapped up to look at him, her body tensing briefly before seeing that he was testing the microphones. She sighed and relaxed slightly, speaking into the microphone placed before her when the sound technician prompted her to do so. Once everything seemed to be in place and ready to go, the broadcast started.

“Welcome, listeners, to tonight’s special program. I’m your host, Kaja Posicopolis, here with our esteemed Chief of Police, Lin Beifong. So, Chief, how are you on this fine night?” he started, putting on his radio voice.

“Good, I’m good,” Lin responded, leaning slightly forwards in her seat.

“That’s good to hear. I think I’ll launch right into our questions if you don’t mind, we’ve got a lot to get through tonight,” Lin nodded when he looked over to her, giving him the go ahead.

“Why don’t we start with something positive. What’s your favourite thing about your position as Chief? What about the job brings you the most joy?” he turned to watch her while waiting for her answer.

She looked at the floor for a moment, thinking before speaking.

“I think I’d have to say getting to help people. Ever since I was young I’ve wanted to protect others as much as possible, and being Chief makes that a lot easier and a lot more… legal,” he joined her when she chuckled lightly, but her smile only lasted a moment.

“Of course, I’m not perfect, and there are always times when things go wrong. I can’t say that those times don’t affect me, but I try to think of the people we as a force have helped over the years and that keeps me going,” she took a deep breath and looked to Kaja as he glanced at his notepad.

“That leads right into my next question; how do you do it? Not even your infamous mother was Chief for as long as you’ve been, and her time was already impressive. You’ve given so much to Republic City already, why, and how, do you keep giving?” there was a look of wonder and admiration on his face when he finished the question.

“I grew up in Republic City. It always has been, and will be, my home. And who doesn’t want to protect their home? I think that as long as I live here, I’ll be working to do anything in my power to help the city. I hate watching neighborhoods suffer… actually, I’m working on a plan with President Moon at the moment with the hopes of helping out the poorer parts of the city, providing homes for the homeless, all that good stuff. I just want to see Republic City thriving, and I want to help it get to that point. As I said before, it’s my home; everyone here is part of a community, a family, if you will, and that means everything to me,” Lin leaned back, resting against the cushion behind her, setting her right foot on her left knee.

“That’s a beautiful sentiment, thank you. I love the idea of the city being one big family, and that project sounds like it’ll be very good for the future of Republic City,” Kaja turned his gaze back to his notes, stopping the conversation briefly.

“The next question I have here is less uppity; what has your biggest struggle been with regards to your job?”

“That’s a hard one,” she paused. “I’ve had many struggles with work over my years as Chief, but I think of everything that’s happened… being a woman, and a queer one at that, has definetly taken it’s toll. Other things have been more directly challenging, but that’s been present since day one.”

“Would you care to elaborate on that?” he prompted leaning slightly towards her.

She inhaled and held her breath for a split second before sighing lightly.

“Sure, why not,” she gave a small smile to Kaja before starting.

“When I was much younger, just starting out in the force, I could already see the inherent bias against women that so many male officers held. My mother wasn’t immune to their verbal attacks, though she would give them a good… sparring match, lets say, if they ever so much as laid a finger on her. After a few times, that generally stopped happening, but people would still talk. The number of disgusting, awful things I heard coming from some of those men…” she huffed and shifted in her seat, putting one elbow on her armrest and resting her head on her hand.

“Anyway, I started to pay attention to every little thing. I noticed how many male politicians talked down to my mother, and not because of her blindness. Even a few of the men on our own council at the time would treat her as less-than for no apparent reason.

“I saw it happening in my own life and career, too. How my male counterparts got the promotion before I was even considered, despite performing just as well as them, if not better. How I was never asked for input on supposedly collective decisions or plans, and if I was or tried to interject, I was almost always dismissed. It seemed like any man of higher or equal rank to me thought I was some… assistant to bring him coffee and reports and not do any actual work.

“Seeing that attitude so often pissed me off. I made it my mission to prove myself beyond what was necessary. I wanted to show them that I could do anything they could just as well, sometimes even better. My work paid off eventually and I began to climb the ranks, not letting myself rest for a second. And I wanted to help people as well, of course, but it started out more as wanting to teach those bastards a lesson,” she moved again, uncrossing her legs and leaning forward on her elbows.

“Once I became Chief, a lot of people seemed determined to put me down. Practically every man, be he politician or merchant on the street, told me something insinuating that I was handed the position just because my mother was Chief before me. Every time I wanted to yell at them, to show them records of how hard I’d worked to get there, how much harder I’d had to work than most of my colleagues. With the politicians and other major figureheads, how much harder I’d had to work than they probably had.

“It was frustrating, but I got used to it. It was a constant that came with working a so-called, and I’m not making this up, it’s been said directly to my face before, ‘Man’s job’,” she stopped for a moment and looked over at Kaja, who was staring at her in disbelief.

She couldn’t help but let out a small laugh at his expression before looking back down and continuing.

“There was also the issue of my queerness,” she shook her head and took a deep breath, sitting back as she continued.

“I started working as a proper officer when I was about eighteen. Within my first year working, I was-,” she closed her eyes and clenched her teeth for a second.

“I had an encounter with a man, an older officer who was overseeing the training group I was a part of. He tried to initiate certain… activities with me, none of which I wanted to partake in. I did manage to get rid of him and filed a report against him, but it wasn’t the last time it happened.

“I was a pretty regular customer at a few of the underground bars for people like me at the time. I did my best to hide my face when I left, but there were always times I was careless, or somebody saw me in the seconds I let my guard down. Usually it was no big deal, but occasionally it was someone from work. Once, it was that man.

“He found me at work the next day and asked me about it. Yelled at me, really. He tried to make it seem like that’s why I’d denied him, and the names he called me weren’t pretty to say the least. He started to physically attack me, throwing punch after punch and not giving me the slightest chance to fight back.

“After that day, I stopped going to those bars altogether. The first time I went back to one was actually just a few years ago. I started dating Tenzin a few years later, and though people weren’t so outwardly expressive of their opinions on my relationships, the disapproval was still present.

“By the time Tenzin and I split up, I think some people still suspected my queerness, but it wasn’t a widely adopted theory. I had my fair share of men approach me, some with better intentions than others, and turned down most of them. Some of them didn’t react all that well, and I ended up filing several more reports. I don’t think any of them actually got charged, though.

“I entertained short romances with some men, some women too. Nothing stuck, not really anyway. I kept every relationship very quiet, including those with men, just for the sake of privacy. When I was with women, it was also to avoid getting hate-crimed, but I really did prefer to keep at least some things private.

“In the context of work, there were also challenges. That first superior to try getting at me like that must’ve talked, telling anyone who would listen about my excursions to the underground bars. People looked at me oddly in just about any shared workspace there was, though a few times I made friends because of it. Those were always good times, even if few and far between.

“Some people just gave a judgemental stare or vaguely rude comment every so often, but a few others took it further. Much further,” she looked up to the ceiling as she recalled another story.

“I had a supervisor when I was probably about, oh, twenty seven or so. He was a few ranks below my mother, and I one below him. He decided that one day it would be absolutely hysterical to cover my desk in obscene printed images of women I didn’t recognize, along with toys of a certain nature. I was mortified when I came in and saw the spectacle. The worst part was that almost everyone working in that part of the building at the time laughed with him, and those who didn’t weren’t exactly helpful.

“I didn’t come back to work for a week after that. It was awful, his stupid prank making me so shamed of who I was, who I loved. I know now that my loving both women and men isn’t a bad thing, and is simply part of me. It was harder to accept that, to accept myself, when I saw people like him in positions of power over me.

“I kept working though, and there was never an incident quite like that one again. A few others were more directly hateful than most, but it was easier to deal with. As with people treating me as less because of my gender, I got used to it,” she turned to Kaja, a hint of guilt on her face after talking for so long.

He shook his head, disbelief still spread across his face. His eyes flitted back and forth between floor tiles as he searched for the right words to respond.

“That sounds awful. I’m so sorry you had to deal with people like that,” he looked back up at Lin.

“So am I,” she scoffed, her fingers picking at her turtleneck again.

There was a small silence before Kaja looked back down at his notepad and then at the clock on the wall.

“We’ve got enough time for one last question, so is there anything you’d like to tell young women and queer people living in the city?” His expression was almost hopeful now, desperate to end off on a lighter note.

Lin smiled in amusement at him before looking down at her hands, fiddling her thumbs in her lap. After a moment, she looked back up at him and started speaking again.

“Absolutely,” she began, her gaze drifting around the room and landing on each individual at least once.

“To all the women working your asses off in the workforce: stand up for yourself. Don’t let any man devalue you because of your gender. Be the best you can be and wipe the smiles clean off their faces as you do it. Start your own businesses, get that promotion, set goals for yourself and fly past them. You can do just about anything you put your mind to, despite what many men might say,” her voice was strong, almost commanding as she began her final statement.

“And to all the young queer people out there; you are so, so strong. Keep loving each other, keep being yourselves. I know how awful people can be, but their opinions do not define you. You are perfect exactly as you are, and nothing can change that. It might seem like it’ll never be true, but I believe we will live in a time when acceptance is the norm. I believe that that time, with hard work and patience with those who need teaching, will be here soon.”

“Perfect. Thank you so much for your time, Chief,” Kaja said, looking at the clock again.

“Thank you for having me,” Lin replied, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath.

“And with that, folks, we wrap up today’s special broadcast. I’ll be back in the studio tomorrow resuming our usual radio program. Until then, I’m Kaja Posicopolis, and this is eighty six point four, your favourite music station,” Kaja finished, staying silent for a few seconds until a man from across the room nodded at him.

He rolled his head around and got up from his chair, setting his notepad down behind him.

“How are you now?” he asked Lin as he stretched his arms out and cracked his back.

Lin scoffed and stood, going through a couple of her own stretches. She straightened her shirt and tucked a few stray hairs back before responding.

“I feel like I just stood naked in front of the entire city,” she said, unable to hold back a small smile when Kaja laughed.

“Well, we’re about to expose you even more. You ready for the photo shoot?” he grabbed his notebook and pen and closed them, watching Lin for an answer.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Lin sighed before following him out of the room.

They walked down several long hallways, eventually coming to a large open room. The walls and floor were a pale grey cement, and there were expensive looking lights set up all over the place. A dark green upholstered bench sat to one side of the room, a tall light shining down on it. A few people saw them coming in and rushed around, turning off almost every other light. One of them knocked on a door that was on the other end of the room, calling for someone inside.

“This seems a bit excessive,” Lin muttered, her eyes wandering the room.

“Only the best for you, Chief,” a man said from somewhere in the shadows.

Lin glanced behind her only to see Kaja talking to someone near the door. When she turned back to where the voice had come from, she had to bite back a laugh. She tried not to, but couldn’t help smiling at the absolute glow that radiated from the man in front of her.

“You like my outfit?” he asked with a grin, twirling around for her.

He had on bright red fit-and-flare pants with a stripe of gold sequins down their side; a matching red low-cut tank top; a purple feather-covered knee-length jacket; gold sparkly platform shoes that made him tower over Lin more than he already would have; and a top hat that belonged with a businessman’s black tie attire.

“It’s incredible,” Lin chuckled, crossing her arms casually over her chest.

“You look sharp yourself today, Chief,” he said with a grin, taking a few steps towards her.

Before she could object, he pulled her into a tight hug. His arms squashed her face against his lower chest, making Lin painfully aware of the extent of their height difference. She laughed and patted his arm, thankfully getting him to release her.

“I’m assuming you’re the photographer, then?” she asked, grinning up at him.

He nodded enthusiastically and spun on his heel, walking back into the darkness. She heard a couple of small crashes and a string of profanities before he came back, a large camera and it’s stand filling his arms.

“Uh- where am I going?” he asked Lin, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye.

She let out a small laugh and stepped towards him, placing her hand on his arm. She guided him towards the bench setup, stopping them near where the light stood.

“Thank you, thank you!” he exclaimed, setting down the camera’s stand first and then fastening the camera to it.

“Of course,” Lin breathed, suddenly nervous to have her photo taken.

The photographer immediately noticed her mood change and put his hands on her shoulders.

“Don’t worry, I’ll make you look,” he closed his eyes and blew a chef's kiss to the side.

Lin nodded and took a deep breath, filling her lungs as much as she could before letting it all out. The photographer made a few adjustments to the camera stand, making sure it would stay while he got her in position, and then led her to the bench. He sat her down in the middle of it and walked back to his camera, dragging the stand loudly over so he was more to her right.

“Don’t be so stiff,” he called, looking at her through the viewfinder and flapping his hand in the air.

“Just- pretend I’m not here, you’re just sitting at home listening to the radio.”

He stepped back from the camera and watched Lin as she settled her head on her left fist with her right elbow on her knee. The photographer gave her a big thumbs up, calling “Much better!” and going back to looking through his camera.

He shifted it a few times before taking any photos, wanting to get it right in as few shots as possible considering the price and rarity of film in stores. Lin looked at the camera for the first few, looking away because of her boredom growing steadily. When he seemed satisfied with the shots, he took the camera off the stand and walked over to the bench.

“Room for another?” he asked, not letting Lin answer before settling himself beside her.

The images printed slowly, one at a time. After each was out, he placed them in the shadow under the bench to protect them from overexposure. Once the last one printed, he reached down and grabbed the first. It had settled well, the colours coming out nice and bright.

“It’s perfect,” Lin gasped, staring in wonder at the photo that managed to make her alright with how she looked out-of-uniform.

The photographer grinned at her, holding the photo up.

“I agree,” he said proudly, forgetting his other photos and standing.

Lin watched as he brought the photo to Kaja, engaging the shorter man in a quick and lively discussion before handing off the photo and walking back. He grinned ear to ear at her, and she sighed before relenting and giving a small smile back.

“Nervous, Chief?” he asked, standing before her with his hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket.

Lin chuckled and shook her head.

“I just haven’t done something like this in ages… or ever, really,” she said, her hands moving to grip the edge of the bench.

“Hey,” the photographer moved to place a hand on her shoulder, prompting her to look up at him.

“You’re doing great, Chief, trust me,” Lin let out a breath and really smiled at him this time.

“Thank you,” she said quietly, meaning it with every ounce of her being.

67 notes · View notes

enderspawn · 3 years ago

Note

I know the discussion is 6 hours old at this point (I'm going through my dash) but as someone who's really good at manipulation and persuasion (old bad habit and defense mechanism, I don't do it anymore). Theyre--- they're literally the same skill set.

I've tried to say that before but other people never Get It???? But it's the same???? Aaaa???? It's the same words, terms, tactics????

exactly my point! however, depending on the term used peoples view of it varies wildly. manipulation is considered inherently bad while persuasion isnt, but there's NO real clear line between them and the situation is always too nuanced for one strict definition (especially one that also includes morality). I could describe a character as "cunning and manipulative" or as "smart and persuasive" and they are the same description/the same character. two synonyms, but two very different take aways. maybe you could try for the more neutral "silver-tongued", but even then it has its OWN implications.

like... lemme run through a scenario: someone tries to use your emotions, tug at your heartstrings, in order to get you to give them money and/or go out and do a very specific action they want you to do. Possibly even implying that preventing bad things, those things that are making you sad, is your responsibility. The use specific music and images to get you to sympathize and be more likely to comply as well. Sounds like an awful horrible act, right? What I just described is an ASPCA commercial. They use sad images of animals in cages, sad music, and urge you to donate to their cause and/or adopt an animal yourself.

IS that manipulation? Textbook, emotional manipulation specifically. It's also just persuasion, using an appeal to pathos. They are the same, but trying to assign morality to one and not the other is a fools errand. No one is going to try and cancel a charity for trying to raise money, even if without that context they agree its manipulation or bad.

thats WHY a lot of definitions of manipulation that include it as a moral bad ALSO include some form of specific and planned intent (often even malicious intent, or lack of care for the well being of the target). In these cases, just trying to get people to do something they might not otherwise is not manipulation. Not caring for the target or even trying to harm them IS.

again! thats not even a universally accepted definition of manipulation tho!! its not specific and the issue of if its right or not varies on a case by case scenario!!!

tldr; ur right 100% but ppl view them differently anyway and it makes me mad FJDKSLFJ

#og post #personal #answered #anon #(jeb bush voice) please clap #i didnt tag this w dsmp bc it doesnt mention it but its inspired by dsmp discourse so :thumbs_up:

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crockersbian · 2 years ago

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Experience the true horror.... Zanathan refusing to edit and proofread her work more than once

people talking about the intricacies of discussions surrounding the heinous shit some of the homestuck characters do versus their ages and lack of chances for self-improvement due to homestuckmurder (especially regarding eridan and equius, since vriska despite technically qualifying does actually manage to have opportunities to learn narrative-wise TWICE) is a fuckin attract'r beam for my own homestuck discourse brain. its like. on one hand i think people are completely correct to point out that characters being 13 and coming from a hellplanet does in fact mean that they cannot be held to the same standard as grownass adults. and that really should fuckin inform a lot of discussions about their behavior! trying to understand and still somewhat sympathize with a child in that situation is perfectly reasonable. Anything that i say past this isn’t *actually* disagreeing with that btw i’m just. spouting my own @#$#

Those conversations ignore the fact that they’re.... all fucking aristocrats. Literal blue bloods two of ‘em, the other a purple bc blue wasn’t even high-class enough. Vriska’s the only of the three (/four counting gamzee ig) “main” shitkids with a direct external force making her participate in The System*. Eridan’s implicated in lusus-killing for the sake of ol’ Glubby but that does NOT excuse his classism and generalized incel barely-even-crypto-fascist shtick. Equius has so few exterior reasons for his cultural attitudes aside from general conservatism that he doesn’t even *follow* his own cultural attitudes most of the time. If they actually got to live full lives outside SGRUB they’d be insulated from the harm they were responsible and any character growth they had would be incidental from that point onward bordering on unlikely. even presuming an alternative homestuck where they lived, i struggle to imagine PLAUSIBLE FOR HOMESTUCK development where they meaningfully develop away from their shitty shitty SHITTY attitudes given... well, Vriska got two chances and she got there halfway once and then the powers that be decided that a better outcome would be her NOT getting the (death-based) punishment

--------& then further dumpster fire plans (that yes hurt a lot of people but they’re plans that retcon vriska literally approves of. retcon vriska even buddies up with the pedo and actually-literally-a-fascist fake punk that was ghost vriska’s buddy-in-arms on that) and that her continuing to vriska all over the place while purporting personal growth (personal growth not shown + her guilt-tripping tavros over deciding to sprite-revive him when SHE. KILLED. HIM. is just. jfc people who think retcon vriska is the moral and characterization superior to dead vriska are assclowns falling for a character comprised mostly from reappropriated extremely online niche quasifascist talking points). ZAN SHUT UP ABOUT THE RETCON

*cough* anyways. i forgot what i was saying. damn it. Eridan wouldn’t ever get better and its profoundly out of character to think he would i guess. While Equius has that strange inherent out-of-character soft(?)ness to him (ignoring the weird romantic shit he pulls which.... is probably linked to his strict hierarchical thinking regaurding castes -Aradia being a burgundy isn’t a coincidence- but frankly would take another fifty paragraphs jesus) and Vriska has the mountains of characterization dedicated to how she can do better and is aware of it, and Gamzee’s worse traits are buried in the arcane clusterfuck that is comprehending his “true” motives, eridan’s just... a piece of shit. even his moments of going-against-his-own-fascist-narratives are built integrally on *other* ways he’s basically entirely awful. the softer parts of his personality are used narrative-wise to further highlight the way he sucks like... *always*. Also the fucking insane person theories regarding his tranfem coding (that despite recognizing are.... fucking absurd I still willfully buy into bc they’re both interesting, about as credible as most homestuck meta, and fairly horrifying to contemplate considering his blithering incel shit and attempting-to-insert-himself-into-a-lesbian’s-quadrant-life but in the same grotesque way that i find yoshikage kira’s narrative parallels to The Closet compelling in a horror context. *ANYWAY*) and his actually goddamn official fucking pesterquest gender arc (seriously?????) that actually lends credence to the Magical Use As A Universal Feminine stuff leading him to be just... jfc this is the worst girl-thing ever created. I don’t even wish hate or anything on people who like Eridan than aren’t sex pests or nazis, that isn’t my point in this, i just think anyone who looks at canon eridan and goes “oh that can be redeemed” are fucking fools and people who look at equius vriska or gamzee and think “they just need to get older they’ll know better we all were bad as teenagers” are entire royal courts of jesters fsjlkfkldjsjfklds.

#title added in post #ALSO SORRY FOR CALLING THE WANDS THING INSANE I MEAN IT IS BUT I UNIRONICALLY BELIEVE IT THINKING BACK #LIKE IT SUCKS I CANT WRITE ABOUT IT WITHOUT GETTING SELF-CONCIOUS BC ITS FUCKIN FREAKED BUT????#ITS FUCKING CONSISTENT???? AT LEAST WITH THE ADDITIONS POSTCANON MAKES?????????????#admittedly the guns half of the symbolism is. a bit murkier. but no magic is a girls club in homestuck no amount of girls using rifles and t #then stopping will change that

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mermaidsirennikita · 4 years ago

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bridgerton--the good, the bad, the ugly

The short of it: Bridgerton excellently captures the tone of Regency romance novels and offers a lot of escapism and great sex scenes, but could definitely use some serious work in terms of how it depicts race and it should have made some further alterations to the dated and flawed source material. Definitely loved a lot of it and am hotly anticipating the second season, but I want to see more work done and I HOPE that this encourages the adaptation of better (and less inherently flawed) romance novels.

Now for the longer take.

The Good

Bridgerton depicted sex and romance in a way that is totally different from anything I’ve seen in period dramas, for sure, but possibly different from anything I’ve seen on TV. The romance of it all was woven into almost every aspect of the show. There is the handsome and seemingly severe but extravagantly wealthy and sexually adept duke sweeping into town. The (multiple) rakes who just want to have fun while also being hot messes. The awakening of female sexuality and the copious use of the female gaze. (Note the pretty modest and minimal focus on female nudity, while we get plenty of lingering shots on Simon.). People want love! There is pretty minimal violence and perhaps the most physically violent scene involves Simon beating a man up because HE IMPEACHED DAPHNE’S HONOR~.

The sex scenes themselves focused on Daphne’s pleasure for the most part, and were probably among the best I’ve seen since Outlander in terms of chemistry, in terms of the visuals, in terms of focus on sex as an act of emotional connection and FUN. Yes, there was some Unlikely Vaginal Orgasming, but we also saw Simon tell Daphne about masturbation. On the wedding night, he was pretty clearly touching her to help her enjoy it. He ate her out... a good bit.

And aside from that, we got all of the grand speeches, the stolen glances and touches, an excellent buildup of sexual tension that led to some pretty hilarious moments.

I also really enjoyed many of the performances on this show. Rege-Jean and Phoebe had great chemistry and excellent back and forth. Jonathan was a GREAT Anthony. I would argue that as lackluster as I found his relationship with Siena (more on that in a minute) it largely existed as a way to set him up for his romance with Kate. He now has even more of a reason to be down with love, as opposed to solely relying on a kind of flimsy tragic backstory. Additionally, his overprotectiveness of Daphne added tension to the story and made him a source of comedic relief for me? I loved it. Give me disaster Anthony all day; can’t wait until he falls to the enemies to lovers trope just like Simon fell to his FLAW-FREE fake dating plan.

A lot of the changes I found were really good. Obviously, it was important that the show incorporated greater diversity (though they need way more). Benedict was INFINITELY more fun and interesting than he was in the novels, and acted as another standout for me. As much as I hate Portia Featherington, I think that the elevation of her to a proper villainess is probably necessary and Polly Walker excels at those types of roles, though they need to maybe have her be less like, actively racist. I adored the addition of Queen Charlotte; she was excellent comic relief. Lady Danbury’s expanded role and relationship to Simon was one of the best moves they made. It touched my entire soul.

Buuuut....

The Bad

The show needs to work on casting more men that are frankly on Rege-Jean’s level. It feels a bit awkward to see a guy that is by most people’s standards kind of stunning and then.... Colin looks twelve. Lord Philip is like... a farm guy. Get rid of the sideburns, we’re in romance novel territory.

In the same note, the girl who played Siena wasn’t a great actress and wasn’t super stunning, so even though I’m fine with her being a placeholder.... Eh. Go for better casting. The woman playing Madame Delacroix would’ve played that role so much better and I really enjoyed her dynamic with Benedict because she was just fun.

Frankly, I don’t know what the fuck they’re going to do to make me want to watch Penelope and Colin fall in love. Their book was already a bit basic--fun, but far from revolutionary. I don’t really get why they would receive attention similar to that of Kate and Anthony, basically. The issue is that Colin, again, looks and sound rather young and twerpy. It obviously wasn’t great for him to be tricked into raising another man’s child, but.... For fuck’s sake, how much would that have affected his life on a practical level. He’d never know unless he was told, thanks to the lack of DNA tests. He was marrying far out of his league in terms of attractiveness. He’s a rich white guy in England with a supportive family.

I really disliked the fact that Colin told Marina in his huffy little tantrum that he would have married her anyway--because would you have, buddy? Really? The thing is that Marina had no way of knowing that and her entire life (and the reputations of her cousins) was on the line. She didn’t know if she could trust Colin to keep her secret. They barely knew each other. He basically came off as a whiny child and I’m fine with him staying in Greece if that’s the plan.

Penelope was just... psychotic. And that was really disappointing, because I love Nicola and would love to have loved to see the fat girl get her sexy love story. But first off, lol, it wouldn’t have been sexy because Colin was miscast. Second, she basically tried to destroy Marina’s life and that of her sisters? And herself? Because Colin? Because Colin, a guy who hasn’t even shown any amount of attraction to her at this point? Her tears, her whining, it was all too much. Penelope was dealing with a crush and Marina was dealing with the real Grown Woman issues of a child out of wedlock and as it turned out a dead lover and they were not on equal footing.

I mean, Penelope could very well make a great villainess at this point, and if done well I’d embrace it. But I do not know how the fuck they can make me interested in her love story. And the idea of her basically being launched into villainy because she was this chubby white girl obsessively jealous of a beautiful black woman...... not a great look.

The show definitely needs to explore diversity in terms of sexuality too--I don’t think it’s correct to read Benedict as straight because he still seems to be open to exploring. Once he has more screentime, I think he could totally end up being bisexual, and it’s possible that the writers were trying to feel the audience out in terms of their receptiveness to taking a straight character who has a big straight love story in the books and making him LGBT+. Eloise could also easily be a lesbian, and I’d be thrilled to see that happen. They need to do something to expand the world, and if there are 8 Bridgerton kids, all of them being straight as an arrow seems SO unlikely.

The Ugly

Obviously, the rape scene was bad and should have been written out. Simon could have gotten caught up in the moment and blown up at Daphne after he accidentally didn’t pull out in time. Men.... accidentally don’t pull out in time... a lot. That’s how babies happen. It would’ve been believable, and due to our sympathies being with Simon largely, I don’t think he would have become irredeemable if he was more at fault than Daphne.

As it was, I will say that the scene was somewhat better than it played in the books because Simon was conscious and totally sober, and it was a bit? Confusing? That he didn’t just roll Daphne over and pull out? Because she wasn’t really clearly trying as hard as she was in the book to wrap her legs around him and hold him tight. But it remained a rape scene. The show also did a better job, I think, of establishing how fucked up it was that Simon took advantage of Daphne’s lack of knowledge. Whatever he said about thinking she knew what was up--he knew she didn’t even know about masturbation. He had to know she wouldn’t understand what pulling out meant. He did very clearly mislead her to think that he was sterile and therefore denied Daphne her ability to give informed consent. Did that justify what Daphne did? Nope. Two wrongs don’t make a right. But both of them did a fucked up thing and I think that we honestly could’ve stopped at Simon’s misleading.

The issue too is that this leads into a bigger problem the show had. It wanted to include diversity (yay!) but did not consider the total implications of what was happening (not yay). Daphne and Simon’s dynamic is inevitably influenced by the fact that she’s a white woman and he’s a black man, regardless of whatever handwaves happened. This influences the sexual assault and makes it even more messy.

Speaking of mess, I’m not sure what exactly would have fixed the “we don’t want this to be a colorblind casting” issue... but the explanation they came up with wasn’t good. Never mind that this makes everything SUPER confusing (racism is over like..... maybe 50 years MAX after Queen Charlotte’s marriage if we assume she was a teen when she married and is in her 60s now?) but Lady Danbury’s dialogue explaining this was HORRENDOUS. “One of them fell in love with one of us”. The implications are awful. I don’t know if perhaps setting back the integration of society centuries earlier would have helped? But this wasn’t it.

Additionally, the writers and casting directors didn’t seem to get that diversity is all well and good, but what about the fact that almost every black character has a light skin tone? Why are there so few black female characters? Why is Marina, the most prominent woc on the show, given the “pregnant and desperately trying to trick a man into marrying her until her jealous white cousin fucks her life up and she is humiliated into settling for a loveless match” plot? I desperately hope we see her next season, falling in love with Sir Phillip or perhaps having experienced a plot twist that gives her someone else... And she better not die. Eloise can find someone else if Marina really ends up with Sir Philip.

Ultimately, again, I really loved the show. But it needs to work on some things. I think that a lot of its issues can be addressed and fixed in a future season, and I HOPE they do that.

#bridgerton #but fuck polin for life lol

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