#questions of agency and choice

[momegranates]

Randomly had the thought: “I would have divorced any man who lied to me as much as Mr. Incredible did to Mrs. Incredible”

Then I had another thought:

[pretty-weird-ideas]

Episode Seven and White Tears

The trial's allegory is not just a lynching, it is a lynching for a Black person entering a relationship with a respected White man, and proceeding to leave him. It's not a murder case, as seen through the show, there's actually very little emphasis on the murder in the episode in regards to Louis. The emphasis is on his "seduction", his "ungiving nature", and "refusing to give his body". It is a public humiliation and lynching for turning a respected white man down. The crime isn't hurting Lestat, it's hurting his feelings.

Lestat doesn't speak to the audience about the pain of his throat being slit. He speaks of loneliness, the audience chants and jeers about how cheating was justified if Louis isn't putting out. Santiago isn't talking about the murder, he's talking about how much of a sexual deviant Louis is the second he is introduced. The show is telling us what's important to the case, and what language hurt and stuck out to Louis the most. The deciding factor in the eyes of the audience, the story that Sam and Santiago are trying to tell, is that the crime is heinous because Louis turned down Lestat.

The audience isn't mad about the murder, they're mad about Lestat's emotions, they're mad about the betrayal, and they are mad that Louis and Claudia didn't put up with things. The case built against the two of them isn't based on violence, it's based on white tears. Louis isn't called a monster for slitting Lestat's throat, the audience member calls him a monster for turning down Lestat's advances.

The show is clear that the trial isn't really about the murder, it is about Louis not "giving enough" for Lestat. It's about Louis asking Lestat to turn Claudia and literally bargaining his happiness where he literally gets on his knees and says "I'll be happy for you, I will never leave you if you do this for me". It's never been about the murder, it's quite literally just shaming Louis for not "loving a good man who might be abusive".

At the end of the day, the trial as framed and written by Sam is building a case off of Lestat's tears, not actual physical harm.

Like my skin is crawling but also the show is so chilling with how it portrayed the "He's a good man so hold your tongue and endure! Lest you read as ungrateful".

Anyways someone take the laptop from me before this becomes my life.

[clockworkcheetah]

didn't list characters working for blackwing cause they're already kinda in the villain zone as is but still welcome to choose them

i just think its interesting that most dghda characters (imo) are morally grey as is and through choice could be a good guy or bad guy depending (aka they could get worse or get better)

feel free to explain in the tags (just y'know be civil and don't needlessly start character bashing that's not what this poll is)

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

everyone clap for me

I saw an incredibly brain dead take on activism and I didn't engage with the post

I'm just going to vague about it in the tags like a mature adult

[childofthestone]

thinking abt the veilguard companions and sighing heavily

[aletterinthenameofsanity]

you ever think about how amy pond had more agency in birthing the TARDIS and the Doctor than she did River and want to chew drywall?

[dykeredhood]

Any time I see women in classic cinema etc. with short hair I get even more irritated at my parents asking if I wanted to be a boy when I chose to cut my hair short when I was off at ASU

[elizabethrobertajones]

Bug type pokemon

[duckprintspress]

in your Rules and Guidelines you say mildly dubious consent is okay. is mildly dubious consent like. for instance, the non-monster is in a situation where they are non-consensually given or sold, but they are received by a monster who gives them as much choice as they could possibly have under the circumstances, courts them with their consent, and is only ever interested in maintaining the non-monster's overall wellbeing?

is that mildly dubious in a correct way? or is that too dubious?

Hey anon!

While there's no solidly definable line between mildly dubcon and dubcon, it's all spectrum, we generally use "mild dubcon" to reflect cases where consent is fairly clear but not explicitly given. The kind of "I just couldn't resist any more, so I kissed him, oh thank fuck he's into it" kind of situation. It's mostly included as an option for this anthology on the assumption that there's a lot of types of monsters and consent will likely look different for different creatures, and some monsters may not be capable of human speech and therefore unable to give explicit spoken consent. We want people to know that if they want to write a story where consent looks different than the standard explicit consent in human/human relationships, we're all ears for that.

I know that this description of "mildly dub con" is so close to consent that most people wouldn't even tag for it; it's just a choice that we've made as a press, as some readers are uncomfortable when consent isn't explicit. We absolutely do not require explicit consent for our stories, and consent also doesn't have to be spoken to still be clearly explicit, and there are plenty of other examples I could give, the one above is just the instance that's come up most often in our tagging. Mild dubcon should still, ultimately, amount to: it becomes pretty clear that all involved parties are into it, even if it's not clear at first, and there's no mindfuckery (such as power dynamics, magic, drugs, psionics, age difference, etc.) involved that'd make it harder for someone to give true consent.

As to a slave situation such as you describe, that's definitely a "power dynamic mindfuckery" case. I think it'd depend on the story and the characterizations where on the dubcon spectrum that would fall. If the slave creature really has no way out, I'd probably lean toward dubious consent (rather than mild) even if the courtship and everything was with their apparent consent. When one person is owned by another, their ability to give true consent is inextricably linked with that.

As long as the ownership situation exists, if the owned creature has no escape option and hasn't been freed... how much choice do they really have? What are the consequences if they refuse, and what would happen to them if they were actually free? Whether what you describe is mild dub con or dub con, or even extreme dub con or non con, would depend on the answers to those questions, in my opinion. Like, if the consequence for the owned entity is either enslavement or death, does any consent they give really mean much? Which isn't at all to say that being enslaved removes freewill, obviously it doesn't and a person who is enslaved can give meaningful consent, but as a reader, especially if I'm not seeing the story from the slave's point of view, I'd always have to wonder how much concern for their own wellbeing (understandably!) colors every decision they make. On the other hand, if the consequences for the owned entity is like, enslavement or mild inconvenience of some kind? That's different, because even the enslavement itself is sort of a choice and the entity has made that choice.

There's no hard-and-fast rule, and as I essentially acknowledged when I described what we categorize as mild dub con, I personally tag quite conservatively in this regard, but I'd say most master/slave situations would fall under more-than-mild dubcon, especially with the premise you've given, where the slavery was never the owned individuals choice (like, in BDSM/Total Power Exchange, that's an example of a master/slave relationship that could be 100% consensual. Such situations absolutely exist.)...but yeah, in a situation where the entire premise of the master/slave situation is nonconsensual, it's not that easy for me to see how the slave's choices won't at least somewhat be colored by their straits, especially if the consequences of non-enslavement are severe, especially if we don't see their point of view, and especially if the owner never frees them.

TL:DR It's not a dynamic I would recommend for this anthology, though I can definitely conceive of examples that follow this basic premise that would fall more under mild dub-con. It sounds like an interesting story and one I'd enjoy, just not really what we're looking for here.

-unforth

[randomidiocyncrazies]

The thing is. i go bananas over Oozora Yuujin in part because he's allowed to exercise his will and autonomy in his last moments, but only because Leviathan let him. like, sure, it'd have been cool to see Yuujin overcome Leviathan's control (love it when a brainwashed/controlled character overthrows their abuser), but as epic as that would've been i don't think it would've fit Yuujin's function in the show. like... from beginning to the end, Yuujin had very little real agency—he was presented as a character with autonomy, but once you peel his layers back, the situation becomes really ambiguous. I mean, he was literally calibrated to appeal to Haru. and while Yuujin's bond with Haru was genuine enough that he peeked out from behind YJ-14's control, he was never able to actually fully slip Leviathan's leash when the big L wanted to keep him under control.

So. Yuujin can save Haru only because Leviathan let him go, and Leviathan only did that bc Haru made a choice as per their agreement (and Haru's choice involves sacrificing Yuujin for the liberty of humanity). Yuujin is in control during his final moments, but that control was a gift based on someone else's actions that he had no control over; he was grated that control not because of anything he did, but because Haru (the protagonist) fulfilled Leviathan's bargain.

And yet. Yuujin's final act to save Haru from having to execute that choice is no less meaningful; i think it's meaningful because of how limiting his agency actually is. in that final moment Yuujin finally has the freedom to make a choice—the first and last choice where he wasn't a puppet dancing to someone else's tune—and he chooses to execute his termination with his own hands, so that someone who loves and cares for him wouldn't have to. Haru might be the one who chose humanity over Yuujin, but it's Yuujin who pushes the button of his own free will in the end.

(i've said this before, but i find Yuujin fascinating as a character in a similar way that Anthy from Revolutionary Girl Utena is interesting, but they're kind of opposites. Yuujin is introduced as a 'protagonist' that our protagonist looks up to, and presented as someone with autonomy, but we spend the show realizing how little of that he actually had; Anthy is presented as a helpless damsel without agency, but throughout the show we slowly realize how powerful she actually is.)

[skollwolf]

I know I wrote Blinding back in like 2013 but even to this day my villain origin story is when people comment that they're glad Tony has a happy ending in it

[primus-why]

Sad Idea (tw: infertility mention)

Okay but what if when Orion got reformatted into Optimus, the Matrix gave him The Ideal Body To Go To War With? Like, it cut out unnecessary parts of his past self-- not just emotionally, but physically as well...

What I'm trying to get at: what if one day, the topic of sparklings come up. Maybe the humans they've been hanging around asked about the various ways a new Cybertronian comes to exist. Maybe the war is over, and someone innocently asks Optimus if he has ever considered being a creator.

Optimus might politely wave off the idea, citing he's too busy as Prime to give the care and attention deserved by a sparkling. But in private... or maybe even to just his amica/ a close friend or two... he admits that he did once want to be a creator, however, that's no longer in the cards for him...

... because the Matrix didn't deem a gestation chamber a necessary asset for a Prime at war.

[idgaficanymore]

I think I've found my favourite line about Snape in a fanfic ever:

For once, Snape was just…a person. Well. An intelligent, awkward, antisocial, sarcastic, and guarded person. With anger management issues. Alright, so he wasn’t an altogether admirable person.

[wild-wombytch]

Healthy anxiety coping mechanism ✅:

using the sophrology exercises I learnt today before tackling the call with my brother

My toxic chosen anxiety coping mechanism 😈 :

Sending a seething reply with thinly veiled threats to my ex harassing me/being creepy + filling it with radfem propaganda before having a 1min monologue with my brother's voicemail

[lifeinthegladhouse]

I would do anything to have a real family that loved me. I haven't had a real community in years. I probably won't. When my dad dies, I will slip away into the worst grief of my life, for a man who cannot even properly love and should never have been a father, who is still so important to me, and I will do so alone, because no one gives a fuck. I lost so many friends when my mom died because it was more important to them to just be unhingedly 'poly' pre-vax and hang out with their fuck buddies which, b/c i wasnt, then suddenly I didnt matter... friends who never said i did anything and never even confronted me just disappeared over night after years of friendship b/c i was "too much" ... id never gone through a major death before and it was literally my mother. when G died, it was different because people knew of him and so everyone was selfish and weird to me about him and his belongings and his prestige and then again to selfishness (to use his name and what he had), I lost my other best friend and now I just don't have... I don't know, I have a few closer friends but they're all far apart, far away, I didn't have any close close friends in California, I don't here, the two people I know here are not really close enough to... I don't know. My in-laws pretend this isn't even happening b/c they are also dealing with the family grandmother almost having died a month ago (she's 91?) and I feel incomprehensibly alone in this weird bubble, where I'm trapped here, not even in the city proper, with no real friends, no job, just... trapped in here wanting to get away... I don't know what the fuck to do.

[schoolhater]

answering a couple questions i got on this post since i realized ppl genuinely wanna know:

tl;dr:

israel lets very, very little aid get into gaza. even the UN can't get in as much as they want to. funding individual families, gazan led initiatives, and mutual aid collectives operating out of gaza ensures gazans can provide for themselves and pay for the extremely expensive aid that is available.

with all the civil infrastructure destroyed by israel, the situation on the ground has devolved into unrestricted capitalism, driving up the price of aid (that should be free!). this makes it more urgent for people to have funding for daily survival.

the post linked above has examples of how donating to individual families can help a lot. if you want to help more than one family at a time, there are many gazan-led initiatives focusing on rebuilding their infrastructure and distributing aid fairly that are worth donating to instead of large charities that already get the majority of donations.

as i mentioned in the last post: @/careforgaza on twitter is a nonprofit started by gazans, it's been endorsed by multiple palestinian journalists.

the sameer project is a collective organized by diaspora palestinians offering emergency shelter to gazans.

ele elna elak is a project aiming to bring water, food, shelter, etc. to gazans and has been promoted by bisan owda.

and the municipality of gaza itself is fundraising to rebuild water infrastructure.

all of these organizations are active inside gaza right now and are being run by gazans. if anyone knows of other gazan-led mutual aid projects, nonprofits or charities feel free to link them in the notes! hope this helped!

long answers under the cut!

if you wanna donate to a charity that's absolutely fine, but the thing is most charities (and even the UN!) are unable to make it into gaza in the first place, leaving aid rotting at the egyptian side of the border or subject to israeli settler attacks

not to mention, charities and nonprofits also maintain a paternalistic colonial relationship with the indigenous people they are trying to help, determining what aid they need for them instead of returning power to them and letting them make their own choices

i'm not here to say that one option is better than the other, just that they achieve different things and are equally legitimate. there's an attitude among people who question the legitimacy of these gofundme campaigns that somehow the people promoting them are telling them not to donate to charities. nobody is stopping you from donating to charities. we are just asking that you do not dehumanize the very real gazans in your inbox just because their method of asking for aid is more direct and risky.

unfortunately that's exactly what has happened. because israel destroyed all of gaza's more formalized infrastructure, it seems that organized crime and rampant inflation has taken its place. aid is supposed to be free, but in order to save for evacuation or the cost of living, people have started selling them at an inflated price. and aid that is truly free attracts intense, large crowds that are dangerous to navigate.

this was posted on abc a few days ago

it's pure, unrestrained capitalism. i've had multiple palestinians describe this situation to me confidence. that's why everything's so expensive now. why people have to rent out tiny plots of land for their tents to sit on, why my friend @siraj2024 still has to buy tarps to cover the broken windows of the overpriced bombed out apartment he rented, and why a bag of flour can cost a thousand bucks in the north.

even before israel closed and then bombed the rafah crossing, the egyptian hala travel agency was only allowing people to cross the border if they paid a hefty $5000 USD per adult / $2500 USD per child bribe. it denies doing this, but the hundreds of stories from palestinians say otherwise.

with regard to the economy, here in america we saw something similar happen in the wake of hurricane helene and milton. the podcaster margaret killjoy describes how she saw dual economies rise after asheville was fully cut off from the rest of the country - some people offered each other supplies for free in a sort of mutual aid honor system, and some people required payment when they lent supplies because they themselves needed to buy stuff for their families. these dual economies exist in gaza too. and this means they all still need money to survive.