#re: more the victim.

[v-arbellanaris]

ok thinking abt how fucked up it is that his 6yo baby sister (half sister, their father reminds iskandar, After, she is only your half sister) shows up at the circle and it breaks his worldview so badly that he applies for a transfer somewhere else. it's so insane that he's trying to mourn his sister but that's not allowed because 1. she's not actually dead and 2. she's worse than dead, she's a mage. there's no room allowed for grief, or rage, or anything else because she has to be nothing to him. she's just a charge, like every other mage in the tower. it's her own fault for being born like this - he feels tricked, because it (the mage, the spirit dwelling in her flesh waiting to be turned into a demon at the slightest provocation) made him think he had a sister but he doesn't. and he cannot mourn his sister who is not a sister, who was never his sister, because the laws of god and man have said so.

he runs. because it's her fault. and she's six years old. and he hears all the horrible things that happened to her because he left her behind. and it's her own fault. she's six years old. and it has to be her fault because if it's not her fault then she's not a demon sleeping. if it's not her fault, then she's six years old, and she's a person. she's a child. a child who can be abandoned and hurt. a child he should have protected and didn't.

(because if she's a child, and he abandoned her, then, isn't he the monster?)

[cdroloisms]

Cdream be like: You can't put yourself in the Prison anymore bc of the woke >:(/lh

That man is a mess like it's facinating how messy his vision of reality is for others and himself

it is fascinating fr, and does remind me of how we'd talk a little bit about how his perspective may betray what kind of environment this guy might've been in pre-dsmp. the stick-up-his-ass about rules and rule-following, the neuroticism about conflict, and the ease with which he jumps to punishment as being the appropriate response to people who cause problems (a perspective that, quite evidently, to a certain extent, does apply to himself, doesn't it?) all seems quite indicative of someone who lived in an environment where punishment being the natural consequence of stepping outside the lines was generally something that went unquestioned. of course, this is speculative, and it's not that a #tragicbackstory is necessary to explain what the fuck is up with c!Dream, and it's hardly about justifying the choice to abuse a teenager into behaving, lmao. but while exile served his goals and exile was a lot of petty, spiteful cruelty for petty, spiteful reasons, i do think there's something to be said about how clearly c!Dream hadn't expected c!Tommy to respond quite so severely to exile and how he thought he would be "fine" with potatoes in the prison and the language he used both about exile and his own early prison stay about shit like "getting better" through punishment. of course, punitive justice as a norm is kind of ingrained in our own society (just look at the rhetoric around deserving in this fandom, lmao, which speaks more than well enough for itself) and of course that reflects onto the dream smp as well, considering how many of the characters talk quite freely about the idea of punishment/deserving/what have you, but few characters are quite as obviously a stickler for rule-following as c!dream and exile and then prison are uhhh definitely on the more extreme end of things. anyway. just some food for thought

[bonebabbles]

average day in the tiktok warriors fandom

he's. he's literally described on the page as enjoying the feeling of making cats viciously maul each other. He gets "validation" for his feelings constantly through Gray Wing and his other sycophants kissing his ass, and still maliciously and intentionally torments them. He beats women and children for telling him no

What they want is BREEZEPELT. This describes BREEZEPELT. BREEZE. PELT.

The cat who is ACTUALLY reprimanded by authority for being angry all the time?? The one whose dad screeches at him for having basic needs?? A character who is explicitly shown to be manipulated by an evil force because they're the only ones who validate his feelings??

THAT Breezepelt?? Ringing any BELLS?

Lemmie guess. Tiktok probably doesn't like Breezepelt much because if you acknowledge that he's a child abuse victim, you can't keep woobifying Crowfeather into a sad boy. Lol.

[missmarthanightingale]

i find particularly notable the line "that unknowingly i did break the seal." like that is an outright lie! & sure, the count lies all the time, but previously there's been a veneer of plausibility to them, whereas this lie is just so blatant, bc jonathan sat next to him on the couch & watched him open the letter in literally the immediate preceding paragraph. pair that with the mind fuckery of the locked door & just. idk idk something about the way that the methods of abuse in this relationship are shrouded in ever less deniability as time goes on

[wreckedhoney]

MASSIVE SPOILER for one of the endings.

it's been a while since i tried looking, but i did hear that something like this happens last year and over time started to think, "was it a fluke?" bc no one posted footage or caps of it then, and i aimed for a completionist run in my first playthrough. turns out it's real! and definitely shines a new light on a character that, for most other types of playthroughs, will not give this much emotion! EDIT: transcript now included, and some stillshots under the cut

[0:28] Marie: Henry, this is the man who kept you from doing the right thing tonight. Kill him. [0:15] Forrest: Henry, you don’t have to do this. If you’ve not killed anyone yet, there’s still time to make the right decision. [0:05] Out of shot: (Gunshots) Henderson Police! Freeze! Marie: No! Henry, get out of there!

[zvaigzdelasas]

ppl who are trying to do explainers abt current events in DRCongo are rly imo doing a massive disservice to ppls understandings without talking abt the regional context of DRCongo being where regional tensions have boiled over regularly - see Both Congo Wars - as well as putting M23 - as well as those wars - in the context of Rwandan/Burundian Genocides & the dispersion of Tutsi militias (see also: CNDP) in & around the Kivu regions since then - but also even Rwandan Hutu militias (see FDLR)

[ruthlesslistener]

on a sidenote tho as im scrolling the tag to get the buzz outta my system, im kinda really not liking how the fandom took the interestingly complex dynamic between a racist elf who no longer has the strength to care about anything other than revenge and the brown guy who canonically got forced to care for his every need and decided it was a cute yaoi ship. Like im not saying that the ship itself is bad because theres nuance to it ofc and its not a black-and-white take on things but going for the 'awww theyre boyfriends' take is really not the way to go about it if you ask me

[shivology]

talking about stewy and privilege/intersectionality is better than sex idk like it's so interesting to watch what he does (watch what he does... i say like he doesn't have five seconds of screen time per season WHATEVER LMAO) from what we've seen with the privileges he's got. because what does he do with it? send kendall's (Black) assistant (whose name he can't seem to remember) to remind a (Black) artist that his friend pays the paycheck of the guy who pays his paycheck because literally how dare he not want to stick around and humor a forty year old private equity guy. become buddy-buddy with mencken. giggle with a white supremacist at the wake of the guy who created fox news (and according to the timeline, presumably made Thee most profit off post-9/11 hate speech too!) i am spiritually and emotionally and ethically and morally behind whoever wins. my dad is 95 and suing the neighbor. like despite being a brown Persian (queercoded, although we're going strictly off canon here so whatever) person he's still also an entitled filthy rich capitalist man who will do what's best for himself and likes having structural power over others and wields it effectively like babygirl we are NOT in this together and you should be guillotined when the revolution comes!

[delicatebluebirdruins]

Things I wish people would remember

Ethan suspected Mia of something before the events of seven and called her on it "i did lie to you I shouldn't have" and "you were always watching me why? what are you hiding Ethan what don't you want me to know?"

Eveline's sales pitch (ignoring Miranda's roll in this for the minute) is to end all wars as stated in the R&D Report One found in the salt mine "develop a bioweapon for neutralizing combatants en masse with minimal direct contact..."

Alan's actions be it him getting in the way or whatever is why Evie got out in the first place and Mia was sent to chase her down after a unknown amount of time (suggestion if Mia was a scientist would her priority be to subdue Evie or make sure Alan is okay?)

Mia was in the cell we find her in from Nov 2015 for being violent (Evie getting out was October 2014)

Mia tried to warn the bakers indirectly because Evie had infected her and would have stopped her in some way- Mia is the reason Zoe knows about the basic serum

Mia gave up all information she had on the connections for a reduced sentence (i will die mad that the Baker Incident Report isn't part of the base game for village and you know how bare bones it is- side note in the side note: I love how even after talking to Mia they still don't know much about the connections it's almost as if Mia is low down on the food chain weird)

Mia called Evie a little bitch to distract her from Ethan as he gets away

Mia was surprised that Evie called her mommy

Mia suffered memory loss it is acknowledged by Evie "are you remembering" she is not lying about it

when did Miranda decide that Eveline wasn't Eva how much of Evie thinking her mold as a gift came from the actual cult leader and because Mia treated her with as much kindness as you can to what is essentially a live grenade and you know made the promise that set Evie off and killed everyone on the boat

i really hope that my screaming about that line in go tell aunt rhody "they locked me up and took my soul" is just a fun line and not in anyway Miranda fucking succeeding and rejecting her daughter for not being right (Miranda put a child on a pedestal no vessal will be good enough) as other wise it's two for one special of shittiness

[asurrogateblog]

...sudden radio silence on social media for the last few months i wonder why

[unproduciblesmackdown]

among the boundless billions zaniness like laugh track as it definitely has that moment of expressing "rolling my eyes as The Left makes a kerfuffle of Acting like they have a stance as a veneer over the true belief that [xyz] is cool & chill actually" like what, approximate 0.000% chance wendy isn't, as usual, given the Objective Stance of "yeah yeah ohh we are cancelling involved parties talking about how we Don't watch this But. we all love this damn epic movie & already have it memorized so shut the fuck up, kids today" like. don't wanna really delve into how much billions thinks taylor or anyone is "really" trans / nonbinary like not too much benefit of the doubt in this material including what does provide info abt that specifically

& the general like [head in hands. what do you think any of this could possibly be about (you're the one that made your show at all about Power)] of "yes, it's bad/wrong to be someone that someone has done something to / victim of something" like that to be anti misogyny All Women Must Be Epic Winners b/c there's something to be proved: that they don't Deserve to be victims (of misogyny), not taken as a Given. while when we see some epic winner men stepping on other men (who need not all be guaranteed Winners so as to say misogyny is wrong), that's often Good, well beyond any assumption that various forms of basic disrespect / violation / patterns of emergent/entrenched power difference as Bad (for being things done to people, not for there being people they're being done to), & generally billions has to take an extra step when ppl get shitted on & tell us the Specific Cases when it was undeserved actually & someone was being mean to a specific person who didn't deserve that. & the specific cases when hey guess it wasn't that bad(tm) or when hey It's Okay that you're someone something was done to, in this case. & tell us what we were supposed to know all along like when someone who something was being done to (wrong Of Them, whether b/c they inherently deserve it no matter what, &/or b/c they failed to be someone who could make it Impossible to do anything to them, which, how do you do that besides being The Authority / Superior yourself, exactly? nonrhetorically? what if the in group vs out group / fascism / authoritarianism protected Me?) was actually being treated Too Well b/c ah well the abuse meant you were getting any attention, maybe it meant you were claimed as any superior's property, maybe it meant you weren't Already disposed of, as all Losers were in the end, You're Welcome.

obviously referring to winston where it's spelled out all the abuse towards him was deserved, & More than he deserved in the case of rian having more access & taking advantage of that, all for billions' enjoying its own sendoff there of, again, maximizing violation & violence short of [real violence is physical & leaves bruises / draws blood / Literally kills] which would be distasteful in general But doesn't it make wags look like the winner & winston the loser is that the former's completely unrelated completely impersonal ego blow gets way amplified taken out on winston, the most vulnerable recurring character when spyros as [first & ultimate Everyone Hates Him role] is more entrenched in there & billions still magnanimously pities tuk, as it does winston too, just not quite as much. again that like completely surface level realized power fantasy of forcing the mirror up to the Inferior so they're like nooo my inferiorityyyy & in doing so like, the projection in that lmao, we get it re: the valuing of & need(tm) for such Power Tripping & Reaffirming My Superiority & My Ego Restored; Everyone Claps like good god. & then for all ben & tuk are the slightly softer Two Too Nice Boys duo to the rian & winston quant duo, also like too nice i guess but not as much, ben is in charge of tuk but Any instance of rian being in charge of winston outstrips them in that "yay interpersonal abuse" dynamic, like then in the end billions may be like "yeah it's possible to be mean to them unlike how being mean to winston is actually Nice b/c he deserves everything he gets, we only vicariously enjoy it vs Feeling Bad for tuk & ben sometimes (still magnanimously & it's Not That Bad / just goofin)" like ben & tuk still Fail by not being people it's impossible to do anything to. & not Exceptions who anyone is really being Too Mean to. like if they were women, in which case, no problem surely with a "positive" kind of victim blaming where there is something Inherent that Will be victimized so hey how about to cancel that out there's this special Paternal Protection you Need always, Or Else? :) but instead they are men who are asian & is ben gay & w/tuk & winston nobody mentions glasses or fatness but billions doesn't really do much or very in depth textual mentioning of Anything, even w/nonzero mention that there may be gender & race in this world. a gay man, once. no disability. we just Know who are the inferiors who deserve it when they're treated inferiorly, or if they don't, they start deserving it when they fail to stop/avoid it, but if you start mentioning the factors behind who we all totally agree is inferior like whoa nobody was Saying any of that? being the real agent of oppression on the basis of the factors only You spelled out, much? nonbinary? i never say anything about the Gender Binary when i'm subscribing to it, sounds like You've created & enforced it. obfuscation & deflection onto [so Just Normal nobody has to label, explain, or argue it] couldn't serve a purpose & protect the existing power differences as they are. maybe You're the problem? perhaps you brought it upon yourself & now you're causing too much trouble standing up for yourself while everyone else's criticism is laser focused on you as the prior & continuing negative actions done to you are taken as a given / unquestioned / covertly protected to overtly encouraged?

anyway so wild if the Completely Normal(tm) Victim Blaming is uncritically recreated & oft embraced for "if you're watching this & don't wish you were axe / find him appealing" [billions as a sequence of vicarious power trips] purposes in this series....but a bit wild considering like this is your multiseason show that wasn't just purporting to be those power trips for [enough demographic & apparently specific personal tastes overlap w/creators] & was at all purporting to question the matters of power at play in the material, or yknow, at least to not be completely superficial material while said material is textually & thematically all about power difference being leveraged, how, the consequences, & so on. thus i will have to intermittently talk about it forever like this like lord unbelievable. & the funny little & sometimes less funny less little characters it has trapped in there so that those of us who were never meant to be in the audience can be cursed with this knowledge. like i have some feedback. "imagine not victim blaming" & "imagine adjusting your perspective can go beyond superficial layers added to politely defer to some other ppl while they're present but really like cmon do they deserve that. am i not just saying what we're allll thinking"

[not-poignant]

Hi! from the Behind the Scenes ask, 11 or 21 for Stain? Thank you!!

11. Was there a scene that you hadn't originally planned to include? Why did you decide to fit it in?

I have no plan for A Stain that Won't Dissolve, so right now, there's nothing that I'm doing that I didn't 'originally plan for' because there's no plan! :D

There's not even anything that's completely coming out of left wing, so far everything is steady and on track.

21. What is something you didn't expect people to notice or gravitate towards in this fic?

I didn't expect so many people to believe that the town secretly or actually has Alex's back based on a few minor things, because - presumably - they're rooting for the town not to be abuse and rape apologists, which they absolutely are when it comes to Alex's family and his mom?

Like, the level of sympathy for the SDV town has made me watch in real-time in a way how much people will like... excuse the inaction of individuals or a community under excuses like 'well they want to help' or 'they're actually helping' or 'it's nice that they care for him so much' when we have extremely little evidence of that.

It was like watching that kind of abuse denial happening in a broader kind of macrocosm, and I've had to reply to actually a lot of comments - maybe over 20 now - patiently pointing out that people being benignly polite to someone doesn't mean they're being supportive or that they've ever been supportive. And that the town is a huge part of the problem.

It's one of those 'a lot of these readers have never experienced this kind of community isolation while being abused by a family member and it shows' situations, and that's realistic, it's just interesting to watch unfold!

Like, not bad, just... uncomfortable as I am someone who has experienced that isolation, and in some ways watching people defend the distance and inaction of an entire community is...a little too close to abuse apologism for comfort. The whole 'they care' without adding 'but not enough to ever have done anything about it' does make the author in me go 'OKAY SO NO ACTUALLY THAT'S NOT IT' lol.

~

From this meme!

[rabbitmotifs]

isnt it so fun reading up on theory for grad school and just coming across the problematic aspects of what caused u to break up w yr ex

[unfriendlyamazon]

the big question for the zombie fic is 1) where is the setting and 2) who gets to die

[kasumingo]

discussions about endorsement don't really make sense or should be applied to vent art , because vent art by definition is not meant to be a teaching tool, a published story nor an educational piece, but raw, unfiltered rush of emotion dumped on art or story by someone who needs to release repressed feelings by means accessible to them, so often by art, the most widely accessible tool out there

filtering and suppressing vent art makes it lose its most important and primary functionality of serving as a release

someone drawing a comic about cutting that they show in a neutral (or positive!) light is not meant to endorse it or convince anyone to start cutting, it's their way to explore their trauma in a safe, detached way in a form of a drawing

someone drawing art of fantasizing of cutting their leg off doesn’t endorse it

you have the ability to view the art through the lens of your own experiences, a sole art piece does not create or modify your whole worldview and moral compass

what can be true though that this kind of content has to be properly labeled, but at the same time allowed to exist and most definitely accessible to those with similar experiences who want to find it

in fact, it has to be properly labeled, so that those who need it can find it

there are countless cases of people saying how stories or art have saved their life or helped to gather courage to move on

and generally just throwing keywords like that around that might hold water if you apply only very specific scenarios to them don't mean they're universally true and have the same intensity every time

[elvesofnoldor]

Local vampire (Lestat) thought he snatched the young hot rich single in the area, got trapped in an abusive relationship instead. More at 7 as the story develops