#she should be able to talk about her experiences with directing no matter how privileged she is because she's a director

[merp-blerp]

As if she didn't direct a short film, several music videos, and is going to direct a feature-length film. Why are people so elitist?

(My full take in the tags)

[2manythoughtz]

Is Love Really Blind?

The famous Netflix series Love Is Blind has come back with a new season and it keeps proving itself wrong.

Love Is Blind is a dating show different from any other, in fact, you are supposed to create a deep connection with someone without the ability to see them, at least until you decide to marry that person. What happens after the capsules shows exactly how difficult it is to be with a person you could only fantasize about, in past seasons many had their difficulties associating the person they had before them with the voice that connected with them at a deeper level.

But is love really blind?

I personally love the concept and the idea behind it, loving a person not because of their looks, whether they’re considered beautiful or not socially speaking, but because of who they really are. In an ideal world, everyone is attracted to others because of their personality rather than looks, but unfortunately, humans don’t work that way and this show is the primary example.

There have been many participants in the past who have asked others about their bodies but this new season has set a new record with so many people going against the program’s whole philosophy.

From comments on the color of their skin to admitting to plastic surgery, it seemed like no one even tried to follow the experiment’s ideals.

The main example is Clay, he’s been very honest yet hypocritical. He asks AD about her physical appearance and when she replies confused, he admits that he, for once, had to be sure that he was going to be attracted to her physically to be able to propose to her. I’m not going to argue with his ideal but I don’t understand why he thought that participating in a show where you specifically have to propose to someone without seeing them first was a good idea.

Many of them, in fact, asked each other questions about their appearance, some of them were innocent and others were more serious, but Clay stood out because of how direct he was on the matter. It just goes to show that love is never really blind, surely there are cases in which the couples found themselves both emotionally through the capsule and physically once they were out, but that’s just a few of them.

I feel like the show should try to stop the participants from asking that kind of question and give them a penalty or something to better showcase their theory.

Another person that really stood out to me was Chelsea. She knew she was in competition with another woman for the same man and so she dropped the bomb “Sometimes they say I look like a celebrity, like that one, MGK’s girlfriend or wife” and, Jesus, the dude’s face as he realized that she was talking about Megan Fox, at that point he had associated the actress with her. She tried to make it sound so casual but it was obvious that she wanted him to know that information to make sure he would’ve been attracted to her more, I personally cringed a bit and thought it was a bit too much considering what show they’re taking part in.

That being said, their physical appearance indeed does change how they treat each other once they’re outside of the capsules, while for some people it worked out pretty well and they liked each other, there were a few couples that clearly did not have the same privilege.

Falling in love without seeing each other and without caring about the other’s aspect can indeed happen but most of the time love is not only an emotional connection but also a physical one, everyone has their own taste and can like whatever they prefer. It’s difficult to love someone if you don’t like them 100%, that being their appearance, personality, thoughts, qualities and flaws. I really enjoy being able to see how these people connect with each other without being able to see or touch one another, it’s refreshing and, in some ways, comforting. But the magic stops once they can meet up, after that Love Is Blind is just another superficial dating show filled with drama and behind scenes moments that are not shared with the public and, from what I’ve heard, they’ve not treated the participants with respect.

What do you think about it? Let me know with a comment!

[sereniv]

I think a big thing that ahould be realized is experiencing direct (blank) and indirect (blank)

usually i use it for racism, but queerphobia and everything under that umbrella works

A bisexual cis femme woman whos always been with men may have never experienced direct queer/bi/phobia. Because maybe its something she doesnt bring up, maybe no one knows simply because she doesnt want to say. Maybe she has it SUPER easy if we were to compare her

But indirectly, the hate that other bisexuals get, can be considered indirect prejudice. The community youre in, people who look like you or are like you or people you identify with its like second hand.

She has never and maybe never will experience biphobia directly, at her, about her. But maybe her friend does and that still hurts. maybe a family member does. maybe a stranger wearing a bisexuality flag shirt does.

It all can have an effect. Because there is always that feeling of being found out by the wrong person- and even if you dont have that fear, its being in a community and seeing one of your own hurt, you cant not feel that connection if you are connected

Of course there is a hierarchy in some form when it comes to any identity, either intersectional or not (as in including all identifiers like race, age, etc. or only looking at one identifier).

TECHNICALLY you can always say that a trans woman who passes as cis always has it "better" than a trans woman who doesnt pass at all. Like you can get into details about visibility

But at the end of the day you have to look at what the point of having that heiarchy and focusing on it is.

Because more often than not, outside of intersectionality and teaching about it, its not important

Whats important is who id suffering? in any degree? And whos speaking?

You take the cis femme bisexual with her husband, and compare her pain to someone whos very visibly queer, then all youre doing is silencing pain.

What you do is say 'this person has different experiences, that of which is always indirect predjudice. This is what she is able to vocalize on confidently" and "this person experiences direct biphobia, and should not be talked over by someone who hasnt experienced that"

There is no way to prove that one pain is worse than the other. we can use statistics and data, but whose to say that seeing your community hurt, cant be similar to being hurt directly? Yes even in death

Because at the end of the day the more bigotry you see towards people like you, especially death. It grows and could be identical to losing someone you know.

comparing gets us no where. Thats why you focus on who is suffering, not who is suffering more. Focus on the fact that someone is hurt, not that you hurt more. Focus on whos hurting people.

It CAN be hard on both sides. because one side, one who experiences direct bigotry will see someone who doesn't, as having it easy. theres anger, theres wishing you had it easier, its wanting them to feel what you feel.

but on the other hand those with privileges, feel unseen. feel fake. feel guilty for not suffering more.

When you start to feel angry at those who are privileged enough to not experience direct queerphobia, know that they experience it indirectly. they see YOU. they see YOU get hurt, and that hurts them.

If youre going to compare, compare similarities. Instead of being "glad youre actually seen" or "glad youre not visible" be "glad you dont experience physical attacks" or "glad that you get to feel recognized"

And remember, non queers hate us no matter what. doesnt matter how nice. doesnt matter how straight you look doesnt matter if you arent sexually attracted to anyone doesnt matter if you pass doesnt matter if your gender is your favorite plushy and you use noun/nounself pronouns

no one is making it worse for us. they hate you until you arent you anymore. they will hate you until youre either dead or "converted".

so focus on who is hurting, even a little.

The queer community is full of hurt people.

This can lead to a knee-jerk reaction when we hear someone else say "I am hurt". We look at them and say "shut up, you're not as hurt as me because you have X privilege".

This leads to femme afab queers being told "you can pass and hide as cishet, you're not as hurt as queer women who look queer, you're just complying with the patriarchy's ideals for beauty, you're hurting the queer community, you're anti feminist."

It leads to masc afab people, whether trans men or nonbinary or genderqueer etc, being told everything from "you're not as hurt, you can pass as a cis man" to "you have no desire to transition, you still look like a girl, shut up".

It leads to trans amab people who are nonbinary or genderqueer or agender etc, who still dress or look "masculine", being told that they are "unsafe" for queer spaces, that they don't belong at a "women and nonbinary meeting", that they are "basically just cis men trying to escape accountability".

It leads to asexuals being told "you don't even feel sexual attraction, the thing we're ostracized for! how could you possibly be oppressed? You're just straight and a prude" and aromantics being told "you're just straight and like casual sex, get over yourself" and both being told "you're just a cishet who wants to steal resources".

I have heard every single kind of queer person say "I have been harmed and ostracized by the queer community". Lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and mspec people, trans people, aroace people - every single one of us has expressed feeling ostracized by our own community.

On the plus side, this means you're not alone. Your group isn't the only one facing this. You have allies!! Other queer people who have gone through what you've gone through!

We need queer unity. We need to stop attacking each other. If you feel the urge to say "shut up, my group has been hurt MORE", go take a walk. Remember that every single one of us has been hurt.

[chibimyumi]

Autopsy of Weston Arc

A few days ago I visited a beloved friend @sweetbunny8, and we were bitching about the Boarding School Arc together. That friend is so incredibly smart, she brought up amazing points I never thought about... and so we spent the afternoon facepalming, discussing how many missed potentials there were. The below are the 5 points we talked about, on FIRE🔥🔥🔥!

1. The Arc owes us a thorough Power Dynamic Swap

I think the biggest draw of Kuroshitsuji is the unusual power dynamic between our protagonists. It would have been amazing to see a thoroughly explored power dynamic swap between master and servant.

The manga did touch upon this swap, and it gave us a delicious appetiser of what this Arc could have been. I really would love loved to see more of how Sebas and O!Ciel would deal with their cognitive dissonance of role.

Our Ciel

O!Ciel was raised in a world where the roles of servant vs master are very distinct. To O!Ciel it must have been very weird to now suddenly be subordinate to his servant. I would have loved to see if O!Ciel found it uncomfortable, or just really fun to try something new without stakes, or how his habits would slip through. In the Circus Arc we saw very clearly how both Sebas and O!Ciel still succumbed to their habits, thereby accidentally drawing unwanted attention.

Doing so in the Weston Arc would not have been a carbon copy of the Circus Arc, because unlike at the circus now O!Ciel would be performing in a more familiar environment with people of comparable status. I really wish we could have seen more of that.

Sebastian

Sebas would also have been a blast to see in a likely unprecedented role for him. In this post I argued how Sebas was probably never given opportunity to interact for real with humans on close proximity, and how he was probably not ever considered more than a mass-destruction weapon. It would have been very interesting to see how Sebas would handle suddenly being surrounded by people who don’t just interact, but are also subordinate to him as a teacher!

I find it unlikely Sebas ever had the experience of playing a superiour role to his own master. Sebas loves testing his limits with his master, and it would have been a blessing to see how Sebas could now “legally” exploit his own position of power over his master. I’m sure he would have gotten a kink out of it.

2. Planning and Calculation???

It would have been logical and responsible if the Queen just told her Watchdog what House Derek was in for O!Ciel to investigate. A “P.S. He’s in Red House according to the latest information btw, loves - Vicky” would not be too much asked. She knows Derek’s parents, and I can’t imagine the March of Arden being secretive about what House the kid is in. But even if Victoria didn’t do the efficient thing, we still would have loved it if O!Ciel had to discuss with Sebas and strategically choose a House to get into, rather than him just being planted in Blue House.

My friend thought O!Ciel would have chosen Red House regardless of whether he knew for sure where he’d be, because as the nephew of the Queen, Derek being in Red was the most logical. As an actual Lorded Earl himself, O!Ciel would have a decent chance holding down a position in Red House. And considering how Redmond has a talent for choosing awful personalities for fag, O!Ciel would have fit in perfectly too!

Then O!Ciel’s goal could still have been to become a prefect’s fag, but then the showdown with Maurice would at least have direct, immediate conflict, rather than... whatever it was the manga did. Maurice had NO reason to neutralise O!Ciel as long as they’re in different Houses! Maurice you... boring, inefficient, redundant twat...

3. Yana... is Edward a joke to you?

Why didn’t O!Ciel/Yana capitalise more on Edward being at Weston?! It would have been a perfect chance to develop Edward further and show O!Ciel’s interaction with family! I love Lizzie, but it would have been amazing to see Edward interacting with our protagonist without his sister being the reason for interaction. UGH 💔

Also, the cricket drag could have been shortened dramatically if O!Ciel had thought of using Edward. Edward has been at the Weston for longer, and he is a prefect’s fag to boot.

Sure, O!Ciel didn’t know that at first, but he finds out BEFORE the cricket was set up. The moment O!Ciel would learn that he’d need to win cricket to meet the principal, he should have gambled on Edward. If O!Ciel explained to Edward that he is investigating the disappearance of the Queen’s relative, I can’t imagine Edward not being willing to help by winning cricket in becoming “the chosen one” through gentlemanly play. That’d be what Edward would be aspiring to become, anyway.

4. Why Cricket ANYWAY!?

Even IF Edward for some reason refused to help, the cricket would still entirely have been unnecessary. It wouldn’t matter at all who would win, because as the prefect’s fag, Edward had the privilege to attend the Midnight Tea Party ANYWAY. All four prefect fags are present, as we all can see. O!Ciel would only have needed to ask Edward to act as his agent, and tadaaa.

Besides, even IF Edward didn’t exist in the arc it’d still be entirely fine, because all the prefects would SURELY have access to the Party. That is known. O!Ciel only needed to tell Sebas to keep an eye on where the definitive participants would be going, and track them. When push comes to shove, Sebas could just barge in like he did anyway (and bring O!Ciel even if he’s uninvited), and the case would still have unfolded the way it did.

5. PLOT HOLE!?

My friend also brought up a humongous plot hole so large it became a space on its own that I didn’t even notice it was a hole. Why did the prefects react so differently to Agares and Derek being “alive” respectively?

So, my friend and I both watched the musical adaptation as the last thing, and in the musical the prefects were all being totally chill about Agares being around, but shocked shitless to see Derek back. All four prefects were present during the killing of Derek AND Agares, so they should all know both are dead. It had not been addressed in the musical that the prefects have knowledge of corpse reanimation, so they shouldn’t have been able to act so normal next to Agares, but freak out about seeing Derek. (This is yet another example of WHO IS YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE, KUROMY21!?)

In the manga it had been addressed that the prefects have knowledge that reanimation of the dead is possible. And it seems like Redmond arranged for the reanimation of at least Agares. But why didn’t they arrange for the reanimation of Derek too? (@chibmib​ Thanks sis, for checking this for me so I didn’t have to suffer through it again)

Derek is the Queen’s relative, his disappearance would really have invited suspicion, as it indeed did. The reason the P4 didn’t arrange for Derek’s reanimation can’t be because the they considered Derek too evil to bring back. Agares was namely arguably worse; he was an adult and the vice-principal! It was his literal job to be responsible.

The P4 couldn’t have decided to not reanimate Derek for fear of him ratting them out for assault. There are plenty witnesses of Derek’s crimes, and the P4 would be first-hand witnesses too of Derek’s lying. If Derek told the authorities he was assaulted, all witnesses could have helped testify for the P4 against Derek.

The only reason I can make sense of the double standard in the P4′s reaction is that Undertaker told the P4 he only succeeded in reanimating Agares and not Derek, because the technology is still very young; which would have been true too. BUT THEN THE MANGA SHOULD HAVE ADDRESSED IT.

Even if that’s what happened though, the P4′s reaction shouldn’t have been such horrified surprise. They should be relieved to see the Queen’s relative alive, because then they wouldn’t have ‘murder of Queen’s relative’ on their résumé. All they had to do instead then is explain why they attacked Derek in a moment of lost control at the sight of a future-prefect being a lowlife. And again, the victims could have helped testify...

And this all would only have happened if we momentarily accept the unlikeliness of Sebas coincidentally having a plugged nose and not smelling Agares’ corpse stench the entire Arc.

[imaginesupply]

Homecoming - Chapter Five

(Gif’s not my own.)

Summary: The day has arrived, Captain Syverson is going home. For good, this time. He is going home to a civilian life he can hardly remember and a wife he barely knows, with memories of the war still fresh on his mind. Love might not be able to heal everything on its own, but it’s a good start.

Genres: Romance, drama.

Story warnings: Smut (always fully consensual), mentions of PTSD and nightmares and mental health, angst, hurt and comfort, fluff, mentions of war (minor), mentions of cheating (minor), mentions of pregnancy (very minor), police appearance (very minor), violence (very minor).

Notes:

It’s my first time writing for one of Henry’s characters and I’m unsure I did Sy’s character any justice.

This is a Capt. Syverson x OFC (Ada) story, written in 3rd person POV but OFC’s physical description is very limited so it could also be read as Capt. Syverson x Reader, I think.

English is not my first language, so there might be some mistakes. Proofread, but not beta’ed. We die like men and all that.

Timeline is a little wacky: The movie takes place in 2003 and the U.S. forces were withdrawn from Iraq in 2011, but I never set a precise date because I don’t think it’s essential for this story. However, some elements might not be realistic because if we set this story in 2003: Phone cameras quality was not as good as it’s now, but for the purpose of the chapters, I will need you to imagine you could film great videos with your flip phone haha. Plus, it says Sy is coming back after being deployed for more than three years which makes no sense unless we set this in 2006 or later. I am asking you disregard any time inconsistencies.

Also: I am not American. I only lived in the US for six months and it was in the Midwest, not Texas so please bear with me if I write something stupid.

Finally: This will be a Christmas fic and I intend to post the last chapter (there will be seven in total) on or before Christmas. However, religion is never mentioned in this story and the Christmas-sy elements of this story are limited to family gathering, gift giving and tree decorating.

Chapter Five starts after the cut. (Chapter Four can be found here.) Let me know if you wish to be tagged in future chapters or if you wish to be removed from the tag list.

A/N: I am aware of the neutral, perhaps positive, portrait of the police I painted in this chapter. I am fully conscious of the recent (and not so recent) instances of police brutality happening all around the world, many – if not most – of them motivated by racism and other despicable ideologies. With this chapter, I did NOT mean to express support for the police forces. I simply had this ‘plot’ idea come to my mind and decided to write it. There is no ulterior motive.

While all my personal experiences with the police have been positive, I am aware that my ethnicity gives me privilege and that many people are not as lucky as I am. This both angers and saddens me. It has to change.

Black lives matter. Minority lives matter.

Chapter 5

Chapter warnings: Cockwarming, irresponsible driving (kind of), car accident (not serious), police (but no police violence), very mild violence, language (perhaps a little bit worse than in previous chapters but nothing you don’t hear in real life, I guess), mentions of mysogyny.

Ada yawned with Sy quickly following suit. “You can drive my car if you want, Sy. It’s not that new anymore, you know.” She offered, gracing him with the most angelic smile she could muster. It was the first time she was granting him the opportunity to drive her car.

Sy laughed next to her, his left hand moving over the center console to rub her thigh. He had that stupid grin again, that looking endearing with his current droopy eyes. “It’s your car, darlin’. Besides, you’d kill me if I ever so much as got a scratch on it.” He chuckled, suppressing another yawn. “And I know you’re only offering because you want to sleep.”

His wife gasped, a look of mocking offense on her features. “They’re your nephews!”

“But you were the one who said yes,” Sy countered, his eyes closing again as he made himself more comfortable on the car seat. The drive home was only about one hour and a half, but it was the perfect length for a nap.

“What the fuck was I supposed to say, huh?” Ada laughed, gesticulating wildly as was her habit. “Yes, Joshua, I understand you’re taking my pregnant sister-in-law to the hospital. No, I will not look after your kids for the night. It’s our date night.”

Next to her, Sy grimaced. She did have a point, even if he had been looking forward to going bowling with her: Ada was a sore loser which always ended with lots of fun for him. At least, his sister and the baby were okay. Just a normal case of Braxton Hicks, apparently, whatever that was supposed to mean. Perhaps it was good thing Ada didn’t want children because he’d freak out if she started having contractions four months in. “You fell asleep on Luke’s bed at one in the morning when you tried to get him to sleep for the third time and I had to spend the whole night entertaining them with tea parties because they wouldn’t tire!”

“Hey! That’s not cool!” She protested accusatorily, her eyes on the road as she switched lanes to take the next exit. “I didn’t know you couldn’t give kids sugar after a certain hour!”

Sy huffed, shaking his head. They’d had the great idea to bring donuts because according to his dear wife, sugar always made you feel better when you was anxious or down, and the kids had been aware something was off with their mom. “We suck at this parenting thing.”

“You don’t say!” Ada laughed, before loudly cursing at driver who’d just cut her off, something which never failed to make Sy smile. “The nap’s going to feel heavenly once we’re home.”

Sy hummed in agreement, his head falling back against the headrest as he drifted off, hiding his eyes from the sun with his cap. Ada glanced sideways at him, shaking her head. Part of her wanted to shake him awake. If she had to suffer, so did he. But he was right, she had slept more than him and he looked too peaceful to disturb, especially with some leftover glitter still on his cheeks.

Suddenly, there was a mild thump and the car stuttered before stopping, startling Ada who jumped on her seat.

"Shit!" She cursed. "Did I just...?" She began to panic, her eyes moving to the red car in front of them, too close. She had bumped it while she had been distracted by her husband’s stupid, sleepy face!

"Yes, yes you did," Sy laughed next to her. Ada was a good driver and she loved driving, but she was easily distracted and Sy never failed to tease her about it. This time, however, he could tell she was scared from the way her chest was heaving with her shallow breaths. "Want me to deal with it, darlin'?" He offered, tilting his head at the other driver who had just come out of the red, broken-down car.

"No!" Ada protested all too quickly, taking off her seatbelt and grabbing the necessary documents from the glovebox, accidentally hitting his knees in the process. "I am an independent woman who don't need no help," she muttered, trying to convince herself of her own statement. In the eight years since she’d had her gotten her licence, she had never given any of her cars a single scratch, let alone gotten into an accident.

Sy grinned at her antics but tried to hide his amusement, not wanting to make it worse. "All right. I'm here in case you need me, okay?" With a determined nod in his direction, Ada stepped out of the car and attempted to summon the Annalise Keating or the Olivia Pope inside her, whichever she could find in herself.

The man from the red car, who seemed to be in his early forties and balding, was already inspecting his vehicle for damage – looking mighty pissed as he did so. Ada approached the impact point from the other side, noticing the bump on the man’s old car. It didn't look too bad, she sighed with relief. Her own car barely had anything. Ha! She would have to use this as an argument next time Sy and her started discussing cars. Her black Citroën DS5 was sturdy and not just fancy looking, unlike what he said.

"Hello, sir," she said calmly, the man instantly looking up at her. Damn! He really looked furious, seething even. "I am so sorry for this. I was a little distracted- Anyway, it doesn't matter. My insurance will cover whatever repairs your car may require."

"You stupid little bitch!" The man shouted, out of the blue.

Ada gasped, backtracking. The muscles in her jaw twitched. What the fuck was wrong with him? "I understand your anger, but there's no-"

"What were you even doing behind that wheel?" He snarled, gesturing at her car, her baby. "Who the hell lets women like you drive cars like that?!” The man cursed, aggressively waving his hand in the air.

She just stood there, still in shock. Did... did he just bring misogyny into a fender bender situation?! "Women like me?!" She repeated, quite stunned.

"Aye! Bitches like you have no business driving-”

Ada flinched at the man’s words. He was starting to breech the distance between them, moving too close to her. Ada jumped again when she felt a warm hand on her shoulder before realizing it belonged to Sy and letting herself exhale slowly. Thank God he didn’t listen to her and stayed in the car!

"I get that you’re pissed, but that's no way to talk to a lady. You should to apologize," Sy told the man, making it sound very much like an order and very little like a suggestion. The driver huffed before coming closer, his face about as red as the car as when he started laughing. Ada instinctively hid under Sy's arm, though she aware of the ridicule of the whole situation.

"That's your whore? You let your whore drive your car?!"

Okay, this was going too far. It left her lips before she could help it, "that's my own goddamn car, you wanker!". Maybe it was time to stop borrowing insults from Tom.

Ada could almost hear how his jaw clenched when she felt Sy's whole body tense up against hers. "Call her a whore one more time and you're gonna wish she had run you over instead."

This was escalating. Ada bit her lower lip. She was going to have to be the bigger person here. "Look, I'll just go grab my phone from the car and call the police. They'll deal with this." Ada announced, dislodging herself from Sy’s grip before turning around to get to her car.

Her hand had just wrapped around the car door handle when there was a clouting noise, quickly followed by a loud thump, this time. Ada immediately turned around at the sound. The angry driver was out cold on the ground, blood rushing out of his nose and forehead, with Sy looking down at him, the same blood tainting his fist.

"Oh shit!"

°°°

A lanky guy, smelling heavily of pot, was thrown inside the almost full holding cell by the same officer who had arrested him. Sy was amused at the sight until the guy, after a full survey of the room, started walking him up to him before sitting down on the bench far too close for his liking.

Exhaling through his nose, Sy tried ignoring the smell and closed his eyes again. He didn’t expect the nap he had been looking forward to, to be in a stinky cell with stinky men but it would have to make do. At least, after the man sitting closest to the entrance had commented on the leftover pink glitter that still shone in Sy’s beard, nobody had bothered him anymore – not after he quite literally made the man piss himself with just one stare. That man wouldn’t have survived a single day in Baqubah.

"It's cramped in here," the new guy commented nonchalantly though his eyes were fixed on Sy. Out of politeness - damn Ada and her insistence on good manners! - Sy acknowledged his useless statement with a noncommittal hum.

"Name's Ben, by the way," he said, stretching out of his hand but Sy didn’t move a muscle. What was it in his current posture - crossed arms and spread legs - that made him appear friendly enough for a chat, he wondered, rolling his eyes behind his closed eyelids.

"And you are...?"

Sy groaned out loud time. "Not interested."

Ben didn’t get the hint and proceeded to ramble off about how he got caught selling pot near the university. Sy was actively working on drowning out his voice when the sound of fast and angry clicking heels on the concrete floor caught his attention. He smiled. Ada. Apparently, she hadn’t changed and was still dressed for date night, wearing a dress and stilettos, even though they had only meant to go bowling and eat at a steakhouse.

Somehow, everyone in the holding cell must have been intrigued by the same sound because all conversation suddenly stopped, the men all hoping to eavesdrop.

"I am here for Syverson. I wish to talk to him."

"Ma'am, I apologize but we are not allowed to let him out of his cell."

"Not a problem. Just give me the keys and I'll let him out myself!"

Every person in the holding cell laugh with Sy grinning quietly, amused at how she sounded distinctively more foreign when she was mad. He was used to her accent in more intimate settings, but he was enjoying the sound of it during her current outburst which was followed by an uninterrupted string of curse words and insults alike, all coming from her delicate mouth. First, in English, then French. Spanish. Portuguese. Italian. Sy frowned at the last one, he didn’t recognize it. Was it German? He'd have to ask her.

"What a woman, huh," the guy next to him deadpanned, still not giving up on a conversation.

Silence fell again as everyone attempted to listen to the rest. “I swear to God I’ll hang your heads up in my living room if –“

Sy only huffed, leaning back against the cold wall. "You can't even begin to imagine."

"You know her?" The pothead quipped up.

"Yeah," Sy replied. "She’s my wife." He said it loud enough to make sure everyone was able to hear it.

“Oh,” came the nasal voice next to him just as they heard heavy, resigned footsteps become louder.

A different policeman stopped just behind the door, a colleague just behind him as he fished out the right key from his pocket. “Syverson,” he called out loudly. “There’s a woman here for you.”

Sy got up at once, unable to hide his smug smirk. Ada always got her way.

°°°

“What the fuck were you thinking, Sy?!” His wife blurted out as soon as she was let inside the interview room, the young officer locking the door from the outside. Then, turning around, she caught sight of her husband handcuffed to the table and her shoulders instantly slacked, her anger vanishing almost instantly. “What you did was disproportionate,” she sighed, her voice calmer as she took a seat in front of him, the cold iron table separating them.

"He called you a whore, I just punched him!" Sy protested, leaning back on the chair. "My response was disproportionate - disproportionately small."

"You knocked him out cold!" Ada reminded him, her voice pitching higher than usual but the only response she got from Sy was a smug grin. "He might press charges, you know. It's battery."

Sy rolled his eyes, sitting up straight. "He’s an asshole."

Now, it was her turn to roll her eyes although she knew he hated it when she did that. She took a deep breath, hoping to calm down. Sy was looking entirely unbothered, but she was freaking out at the situation. "I'll try to convince him not to press charges and offer to cover the medical bill on top of the car repairs in return."

"Medical bill?" Sy asked, cocking his eyebrow.

"Yes. After the police took you into custody, he was brought to the hospital. From what I heard, he has a broken nose, needed stitches on his forehead and got a concussion." Sy only huffed with a smirk. "This is not funny, Syverson!"

"It wasn't funny when he called you a whore either," Sy countered. He was right. It was also very pleasant to see that dickhead in pain, but she wouldn’t tell him that.

"Look, my friend, Gale, who's a lawyer, is on her way. I'll get you out of here tonight. He’ll either agree to drop the charges or I’ll bail you out."

The corners of his lips twitched. He moved his hands as much as the chain allowed, to grab hers and squeeze them in his large ones. "Are you worried about me, darlin'?"

What a teasing little shit he could be! Of course, she was worried about him! He was in a cell! Feigning innocence, Ada smiled, running her thumbs over the back of his hands. "I am not. However, seeing what you did to that prick just got me really horny and I would like to have you back in my bed tonight," she whispered, watching as her husband’s smug grin slowly disappeared as she got up and grabbed her purse, heading to the door.

"You better get me out of here quickly!" Sy called after her.

°°°

He was returned to the holding cell, the officer uncuffing his wrists again once the bars closed behind him. There were two new faces, but he also recognized that at least three men had left already. Unfortunately, pothead was still there.

“I saved you your spot,” Ben smiled wildly, gesturing at the vacant portion of the bench next to him. “The guy in the red shirt was going to sit here but I told him it was occupied.”

Sy merely hummed, taking the seat that had so generously been saved for him. Hopefully Ada would get him out quickly because he didn’t know how much longer he could deal with his chatty neighbour.

“Was she mad?” Ben asked, whispering loudly and defeating the entire purpose of a whisper in the first place. “Did she yell at you?”

Despite his closed eyes, Sy could feel Ben’s stare on him as he awaited an answer. “No.”

Ben nodded thoughtfully, shaking the uneven bench as he did so. “If we go to prison, I want to share a cell with you.”

If Ada didn’t get him out of there quickly, he was soon going to get charged for battery again.

°°°

Sy stood by the counter, his attention on the ugly Christmas decorations he hadn’t noticed when they brought him in hours earlier. Somehow, he had managed to forget all about it. And fuck, he still needed to get Ada a present!  

“Here are your things,” the young officer told him as he slid over a transparent plastic bag.

With a curt nod, Sy ripped it open and fetched his wedding band first, before looking for his wallet and belt. He was already heading to the door when he turned around at the last minute. “Did Mrs. Syverson post my bail?”

“No, the charges were dropped.”

Huffing with amusement and a hint of pride, Sy zipped up his coat and headed to the front door. He swiftly descended the stairs in front of the precinct, his face illuminating at the sight of her. She was still wearing the black dress and the fancy shoes, her makeup now lightly smudged around her eyes.

As soon as he was close enough, his hands moved to Ada's waist and he leaned down to kiss her, only for her to pull away at his touch. "Not so fast, big guy," she teased, a glint in her eyes as she grabbed something out of her coat pocket he couldn't yet identify. "You're still in trouble."

Sy threw back his head, his laugh booming through the night sky as he finally saw what she was holding up in front of him. Handcuffs, and not the fluffy ones either.

"Now gimme your hands," Ada demanded, making him cock his brow at her authoritative tone.

With a chuckle he obeyed, presenting her his hands. "Yes, ma'am."

Sy watched keenly as she fumbled with the cuffs to get them around his wrists, and then seized the right opportunity to take the upper hand, easily taking the cuffs away from her small hands.

With a shriek, Ada found herself bent over the black hood of her own car, her cheek pressed up against the slick surface and her husband's body pressed up against hers. She could hear the smirk in his voice when he spoke. "Mrs. Syverson, you're under arrest for unlawful teasing back in the questioning room." Ada scoffed, the sound weakened by his heavy weight on top of her. "You have the right to remain silent. Everything you do say can and will be held against you in-"

"Your dick!" Ada suddenly blurted out, a little too loud given where they were, and Sy immediately stopped, clearly surprised, but she quickly felt him laugh against her back.

Before she could join him, Sy smacked her ass, effectively silencing her. "Guess I'll have to fuck that attitude out of you," he grunted before pulling away and fastening the cuffs around her wrists.

Ada kept complaining as he carefully dragged her inside the car. Despite her struggling, Sy easily opened the right backdoor and threw her on the backseat, mindful to fasten her seatbelt before closing the door. Her eyes widened and her mouth went agape when Sy sat down behind the steering wheel and proceeded to push back the driver’s seat and readjust all the mirrors.

“Are you shitting me?” She exclaimed, leaning forward on her seat as much as the belt would allow. He was messing up with all her settings and the grin on her face made it very clear that he was doing it all on purpose just to get her riled up.

“Language, darlin’,” he chided, turning on the engine. “Didn’t you ask me to drive earlier, anyway?”

Ada groaned in response, shutting her eyes tightly before opening them again. “You know very well that was-“

Sy didn’t let her finish, the tires squealing on the tar as he sped out of the parking lot all too fast. Ada involuntarily cringed at the noise. “I’ll make you pay for this!”

“We’ll see, kitten. We’ll see.” He was entertaining by her determination even though her eyes were already closing.

As expected, Ada fell asleep within five minutes despite the handcuffs keeping her arms in an uncomfortable position. Her head lolled before it finally came to rest against the window. He watched her though the central mirror, an adoring look in his blue eyes as she sighed contently the very moment she had fallen asleep. While he had managed to rest while in the cell, though not as much as he had hoped, he knew Ada had been up all afternoon trying to sort everything out and get him out. Sy had noticed her exhaustion as soon as she started fumbling with the handcuffs, her movements uncharacteristically clumsy.

He stopped at a junk food drive thru on their way home – night had already fallen and he hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. He doubted she had either. Her eyes didn’t even flutter under the bright neon lights and once he parked the car on their driveway and went to carry her inside along with their food, after undoing the cuffs, her body was completely limp in his arms. It was only when he accidentally let her shoulder hit the doorframe as he tried to lead them inside their bedroom, that she woke up again. “Ouch!”

“Sorry,” Sy murmured and kissed her forehead before laying her down on the bed and setting down the bag on the mattress next to her. Her nose wrinkled as she sniffed the air even as he helped her out of her coat and dress, and then the shoes. “Did you get us food?”

“Tenders and fries.”

Within an instant, she had ripped the bag open and was clutching the bucket of chicken to her chest, moaning as soon as she took a bite. He smiled knowingly at her– she had been hungry after all.

Hurriedly, Sy took off his clothes and slid in bed behind his wife, wrapping an arm around her waist to pull her closer to him. They hadn’t slept together the previous night as they babysat the kids and he had missed the feel of her soft body against his. A content hum escaped him as his already partially hard cock nestled against the roundness of her ass.

Ada chuckled at his reaction, the vibrations of her body sending sparks of pleasure to his growing erection. “I have an idea,” she whispered, her voice becoming seductive again as she started rubbing herself against him.

Sy groaned deeply and tightened his grip on her waist, forcing her to still even though he was no longer sure for what he now hungered more; food or his wife. “We’re both hungry and exhausted,” he reasoned with her, his fingers moving some hair away from her neck so that he could kiss her there.

“Let me,” she insisted, a grin audible in her voice. Her hands disappeared under the bedsheets and she slid off her panties before retaking her initial position as the little spoon. Behind her, Sy groaned as her delicate fingers took hold of his cock, giving it a few pumps before guiding him inside her warmth. He muffled a soft moan against neck at the snug feeling of tight her walls, his arm tightening around her again. She let out a quiet gasp at the stretch, it hurt a little despite her still being sufficiently wet from when he had pushed her against the hood of the car. But once he was fully inside, Ada sighed at the pleasure of being again. “Now we can eat.”

°°°

There are two more chapters to go! Next chapter will include Christmas tree decorating. I am running behind on schedule so I cannot guarantee the last chapter will be posted by Christmas but I’ll do my best.

°°°

@colourmeinblue​ @hail-horror-queen​ @youthought-iwasa-nicegirl​ @kmuir1​ @madbaddic7ed​ @coffeebreathy​ @purplelove75​ @summersong69​ @helenaellie​

[rainingpouringetc]

Hi! So, I’ve been wondering what the problem with Anna Lightwood is, because my brain saw that she was bending gender norms and hit love. But, now that I’m on tumblr, people are saying that she is problematic?

hi! i’ll try my best to explain, idk if i’ll hit everything but i hope this helps. and i’m sorry it took me a while, i wanted to do it justice so i tried to cover my bases and do my research.

basically, anna has said and done things that came across to many as ignorant, racist, and even misogynistic. 

first, let’s look at “every exquisite thing” from ghosts of the shadowhunter market. 

“If I were to tell my parents the truth about myself, if I were to reveal who I really am, they would despise me. I would be friendless, cast out, alone.”

Anna shook her head.

“They would not,” she said. “They would love you. You are their daughter.”

Ariadne drew her hand back from Anna’s. “I am adopted, Anna. My father is the Inquisitor. I do not have parents who are as understanding as yours must be.”

“But love is what matters,” said Anna.

this is from when ariadne was trying to explain why she would be getting engaged to charles. anna is very lucky: her family loves and accepts her and she’s able to live her life as she wishes, which we see her doing in chain of gold. ariadne, however, is not as lucky, and she has to take into consideration the conditions of her parents’ love. anna apparently struggles to understand this, ignoring ariadne’s valid concerns and telling her that it doesn’t matter because “love is what matters,” as if it makes everything perfect.

this is where anna’s ignorance begins to show through. ariadne is: (a) a woman in the late 1800s/early 1900s (i don’t remember for sure what year this story took place but i’d assume 1900s), (b) indian at a time when india is under british rule, (c) adopted, and (d) a lesbian shadowhunter. we know enough about how intolerant people have been about homosexuality, but shadowhunters are a whole other story. put all of this together and you have someone who is terrified of letting down her family and being shunned by society more than she already has been. in ariadne’s mind, she has no choice but to hide who she is.

 anna ignores this. entirely. she doesn’t take the time to talk to ariadne about her concerns, but rather skirts around them and insists that what she wants is what’s more important. this is highly indicative of her privilege and how she puts herself before others and others’ feelings.

now let’s look at chain of gold. there are two scenes in particular that i want to look at, but there are more.

“I quite like your mother. She reminds me of a queen out of a fairy tale, or a peri from Lalla Rookh. You’re half-Persian, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Cordelia said, a little warily.

“Then why is your brother so blond?” Anna asked. “And you so redheaded--I thought Persians were darker-haired.”

Cordelia set her cup down. “There are all sorts of Persians, and we all look different,” she said. “You wouldn’t expect everyone in England to look alike, would you? Why should it be different for us? My father is British and very fair, and my mother’s hair was red when she was a little girl. Then it darkened, and as for Alastair--he dyes his hair.”

“He does?” Anna’s eyebrows, graceful swooping curves, went up. “Why?”

“Because he hates that his hair and skin and eyes are dark,” said Cordelia. “He always has. We have a country house in Devon, and people used to stare when we went into the village.”

Anna’s eyebrows had ceased swooping and taken on a decidedly menacing look. “People are--” She broke off with a sigh and a word Cordelia didn’t know. “Now I rather feel sympathy toward your brother, and that was the last thing I wanted. Quick, as me a question.”

this scene is from cordelia’s tea with anna. i won’t touch so much on the “peri from lalla rookh” comment so much as i’m afraid i don’t feel well enough qualified or researched to adequately represent people’s concerns about this statement, but i do know that there were several posts going around about people discussing how it rubbed them the wrong way, so i thought i would include it as well.

the rest, though, is a bit more obvious. one of the things about books is that it can be more difficult to interpret someone’s words and their meaning because we don’t have things like tone or facial expressions or any of that unless the author explicitly includes it. however, we can draw on the way other characters react to certain comments. cordelia goes on the defense, answering anna’s question “a little warily,” setting aside her tea and explaining rather bluntly that not all persians look the same. it’s pretty easy to infer from her reaction that she’s uncomfortable from anna’s words. now, is that to say anna was intentionally being racist toward cordelia and her family? absolutely not. this is where microaggressions come into play. we see them with anna and also with matthew and even jessamine (though we see hers in the infernal devices rather than the last hours). microaggressions, while often unintentional, are still a form of racism. given the times these characters have grown up in, it’s not necessarily a surprise, but that certainly doesn’t excuse her behavior.

there is, however, a more intentional party to this scene that really rubbed me the wrong way. it’s her discussion of alastair. cordelia has just explained that alastair dyes his hair to stop people from staring at him when he’s walking down the street, and anna replies that she feels sympathy for him and that is “the last thing” she wanted. i understand that she has her own feelings about alastair, likely from listening to the merry thieves’ depiction of him, but that doesn’t excuse her. she even starts to say something about it, likely drawing on her own experiences of wearing menswear at a time when fashion was much more strictly regulated in society than it is today. but she stops herself and instead goes on to reemphasize her dislike for cordelia’s brother and changes the subject.

She held up a small black-bound memorandum book... “This,” she announced, “will hold answers to all our questions.”

...

Matthew looked up, his eyes fever-bright. “Is this your list of conquests?”

“Of course not,” Anna declared. “It’s a memorandum book... about my conquests. That is an important but meaningful distinction.”

...

Anna flipped through the book. There were many pages, and many names written in a bold, sprawling hand.

“Hmm, let me see. Katherine, Alicia, Virginia--a very promising writer, you should look out for her work, James--Mariane, Virna, Eugenia--”

“Not my sister Eugenia?” Thomas nearly upended his cake.

“Oh, probably not,” Anna said. “Laura, Lily... ah, Hypatia. Well, it was a brief encounter, and I suppose you might say she seduced me...”

i hope i don’t have to explain this one too much. there’s just something... unsettling about the fact that anna is held up as this feminist icon and yet she keeps a book with the names of and her encounters with all the women she’s slept with... and then reads those names aloud to everyone. it’s a bit much, don’t you think? and all of this is even without touching the leak we got about her and ariadne, which i’d rather not speculate on too much but is also quite damning. 

all in all, i’d like to believe anna is really a good person who’s just misguided and confused, much because i love the idea of a genderqueer character, especially one in an era before stonewall, but her actions and behaviors have led me to believe that she has a long road ahead of her. as i said earlier this week:

let me get something clear: i would die for fanon anna but canon anna needs to get her shit together before i’ll willingly breathe in her direction

i really hope this was helpful... i did my best lol. if anyone else has more to add, please feel free.

[missmentelle]

Hope its alright to share a cringey situation! i knew a woman once that was constantly wondering why people stopped talking to her and it confused me at first cuz i had just met her and only just started becoming friends but it started to be all she talked about so i kept my distance and then asked her outright to give me some space with specific instructions, that she violated immediately! After repeating myself many times what i needed and her ignoring my boundaries i had to start blocking her. A YEAR later she still finds a new social media platform to reach out and ask why i stopped talking to her. I struggle with boundaries and this was the worst feeling ever. And recently it happened again where a person got way too close way too quick and wouldnt take a hint when i wouldnt answer their calls. They singled me out in a zoom graduation telling me to answer my phone. How do you deal with people that wont listen? Its just so embarrassing and it feels awful to say no so many times.... like my boundaries dont matter to them... which is why i stay running and the cycle continues! Hope you dont mind the rant you reblogged something similar and i dont know what the words are for this situation

I actually don’t think this is cringey at all - I think this is an important life skill. 

Sooner or later, everyone has to deal with someone who comes on way too strong, doesn’t take hints, and generally makes it clear that they’re way more interested in you than you are in them. This can happen with friends, coworkers, romantic prospects, neighbours - pretty much anyone in your life. Sometimes, you can manage the situation by keeping the person at arm’s length and giving gentle reminders about boundaries whenever they start to push it. But sometimes, people push and push and push no matter how firm you are and how many reminders you give - and sometimes, this person’s refusal to back down can start to negatively affect your mental health or other relationships in your life. 

The first thing you need to remember is that someone else’s refusal to take a hint is not your fault. Having someone disrupt a big event like a graduation to ask why you aren’t taking their calls is definitely embarrassing, but you aren’t the one who should feel embarrassed by that - they are the ones who crossed a line by confronting you in public to try to bully you into answering their calls, and they are the one who should feel embarrassed about that happening. 

For what it’s worth, I have also been in this situation before, several times in my life. In high school, one of my classmates decided that we were “best friends”, even though I had no real interest in being more than just high school acquaintances. She religiously tracked when I was online to see if I was “ignoring her” (I was), she called my house so much that my parents got annoyed, and she had a tendency to show up at my house unannounced to “hang out”, even at 7am on a Saturday. In grad school, I matched with someone on a dating app who quickly became obsessed with me and couldn’t take a hint that I wasn’t interested - he created multiple social media accounts to harass me and sent messages saying he was going to show up at my campus to try to find me. Those were deeply unpleasant experiences for me; I felt like the “bad guy” for not returning their affection, and trying to explain to other people that “someone is completely obsessed with me” made me feel kind of self-centered, even though it was objectively true. It sucks. 

I know that saying “no” to someone over and over again feels awful. I hate saying no to people, even at my own detriment - but sometimes, that’s what you need to do. You are not a bad person for putting your foot down when someone else is refusing to listen to you and is intruding on your life. You’ve already done everything that I would recommend you do in this situation - you started out nice, you reminded this person of your boundaries, you politely asked for space, you gave specific instructions for future interactions - and this person is not responding. You have done what you could, and it’s time to take a firmer stance here. You aren’t a bad person for having boundaries and wanting them to be respected - this person has had several chances to correct their behaviour, and they have chosen not to take them. That’s on them. 

At this point, I think it’s okay for you to be frank with this person. Tell them straight up that you don’t want any kind of relationship with them and that you would like them to leave you alone. If that’s too direct for you, tell them that their behaviour is rude and that you are starting to feel harassed. I know that it’s hard to be that firm with someone, but sometimes this is what another person needs to hear - they need to be told, straight-up, that you’ve had enough of this and you’re done. Is it possible that the other person will see you as an asshole? Yes, in all likelihood, they probably will. But it’s important that you not take that personally - it is not your fault that this person’s repeated actions ended in predictable consequences for them. You are not a bad person because someone else is upset that they were called on their bad behaviour. 

And if the person still isn’t taking the hint, sometimes the only option you have left is to cut them off entirely. Block their number, delete them from social media, and don’t respond to their attempts to get in contact with you. Being able to get in touch with someone is a privilege, not an absolute right, and when someone abuses that privilege, sometimes they lose it entirely. You aren’t ghosting the person - ghosting is when you duck out of someone’s life without even telling them what they’ve done wrong. You’ve told this person what they’re doing wrong, repeatedly, and it’s okay to take away their opportunity to keep doing it.

Having to get stern with an eager person who can’t take a hint is tough. Rejecting people is hard, and most of us hate doing it. But sometimes... you just have to. You aren’t obligated to give someone an 18th or 19th chance to respect your boundaries, and you don’t have to have a relationship with someone just because they really, really, really want you to. You have a right to decide who you want to be close to, and you should never feel bad about having to be frank with someone who is otherwise completely unwilling to respect your wishes.  Best of luck to you, MM

[secretlyatargaryen]

I’ve seen some posts about Toph’s “internalized misogyny” and zero acknowledgements that Toph is a disabled girl and that that entirely informs her performance of gender. Toph’s relationship to femininity is also informed by her parents’ emotional abuse, because as a wealthy girl whose parents saw her as helpless because of her disability, she was expected to be delicate and feminine and a “lady” and seen as capable of little else. She specifically says that she chose to leave polite society and “proper” behavior behind, not because she thinks being a girl is weak or stupid but because she was stifled by the life her parents wanted her to lead, a life where she had no say. She does clash with Katara, one of the most feminine characters, and often seems more comfortable with the boys in the group, but her conflict with Katara is over her difficulty in accepting help from others more than anything, not about a disdain for femininity. She chafes at Katara’s mothering behavior but also clearly misses her own mother, and wishes that her mother, in particular, could see and appreciate her for who she truly is.

If we want to see how Toph views femininity, the best place to look is in the episode “Tales of Ba Sing Se.” Katara and Toph’s segment is short and exists mostly as a fun little filler, but it does tell us some very interesting things about how Toph views herself as a disabled girl. This segment spoke to me in particular as a woman with a visual impairment who struggled similarly with performative femininity as a girl. My aunt also went blind young and I see a lot of her in Toph as well.

The segment begins by poking fun at Toph as a “one of the boys” type of girl who doesn’t think she needs to clean herself up, and Katara is positioned as the “girly girl” whose idea of fun is a spa day. Toph doesn’t think that sounds like fun and it’s easy to dismiss this as internalized misogyny, but putting aside the fact that disliking things associated with compulsory femininity is not the same thing as disliking women - women (and girls) should be allowed to not want to do certain things without being accused of internalized misogyny - Toph’s objection to this becomes less about the fact that it’s feminine when you actually pay attention to what she says.

Toph: The Fancy Lady Day Spa? [Sarcastically.] Sounds like my kinda place.

Katara: Are you ready for some serious pampering?

Toph: Sure, Katara, whatever you say. As long as they don't touch my feet.

The very next scene is Toph looking incredibly uncomfortable as the spa attendants touch her feet. This is played for laughs, because Toph is a girl who doesn’t care about getting her feet dirty, but remember that Toph’s feet are her way of interacting with the world. She specifically said that she didn’t want her feet touched, and was ignored. I’m not saying that Katara or anyone is awful for forcing this on her, I’m saying that this is simply just not something she is going to enjoy. She consents to it anyway because Katara is her friend, and she does genuinely end up enjoying the rest of the spa day and makes an effort because Katara wants her to.

Toph: Well, that wasn't so bad. I'm not usually into that stuff but I actually feel ... girly.

Katara: I'm glad. It's about time we did something fun together.

Cut to a shot of the two crossing a bridge over a creek. As they do, they pass three girls going the other direction. Shot cuts to Katara and Toph from behind the girls.

Girl with umbrella: Wow, great make-up.

Toph: Thanks.

Girl with umbrella: For a clown!

The three girls laugh, Toph's smile is replaced by a frown as she and Katara stop walking. Katara puts her arm over Toph's shoulder, attempting to console her.

This scene actually made me go still when I watched it because I don’t think I’ve ever seen my experience with makeup addressed in a show like this. Toph admits that this is not something she is used to but she does enjoy feeling “girly” for once, and she also enjoys being complemented on her appearance, until she realizes that she’s being made fun of. This is when we see a side of Toph that we are rarely privy to, the more vulnerable side of her who can be hurt by the words of others. Specifically, a group of older girls. This tells us that despite Toph’s choice to discard compulsory femininity, underneath there is a deep insecurity at her ability to measure up.

And maybe you can’t realize this unless you actually have lived with a visual impairment, but what this scene highlights is that Toph can’t actually see what she looks like, with or without makeup. Being made up like this is a privilege for her, and one she can only experience through other people. So she can be happy about it when she’s with her friend, or when other girls compliment her, but when other girls insult her, she feels deeply the rejection. She can’t feel empowered the way that I see people talk about makeup culture being empowering, because she can only view herself through the eyes of others. I’m not saying that people with visual impairments can’t ever enjoy makeup or can’t wear it for themselves, and I myself enjoy makeup, but I also specifically relate to Toph’s feelings about it and how hard it is for her.

Katara: Don't listen to them, let's just keep walking.

Shot cuts to the face of Star, who is one of the three girls.

Star: I think she looks cute. Like that time we put a sweater on your pet poodle monkey.

Third girl: Good one, Star.

Katara: [Angrily.] Let's go, Toph.

This is just...so awfully dehumanizing. Anyone who sees Toph can immediately tell that she is visibly disabled, that she’s different. She can’t pass as able bodied and her performance of femininity reflects that. Even when she is made up and looking hyper-feminine, it’s obvious that this isn’t how she looks all the time. It’s also obvious that she didn’t do her own makeup as she has a very “professionally done” look in this scene. The girls who pick on Toph do so because she’s a very obvious target, a disabled girl who is clearly uncertain about her performance of femininity.

Katara: Those girls don't know what they're talking about.

Toph: It's okay. One of the good things about being blind is I don't have to waste my time worrying about appearance. [Cut to a close-up of Toph's face.] I don't care what I look like. I'm not looking for anyone's approval. I know who I am. [She stops walking, and she cries a bit.]

Katara: That's what I really admire about you, Toph. You're so strong, and confident, and self-assured. [Toph sniffs.] And I know it doesn't matter, but ... [Keeps her palm on Toph's shoulder.] You're really pretty.

Toph: [Turning to Katara, smiling.] I am?

Katara: Yeah, you are.

Toph: I'd return the compliment, but I have no idea what you look like. [Katara laughs.] Thank you, Katara.

The segment ends not with Toph rejecting the spa day or femininity, but an acknowledgment of both her strength in choosing to be her own person and her vulnerability because Toph is, at the end of the day, a girl, who has lived all her life with the pressures of compulsory femininity, pressures that for most of her life were imposed upon her without any say, because her parents treated her like she had no say in her own life. Toph also is happy to be called pretty by Katara, and makes a joke about not being able to return the compliment, a reminder that “pretty” is something that can’t mean the same thing to Toph as it does to other people because she can’t see. Toph isn’t going to experience being a girl the same way that other people do. And that’s okay.

[hatari-translations]

Matthías on ‘Men and Responsibility in the Time of #MeToo’

This is a podcast episdode featuring a panel discussion with Matthías in it, titled "Men and Responsibility in the Time of #MeToo". It's quite long, so I'm just going to translate Matthías's comments and what they're in response to.

It's prompted by the 'second wave of #MeToo' going on in Iceland right now, thanks to an unpleasant chain of events involving a prominent podcast host getting a lot of sympathy for supposedly false accusations of sexual violence against him only for two women to then step forward to press charges against him. There's been a lot of emerging discussion in the wake of it, especially about people sympathizing with and believing perpetrators over survivors. Obvious content warning for discussion of sexual assault below.

First, the host asks about men looking inward to reflect on their own past behaviour during this time, and whether they and their friends have been doing so, directing the question first toward Matthías. He responds:

MATTHÍAS: I think so, yeah. I think it's natural and good in this moment to reflect on the past a bit, and perhaps redefine or rediscover, or even - I'm having a hard time even getting words around this. I haven't really expressed myself in this discussion, but yeah, I think I did look back and try to think about boundaries, and I think many people around me are doing that, who have a conscience and want to do right. We're experiencing a kind of - my generation is sometimes called the porn generation - maybe we're kind of discovering a skewed way of thinking that we've grown up with regarding boundaries. So perhaps it's healthy to look back and try to figure out whether you've ever violated a boundary with your ex, or whatever.

And then there's a different matter, discussed in Kastljós yesterday, how if you conclude that you have done so, or your friend has done so, how you go about taking responsibility for that, and I thought that [the Kastljós discussion] was good. I'd really like some kind of education in how to discuss that with friends, what that conversation should look like. If your friend is either accused of something, or determines for himself that he didn't respect his girlfriend's boundaries, or something, in the past - how do you talk to him? I liked hearing yesterday, how did they phrase it, that you should ask permission before apologizing. Not just show up expecting them to sign something absolving you of sin - the conversation should be on the survivor's terms. I don't know. As you said, it's first steps - this is the first time I, at least, express something of worth publicly, or at least I hope it's of worth, I don't know. But it's a really new discussion, and I feel very immature in it, like I don't really have the tools to talk about it. I've just been listening and trying to learn and realize what so incredibly many women around us have been going through, and I feel a certain sense of powerlessness to even talk about it. So thanks for pushing us to get into it.

After a while, Árni Matthíasson mentions the first step is to realize that men grow up learning a lot of toxicity and you have to realize that you're in that position; Matthías adds, "And that you're immensely privileged."

Later, they're talking about how men often don't have the courage to speak up against sexism and toxicity in other men, and how there's a kind of codependency in letting it slide. Matthías adds, "I think all guys can relate to that, from elementary school onwards." They talk about "perpetrator codependency" (gerandameðvirkni), the phenomenon of sympathizing with and failing to object to the perpetrators. Matthías suggests that could be applied to locker room talk too (something that'd come up earlier), "sexist codependency": you don't think of yourself as a sexist but you still go along with these situations.

MATTHÍAS: And speaking of having the tools to talk about it [the others had agreed with his mention of this], I would really like to be better at just being able to nicely and naturally in the situation, but still firmly, explain that I don't think disrespect towards women is okay, whether it's joking or not, without just getting the perpetrator, the sexist, to go on the defensive. To learn to just draw that line in the sand of Hey, you're not funny. It's something we need to practice, I think, as men.

In response to Árni talking about believing survivors on principle and refusing to be neutral, Matthías responds:

MATTHÍAS: You talked about the neutral way, and you were asking if it's hard for men to step up. Up until now, I've had the privilege of not technically needing to take a stance. That's a privilege that men have. I had no idea who Sölvi Tryggva [the podcast host whose case started all this] was before this, I don't watch podcasts, and kind of had the benefit of none of it having to affect me. It wasn't until I started talking to female friends, and women around me, that I realized how much it provokes, and this thing of being triggered. I think guys maybe don't properly know what it means. It has a huge amount of impact on survivors to see that perpetrator codependency, and so much else these days.

GARÐAR GUNNLAUGSSON: If guys look inward a bit, they can see there are women in their lives, everywhere, who've been through something, and often something really awful.

ÁRNI MATTHÍASSON: As they say, it's not all men, but it's nearly all women.

GARÐAR: Yeah.

MATTHÍAS: Exactly.

The host plays a clip of a researcher studying intimate partner violence, talking about 'monsterization', how people imagine perpetrators are these scary inhuman monsters determined to do evil, and this makes it harder for perpetrators to face and own up to what they've done, which is exactly what survivors often most wish for - for the perpetrator to take responsibility for their actions. The host talks about how this also makes it harder for people to believe that their friends have done something unsavoury - you know your friend's not a monster so they can't have done this. Árni talks a bit about how most sexual violence is perpetrated by intimate partners, not some masked stranger.

MATTHÍAS: I remember when I first heard that. I don't think I properly understood it. If it's not some criminal in an alley, then who? I was probably just a teenager when I heard it, that no, it's usually someone close to you that rapes you. I couldn't quite even think that thought through.

GARÐAR: That it could be someone in your intimate circle.

MATTHÍAS: Yeah. Just, anyone you meet.

There's talk about the notion of ruining people's reputations.

MATTHÍAS: Yeah, that thing of valuing reputation so incredibly highly. We could value the experiences of survivors more highly, compared to that. I think it's a really good question - we're taking baby steps with this, but perhaps one thing that's easy to make judgements about is, say some acquaintance is accused of violence, and you don't have the context to judge it, but you still want to stand with survivors, but your friend's also not a monster - whether he's guilty or innocent, he can always show humility and willingness to listen and look inward. That's something I think both the monsters and the good kids should consider. I don't know, when you see someone accused of something and there's no humility towards the accusers' experiences, just defensiveness, or no looking inward to say, 'I think I'm innocent but what about my behaviour has made this person feel differently' - that's a reason to ask yourself big questions. Humility, listening, looking inward, for ourselves and our friends. I think that's one of the keys.

Garðar points out that if you just cut off a friend who's perpetrated violence, he's still there - the violence is still happening until it's actually addressed. You have to have the courage to intervene and try to get him to change, to show that you won't tolerate it, and Matthías agrees with that and says it's something he wishes he were better at, and that all men were.

The host muses on why sex in particular is such a quagmire for violation of boundaries. Árni emphasizes that rape and sexual assault are not sex but violence, and Matthías says "Yes, very good point." The host elaborates, talking about how a lot of the dating culture involves intoxication and so on, and sometimes people just don't get what their partner wants or doesn't want in that situation.

MATTHÍAS: Maybe guys are just very bad at putting themselves in women's shoes, or listening to them. I think if you thought of something that happened at the club yesterday and properly try to put yourself in the girl's shoes, it's simpler than you'd think to work out in your head whether she liked it, whether she thought it was funny or enjoyable when I said this or touched her there. At least part of the problem might be that guys just keep going, trusting that they'll be celebrated whatever they - it's just privilege. And the disconnect happens there. And it's just an exercise in, what I was saying earlier, humility and listening and looking inward.

ÁRNI: Like we're always Mr. Wonderful.

MATTHÍAS: Yeah. Like we're always Mr. Wonderful, and then when Mr. Wonderful hears somebody didn't enjoy what he was doing yesterday, or that he violated a boundary, or even committed violence, that really knocks down some of Mr. Wonderful's worldview. I don't know, that might be part of it. Maybe it's not that complicated, we're just bad at putting ourselves in others' shoes.

GARÐAR: Or we're just idiots.

MATTHÍAS: Yeah, maybe that's what it is. Well, I mean, often when you hear stuff like 'Oh, nothing's allowed anymore', that classic sentence, it's this sort of cognitive distortion from a guy who thinks he's wonderful and everything he says is smart or funny. And if that guy really tries to think, 'Hmm, does this girl think what I'm saying is cool or fun? Is this fun flirting or is this girl just waiting for the conversation to be over so she can leave, because she feels uncomfortable?' I don't think it's that hard, if you sincerely try to understand how the other person feels. Then, of course, there are probably other variables to it.

[darling-i-read-it]

Coquilles

1x05

Will Graham x reader, eventual Hannibal Lecter x reader x Will Graham 

Hannibal Re-Write Series Masterlist

Word Count: 2.2k 

Warnings: spoilers for hannibal, some cancer talk, murder, dead bodies 

Author’s Note: Dudes I do be thriving. I don’t think I’ve gotten as much interaction for any series as I have for this one and it makes me so happpyyy istg. Plus it’s the boys and we love the boys. 

I took lines directly from the script so some may seem familiar.

Official Episode Summary : Will and the team track a serial killer who has a gruesome ritual; Hannibal tries to drive a wedge between Jack and Will; Jack's wife, Bella, starts therapy with Hannibal.

I don’t own these characters. They belong to author/director 

(not my gif) 

You woke up in a panic. Your heart was racing and the dream you just had slipped your mind but it didn’t stop the worry plaguing your heart. You turned to the side of the bed and found it empty. This did not help your worry. The dogs all looked at you as they sat around the bed, scattered. You counted them and Winston was the only one missing.

Will and Winston that is.

You climbed out of bed. It was six in the morning but the clock was so much too early for him to have gone to work. Plus he always gave you a kiss on the forehead before he left. You hoped Winston had just dragged him outside or maybe he was going to get some fresh air after a bad dream. 

But when you opened the front door there was no Will and no Winston. Your heart beat accelerated and you put on your robe and shoes quickly, noticing quickly that Will’s robe was still on the side of the bed. You walked outside and looked around in the darkness, breathing heavily from fear. You couldn’t help but wonder the worst. What if he had gone out to get some fresh air and been kidnapped? What if something happened and Winston was trying to follow him. The dogs sniffed around but found nothing. 

You grabbed your phone and called Wills’ cell. The phone rang in the other room. You called the only other number you could think to help you, 911 clearly slipping your mind.

“Y/N?” the voice of a groggy Hannibal Lecter woke up. You didn’t notice you were crying until you tried to speak and a ugly worried cry escaped your lips. “What is it? Is something wrong?”

“I woke up and Will’s gone. The cars outside, one of the dogs is gone, his phone is here,” you said worriedly, standing outside, still looking around. 

“Was Jack going to come get him?” Hannibal asked, his voice the stark difference of yours. Very calm, very collected.

“No, we drive together or he tells me. Both of the cars are here Hannibal,” you said. 

“Should I attempt to make the drive out there?” 

It was then you saw the flashing police lights. You almost screamed from worry, scared now that they were coming to tell you they found your boyfriend dead in the street. 

“There’s a police car,” you told Hannibal. 

“At your home?” 

“Yes.” 

The back door opened and Will stepped out from the back. You let out a sigh of relief. 

“I have to go, Will’s okay,” you said and hung up the phone quickly, making a plan to write a formal apology to Hannibal later when you had hugged Will. You threw your arms around him and kissed him fiercely. You pulled away and wiped the few tears that had spilled. “Where were you?!” you yelled. Winston came out of the car as well and you kneeled down, hugging the dog tightly.

“I was sleepwalking,” he admitted. 

“What?” 

“We found him a couple of miles away. Maybe you should handcuff him down,” one of the officers suggested.

“Thank you for bringing him home. Both of them,” you said. They nodded and drove down the driveway. You hugged him again. “I thought something had happened.” He shook his head.

“I think I’m going to go to Hannibal’s in the morning,” he said. “Try and see if he can give me something for it so I don’t do it again. Otherwise I think we will have to try out the handcuff idea.” You laughed dryly and nodded. 

“It is morning Will.” He looked up at the sun as it started to rise and scoffed. 

“Do you want to come with?” he asked. You nodded, fully awake and having to go into the office eventually anyway. 

“Yeah. I don’t think I’m letting you out of my sights again.” 

-

“Although I might be, is it safe to assume you’re not sleepwalking now?” Hannibal asked, making some coffee in his robe and pajamas. 

“I’m sorry it’s so early,” he said.

“Never apologize for coming to me. Office hours are for patients. My kitchen is always open to friends.” Hannibal handed both you and Will a cup of coffee. You nodded in thanks. “Y/N woke me up this morning in quite a state. We should try and prevent that from happening again,” Hannibal said simply. You nodded, that morning feeling like a bad dream.

“It wasn’t ideal. That’s why we’re here,” you said. 

“I imagine it’s simply some good old fashioned post traumatic stress. Jack Crawford has gotten your hands very dirty,” Hannibal said and you nodded along, agreeing with every word. 

“Wasn’t forced back into the field,” Will countered. “No matter what she says.” He pointed to you. You drank a bit of the coffee mug silently. 

“I wouldn’t say forced. Manipulated would be the word I’d choose.” You nodded quickly again.

“I honestly don’t think Jack Crawford has ever had your best intentions in mind,” you said. You said it often. It was the truth. 

“I can handle it,” Will said to both you and Hannibal but his voice wasn’t very convincing. 

“Somewhere between denying horrible events and calling them out lies the truth of psychological trauma.”

“So I can’t handle it?” Will asked. 

“Your experience may’ve overwhelmed ordinary functions that give you a sense of control,” Hannibal told him.

“If my body is walking around without my permission, you’d say that’s a loss of control?” 

“Wouldn’t you?” Hannibal asked. You leaned against the kitchen counter.

“Honestly, will you please just speak with Jack?” you asked. Will looked at you and Hannibal, obviously on the same page about his mental state. You and Hannibal came from such different worlds in his mind. The two people he went to when his mind stopped working but you approached it so differently. You both stared at him expectantly. 

“I’ll think about it.” 

-

Hannibal gave you some time to check on Will so you took your time off to go and visit him at work. You had never actually seen the place he spent most of his time which was likely the morgue although you never asked. You were directed to a place where there were pull out places with bodies inside. 

Will and Beverly stood, talking.

Beverly saw you first and her eyebrows went up.

“Why if it isn’t the other Graham of the household,” she teased. “Your boyfriend has been doing a great job with defying the boss today.” You walked up to the two of them and Will pushed the body that was out back into the wall. 

“What are you doing here?”

“Are you finally fighting Jack? Please tell me you are.” 

“I was out of line. He wanted answers where there were none,” he admitted. He looked exhausted. You wanted to take off his glasses and make him go to sleep. 

“What’s the murder of the week?” you asked, more at Beverly than Will.

“Some guy taking skin off the back to make them look like angels.” You scoffed.

“It’s never boring here is it?” 

“Never, not once. I’ll leave you two alone,” Bev said and then was gone. You looked up at Will and let out an audible sigh. 

“How are you?” you asked.

“Tired. Did Hannibal send you?”

“He gave me time off, probably presuming that I was going to come and see you. I have to be back before his next patient.” He nodded stiffly. “Is something wrong?”

“Just thinking about defying Jack,” he muttered. You smiled weakly.

“That’s what I like to hear.” 

-

You woke up the next morning and Will wasn’t there. Your heart started to race again. You had locked the downstairs door and windows but he still wasn’t there. You got up and started to look around. You immediately noticed that one of the upstairs windows was wide open, letting in a chilly January draft. You walked over to close it and noticed that Will was standing on the roof outside.

You let out a yelp and climbed outside, balancing on the roof as well. You grabbed his arm and he didn’t wake up. Instead his eyes shut tighter. You started to guide him over to the window and you ducked him down, making sure his head didn’t hit anything. You guided him back to the bed and then locked the window. 

He was freezing. You weren’t able to go back to sleep despite it being only five. You were too nervous. You set his head on your lap and he cuddled into it, realizing maybe where he was. You played with his curls and thought about calling Hannibal but didn’t want to wake him up again.

You realized then how much of a friend Hannibal had started to become for you. He was quickly reaching your ‘to call’ list when Will was asleep or at work. You thought about that for a while before Will started to stir awake. He sat up and looked around, as you awake.

“Why are you awake?” he asked, groggy.

“You sleep walked onto the roof,” you said lazily. His eyes went wide. 

“Maybe we should try that handcuff idea.” 

“Well we gotta do something. You have therapy today, ask Hannibal what he thinks.” He nodded and ran a hand over his face to rub out the sleep.

“You seem to care about Hannibal’s opinion a lot.”

“I just want you to get better.” He laid his head back down on your lap and you played with his curls some more before the alarm went off

-

You sat outside of the office, as you usually would when Hannibal had a client. You were clicking through things, checking payments and what not. Hannibal was in there with Bella Crawford or as her insurance called her, Phyllis Crawford. 

You were half paying attention to work, half thinking about Will, when Jack came in. Your mind had a ‘speak of the devil’ moment as he walked inside. You didn’t think he knew that Bella was in there. 

“Can I help you Jack?” He looked down at you, sitting at your desk. 

“Is my wife in there?” 

“If you don’t know I don’t have the privilege to tell you,” you said. You honestly didn’t know if that was a thing but you really didn’t like Jack so you figured you would make it a thing. “How’s my boyfriend?” 

“He said he wants to quit. I assume that’s you speaking.”

“We are a very conjoined couple.” You smiled to yourself. Will was making those steps to better himself. That was good. You weren’t sure if they would last but this was a start.  The door opened and you cursed your bad plan of him never finding out. 

“Agent Crawford,” Hannibal stated.

“Hello, Jack,” Bella said meekly. 

“Doctor, you mind waiting in the waiting room so my wife and I can borrow your office for a moment?” 

“Not at all.” Hannibal walked beside you and the door shut behind him, Bella and Jack inside.

“What’s there deal?” you asked.

“I can’t tell you that,” he said. You nodded, understanding. You looked up at Hannibal and he sat on the edge of your desk. “Will woke up on the roof this morning?”

“He woke up in bed but I woke up to him on the roof,” you explained. 

“He wants to leave. He wants to fish and work a simple life I just don’t think Jack is willing to let him go,” Hannibal told you.

“Aren’t you supposed to keep all of that in the office?” you asked. He nodded thoughtfully.

“I think you know that though,” he stated simply. That was true. You did know that.

“I admire him for trying,” you said quietly. “I want him to come back to me. He’s my best friend, he’s really all I have. We’re all each other have,” you admitted. “And the dogs.” 

“The both of you have me now,” Hannibal promised almost offhandedly. 

You nodded but you wondered what he meant by that. You didn’t ask.

[morimakesfanart]

Sindria's Prophet Ch07

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

**stream of consciousness

**partial nudity

~POV shift~

The sun rose. It was the an important day for Balbadd. As exhausted and injured as everyone was from fighting, they couldn't put off making the new government.

With the crisis over, they had all been able to sleep comfortably, and eat better. Waking up to breakfast at the grand hotel was more than a welcome change after having to eat scraps with the fog troop. Of course there's nothing wrong with eating within one's means, but King Sinbad had developed his palette to be used to more refined things and he wanted to share.

The King had a variable feast of a breakfast be made. It would be thanks for everyone's hard work, and would help prepare them for all of the work they still had left to do. The hotel staff were instructed to tell everyone.

Calm waves announced the arrival of his comrades as they joined him for breakfast. Relief was on all of them. It was nice to see everyone relaxed.

Best of all was seeing Aladdin up and about again. He enjoyed the food as he shared in boisterous conversation with his friends.

They talked of the day's plans. Most of them were going to the palace to help with making the new government. Morgiana understood her limitations in that respect so would be helping give supplies to people in need.

Everyone ate their full, and headed out.

All of this should have been encouraging, but King Sinbad couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. His Beautiful Prophet was missing.

"Ja'far, have you heard anything from Mori this morning?"

His General turned to him, "I guess I forgot to tell you. Lady Mori sent word that she wouldn't be able to join us. So I had some food sent to her room."

The King hummed at that. It was worrying, but she had said that they'd have plenty of time to talk soon.

If what Mori had said was true then she had been removed from her home by Fate. She must have been very confused. Mori had shown that she was able to push her own problems to the side in order to help with the Balbadd crisis. She would become a strong ally.

Now that she could actually take a break, she was most likely mourning the loss of her home. She said herself that she'd never be able to go back. If Mori didn't have a home or family then King Sinbad would fill that void for her just like he had for many others. He wanted to comfort her, but if the Prophet needed space then it was time for the head of the Seven Seas Alliance to do what he could for Balbadd.

---

The magi, and prophet had came to Sinbad as if gifts from Fate, but it was up to him to convince them to stay with him.

Aladdin was currently focused on Alibaba so as long as Sinbad kept them both happy, he could prove his worth to the Magi. Helping Balbadd reestablish itself was 3 birds with one stone since he could also secure another dungeon capturer to his side, and honor his mentor as well.

And yet, even though he had already won her over, he found that he couldn't shake Mori from his thoughts on the walk to the palace.

Sinbad had felt the waves around her the first time they met, and they were only getting stronger. Mori had an amazing influence over the course of Fate. With her knowledge she could figure out exactly how to shift things in her favor and she could even feel the waves to get the perfect timing. He could feel the shift in the greater flow of the waves with every change. It was amazing. She was amazing.

Mori had agreed to become his prophet, but it clearly wasn't enough. Why else would he still be so focused on her? Sinbad would need to gain her true loyalty. She could help him reach his dream or sabotage him, and he might not even realize she had done it. There was no way Mori would do the later -he could feel it- but it wasn't a risk he was willing to take.

It was sad that she was ripped from her home, but it was obvious in the waves why Fate had moved her. She was here for him. Why else would he find her as soon as she arrived? Why else would there be no way for her to return home? She may not have given details yet, but Sinbad was certain that in order to prevent the 2 catastrophes she had mentioned, Mori would need his help. Fate was directing her right to him, and him right back at her.

Even without her prophecies, being able to read the waves of Fate was an amazing ability. One that only Sinbad had until now, so he knew better than anyone the potential that ability gave it's owner. Mori could also use magoi manipulation, and was clearly hiding other amazing secrets.

---

Being a King, Sinbad was given a room in the palace all to himself to work. It was a privilege he was grateful for; his thoughts kept wandering. It wouldn't look good to the other's if they caught him spacing out. He had plenty of practice disguising it from Ja'far's watchful eye.

He was stuck on something he had thought earlier. He'd referred to those two as gifts. It wasn't right for him to view them that way, but how else was he supposed to view Mori other than a gift from Fate? He could feel in the waves that she was going to live out the rest of her days in Sindria with him.

The prophet was clearly the type of woman that responded to him, so it shouldn't take much more to bring her fully to his side. It might be underhanded to flirt with Mori to gain her loyalty, but the King of Sindria would do whatever he needed for the future of his country and his dream. Even if he didn't want her -and he did- her knowledge was something he couldn't afford to let slip between his fingers.

Besides, Mori's reactions were very cute. She got embarrassed easily even when putting on a strong front, so he couldn't help but tease her -it was almost an obligation. He'd be doing the world a disservice if he didn't do everything in his power to make her as endearing as possible.

The way she had responded when their waves aligned was also endearing. She might not have said anything directly, but every time their waves flowed together she acted confidently and flirted back.

Never had he imagined he'd meet someone else who could read the waves of Fate. Mori was someone who could understand his experience -someone who he could talk to about the waves and Fate. It made him want her.

After her wonderful display in the lobby, he had wanted to try out that 'zipper' with his own hands. And when she finally agreed to be his Prophet in such a flirty way, Sinbad had gone for it even though the waves weren't on his side in that aspect. Mori may have turned him down, but she'd be in his bed some day. They had an obvious chemistry; it was only a matter of time.

He'd have plenty of opportunities in the future. Mori, herself, said they'd have more time to talk starting that afternoon.

For now he would focus on helping build this new Republic of Balbadd. He was already working on making the proper arrangements for the new Republic to officially become a part of the Seven Seas Alliance. That would help when he'd visit the Kou Empire as promised.

He couldn't help but wonder how that trip would go. Would he really be able to convince the Kou Emperor to back down? He could always ask his Beautiful Prophet later.

But Mori had avoided the first good breakfast he had been able to provide for her. He had wanted to see her expression when she finally got to eat delicious food. Why had she chosen to eat alone? Would she really be available to talk later like she promised?

She couldn't be avoiding him. He'd only made one pass at her to join him in his room. She didn't seem offended by it either. Surely, she was just resting.

She had gotten worried on his behalf so this current problem was only a hiccup. There was no way she was avoiding him. It wasn't like him to worry about such things -especially not when the waves were on his side- and he had other things he should be focused on.

The King adjusted his posture before pulling out the next document. Thinking about her all morning was distracting him from the work he could actually get done. He'd have time to solve that problem after he finished.

"Excuse me, sir." One of the palace guards was in the doorway talking to Ja'far. "There's a girl asking for an audience with King Sinbad. She said her name was 'Mori?'"

Looks like his thoughts weren't without reason after all. He was being guided by Fate.

The guard was told to bring her.

Then the General turned to his King, "Sin, I know you've been flirting with Mori to win her over, but don't push it. She only just agreed to become your vassal. She's read Fate. She might be able to see right throu-"

Sinbad laughed it off. "It'll be fine. You know you can trust me."

It took a few minutes for the guard to retrieve Mori. Sinbad heard her thank her guide before he actually saw her.

When Mori walked in she was wearing an outfit that Sinbad had never seen before; she was even wearing her hair differently. She wasn't showing off her legs which was a real shame. On the other hand, that neckline was very alluring. Seeing her in clothes he was more familiar with was a good feeling. He wondered what she would look like dressed in the fashion of his own country. King Sinbad made a mental note to buy his Prophet a new wardrobe as a welcome gift -she was going to be living the rest of her life in Sindria after all.

Sinbad stood to greet her but before he could make a move she asked, "So when are we leaving?" Mori had an air of excitement but was still a little nervous. The waves were swirling around her.

She looked cute so full of energy, but Sinbad had no idea what she was talking about. He started to cross the room from the desk while giving her the smile that won him hearts across the seven seas. "Good morning, MY Beautiful Prophet." Her blush was the best reward for his efforts. When he got close enough he reached for her hand. "It's a shame you weren't able to eat with-"

Ja'far raised his arm to separate them.

"Huh?"

"Sin, what did we just talk about?"

Ja'far was scolding him, but all Sinbad noticed was the look Mori was giving his General -like he was her hero. That wasn't right.

Mori touched Ja'far's arm tenderly. "I'm okay, Ja'far. I know exactly what type of man King Sinbad is since I've read Fate. I'd never take his flirting seriously." She said it with a smile, but her words stabbed at Sinbad's heart for some reason.

Ja'far lowered his arm and reconnected his hands in front of himself in his normal pose. "Then does that mean...?" Ja'far's obviously relief was growing.

Mori nodded, "I'm not some naïve teenager who would fall for a known womanizer."

How could she say that when she responded to his flirting in such adorable ways?

She placed one hand over her heart. "And I promise, if he does ever cross the line and upset me, I won't hold it against his citizens. The sins of a King are his own."

Ja'far looked on the verge of tears, "My lady, you are too generous."

Wasn't Ja'far against Mori yesterday morning? What was causing the sudden change? It was nice to see them finally getting along, but..

Sinbad tried to pulled her attention and change the subject. "Mori, you said something about leaving. For where exactly?"

"Sindria." She said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

It was great that she was so enthusiastic to go, but there was so much yet to do in Balbadd. How could she think they'd be leaving already? Was this something in the fate she read?

She looked between them confused. "I know I told you the other day. Don't tell me you forgot??”

Ja'far asked for both of them, "What are you talking about?"

Mori's tone turned serious. "Two days ago I told you that a Kou fleet would be coming today."

She had said that. The hair on Sinbad's arms raised. With everything that had happened the day prior he had forgotten.

"With Balbadd in it's current state, you know this will be dangerous for any members of the old regime."

She was right.

There was shouting down the hall.

Mori sighed, "Looks like I took too long getting ready." She suddenly looked very tired.

---

They all stood at the port watching the fleet on the horizon.

"Why would they do this?" Alibaba was still too naïve.

King Sinbad explained, "They must have had their fleet dispatched here from the beginning. They wanted to take advantage of the uprising by forcing us into submission." Even without Mori's prophecy he should have been able to predict this after seeing how involved the Kou Empire was in Balbadd's down fall.

He could feel Mori watching. Her focus shifted to each person before they started talking. Was she reading the waves, or was this a part of the fate she read directly?

Alibaba turned to him, "Yeah but, the uprising was suppressed."

"Even so, it's not as if there's a new government yet." Ja'far stepped closer as he joined the conversation. "And if they insisted that Balbadd is currently without one, you couldn't disagree."

Mori was watching from behind the General. Her expression was blank. She glanced at Alibaba and then focused on Sinbad.

The young ex prince clenched his teeth in frustration.

"Alibaba." King Sinbad took it upon himself to help him. "You must make preparations to leave this country as soon as possible. The first thing the Kou are likely to do is take the entire Royal Family into custody." He continued to explain how the Kou Empire was most likely going to kill Alibaba and others as symbols or just take over completely.

It was a hard truth.

"No way... You're saying I should run away?? Abandoning this country and all it's citizens??"

One that Alibaba was clearly not ready to accept.

"That's right."

Alibaba starting ranting about his goals and dreams -everything he wanted for his home country. King Sinbad could understand him. He had wanted the same for Parthevia when he was young.

"I'm not running away." Alibaba reached for his broken metal vessel. "If they try to force me, then I'll just fight!" He drew that now useless knife and pointed it at the fleet.

Talking with him was going nowhere, and it was clear that it would take too long to get Alibaba to see reason. The best thing King Sinbad could do to keep him safe was to knock him out. He stepped forward and raised

his hand behind the teen.

But Alibaba was missing from his strike.

Mori had yanked Alibaba out of the way. The quick glance of eye contact made it clear that she knew exactly what King Sinbad was going to do. This was the moment she was watching for. She had to have read this as a part of Fate.

And then all of Mori's attention was on Alibaba. "Do you know who's leading that fleet? Because I do. It's Ren Kouen, master of three Djinn.” Her voice was strong and clear.

Sinbad couldn't see Alibaba's expression, but he could see him tense up. If it really was Ren Kouen that would mean trouble. Why had she stopped him? If he had knocked the boy out they'd be able to guarantee his safety. She wasn't acting against him, was she?

"I said I'll fight!” Alibaba restated his position.

"You haven't achieved full body Djinn Equip once and your metal vessel is broken!! How do you expect to fight him??"

Sinbad could see what she was trying to do, but how could she think she would succeed where he failed?

Alibaba went quiet and then started to turn towards Sinbad.

Mori continued before he could say anything. "Don't you dare ask King Sinbad for help in this. Do you want to start a war between Sindria and the Kou Empire? I thought you wanted to avoid meaningless blood shed."

Alibaba froze. She was forcing him to accept his actual abilities. If a person can't accept where they are then they will struggle to grow.

"You can't protect anyone if you're dead. I've read a future where you are able to help protect Balbadd and the world, but you have to leave now if you want a chance of realizing that future."

Alibaba was quiet, and after a few moments sheathed his sword. "Damnit!"

Mori stepped back and let Alibaba leave.

Aladdin followed after his friend. "Let's go tell Morg!”

"Yeah. Then I'll need to go pack everything." Alibaba sounded frustrated but he had accepted the situation.

Mori had gotten Alibaba to accept it. She hadn't gone against Sinbad; she filled the gap in his ability to solve this without violence.

The Prophet sighed, and turned to her King. "I knew you were going to try to knock him out, but I really hoped that you would try talking to him more instead." Mori bemoaned while massaging her temples. "Please learn that you don't have a right to bypass other people's consent."

Sinbad was definitely not ready to suddenly have his behavior critiqued.

Mori continued, "Whenever something doesn't work out the way you want, you always turn to violence or seduction. If you weren't so charismatic, powerful and lucky, you wouldn't have made it this far."

Ja'far piped up in agreement. "His rash behavior has caused countless headaches!”

"When is he going to start acting more like a king?" Mori responded back. It was almost word for word something Ja'far had said the day all of his metal vessels were stolen. Had she read that and mimicked Ja'far on purpose?

"That's it exactly!" Ja'far agreed with the Prophet.

It really was nice that they were getting along. But the way Mori smiled at Ja'far just didn't sit right with King Sinbad.

"Well, Mori," Sinbad tried to cut in nonchalantly, "with your help I'm sure I'll be able to avoid such situations in the future."

Both looked at him as if he had three heads. It was like they were saying with their eyes than nothing could 'cure' his behavior.

At least Mori was looking at him again.

There had to be something he could say to bring the mood back up. "Oh!" Sinbad realized what she had meant the previous day. "When you said we'd have plenty of time to talk, you meant while on the ship to Sindria."

She blinked and then realized what he was referencing. "Yes, that's exactly what I was saying!" Her smile was more than encouraging.

"So," she put one hand the strap of her bag, "when are we leaving?" and quoted herself from her entrance.

A normal person might have found it unsettling how Mori responded to things that hadn't happened yet. Sinbad wasn't normal; he was special. These moments where it was undeniable the that she could read the waves and fate were his favorites. They were encouraging that he had someone he could rely on to fill the gaps in his judgments, so he could make his dream a reality.

((I wish I had this done in time for Sinbad's bday (April 2) but I'll have to settle for having it out for mine (April 7).

I headcannon Sinbad as demi-aro or aro-flux So I doubt he'd be able to understand romantic feelings if he had them. This is basically an entire chapter of Sinbad attempting to use logic and Fate to excuse his feelings.))

[whitehotharlots]

Privilege Theory is popular because it is conservative

Privilege theory, as a formal academic thing, has been around at least since 1989, when Peggy McIntosh published the now-seminal essay “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” Even within academic cultural studies, however, privilege theory was pretty niche until about a decade ago--it’s not what you’d call intellectually sound (McIntosh’s essay contains zero citations), and its limitations as an analytical frame are pretty obvious. I went through a cultural studies-heavy PhD program in the early twenty teens and I only heard it mentioned a handful of times. If you didn’t get a humanities degree, odds are it didn’t enter your purview until 2015 or thereabouts.

This poses an obvious question: how could an obscure and not particularly groundbreaking academic concept become so ubiquitous so quickly? How did such a niche (and, frankly, weird and alienating) understanding of racial relations become so de rigeur that companies that still utilize slave labor and still produce skin whitening cream are now all but mandated to release statements denouncing it? 

Simply put, the rapid ascent of privilege theory is due to the fact that privilege theory is fundamentally conservative. Not in cultural sense, no. But if we understand conservatism as an approach to politics that seeks first and foremost to maintain existing power structures, then privilege theory is the cultural studies equivalent of phrenology or Austrian economics. 

This realization poses a second, much darker question: how did a concept as regressive and unhelpful as privilege become the foundational worldview among people who style themselves as progressives, people whose basic self-understanding is grounded in a belief that they are working to address injustice? Let’s dig into this:

First, let’s go down a well-worn path and establish the worthlessness of privilege as an analytical lens. We’ll start with two basic observations: 1) on the whole, white people have an easier time existing within these United States than non-white people, and 2) systemic racism exists, at least to the extent that non-white people face hurdles that make it harder for them to achieve safety and material success.

I think a large majority of Americans would agree with both of these statements--somewhere in the ballpark of 80%, including many people you and I would agree are straight-up racists. They are obvious and undeniable, the equivalent to saying “politicians are corrupt” or “good things are good and bad things are bad.” Nothing about them is difficult or groundbreaking.

As simplistic as these statements may be, privilege theory attempts to make them the primary foreground of all understandings of social systems and human interaction. Hence the focus on an acknowledgement of privilege as the ends and means of social justice. We must keep admitting to privilege, keep announcing our awareness, again and again and again, vigilance is everything, there is nothing beyond awareness.

Of course, acknowledging the existence of inequities does nothing to actually address those inequities. Awareness can serve as an important (though not necessarily indispensable) precondition for change, but does not lead to change in and of itself. 

I’ve been saying this for years but the point still stands: those who advocate for privilege theory almost never articulate how awareness by itself will bring about change. Even in the most generous hypothetical situation, where all human interaction is prefaced by a formal enunciation of the raced-based power dynamics presently at play, this acknowledgement doesn’t actually change anything. There is never a Step Two. 

Now, some people have suggested Step Twos. But suggestions are usually ignored, and on the rare occasions they are addressed they are dismissed without fail, often on grounds that are incredibly specious and dishonest. To hit upon another well-worn point, let’s look at the presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders. The majority of Sanders’ liberal critics admit that the senator’s record on racial justice is impeccable, and that his platform would have done substantially more to materially address racial inequities than that being proffered by any of his opponents. That’s all agreed upon, yet we are told that none of that actually matters. 

Sanders dropped out of the race nearly 3 months ago, yet just this past week The New York Times published yet another hit piece explaining that while his policies would have benefitted black people, the fact that he strayed from arbitrarily invoked rhetorical standards meant he was just too problematic to support.  

The piece was written by Sidney Ember, a Wall Street hack who cites anonymous finance and health insurance lobbyists to argue that financial regulation is racist. Ember, like most other neoliberals, has been struggling to reconcile her vague support for recent protests with the fact that she is paid to lie about people who have tried to fix things. Now that people are forcefully demanding change, the Times have re-deployed her to explain why change is actually bad even though it’s good.  

How does one pivot from celebrating the fact that black people will not be receiving universal healthcare to mourning racially disproportionate COVID death rates? They equivocate. They lean even harder on rhetorical purity, dismissing a focus on policy as a priori blind to race. Bernie never said “white privilege.” Well, okay, he did, but he didn’t say it in the right tone or often enough, and that’s what the problem was. Citing Ember:

Yet amid a national movement for racial justice that took hold after high-profile killings of black men and women, there is also an acknowledgment among some progressives that their discussion of racism, including from their standard-bearer, did not seem to meet or anticipate the forcefulness of these protests.

Kimberlé Crenshaw, the legal scholar who pioneered the concept of intersectionality to describe how various forms of discrimination can overlap, said that Mr. Sanders struggled with the reality that talking forcefully about racial injustice has traditionally alienated white voters — especially the working-class white voters he was aiming to win over. But that is where thinking of class as a “colorblind experience” limits white progressives. “Class cannot help you see the specific contours of race disparity,” she said.

Many other institutions, she noted, have now gone further faster than the party that is the political base of most African-American voters. “You basically have a moment where every corporation worth its salt is saying something about structural racism and anti-blackness, and that stuff is even outdistancing what candidates in the Democratic Party were actually saying,” she said.

Crenshaw’s point here is that the empty, utterly immaterial statements of support coming from multinational corporations are more substantial and important than policy proposals that would have actually addressed racial inequities. This is astounding. A full throated embrace of entropy as praxis. 

Crenshaw started out the primary as a Warren supporter but threw her endorsement to Bernie once the race had narrowed to two viable candidates. This fact is not mentioned, nor does Ember feel the need to touch upon any of Biden’s dozens of rhetorical missteps regarding race (you might remember that he kicked off his presidential run with a rambling story about the time he toughed it out with a black ne'er do well named Corn Pop, or his more recent assertion that if you don’t vote for him, “you ain’t black.”). The statement here--not the implication: the direct and undeniable statement--is that tone and posturing are more important than material proposals, and that concerns regarding tone and posturing should only be raised in order to delegitimize those who have dared to proffer proposals that might actually change things for the better. 

The ascendence of privilege theory marks the triumph of selective indignation, the ruling class and their media lackeys having been granted the power to dismiss any and all proposals for material change according to standards that are too nonsensical to be enforced in any fair or consistent manner. The concept has immense utility for those who wish to perpetuate the status quo. And that, more than anything, is why it’s gotten so successful so quickly. But still… why have people fallen for something so obviously craven and regressive? Why are so few decent people able to summon even the smallest critique against it? 

We can answer this by taking a clear look at what privilege actually entails. And this is where things get really, really grim:

What are the material effects of privilege, at least as they are imagined by those who believe the concept to be something that must be sussed out and eradicated? A privileged person gets to live their life with the expectation that they will face no undue hurdles to success and fulfillment because of their identity markers, that they will not be subject to constant surveillance and/or made to suffer grave consequences for minor or arbitrary offenses, and that police will not be able to murder them at will. The effects of “privilege” are what we might have once called “freedom” or “dignity.” Until very recently, progressives regarded these effects not as problematic, but as a humane baseline, a standard that all decent people should fight to provide to all of our fellow citizens. 

Here we find the utility in the use of the specific term “privilege.” Similar to how austerity-minded politicians refer to social security as an “entitlement,” conflating dignity and privilege gives it the sense of something undeserved and unearned--things that no one, let alone members of racially advantaged groups, could expect for themselves unless they were blinded by selfishness and coddled by an insufficiently cruel social structure. The problem isn’t therefore that humans are being selectively brutalized. Brutality is the baseline, the natural order, the unavoidable constant that has not been engineered into our society but simply is what society is and will always be. The problem, instead, is that some people are being exempted from some forms of brutalization. The problem is that pain does not stretch far enough.

We are a nation that worships cruelty and authority. All Americans, regardless of gender or race, are united in being litigious tattletales who take joy in hurting one another, who will never run out of ways to rationalize their own cruelty even as they decry the cruelty of others. We are taught from birth that human life has no value, that material success is morally self-validating, and that those who suffer deserve to suffer. This is our real cultural brokenness: a deep, foundational hatred of one another and of ourselves. It transcends all identity markers. It stains us all. And it’s why we’ve all run headlong into a regressive and idiotic understanding of race at a time when we desperately need to unite and help one another. 

[a-book-dragon]

A.2.17 Aren’t most people too stupid for a free society to work?

- Anarchy Works, FAQ

We are sorry to have to include this question in an anarchist FAQ, but we know that many political ideologies explicitly assume that ordinary people are too stupid to be able to manage their own lives and run society. All aspects of the capitalist political agenda, from Left to Right, contain people who make this claim.

Be it Leninists, fascists, Fabians or Objectivists, it is assumed that only a select few are creative and intelligent and that these people should govern others.Usually, this elitism is masked by fine, flowing rhetoric about “freedom,” “democracy” and other platitudes with which the ideologues attempt to dull people’s critical thought by telling them what they want to hear.It is, of course, also no surprise that those who believe in “natural” elites always class them-selves at the top. We have yet to discover an “objectivist”, for example, who considers themselves part of the great mass of “second-handers” (it is always amusing to hear people who simply par-rot the ideas of Ayn Rand dismissing other people so!) or who will be a toilet cleaner in the unknown “ideal” of “real” capitalism.

Everybody reading an elitist text will consider him or her-self to be part of the “select few.” It’s “natural” in an elitist society to consider elites to be natural and yourself a potential member of one!Examination of history shows that there is a basic elitist ideology which has been the essential rationalisation of all states and ruling classes since their emergence at the beginning of the Bronze Age

(“if the legacy of domination had had any broader purpose than the support of hierarchical and class interests, it has been the attemp to exorcise the belief in public competence from social discourse itself.”[Bookchin,The Ecology of Freedom, p. 206]).

This ideology merely changes its outer garments, not its basic inner content over time.

During the Dark Ages, for example, it was coloured by Christianity, being adapted to the needs of the Church hierarchy. The most useful “divinely revealed” dogma to the priestly elite was“original sin”: the notion that human beings are basically depraved and incompetent creatures who need “direction from above,” with priests as the conveniently necessary mediators between ordinary humans and “God.” The idea that average people are basically stupid and thus incapable of governing themselves is a carry over from this doctrine, a relic of the Dark Ages.

In reply to all those who claim that most people are “second-handers” or cannot develop any-thing more than “trade union consciousness,” all we can say is that it is an absurdity that cannot withstand even a superficial look at history, particularly the labour movement. The creative powers of those struggling for freedom is often truly amazing, and if this intellectual power and inspiration is not seen in “normal” society, this is the clearest indictment possible of the deadening effects of hierarchy and the conformity produced by authority. (See also section B.1 for more on the effects of hierarchy). As Bob Black points outs:

“You are what you do. If you do boring, stupid, monotonous work, chances are you’ll end up boring, stupid, and monotonous. Work is a much better explanation for the creep-ing cretinisation all around us than even such significant moronising mechanisms astelevision and education. People who are regimented all their lives, handed to workfrom school and bracketed by the family in the beginning and the nursing home in theend, are habituated to hierarchy and psychologically enslaved. Their aptitude for auton-omy is so atrophied that their fear of freedom is among their few rationally groundedphobias. Their obedience training at work carries over into the familiestheystart, thusreproducing the system in more ways than one, and into politics, culture and everythingelse. Once you drain the vitality from people at work, they’ll likely submit to hierarchyand expertise in everything. They’re used to it.”[The Abolition of Work and other essays, pp. 21–2]92

When elitists try to conceive of liberation, they can only think of it beinggivento the oppressed by kind (for Leninists) or stupid (for Objectivists) elites. It is hardly surprising, then, that it fails. Only self-liberation can produce a free society. The crushing and distorting effects of authority can only be overcome by self-activity. The few examples of such self-liberation prove that most people, once considered incapable of freedom by others, are more than up for the task.Those who proclaim their “superiority” often do so out of fear that their authority and power will be destroyed once people free themselves from the debilitating hands of authority and come to realise that, in the words of Max Stirner,“the great are great only because we are on our knees. Let us rise”

As Emma Goldman remarks about women’s equality,“[t]he extraordinary achievements of women in every walk of life have silenced forever the loose talk of women’s inferiority. Those who still cling to this fetish do so because they hate nothing so much as to see their authority challenged.This is the characteristic of all authority, whether the master over his economic slaves or man over women. However, everywhere woman is escaping her cage, everywhere she is going ahead with free,large strides.”[Vision on Fire, p. 256]

The same comments are applicable, for example, to thevery successful experiments in workers’ self-management during the Spanish Revolution.Then, of course, the notion that people are too stupid for anarchism to work also backfires on those who argue it.

Take, for example, those who use this argument to advocate democratic government rather than anarchy. Democracy, as Luigi Galleani noted, means “acknowledging the right and the competence of the people to select their rulers.”

However,“whoever has the political competence to choose his [or her] own rulers is, by implication, also competent to do without them,especially when the causes of economic enmity are uprooted.”[The End of Anarchism?, p. 37]

Thus the argument for democracy against anarchism undermines itself, for “if you consider these worthy electors as unable to look after their own interests themselves, how is it that they know howto choose for themselves the shepherds who must guide them? And how will they be able to solve this problem of social alchemy, of producing the election of a genius from the votes of a mass of fools?”[Malatesta,Anarchy, pp. 53–4]

As for those who consider dictatorship as the solution to human stupidity, the question arises why are these dictators immune to this apparently universal human trait? And, as Malatesta noted,“who are the best? And who will recognise these qualities in them?”[Op. Cit., p. 53]

If they impose themselves on the “stupid” masses, why assume they will not exploit and oppress the many for their own benefit? Or, for that matter, that they are any more intelligent than the masses? The history of dictatorial and monarchical government suggests a clear answer to those questions.

A similar argument applies for other non-democratic systems, such as those based on limited suffrage. For example, the Lockean (i.e. classical liberal or right-wing libertarian) ideal of a state based on the rule of property owners is doomed to be little more than a regime which oppresses the majority to maintain the power and privilege of the wealthy few.

Equally, the idea of near universal stupidity bar an elite of capitalists (the “objectivist” vision) implies a system somewhat less ideal than the perfect system presented in the literature. This is because most people would tolerate oppressive bosses who treat them as means to an end rather than an end in themselves. For how can you expect people to recognise and pursue their own self-interest if you consider them fundamentally as the“uncivilised hordes”? You cannot have it both ways and the“unknown ideal”of pure capitalism would be as grubby, oppressive and alienating as “actually existing” capitalism.

As such, anarchists are firmly convinced that arguments against anarchy based on the lack of ability of the mass of people are inherently self-contradictory (when not blatantly self-servicing). If people are too stupid for anarchism then they are too stupid for any system you care to mention.

Ultimately, anarchists argue that such a perspective simply reflects the servile mentality produced by a hierarchical society rather than a genuine analysis of humanity and our history as a species. To quote Rousseau:“when I see multitudes of entirely naked savages scorn European voluptuousness and endure hunger, fire, the sword, and death to preserve only their independence, I feel that it does not behove slaves to reason about freedom.”[quoted by Noam Chomsky,Marxism, Anarchism, and Alternative Futures, p. 780]

[arbenia]

The other day on the BBC news I saw a young, educated and eloquent Serbian woman speaking about the life of ordinary citizens under the NATO bombing. The Serbian citizens are afraid, she said. Normal life is more and more difficult. There are power cuts, and people are forced to go several days without access to the Internet. There is also a cigarette shortage. But yes, they are trying to live normally. They go to work, they shop, and they sit in cafes. Of course, the bombing turned the Serbian citizens against NATO, not against Slobodan Milosevic. After all, “bombs are dropping from the sky.”

Clearly, this young woman, like so many Serbs, does not want to understand that her country is at war. They still seem to be thinking, What has all this to do with me? I know this mechanism of denial, because I have seen it before. Serbs by and large ignored the wars in Croatia and Bosnia. It was always happening somewhere else, to somebody else, and they were not involved. It was the Serbian army, the police, the paramilitaries, but not them, the ordinary citizens. But now, when it is happening in Serbia and affecting all of them, they are still somehow surprised.

The young woman on TV used the expression “Serbian citizens,” but her use of this phrase suggested that these Serbian citizens are people struggling to maintain the normality of their daily lives. By “Serbian citizens” she evidently meant only Serbs. Others–that is, Albanians–are simply never mentioned in that context. Their problems are not addressed, by her or other Serbs. In the perception of ordinary Serbs, Albanians are not included in the category of Serbian citizen and therefore are absent from the language as well.

Why? The problem is that Serbs–or anyone else, for that matter–cannot identify with the suffering of others if they are not able to see them as equals. In Yugoslav society Albanians were never visible. There was no need to construct their “otherness”–as, for example, with Jews in prewar Germany or recently with Serbs in Croatia. The Albanians were never integrated into the country’s social, political and cultural life. They existed separately from us, barely visible people on the margins of our society, with their strange language that nobody understood, their tribal organization, blood feuds, different habits and dress. They were always underdogs. What was their place in the Yugoslav literature, in movies and popular culture? What famous Yugoslavs were Albanians? Because of that estrangement, not many voices were raised in protest during the past ten years, when Albanians in Kosovo lived practically under apartheid.

For the older generation, the only visible Albanians were people in white caps coming from Kosovo to their cities to cut wood in the winter. For my generation they were people selling ice cream all over Yugoslavia. They spoke our language with a funny accent and never could pronounce “lemonade” properly. They lived among us, but we chose to ignore them. If we did happen to notice them, we despised them, laughed at them, told jokes about them. I never had an Albanian friend in Zagreb. No one I knew married an Albanian. But the difference between Croats and Serbs was that Croats did not really have to deal with the Albanians; we had no Kosovo.

It was clear that they belonged to a different category from Serbs, Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins or Slovenes. Serbs could even fight a war against Croats, but they never perceived each other in the same way they both perceive Albanians. The prejudice against Albanians can be compared to that against Jews or blacks or Gypsies in other cultures. Today every Serb will tell you that Albanians multiply like rabbits–that this is their secret weapon in the war they are waging against Serbs in Kosovo. This is not nationalism; this is more or less hidden racism.

The woman on the BBC the other day may be only an ordinary person, but there are other Serbs who should know better and who can’t use the excuse of innocence so easily. They are the people in the opposition. But all one hears from them is their lament about the destruction of democracy and civil society in Serbia. The NATO bombing is to them a savage attack, a terrible act of aggression against a sovereign state–they all use the language of Milosevic’s propaganda. There is “the other Serbia” they say, a better Serbia of the brave people who fought Milosevic all along.

Surely there is another Serbia that will surface once Milosevic is gone. And surely everyone can understand that opposition people are afraid now. One is tempted, however, to ask, Exactly what opposition, what civil society, what “other Serbia” are we talking about? The one that for more than a decade was not able to produce a democratic alternative to Milosevic? The one that never established contacts with Albanians from Kosovo in order to work together for the common future of both nations? If the opposition, political as well as intellectual, ever had anything in common with Milosevic, it was in its attitude toward Kosovo. Kosovo Albanians were a litmus test for the opposition all these years, and they always failed it. Now they are engulfed in self-pity.

An open letter from Vladimir Arsenijevic, a young Serbian writer of some renown, circulating on e-mail, is a striking example of this invisibility of Albanians. In his answer to a friend from Zagreb, who reproached Serbs for their lack of remorse over the situation of the Albanians, he wrote: “On account of lack of pity for the fate of Kosovo Albanians, I know (from my own experience–and I know that I have no bad feelings whatsoever directed toward anybody, least of all Albanians) that it is very hard to care about somebody else’s problems if you are personally experiencing major problems of your own at the same moment. There is no favoritism in this society. Everybody is too busy surviving here to be able to feel any remorse…. Remorse is a privilege of the well-nourished, clean and civilized. And we are all Albanians here. All of us: Serbs, Montenegrins, Hungarians, Slovaks…. Poor, underfed, degraded, oppressed. And I mean ALL of us, even those who have supported Milosevic with all their heart through all these years of terrible hell.”

There is something almost obscene in this sudden “visibility” of Albanians, in the Serbs’ desire to achieve the status of victim through this kind of identification. Albanians remain an abstraction, an empty notion with no real substance, used solely as a means of adding visibility to Serbian suffering, thus denying the Albanian identity once more. I can see this young writer sitting at his computer (there must have been no shortage of power then) in his Belgrade apartment: He sends his e-mail letter, checks the latest war information on the Internet and goes to bed. Meanwhile, his Albanian counterpart, with whose suffering he identifies so much, sits in a tent somewhere in Albania or stands in the mud, waiting to cross the Macedonian border. His house is burned down, his computer–if he ever had one–has been taken by Serbian paramilitaries and he doesn’t know where his family is.

If the young writer considers himself an Albanian, why is he not fleeing to Macedonia or Albania as well? How cynical–or young or innocent or perhaps stupid–do you have to be to say that? It is as grotesque as if the Germans, after World War II, had said, “We were all Jews.” After all, had they not suffered occupation, bombardment, rationing?

The writer means to say that if the Serbs are victims, then how can they possibly have anything to do with the responsibility for this war? Or for the Milosevic regime? War goes deeper than bombardment, and the more we pretend it doesn’t concern us, the more it invades us. War is destructive of the human soul. It corrodes human beings, bringing out things we didn’t know about ourselves. And when he says that remorse is a privilege of civilized people, he puts himself and his nation on the level of people without pity. He is justifying the inhumanity of his people, and that is terrible.

This is what the war is doing to the young writer. But like the woman on the BBC, as well as ordinary people and opposition intellectuals, he is not able to realize that. Precisely this denial, blindness, unconscious racism and cruelty toward other human beings, this lack of remorse (but no lack of self-pity!), is what war is doing to Serbs, and it is much more devastating than NATO bombs. Living with Milosevic’s regime and the war for so long takes its toll. It has changed Serbs in the past ten years, and the rest of the world is witnessing this only now, still puzzled and bewildered by it. It is hard to understand that our acquaintances, our lovers, drinking buddies, philosophers, our once dear friends, are different people. It is even harder to understand that they themselves let that change happen.

`(Slavenka Drakulic, a Croatian-born author, is a Nation contributing editor. Her latest book is A Guided Tour Through the Museum of Communism.)

[writingwithadinosaur]

“Under the Knife” - Part 4

“Under the Knife” - Part 4

My Masterlist - Here

Story Masterlist -

Here

My Tag List - Here

Hannibal Lecter x Reader, Will Graham x Sister!Reader

Word Count: 3,100-ish 

Key: Chunks of text in italics are (Y/N)’s thoughts. Y/N = Your Name, H/C = Your Hair Color, E/C = Your Eye Color

Warnings: Description of Crime Scene/Murder Victims, Murder, Cursing, Blood

Summary: You are Will Graham’s sister who works with him at the FBI. When you get offered a job promotion, life starts to change. Some changes for the better; Some for the worst.

Tag List: @fruitloopzzz @theeactress @melconnor2007 @ashenfallsof @geeksareunique @all-by-myself98 @sj-thefan​ @fuck-your-bad-vibes-dude​ @ntlmundy

Author’s Note: This is my first Hannibal piece and I am proud of it. There aren’t too many stories for Hannibal, so I figured I would add to the collection.

This does take place in some happy medium where they are all alive and work together. Sort of a happier season 1 era.

This is beta-read by @theeactress​, but please let me know if there is something that we missed or that we should look at again! 

If you would like to be tagged in any of my future pieces, check out my tag list above and let me know! And as always, feedback is greatly appreciated!

<3

- DreaSaurusREX

~~~~~~~~~~~~

No matter how many times you looked at crime scene photos or had to visualize how the killers from the Evil Minds Research Museum had done their work, you were not fully ready to be completely immersed in an active crime scene. 

You were inside another upper-class house in Lorton, Virginia. Everything seemed normal on the outside, until you got past the familiar yellow tape. You were escorted in by Jack. As you walked through the front door, Jack motioned to the right. 

“Mindy Pencalt’s sister called local police and said that she was worried about Mindy. They have weekly video calls and Mrs. Pencalt didn’t respond for two days, which apparently was very abnormal. Uni’s came in and saw her on the kitchen floor, then called in for backup.” 

You walked over, putting on gloves as you got closer. You brushed some hair away from Mindi’s neck. You saw the blood down her front, but you really got a good look at the slice that spanned across most of her neck. You spoke out loud as you inspected the victim, mostly to get confirmation from Jack that you were right.

“This was a quick kill. Sliced neck, just like half of the other victims. No other obvious wounds or marks other than a gash on her forehead that seems to have happened right around time of death. Which means she didn’t-or couldn’t put up much of a fight.” You stood up as you began to see the scene in your mind as it happened. You walked slightly behind where Mindi was laying on the ground. “Most likely from the killer coming up and shoving her head into this set of cabinets before taking his weapon and cutting into her neck from behind.” 

After you had acted out bashing an invisible victim into the overhead cabinets and then taking an invisible knife and dragging it across the same invisible victim, you stopped and looked again at the sliver in her neck.

“The cut starts a few inches below Mrs. Pencalt’s right ear, drags through and across her sternohyoid muscle and stops an inch or so to the left. Leaving her to bleed out at a decent pace. The length of the cut and where it starts and ends indicates that the killer is left-handed.”  

You were looking at the cut on her neck when another thought popped into your mind. Without breaking your gaze from her neck, you held out your open hand towards Jack. 

“Swab, please.” There was some shuffling behind you and not even 20 seconds later, you felt the small familiar shape of a long cotton swab. You gently use your gloved hand and the swab to open the wound slightly. You made a confirming noise to yourself and spoke out loud as you reached your hand out for a disposal bag from whoever gave you the swab.

“The slit is at more of an upward angle. Which means that he is taller than Mrs. Pencalt, who is... how tall?” You ask over your shoulder, still not looking away from the corpse in front of you. 

You could hear Jack flip through his notepad for a few seconds before responding with “5’7”. You just nodded, trying to visualize the killer in your mind. As of right now, it was just a shaded outline of a man. Now you had some sort of height to work with though, but you still didn’t have any major identifying markers yet.

“I would estimate our killer is somewhere between 5’10” and 6’ tall. Which makes him almost painfully average.” 

You looked around Mindi’s body once more to see if there was anything else that really stuck out to you. Any sort of signature left behind on any surface, a stray hair or thread from a shirt being snagged. But you found nothing. You mimed the movements the killer would have made to really see the picture and try to get more into his head. Physically being at the crime scene did so much more than just looking at pictures and notes.

“After the trash is taken care of, he moves on to find and set up his mise-en-scène.” 

You turn to go through the only hallway visible, finally looking up. You were expecting to just meet an accepting or objecting Crawford, but instead was greeted not only to an accepting Jack, but also a somewhat surprised Hannibal. He knew you were brilliant, but he had never had the chance to see you really work. 

“Oh! I wasn’t aware that Dr. Lecter was going to be joining us.” You were really thrown off your rhythm for a minute. Jack nodded before turning and heading down the hallway to what you were sure was a dismembered doctor.

“When you are done, meet me down here. First door on the right.” 

You were left with Hannibal in a slightly awkward position. Looking around at the floor, you tried your best to gracefully get away from the victim and closer to where Hannibal stood without messing up the crime scene. He offered a guiding hand to help to which you gladly accepted. Once you had your feet planted, you decided to speak up and try to dispel as much of the weirdness you felt as you could.

“I um-- I would have offered to drive us both if I’d have known you were coming. I thought you said that you only consulted on one part of this case.”

“Originally, yes, it was just the one. But Jack asked me to tag along, as back up. He wants to make sure he made a good choice in recruiting you. And having never had the privilege to see you work like this before, I felt the urge to agree even more so.” 

You could feel like there was something off or something else he wasn’t sharing, so you just raised your eyebrow at him, waiting for him to continue. He took a slightly large inhale before changing to a more cautious tone of voice. 

“I also agreed because Will and I thought it would be safest if I followed this case as well.” 

Your mood went from confused and unsure to upset and slightly betrayed very quickly once Hannibal’s reasoning settled in your brain. You tried your best to stay cool, but you couldn’t help the frustration that slightly morphed your voice. 

“So this is Will’s way of babysitting me, is it? He-- No. Both of you are so sure that something is going to happen that you felt the need to put yourself on this case?” 

“This is just a precaution and to try and help Will feel a bit better about the situation.” 

“I--.” 

Before either of you could continue, Jack’s voice rang from the next room over.

“Lecter! Graham! Get in here! We don’t have all night!” 

You took a deep breath, trying to sort out the clusterfuck of emotions in your head. You opened your eyes and diverted all attention to walking away from Hannibal and ignoring the situation. Before you could take a full step, Hannibal tried to speak. 

“(Y/N)--”

You just paused and held your hand up to stop him.

“I’m sorry but I really do not want to talk to you about any of this right now. I just want to go in there, get some initial findings, and go home.” You couldn’t fully see it, but Hannibal nodded his head in understanding and extended his arm in the direction of the next room. You muttered a small “thank you” before continuing towards where Jack called out for you.

You would deal with all of this later. For now, you needed to be able to look at this scene and try to find anything that could save whoever this creep had in mind next. 

Walking into the room, you saw the various markers and teams working on collecting evidence and taking pictures. Jack was right by the door to greet you into your first macabre serial killer scene.

“Give us the room.” Jack ordered and everyone got to the end of whatever they were doing and filed out, giving you, Jack, and Hannibal the room to yourselves. Now you could get a better visual of just what you were dealing with. 

“Do you want to know what we have so far, or do you want to just do your thing?” Jack watched you as you couldn’t bring yourself to look away from the scene in front of you. All you could do was shake your head ‘no’ as you worked your hands into a fresh pair of gloves, which was enough of an answer for Jack.

“The floor is yours, (Y/N) and Dr. Lecter.”��

With Jack’s previous experience with your brother, he had learned to just let your brain work and then talk later. But Hannibal had never seen this side of you, so he observed with immense curiosity as to what you pick up on and the connections you make. 

“I would rather (Y/N) take over. This is her case. I am just here for support.” Hannibal said somewhat softly, seeing that you were trying to slip into the same mindset as he had witnessed earlier with Mrs. Pencalt.

You tried to just breathe through the resentment you were feeling as you straightened your shoulders and stepped through the doorway of the room, slowly making yourself forget that they were there, focusing on how your killer would have done all of this.

You could assume this was Dr. Pencalt and Mrs. Pencalt shared bedroom from the general layout of the home, or the fact that Dr. Pencalt was laid out in the middle of a king sized bed. 

As you stepped closer and closer, you were able to see those clean cut lines that you’d come to know very well by now. His body looked slightly elongated due to the fact that he, like the previous Scalpel victims, was dissected at every major joint. Each part of him had an inch or so gap between each other. 

Making your way around the bed, you found the door to the attached master bathroom open and the light on, a trail of blood connecting the bed to the bathroom. When you peeked inside, the once pristinely gray floor tiles now had a layer of red over them and thick blood stuck in the grout. You nodded as you committed that room to memory and walked back to the bed.

You carefully tilt Dr. Pelcant’s head to the side to try and find a small hole in where a syringe would have gone, figuring it would be somewhere in his neck. You couldn’t find anything with just your naked eye. 

“We’ll have to see if Beverly or Zeller can find the injection point. If we can see any sort of angle to it, that could help narrow down our killer’s height.”

Jack wrote that down in his notes as you took a step back from the body and scanned the whole room again. Your gut was saying that you just needed to keep looking. Hannibal and Crawford watched you, waiting to see if you had anything else to add. Hannibal saw that you were slightly troubled by something.

“Something wrong, (Y/N)?

"Something about all of this is off."

“What is it?" Jack butt in, a slight shift in his tone making you a little more frustrated at yourself for not seeing it yet.

"I'm not sure. It’s just-- This set up- This doesn't feel like the others. Not entirely."

"Could it be because these are not photographs, like how you're used to seeing?" You know Hannibal didn’t mean to sound condescending in any way, but with your bitter bias towards him right now, it definitely felt it. Still, you didn’t look away from the bed.

"No. I know it's not that."

You couldn’t tell exactly what Jack and Hannibal were discussing behind you but you didn’t really care; Everything had started to muffle as you focused more and more on the display in front of you. 

My eyes and gut keep bringing me here. This is it. Something isn’t right here. But what the hell is it? The body is cut up in the same way as the other doctors. The only slightly weird thing is that the eyes are left open on this vic. Everything is so neat and tidy, why can’t I tell what is wrong?

Then it hit you. That’s what is wrong: Things were neat. More specifically, the bedsheets.

"The sheets." You felt the words slip out of your mouth as your brain was still going, now picking up on how this bedroom looked like a picture from a Better Homes & Gardens magazine, just with a dead body laying in the bed instead of a photogenic couple or dog or something.

“(Y/N), I really don't think their choice in bedding lead to their--"

"Shh! Shut up for a second! Just-- Everyone shut up!" You waved your hand at Crawford to try to quiet him quicker. Jack was about to reprimand you, but Hannibal held up a hand to him, letting him know that you were on to something. You did a full circle around the room before landing back on the sheets. 

“The sheets are flat.” You said aloud, moreso to yourself than to the other two off to the side. You then looked directly at Jack, not giving Hannibal any attention, knowing that would bring your personal life back up and derail the potentially good track you were on.

“There are only two victims in this household, correct?” You spoke while following the blood drip stains from the edges of the bed to the pool on the floor to the trail that led to the bathroom.

“Yes.” Crawford responded, slightly judgmental.

“And we’re sure about that?”

“Positive. I looked in every room in this house myself before you two got here.” You just nodded, your eyes finding their way to the bathroom and the seemingly odd pool of blood in there.

“Were there any weapons found in the bathroom?” Both men were a bit confused at the sudden change of topic, but continued anyway.

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“How well did the crime scene interns look though?”

“What exactly are you insinuating, (Y/N)?” You could tell that Jack wasn’t a fan of you talking like that, but you had your reasons. 

“Either we have a mysterious third victim that was killed in the bathroom and then vanished, or this is one of those cases where the evidence collecting teams didn’t search thoroughly enough and missed out on a piece of evidence.” Jack waved his hand, motioning for you to keep talking. 

“Taking into account that there is only one trail of blood that leads between these two pools of blood, there are in fact only two victims in this house. So what I am insinuating is that your collection team missed something.” You turned back to the corpse in the bed and went on to explain yourself further, physically taking the steps that the vic would have taken in this likely scenario. 

“Dr. Pencalt was relaxing in bed when he heard commotion in the kitchen. Instead of jumping out of bed and going to check it out with no weapon, he rushed to his bathroom to search for something to defend himself with.” 

You quickly scanned over the bathroom, your eyes finally landing on exactly what you were looking for: the toilet. You gently hopped over the blood that had stuck to the tiles and got to the toilet. You lifted up the lid to the tank and reached in. You turned back to the men as you got the new piece of evidence out safely.

“One of the most common places that civilians hide their guns or valuables are in airtight baggies, in the tanks of their toilets.”

Jack gave you a slightly annoyed look before calling for an evidence bag and handing it to you. You sealed up the gun and hopped back to the main bedroom, Hannibal making sure to help steady you as you landed. Once you were on solid ground again, he respectfully backed away. You gave the gun to Jack, turned around to face the bathroom, and continued your assessment.

“So, like I said, he goes to his bathroom to try to get his gun to defend himself against whatever he thinks is in his kitchen other than his wife. He gets into the bathroom but then is stopped before he can make it to the toilet or his gun. Here, he is injected with whatever insanely fast paralytic drug our killer decided to use tonight, and falls to the ground, where the killer decides to chop him up.” You walked parallel to the trail of blood leading back to the bed. “And then place him here.”

You could feel yourself slowly losing your grip on your mind due to exhaustion. You took your gloves off and ran your hands over your face. 

“I need to get some air. I did all I can here. I need to write some stuff out and then I can get back at this tomorrow when I have some more forensic evidence to work off of.” You were about to leave the room when Jack called out.

“No.” You stopped and faced him to see if he was serious. His face was stone. “Write out what you need to. Then I want you and you, Dr. Lecter, to report back to my office in an hour. I need a list of suspects, a good motive, or something out of this case, tonight.”

You knew you couldn’t do or say anything to change Jack’s mind without possibly getting yourself taken off the case. So you just took a deep breath and nodded, making your way out of the bedroom. Hannibal just nodded his head as well and followed you out.

You heard the soft but quick steps of Hannibal’s nice shoes catch up to you as you reached your car. You didn’t want to talk to him, not sure of what you would even say now that you felt almost completely drained. 

“Hannibal, I really don't--”

“I know.” 

You were slightly taken aback at his interruption. He leaned slightly towards you and opened your car door. You then realized that he only wanted to make sure you got to your car safe, as he always did when he was with you. You felt slightly guilty, but tried to not think about it too much as he waited until you had your seat belt on to shut the door. Letting you drive off; Leaving you alone in your car to try to prepare for this undoubtedly intense brainstorming in an hour.

[fidespeaks]

Laying The Groundwork For How Privilege Works

Okay, so before I get into any other topics on this blog I want to talk about privilege.  I feel like it’s something we’re all simultaneously very aware of but a lot of us fall into this trap of very quickly forgetting about how it works.  Or, alternatively, it’s something we know exists because we frequently use the term for it but we forget the nuances of multiple layers of privilege when it comes to talking to people in marginalized groups that aren’t our own.  So, that’s kind of what I want to discuss with this post before anything else: multiple layers of privilege, how they stack, and how we should stay conscious of them while being allies to other marginalized groups.  

A lot of what I want to talk about today is pulled directly from and reflection upon the book: Me & White Supremacy by Layla Saad.  If you haven’t read the book before, it’s similar to a guided journal that’s meant to be completed over the course of a month and if you’re serious about your allyship and supporting BIPOC & BLM, I highly suggest you read it.  But be sure you’re in a decent state of mind - some of the things you may uncover while doing the work can be pretty heavy, especially in my experience. 

Now I know a fair number of people are probably thinking: "but Fides, I’m (multiracial, biracial, a good ally, def not a racist, have experienced discrimination, am a person of color, ect).  Why do I need to read this book?”  to which my response would be to point you towards one of the very first sections of the book, titled “Who is this work for?”  which actually inspired the entire post that I’d like to write today.  Layla begins that section by clarifying:  

This work is for any person who holds white privilege. By any person, I mean persons of any gender identity, including gender-nonconforming persons, and by who holds white privilege, I mean persons who are visually identifiable as white or who pass for white. Therefore, this includes persons who are biracial, multiracial, or white passing People of Color who benefit under systems of white supremacy from having lighter skin color than visibly Brown, Black, or Indigenous people. 

And that seems pretty simile, right?  Not all people experience privilege or discrimination to the same degree and sometimes the ways that we do experience discrimination are vastly different from one another.  I’m completely aware that this seems like... honestly really obvious stuff, but I remember first reading this and the first week of work titled “Me and White Privilege” in which Layla discusses that lacking one kind of privilege does not mean you don’t still have white privilege and thinking... wow.  I’ve definitely tired to pull this “oppression olympics” shit before.  Sometimes I didn’t even do it on purpose.  Sometimes I was just trying to explain that I understand and I can relate.  But that brought the conversation back to me, and that’s exactly the problem. 

In the chapter “Me and White Privilege”, Layla specifically goes out of her way to point out that white privilege specifically is separate from, but can sometimes intersect with, other kinds of privilege (class, gender, sexuality, age, able-bodied, and so on).  She then goes on to make a slew of examples, stating that just because a person lacks a certain kind of privilege, doesn’t mean they don’t still (in the case of her topic) have white privilege.  She also clarifies that it works in reverse and finishes her thought with off with: 

“...and having white privilege with other privileged identities adds to the amount of overall privilege that you hold.”

it’s this thought that brings me to my idea of the day: in my own personal experience, people on tumblr tend to forget that just because you are in possession of one form of privilege it does not mean you suddenly don’t still benefit from holding another. Layla uses white privilege as an example, but it goes in any direction.  If you’re straight and BIPOC, you still have straight privilege.  If you’re white, gay, and neurodivergent, you still have white privilege.  And I’d like to even take it a step farther, to incorporate a concept I’ll be discussing later: your experience does not define the experience of a person who is lacking a type of privilege. 

What I mean to say is: someone who is eastern asian is going to face an entirely different, albeit similar, kind of discrimination vs someone who is latinx or black.  If you’re of color, or if you’re gay, or if you’re transmasculine, you don’t get to speak for or over other people who have similar but different circumstances to your own.  Every voice matters and each voice ought to be given a chance to speak and add it’s opinion.  The experiences of someone who’s nonbinary are going to be completely different from the experiences of someone who’s binary trans.  Hell, even the experiences between lesbians and gay men are incredibly different:  minorities aren’t a monolith and treating them as such silences other voices.  You cannot decide just because you belong to a group that you get to speak for them. 

But that’s a different topic that I want to tackle in multiple different forms, because it goes in a lot of different ways.  What I mostly mean to do today is to clarify that when someone else who has lacks a privilege you have speaks to you - listen.  And I know it’s really fucking hard not to be like “oh yeah, I've been there dude, I’ve had xyz happen to me before so I get it” because it’s a way of empathizing, especially for neurodivergent people.  But you have to listen and you have to make sure that you’re not overfocusing the conversation back onto you.  A simple “I understand” is enough and if you don’t, as for clarification.  And if they don’t feel up to giving it, try to research yourself or ask if you can ask another time. 

Most importantly to all of this however is this: we have got to stop hiding behind our own lack of privilege as a way of excusing our shitty behavior.  If someone calls you out (or in, which I highly encourage over calling out because... people on tumblr don’t fucking know how to call people out in a productive fashion but I’ll get there trust me) you CANNOT say as a defense: oh, you can’t talk to me like that I’m neurodivergent.  Or if someone calls you out for being transphobic you can’t say “oh you can’t talk to me like that, I’m POC”.  Hell, if someone calls you out for being a fucking asshole, you don’t get to flip it around and be like “naw, you can’t say that, because I’m this that and another thing”.  You can clarify, especially if there’s a cultural difference or you’re neurodivergent, but you don’t get to hide behind shit. 

And you especially do not get to turn around and tell someone who’s calling you out for abusive behavior that they’re (racist, transphobic, homophobic, etc). They aren’t calling you out because of your identity, they’re calling you out because you’re a manipulative brat.  That doesn’t have to DO with those things.  Lack of privilege does not give you an excuse to be abusive.  End of conversation.  But... I suppose to end this conversation today, I’ll say this: CONFLICT IS NOT ABUSE, which is actually another book that I want to read and incorporate into these essays.  So I’m trying not to put the cart before the horse. 

Anyway, hopefully that clarifies at least a little bit the trend I’ve noticed of people forgetting that lacking one kind of privilege doesn’t magically mean they don’t have another.   The fact that you’re trans doesn’t exclude you from being racist,  your race doesn’t exclude you from being homophobic, and none of those things give you a right to be a jerk.  But they all do make it a little bit easier to understand when someone else comes to us with their own story of oppressions. 

Thanks for reading <3