#she's like yes.....none of us are ideologically pure

[cha1nbreak]

@standbetween

"thom rainier," her voice is clear and bright as she peers at him from where calpernia has perched atop a rocky outcropping, "where are your compatriots?" the venatori are scattered across this expanse of sand and dust and calpernia need only raise her voice with a request upon her lips and more could be here at her side. sound does carry wonderfully across these barren expanses. "they must be nearby, or have you ventured out from your new stronghold all on your lonesome?" her weight leans against her stave, the end of it planted across the rock, and she smiles down at him. "that was very well done, even i must admit."

[chuuya-fan-page]

Off-Brand Tiktok Chuugly worse than the original! (NOT CLICKBAIT!!!! GONE WRONG!!!!!)

I dunno how BSD fan's takes could get even more braindead, uhhhh, but they did? Which is, really cool. A has already discussed this individuals posts before, but this one is just...

Hot take, neither ship will be canon because BSD is not a romance centric series!!!!!!!

Well this is just blatantly wrong.

"Dazai was never intimate with Chuuya!"

...Sure thing!

Ignore that a big part of soukoku's bond is that despite Dazai's aversion to physical contact and his alienation from the world around him he allows Chuuya to touch him. Whatever you want.

"He only saw Chuuya as a monster finding his past, that's why he hated him!"

No. Dazai and Chuuya's conflict in Fifteen arises from their opposing ideologies. Dazai plans ahead, Chuuya is brash and jumps into things, which irritates Dazai, this is something he dislikes as well in Akutagawa. On the other hand, Chuuya has fought his whole life, whereas Dazai seems ready to give up, which is confronting to Chuuya and his mindset. This is where that "hatred" comes from.

Also the idea that Dazai saw Chuuya as monstrous is canonically incorrect. I don't even have to do any digging, Dazai says it outright (ty for not being difficult for once)

Dazai never doubted Chuuya's humanity. He never doubted it because he saw how complex a person Chuuya was and never thought he could be anything other than human.

The way Dazai acted with Sigma was partly because he wanted to help him, yes, but also because he was using him. Hello???? Also Dazai was hardly intimate with Sigma, he drags him down at one point, and whether you're going on the anime or the manga, grabs his face to stop him from literally DYING.

Some of y'all, istg.

Partly true!

Dazai sees Sigma as human!

Please refer to my last piece of evidence on the topic of Chuuya.

Dazai had already nullified corruption when he cupped Chuuya cheek. That was just a moment of pure intimacy and trust between them!

None of this changes the fact that Dazai, a man who has a metaphorical wall around his emotions and his body, allowed Chuuya to sleep on his lap. He could have moved him, it wasn't risky at all, he didn't need to hold Chuuya still on his lap like that, minimal contact was enough, but Dazai allowed more.

Buddy, if he wanted to kill him. He had plenty of chances, they were partners for a long time and Chuuya's literally been passed on his lap before, he could have killed him then, when he was vulernable and out. Then there's corruption that if Dazai doesn't get to him in time to nullify it, he literally dies. If Dazai really wanted to kill him, he could have. Their so-called murder attempts are not serious and they don't do it genuinely trying to harm e/o. The last one is just what?? Like I said before, if he wanted to kill e/o he could have just not got to him in time after using corruption. Corruption is always last resort, double black doesn't always use it. The memorizing breathing patterns s because they were partners and spent a lot of time together and know e/o better than anyone else.

Dazai has had ample opportunity to kill Chuuya, he's been around him at his weakest and lowest points. There is no reason why Chuuya would still be alive if Dazai truly wanted him dead.

bro what.

Corruption is a last-ditch effort that has only ever been used sparingly and against enemies that couldn't otherwise be defeated. Guivre, for example, was a singularity beast out of control. Lovecraft was literally CTHULU. Steinbeck himself said there was no hurting Lovecraft from the outside, and that lil bomb Dazai hid in his cast was not doing it for them.

Again.

If Dazai wanted Chuuya dead. He. Would. Be. Dead.

I straight up don't know what this point is supposed to mean. Dazai shows disgust for Fyodor's beliefs at some point? Like is that what she's referring to??? I dunno, lack of evidence, overruled.

That's...not...

I have no words for this oml.

Like dude, acting has to come from some genuine feelings um.

"Chuuya dehumanized him multiple times" I'm genuinely sick of people taking that dhc scene as dehumanization. Dazai was being ignorant and being disrespectful to the dead, who for context, was a guy who helped Chuuya out with the verlaine situation in sb. He said "oh wouldn't this be good since an executive poistion is open now?" like who wouldn't be pissed by that? So he punches him, because Chuuya's lived a life of survival, so that punch was probably instinct. The words he says after to Dazai was not dehumanization! "I'm human too" "No one would believe that"

People take this as dehumanization, but he practically saying "no one would believe you are human when you are belitting human life like this, so start acting like the human being you are" basically it was a way of saying of dazai's inhumane behavior was shitty and was basically a wake up call for him. He's seen Dazai act humane before, stormbringer was a prime example of that when Dazai gave him a choice, so he knows dazai is capable of acting humane. It's notably even said when Dazai gives Chuuya a few minutes to think about it: "It was an expression dazai never makes."

And um, blind trust is not always good. Sigma and Dazai are in a life or death situation, so he kinda has to trust and put faith in Dazai even though he is incredibly wary of him due to his experiences with fyodor. But Chuuya and Dazai have known e/o for a long time, so logically they will have more trust than sigma and Dazai.

-T and A

[neechees]

Looking back on Twilight criticism is so funny because mainstream crit (that I saw anyway) was all focused on "Ew girls like it" when literally the ENTIRE BOOK NEEDS CRITICISM IT STARTS WITH A CREEPY DUDE WATCHING A GIRL WHILE SHE SLEEPS AND WHEN SOMEONE ASKS "How much racism will Smeyer add?" SHE ANSWERED "Yes."

Exactlyyy. White ppl will like hide behind any type of marginalization they face (like misogyny, homophobia, etc) when they wanna dodge either being accused of racism, or things they like that are racist & being critisizes for that racism, even when said marginalization has nothing to do with it.

Twilight itself is an extremely misogynistic book, where it places White women as the ultimate standard of femininity, particular thin rich White women who are stay at home moms, home makers, etc, and places all other women as not as good or "pure" as them. Bella at 17 literally looks after her dad and cooks and cleans for him. Leah is demonized as a Native woman for literally no reason & gets used as a punching bag throughout the film & books. Abortion is seen as "murder", even when the fetus is slowly killing the mother & clawing its way out of her. There's more obvi but those are just a few examples.

But even if you ignore the racism or misogyny (which you shouldn't) it also romantisizes abuse, what with Edward fitting ALL "signs that your partner is abusive" ticks.

If you ignore the romantisization of abuse, it's also classist: the Cullens are upheld as this angelic set if vampires who are literally billionaires, and could go any fucking place in the world, but they decide to go to the one place they agreed not to go near (due to a treaty with the Quileute Forks) & where they were literally already colonizers who disrupted & harmed the Native population & where they're a threat to the Quileute & they go there for no reason. Edward replaces Bella's old car that her dad & Jacob had fixed up for her (which she had already stated to adore, one reason being that she has an interest in old things) with a sports car, purely to one up Jacob. They all drive various sports cars & Alice routinely wears & throws out clothes. They're held up to this romantisized standard against Bella & the Quileute tribe's middle to lower class status, & this is meant to be another point of why Edward is supposedly better than Jacob (because he is rich).

If you ignore the classism, racism, & misogyny then there's also the weird Mormon ideology literally baked into the entire series, & it can be considered essentially Mormon propaganda. The Native characters are demonized, obviously (considering Mormons literally think Native people are evil). None of the vampires have tattoos but all the werewolves do, & according to the lore, any and all tattoos get removed after becoming a vampire (which is what Mormons believe happens to tattoos in their afterlife). In the books, any poc who become vampires become pale regardless of their skin color in life, & again, this is what Mormons believe happens to poc who become Mormons & enter the afterlife. The whole "no sex before marriage" thing & the abortion thing. Bella & a lot of the other non-demonized female characters dress pretty conservatively, & Edward finds a full length skirt sexy & "indecent". The (white) vampires are repeatedly compared to "angels" & called beautiful & perfect. Other non Christian, non-Mormon religions (& the people that belong to/practice them) in the series are routinely demonized & mocked. Vampirism, but namely for the White characters, is literally an allegory for White Mormons in heaven.

If you ignore all the above and a bunch of other bigoted & weird shit in the series that I haven't yet mentioned, then it's genuinely just very dumb & badly written with stupid logic. Bella thinks it's weird how the Cullens all have really old names when HER name is literally "Isabella Swan". The Cullens literally hate the Quileute & "werewolves" for no fucking reason since they literally trespassed on Quileute land as colonizers in the 1800s, & it's already been established that the shapeshifters aren't even actually real werewolves in the lore so therefore they have no inherent quarrel with them based on the vampire vs werewolves thing, so they just hate them for no reason. The vampires keep going to high school & learning the same shit over and over again when they could be going to COLLEGE or idk doing something productive. Jasper apparently has to teach the Natives how to fight so obviously Smeyer has never seen a rez fight. Jasper is considered a "newborn" even though he was literally turned in the 1860s. Bella gave her kid the dumbest name ever. Ppl have been memeing & making fun of this series since it came out, & I feel like it's hypocritical for twilight fans to both say "ppl only hated it because girls liked it but its actually really good!" While also saying they find it hilarious even the actors made fun of it & hated making it because of its many faults (like so you agree? People made fun of it even back then?) And while also saying they "enjoy it critically" meaning. They admit there's something wrong with it, but still get mad when ppl critisize it.

[on-stained-glass-wings]

☕️ + Marika

TW: Implied incest; implied marital rape; discussions of child abuse and neglect; discussions of eugenics and genocide.

Malenia chuckled huskily and rested her head against the back of her 'throne' in the roots of the Haligtree, staring with sightless, scarred eyes up at the sky. The red and golden orange of the coastal sunset bathed her face and caught the thick red hair spilling over her shoulders in a flame-like sheen. Miquella, curled up in his blanket nest in the hollow of the roots, slept blissfully on.

" Miquella is far more magnanimous when it comes to Mother than I," Malenia whispered harshly, turning her face towards her brother's nest. " We have discussed our family many a time, and when it comes to Queen Marika the Eternal, Miquella simply feels...sad. He neither likes her nor respects her actions and ideals--and how could he, once he learned of the atrocities and genocides she has committed in the name of the Greater Will. Yet he recognizes that she herself is trapped and mostly powerless in the face of her patron god; indeed, the Elden Ring is as much a shackle around her throat as it is the manifestation of Regression and Causality. The way Miquella looks upon Mother is the way one would look upon a starving, rabid dog in the rain: dangerous, yet so terribly pitiful. He considers the inevitability of stripping her of her Grace as a mercy."

Malenia turned her face back towards the canopy, humming in satisfaction at the faint warmth playing on her pockmarked skin.

" Miquella, as always, is the better of us...for he finds it in his pure, good heart to love her still, whereas my own love has long since wilted, choked in the thick overgrowth of my anger and...hate. Yes, I freely admit that I hate Mother with every inch of my rot-burned body, and every scrap of my weary will. It is a hate that is both personal and ideological. Idealogically, I hate her for the genocides she committed against the giants, the omen, the Nox, and the nomadic tribes. I hate how she has isolated the Lands Between from the rest of the world, converting visitors to our lands but sending none in turn, for who could possibly want more than the stagnant golden grace of the Erdtree? I hate her for cowing to the Greater Will and throwing her own children into the sewers to pitifully waste away. I hate her banishing Lord Godfrey and the entirety of his people from the Lands Between, all in the name of some grand task, some eternal grasping at more and more power and more and more strength. I hate how she has wielded fundamentalism as a spiked flail, forcing the demi-humans into either exile or slavery, and turning a blind eye to the slaughter and persecution of the albinaurics. Even if I was not her daughter, I would hate her for this alone."

Malenia's left hand clenched into a trembling fist in her lap, and she moved from leaning over the back of the chair to slumping forward, picking up her prosthetic arm from the ground with palpable weariness.

" Yet as her daughter, I hate her more." Malenia spat bitterly, resting the prosthesis on her lap and running the fingers of her left hand along the worn, grooved joints, crude gold patches, and hastily hammered dents. The act seemed to calm her somewhat, although her shoulders were still taught with tension. " I hate that she forced Father away from the woman he loved and into her bed without his consent. I hate that she broke both Father and dear Rennala--who will forever be a better woman, queen, and mother than Marika could ever hope to be--all in the name of an Empyrean heir of her own; for she could not let the Carian family line have control of the Elden Throne, now could she?" She chuckled bitterly and let her head hang low between her shoulders. " Is it any wonder that Miquella and I are cursed, having been born from such better designs, such selfish whims, and such...such violation? We would be cursed even if Mother and Father were not..."

Malenia trailed off, unable to admit her family's greatest secret and greatest shame, even to the most well-intentioned stranger. Finlay and Ranni had been the only two beings the twins had ever told, and they intended to keep it that way for the foreseeable future.

Even without saying it, though, the revulsion and bitterness of such a lie...such a blasphemy...such a crime against nature in and of itself...it made her want to vomit.

" I hate her for her hiding me away when I was suffering with rot." Malenia said after a moment of heavy silence. " For believing my pain would lead me to greater strength and power--and then, when I remained rotted and sad and not stronger through adversity, she grew disdainful. 'Should ye fail to be nothing at all, ye shall be forsaken.' That is always what she said to me when I was being too troublesome--too unruly--and I knew in my heart that it was a threat. She had thrown her newborns into a sewer simply because they were born 'cursed'; why would she hesitate with a miserable, unruly daughter disfigured by rot? Even after I grew my skill with the sword, she was cold, distant. I was simply a replacement champion for her--someone to wage her wars and fight her battles as her proxy when Father was too heavy with melancholy to move. Even being chosen as an Empyrean did not satisfy her...although she certainly was cross when I renounced my Two Fingers mere days later."

The memory of her mother's sour-lemon face brought a rueful smile to Malenia's lips. She shook her head and began to flex the finger joints of her prosthetic arm, checking to see if any needed oiling or smoothing.

" Yet even if she was naught but the sweetest, kindest, most devoted mother to me...even if she had not forced Father to lie with her to conceive my brother and I...I would still hate her, for I consider what she did to Miquella innumerably worse than what she did to me. She used his intelligence, his ideas, his brilliant creativity for her own aims, trotted him around like a show pony during political affairs and royal events, only to regard him with naught but cold eyes and stony silence when in private. She considered Miquella to be an eternally innocent, pure, meek little boy; and yet when it came to caring for that boy? The moment he stopped growing was the moment she stopped acting as his mother. He was as old as I was, she said, so he did not need any 'coddling'...and Miquella, so desperate he was for Mother's love, agreed, and tried so valiantly to make himself into an adult he could never be. Yet he was not an adult--still is not an adult--and he still so desperately needed his mother's love and touch. She knew this, but she could not be bothered with him, so it was up to I--his sister--to act as mother in her stead." Malenia wearily rubbed her eyes with her left hand.

" I do not regret it. I have never once resented Miquella for staying young while I have grown older--for needing more from me than as a twin and a friend. 'tis not his fault, and we are so precious and dear to each other...it does not matter to me that I am younger twin, bosom friend, co-ruler, bodyguard, blade, and mother all at once. I cherish this unique, bewildering, yet beautiful relationship we share, and I would gladly strike this balance until the end of our days if need be. All I have ever felt about Miquella's stagnation is guilt--guilt that I, the younger twin, was forced to leave him behind."

Her lips curled into an almost feral snarl.

" Yet Queen Marika the Eternal, who abandoned her child when he needed her the most...I shall hate her until the stars fall and the sun melts into itself. I shall hate her until there is nothing left of me to feel such hate. And if it turns out the reason behind her disappearance is her death...even if it means that Father is also..."

Malenia swallowed, and when she spoke again, her voice was choked and cracking.

" ...if she has died...then I hope she died in a manner that she deserved: alone; abandoned; slowly; and howling in indolent rage at the Greater Will--the one being in the universe even colder than she."

[nekropsii]

I personally think your analyses of the Alpha Trolls hold a lot of value, because I've genuinely seen people call the characters purely just joke characters that were added an afterthought.

And like... I get that in the sense that the majority of them are parodies in some way, and that they don't hold importance to the main story, but I feel like people forget that that doesn't remove them from being characters. The Beta Trolls were also parodies at first, they just got more screen time and hold more importance to the progression of the main story. We've seen before that their over-the-top personalities are often the result of something smaller and more nuanced, so why couldn't that be the case here?

There's quite a lot of space for analysis of the characters for a set of characters we only knew for a couple minutes, and the narrator giving us the bulk of the lore isn't guaranteed to be a 100% reliable narrator (because while Aranea is a light player, there are things she doesn't know).

I don't know entirely where I'm going with this. I think I'm just really glad to see someone willing to take the characters seriously and discuss them in a way that's nuanced and isn't like.... apologism.

Woah!!!! Firstly, thank you for the kind words!! It means a lot, really!!!!

Let’s tackle this thang now, shall we?

Content Warning: None Apply! It’s Just Very Long.

My point was less that my discussion of the Alphas do not have much value, and more that they hold equal levels of necessity, worth, and value as discussion of main/more popular characters. Don’t worry- my “equal value” ideology regarding analyses is not self deprecation. It’s based on my own frustration that discussion of minor characters is generally discarded and regarded as being lesser than discussion of popular ones.

It essentially boils down to, “If people are going to put discussion of X, Y, or Z Popular Character on a pedestal, we should do the same for less popular ones.” Perhaps it’s easier to see if I shift the focus here: I do not think discussions of Dave, Dirk, and/or Karkat’s meta inherently has any more value than discussion of less popular characters. I do not think the analyses of those three have any more intrinsic worth than discussion of Damara, The Felt, and/or The Sprites’s meta. Does that make any sense?

I’ve seen others cast the Alpha Trolls aside completely as meaningless joke characters added just for funsies as well. It’s fucking stupid. You’re not required to like them, but they’re literally in the exact same boat as the Beta Trolls are in. Yes, as you said, they started as jokes, but they are valuable characters. If you’re going to acknowledge Karkat as a valuable character, but then dismiss Mituna as being worthless because he is “a joke character,” boy, do I sure have news for you about Karkat!

We have literally seen what happens when you give an Alpha Troll the room to shine. Twice! With Meenah and Aranea! Meenah especially!!!! Meenah was able to be acknowledged as a valuable character despite the fact that she started as a joke character purely because of screen time. That’s it! That’s the only variable you need in the equation. Screen time. Just because a select few amount of people- me included- are willing to ignore the lack of screen time, does not mean our content is worth less than content of characters that do have plenty of screen time.

Karkat’s anger at everyone and everything is a self defense mechanism. Dave’s coolguy persona is a mask built by a Prince of Heart. Dirk’s nerdy, stilted overformality, emotional constipation, and standoffishness is a result of isolation. These are all true. Why can’t the more out-there traits of the Alphas be treated with this sense of nuance? Because, to be perfectly clear, all of them have reasons that they are like that. All of them!

Latula’s coolgirl persona is a mask built over her crippling anxiety and feelings of inadequacy. Damara’s batshit crazy anger isn’t unfounded- a handful of the other Alphas literally ruined her life and ability to trust. Rufioh’s awkwardness and lack of a backbone is caused by a severe lack of self confidence. Mituna’s extreme emotional displays are because he lacks impulse control and the ability to regulate his thoughts and feelings.

That’s just a few of them! If you take the time to actually comb through the dialogue with them, they do have deeper characters to them! It’s just up to the reader to do something with it, because the story lacked the time to give the Alphas true breathing room. But instead, people just seemed to speedrun the whole thing and then complain that they didn’t get anything good out of it. They complain that their characters lacked depth and are purely jokes when they didn’t give the characters room to stew in their own mind. It’s like putting the teabag in for 30 seconds and complaining that there’s no flavor. It’s like getting the Silent Hill 2 joke ending and complaining like that’s the real one. Use some brain cells.

I like your point here that Aranea isn’t a 100% guaranteed Reliable Narrator. This is true! It’s something I don’t see utilized as much as it should. Hell, I’d even argue there’s a large chance that she does know a lot more and is keeping that to herself in order to tell a better story. She is a Serket, after all, and those are notorious for loving a good bit of storytelling. Unfortunately, a part of storytelling is what I like to call trademark Complete Lies. Stuff like that is where Speculation comes into play. Hell, this whole paragraph was speculation, sans Serket Storytelling.

To cap this all off, I very much so appreciate your views of my work and their status of nuance!! I’m also very tired of apologism and lack of depth in discussion! That’s actually a big reason why I made this blog and started posting essays onto it! I’m very pleased with the reception thus far- I honestly wasn’t expecting much out of it, but here we are!!!! Thank you very much!!!!

[nothing-more-than-hot-leaf-juice]

do you think that mai's betrayal can be considered her being redeemed?

Okay so initially I wanted to say yes but honestly, I don’t think so. Mai’s betrayal was the culmination of her character arc, but I woudn’t call it a “redemption” arc per say. 

Mai’s an interesting character because she doesn’t really care about the ‘glory of the Fire Nation’ and doesn’t fight for an ideology, she really just does it because she feels like it. She does things because she’s bored. When Azula prompts her to join her she says “count me in, anything to get me out of this place.” She sees Aang in Omashu and immediately attacks him because she’s bored? Did she really care that her family was part of overthrowing a major Earth Kingdom safe haven or that Azula was set on overthrowing a city full of refugees? Not really. Her struggle is interpersonal.  

And what I consider to be the most important aspect of any redemption arc is remorse. That’s why Jet’s redemption arc worked. That’s especially why Zuko’s redemption arc worked. That’s why Iroh’s redemption arc worked. They recognized the pain they caused others, recognized that they were wrong, and took concerted efforts to address those who they’d hurt. I wrote about Zuko’s redemption arc here and here and Jet’s here. Mai didn’t really show remorse for the fallout of her actions or how her helping Azula affected innocent people. She changed because of her interpersonal relationships, not because of a realization that she was wrong or that her actions had an effect on others. 

She betrayed Azula because she wanted to choose love over fear and that’s what her arc was truly about. Her building up the courage to break free of the mentality she was constrained under after years of emotional abuse by her parents, by Azula, and by the society she lived in. I’ve talked a bit about Mai’s arc here and I’m not going to repeat it here, mostly because there have been other posts that have explained it a lot better, but to put it simply, Mai’s character arc wasn’t about her becoming a better person, it was about building up the courage to open her heart to the people who had earned it. 

The thing about Mai is that she switched sides for personal reasons rather than because she recognized that Azula and the Fire Nation were wrong and that she was wrong. Mai wasn’t innocent in the war. She didn’t show any kind of remorse in hunting Aang or helping Azula take Ba Sing Se. She didn’t consider how those actions would have a real impact on the Earth Kingdom. That’s not saying she was in any way a bad person, but it doesn’t mean she didn’t evaluate her actions or her society. 

And that’s ....okay? That makes her an interesting character. If every character was either ideologically pure or reprehensible that wouldn’t make for an interesting show at all. The shades of grey are what make these characters good and complex. The characters with good intentions that unwillingly hurt others like Jet or the Mechanist; the characters that prioritize themselves over the world like Mai and Toph; the characters that are corrupted by an evil system and uphold the system as they were taught too like Ty Lee or several characters in the Earth Kingdom --- all make the show richer and better. We shouldn’t expec them all to be pure or always have the right motivations or make the best decisions. Some of them will be selfish and some of them will hurt others. Scratch that-- they’re all going to make the wrong decision at some point. None of these characters are completely pure and that makes them better characters. 

It’s okay for us to evaluate their actions while recognizing that it doesn’t mean they’re bad people. It’s like the quote “People aren't either wicked or noble. They're like chef's salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.” 

Characters like Mai, Toph, Zuko, Iroh, Jet, Ty Lee, ....I could go on, but the point is that this show not having clear black and white characters and having different motivations, different perspectives, and different moral codes make them interesting and make this show spectacular. 

[nissakii]

Significance of “Madness” in anime

We’ve already established in other posts about significant emotions and concepts in anime or specific media before. The Significance of losing or the one of visuals and metaphors in Haikyuu!! are some of those I would love to mention here, but today we shall delve into a broader topic that goes more along the lines of Makii’s thrilling post about Danganronpa and the Significance of Despair.

Today, our topic of interest is madness.

To ease your mind, in this post we will be talking about the representation of insanity and madness in some anime characters and how that reflects on the story and ourselves as an audience.To make one thing clear, a lot of the times we see overexaggerated versions of unstable characteristics in anime that aren’t realistic.

This is in no way a discussion about actual mental illnesses and not a professional approach to analysing them to our real life standards, but maybe a start to an interesting discussion about how we portray and handle what one may colloquially call “craziness”.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s start!

Artists, and no matter for example if they write or draw, use their platforms to deliver messages in cryptic ways. As humans, we have the innate ability to look at something and consume the facts through entertainment which makes us crave new media to follow and analyse.

We love to question things instead of just taking them as they are, and that is why most writers out there will play around with the perception of their audience.

You may be familiar with the common question that ghosts through your head as you enjoy the latest episode of your favorite anime.

Why did he do that? Is she a traitor? What makes them think that way?

Although one might always do it consciously, we most definitely analyse whatever media we consume and decide for ourselves if it is important enough to keep in mind for future reference.

What the writer or founder of the anime ultimately wants from the reader is a reaction.

No matter what they intend to do with it, if they enjoy the viewer getting excited or traumatised is not of importance, but a reaction is evidently one of the goals. 

And as strong emotions always evoke an even stronger reaction, anime characters are often very idealized and have ideologies that make them want to do one particular thing.

Be it save the world or destroy it, we focus and look at these characters and root for them if they give us a reason to do so. 

Both sides of good and bad can have deeply rooted admiration drawn out of us, and it sometimes doesn’t even matter because the more interesting part is the lovely grey area in between. 

We need a balance of good and bad to enjoy both.

Empathy makes us viewers want to relate to the characters, and if the author gives us the possibility to learn why someone does something, it gets harder and harder to dislike them. That’s why tragic backstories and flashbacks are such an overused tool in anime, because with the extreme behaviour some characters show they also need equal amounts of redemption.

We attach ourselves emotionally to characters depending on our personal tastes as well.

If someone likes and relates to a strong and independent protagonist who would drop anything for the sake of justice, you will find a lot of resembling characters in shounen for example.

On the other hand, if a darker or more obsessive character manages to take over a special place in a viewer’s heart, putting them on a pedestal gets more and more interesting, because you’re not supposed to.

Contrary to that, characters with insane or dark personality traits are often very popular, again tracing this back to human instinct of emphasising with wronged characters and curiously inspecting the fully deranged ones.

As this isn't something that should be put into vague concepts, we’re instead going to look at examples of characters and entities that are seen as ‘mad’ and how they’re interpreted.

It’s not just about villains being unreasonably immoral in this post, as we look into what madness entails and how it's shown, we also have some examples of corruption to look at.

So of course there are the typical evil-thinking evil-doing villains out there. 

Some of them have an actual backstory to make them more realistic and believable, some others are just pure evil. While they are often called mad for their actions to achieve their goal, the reason why they are put into that light is the stark contrast between the protagonist and the villain.

If the protagonist loves to save people and always has a smile on his face, of course he will differ from his counterpart when he finds out that his methods are a bit more vicious.

The protagonist perceives the villain as insane most of the time, but what does the viewer think?

We seek to look not only at characters that are enjoyable to watch, but also try to find similarities between us and them or draw lines in their behavior to understand them better. As mentioned before, empathy plays a huge role here as well, since whatever happens in anime doesn't have actual repercussions, we can forgive characters more easily. 

For example when they are taken by Insanity as a side effect rather than being insane due to trauma, we often get an 'ally turned traitor' trope through hypnosis or brainwashing, which is just as interesting to look at. 

If a person did something horrible under the influence of something they had no control over, are they still to blame? 

Does Insanity only involve a separate entity that comes from evil, or are we also looking at the gradual descent into darkness when life just isn't the same anymore? 

Insane and with no fear: Soul Eater

A great example of how insanity plays with characters be they good or bad is Soul Eater. 

With a premise that one needs a sound mind and body to inhibit a sound soul, we obviously know that people close to becoming Kishin-eggs will have a rotten soul drenched in bad deeds, but what about the good guys? 

In this instance we have a lot of different types of madness and insanity that touches multiple characters at different times, and by far the most drastic would be the black blood. 

The black blood being a synthesized weapon form of blood that can change form and harden into shape, is a weapon made by Medusa and introduced for the first time with Crona. He was melded together with Ragnarök as a weapon and used the black blood in his proficient fighting style. 

Soul Eater as well as Maka and other characters later come into contact with the black blood, and the consequence of the immense strength that comes with it is debilitating madness. 

As explained in the anime, the madness makes one deny the soul of oneself and others and takes away your fear. Now with no fear present, the person exhibits extremely erratic behavior and is not scared to hurt others or themselves.

This is an insanity that shows how essential a person's fear is, shown by Maka in one of the latest episodes when she fights Asura. The fact that she learned how to accept her own fear and realise that humans need it to survive is why insanity in Soul Eater is merely a concept to differentiate between what is human and what is Kishin. 

A Kishin kills and murders with no fear of anything. 

A human protects and masters one's own fear. 

The power hungry insanity: Hunter x Hunter

In Hunter x Hunter we have a lot of characters that don't exactly fit the norm of human action. 

With people like Chrollo, Illumi and even Chimera Ants there is enough crazy to go around. 

Still, the character we shall delve into to look at a different kind of instability is none other than Hisoka Morow.

Yes, in comparison to black blood madness Hisoka is an actual human being with no known influence outside of his own intellect. The contrary to another weapon or entity making someone insane is being shown in this anime.

Hisoka is just insane. 

We have no means to see if there is anything that might have caused Hisoka to be the way that he is, but what we do know is that his character is almost too nonchalant for his own good. 

His goal is to accumulate power and fight others that he seems worthy, as that is what attracts him. No person is spared if he believes he found a worthy opponent he will make that clear to them and pursue them passionately. 

We could rule that the clown is just eccentric, but with the given information from the anime he definitely had some sort of mental difference next to his peers. Harming himself holds no problem to him, and his behavior is deeply rooted only to suit himself. He has no self-preservation except for when he needs to accomplish something, and he even enters the spiders just to get close to Chrollo. 

Now we see a single person carry themselves throughout a story only to achieve one thing: a good fight. 

After having looked at these two examples of insanity in anime, let's look at how that insanity can be portrayed visually. 

A famous way to show someone's psychosis is the “Kubrick stare”. A directorial technique that got named after the director Stanley Kubrick who used a forward tilt of the head with eyes locked onto the camera to show the actors of his movies at their peak of madness. It became a very popular stylistic device and is used still very often in modern movies.

The character is supposed to look menacing, evil-plotting and absolutely unhinged.

Such devices, if used often enough, automatically invoke the message to the viewer.

If you’ve seen the Kubrick stare once in a psychotic character, you will definitely associate it with the same derangement again.

In anime we have a similar thing, and you might be aware of this already.

Familiar with the ‘eye angle just before a character goes insane’ meme?

It’s a running gag that shows multiple characters such as Asura from Soul Eater, Pain from Naruto, Light from Deathnote and Jason from Tokyo Ghoul in a frame where you can only see their eyes and it somehow looks extremely grotesque as if they were looking into different directions with their eyes.

As much as it is a joke, it is a perfect example of something extremely similar to the Kubrick stare used in anime culture. It goes so far that if any anime watcher would see a new character look like in a frame, one would assume they were about to go crazy.

Even Oikawa Tooru from Haikyuu!! was shown with a Kubrick stare in the last moments of the second Seijoh vs. Karasuno game, when his desire to win overtook him with incredible force.

Without loss there naturally can’t be any wins, and without sadness there will be no joy in laughter.

We need the different depictions of what one might call madness, to fill our stories with nuance that relies on our reality.

Be it an unknown entity, hunger for power, lack of fear or the good old fashioned thrive for world domination.

Madness is just another part of what we call life, and to be honest in healthy doses and for effect why not enjoy it in anime?

Now, do you guys know any other characters or concepts in anime that would be worth mentioning? I would love to see them in the comments! 

Until then, stay sane!

-Nissa

[woman-loving]

I’ve been reading some articles about lesbian identities in Indonesia, from the late 80s to the 00s, and wanted to share some quotes that highlighted a couple trends that I’ve also noticed in reading about butch/femme communities in other countries.

1) There are different expectations about sexual distinctiveness and marriage to men are attached to butch and femme identities. There is a greater expectation that femmes will marry men, and femmes more often do marry men, though some butches do as well. Marriages to men seem to be for convenience or in name only, and women may continue to have female lovers.

2) Distinctions are made between real/pure/positive lesbians (butches) and other lesbians (femmes) who are “potentially normal.” This shows the flexibility of lesbian identity, where they can be gradations and contradictions in what it means to be a lesbian (e.g. a woman being a lesbian but not a “real lesbian"). The category has cores and peripheries, rather than everyone being equally lesbian or else completely outside of it.

3) There are disagreements between members, which cross butch/femme lines, about the meanings of these identities and whose lesbianism or community involvement should be taken seriously. The first passage describes femmes as engaging in a “more active appropriation of lesbianism as a core element of their subjectivity.” The boundaries of lesbianism can potentially expand or contract as people struggle to define it.

4) People don’t always meet the community expectations attached to their identity.

I think these passages help complicate the picture of what lesbian identities can look like, and some of these same tensions and debates are common features of lesbian identity in many different cultures. I also think these issues--the (differential) weight given to relationships with men, the notion of positive versus negative lesbians, and the active appropriation of lesbianism by peripheral members--are relevant to bisexual interest, since these questions also shape bi women’s engagement in lesbianism/lesbian communities. (And we can say that without claiming that any particular women in these narratives are “really bisexual.”)

Anyway, without further ado... (this first one picks up right in the middle of a passage because I couldn’t get the previous page on the google preview :T)

From “Desiring Bodies or Defiant Cultures: Butch-Femme Lesbians in Jakarta and Lima,” by Saskia E. Wieringa, in Female Desires: Same-Sex Relations and Transgender Practices Across Cultures, eds. Evelyn Blackwood and Saskia E. Wieringa, 1999:

“[...]negative lesbians. We are positive lesbians. We are pure, 100% lesbian. With them you can never know. Before you know it, they are seeing a man again, and we are given the good-bye.”

Father Abraham, who had entered during her last words, took over. “Let me explain. … Take Koes. Again and again her girlfriends leave her. Soon she’ll be old and lonely. Who will help her then? For these girls it is just an adventure, while for butches like Koes it is their whole life.”“Yes, well, Abraham, … my experience is limited, of course, but it seems to me that the femmes flee the same problems that make life so hard for the butches. So they’d rather support each other.”

“In any case,” Sigit added, ‘they have become active now, that’s why they’re here, isn’t that so?” And she looked questioningly at the three dolls behind the typing machine, Roekmi and my neighbour. The most brazen femme had been nodding in a mocking manner while Sigit and I were talking.

“So we’re only supposed to be wives? We’re not suited for something serious, are we? Maybe we should set up a wives’ organization, Dharma Wanita,[23] the Dharma Wanita PERLESIN? Just like all those other organizations of the wives of civil servants and lawyers?” …

“Come on, Ari,” Sigit insisted, “why don’t you just ask them? You could at least ask them whether they want to join?” Ari found it extremely hard. Helplessly she looked at the other butches.

“Do you really mean that i should ask whether our wives would like to join / our / organization?” One of the butches nodded.

“Ok, fine.” She directed herself to the dolls.

“Well, what do you want? Do you want to join us? But in that case you shouldn’t just say yes, then you should also be involved with your whole heart.”

“You never asked that of the others,” the brazen femme pointed out, “but yes, I will definitely dedicate myself to the organization.” Roekmi and the two femmes at her side also nodded. (Wieringa 1987:89-91)

The above example is indicative of the social marginalization of the b/f community. it also captures in it one of its moments of transformation. The defiance of the femmes of the code that prescribes the division of butches and femmes into “positive” and “negative” lesbians respectively indicates a more active appropriation of lesbianism as a core element of their subjectivity. At the same time it illustrates the hegemony of the dominant heterosexual culture with its gendered principles of organization.

Yet, however much the butches conformed to male gender behavior they didn’t define themselves as male; their relation to their bodies was rather ambiguous. at times they defined themselves as a third sex, which is nonfemale[…]. [...] [Butches’] call for organization was not linked to a feminist protest against rigid gender norms. Rather they felt that nature had played a trick on them and they they had to devise ways to confront the dangers to which this situation gave rise. Jakarta’s b/f lesbians when I met them in the early eighties were not in the least interested in feminism. In fact, the butches among them were more concerned with the case of a friend of them who was undergoing a sex change operation. They clearly considered it an option, but none of them decided to follow this example. When I asked them why, all of them mentioned the health risks involved and the costs. None of them stated that they rather preferred their own bodies. Their bodies, although the source of sexual pleasure and as such the object of constant attention, didn’t make it any too easy for them to get the satisfaction they sought or, at least, to attract the partners they desired.

From "Let Them Take Ecstasy: Class and Jakarta Lesbians," by Alison J. Murray, in Female Desires: Same-Sex Relations and Transgender Practices Across Cultures, eds. Evelyn Blackwood and Saskia E. Wieringa, 1999:

Covert lesbian activities are thus an adaptation to the ideological context, where the distinction between hidden and exposed sexual behavior allows for fluidity in sexual relations (“everyone could be said to be bisexual” according to Oetomo 1995) as long as the primary presentation is heterosexual/monogamous. It is not lesbian activity that has been imported from the West, but the word lesbi used to label the Western concept of individual identity based on a fixed sexuality. I have not found that Indonesian women like to use the label to describe themselves, since it is connected to unpleasant stereotypes and the pathological view of deviance derived from Freudian psychology (cf Foucault 1978).

The concept of butch-femme also has a different meaning in Indonesia from the current Western use which implies a subversion of norms and playful use of roles and styles (cf Nestle 1992). In Indonesia (and other parts of Southeast Asia, such as the Philippines, Thailand’s tom-and-dee: Chetame 1995) the roles are quite strictly, or restrictively, defined and are related to popular, pseudo-psychological explanations of the “real” lesbian. In the simple terms of popular magazines, the butch (sentul) is more than 50% lesbian, or incurably lesbi, while the femme (kantil) is less than 50% lesbian, or potentially normal. Blackwood’s (1994) description of her secretive relationship with a butch-identified woman in Sumatra brings up some cross-cultural differences and difficulties that they experienced and could not speak about publicly. The Sumatran woman adopted masculine signifies and would not be touched sexually herself; she wanted to be called “pa” by Blackwood, who she expected to behave as a “good wife.” Meanwhile, Blackwood’s own beliefs, as well as her higher status due to class and ethnicity, made it hard to take on the passive female role.

I want to emphasize here that behavior needs to be conceptually separated from identity, as both are contextually specific and constrained by opportunity. It is common for young women socialized into a rigid heterosexual regime, in Asia or the West, to experience their sexual feelings in terms of gender confusion: “If I am attracted to women, then I must be a man trapped in a woman’s body.” Women are not socialized to seek out a sexual partner (of any kind), or to be sexual at all, so an internal “feeling” may never be expressed unless there are role models or opportunities available. If the butch-femme stereotype, as presented in the Indonesian popular media, is the only image of lesbians available outside the metropolis (e.g., in Sumatra), then this may affect how women express their feelings. However, urban lower-class lesbians engage in a range of styles and practices: some use butch style consciously to earn peer respect, while others reject the butch as out-dated. The stereotype of all lower-class lesbians whether following butch-femme roles or conforming to one subcultural pattern is far from the case and reflects the media and elite’s lack of real knowledge about street life. […]

The imagery of sickness creates powerful stigmatization and internalized homophobia: women may refer to themselves as sakit (sick). An ex-lover of mine in Jakarta is quite happy to state a preference for women while at the same time expressing disgust at the word lesbi and at the sight of a butch dyke; however, I have generally found that the stigma around lesbian labels and symbols is not translated into discrimination against individuals based on their sexual activities. I have been surprised to discover how many women in Jakarta will either admit to having sex with women or to being interested in it, but again, this is only rarely accompanied by an open lesbian (or bisexual) identity. I have found it hard to avoid the word “lesbian” to refer to female-to-female sexual relations, but it should not be taken to imply a permanent self-identity. It is very important to try and understand the social contexts of behavior, in order to avoid drawing conclusions based on inappropriate Western notions of lesbian identity, community, or “queer” culture.

From “Beyond the ‘Closet’: The Voices of Lesbian Women in Yogyakarta,” by Tracy L Wright Webster, 2004:

Most importantly a supportive community group of lesbian, bisexual and transgender women is essential, given that these sexualities are thrust together in Sektor 15. Potentially, a group comprised of women from each of these categories, that is lesbian, bisexual or transgender, may prove problematic to say the least, given that the needs and issues of each group are different. Clearly the informal communities already in existence in Yogya are indicators of this. Any formal or organized groupings would certainly benefit by modeling on current, though informal organisations. In the lesbian network, transgendered women (those who wish to become men or who consider themselves male) are not affiliated, however many ‘femme’ identified women who have been and intend to be involved in heterosexual relationships in the future, are among the group in partnership with their ‘butch’ pacar (Indo: girlfriend/boyfiend/lover).

Organisations of women questioning sexuality have existed in Yogya in the past. A butch identified respondent said she was involved in the formation of a lesbian, bisexual and transgender network in collaboration with another Indonesian woman, who also identified as butch, 20 years her senior. The group was called Opo (Javanese:what) or Opo We (Jav:whatever), the name highlighting that any issue could be discussed or entered into within the group. Members were an amalgam of both of the women’s friends and acquaintances. The underlying philosophy of the group was that “regardless of a woman’s life experience, marriage, children…it is her basic human right to live as a lesbian if she has the sexual inclination”. The elder founding member of this group, now 46, married a man and had a child. She now lives with her husband (in name only), child and female partner in the same home. Although this arrangement according to the interviewee “is rare… because the husband is there, she is spared the questions from the neighbours”. Here I must add that it is common in Java for lesbians to marry to fulfill their social role as mothers, and then to separate from their husbands to live their lives in partnership with a woman. This trend however is more common among the ‘femme’ group.

From "(Re)articulations: gender and same-sex subjectivities in Yogyakarta, Indonesia," by Tracy Wright Webster, in Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific, Issue 18, Oct 2008:

Lesbi subjectivities Since gender, for the most part, determines sexuality in Java, sexuality and gender cannot be analysed as discrete categories.[64] For all of the self-identified butchi participants, lesbi was the term used to describe their sexuality. This is contrary to the findings of two key researchers of female same-sex sexuality in Indonesia. Alison Murray's research in Jakarta in the 1980s suggests that females of same-sex attraction did not like the term 'lesbian'[65] due to its connection with 'unpleasant stereotypes' and deviant pathologies.[66] In 1995, Gayatri found that media representations depicting lesbi as males trapped in female bodies encouraged same-sex attracted women to seek new, contemporary descriptors.[67] The participants in this research, however, embraced the term lesbi as an all-encompassing descriptor of female same-sex attraction and as Boellstorff has noted in 2000, Indonesian lesbi tend to see themselves as part of a wider international lesbian network.[68]

The term lesbi has been used in Indonesia since the 1980s, although not commonly or consistently. Lines, les, lesbian, lesbo, lesbong and L, among others, are also used. Female same-sex/lesbi subjectivities in Yogya are not strongly associated with political motivations and the subversion of heteropatriarchy as they were among the Western lesbian feminists of the 1960s. By the time most of the participants in this research were born, the term lesbi had already become infused in Indonesian discourses of sexuality among the urban elite (though with negative connotations in most cases), and has since become commonly used both by females of same-sex attraction to describe themselves, and by others. Most learnt from peers at school and through reading Indonesian magazines.

However, public use of the term lesbi and expression of lesbi subjectivity has its risks. Murray's research on middle to upper class lesbians suggests that females identifying as lesbi have more to lose than lower class lesbi in terms of social position and the power invested in that class positioning. This is particularly in relation to their position in the family.[69] Conversely, her work also shows that lower class lesbi 'have the freedom to play without closing off their options.'[70] As Aji suggests, young females, particularly of the priyayi class may not be in a position to resist the social stigma attached to lesbianism and the possible consequences of rejection or abuse. Yusi faced this reality despite the fact that s/he had not declared herself lesbi. Hir gendered subjectivity meant that s/he did not conform to stereotypical feminine ideals and desires.

With so much at stake, many lesbi remain invisible. Heteronormative and feminine gendered expectations for females in part explain why lesbians may indeed be the 'least known population group in Indonesia.'[71] Collusion in invisibility can be seen here as a protective strategy. The lesbi community or keluarga (family) is what Murray refers to as a 'strategic community' of the lesbian subculture.[72] The strategic nature of the community lies in its sense of protection: the community provides a safe haven for disclosure. Invisibility, however, also arises through the factors I mentioned earlier: the normative feminine representations of femme, their tendency to express lesbi subjectivity only while in partnership with a butchi, and their tendency to marry. Invisibility, as a form of discretion, however, may also be chosen.

Gender complementary butchi/femme subjectivities [...] Due to the apparently fixed nature of butchi identities and subjectivities and their reluctance to sleep with males, they are seen as 'true lesbians,'[79] lesbian sejati, an image perpetuated through the media.[80] Similar to the butchi/femme communities in Jakarta, in Yogya, butchi are identified by their strict codes of dress and behaviour which include short hair, sometimes slicked back with gel, collared button up shirts and trousers bought in menswear stores, large-faced watches and bold rings. Butchi characteristically walk with a swagger and smoke in public places. In her research in the 1980s, Wieringa noticed that within lesbi communities in Jakarta the strict 'surveillance and socialisation 'may have contributed to the fixed nature of butchi identities.[81] In Yogya, this is particularly evident in the socialisation of younger lesbi by senior lesbi (a theme I explore elsewhere in my current research).

The participants held individual perspectives on butchness. Aji's butchness is premised on hir masculine gender subjectivity and desire for a partner of complementary gender. Yusi expresses hir butchness differently and relates it to dominance in the relationship and in sex play. The participants who told of the sexual roles within the relationship emphasised their active butchi roles during sex. As Wieringa suggests, this does not necessarily imply femme passivity as femme 'stress their erotic power over their butches.'[82] It does, however, indicate one way in which the butchi I interviewed articulate their sexual agency.

Femme subjectivities, on the other hand, are generally conceived of as transient. As many of the interviews illustrate, femme are expected by their butchi partners to marry and have children: butchi see them as bisexual. In public, and indeed if they marry, they are seen as heterosexual, though their heterosexual practice may not be exclusive. In the 1980s, Wieringa observed that femme 'dressed in an exaggerated fashion, in dresses with ribbons and frills...always wore make up and high heels.'[83] In the new millennium, the femme I met were also fashion savvy though not in an exaggerated sense. Generally they wore hip-hugging, breast-accentuating tight gear, had long hair and wore lipstick and low-heeled pumps. Their feminine representations were stereotypical: it was through association with butchi with in the lesbi community that femme subjectivities become visible.

[kendrixtermina]

Appreciating the Range of Type 6, or, one stereotypical example, and three that aren’t.

I want to tell you about some type 6 ppl that I know in my personal life.

Exemplar #1: F. B.

Complete Stats

Wing: 5 p or cp: largely phobic – lots of safety worries, outright authoritarian follower personality Instinct: sp/soc Trifix: 613  - 6w5 1w2 3w2 (“The Taskmaster” or “The Middle Manager”) jungian: ISTJ / SLI-Te oldham: Conscientious & Aggressive Essence Type: Mars Temperament: Pure Choleric

What he’s like:

Not pleasant.

Every “strict conservative middle aged guy” stereotype in the book. Control freak, makes a mountain out of every molehill, sees the world as full of axe murderers, judgemental as fuck, horrible temper and yet completely impersonable, all his opinions are copypasted from right-wing news sites. When they say war is good he’s for war, and when they say war is bad he’ll be like “At least Trump did not start any more wars” without perceiving a contradiction. Despite this, he believes is very hot, principled and funny. He is none of these things. He puts people down nonstop. My knowledge of neurochemistry tells me that he must have emotions somewhere or he couldn’t function, but I ain’t ever seen a single one of those emotions. They’re all for his job and a few trusted mentor figures. And his mom. At least he loved her.

If you say anything he doesn’t like, he “throws the sofa out the window” as his wife once put it.

How he’s a Type 6:

Well, he’s pretty much every negative stereotype in a nutshell… other than distrusting his partner. But that might be cause hes sx blind, or cause the wife is big on monogamy & wouldn’t ever cheat.

The one positive trait of 6 that he has is that he does his research. Before moving anywhere he googles the crime rates and if you need a doctor he might find you the best one. But even that can be overriden by ideology (hydroxychloroquine!). And if you don’t take his exact advice, there goes the sofa out the window again…

And I guess the work ethic from all 3 parts of the trifix really comes through – he hasn’t had a single bad grade in his life and always keeps collecting new certifications, and will make sure you hear about it...

Exemplar #2: I.

Complete Stats

Wing: 5 P or cp: pretty much an even mix of phobic and counterphobic Instinct: sp/soc Trifix: 614 - 6w5 1w2 4w3 (Would prolly call herself “The Big Pain” rather than “The Philosopher” ^^°) jungian: INTJ / ILI-Ni oldham: Serious & Conscientious Essence Type: Saturn Temperament: Chlor-Mel

What she’s like:

I’d describe her as serious, mature, discerning, focused and passionate about her friendships, if perhaps somewhat forceful at times, with a dry, sarcastic sense of humor.

Comes across like someone who knows what she’s talking about, with well-articulated points.

Often the Responsible Sibling, Designated Sanity Checker or Bullshit Detector.

Prefers to plan everything in advance in typical Ni dom fashion, even amusement part trips. Gets somewhat anxious without a future plan or shedule.

Often mistaken for a whole lot more sociable and confident that she really feels inside. (even I kinda bought it and got her whole darn trifix wrong on my first typing attempt, though that was when I was new to typology) She can act the boss act temporarily to get the situation over with, but she actually hates making decisions.

She does however have the occasional cute/pure moment where that lower function block comes out.

How she’s a Type 6:

She has saved our family from many a terrible restaurant by making sure to check the reviews. The preparing for all possible dangers is very 6, the acting tough outwardly when youre inwardly anxious, the intellectual problem solving & some tendency towards organization/responsibility/ “logistic” intelligence.

One online test she took gave her 5w6 instead of 6w5 but that’s probably just the ITxx-ness leaking in. I remember this one time we were discussing this artsy-fartsy theater play to which we’d had fascinatingly different reactions, and at one point I half-jokingly said something like “But does anyone ever really feel connected to others, or is that a myth?” to which she wrote, “[Name], what the fuck? Yes I do.” and then immediately deleted it. That’s more of a 6 reaction innit?

Nonetheless the wing does feature in significantly – for example she got very well informed about a lot of topics because she researched them to assuage a random survival-related fear, like, “How to make sure I have enough retirement money”

Exemplar #3: M.

Complete Stats

Wing: 7 p or cp: largely phobic Instinct: sp/sx Trifix: 692 - 6w7 9w1 2w1 (Fortunately very much a “Good Samaritan” rather than “The Stockholm”) jungian: ISFP / SEI-Fi oldham: Sensitive & Devoted Essence Type: Lunar-Venus Temperament: Pure Supine

What she’s like:

Precious! Sweet, nice, good listener, friendly, gives all the best gifts. But also perceptive and good at understanding people, eg. mediating to the parents when one of the younger sisters is having An Emotion™ or winning the trust of problem children.

Unlike I. Who has some soc that helps her keep track of a larger circle of friends despite her introversion, M. tends to enjoy the closeness with her family and have just a few very close friends. Excellent friend material all around! The sx and Se also come out in enjoying art forms involving the body like theatre or dance.

She can be a bit shy, conflict-avoidant and occasionally a lil bit panicky though.

As a small kid she used to be super duper shy but then a wise english teacher encouraged her to play a big role in a play, and since then she’s a lot more confident and doesn’t let ppl push her around without limit, though she’s still a quiet, helpful person. There you see the difference that a good teacher can make.

How she’s a Type 6:

For one thing she moves and emotes faster than a core 9 would, and she fits the body language – big eyes that move around a lot, stands a bit lopsided, talks in a shrill voice on the rare occasions where we exhaust her patience etc. As a xSFx and a w7 she shows mostly the “warm, friendly, likeable” side of type 6. She also has a very 6-ish tendency to very frequently ask people’s opinions & feedback before making decisions. (the other fixes probably add to this)

Alas, she also has a little bit of of the fear/insecurity.

Also she has a social/care job which might be seen as 6-ish desire to serve the community.

Exemplar #4: J.

Complete Stats

Wing: 7 P or cp: largely counterphobic Instinct: sx/soc ?? definitely not sp first. Trifix: 638 - 6w7 3w4 8w9(?) (Shall she be a “Justice Fighter” or a “Kyle”? Only time will tell.) jungian: ISTP / LSI-Se ?? Oldham: ? some Dramatic & Serious, perhaps ? Essence Type: Definitely Mercury Temperament: San-Mel

What she’s like:

The first adjective that usually comes to my mind is ‘cool’. Sassy, energetic & a little bit tough, but also affectionate when she wants to be. (though in admiring way rather than a mushy one)

She says the coolest things, has a certain sly sort of cleverness, and an astonishly good poker face. Bit of an occasional prankster. Hilarious. Knows all sort of cool science facts. Avid gamer. 

Not especially popular or over the top sociable, but she gets sad if no one pays attention to her a while. Will act visibly moody where ppl can see sad or worried and can catastrophize a bit in such situations.

How she’s a Type 6:

I first though we might be getting an ExxP type 7 since she was a pretty energetic child, but once puberty hit and independent thought manifested, she turned out a whole lot too reactive and ‘edgy’ for this, and more on the ‘moderate introvert’ side of things.

Since then the sisterly dynamic has been like one fluffy golden dog and 3 hissing black cats. Hissing Cats #1 and #2 are very proud of her, but cat #1 was forced to conclude that she’s probably not a positive outlook type.

Out of all the reactive types 6 fits best because she does broadcast group identity (like wearing merchandise of her favorite media and wearing buttons in solidarity with ppl she likes.) & has a big case of Big Sibling worship for M, I, and someone else who isn’t on this list due to being a 9. (a 4 or 8 might like their older siblings but probably wouldn’t constantly stress the admiration.), but she can also show lasting, pouty displeasure with authority figures who have slighted her. (Like that one time I went too far in teasing her...)

I’m just assuming the 8 fix because that tends to make 6s more bold, louder & more shameless.

Basically she is the “punk teen” type of 6. She can be a bit dramatic & over-the top but still come to her family on advice (even advice on pranks!) in ways that xSTPs of other enneagrams prolly wouldn’t.

She also tends to use self-deprecating humor in tough situations and deflects compliments to present herself as ‘ordinary’.

...

This may sound like I’m really getting down on my first example (I won’t pretend that I’m not) but the point in bringing him up is that the reason he’s like this is: He was subject to really bad parenting that put a lot of fear into him, there was no good parenting to teach him broader coping strategies, he lived in a crappy environment that crushed his dreams, in a sense ‘confirming’ those fears and making him double down, resulting in a person who is just always rigidly following the same predictable pattern or jumping from one automatic reaction to the next with very little pausing and thinking. That goes for the other types too: A ‘stereotypical’ person is a desperate person ruled by fear, who cant stop or soften up even for an instant cause they constantly feel this fire of threat under their arse.

A lot of descriptions say that 6s ‘Follow authority’ but most would balk at the notion – ‘I do the research!’ they might argue ‘I don’t just trust anyone’ or ‘I’m actually a rebel’. There is of course such a thing as denial  that’s more like the extreme case.

But with a more average, functional 6 it’s not so much ‘obedience’ as that they just like to bounce their ideas off of others to get feedback, or that they feature in other’s viewpoints. So you might get someone who can naturally use feedback (something other ppl may have to learn first) or who is very considerate of others (which others might have to consciously remind themselves to do.)

Those are sometimes pretty good traits actually.

On the other hand this is probably part of what makes decisions hard cause they consider all these possible scenarios of how things might displease or cause harm to everyone involved.

Being able to naturally snap into Action Mode under stress looks a bit enviable from the outside, but I. assures me that it’s actually super stressful & exhausting, even for someone who doesn’t get to a point of just being unreasonably aggro at you.

Though even an extreme case like F.B. would probably claim that he ‘did the research’ even as he’s 1:1 quoting the Pope at you, and then saying that you ‘have to be respectful’ even if you don’t even believe in Christianity. Hence why you get a lot of authoritarians talking about “disrespect”. You didn’t “fail to obey”, you “disrespected the flag” or  “hurt the feelings of the Chinese people”. Because they’re still trying or inwardly thinking that they’re doing the consideritation & considering other’s PoV thing when they’ve long since crossed from respect and consideration into mindless obedience, all while still thinking that they’re very sceptical and discerning cause after all they really distrust the other political party or whatever.  

In a way you get this obsession with ‘mind control’ cause they’re not unaware of & very much looking to guard the blind spot. They’re adults trying to do adult things.

For example, if I voiced an opinion to F. B. which he didn’t like, his reaction was often to ask “who told you that”

That’s just how he seems to think opinions work, somebody tells them to you.

Makes one wonder how he thinks new opinions start.

Yeah - Nobody told me that. I concocted it myself in some corner of my head. And in the interest of objectivity, I should stress that you can also end talking out of your ass that way, if you’re not basing it on enough outside data. Making up new shit has more of a quadratic than a linear learning curve – at least with copying you get something semi-useful right away. In making up your own you might be really off a long time before you stumble on something useful.

Also, I was young at the time and it’s not wholly unreasobale to think that an inexperienced person might be duped. I reacted really badly in part cause he hit my own ego buttons cause I was of course proud of this epiphany that I had concocted by myself, and now he says (or so I perceived it, being sensitive to accusations of incompetence) that I’m too dumb to form an opinion, so of course I launched into full Obnoxious Reddit Dude Mode.

In I. It manifests more on a reasonable useful level like “Oh wait, should [young cousin] be on TikTok? I don’t want him to get sucked into some cultish BS.” which is at least something the parents should have on the radar/ warn him about even if they do let him use TikTok, because for all that it is vital for him to get his experience with independent socializing & experimentig with sel-presentation, people do sometimes get suckered into cults or goaded into unsafe tests of courage.

And in a sense… maybe they overamphasize it but to some extent they’re also simply consciously aware/ mindful of it. The rest of us are not immune to propaganda after all, solong as it’s presented in a way pleasing to our egos. Any type structure can become a ‘hook’ if you’re not careful.

[zukkacore]

It sucks that mako and bolin are underdeveloped, bolin especially (& even Mako is “developed” in ways that are kinda unsatisfactory, mostly via love triangle bullshit or him becoming a cop) bc like the fact that they’re homeless orphans from a potentially multicultural background like automatically makes them more interesting than 90% of these annoying corrupted political figures the show spends so much time with, & it’s like never rly explored?

Like republic city is former earth kingdom territory turned fire nation colony, the whole reason aang & Zuko Did A Colonialism was bc they didnt want to displace the mixed Fire nation/earth kingdom families that were living there for potentially generations, so it might’ve been interesting to explore characters from a mixed background? Especially bc the way they handle Kataang’s family is honestly kinda bad, the show treats tenzin like he’s culturally an airbender, kya like she’s culturally a waterbender, and bumi like he’s neither. They’re a MIXED INDIGENOUS FAMILY. Plus Mako & Bolin’s multicultural background is different from Kataang’s family. The SWT & the Air Nomads we’re both victims of the fire nation’s imperialism. A family where one side is from the fire nation (we just don’t know how far back) is a completely different dynamic.

Like the s3 stuff where Mako & Bolin find their family in ba sing se is good for what it is! I’m glad they have family! It’s good material for them and they deserve it after being alone for so long but it’s almost like being in republic city or being orphans or both was almost an excuse to just divorce them from their multicultural background which to me is rly missed potential. The effects of Japanese imperialism are SO prevalent across Asia, it’s fricking weird that none of that imperial influence is apparent in any of the colonized territory in Atla. Bc they don’t spend hardly any time in former colonies! And it’s not until s4! & we see the separate earth kindom territories are struggling do to a power vacuum, but really? After 100 years, no fire nation influence on any of this territory?

And like it’s a real missed opportunity bc like it would’ve been rly interesting to address Bolin’s background during his lavabender arc! But the show treats it almost like a level-up or a cool new gimmick. Alternatively/Additionally, the fact that they’re disconnected from their background could be like a Thing bc Mako and Bolin use bending purely for like. Survival & competitive sport. Reconnecting w Earth Kingdom & Fire Nation culture could’ve been really interesting directions for them, especially in terms of like. Them finding a sense of belonging. Blood relatives are good but found family? That could’ve been so powerful.

Bending as like a cultural practice honestly goes kinda unaddressed and forgotten in LoK? Or, it’s addressed, but it’s rly inconsistent. The contrast between bending as competitive fighting sport vs. bending as a big component of a pacifist culture like the Air nation is a rly interesting idea, but bending as an aspect of the other nations is just kinda forgotten about. I mean, Amon made some points but also Amon ur really gonna tell me that airbenders have privilege? During s1 there 5 of them in the world, total, including korra, because they were nearly wiped out via genocide 100 years ago. And yes, he’s the villain, but this aspect of his anti-bender ideology is never critized, they just rely on him and his goons using extremist tactics that are easy to dispute, or scary displays of his power unsettling and disturbing Korra.

Anyways I got kinda sidetracked from my point bc I think the treatment of Mako and Bolin is also a larger issue that kinda bleeds into the world of LoK as a whole & shows some of the problems w the worldbuilding, but just. Ah. I wish those two had been given some real material instead of getting wrapped up in love triangle drama and playing bodyguard and actor for so much of the show

Edit: I elaborated on my thoughts a bit if you wanna check the notes it’s a long read tho so w/e if ppl prefer this short version for brevity it’s fine

[arcticdementor]

Sitting on the couch watching TV earlier this month, my wife read to me a headline from her iPhone. “Listen to this,” she said: “There are only 15 lesbian bars left in the entire country.”

“Great,” I said, “We’ll each get our own.”

Lesbian bars have always been vastly outnumbered by bars for straight people and gay men, but in the 1980s, there were more than 200 lesbian bars in the U.S. What happened? Well, a lot of them sucked. The first lesbian bars I went to in my early 20s were dank, smoky caves where women in khaki shorts and backward caps grinded on each other to Outkast. They could have been frat bars if not for the notable absence of men.

…

But there’s something else going on right now, because it’s not just lesbian bars that are disappearing; it’s lesbian as a category itself.

After Portland’s last lesbian bar closed in 2010, as Ellena Rosenthal explored in the Willamette Week, there were attempts to start lesbian-specific nights at various venues, but most avoided the L-word to appear inclusive of trans and nonbinary people. One event, called Temporary Lesbian Bar, apologized after being accused of condoning “trans women exterminationism” for using the labrys — a double-headed ax that symbolizes female strength and has long been a part of lesbian iconography — in their logo. That event still exists (or did before Covid), but the organizers make sure to advertise that, despite the name, it’s “open, inclusive, and welcoming to all people.” (Oddly, these fights only seem to occur around women’s space, not men’s. If gay bars, bathhouses, and clubs go extinct, it will be because of Covid, not because of infighting over inclusion.)

Portland may be a parody of PC, but it’s not an outlier. When I came out in North Carolina in the early 2000s, the term “lesbian” was fading and “queer” was rapidly rising. Most of my peers saw lesbians as stodgy, old-fashioned, and uncool, whereas queers were hip, edgy, and inclusive. Yet “queer” is vague enough to mean nearly anything, so the label says less about your love life and more about your politics. (I propose we all start using the Kinsey Scale instead.)

The flight from “lesbian” has accelerated since. An academic in the Southeast, who asked to remain anonymous, told me that when she mentioned to a colleague that she’s a lesbian, the colleague “reacted like I’d confessed to being a Confederate Lost-Causer. She told me that the term is outdated and problematic, and I shouldn’t use it.” So the lesbian keeps quiet about her identity: “It’s like living in a second closet.”

Not long ago, it would have been the Christian right stigmatizing homosexual women. Today, it’s also from people who call themselves queer.

…

Nonbinary people say that the identification liberates them from the prison of gender, but for others, it doesn’t dismantle gender roles and stereotypes; it reinforces them. It legitimizes the idea that there’s an intractable gender binary in the first place. Instead of saying, “I’m a woman and I reject gender roles,” NB ideology says, in effect, “I reject gender roles and therefore I’m not a woman.”

Joycelyn MacDonald, the editor-in-chief of the lesbian site AfterEllen, has seen the NB ideology pushed by well-intended people and she worries about the unintended consequences. “When we say that femininity is equivalent to womanhood, we leave no space for women, gay or straight, to be gender non-conforming,” she told me. “Butch lesbians especially have fought for the right to claim space as women, and now women are running from that instead of boldly stepping into it. It’s another way of saying ‘I’m not like other girls,’ and it’s demeaning to other women.”

This is not a popular position in some queer communities, and AfterEllen is routinely accused of being transphobic. In 2018, Rhea Butcher, a nonbinary comic, tweeted: “You don’t represent me or my friends and your website is a sham. You’re not a lesbian/bisexual website, you’re a TERF website.” (“TERF" stands for “trans-exclusionary radical feminist” and is not, to put it mildly, a compliment.) Butcher’s tweet is typical, and it’s part of what makes having this conversation so fraught.

There’s been no clear polling on the shift from “lesbian” to “nonbinary,” and so my sense that the lesbian is endangered is purely anecdotal. But there are plenty of anecdotes. After I put out a call on Twitter asking lesbians for input, my inbox filled with emails from women who said vast portions of their friend groups have adopted new labels and pronouns. But none feel like they can openly discuss it, which is apparent by the number who asked to remain anonymous: all of them.

…

Some feminists argue that women are so oppressed in society that opting out of womanhood is a way of opting out of oppression. I’m skeptical. Why didn’t women do this decades ago, when oppression was objectively greater? Besides, enbies are more likely to be Smith undergrads than, say, immigrants getting assaulted at the border.

And there’s another not-so popular explanation: that it’s a fad, a form of social contagion.

I’m aware that this will be offensive to some people. The concept of a fixed, internal gender identity has become sacrosanct, and it’s viewed as something deeply personal and meaningful, like the soul. But humans are social creatures and we are easily influenced by our peers. This isn’t a moral judgment, just a fact, and I’ve seen how it plays out in my own peer circle. First one person comes out as nonbinary, then another, then another, and then one day half the dykes you know go by “they.” Add social media to the mix, and fawning profiles of nonbinary people in the press, and you’ve got yourself a mass cultural phenomenon.

I ran this theory by a therapist who specializes in LGTBQ issues. (She asked to remain anonymous, so I’ll call her Tara.) Tara told me that while the most common complaints of her young female patients involve gender identity, it’s not an issue with older patients. The older ones struggle with their sexuality or their relationships, but aside from a few transexuals with dysphoria, gender identity doesn’t come up. And young women, in particular, are prone to social contagion. We’ve seen this in many areas: eating disorders, cutting, exercising, yawning, strange fits of laughter, and even (forgive the term) hysteria.

When I asked Tara if social contagion could be the cause of the nonbinary movement, she paused for long enough that I thought she may have hung up the phone. “Yes,” she said. “But I can’t really say that to anyone.” The professional risks are too great.

[amethystroselily]

(This was originally written on Twitter and that’s why it’s so bad. (Now with unnecessary censoring!!!) I don’t go on tumblr enough to know the general consensus on Geto here. This might only apply to Twitter. I don’t know)

I don’t know why everyone on Twitter thinks none of Geto’s actions were his fault or even immoral. He was a deeply flawed person who made terrible decisions and that’s what makes him such a good character.

EVERYONE at jujutsu high was in similar traumatic situations as him, he’s the only one who decided to lead a r*cist m*rder c*lt. And while I understand why he did it, it definitely wasn’t a GOOD or honorable decision.

And his daughters. He loved them, but he also literally raised them in a c*lt. I’ve heard ppl say he wouldn’t have cared if they didn’t end up following his ideology, but, like, he did attack an institution full of ppl he was once very close with for that reason, so while I Don’t think he would have killed them or anything, I do think he would have been p*ssed. So I think he tried very hard to instill his ideology into them. We know he was doing that to other people, bc y’know, c*lt leader, so why wouldn’t he be willing to teach that to his kids? Even ppl who are usually against forcing their beliefs on people, instill their beliefs In their kids. So why wouldn’t a guy who thinks he’s SO right that he thinks EVERYONE should follow his beliefs also instill those beliefs in people he raised? He would have thought it right and moral thing to do, and that’s the problem. I think ppl tend to think he’s a “good person” bc he can explain his thought process in a way most people can empathize with, but that doesn’t mean he’s a good person it just means he’s a good character.

Him being right isn’t about whether his emotions were valid or not, it’s about how he handled those feelings and whether he helped more than he hurt. And he definitely did more of the latter. While he did tend to rationalize things as a way to help humanity, he was more driven by anger, bitterness, and self righteousness than his desire to help people. I think that’s why he never actually accomplished anything. He seemed fixated on revenge and ki/ling people, and a lot of his plans were about kil/ling non-sorcerers, rather than saving sorcerers from them. I think he let his hatred get in the way of his original goal of saving people. I don’t even think it was about saving sorcerers by the end there. He was completely willing to kil/l sorcerers just so he could kil/l non-sorcerers, and I think that takes away a lot of the validity of the reasoning he pretends he has. By then he’d spent a decade in his little echo chamber of hate, so at that point maybe even he would acknowledge it was no longer about saving people.

Also can we talk about how stupid his plan in vol 0 was? It’s kind of unrelated, but he is not the genius some of you think he is. (Affectionate, this time) The man was running on pure self-righteousness at that point (probably the result of only surrounding himself with ppl Who worship him for the last ten years) Maybe Kenjaku’s kind of blurring ppl’s perception of Geto? He does seem to be using Geto’s cursed technique much more efficiently than Geto was. But that’s probably bc he’s ancient and knows a lot of information Geto didn’t.

Anyway, back to my original point, his ideology was blatantly flawed, he’s just charismatic and really good at deflecting, so it seems like it makes more sense than it does. Bc it does make sense to him, and ppl like him, they want to agree with him bc he’s charming, and likable, And Tragic tm, so they do (both his cu/lt and readers) , but like, his ideas are pretty flawed (and borderline eug/enics-y?) and the narrative doesn’t want you to agree with him, it just wants you to understand why he’s the way he is. I guess Gege did really well at writing a cu/lt leader at least. Bc I swear some of you genuinely agree with him.

Like how happy did he think everyone was going to be when the vast majority of the population was de-ad??? Including a bunch of their loved ones? What was he going to when someone had a baby who was a non-sorcerer? Ki1l it? What was he going to do if ppl revolted bc he murd/ered all their loved ones? Kil1 them too? There’s only going to be like ten people left on the planet. I refuse to believe this b1tch thought that through.

I actually think KENJAKU’S plan may actually be more ethical. At least their end goal isn’t literally to k1ll people, and allows far more people to survive than Geto’s. Ppl dy/ing just happens to be part of the process rather than the actual goal. And oh my god, that’s such a LOW bar. Kenjaku may actually be helping ppl more than Geto, which isn’t much, but like I said low bar. He’s just less motivated by emotion and doesn’t have a tragic backstory (YET) so he comes of as more ~EVIL~. But it’s actually hilarious that people see Kenjaku as so much worse than Geto when they’re about on the same level. Kenjaku is considerably less outspokenly m*rderous and Geto is a better friend, so it evens out I guess? I would say it’s bc Kenjaku’s trying to ki1l the mcs and Geto wasn’t, but that’s not even true. Geto literally tried to kil1 all of the second years, and Kenjaku couldn’t care less about whether anyone lives or di*s, he’s just just trying to “evolve” ppl. He took Tsumiki h*stage But as far as he knows or cares she could win the culling game, Geto would have literally kil1ed her for being a non-sorcerer. (He attacked a elementary school, he wouldn’t care that she’s a kid, don’t lie to yourself)

And, yes, a lot of Geto’s traits could make him a good person, but those same traits are the ones that make him such a bad person. (Passion, charisma, even empathy at times, bc he empathizes so much with select ppl that when non-sorcerers (who he no longer deems ppl) hurt them He feels wronged and lashes out at the things he deems not worthy of sympathy)

Anyway it’s ok to acknowledge his flaws, or even feel neutral on him, he doesn’t have to be perfect for you to like him. (This isn’t a Kenjaku defense post, btw, it’s just funny that that’s true) I’ve seen way too many posts claiming the only bad thing Geto’s ever done is hurting Maki, and like, that’s nearly objectively false. And like half of them were completely unironic. A sympathetic villain isn’t the same thing as a hero.

This isn’t even Geto hate, I LIKE him, but the widespread perception of him being completely justified just feels so wrong. Why do so many people feel SO protective of him? Is his c-ult leader charisma just that effective?

I actually think pretending none of his flaws exist takes away SO much from his character. It strips away his agency and turns him into this tragic can-do-no-wrong figure that he just isn’t. He’s someone who couldn’t handle their own tr*uma and decided to take it out on the world. The way he decided to handle that is no one’s fault but his own.

[whatsortofschoolisthis]

IDENTITY

Full Name: Wednesday Anne Drew

Nicknames: Wen, Drew.

Name Meanings: Wednesday — German, ”Woden’s Day”,  Anne— Hebrew, “God has Favored Me” , Drew — Irish, Original surname  Ó Draoi “Descendant of the Druid”.

Date of Birth: Christmas Day, 1972

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Straight

Blood Status: Pureblood.

Ethnicity/Race: White/Caucasian.

Nationality: Irish/American (Dual Citizenship).

MBTI Type: ENTP-A- The Debater

Residence:  Wizarding Dublin, Ireland

MAGIC

Wand:

Wood: Cherry Wood Wand

Core: Thestral Core.

Length: 10 inches

Flexibility: Inflexible

Other Magical Abilities: Animagus, Scarlet Tanager. 

Patronus: American Beaver.

Patronus Memory: Eating wild strawberries with her older brother Jericho

Boggart:  A dark indistinguishable shape with red eyes and sharp teeth, what a ‘haint’ might look like in Wednesday’s eyes.

Riddikulus: The creature turns into a dapper 1920s man dancing aggressively around

Amortentia:

Wednesday smells creature treats, potions classroom, and a fireplace.

Wedneday smells like Strawberries, spruce forests, and clean mountain air.

Mirror of Erised:  A simple house with a calico cat and a one eared crup, it looks a lot like her late great-grandmother’s house.

HOGWARTS

House: Ravenclaw

OWL Classes:

Transfiguration - O

Charms - E

Herbology - E

Astronomy - O

Potions - E

History of Magic - A

Defense Against the Dark Arts - O

Flying - P

OWL Electives:

Ghoul Studies- O

Care of Magical Creatures- A

NEWT Classes:

Charms- O

Potions- O

Astronomy- E

Defense Against the Dark Arts- E

Quidditch: No

Prefect: Yes

Clubs: Sphinx Club, Bookbinding club, and Ghoul Club.

Favorite Professors: Professor Rakepick (she is the only one) and Professor Sinstra. 

Least Favorite Professors:  Professor Snape.

CAREER

11 to 17 - Hogwarts student. Worked part time at Honeydukes as a saleswitch.

18 to 24- Bookbinder at Florish and Blotts, Graduated from the University of Limerick with a degree in anthropology.

25 to 26- Went into hiding during the war and was captured.

26 to 28- Escaped and fled to Romania.

28 to 98- Magical Anthropologist/writer.

APPEARANCE

Faceclaim: No Idea,

Height: 5 ft 6.

Weight & Physique: 140 pounds, thin.

Hair Color: Brick red

Hair Style: Long and wavy, worn down.

Eye Color: Blue.

Skin Tone: Fair

Scars: None, surprisingly. 

Modifications: (piercings, tattoos, glasses, etc.)  : Gets a tattoo of a lobelia flower on her wrist in her fifth year.

Distinguishing Marks: Heart shaped birthmark on her right shoulder.

Clothing Style: Skirts with sweaters.

Accessories: A bracelet her mom got her and tortoiseshell glasses.

What’s In Her Pockets: Her wand.

What’s In Her School Bag:

Textbooks

Parchment and quills.

Pens.

Knitting needles.

Handmade book of ‘Granny Magic’ spells passed down from her great-great-great grandmother.

Bookbinding kit.

A few galleons.

VOICE & LANGUAGE

Voiceclaim: Kate Micucci.

Accent: (might differ from voiceclaim’s) : American with a bit of Dublin thrown in 

Dialect: Local Dublin English mixed with American English and Appalachian English. She sounds weird.

Languages Spoken: English, Irish, and Appalachian English.

Languages Understood: English, Irish, and Appalachian English.

Speech and/or Language Disorder: None

FAMILY

Father: Noal Marvin Drew

Born on Halloween 1928 to Easton and Aideen Drew in a wizarding village in the Appalachian Mountains. The oldest of five children, three boys and two girls. (Noal, Skylar, Baylor, Easton Junior, and Kinley.)

His grandparents were well known blood purists, his mother coming from the Edelwood family (one of the pure 10) and his father being distantly related to 27 members of the sacred 28 and one of the pure 10 in the US. 

His parents did not buy into their ideologies and they were disowned and driven out of their home village of Vespers.  

Unfortunately, most of his siblings did buy into purism and the only one Noal still speaks to is Easton Junior.

He had a very happy and chaotic childhood.

Noal was sorted into Horned Serpent in Illvermony and was on their broom racing team.

Became a Cursebreaker after graduation and worked with his sister Skylar.

He met Ilse while breaking a curse for the O’Malley family and they started writing back and forth. They got married in 1950 and had Bailey in 1952, Jericho in 1965, Wednesday in 1972, and Rosie in 1979.

Noal and Ilse immigrated to Ireland in 1978 so Ilse could be closer to her family after her father died and to have a new start after a falling out with Skylar over blood purism. They brought Aideen with them.

Noal loves all his children/family and is always looking for Jericho and Danny.

Faceclaim: Harrison Ford.

Mother: Ilse Marie Drew (Nee Edelwood).

Born on June 8th 1928, in Traelee Ireland to Maxwell (born in Appalachia, USA) and Mary Edelwood. She had one sister named June who died in 1948 due to complications from Pneumonia.

Ilse had a very pleasant childhood and would often play with her maternal cousin Saorise, who lived nearby. 

Ilse was sorted into Ravenclaw and played keeper for their Quidditch team.

After graduation, she worked with her maternal grandfather on his tree farm and opened a small stand for drinks that she had from the fruit of the fruit trees. Here she met Noal who was helping her grandfather get rid of a curse on one of his older trees. They started writing and were married on May 28th 1950 and Ilse immigrated to America with her husband in 1951.

Ilse became an American citizen in 1952 a month before Bailey was born. 

Moved back to Ireland in 1978 after her father died to help her mother and to keep her children away from Skylar.

She loves her family and her husband. No one is allowed to bad mouth him.

Faceclaim: Maureen O'Hara

Older Brother: Bailey John Drew

Born on March 30th, 1952.

Was sorted into Wampus House at illvermorny and played chaser on their Quidditch team.

Works as a train engineer. Was never interested in magical work.

Very quiet. Doesn’t talk a lot and when he does, you’d better listen. because it’s important.

Wednesday isn’t all that close to him but she does love him.

Faceclaim: Young Clint Eastwood.

Brother: Jericho Jacob Drew

Born on Thanksgiving Day 1965.

Jericho is a highly intelligent Ravenclaw with low wisdom and enjoys things he finds challenging, which is why he helped Danny hunt the vaults.

A very sweet person and a good older brother, in direct contrast to Danny, who is an asshole.

He becomes an archaeologist after being freed from the vault and swears off cursebreaking as a career.

Wednesday adores him even though he can be “A bit reckless and stupid.”

Faceclaim: River Phoenix.

Sister: Rosie June Drew

Born on July 4th, 1979.

The baby of the family and a future Gryffindor. Very adventurous, always giving her mother and Wednesday a heart attack.

Wants to be a Cursebreaker like her dad and cousins, her favorite being Sean.

Rosie thinks Wednesday is annoying and a busybody. Wednesday thinks she is annoying and too careless. They love each other.

Faceclaim: Young Liliana Mumy.

Cousins: Rubin, Wren, Fiadah, Danny, Bryn, Hecate, Sean, and Kit. Also Evangeline.

She gets along best with Hecate but even then they fight a lot. 

Being around Evangeline is a bit awkward but it’s not her circus or her clowns so she treats Evangeline like she would anyone else- with condescension and like she can’t read.

They all love each other, don’t get me wrong, but they tend to rub one other the wrong way.

Wednesday treats Rubin and Wren as aunts due to the age difference.

She tends to avoid Fiadah like the plague, the woman makes Wednesday VERY uncomfortable.

Pets: Rat named Bobbin and a Barn owl named Spectacles. 

FRIENDSHIPS

Best Friends:

Angelica Cole.

Jane Court

Chester Davies.

Bill Weasley.

Close Friends:

Orion Amari.

Murphy McNully (by force, he befriended her by force).

Ben Copper, somehow.

Friends:

Victor Katsuki.

Erika Rath

Acquaintances:

Everyone else.

It’s Complicated:

Chiara Lobasca.

Jae Kim

Dormmates:

Unnamed Ravenclaws.

Rivals: Tulip Karasu.

Enemies: R, Death Eaters, Rakepick, Merula Snyde. 

ROMANCE & CHILDREN

Love Interest: Jae Kim/Felix Rosier

They met while at Hogwarts, Felix was much older so Wednesday didn’t talk to him much.

Wednesday dated Jae Kim in her 3rd year through the beginning of her 4th year and acted like an absolute crazy person. Jae broke it off and started dating Chiara at the end of year 4 and Wednesday took it very badly.

Ben, of all people, gave her a ‘get your shit together’ talk, which kept her from burning bridges with her ex and her family in their 6th year and her 7th.

She starts dating Felix when she’s 20 and they get married when she’s 23.

Future Daughter: Raven May Rosier

Born October 10th 1996 at 12:00pm .

She’s a quiet unassuming girl and would like to be the next Hogwarts Librarian when she grows up. Ravenclaw.

Willow wand, 11 and a half inches, with a unicorn hair core and bendy.

Future Son: Maxwell John Rosier

Born on August 31st 2000 at 6:00am. 

Loud, boisterous, and utterly chaotic, Slytherin. Would like to own his own Joke Shop in the US or be an electrician.

Dogwood wand, 11 inches, dragon heartstring core, and very flexible.

PERSONALITY

Traits:

Positive: Intelligent, brave, loyal, kind generous.

Neutral: Outspoken, polite, cautious, sarcastic.

Negative: Stubborn, possessive, pessimistic, know it all, uptight, and nosy.

Favorites:

Color: Burgundy 

Food: Biscuits and gravy.

Weather: Cool and windy

Books: Mostly non-fiction, does enjoy Agatha Christie novels though.

Hobbies: Bookbinding, reading, building model trains, knitting, gardening, and writing.

Music: Jazz music

Dislikes: Blood supremacy, rock music, snow,

Description: Despite being a stick in the mud, Wednesday does love her family and friends and would do anything to help them (within reason). She can be very possessive and often has to keep herself from acting on those impulses.

MBTI Description: "Quick-witted and audacious, Debaters aren’t afraid to disagree with the status quo. In fact, they’re not afraid to disagree with pretty much anything or anyone. Few things light up people with this personality type more than a bit of verbal sparring – and if the conversation veers into controversial terrain, so much the better."

HISTORY & BACKGROUND

Pre-Hogwarts Childhood:

Wednesday was born in the small Wizarding town of Redwood in 1972. Her Paternal grandfather died shortly before she was born.

She had a fairly pleasant early childhood, following Jericho and Bailey around their property and visiting with her Mimi (great grandmother) who lived in a house on the property

Her Mimi died in her sleep when Wednesday was 6. Jericho and Wednesday found her.

They immigrated to America not long after her maternal grandfather died and left Bailey behind as he had no desire to move to Ireland or be anywhere near "that death eater shit."

Jacob went missing alongside Jacob after searching for the cursed vaults.

Hogwarts Years:

Trying to google everything would only frustrate me and waste my time, so I’m not going into detail.

Becomes a prefect in her third year.

Wednesday helps with the vaults and with research on them.

Second Wizarding War:

Forced to go into hiding during the war due to her marriage to Felix and they are seperated after being found out by Purists.

After being held captive for several months while the Death Eaters tried to get Felix on their side, she managed to escape

Wednesday joined her husband in Romania shortly before having Raven. They housed refugees in their home and Granny (Aideen).

Adulthood:

Wednesday spent the rest of her life in Romania with Felix writing and studying Muggle ghosts, which she refers to as haints.

Aideen dies a very old woman in Wednesdays home.

Death:

Wednesday dies of a stroke at the age of 98, a decade before Felix. She left two children, four grandchildren, and eight grandchildren.

MISCELLANEOUS

Wednesday enjoys American action movies, her favorites being Terminator and Speed.

She likes her own children but not other people's.

Can't carry a tune and is tone deaf.

Considered becoming a train engineer if she turned out to be a Squib and still really likes trains.

Mimi taught her to knit and Wednesday finished her final project: scarves for their family Christmas.

Template made by @unfortunate-arrow

[dwellordream]

“…In the first three books of Troilus and Criseyde, we have a Troy that may be characterized as a heterosexual lovers' refuge from the overtly masculine and misogynistic battlefield. The walls of brick and stone, and the walls that are Hector, keep the war from intruding into and violating the life of the city. The attitude of the Trojan people with respect to the war seems an important index of the ways in which they attempt to distance themselves from it and deny its danger to them. The war represents a serious threat to Troy, and the ideology and practices the city develops reflect a necessity to minimize and alleviate this threat. The real conditions of existence facing the Trojans are that, because one of their king's sons has stolen away a Greek queen, with her blessing but without her husband's, they are besieged by a superior force and their seers and soothsayers predict their ultimate defeat and annihilation.

These rather dismal conditions of existencenare not encoded as such by the Trojan voices in the poem, who describe the war as an opportunity to perform valorous deeds and to win praise and public acclamation. To Diomede, the war has a clear purpose: to punish the theft of Helen, who is thus encoded as property. The Trojans, however, do not encode themselves as thieves protecting an illegally-obtained plunder. Nonetheless, the ideology they develop to describe their role in the war also concerns women's placein society. To Diomede, and presumably to the Greeks in general, the city of Troy is being besieged and thousands of Trojans are dying to punish Helen's being in Troy and not at home with her husband. No matter how one assigns blame for Helen's being in Troy - whether Helen herself has willingly left her husband, or has been unwillingly stolen away by Paris - to the Greeks, Helen is still encoded as an object, the possession of which is extremely important and worth a great many lives. Unfortunately for her, she is, in the eyes of the Greeks, the object that represents both marital and martial potency. Her disposal is not to be of her own choosing.

To Diomede, the war is being fought to maintain men's property rights in women. After his stay in the Greek camp, Calchas appears to have become more fully cognizant of Greek practices that encode women as property, property that may exchanged to create kinship bonds and relations among men. Thus he sends for his daughter. It is only after living among the Greeks that Calchas comes to understand more completely their ideology and practices concerning the exchange of women, and appreciates the power that having engendered a marriageable daughter gives him the Greek world. His initial lack of understanding arises because the Trojans and the Greeks in this poem have slightly different ideas an practices concerning the role and position of women. My claim that Trojan practices concerning women are somewhat different from Greek practices which encode women as objects exchange does not, however, make Troy a haven for women.

With Troy itself, male characters show different degrees of acceptance women's sexuality and of their power to choose the objects of the affection. The Trojan and Greek practices, may, however, be contrasted by looking at their effects on Criseyde. In both places, Troy and the Greek camp, Criseyde takes the lover who is presented to her and her unwillingness or eagerness in the matter seems to be of little avail; however, there is a significant difference in the tone of Diomede's wooing, on the one hand, and Troilus's and Pandarus's, on the other. In the Greek camp, Calchas stands in a similar relation to Criseyde as did Pandarus, yet he has none of Pandarus's playfulne and obvious enjoyment of the game of love. Calchas does not act as a go-between, nor does he help accustom Criseyde to the idea Diomede's love for her, as Pandarus has done for Troilus.

Diomede’s wooing is considerably less timid, and his telling Criseyde to disengage her mind from Troy because of its imminent destruction is frankly brutal, and not at all the sort of conversation a man has with a beloved woman whom he believes has a real option to decline his favors. On the other hand, Troilus is continually, almost comically, aware of Criseyde's option to decline. In Troy, much more energy is expended on obtaining a voluntary compliance from the beloved lady. In this respect, the situation in Troy, especially from Troilus's point of view is much closer to the medieval ideal of courtly love. This is not surprising in view of the war raging outside the walls of the city: the Trojans have found themselves defending the right of women to enter and remain in love relationships voluntarily, and have consequently enhanced and strengthened the ideology that men ought be suitors and women granters of sexual favors. Troilus, perhaps alone among all the inhabitants of Troy, has wholeheartedly em braced this ideology and attempted to put it unmodified into practice. Troilus, as befits his name, has become an embodiment of the structures and practices of his entire city.

…According to her uncle, who is not some sort of monster having only her worst interests at heart, Criseyde really ought to find herself a lover, someone worthy, someone whose love for her will give her credit, and someone whom she can enrich by her cherishing. Pandarus's happily cozy picture of loving bliss does not, however, entirely conform to his own experiences or to Troilus's expectations, in which men love and suffer, and women go out visiting in pretty clothes and enjoy themselves. Helen, who is invited to the meeting of Criseyde's friends at Deiphebus's house - “For she may leden Paris as hire leste" (II, 1449) - is very much the adored beloved whose lover is regarded as her servant. Lastly, the behavior of Trojan women at the feast of Palladion conforms to Troilus's denunciation of them. During th spring rites, all women in the crowd, except Criseyde in her "widewe habit blak" (I, 170), are "ful wel arayed, both meeste, men, and leste" (I, 167). Criseyde's wearing of black as a token of the grief of he widowhood contrasts strongly with the festival attire of other Trojan women from all ranks of society. In a city at war, a city that has lost many to battle, Criseyde is the only woman who remembers her dead husband in her somber dress.

I believe that it is Criseyde's setting herself aside in black that first attracts Troilus to her. Not only Troilus's scorn of lovers and loving in the opening passages of Book I, but also his having come to manhood in a city under siege because one particular woman, Helen, left her husband and wanted the option to exchange one lover for another makes him extremely susceptible to Criseyde, the only woman among the crowd at the festival whose attire indicates sexual fidelity. After being smitten by Criseyde, Thus gan he make a mirour of his mynde In which he saugh al holly hire figure. (I, 365-66) Troilus has fallen in love with an idol of his own making, and not with the Criseyde the reader comes to know in the poem. Troilus sees in Criseyde's black attire the devotion to sexual fidelity that so character izes him. Her blackness is very like that of a tabula rasa, on which all (and only) pure, white thoughts can be written.

In Criseyde, Troilus finally sees what he did not believe could possibly exist in all the world, a feminine version of his loyalty and his capacity to indulge in a transcendent and all-consuming love. Criseyde's love for her husband appears to have transcended his death, and a love that leads to and outlives death is precisely the sort of love that Troilus had wanted and yet despaired of finding. This is why, despite his social, economic, and military status in Troy, Troilus is genuinely overawed by Criseyde, and has little hope of success. When Pandarus tries to persuade Troilus that Criseyde is a woman like other women, Troilus cannot believe him, claiming that for al that evere ye kenne,/She nyl to noon swich wrecche as I ben wonne. (I, 776-77) This is more than the courtly lover's due respect to his mistress's claims of beauty and status. Troilus's belief in Criseyde's unmatchable virtue also explains his faint when he first witnesses the tone of Pandarus's wooing of Criseyde. Troilus is overcome when he overhears Pandarus making up a story about his supposed jealousy and anger towards Criseyde.

Troilus has not been present at the exchanges between Pandarus and Criseyde in which Pandarus induces her to accept Troilus as her lover, and he has not witnessed the mixture of cajolery and threats of his and Pandarus's deaths with which Criseyde has been persuaded. He really knows little of the reasons for which Criseyde accepts him. In this poem, Troilus is very much a young man, one relatively inexperienced in affairs of state or of romance, and he expects his transactions with Criseyde to be unpolluted by motives other than those of the heart. In their bedroom scene in Book III, he kneels as a suppliant by her bed. His posture may seem amusing to us as readers, because we have seen a flustered, confused, self contradicting, and easily-persuaded Criseyde for hundreds of lines of poetry. Troilus, however, has only the dimmest knowledge of the process by which Criseyde's sexual favors have already been secured for him. He believes himself to be the model of a courtly lover suing for favors from a venerated mistress. Even Criseyde's amused reply does not persuade him of his power over her:

…The ideology about the relations between the sexes seems to be simpler, albeit more brutal, in the Greek camp than it does in the city of Troy, probably because we, as readers, spend much more time in Troy and observe many more of its citizens. At the camp, we have Diomede, who sees women as objects to be won in battle so as to gain status, and who says to himself concerning Criseyde's love for Troilus: But whoso myghte wynnen swich a flour/From hym for whom she morneth nyght and day,/He myghte seyn he were a conqueror. (V, 792-94) By naming her a "flour," Diomede clearly objectifies Criseyde, and he goes on to equate loving a woman with martial victory over another man. (This ought not to be surprising amongst an army whose purpose in Troy is to send the message that "if you don't let one of our kings have his wife, we shall take her anyway, destroy your city, kil your men, and rape your women.") Hector, the man who is the walls of Troy, stands between life in Troy and this threatened destruction.

Relations between the sexes outside the city walls are associated with power relations held in place by violence. Within the city itself, however, a veneer of courtesy and courtliness masks assertions of male power over female sexuality. Pandarus, despite his many kindly intentions towards his niece, does cajole and at times nearly bully her into accepting Troilus as a lover. Pandarus's attitude toward Criseyde disposing of herself in love clearly takes Troilus by surprise. The practices of the courtly lover found in Troy are expressed in their extreme in Troilus, and he is, perhaps, an example of what happen when one takes anything too seriously. Pandarus, Criseyde, Helen, and presumably many more like them, manage their love affairs in Troy without the utter despair that comes upon Troilus at any thwarting of his hopes. And, of course, they manage their love affairs in a walled haven in which both men and women have the possibility of sexual pleasures and the choice of sexual partners. Discretion is necessary, but in this Troy of feasts, good fellowship, loving friendship, and close family ties, physical pleasure for both sexes is encouraged.

I would like to suggest that this characterization of the city of Troy and of the Greek army feminized the city, as falling in love has feminized the city's namesake, Troilus. Some readers find Troilus's love for Criseyde to be an obsession, to be a longing that emasculates and weakens him, and to be a sign of his youth and immaturity. To th Greek army, Troy has become the place of the "other": a feminine, weak, decadent and declining civilization that must give place to a new, young, very aggressive and masculine warrior culture. Greece, with its ideology that women's sexuality is to be controlled by men, and that martial power decides all disputations of right and wrong seems more in line with the Western history of relations between th sexes and between the weak and the strong, than does Troy. To the Greeks of the poem, Troy is very much "other": an exotic, almost Oriental place of wealth, leisure, abundant feasting, and beautiful women. (Helen, the most beautiful woman of all time, is always Helen of Troy, never Helen of Greece, or of Sparta, or of Menelaus.) The poem's medieval English reader, however, could not see Troy entirely as the place of the "other."

Troy is, of course, also the mythological source of both Rome and London, and the Troy of Troilus and Criseyde is a place of medieval gentility and courtliness. Despite seeing Troy as London's root and the Trojan aristocracy as the ancestors of British royalty and nobility, the medieval reader may have also seen Troy as a city that must inevitably fall to allow for the newer and presumably better civilizations of Rome and London. The Trojan civilization of Hector and Troilus aroused a bitter antipathy in the Greek army, and was destroyed by that army. Troy has projected onto it by the Greeks all of the characteristics that are most repugnant to a new, young warrior culture trying to establish itself in the face of opposition from an older, richer, less-bloodthirsty culture that is living on the fruits of victories won by its ancestors. Thus it is that to the more primitive and hardier Greeks, the city of Troy seems to be feminine, gentle, loving, luxurious, and supportive of a life that they are denied, and thus must destroy.

The Trojans who seem most to embody Troy are Troilus and Hector. Despite his stature as a warrior who performs heroically without the city's gates, in his attitude towards sexual love, Troilus is very much at the center of the city. His brother, Hector, although even more renowned for his valor, is also an embodiment of this feminized place. Hector is the walls of the city, the guardian against the Greek army which will violate the female body of Troy. In this poem, female bodies and feminine space do not hold out against masculine or martial intrusions. Since Troilus and Hector are embodiments of the city itself, all are equally doomed to die. Criseyde's succumbing to Diomede's advances is the first successful masculine/Greek penetration of feminine/ Trojan space, and her succumbing is as inevitable as all the other Greek intrusions into the city that follow upon it.

Since the deaths of the two brothers follow closely on her accepting of Diomede, it may even be the case that her fall may be seen as the first, the one fall that sets into motion a series of further falls. First Criseyde, the character with both Greek and Trojan ties, succumbs; then Hector, the walls and outskirts of the city, is overcome in battle; and, finally, Troilus, the heart of the city, dies. (Yet, since this is a Christian and an English poem, he rises to a new life.) This is not to blame the fall of Troy on Criseyde's leaving Troilus, but to suggest that the Trojan parliament decided to follow a more pragmatic, Greek-like practice with respect to Criseyde's place in society, and to be false to the more aristocratic and courtly practices adopted by Hector and Troilus concerning women. The parliament's turning Criseyde into an object of exchange was an early step in the own succumbing to the force of Greek ideas and culture. It was, in fact allowing through the gates of the city a "Trojan horse" of Greek pratices concerning women and the places they may inhabit in society.”

- Diane Vanner Steinberg, "We Do Usen Here No Wommen for to Selle": Embodiment of Social Practices in "Troilus and Criseyde"

[burnedhorcrux]

Being best friend with Draco, Pansy and Blaise would include

Sorry in advance for the mistakes!

(I didn’t found any good picture of them together so i tried to make something ~)

You first met Blaise in the train to Hogwarts, he seemed cold and serious. When he noticed how anxious you were, he decided to engage a conversation. You found out he was a really cool and interesting person  

Draco was the second you became friend with after the sorting ceremony. He looked really confident in himself :

« I’m Draco Malfoy » was the first thing you heard from him. It may seems trivial, but the way he emphasized on his last name wasn’t meaningless…

You only met Pansy in the evening when you discovered she was one of your roommates. As you went well along together, you decided to intriduce her to the boys the next morning

You quickly became inseparable. Together, you were fine and for the very first time in your three lifes, you had a family. You were happy

Your first years was almost only laugh and joy

Unfortunalty, it couldn’t last forever…

_________________________________________

Pansy and Draco being the mom and dad of the group

« Blaise, y/n, stop arguing like two kids »

« y/n, Blaise, shut up for once, we’re trying to have a serious conversation »

« Pansy, why are we their friends again ? »

« I don’t know Draco »

_________________________________________

Blaise often plays with you hair when you’re sat in the common room or in the great hall

Pansy gives you her scarf when you’re cold

You often sleep with her when one of you is sad and need cuddles

You also really like to sleep with Draco as he’s always warm and smells like vanilla

Blaise moves to much. Once you fell asleep with him and he almost pushed you on the floor in his sleep. At first he laughed at you but when he realized he has hurt you he turned out to be really worried and guilty

Every Saturday night, the four of you sneak to the lake with blankets to talk and play games outside

Sometimes you also spend hours in the Astronomy Tower having deep conversations with Blaise

You love borrowing their clothes ; usually Pansy’s green dress, Draco’s or Blaise’s black shirts

Pansy bought you matching brazilian bracelets. First Blaise and Draco were like « Merlin that’s cringe af » but started to wear them and secretly like it.

As Slytherin trash, you almost always wear Slytherin clothes

Studying with Draco as you’re the two who value the most studies

« I help you with potions and charms, you help me with history of magic and herbology »

« Sounds fair »

« C’mere and open your book » *Gesturing you to sit beside him on his bed*

Pansy is more into cheating and Blaise just manages to pass the tests studying the less as possible

You live for the house cup, Slytherin HAS to win no matter what

_________________________________________

Blaise and you are like Draco and Pansy’s childs

Blaise is more reserved as he was raised with the idea that showing his love and softness is a proof of weakness. You just shower him with love which makes him really soft though

Teasing him a lot :

« Blaiiiiiise, do you love us ? »

« Shut up Pansy »

« Blaiiiiiiiiise, can I wear your scarf ? »

« Shut up y/n »

« Blaiiiiise, Blaiiise, Blaiiiise »

« Shut up Malfoy »

He wouldn’t really tell you how much he loves you three and rather have a lot of little attentions such as filling your plates with food, playing with your hair, letting you sit on his lap or carring your books for you

_________________________________________

Draco is the biggest softie ever

Through the years, he became more and more sad. You knew what was happening but he didn’t told you in detail what was his task to protect you

Suddently, he stopped playing Quiddich and started to totally lose control

Sometimes, he could just sit besides you and stay silent for hours

Other days, he would break in tears with you holding him in your arms

But sometimes, he would smile only by the sight of you three. It was as if everything had returned as before

Your friendship became the only source of warm in his life, besides his mother

_________________________________________

Pansy looks after you too much

« Y/N, stop being so messy and tidy your stuff »

« Blaise, go back and fix your tie or Snape will make you the remark again »

She’s protective

Also very confident in herself and outgoing

She knows everyone who’s in Slytherin

You supported her when she did her coming out as lesbian and encouraged her to ask Millicent out to the Yull Ball (and she obviously said yes)

Despite apparences, she’s the most independant of you three. She needs a lot of space

But Pansy would still do anything for you three

_________________________________________

When Draco got his dark mark, you did your best to shower him with love and comfort him

« Draco, we are your family »

Few days later Pansy and Blaise got their own marks

You were the last to get yours

But you had pretty different opinions. Pansy and Draco had the most racist ideology beacause of their education. Blaise didn’t like non pure-bloods at all but he was less influencable and became a deatheater only to get profit of it. And you only became part of Voldemore’s side to stay alive

Despite everything that happened, your friendship remained pure and intact

Pansy died in the war. You three were broken and made yourself the promise to stay best friends forever, because you needed each others more than ever, and in memory of her

None of you three went to Askaban

When Draco got married, Blaise and you decided to live together and finish your lifes this way

[bee-not-afraid]

since im officially finished with lost judgment now im gonna dump a bunch of thoughts on it below (heavy spoilers, obviously). overall I really liked it! but it’s an rgg game, so of course i still have some complaints lol

- I know rggs doesn’t have a great track record with women but dear god. this game felt like a huge step back after y7. the fridging of sawa-sensei is EXTREME and yagami sounds like such a broken record for the whole second half of the game. its all just sawa-sensei this and sawa-sensei that. yagami barely knew the woman and he props her up as some kind of pure angelic martyr. yes what happened to her was tragic and she deserved better but i seriously think yagami talked more about her than he ever did emi terasawa... and the fact that she was his SOLE rebuttal against kuwana’s actions sucks and leads me to my next point...

- it is baffling to me that this game can feature a plotline where a bunch of high school bullies learn and grow and become better more empathetic people, while at the same time condoning kuwana’s serial killings. the game goes out of its way to never explicitly condemn the fact that kuwana commits murder, with several main characters straight up agreeing with him and yagami only objecting on grounds of sawa-sensei getting caught up in it. like did none of the bullies kuwana killed ever grow and change? were none of them capable of redemption? did none of them grow to genuinely regret their actions? and what about the former students kuwana blackmails? we get to see that mamiya is fairly unrepentant, but are the rest of them? did none of them feel genuine remorse? is being forced into aiding with murder a fair punishment? did akaike deserve to die? the game never gives us enough information to be able to answer these questions, but I’m more disturbed by the fact that the game never even asks those questions in the first place.

- that said, I did really like some of the major themes of this game. I agree with its notion of the law as something that is flawed and in need of continual changes and improvements. and I really liked the point about how we should never accept a ‘necessary evil’ and should instead try to fix/change the system until the evil is no longer necessary. and the idea that taking justice into one’s own hands is dangerous because there’s no accountability. good stuff.

- i appreciated how the mystery in this was a bit more unconventional. technically there’s still a serial murder case but it gets solved fairly quickly in the grand scheme of things and then the mystery shifts to ‘what the fuck is going on with rk anyway.’ the first judgment was a fairly standard whodunnit type noir mystery so this was refreshingly different! and thank god they fixed the pacing. once lost judgment picked up steam it just kept going and it really pulled me in!

- the characters! the characters in this one are great! LOVED kuwana as a foil to yagami. yagami is an irritatingly perfect protag at times and he really needed someone who could balance him out and oppose him and kuwana was perfect for the role! tsukumo getting upgraded to main cast was great, he deserved it. akutsu was a surprisingly good minor antag and i actually felt pretty bad for him when he died. tesso was great even if he didn’t do much, fell in love the second he busted out the ‘kyoudai’. and soma was such a good villain holy shit. he really blindsided me with that first fight, he felt like such a genuine threat and god his boss music seriously im still not over it

- something about soma being conscious and aware for yagami and kuwana’s Final Ultimate Ideological Slapfight is incredibly funny to me. what’s he thinking about while watching his two greatest enemies beat the shit out of each other

- that soundtrack!! rgg rhythm game WHEN

- fuck stealth missions. crane still feels like the weakest style but snake is really fun. some of the school minigames were great (skateboarding, dance) some were meh (boxing, biking) some i hate with a passion (robotics). i got surprisingly invested in the school storyline and felt much more attached to those characters than i ever did to the friends in judgment 1. lockpicking and photo missions still felt largely shoehorned in. glad they reduced the number of tailing missions. chases felt a lot better. takes way too long to get tiger drop and i actually struggled with the combat at times, but not in a bad way. still disappointed in the amon fight.