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detransdamnation · 8 months ago

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I think I might not actually be trans but I don't know where these feelings come from then, what caused them and what to do against my dysphoria. I just want to be a woman again. do you have any resources on this? thank you in advance

Hey there, Anon.

Unfortunately, there aren't too many resources for dysphoric detransitioned people and what few do pop up either don't last long, cater exclusively to youth or the parents of them, or (in my personal opinion) don't actually do all that much to tangibly help us as people. That isn't to say that the resources do not exist, period—but from what I have seen, they are largely community-based and almost exclusively online (which can open its own can of worms), as academic and medical efforts where they do exist more often concern dysphoric people who are actively transitioning, or wish to make that leap.

That being said, frustrating circumstance does not mean that you cannot take steps to try to help yourself. It's difficult for me to know what, exactly, to suggest, as I don't know you, so I can't make too many assumptions on what, specifically, may have contributed to your dysphoria and what you may find helpful. But not all hope is lost. I scoured the Internet looking for something that could help you, and although most of what has been put out there suffers/ed from the same things I listed above, I did find one organization that may be of interest to you. Gender Dysphoria Alliance aims to better understand dysphoria, all the ways it can present, and the best ways to help those affected by it. This could be helpful to you if you are looking specifically for well-rounded conversation that is supportive of detransitioners and centric of homosexual and female sex rights, critical of the ways in which the transgender community approaches things but also not inherently gender-critical and not necessarily dismissive of transition as a legitimate option for some. There is a members' forum specifically for those who are impacted by dysphoria to participate in, although in order to join, you will need to receive approval from a moderator to ensure the space remains reflective of its intent and target group.

Insofar as the process of working through dysphoria goes, if you are wondering where to start, I came across this archived Substack post entitled Alternatives to Transition: A step-by-step guide to thinking your way out of dysphoria without repressing it*. This is a short, concise article which, coincidentally, outlines more or less the same approach I took (and still try to take) when dealing with my own dysphoria; that you said "I just want to be a woman again" in your submission makes me think it may be helpful for you as well. In essence, dysphoric people—as a feature of our dysphoria—are prone to hyper-analysis and extreme black-and-white thinking. We tend to see (the ideas of) men and women as (often rather extreme) caricatures of stereotypes—leading us to believe that we are, or are meant to be, the opposite sex (or even another gender entirely) because we do not fit those stereotypes. In the process of this re-identification, we lose the ability to understand that very few people are actually adequately described by any of their sex's stereotypes to a T—and simultaneously, that virtually no non-dysphoric person looks at menial things and categorically assigns them a gender (in general, or to know how to conform or not to conform) like we do. In short, we're too in-our-own-heads emotionally to logically understand how things actually are. This isn't our fault as dysphoric people—but it does mean we're unlikely to get anywhere until we learn to reformulate our thinking. This post gives you specific direction on how to start that process.

But dysphoria rarely happens "just because," and in deconstructing your own, you may find that your dysphoria was only secondary to another, greater issue, whether environmental or psychological. This is a little more difficult to give guidance on, as dysphoria which has been influenced by the surrounding environment isn't something that one can change overnight, or even necessarily escape from. As far as psychological issues go, it'd be easy for me to suggest therapy; however, I don't like to because I find it to be a canned response, especially nowadays. It's unhelpful to people who do not have the monetary means to go to therapy, as well as insensitive to those who have had bad experiences which turned them off or even set them further back.

On top of this, what is a great barrier for dysphoric detransitioners in finding psychological help is that many gender psychologists are geared to only support circular, gender-affirmative treatment (i.e., transition is the cure for your dysphoria because you are transgender) in their practice, which—should go without saying—isn't helpful to us as detransitioners, and may even inadvertently harm us. I don't mean to dissuade you from going this route if you feel you need it, or to be overall pessimistic about the state of things (although I'll admit I am)—but I also find it imperative to be honest about the difficulties you may face in finding someone who would be beneficial to you in your specific situation. I will say that in my research for you, I did find one website which offers more well-rounded therapy for dysphoric people; however, it's not something I'm personally comfortable publicly endorsing on my blog because the website itself admits that the advertised therapists are not vetted by the organization itself (meaning at minimum, they agree with the mission statement and probably won't blindly affirm your dysphoria—but that's about all that's guaranteed). Still, if you would like to have this on hand regardless, you are free to message me for the link.

Finally, if you happen to be struggling with the ways in which the transgender community or gender theory has harmed you but are struggling to put the "why" and "how" into words (or just want reassurance that you're not crazy for feeling hurt), I'd like to direct you to The New Thought Crime*. This is a series of five blog posts. Very long read, very information-heavy. However, when I was in your same position coming up to three years ago now, teetering between the two paths, not sure if I even wanted to "take the risk" and disenfranchise myself from something I had spent so many years working so hard to carefully craft for myself, this was what ripped the blinders off and forced me to realize just how much I was harming myself by transitioning. Nothing has ever made me feel so seen and heard in such a dark place. It is initially advertised as for detransitioned women but it is genuinely helpful to everyone no matter their sex, identity, or previous or current relationship with the community. I would recommend it to anyone and everyone.

I hope this points you in the right direction. I wish you luck and perseverance.

*P.S. If you find either of these posts helpful, it would be wise to save them elsewhere, as The Wayback Machine as of late seems to be falling short of its prerogative in archiving lost or deleted Internet pages. Go figure.

#looking at this post in the queue and feeling like it's just saying a whole lot of nothing lmao #i truly did my best but it really is scarce out there #submission #answered #detrans #writing #reference #text #my post

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anotherworldnowblog · 21 days ago

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WE WILL NEVER BE FORGIVEN

“Although the fascist phenomenon can be resisted and avoided, there is a point in its growth after which it appears difficult to turn it back. The moment is not that at which fascism actually comes into power; the accession to power seems such a simple final act, occurring only when the essentials are already decided and done with, in short, a confirmation of a victory already won.” Nicos Poulantzas Fascism and Dictatorship, p. 66

PART II

The defeat of the George Floyd uprising seems everywhere to signal the closure of a cycle of struggle stretching back at least to Ferguson, maybe Rodney King, with its roots going all the way to Watts. Whether the George Floyd uprising was the end of a chain of urban rebellions and circulation struggles or the first link in a quantitatively and qualitatively new series of nationwide uprisings remains to be seen. How and when the proletariat announces its return is not clear. Troublingly, what has happened since 2020 is increasingly so.

On January 6th, the closest thing in contemporary American history to a mass fascist street action coalesced in a foolish attempt to overturn the election results. We laugh at the ill-fated coup at our own risk however, as by this point the proletariat was entirely defeated and the right-wing antidemocratic attack was only foiled by a combination of the fascists’ astounding stupidity and the incoming regime's control over local police power. Fascists are always fools. It is the fact that their goals so closely align to those of the power elite and that their methods violently liberate the movement of capital from its fragile humanistic ties that make them dangerous, not their intelligence. Despite its admittedly farcical appearance, the effects of this coup-attempt were absolutely profound. The media cynically used this event to wipe clean the rebellion of the previous summer from the memories of nearly all Americans, to strongly associate “insurrection” with right-wing activity, to forcefully reverse what had then become a common disdain for police, and to neutralize all left-critique of the incoming administration. The left-wing of liberalism, the fraction of the community of capital that had momentarily sided with the proletariat in a moment of acute crisis, is completely disentangled from radical politics and psychically sealed off from protest itself.[1] As will become an obvious tendency in what follows, the gains of the working class in the period of crisis and its aftermath, both in terms of consciousness and in terms of policy, are steadily and methodically reversed in bipartisan fashion.

“Start the forgetting machine!” - Aime Cesaire, Discourse on Colonialism (p. 32)

The consolidation of the victory of capital over the working class unfolds in cascading action across multiple fronts. It proceeds relatively uninhibited because of the persistent unity of the various capitalist fractions. In the interest of concision, I will henceforth abandon a rigidly chronological presentation.

The first and most direct response to the working class rebellion in 2020 is the passage of several bills granting immunity to anyone who uses their vehicle to run over protestors demonstrating in the street, first in Iowa, Oklahoma, Florida, and with at least eight more bills across the country being debated across the country's state houses in 2021.[2] The significance of such bills cannot be overstated. After the 2017 Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville culminated in the use of an automobile as a weapon of mass murder, a tactic formerly associated exclusively with the specter of Islamic terror, elite liberals of all political persuasions recoiled in horror. However, as we have seen in the above, it would not be long before this all-too American technique of violence would be repeated, this time against a far more militant anti-racist offensive. The right to murder protestors is being quietly legalized under the guise of protecting an individual’s right to free movement and often even more cynically, by invoking the hypothetical needs of imaginary emergency vehicles. The pedestrian, the cyclist, are sacrificed at the fascist altar of the internal combustion engine, a trend further accelerated by the destruction of public transit during COVID-19. As usual, Adorno’s words read like prophecy: “which auto-driver has not felt the temptation, in the power of the motor, to run over the vermin of the street – passersby, children, bicyclists? In the movements which machines demand from their operators, lies already that which is violent, crashing, propulsively unceasing in Fascist mistreatment.”[3] The temptation then is all the more powerful when the ‘vermin of the street’ is not merely passive but actively attempting to weaponize a constructed interruption in those violent, crashing movements, which otherwise ceaselessly accelerate the flows of global commodities, towards ends quite at odds with the valorization of capital; in a word, liberation.

Regrettably, this violence is far from an exclusively petit bourgeois pastime. Fractions of the proletariat are pit against one another as increasingly large numbers of urban workers come to rely on delivery and driving gigs, a sector swollen further during the pandemic. The city street is all but erased as social space, transformed into an exclusive conveyor of private goods carried by independent contractors with overlapping commitments, coerced by the mute compulsions of capital to at times restore the free flow of commodities with violence. The rural highway remains a blood-stained latticework criss-crossed by drowsy laborers called to traverse ever-increasing distances to balance employment and disintegrating familial ties. Studies indicate that the roadways of the United States have never been more deadly, a tragedy compounded by the fact that the great majority of this increase in auto traffic is nothing but our own life energies confronting us, and killing us, as services marketed as simplification.[4] That this machine’s victims are now willing, and legally empowered, to murder those who would dare gum-up the gnashing of its steel teeth is a tragedy of anthropological proportion.

This rapid movement to sweep political struggle from the streets of America apparently knows no partisan loyalty. The militant struggle in Atlanta to Stop Cop City and the nationwide street action aimed at halting the genocide in Gaza have galvanized hesitant Democrats to abandon all pretense at connection to their grassroots and join Republicans in criminalizing constitutionally protected and normatively accepted forms of public protest. In 2023, Georgia Democrats pushed the meaning of domestic terrorism to include attendance at a music festival or muddy shoes[5] and in 2024, New York Democrats will likely level at any protest that “blocks a road or a bridge” terrorism enhancements, this coming amidst increasingly infrastructure-intelligent anti-war mobilization.[6] The latter move, a continuation of and qualitative leap-up from the endorsement of stochastic terror by state Republicans, is a direct response to the collective awareness of systemic choke points in the networks of circulation gained by the working class in the latest cycle of struggles; an attempt to dispatch with this desperate counter-riposte to decades of deindustrialization and dispersion that has all-but destroyed the effectiveness of the proletariat’s traditional, production-point tactics.

Furthermore, just in the past several weeks, the Democratic mayor of Los Angeles has announced her intent to ban protective face masks at protests and the Democratic governor of the state of New York has signaled her intention to ban masks from public transit entirely.[7] Such shocking policies, not only whiplash-inducing for their incongruity with all conceptions of public health and civic responsibility, ostensibly designed to combat crime and ensure accountability for largely fictitious acts of anti-semitic violence, are obviously intended to chill protected speech acts and guarantee the effectiveness of facial recognition software in tracking the movements of protest attendees. It is no coincidence that these suggestions come on the heels of an anti-imperialist protest movement that is militantly imbuing the struggle against white supremacy, the struggle of which the George Floyd Rebellion was but one battle, with a refreshingly internationalist perspective. Such obscene policy measures, in addition to signaling an ever-deepening political unity between the two domestic political parties when it comes to shirking government responsibility for social welfare and crushing working class protest, accelerate the devastating impact of COVID on those with pre-existing conditions, amounting to a policy of murderous social cleansing on top of the troubling implications for any who dare dissent. Politically, the Democrats’ pathetic tailing of Republican reaction will almost certainly earn them no additional votes at the ballot box. But their willingness to abandon COVID-era convictions at the first sign of working-class internationalism is quite telling indeed. It is regretful that such clarity is achieved at so high a price.

American economic policy in the wake of the pandemic (which I submit also includes intentional prolongation of the War in Ukraine), that has, among other things, led to inflationary pressures that have wiped out Covid-era wage gains, called forth unprecedented state intervention to stabilize big and small businesses, and generally sent stocks stratospheric, must also be seen as part of the offensive of capital against the working class and as an expression of exceptional bourgeois unity.[8] The concentration of capital, accelerated by inflationary pressures, pushes us towards fascism by 1. unifying rentier and industrial capital (platform capital and hardgoods producers unified through mergers, bundles, and partnerships)[9], as well as national with transnational capital (friendshoring)[10] 2. negatively impacting and threatening to cast into the proletariat the petit bourgeois, thereby spontaneously developing shallowly “anti-capitalist” ideas in a vengeful middle class, the National Socialists of tomorrow’s America who merely wish to swap the current elites with their own, and 3. reversing gains of the proletariat, prompting economistic and defensive struggles, as well as by expanding the national and international army of surplus labor (all evident in an erosion of purchasing power; digitized productivity monitoring introduced under the cover of COVID-19 exceptionalism; the repeal of state child labor law[11]; immigration policy that divides the proletariat into tiers of formality and fixes certain workers within preferable national legal systems; the lawsuit seeking to destroy the NLRA brought by SpaceX, Amazon, Trader Joe’s[12]; multifront international warfare creating huge migratory movements of refugees; etc.) as a means of reinforcing and deepening the domination of capital over labor.

“It is characteristic of the rise of fascism that the struggle of the bourgeoisie against the working class assumes an increasingly political nature, while the working-class struggle against the bourgeoisie falls further and further back into the domain of economic demands… it is the economic struggle which progressively assumes the dominant role in the struggle of the working class.” -Nicos Poulantzas, Fascism and Dictatorship (p. 142)

Meanwhile, the chauvinism of the American right deepens, and it finds ever more dangerous expression for its hatreds structurally, even under Democratic administration. In fact, the far-right agenda seems to have had far more success nationally under the current Democratic administration than during Trump’s tenure. Between 2021 and 2023, 129 anti-trans bills were passed in states across America. We have no way to know the true number of murders and suicides these bills have led to–we know of far too many as it is–but we can say the United States is no doubt becoming an intolerably dangerous place for queer life. Even President Obama was willing to credibly threaten to withhold critical federal education funds from state governments who refused to follow the administration’s guidance with respect to the usage of bathrooms by trans and gender nonconforming people. This powerful intervention to protect and normalize trans life, perhaps as a means to protect an image of capitalism as tolerant and progressive, was immediately reversed by the Trump administration in 2017.[13] Today, the Biden administration has done absolutely nothing to forestall the ongoing attempt to erase trans people from existence in State Houses across America, suggesting a new ruling class consensus to abandon the illusion of a progressive capitalist culture, and perhaps liberalism itself.

In 2022, Roe vs. Wade was overturned by the United States Supreme Court, all but condemning working class pregnant people to carry their babies to term or go broke attempting to procure abortion services in one of a dwindling number of safe states. As of now, 21 states “ban abortion or restrict the procedure earlier in pregnancy than the standard set by Roe v. Wade,” with no indication that the adoption of such policies are slowing down.[14] It is far from controversial or groundbreaking to insist on anti-abortion policies as class warfare. The lack of safe, free abortion services divides the working class; the Bolsheviks institutionalized recognition of this basic fact in the very first years of the Soviet experiment over a century ago. Capital does not merely homogenize the laboring class as labor-power; it ceaselessly differentiates it along the axes of race, sex/gender, and age. Fascism, as the political expression of an exceptionally class-conscious ruling class, ruthlessly exploits and expands such divisions. That such a strategy emerges as a compliment to traditionalist reaction to the social atomization of the capitalist system it seeks to renew and defend is simply an example of the extraordinary opportunism of our bourgeoisie. It is an ideological pivot around which the petit bourgeoisie can align itself with a capitalist class that cares little about what is traditional and only about maximizing the rate of exploitation domestically.

On the southern border medieval death traps are erected, placed there by far-right politicians, and defended against the regulation of federal guidance by National Guards of neighboring and distant states. Migrants that have made it beyond our ramparts are shipped into the city centers of various Democratic mayors where they are subject to subhuman levels of care and a brutal, a shadow labor regime, absolutely maximizing rates of exploitation and dragging the wages of citizen-workers down, fanning the flames of racism and xenophobia across all of the national classes. Even the farthest-left members of our political system can seem only able to refer to these newly-arrived proletarian faces, often entire families, in the language of the far-right: as a crisis. Yet, far from becoming the constitutional crisis suggested at Eagle Pass, murderous border policy, irrational from the perspective of national economic interest but rational from the perspective of protecting the consistency of the national ideology, becomes another point of practical unity for Democratic and Republican officials alike. In fact, what marginal differences exist between the two Amerikan politikal parties on border policy allow the ruling class to have it both ways: a zone of blood sacrifice is established along the southern border for the ritualistic simulation of protection of the White body politic, while the majority of migrants do make it into our country for the sole purpose of superexploitation. These huddled masses are then weaponized in the cynical assault on the basis of the domestic laboring classes’ bargaining power: solidarity.

No matter; this convenient capitulation of the Democratic Party to Republican bloodlust has not dislodged the purely spectacular appearance of intense partisan division, nor has it stopped the wealthiest capitalist in this country from articulating anti-semitic conspiracy theories about the providence of this influx of migrants. Elon Musk, regrettably one of the more powerful of the bourgeoisie, appears to be spontaneously recreating National Socialism (With American Characteristics) in a haze of his own weed smoke. At various points, he has more or less explicitly called the immigration of people from the global south a Jewish conspiracy to destroy American prosperity and traditional family values, coming increasingly close to simply tweeting out the 14 words and decisively aligning himself with the ultraright fractions of the petit bourgeois and capitalist elements of the Republican party.

But Elon Musk is not alone in signaling his preference for a Republican presidency in the coming election; Jamie Diamond of JP Morgan,[15] Vice-Chair of Black Rock Philipp Hildebrand, and many other capitalists in the wake of conferences such as Davos have more or less openly declared their preference for a Trump victory in 2024.[16] Nonetheless, Trump’s most consistent base of support has long been that of the small-business owner, not the large capitalist. His electoral strength is his appearance as a disruptor, and it is exactly this trait which makes large capital uneasy. It is in this light which we can begin to understand the logic of Trump’s baffling selection of JD Vance as his 2024 running mate. The choice of a man so obviously disliked by the general public can only be made sense of as an attempt to further signal to the bourgeoisie what type of dictatorship a second Trump presidency would really be: a dictatorship of capital. Vance is, above all else, a creature of large tech capital, and much more so than Trump, a man who is wholly up for sale. If big capital continues to warm to a Trump presidency, despite Harris now backing away from all of Biden’s regulatory commitments, this would represent a development in the radicalization of capital that was unfathomable in 2016, when the prospect of a Trump presidency nearly crashed global markets. The ruling class is now beginning to sense both what kind of violence is truly necessary to restore profit rates to acceptable levels and that Trumpism poses no direct threat to the capitalist economic order.

We've also seen an assault on proletarian culture come in the form of the RICO charges brought against the YSL group, and Young Thug in particular. The charges are murder and organized crime and the prosecution is relying very heavily on the lyrical content of Young Thug’s songs to make their case. Rap music has long been an artistic form that creatively and dramatically expressed the harsh realities of racialized economic exclusion, the experience of savage competition accelerated by decades of neoliberal policy, and the psychic ramifications of ghettoization and state violence, even if it’s rarely presented in such terms. That this form of expression, one which is explicitly black, militant, and working class, is being attacked by the state is yet another symptom of the fascist spiral, here found at the point of legal-cultural intersection. While most rap music is not partisan, neither is the class itself, and the music is most certainly aggressively proletarian. Even lyrics about cars and money must be recognized as expressions of working class desire, specifically a desire to get out of the trenches or the mud one came from. It is important to recall that there once was a robust, self-consciously proletarian culture in this country, which often produced songs about fighting cops, offing your boss, and killing fascists. Such songs might have once been sung at red taverns, or union halls, or even at the dinner table with red-diaper babies bewilderedly looking on in hand-me-down high-chairs. While the fragmentation of the class and structural shifts in the economy have pushed such traditions to the margins of memory, we still find that vulgarity, militancy, and violence are not uncommon themes in the working class anthems of today, “fuck the police” being just one such example. To produce such content is a freedom we have long enjoyed thanks to the liberalism of our national bourgeoisie (and perhaps their own self-confidence, now rattled) and if we want to protect it, we can begin by recognizing the prosecution of Young Thug as a dangerous escalation in the assault on proletarian speech.

“what the fuck you mean put my gun down muthafucka? you must ain’t heard about Trayvon Martin you muthafucka” “When they killed my nigga, I seen the footage on the tape Man I must've threw up everything I ever ate” “R.I.P. Mike Brown, fuck the Cops Screamin' R.I.P Bennie shootin' up a block” “Hey, this that slime shit, hey YSL shit, hey Killin' 12 shit, hey Fuck a jail shit, hey”

This naturally brings us back to Atlanta. What is happening in Atlanta is nothing short of a nightmare. A Cop City is being rammed down the throats of an entire major metropolis, at the expense of the whole population's civil liberties, clean air, drinkable water, navigable streets. All democratic resistance has been shut down by Democratic politicians. Restrained clandestine activity and constitutionally protected street action have been met equally with the most intense repression since the George Floyd uprising. Unlike the George Floyd Rebellion, this struggle has generated a lasting unity across the various resistance interest groups, ideologies, and identities because of the intersectionality of the object of its opposition and an explicit and hard-won agreement to embrace a diversity of tactics—perhaps a direct response to the failure of the George Floyd Uprising and specifically the self-defeating division around responses to the police murder of Rayshard Brooks.

The tact taken by the state is notable here: rather than fragment the movement by erasing the intersectional content of the struggle through slight of hand (e.g. moving the center outside of the black, working-class neighborhood, or away from such an ecologically important site), they have decided to crush the movement with terrorism, murder, and demoralization. The construction of this center is a gesture. International capital and bipartisan politicians have come together to send a message while they prepare for a new cycle of struggle, one which we can expect will proceed on greatly expanded foundations, in the near future; the message reads: you will never be forgiven. In the last year alone, dozens of protesters have been rounded up on RICO charges with terror enhancements with hardly any evidence at all of wrongdoing. A protester, a militant forest defender, a queer person of color, a revolutionary named Tortuguita, was murdered for their unwavering commitment to the Earth and its creatures. Now, bail funds are under attack. This novel technology, mainstreamed during the May-June Rebellion, has served as a lifeline for working-class protesters assured of their righteousness, but no longer of their freedom. Make no mistake, the assault on bail-funds is a test-case for the nation as these funds made possible the sustained rebellion over the course of the months of May-August of 2020, during which well over 10,000 people were arrested. Today, huge swaths of pristine forest have been mercilessly cleared as construction of the police playhouse enters its early stages. To share a belief is now seditious conspiracy. To pool resources is organized crime. And to defend the earth is now terrorism. These are some of the tentative outcomes of the ongoing struggle against Cop City in Atlanta.

“One has to understand that the fascist arrangement tolerates the existence of no valid revolutionary activity.” -George Jackson, Blood In My Eye (p. 138)

One last, but certainly not final, expression of the rising unity of capital and the resurgence of American fascism is the Watermelon Scare, or the reaction to domestic Palestinian liberation activity. Artists have lost shows, workers have lost jobs, unions have been sued by their employers, schools are being investigated by their national boards, insufficiently reactionary Heads of Ivy League institutions are cut down and replaced with more pliant personnel responsive only to the dictates of capital, and protest is further criminalized in the name of preventing anti-semitism. My words can hardly keep pace with events. The masks are all off and we are treated to front row seats to a dispiriting disappearing act; bourgeois democracy reveals itself to be bourgeois dictatorship, announced by a stomach-turning demonstration of their disregard for Life itself in Gaza. They are inaugurating a new period of their open domination with the screams of air-to-surface missiles, baptizing us all as powerless subjects in the blood of innocent Palestinians.

A few words, with the knowledge that the coming days will make my horrifying balance-sheet of the development of American fascism seem quite quaint, and awareness that we are rapidly flying headlong into a space beyond language’s expressive capacities: it is perhaps the most urgent task of the American left to insist that the Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people concerns us all. It is not merely that the violence against the colonized disfigures the colonizer into something monstrous beyond recognition, not only that these necro-technologies will rapidly be deployed on our own streets against us, and it goes beyond the fact that passivity in the face of such violence hardens our hearts to the violence that comes next (the sweeps of our homeless neighbors, the increasing murder-ability of “criminals” and “migrants,” and the erasure of trans and queer people from social space). The history of the American left since the birth of this nation is the history of its failures. There have been two prime stumbling blocks no configuration has succeeded in clearing: the white chauvinism of our working classes and the nationalism of our socialist organizations. Robust solidarity with Palestine in the moment of its genocide would be an advanced expression of an American left at last shaking off the weight of dead generations; an internationalist attack on white supremacy, recognized not as an individual attitude but a globe-spanning technique of government; a long awaited rejection of the substitution of universal rights with exclusive privileges; and an urgently necessary reversal of the decades-long drift towards short-term economic interest and away from political consciousness.

The American proletariat is once again being tested. Its historical task is the seizure of political power, but the road to political power necessarily passes through the relinquishing of its exceptional privilege. What we have tracked in the paragraphs above is the violent, state and extra-state, repression and reversal of legitimate gains in the political consciousness of various fractions of the American working class. Such reversals at a time of persistent crisis ensure that when the ruling classes unite around fascist strategies of systemic renewal, the forces of resistance will be disoriented, disorganized, and desperately clinging to the very privileges that we must betray in order to fulfill our historical mission. We must begin only with total acceptance of our defeat. Paradoxically, such a defeat liberates us from the urgent temporality of crisis. We must resist the temptation to fling ourselves headlong into every project of survival and take seriously the fact that the reemergence of fascism in the United States is not a symptom of systemic strength, but of great weakness. We must allow ourselves to be fully convinced that far more important than our survival is that the barbarism of this world does not. Then, tactics and strategy can begin.

"False praxis is no praxis. Desperation that, because it finds the exits blocked, blindly leaps into praxis, with the purest of intentions joins forces with catastrophe." -Theodor W. Adorno "They have the clocks, but we have the time." Afghani proverb "When you're running out of time, you're not out of time." Kanye West Donda (2021)

(August 2024)

NOTES

[1] This is a dynamic that very closely mirrors that identified in Poulantzas’ 1974 study of historical fascism:

“The petty bourgeoisie is itself divided into class fractions… it is also possible for dislocations to appear between its different fractions. These dislocations can even be deep enough for one fraction to swing one way, the other in the opposite direction. Experience shows that a common political position is generally maintained in ‘normal’ conjunctures of class struggle, or in conjunctures of acute political crisis where the working class is on the defensive, as in the case of fascism. The dislocations appear above all in revolutionary conjunctures or in political crises corresponding to the working-class offensive, as in Germany and Italy between 1919 and 1921.” (p. 244)

The integrated fraction of the laboring classes, the capitalized, home-owning upper fraction of salaried employees breaks with the capitalist class and stands with the proletariat during the early phase of the revolutionary conjuncture. It does not stay this way:

“Before stabilization and during the first period of open crisis between the bourgeoisie and the working class, a large part of the petty bourgeoisie clearly swings over to the side of the working class… we can say that this is mainly the case with the salaried employees… After its open swing to the working class side, this part of the petty bourgeoisie seems to stick to social democracy during the stabilization step. Subsequently it becomes disillusioned with social democracy, which fails to defend its interests. Turning away from social democracy, the petty bourgeoisie as a whole finds itself faced, at the beginning of the rise of fascism, with that instability and lack of hegemony among the dominant classes and fractions which characterizes the bourgeois parties’ crisis of representation.” (p. 248)

While we have no social democracy in this country, the Black Lives Matter movement laid down the ideological foundations for a unified class acting for itself in a way hitherto unseen in this country, a movement capable of challenging and even abolishing property relations as we know it. As the stabilization of the fascist arrangement occurred with the defeat of the proletariat, in this case coinciding with the literal stabilization of the economy, the proletariat was abandoned by the now re-integrated middle classes.

[2] U.S. Current Trend: Bills Provide Immunity to Drivers Who Hit Protesters,

https://www.icnl.org/post/analysis/bills-provide-immunity-to-drivers-who-hit-protesters

[3] https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/adorno/1951/mm/ch01.htm

[4] https://www.chainlaw.com/why-are-u-s-roadways-getting-more-dangerous-while-other-countries-are-getting-safer/

[5] Muddy clothes? ‘Cop City’ activists question police evidence, AP, March 23, 2023

https://apnews.com/article/cop-city-protest-domestic-terrorism-atlanta-6d114e109d489d316f588f51c7cab0cc

[6] Some Assembly Democrats look to criminalize disruptive protests, February 21, 2024

https://www.cityandstateny.com/policy/2024/02/some-assembly-democrats-look-criminalize-disruptive-protests/394322/

[7] New York Governor considers face mask ban to deter crime https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/15/new-york-face-masks-ban-subway-crime#:~:text=New%20York%20has%20historically%20had,two%20years%20until%20September%202022.

[8] “Covid and the War in Ukraine,” IMF https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/ar/2022/in-focus/covid-19/

[9] There are many examples of these phenomena. A new unity of interest, and sometimes identity, between landed and digital capitals: Apple is now both a hardgoods producer and a streaming platform, Amazon is a platform, brick and mortar, logistics, a grocery store, and a pharmacy; and most recently Netflix has announced it is opening a chain of malls:

https://variety.com/2024/digital/news/netflix-house-entertainment-dining-shopping-complexes-cities-2025-1236040989/

[10] “Friendshoring set to lift prices” Financial Times https://www.ft.com/content/c7fa3fdb-195f-449f-b7b4-461c1e93b5d1

[11] “Child labor remains a key state legislative issue in 2024” Economic Policy Institute

https://www.epi.org/blog/child-labor-remains-a-key-state-legislative-issue-in-2024-state-lawmakers-must-seize-opportunities-to-strengthen-standards-resist-ongoing-attacks-on-child-labor-laws/#:~:text=Two%20states%E2%80%94Missouri%20and%20West,they%20are%20otherwise%20prohibited%20from

[12] “What’s behind the corporate effort to kneecap the National Labor Relations Board?” Economic Policy Institute

https://www.epi.org/blog/whats-behind-the-corporate-effort-to-kneecap-the-national-labor-relations-board-spacex-amazon-trader-joes-and-starbucks-are-trying-to-have-the-nlrb-declared-unconstitutional/

[13] White House Reverses Obama Era Transgender Bathroom Policy https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/white-house-reverses-obama-era-transgender-bathroom-protections-n724426

[14] Tracking Abortion Bans Across the Country https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/us/abortion-laws-roe-v-wade.html

[15] https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/17/jamie-dimon-praises-trump-warns-maga-criticism-could-hurt-biden.html

[16] https://www.cnn.com/videos/business/2024/01/15/exp-blackrock-vice-chair-trump-iowa-caucuses-011503pseg2-cnni-business.cnn

[Hildebrand did not declare his preference for Trump as indicated in this statement. He called him the “wake up call that Europe needs” to regain sovereignty. Trump’s base of support comes overwhelmingly from the small business owner, not the large capitalist.]

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fandsart · 2 years ago

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I actually have thoughts about this I've actually been meaning to talk about as a political person with special interests in both psychology and language.

[#i try not to judge but this and 'trauma bonding' have been driving me slightly insane]

I'm gonna talk about this too. These are terms prescribed to something which is also a wording to describe something else- or at least is a wording that works for other circumstances.

Now because gay panic is still a legal defense in a lot of states, that does complicate the sort of specifics of my issue with these problems, but since the wording can be easily avoided and simply changed to gay crisis and maintain understanding, then yeah, maybe just use the term gay crisis. But even then, I hate that I have to change my language to fit with an understanding that doesn't line up with the people who are against us. I have a similar reaction when people say that you cannot use the word queer because the initial use of the word to describe non cishet people was as a slur, and that is sometimes still is

And it does need to be thought out very specifically how to not word it as the way that has a different understanding. Can it not have two understandings? Especially when the phrase they picked would seem to imply a different meaning, that (again) I now have to talk around.

And maybe it's my probable autism, but I don't feel comfortable simplifying the experience of forming a bond with someone through shared trauma as simply "having shared trauma," and I hate having to word it as "having a bond with someone through shared trauma" which is unnecessarily long just because someone took a handful of words that applied to a different situation and said that this is what the term is meant to describe

And as someone who does share bonds with people over shared trauma, wording it backwards that way seems to diminish the impact of what it's like to have that, at least to me. And that shared trauma came from a place involving having had the clinical definition of a trauma bond with a mutual person

People picked these terms and it interferes with how we interact with language and I hate that. The term gay crisis can be used, but the set up of the words imply that the panic does come from the experience of being gay, AND as gay crises is such a prevalent experience to the culture the phrasing gay panic is so well understood by people who have experienced it.

The fact that some dickhead thought that a fear derived from someone else existing as a gay person was a reasonable excuse to murder them is disgusting and the fact that I have to talk around the dumb, inaccurate language they used to describe it infuriates me.

And with trauma bonding, I simply don't see why it can't take double meaning. As long as we make people aware that it does mean two different things and are aware that they way they use it in the shared trauma sense is not what the actual term refers to in a professional sense, I don't see why these things can't just be homonyms. Going through a traumatic event with someone can create a bond. It would be described as a trauma bond, were it not for an existing term

I'm honestly not entirely sure these terms weren't created independently of each other. It seems pretty clear that these are the most concise ways to convey these experiences. Like, the literal terms are less fitting as descriptions and that's why people are so less likely to know the initial contexts

These are a lot of my opinions on the matter, and that's why I continue to use the term trauma bond, but I understand anyone being uncomfortable using the term with that knowledge or seeing the term used in that context, but I've had a few people try to correct me on the meanings when I use them, but I already know. I guess I just think the english language isn't versatile enough. In general that is

Anyway I do think that people should be aware of what the technical terms mean so anyone who's reading this and is just too lazy to google for themselves, here are some source links

For trauma bonding

And for gay panic

begging the stranger things fandom to stop using the term "gay panic" when a character realizes they're not straight

#the naming convention for trauma bond has basis but it could have been done way more accurately #if I were in charge of naming it I would have extended the definition #(since stockholm was recognized first and is registered as a type of trauma bond)#Then if you want to make different types of trauma bond you could categorize it similarly to the way we categorize dissociative disorders #but if I couldn't do that then I would probably call it some variation of forged (mental/emotional) dependency #fandsart

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dcpravities · 4 years ago

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was that avan jogia? oh no no, that was just sirius black, a canon character from harry potter. they are twenty one years old and are aware that they are not actually from washington dc. too bad they can’t stray from this city for long.

THE PROLOGUE —

- sirius is the eldest son of walburga and orion, and considered to be the heir to the noble and most ancient house of black. the family prided themselves on the pureness of their bloodline, attributing their success to it - and for that reason, held very strong opinions of blood purity. during his youth, he was extremely close to regulus, and although they were only a year apart in age, sirius took his role as the older brother very seriously, doing everything that he could to protect him. as he started into adolescence, the disillusionment with the pureblood mania had started to set in. early on, however, his family arranged his betrothal to another pureblood member of the sacred twenty eight - cassandra fawley.�� - when he went to hogwarts, he did hold some prejudices about muggleborns or halfbloods, though it was because it was all he’d ever known. his sorting into gryffindor and his meeting of james, remus and peter was the start of his unlearning of these beliefs, as well as the growth of his rebellious nature. his parents were already disappointed in him for being sorted into gryffindor, but his new opinions would start to wear on them more. walburga was never shy about using different forms of punishments, but now she used any opportunity she had to inflict things like the cruciatus or the verbal tirade about him being a failure and an embarrassment. the hope was that they’d be able to break him out of whatever this rebellious phase was, and he’d come back into the understanding of what his responsibility in the family was - to ultimately take his place as a member of the death eaters. but by then, it was too late, and sirius knew he’d never be the son that they wanted. - during his years in hogwarts, his friendship with the marauders grew into something like a brotherhood. when they learned that remus was a werewolf, the immediate instinct was to figure out what they could do to help him, and so the idea of becoming an illegal animagus was created from that. it is a secret that they have held onto for years and years, knowing that any mention of being an animagus would open the door for more questions that weren’t his to answer about why he was. he also grew close with lily, mary and dorcas - and especially so with marlene. though neither of them would ever admit it, there was never a real moment in which they were solely just friends, but it was easier to just keep claiming that. in his later teenage years, things at home had started to become more and more strained at home. it wasn’t about trying to correct or inform his opinions, but rather just showing sirius how much they despised him. his mother had taken to different levels of making her opinions known, his relationship with regulus was slowly starting to deteriorate, and in a few moments of rage, his father would strike him. unable to withstand it anymore - and knowing that there was a chance that he would not survive if he stayed any longer, sirius ran away from his home and moved in with james. leaving home was the final blow in his relationship with regulus, and the two had a falling out that would not be resolved. following graduation from hogwarts, he joined the order of the phoenix and became an auror, hoping to right the wrongs that his family had took part in creating. - when it was learned that james and lily were marked for death, he wanted to be their secret keeper, wanting to protect james' family in the way that the other had protected him. as his friends around him started to die and go missing, sirius knew that the main thing he needed to focus on was keeping the potters alive - and perhaps that was why he was more willing to let peter take on the role of secret keeper. as soon as sirius learned of the deaths, though, he knew exactly what had happened - but he played into peter’s hands and was in the wrong place at the wrong time, ending up with all of the blame for not only the murders of twelve innocent muggles, but three of his closest friends. his reputation was smeared, boasted as a spy for the death eaters, no different than the rest of his family had been. and with no trial or no one to proclaim his innocent, he was sentenced to a life in azkaban. twelve years of being in solitary confinement with only dementors around him would slowly start to rob sirius of his sanity, losing his grip on reality and falling further and further into this sense of hopelessness and misery that seemed to be holding onto him. the only thing that would push him to keep holding on was the knowledge that harry was out there, and so he made it his mission to escape.

SINCE ARRIVING IN DC —

- sirius arrived in dc in october of 2019, quickly being reunited with people that he’d lost. his reunion with regulus was rough, but seeing james and lily and marlene once again was everything that he’d been hoping for. he got a job as a secret service agent, working within the president’s family and specifically acting as the designated agent for kirei monsula. he and marlene quickly feel back into their old habits and claiming that they were still only just friends despite sirius knowing that he’d been in love with her as far back as he could remember. - during the jumanji event, sirius was trapped in the nightmare level, his own personal horror being actual dementors. and while he proclaimed that he was more concerned with helping those around him and making sure that they were able to make it out of there alive, it was truly because of the fact that he could not bring himself to face dementors once again, too much of a reminder of what had transpired in azkaban and how it still haunted him. in the end, as he was unable to escape, he did eventually succumb to his fear of the dementors, too many pieces pulled from him until he couldn’t fight off the dementor’s kiss any longer. - he woke up with no recollection of his past or the connections that he held, instead believing himself to be a death eater who was tasked with locating other members in the states and moving to infiltrate the united states government with their ideals. he was insufferable and rude and exactly the sort of son that his parents would have loved. it was only after he cast a cruciatus on ezra bridger during a fight that he came back to his senses and recognized what had happened. he has not shared any information about the fact that he died, allowing people to believe instead that he was put under some sort of imperius curse. it seems much easier than going into the whole story, letting them know that he is still traumatize by the memories of the dementors and was not strong enough to withstand them. - following the regaining of his memories, he had one thing on his mind, and that was to make things right with marlene so that they didn’t make the same mistake twice. during his trip to her apartment to tell her how he felt, he impulsively proposed to her and they ended up quietly eloping a few days later. none of their friends knew, though they have every intention of eventually telling them.

#hw: intro #introduction — sirius.#updating some intros for characters i've had for a while!#death mention tw #torture mention tw #abuse mention tw #emotional abuse mention tw #parental abuse mention tw #long post tw #this is entirely way too long but i cannot be concise when it comes to my boy #if you read this whole thing ily

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thebibliosphere · 3 years ago

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Okay, I’m getting a lot of questions about stress losing its effectiveness as an ADHD coping skill and now how that can happen, so I’m going to paraphrase how my therapist explained it to me.

Stress as stimulus is a rubber band.

It’s stretchy and can be expanded to hold multiple things together (deadlines, self-care, social obligations). But the thing about rubber bands is they only work for so long before they lose their elasticity, and suddenly you’re having to pull them tighter and tighter to get the same staying power.

Suddenly, a rubber band that had no issue holding a 12 pack of “pens” together for years will need to be double wrapped around itself to hold those same things in place. And sure, it still works. A couple of “pens” might fall out from time to time, but you can just put them back and wind things tighter, right?

Except you cannot use a rubber band indefinitely.

No matter how tightly you wind it, the elastic will eventually be too stretched out to be useful and things will fall apart. It may even become brittle and snap, which is the worst-case scenario. Yet, many of us will still try to use the broken rubber band, all the while growing more and more frustrated that the thing that worked so well for so long is no longer serving its intended purpose. We might tie it together, creating functional knots in the elastic so that we can keep using it. But ultimately it’s a short-term fix and it will snap again soon. And it will keep snapping at more regular intervals until all you have left is broken pieces of elastic and what feels like your entire life scattered at your feet.

Because a rubber band is not intended as a permanent solution to something. It is an effective yet temporary measure designed to hold things in place until something better comes along.

And stress is the rubber band of the brain.

It is an important survival tool that keeps us alive, aware of our surroundings and, in small, healthy doses, productive. Good stress exists. It releases important chemicals your brains need to function, like dopamine and adrenaline, which are things ADHD brains are extremely deficient in, and struggle to regulate in the same way neurotypical brains self-regulate.

But where it becomes a problem is when you become reliant on it, and your brain and body stop having healthy stress responses. By utilizing stress constantly as a form of stimuli, you are effectively wearing out the rubber band that holds things together, and when it snaps, you’re left with a brain and body that’s been so fried by corsitol* you are left feeling burned out, tired, sickly and possibly even deeply depressed. And the more you do this, the harder it gets to bounce back from.

Which can happen to neurotypical people too! Prolonged stress is not healthy for anyone! It just so happens that stress is an unfortunately useful form of stimuli, right up until it’s not.

Using the rubber band of stress is easy. Learning not to use it is hard. But recovering from overusing it is even more so.

So what’s the solution? Unfortunately, there’s no simple answer. Therapy can help. Medication can help. Building better support structures and social groups can help. Changing your environment to be more accessible can help. Ultimately, you need to find things that work for you and do your best to make sure they are realistically attainable and also healthy. Which is no easy feat. It will be hard, but it is worth it. And I have to believe that because I’m a year into intensive therapy with what feels like minimal progress to show.

But as my therapist keeps reminding me. Progress is progress. Whether you move an inch or a mountain, you’re still moving, and that’s what counts.

---

*Note: yes, cortisol is a stress hormone, but that doesn’t make it Bad like I’ve seen some questionable people claim on here before.

It is vital to our survival and wellbeing and is part of our internal warning system in much the same way histamine is required for healing and immune system regulation. The goal is not to have ZERO cortisol in your body (because that will also kill you) but to have healthy levels that respond appropriately to danger/stress and shuts off when you don’t need it. WebMD has a fairly concise breakdown of it here. (source)

#adhd #stress #mental health #not a doctor #just someone with a lot of experience with health problems #the rubber band analogy

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dontcallmecarrie · 3 years ago

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Hey, I vicariously live in my imagination to escape from the reality.

So, I have been wondering about the Rogues reaction to Tony defeating thanos, the IronSmaug, taking over the world etc...

Have a go at it, if you are interested.

It's also fine if you dont.

thanks, I really, really needed the distraction. it's been. an interesting week. not in a good way.

tbh, the whole 'what does Team Cap think about this mess?' thing in TWiFFON is...something I had originally been torn about, and everything that's been happening ever since means I keep finding myself going "do I have the energy to tackle this? lol no".

For some context, because you probably know my stance on this sort of thing but I prefer redundancy just to make sure we're on the same page: once upon a time, I honestly, genuinely did like the Avengers. All of them, and yes, that included Wanda [...for less than an hour, but still].

Back when I still had faith in the writers, I was constantly going "...okay, so when are these guys going to stop acting so OOC? Where tf are they planning on taking these character arcs?" and just being disappointed at each turn— but I stuck around because I liked the potential. Steve "what do you mean punching fascists isn't cool anymore?" Rogers, Natasha "my past is a tire fire and I'll just leave it at that" Romanov, Clint "where's Loki? Let me at him!" Barton and the rest of the group had their good points, and I gave myself a headache trying to figure out wtf was their thought process when the time came for them to do their thing in TWiFFON.

It wasn't fun, I only did it because it was absolutely necessary... and I still ended up receiving complaints.

Look: for me, character bashing is exhausting. I have enough going down in my life that I don't have any interest in writing it, and over the past few years I've seen more than one of the fandoms I follow/lurk in become salt mines that have me going "...okay, if you hate it so much, why are you even here?"

When I write, I try my best to emphasize the 'actions have consequences' thing I learned long before I hit puberty; but that doesn't mean I'm up for anything beyond that. Again, I used to like these characters, so seeing the levels of suffering canon— and some writers— put them through just has me stepping back for a moment.

But TWiFFON attracted a lot of people who were pretty far out there in terms of what they wanted, some of whom got very very pissy when it wasn't the story I wanted to write, which is...probably like 99% of the reason I'm still burned out on that AU. Apart from the recent personal life bs that means I am Not Up To Dealing With any hypothetical rando that shows up in my inbox, because normally I could not care less about what people think but my energy levels are. Um. Not great atm. Not sure I wouldn't bite anyone's head off if they wanted to start something right now, tbh, or just ragequit writing for a while because I have way better things to do with my time than deal with random internet assholes.

...apologies for the tangent, but now you know why that situation is one I'm normally kinda reluctant on tackling.

As for what I'd originally headcanoned:

Back before things hit the fan, I'd originally planned to have some little interlude snippets of what Team Cap's been dealing with. Mostly, it would've forced them to acknowledge that for all none of them liked or trusted Tony, he was basically just the personification of what the rest of the world thought of them.

Nobody respects them, anymore, or trusts them; Clint'd be in very hot water and sleeping on the couch for a while, and Hank Pym would never let Scott hear the end of his involvement in this whole thing because Hank hates the Stark name and the English language cannot concisely articulate just how pissed off he was that he had to publicly thank Tony.

Team Cap overall would also start to fall apart at the seams as more and more stuff came out and ey, turns out the leader they'd trusted and broken international laws for had lied to them.

By omission, sure, but honestly— do you think that'd go down well? The "oh yeah, I've known my brainwashed friend killed his parents since DC but I am not going to tell him unless I'm forced to" thing?

I don't know about you, but I for one highly doubt Sam Wilson would be okay with that. Or Clint, for that matter, and the list goes on because the more time passes, the more stuff keeps coming out of the woodwork and for the first time in years, they're forced to deal with it.

One of the things I planned to include in the sidefic can basically be summed up as "the curious case of Bucky Barnes": that is to say, what'd happen after he's taken into custody, and poke lightly at the clusterfuck we're unpacking here. Tony, feeling bad for losing control in the bunker, would basically go "shit I fucked up but I also never want to see him again but he's an even bigger mess than I am, that's a whole lot to unpack so you know what? I'm just throwing out the suitcase entirely here, have all the resources for support and help and if I ever see you again, it'll be too soon".

...to sum up, it's messy af. SI Legal would feature heavily because his particular case means he needs a team of lawyers, what with the 'former POW who's trying to recover from All The Trauma' thing, and the 'so I literally was just trying to buy some damn groceries when you guys dragged me into this', and Tony basically went "hey, so if anyone wants to help him, uh, I kinda have some interest in this one. Fair warning, dude probably killed Kennedy while mind-controlled, with our luck".

And along the way, there'd also be some of that one subplot I'd cut due to pacing issues: specifically, the one dealing with prosthetics.

Remember how Miriam Sharpe said her son would never walk again? Yeah, we'd be revisiting that: her family'd get a letter or something inviting them for clinical trials, and meet Rhodey in passing as he's using his own leg braces to get around because he's still healing. Bucky would get a few design offers for a free replacement for his arm, and it'd probably end up being a collab with Wakanda because T'Challa feels bad for his role in that mess as well.

So Team Cap would be seeing this, seeing how everyone's acting and reacting, and the way one of their own is getting all the help and support Stark Industries has to offer and realizing that yeah, they messed up. Big time.

...depending on my salt levels and how close we're sticking to canon, I was thinking this'd go one of two ways.

Either they'd double down and just go "ugh, Tony is a supervillain and we can't do anything about it!" while TWiFFON marches on and then later go "...you mean he did it by accident?!", or...

Well, canon's proven character development and continuity isn't really in their writers' vocabulary. So my original idea of 'they're forced to deal with the reality of the situation, acknowledge they messed up and slowly move on with their lives' would've been very unrealistic.

Again, most of this is intentionally vague, I had not been keen to tackle that mess in TWiFFON in the first place and the way things exploded on me means I really, really don't have the energy to do so now. Not when there's far better things I could do with my time, like mess around with AUs where people actually get along, or knit, or— well, the list goes on.

#The War is Far From Over Now #From the Other Side [A Terror To Behold]#thinking aloud #I got an ask!#Naught replies #replies #behind the scenes

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lessnearthesun · 10 months ago

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Alright, since @shakespecre prompted me (thank you bestie) here it is: my explanation as to why the Red album is the perfect soundtrack to modern Hamlet. First and briefly: if you are not caught up on the modern Hamlet lore, here are the links to where I have discussed it. And now without further ado:

Why The Red Album is Perfectly Applicable to Hamlet (specifically my modern AU that is my baby):

State of Grace: This song is an Ophelia and Hamlet song when they’re at their peak pre-Hamlet Sr.’s death. They never saw each other coming! This love is a worthwhile fight! Twin fire signs! (Hamlet is an Aries, Ophelia is a Sagittarius, argue with the wall about it.)

Red: Horatio about Hamlet especially after he dies. It’s about loving someone even when it’s tumultuous and that thrill. Losing him was blue like I’ve never known….Missing him was dark grey all alone…but loving him was red….Regretting him was like wishing you never found out that love could be that strong…..I could literally copy and paste the entire song here, but I’ll leave this here as a closure:

Treacherous: This is both a Horatio and and Ophelia song about Hamlet. This slope is treacherous….This path is reckless…but I like it! They have bad taste in men, but they KNOW it.

I Knew You Were Trouble: This is, again, an Ophelia and Horatio song. Read the title. Moving along.

All Too Well (only regular, not TMV I’ll get to her): This is an Ophelia song about Hamlet. The scarf (it reminds you of innocence and it smells like me…..) for one, but also how the song implies that this person took Taylor’s virginity…I’m not saying Ophelia lost her virginity to Hamlet but that is exactly what I’m saying.

22: Hamlet, Horatio, and R&G just being dumb college kids. Also Laertes but he doesn’t hang out with them lol. I’d say Ophelia too but my girl dies at 21 here so. (Also: ‘everything will be alright if you keep me next to you’ is SO Horatio and Hamlet.)

I Almost Do: I cannot explain this totally, but this is Horatio about Hamlet. The missing the person you’ve lost of it all….But unlike Miss Taylor, Horatio does not have the conviction to tell Hamlet to quit it with his shit. Grow a spine baby ❤️

We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together: This is silliest, but in modern Hamlet, Hamlet and Laertes hook up ONCE (long before Hamlet gets with Ophelia) and are petty about it. This is their song.

Stay Stay Stay: Horatio in his future relationship after Hamlet dies and he is treated well <3 (except Hamlet and Horatio never technically date, but they might as well at this point). Anywho, I’ll just leave this here:

The Last Time: Hamlet and Horatio. I find myself at your door just like all those times before….This time I won’t hurt you anymore…..This is the last time I’m asking you why you break my heart in the blink of an eye….Taylor’s verse is Horatio and Gary’s is Hamlet. What do you do when the only person who stands beside you no matter what (and who you can’t live without) is someone you can’t help hurting because you know they’ll never shut the door in your face (even when they probably should)? That is them. Here’s a snippet from Modern Hamlet that I think gets my point across concisely:

Holy Ground: Again, a Horatio and Ophelia song about Hamlet. This love was holy ground! They both feel different around Hamlet (cause darling it was good never looking down!!!) and he brings out the best in them (and the worst too, but that’s irrelevant right now).

Sad Beautiful Tragic: THE Ophelia and Hamlet song. They literally had a sad, beautiful, tragic love affair. It was all too little too late, but that doesn’t take away from when it was good. Also just:

Do I even need to elaborate on that one?

The Lucky One: Ophelia. They tell you that you’re lucky, but you’re so confused!!! Cause you don’t feel pretty, you just feel used!!!! And in the end, she escapes, just like the subject in the song. She took her dignity and got the hell out in her own way.

Everything Has Changed: Horatio after first meeting Hamlet. Everything has changed!!!

I’ll leave this here and move along.

Starlight: Maybe it’s because the song takes place in the 40s, but this is actually a Gertrude and Hamlet Sr. song to me. This is them in their youth before they had a kid and The Horrors began.

Begin Again: Horatio after Hamlet dies and he is beginning to open himself to the world again. He is beginning again. Also, I’m not saying that Hamlet and Horatio’s relationship is toxically codependent and that Horatio gets very little in return…..But I am not not saying that. (I love them to be clear! But they have Issues. It’s what makes them interesting.)

The Moment I Knew: This is an Ophelia song. Not necessarily at her birthday but at any number of political parties. The song about loving someone and realizing they’re not (in one way or another) showing up for you like you want them to. The key difference between Ophelia in Horatio in modern Hamlet is that Ophelia knows she deserves better. Horatio doesn’t lol. Loyalty is both his greatest virtue and his fatal flaw and all. And here, Ophelia would realize (like the subject in the song) that she deserves better.

Come Back…Be Here: Okay, I know this is a song about long distance relationships, but to me, this is Horatio’s song after Hamlet dies. What do you do when you miss someone and realize only once they’re gone the full, devastating degree to which you cannot live without them, but it’s too late? Literally: I don’t wanna need you this way…..Come back, be here…..

Girl At Home: Unironically Laertes just being a manwhore in France while everyone else is going through The Horrors. But also Gertrude and Claudius lol. Except you got a guy at home (and everybody knows that) instead.

Better Man: This is applicable to Ophelia too, but it is at its core to me a song about Horatio after Hamlet dies. And I see the permanent damage you did to me…..Never again, I just wish I could forget when it was magic….Like. What do you do when the love of your life traumatizes you by dying in your arms and makes you promise to live and dedicate your life to his memory, and then you go to therapy and the therapist tells you that you got lowkey used and love bombed? That’s Horatio a few years post Hamlet. Anyway: AND I GAVE TO YOU MY BEST, AND WE BOTH KNOW YOU CAN’T SAY THAT!!! YOU WOULD’VE BEEN THE ONE IF YOU WERE A BETTER MAN!!!

Nothing New: OPHELIA. THIS IS HER SONG. Every lyric. I could copy and paste every lyric, but I’ll highlight these: Criticize the way you fly when you're soarin' through the sky….shoots you down and then they sigh, and say….”She looks like she's been through it” and How did I grow from growing up to breaking down? (I will admit though: “how can a person know everything at 18 but nothing at 22?” is ASTRONOMICALLY Hamlet coded.)

Babe: And if I say Hamlet Sr.’s ghost to Gertrude? Anywho. Moving on.

Message In A Bottle: Finally, a Hamlet song. This is him about Ophelia. In modern Hamlet, they get together after meeting again at a party. “I’m reaching for you, terrified….Cause you could be the one I love….” Just Hamlet and Ophelia when it’s sweet. This song is all the excitement and nervousness of new love. That’s them <3

I Bet You Think About Me: This is a Horatio song, once again, after Hamlet dies. He tried to fit in with Hamlet’s upper crust circles!!! He wasn’t raised in a mansion: just living room dancing and kitchen table bills!!! But yeah. Hamlet took Horatio for granted. This song also gets much less funny when you think about Hamlet being forced to haunt Horatio after he dies until Horatio lays his spirit to rest (but Horatio cannot see him). Because….yeah! I bet you think about me. Also, this:

Forever Winter: This is up there as THE Horatio and Hamlet song. It’s about watching someone you love suffer and being unable to help. That IS them. Literally: My voice comes out begging……I’d fall to pieces on the floor if you weren’t around….Too young to know it gets better, I’ll be summer sun for you forever…..Forever winter if you go. This is another one where I could quite literally copy paste the lyrics to the entire song and it would be applicable. Every single lyric.

Run: Another Horatio and Hamlet one. I promise I love them and they have good moments too! (The bad stuff is just highlighted here because Red is a breakup album and all.) But anyway, they are each other’s safe space! Darling let’s run, run from it all….They have fun! They feel free with one another! (It’s just a shame about The Horrors.)

The Very First Night: It’s a bittersweet song about reminiscing about a relationship—especially the good parts before it soured—that is over now. This is a Horatio song after Hamlet dies. I miss you like it was the very first night fr.

All Too Well TMV: I know I said ATW is an Ophelia song, but ATWTMV is a Horatio song. Now, regular all too well is also a Horatio song and TMV is also an Ophelia song because they are sisters, but this specifically is a Horatio song to me. Examples: (the soldier bit is ESPECIALLY Horatio, it is HIM.)

And that’s a wrap! I take questions but know that I’m right about all of this. Modern Hamlet coming….eventually. Whenever I finish it <3 (Also: peep the full ridiculously long modern Hamlet playlist 🫶)

It’s important that you guys know that the soundtrack to my magnum opus modern Hamlet is literally just the Red album. Every song can be applied to it, and I will explain if prompted because I am right

#ask me about modern hamlet <3 #shakespeare #betsey rambles #hamlet

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chibimyumi · 4 years ago

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hello there!!! i hope you're well on this fine day. now, feel free to ignore this, i have a feeling this is just me being dumb, but i really can't understand what r!ciel's feelings are towards his brother now that he's back (not that he was ever gone). i mean, what is his aim? he says he wants to live happily with his brother again, but he's driven him away? im confused. what exactly are r!ciel's feelings towards o!ciel?

Dear Anon,

Sorry for taking so long to get to you, it was not for lack of interest! I don’t think you’re dumb at all, because Real Ciel’s actions are very strange indeed.

TW: This post will include discussion of emotional manipulation and abuse. If this topic is hard for you, please sit this post out.

Isolation Abuse

Now with the trigger warning out of the way, let us look into what Real Ciel is doing. How can he say he loves to have his brother by his side, but also drive him away? To the best of my knowledge, this is a form of isolation abuse. Isolation abuse is a horrible method employed by abusers to isolate their victim, cut away their other support, and force the victim to stay with the abuser, to facilitate further abuse.

Key Tactic - Antagonise Others

The key to isolation abuse is to make your abuse victim believe you are the only person who will love them, the only person who they can trust. Chapter 140 is the best and most concise example of classic isolation abuse. R!Ciel proved to everyone that O!Ciel is a liar, that he did something wrong. But then he presents the revelation as a benevolent act: “unlike everyone else, big brother won’t be mean to you. I will relieve you from your pressures!”

O!Ciel understood a bit too well that he will have to suffer the consequences for impersonation crime, and R!Ciel appeals to that understandable fear. The message he is giving is: “Everyone else will treat you badly, except me. I am your safety, I will protect you from the meanies.”

Now R!Ciel has established to his little brother what the dangers are outside, and sold himself to O!Ciel as the big brother who is a true, unconditionally loving ally. Then finally, the most incredible and clever rounding off of “everyone bad, me good. Everyone dangerous, me safe” is in the following panel:

R!Ciel not only presented himself as a protector, he also turned what should be O!Ciel’s biggest guilt into a praiseworthy feat. “If anything, I want to applaud you...” Now, who else but kind, big brother would praise you for your crimes? By saying “...for doing your best all by yourself these past three years,” R!Ciel tells his little brother that he really doesn’t blame him for impersonating him, because he “understands” O!Ciel’s emergency and suffering. Who else would understand you?

By having planned to get the police storm in, and have the Midfords - O!Ciel’s only other family - be on the “enemy’s side”, R!Ciel reemphasises how he himself is truly the only one O!Ciel can turn to.

“Trust nobody, but me.”

Good Cop, Bad Cop

So, if R!Ciel wanted to establish himself as O!Ciel’s only ally who could protect his little brother, then why didn’t he protect O!Ciel from the police arrest? The answer is probably a combination of a practical one and a manipulative one.

The practical reason R!Ciel didn’t protect O!Ciel from the police arrest is simply because R!Ciel has only just returned to reclaim the Phantomhive Earldom, so he cannot afford to publically obstruct justice. R!Ciel needs this first impression that unlike O!Ciel, he is a law abiding citizen and acknowledges the police’s work. Upon his first return, RIGHTFUL Earl Phantomhive can’t very well defy the police and “legitimate” claims of O!Ciel’s crimes, just because he is family, right?

The manipulative reason is that in this way, R!Ciel can employ the “good cop, bad cop” method on his brother. Being pinned with mass murder, there is no doubt the police would treat O!Ciel harshly. The police would imprison, humiliate, and perhaps even mistreat him, and there’s nothing O!Ciel would be able to do against that on his own.

R!Ciel in this case can utilise his special right as the legitimate Earl Phantomhive, and perhaps combine it with an appeal to emotion to get O!Ciel out of prison if he puts in a good word with the Queen: “I have lost my entire family save for one. Please don’t take my only family away from me.” In being a young child himself, R!Ciel would surely be judged less harshly by the public for doing family politics.

R!Ciel (and/or Undertaker) probably had confidence that R!Ciel would succeed in getting O!Ciel out of prison. Once R!Ciel would succeed, O!Ciel would be subjected to R!Ciel’s mercy, and have nowhere else to go. Should O!Ciel try to leave or even take R!Ciel out, then the world would judge O!Ciel for being an ungrateful kid, a double-backstabber of his saviour. In that case O!Ciel would still be stuck where he is right now: in the spot of shame and distrust, a place incredibly hard to climb out of again.

When R!Ciel has succeeded in uprooting O!Ciel from his entire support network, he can then rest assured that if O!Ciel still wants support, he’d have no one to turn to but his only big brother in the world who loves him dearly. In this way, R!Ciel would have successfully isolated O!Ciel for himself.

This is how real life isolation abusers work too. Uproot you, and keep you to themselves only.

Conclusion

Soooo, even though R!Ciel’s actions might seem contradictory, what he is doing is a very good and classic example of isolation abuse. In the purest essence, isolation abuse is the juxtaposition of the abuser’s own “goodness” against the supposed “evil” of everything else. Bit by bit R!Ciel chipped away the support network, the floor on which his brother was standing. Isolation abuse is the cornering of the victim, into the tiny space called “your only safe haven, me”.

Sebastian is a master of emotional manipulation, and coming from him, the comment “well done” really couldn’t ring more true. Well done.

Lending this as an opportunity I wish to add: please, if anyone recognises this type of abuse around you or your loved ones, PLEASE by all means contact professionals. Isolation abuse is horrible, because isolation abusers make it so that their victim dare not and cannot reach out for help!

#R!Ciel #Real Ciel #tw abuse mention #tw isolation abuse #O!Ciel #Character Analysis #ijfaoiwje oh yana this was SOOO well written

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shikadainara · 2 years ago

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I never asked who are your favorite Naruto characters & why ? My favorites are:

1.)Kakashi (I loved him first. He was the first character I liked)

2.) Rock Lee & Might Guy (A sweetheart he deserved much more than the show gave him). I even watched Rock Lee & His Ninja Friends. I put them together because I love them. They truly made the show hilarious.

3.) Jiraiya (Oh do I miss you toad sage. :( Out of all the deaths on the show this upsets me the most).

4.) Tsunade (She is such a bad bitch. I love her).

5.) Temari (Love her as well. She has major boss bitch energy).

BONUS: Minato (Oh I love him. He is a sweetheart. Also the storyline with him and Kushina is one of the rare things Kishimoto done correctly).

Now on to the juicy stuff which Naruto characters do you hate the most & why ?

1.) Danzo (I really can’t stand this bitch. He is the root of a lot. IF THE THIRD HOKAGE DID HIS JOB THEY WOULDN’T HAVE TO DEAL WITH HIS ASS).

2.) Kabuto (What was his purpose ? So annoying)

3.) Sakura (I’m so iffy with her she has her ups and downs, but for me the negative outweigh the good. I’m very up and down with her).

4.) Sasuke (This bitch. ALOT OF THE PROBLEMS WAS BECAUSE OF HIM. He was so aggravating when going on his vengeance spree causing people trouble for what ? If anything Naruto should be the one whose evil the lead village needs their ass whoop for what they did to him).

5.) I don’t remember his name ,but the man in the early part of the series who threw a mask at Naruto when he asked about it. Can go rot in fucking hell. Naruto didn’t deserve that.

BONUS: To be honest I don’t really hate Sakura & Sasuke they just get in my damn nerves. BUT DANZO CAN ROT IN HELL. -🦑

I’m so sorry for this long post I just love your rants.

that's ok np feel free to keep sending whatever thoughts you have i love hearing them! and unfortunately, naruto is a permanent part of my very being so for the rest of my life i will always be able to discuss naruto at the drop of a hat 😂

if you want my thoughts on ST i mean that's kinda what this entire blog is about, maybe i can make a separate post later on trying to articulate what they mean to me but i think that would be hard to write in a concise way (also should go without saying but the rest of t10/sand sibs. love them too)

so to ramble about some other characters that i love:

ANKO!! i love her soooo damn much. she was genuinely... the first favorite character i ever had. when i was watching naruto as a young child, everything about her absolutely enthralled me. as someone with undiagnosed adhd that severely hindered my life when i became an adult, i think in hindsight it's very.... oh. it is incredibly bizarre for me to think that all of this time, 17 years later...... i STILL cannot think of another character that's an adult woman that lets herself be unabashedly hyperactive???

i don't think i can articulate enough just how much i think the scene where she tries to sacrifice herself to take down orochimaru (with the very jutsu that they taught her in the first place!!) left such an impact on my young psyche. at the time, i... never saw something quite like that in media, and to this day it still makes me feel like "OH!!!"

i adoreee how she got her own filler arc where she's so burdened by the curse mark, but works through her lost memories and comes to terms with how she wasn't abandoned. she chose to left on her own. the rest of the arc fucking sucks but it was framed as such an incredible moment of what it means to have agency over your own life, no matter how horrible of an upbringing you had. it's a shame the anime/manga did absolutely nothing with her after this because i have. SO MANY THOUGHTS.

this is an INCREDIBLY unpopular opinion, but i actually adore kabuto to bits. i usually don't care for villain characters one way or the other, but kabuto is just so fucking funny in everything he does that i think he's hilarious. the way he plays along with being orochimaru's doting underling but also very obviously has his own agenda and orochimaru knows that too LOL. it's comedy gold that naruto doesn't even find out until two entire arcs later "WAIT..... YOU LIED TO ME!??!?"

like. i'm not going to excuse his actions. but his tragic backstory does really, really get to me. of course every goddamn character has a tragic backstory in this series but everything about his in particular strikes me as super fucked up. like the whole "he was setup into killing his foster mother" is fucked up enough in and of itself, but on top of that the way it's presented that he has no fucking clue what his own identity is and tries to constantly completely reinvent himself over and over again at all costs... it's super compelling stuff, that's the kind of storytelling i vibe with. all he knows is a name and a pair of glasses: two things the orphanage gifted him. (... it's especially the fact that it's a pair of glasses that gets to me ummm please know that i am very weak to glasses characters <3)

plus without him, we wouldn't have either ninja info cards or the gif of him swatting away bees. who is doing it like him hashtag #iconic

as you can probably infer from 1) glasses and 2) even if i have zero thoughts on orochimaru themself, i am incredibly fascinated by the way they affect other characters... yes, i also really like karin. i don't have many actual thoughts about her i just think she's neat

to finish it off with one more. well, naruto himself. i have MANYYY complicated, conflicting thoughts about him. (he sure did grow up to a hypocrite!) but... he's still naruto. there's no other character on the planet that conveys quite the same feeling that naruto instills in me. please know about me that i alwayssss fall for the trope where all of the characters pin their hopes and dreams on believing in the charismatic protagonist. this is a feeling i have that is independent from if i think the protagonist is well-written LOL. like... do you remember the two page spread during the war that was just the footprints of the allied shinobi forces that the left behind in the mud as the rain clears, all running forward because they believe in naruto. that's. that's good i like that

this post is long enough but let me just say that UHH i agree fuck danzo <3

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whump-town · 3 years ago

Text

You Dance With Tears In Your Eyes

Summary: a college AU set up in the late 80s/early 90s with football star and quarterback Derek Morgan and his secret boyfriend Hotch-- it's not a happy story but I don't think I really have to warn you guys about that anymore

Also, a little based on a story my grandmother told me about my great uncle and his partner. Never met my great uncle but everyone says I'm a lot like him, I think they just mean gay but don't know how to say it

Warnings: homophobia, violence, racism *I mean it when I say homophobia*

Pairing: Derek Morgan/Aaron Hotchner

@yourlocalheartbreaker

The title is from Frank Ocean's song Self Control

Now and then you miss it, sounds make you cry Some nights you dance with tears in your eyes I came to visit, 'cause you see me like a UFO That's like never, 'cause I made you use your self-control And you made me lose my self-control, my self-control

---------------------

Living shouldn’t be reduced down to what it is, the bare bones of things that don’t even make Derek Morgan who he is. He lives by them anyways, stupid rules. Social norms, Aaron always clarifies because even when those silly rules drown them Aaron needs to be concise. Social norms dictate every inch of life and for once Derek wishes he were the type of person who could be given that inch and take a mile. They’re the reason he can’t hold his boyfriend’s hand in public. Why he can’t kiss Aaron on New Years’ and why he is reduced down to loving his roommate. Why, at this rate, he’ll never marry or adopt children, or why he could lose any career he goes into because some nosy asshole finds out his partner isn’t a woman. And, yes, he knows there are anti-discriminatory laws but he’s a black gay man. The world is stacked against him.

It makes him so angry. He’s blinded by the irrational of it all, why nothing can just be simple for them. Aaron tries to comfort him but Derek’s anger scares him, he doesn’t understand it. Aaron has long lost the ability to decipher the complexity of human emotions. Still flinches at loud noises like he’s expecting each bump to be accompanied by the pain that laced his childhood and has to ask, around every turn, if Derek’s angry with him. He can’t tell. Everything looks like anger. With Derek, it frequently is. They cope in very different ways, Aaron chooses nothing. Shutting down all his emotions until he cracks and that’s worse. It’s worse than Derek’s anger. That doesn’t mean Derek doesn’t hate the way he quakes with fury. If not because it feels childish to be blinded by emotions then because it scares Aaron.

There are a million other things, at twenty there always is. It’s his philosophy class with all this bullshit reading he doesn’t understand. He has to ask Aaron for help and Aaron has to ask him for help with things too but it makes Derek feel stupid. It’s philosophy, it can’t be that hard. That’s the same way Aaron feels about calculus. There’s maintaining rent and going grocery shopping and football (games, practice, gym, and training).

College had been a learning curve. Getting up at four in the morning to go to the gym for football had been the hardest thing in the world without his mother flicking his bedroom lights on and off or Desiréecoming in to smack him in the face with a pillow. There’s no one in the entire world in charge of getting him out of his bed other than him and, in his freshman year, while he had thought sleeping on that impossibly hard mattress would leave much to be desired, and it did, he found himself glued to his every morning. Not wanting to leave the safety of its flimsy comfort.

Sharing an apartment worked wonders, having a workaholic boyfriend was really the best trick. An unexpected answer to his problems but, also, a very cute one. He managed to add one person to the list of people that cared about where he was, that made sure he got up in time to make it to the gym and practice, and asked if he had a bad day or rub at his sore muscles.

Derek rolls over in bed, not as surprised as he should be to find the other half empty. “Aaron?” He still searches, runs his hand over the sheets as if he doesn’t know that if Aaron were in the bed he’d be right there. Hogging the bed and the blankets, pressed up against Derek’s back snoring like there’s no tomorrow. “Aaron?” Derek sits up and squints, grimaces at the light trailing in from the open door.

Aaron’s hunched over the beginnings of an essay, pen ink smeared across his left palm and steadily chugging along. He can write a full essay in the span of a night, five hours for about 3,000 words but if it’s a short synopsis sort of thing then about an hour. Despite this astonishing gift, Aaron still makes himself write all his essays weeks in advance and spends days upon days proofreading and combing through them for the tiniest mistakes. He’s a straight-A student so he’s doing something right but Derek gets mostly As too with far less hastily. Aaron is just extra.

Derek steps up to the desk, doesn’t make a sound as he leans up against the side of the chair. He wraps an around Aaron’s shoulders, leans down to kiss his head. “It’s two,” Derek informs him, “come to bed. Please?” Derek’s exhausted. He feels the regret of being pulled from his warm bed. Each second feels like twenty minutes, the world sluggish and too cold. He leans closer to Aaron, wrapping himself around him. “You always smell so good,” Derek whispers. He presses his face into Aaron’s hair, catching the mix of scents.

“Bakery,” Aaron grunts. His answer as simple and concise as he always is but even more so now that he’s tired. Aaron had worked an on-campus job for the entirety of their freshman year but after he got a scholarship that would roll over each year after that (so long as he kept a certain GPA) he started at a bakery down the street from their apartment. Derek had always liked the way Aaron smelled, gently masculine in a way only Aaron could ever be, and it had mixed with the scents of softly, perfectly made baked goods he works around all day. Cookies and cakes. He’s picked up a few tricks, Aaron can make moist cakes and perfectly round cookies but his bread… It’s the best food Derek has ever eaten.

The first time Aaron made bread Derek got down on one knee and confessed “Aaron Hotchner if I could marry you I’d take you to the damn chapel right now”. To which he was lovingly pushed and told to “shut up” but fresh-baked bread (even if Aaron had taken a single bite and concluded he hadn’t ratioed the sugar right) is heavenly. He’s gotten much better since and it’s really hot when he’s standing there in one of his dress shirts with the sleeves rolled up taking his stress out on the dough.

And he can’t tell anyone. Can’t boast about his hot ass boyfriend or the bread he makes from scratch.

Derek crouches down by the chair, knows he’s winning when Aaron breaks from his work just enough to glance at him out of the corner of his eye. “Can’t this wait just a little bit?” he asks. “I want to sleep with my boyfriend and he’s out here writing an essay that isn’t due tomorrow and likely isn’t due for the next month.” Derek reaches up, strokes a strand of hair back behind Aaron’s ear. His fingers graze an open wound and Aaron flinches away, the pain unexpected.

The bare bones of Aaron Hotchner are the along the same in principle to Dereks-- all things that he cannot change. Even as he stands as tall as Derek, their bodies are not the same. Derek is lean from years of football, his arms stretch his shirts. He looks like an athlete, has the benefit of the doubt whenever he’s around men. His teammates walk naked in front of him, no one for even a second thinks anything of it. No one suspects him of the atrocities he commits within his apartment.

Aaron doesn’t have any of that. His hair is a little too long, hangs down in his face when he’s studying or reading. Nothing about him is hulk-ish, he’s delicate with his movements and while it had been something that Derek was immediately drawn to it also draws other’s attention. Bad attention.

The same boys that play around with Derek, snapping towels at him while he walks, terrorize Aaron.

Derek wishes there was something he could do because if this were anyone else- if Aaron were a girl- he could. It wouldn’t be dangerous, not the sort of thing that would cost him his football scholarship or get him stabbed and left to bleed out in an alley or beat within an inch of his life. He would have to out himself to protect Aaron, to stand in front of his teammates that coach keeps calling his family and tell them to keep their fucking hands off his boyfriend. No. No, because something like that would be death. It would be worse than what’s already happening. And Aaron won’t allow it.

All Derek can do now is await the next attack, leave Aaron someplace to come home to. Give him a place to be, without burden, without hesitation. It’s not enough. They’ll kill him. Derek knows they will and it’ll be fun for them, only a matter of time.

“Come to bed with me,” Derek asks one more time. He doesn’t want to sound entirely needy but he really doesn’t want to go to bed without Aaron. The bed is lonely.

With a sigh, Aaron nods and Derek stands up, moves out of the way so Aaron can throw pens in his textbooks to mark his place. He steps away, from the desks, yawning as he makes lazy lurches forward towards their bedroom. “Turn the damn--” Derek rolls his eyes and reaches over and turns off Aaron’s desk lamp.

He passes Aaron in the doorway, places his hand on his hip, and reminds him of their objective. “Bed,” he mumbles and Aaron nods, jerking back to life as he steps further into the bedroom.

Derek lays down on the bed, crawls over to his side, and gets comfortable while he watches Aaron lazily strip down to his underwear. He gets caught in his head again for a moment, standing there just blankly staring at the dresser. Trying to figure out if he should put on pajamas or not. Derek calls his name and opens his arms. “Come here, “ he says and Aaron smiles. Sheepishly he comes, blushing as he crawls into the bed and where Derek instructs him. Humming, pleased, when Derek brings the blankets up over them. His eyes are already closed, head tucked under Derek’s chin when Derek wraps his arms around him. Pulls him close, tight.

He’d read in a book about deep pressure, its effect on the parasympathetic nervous system. He’d studied Development Psychology for some time, thought about all the ways in which it checked every box of his interests. He thinks he might want to be a teacher. That’s where he learned about the importance of the bond between guardian and child. Where he learned a hug sometimes really is a fantastic answer to the most startling problems.

It’s also the fastest way to get Aaron to sleep.

“Tighter,” Aaron whispers. He can’t quite feel Derek’s bones pushing into him, the hammer of his heart still too strong. He groans, choking up a laugh when Derek does just that. Holds him tight, makes him ache with the proximity, his inability to move.

Derek doesn’t mind, he’s got an armful of bakery boy. Couldn’t be more content with anything else.

0000000000000000

All things considered, Derek didn’t actually face that much scrutiny when he told his mother about the stupid twisting and turning feeling in his stomach when Martel Harris put his hand on Derek’s back. Leaned in too close and Derek could smell the cologne he wore and feel his proximity like lightning across his skin. He’d thought it was just nerves but at the end of a football match Martel lifted him up, threw him up in the air, and God that had felt better than flying. Lit him up inside like he was something, someone.

Desiréecried and Sarah wouldn’t speak to him for a week, opposite reactions because of the same fear. Their mother always said the two of them were two halves of the same coin-- too alike to get along and too different to ever get away. They came around, their mother’s gentle hand always the voice of reason. Three stubborn as all hell kids, too much like their father. That’s what she tells the three of them, tears swelling in her eyes as she proclaims that none of it matters. Orders Desiréeto stop crying tells Sarah to get over herself. She loved and married a black man despite the death threats that followed them everywhere they went. Despite the people that called it blasphemous. Called it sin. As if love could be such a thing.

Her mother told her not to come home, not to call. She wouldn’t do that to her son, she knows it won’t change a thing. There’s something about love that makes you blind to the small pains. She never looked back twice, never reached out to her parents. She chose love and Derek will too.

But that doesn’t mean the fear goes away.

It doesn’t actually change a damn thing.

Standing in the tiny bathroom attached to Derek’s friend’s bedroom Aaron leans over the sink, letting Derek rub

shampoo through his beer-drenched hair. “I just don’t understand why they have it out for you,” Derek mumbles, his voice has deepened, his frustration laced confusion evident. They’re in a rather suggestive position, Derek’s body keeping Aaron bent over the sink-- ass to groin. Aaron shoots him a look out of the corner, a pretty clear “look at us right now and take a guess at why”. Derek ignores the look, he’s rather good at ignoring Aaron’s sharp looks. He shakes his head, grumbling some more to himself and gently working the shampoo out of Aaron’s hair. He leans closer, Aaron groaning as the sink bites into his stomach, and smells his hair. Derek groans, unsatisfied with what he finds. “Smells like strawberries with a slight undertone of beer.”

Sounds about as close to a win as they’re getting. “That’s as good as it’s going to get,” Aaron mumbles, grateful when Derek sits back up. While Aaron’s come to terms with the particular hand he’s drawn in the terms of college social lives Derek isn’t as quick to accept. He feels hopeless, a feeling he thought he’d escaped upon leaving Chicago and everything Carl Buford. Aaron can’t stand to see that look, the one he’s grown so used to seeing after events like this.

He pulls a towel down off the rack, starts trying to dry his hair. This isn’t the reason he keeps his hair short but it’s certainly a helpful addition to keep in mind. “Don’t overthink it, it’s not your fault.” Aaron could go blue in the face trying to keep Derek from coming up with a mile-long list of all the reasons why that’s simply not true. The truth is, it’s really not Derek’s fault. No one even knows about them. Their relationship isn’t the reason why Hunter Whatever-his-last-name-is poured his cup of cheap, smells like piss, beer over Aaron’s head.

Not that what happened downstairs can just be so beautifully summed up as just that. Hunter Whatever-his-last-name-is had grabbed Aaron as he was walking in, doing as Derek instructed by coming in the screened-in door at the side of the house. “Who’s dick did you come to suck?” and Hunter Whatever-his-last-name-is cupped Aaron’s cheek. Dug his thumb into the wound he created and smiled, grinned happily at the sight of Aaron trying so hard to getaway. Hunter’s grip relaxed and as soon as it did Aaron was blinking the beer out of his eyes. “Get the fuck away from me,” Hunter shoved him, hard. “Faggot.” Aaron hit his hip on the counter but said nothing, he’ll leave the bruise for Derek to find another night.

“I should say something to that pig,” Derek’s distracting himself with putting everything back in the bathroom the way it was before they came in. Straightening out the rug and fixing the other towels. “Let me catch him trying something--”

Aaron can’t take it, all of Derek’s pointless anger, his stupid guilt. He’s just had beer poured down his back. He can’t even accept Derek’s sweatshirt to replace his smelly shirt, can’t walk out of here wearing his boyfriend’s sweatshirt without getting shanked. The beer smells awful but he’s fairly certain getting stabbed is a whole lot worse. Derek doesn’t have to deal with that. No one messes with him because no one thinks to. “It’s because of how I look!” He’s shaking, bangs hanging down in his face still damp but no longer dripping water down his face. “You? You look normal. You get to walk around with all your football buddies, no one bats an eye at the quarterback, Derek. At least you like women too!” He points to himself, digs his finger into his own chest. “Me? I look the part. I can’t even pretend. Everyone knew, the whole world knew before I did!”

Derek just stands there, caught in the headlights trying to figure out what to say.

He wipes his eyes, jerks away from the hand Derek tries to put on his arm. “No. No!” he can’t do touch right now. Not like this, not when his body won’t hold still and his knees keep trying to buckle. It happens, this panicked cornered feeling, and usually Derek would hold him down. They’d sit on the floor and Derek would hold his arms down to his chest and they’d just sit like that until Aaron can breathe again. Bones against bones until Aaron feels the fractures of his humanity coming back together but for now, right now? He can’t do it. He can’t be touched.

“I want to go home,” he manages, lower lip quivering despite how much he wants to hold it together. “Please take me home.”

Derek just stares at him, stands there, and watches Aaron cross his arms over his chest and curl in, trying to squeeze the panic out himself. “Okay,” he caves. “Go on, I’ll follow you down.” It’s degrading, humiliating the fact that they can’t even leave this room together. Aaron’s upset and Derek can’t do anything about that right now. It’s not safe until they’re home.

It’s never safe.

With his hair dripping into his face Aaron stumbles in the dark. His shirt is soaking wet, stuck to his skin, and freezing him as tramples down a thin stretch of grass between houses. He wishes he had Derek’s sweatshirt. Something warm. At least something to cover his arms. It had been a stupid idea coming here right after getting off work. The bakery is so impossibly hot and after getting off his shift all he wanted was to be with Derek. To sit in whatever little room Derek could guarantee was safe and drink whatever cheap crap Derek brings him from downstairs. Just sit and listen to the music filtering in from downstairs.

“Hotchner!”

He freezes-- a deadly mistake.

“Where are you off to in such a hurry?”

He knows what happened to Derek. In the hush of the night, laying facing each other in the dark, Derek had told him. Each word a puff of hot air against Aaron’s face, hitting the hot tears rolling down his cheeks. It was supposed to be even, Derek’s intention was to express alikeness. He’d seen the scars, no matter careful Aaron was about the light when he thought things were headed in the direction of nakedness, Derek saw them. He hadn’t said anything that time, run his thumb over the one on Aaron’s chest but kept up his ministrations. Acted as if he didn’t until that moment in bed.

Aaron still hasn’t found the courage to be honest about his own childhood.

Derek comes around the back, half-expecting tonight to go like it always does. Except Aaron hasn’t had any alcohol and he doesn’t come stumbling around the porch to greet Derek from the darkness. There are no stolen kisses or hushed laughter. No Aaron. Derek has half a mind to shout out for him, he couldn’t have gone off far, but then he sees him. Derek sees them. The moonlight shining down casting this awful hue between the houses. He sees Hunter draw his foot back and he can’t hold it back. Won’t let this go on. “Hunter!”

The second that Hunter’s attention is away from him, Aaron slumps to the ground. His blood smeared against the house. He’s still breathing, awful ragged breathes that shoot blood off his lips. He sees Derek in the moonlight, rushing past him. Aaron wishes he wasn’t a coward. Between each blood speckled breathe, he wishes that he wasn’t a coward and had just told Derek. That way he would understand Aaron can take it. He spent his childhood taking beatings for just being alive. At least now it was something coherent. Being beaten for being gay requires at least knowing something about him. His father couldn’t even bother with that.

But Derek doesn’t understand.

Aaron never told him.

He’s pulled down, out of orbit, and back to Earth when Derek squats down beside him, cradles his head in his hands. “Aaron?” he calls out, but Aaron can’t force his eyes to move from the dirt. “Can I--” Derek doesn’t know where to put his hands. If he can put his hands anywhere. “I’m going to-- to lift you, okay?” It’s not a matter of if he’s strong enough. He benches more than his own body weight and that’s significantly more than Aaron’s. He’s just not sure if Aaron’s going to fight him and if Aaron fighting him is good or bad.

“Lean forward,” Derek whispers, cupping the back of Aaron’s head and directing it into his shoulder. He turns, manipulates both their bodies and winces each time, no matter how gentle and calculated his movements are, Aaron still cries out. He still hurts him. “I’m sorry,” becomes his mantra. The only words he can manage out around the tears, the only thing he can get past the thickness in his throat.

Sorry he didn’t stop this sooner.

Sorry that he keeps hurting Aaron.

Sorry they couldn’t be other people. In other places. In another time.

Sorry that it’s all for nothing, that there’s no way this ends well for either of them. They’re going to end up dead or alone but certainly separate.

The second Derek has him in his arms Aaron grips his shirt tightly in one blood-stained hand. He rests his head on Derek’s shoulder, soaking in his warmth. “Home?” he asks, voice breaking.

“We’re going home.”

Aaron wakes up alone in bed.

He’s completely naked, laying with three blankets pulled up over him. One that he recognizes is from the living room. There’s one of Derek’s homemade sock heating pads digging into his sore ribs where he rolled over onto it, he can feel more of them underneath him. He’s been laying here for a while. None of the socks are warm anymore. He’s on Derek’s side of the bed, facing his nightstand, and watches Derek’s blurry alarm clock change time. 1:36 passing to 1:37 to 1:38 just waiting for the fuzzy fingers in his brain to ease up. To allow him to think.

It’s Saturday.

Derek’s off at a football game, not due back for hours. Not until tonight, long after Aaron’s gone to bed.

For an overwhelming moment, his eyes fill with tears, desperation, and solitude creating an awful twist in his stomach. He doesn’t want to be alone. Protectively he draws his knees up, tries to knot himself up, and create a mangled ball. His heart picks up, anxiety increasing as he lays there. He wants Derek. He doesn’t want to be alone.

On the phone’s first rings he curls in tighter, overwhelmed by his own crying that he presses his face into Derek’s pillow and ignores it. He’ll let the machine catch it-- that’s the whole reason Derek bought it. With a sharp end, muffled by the blanket he pulls up over his head, a voice comes through. The machine catching the voice mail.

“Aaron, sweetheart? This is Fran, Derek’s mom? I’m sorry to keep calling sweetie but Derek’s awake now. He’s worried, says you should have woken up by now. I can send Sarah to come get you, Derek told me what happened last night. Please call me back? I hope you’re okay.”

He lays in confused silence, trying to process why Derek’s mother would call him. She calls all the time and occasionally he answers to tell her she’s just missed Derek-- he’s off with friends, at the gym, or at class. They know of one another Derek talks about him to Fran as much as Derek talks about Fran to him. But Fran call him? That’s never happened.

Then he catches it-- “Derek’s awake now”-- and he sits up. Pushed from his mind is the pain, his ribs scream and the blood he can see he’s left on Derek’s pillow. Derek’s awake now. Hunter Whatever-his-last-name-is is on the football team. An offensive lineman. A guy whose entire job is to protect Derek but now he knows, he has to know.

Derek’s awake now.

He throws himself out of bed, clipping his already sore hip on the nightstand and staggering for the phone. Tears spilling over his face. What happened while he was sleeping? What did Hunter do?

Fran picks up on the first ring. “Aaron, is that you sweetheart?”

He sniffles, rubbing at his nose with his finger. “Yes, ma’am.” He knows she can hear him crying, his choked sobs as he falls in the direction of the closes chair.

“You had me worried sick,” she says and he can hear that unmistakable fondness in her chastising tone. That must be where Derek gets it from. It makes him smile, even if it’s weak. “How are you feeling, baby? Derek told me what happened. I’m sorry. If I see that boy I’ll wring his neck. Give him a piece of my mind for bothering my boys.”

He just nods, despite the fact that she can’t see that. He knows he should answer her question but he has no idea what he feels. Nothing. He feels nothing as he sits here holding his breath as he waits to ask about Derek. To know what happened because of him. “Is Derek okay? What happened?”

Hunter told a few other team members what he saw. Most brushed him off, Hunters a douchebag, and they like Derek. Others just hate Aaron enough for it to matter to them, enough to what to do something. Or, rather, not do anything. It only took one tackle, a limb bent the wrong way under the weight of three boys.

It was Derek’s knee. A career-ending injury.

A scholarship losing injury.

“Can I--” Aaron chokes. He’s afraid of what happens if Fran says no. “Can I see him?”

“Of course you can.”

Aaron turns away Fran’s offer of a car ride but Desirée still shows up.

He answers the door in a sweatshirt and jeans and knows immediately who it is when he opens it up. Desirée just stares at him for a moment, he can feel all of the seventeen-year-old judgment sizing him up. “You look… awful,” she tells him. She lets herself in, walking past Aaron with one more look. “Mom says I can drive but if you want to do it I have to let you.” She puts the car keys on the counter, sighs as she looks around. “Derek says…” she chews her lip, as she sizes him up again.

He wonders how intimidating he could possibly look to her. Hunched over and wearing a sweatshirt that’s too big for him.

“Would you teach me how to make bread?”

He can’t help but smile, nods without any hesitation.

“Really?”

Aaron nods, “it’s not that hard. More of a-- a waiting game. You have to give the yeast time to rise.”

Desirée has no idea what that means but she nods, “cool.”

He lets her drive. Mostly because his vision is swimming but because he tosses the keys back to her, a clear okay that she can drive, and she beams at him. She likes him. That’s so weirdly important to him.

She has to wake him up when they get to the hospital. The first thing she tells Fran is that he let her drive and Fran smiles at him, shakes her head, and says “you must have a death wish.”

Aaron blushes under the attention, eyes falling to the floor. He barely manages, “drives just like Derek.”

Fran laughs, nodding her head, “she does. Too heavy on the brakes.” Her smile fades a little when she sees Aaron’s sweatshirt, recognizes it from home. Knows it’s Dereks. “Will you let someone look at that,” she asks, too many of his wounds look deep. Cuts that need stitches and a nasty black eye that she knows he hasn’t iced. She’s reminded a little too quickly that Aaron and Derek are still very much kids. Tricky kids. Too old to be told what to do but still wanting direction.

Aaron nods, shying away again from the attention, but nods.

They leave him when the nurse steps in, doesn’t need to say a word. Fran sees him hesitate to lift his shirt and knows. Derek had managed to tell her most of what happened but the morphine made his speech slur, made him emotional. He’d sobbed, high and in pain. Told her what he’d seen the night before. Hunter hitting and kicking at Aaron, the way Aaron slumped forward. How he’d carried Aaron home. Washed the blood off him with a rag. She knew what was under Aaron’s shirt wasn’t something for them to see.

Derek wakes sometime in the middle of the night. The drugs from the surgery are wearing off and with it his blissful escape from the pain. Licking his dry lips he looks around the room, spotting his sisters and frowning as he tries to find his mother. She’s leaning over another cot, on the other side of the room. He watches her, hears the familiar chorus of Blackbird, and watches her stroke Aaron’s forehead, following the line of the relaxed brow.

It makes him smile, his mother used to sing Whitney Houston to him and his sisters to sleep. He told her about Aaron’s obsession with The Beatles, how of all the records the two of them own that’s the only one Aaron will play. Desiréebought the album, his mother told him a week later. She saved up to get it and was eager for her moment to speak to Aaron about it. To be able to befriend her brother’s boyfriend. That’s about the same time Fran began to hound him about bringing Aaron home, to Chicago. She wanted to meet him.

Fran kisses Aaron’s forehead, waiting another moment just to make sure Aaron’s truly asleep before she stands. “He was having a bad dream,” she tells Derek. In truth, he’d been crying in his sleep. In pain, she could tell, and restless. He’d settled with her there and it made her sad to think that maybe he’d just grown too used to sleeping beside someone else. She’d pulled his blankets closer and sang, just as she did with the other three when they were little. Even when they’re twenty, it still works like a charm.

Fran smiles, tries to soothe Derek’s nerves so he doesn’t worry about Aaron. He’s fine for now, sleeping soundlessly. She sits down on the edge of Derek’s bed, cups his cheek, and asks “how are you feeling?”

Derek just looks over to Aaron, his pale parted lips parted and the bandages holding him together. “Is he okay?” He’d been so scared last night watching Aaron sleep. No amount of Tylenol was doing a thing for his pain. Several times he’d sat up in the night and searched for a pulse, counted the far too many seconds separating each of his breathes. Derek thought Aaron might die right there beside him but he’d been more afraid of what might have happened if they went to the hospital.

Fran sighs, stupid love. It’s cute, she has to admit, but so senseless. “He’s sleeping, he’s okay.” She tries to redirect him, “how do you feel?”

Derek looks back over to Aaron. He looks. There’s more than just those pale lips and the bandages. It’s Aaron. He’s sleeping under multiples blankets and looks like himself. How he always looks when Derek rolls over to face him. He believes his mother, she never lies. “My leg hurts,” he whispers, voice cracking. It’s like the entire thing is pulsing, a continuous stabbing feeling. He cries but not from the pain. They betrayed him. The people he so stupidly thought of as his friends. They hurt him like they’d been hurting Aaron.

He should have known better.

He shouldn’t have been so stupid.

This is his fault.

“Derek?” Aaron sits up, hesitating under the combined attention of Derek and Fran.

Fran stands up, nods Aaron over. “Sit with him,” she offers. “I’ll go get a nurse.”

Aaron nods, still waiting, still hesitating to be where he wants to be. Derek motions him closer, manages to move his body over in the bed. Just enough room for Aaron to squeeze in beside him.

“I don’t think I”m supposed to--”

“Lay down.” Derek can see all the bruises and cuts up close again. He brushes his fingers through the hair above Aaron’s ear, turning his palm to his cheek. Gently tracing the outline of a bandage. “Runaway with me,” he whispers. He thought about it all night long while he watched Aaron sleep. “There’s only four more weeks left of the semester.” Aaron’s smart, he’ll get in anywhere he applies. “We’ll transfer someplace else, anywhere else.”

Aaron frowns, he doesn’t like the idea of this impulsivity. Mostly the number of uncertainties that it creates and the questions. Where will they go? How will they know it’s safe? Are they dropping out? Where will they transfer to? What Aaron can’t get into the college that Derek does?

“Hey,” Derek hushes, he strokes his thumb across Aaron’s cheekbone. “Hey, whatever you’re thinking stop. I’m not leaving, not going anywhere you don’t. We do this together, alright?” He smiles, leans forward, and softly knocks their foreheads together. “Four weeks and all of summer break, okay? That’s plenty of time for a smarty pants like you to figure out where we can go.” It had taken less time for Aaron to conclude Illinois was close enough to home for him to go if something happened to his mother but too far away for her or his brother to come to him.

They’ll figure it out.

“Runaway with me?” he asks one more time.

“Okay.”

#criminal minds fanfiction #aaron hotchner #derek morgan #hotchgan #mortch #hurt hotch #tw homophobia

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in-inertia · 2 years ago

Text

Apologies for the delay in the response. There were a combination of professional and personal affairs that kept me. This response got a bit long, so I've placed a cut here.

If it's pronounced like Alexandre Dumas, I can sympathize. I was unfamiliar with Gallic pronunciations as well, and made an ass of myself when I attempted it. I didn't have the luxury of an IPA key at the time.

I apologize ahead of time for the length of my explanation. I've attempted to keep it concise, but not too stringently. I've included it as an aside, if only because it was grating on me aesthetically.

Ægir is a nation—one whose cities once spanned the ocean floor. I'd like to remember it as the sole place I've seen where the love of arts and beauty isn't marred by the pursuit of capital. I should curb my praise before it gets too lofty, lest I seem ignorant of its many faults. But there are things in this world I desire to protect, and Ægir is their home. The Academy is Ægir's chief political body, and the central axis of its technical education. The Consuls are its policymakers and the directors of its scientific research and development, divided into technicians and scientists—engineers and theorists. I was the former. The Abyssal Hunter Battalion is, or perhaps was the principal guardian of Ægir against the Seaborn, a hivemind colony of organisms ranging from microscopic to colossal scales which knows only growth, evolution, and endless consumption. Some volunteer to become Abyssal Hunters, others are chosen. I was the latter. For my experience, I was made into the Captain of the Second Company, and the Battalion's Chief Designer of Warfare. The Battalion is almost entirely gone, now, and its remnants are stranded from Ægir, but the Seaborn have only been set back some time by the blows our sacrifices made. I lead what remains. I cannot know for sure if the Battalion was re-established, or dissolved. I may not even have any authority anymore, but I will not allow something like that to stay my hand.

Ah, my apologies—ballet. I was trained in ballet and theater, and then applied those skills to a number of styles. I've done what I can to ensure that I'm a proficient guide and instructor, but part of it is also simply being flexible when it comes to the needs of my dance partner. If they're stumbling, then I'll hold them steady. If they're uncoordinated with their steps, then I'll ensure there's nothing in their way. If they cannot walk, then I'll show them what it's like to fly. I am honored to be the first to show anyone the beauty and passion of dance, and there is no accommodation I will not make.

I respect someone who likes to take matters into their own hands. Even beyond that virtue, that you enjoy making anything is good. We live in what we make—not in the permanence or utility of our creations, but in the tangible impact we can see ourselves have on our surroundings. It is how we know we exist, and it does not always have to be deep or meaningful to satisfy us.

I've recently occupied myself with more literature, after many years spent not reading anything but records, charters, and intercepted communications. A former colleague of mine would scoff at me for that lapse. I'm still working through the 'literary canon' of Ursus, at the moment. Do you have a genre you like more than any others, or are you simply not picky?

That seems to be true. It does get a little easier. Yup.

That definitely would've not been how I have pronounced it if I didn't know. I am super glad I asked like there was the one time where my English professor was named Dumas. Oh. Hm. Yeah. You could probably guess what happened. Eheh.

So Ægir is an Academy or is the Academy sorta a separate thing? And being both an administration and a technical worker sounds tiring, though I guess you at least understand what your subordinates are going through unlike management I've seen and experienced. And what exactly do you hunt as a Hunter now, like it sorta sounds like soldier and also not?

That's pretty cool - I don't think I'll ever get coordinated not to trip more than a couple steps. The whole having two left feet thing sadly. Oh, what's the difference between a classically-trained dancer and one that's not classically-trained? Like style or something? And I guess if the skill of the partner doesn't matter, you must be good at doing the whole "follow my lead" thing.

Interests as of late, I've been a bit interested in Do-It-Yourself projects, mostly furniture. My second bedroom has a workbench and a bunch of tools for that purpose. I don't really invite people to my home, so I kinda learned how to take care of a lot of common home problems like a clogged drain or fixing my water heater, and it kinda balled up from there . I also like music too and I can pretty much read everything - probably because if I bother to actually start reading it, my brain automatically tells me I'm enjoying it in a sort of self-hypnosis sorta way,- so books almost always entertain me.

#long post #ctrl shift escape

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brawltogethernow · 5 years ago

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So, I don't think I've ever asked you this... what IS the whole point of the Spider-Sense? It really seems like something that only exists for writers to ignore or work around when they want to inject Legit Tension into a story.

I’ve thought about this power so much, but never with an eye to defend its right to exist, so I needed to think about this. The results could be more concise.

Ironically, given the question, I have to say its main purpose is to ramp up tension. But it’s also a highly variable multitool that a skilled creative team can use for...pretty much anything. It does everything the writer wants it to, while for its wielder always falls just short of doing enough.

I went looking through my photos for a really generic, classic-looking example to use as an image to head this topic, but then I ran into the time Peter absolutely did not reimburse this man for his stolen McDonald’s, so have that instead.

A Scare Chord, But You Can Draw It

That one post that says the spider-sense is just super-anxiety isn’t, like, wrong. It’s a very anxious, dramatic storytelling tool originally designed for a very anxious, dramatic protagonist. I find it speaks to the overall tone of the franchise that some characters are functionally psychics, but with a psychic ability that only points out problems.

Spidey sense pinging? There’s danger, be stressed! Broken? Now the lead won’t even KNOW when there’s a problem, scary! Single character is immune to it? That’s an invisible knife in the dark oh my god what the fuck what the fU--

Like its counterpart in garden variety anxiety, the only time the spider-sense reduces tension is in the middle of a crisis. But in the wish fulfillmenty way that you want in an adventure story to justify exaggerated action sequences, the same way enhanced strength or durability does. Also like those, it would theoretically make someone much safer to have it, but it exists in the story to let your character navigate into and weather more dangerous situations.

For its basic role in a story, a danger sense is a snappy way to rile up both the reader and the protagonist that doesn’t offer much information beyond that it’s time to sit smart because shit is about to go down.

Spidey comic canon is all over the board in quality and genre, and it started needing to subvert its formulas before the creators got a handle on what those formulas even were, and basically no one has read anything approaching most of it at this point, so for consistent examples of a really bare bones use of this power in storytelling, I’d point to the property that’s done the best job yet of boiling down the mechanics of Spider-Man to their absolute most basic essentials for adaptation to a compelling monster of the week TV series.

Or as you probably know it, Danny Phantom. DON’T BOO, I’M RIGHT.

DP is Spider-Man with about 2/3 of the serial numbers filed off and no death (ironically), and Danny’s ghost sense is the most proof in the formula example of what the spidey sense is for: It’s a big sign held up for the viewer that says, “Something is wrong! Pay attention!” Effectively a visual scare chord. It’s about That Drama. And it works, which won it a consistent place in the show’s formula. We’re talking several times an episode here.

So why does it work?

It’s a little counterintuitive, but it’s strong storytelling to tell your audience that something bad is going to happen before it does. A vague, punchy spoiler transforms the ignorant calm before a conflict into a tense moment of anticipation. ...And it makes sure people don’t fail to absorb the beginning of said conflict because they weren’t prepared to shift gears when the scene did. Shock is a valuable tool, too, but treating it like a staple is how you burn out your audience instead of keeping them engaged. Not to go after an easy target, but you need to know how to manage your audience’s alarm if you don’t want to end up like Game of Thrones.

The limits of the spider-sense also keep you on your toes when handled by a smart writer. It tells Peter (everyone’s is a little different, so I’m going to cite the og) about threats to his person, but it doesn’t elaborate with any details when it’s not already obvious why, what kind, and from what. And it doesn’t warn him about anything else-- Which is a pretty critical gap when you zoom out and look at his hero career’s successes and failures and conclude that it’s definitely why he’s lived as long as he has acting the way he does, but was useless as he failed to save a string of people he’d have much rather had live on than him.

(Any long-running superhero mythos has these incidents, but with Peter they’re important to the core themes.)

And since this power is by plot for plot (or because it’s roughly agreed it only really blares about threats that check at least two boxes of being major, immediate, or physical), it always kicks in enough to register when the danger is bearing down...when it’s too late to actually do anything about it if “anything” is a more complex action than “dodge”.

Really? Not until the elevator doors started to open?

That Distinctive, Crunchy Spider Flavor

The spider-sense and its little pen squiggles go hand in hand with wallcrawling (and its unique and instantly identifiable associated body language) to make the Spider-Person powerset enduringly iconic and elevate characters with it from being generic mid-level super-bricks. Visually, but also in how it shapes the story.

I said it can share a narrative role with super strength. But when you end a fight and go home, super strength continues to make your character feel powerful, probably safer than they’d be otherwise, maybe dangerous.

The spider-sense just keeps blaring, “Something’s wrong! Something’s wrong! God, why aren’t you doing something about this!?”

Pretty morose thing to live with, for a safety net! Kind of a double edged sword you have there! Could be constantly being hyperattuned to problems would prime you for a negative outlook on life. Kind of seems like a power that would make it impossible for a moral person to take a day off, leading them into a beleaguered and resentful yet dutiful attitude about the whole superhero gig! Might build up to some of the core traits of this mythos, maybe! Might lead to a lot of fifteen minute retirement stories, or something. Might even be a built in ‘great responsibility’ alarm that gets you a main character who as a rule is not going to stop fighting until he physically cannot fight anymore.

Certainly not apropos of anything, just throwing this short lived barely-a-joke tagline up for fun.

One of my personal favorite things about stories with superpowers is keeping in mind how they cause the people who have them to act in unusual ways outside of fights, so when you tell me that these people have an entire extra sense that tells them when the gas in their house is leaking through a barely useful hot/cold warning system that never turns off, I’m like, eyes emojis, popcorn out, notebook open, listening intently, spectacles on, the whole deal.

It also contributes to Peter Parker’s personality in a way I really enjoy: It allows him to act like an irrational maniac. When you know exactly when a situation becomes dangerous and how much, normal levels of caution go out the window and absolutely nothing you do makes sense from an exterior standpoint anymore. That’s the good shit. I would like to see more exploration of how the non-Parker characters experiencing the world in this incredibly altered way bounce in response.

It’s also one of many tools in this franchise hauling the reader into relating more closely with the main character. The backbone of classic Spidey is probably being in on secrets only Peter and the reader know which completely reframe how one views the situation on the page. It’s just a big irony mine for the whole first decade. A convenient way to inform the reader and the lead that something is bad news that’s not perceivable to any other characters is youth-with-a-big-exciting-secret catnip.

Another point for tension, there, in that being aware of danger is not synonymous with being able to act on it. If there’s no visible reason for you to be acting strange, well...you’re just going to have to sit tight and sweat, aren’t you? Some gratuitous head wiggles never hurt when setting up that type of conflict.

Have I mentioned that they look cool? Simultaneously punchy and distinctive, with a respectable amount of leeway for artists to get creative with and still coming up with something easily recognizable? And pretty easy to intuit the meaning of even without the long-winded explanations common in the days when people wrote comics with the intent that someone could come in cold on any random issue and follow along okay, I think, although the mechanic has been deeply ingrained in popular culture for so long that I can’t really say for sure.

It was also useful back in the day when no artists drew the eyes on the Spider-Man mask as emoting and were conveying the lead’s expressions entirely through body language and panel composition. If you wiggle enough squiggles, you don’t need eyebrows.

Take This Handwave and Never Ask Me a Logistical Question Again

This ability patches plot holes faster than people can pick them open AND it can act as an excuse to get any plot rolling you can think of if paired with one meddling protagonist who doesn’t know how to mind their own business. Buy it now for only $19.99 (in four installments; that’s four installments of $19.99).

Why can a teenager win a six on one fight against other superhumans? Well, the spider-sense is the ultimate edge in combat, duh.

Why can Peter websling? Why doesn’t everyone websling? Well, the spider-sense is keeping him from eating flagpole when he violently flings himself across New York in a way neither man nor spider was ever meant to move.

How are we supposed to get him involved with the plot this week???? Well, that crate FELT dangerous, so he’s going to investigate it. Oh, dip, it was full of guns and radioactive snakes! Probably shouldn’t have opened that!

Yeah, okay, but why isn’t it fixing everything, then? Isn’t it supposed to be why Peter has never accidentally unmasked in front of somebody? ('Nother entry for this section, take a shot.) That’s crazy sensitive! How does he still have any problems!? Is everything bad that’s ever happened to characters with this powerset bad writing!? --Listen, I think as people with uncanny senses that can tell us whether we are in danger with accuracy that varies from incredible to approximate (I am talking about the five senses that most people have), we should all know better than to underestimate our ability to tune them out or interpret them wrong and fuck ourselves up anyway. I honestly find this part completely realistic.

*SLAPS ROOF OF SPIDER-SENSE* YOU CAN FIT SO MANY STORIES IN THIS THING

The spider-sense is a clean branch into...whatever. There is the exact right balance of structure and wishy-washiness to build off of. A sample selection of whatevers that have been built:

It’s sci-fi and spy gadgets when Peter builds technology that can interface with it.

It’s quasi-mystical when Kaine and Annie-May get stronger versions of it that give them literal psychic visions, or when you want to get mythological and start talking about all the spider-characters being part of a grand web of fate.

Kaine loses his and it becomes symbolic of a future newly unbound by constraints, entangled thematically with the improved physical health he picked up at the same time -- a loss presented as a gain.

Peter loses his and almost dies 782 times in one afternoon because that didn’t make the people he provoked when he had it stop trying to kill him, and also because he isn’t about to start “””taking the subway’’””’ “‘’“”to work”””’’” like some kind of loser who doesn’t get a heads up when he’s about to hit a pigeon at 50mph.

Peter’s starts tuning into his wife’s anxiety and it’s a tool in a relationship study.

It starts pinging whenever Peter’s near his boss who’s secretly been replaced by a shapeshifter and he IGNORES IT because his boss is enough of an asshole that that doesn’t strike him as weird; now it’s a comedy/irony tool.

Into the Spider-Verse made it this beautiful poetic thing connecting all the spider-heroes in the multiverse and stacked up a story on it about instant connection, loss, and incredibly unlikely strangers becoming a found family. It was also aesthetic as FUCK. Remember the scene where Miles just hears barely intelligible whispering that’s all lines people say later in the film and then his own voice very clearly says “look out” and then the room explodes?? Fuck!!!!

Venom becomes immune to it after hitchhiking to Earth in Peter’s bone juice and it makes him a unique threat while telling a more-homoerotic-than-I-assume-was-originally-intended story about violation and how close relationships can be dangerous when they go sour.

It doesn’t work on people you trust for maximum soap opera energy. Love the innate tragedy of this feature coming up.

IN CONCLUSION I don’t have much patience for writers who don’t take advantage of it, never mind feel they need to write around it.

#spiderman #peter parker #spiderverse #spidey #marvel #danny phantom #one day you'll see what i'm doing with it in the project i'm collabing on w/ my brother and then you'll all be sorry and hopefully impresse #mirrorfalls #asks answered #essays

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merry-thieves · 4 years ago

Text

Possible meanings of Chain of Iron snippets

Yes, this is going to be a long post.

I didn’t put all teasers here only those where I could actually come up with something.

Alastair looked amused. “Never before have I heard such a concise statement of the ludicrous philosophy with which you and your school friends go through the world.”

So, Alastair is definitely speaking to one of the Merry Thieves

probably James, since Al and Matthew aren’t on the best terms and conversations between Thomas and Al would go in another direction (either fighting or with way more feelings)

it seems like James and Alastair are on quite good terms here if Alastair isn’t snappish and shows his true (happy) emotions

Anna was fortress-surrounded by her friends: tall, handsome Thomas; Christopher, who shared his sister’s stern delicacy of feature, peacock Matthew, who always looked as if he’d just rolled out of an unmade bed piled with silks and velvet. And Eugenia Lightwood, who hadn’t bothered to take off her canary-yellow gloves or hat, as if she were ready to run out the door any moment.

They all eyed Ariadne suspiciously as she approached Anna. Anna didn’t seem to see her at all; she was leaning back with one booted foot braced on the wall behind her. She was all lean black and white lines, her close-fitting jacket following the outline of her slim curves, her head thrown back as she laughed. Her ruby pendant glimmered in the hollow of her throat.

Keep your head up, Ariadne, she told herself. You can do this.

“Hello, Anna,” Ariadne said.

First of all, Eugenia is in this group which is interesting regarding the main characters in Chain of Iron

Is Eugenia part of the main group? Has she an important role to play? (we are supposed to find out the reason why she is disgraced)

We have Ariadne’s pov here, so she might play a big role too in Choi, at least we will have more of her and Anna’s relationship

Also, she calls Matthew “peacock” which is so accurate and funny!

Alastair’s gaze flicked to Matthew. “Why,” he said, “are you not even wearing a hat?”

“And cover up this hair?” Matthew indicated his golden locks with a flourish. “Would you blot out the sun?”

Okay, Matthew and Alastair aren’t brawling which is a good sign

Also, where are they? There has to be a good reason if both of them are attending and standing next to each other

I’m guessing they’re outside since they’re supposed to wear hats

The brave princess Lucretia raced through the marble halls of the palace. "I must find Cordelia," she gasped. "I must save her."

"I believe the Prince holds her even now, captive in his throne room!" Sir Jerrod exclaimed. "But Princess Lucretia, even though you are the most beautiful and wise lady that I have ever met, surely you cannot fight your way through a hundred of his stoutest palace guard!" The knight’s green eyes flashed. His straight black hair was disarranged, and his white shirt was entirely undone.

"But I must!" Lucretia cried.

So, the main thing I want to point out here is that Lucie is crushing so hard on Jesse!

and does she picture him with an open shirt or am I reading too much into this?

James spoke at last, and there was real kindness in his voice. “You must give people time, Alastair,” he said. “We are none of us perfect, and no one expects perfection. But when you have hurt people you must allow them their anger. Otherwise it will only become another thing you have tried to take away.”

Alastair seemed to hesitate. “James,” he said. “Does he think —“

Soooo, James and Alastair are friendly now? (please, please, please)

And who does Alastair have to give time? Matthew or more likely Thomas?

Also, James is one eloquent babe

“I know that you’ve been doing something — something you’re keeping secret. I’m not angry,” Cordelia hastened to add. “I just wish you’d tell me what it is.”

Lucie tried to cover her surprise.

it was about time that those two speak about all their secrets! They want to become Parabatai for Raziel’s sake!

but I have the sneaking suspicion that Lucie is going to deflect the question or is going to make something up to avoid telling the truth

(please let me be wrong)

“Alastair! Cordelia!” A familiar voice bellowed up from downstairs.

Sona went white and laid a hand against the wall to steady herself. “Elias?”

I’m not sure about you guys but going white and bracing oneself against a wall doesn’t seem like someone is happy

So, I guess Sona isn’t really happy that Elias is back

is there another reason besides the drinking why she isn’t

and is Elias mad at his children? I mean he is bellowing

also why is Elias mad at all? All his charges were dropped and he is a free man once more

Cordelia shivered a little, though it was not cold in the room. “There is something weighing on you, Matthew,” she said gently. “A secret. Will you tell me what it is?”

She saw his hand go to his breast pocket, where he often kept his flask. Then he lowered it stiffly to his side and took a deep breath. “You do not know what you are asking.”

“Yes, I do,” she said. “I am asking for the truth. Your truth. You know mine, and I do not even know what makes you so unhappy.”

Cordelia told Matthew everything about her father and maybe about her feelings for James

if we’re lucky Matthew tells Cordelia about the poisoning and someone can finally help him (I think CC said that Matthew would tell Cordelia everything in Chain of Iron, hopefully that’s true)

also, Matthew doesn’t want to drink after Cordelia told him the story about her father

Matthew also found out why Alastair had been so mean in school and that Matthew can't really partially blame him for what happened with Charlotte

Jesse glanced out the window. They were passing through Piccadilly Circus, nearly deserted at such a late hour. The statue of Eros in the center was lightly dusted with snow; a lone tramp slept upon the steps below it. “Don’t have too much hope, Lucie. Sometimes hope is dangerous.”

“Have you said that to Grace?”

Jesse shook his head. “She won’t listen.”

is there a possibility that Lucie won’t try to raise Jesse from the dead and instead tries to stop Grace from doing so? (the parallels between this and qoaad are uncanny)

I don’t think that there is anything that will stop grace from trying to perform necromancy other than force

“I’ve been trying to hate you,” Thomas said quietly, “for what you did to Matthew. You richly deserve to be hated for what you have done.”

Alastair’s dark eyes glittered. “It wasn’t just his mother I slandered. It was your father, too. You know it. So you don’t have to—to act all high-minded about this. Stop pretending you are only upset on behalf of Matthew. Hate me on your own behalf, Thomas.”

he is calling him Thomas!!! Ahhhh! (so they’re probably alone)

Thomas doesn’t really hate Alastair at this point but also hasn’t fully forgiven him

at least he hasn’t thrown Alastair into the themes

maybe Thomas is trying to suppress the fact that Alastair also wronged Thomas’s own family and it’s easier for him to direct his attention to Matthew’s family?

His golden eyes were fixed on her, fierce as a hawk’s gaze. She said, "It doesn’t matter what I said. I wanted them to leave you alone —"

"I don’t believe you," he said. She could feel the slight tremors running through his body — tremors of stress, that meant he was holding himself very still. Holding himself back. "You don’t say things you don’t mean, Daisy —"

Okay now, what did she say? I’m guessing something quite flattering or that she loved him maybe?

also, who didn’t want to leave James alone? Some bigoted Enclave members?

is James trying to fight against the bracelet’s spell? Or is he breaking Cordelia’s heart yet again?

James closed his eyes. Against the back of his eyelids, he could see the city take shape—the minarets flung darkly against a blue sky, the silver river. Cordelia’s voice, low and familiar, rose above the clamor of his nightmare. He followed it out of the darkness, like Theseus following the length of thread out of the Minotaur’s labyrinth. And it was not the first time. Her voice had lifted him out of fever, once, had been his light in shadows. . . . A sharp pain spiked through his temples. He blinked his eyes open: he was firmly back in the present, his friends all looking at him worriedly. Cordelia had already moved away from him, leaving behind the lingering scent of jasmine. He could still feel where her fingers had rested against his shoulder.

JORDELIA! (Sorry; I just had to get that out)

What city is this? One in a demon dimension?

And does James have some kind of visions now? Interesting...

I love the connection between James and Cordelia

Apparently, the gracelet is trying to suppress James's feelings and memories of Cordelia...but please tell me he notices here that he is in love with her?

Also, Cordelia is trying to stay away from James :(

Hands caught his wrists; he was hauled up roughly, an arm around his back. he smelled brandy and cologne.

“Matthew,” he said, in a dry voice. “James needs water,” Christopher said. “Do we have any water?” “Never touch the stuff,” said Matthew, settling James onto the long sofa. He sat down next to him, staring so intently into James’s face that, despite everything, James had to stifle a laugh. “I’m fine, Matthew,” said James. “Also, I don’t know what you expect to discover by looking into my eyeball.”

Okay WHAT IS UP with James in the latest snippets?!? I NEED answers!

Is James follwing in his father's footsteps? Regarding drugs you know...

Also, Matthew has a tendency to stare into Jame's face (not that I blame him)

Christopher!

Okay, I'm devestated that James knows it's Matthew because he smells of alcohol. I'm NOT okay!

Also, what kind of stuff is this?

“You should have told us,” said Thomas. “We would have helped you move your things. I’m exceptionally good at carrying large objects.” “And think of all those hairbrushes you would have had to relocate,” Lucie said. “Haven’t you got six or seven?” Matthew glowered at her affectionately. “I try to be at least as stylish as our local ghosts.”

I think it's clear that Matthew just moved and didn't tell any of his friends of his plans...Why Matthew, why?

Also, Thomas and Lucie are just so wholesome how they try to brighten the situation with their comments

Sooooo, is Thomas also good at carrying people *cough*Alastair*cough*, just asking...?

How many Hairbrushes does one need? Seriously, what kind of purpose do seven hairbrushes serve?

Don't worry Matthew, only Magnus can beat your stylishness

That’s all for now! Should I add anything else in your opinion?

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exn0bisstudios · 4 years ago

Note

hiya! if it isn't spoiler-y or you won't be making a separate post for it, could you tell us a bit about the work hunters and seers do? does being a member of the order as a hunter always guarantee that you'll have a seer for a partner, or do they have different kinds of work that don't require a partner, or maybe require a bigger group to work with?

I will be making a post about it. After that, you'll obviously get a more in-depth look during the game itself. Still, since I have some other things lined up first, I would be happy to give some cursory notes here in this ask!

Please be aware that this info might seem a bit jumbled since I'm just tossing out notes (also I’m running on two hours of sleep lmao). This also got really long, so I apologize for that! As I said, I'll eventually get a much more organized & concise post up for you guys!

About Seers of The Twilight Order

What is a Seer?

Seers are magically gifted individuals of strong mentality who have been soul-bound to a Nightmare, which allows them to use Void magic. Said magic is the only thing that can actually destroy a Nightmare - yes, they can be hurt by weapons. Still, they'll eventually reform from the damage unless a Seer comes along and wipes them out. Since the Void is essentially power in its most raw form, it is not meant to be used by mortals. So, the Order devised the binding to allow an adept enough mage to use a Nightmare as a proxy. It's a messy necessity since, without Seers, Yereth-Shai would have fallen to the Nightmares a long, long time ago.

Unfortunately, this proxy system is hugely flawed. Nightmares, by their very nature, are corrupted, as is the Void. The forcible melding of a mortal soul to this corrupted being will eventually erode the mortal, no matter how mentally resilient they are. The more they use the Void magic, the faster that corruption sets in. Not to mention that the binding ritual itself can be deadly outright.

In short, becoming a Seer is a death sentence. Most last for around 5 years before corruption kills them. Unfortunately, it's also common for Seers to go insane, either from corruption or just from having a primordial creature that hates them living in their head. The Order has a care facility set up for any non-violent Seers who have lost their minds, where they can live out what's left of their lives in peace and safety. Sadly most that go nuts are also violent, though, and are mercy-killed by The Order before they can cause civilian casualties.

If you're asking, "why would anyone want to be a Seer" the answer is, again, purely because it's necessary for the survival of mortal-kind. Many people who volunteer to become a Seer do so because they see it as a way to atone for past sins. Some do so to be a hero, however short-lived it might be. Some just see it as a civic duty. Regardless of why the Order won't turn away volunteers.

Who can become a Seer?

The only actual requirements are that the candidate must be willing, mentally resilient, and magically capable. Of course, it's always preferable for a candidate to be young and healthy. Such individuals typically prove more resilient to both the required training and the ritual itself. However, so long as they meet the core necessities and make it through Seer training, the Order won't turn anyone away.

A candidate will go through 5 to 8 years of relentless training to prepare for the binding ritual. The training is brutal and has been deadly but is necessary if the candidate hopes to survive the binding. In addition to physical and mental exercise, a Seer candidate is trained in advanced magic techniques. A particular focus on personal control is crucial, considering the Order has no desire to give someone prone to violence access to raw power.

What can a Seer do?

In addition to their ability to wield Void magic as a weapon, they can manipulate it in other ways that benefit the general public. Destroying Nightmares is always a Seers primary duty. Still, they are also often called in to clear an area of Void corruption. A little-understood phenomenon, Void corruption tends to occur in populated areas and acts as a beacon for Nightmares. A Seer can absorb and neutralize the corruption at their own expense. They can also 'see' Void energy, appearing as a kind of smokey aura, which helps them find problem areas or address concerns of corruption/possession.

Some Seer facts

The tell-tale sign of a Seer is the solid black sclera, resulting from their tie to a Nightmare. Black stripes/spots in the sclera are typical in corruption or possession cases, but only Seers have solid black.

Even though many Seers were previously criminals, they are almost always received with respect. Regardless of their past deeds, people recognize the altruistic sacrifice they've made by becoming a Seer and honor them for that. On the flip side, most Seers are understandably received with an equal amount of fear.

Seers cannot comprehend or cohesively communicate with their bound Nightmare while awake, getting at most snippets of violent imagery or projected emotions. They are also plagued by violent nightmares when they sleep due to their subconscious trying to process the foreign presence in their mind. The more a Seer's mental barriers deteriorate, the more the Nightmare can torture them inside their own head.

While they are given combat training, Seers are adamantly encouraged to stay out of active combat as much as possible. They are under strict orders to not use their Void magic unless against a Nightmare or Void-related emergency. They are too valuable to risk on the front line, and using their Void powers speeds up their corruption (and thus, demise) too much to just use them recklessly.

Regarding our dear MC...

Take everything you just read about Seers and throw it out the window.

MC is an entirely unique, never-before-seen case. To start, they never underwent a binding ritual. As far as the Order can tell, MC's Nightmare has been there at least in a cursory sense for their whole life because it has chosen to be there. MC's sclera went black when it finally bonded with them (age depends on MC's background but from 8-11 y/o). It was an entirely painless experience for MC.

MC is the only Seer who has been able to actively communicate with their Nightmare in any capacity. The fact their Nightmare introduced itself and keeps a running commentary on what MC is up to during their waking hours is seemingly inexplicable. MC doesn't suffer any nightmares due to The One's presence, either, and is instead able to interact with a dream manifestation of them.

The MC shows no signs of possession and seems to suffer no ill side effects from the One's presence or from using Void magic. They are also the most potent Void magic user the Order has ever had. This penalty-free relationship has allowed them to be the only Seer to hold the position for more than 8 years.

The general public is not aware of pretty much any of this, however. The official story is intentionally vague, saying that the MC is a prodigy and ends the conversation there. They're somewhere between a myth and a legend to the general public, and the majority would not recognize them in person. The MC is under strict orders not to reveal the truth of their situation unless they deem it absolutely necessary. This is mainly for their own safety. After all, just because the Order trusts them doesn't mean the rest of the world will.

In short, the MC is very special. You'll have to play the game to find out why.

About Hunters of The Twilight Order

What is a Hunter?

A Hunter is a specialized member of the Order's main military force, highly trained in martial and magical combat and tactics. Their primary function is to suppress Nightmare and Void-related violence to allow for a Seer to safely end the engagement, as well as to serve as a Seer's protector and right hand.

They put themselves in danger so that a Seer doesn't have to. However, they are not seen as expendable or as shock troops. Instead, they are provided years of highly specialized, rigorous training to ensure they survive the impossible odds they're frequently up against. As a result, hunters are, without exception, the most effective and impressive fighting force on Yereth-Shai.

Who can become a Hunter?

Anyone, so long as they are willing and survive the training. Hunter backgrounds are incredibly varied, from noble to urchin, but all of them give up their old lives for the sake of the Order. Most candidates are given over to the Order young and spend near their entire lives as members of the Twilight family.

It should be noted that orphans make up the largest demographic, as the Order provides food, lodging, education, and eventually a salary for life. For a child with nothing, it's often the most stable option they have.

What can a Hunter do?

In addition to killing virtually anything with appropriately nightmarish skill, Hunters are known for being brilliant - if unconventional - tacticians and skilled generals. Many a monarch has tried to buy themself a Hunter with a laughable pittance of a success rate.

Hunters are also gifted with a unique soul-bound weapon upon graduation. While these weapons are not strictly sentient, they have a sort of will of their own and are inextricably part of their owner. This bond gives a magical boost to the Hunter's natural prowess, in addition to acting as a powerful channel for their own magic. Soul-bound weapons cannot be used to harm their master. In fact, most cannot even be touched without their master's permission, causing grave injury to the individual attempting. These weapons cannot be broken and, if lost, will find their way back to their master. A Hunter also takes their weapon to their grave, as it will decay upon its master's death.

The forges of Twilight Order are the only place to create these weapons, and the technique has never been shared outside of Order smiths and enchanters.

Some Hunter facts

Hunters almost always outlive Seers simply because, as dangerous as their job is, their powers aren't slowly killing them. As such, there are a lot more Hunters in the Order than there are Seers.

The mass majority of Hunters will never be paired with a Seer. Bodyguard duty is reserved for the elite. The Order takes excellent care in choosing these pairs, and transfers to a different partner are rare. Once a Hunter is assigned to a Seer, they are expected to stay together until one of them dies.

Most Hunter-Seer pairings develop an unshakable bond, so much so that Hunters that lose their Seer struggle to function as well with a new partner. As such, a Hunter who has lost their Seer will return to regular troop duties, often as an officer. Their career as bodyguard is over.

That said, if a Seer needs to be neutralized, it is traditionally their paired Hunter's job to strike the killing blow. While being a Hunter is usually a lifetime career, those who have had to kill their Seer can retire from service. The Order is not unsympathetic to their trauma.

Regarding our dear Mira...

Mira is unique in their own way, though not to the same extent that the MC is.

In Mira's case, they genuinely are a prodigy. They've been with the Order since they were a child and took to the training like a fish to water. Their proficiency is precisely why they were paired with MC - who better to protect the Order's most precious Seer than their most skilled Hunter?

Mira is also special in that they have four soul-bound weapons. No touchy.

About The Twilight Order

The Twilight Order is a neutral faction that pays no homage to any nation but demands fealty from them all. It was formed for the sole purpose of defeating the Nightmare threat, and they have stayed true to that through the decades. Members of the Order are strictly forbidden from meddling with politics unless it furthers their mission. The faction itself takes no interest in the rise and fall of kingdoms outside of keeping their funding secure.

The Order is given a begrudging kind of respect on the global politics scale. Many people view the Order with suspicion, especially considering the number of secrets they keep and how they pointedly disregard whatever laws suit them. However, no one dares rise against them - not just because the Hunter army could decimate a country, but because they're the only ones who can tame the Void.

Though thankfully most governments are content to leave the Order alone, it is a delicate diplomatic balance, so long as they stay out of the political sphere.

Some relevant facts about the Order

Once you are initiated into the Order, you leave your old life behind. Each member takes on the surname 'Twilight' and is encouraged to completely sever ties to their old life. This rule is less strictly enforced with members who have been with the Order for a while. It's common for commanding officers to look the other way if their subordinates exchange letters with their original families. So long as the individual isn't compromised by these engagements, it's quietly allowed to happen.

The Order takes a similarly vague approach to romantic relationships involving its members. Physical relations & romance are not forbidden, nor is marriage or attempting to start a family. However, if such a relationship compromises the participants, it will be condemned, and those involved are punished. Duty above all, for the sake of all. No exceptions.

#THIS IS REALLY LONG #i'm basically edging on incoherent at this point in the day so hopefully this made sense #i was typing whole wrong words towards the end of it :')#Anonymous #answered #TTO: Main Tag #TTO: Lore #TTO: Answers #Mira Twilight

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