#this post was most about comments on the religious trauma aspect

[durge-marzio]

Ohhh, I'm rereading Mystra's entry in the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide... and this detail:

This means Gale was punished for trying to restore and preserve what he thought was a lost piece of Mystra's magic. Gale being Mystra's ex-lover put aside. He as her follower, she his goddess, was punished for attempting to do the one foundational rule of her faith.

I'm seething and so sad at the same time.

Edit: I used the word punish loosely, as in, toxic/abusive people will take any small mistake or action and twist it into something they can take advantage of. This post was also largely from the stand point of a toxic deity rather than a toxic partner, but both takes are valid here. Especially with the, “you didn’t stay compliant so now I’m giving you the silent treatment” part of it—from a god and a partner perspective.

[theinfernalsanctuary]

Greetings, Sister!

I have a question or two for you, if you're able to answer. :)

I'm going to be honest, I've been STRESSING the fuck out about how to write this so I'm going to try and keep it as short and blunt as possible.

I'm young (18) and I have Bipolar, OCD, Social Anxiety Disorder as well as Generalized Anxiety Disorder. I was also raised Catholic and have religious trauma regarding my thoughts and actions being constantly surveilled and judged, which has left me very hyper-aware of my thoughts.

These mental health challenges, especially Bipolar, have made my relationship to religion very conflicting and confusing. I have periods of extreme, unwavering belief in Lord Satan and then I will then constantly doubt His existence as well as my own loyalty, which is very distressing and exhausting.

Reverend Cain was my first substantial step into Theistic Satanism when I was 14. I've read The Infernal Gospel front to back and I've read some of The Satanic Philosopher and The Goetia Devils before I had to delete them out of fear of being caught reading Satanic literature.

I do very much respect and admire Reverend Cain, but the emphasis of complete and utter loyalty irks me a bit. He might have not meant it to be conveyed this way and it's just my religious anxieties, but the "You must be completely loyal and devoted to Hell or else I will smite you and everything you hold dear will be destroyed," really scares me.

Deep down I do believe in Satan and I do recognize him as my Father, but I'm so deeply frightened that I'm not "loyal" enough and that I will be seen as insincere by the Denizens of Hell because of my unstable mood swings and Reverend Cain has commented on how the Denizens feel about insincere followers(?).

What are your thoughts? I understand that I'm young, I definitely haven't had any proper interactions with demons and that my anxiety overtakes me at times, but this is a topic that is important and personal to me and I'm afraid to upset the Infernal Kingdom and especially Lord Satan Himself. :(

Thank you so much for your time, even if you just read and choose not to answer. <3

Signed, a young Satanist who has no idea what the fuck they're doing.

I'm sorry that that was your experience with Reverend Cain's works, I personally didn't have that experience and I hope that youll take another shot at it later. That being said, I think that now would be a good time to take a step back and continue deconstructing your pre-existing religious beliefs. If you're still afraid of Lord Satan and Hell as a whole, now is not the time to truly begin your journey, you cannot be afraid of the guy that's trying to help you if you're going to get far. That being said, something tells me that this isn't so much being afraid of Satan or upsetting him as much as it is being afraid of dissapointing him. (Hello, Catholicism!)

You mentioned being afraid of smiting or being labeled as insincere, but the concern that you show, in my opinion confirms your sincerity. When we talk about sincerity in your beliefs, it's more about intentions than the beliefs itself. Why did you turn to Satanism? Was it out of spite or the selfish need to be the eternal contrarian, or was it because there was something that called to you that felt safe or was even just interesting? People focus so much on prayer and rituals in worship when the learning is worship in of itself, even if it is the most passive form.

Many of the things that I post are more geared towards people who have moved past their initial deconstruction and because of that it has a very heavy focus on the spiritual aspects of worship over the practical, but that learning and deconstructing phase is incredibly important and incredibly difficult. Your faith will constantly ebb and flow, that's human nature as much as people don't want to admit it, especially when mental illness come into play. It's so important to not beat yourself up about it even if that means that you have to step away for a bit.

And finally, even if you decide that this isn't for you, nothing is going to happen to you because of it. I promise.

[cinehomophile]

Fanfic Writer Questions

no one tagged me in this but doing anyway bc i am fixating on fanfic rn lol

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 29

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 58,770

3. What fandoms do you write for? Everything but rn focused on The Deer Hunter and Mean Streets

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

words: Mean Streets hurt/comfort about internalized homophobia

yeah i want a scab today: Reservoir Dogs character study about BPD!Freddy

he wrung the dew out of the fleece, a bowlful of blood: Mean Streets dead dove about religious guilt

dreams of knowledge: Mean Streets hurt/comfort about religious guilt

Kolya: The Deer Hunter character study about immigrant identity

5. Do you respond to comments? for the most part, i think comments and replies are an important aspect of fic culture

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Probably in its right place.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? be sweet to me, baby is probably the happiest it gets lmao

8. Do you get hate on fics? No despite my efforts

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Generally no

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written? Have not in a long time but recall writing something that was RWBYxMinecraft in 2016

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? No afaik

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? No but I have translated a few fics

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? I have co-created a podfic with @fruitysalamander1398

14. What's your all time favorite ship? really hard to say. i think i was more insane about JotaKak than anything else but i dont have much interest in it now

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? atp i avoid starting things i can't finish. if i have a WIP i just pretend thats where i wanted it to end it my life is very easy. fic where i ship two abstract entities that i will never post and exists entirely on notebook pages and post-its

16. What are your writing strengths? Character studies, characters with complex trauma

17. What are your writing weaknesses? rich sensory descriptions bc my brain does not work like that

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? do it myself a lot but implementing is clunky and a pain in the ass

19. First fandom you wrote for? First fic I remember writing was for Little House on the Prarie when I was 9 lmao

20. Favorite fic you've written? hell is finding someone to love is definitely up there it's a very fun read. Angst and Pinging was pretty tight and cohesive i like that one a lot as well

tagging @fruitysalamander1398 @televisionamongthebees @fredoesque @meme-streets

[straynoahide]

advice welcome

sometimes i feel like sharing more of my catholic outlook, theology, etc, on issues that matter to me and current events, but uh, idk how to say this, i perceive a certain dislike/hostility from anybody who is also commenting on the topic that isn't a christian.

and like, i know this is tumblr and i can post whatever on my blog and this isn't the best website for constructive debate, but still...

it gives me a foreboding sensation, like it's going to come up asymmetrical in dignity, with other people commenting on things that aren't their lived experience but somehow still using idpol as a bludgeon or a muzzle when they are challenged. which, not cool? honest conversations are held between intellectual equals. and everyone has the hottest, loudest takes on christian stuff.

i often understand where this comes from, whether that's personal religious trauma or exposure to toxic forms of religion (hi, been there), cultural hegemony/coertion limiting certain aspects of identity (hi, been there), or just the problematic aspects of my faith in the sense not of my personal faith but by institutional association. and that everyone is on edge now with divisive issues and identitarian reactions in most of the west and such.

but, in the end, i feel like the opposite choice is people only having exposure to christofascist ideas by the same people who falsely want to be the voice of all christians. and that empowers the worst kind of people, damages what better people in the communities are trying to build, and perpetuates echo chambers.

so idk, any advice on how to talk about religion and theology that doesn't come off as proselytizing or apologetics? or is this like out of my control? it's just frustrating some people operate like they can be mean-spirited in echo chambers commenting on spiritual things they have no clue about personally, but then would take actual good-faith, engaging criticisms or analysis of dogmatic ideas as an intrusion or a form of bigotry just bc they label it as an 'outsider' thing

[justanothersyscourse]

So apparently none of these things are up for debate because no one can reblog or comment

Nice

@amaranthis

Go ahead, "make an example out of me," but only after I make one of you.

First, I swear to god, the only ones making #miserablyDID a thing are people like you. What people like me are trying to tell people like you is that dysfunction is a fluctuating label, and the DSM entry for DID explains that dysfunction can be minimal to non-existent and you can still be disordered, and that's okay.

Disordered isn't a bad word and it's not synonymous with dysfunction, and the DSM explains why and how.

You just don't want to listen and instead continue to spread the idea that you have be miserable and struggling every day if you're disordered. As if people don't live fulfilling, happy lives with all kinds of disorders.

No, DID is definitely the exception, right?

You ignore that the DSM allows for someone to reach final fusion and still have DID based on their ability to split later in life.

You ignore that the DSM explains that a disorder doesn't mean need for treatment, and you silence and hide voices trying to explain that under the guise of protecting endogenics from "hate", meanwhile, the misinformation you're pushing is actively harmful to DID systems.

You ignore when we explain that the DSM states that you can be trans without dysphoria, and that in most cases, dysfunction in that case comes from failures on the side of medical practitioners and deniers. Transmeds go against the DSM and current research, and comparing syscourse to that is hugely dismissive of the fight trans people have fought.

In terms of DID/OSDD, the DSM explains that it IS a trauma-based disorder, but no one bothers to read beyond the criteria (which also mentions trauma? The and/or doesn't mean trauma is optional, but go off I guess). Sysmeds support the DSM and current research.

The fight isn't comparable, and you're basically denying science and history at this point in favour of an argument that doesn't actually apply.

You ignore the very real damage that IFS has done to the treatment of DID/OSDD, and you ignore our concerns when we say we see the same things coming with endogenics if the language used isn't changed and the line clearly separated.

You ignore that we have answers to all of those questions you asked in the tags. We know why and how the cut off age works, and how autism can increase that age to about 12. From the writers of the DSM.

In b4 hypothesized, because we can see it now, and the DSM 5 TR has been updated to reflect this new understanding.

You ignore that we already understand how and why those with DID have alters and how trauma plays into that.

You ignore that this means that: those biomarkers, or injuries = DID/OSDD, and that if someone is apparently a system without those injuries, it is completely, 100% different. How can it not be? Those injuries affect every aspect of our lives-- the way we retain, recall, and manage memories and information, our emotional reactions to things. Someone without them isn't going to understand it, but people like you demonize people like me for pointing that out, despite the fact that it's kind of obvious when you think about it.

You ignore that the DSM is quite clear about what kind of cultural experiences are excluded and why and how, and it's not for teens on tumblr, and saying it is, is denying the long, hard fight to keep spiritual and religious practices out of the DSM, because they're not the same things.

We already have the answers, you just don't like them, and you just proved on this post that you don't actually care about education, you care about silencing people who disagree and try to point out that you're misreading and misunderstanding things.

[triviallytrue]

hey here's a thought about religion. how about the multitude of religious beliefs that are either unempirical or provably incorrect

had this thought the last time there was major religion discourse that, okay, so the left mainly focuses on talking about religion's effects on society, ie, religion as a reactionary force, and this makes sense because it's honestly the most important thing religion does

but the above is (mostly) only relevant when the religion in question is in power, ie, orthodox judaism is a huge deal in israel but less so in the rest of the world, and there do exist religions that aren't the majority religion anywhere (some pagan stuff comes to mind but i'm sure there's loads more)

then you have religion as a social technology, which is sort of what my most recent post morphed into - people debating the impact of religion on the lives of ordinary people. here you'll see more discussion of scrupulosity or religious trauma, and in the interest of balance, i have to point out the genuinely positive social role it plays in the lives of a lot of people

but we don't talk much about whether or not religious beliefs are true. i mean occasionally it comes up as part of the whole "how bad is believing false things" discourse, and occasionally people make derisive comments, and the discourse becomes about whether all the sneering is justified or counterproductive (which then morphs into 2 again)

i've been trying to put my finger on why that is, exactly. part of it is that it's often hard to pin down empirical claims made by religion in the modern day, so the discourse amounts to "well this is unfalsifiable" and you have to call it a day.

but i think maybe it has more to do with the liberal compromise. i mean there's a catholic in my broader tumblr orbit (he has me blocked now) who will assert his belief in the literal truth of catholicism, but everyone else seems to sort of... implicitly assume all religions are false, because if you're really convinced that one has it right, religious toleration wouldn't make much sense. i mean, you don't see many evolutionary biologists argue for tolerating lamarckians in their field.

and if you're trying to defend the role of some religion in some aspect of life, it sounds pretty condescending to say "well obviously this is nonsense, but it's still very important socially." but that does seem to be the implicit liberal line on religion.

[spencer-reids-adventures]

✨ 2022 Writing Year In Review ✨

Thanks to @feeisamarshmallow​ for tagging me!

1. Number of stories posted to AO3: 12

2. Word count posted for the year: 299,454

3. Fandoms I wrote for: Criminal Minds

4. Pairings: Luke Alvez/Spencer Reid, Aaron Hotchner/Spencer Reid, lots of friendship stuff between the team

5. Story with the most:

Kudos: A Collection of Blurbs Featuring Autistic Spencer Reid with 844

Bookmarks: Also A Collection of Blurbs Featuring Autistic Spencer Reid with 242

Comments: bau super seven loving-reid-a-thon with 159 comment threads

6. Work I’m most proud of (and why):

to seek and to find the narrow way. it's so personal and i was so nervous to post it because of the religious themes but i'm really pleased with how it turned out and i've gotten some amazing feedback <3

7. Work I’m least proud of (and why):

secret storm. i'm not not proud of it! but i wrote it for a challenge and i think i rushed it a little and could've done a lot more with it if i'd given it the time it deserved.

8. Share or describe a favorite review you received:

there's one person who's been reading you don't have to be sorry for doing it on your own and leaving long, detailed comments on every single chapter. i love this person so much. every comment from them makes me cry, they quote my work and talk about what they liked and what they're looking forward to. it's a writer's dream.

9. A time when writing was really, really hard:

writing the little scenes that i have to get through to get to what i really want to be writing. it's so hard to slog through sometimes, but it's always worth it once i make it to the good part and it gets easy again.

10. A scene or character you wrote that surprised you: 

an upcoming chapter of you don't have to be sorry for doing it on your own has a nightmare aftermath scene that i wasn't planning at all but i'm really into it now that i'm writing it and i'm excited to see how it affects the story as a whole. it literally came out of nowhere but i love it so, so much. also, that fic as a whole has surprised me - it started as a really long oneshot and now i'm at about 75k and only halfway done.

11. A favorite excerpt of your writing:

“Oh. Sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?” Morgan asks. 

“Keeping you here. Falling asleep on you. Trauma dumping on you.”

“You didn’t trauma dump on me. I asked questions and you answered. And I don’t mind that you fell asleep on me. You clearly needed the rest.”

Spencer buries his face in his hands. “I don’t usually talk about these things.” 

“I know, kid.”

“I don’t like talking about these things.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want this to change our friendship,” Spencer sighs. “I don’t want things to be weird from now on. I don’t want you to treat me differently.”

“It won’t change anything,” Morgan promises. “I won’t treat you differently.”

“I don’t want you to be worried about me all the time now.”

“Reid. I was already worried about you all the time.”

from you've got a friend

12. How did you grow as a writer this year: 

i wrote a lot this year! i did a lot of sprints, and that made me really productive, and i forced myself to write even when i didn't want to. and i think that was good for me. i also have been making a conscious effort to write what i want to write and not what other people necessarily want to read, and not getting hung up on hits or kudos or comments. if i start worrying too much about what people are going to think about what i'm writing, i stop and regroup and go back to writing what i want, even if that means deleting a whole bunch of stuff.

13. How do you hope to grow next year:

i want to better balance my writing time with the rest of my life. i'm not always good at determining how much writing is enough and how much is too much, and i neglect other aspects of my life in favor of writing which isn't always healthy. i do want to continue to write for me, though. and i've started a trend of writing a chapter ahead in chapter fics so i don't get overwhelmed, and i want to keep that up because it's working really well. i also want to put more effort into brainstorming for the discord fic because i love that one and i feel like i've neglected it a little lately.

14. Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer or beta or cheerleader or muse etc etc): 

chris (@domestikhighway58) and maze (@tobias-hankel) have been so supportive and encouraging and spent so much time sprinting with me and chatting with me and reading my little snippets and keeping me motivated to keep writing. they also both write amazing fics that inspire me to write, period. i am endlessly grateful to both of them.

15. Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year:

i mean, i write fanfiction to process my emotions and issues, so yes, a lot of my real life shows up in my writing. spencer's coping mechanisms are my coping mechanisms. his stims are my stims. his autistic traits are my autistic traits. i have dozens of unfinished fics in my google drive that i've used to process issues in my marriage. also, spencer's therapist in one fic is an exact copy of my favorite former therapist, all the way down to her first name.

16. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers:

write what you want to write and don't worry about what anyone else is going to think. if there's something you're dying to read and no one's written yet - write it! if you have an idea that won't leave you alone - write it! don't worry about if it's good or if other people are going to like it. you are the most important audience. just do the thing!

17. Any projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year:

i'm really enjoying writing you don't have to be sorry for doing it on your own and now that i have an idea of where it's going to end up, i can't wait to get there. we're only about halfway through, so there's still a lot yet to come, and i can't wait to find out what that is, haha. Besides that, i guess we'll just see what happens. i've spontaneously written a couple of oneshots in the past few weeks and i'd like to do more of those in the future instead of always getting stuck in my long fics.

18. Tag some writers whose answers you’d like to read.

@eldrai @masterwords @tobias-hankel @domestikhighway58

[geometricalien]

OKAY I finished Life is Strange True Colors and it's time to give my hot trash opinions that no one asked for :) (spoilers will be below the cut)

I avoided almost everything released about this game because I did not want any spoilers whatsoever and I think that served me well.

I also came in with an open mind, I gotta say I was weary since deck nine had all of the control and I didn’t particularly like before the storm that much it was fine though.

All that said True Colors was beautiful. It has excellent graphics, compelling characters and side plots for each character, the power system was new and cool. I wasn't sure how being an empath would translate but it worked well in mechanics, was epic, and suited the theme of not just the game but Alex.

I played for about 10 hours Thursday with some breaks to stretch and get food. So needless to say, I was having a great time.

It has excellent sets and even though the power mechanics are exactly the same each time it's still fresh and creative in how these emotions can shape the world around them.

This is just a personal nitpick nothing actually important, the town is a fictional Coloradan small town and as someone who grew up in a neighboring state with similar small town/mining/outdoorsy communities- or visiting them- the town buildings were fantastic! I loved main street, I've been in towns with that exact same style. But the flower bridge and the deer were just... a tinge over the top, it felt like you were trying to sell "Paradise" way too hard. But besides that I loved the towns vibe!

I felt... a little burnt out being able to play all of the chapters at once, I think part that made the lis community so strong was that it had time to build and react to the episodes together. It gave us time to theorize and make fancontent. Versus binge gaming and shot like a bullet into the air, done too quick. I don’t feel as connected to the characters because I’ve only been with them for 14 ish hours vs months

NOW THAT BEING SAID- the pacing was good, it gave us the reins being able to free roam the map at nearly all times and it never felt like we were being dragged down

Overall, True Colors is a great addition. Had amazing voice acting graphics, characters, and themes. I definitely recommend checking this game out

Spoilers now abound:

Going back to an earlier comment- almost all scenarios where you used Alex's power in depth were fresh and interesting. My favorites being Ethan, Charlotte, and Eleanor. I bring this up because Duckie's was the most dull- which you could say matches because he is normally the life of the party so... feeling empty or dull makes sense for him. But then Pike’s was also similarly lacking in environment, so it didn’t feel as fulfilling

I loved loved loved episode 3. The larping was so much fun and I was tickled with the turn based fighting. I especially loved when Ethan made the world come to life, my heart lifted in pure joy.

The two main romance interests are... interesting. Ryan's insight and caring nature drew me to him the instant we met while Steph sort of came off... as separated? But as we became friends with them both it became super hard to chose. And at the end seeing their reactions to the bomb drop showed so much characterization. Steph's ride or die and Ryan (in my playthrough) just had someone challenge his entire life view of course that's hard to take in within 30 seconds. I got that religious gay trauma, I get it.

This is where I feel spacing out the episodes could've also helped with our fondness of characters. After Ryan didn't believe me I didn't want to pursue him anymore, my affection was weakened

However I chose to forgive both Ryan and Jed despite feeling like I missed the character development to reasonably make that decision. I understand this entire game is shadow work for Alex and it is growing her emotional intelligence by miles but I think I would have preferred more sign postings from the game saying "hey bc of your choices you are growing" which wasn't really true because-

Alex was suppressing her sadness, fear, and anger from her traumatic youth. So in episode 5, reliving all of those moments were the chance to level up in emotional intelligence. It felt odd to learn exactly everything at the very end but again it's okay because she was suppressing just like Jed which made her able to understand his emotions and walk him through them

TALKING ABOUT THAT TALK WHO GOT GIFS??? I NEED TO SEE HER EYES GLOWING AND FLICKERING WITH COLOR

I loved the parallel/bookendings of chapter 1: Side A and chapter 5: Side B, I'm a sucker for that shit

It's obvious that alot of care and heart was put into this game, it has layers and the more you peel back the more it reveals thematically

Now I got to compare it to my biggest criticism of LiS and Before the Storm, and ultimately the reason why I love LiS2 more than either of them. Does your choices actually matter?

LiS? No. The game ended with an ultimatum that made all of your choices in the end not matter and LiS is sold as a "your choices actually matter" type of game so seeing that be a load of malarkey always puts a bad taste in my mouth

Lis:bts? No. It's a prequel. I can admire the idea of "life may be futile but make the most of it" while you can and that definitely encompasses Rachel's side of bts. But that doesn’t negate the fact that this is more a game with a straight plot than LiS

LiS2? YOU GOT 4 ENDINGS AND YOU CAN ONLY CHOSE 2 AND ITS NARROWED DOWN TO HOW YOU PLAYED THIS GAME- THATS WHAT I CALL A CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE/YOUR ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES

True Colors? I think TC lies somewhere between LiS2 and LiS in this aspect. Its definitely very railed, I think in every one you will get Jed to confess, so it depends on how you go about convincing him, romancing, and deciding your future to... well... decide your future. I can't fault it. It left it up to the player to decide and to not be screwed over by our previous choices (cough cough) and that is the crowd pleasing choice.

So, in the sense that it all feels very railed until the last 15 minutes when they spin us on an ice rink and say "freestyle baby"- it's fine. I'm not mad about it. But it does make me wonder what would've happened if we don't have any of the committee members on our side? Would we leave town effective immediately? Would the truth even have gotten out? Because if that's true... I would bump it up in the "does your choices matter?" 

You make choices and those choices have consequences, sometimes out of your control. That's what LiS2 perfected and what I want to see more in this franchise. 

[healersadjust]

Given that Aki’s village was wiped out during the calamity and she was the only survivor, it seems reasonable to imagine she is carrying a fair amount of trauma? To say nothing of unresolved grief…

How was she able to survive? Was it just luck that she was away at the time? Does she struggle with survivor’s guilt at all?

If she did witness what happened to her village, then what was the emotional impact of that? Does she struggle with nightmares or flashbacks?

Who else knows about this aspect of her past? Is she able to talk about it with anyone? Or does she prefer to remain stoic?

Thank you so much for the ask! I’ve actually been working on writing all of this out, so this was incredibly fun to think about things I myself hadn’t thought of yet! I hope this answered everything <3 its somewhat disorganized, but I’ve been so excited to post this! Thank you so much for remembering so much about her <3

So, Aki was not allowed to participate in any rituals or any group activities. It was believed that she was a curse on the village from the moon itself, and Menphina was angry enough with the villagers so they had to deal with her basically. Lots of really fucked up religious shit. The night of the Calamity, everyone took refuge and prayed inside their only solid building in the entire place. They thought that they could pray away the bad things, and they wouldn’t let such a cursed child inside to ruin it.

Aki, for her part, was lead to believe that she truly WAS a curse. With everyone constantly shoving that down her throat when she tried to just simply exist and be a kid and stuff, it was really hard not to believe it as true. So, she tried to get as far away as she could but still wanted to keep an eye on everything. She climbed a tree far enough away from the village that she felt she wouldn’t influence anything, but still close enough to keep an eye on things.

It’s still not fully decided what hit the building, but something flaming and heavy. The entire thing collapsed, and by the time Aki got there, the place was entirely in flames. The surrounding forest lit up as well, so she had to run if she was to have any chance of survival. She had to leave behind all of her belongings except for what she already had on her, and she ran as far away as she could.

For years after, Aki believed it was her fault. She thought that she could have done something to stop it. Or maybe, she thought it was her fault they got hit in the first place. Seeing it all happen and being powerless to do a thing about it really did a number on her, and she fell into a deep depressive state before being found by a retired adventurer. She still struggles with that thought even after endwalker, even. She was made to believe that she was truly the villages curse, and her mother was really the only one who would tell her otherwise. Now that her mother was gone, she had nobody to shield her from her own thoughts anymore.

She has a lot of nightmares. The most common one she has is where she herself is the one throwing a fireball at them, which absolutely destroys her each time she has it. There are various iterations of that one, and many other nightmares that have similar elements. They never end well.

She does have some more positive dreams about her home, though! There was a stump she used to sit at when she felt especially low, and that stump appears in her dreams whenever she is receiving guidance in her sleep! Or just pleasant dreams in general.

Many people know she is the sole survivor, but only a few scions know the true extent of it. She gets snappy every time the subject is brought up, so only fools press the subject with her. Most notably, Estinien once made an offhand comment about it and she tried to take his head off. Honestly, that happens a lot with him in general. But! She first opened up to G’raha about it during ARR, and throughout the story has told her best friend Olivia, each of the scions, and Erenville. She will talk about it with those listed, but anyone else still risks being blown up if they bring it up.

G’raha knows the most about it, and actually is the holder of one of the only objects she was able to recover! It was her mother’s ring, which Aki blessed before giving to him back during ARR. Having him know has helped Aki a lot. Whenever she wakes up from a nightmare, he’s always there to comfort her in whatever way she needs. Sometimes, she needs space. Other times, she needs to be held like the child version of her never was.

Aki no longer blames herself, but she finds herself questioning why she had to go through so much to get to where she stands. If she could turn back time and spare herself from all the pain of her childhood at the cost of everything she has worked so hard for... She isn't sure which she would prefer.

[aros001]

Read through light novel vol. 3. Random thoughts.

It's a weird thought to have to hope that this fantasy world has access to some form of abortion, be it a practical method or a magical one. I'm sure the various religious beliefs of their world wouldn't normally approve but when it comes to pregnancy forced onto someone by goblins, I'd like to think they'd make an exception. The women have already been through enough, they don't need the additional trauma of having one of those things crawling out of their bodies. I'd heard a rumor that the Fighter committed suicide after giving birth to a goblin baby but I've also heard other people say that never happened. Obviously I'd hope for the latter.

“...Hey, uh, Goblin Slayer... It kind of kills me to ask you this, but...” Female Knight gulped, and this seemed to embarrass her afresh as she flushed red. “If I... If I wear something like that, do you think it’d get his attention...?”

“I confess I must doubt the sanity of anyone who would ask me that question.”

There have already been plenty of funny moments throughout the other books but this volume is just really killing it so far. Goblin Slayer's personality and serious deadpan nature lends itself surprisingly well to comedy. It's a different style than the humor of, say, Konosuba, where plenty of the comedy is from these exaggerated characters interacting with their insane world. Here, the personalities are a lot more normal and realistic, which makes it really funny when they segway into non-serious topics like a festival, dates, battle bikini armor, or even bizarreness like Goblin Vampires.

There is something very amusing that the first meeting between Goblin Slayer and the Hero is her putting a sword to his throat. I'm a big fan of superheroes and it's not uncommon for crossover stories to begin almost exactly like that. The only thing missing was for the misunderstanding to lead to a fight before both realize they're both the good guy, but how it happened here fits a lot more with Goblin Slayer's mindset. Not offended or bothered in the least that Hero thought he was some kind of zombie and immediately acted with hostility, because he's very much a "better safe than sorry" kind of guy and probably would have done the same thing.

One of the reasons I liked Priestess the most out of the other characters in the anime, save for GS himself, was that she's the one who had the most interaction with Goblin Slayer and the most development alongside him. Their relationship was much more defined than his with the other characters and thus I was able to enjoy it more. That's why I like Cow Girl getting more of a spotlight on her date with Goblin Slayer here and the various conversations they have throughout the book. It helps me get to know her better and feel more invested in their relationship, romantic or otherwise.

It's probably because of his armor and the way he carries himself but I tend to forget Goblin Slayer isn't that old. He's only about twenty, which while still an adult isn't that old compared to a lot of the people around him. I think his age really hit me when I realized Guild Girl is older than him by about three years (they first met when he was 15 and she was 18). Just how the story writes what he's been doing ever since he became an adventurer and just the sheer horror we know the goblins are capable of makes it feel like he's been fighting them for far longer than five years.

So the rhea adventurer came back. Aaaand there he goes. When he was demoted in the anime I was afraid he was going to do something horrible in retaliation, like releasing goblins upon the town, or at least the Guild Girl. And my prediction was a little close to the truth. It's good writing that Goblin Slayer killing him (scaring the crap out of him first ("Is that so?" as he rises up from where he's supposed to be dead on the floor)) was actually relevant to the climax of the story. Almost everything that the story sets up always comes back into play later. Nothing feels like excess fat.

“Well, I mean... I guess...” But, blinking, Priestess concluded, “It was just my role in the plan.”

“You just don’t care with Orcbolg, do you? He could punch you in the face and you’d forgive him.”

“Ah— Ah, ha-ha-ha...”

If anyone even tried to punch Priestess in the face I'm pretty sure Goblin Slayer would break every bone in their hand. Even for as bloody and obsessive as he is, even if he could somehow tie it into killing goblins, it's hard to imagine him ever deliberately harming one of his own companions. Now, putting them in harm's way is a different story.

“I have taken your measure! You are no better than Ruby, the fifth rank. Or even Emerald, the sixth!”

“No,” Goblin Slayer said, shaking his head. “Try Obsidian.”

Goblin Slayer didn’t have it in him. But...

“O Earth Mother, abounding in mercy, grant your sacred light to we who are lost in darkness!”

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! I LOVE THESE TWO SO MUCH! THAT IS F**KING TRUST AND RESPECT!

I am going to miss Dark Elf though. It was nice for Goblin Slayer to face an antagonist who could talk and wasn't also just a powerful brute in single combat like the Ogre or Goblin Lord.

“The fragrant olives.”

“Yeah?”

“I researched them, but I don’t think they fit me.”

“Oh, no?” Cow Girl cocked her head, the wind picking up her hair. “I think I’d have to disagree...”

...

Those flowers represented four things: purity, humility, true love...and first love.

I think it fits perfectly.

I don't remember if it was before or after I'd started watching the anime but I remember reading about people online complaining how Goblin Slayer himself was a very bland and boring character. That's there's nothing to him beyond his obsession with killing goblins.

I'll admit, he's no Monkey D. Luffy; a character with such a bombastic and defined personality that you can instantly picture it in your head, or no Ainz Ooal Gown; a character whose true inner self that the audience can see is at such odds with the side that everyone else in the story sees. Goblin Slayer is definitely a much quieter and reserved character, but I don't think that makes him bland. His obsession with killing goblins is the skeleton of his character and a lot of good stuff has been built around that. He's overly serious. He's always picking up on weird, random knowledge. He's inventive.

One of my favorite aspects of Goblin Slayer's character is he feels like someone whose trauma and obsession stunted his emotional growth and now that he is connecting with people again he isn't really sure how to conduct himself. It lends itself to a lot of comedy as well as a lot of really sweet moments. When he hangs out with Priestess. Talking about making ice cream with his party. Buying the toy ring for Cow Girl. Parts of himself that don't involve killing goblins are being brought out by all these people he's found himself attached to and I think he doesn't know how to feel about it, because even he never thought there'd be anything to him other than killing goblins.

Original Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/GoblinSlayer/comments/fslken/read_through_light_novel_vol_3_random_thoughts/

[meta-squash]

Brick Club 1.4.3 “The Lark”

A slightly shorter (only very slightly) Brick Club post from me! Finally!

“To be vicious does not ensure prosperity...” So far we’ve seen two types of viciousness: rich and poor. Hugo is right that viciousness does not ensure prosperity, because I think the two types come in different ways. The viciousness of people like Tholomyes, or Bamatabois come from a sort of carelessness. These people have the money and status to treat people cruelly and poorly without even thinking about their pain. I don’t think it’s just that they don’t care that their actions hurt people; they straight up don’t think about it. Except in more direct, deliberate circumstances, like Bamatabois putting snow down Fantine’s dress, most of the time they do things for their own pleasure/benefit/whim/whatever and don’t think about its effect on others. They have the money and status to do so. On the other hand, poor viciousness is that of desperation. Those who are poor and vicious are probably aware of the damage of their actions, but they don’t care because they are focused on their own wellbeing and survival. They’re aware of the pain, but it’s less important than their own problems. One is viciousness in the midst of maintaining the status quo; the other is viciousness in the midst of clinging to the edge of survival.

I had a post about the two types of dog imagery and symbolism in the brick that included a little bit of this description of Cosette. Cosette is both literally and figuratively a dog in the Thenardier household. We get more imagery of it later on, but even here she’s fed scraps under the table like a dog. She’s treated more like a dog that can speak than like a person.

Which brings me to the fucking severity of the Thenardier’s abuse. I mean, how did Cosette turn out so lovely and sweet? How did she stay so gentle and sweet? I feel like Hugo kind of uses the biblical Jesus time-jump thing to avoid talking about Cosette working through the trauma of her abuse. At the convent we see Valjean’s idea of her more than we actually see Cosette herself. We don’t get much of her internality from ages 7/8 to about 13/14, which means Hugo can use all that time to explain away any traumas or lingering effects. Anyway, I digress. Even at five years old, they’re terrible to her. They feed her scraps under the table, they force her to wake up before everyone else and do all the chores, even the heavy labor. She’s beaten and verbally abused and throughout all of it she has to watch Mme Thenardier doting on her daughters. It frustrates me a little that Hugo seems to decide that she can’t remember any of it when she gets older. Sure, it makes sense to block out severe abuse, but surely some effects remain? Either way, it’s a wonder she turns out so lovely.

(Side note: I think this is one of the reasons people accuse Cosette of being a “flat” character or whatever. Not letting her having an aspect of hardness or hurt makes it harder to believe. It also lessens her parallel to Valjean; he has inner darkness and trauma from prison that he is actively working against through the entire book, but she doesn’t seem to get a similar darkness to also work through/against. I don’t think she’s a flat character at all, but I think this is part of where that accusation comes from.)

I always have such a difficult time with the perspective of money while reading the Brick. Seven francs sounds like nothing to me, but I don’t really know how much it would be in modern terms. I mean, it makes me think of like gas being like 30 cents back in the day and now it’s often $2.00 or more. Or, like, in the US $.70 in 1950 is the same as about 10x that today. I don’t really know what 7 francs would be equivalent to today, so it’s hard to conceptualize how much or how little money [xyz thing] costs in the brick.

Mme Thenardier is awful in a more insidious way than M Thenardier, and it extends to her own children. At first, she her total love for her own daughters means she detests Cosette and feels as though Cosette is taking from them. Later, though, this hatred transfers first to Gavroche, whom she completely abandons to the streets, then to her two unnamed sons, who she gives away, and then to Eponine, who she seems to almost entirely ignore while she seems to dote on Azelma. The specific example is when M Thenardier makes Azelma break the window; Mme Thenardier comforts and kisses her, but both parents ignore Eponine when she complains of the cold and things like that.

“Children at that age are simply copies of the mother; only the size is reduced.” I can’t help but think about the difference between older Eponine and Mme Thenardier. We don’t get much of Azelma’s characterization, but Eponine is so different from Mme Thenardier when we meet her as a teenager. It’s interesting how unlike either of her parents she is, even before properly meeting Marius.

If the townspeople think Cosette was forgotten by her mother, it stands to reason that Cosette thinks the same thing. Valjean also never really tells her much about Fantine (out of his own weird semi-religious, semi-guilt feelings about her) and I wonder how much that effects her. What would have changed in her if she knew more about her mother?

Fantine just bounces from being manipulated by one man to another. Tholomyes and Thenardier both take advantage of Fantine’s trust and her obliviousness or ignorance. It’s wild how similar both instances of manipulation are; only, in one the payment is emotion and the other is literal money. They both rely heavily on Fantine not picking up on social cues or noticing weird behavior. They also increase their behavior the longer the ruse goes on. For Tholomyes, that means cheating on her with Favourite as well as presumably ignoring her or treating her (and infant Cosette) poorly. For Thenardier, that means lies and constant increasing of payments as well as an increase in abuse towards Cosette as the payments dwindle. Both ruses end in Fantine losing something: her love, her child (twice; she dies with the knowledge that Cosette is not with her in Montreuil-sur-Mer like she had thought), her life.

Okay apparently Hugo snuck this reference to Dumollard in right before publication. Martin Dumollard was a man who lived near Montluel. He would trick women into coming with him from Lyons to Montluel under the guise of being sent by his master to find a domestic servant. He would carry the woman’s luggage on the walk from the train station to the apparent destination, but would take a “short cut” and either would kill the woman in a field and take her belongings, or the woman would sense danger and/or fight back and run away, leaving her luggage behind. When he was caught he and his wife had over 1500 items of other women’s clothing. Over 8 years he had apparently killed at least 3 women and attacked at least 9 others. His trial was at the end of January 1862, and he was executed in early March of the same year. Les Miserables itself was published in 1862 (April? I think? Someone correct me if I’m wrong), so Hugo clearly went back to add that little comment in.

We get a preview of Fantine’s story here, which I really like. I love little in-chapter glimpses of or brief chapter jumps to other characters, just to really get the sense of what things are happening simultaneously.

Like Fantine, we do not hear Cosette speak the first time we see her. “Except that the poor lark never sang.” We are introduced to Cosette in much the same way that we are introduced to Fantine: description first, and later, when Valjean comes to get her, very few lines at first. Her journey is the opposite: she becomes accessible to us as she becomes happier and more safe; Fantine becomes more accessible as she becomes more miserable and unwell.

[nomiliy]

Work in Progress Wednesday

Creators: work on or post something from your WIP. This is your weekly reminder to get something down on paper (real or virtual). It's also a chance to share your progress with your followers and give them a sneak peek of what's to come!

Fans: leave a comment on an unfinished fic and let the writer know how much you love it. Reblog an artist's sketch and let them know you can't wait to see the final product. Send someone an ask cheering them on!

- @ao3commentoftheday​

Right now, I have four long fics in the works. Idiot Savant is still my top priority, so I try to write a bit of it every day. If I get ideas or inspiration for the others, I'll write down a scene or two, or a bit of dialogue to string together later.

I won't talk about all my fics, just the three I'm most fixed on at the moment :D

Idiot Savant  (Published, Incomplete)

So, for those that keep up to date with IS, last chapter the boys had a run-in with the wolfman and had real, actual confirmation that vampires exist. Now that they're 'safe,' chapter 12 will deal with Steve's mental state and him trying to come to grips with everything.

I actually cut this chapter in half mid-way through drafting. I've done this in chapter 9 also, but I was able to combine the last scenes that should've been in 9 with chapter 10. My chapters are 'done' when I reach a certain point in the plot or complete a certain set of events. I originally planned for chapter 11 to go all the way up to the big confrontation between the vampaneze and vampires. But, once I saw that my word count was at 10k and climbing, I had to cut it at Mark's arrival. I also wanted to give readers more time with Mark, Larten, and Gavner, so having them appear in more chapters than originally planned helped. 

With IS, I really try to weave and flesh out as many characters as I can. Mark Ryter, for instance, appears in book 9 briefly as a vampet and is later killed by Vancha during interrogation. He didn't play much of a role in the series, but I wanted to know more about him and his place with the vampaneze. So, I made him this know-it-all Dubliner with a knack for illegal firearms and espionage XD He also appears in some of my other works, but I really wanted to include him in IS to get a larger scope of the world.

Lilac Heartthrob (WIP)

This is my next big project. "Lilac Heartthrob" is the working title, but it may stick just cause I'm growing fond of it :)

This series takes place over books 8-12 and goes in a much different direction than the original series. It picks up midway through book 8 when Darren and Steve meet up in Edinburgh to investigate vampaneze activity. I wanted to dive more into Darren's experience at school and his growing sense of self away from the mountain. It also deals with Darren and Debbie’s relationship, Darren’s sense of age and maturity, his growing independence from Larten, and his relationship with Steve. It's wholly a starren series, but it will also deal with a lot of issues Darren faces as a young prince and all the trauma he's experienced. Later parts of the series, like Part II and III, will also have a lot of political intrigues cause I just adore that shit. 

Unlike Idiot Savant, this series will also go in-depth on the parts of vampire and vampaneze culture that don't get explored in CDF. I'm doing lots of research into where vampire mountain logically would be in the real world, the travel patterns of vampaneze and vampires, the religious aspects of their culture, mating and courtship, the social hierarchy of the vampaneze, etc. 

I'm super excited about this series, and as soon as Idiot Savant is completed I'll be posting this regularly. I hope one long fic under my belt will really help me with the pacing, development, and characterization of this story : D

On King Street (WIP)

I literally got the idea for this two weeks ago and I'm already super invested. Basically, a teenage Darius gets sent back in time to an alternate universe where he meets his dad and uncle as young adults. It's very heartwarming and short (3) chapters), and it touches on those growing pains parents experience when their kids grow out of the nest. It mergers the AUs in Idiot Savant and Lilac Hearthrob, allowing me to get self-referential between both series. This is very much a Darius fic and deals with his emotions towards his family and himself, and it deals with the different iterations of characters between the fan series and cannon.  

If you guys have questions or maybe want to swap theories, my inbox is always open ; )

[maybebecomingms]

freedom-versary homework

December 3rd, 2021 was the day I put carefully thought-out plans into action. I left for work, presumably, but went back home 10 minutes later to pack a bag and leave a note. I was leaving, at least for the night, maybe for good.

It was for good. It took several months for this to be realized, but this was the day I laid the groundwork to my way out.

I remember I kept nervously asking my boss, both in-person and over text: “Do I really need to to do this? Am I overreacting?” 

Each time she met me with the same questions. “Are you OK with living this way? Do you want to live your life on eggshells?” It was a resounding NO. So I followed through.

My therapy homework as this anniversary has come and gone was to write a letter to myself - I assume to 2021 me. I’m not sure if a heavily-edited-for-public-consumption post was exactly what she had in mind, but that is what will work for me, so let’s do it.

I think instead of a flowery pep-talk to myself, I want to address all the things I didn’t know a year ago.

Nothing you’re about to do is anywhere near as scary as what you’ve already endured. The life I had before was not normal. The religious indoctrination alone was completely insane, and it permeated every aspect of my marriage. It is not normal to have your spouse tell you they wish they’d never married you, but that you have to stay with them or risk angering the sky daddy. No; moving out and selling my house and filing for divorce all felt fairly normal and tame compared to the things I took for granted as my lot in life before.

The people around you already know. Every time I told someone what was happening, I was so surprised by the same response I got, over and over again: “I knew something was up, but I didn’t want to pry.” This includes people I work with, who, due to various disability diagnoses, have memory deficits and/or miss social cues the rest of us take for granted. Sometimes it feels like I was the last to know.

You won’t regret the decisions you’re making now, but you will grieve deeply the years you lost. You know how in The Princess Bride, Westley is hooked up to The Machine that takes years off his life? Sometimes I feel like that, except instead of momentary torture, it looks like pain spread out over years and years. It looks like endless arguments defending myself, because I don’t want children, and because I was not willing to completely snuff out every last whisper of myself as a person in order to serve my husband as a “godly woman.” It looks like waking up again and again, shitfaced at 2am, confused that all the lights are still on. This was my existence to cope with the expectations I continually failed to meet. Absolutely nothing I’ve described here was worth my time, and I’m never getting that time back.

You will find love again and it won’t be anything like what you did before. I think this may have been the most surprising to me. My boyfriend is beyond what I could have ever imagined or hoped for. He’s so patient with me, even as I hunt for red flags that don’t exist and my trauma responses return again and again. It’s NOT pretty. I find myself repeatedly embarrassed by my own behavior - sometimes I feel absolutely FERAL - and he just... rolls with it? I have never loved someone like *this* before, and I have never been loved like this before either. With the right person, this sort of thing actually doesn’t feel hard, and it isn’t terrifying.

And so far, at least a few of the people closest to me don’t seem convinced yet that this is real, that I fell in love and got it right this time. And that’s OK! Time will prove that.

You will come out of this happier than you ever knew was possible. I don’t know how to elaborate further than that. I didn’t know that life could feel like this. “I can’t believe how much BETTER you look,” “You’ve got this glow about you,” and “I can see the relief in your face,” are all comments I get now.

Damn. What a difference a year makes.

[thelightfluxtastic]

30DayTheri 25: False Alarms

As I mentioned in my questioning post yesterday, I think it’s useful to talk about “I thought I was X but it turned out to be Y” experiences, since that models for questioning folks what they might go through, and might help them realize what their relationship is to something they are questioning”. So here are the things I questioned for myself before finding “dog” and what they ended up being in my life. Dragons Dragons were always a favorite animal of mine. I had and enjoyed a lot of books and media about them, enjoyed playing games where I could be a dragon, and had fun roleplaying as them. There were parts of dragonkin posts I didn’t find relatable (like eating rocks/gems); but that doesn’t mean much considering dragons are so vairied and have so many mythologies that no one experience is universal. With dragons I actually tried taking the hypothesis “I am a dragon” and acting accordingly to see if it fit. I deliberately tried dragonish things, like indoor skydiving to simulate flight. It was fun, but it didn’t tap into any euphoria or strong species feelings, so I dismissed the hypothesis. Dragons remain a favorite mythical creature, but no more than that. Faeries/Fairies Fae were another big fantasy favorite. I had gone through a period of interacting with them/playing pretend as a child after literally believing the Spiderwick Chronicles books. I had strong connections to nature. I have always been very rule strict and outright did not lie until college. So for most of my life I used careful fae-like wording to tell technical truths. I even had some faelike food preferences, really enjoying bread with honey. This one I considered, but never really felt strongly enough to pursue the way I tried to with dragons? And eventually it just kind of got replaced by other things I was questioning. I think the strict lawfulness is unrecognized neurodivergence more than anything else. It remains a favorite/relatable thing and I’ll enjoy roleplaying fae characters but I have no strong convictions about being one.

Angels I was raised Catholic. As mentioned above in the Fae section, I was also unknowingly neurodivergent leading to me being way way more lawful than the people around me. I took religion more literally than most. My family was literally surprised by how strict I was about rules because, in their own words, they didn’t teach me to be that way. I had all the guilt and religious trauma that one might expect from being Catholic, especially when queer and neurodivergent. Between that and some of my upbringing regarding giftedness and the expectations placed on me, I carried a disproportionate amount of extreme guilt. Angels and angelkin (fallen or not) posts tapped into a lot of these associations and feelings. The aesthetics, the religious iconography, the intense feelings regarding purity and guilt and failure and wanting to be a good person, having a purpose upon earth, being meant for something by an authority...it pressed a lot of buttons. I shied away from it because it felt personally uncomfortable to assume I was angelic or divine- arrogant or blasphemous somehow. I’m not saying that as a judgement of angelic and divine kin, it was just something that didn’t feel right to me as an individual. I also distanced myself from it as I distanced myself from Catholicism as a whole. A lot of those feelings of guilt and purity and purpose and expectation were still present, but I was able to express some of them through connection to paladins as a voluntary archetype, and for the negative/hurtful parts, work through how these things had emerged from my upbringing in therapy. In other words, while there was relatability, I saw my own feelings as stemming from external factors like my parents, rather than internal factors like past lives/my own soul, etc. Sun/Light Around college I recognized the incredible importance of light, especially the sun, in my life. Everyone has circadian rhythms, which are affected by light. Mine seemed to be especially potent- I’d feel sleepy if I went to a movie theater, and I found it impossible to sleep in as long as there was sunlight. My friends even commented on how light-powered I was, and my boyfriend would joke around by turning on/off lights to affect my brainpower. I poked my nose into conceptual kin spaces, lightkin and similar. It didn’t take long- I was pretty sure that I didn’t feel like I was light, it was just important to me in a way that felt like it warranted recognition and labeling. This aspect of my life eventually found it’s place as I began practicing Romuva, and could center the sun in my spirituality and religious work. So what led to dogs? Honestly dogs surprised me. I liked them, but they had never been a favorite animal. The moment I distinctly remember is making an animal-themed oracle deck, seeing a picture of a dog, and getting the click. “Click” doesn’t feel big enough, it was like a lightning bolt, a sudden and intense “Me! Oh my god that’s me! That’s it!”. It was so intense that I couldn’t ignore it, I had to understand why a random photo could affect me so strongly. And I couldn’t find other logical excuses for it (the breed was not one my family had ever had, or I had ever interacted with irl). I can’t remember if this was before or after I looked into wolf games (eh on ferality but started feeling certain noemata). But it’s what I credit with pushing me out of my several-year-long “lurk and reject” cycle and finally joining therian forums so I could settle the question once and for all.

[pinelife3]

Whatever happened to Lainey Gossip?

Lainey Gossip was the smartest celebrity gossip site on the internet. I was an avid reader for most of my adult life. You may recall my April 2016 blog post about gossip and, in particular, blind items. Well, it’s been nearly a year since Lainey posted a blind item. In the site’s heyday (pre-2017), she posted a blind roughly once a month.

Beyond the drop-off in blind items, the site has decayed in a number of ways. It’s become smug and self-aggrandising. They rolled lifestyle content onto the main blog feed, so now I have to scroll past posts about, I kid you not, baby names. (Caring about baby names is so inherently stupid to me, I feel genuinely irritated just being exposed to that content. Just name your kid something out of the primary religious text for your culture/region/family. Adam can never go out of style.)

The main thing which has turned me off Lainey Gossip is the writers’ misapprehension that the site is some kind of arbiter on social justice issues. Every other day there is a post with some insufferable moralising about feminism, equality, systemic racism, Rowling’s transphobia etc. It’s not that these are bad takes - I actually agree with what they’re saying. But I don’t want to hear it on this site. I don’t refer to gossip writers for guidance on this. Lainey is not a political activist. The writers on the site are just regurgitating ideas and lessons they’ve learnt elsewhere. This post from June was the final straw for me. The relevant part of the post is Alia Shawkat’s apology for saying the n-word during an interview in 2016. The clip of her actually saying the n-word seems to have disappeared from the internet, but basically she was describing a time when she and some of her friends arrived in a very nice hotel and how she thought of the lyric: “Nigga, we made it" from the Drake song “We Made It”. 

Here’s Lainey’s analysis:

As people have pointed out on Twitter, 2016 isn’t that long ago. And Alia was in her 20s. Whether or not you decide to cancel her, as many are doing, is up to you. 

I can’t fully account for it, but the phrase ‘Whether or not you decide to cancel her is up to you’ rubbed me the wrong way. Whether you decide to cast her into the fire for not correctly censoring herself when quoting a Drake song. Whether she is destroyed as a person forever. A worthless husk. Irredeemable. Whether her soul should be torn out and her body fed to crows. That’s up to you. The new god? It’s you, the reader of this gossip blog!

This was during the peak of the Black Lives Matter protests and discussion this year. So, in the second half of the article Lainey gets high on her own farts, like so:

While I have never used the n-word casually, and many of you may say the same, we do all engage with Black art, we do all borrow from it, consciously or unconsciously, in the ways we express ourselves, in the way I have expressed myself here, from fashion to language to GIFs. Think of how much cultural colloquial vocabulary comes from the Black community – recent examples include “lit”, “snatched”, “shady”, “flex”, “tea”, and phrasing that’s become commonplace and permanent in our language like “chill”, “dope”, “extra” – all of this comes from the creativity of Black minds. And they’re almost never credited for it.

So yes, of course, call out people like Alia for their irresponsible use of the most egregious words, but at the same time, let’s all consider how much we owe to the Black community for what they’ve given to us and for little we’ve given back in respect, appreciation, and credit. Because while the immediate urgency of Black Lives Matter is to prevent more senseless killings of Black people, the broader focus of BLM is Black dignity in all forms, and all of this is related. We can’t say that we honour Black humanity if we are erasing their contributions in all aspects of our lives.

Thanks Lainey. To be clear, I wouldn’t mind if this was the only time she’d shared an opinion like this - but this type of argument is repeated ad nauseaum across the site. She’s a therapist. She’s a civil rights activist. She knows what’s good for you. She speaks with great authority on how to solve racism. 

Fast forward a couple of weeks and Lainey is apologising for the hideous shit she used to write on her blog in the early 2000s where her takes were often racist, homophobic, and/or misogynistic. In her apology post, she wrote:

Many people object to cancel culture. My personal opinion on it is that while cancel culture is not always judiciously applied, it does have value. Sometimes people should be cancelled. And if you visit this website often, you might be thinking about whether or not to cancel me. That’s fair.

...I have been conditioned in white supremacy, and I have enabled white privilege, even as a person of colour myself, because we too, given that white supremacy is so dominant, can have bias... When I started this site back in 2003/2004, I wrote misogynist things and slut shaming things, and racist things. And as the site grew in popularity, it served as confirmation bias, that there was an appetite out there for this kind of content, and I wanted to keep delivering it. Over time, I learned and grew, along with many of you who have learned and grown. And through it all, I have talked about my progress, calling out my past mistakes and leaving much of that content on the site instead of deleting it. There are some things, though, that have been deleted because I was embarrassed and I didn’t want to be part of it and obviously didn’t want to perpetuate those thoughts. But in the process of doing that, I realised that that would be erasing history – and for marginalised people, their pain and trauma is constantly being erased and invalidated. My leaving it there to be eventually called out is nothing compared to their experience.

Many gossip blogs were like this in the nascent stage of online journalism. They called it snark - and it was very popular. I think in some ways this was to differentiate blogs from the content and coverage in traditional gossip mags. Most gossip magazines are toothless - because they want celebrity interviews and exclusives. But, in 2006, a website was never going to get an interview with anyone worth interviewing so why bother to be nice - especially because being cynical and mean was more entertaining for the average reader. A lot of the gossip coverage that occurred back then would never fly now: ridiculing Britney for shaving her head, fat shaming, cruel coverage of celebrity eating disorders, slut shaming. The edgelord humour of the early blogs was crushed beneath the wheels of progress.

I don’t care about what Lainey wrote in 2006 - I don’t think it’s nice, I don’t think it’s interesting or funny, I wouldn’t have chosen to read it. But it doesn’t change my view of the site as a whole. What it does do though, is highlight how hollow all the talk of respecting women, honouring Black culture, working to be better, being good allies, etc. is on this site. Because it’s not really about doing that shit - it’s about telling other people off for not doing it. Lainey has weaponised wokeness as her new snark. 

After the fall out around Lainey’s embarrassing old articles, a banner was added to all of the articles on the site which were published before 2013: 

She’s effectively disavowed half of the blog’s history. Lainey Gossip launched in 2004. Is it really fair to say that articles published in 2012 were posted during an early period of the site?

What is Lainey doing when she toys with Alia Shawkat’s fate like Anton Chigurh tossing a coin? She knows in her heart of hearts that she has also said things she regrets, also said unsavory things in public that she didn’t really mean. It’s so weird: can’t you see the parallels between yourself and her? Lainey is pretty clear in her apology that she’s acknowledging the problematic history of the blog because people were exposing her on social media. Were it not for this, she likely would have continued writing about problematic shit other people did 10 years ago without acknowledging that she is no better. 

Again, I want to be really clear: my issue isn’t with the articles she wrote in the early days of the site. It’s the weirdness around publicly criticising people when your own behaviour is comparably bad. What could you gain from doing that beyond reveling in the snark? Destroying someone else before the mob you helped create comes for you?

Let me remind you: THIS USED TO BE A GOSSIP BLOG with analysis of celebrity culture, movie deals, blind items, industry insider stories. Now it’s just been sucked into the culture war vortex. Ruined by the discourse. 

Gossip used to be talking about other people’s business: Speculating about which Victoria’s Secret model DiCaprio would pick up next. Investigating rumours that Jennifer Lawrence faked her tumble on the stairs at the Oscars. Analysing why a celebrity filed their divorce papers in California rather than Texas. Waiting to see which celebrity would be the first to wear Marchesa on a red carpet after the fall of Weinstein.

Gossip is a way of learning what is acceptable in society, a way of observing how others perceive and react to the decisions people make - and how behaviour which violates societal norms attracts backlash. It’s even more interesting when the subject of that gossip is rich and famous. Lainey Gossip is no longer turning out this kind of content - so where can we go for these insights?

The best barometer for conservative public opinion on celebrity movements and the related enforcement of societal norms is the The Daily Mail comments section. The Daily Mail itself seems like something of a journalistic agent of chaos: I would have assumed that they swung right, but they post pro-Trump articles and anti-Trump articles. They do not seem to have a dog in the fight: the world turns, empires rise and fall and The Daily Mail persists. 

In the ‘entertainment news’ articles on the site, no impassioned arguments are made, no particular analysis is shared: the journalists position themselves as impartial observers just reporting the facts. Occasionally a piece is clearly designed to bait the readers - for example, any time they mention the price of someone’s home in the headline... “Celebrity in $13 million mansion reminds fans to appreciate the small things” or that kind of crap. But the article itself is just a list of facts. No analysis, no reflection - just positioning. 

Also interesting to observe is that The Daily Mail comments section is typically quite harmonious. Readers generally have similar take-aways from articles and it’s very rare to see an argument break out in the comments section. It’s as if Daily Mail readers think with one mind:

Stay with wife many years? Very good. Society like this. Daily Mail readers approve.

Stay with wife many years and maybe wife is slightly overweight? Oh yes - this guy is the best. International hero. Daily Mail readers all agree: we love.

Stay with wife many years and then divorce her? Hmm let’s see how this situation develops before we judge...

Stay with wife many years and then divorce her to be with younger woman? You die now.

The Daily Mail comments section is a glance into the void. A pit of human misery where people say exactly what they think. No subtext. No analysis required. 

They like Pierce Brosnan because he is a straight-forward nice male celebrity and he has been with his wife for a long time - his wife is a little overweight so it makes readers feel good to imagine that he might not be repulsed by the average woman.

They do not like Emma Roberts because in 2013 she was arrested for beating her boyfriend in a hotel room. This was a long time ago and not many people think about it now. She has a successful career and is well liked on social media. But that’s because those youngsters forget. 

The Daily Mail comments section does not forget. Their memory is long and their pity is scarce. They are society’s hive mind. The majority. A snapshot of what 95% of the planet’s population would think on any given subject - which actually makes for very interesting reading.

Forget about Lainey Gossip, trawl The Daily Mail comments section with me.

[southeastasianists]

In the last few weeks, over 400,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled a bloody pogrom in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, crossing into Bangladesh. Among the horrified and largely moralistic reactions in the West, some have pointed to economic factors supposedly behind these events. They are right to highlight the importance of political economy drivers of conflict, but their analysis is disappointingly superficial and crude. This post critiques their approaches and briefly outlines a better one.

Vulgar Marxism 101: land grabs and the Rohingya crisis

The most prominent commentator suggesting economic drivers behind the Rohingya crisis is the renowned geographer Saskia Sassen—whose published work I generally admire greatly. Sassen penned an extremely speculative piecefor The Guardian in January 2017, and another for the Huffington Post in September 2017, linking the conflict to land grabs. In her lengthy January essay, Sassen suggests that the conflict is “generated by military-economic interests, rather than by mostly religious/ethnic issues”. However, she offered no evidence for this proposition except that the government had designated 1.27m hectares of land in Rakhine for agricultural development. “Expelling them from their land is a way of freeing up land and water”, she asserted. Many Myanmar scholars reacted with some scorn on social media.

Undeterred, she rehearses these claims in her latest article, again with precious little evidence supplied—though now she also cites the Chinese port and special economic zone (SEZ) being constructed at Kyaukphyu. She speculates: “the land freed by the radical expulsion of the Rohingya might have become of interest to the military… Religion may be functioning as a veil that military leaders can use to minimize attention on the land-grabbing aspect of this economic development part of their agenda.” Some other scholars penned a similar piece for The Conversation, again offering little concrete evidence but pointing to the oil and gas pipeline connecting Kyaukphyu (though they mistakenly suggest it runs from Sittwe) to western China, and an Indian port development in Sittwe. They conclude: “The government of Myanmar therefore has vested interests in clearing land to prepare for further development”.

One does not need to be a particularly brilliant political economist to recognise that these claims are extraordinarily sloppy. One can simply look at a few maps. Firstly, note the map of Rakhine below, showing the Rohingya population concentrated heavily in a few townships bordering Bangladesh. Then note the second map, showing the latest forced displacement and burning of Rohingya villages, which have been concentrated entirely in these townships. Almost all of the far north of Rakhine has been depopulated of Rohingya, but the centre and south have been relatively unaffected this time around.

Now consider the location of the developments that are supposedly driving this forced displacement. Kyaukphyu is in central Rakhine state, about 120km south of the present crisis. How can a desire to clear land in Kyaukphyu possibly explain the ethnic cleansing of townships located so far away? Sittwe is also about 40km from the nearest violence.

It would be far more plausible to link the present crisis to the shocking announcement, just days into the pogrom, of the state’s intention to establish an SEZ in Maungdaw, at the centre of the recent violence. This certainly deserves investigation, though it is missed entirely in these recent commentaries.

However, this is not just a question of shifting the explanatory weight from one land grab to another. Ultimately, the vulgar Marxism of these accounts does a disservice to political economy analysis more broadly. Attributing complex events like this to “business interests” is crude and reductionist, and can actually explain relatively little. Yes, land grabs have happened across Myanmar to facilitate megaprojects like mines, dams, SEZs, ports and agribusiness plantations, and this has certainly fuelled ethnic conflict. This is well documented by the indefatigable Kevin Woods, whose years of painstaking fieldwork and brilliant scholarship nonetheless goes unacknowledged by these authors. And land grabs, including for the projects cited in these articles, have undoubtedly produced forced displacement in Rakhine state, causing resentment among both Rohingyas and the Buddhist Rakhine, the state’s dominant ethnic group.

But development-induced land grabs simply do not require vast ethnic cleansing displacing 40% of a given population. Nor, crucially, can “business interests” explain why this ethnic cleansing is greeted with indifference or even enthusiasm by the vast majority of Myanmar’s population—even by groups, like the Rakhine, that have themselves been victims of previous land grabs. Nor, crucially, can it explain very similar pogroms in 1977 and 1992, both of which occurred decades before any megaprojects and their associated land grabs.

Towards a better political economy analysis

The only benefit of such crude accounts is that they do prompt us to think about the relationship of sociopolitical conflict to economic factors. This is better than simplistically attributing conflict to “communalism” or “religious intolerance”, as if the problem were solely ideological, lacking any material underpinning—which is never true in reality. But rather than suggesting that the “real” cause is land-grabbing and religion is only a “veil”, it is important to situate sociopolitical conflict within a historically evolving political economy context, in a way that takes social and ideological formations seriously. I can only gesture here at the main lines of analysis one might undertake, but this is still an improvement over the commentary just described.

Buddhist–Muslim conflict over land and resources in what is now Rakhine state is not new. From the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries there were struggles between Muslim empires expanding from the west and the Buddhist Arakan kingdom of Mrauk U, ending only when the area was conquered by the kingdom of Burma in 1785. However, it was British colonialism (1824–1948) that arguably sowed the most important seeds for the contemporary crisis.

Burma was ruled as part of the British Raj, enabling vast inward migration from the Indian subcontinent. The British particularly encouraged Bengalis to migrate to address labour shortages on agricultural plantations. In Akyab district, for instance (present-day Sittwe), from 1871–1911, the Muslim population more than tripled, while the Rakhine population grew by barely a fifth. Understandably, then, the Rakhine have long cultural memories of being “swamped” by “Muslim immigrants”. More broadly, immigration to Burma peaked at 480,000 in 1927, out of a total population of 13 million. By then, ethnic Indians had acquired prominent positions across the Burmese economy, not just as agrarian coolies but also as skilled professionals, merchants and financiers. In the 1930s economic crisis, many farmers indebted to Indian moneylenders defaulted, leading Indians also to become major landlords.

The reaction to this rapid influx was a racially inflected form of economic nationalism which still persists today. This is not entirely dissimilar to the xenophobic nationalism that has sometimes accompanied mass immigration in straitened economic circumstances in many Western countries. There wereanti-Indian riots in 1930–31 and specifically anti-Muslim riots in 1926 and 1938. These were led by the majority ethnic Bamar and did not spread into Rakhine itself. It was not until Britain’s defeat by invading Japanese forces in 1942 that communal violence erupted there, with Rakhine militias exploiting the war to wreak bloody vengeance on their Muslim rivals, prompting tens of thousands to flee into India.

To make matters worse, the British then armed Rohingya volunteer forces, ostensibly to attack the occupying Japanese, but instead these groups often raided Rakhine settlements and Buddhist monasteries and pagodas. These forces also accompanied Britain’s reconquest of Rakhine, after which armed Rakhine groups were forcibly suppressed. Understandably, some of the returning Muslims feared being incorporated into the postcolonial Burmese state, launching a “Mujahit” rebellion to press for the incorporation of northern Rakhine into East Pakistan, prompting counterinsurgency operations by the Burmese army through the 1950s.

An important legacy of this WWII-induced displacement, and the subsequent unrest, is that Muslims gradually returning to Rakhine were thereafter often depicted as “illegal Bengali immigrants”. This complex, unhappy history is what lies behind the subsequent rejection of the Rohingyas—a term used commonly only after Burma’s independence—as one of Myanmar’s 135 official “national races”, and their designation instead as “Bengalis”.

Given the experiences under British colonialism, it is not surprising that, from the outset, popular Burmese nationalism has had a strongly racist flavour, directed in part against those branded kalar—dark-skinned “interlopers” from the Indian subcontinent. The central objective of Burma’s post-independence government was the Burmanisation of the foreign-dominated economy. Recalling the trauma of the 1930s, land was nationalised in 1953, and private lending to farmers banned (a situation that largely persists today), eviscerating the remaining Indian landlord class. Burmanisation culminated in the nationalisation of 15,000 businesses after the 1962 military coup, prompting 125,000 to 300,000 ethnic Indians to flee the country. They followed the more than 400,000 Indians, British and Anglo-Burmese who had already left following decolonization. The post-2011 “969” movement, which encouraged Buddhists to boycott Muslim businesses, is arguably just the latest instantiation of this form of xenophobic economic nationalism.

Colonisation also left a legacy of deep religious trauma. On top of the loss of indigenous sovereignty and the influx of Muslims, the British refused to perform the usual duties of Buddhist kingship, such as appointing abbots, and permitted growing Christian missionary activity, provoking a deep sense of cultural crisis among Buddhists. The restoration of Buddhism became central to Bamar nationalism, and steadily this religion, and Bamar culture, became hegemonic elements of postcolonial nation building efforts, with ethnic and religious minorities being increasingly “othered”.

Today, many ordinary Myanmar Buddhists genuinely believe that—like in colonial times—their religion and culture is under threat from a Muslim demographic “tidal wave”. They often point to countries like Indonesia, formerly home to Buddhist and Hindu empires, as examples of what Myanmar will become without vigorous countermeasures. This has virtually no objective basis: only about 3% of Myanmar’s population is Muslim, while around 89% are Buddhist.

But this fact is irrelevant, since most people nevertheless believe it, following decades of government propaganda, atrocious educational provision, and widespread deference to Buddhist monks, some—though far from all—of whom have promoted virulent Islamophobia. Nor is this fear of being culturally overwhelmed new, or somehow a product of the post-2010 “democratic” transition. Anti-Muslim riots occurred under the previous military regime, in 1997 and 2001, and the notorious Buddhist nationalist monk, Ashin Wirathu, the figurehead of MaBaTha, the Association for the Protection of Race and Religion, was jailed for incitement in 2003.

This history explains why there is widespread support today for MaBaTha, for the Protection of Race and Religion Laws (which discriminate against Muslims) and for the ethnic cleansing currently being perpetrated by the Myanmar military. It also explains why, politically, Aung San Suu Kyi has such limited room for manoeuvre—though it must be stressed that she has done virtually nothing to challenge these dangerous myths or to foster intercommunal harmony. Indeed, her own office’s use of the term “Bengali”, her past remarks about “global Muslim power”, and her purging of Muslims from the ranks of NLD parliamentary candidates in 2015, all suggest that she may even personally share anti-Muslim prejudices.

It is the intersection of these material and ideological dynamics that explain the recurrent persecution of the Rohingya and anti-Muslim attacks more generally, rather than a simplistic, short term land-grabbing agenda. Many Muslims were viewed with inherent suspicion due to their association with colonialism and the Mujahit rebellion. After decolonisation, although the term “Rohingya” was used in official circles, they were never formally accepted as one of Burma’s official ethnic groups. Initially, they were allowed to vote, and several were elected to parliament, with one even serving as a junior minister. However, as Bamar Buddhist nationalism intensified, and struggles by ethnic minorities resisting forced homogenisation mounted—prompting the onset of the world’s longest running civil wars—the state became increasingly hostile towards its Muslim population.

In 1962, the army expelled Muslims from its ranks. In 1977, the belief that many “Bengalis” had exploited the state’s weak border controls to cross from East Pakistan/ Bangladesh into Rakhine led the military-backed regime to launch clearance operations ahead of a national census, displacing 200,000 Muslims into Bangladesh. Thereafter, under the new 1982 Citizenship Act, the Rohingyas were gradually stripped of their rights, often finding themselves unable to prove their families’ long-term residency in Burma—thanks in part to the destruction of records in previous rounds of conflict and forced displacement. When, after 1988, the Rohingyas participated prominently in the pro-democracy movement, hoping to recover their rights, they again faced violent suppression, prompting another exodus in 1992, with 250,000 fleeing to Bangladesh.

The position of the Buddhist Rakhine needs special mention here. From their perspective, they have been doubly “victimised”, by a growing “illegal Bengali immigrant” population (even if the Rakhine still outnumber them two to one), and by the Bamar-dominated central government. Rakhine state is Myanmar’s second poorest, and what little development has occurred there has involved either a tiny handful of megaprojects—which create virtually no local employment and whose benefits are monopolised by the regime and foreign investors—or the development of a highly exploitative fisheries industry, with Thai trawlers using quasi-slave labour.

Conditions in Rakhine villages are sometimes scarcely better than those in Rohingya internally-displaced person camps. In conditions of extreme scarcity and economic competition, they profoundly resent the Western focus on the Rohingya, seeing donors as deeply “biased”, which explains violent attacks on aid convoys and protests against donor offices perceived to have slighted Buddhism. The Rakhines have seized the opportunity offered by the post-2010 transition to organise politically, dominating the state assembly. Many have also supported heavy handed military and police action as a long awaited form of redress against their local rivals, and have exploited periods of unrest to seize land used by Rohingyas. However, some have even joined the Rohingyas in exile, reflecting a shared sense of desperation and impoverishment.

It is hardly surprising that these extraordinarily grim conditions have spawned violence among both communities. Rakhine militias organised to attack Muslims during the 1940s, and today three are active, all of which promote “self-determination” in Rakhine but reject the Rohingyas as “Bengalis”. The Rohingyas have also taken up arms periodically, and the only mystery is why the latest armed group, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), has taken quite so long to form in the face of such harsh persecution and misery. ARSA’s attacks on police and army outposts—the most recent of which, in late August, triggered the army offensive behind the present refugee crisis—smack heavily of desperation, as men often armed only with catapults and wooden “guns” launch themselves at the security forces.

In short, while simple pecuniary motives can never be entirely discounted, particularly in Myanmar’s borderlands, the political economy underpinning the current Rohingya crisis is far more complicated than is suggested in articles making a few sloppy references to megaprojects and land grabs. Ultimately, like Myanmar’s other ethnic conflicts, it reflects the crisis-ridden nature of the Burmese state since its inception.

Burma was founded with no real meaningful consensus among its population groups over the nature of the state or nation, or the extent of power and resource sharing. Bamar-Buddhist chauvinists, unprepared to make the concessions needed to secure others’ consensual participation in nation-building, have instead sought to impose their vision by force, leading to brutality across the borderlands. However, the Rohingya have suffered particularly harshly because their claim to ethnic-minority status is not even recognised. While the Bamar state seeks to coercively incorporate recognised ethnic minority groups into the Union, it seeks to coercively exclude the unrecognised Rohingya. That is, ultimately, traceable to British colonialism and its legacy.

…………………………

Lee Jones is Reader in International Politics at Queen Mary University of London’s School of Politics and International Relations. He has written extensively on Myanmar’s political economy, regime transition, experience under sanctions, and relations with China. You can follow him on Twitter at @DrLeeJones.