#we are simultaneously so powerful and so powerless

[queer-of-hearts]

Yes! All of this! It makes me pretty emotional as an American. There are so many parallels. Swap out Magister class for the owner class in the US and a lot of it lines up.

The US sucks but the people? Well some of them suck too, lol

but also! pretty much everyone I've ever loved and cared about was born and raised here. Kind, caring, compassionate, community-minded, forward-thinking people grow from here. There's a revolutionary spirit that flows through so many of us. There's so much to love and so much to hate all at once. It's painful and beautiful and awful and lovely.

Neve Gallus and Shadow Dragon Rook sharing Tevene culture and all of the things they LOVE about Tevinter and it's people will never not make me emotional.

As an empire and a power, Tevinter has a blood-soaked legacy of harming bith the world and its own people. But the people themselves? Your average Soporati? The communities they belong too?

Vibrant, lively, loving. Traditions and stories and songs going back generations, growing and changing over the years.

I really feel like dance and communal meals are BIG there. Festivals during the Annums bringing whole neighbourhoods together in Minrathous.

Neve and Rook teaching Bellara a Tevene circle dance in the dining hall, singing a somg as best they can between laughter. Rook sharing foods recipes they love with notes from Neve and just... Letting everyone see the joy in their world.

[etz-ashashiyot]

Generally radicalized people are radicalized for a reason: their radicalization does something for them and/or they believe that their desire to reshape society in a way that they believe will fix things does something for them. The key to deradicalizing them, then, is to figure out what that need is and fill it with something else.

Most of the time, people don't actually want rivers of blood, they want justice for wrongs that they feel aren't being heard.

Most of the time, they don't actually hate [X] minority - they don't even know anyone of that minority! They hate the false strawman version of that minority that is completely detached from reality, but that's been sold to them as the source of their problems.

And most people are honestly kinda lazy, lol. They are not going to physically fight for their fucked up ideas unless either (1) they are backed into a corner and literally must, or (2) they get swept up as part of a larger mob where the bully mentality takes over and the few people leading it decide to turn it into a violent mob.

So you gotta suck the wind out of their sails.

This works best if they are in or adjacent to your own communit(ies), because you will have more insight into what this is doing for them.

For the goyische leftists that have been radicalized into Jew hate lately, it's a combination of things. It's a feeling of powerlessness as the world slides rapidly towards fascism and climate crisis. It's the ghosts of unaddressed colonialism that they are choosing to impose their emotional catharsis on this unrelated and falsely analogous situation to enact what they feel would be just in their own society on people safely half the world away. Why there? Well, it's because it's a very small area with all of the culturally significant places that they grew up hearing about from the Bible in church, so it carries emotional weight. Most importantly, both parties are small and neither party has much international power to stop them, so they are able to impose their own narrative on the situation and speak over everyone actually there. Anyone who tries to correct them is drowned out. And, it's the history of Soviet antisemitism that is baked into the DNA of most western leftist movements and which Jews have never had the numbers or power to force them to actually confront.

Jew hatred is extremely convenient and Jews have been murdered in large enough numbers that we are easy to talk over.

Now usually, when you start pointing these things out, and especially when you start pointing out how ineffective and self-serving their "activism" on behalf of Palestinians is, they are too radicalized to do anything but react emotionally. They will spit out talking points, but none of these things actually address any of the above. They usually just devolve into "but but, Israeli war crimes!!" like it's a talisman against accurate allegations of antisemitism.

Why won't they listen to reason? When you show them how what they're saying is literal Nazi propaganda with the swastikas filed off and "Zionists" being used as a stand-in for Jews while they simultaneously vociferously deny any connection between Jews and Zionism? Why won't they take any accountability for their bigotry? Why won't they, at a minimum, listen to the Palestinians who want peace even if they won't listen to Jews advocating for the same thing?

It's because then they would have to give up the major benefits that they've been reaping from this situation: the social capital, the excuses to act out, the glow of feeling totally righteous in their fury, the catharsis - and trade it for the extremely unappealing process of actually becoming a decent person and a better advocate for their cause. It's hurting people they don't care about and they have a whole lot of organizations and institutions and people with actual power who materially benefit from their misdirected anger stoking the flames, and helping them lie to themselves that they are actually helping someone besides themselves and the handful of true beneficiaries behind the conflict.

They are being used.

And in twenty years they'll wake up and realize that they spent their youth shouting Nazi and Stalinist slogans of hatred that only benefitted right-wing hawks on both sides who make actual money and power off this conflict at the expense of two persecuted minorities. But they will be ashamed and will bury that behavior underneath silence and excuses.

This happens in every generation, by the way. Every 70 - 100 years, people find a socially plausible reason to hate and kill Jews because it is easier than standing up to the people with actual power. We are people they know they can hurt, and so long as they lie to themselves about who they're hurting and why, it feels really good.

Overcoming that directly has never worked.

It doesn't work because catharsis and punching down or laterally feels productive and owning their biases and bigotry and developing practical long-term strategies is tedious and often feels like shit.

What I've seen real activists do is to address the need for catharsis, praise, and to feel useful in other ways, because they are often less attached to the specific lowest hanging bigoted fruit and more in the rewards it gives them.

If we want to see this change, yelling at leftists that they're being bigoted morons feels good (productivity! feeling a sense of reclaiming control and power from helplessness! catharsis! We are not immune to these human needs either) but it's counterproductive. You don't convince a toddler to give up the shiny dangerous toy by trying to just snatch it away - if anything, you've now cemented this as an epic struggle for all time against the cold, cruel, injustices of the parental controls. No, you have to give them a new, safer toy.

My position is that if we want to see movement on this, we need to suck it up, stop yelling at the radicalized, and start finding ways to help Palestine that both feel gratifying and are actually pro-peace.

And, for the true sick fucks who really do want rivers of Jewish blood (and if a bunch of Gazans are martyred in the process, oh well)? That's where we need our true allies to help us fight back the most. This type of person will never respond to anything but power, so they will back down if they feel that they are truly threatened. To get the rest of the fair weather friends on board, we need to show how these violent tantrums are actually threatening their new catharsis, gratification, and progress so that they aren't swayed by the bullies and instead want to guard their new emotional investment and moral high ground.

Ultimately, we all want to feel like we're the good guys. We want catharsis. We want instant gratification. We want to see movement. We want justice for the wrongs committed against us and those we choose to see ourselves in community with. Many of us have real-world serious grievances that are intractable and that we don't have the individual power to fix, but are intolerable as things currently stand. These people aren't special; they aren't different from us and we aren't different from them in those ways. The problem is that activism - real activism that actually moves the needle - will typically not give you that satisfaction or meet those needs, and most people don't have the mental space to meet those needs in a better way, so punching laterally becomes the quick fix solution. Meanwhile, the people in actual positions of power benefit from this gladiator fight.

And until actual activists reckon with that reality, we are going to see more and more of the same.

[starcurtain]

Following Topaz's explanation that Cornerstones are made to fill the hole in the user's heart, what "hole" in Aven's heart do you think his drag queen powers are meant to fill? Especially since Topaz remarks he's the only one with such showy powers

Still trying to catch up with all the messages in the inbox; sorry to everyone for taking a million years to respond.

So cunty, and for what???

Anyway, first, when Jade talks about the Stonehearts' "voids," the alternate reading above that word is actually "ambition." And she mentions that the reason she risked reaching out to Firefly is that she views herself as similar to Firefly--Jade is someone with an unfulfilled wish.

I think there's enough here to suggest that the Stonehearts' voids are not quite what we would normally think of when hearing the word "void"--rather than being best understood as something removed or something lost, their voids seem to be "something desired." An unfulfilled goal. An unmet need. A burning ambition. A secret wish. They all have somewhere they want to get to, and they've signed on-board with Diamond's Preservation project because his power is the fastest way--maybe the only way--to get there.

The implication here, by the way, is that the Stonehearts are acting out the very act of Preservation itself with Diamond. The goal of Qlipoth is for the universe to be saved, an unshakeable resolution to stop Destruction's wanton obliteration. Thus, Preservation itself can be understood as "A desire that must be continuously protected and relentlessly pursued." To live. To endure.

In using the power of an emanator to protect and provide the Stonehearts with ways to pursue their own desires, we replicate in miniature the exact resolve and endless pursuit of perseverance that Qlipoth is acting out in the broader universe. The will of Preservation empowers the Stonehearts--and in turn, the Stonehearts swear an oath to aid in Preservation's mission. It's a mutually beneficial arrangement, and it also simultaneously imitates Jade's shop perfectly: I'll give you exactly what you want, if you give me what I need.

I should clarify that I don't actually think the cornerstones themselves fill the Stonehearts' voids. Rather, they seem to me to be a tangible symbol of the oath between Diamond and the Stonehearts--"I'll give you this power to fulfill your deepest wish, if you work for me." Jade suggests that the power of the cornerstones provides Stonehearts with the means to fill their voids (I.e., having superpowers makes it possible for you to pursue your wish), so I think their individual cornerstone abilities are best understood as "The exact power I need to achieve my particular goal."

So what does that say about Aventurine's "showy" transformation?

Pretty much all the rest of this is just going to be my personal speculation, but I'd say the most telling glimpse we get into why Aventurine's power is so "visual" comes from these lines with the future "Aventurine" in 2.1:

There's two completely contradictory desires being expressed here: Aventurine's life "is the chip he's most eager to lay down" and "always has been"--that is, he genuinely wants to die. He isn't just willing to gamble with his life, he's eager to. The future "Aventurine" also says real Aventurine wants to be "polished up" (to be controlled and molded by others) and "cuffed with red-hot chains" (to be made powerless and not responsible for making his own decisions, to be punished).

But conversely, the real Aventurine also wants to be perceived as "a smooth operator" and "the solid gold deal-maker who doesn't waste a drop of sweat." He wants to be in charge of his image. He wants to be the one who controls the narrative and defines how others think of him. He wants to be "spotlit center stage"--to command the eyes of the world. In short, we could say that Aventurine wants his death (and conversely, his life) to mean something.

From these conflicting desires, I think you can derive a few totally opposite but equally valid interpretations of why Aventurine's cornerstone power is so "visual":

A combat-oriented transformation is another means to seek death.

Jade's power is scary, but she isn't using it to literally launch herself into fights. Topaz's seems to be similar--something that might allow her to win over her opponents in some way (she was about to use it in Belobog to no-sell the Trailblazer), but she clarifies directly that it is not a "transformation." Aventurine just literally turns into a boss enemy and goes straight out on to the battlefield.

In the fight, he doesn't even use shields. (Now whether that's something he never does because the cornerstone powers don't actually come with shields while in his monster form, if he couldn't use shields because his cornerstone was broken, or if he just chose not to use shields in this fight to give Trailblazer and Co. a fighting chance, only time will tell. However, it might be worth noting that his empowered Apocalyptic Shadow form doesn't come with shields either, despite having other new mechanics.)

The point is, this form, while looking cool and seeming strong, is actually a gamble in and of itself. To go out onto the battlefield, where you might not actually be the strongest combatant, is always a risk. And I think this is the kind of risk that Aventurine manifests continually in his life. He is constantly creating opportunities for his own luck to fail. His unfulfilled desire, the "ambition" he was desperate enough to join the Stonehearts to pursue--as his original goal to save his people is completely gone, his only current goal might actually just be a chance to die. His powers may manifest as a combat-oriented transformation because that is just one more way to throw himself into the crossfire.

In fact, this is exactly what Sugilite accuses him of in Jade's myriad celestia:

You didn't need to snatch his wig this hard, Sugilite. (Also I need you all to know I originally wrote "You didn't need to come for him this hard, Sugilite," but then I realized how unfortunate that wording was, so...)

You could even argue that the fact Aventurine's transformation comes with a mask that obscures his entire face is a sign that we're supposed to see this form as dehumanizing.

The facial features are completely obscured and asymmetrical, there's no mouth, his fingers have become claws--despite his body staying mostly human-shaped, it's obviously intended to hint at something monstrous, subsuming his original identity behind a violent facade.

Kakavasha disappears entirely behind "Aventurine" when he transforms, becoming a faceless enemy at the risk of (perhaps in hopes of) entirely losing himself. Maybe every transformation lets Aventurine throw himself closer and closer to the edge of death--and perhaps, before Penacony, only death could ever have filled the "void."

But, on the complete opposite hand (because Aventurine is always both sides of the coin), we could also argue the other end of the spectrum entirely:

A combat-oriented transformation is a show of force.

This screencap brought to you by Mr. Rubhen925 of Youtube.

Aventurine's entire life has been marred by disenfranchisement, by violations of his basic human rights, freedoms, and agency. At every turn, he has been victimized by others more powerful than himself: his childhood consisted of his clan being relentlessly hounded and hunted to extinction by the Katicans, having their food constantly stolen, their meager belongings burned to the ground, and each one of his family members systematically slaughtered, often in front of his eyes.

After his childhood, he was bought and sold as chattel for pennies, branded like an animal, and forced into a fight where to he had to beat other innocent people to death just to keep himself alive, all for the entertainment of the masses. Even Jade, who promised to help him achieve his goals, treats him like a business investment more than a friend.

In Penacony, we watch everyone he talks to degrade and ostracize him. Even though Aventurine led him into doing it, Sunday tortures and re-traumatizes him live for our entertainment.

Even more that, we see Aventurine constantly struggling with the question of whether his life is really his own or whether his blessing from Gaiathra means that his entire existence has been predetermined, his fate sealed in blood and sand from the very moment of his birth, utterly inescapable.

No matter how Aventurine tries to portray himself as the ultimate winner, he's only ever the "final" victor--being the only one left standing at the end is meaningless if on the road to getting there, you were treated like fate's favorite punching bag. Winning in the end is utterly pointless if on the road to winning, you still lost it all first, from the things you loved to your personal freedom.

What does a person who has been made powerless again and again truly desire? What void do you seek to fill if life has denied you your agency over and over?

Power. Dominance. The ability to literally strike back at those who've wronged you. The strength to intimidate and force people into a corner the way you've been intimidated and forced before.

If we say that Aventurine's "void" is not a literal desire for the release of death, then it might make sense for the "void" to instead to be a frantic desire to gain control over his circumstances. To be the one finally in charge of deciding his own fate.

Particularly in light of his character story which tells us that Kakavasha's original goal for joining the Stonehearts was to save his people, the desire to take on an impressive form that screams "I'm powerful" and has the ability to physically enact vengeance on others feels directly aligned. And it remains aligned even after the reveal that the Avgins are all gone--once more fate strips Kakavasha of his power to make a difference in the world, to achieve what he truly dreams of.

The Apocalyptic Shadow version of his boss fight is called "Desperate Diceroller."

How angry he must be, deep down. How hateful the world must seem. How sad it is to feel that way.

If destiny won't let you out of the cage, your only choice is to grow claws to tear it open.

Okay, but WHY so much swag though?

Are the peacock feathers and spandex really necessary?

Listen. Everyone talks about Ratio having "gifted kid" syndrome, but I'm here to tell you that Aventurine is actually a burnt out gifted kid extraordinaire.

He's literally, canonically, explicitly the chosen one of his people.

From the moment of his birth, his mother and sister--and presumably others in his clan even--were telling him that he was their clan's most precious treasure and that he would lead them to prosperity and safety.

He carried this weight even after fleeing from the massacre, all through his childhood and teenage years, through slavery and abuse, putting his very life on the line to join the IPC in hopes of finally fulfilling the destiny his mother and sister promised he could.

He was supposed to save them. That was his meaning. That was his purpose in life.

But he was too late.

The fate he was born for, raised believing, and risked everything to achieve... is still incomplete.

So, for all that talk about suicide and power-seeking, my real answer is this: Aventurine's "void" is his unfulfilled destiny.

His whole existence has been predetermined, his life's journey laid out in prophecy and blessings from the very beginning. Yet what he thought was his fate betrayed him, and where you head after becoming an unsuccessful chosen one is a question without answer.

His thoughts constantly circle around how he is a "failure" and a "loser."

When you have no sense of purpose, when your life has no meaning, when what you are still seeking is the role you were supposed to have from the moment of your birth: the glorious destiny of being a savior, being the "happiness" of your people, being the hero...

Of course you crave the spectacle. Of course you long for the spotlight--you long to be recognized. Because Kakavasha's the chosen one. "Spotlit center stage" is where he's supposed to be--in the leading role that was stolen from him.

I think that Aventurine's cornerstone transformation is so flashy because, at the core, it represents a longing to truly be the "precious wealth" of the Avgin that his sister promised him he would be. It represents his desire to transform from a useless, "discarded" person into a larger-than-life version of himself. (Hey, fun fact, out of every official depiction of Aventurine, his boss model wears the only outfit in which his slave brand is not naturally visible.) He literally transforms into a supernatural being, capable of seizing others' fates in his hands. It represents the power he needed to save his people and himself. Its extreme flashiness screams for attention, demands to be witnessed as something beyond a helpless human.

It's almost as if Aventurine is a child writing a wish-fulfillment story where he transforms into a hyper-glamorous, all-powerful masked superhero who is capable of saving the day and winning against his enemies every time.

Unlike Jade and Topaz, Aventurine can't hide his deepest desire. It was always going to be a "transformation," because Aventurine's unanswered wish is to be someone better than himself.

His "void," his deepest unachieved ambition--it's written right there, all over his body.

Aventurine's cornerstone power is a story he's telling himself about the person he was supposed to be.

But as Acheron claims, that's life itself.

Aventurine doesn't feel like he has any control over his journey's ultimate destination.

He doesn't know where's he's headed or what the purpose of it all is. But...

Jade explicitly describes the Ten Stonehearts and Diamond's endeavor as a "journey" as well:

Because Preservation represents the continuance of life itself, and the Stonehearts with their endless "voids"--Aventurine with his soul-deep longing to become someone better than himself--represent all of us very real human beings, trying our best to find our own "cornerstones," to gain the means to finally, finally achieve our own sweet dreams.

[apas-95]

When Marxists say that certain groups, are adventurist, they have in mind the very definite and specific social and historical features of a phenomenon, one that every class-conscious worker should be familiar with. The history of Russian Social-Democracy teems with tiny groups, which sprang up for an hour, for several months, with no roots whatever among the masses (and politics without the masses are adventurist politics), and with no serious and stable principles. In a petty-bourgeois country, which is passing through a historical period of bourgeois reconstruction, it is inevitable that a motley assortment of intellectuals should join the workers, and that these intellectuals should attempt to form all kinds of groups, adventurist in character in the sense referred to above.

— V.I. Lenin, Adventurism, 1914

Let us go over to the second point, the question of terrorism. In their defence of terrorism, which the experience of the Russian revolutionary movement has so clearly proved to be ineffective, the Socialist-Revolutionaries are talking themselves blue in the face in asseverating that they recognise terrorism only in conjunction with work among the masses, and that therefore the arguments used by the Russian Social-Democrats to refute the efficacy of this method of struggle (and which have indeed been refuted for a long time to come) do not apply to them. [...] We are not repeating the terrorists’ mistakes and are not diverting attention from work among the masses, the Socialist-Revolutionaries assure us, and at the same time enthusiastically recommend to the Party acts such as Balmashov’s assassination of Sipyagin, although everyone knows and sees perfectly well that this act was in no way connected with the masses and, moreover, could not have been by reason of the very way in which it was carried out—that the persons who committed this terrorist act neither counted on nor hoped for any definite action or support on the part of the masses. In their naïveté, the Socialist-Revolutionaries do not realise that their predilection for terrorism is causally most intimately linked with the fact that, from the very outset, they have always kept, and still keep, aloof from the working-class movement, without even attempting to become a party of the revolutionary class which is waging its class struggle. [...] The first thing that strikes the eye is the words: “we advocate terrorism, not in place of work among the masses, but precisely for and simultaneously with that work.” [...] The day “when the working people will emerge from the shadows” and “the mighty popular wave will shatter the iron gates to smithereens”—“alas!” (literally, “alas!”) “is still a long way off, and it is frightful   to think of the future toll of victims!” Do not these words “alas, still a long way off” reflect an utter failure to under stand the mass movement and a lack of faith in it? Is not this argument meant as a deliberate sneer at the fact that the working people are already beginning to rise? And, finally, even if this trite argument were just as well-founded as it is actually stuff and nonsense, what would emerge from it in particularly bold relief would be the inefficacy of terrorism, for without the working people all bombs are power less, patently powerless. [...]

This fabulous argument, which we are convinced is destined to become notorious, is by no means simply a curiosity. No, it is instructive because, through a sweeping reduction to an absurdity, it reveals the principal mistake of the terrorists, which they share with the “economists” (perhaps one might already say, with the former representatives of deceased “economism”?). This mistake, as we have already pointed out on numerous occasions, consists in the failure to understand the basic defect of our movement. Because of the extremely rapid growth of the movement, the leaders lagged behind the masses, the revolutionary organisations did not come up to the level of the revolutionary activity of the proletariat, were incapable of marching on in front and leading the masses. That a discrepancy of this sort exists cannot be doubted by any conscientious person who has even the slightest acquaintance with the movement. And if that is so, it is evident that the present-day terrorists are really “economists” turned inside out, going to the equally foolish but opposite extreme. At a time when the revolutionaries are short of the forces and means to lead the masses,   who are already rising, an appeal to resort to such terrorist acts as the organisation of attempts on the lives of ministers by individuals and groups that are not known to one another means, not only thereby breaking off work among the masses, but also introducing downright disorganisation into that work. [...]

Nor does the leaflet eschew the theory of excitative terrorism. “Each time a hero engages in single combat, this arouses in us all a spirit of struggle and courage,” we are told. But we know from the past and see in the present that only new forms of the mass movement or the awakening of new sections of the masses to independent struggle really rouses a spirit of struggle and courage in all. Single combat however, inasmuch as it remains single combat waged by the Balmashovs, has the immediate effect of simply creating a short-lived sensation, while indirectly it even leads to apathy and passive waiting for the next bout. [...] This very point is explained in No. 8 of Revolutsionnaya Rossiya, which declares that “it is easy to write and speak” of armed demonstrations “as a matter of the vague and distant future,” “but up till now all this talk has been merely of a theoretical nature.” How well we know this Language of people who are free of the constraint of firm socialist convictions, of the burdensome experience of each and every kind of popular movement! They confuse immediately tangible and sensational results with practicalness. To them the demand to adhere steadfastly to the class standpoint and to maintain the mass nature of the movement is “vague” “theorising.” [...] Demonstrations begin— and blood thirsty words, talk about the beginning of the end, flow from the lips of such people. The demonstrations halt— their hands drop helplessly, and before they have had time to wear out a pair of boots they are already shouting: “The people, alas, are still a long way off....” Some new outrage is perpetrated by the tsar’s henchmen—and they demand to be shown a “definite” measure that would serve as an exhaustive reply to that particular outrage, a measure that would bring about an immediate “transference of strength,” and they proudly promise this transference! These people do not understand that this very promise to “transfer” strength constitutes political adventurism, and that their adventurism stems from their lack of principle. [...] Anyone who really carries on his revolutionary work in conjunction with the class struggle of the proletariat very well knows, sees and feels what vast numbers of immediate and direct demands of the proletariat (and of the sections of the people capable of supporting the latter) remain unsatisfied. He knows that in very many places, throughout vast areas, the working people are literally   straining to go into action, and that their ardour runs to waste because of the scarcity of literature and leadership, the lack of forces and means in the revolutionary organisations. And we find ourselves—we see that we find our selves—in the same old vicious circle that has so long hemmed in the Russian revolution like an omen of evil. On the one hand, the revolutionary ardour of the insufficiently enlightened and unorganised crowd runs to waste. On the other hand, shots fired by the “elusive individuals” who are losing faith in the possibility of marching in formation and working hand in hand with the masses also end in smoke.

— V.I. Lenin, Revolutionary Adventurism, 1902

[unforth]

When I first talked to my dad about how I wanted to be a parent, years before I actually was, he told me that his goal had been not to make the same mistakes his parents had made with him, and he was pretty sure that was the only one of his parenting goals he'd succeeded at.

I've thought about that advice a lot in the 15 or so years since he said it to me.

As a parent now, I feel it so hard. And honestly, if he succeeded there, he's done better than I, because I've definitely made some of the same mistakes my parents did, even with their example to try to learn from.

Also I tend to assume them constantly pushing the boundary is a good sign. It's exhausting and I hate it, but it means they feel safe pushing. You know which kids don't push boundaries? Abused and terrorized ones who know that the consequence for pushing will be so catastrophic that it's not worth the risk, and the occasional unicorn who is just. That content. With the status quo.

I had a day off yesterday.

And I can already practically hear the assumptions that such a statement is prompting the reader to make. Those assumptions are wrong. I don't mean I didn't work. I did, for about 8 hours. That's not at all what I mean.

I mean my wife took the kids out at 9:30, spent the night with her mom, isn't back yet the next morning.

There are things I NEED people on this website to understand about parenting. And I've talked about it before, and I'll talk about it again, because honestly the way that Tumblr as a cohort talks about parents makes me sick. Multiple polls have shown that only about 2% of people on here are parents. We're a huge minority, and we're constantly talked over, ignored, or accused of being bad parents (like, personally, I have had people reply to my comments or come on to my posts and tell me I shouldn't have my kids). In my case, being a parent means I'm almost 41, I'm married to @ramblingandpie, and our children are inching up on being 8 and 6 years old.

My entire day, and therefore my entire life, revolves around them. I'm up most mornings at 5 AM, because that's the earliest they're "allowed" to wake up, and so my brain just defaults to being awake around then - better to wake up before them, at least then I get a few minutes in the morning. Between 5 and 7, I sit with them, do my social media, work on side blogs, study Chinese. Then it's helping them get ready for school, then my wife or I or both get them on the bus, and then I work until the last possible minute, which is either when I need to go pick them up for an after school activity or when I need to go down and meet them off the bus. My afternoons are after school activities, chores such as washing the dishes and cleaning up toys, talking with them, working with them, playing with them. Their bedtime starts at 7:40, and my son gets scared if I leave before he falls asleep so I sit with him until about 8:15. As soon as he's asleep, I go fall on my face, sleep as best I can, then wake up and do it again. Overnight, it's hard to sleep deeply, because about once a week someone will wake up in the middle of the night and need help. That could be as minimal as a hug or as complex as having to completely change the bedding on a bunk bed at 2 AM while also comforting a child who is afraid they'll be in trouble, or afraid they're sick, or afraid of their nightmare, or, or, or. Further, if a child is awake, there is always noise. I usually study Chinese with two or more competing sources of noise. I read the same way. My life is loud, and active, and consists of constant interruptions.

I adore my family, and I love my children, but this is terrible for me.

I do all of this as an neurodivergent introvert. My clinical depression is at least medicated, mostly because post-partum depression after I gave birth the first time nearly drove me to suicidal in under a week (we were expecting this and were prepared, fortunately, getting help was as simple as a phone call). The constant noise and interruptions and forced socialibility are about the worst combination of home-life I could be subjected to. I spend far too many early mornings just breathing deeply and gearing myself up to be subjected to the wall of Loud, Boisterous, Needing-My-Attention that is every minute when anyone else in the house is awake.

So what did my day off look like?

I helped get the kids ready to go and did some morning chores. I'd been up at 4:30 AM so I also had already social media'd and studied. Then, while my wife finished the preparations, I started work, and I worked from about 8 am to about 4 pm, straight. I didn't get hungry so didn't bother stopping for lunch. No one interrupted me, no one asked me to look at anything they'd built, no one broke my concentration, no sounds could be heard except those I'd chosen myself.

I'd been out the day before at a local shopping street and listened closely to the things the kids said they wanted, so at 4 I grabbed a couple orders I needed to ship for work and drove to our local downtown, dropped the orders in a post box, then went back to the shops and did some Christmas shopping in the 45 minutes or so before everything closed. I think I'm basically done with what we'll get them - other bigger things will be left to grand parents - so that's a load off, I literally had a stress dream earlier this week about it being 12/24 and having forgotten to do the shopping and having to go to (oh horrors) the mall on the day before Christmas. (Reminder: I'm a Jewish atheist. It's just virtually impossible not to Holiday in the Culturally Christian Hellscape that is the US. Also, my wife is Christian. So.) Found something cute for my wife, too, even tho I already know the main thing I'm getting her. Then, I realized - one of my favorite restaurants is on that block. So. I went there. I sat by myself at a table, only the indistinct restaurant hubbub around me. I read four or five chapters of my book, and ate a savory crepe, and drank lovely fruit tea, and got a scone to-go that I'll eat for lunch today. It was more than I probably should have spent on myself - about $25, including tip - but fuck it. I only get maybe a handful of days off all year, and I'm allowed to indulge a little.

Then I came home. There were no lights on. There was no noise. I had considered doing some more merch work while watching TV on the actual television (my kids are too young for subtitled shows, so usually if I want to watch My Shows I either have to do it on my computer when they're not around, or put them on and read all the subtitles aloud while trying to keep up and process the actual meaning of what I'm reading). But when I got back, the quiet and dark was so goddamn NICE that instead I curled up on the couch and read more of my book. I did that until bedtime - still about 8:15, because I'm exhausted. Then...I went to bed. And I slept long and deep, knowing that there was no chance I'd be interrupted and woken up, I didn't have to be, even in sleep, alert to every noise and possibility that I'd be needed.

I'm still exhausted and burned out, but even one night to myself felt really, really nice.

Saying "Tumblr does X" as a universal statement is doomed to failure, but generally speaking, the parenting posts I see on Tumblr, the ones with tens or hundreds of thousands of notes, speak what's apparently widely seen as a truism on here: that unless someone wants to spend 24/7 with their kids, to be 100% emotionally available at all times, is always kind and patient and perfect, they are a bad parent, maybe even abusive. I remember when covid started, there were multiple posts actively mocking the "oh god, my kids are now home all the time, how am I supposed to do this?" attitude that a lot of parents posted in despair. WhY dId YoU hAvE kIdS iF yOu DoN't WaNt To SpEnD tImE wItH tHeM?

Look at what my usual day looks like.

Look at what my day off looked like.

Do you really think I don't want to spend time with my kids? Do you really think I don't love my kids?

But I'm not a fucking MACHINE. I'm a PERSON. That's what people on Tumblr seem to forget. PARENTS ARE PEOPLE. The same tumblrinas who post ~uwu be kind to yourself rest if you need to, you should forgive yourself for that mistake you made~ will turn around, with zero sense of irony, and post "you're a bad parent if you ever raise your voice around a child."

Expecting parents to be perfect means expecting parents to be inhuman. It also means that a parent can't be poor (can't spend all your time being the perfect parent if you have to work multiple jobs or weird hours!), can't be introverted (can't be a perfect parent if you're not completely emotional available, god forbid socializing is exhausting for you), can't be on the ADHD or autism spectrum (what do you mean you forgot to get your kid to a doctor's appointment once? what do you mean over-stimulation can make you angry? how dare you get angry at a kid!), can't be depressed (gotta get out of bed every single day, gotta always be upbeat, patient, happy, or else that's Evil), can't be (like my wife) physically disabled (what do you mean your hands hurt too much to hold a child's hand? are you denying them touch?? CRUEL). And when the only answer you can offer to that is, "if you can't be that perfect you shouldn't be a parent," then you're saying people who aren't middle class to wealthy, people who aren't neurotypical, people who aren't physically able, shouldn't have children.

And honestly...what the fuck is your problem?

I'm not perfect. I tell my kids to just leave me alone sometimes. I raise my voice, especially when one of my kids starts punching the other, but also sometimes just cause I'm exhausted and Can't Anymore. I've forgotten an appointment by accident and felt like a total fucking idiot, and I've skipped an after school activity because I just wasn't up for taking them. I've served them more unbalanced, unhealthy meals than I can count. I've made many, many mistakes, but I've also done my best, and I love my kids, and I hope that when they grow up, they'll still love me even as they recognize that I wasn't perfect, just as I've come to accept my own parents' short-comings while still loving them very much. They're people, too, and the older I get, the more I understand where they were coming from.

When I fuck up, I apologize.

When they tell me they're unhappy with something I've done, I apologize, and I try to do better. Sometimes I even succeed.

This shit is hard, yo. And it's getting harder every year.

I'm BEGGING Tumblr: you need to start seeing parents as people. The way y'all talk about parenting on here is toxic, and genuinely harmful, and frankly exhausting. You have no idea what the reality of raising kids is like, and you need to shut the entire fuck up.

I had a day off yesterday.

I might get one more before the end of 2023.

I already can't wait. I am so, so, so tired. sigh

(if you actually read this whole rant and even a single word of it resonated for you, please reblog it. I'm tired of never seeing positive posts about parenting while I see negative ones with a bajillion notes.)

[wumiings]

The thing that really gets me about Merlin and Arthur’s dynamic re: being simultaneously friends (implies equality) and master/servant (unequal) is the way they both understand what this means so differently.

Like, Arthur is not deliberately cruel as a person. He sometimes lashes out in anger— particularly to cover hurt, fear, or insecurity— and is not above using his and Merlin’s relative stations to his advantage in the moment. But while this is certainly not okay, it does not characterize most of their interactions.

Most of the time, when Arthur insults Merlin, or roughhouses with him, or assigns him too many chores just to be petty, he clearly seems to think of it as friendly banter/play. And when Merlin insults him right back, or complains without real heat, or half-asses the chores, Arthur takes it as confirmation that they’re on the same page.

Because here’s the thing: when Arthur says, “You’re my servant, so we can’t be friends [paraphrase: but under other circumstances, we might be],” what he means is that they are obviously friends but they’re not allowed to call each other that, or act like it. It’s against the social rules of their environment to acknowledge their friendship.

But that is not what those words mean to Merlin. He does see Arthur as a friend, but not in the sense that they’re just playing along with the roles of servant and master. Because unlike Arthur, there is an inherent threat to Merlin’s safety and well-being implied by any reminder of those roles.

“You’re almost like a friend [except you’re my servant]” doesn’t just mean they can’t use the word. It means “I have power over you, and in moments when it’s inconvenient to treat you as a friend (see: the anger), I can and will use that power to put you back in your place.”

It’s a reminder that Arthur has fired, overworked, struck, imprisoned, threatened with exile, and held a sword to Merlin’s throat before, and so long as Merlin needs to keep his magic a secret for the sake of staying by Arthur’s side, he is powerless to do anything about it. It could happen again.

Merlin insults Arthur because he knows he can get away with it (as long as he stops when more serious threats are invoked). He complains but allows those complaints to be taken as jokes/exaggerations, because he doesn��t expect his hurts to be taken seriously and doesn’t feel comfortable making himself vulnerable to Arthur about how his actions affect him.

The chores situation in particular aggravates me to no end, because Merlin is routinely expected to do things that do not by any means fall under the purview of a personal servant. Why would he be mucking out the stables?? Surely there are stable hands who are paid to do that. And why does he do the laundry himself instead of delivering it to the laundress?

All this in addition to apprenticing with Gaius (or working as a fully qualified physician post-4x08) and going along on patrols/missions/etc. doing what I’m pretty sure would normally be a squire’s duties? As none of the knights seem to have one??

Admittedly, Merlin sometimes insists on going along on missions for Protecting Arthur Reasons, which is not Arthur’s fault, but still. Arthur knows the kind of hours Merlin is putting in. Which makes moments like in 3x01, when he undervalues, belittles, and then intentionally undoes Merlin’s hard work (cleaning the floor) so frustrating to watch.

But again, Arthur is not cruel! I never get the sense that he truly enjoys causing Merlin real emotional distress. The problem is that he consistently underestimates the amount of distress that Merlin is actually in — partly because (as previously stated) Merlin often undersells his own feelings.

TL;DR - Merlin is Arthur’s friend! His only/closest friend!! Arthur looks at Merlin and sees someone brave and loyal and absolutely worth risking his life for. But his privilege blinds him to the ways in which he fails to treat Merlin like a friend should. Outside of life-or-death situations, he doesn’t often behave as though he values Merlin (his time, his effort, his capabilities, or his friendship) particularly much. And that’s a fucking tragedy.

[secularprolifeconspectus]

Debunk of the "fetus is a parasite" argument

bad pro-abort argument: "prenatal humans are in a parasitic relationship to their pregnant host so abortion is self-defense"

This ideological framework for pregnancy requires sooo much equivocation it's unbearable.

*exasperated sigh* but let's break it down:

1) let's start by acknowledging how dehumanizing it is to posit that pregnant people/mothers are just hosts to parasites. And the sheer misogyny of framing a healthy, ordinary function of the fertile female body as a medical ailment. Females are not inherently diseased! The fuck!

2) the parastic posit assumes that the female body does not want to be pregnant and actively fights pregnancy, but that makes no sense considering the mechanisms that female bodies have deliberately evolved to encourage, stabilize, and sustain reproduction. That is not parasitic.

3a) the self-defense posit implies that the prenate is an aggressor that uses force to violate their mother. But this requires that the prenate have power over the situation. A prenate has no volition & also isn't an agent in pregnancy. A baby shouldn't be held to adult standards.

3b) I've recently seen a the rebuttal that "a sleepwalker also doesn't have volition", and that is true, but a sleepwalker is an agent who exerts power if they actively commit assault. Again, false equivalence. A baby's existence is passive, not an aggression, and not a threat.

4a) another implication of these posits is that the prenate is invasive. This is predicated upon that the location of a human (in this case, the womb — where else does a prenate belong?) has an impact on their moral status, meanwhile dismissing place of origin and safe shelter.

4b) The complaint is then that female bodies are not merely "locations" or "shelters"; this is an oversimplistic extrapolation. The pregnant female body is an individual person & home to another person simultaneously. That is dynamic self-other transcendence, not objectification!

5) "the fetus is a parasite" is a thinly-veiled dehumanization strategy as outlined in stage 4 of The Ten Stages of Genocide. By equating prenatal humans to vermin & disease, such as parasitic infections, the normal revulsion against the "eradication" of human beings is overcome.

6a) the parasitic pregnancy framework is a fetal non-personhood argument pretending to be a bodily autonomy argument. On a gut level we know it's cruel injustice to deliberately harm a helpless child, so we must construe either "child", "helpless", or "harm" as false in abortion.

The parasitic frame does all 3. If the prenate is a parasite, then she is not a child, she is not helpess, & she can't be harmed. The argument is that something about being a fetus justifies her extermination; that autonomy takes precedence over dependence is just pretense.

6b) This logic often reduces down to "the fetus is a parasite so it's parasitic; the fetus is parasitic so it's a parasite", which is invalid circular reasoning AND founded in unsound premises. It's discrimination against an entire class of human beings for their age & ability.

Fetuses are not parasitic. Fetuses are not potential people. Fetuses are existing people. Preborn humans are powerless people. Elective abortion is abuse of power. Abortion is predatory. Abortion is a human rights violation. Abortion is mass genocide.

Abortion is literal murder.

Deconstruction of the bodily autonomy argument. Refutation of the right to refuse argument. Construction of fetal personhood.

[dykesynthezoid]

Do you notice the way men who think they’ve been “left behind” by feminism and the left deny their own agency while simultaneously denying the agency of others. Idk, maybe it’s real easy to make yourself out to be the victim when you’re actively keeping yourself in that cage. Nothing’s their fault, right, and by establishing themselves as someone who things happen to, who is somehow a purely receptive vessel for the rest of world’s suppose hatred, they also reject the idea of having any personal power over their own situation.

These are men complaining about feeling rejected and disempowered, while actively denying themselves the right to act like human beings whose actions have direct consequences on the world around them.

I think the major blind spot we’re looking at is a willingness to take responsibility.

Taking responsibility for one’s actions is, in reality, ego affirming. It reminds us that we have a fundamental power to affect the world and people around us. And thank god. No one wants to imagine what it would be like to leave no impression whatsoever— to be unable to alter our environment in any definable way. That is what a complete lack of agency would look like.

But in taking responsibility for the effects our actions can have on others, we tell ourselves a story where we do have agency. Where we do have power. And we can use it.

But men aren’t telling themselves that story. They actively deny themselves that agency. Which I guess isn’t a surprise considering so many men are used to denying themselves the right to act humanly. They constantly berate themselves, denying themselves the right to feel, the right to experience, the right to exist without self-judgement. And then they hold other men to that same standard.

We know these men don’t like themselves. If someone truly likes and trusts themselves, they will have no issue taking responsibility. This is because they know that they deserve the opportunity to grow and learn. They see the potential consequences of their actions and trust in their own resilience and sense of self enough to face them head-on. What does it say about your opinion of yourself if you cannot envision yourself weathering such consequences? How low must you see yourself to think that you could never rise to the occasion?

Men think the world hates them? Maybe that has more to do with how they treat themselves than they realize.

Of course these men only know how to blame others for their own supposed dejection. They’re literally the ones keeping themselves in a state of feeling disempowered. They are actively denying their own humanity. And if you’re denying your own humanity I’m sure it’s way too easy to deny everyone else’s too. The only reason to want to control everyone else, to want to take everyone else’s agency away, is if you can truly believe in your own disempowerment.

And also— when these men deny themselves agency, they’re denying themselves the right to connect authentically with the world around them. To be an active participant. I think deradicalizing these men isn’t just about them learning to care about something other than themselves; I think the care, specifically, denotes a feeling of connection, right. Shrimp guy liked taking care of his shrimp. He liked the active role it provided him to care for something. It made him someone who could act and respond in exchange with the world around him. Give and take. And from a grounded, stable sense of identity. “I am someone who takes care of this thing.”

Men can stop forcing themselves into a place of perceived powerlessness any time they want. They can leave the self-hatred victim cage at any time. There are even endless demonstrable benefits to them for doing so. So why are they still in there? Because it’s starting to seem like they just hate themselves enough to damn everyone else with them. They hate themselves and yet they get to decide that nobody else matters, either.

[power-chords]

Kafka's fiction often confronts its critics with a collapsed or collapsing center of authority, a dead or powerless father, who condemns those in his orbit to a circuitous ruin. No one or nothing is in control; no one has the power to authorize. And yet all the subjects still seem to be controlled and continue to work. This paradox of inertia and ceaseless activity, of masterlessness combined with continued servitude, is the central feature of one of Kafka's most interesting parables, "Eine kaiserliche Botschaft." Michel Foucault's description of certain texts as heterotopias is particularly relevant for Kafka's parable, because it names the possibility of a text or system composed of disconnected infrastructures, a text made up of asymmetric parts which can only work or operate provided there is a condition of disorganization or entropy, a mechanics of resistance, frustration, dysfunction. Kafka's texts, like the heterotopias Foucault describes, display this kind of perverse operating procedure whose economy is initiated by the collapse of the center, often represented as the death of the father, and having clear Oedipal aspects.

It is in the Oedipus complex that we might locate the mechanism of resistance (the "machine desirante," to appropriate Deleuze and Guattari's anti-Oedipal term) that at once accounts for the absent father and makes possible the work of his subordinates in the shadow of his absence. The Oedipal situation is responsible for at once an imposition of its regulatory apparatus over the father, its "symbolic" content in the Lacanian sense, which results in the slaying of the father, and a suffering of guilt and loss of control that such an absence of the father inaugurates. What we must realize is that such a complex or mechanism of desire does not serve so much to inhibit or limit Kafka's writing to a simple principle, a constellation or dynamic which in itself becomes a substitute for the center effaced within the text, but that such a complex is an entropaic principle of dispersion that curiously energizes a thematic or semantic field of fragmentary particles. [...]

[…] Freud's little Hans, the "Du" or dreamer of the parable is attempting to gain or imagine mastery over a parent, and in the Kafka parable this constitutes wishing mastery over a father by at once desiring him dead and alive. What carries the force of this ambivalent, Oedipal network of desire is the message which delicately affirms the simultaneity of two wishes that are contradictory and yet mutually supportive. The one wish, let us call it thefort-wish, would like the Emperor to die, because the dreamer of the parable (us) would like to be the father. The slaves would like to become the master. However, in order for that wish to be realized, the father or Emperor must never truly disappear, since he is the Law upon which even usurpers depend, without which there would be no such thing as usurpation. Thus there has to be a da-wish, the desire that the Law be upheld and exercised. This Oedipal network of desire is carried by the message in two distinct senses: as pardon and as invitation. As pardon, the message carries both the subject's "crime," the breaking of the Law or denial of the Father (fort-wish), and the fact that the Law is still in effect, that the Father is still exercising power, is still present (the da-wish). As invitation, the message requests that the subject come into the father's presence (da-wish) even if time and space preclude such a journey, such a possibility (fort-wish). There is, finally, the Emperor's asking the servant to repeat the message, the repetition compulsion, which establishes at once that the message has, indeed, left the deathbed (is fort!) and yet remains within the possession of its author or authorizer, the exerciser of the Law (is da!).

—Herman Rapaport, An Imperial Message: The Relays of Desire, MLN, Vol. 95, No. 5, Comparative Literature (Dec., 1980)

[cosmicjoke]

Is Yashiro’s sexuality innate or his another coping mechanism with trauma, as if the trauma was too early (before he knew what affection was) and too severe that his brain restructures itself to survive? If he had never been raped, would he be heterosexual?

That's kind of an impossible question to answer, I think.

Yashiro's trauma runs incredibly deep, and the abuse he suffered as a child undoubtedly warped his understanding of his own, sexual proclivities. I think there's no question that Yashiro's perception of himself as a masochist is a result of the abuse he endured, and doesn't actually reflect on his genuine sexual desires. I don't think Yashiro is a masochist at all, or a sadist, but he convinced himself he was both of those things as a means of coping with his trauma. If he could frame it in his mind that he caused the abuse in some way, and wanted the abuse, then he wouldn't have to face up to his victimization. If he could convince himself he chose to be abused, he wouldn't have to deal with how powerless he's been his entire life. That's why, when we first meet Yashiro, he's so promiscuous, why he sleeps around and seeks out men who will mistreat him, because in his mind, each time that happens, it reaffirms this self-image he's built up of himself as being the instigator of that abuse, and so then, he can believe he's not actually a victim.

But of course, Yashiro is a victim. He's always been a victim. First of his stepfather, and then, later, of the men who willingly took advantage of him and his mental illness. Yashiro's sexual encounters, even as he gave his verbal consent, have always been, at best, dubious, because a man suffering from the types of mental issues Yashiro is suffering from isn't really capable of consenting, imo.

I'm not even entirely convinced that Yashiro likes sex at all, from men or women. He doesn't like rough sex, despite convincing himself for years that he does, (I think one of the most powerful moments showing us this is the first time Inami rapes him, and Inami blithely comments to Doumeki about how Yashiro "passed out" when it got too rough, and how he isn't a true masochist), and while he responds to gentle sex, it simultaneously makes him feel physically ill, and that's all bound up, I think, in the fact that his stepfather, while sexually abusing him, would tell him he was really a woman. I think Yashiro is so repulsed by gentle treatment during sex because it reminds him of what his stepfather said, and in turn, reminds him of what his stepfather did. It brings the memories of that abuse to the forefront of Yashiro's mind, and it makes him sick when that happens. And I think Yashiro's deep fear in acknowledging that his body responds to gentle sex, and his inability to admit he wants and enjoys it, is because he thinks to do so would be to affirm his stepfathers words. Yashiro believes that women want gentle sex, and that its the proper way to treat women while having sex with them. Therefor, acknowledging his own body's response to gentle sex is, in a way, an acceptance of his stepfather's claims, that he's really a woman, and that in turn is an acknowledgment of the power his stepfather had, and continues to have, over him. It's an affirmation of Yashiro's own lack of agency and of his victimhood. A reminder of how he's never been allowed to choose or be anything for himself.

So the reason Yashiro throws himself into abusive sexual encounters with men, and the reason he convinced himself for so long that that was what he wanted, is because if he could believe that, then it would fly directly in the face of what his stepfather claimed, and prove his stepfather wrong. Yashiro could claim unequivocally to be a man because he liked to be treated roughly and cruelly by other men. It was a way for Yashiro to release himself from his stepfathers hold over him, and, again, a way to deny his victimhood.

What I think Yashiro really wants is to be treated kindly. I think he's turned on by kind treatment. But that doesn't necessarily involve actual sex, as in, sexual intercourse. He wants to be held and touched with soft and gentle hands. He wants to be kissed passionately. He wants to lay his head in Doumeki's lap and feel Doumeki run his hands through his hair. The sexual intercourse element of that still makes Yashiro feel unwell and induces a sense of panic in him. Maybe he can condition himself not to feel that way during sex. But maybe he can't. And if he can't, then the healthiest option for Yashiro would probably be not to have sex at all.

The question of Yashiro's sexuality in relation to his abuse maybe doesn't matter so much, then. Yashiro might very well be asexual. And maybe the abuse Yashiro suffered made him that way, and maybe it didn't. But I think, more than anything, Yashiro just wants somebody who's kind to him, somebody who treats him like an actual human being, and the only person who's ever treated him that way is Doumeki, and Doumeki just happens to be a man.

[amazingmsme]

It’s me the anon who wanted to put Hatchetfeild tkl headcanons here, this is what has been rotating my brain for longer than I wanna admit

Pokey hating all voices that aren’t his own kind of makes him hard for realistic tkl headcanons cause like, the entire point is laughter. But I’m insane which means I can make it work. Cause like in TGWDLM the infected still sound the same (just better singers) so I feel like he more dislikes voices he doesn’t have control over than just the sound of other voices. And yk what? Forcing someone to laugh isnt an awful way to gain control over their voice

What I’m saying is *points at him* ler!!! He’s a ler in my eyes. And a very ruthless one at that (all of the LIB are but that’s not the point)

Also I think we need to think abt mind control powers. Cause those can come in handy. Like idk if he’s capable of invading someone’s mind without replacing or warping the original consciousness but let’s pretend he is. He could easily use control over someone to prevent them from getting away while he’s trying to wreck them. Or better yet he could probably mess with their brain to make it feel like they’re experiencing physical touch when they aren’t. Realistically he’d use this to hug people he liked and inflict pain on people he didn’t but we aren’t here to be realistic so u know exactly what I’m implying he’d use it for.

The mind control potential honestly makes him very overpowered as a ler, he can get whatever spots he wants simultaneously and his lee is powerless to stop him. I can make it worse actually maybe having access to someone’s mind makes it easy for him to figure out what their worst spots are. In other words his lee is either in for a bad or a great time depending on how they feel abt it.

I also have some kinda related paulkotho thoughts so maybe I’ll drop those here sometime

Thanks four listening to whatever is consuming rn

Pokey is such a strong contender for the most powerful/scary lib, sorry wiggly you can’t change my mind. His power in tgwdlm is so strong & he’s just so intimidating & also such a smooth talker & I think that makes him the most ler coded, idk maybe Blinky’s a close second, but the other lords seem to have more switch tendencies. Idk, there’s just something about him that screams ruthless ler, & I couldn’t agree more with these!

Absolutely love your take on how he doesn’t really mind the sound of someone else’s voice as long as he’s “puppeteering” them or forcing the sound out in some way. HE is in control, always has been. & don’t even get me started on the mind control aspect, that trope fuckin’ gets me man! I think he would absolutely be able to find a person’s worst spot by prowling around in their thoughts

[starflungwaddledee]

(This ask got so long I had to split it into 4 parts, sorry about that!)I love your AUs so MUCH, oh my GOD!! Bandee realizing that the world is Wrong because no good, just world would let Kirby be so, so miserable... the heartbreak of him being powerless to stop Galacta poisoning Kirby's worldview, because to directly interfere is to doom them all... the way that he does everything in his power to support Kirby and tries to protect his heart (1/4)

haha... haha...! 😅 *nervously checks under my desk for secret cameras*

but in all seriousness, thank you so much for enjoying the work and reading it with such dedication and perception!! ngl i am genuinely curious who this is tbh!

all your kind words mean a lot, i'm so happy to know the emotion comes over well in my comics work!!

rest under the cut just due to length. just general excitement and responses to the content of the asks, some minor mentions of lying/psychological manipulation.

i'm also super thrilled that you see and understand the bandee-centric vision. seeing this written out so transparently by someone else as though it was straight from my own hand was a really fun experience!! he is a loyal and heroic little dude... he loves kirby so much! save an entire timeline for his best friend? he WILL do it, no matter what!!

it does drive bandee nuts and hurts him so bad not to be able to talk about any of this with kirby directly, but galacta knight is paying such extremely close attention to kirby at that point that if bandee tried any harder than he did during that café scene, it would definitely get back to him and the jig would be up.

and indeed, kirby is directly parroting stuff galacta knight has said, word for word. it's hard to tell but some of kirby's dialogue is even in a tweaked colour (vibrant galacta knight hot pink, rather than the warmer kirby pink) to help make that clear. it's like... not what kirby would ever say or even really think, which is what makes it so sinister.

galacta knight is, as you said, poisoning kirby's worldview; and with it, kirby's legacy itself. by the time star allies occurs and they are trying to combat the effects of the jamba hearts, the citizens of dream land are not pleased when the great hero kirby shows up to help them. they're terrified

simultaneously, as you correctly pointed out, he's also damaging kirby's view of bandee. not directly bad mouthing him or anything, because he figured out that didn't work early on, but galacta knight himself certainly thinks that bandee is weak and expendable, so it's easy for him to feed that fear in kirby. especially because kirby has lost so many other friends to 'dark matter' at this point

especially because bandee is indeed all kirby has left

you absolutely hit the nail on the head with regards to the end of that café scene. it was incredibly intentional phrasing on galacta knight's behalf. he didn't even bother telling that to bandee who is- at this point- the last waddle dee in dream land. just "they're invading."

it's not even necessarily untrue; they were coming to take the waddle dees! but galacta knight can absolutely rationalise many things to kirby, at this point, by saying it puts bandee in particular at risk. he can and does weaponise their friendship, especially in the later stages of the au

we cannot afford to delay when faced with threats, kirby, not everybody is strong like you. mercy could get someone killed. make sure you train so, so hard, kirby, to protect the people you care about. make sure you make him train hard, so he isn't viewed as the vulnerable target he is.

make sure you act decisively to keep him safe.

you can ask questions later.

and if something were to 'accidentally' happen to bandee... well that would probably just confirm everything galacta knight had been saying all along.

wouldn't it?

[thequeenskeep]

A Letter

To the Women Before Us

The only words I can think to begin with are “thank you”. Thank you for building a world in which we have a place- a place where we, as women, can stand on our own two feet and make shit happen, by women for women. That is an invaluable gift that is slowly being pulled from underneath us. Unfortunately, we suffer the same dilemma as you; so many women are blind to themselves. They are blind to the suffering enacted upon them. They are blind to the sufferings they cause. They are blind to their powerlessness.

Your dreams of the women of today are partial. Women work, go to school, vote, pay bills- fulfilling the basic responsibilities of an adult. Despite this, they have no drive for power, no desire for life, and simply float adrift. We are impotent at sea, still crying out for men to save us from ourselves. With the gift of privilege, came the curse of ignorance. The women of today, born with the luxury of self, pleasure, and dreams, are disillusioned. They are oblivious to the wars fought before and now. Even today, we are slowly being stripped of ourselves. Before our eyes it’s been proven that men still rule and women are relegated to and regarded as pets- little playthings with feelings and tears.

Women still beg men for control over their bodies, their choices, their freedoms. They shout “Women Empowerment” from the rooftops will simultaneously smashing their foot on the next woman’s neck for proximity to a man. We have lost ourselves. Were we ever truly found? The only phrasing I can leave you with is remorseful and naive. We have squandered the little you gave us in the same manner done to you. Our thoughtless neglect has placed us where you fought so desperately for us to transcend. The faith in a better tomorrow seems improbable, yet it was that very faith that uplifted us. Following in your footsteps, I will dream of leaving the women of today and guiding us to the women of tomorrow. No longer will I sit back and allow the weak-minded to prevail. I refuse to waste my life and your sacrifice. I will start with me so that I can truly see, your dream of a world, made by women for women.

With Love,

Your Women of Tomorrow

[murderessshiv]

jesus christ i‘m rewatching s1 in preparation and i really forgot how good the latter half of episodes are at making you get the roy kids on an emotional level:

roman in prague frantically walking around in a hell he both willingly entered and also was manipulated into desperately looking for some kind of confirmation that he‘s not crazy for thinking he was treated wrong. he’s not leaving the cage though. maybe if he works hard enough someone will tell him how great he is at being in the cage and simultaneously say that you’re such a good boy, we shouldn’t lock you in a cage! the purgatory of being unable to grasp even one of those things, much less come to terms with the duality of both being able to be true.

ken in which side are you on: just the final shot, alone out on the street, among the anonymous masses who will never know what it’s like to have unlimited power at your fingertips and slowly realizing that it was maybe always as far away from you as for any of them and so insulated from them by this knowledge, just starting to grasp how eternally powerless you are . unbelieving expression, it won’t sink in properly, like a wind-up clock with one function he will try to grasp for power again soon, because he will always be on the outside but never capable of feeling at home there.

connor in austerlitz: desperate for love and companionship, so far physically and emotionally removed from his family and the world, so delusional about so many things: trapping a young woman all alone in the desert with him (she’ll come to love him/ the acknowledgment that she is obviously unhappy and the complete willingness to ignore that as long as he gets what he wants from her), the dog story (of course they were gonna shoot him, he just didn’t wanna have to watch/ as long as it doesn’t touch him, if he doesn’t see, his hands are clean)

shiv in pre-nuptual/nobody is ever missing: you have to be under me because if you’re not under me i‘m under you, if love can be like 50 different little things i can diminish i don’t have to look the fact in the eye that its still love, what is even love its nothing its meaningless, all she does is for love, she’s in england for love, she almost cries every time she talks to her father for love, she’s marrying for love and she’s so constantly threatened by how vulnerable that makes her and her actions betray her to be that she raises her hackles at every corner. she’s cold, she’s mean, she’s blunt, and yet still everyone can see bleeding through everything she does that she’s weakly loving, or maybe just her father knows. where’s the difference.

[pulchrasilva]

I really like how cyclical the story of each Prime Defender's powers developing is

Vyncent's powers came from his headmates, who all had their own abilities (although it wasn't really him who was using them). But these were people ripped from where they belonged, slowly dying in this foreign world and foreign mind. So he decided to take them home, and lost his powers in the process. He gained a cool new sword, some powers in his own right. But then he comes across Jason in the underworld - someone who's already dead, already far from home, who is making the active choice to join Vyncent like this. The Greats were trapped in Vyncent's head, but Jason was set free in there. And now Vyncent has powers that are far from what he once had, but come from the same sort of place, as well as his own abilities thanks to the sword.

William was dead, he had ghost powers. But he was terrified of it, running from heroism and his duties as the whisperer (and also yknow. Being dead), and his need to change it made him lose those powers. He also had a while with a totally different set of powers, until his self-hatred drove him to forcibly remove the samurai guy (forgot his name :c) and leave himself totally powerless. Only once he embraced his role as the whisperer and the possibility that he could do it right, truly be a hero, did he gain his powers again (and yknow. Die again)

I really hope Dakota gets his super strength and speed back at some point, or something similar but that reflects a changed aspect of his character, just to complete the set.

Something about how we change all through life but especially as a teenager, learning and growing and changing our minds. But that doesn't always mean leaving behind who you once were, or what you once had. Sometimes it means returning to your younger self wiser, healthier, and happier. Something about how we are simultaneously one person, and a series of different people endlessly changing and returning

[themorguepoet]

I find it hypocritical when hindu boys say "jai shree ram" and follow tate- all in the same day. Bro wtf are you high on?

Like I don't even get this glorification of him among the Indian youth. His concepts of masculinity and femininity are half baked. Western concepts don't apply to us either. Are you lacking neurons or are you just intellectually lazy? "He tells us to go gym" yeah bro- no one was fit in India until Tate baba said so yeah? *haryanvis having hanuman ji as the fitness-eight pack-strength icon while absolutely killing in the wrestling area* *Kohli apparently couldn't inspire Indian men for fitness as good as Tate did* Lame loser justifications to follow a narcissist.

Indian concept of masculinity and femininity does not require a western lens no thank you. We have Gauri-Shankar, Lakshmi-Narayan, Sita-Ram etc that guide our societal roles here. Everything that Tate baba says is a sign of a "High value man" happens to have feminine symbolism in your culture you ignorant child. Knowledge, Wealth and Power. high value men things right? Sorry to break it to you. Here in India, Knowledge is Ma Saraswati, Wealth & Prosperity is Ma Lakshmi and Power is Literally Adi Shakti Ma Parvati.

Let me clarify more for you. First of all, there is no complete masculine man or feminine woman. Everyone has varying rates of masculinity and femininity within them. What do these terms even mean. Well in easy words, the way masculine traits could be described from indic lens cpuld be with the imagery of a mountain; strong, reliable, changes are slow almost unseen, protective (hailing to how himalayas protect us from the blizzards) while feminine imagery could be that of a river- always moving, unstoppable in its path, destructive rage but also equally nurturing, unpredictable, frequent change, adaptable etc.

These are some traits that can be associated with the terms. Now if your neurons haven't picked up yet, these traits aren't exclusive for a male or a female respectively. Men can have the qualities of adaptability, can be nurturing too. Women can be rigid, strong and reliable. These traits can be found in any gender. So for the "women ☕️" meme fans you also have feminine traits within you- to suppress emotions is actually a feminine trait much more than it is "masculine"- Shri Rama cried his heart out when he lost Ma Sita. Bhagwaan Shiva carried devi satis burnt body in his arms for many many eons, screaming in distress. Krishna adorned himself with vaijyanti flower garlands, peacock feathers while simultaneously holding sudarshan which is capable of destroying the three worlds at his command. I don't understand how Tate Baba's words appear enlightening to you when it is so contradictory to your culture which you claim to be the flag bearer of? Sit down. You know nothing Jon snow.

Without Shakti, even Shiva ji is powerless. However without bhagwaan Shiva- shakti still holds her powers but without any direction. Divine masculine becomes the channel for the divine Feminine. Without devi lakshmi, even Vaikuntha remains in gloom. The world is born, run and destroyed by the feminine traits.

The Masculine is the anchor, the Feminine is the power. Without Shiv ji, Ma Kali's rage would be unrestrained, directionless- he roots her but he neither commands nor controls her. Her capability is not reliant on anyone but herself- only the effects of her shakti can be and are supposed to be managed by her counterpart.

Shri Rama couldn't command Ma Sita into staying back at Ayodhya, he couldn't control her from going back to Prithvi Ma when she felt disrespected by her own subjects and made a decision for herself. He did not try to restrain her independent expressions. Meanwhile Ma Sita remained with Shri Ram throughout. In his exile he had no wealth, no power (army power is what I mean). But the lack of neither made him "low value man"- and Ma Sita did not care.

I am frustrated and tired. I will end it here because if you didn't get it this far- sorry buddy you are a little too far gone, I can only pray that Ma Saraswati knock some sense into you.

For the love of Krishna, do not enforce the idea of marriage being a contract? or a give and take idea? Like I bring the money you bring the pretty? Please don't get brainwashed by the western idea of what marriage is. Marriage in India is sacred. At the time of wedding the couple are no less than Lakshami-Narayan themselves as per the customs. So come out of this non sense. And go to gym. Our dieties, our lore heroes, our legends don't carry their abs and diamond-hard biceps with ten different weapons just for you to go and take fitness lessons from a rando on Internet.