#we never discussed if this was mainverse or modern

[mmriesoftvat]

@roleplay-abiogenesis2 / plotted starter

normally when sethos dreams, his dreams make no sense. he never remembers anything beyond a jumbled mess of memories, images, or even people he might've seen during the day. it's never been anything to actually dwell on, and he'd chalk tonight's dream up to the same concept, except for one glaring factor.

this time, he's very clearly in one location that isn't changing. even stranger still is the knowledge he's dreaming -- another rarity for him. it's not within him to try and force a wake-up though, sethos is confident he'll enjoy this for as long as it lasts, though there's no telling when lucid dreams actually end.

for now, he'll sit down in a randomly appearing patch of grass and enjoy the serenity. it's not a peace he typically finds in his waking life, and if a dream is going to offer it, who is he to say no to it?

"i could enjoy this forever," he murmurs aloud. he's not sure if he's speaking in his sleep or just in his mind. regardless, the words come out, and he's instinctively looking around to make sure no one else is around. "i could also use some company." he props himself up on his elbows, letting his head fall back, and eyes close.

if someone is to appear, he hopes it's soon. lucid dreams tends to get lonely.

[the-economics-of-death-blog]

On Autonomy - Part One

Talon’s greatest struggle is not with his own survival - no, that is something he has proven to excel in ever since he landed on the streets without a single memory of whoever he was beforehand. No, he struggles much more with autonomy - bodily and relational. 

This ended up being much longer than I intended, so I will only be discussing relational autonomy in this post. 

Autonomy can be quite simply defined as one’s ability to make decisions for oneself without others’ control. 

Relational autonomy - so named to acknowledge that one’s will is defined not only by oneself, but also society, history, race, class, and gender - will be discussed first. Of this broad term, three are most commonly discussed in feminist discourse: self-abnegation, adaptive preference formation, and the adoption of oppressive practices.These are commonly seen as being gendered issues, as they disproportionately apply to women, due to cultural factors (I will be using gender neutral pronouns in any generic examples, however, as I wrote Talon largely with feminist discourse in mind).  

Self-abnegation can be defined as the extreme deference to others. Examples of this include Virginia Woolf’s critique of Angel in the House, by Coventry Patmore, wherein she discusses a woman’s tendency to self-sacrifice for the comfort of her family members, whether it was sitting in a draught or eating the lesser-enjoyed parts of a meal. Quite simply, this deferential individual is one who does only what their partner wishes - wearing only what they prefer, doing only what they wish when they wish, and considering their wishes, their goals, their friendships as much more important then their own. They may well have their own goals, aspirations, ideals, and values, but they are consistently, and always will be, considered lesser than their partner’s. 

It is fairly easy to see this in Talon - he immediately refers to anyone he comes across politely, and when under duress, immediately attempts to appease. While one could argue this is simply a rational decision made to preserve his life, one must consider that it is habitual, and even defines his sense of self. He is simply lesser to others, and must accommodate them. There is little else to it. 

When discussing adaptive preference formation, Aesop’s fable of the fox and the grapes come to mind. In this story, the fox, wanting grapes, tries desperately to take a bunch, but upon realising that he cannot, decides instead that he does not like grapes. This, in a lot of ways, relates to Talon - if one were to replace the fox with Talon, and the grapes with a life free of being a simple tool for others, then he, like the fox, has decided that is not a life for him. As far as he is concerned, the objectification and abuse are simply a natural part of the life of someone of his status. 

Of course, we must now discuss objectification. While one most often thinks of sexual objectification in relation to this term, this is not necessarily the case. Martha Nussbaum argues that objectification occurs when one or more of the following are experienced:

1. Instrumentality (the treatment of an individual as a mere tool for one’s use)

2. Denial of autonomy (the treatment of an individual as if they were not autonomous or lacked self-determination)

3. Inertness (the treatment of an individual as if they lacked agency or activity)

4. Fungibility (the treatment of an individual as if interchangeable with objects)

5. Violability (the treatment of an individual as if violable and lacking in boundary integrity - as something that one may break or smash) 

6. Ownership (the treatment of an individual as something that one may own, buy, or sell)

7. Denial of subjectivity (the treatment of an individual as if there was no need for concern regarding their experiences and/or feelings)

Indeed, Talon has experienced each one of these at least once in his lifetime, and he has simply come to accept it - he can expect little else, being someone of little value to the nobles that so often seek his services. While this simple accepting of his circumstances was born from fear and the time he spent on the streets in his youth - still too weak, still too young and new to know how to protect himself from those much stronger than himself and all too willing to entertain themselves with a scared boy, it has become simply a truth of life. A part of reality. 

The adoption of practices of oppression is when an individual takes up or accepts practices which are used to systematically oppress them, typically while simultaneously acknowledging the oppression which occurs as a result of the practice, all the while seeing the positives in it, too. While not a practice per se, I would argue that Talon’s accepting of the Noxian maxim that the strong deserve to rule and the weak should only bend over as coming under this umbrella. 

If one puts this into a more modern context, it corresponds quite well to the common belief that ‘one may become whatever they wish given they work hard enough’, and variations of such. While the saying itself is seemingly harmless, it in fact perpetuates a culture of classism and of blaming those who are oppressed by social stratification.  The wealthy deserve their wealth and power, and the poor deserve their lot in life.

Talon adopts this ideal, however, with ease. It is simply a truth of Noxus, little else, as far as he is concerned. Indeed, he became strong, and in doing so, became one of the most feared assassins of the land. Yet he never had never quite considered why those in power - those who, more often than not, have inherited it - are in power. 

This is something he now struggles to understand. While he is capable of distaste regarding the nobles of Demacia, seeing them as weak and complacent yet sending others to die in their stead, he does not quite see this in his own life yet. 

To conclude: it is quite an easy argument to make that Talon struggles immensely with his own autonomy. Indeed, he has spent much of his life with it having been taken away from him, in one way or another, that even now, he struggles to truly embrace it. Looking forward, I would truly love to see him grow into someone who can become his own person. 

I wrote mainverse Talon with feminist and classist discourse in mind, and I hope that it is evident to my RP partners, whether in threads, or in long essays like this. 

Sources:

x x x x

[masteredshadows]

verse: rich asshole.

So, I do a fair amount of modern related things on this blog, but save for the tiny little blurb I have on my verse page, I’ve never actually gotten around to, like, making a proper verse page, so... Here we are, I suppose.

#long post warning. I’m not putting it under a read-more. fun fact, though: the ‘j’ and ‘k’ buttons let you quickly scroll to the top or bottom of a post.

     Every so often, news media picks up on the existence of a cyber criminal or hacker collective. Anonymous, LulzSec, the mysterious 4chan-- The public and journalists alike are addicted to these kinds of stories. Some think of these hackers as modern-day martyrs, revealing weaknesses in security for the good of all, while others vilify them, condemning them for preying upon everyday citizens.

     Of course, when two of the biggest social media sites were taken down within a week to instead temporarily redirect to a YouTube video, the media leapt on the opportunity, discussing the hacks for days and days, in lieu of any updates on long-lasting wars or otherwise more important crime. After all, why discuss protests and rebellions when there had been an entire two minutes that the western world couldn’t stare at photos of cats and upload poorly-taken selfies?

      When no established groups took credit for the hack, the media quickly decided upon a nickname for the attack’s perpetrator -- The Shadow. It was initially a tongue-in-cheek reference to law enforcement’s lack of clues as to the attacker’s identity, but with no better identifiers, the nickname (unfortunately) stuck.

      Unbeknownst to the media, though suspected by law enforcement, this wasn’t the hacker’s first attack. In fact, Zed quickly grew to regret it -- it was a dumb idea idly brought up by another after both had consumed far too much alcohol, and he woke up in the morning questioning the idiocy of his actions. He tended to stick to slightly less obvious things -- large scale credit card and tax fraud, account stealing, occasional reminders to people about why they should have strong passwords, and the like. Alas, the deed was done, and so Zed found himself quietly packing up and moving from London -- where he’d chosen to settle after breaking away from his adopted father in China -- to New York City.

     He still travels constantly, being a very easily bored individual, but has mostly found himself distracted by a certain criminal and crime syndicate. For the moment, however, he just wants to embrace his not-so-newfound freedom from his family’s never-ending constraints, and has found that taunting and controlling others is an immensely satisfying task, especially after being controlled himself for so, so long.

misc facts:

he’s a hacker. 

as far as parallels to mainverse, he’s still kinda in the ‘exile’ part of his life.

he’s japanese, but grew up in china. he lived in england for university years (and did attend university), and only left very recently. 

picks up accents relatively quickly. consequently, has a distinct mixture of a chinese and bbc-style english accent.

any time a large scale attack happens that isn’t attributed to someone else, the media tends to default it to being zed’s doing. he’s okay with that.

bro is in law enforcement. zed has certain qualms with this, and it is very much part off the reason he’s turned to crime.

his money comes from the credit card and tax fraud.

when he can’t get the information he wants out of someone online, he’s not above physical theft, and has, in fact, broken into people’s houses before if he wants something from them.

he has gotten dangerously close to being caught, but as of yet, has managed to avoid it.

zed comes from zedekiah, which was his english name. his actual name is a secret bc he’s pretentious like that.