#when i say that adults can mold their children's dynamic i mean it

[sadlynotthevoid]

So, about siblings relationships...

You can take this either as reference for writing if you're an only child or life advice if you have/are going to have children or, in case your experiences are similar to mine own, to nod with your head in agreement. Either way, a few things to know about siblings relationships I sometimes think about:

1. Someone can hate their siblings and still not want to hurt them.*

So you know how love and hate can coexist in romantic relationships and parent-child relationships? That applies to siblings too. They're people who had been in your life for ages, people who everyone and their teachers' grandmothers will tell you have to love and care about. They're also pelople who can be no compatible at all with yourself. They're people who most likely had hurt you many times and didn't stop even when you cried and yelled at them. They're people who were growing along with you, so they were inmature and so were you. Of course, in most cases both parts ended up hurting each other.

In some cases, you might feel like they don't care at all about you and in some cases you won't get to know if they do or not. Because as much fun as you can have with them, they can switch fast and tell you the worst things at the next moment. And so you doubt to be vulnerable with them. Some siblings have their own little things they do for each other or together and that may felt like a reassurance sometimes.

2. Parents (or whatever the guardian figure is) have a big part in molding their relationship.

Siblings relationships are one of those relationships where things don't depend on just them until they're grown adults. Because, you know, that's the age where people have normlly reached a certain level of maturity and can reflect on themselves and situations without a mediator, but also because the parent is out of the equation (as in, won't meddle to tell you what to do or, if they do, you don't have to hear them. Not that they're dead. Tho thy could be).

Parents are the ones who teach (or not) how to resolve conflicts and are very important for children's feelings. If everytime the children fight the parent, let's say, interrupts, doesn't let them explain their sides, and forces the easiest kid to apologize because is the fastest "solution", there's going to be a bad dynamic. The "easy kid" is going to grow to be easy to push and or resented, and the other one, the "difficult kid" or the "stubborn one" is, obviously, going to grow to believe they don't have to apologize (or have a hard time with it) or believe they're always in the right. That's going to be a huge problem in the future.

If the parent, let's say, interrupts the conflict, listens to both parts (even if they know what happened, children feel better when they feel listened and not discarded**) and searches for a solution while explaining what was wrong and what not, then tells them to apologize, the little fight is going to stay as a little fight. Water under the bridge. No unhealthy dynamic induced. Plus, they learn real conflict solution skills.

Of course, that doesn't guarantee that they will have a good relationship for the rest of their lives or that an external factor won't affect them negatively. But parents have a great power in laying the foundations of their children's relationships and dynamics. Being lazy about it or rushing it could mess them up badly.

Alternatively, kindergarten teachers and teachers of younger students*** also can influence the children's relationships and dynamics. If they're doing their job right, it's going to be positive. If not, it's going to add into the conflict.

3. A bad relationship doesn't necessarily have to come from a single big fight.

It can also come from little things that went summing up with time, from growing negative emotions and bottle up feelings, from insults never taken back and repeated offenses. It can be an emotional gap you let extend so the other wouldn't hurt you as much as they did. It can be a gap you didn't notice was there until years later, when you stopped and realized there's no closeness, you have no idea what the person in the other side is thinking or who they are.

It also can be the last straw and an outburst of anger and tears. The last time they told the other to fuck off before they started to let go of them.

It can be talking at them as if they were the siblings they're supposed to be but never telling them what you actually feel. Smile and wave and pretend you aren't just done with them.

*Mostly for fiction stuff, but also so you have an idea about other sibling dynamics: if there's people who hate their siblings and doesn't want to hurt them, but know they can't be vulnerable with them, people who actually like their siblings can not want to hurt them without it being "unrealistic siblings". I know because I hate my sisters most days than not and still not want to hurt them. I hate to hurt them so bad that I learned to control my anger outbursts by myself (tbh, I'm quite proud of that. I've been worked in that since I was a kid and finally succeded at my teenhood) so I wouldn't blink and have punched them no matter what they told me. But my brother is actually neat in a friendly Soos Ramirez way. He's my favorite, I'd hate to hurt him even more.

**Please let your child talk. Being told to shut up everytime something happens is awful and only teaches you that your opinion doesn't matters, no one cares, and gives you reasons to believe you can't count on your parents.

Explaining your side of the story (or just what happened, if there are no sides), the few times that happened to me (lol), feels like a knot on your chest untying by itself. The children can still be exalted when trying to explain, that's how children are, but they'll feel better after.

***I guess this could apply to teenagers, but teens are less prone to listen to their teachers. You'd have to be more creative. Like assigning literature that makes them reflect, which you should do anyways so ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯.

[drgnflyteabox]

red ochre [5]

series masterlist previous || part five -> kermes || part six -> madder

> summary: big nun, little nun > tags/warnings: guilt, religious / moral turmoil, stockholm syndrome, child abuse (past), scars, simon returns, corruption (past), misogyny (past), whipping (past), blood, suffering (past mostly), power imbalance, freeze response (past), guilt, dissociation, dom/sub dynamics, we're learning consent (kinda? eeh), violent imagery, dubcon/noncon, vaginal fingering, choking, throat grab

When Johnny asks how it felt to go from there – the convent, you think he means – to here, you can only describe it as dunking your hands into ice water. 

Shocking, painful, and prickling all over.

He only says hm, and moves on. His face is pensive. You don’t tell him that sometimes, you wake up and aren’t in the water anymore.

Even in prayer, you hadn’t thought as much as you had since you’d been taken. Hadn’t worried as much. Teachings from adults since youth had told you that everybody was inherently sinful, even children.

So why is the community around you so happy without God? They have their own, you know this, but the multitude of them and their roles in divine hierarchy aren’t necessarily about absolute power.

There are woman-Gods, Gods without designations, Gods for the earth and the children and unions between people. You find it hard to continue calling them heretics, devils, when they’re really just people. Different, yes, strange and incomprehensible, but people nonetheless.

Heathens, you try to think. Heathens, devils. They took you

You wonder when the last time you thought of yourself as just a person was, when you weren’t a thing set within a rigid mold, beaten down in more ways than one.

On the eve of Simon's return you catch Johnny doing something secretive. He's hunched over the table, the tip of his tongue stuck out of his mouth in concentration. The soft sound of scraping, of wood gently knocking is all you can hear over the fire.

“What's that?” you ask, when your curiosity gets the best of you.

Johnny turns, one eye squinted, the every picture of concentration. He holds up a carved figure – a woman, it looks like. Ah, it’s you. Though hard to tell, the woman wears a veil and sits on a chair, hunched.

Your veil. You’d nearly forgotten what it felt like. It used to be a weight, heavy and pressing, a shackle. Now you miss the safety of not feeling so exposed all the time.

Somewhere in the journey here it had been lost, or maybe thrown overboard. Your habit, too, replaced for the woolen Viking-style dresses bought and bartered for by Simon and Johnny. Even you have to admit you enjoy the colours more, even if the conformity of the convent felt safe.

“How long were you watching me?” you breathe, eyes wide and still staring.

“Not long, lamb,” he smiles disarmingly. “Ah just remember ye, sittin’ pretty.”

“Working on the tapestry,” you correct him, though it doesn’t really matter.

He looks back down to his little figure, pensive.

“Ah guess so,” he says jovially.

“It was my punishment,” you add. This probably matters even less, but the clash of worlds has thrown you off balance. You feel unbearably present, unbearably lucid.

I was a nun, you think. Am I still a nun?

“Punishment?” he frowns. “Ah thought they struck ye?”

“Sometimes. But sometimes I had to work extra hard.”

“Like a bairn?”

“A what?”

“A child, lamb,” he smiles again.

You look into the fire, thinking. Punishment applied to everyone, not just children, no? Even Simon and Johnny had punished you. But who had given them the right? Had you, with your secret want? Your secret lustful sin?

“You punished me,” you settle on.

“Aye, we did,” he nods. “Ye needed it.”

“Then why do you… ah, disparage the church for doing the same?”

He turns to you.

“Ah think ye got it all wrong,” he says simply. “We don’t give it to ye to make ye hurt. Aren’t ye better after? Righted?”

Righted. That’s a word worth its weight in gold. As is the truth of his words, but you stay quiet and look into the fire instead of responding.

You take up Johnny’s offer to spend time with Kari. Johnny walks you there, holds your hand in the cold and blows hot air on them as you wait together outside their door.

When Gaz opens it, he hoots and hollers as if the frigid air outside has no effect on him, as if his inner warmth and naturally excitable disposition is no match for the cold.

You have to admire that. At least a little.

“Hi there,” Gaz says to you, a greeting softer than the one he gave Johnny.

“Hello,” you try to subtly peek inside, “it’s… nice to see you.”

He doesn’t take offence to your awkward, stilted attempt at politeness. Maybe he knows you’re not quite comfortable here, to put it lightly, and only claps your shoulder gently to pull you in.

“Have fun!” Johnny shouts, already leaving, “and give me my wife back in one piece!”

That makes you sheepish, but you try to ignore your feelings in favour of moving towards Kari and the little baby, Tyra.

“Hello again,” she greets, smiling. The baby stares at you, babbles ceasing as if she’s seeing you for the first time. Her little head swings towards her mother, hiding despite her clear curiosity.

“You’ve met me before,” you say softly, trying valiantly not to frighten her as you take a seat opposite to Kari.

“She’s feeling shy lately,” Kari looks down and tuts, swiping a thumb over Tyra’s chubby cheek, “needs her mama.”

Weaving here is not much different than weaving at the convent. Once you get the basics down, you’re threading dyed wool into cloth astride Kari.

Some spirit of confidence grips you.

“Will you tell me anything about Simon and Johnny?”

“About-” she lifts her head, “Simon and Johnny? Don’t they speak to you?”

“They - do,” you rush to assure her, though your voice maintains a weary unsureness.

Luckily for you, she gives you a small but comforting smile over the wool.

“You’re looking for an outside opinion? That’s okay, lovely girl, I just might not know as much about them as my husband does,” she gestures with her chin towards Gaz, who walks towards you both.

“What d’you need to know?” he asks casually, sidling up to Kari affectionately, “think they’ll be able to answer better than me.”

“I only really know… what I’ve seen. I haven’t…” your mouth twists as you trail off, frustration germinating as you struggle. Right, you can commit sins of the flesh but you can’t ask a question to sate curiosity — one which might be the difference between surviving and not surviving.

Knowledge is important, after all. Powerful. You think of Eve, who doomed humanity for it, naked as the day she was born and as clueless as Adam yet ate the apple anyway.

“I know they’re… warriors,” you pause, “since they’re all scarred, but—“

“Well, not necessarily—” Kari starts, until Gaz puts a palm on her thigh and gives her a look you can’t discern. 

“That’s not something we should share,” Gaz says tightly, but kindly.

“How else..?” you frown.

Tyra stirs, and Kari gives Gaz another look.

“Simon’s father used to be chief,” she lifts the babe back into her lap, patting, cooing, “it’s not a nice story, but if you need it to understand them better then I don’t mind telling it.”

“I want to know about them,” you insist, trying to push past the sense of danger, the sense that you’ll be hurt or killed for toeing out of line.

Testing the elasticity of safety here perhaps isn’t wise, but testing it might be what you need to settle. Knowing where the boundaries are, what’s expected, where they come from… you wonder if you’ll doom everybody, like Eve.

“Believe it or don’t, but we’ve only just rekindled the hunts, the raids. How it should be,” she starts.

Gaz sighs, leaning back where he’s sitting. You assume his hesitance is out of loyalty for his comrades, but you choose tentatively to ignore him in favour of his wife.

“We had a lazy, drunken leader,” Kari continues, “Simon’s father inherited the title through lineage, not through prowess as is… more natural to us.”

You nod slowly, trying to imagine. In the church, such things were often gained with corruption: any wealthy lords’ son could rise high in the ranks, if he had the money and means.

The convent had somewhat of a similar issue, though the women were ‘married’ into the church and the power rested in the hands of their families. 

Such was the world.

Not always, but you’d heard of it often enough. One of the abbots of the monastery in the closest town had been the son of an affluent donator, and thus received power of authority over the other monks.

“To make a long story short, and more respectful to Simon—” Gaz looks at her then “—his father was needlessly cruel both to his own children, his wife, and to those he was responsible for.”

“So, those scars…?”

“Some are from fighting, of course. But usually, no one’s getting close enough to those two to land that kind of damage. I’m sure you can fill in the rest.”

Gaz butts in here,  “or, you can ask him yourself.”

“How did that woman, I forgot her name, come to be chief?” you frown in thought.

Gaz takes over again, his hand dragging up from the small of his wife's back and squeezing her nape. It’s as much of a warning as you’ve seen, though it’s quiet and Kari looks sheepish, not afraid, “Kate challenged him.”

“A challenge?” you frown, “such as?”

“A fight to the death.”

“Oh,” your lips close, and thin, and your eyebrows fly up. “I didn’t realize… I mean, violence is…”

They don’t do you the courtesy of filling in for you, so you go silent and the air settles.

Johnny picks you up later, when you’ve helped Kari with a big portion of her weaving. You love the threads, the dyeing process. It’s meditative.

“Good ?” Johnny nudges your side, slipping a hand to just above your waist, fingers tickling the side of your breast.

“Yes,” and it’s honest.

He walks you home, hand in hand, and cannot stop talking about Simon's return.

“Ah’ve never been without him this long,” he rambles over the fire, stirring a potato soup, “think yer gonnae be witness to something dirty. Sorry, lamb.”

Only he’s grinning, and he’s not sorry, and you can see the front of his pants begin to tent.

Johnny later offers you that very same sin, tilting his hips towards you and swinging his cock obscenely, cheekily. You do not take him up on it despite the smolder that begins between your legs – you simply turn, and try to sleep through the sounds of his self-abuse.

Simon returns without much fanfare, slipping into the house with a seemingly practiced silence. He moves like a ghost.

Johnny doesn't wake yet, sleeping like an affectionate log behind you.

His gaze meets yours, as impassive as always, framed in a halo of white winter light. He looks handsome this way, though it also has the effect of making his scars look deeper – crevasses on his face for shadows to lay in.

You watch as he strips his winter garments, slipping then beside you, evening out the weight on the bed.

“How did it go?” you whisper. If he's surprised that you spoke he doesn't show it, staring up at the ceiling, muscles decompressing. Sighing like a big dog.

In lieu of speaking, he lifts something into your focus. Oh, it's a tooth, sharp and white. A predator's tooth.

“The rest tomorrow,” he says quietly.

You can tell he's tired. His face looks weary. How far do they travel for these hunts? You assume quite far, as it’s enough to tire even a seasoned warrior.

So, rather than speaking, asking him from which creature he took this tooth, you tentatively reach your hand up to press your fingers against his thick scars.

Simon freezes, as do you. Then, as he relaxes, you trace the grooves on his face with your fingers tightly. Very lightly.

A delicate moment is born then. Johnny's deep, sleepy breathing behind you, Simon's acquiescence – it's a tranquil thing. As thin as lace, as sweet as a crisp apple.

After some time, when you've traced his face twice over and his eyes are half-lidded, you speak softly.

“Why me?”

“You're beautiful,” he says simply, sighing again, “we wanted to.”

It becomes harder, again, to hold the belief of them as devils. That they smelled the sin on you and picked you that way.

“Don't you think it's cruel?”

“No,” finally, he turns to you.

“It was,” you assert recklessly. Fear twists in your gut, poisonous.

“You were scared.”

“Yes.”

“Are you still scared?”

“I feel like you can see right through me. That scares me.”

“Not at first.”

“Then when?”

His hand finds the dip of your waist. Squeezes.

“On the boat, when you pushed up against me like a wet kitten. Even scared, you needed it.”

“You were cruel to me then, too.”

“I’m a cruel man.”

There's a stray thought that wiggles to life in the back of your head that suggests sympathy for him despite his statement. That you can begin seeing the path of his life and understand how he came to be.

You think of punishment again; about parents and children, husband's and wives, about Simon and his father. That wasn't punishment, if you're understanding it the way Kari implied.

A memory strikes you, unbidden and unwelcome. 

Salt blows in the air,  metallic and thick in your nose. Not sea salt, not the wind you love so much, but from blood spraying. 

The man brought his son to the convent, citing his bad behaviour as ungodly. Sister Margret was pleading with him, hands clasped in desperate prayer and voice high, reedy, as she begged him to just stop hitting him – please, just stop hitting him!

The boy cowered. Not a child, but a boy nonetheless. Young enough to make an impression, round-cheeked, on the cusp of manhood. Stained with blood.

He lifted the rope, again and again and again, even as Margret leapt for his arm and tried to stop him, pulling, shouting.

You were stock still, frozen, not even a tremble in your body. Your eyes had widened when he first struck the boy and you’d been stuck since.

Simon takes your hand, peels it away from your dress, pulling you bodily towards him and out of the memory.

With your cheek pressed close to his bare shoulder, you murmur, “did you take me to hurt me?”

“No,” he says, sounding for once like he isn’t hiding anything.

“Did you hit me to really hurt me?”

“No,” he repeats, then, “I hit you because you needed it, because you liked it.”

“I’ve seen…” you don’t continue.

“I know.”

“We’ve both been hurt,” your voice is a whisper.

“Mm,” Simon confirms.

You think of the boy. Of his father. Of his terrified, deer-like eyes, blood splattered on his back and on the ground and soaked into the rope – about how four townsmen had to pull his father away for fear of killing the boy.

How you felt when you hit yourself, when the abbess hit you, how different they were to when Simon took his palm to your ass.

Shame. That had been in the boy's eyes that day. He had hid his face in his arms, cowering not only from fear but from being seen.

You’d felt that same shame each time you’d been punished, intensifying, twisting together until you’d learned to turn the same pain inwards.

 “Are you afraid of being seen?” you murmur to Simon.

“No.”

You don’t have to say the silent part; that you’re the afraid one. That Simon correctly interpreting your need for a different kind of control, one that let you lose yourself, felt like you’d been flayed for all to see.

Simon moves his hand lower, cupping the soft curve of your behind, staring at you, testing the waters. You know that if you said no, he might anyways, but you stay quiet as his fingers lift the hem of your dress.

The fabric slides over your skin, a whisper in the air, tickling you. He rubs his rough, hairy knuckles against your thigh close to where it meets your leg.

He pauses there, breathing slowly, before he slides a finger up your slit and through the thatch of hair above it.

“If I made a request,” you murmured, “would you grant it?”

“Make it, and I’ll tell you.”

He slips a finger to rub your hole, just outside, teasing, while his thumb finds your clit.

“I don’t want you to take me until we’re man and wife… men and wife.”

Simon hums, rubs gently, makes your hips undulate.

“Do you think you’re in a place to be making requests like that, love?”

“I haven’t asked for anything else.”

He raises a brow, sliding his finger inside you to the knuckle when you’re wet enough.

“Haven’t you?”

Your breathing deepens, hands coming down to hold his thick wrist, pulling almost subconsciously. Even now, you can’t totally let go, leaning away from him and the pleasure.

But he understands, leaning over you, using his other hand to pin you to the mattress by your throat. It’s not the nicest hold, but the burning of your lungs heightens the pulsing in your cunt.

“Think you just made a few requests right now,” he grunts, using your leg to rub his hard, clothed cock.

There’s a stirring beside you. Johnny groans as he wakes up, then laughs sleepily.

“Ah woke up just in time,” his voice is rough with sleep.

Simon hums, mmm, in that deep rumble of his. He slips another finger inside you, crooking them, making you gasp raggedly. Your hands still clutch his wrist, weaker now, but it’s half resistance half comfort.

“Mm, good girl,” Johnny murmurs. He curls into your side, cock growing against your hip, wrapping a leg around you while his hand climbs beneath your pulled up dress and palms your tit.

God, you could die just like this: fighting for breath, touched all over, held down and made free. The hate you had for them feels irrelevant, the fear, the brutal way in which they stole you.

You can’t even think about if Simon will disregard your request – your last frontier against them, the treasure between your legs for a husband only.

Simon’s knuckle deep in it, but still, you can’t let go of that final tether. Not yet, not without any other internal pillars to hold you up.

Everything else has been wiped away. Drawings in the sand on a beach swept by foamy white waves.

Johnny leans in and bites your shoulder, gnawing, hips moving against you. You can’t arch like you want to, but you try.

Wet, sinful sounds grow as you gush around Simon’s fingers, as they use you to get off.

When you peak, white spots dance in your vision, mouth open in a silent scream choked away by Simon's heavy palm.

It’s like flying.

In the afternoon, when you’ve all slept, Simon leaves to speak with John and you prepare lunch with Johnny.

More fish, more potatoes. It’s growing on you.

When Simon returns, he has in his arms a rolled up fur. Though unprocessed and still wet underneath, it’s beautiful, pale, spotted.

He takes a heavy seat in front of you, laying the skin over his knees, taking your hand in his and bringing it to the fur.

Soft. Dense. Your fingers move through the pelt.

“For you,” Simon says.

You look up at him, heart dancing.

His gifts. The apple, the orgasms, this– you don’t know what to make of it. Yes, it’s a kindness, but he’s a cruel man. He’d said so himself, and you’d felt the brunt of it.

Leaning into that cruelty has given you a strange power, a strange solidity. You’d so begun to familiarize yourself with his harshness that you’d forgotten this complexity.

You pinch the fur, feeling it between your fingers, breathing slowly. Your neck ached, but it wasn’t a bad ache; it felt like a phantom hand.

“For me?”

Johnny slides three bowls on the table, grinning.

“Yer first wedding gift,” he says jovially.

 “Oh, I see,” you murmur, but it isn’t a disappointed oh.

Simon leaves later again, full of soup, to process the rest of the hunt’s boon with John. He takes the pelt with him, a snowcat pelt you’ve learned.

Yet, he’d returned with not much more than scratches on him from travel. Tired, yes, but a few hours of sleep and splattering his spend on your belly had fixed that earlier.

You’d bathed, since, though the feeling was hard to shake.

Johnny putters about again, returning to his carving of the little mini you. A peek into the past, one you no longer embodied.

“Can I see when you’re done?” you ask, slipping your favourite wool dress on. The red, well worn one. Soft, comforting. 

“Course,” he mumbles, concentrating. Then, his head shoots up.

“Ye want one o’ Simon ‘n’ I, lamb? Carry us around?” Only it sounds like aroond.

You nod, walking on socked feet to where he’s carving.

“Yes.”

[ejaydoeshisbest]

When Pakikisama Turns Toxic: Bullying and Conformity in Filipino Families

Introduction: What is "Pakikisama"?

Pakikisama is a Filipino value about getting along with others and keeping peace, especially in families and social groups. While it can promote unity, it can also become harmful when it pressures people to hide their true selves in order to fit in. This pressure to conform can lead to feelings of loneliness, stress, and frustration, especially when one is constantly expected to meet others' expectations.

Personal Experience: Cousins, Bullying, and Isolation

Growing up, I was often at odds with the expectations set by my louder, more rambunctious cousins and extended family. As an introvert who valued quiet moments over chaotic gatherings, I found myself singled out. The living room would fill with noise: laughter like peals of lightning, like the roar of wind. My aunts thrilled and cackled. My uncles howled and growled. I would wince, wishing I could block out the noise with cotton. I would lock myself in my room, and unknowingly, this sealed my fate. My preference for solitude and personal hobbies led to being labeled “may sariling mundo” (living in my own world) and “killjoy.”

This nonconformity sparked bullying and isolation, driven by the pakikisama culture, which pressured me to fit into their mold. My parents, echoing the pressure of pakikisama, once threatened to take away my toys and gaming consoles if I didn’t engage with my cousins. This guilt-tripping reinforced the toxic idea that I needed to mirror others to belong. Worse, it made me feel that I was the problem. Not being able to jive with them made me feel there was constantly something defective in me.

As an adult, the effects of those experiences linger. I no longer speak to those cousins, a reflection of how toxic pakikisama can damage relationships over time and stifle individuality. The pressure to conform left lasting scars, highlighting the impact of this cultural norm on personal identity and family connections. The saying “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” came to mind.

The Pressure of Conformity in Filipino Families

In many Filipino families, there’s strong pressure to fit in and act alike, making it difficult for individuals to show their true selves. Pakikisama, when taken to extremes, means following strict, often unspoken rules about behavior, appearance, and speech, leaving little room for individuality. 

For me, this pressure came with constant insults aimed at my perceived softness and flamboyance. My cousins would tease me, hinting that I was gay, and made me feel as though my very existence was wrong. Of course, they were right. Everyone knew it. But I was supposed to be a good Catholic boy and homosexuality was a sin, right? I felt so ashamed whenever they teased me, especially after months of training and convincing myself that I was straight. And to make it stop, I was expected to laugh along, pretending the remarks didn’t cut deep.

The argument was that this would “toughen me up,” but inside, I learned to hide my resentment. If anything, I developed a skill to mask my grudges. This was a tool that proved useful to this day, in dealing with group dynamics and the corporate world. However, this wasn’t pakikisama; it was forced tolerance. The pressure to conform often pushes people to participate in harmful behaviors, such as gossiping or bullying, just to avoid being singled out or alienated.

Bullying Within the Family: The Role of Cousins

I thought family was meant to be a place of safety, somewhere to find comfort when school bullies made life hard. But when my family gathered, the bullying didn’t stop—it was just an extension of what I faced at school. I became the easy target, the “other,” simply for not fitting in. My mother, who always sided with her sisters and their children, would let them continue, even giving me disapproving looks when I voiced my complaints. In her eyes, maybe I needed this treatment; after all, she grew up in the same environment and believed it would help me fit in. I pitied her. At home, she was gentle and caring, but in front of her family, she shifted to meet their expectations.

Cousins often lead the charge to enforce group behavior, masking their actions as “teasing” or “joking,” as if it were an initiation ritual. What starts off light can quickly spiral into bullying. When I tried to defend myself or showed that it hurt, I was branded “too sensitive” or “weak.” This kind of response makes people think that showing emotion or standing apart from the group is wrong, resulting in deeper isolation and frustration.

Emotional Impact: Feeling Isolated and "Othered"

Being labeled an outcast or "may sariling mundo" carries a deep emotional burden. As a child becoming a teenager, it meant that my individuality was not welcome. It felt like my thoughts and words were worthless unless they aligned with the group. To be taken seriously and have a voice that mattered, I felt the need to prove myself to them.

Conforming to pakikisama stops people from being true to themselves and makes them feel disconnected from their families. This mindset pushes individuals into isolation, damaging relationships and making them believe their uniqueness is something to hide. The more I tried to step back from the group, the more I felt out of place, intensifying the emotional struggle.

Why It's Toxic: Pakikisama as a Tool for Control

At its core, pakikisama can turn toxic when it becomes a tool for control. Instead of fostering true harmony where everyone feels valued and included, it suppresses individuality and pressures people to act according to the main group's standards. It’s disheartening to see this dynamic play out, where individuals are reduced to mere reflections of one another.

This negative side of pakikisama turns family life into a source of stress and caused me to feel resentment, especially impacting my relationship with my mother. When everyone is forced to conform just for the sake of fitting in—repeating the same phrases and laughing along even when it isn’t genuine—real connections are lost, making it much harder to build relationships founded on mutual respect.

Breaking the Cycle: How to Move Forward

In college, I reached a breaking point. I realized I didn’t need anyone’s approval to know my worth. What had pakikisama ever done for them? While they stayed stuck in old patterns, I was in university, exploring my talents, and doing something meaningful with my life. I surrounded myself with high-quality people who weren’t just there for shallow banter or forced laughter at parties.

Breaking free from toxic pakikisama means setting boundaries with family and promoting open, honest communication. I stopped attending family gatherings and, in doing so, found peace and happiness. Now, I spend my time with friends who value self-expression and respect each other’s uniqueness, without the pressure to conform.

Family relationships improve when individuals feel safe to be themselves, without fear of judgment or exclusion. But for me, they’re like sheep blindly following the same path, and I refuse to be part of that. I will not force those I care about to like the same things I do.

Conclusion: Healing and Redefining Relationships

Healing from toxic pakikisama requires recognizing how it has impacted our identity and relationships. The key to healing is breaking free from the pressure to conform and instead focusing on creating real, honest connections. When we value and respect each individual’s uniqueness, it leads to stronger, healthier relationships. 

By moving past the toxic dynamics of conformity, families can build bonds based on love, acceptance, and mutual respect—where everyone feels valued and free to express their true selves. Healing comes from embracing authenticity and understanding that true connection is found in embracing our differences.

Words: Ejay Diwas

[ghostlycoze]

Oh I couldn't help joining in because so many of these ideas/questions align with my hcs and my Revolution AU in a nutshell

ignore the total ramble below lmao

I imagine they crave all the "sins" the ancients did. They were designed to, cruelly, be so much like the ancients so that they would understand the weight of their task, why the ancients need a new solution. In an attempt to create sympathetic beings, they created beings who could never have their desires met. Violence/Wrath, Lust, Companionship, Gluttony, and Survival.

They can get angry and wrathful and want revenge, have violent temptations, have lustful desires, crave touch, and love, and companionship and family, gluttony— I suppose would apply less how it does to us, maybe more in a form of greed, wanting more than they need of something —and survival, the one I imagine they'd struggle with the most.

When they're first brought to life I imagine theyre a strange sort of combination of a young teen/adult's level of comprehension, yet the maturity and knowledge of the world of someone much much younger. They have that childlike wonder of being brought into a new and unfamiliar world, and they're slowly granted knowledge through whatever manner the ancients taught them—maybe their code, dripping their purpose into them until they're capable enough to pursue it. A mix of naive enough to mold, and aware enough to be overwhelmed by such an experience. I imagine Moon and the other local seniors tend to take on a Big Sis/Bro/Sib role as they help to nurture newer iterators, though that doesn't imply they always have a familial dynamic, especially as the new iterators aren't actually children.

However I imagine many of them saw their creators as parents. I swear Moon says something like that in-game, something like "Imagine having skin parasites that ask for advice and have opinions... I'm sorry, that was disrespectful. They were our parents after all."

So many of them probably did grieve when the ancients were gone, while many reject the idea of them being parents to not have to deal with that emotional toll. But that doesn't mean they don't still crave connection, no matter how much they claim they don't.

I've written a scene long ago of Moon and Pebbles in an off-the-string AU, coming in contact with an echo and letting those emotions out in a cathartic and painful bonding moment. Pebbles, who's never called them his parents, asks them You're supposed to be our parents, so why did you abandon us?

Moon, who's always called them their parents, responds. They're not, because parents don't abandon their children.

Hence why they find such solace in one another, the only family they could have. They'd butted heads until then about their views on the ancients, but come to understand each other's true feelings in that moment. Pebbles didn't want to believe he saw them as family, and Moon didn't want to believe she resents and hates them as much as she does.

The Revolution AU is all about what happens when iterators find love and connection, thus committing karmic sins, and fail to hide it. The ancients do not allow this, you are supposed to free us from our karmic sins and lead us to ascension, not indulge in them yourself!

And so the revolution begins, turning against their creators as they realise how cruel it is to be created with needs and then doomed to never ever have them fulfilled.

Though my favourite to explore is the concept of survival (especially in an off-the-string au). These beings who were taught from the second they were created that life is torture and the only solution is permanent death, ascension, suddenly experience a life that isn't torture. Freedom, wonder, joy, connection. Maybe some would never escape that mindset though—they travel to the void sea and throw themselves in. But some go through the agonizing experience of unlearning everything they had ever known, and come to learn they want to survive. They want to finally live, truly live, a life they believed they could never have.

ok I gotta stop rambling lol, but I love seeing others question the same stuff!! >:D

It's kind of tragic, in a sense, that iterators were made with so much of their creators logic and desires and yet they were left with none of the resources to satisfy such things.

Do you think they crave touch? Family? Do you think they have to have any hope of connection stomped out of them lest they rebel against what they were made for?

Were they ever afraid to feel, or to be outside of what they were supposed to be? If they ever dared to desire, would they have to hide it?

Do you think they saw their creators sometimes as family, and did the abuse hurt just that much more because of it?

Were they like children, when they were born? Did they process the world through the lens of uncertainty and naivete and was that taken advantage of to mold them into the desired product?

Or were they conscious and self aware in full, was is overwhelming, being alive for the first time?

Or were did they process things entirely as machines, did they only learn to be people after seeing it happen around them, and then did they ever regret becoming more alive than they ever needed to be? That they ever became enough to feel hurt and to hurt others?

If they were just machines at birth, with only the capability of consciousness, were the desired traits injected into them with thoughts and ideas and interactions in their formative early years and was anything else just a byproduct of trying to build a person from scratch? Did their creators even want them to feel, to be conscious and alive, or was that just a necessity to create the desired machine?

Did they even care that their creations were alive?

Did any of them grieve, when they left the children of their labor behind? Were they grieved for in turn when they were gone? Do their echoes ever try to reach out, to let them know they aren't alone, to find comfort in connection that before was so condemned?

If they tried hard enough, could they reach?

Could they find each other?

Would it be comforting to iterators that the remnants of their creators could find them, or would it bring more feelings of rage, of sorrow, of painful memories and grief and hurt from the years they were used and the years more they were abandoned?

Did they ever truly mean anything to each other?

[nataliaphantomhivesblog]

In the end of it all, Monaca Towa was still a child.

To start this off, this isn't my usual Black Butler posts but ive been meaning to talk about Danganronpa for a hot minute, so please bear with me! Second, this is solely my opinion and before anyone wants to attack me please read thoroughly first. Thank you:)

(Spoiler warning for Danganronpa: Ultra Despair Girls and Danganronpa 3)

Also, before we dive in I'm going to list some trigger warnings:

Physcological abuse

Physical abuse

Manipulation

P*dophillia

Suicide attempt

Violence (?)

Childhood trauma

Please take care and read at your own risk<3

Hello there Danganronpa fandom! Today I will be talking about Monaca Towa (as stated in the title) and how people often minimize her trauma and sometimes forget the fact that shes still a child who got heavily manipulated by Junko too.

Monaca is seemingly very amiable and caring, because of her charming personality, all of the Warriors of Hope love her and try their best to keep her happy and go along with what she wants. However, it's slowly revealed that she is actually manipulative and cunning behind her friendly facade.

Monoca is a character that is cruel, manipulative, and extremly unhinged. Many of her actions cannot be excused or justified, but you can understand where she's coming from.

Monaca's Backstory:

She was born an unwanted child by both her father and her mother. Monaca's mother was supposed to take care of her but instead abandoned the child soon after her birth. Because of all her actions, Monaca saw her mother as a completely selfish and pathetic person. Monaca's father thought of giving her to an orphanage but instead took her into his family.

However, Monaca was always unwanted and everyone else felt uncomfortable around her. Every time Monaca smiled or joked, the others looked at her coldly, as if she didn't deserve to laugh. Every time she spoke, the others turned silent. His older-half brother thought of her as an alien, not part of the family.

She was also physically abused to the point that she pretended to be seriously wounded for them to stop as a result.

Monaca also attended Hope's Peak Elementary School and was part of the "trouble-makers class" along with Nagisa, Masaru, Jataro, and Kotoko.

Along with her fellow abused classmates, she planned a group suicide; however, Monaca never had any plans to commit suicide in the first place and was planning to let the others die as a prank.

The group suicide was stopped by Junko, who took the kids in and manipulated them by treating them with kindness and love.

Monaca then helped Junko mass produce Monokumas for the Tragedy by using her position as a representative of the Towa Group.

She lied to her father and the other adults in order to produce the Monokumas, telling them that she wanted to create futuristic robots that could be domestic helpers and emergency aid workers.

Due to her separation from the family and her genius, her family decided to give her leg room to do what she wanted as long as she brought in profits to the company, and didn't delve too deeply into her plans.

Things to keep in mind about Monoca's backstory:

She was emotionally and physically abused from a very young age.

She started to pretend to be paraplegic because she was finally treated with some kindness and she could have more control over people.

She convinced Nagisa, Jataro, Kotoko and Masaru to commit suicide.

Out of all the Warriros of Hope, Junko took the most intrest in Monoca due to her position, meaning that she was the one who got used and manipulated the most.

How Monoca's mindset works:

The moment she got physically abused to the point that she had to fake her injuries to make her family feel bad was the moment she learned that through sympathy from others comes power. Due to her families neglection and abuse, she started to quickly pick up on things in which benefited her yet hurt others.

She started to use manipulative tactics on her family to gain control over them. She then started implicating these tactics with the Warriors of Hope.

When Junko got into the picture, everything changed for the worst. Junko was the only person in Monaca's life who showed her affection. Even though deep down Monaca knew Junko only cared for her as a means to use her robotics genius for the Tragedy, Monaca didn't care, and happily helped out Junko with her plans if it meant being loved and appreciated in return. At the heart of it, despite all her horrific acts, that's a very child-like thing to do, right? So when Junko dies, Monaca's entire reason for living basically disappears.

AI Junko via Kurokuma may have planted the idea of a successor in her head, but in Monaca's mind it's a way to get her big sis back, and very specifically chooses to mold Komaru into becoming Junko's successor. That's for a big reason, Monaca doesn't want to become Junko, I'd say she actually just wanted her big sister back who would love and appreciate her again, and hence tried to make someone else take on that role initially. Once again, that's the mindset of a child.

Monaca's relationship with the Warriors of Hope:

The Warriors of Hope are a group of children who are extremely resentful and hateful of adults, regardless of whether or not they were involved in their rough paths. 

We all know that the Warriros of Hope are extememly tramutized kids. Masaru had alcoholic parents who physically abused him, Jataro was physcologically abused to the point he bealived he was so ugly that if anyone saw his "repulsive" face they would die, Kotoko was r*ped multiple times by disgusting p*dophilic men (not to mention, Monaca's brother was attracted to her), and last but not least we have Nagisa who had pressuring parents who wanted to raise him as the child prodigy and expirimented on him constantly.

Monaca used the Warriros of Hope's trauma against them, manipulating them to the point were they had to do her bidding completly.

As much as I hate to say it, Monaca truly saw them as pawns. Although there are some instances where she openly declares her care for the Warriors of Hope, it's likely she does that as a form of emotional manipulation.

If anything, she probably did see them as equal in the beginning but then when she started to gain control over her own family, she started to do the same with the Warriors of Hope as a way to protect herself from getting hurt, then again this is my baseless assumption.

Her dynamic with Nagito:

Monaca was amused by Nagito's strange behavior and contradicting beliefs and appeared to be somewhat annoyed with him at the times. However, the two appeared to at least seemingly respect each other in some way, as they treated each other somewhat formally as allies.

Her dynamic with Nagito is one of the most intresting ones. Obviously I think that her being rasied by Nagito was potentially a dangerous thing, considering Nagito's goal was for Monaca to become Enoshima's successor. Monaca seemed to agree with this goal, but Nagito's constant rambling about hope and despair made Monaca bored and feel embarrassed about the whole thing.

She claims he made her an adult in a way, as she grew up in the mental sense and became more cynical and apathetic, not really caring about anything.

In the end, Monaca found Nagito creepy and annoying, but she also appeared to get closer to him during their time together, while originally calling him just "Mister Servant" in UDG, she later refers to him as "Big Bro" in Danganronpa 3. I do think their dynamic was sort of soft and I would've loved to have seen more of it. Honestly the concept of Nagito being a soft brother to Monaca warms my heart, and the wasted potential will forever anger me.

(If any Danganronpa fanfic writer or any writer in general is reading this post: if u could be so kind and do a PLATONIC Nagito and Monaca prompt and tag me in it, I would love you forever!!)

My opinion on Monaca:

I think that Monaca was a very well-written character who deserved more than what she got in the end of Danganronpa 3. She was abused, mistreated and belittled by her family. If anything, I see her as a completely misguided little girl. If she actually had a positive authoritative influence in her life, she wouldn't have turned astray.

A lot of people disregard Monaca's trauma and forget that at the end of the day, Monaca was a child who the moment she was born, the people who were supposed to love her were unwelcoming.

Don't get me wrong though, there is no way in hell I will ever justify or condone the things Monaca has done. If anything, I just think that she alongside the rest of the Warriors of Hope should've been properly taken care of.

Also, if you dislike/hate Monaca thats 100% valid! She did a lot of inexcusable things and its alright to hate on her. I personally love her character but I know she is not everyones cup of tea.

If you read all the way, I'm actually surprised! Thank you and I hope you enjoyed<333

[comicreliefmorlock]

#WomenInHorror - Relic - Oh, the Thoughts

I bet you thought @tlbodine would get to this first, huh? HAH!

So as part of our ongoing quest to inflict doctorate-level studies of horror film on ourselves for... the sake of doing it, Wuffie and I have been watching a lot of horror movies. Having finished our #HorrorThruTheDecades quest, we moved on to #WomenInHorror, focusing on horror films directed by women.

She's written quite a bit about the movies we've been watching. However, this last week, we watched a film that inspired me into a long-winded post-mortem after we finished it.

Relic is a 2020 Australian horror film directed by Natalie Erika James, focusing on a three-generation family struggle between a grandmother, a mother and a daughter.

Edna, the grandmother, has been missing for several days when her daughter Kay and granddaughter Sam arrive to check on her. We get a little from Kay hinting that her relationship with her mother has been strained, and alternatively, defense of Edna by her granddaughter Sam who has a completely different relationship with her. (As tends to happen with grandparents and grandchildren.) Clues are laid out to hint that Edna may be succumbing to Alzheimer's and quite honestly, the movie does a very good job in showing how absolutely difficult it is to deal with that. Especially in the family situation involving the shift in power dynamic that happens when a parental figure suddenly needs a lot of careful, supportive care.

And Robyn Nevin as Edna? Fantastic. Sympathetic and terrifying all at once.

I won't spoil the film's ending here--you've got to go below the cut for that--but it's at once poignant and plays fair emotionally with the film's overall tone.

Now, for what I went off at great length at Wuffie about... [#triggerwarning for child abuse discussion]

Relic is pretty clearly intended to be a film about grief, aging, the inevitability of death and how part of dealing with health issues in older generations involves facing that you yourself one day may be in that exact situation.

What it also does really, really well--albeit unintentionally but strongly enough that it hit me across the face with a shoe--is create a solid metaphor for intergenerational child abuse.

Fairly early on in the film, the granddaughter Sam discovers a black mold staining a wall inside of a cluttered closet. This black mold becomes a consistent visual element that shows in nightmares, in the house and on Edna herself, staining her skin like a bruise. This mold, through the nightmares, is visually tied to a now-demolished smaller house that'd once stood on the family grounds and was the home of a "great-grandfather" mentioned once directly and alluded to in several nightmare sequences.

This mold grows on stained glass windows that were transplanted from the former house, spreads across the interior of the house itself and spreads across Edna's skin.

Several visual cues tie the black mold to the "great-grandfather" who, in one nightmare sequence, is shown sitting on the edge of a narrow bed before collapsing forward, out of sight. When the camera pans over, a human figure is etched in black mold on the floor.

At the end of the film, after Edna's transformation--you really ought to watch the movie to know what I mean--and the joining of three generations of women in silence together, Sam spies a black spot on her mother Kay's back, hinting at that same mold that destroyed Edna.

Incestuous child abuse is insidious and yet, from the memoirs I've read, always seems to be something the family "knows about" and simply doesn't discuss. A grandparent, a cousin, an aunt or uncle is abusing the family children--sometimes singling out one child, sometimes abusing every child--and the family is aware of this, but no actual steps are taken to bring the abuser to justice.

The cycle of abuse is fairly commonly known, but the long-term effects of child sexual abuse aren't always as easily identified by the public. Alcohol and drug abuse are extremely common amongst child sexual abuse survivors, as well as an inability to develop healthy, trusting relationships with other adults. Difficulties in parenting can also arise as the person who suffered abuse may fear the same thing happening to their child or be struggling emotionally and not able to show their child the affection they need.

Much like the insidious spread of black mold in out-of-sight places, causing illnesses that can't be immediately identified and threatening the structural integrity of a house, incestuous child abuse absolutely threatens and even destroys lives. It's hard to spot at a glance, hides in plain sight--in closets, cupboards, under stairs, behind furniture--and causes illnesses that can be attributed to more "acceptable" causes.

With the clear visual tie to the once-mentioned "great-grandfather" that isn't mentioned between the family members again, it's not hard to go a bit further and consider him the unmentioned, unnamed family abuser. His actions tainted the house he lived in, the remnants brought from it--Edna says later in the film how much she hates the stained glass windows, how cold and scared she feels when she passes them--and spread not only through the house but through the family itself.

And this mold--and the effects of intergenerational incestuous abuse--hits all three women in this family differently.

Edna, theoretically the member of the family who suffered direct abuse, is physically tainted by the black mold to the point it literally degenerates her body. Aspects of her behavior--disliking having "help" or needing to ask for it, offering a token to her granddaughter one day, demanding it back the next, trying to save photo albums from 'the house' by burying them--seemed strikingly like a woman whose coping mechanisms are now failing her.

She mentions believing someone is breaking into her house, stating it only began after the death of her husband. Alone in a massive house with visual, physical ties to the location of her abuse, feeling vulnerable and struggling to push away memories, Edna's actions feel like a cry for help that she can't verbalize because to do so would be to admit not only the vulnerability she feels now, but the fact that it's equivalent to how vulnerable she was as a child, being abused.

Fairly early on in Relic, Kay makes it clear that she and her mother are not particularly close. She makes attempts to stay in contact, but isn't invested in her mother's day to day life and has actually distanced herself to a degree. Her daughter Sam has a closer and more openly affectionate relationship with Edna. Kay mentions her mother threatening to lock her in the old house "when she was a brat" and seems to want a comfortable distance between herself and her mother.

A parent who has endured abuse as a child can have profound difficulty in bonding with their own children. Healthy sexual intercourse and adult relationships are tainted by child abuse experiences, and some memoires have mentioned being pregnant making them feel "dirty" as if they'd committed some great sin. Bonding with an infant while struggling with those emotions can lead to distant parenting and leave a child with an insecure emotional attachment.

Sam, the granddaughter, is the least damaged by the intergenerational abuse at the beginning of the film. She has an affectionate relationship with her grandmother, seems actively interested in doing what she can to help Edna and scolds her mother for not taking a more prominent role. When Sam finds a sketchbook with a sketch of the 'great-grandfather's' house, she doesn't know what it is or to whom it belonged. The cycle of abuse has been broken; Sam isn't even aware that abuse happened.

What she does is learn of it through a visual metaphor for unearthing family history. Discovering the black mold in the closet and pursuing a ghostly figure into what becomes a nightmarish labyrinth that has echoes of the home she'd always felt safe in plays very well as the realization for an unabused member of a family learning about the abuse that happened. What was loving and familiar is suddenly alien and terrifying, threatening and tainted.

By the end of the film--rather an emotionally poignant moment--all three women have been hurt by this black mold (i.e. incestuous abuse) and have come together in a moment of quiet rest. Edna, completely altered into a shell of who she once was, with Kay, accepting that what happened is fact and had effects on her as well, and Sam, who now understands a great deal about her mother and grandmother.

Every generation in the family has been affected to some degree, even if the cycle of abuse was fortunately broken. The black mold not only completely transformed Edna internally, expressed in a striking visual moment, but also tainted her daughter. Even the granddaughter, although physically unharmed by the mold, has been permanently changed by learning about what happened in her family and feeling her perceptions twist (frighteningly so) from what she once held to what she now knows.

While I don't think the film intended to be such a great visual metaphor for the horrific effects of incestuous family abuse and the intergenerational damage it causes, it did an incredibly good job of being one.

[misterbitches]

i live in a universe where if i were to walk down the street i could get murdered willy nilly cos im black but men are out here going around being like “my boyfriend and i met when he was a junior in high school” i don’t believe in jail and i try not to make jail jokes but HOW IS THAT FAIR? JAIL!!! GUILLOTINE!!!! GET THIS MAN A RETIREMENT FUND AND A THERAPIST

that dialogue was fucking embarrassing. he shoulda just said “im 12 yrs older than him” no one needs to know u were 30 dating a 17 year old u insecure freak. retire bitch and get away from her

 i wanted muren so badly to be like “LMAO SRY didnt mean to seem surprised i just like men my own age i guess?” i wouldnt have even apologized if i was surprised. my friend was dating someone ten yrs younger than him and i made fun of him for it and he was like “i know” bc he does know.

just a tip: i don’t like getting hit on by men way older than me, a lot of people don’t. i’ve had men who are 36 interested in me when i was 23, and i reciprocated, but now as i am 29 and older i realize how much it confused me and how i didn’t like it.

age gaps are what they are. ther’es many times i do not like it especially if it is a pattern (this is what happens in tv shows and movies and the opposite of that isn’t gay age gaps or power imbalances or women much older than a younger man ok that’s not progress it’s just peopl ewanting to be like cis men and no one wants that) and esp if the person’s peers are all their ages. people seem to forget that we travel in the same social circles on purpose due to our environments and also our world experiences. the only way to meet an older man is outside of school and yet adults can’t seem to control themselves?

i saw this person who was one of the editors of sexual hegemony (a book on capitalism and homophobic laws and sex basically idk google it it’s interesting) and he was trying to have a foucultian outlook (i hate focault btw doesn’t mean what he says wasnt interesting but it does mean i am not okay with psychosexual philosophers who take advantage of people. the only testament against him having reltaions with younger people is a bunch of young people i nfucking tunisia and there’s an excuse that he wasn’t a fucking pedophile he was those ebebebbeopopopo people and it doesnt matter when ur in fucking tunisia as a white french algerian fucking preying on children) how age of consent laws desexualize younger people. they were passed for  abunch of reasons like any law but here is the thing

we have no business in being in spaces to determine children’s sexual identity and teenagers in their own realm. THEY need to figure it out. our job as adults is to PROTECT THEM full stop. not intrude on their lfe and not give them the tools to decide for themselves. age of consent laws are meant to protect not to facilitate children against some boogeyman of sex. the issue is the way our society views it but young people are sexual AS YOUNG PEOPLE. it has NOTHING to do with adults and it shouldn’t. that’s why it is extra fucking intrusive when you are literally wedged into someone’s life who you have no business being around. it’s only by fucking circumstance. it’s abysmal and not cute. 

what this tells me is that the age gap is salacious. not in the way that i was 23 and a man was 36. in the way that he was 17 and this dude was 29. that’s interesting right? it’s “oooh” and it means we shouldn’t balk at it. saying 12 years would have sufficed, raises some eyebrows, and we can figure out the dynamics after but you just had to put that in BECAUSE YOU FUCKING LIKE IT but the thing is there’s no part of it that was fun. i’m just going to assume you like fucking teenagers bc that’s what it’s telling me lmao

i rarely talk about this couple but to put them in my eyeballs and then have that stupid conversation it was insulting lmao god please get a fucking script supervisor fuck but none of them care about sotry or any of what i fucking laid out. how stupid and careless and just unfun. i don’t like it. also ew at the idea of 2 tops and 2 bottoms talking oh my god i am gonna give myself a heart attack i’m already so fucking anxious i have to see my family lemme chill

im 29 and feel bad having a crush on a 23 year old CELEBRITY ok and i SHOULD feel ashamed and it’s not even a big deal that’s how everyone should approach life tbqh u walk around like ur 100 yrs old to avoid children. oh what’s that this korean cebrity learned english and moved to america to start a family with me and i find him very hot and i like his voice but we’re 6 years apart i’m not sure if i would work (how fun of a drama would that be. pointless and ridiculous. i love it.)

oh there’s a great review on CMBYN and its history and how the isolation and seeclusion was so fuckign capitalist bougie patriarchy and yea idk if anyone is interested. i think it’s ironic the ending for the people in CMBYN irl bc it’s just. so indicative of this shit. i dont like guadignino (idk is that how u spell his name) and think he’s not a great....person or director (i love the look of suspiria tho likke visually and edited. the DP was thai btw! he did an amazing job!!!) but it critiques this film from a perspective of someone who clearly at least cares about artistry, no matter how poorly i think he executes it, and just how hollow it is. the thing about “escapism” is that it relies on the harsh realities of the world to make it opposite, everything has context, nothing is apolitical. to make something that exists in a vacuum is negligent and it doesn’t help you escape it makes you even more tied to this world and its flaws because it doesn’t do anything to mitigate it.

people view it as like “we can put something stupid on screen and people have to accept it in this world” but that isn’t how IT WORKS. you hvae to build up the stakes of the world. but i can’t see introducing some “taboo” (see: stupid) elements and pretending the escapism is seeing this and allowing it. how could it be when the problem is the nature of the rship itself? what world are you taking us to? and why does this world ignore the pressing realities? and i wouldnt say either of these are explicit escapism (i think i hate that word now) becuase um they arent. this fantastical generally rich people escapism isn’t about bending things that don’t work to mold it into our society because WE DO THAT ALREADY it’s about taking those things and twisting them to something we can accept and like or something that has real consequences for people. it’s so funny how marketing and the idea of pc culture and shit and conservative ideology seeps into these. they have  an explicit interest in holding the status quou of taking advantage of people and using their power; age is a huge structure to do so. in this society when we struggle why would its existence not be challenged? because rape, ridiculous rships, abusive rships, torture etc is a power move, conservatives rest on it and people who gain power. what about that is appealing? making it gay? well, no. especially because men DO have power. 

every fucking thing in BL is a reflection of of patriarchy honestly. i can admit that and i’m not okay with it but it’s consumption. there’s a way to make this decent or entertaining without it being so fucking poorly done. and atp i dont even want to call things bl it’s a tv show just bc it’s for a certain audience doesnt mean anything do better idiots

[swiftlythebest]

In Defense of Lake Meriwether

All right, strap in folks, we’re discussing an unpopular opinion! Lake Meriwether is not a bad character and she goes through some realistic growth. Additionally, she and Felix are shown good development and I ship it. Yikes, lots of unpopular opinions in so few sentences. 

Sidenote before I delve into everything: there is certainly a danger in media made for children and young adults being looked at through the lens of someone not in that target audience. I am 26, meaning the way I’m going to consume media differs from that of a teenager, especially considering that we’re apparently in different generations (which is weird, but that’s a whole other story). All of that is to say that I am an adult talking about a piece of media made for teenagers by older adults. It’s complicated, and I am in no way claiming that what I have to say is universally correct.

This whole whatever it is ended up being really long, so I’ll put it under a cut. Also, I know a lot of people probably won’t want to read it.

Sense of Identity

First of all, let’s keep in mind that Lake is 15/16. I have no idea how old people reading this post are, but if you’re older than 16, and out of high school, try to remember how you were at that age. Your brain hasn’t fully developed and much of your sense of self comes from interactions with your family and peers, not so much the world at large. That’s certainly altered by the widespread reach of social media, but someone that age is still navigating identity and their place in the world with limited experience. We can’t expect a girl who has grown up in a privileged bubble to be a bastion of morality. We can’t hold her to the same standard we would a full-fledged adult. She acts like a typical 15/16 year old who is insecure and trying to hide it while living in the shadow of her best friend. 

And hey, it’s true, Lake is primarily known as Mia’s best friend. Mia is described by Felix as the hottest girl in their grade and loved by everyone. Mia has the affection of the cute new boy, as well as the popular jock that Lake initially likes. I’m glad they don’t fall into the trap of making that friendship toxic and unbalanced, which is so often the case. I think within their friendship, they are very much equals who love and value each other. But to the public, Mia is more liked than Lake, and she is definitely at least somewhat aware of that. Lake is not Summer Roberts or Lydia Martin in the sense that she is not viewed as a highly desired person in the same way those other two characters are; she is viewed that way by the nerdy love interest, but not the student population as a whole. There are definitely parallels to be made with Summer and Lydia (Summer especially when you consider the intense similarities between Lake’s speech about public couples being scrutinized and Summer’s incredibly similar speech to Seth in Season 1), but that’s not one of them.

Lake’s mom sucks. It’s clear that Lake has grown up in a household where her every move was judged and she was made to see more flaws in herself than she had. Think about how that must have affected her psyche and pressured her into believing that who she was to the public was what truly mattered. That’s ingrained in her. We see that almost immediately with her being obsessed with Creek Secrets and trying to make herself more appealing to Andrew at the party. I’m not sure she knows who she actually is, just who she’s been molded to be. She wants approval and in the beginning, it’s clear she really only gets that from Mia and Felix, albeit, the latter is from afar.

Importance of Friendship

Once she and Mia begin to hang out with Victor and Felix, she begins to shift. We do see it even before when she confronts Andrew at the Battle of the Bands, showing us that she at least in some way knows her worth, but I’m not sure how much at that point. Victor and Felix add a new dynamic to her friendship with Mia and give her more people to genuinely think she’s great and make that known to her. While she’s still clearly insecure, we can see that start to chip away. When she impresses them with her excuses, something she’s likely only done to Mia so far, you can see how their approval makes her light up. And Felix’s compliment is quite possibly the first step towards her developing feelings for him.

DJ F Bomb on the Track

So we’ve now arrived to the Felix of it all. I want to say that I absolutely love Felix. I think he’s funny and sweet and a great friend; he was my favorite right off the bat and that opinion was only reinforced as the series progressed. Our first introduction to Felix is outside of whatever image he has at school and with his peers. We are told about his status as an outcast by him a few scenes after we’ve gotten to know him, so we already have formed our opinion of him beyond his public image. We know he’s quirky and anxious, but it comes across as endearing; the audience doesn’t know that his unique personality is not the main thing working against him. To Lake, and a vast majority of his peers, he’s Lonestone, an awkward and weird boy who doesn’t fit in and has a truly unfortunate nickname and reputation. We don’t have five years of taunting to affect how we view him. The audience view of Felix versus his peers’ view is important to distinguish when talking about why Lake is so hesitant.

Felix initially comes on too strong. He recognizes that in Episode 7 and, with the help of Pilar, he learns to back off a bit. The angler fish speech is sweet, but was I the only one a little put off by how obsessive it sounded? He’s saying someone should sacrifice everything for the one they love, which is a lovely sentiment in a fairytale, but a bit much when you’re 16. His growth isn’t as explicit as hers, but he still does have to soften his approach in order to really make it work.  And I want to be clear that while Felix is definitely a better person than Lake, I’d caution to say he’s a better character, in the sense of complexity and growth. I like him more, as I think pretty much everyone does, but Lake is a layered character with logical development, which shouldn’t be overlooked because you may not like her as a person. 

It’s supposed to be Felix for her. We as an audience, as well as Felix, know it when she says the same thing he said about DJs in episode 3. She catches on a couple of episodes later after they steal the cake, but she’s clearly in denial. Lake likes Felix. And she seems to like him more and more as the season progresses. But he doesn’t fit into that perfect image she has spent so long cultivating and trying to maintain, so she’s having to come to terms with that throughout their relationship. When she shoots him down for the dance after seeing his apartment, you know she doesn’t want to. It’s clearly killing her to say it, but she’s not there yet. And Felix knows his worth so he ends it, which also clearly kills her.

She told him upfront that no one could know, and she repeats it a lot. He can walk away if he’s not comfortable with that, and we do see him almost do that in episode 8, until she tells Mia. He’s right to want to revisit that part of their relationship around the dance, and especially after baring his soul to her at his apartment. He’s right to break it off when, after such an emotional afternoon for them, she still won’t be seen with him. He’s right to accept an invitation from another girl. His reaction is completely valid. 

She doesn’t expect to be jealous at the dance because she thinks it’s the natural progression of things. Kieran is the kind of boy she always saw herself with: a popular jock. And then he’s boring. He talks about working out and fantasy football and it’s boring. She can’t be herself with him. Then there’s Felix, at the dance with another girl who seems to make much more sense paired with him. He’s wearing a goofy ruffled shirt and joking about the smell of his hair and telling Lake he just wants her to be happy. I think she needed to see that what she thought she wanted she actually didn’t, and also that the boy she liked genuinely cared about her as a person, not just an object of desire. He makes her happy, something I’m not sure she had fully admitted to herself until that moment. And yeah, the big public declaration of love is a huge cliche and overdone and all that, but it works so very well in visual media.

Conclusion?

Look, all of this mess is to say that Lake is not a bad person, nor is she a bad character. We all latched onto Felix pretty quickly, so naturally, our standards for him were going to be sky-high. But in a show of tropes, this relationship was obvious from the start. Lake felt authentic, like a scared teenage girl navigating her self-esteem, public image, overbearing mother, and falling for someone unexpected all at the same time. She grows and develops, learning to go for what truly makes her happy, not what she thinks should make her happy. 

TL;DR: Lake is a complex, realistic portrayal of an insecure teenage girl with an overbearing mother, who spends a lot of time in her best friend’s shadow. She’s in denial of her true feelings for Felix for a while, going so far as to sabotage something she knows is good and right in order to continue to feel secure. By the last episode, she has grown and learned enough to understand her own autonomy when it comes to her happiness. We should all cut her a little bit of slack and let the immature 16-year-old be immature and 16, while learning how to be just a bit more mature.

[ziracona]

i was just wondering what your favourite tropes and dynamics are to explore in fic? either to write yourself or to read!

Oooh, that’s a hard one to answer because I like so many! Uhhh...Let me think.

Well, one of my favorite tropes is definitely Found Family. What is really more satisfying and worthwhile than a group of damaged people coming together and slowly building trust and love until they are inseparably bonded and full of love and have found things they never thought they would? 

I am extremely weak to memory loss both because I have some myself, and the American Dragon Jake Long episode Homecoming ripped out my heart as a kid and left me suffering, then Code Geass stepped on it twice with Shirley the same way. So I really like memory loss centered tragedy tropes bc I am 3x weak to them. I am also weak to that trope where one person is trapped in a room with a bomb, or going to drown, or for whatever reason cannot be saved from dying, so a loved one goes and stays and dies with them too just so they don’t have to die alone. Frkn /shatters/ my heart.

I love hurt comfort a lot. I think my favorite scenes to write and read are often one person is completely at the mercy of person 2, who they have no reason to think will help them and are terrified of being hurt by, but instead of person 2 doing anything bad at all, they are kind and look after them and save them. I die for that. It is the lifeblood of my soul.

I also like big character arcs and well done redemption arcs (bad ones make me rage tho. If I was a card in a tarot deck, I’d be Justice). Personal growth, finding hope again, learning to trust or love yourself. I really like character studies, and I like in-depth looks at serious issues and complex and messed up situations. I also am a big fan of deeply important and lasting platonic relationships, be it familial or best friends or whatever, and like romances where the two in question (or more if poly) just try really hard to be good to each other and communicate well and are full of love and would die for each other. 

Love pets being a big element of story. Love language barriers, and like writing them/communication barriers. I am usually not very interested in stories (writing or reading) that don’t have good rep in a number of ways. Like writing disabled characters well because I see them get written very grossly so much (I like writing tons of groups this is just the one I did most recently, so it’s on my mind rn. I am disabled, but I’m also a lot of other things to & def don’t only focus on/be interested by my own stuff). I am kinda branching out from tropes to just elements now tho. Uhhhhh, tropes, tropes. I love the opposite of that stupid “If you kill an evil person you’re just as bad”--I am here to see people end the people who murdered their friends or abused them. It’s what they deserve. Not here for a woobie redemption arc for an abuser. Very tired of those & angy. 

I love humor in the midst of intense drama or horror or sadness. I’m big into massive sacrifices, but especially if it’s something other than death bc those tend to be more well thought out.

I adore characters who have been through awful things and suffered and been abused getting to actually heal and live happy lives instead of just dying the second they start to taste happiness. I love themes and tropes about the value and lasting nature of human connection and how important and lasting it is.

(putting the rest under a cut bc I am having fun but this be getting long)

Uhhh, I am obsessed with free will > fate and choice, and I really like humanity and things about what it means to be human, and ethics, but like, in an interesting way? Like, Terry Pratchett’s stuff really appeals to me. Like  “What have I always believed? That on the whole, and by and large, if a man lived properly, not according to what any priests said, but according to what seemed decent and honest inside, then it would, at the end, more or less, turn out all right.”    “Just because you can explain it doesn't mean it's not still a miracle.”   “The figures looked more or less human. And they were engaged in religion. You could tell by the knives (it's not murder if you do it for a god).”   “There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.”    “There’s no point in believing in things that exist.”    “You couldn’t put off the inevitable. Because sooner or later, you reached the place when the inevitable just went and waited.”  and   

“Yeah? How many worshipers have you got?”  “Fifty-one!” The newt looked at him hopefully, and added, “Is that lots? Can't count.” It pointed at a rather crudely molded figure on the beach in Omnia and said, “But got a stake!”  Om looked at the figure of the little fisherman. “When he dies, you'll have fifty worshippers,” he said.  “That more or less than fifty-one?” “A lot less.”  “Definite?”  “Yes.”  “No one tell me that.” There were several dozen gods watching the beach. Om vaguely remembered the Ephebian statues. There was the goddess with the badly carved owl. Yes. Om rubbed his head. This wasn't god-like thinking. It seemed simpler when you were up here. It was all a game. You forgot that it wasn't a game down there. People died. Bits got chopped off. We're like eagles up here, he thought. Sometimes we show a tortoise how to fly. Then we let go.  He said, to the occult world in general, “There's people going to die down there.”  A Tsortean God of the Sun did not even bother to look round. “That's what they're for,” he said. In his hand he was holding a dice box that looked very much like a human skull with rubies in the eye-sockets.  “Ah, yes,” said Om. “I forgot that, for a moment.” He looked at the skull, and then turned to the little Goddess of Plenty. “What's this, love? A cornucopia? Can I have a look? Thanks.” Om emptied some of the fruit out. Then he nudged the Newt God. “If I was you, friend, I'd find something long and hefty,” he said.  “Is one less than fifty-one?” said P'Tang-P'Tang.  “It's the same,” said Om, firmly. He eyed the back of the Tsortean God's head.  “But you have thousands,” said the Newt God. “You fight for thousands.”  Om rubbed his forehead. I spent too long down there, he thought. I can't stop thinking at ground level. “I think,” he said, “I think, if you want thousands, you have to fight for one.” He tapped the Solar God on the shoulder. “Hey, sunshine?” When the God looked around, Om broke the cornucopia over his head.

Are all just from Small Gods, and like, boy is that my kinda good shit. Love history and sociology and anthropology. 

I love people fighting to do something they know is doomed to fail just because they know it’s the right thing. I also die for characters who are loyal undyingly, and characters admitting they were wrong and trying to do better, and that trope where someone says something but the exact opposite is happening in the background or happens immediately after. Love that trope where someone should be dead but they just. keep. getting. back. up. to defend someone they love. Love the trope where character A dies and character B takes something of theirs like a bracelet or a necklace or a headband or something and wears it forever after. : (((    

I know there’s a ton more but ima swap to dynamics. 

Let’s see. I adore familial relationships so much? Blood family, adopted, doesn’t matter, it’s exactly the same. I am huge on one character becoming team mom or dad or parent, or adopting some of the others. I love parent-kid relationships, even with adults and older adults, because it’s just as important. I adore small children being cared for by gruff war-hardened people, or selfish dicks who have to be better for the kid, or kind people who always wanted a kid and lost their own or never had one, or who are happy to add one more, or big sisters Clemtine style stepping into parenthood. Live for that, and I seek out video games that let me play it. Very excited to be trying out Plague’s Tale Innocence, because you play as a big sis taking care of your little brother (he’s like 6? 5-8? I’m not sure). But it’s such a neat idea for a sibling dynamic to explore, because while they’re siblings and know each other’s name and have like, a familial bond, it’s also all kind of awkward and new, because he’s been sick for years and in quarantine with just their mom, so even though they’re siblings and love each other and like, baby brother trusts you, they don’t really know each other at all, and that is just fascinating and so cool to explore to me! I also love someone adopting someone else as their new sibling(s) and dragging them into the family. I love siblings where one starts to go evil or mess up, and the other sibling fights with everything they have to save them/bring them back/help them become good again, because it breaks my heart and sibling relationships are /so/ important to me.

I also love shit like Jeff in dbd, where one character adopts younger characters who just /super/ don’t deserve it, because as much as they’ve fucked up, they love them anyway, they just do, and they want to be there to give them support and a chance to keep trying if they’ll take it. And like, I love all of Legion’s relationships with him, but especially Joey, because it’s /so/ sweet, and Joey is just a scared kid hurting and alone and he wants /so bad/ just to be loved and thought well of and okay, but he’s terrified of getting hurt or killed, and confused, and guilty and afraid of what will happen because of all the bad shit he did, and Jeff is just so warm and forgiving and full of nothing but unconditional love and kindness, and in the sincerest of ways, and they’re such good friends, which is like, not optional to a good parent-child relationship. Or way older brother filling in for parent-kid, there’s a lot of overlap. Anyway! Also just cute shit where someone falls in love with the idea of getting to look out for and stay close to someone younger they want to protect and parent, and there’s this kind of hopeful and almost fragile unsureness that the other person will want or need them in that capacity, like Ace adopting Nea, and not just picking looking out for someone who needs it over former life of thrill, but like, never regretting that choice, and just being truly happy and fulfilled in the adventure they now are on.

For friendships, god. I like so much shit, I don’t know what to say. I am so sorry I am giving you a novel for an answer to this short ask, rip. But I just love all kinds! I like groups with an established rhetoric between them, who are just so comfortable in each others’ presence, and people you know love and value each other so much they’re going to be together forever just as much as the two other characters getting married. I love one is a nice person, and the other is an asshole, but they make an amazing team and balance each other out, and the asshole stops the kind one from dying doing shit for other people, and the kind one helps the asshole be just a little more in love with their friends and things other than themself, and they’re great together. I love idiot friends who riff off each other and do bits all the time, and ones who turn into the “Holy shit there’s two of them” whenever they hang out, and ones who are just so on the same wavelength they’re totally comfortable in silence together and seek it out and would die for the other. I like wingman to person who is dying of embarrassment dynamic, and hardcore fighty person protecting either small and easily hurt person, or just as great, protecting dedicatedly person who is ironically either just as tough as them or even more, but it’s still really sweet and kind of double soft and sweet because tough friend never gets cared for.

God, what don’t I like? ...People being toxic assholes together?

I like super opposites that mesh well, but look hilarious next to each other, and goofy best friends who shamelessly sing loud to the most embarrassing karaoke track they could find. Lesbian and himbo is pretty great. As is the opposite, gay dude and stupid amazing slut or bimbo. (Fkn Mateo and Cheyanne kill me). Sweetest person you will ever know surrounded by 20 people who would die for them. Person who thinks they’re unlovable and takes a long time to notice like all their friends already love them, and then they get to be happy. Person who has never once had a good relationship is dragged into a healthy friendship and /super/ suspicious at every turn because they just aren’t used to being loved and treated well, but eventually softens and probably straight up breaks down at some point.

Person who was formerly bad or did something super fucked up is forgiven and welcomed into a group which they can barely even understand, and they are full of guilt but their loved ones reassure them and help them heal and just accept them and support them. Friends who are super mean to other friend but like, in a loving way, and would also take a bullet for the friend.

Uhhh, for romances, my fave is characters who just fucking love each other. I am real tired of relationship drama. Like pining and issues and star crossed lovers are all great (I think of those, star-crossed lovers is my fave), but I mean like, the shit where people keep having misunderstandings or not talking or cheating on each other just so there can be drama--that I am sick of. I love it when person A does something super badass and probably a little unexpected and person B is like “That’s my wife!!!” or just goes : O with love in their eyes, and this happens constantly.  I love gushy mushy sweet displays of affection. I love relationships where the people who are dating were best friends first and still are after, all the way, and tease and rib and are so in love.

I like it when one person thinks they don’t deserve the other, but clearly their partner feels none of this and is always just like “Babe...” and hugs them and is just as in love, and helps them begin to love themself more. 

Uhhhh, I like it when there’s someone who doesn’t think they’re in love and there’s that trope where they suddenly get it and you get the Oh or the Wait in italics as it drops internally. I like ships where the characters balance each other out well or provide good support and get better together than they were apart, triple points if they’re super aware of that and comment on it. Also whatever the fuck Maureen Robinson and John Robinson in the Lost in Space reboot have going on. That’s like, goals. She’s chaotic evil living lawful good by sheer force of will, and he’s a himbo too in love to realize any of that and never questions what she thinks they should do beyond the physical logistics of it and would die for her and not think twice about it or the fact that she moves really fast to the pragmatic “Okay,”--not because she doesn’t love him, she does--but because someone does need to be alive for their kids and she’s just wired too practical for him to have to pry her off sobbing to not stay and die with him. (This happens verbatim in like episode 6, but it’s not a mega spoiler bc he doesn’t actually die--he just almost does. She figures out a way to save them both right before committing to it.)

I also like “two fools both in love but really nervous about asking the other if they are because of their past, or situation, or because this is the first time or first time with that kind of relationship, so there’s just intense romantic tension all the time where they pause mid-sentence to just stare into eachothers’ eyes and forget what they were saying, but they’re both too ineffective to just fucking go “Do you like me?” for such a long time. Hurt/comfort paired with pining. Uhhh, but Star Crossed Lovers is up there for sure. I love the pain of two people wanting to be together but it’s just /impossible/ and they know it but that doesn’t make the feelings go away, and it’s miserable, and maybe they’re upset, because they shouldn’t feel this way, but they can’t not, and it’s confused, and it hurts, but they’re also so /happy/ when they see each other. I like that good shit in any romance where the characters can just look at each other and they know, and you know. That’s the choice shit, I tell you that.

Jeeze I’m sure I missed stuff but this is already so long. Uhhh, I like so much I don’t really know how to answer. But my favorite like, vibe/....flavor genre? Is Hope Punk. Uhhh, and mostly I dig any relationships that end up healthy and sweet. I really like second-chances, and characters confronting and moving on past their bad or complicated pasts, or trauma, and healing. Hurt comfort is love, and so is angst with a happy ending. I like a good villain or a wonderful asshole, but I feel like characters that are just good and doing their best really get overlooked and undervalued a lot, and I am here for them. Like Sam Gamgee? One of the /best/ characters in LOTR. So is Bob Newby--and I do get the irony in them both being played by Sean Astin. But uh, anyway, I really like to explore how decent people try to act when confronted with terrible situations and choices, because I really value people who stayed sweet and kind and merciful and full of love even after all the awful shit life has put them through, and I really like writing about how /hard/ that is, and what it looks like, along with the other stuff. I also like characters who are very flawed and very medium being given something to lose and something to gain that go in opposite directions, and being forced to confront their reality and make hard choices. I like people being given intense opportunities to grow or to rot, and seeing which they’ll chose and why and if they’ll make it to the end. Mostly I just really love characters who try, even if they fail, because that can be a lot harder to do than it seems. I like dynamics where one character is very flawed, or in a bad place, but they love someone they think is amazing, and so they’re working hard to catch up to them, or to get close enough they can reach out and hold their hand, and are fighting to make it to a person themselves who can do that someday. I’m sure I forgot a lot and that this was super rambly, but I hope you at least enjoyed some of it! Thanks for asking! ^u^

[thetaoofbetty]

I'm the anon who asked about tragedy. Thanks for the reply, I totally understand what you mean! I've seen zoomers do the whole ethical olympics in fiction thing. "Problematic" seems to be their favorite buzzword to parrot when it comes to things they don't like lol. I'm all for transparency though. Tags help everyone, readers looking for certain of fic and readers looking to avoid such fic.

Hello again beautiful! 

Don’t forget toxic! Toxic and problematic and abusive (esp in dynamics where they’re not even dating, and are, in fact mortal enemies to start). The logical fallacies are abundant and wild. Or, one of my personal favorites, naming people for redemption arcs who aren’t even in need of them. And if you point that out, they go, “well that character I hate can’t have one because they’re a villain!” 

You don’t say?! A villain? In need of redemption? That’s unheard of. 

I’ve seen it a lot over the last 5 years, where anything that’s doesn’t fit into their mold of what they find acceptable to enjoy is demonized. And I honestly don’t even think they realize what they’re essentially asking for is censorship. Which, okay, I’m sure they won’t care what they hate gets censored. 

But wait until something they like gets called problematic. And it will. Look at bughead, the sweetest friends to lovers ship I know of, deemed a bad thing by the kids who failed biology and the people who can’t grasp sexual desire past missionary with the lights off. Sounds like a them problem, tbh. 

I don’t have patience for children who think they’re smarter than the adults who fought to have uncensored fandom spaces long before they knew it was a thing. These are the same people who scream Stockholm Syndrome about a sanitized Disney fairy tale movie because they saw a tumblr post 2 years ago, totally unaware it’s a term invented by a man who diagnosed a woman with it, without ever having spoken to her. 

That’s not to disregard that some situations aren’t healthy, but let’s not take stories that are, at their root, about empathy and learning to grow as a person and call it toxic and then be horrible to real people who are just trying to watch a movie, Becky. 

But yes, I agree on transparency! I think authors forget, when they’re yelling, “do you want tags on books and movies?!” that yes, not only would I appreciate that, people can also look up spoilers (and websites like does the dog die?) if they think it might affect them before investing their time and emotions into a story. We can read the last page of a book before reading the whole thing if we need to. 

The people who are going to read my fic, will do so either because of the tags or because they were always going to. Adding tags for people to filter if they need to costs me nothing. Someone else’s mental health means more to me than possibly spoiling part of my fic. If I really didn’t want to put a tag on, author’s notes exist too. It’s really not that hard to respect your readers by tagging appropriately. 

Thanks for the ask, doll!💜 

[ty-talks-comics]

Best of Marvel: Week of September 18th, 2019

Best of this Week: House of X #5 - Jonathan Hickman, Pepe Larraz, Marte Gracia and Clayton Cowles

The X-Men have conquered their greatest enemy: Death.

After the events of the last issue, it was a wonder just how Hickman would write the X-Men out of the predicament that has stopped them so many times before. In the standard Hickman way, he made retcons that enhanced the usefulness of lesser characters and provided a way out that not only makes sense, but can be used for just about anything in regards to all of our favorite dead mutants.

Goldballs had one of the dumbest powers for the longest time; the ability to propel golden balls from his chest, but in this book we learn that these balls were actually non-viable eggs that, with the help of Proteus, could be made usable. After they’re injected with mutant DNA and given life by Elixir, Tempus ages the eggs to maturity and thanks to Hope’s powers, all of them operate at peak efficiency. This allows the mutants to effectively resurrect their dead friends as husks until Xavier implants mind engrams into the bodies with their past memories.

In House of X #1, one of the first things we see is Charles Xavier meeting the reborn forms of Scott Summers and Jean Grey as full adults after they emerge from egg sacs of some kind. Initially, I thought that this was just some sort of strange symbolic rebirth thing and while it still is, it has become far more literal and intriguing because of five mutants - Goldballs, Elixir, Hope Summers, Proteus and Tempus.

Everything about this scene was immaculate and well done to a point where I almost want to cry. What coloring there was felt low and hushed, almost as if we were seeing something miraculous, the gift of light. Camera angles were mostly downwards, to capture the harmony of the group before they began their work. They stood silent and acted on instinct, indicating they'd done this before, showing us that they were absolutely sure of their process. 

Xavier leaning down, cradling his children and asking them to not die again as it kills a part of him every time that they do is heart wrenching, but joyous when he gives them their memories back. There's no hesitation, only love, only care. 

The gravity of the event as it happens and seeing someone like Goldballs become one of the most integral mutants in the revival of the mutant race brought me to an unknown level of joy. There was so much weight to their actions with the excellent narration by Magneto as to what exactly they were doing while talking to Polaris, making the point that when they are apart, they are still strong mutants, but together they are even more powerful than previously imagined. 

I’m almost certain they used the exact same pages from House of X #1 as we watch the resurrection of the dead team, but this time we have a whole new perspective of how we got there. In an absolutely beautiful celebration of life, we see the mutants of Krakoa praise the Five for bringing their mutant family back to life and a confirmation of those mutants by Storm. Under the purple leaves of a tree of Krakoa with a bit of sunlight shining through. Purple usually symbolizes nobility, passion and authenticity and with the use of dynamic angles and heroic posing, we can be absolutely sure that these are the same mutants.

Angel, Husk, Mystique, Monet, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Cyclops and Jean Grey all died to ensure that the Mother Mold didn’t come online and destroy the mutant race. In two nine panel grids, Storm greets hew newly reborn friends, questioning how she knows that it’s truly them. After they give their answers from the somber to the cocky to the… Monet, Storm asks what they are and the crowd answers with one word: Mutant. 

This message also acts as a bit of foreshadowing for the end of the book and as the theme for this issue as a whole; the idea of togetherness, something that the human race has denied mutants for all of their existence. 

The level of solidarity among the mutants is inspiring, the love and pride they have in themselves in infections and makes me want to see them do nothing but succeed. However, I do have something of a concern with the level of reverence they seem to be getting. As they walk naked down the stairs to interact with their fellow mutants, the other mutants reach their hands out at them as the sun shines brightly behind them. They seem as saviors, messiahs, people standing above their fellows and that’s a potentially dangerous path for them to go down, especially since Krakoa is performing so well and don’t need egos to ruin it.

On top of their resurrections, Xavier and Emma Frost are also trying to get the world's governments to accept Krakoa's pharmaceuticals and accept the Mutant Utopia as an independent nation. With a few notable exceptions from Russia, Latveria and Wakanda (among a few other countries that also would not accept Mutants or their cure alls) most of the world is very into the prospect of life giving drugs in exchange for giving mutants diplomatic immunity and recognition.

In many ways, this is the progress that they have always strived for. Some people aren't reticent to their acts of kindness out of ideological differences, but others see the benefit of siding with the new Nation as long as they can see the benefits. They may be alliances of necessity or fear, but the point still stands that their autonomy is being recognized. They're not being actively hunted, at least since Orchis was stopped from activating the Mother Mold and with their population in the cusp of becoming what it was in the past, they are flourishing and don't NEED human support, but they find it better that they receive it.

With the world coming together for mutants, there's only one more group left to truly unite the houses: The Villains. In my opinion, most of House of X has been leading up to this, the day when even mutant villains will come in full support of Xavier's new mission to save the race and there are some nasty ones here: Mister Sinister, Lady Mastermind, Mesmero, Selene, Sebastian Shaw, Emplate, Exodus, Gorgon, Black Tom Cassidy and Azazel.

But these villains pale in comparison to the final arrival in Apocalypse. In more than one way, Apocalypse's dream has finally come to fruition as well. Mutants have risen above and finally become the dominant species that he always believed they could be. They have evolved past their petty and weak natures and embraced their strength in both numbers and power. With Krakoa welcoming him with some lovely birds, Apocalypse speaks on behalf of all of the evil mutants when he says that they will obey the laws of Krakoa as they are written and cements this new alliance with a handshake with Charles Xavier.

This blew my mind. Apocalypse's whole deal was that he would absolutely destroy the weakness in the mutant gene pool and was only able to do so with Charles Xavier dead in the Age of Apocalypse timeline. He tore the world asunder, but as we learned from one of Moira MacTaggert's past lives, even this would not have lasted. If Moira's been in contact with Apocalypse, then he too knows that following Xavier right now is the only true path to mutant evolution and supremacy.

I have never been so elated, surprised and anticipating of a comic in so long. 

Pepe Larraz and Marte Gracia are a match made in heaven and this book has a cinematic quality through and through. Larraz allows the characters to appear overjoyed, happy and proud with beautiful facial expressions. With faraway shots and ever changing angles in the panels, there's such a grandeur in the story being told. The sun is always shining in this particular issue, much like it was in House of X #1, signaling a brand new day and bright future for mutantkind.

Gracia's colors are bright and vibrant, emanating with a hopeful glow. Their lighting effects are on JJ Abrams levels of shiny and somehow The Five characters stand out apart from the clothes that they used to wear. Tempus' blue pops out perfectly against Goldballs gold and black. The purple of the tree leaves in the Confirmation is absolutely beautiful and awe-inspiring and the darkness during Apocalypse's arrival set against the shining God rays is the perfect contrast.

I have never been more proud to be a fan of the X-Men. Knowing their history of death and rebirth, it's relieving to see that they now have the means to finally conquer their mortal enemy. There's so many that can be brought back to life (provided their deaths haven't already been retconned). John Proudstar, the original Thunderbird, Jamie Madrox, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Sean Cassidy, Blindfold and many others that either died so long ago or died at the hands of Matthew Rosenberg's Uncanny X-Men.

House of X has gone above and beyond and rejuvenated a portion of the Marvel Universe that has been a chaotic mess for the better part of almost 20 years by this point. There's finally unity amongst all of the mutants in the Universe, from 90s villains to even recent ones from Brian Michael Bendis' run. 

Jonathan Hickman is proving that almost anything he touches turns to gold as he's crafted an amazing tale in only nine issues, counting Powers of X as well. I find myself, for the first time in a long time, not just going through the motions. I feel as though I'm witnessing a revolution occurring, an actual brand new era for some of my favorite super people. 

The series is set to conclude in about three weeks for X-Men #1 and I am already so very excited. Highest of recommends.

What are we? Mutants.

[ourmrsreynolds]

Jon, Arya and the Childhood BFF to Lovers Trope: Or, why everyone ships J0nsa

I had an argument with my sister which was precipitated by her quipping “nobody likes childhood BFFs” and “hot new guy is always endgame.” I almost flipped a table. I sat there and I seethed for 30 seconds and then I texted her back PIRATES OF THE MOTHERFUCKING CARIBBEAN and I gotta say I was p pleased with myself because yes, Elizabeth and Will end up together even though Jack Sparrow exists and is indisputably hot.

My sister and I are reading Jenny Han’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. This is a story that sets out to deconstruct the trope of “It was always gonna be you and me,” and while my sister can crow all day about how Hot New Guy Gets the Girl, I want to examine why it makes thematic and structural sense for that to be endgame. I think it comes down to the protagonist, who seldom ventures out of her comfort zone and has trouble letting herself want things. The combination of extremely deep feeling and almost pathological constraint is what makes her story so compelling—because in the course of the novel she learns to unabashedly want things, to reach out and take them: and what she wants is the sardonic lacrosse-playing jock, not the Boy Next Door she’s had a crush on since forever. One of the running gags in the background is her nine-year-old little sister inventing increasingly far-fetched reasons she should be allowed to have a puppy, because the kid “knows what she wants and will do anything it takes to get it.” The contrast with hyper-repressed Main Character could not be more pronounced. I ask you, who does Main Character remind you of? Not Arya, for a surety. This is one thousand percent Sansa.

After the finale aired Jenny Han and some other YA authors were dragged on twitter for openly shipping J0nsa, which, I mean (a) it was more “ugh fan fiction” and “ew incest” and “think of the children!!1!” than anything specific to J0nsa (b) of course she ships J0nsa. Of fucking COURSE. J0nsa is not a childhood BFFs ship, because the whole point is that Sansa’s character development leads her to see Jon in a new light. It’s above all about Sansa’s arc and the scales falling from Sansa’s eyes and there isn’t room for someone who has always seen the value in Jon, who has always loved him best. Because that would not be sufficiently Pride & Prejudice-y. Allow me to remind everyone that Pride & Prejudice is (1) the ur-Romance novel and (2) about people changing their minds and revising their initial judgments. Ffs it was originally titled “First Impressions.” This is the dominant narrative wrt romantic love, then—that one must fall in love, that it must be accompanied by major character development and reevaluation of preconceptions. This is the appeal of Enemies-to-Lovers.

Listen, I don’t ship a pairing because I think it’s endgame; I ship it because I think it’s interesting. What I’m trying to do here is formulate a theory as to why so many people find Jon & Sansa’s dynamic interesting, as compared to the small handful of us who find Jon & Arya’s dynamic interesting. I’m not engaging with the people who are anti-incest on principle (if you’re not into incest this is maybe not the fandom for you). I think it has a lot to do with the sort of romantic stories we elevate and validate. Gendrya is a wildly popular ship, and it falls very much in the Childhood BFFs mold, but I think we can all agree that Gendry & Arya are not a finished product—they have a lot of stuff to work on, and what shippers are interested in is the process of them hammering it out. Jon and Arya though? They’re already president of each other’s fan clubs, where’s the tension or drama in that? The obstacles to their relationship are external and plot-driven rather than internal and character-driven. And I say unto you: This is Arya’s creation myth: Before there was anything, there was Jon. That’s it that’s my kink that’s the kind of all-encompassing bond I’m about. The absolute trust they repose in each other gives me LIFE. I’ve seen some J0nsas parry the “she’s not even his favorite sister” argument with “because she’s his wife not his sister” and like ... ok valid ig but the whole reason I’m interested in Jon/Arya is because they set no boundaries on their love?? They are each other’s e v e r y t h i n g. I mean if you want to read about two strangers fumbling their way towards feelings that’s fine but do not pretend to me that J0nsa is some kind of underdog ship. It’s the most basic of ships -- it’s a Pride & Prejudice ship. (Gendrya otoh is Persuasion, which is the best Austen novel don’t @ me.) For in-universe reasons why J0nsa undercuts Jon and Arya’s unconditional love this is a great post, but I’m going to stick to the meta reasons people ship what they ship.

Here is the thing I will die mad about: Everybody takes childhood BFFs for this hegemonic trope and wouldn’t it be so eDgY to subvert it by making her fall for a HANDSOME STRANGER instead. Jfc have you seen the biggest young adult franchises of the past decade? They are: Twilight, The Hunger Games, The Mortal Instruments. Spoiler alert none of the heroines end up with their childhood bffs. I know the love triangle is hardly the point of The Hunger Games but facts are facts. It’s been 150 years and the Little Women fandom is still generating twice as much Jo/Laurie fic as Jo/Bhaer fic because Louisa May Alcott did Jo March dirty by not letting her marry the man she clearly belonged with. I just think the idea of there being someone you belong with, always have and always will, is ultimate #goals and this is the hill i will die on.

I look at Sansa and Arya’s starting points, when it comes to Jon, and however their arcs resolve in the end I cannot imagine how you could retcon J0nsa into some kind of lifelong attachment?? Here is Sansa in the wake of Lysa’s death, mulling her options:

there was nowhere for her to go. Winterfell was burned and desolate, Bran and Rickon dead and cold. Robb had been betrayed and murdered at the Twins, along with their lady mother. Tyrion had been put to death for killing Joffrey, and if she ever returned to King’s Landing the queen would have her head as well. The aunt she’d hoped would keep her safe had tried to murder her instead. Her uncle Edmure was a captive of the Freys, while her great-uncle the Blackfish was under siege at Riverrun. I have no place but here, Sansa thought miserably.

She lists Tyrion among her potential refuges, without once mentioning Jon! TYRION. Unreal. Even Brienne weighs the possibility of Sansa going North to Jon, and Brienne has literally never even met Sansa:

though all her siblings had been slain, Brienne knew that Sansa still had an uncle and a bastard half brother on the Wall

In case anyone requires reminding, Arya takes every possible opportunity to suggest “hey we could go to the Wall instead of wherever we’re going!”:

"I know where we could go," Arya said. She still had one brother left. Jon will want me, even if no one else does.

Maybe I should go to the Wall instead of Riverrun. Jon wouldn't care who I killed or whether I brushed my hair

One of these girls has been trying to get back to Jon for going on four books now. The other one thinks about Jon Arryn more times in her POVs than she thinks about Jon Snow (18 Arryns out of 27 total hits for “Jon” in all Sansa chapters). I’m not saying Sansa hasn’t grown and changed, or that her reunion with Jon might not evolve into something interesting; it’s just not a dynamic I personally care about. I’m definitely not saying that authors deserve to be publicly shamed for shipping fictional characters, but I think an author’s shipping preferences are revealing and shed light on their choices as far as which stories they choose to tell. I’m saying I ship Jon/Arya and I accept it’s not the ship dynamic that appeals to most people but here I am.

[thecloserkin]

book review: Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card (1985)

Genre: Sci-Fi, YA

Is it the main pairing: Yes

Is it canon: No

Is it explicit: No

Is it endgame: Kind of

Is it shippable: Emphatically yes

Bottom line: must-read, watch the movie if you can

When I say it’s “kind of” endgame I mean there are nine thousand sequels I haven’t read but as of the end of this novel, yes, they’re together. Not canonically together, not romantically together, yet they are far and away the most important relationship in each other’s lives. They’re on their way to board a generation ship & colonize another planet, so that’s “together” enough for me thanks. I think you can love someone romantically without loving them sexually. One of the reasons children’s books are so ripe for those of us wearing incest-shipping goggles is because all the principals are kids and very young kids have not yet had time to grow apart from their siblings — to put down deep roots with college roommates or colleagues or whatever. I think the oldest major character in this book is like twelve.

John Paul and Teresa Wiggin have three extremely precocious children. Peter, the eldest, washed out of the government’s child-soldier-in-training program because he’s a sociopath who likes to hurt and manipulate people and has zero empathy. Valentine, the middle child, washed out because she has too much empathy. John Paul and Teresa got a special dispensation to have a third child and that child is Ender. For the first six years of his life, the most salient fact about Ender Wiggin is that he is a “Third,” a term of abuse and derision we frequently see hurled at him. There are bullies, Peter foremost among them. And the only one who who loves him unconditionally, who tries (usually in vain) to protect him from Peter, is Valentine.

It gave him something to do while the teacher droned on about arithmetic. Arithmetic! Valentine had taught him arithmetic when he was three.

Awwww just two gifted kids doing coursework way too advanced for their grade level. Only there are three kids, not two. Ender’s primal fear is that he will turn out to be “just like Peter” ie. that he too will enjoy hurting people; the person most able to soothe that fear and instill self-love in him is, of course, Valentine. It’s obviously unfortunate for his psychological development then that Ender passes all the tests and is recruited into the officer training program known as Battle School. There’s an impending alien invasion, you see; it’s a national emergency. So six-year-old Ender is separated from the only person he trusts and thrust into an environment designed to mold him into a killer. The military brass aren’t stupid, either. They see it right away:

“The sister is our weak link. He really loves her.” “I know. She can undo it all, right from the start. He won’t want to leave her.”

And this:

”Your brother hates you because you are living proof that he wasn’t good enough. Your parents resent you because of all the past they are trying to evade.”

”Valentine loves me.”

”With all her heart. Completely, unstintingly, she’s devoted to you, and you adore her.”

Once Ender heads off to Battle School—and that place is the emotional core of this story, just like Hogwarts is the center of the HP universe—the grownups make a conscious decision to isolate him from his peers and prevent him forming any intimate friendships: “He can never believe that anyone can help him out, ever.” Guys I get that Ender is a once-in-a-generation child prodigy but doing that to a six-year-old is tantamount to solitary confinement or sensory deprivation. He’s violently homesick — something I didn’t pick up on when I first read the book as a kid because I was so eager to get to the war games in the battleroom — but home is not a place, home is Valentine. The first night “he could hear several boys whimpering for their mothers or fathers or dogs. Then he could not help himself: His lips formed Valentine’s name.” Oh, dear heart.

He forms bonds with other kids, sure — they wouldn’t be grooming him for leadership if he wasn’t likable — but you know how you can be friends with people selectively, and share only very specific areas of your life with them? Yeah, Ender has superiors and later, subordinates; he has mentors and competitors and nemeses and allies but he doesn’t have anyone who understands him through-and-through the way Val does. Which makes his memory of her assume all the more prominence. He worries that by the time they let him see her again (there is a communications blackout so no letters) she will have changed and their relationship won’t be the same. A not unfounded fear, I think, but look at this:

”Hi,” he said.

”Hi,” Ender said.

”I’m Mick.”

”Ender.”

”That’s a name?”

”Since I was little. It’s what my sister called me.”

He prefers to go by the childhood nickname his sister gave him rather than his “real” name Andrew. When Ender finally makes his first friend at Battle School here is how it goes down:

On impulse Ender hugged him, tight, almost as if he were Valentine. He even though of Valentine then and wanted to go home.

It’s just so clear that Val represents all that is good and pure in the world. When he turns seven, all alone in his bunk and no one to celebrate with, he remembers his last birthday at home:

Valentine baked him a cake on his sixth birthday. It fell and it was terrible. Nobody knew how to cook anymore, it was the kind of crazy thing Valentine would do. Everyone teased Valentine about it, but Ender saved a little bit of it in his cupboard.

The only reason I’m here is so that a bugger won’t shoot out Valentine’s eye, won’t … split her head with a beam so hot that her brains burst the skull and spill out like rising bread dough, the way it happens in my worst nightmares.

There’s a scene where another kid rails against the unspoken Battle School norm that prohibits the kids talking about home and Ender starts crying:

”No, it’s all right,” Ender said. “I was just thinking about Valentine. My sister.”

”I wasn’t trying to make you upset.”

”It’s okay. I don’t think of her very much, because I always get—like this.”

He’s learned to suppress his own feelings because it’s too painful to dwell on how much he misses her. Meanwhile back at the ranch, Valentine celebrates Ender’s eighth birthday alone. The family has moved since Ender left for Battle School, and Valentine wonders:

How would Ender find them here, among these trees, under this changeable and heavy sky?

You have to remember that this whole time she’s been stuck with Peter, who’s convinced all the adults with an iota of authority that he’s turned over a new leaf, that he’s no longer the sadistic little boy he used to be. But Valentine knows better. Peter skins squirrels alive in the woods and stakes them down for her to find.

She couldn’t think of anything so terrible that she didn’t believe Peter might do it. She also knew, though, that Peter was not insane, not in the sense that he wasn’t in control of himself … Peter could delay any desire as long as he needed to; he could conceal any emotion. And so Valentine knew that he would never hurt her in a fit of rage. He would only do so if the advantages outweighed the risks … In a way, she actually preferred Peter to other people because of this. He always, always acted out of intelligent self-interest.

This is such a chillingly perceptive paragraph. The main takeaway is that the separation from Ender has been hard on Valentine too, and the hardest part is that she begins to grow ever closer to Peter, the brother she hates and fears, as the memory of her favorite brother fades. Peter hits her up her with a proposition. He wants to take over the world …. by disseminating political essays on the internet, writing under pseudonyms. And he needs Valentine’s help. Valentine agrees, because if she’s working with him she can curb his worst tendencies right? Haha. One day Valentine is summoned from class to meet with a stranger in uniform. “I’ve come to talk to you in confidence about your brother,” he says, and Val immediately assumes she and Peter have been found out, their aliases penetrated. It takes her a minute to realize it’s her other brother he’s come about. Ender’s performance has taken a nosedive, and they won’t let Valentine see him but they want to pick her brain about what might be troubling him. The audacity! She hasn’t been allowed to see him for three years and they want her to diagnose what’s wrong and tell it to them? Please. Moreover, she’s wracked with guilt over her first impulse, which was to protect Peter’s secrets, not to demand to know what was wrong with Ender:

She felt a deep stab of pain, of regret, of shame that now it was Peter she was close to, Peter who was the center of her life. For you, Ender, I light fires on your birthday. For Peter I help fulfill all his dreams.

to think of her little brother, who was so good, whom she had protected for so long, and then remember that now she was Peter’s ally, Peter’s helper, Peter’s slave in a scheme that was completely out of her control.

Valentine’s disloyalty to Ender is tearing the poor girl apart. If there was any sexual attraction involved this would be a super juicy incestuous love triangle but like I said at the beginning of this review, all these kids are prepubescent and introducing the element of sex would not fundamentally alter the interpersonal dynamics. We don’t get a Peter POV in this book but he’s perfectly aware Val’s always loved Ender best, and Peter may be a monster and incapable of love but surely he’s capable of jealousy?

A letter arrives for Ender at Battle School:

He read four lines into it, then skipped to the end and read the signature. Then he went back to the beginning, and curled up on his bed to read the words over and over again.

This is relatable behavior for anyone who has ever received a long-awaited missive from a loved one and just wants to savor it over and over again. Especially if it’s from the person he loves most in the world whom he hasn’t heard a peep from for three years. Ender being Ender, he parses the letter for signs it’s not the genuine article. He concludes:

It isn’t the real thing anyway. Even if she wrote it in her own blood, it isn’t the real thing because they made her write it.

Ain’t that the truth.

He had no control over his own life. They ran everything … The one real thing, the one precious real thing was his memory of Valentine, the person who loved him before he ever played a game … and they had taken her and put her on their side.

”I sold my brother,” Valentine said, “and they paid me for it.”

When Ender suffers another bout of burnout upon graduating, the grownups are smart enough to ship him back to Earth for an unscheduled leave of absence and to bring him Valentine, who is literally the only reason he wakes up in the morning. They spend a beautiful afternoon on a lake. Valentine intuits the purpose of the visit right away:

”Oh. So I’m therapy again.”

”This time we can’t censor your letter. We’re taking our chances. We need your brother badly. Humanity is on the cusp.”

Can we stop to reflect on how fucked up it is that these jackals are STILL taking Ender and Valentine’s bond — the only true and good thing in these kids’ lives — and bending it to their own purposes?

But she knew that he was glad to see her, knew it because of the way his eyes never left her face.

”You’re bigger than I remembered,” she said stupidly.

”You too,” he said. “I also remembered that you were beautiful.”

Recall that we don’t love people because they are beautiful, people are beautiful because we love them. Though the narrative spends exactly zero words dwelling on Valentine’s appearance, as far as Ender is concerned she is obviously the most beautiful, perfect human being to ever draw breath. She goes to squeeze his knee right where he’s always been ticklish—and finds that he’s seized her wrist in a vice grip. He took self-defense classes in Battle School. Ender says, “I didn’t want to see you … I was afraid that I’d still love you.” If this isn’t a line straight out of a romance novel. I’m not here to ding romance novels, of which I read plenty; I’m just stating the facts: Ender and Valentine are framed as the romantic leads of this story. They spend pages upon pages pining for each other, their decisions are driven by the suite of potential consequences for the other, and their long-awaited reunion is staged with all the trappings of big-R Romance:

And he touched her cheek so gently that she wanted to cry. Like the touch of his soft baby hand when he was still an infant.

Also, everyone and their mom ships it. Even Ender’s commanding officer ships it:

”I may have used Valentine,” said Graff, “and you may hate me for it, Ender, but keep this in mind—it only works because what’s between you, that’s real, that’s what matters.”

Ajdkfjddkjkdf give the people what they want. Okay so Ender defeats the aliens (by accidentally-on-purpose committing genocide but that’s beyond the scope of this review) and the war is over. Valentine comes to him and asks him to LEAVE BEHIND EVERYONE THEY KNOW and GO WITH HER AMONG THE STARS:

”I came because I’ve spent my whole life in the company of the brother that I hated. Now I want a chance to know the brother that I love.”

”While you’re governing the colony and I’m writing political philosophy, they’ll never guess that in the darkness of night we sneak into each other’s room and play checkers and have pillow fights.

Let me repeat: Ender and Valentine’s idea of a good time is sneaking into each other’s rooms and having pillow fights. Which is both innocent and potentially—not. It’s a scenario fair to bursting with incest potential, and when he agrees to go with her this is her reaction:

She squealed and hugged him, for all the world like a typical teenage girl who just got the present that she wanted from her little brother.

In my experience teenage girls are notoriously bored by/annoyed by/reluctant to be seen in the company of their little brothers. Not Valentine though, her little brother has always been her favorite person. Their bond is intense enough that I felt obliged to review this book even though it’s def not canon, and even though Orson Scott Card is garbage and a raging homophobe.

[erinaed]

Blog #4 - Gender performativity

After watching the video I thought it was very interesting hearing the perspectives of these younger children. Something that really stood out to me was when the boy talked about how his girl friends hate dolls and would rather play in the dirt with the boys but they are expected to play with these dolls. I also liked the take the young girl had on stereotypes for boys. For example, she talked about how boys are expected to be rough, tough, strong, athletic and confident when in reality most boys are not like this. I think sometimes young boys have this added pressure to not show their emotions and to be this competitor against their peers.

To gender is performative is a little different because for something to be performative means that it produces a series of effects. Growing up we are told and most importantly shown what is right and wrong and how certain individuals should act. For example, young girls idolize Disney princesses, women who fall in love with their captor, who are successful once they marry into a rich family and women who cannot save themselves. There are constant themes across Disney that have these princesses giving up their voice, ther family and their lives for these men. We need to stop and ask ourselves how this is beneficial for our children? It is also showing boys that they need to be these mascluine men and save the day in order to get the girl. As a society we are creating these categories that males/females need to fit into. What do you think? Which would you say is a good role model?

Women are seen as delicate, dainty and effortlessly beautiful. Commercials, funways, brands etc show these beautiful, skinny, women modeling their items but with a lack of diversity or power. After watching some of the films shown in class I was shocked to see the power dynamic in photography. For example, when shot with males they are either on their knees, held down or looking up at them ready to serve. This was disgusting to see and something I did not even realize. Something as simple as a held tilt compared to holding their head high like men sends a message to people in our society. Women are presented as not paying attention to their surroundings, as a sex symbol or in a way that makes them vunerable. As a woman I believe that society expects me to portray these ideas in the way I dress and act. For example, wearing femine clothes in order not look masculine or even like a lesbian. I think lesbains have a bad reputation because they are butchy girls who want to be like men, when this is not the case. Even the way we speak has an effect on how we are looked at. Some people believe it is unladylike to curse when I think it is part of who we are. I think our dialect/accents make up who we are as individuals in our society and are a way to express ourselves. I think the media also plays a role in this, especially social media. Influencers are on the rise and are rarely showing off the “bad parts: of themselves. For example, they are these skinny girls that are basically saying be pretty, and skinny and you will have what I have. Social media is damaging to young children growing up because they do not know how to differentiate between what is real and not. I think some platforms are definitely beneficial but you have to be looking for them.

I think society has a major effect on how we grow up to see ourselves and act. From a young age we are taught how to act like a lady or how to be masculine when in reality there is no defining line in this category. I think children, adults, whoever should do what they want to do and when they want to do it. Playing with barbies and wearing a dress does not make you girly and you can still play in the mud and not be considered a tom girl. It's 2021 it's time we stop trying to play individuals in a mold. If children want to identify in a different way than expected then it is our responsibility to respect and protect them for who they are.

Staff, T. H. (2017, April 21). 15 reasons Disney Princesses are actually terrible role models. TheThings. Retrieved October 18, 2021, from https://www.thethings.com/15-reasons-disney-princesses-are-actually-terrible-role-models/.

[miseriathome]

If y'all need a jumping off point for research rabbit holes, the clinical terminology is covert incest or emotional incest. It very much applies to the commenter additions, but some of the OP bullet points fit, too. There's lots of literature about the concept, about how it does/doesn't mesh with prototypical sexually abusive incest, and about how children are impacted later in life. Highlights/bolding on the excerpts below are mine:

In The Making and Molding of Child Abuse, Ian Hacking (1991: 276) calls attention to the expanding definition of child abuse in western culture. The meaning of incest, for example, once understood as sexual intercourse between family members, has taken on far broader connotations. Covert incest, a new term coined in the 1980s by sexual abuse experts, is a 'hands-off' derivative defined by a boundary violation between parent and child. One example would be a father who shares intimate details of his marital relationship with this daughter or a mother who continues to supervise the bathing of her 12-year-old son. Hacking notes 'child abuse' as professional lexicon surfaced at the beginning of the 1960s and increasingly, it has come to mean 'child sexual abuse'.

Child Sexual Abuse and the Multidisciplinary Team Approach: Contradictions in Practice by Maxine Jacobson (2001)

It’s normal for your mother to complain to you about her sex life with your father, right? It’s normal to give your mother hand massages so you can go to bed later, right? It’s normal for mothers to say as you do, “You’re so much better than your dad at this,” right?

Wrong.

This is what they call emotional, or covert, incest: It's when a parent makes a child a surrogate intimate partner. The result is that when the child grows up, a close relationship with a partner of the same sex as the emotionally needy parent feels not like intimacy but like smothering. Often, these relationships disintegrate into ambivalence or resentment, typically climaxing in an affair—which serves as a psychological release valve from the emotional pressure.

Therapy Made Me Realize I Was Still in a Relationship With My Mother by Neil Strauss

Many parents and children are close. Closeness is healthy and desirable. The difference between a healthy close relationship and an incestuous one is that in a healthy close relationship a parent takes care of a child's needs in an age-appropriate way without making the child feel responsible the emotional needs of the parents needs [sic]. In an emotionally incestuous relationship, instead of the parent meeting the needs of the child, the child is meeting the needs of the parent.

Emotional incest happens when the natural boundary between parental caregiver, nurturer, and protector is crossed and the child becomes the defacto caregiver, nurturer and protector of the parent. This typically occurs when a the marriage unravels or when there is a broken family dynamic (e.g., substance abuse, infidelity, mental illness and the dependency upon a child increases. One or both parent may engage the child in talks about adult issues and adult feelings to a child as if they were a peer. The child may be called upon to satisfy adult needs such as intimacy, companionship, romantic stimulation, advice, problem solving, ego fulfillment, and/or emotional release. Sometimes both parents will dump on a child in a way that puts the child in the middle of disagreements between the parents - with each complaining about the other.

Was Part of Your Childhood Deprived by Emotional Incest? by R. Skip Johnson

My dad actually bought me sexy underwear. I can't believe it! I forgot all about that. It felt a little funny at the time, but he always said I was his "princess" and deserved the best. So I didn't think much more of it. Besides, I liked being treated so special. When I started developing breasts, my dad would look at me with a big smile and proclaim, "You are becoming a woman." At that point he started taking me out shopping and buying me whatever I wanted. I'd come out of the dressing room with my new clothes on to get his approval. That felt funny, too, but I didn't think much about it since I really loved being treated so special.

I've always been my dad's favorite. He paid lots of attention to me at home and wanted to know all about my day. He adored me, and I knew it. I began to expect that from everyone in my life, especially men. He even talked about boys to me, telling me I should find a man who would love me like he did.

[...]

The preoccupied relationship Rebecca's father bestowed upon her was motivated by his needs, not hers. Rebecca was seduced into a sexualized, idealized relationship with her father, believing his special attention was all she needed. Simultaneously, she felt emotionally abandoned. Her legitimate needs for love, belonging, and separateness were never met. Being adored and admired were her only clues to the mystery of what it would finally take to fill up the restless, empty space that lay in her soul.

Silently Seduced: When Parents Make Their Children Partners by Kenneth M. Adams

What kind of normalized sexual abuse do mothers put children through? (This was asked in good faith. I just want to understand)

touching their children's bodies without their consent, including their genitals, butts, and breasts, under the rationalization of "we're family, so it doesn't matter" (it's upsettingly common to witness mothers touching/hitting their children's butts where i live)

commenting on their children’s bodies or attractiveness (it’s particularly common for mothers to comment innapropriately on their children’s breasts during puberty, in my experience)

expressing jealousy over their children’s romantic partners (often framed as the partner “stealing” the child from the mother as the partner gets more time with them)

poor or nebulous boundaries around their children's bodies and sexuality (for example, how taking away a child's bedroom door is a common punishment, or how it's common for mothers to say their children "don't need privacy" in places like the bathroom because they're related)

controlling their children's sexual expression (making rules about when they're allowed to start having sex, forbidding them from masturbating, reading their sexual texts or looking through their porn history)

this falls under controlling their children's sexual expression, but it specific and common enough that it needs its own point: punishing children for having sex, masturbating, or looking at porn

or, still upsettingly commonly, punishing children for the type of porn they're looking at, shaming them for non-normative sexual interests, etc

spreading private sexual information about the child, either online or among the mother's adult friends (when kellyanne conway distributed her daughter's nudes on twitter, because this was an incredibly extreme example, many people spoke up and said this wasn't an appropriate action to take--but ignored the culture that gives mothers such a sense of ownership over their children that this happened in the first place, and indeed, many mainstream responses did not even take into account that this was sexual abuse, but rather, framed it as a "disturbing argument" that "should be resolved privately in family therapy," implying claudia was partially responsible for the "drama")

[bookiemonsterph]

The Storm Runner

Synopsis:

Zane has always enjoyed exploring the dormant volcano near his home in New Mexico, even though hiking it is challenging. He'd much rather hang out there with his dog, Rosie, than go to middle school, where kids call him Sir Limps a Lot, McGimpster, or Uno — for his one good leg. What Zane doesn't know is that the volcano is a gateway to another world and he is at the center of a powerful prophecy.

A new girl at school, Brooks, informs him that he's destined to release an evil god from the ancient Maya relic he is imprisoned in — unless she can find and remove it first. Together they return to the volcano, where all kinds of crazy happens. Brooks turns into a hawk, a demon attacks them in a cave, and Rosie gives her all while trying to protect Zane. When Zane decides to save his dog no matter the cost, he is thrust into an adventure full of surprising discoveries, dangerous secrets, and an all-out war between the gods, one of whom happens to be his father. To survive, Zane will have to become the Storm Runner. But how can he run when he can't even walk well without a cane?

Feisty heroes, tricky gods, murderous demons, and spirited giants are just some of the pleasures that await in this fresh and funny take on Maya mythology, as rich and delicious as a mug of authentic hot chocolate. 

Title: The Storm Runner Series: The Storm Runner Author: J.C. Cervantes ISBN: 1368016340 (ISBN13: 9781368016346) Pages: 448 pages (Hardcover) Published:   September 18th 2018 by Rick Riordan Presents Genre: Fantasy, Children, Middle Grade, Young Adult, Mythology

It has been said that no story is entirely original. All stories take ideas and inspiration from others and mold them into something new. Books connect stories from the past to experiences from the present, creating ties between the new and the old. Young Adult fiction embraces older stories and folklore, especially in recent years. Ancient mythologies have become a particularly popular source of inspiration, and for good reason. Myths explain how the world works. Comparisons between the ideas of cultures from the past to our current understanding of the world lend themselves to dynamic, creative exploration in fiction.

Rick Riordan’s young adult novels, including the ever-popular Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, bring modern twists on traditional mythologies into the YA mainstream. Riordan explores Greek, Egyptian and Norse myth works–only a few of the myriad of mythologies to grace world tradition. Riordan teamed up with Disney Hyperion to create the Rick Riordan Presents imprint to provide other authors with the opportunity to retell their own cultures’ myths. In the imprint’s first wave of rich stories emerges J.C. Cervantes’ engrossing, action-packed and ceaselessly charming take on Maya legends: The Storm Runner.

13-year-old Zane Obispo has a volcano in his backyard. He is homeschooled, answers the phone for his elderly psychic neighbor, walks with a limp and has no greater friend in the world than his 3-legged dog, Rosie. And yet, Zane’s unconventional life is nothing compared to the world he is thrust into when he meets a mysterious girl named Brooks. In the blink of an eye, Zane finds himself in the beautiful and terrifying world of Maya myth with himself at the center of a prophesy that threatens to end the world as he knows it. Together with the nawal (a Maya shapeshifter) Brooks and his wrestling-obsessed uncle, Zane embarks on an epic quest to save the world. Their team of underdogs fight disgusting demons, crash legendary parties and enjoy divinely delicious hot chocolate in this quick-witted, fast-paced adventure novel.

J.C. (Jen) Cervantes loves underdog stories, advocates for more diverse stories in children’s literature, and firmly believes in magic. I had the pleasure of interviewing Jen about developing The Storm Runner and her writing process. We discussed her interactions with her readers, and (of course) what the future has in store for Zane and company.

Maya mythology is far less mainstream than, say, Greek mythology. Everyone knows about Zeus and Heracles, but who has heard of Kukulkan and Ah-Puch? And who knew that the Maya had a goddess of chocolate? Jen makes Maya mythology accessible to her readers (including a VERY useful pronunciation guide). She remarks that Maya folklore is something she grew up with. Revisiting these gods and legends while giving them a modern twist allows her to find both nostalgia and new inspiration in these centuries-old stories. “Reconnecting with the mysticism and the magic helped me bring the story to life in a way that is contemporary but also respectful of that mythological history,” says Jen, “or at least what history has been left to us.” The gods of The Storm Runner are alluring and noble, but just as flawed as human beings. They combine traditional Maya imagery with more contemporary styles, creating a fun, anachronistic atmosphere that adapts Maya lore with respect and wit. Perhaps the Maya wouldn’t be fond of their foul-smelling god of death being called “Puke,” but Ah-Puch more or less deserves it.

While creating her characters, Jen likes to let loose and let her characters shape themselves. Her characters certainly come into their own. The Storm Runner‘s varied cast each has their own goals and motivations. Each has a personal conflict that they must overcome before defeating Ah-Puch. Jen explains, “I learned a long time ago to just let the characters take control of their own identity.” Her philosophy on character creation is at the center of the novel’s protagonist, Zane. His physical disability limits his self-confidence as much as his movement. Moreover, he appears to have no control over anything around him: not only is he destined to fulfill a deadly prophesy, he is up against gods and demons that are imminently more powerful than he is on his own. But Zane never gives in; he always pushes forward, even if it means defying gods. He finds his amazing inner strength and shapes his own story. And he’d literally fight death itself for his dog (I can relate–Rosie is adorable).

Letting her mind and creativity run free isn’t limited to character creation. When writing, Jen tries to “let the inner critic go” so that the story can proceed naturally and dynamically–in other words, without limits. She states on her website that she believes in magic. Where is the magic in writing? “A sense of belonging and connection to something so much greater that myself,” she says.

Jen’s writing is greater than herself; it connects her not only to the cultures she represents in The Storm Runner, but also to every reader who opens the book. In addition to finding entertainment in the novel, Jen hopes her readers find themselves reflected in the pages. The Storm Runner contains notable representation for both Latino and young people (and dogs!) with disabilities, but its representation goes beyond the physical. Jen aims for her readers to see their own experiences in Zane’s adventures: “There are elements at play here that transcend the story: the feeling of not fitting in, facing your fears, growing up, navigating friendships, etc.”